I see.
The English Wikipedia, and most projects in general (from my experience),
are not perfect at handling problems with established editors.
This is to be expected. However, there’s some element of draconian secret
policing present in having a brigade of T&S employees handling any and all
conduct issues. We ha e local communities, and in most cases they are
successful in handling issues, but when an editor’s social clout is
involved, and/or when there’s incivility/harassment from multiple parties,
it quickly becomes a larger issue that often ends with little to no action.
With this issue specifically, it’s minor and local community functions
would very likely have been able to manage it properly had the discussions
continued. The formation of the messages also help determine the outcome; a
message saying they were told to report there with no links but one to the
editor’s userpage is not very helpful for people viewing it. A list of
problematic diffs and an unbiased, unemotional recounting of events is
quite helpful for those viewing it. The latter is much likely to result
successfully than the former.
Also, T&S actions are not quick and easy either. Their investigations are
usually quite extensive and take equally extensive periods of time.
Communities act quicker, and though the volunteers may be affected more by
personal prejudice than employees of the WMF, we are a collaborative
project that relies on community input.
Hopefully the UCoC is successful with setting reasonable definitions and
expectations for community enforcement of conduct policies, though in my
view larger projects are not the most pressing issue to be addressed by the
UCoC. This instance of sexual harassment is minor when viewed in
perspective. It’s clearly uncivil and a problem, and we don’t know how the
ANI section would have ended up if continued (though I would have supported
a strong warning and block if it continued, perhaps an IBAN), but it could
have been handled locally. Take a look at most projects with under 30
admins. Small community, usually tightly knit, with entrenched hierarchies
of social clout. Those projects are where extreme incivility, blatant
bigotry, and clearly biased administrative actions occur most often. Not to
mention non-harassment/incivility issues like copyright violations,
backwards policies, and historical revisionism, completely ignored by local
administrators, which hopefully at some point can be mitigated as well.
Regarding Fæ’s email, it would be interesting and useful to see a study on
boomerangs at ANI. It does seem prevalent for newer editors, experiencing
biting from more established editors, to be unable to seek rectification
for the more established editor’s conduct. It is unfortunately also common
that, when incivility exists, some of it is present on both sides, making
these issues much less clear-cut and dramatically increasing the
potentiality for a boomerang.
Best,
Vermont
On Mon, Aug 24, 2020 at 15:40 William Chan <william(a)wchan.hk> wrote:
Why the harassed normally email T&S but not
seeking local help:
Sometimes some kinds of harassment against a person or a group is an
orchestrated attempt driven by off-wiki matters. Considering the
"importance" of Wikipedia and it's sister projects, and the fundamentally
huge size of the movement, it seemed mostly unnoticeable in some cases.
These kinds of planned harassment (not only sexual harassment but all forms
of harassment) would not normally be observed in large languages used by
different nations because the sheer size of the user base diluted their
attempts.
However, if language becomes national and got very limited outside use
apart from the country they are from (i.e. Japanese in Japan, or Korean in
Korea,etc. Not saying they have a serious sexual harassment problem, just
an example), harassment against the minority may appear in all forms,
including but not limited to blocking them from any administrative posts,
to sexual harassments to an outright ban of some individuals. In this case,
local bodies which deal with harassing would be normally held by those who
are, or show sympathy to the harasser, and that is the problem.
Local governance (last stand) bodies are usually opaque in nature - the
elections to those bodies are normally fair, but it is not transparent
enough of what they do just because they are volunteer.
Those very large communities normally have a (relatively) inefficient speed
to deal with issues because of the number of problems they receive.
The irony is that, for the smaller communities is, the abuser would have
some connection with the last-stand bodies, that would mean conflict of
interest - though with much irony, COI is not observed when they are
playing Wikipolitics.
This means, you either get a local "slow safe soace" because they receive
too many case to review per day, or an "unsafe safe space" because
harassers know those who deal with these reports.
You either get a language that is too big and inefficient to treat reports,
or languages that, because of the size, they harasser may just outright
know the ones who deal with these problems. That's why T&S needs way more
people.
And not all languages have self-governing bodies.
P.S. Written by someone who had emailed T&S about harassments against
himself. One harasser got a conduct warning while the other one got
foundation-blocked.
On Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 22:54 Gnangarra <gnangarra(a)gmail.com> wrote:
For a person to report harassment they must
first feel safe to do so.
Not
everyone is capable of dealing with or
participating in a public debate
about whether they have been harassed, there is a significant difference
between arguing facts on a topic and dealing with harassment and
offensive
comments directed at you. Its a very effective
method of ensuring that
you
can keep control of subject areas, or part of
Wikipedia. What is going
unnoticed, unrecorded and never dealt with is the same people make
personal
attacks and harass contributors repeatedly, many
of these people are
protected by other at AN/I or large followings that ensure they are
almost
untouchable.
Just like this thread dismissing problems when they are raised is
unhelpful, and has a chilling effect on productive outcomes. The lack
of
alternative safe ways to address issues has been
a problem for many years
driving away 1,000s of good contributors.
On Mon, 24 Aug 2020 at 21:47, Chris Gates via Wikimedia-l <
wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> I fail to understand how requiring public report of publicly-occurring
> harassment is a problem.
>
> If people are being harassed constantly via off-wiki communication,
> emailing a local admin team or T&S is definitely the best thing to do
if
they
don’t want to make it public in an on-wiki report.
However, if it’s on-wiki, I don’t see any viable reason as to why it
should
not be reported on-wiki as well. By no means is
it “doubling down” on
harassment; that doesn’t even make much sense considering that it isn’t
the
> collective community making the harassment, it’s an individual. It also
> doesn’t matter at all what the harasser feels like either; if they’re
> blocked after a civilly-written and clear-cut report on ANI it doesn’t
> matter what they think. It’s not acceptable to have a secret police
team
to
handle every content issue; community input
exists for a reason,
especially
> on collaborative projects like this.
>
> Further, when did anyone say the community is not willing to handle
> harassment issues? It truly bothers me to see people write nonsense
like
this.
I will restate:
Local communities appoint administrators to enforce consensus. There is
consensus that harassment should be responded to with warnings and, if
repeated or severe, blocks.
These administrators usually have a mailing list and an on-wiki
noticeboard. These noticeboards are open for anyone to create sections
on,
and unless a request was clearly made in bad
faith or intentionally
misled
> readers, there is practically no chance of successful retaliatory
action
on
> the part of the individual who created the harassment.
>
> In this case, a section was made on ANI, multiple editors commented,
and
for some
reason the section was removed mid-discussion. It is to be
expected that someone with an independent viewpoint would seek less
radical
> action than someone directly a party of the dispute. In this case,
there
> was incivility and arguable harassment
coming from both parties, though
> clearly “cutie” is not conducive to the desired contributory
environment.
Simple conduct cases are not the sort of issue for T&S. Let them (and
often
stewards) handle the threats to life, the vandals
trying to find where
editors live, the IPs making terrorist threats, the new accounts
uploading
> child pornography, the vandals spreading the private details of
editors,
> etc. Basic conduct issues can be handled by
local administrators.
>
> And for the “chilling effect” of reporting issues like this publicly,
if
> someone is incapable of seeing other people
interpret events another
way,
disagreeing with them, or not wanting as drastic and immediate action,
they
may not be suited for a collaborative project.
There are easy ways to handle people who are clearly harassing you
on-wiki:
1) Ask them to stop. If they refuse,
2) Create a section on ANI giving a short, simple, and unbiased
explanation
> of the issue with diffs.
> 3) Wait for editors and admins to comment. If the community believes
it’s
> problematic enough to warrant action, action
will be taken. If no and
the
> harassment continues continues,
> 4) Most projects have other methods of handling issues like this.
Enwiki
> has ArbCom for this, simplewiki has
community sanction discussions,
other
> projects have other methods.
>
> At no point would removing the ANI report mid-discussion be helpful.
And
doing so
then claiming that it’s the community’s fault is clearly
incorrect.
Regards,
Vermont
On Mon, Aug 24, 2020 at 01:46 Gnangarra <gnangarra(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The code of conduct is not a law. People who are harassers are
criminals
> > and not above the law. Sexual harassment is a serious offense. Any
kind
> > of harrasment is an offense. Wikipedia
s administrators are not the
law
> > and not above the law.
