It certainly falls under a variety of state laws regarding stalking and online harrassment, and possibly solicitation as well.
Jeff
Titoxd@Wikimedia wrote:
I'm not entirely sure that a random user of an online site qualifies as an employee of any site, so I don't think that *workplace* sexual harassment laws have anything to do with this case. After all the commotion lately with MySpace, it seems quite real that these situations do have some sort of legal backing under some sort of sexual harassment statute, although IANAL. In many of these cases, it is just safer to report the case, and if the police asks for anything, just provide them access to the Apache and Recent Changes logs.
Titoxd.
-----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Jeffrey V. Merkey Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2006 1:29 AM To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual harassment in Wikipedia
THD wrote:
Hi, Everyone,
Yesterday, one guy registered an offensive username, "Rape XXX" (XXX is a female wikipedian's name in real life, but I want to kept the victim anonymous here) in Chinese Wikipedia, and this guy left a message on the female's user talk page: "You are in my sexual fantasy. Are you a virgin?"
I
was furious about this guy's action and sexual harassment speech. I have blocked this id forever, and I also suggested the female user to report to police office. I want to know is there any policy on this issue? In this kind of situation, will the Foundation cooperate with different countries' police authority, and reveal the user log record to the authority?
Thanks.
THD _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
In the United States, sexual harassment and sexually hostile work environment claims require that:
- The company/organization have more than 15 employees or its exempt
from compliance with Federal EEOC Laws. 2. The subject of the harassment must be an employee who reports to the person doing the harassment. 3. Any employee, irregardless of reporting structure can make claims of sexually hostile work environment, but the damages are a lot less. 4. Damages are statutory for sexual harassment claims.
An online forum cannot make claims of sexual harassment or enforce such claims. If anything, its a violation of site policy and may qualify as stalking or obscenity, but its not sexual harassment under US Law.
Jeff _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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