On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 11:54 AM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 11:41 AM, John Barberio barberio@lineone.net wrote: [snip]
It's hugely important to understand that the Wikimedia foundation has no ability to take matters into it's own hands to deal with real life threats. They have no policing powers. At best, they could back people up when reporting things to the police or making a case for a restraining order. Wikimedia can neither force the police to take something seriously, or act as vigilantes and go after the stalkers themselves.
[snip]
Thank you.
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Setting up "Anti- Stalking Task Forces" and private mailing lists is not only useless, it's counter productive.
Again, Thank you.
Effort should be directed at helping people with support in contacting the police or getting a court order.
...and perhaps advising users how to avoid becoming a target: There are plenty of active and involved users busily doing both content and administrative work who manage to touch controversy without becoming embroiled in it.
An admission that we can each do things to avoid these problems *DOES NOT* mean that the victim is at fault any more than advice against walking through the bad part of town at night is a claim that mugging victims are at fault. .... but at least I feel that if I point out ways users can avoid these problems the current culture here would torch me as a victim blamer. We need to get over that. It's time for Wikipedians to get street smart.
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It's time for Wikipedians to get street smart.
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That's the single best suggestion I've read on this list in ages.
-Chad