>
> Wikipedia is not above the law.
>
>
> The international aspects and the fact that WMF protects editors
privacy
> > makes options outside the movement very limited to only the extreme
end
of
> the scale. Beside the legal aspect its a cop out for the Community &
WMF
> to
> > dismiss any harassment as something they cant do anything about, this
> > response is why AN/I is also a waste of time and why so much
harassment
> > never gets dealt with, ultimately why
the movement has difficulty in
> > attracting under represented groups
> >
> > On Mon, 24 Aug 2020 at 13:14, Ανώνυμος Βικιπαιδιστής <
> > anonymuswikipedian(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > The code of conduct is not a law.
> > > People who are harassers are criminals and not above the law.
> > > Sexual harassment is a serious offense. Any kind of harrasment is
an
> > > offense. Wikipedia s
administrators are not the law and not above
the
>
law.
> > Wikipedia is not above the law.
> > People who seek help should be appointed to the right specialized
> > authorities as the police and not discouraged to do so.
> >
> > Safety team from my experience, will not help any wikipedian/victim
who
> > with report a harrasment case. They are
just another department of
> > wikimedia foundation.
> >
> > Any people is important and count.
> > Please take what ever actions you think is necessary.
> >
> > I believe you.
> >
> > Ανώνυμος Βικιπαιδιστής
> >
> >
> > Στις Δευ, 24 Αυγ 2020, 7:39 π.μ. ο χρήστης Robert Myers <
> > robert.myers(a)wikimedia.org.au> έγραψε:
> >
> > > And there the problem lies, going to local authorities (police)
isn’t
> > > going to be useful. Some
authorities require the alleged crime to
be
> > > > committed in their jurisdiction, which can be limited, anonymous
> nature
> > > of
> > > > the person who committed the alleged crime makes it difficult to
> > identify
> > > > the individual(s), with it servers hosted outside the
jurisdiction
> make
> > > it
> > > > harder to investigate. Also I have seen in the past, WP:LEGAL
used
> > > against
> > > > those who have reported threats of physical violence or
harassment
> >
> (physical stalking) to law enforcement.
> > >
> > > I do think there needs to be a off-wiki complaint process for
serious
> > > > allegations, since on-wiki processes can be inappropriate and
acts
as a
> > > chilling effect (since it is very open and public) on the
victim(s).
The
> > same situation can occur for alleged perpetrator(s), where the
> > allegation(s) are false or vexatious and malicious grievances.
> >
> > Maybe the Universal Code of Conduct might address this issue, it
might
> > not
> > > as well.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Robert Myers
> > > robert.myers(a)wikimedia.org.au
> > >
http://www.wikimedia.org.au
> > >
> > > > On 24 Aug 2020, at 1:37 pm, Ανώνυμος Βικιπαιδιστής <
> > > anonymuswikipedian(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > If you ve been sexually harassed in wikipedia this is not a
matter
> > to
> > > be
> > > > > solved on a mailing list or by Safety team. Go to you local
> > authorities
> > > > and
> > > > > report it. This is a very serious matter to just become an
essay
for
> > > > someone or belive that it can be solved by administrators or
safety
> > > team.
> > > > > Safety team in my harassment case told me to
"politely" ask my
> > > harrasers
> > > > to
> > > > > stop harassing me. Please don t relay on them for such a
serious
> matter!
> > > Please be safe and I m sure you can seek help by trained and
serious
> > > people
> > > > by your local authorities.
> > > > I wish someone could told me that in my case then and not point
me
> to
> > > > > safety team. They will not help you.
> > > > >
> > > > > Ανώνυμος Βικιπαιδιστής
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Στις Δευ, 24 Αυγ 2020, 3:41 π.μ. ο χρήστης Gnangarra <
> > > > gnangarra(a)gmail.com>
> > > > > έγραψε:
> > > > >
> > > > >> If someone feels harassed then a public noticeboard is the
last
>
place
> > to
> > > >> send them for help, that is an absolute failure of the
community
to
> > > >> understand that the act of reporting is also doubling down on
the
> > > harm.
> > > > >> Doing so publicly is indicating to the person committing
the
> > > harassment
> > > > >> that they have succeeded in causing harm.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> This folks is the very reason why we fail to retain editors
and
breach
> > the
> > >> imbalance of editors and continue have trouble with bias.
Everyone
> > > speaks
> > > >> english but the cultural nuances of the language vary greatly
with
> > > words
> > > > >> having multiple meanings and being used specifically to
cause
> > offense.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> The word cutie has its meanings;
> > > > >>
> > > > >> - of being nice looking when talking about kids and
animals
> > > > >>
> > > > >> but once its used referring to an adult as part of a
discussion
> its
> > > > changes
> > > > >> to that of them being;
> > > > >>
> > > > >> - of being an arsehole
> > > > >> - of being picky
> > > > >> - and of having sexual connotations ranging from you are
> fuckable,
> > > to
> > > > >> your sexual orientation.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> When these complaints get to something like AN/I those
cultural
> and
> > > > >> linguistic nuances get dismissed and the person using them
has
> > gained
> > > a
> > > > lot
> > > > >> of power, self satisfaction, and endorsement of their
harassment
> as
> > > > being
> > > > >> ok, with a bonus that other users are now also enabled to
harass
> the
> > > > >> complaining editor knowing full well that AN/I will do
nothing.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> The bottom line is if a person feels harassed they have
been
> > harassed,
> > > > >> whether we understand the depth of why they feel harassed is
not
> > > > relevant
> > > > >> but that should not be a barrier to prevent further
harassment.
> > > > >>
> > > > >>
> > > > >>> On Mon, 24 Aug 2020 at 06:21, Isaac Olatunde <
> > > reachout2isaac(a)gmail.com
> > > > >
> > > > >>> wrote:
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> Hello Chris,
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> This isn't a terribly bad advise, AFAICS.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> Harassments are treated on a case-by-case basis.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> So, if this is something you aren't comfortable
discussing
> > publicly,
> > > > you
> > > > >>> could email the Functionary team or ArbCom or similar
body in
> that
> > > > >>> community.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> If it's something that should be removed from public
view,
you
> > could
> > > > >>> contact the oversight team.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> I can't see the contents of the harassment, so I can
only
speak
>
based
> > > on
> > > >>> general principle.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Regards
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Isaac
> > > >>>
> > > >>> On Sun, 23 Aug 2020, 23:07 Chris Sherlock, <
> > chris.sherlock79(a)gmail.com
> > > >
> > > >>> wrote:
> > > >>>
> > > >>>> To be clear, this is what I was advised:
> > > >>>>
> > > >>>> “ Harassment concerns can be reviewed under the
appropriate
> > community
> > > >>>> process. I would therefore advise you to report the edit
summary
> > to
> > > > the
> > > > >>>> appropriate channels on the wiki it occured. If this
happened
on
> > > > >> English
> > > > >>>> Wikipedia, this would be the Administrator's
board for
> incidents.
> > > > >>>> I hope the above is helpful.”
> > > > >>>>
> > > > >>>> Chris
> > > > >>>>
> > > > >>>> Sent from my iPhone
> > > > >>>>
> > > > >>>>> On 24 Aug 2020, at 6:43 am, Chris Sherlock <
> > > > >> chris.sherlock79(a)gmail.com
> > > > >>>>
> > > > >>>> wrote:
> > > > >>>>>
> > > > >>>>> Hello all,
> > > > >>>>>
> > > > >>>>> I have been advised by the WMF that if anyone is
concerned
> about
> > > > >> being
> > > > >>>> sexually harassed they must report this to AN/I and
there
are
no
> > > > >> private
> > > > >>>> mechanisms to report this sort of thing.
> > > > >>>>>
> > > > >>>>> Is this for real?
> > > > >>>>>
> > > > >>>>> Chris Sherlock
> > > > >>>>>
> > > > >>>>> Sent from my iPhone
> > > > >>>> _______________________________________________
> > > > >>>> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
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> > > > >>
> > > > >> --
> > > > >> GN.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> *Power of Diverse Collaboration*
> > > > >> *Sharing knowledge brings people together*
> > > > >> Wikimania Bangkok 2021
> > > > >> August
> > > > >> hosted by ESEAP
> > > > >>
> > > > >> Wikimania:
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> > >> Noongarpedia:
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