Incidentally, people interested in the phenomena should read our article on the subject:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting
and in particular the referenced articles on risk assessment and how to conceptualize risk. In terms of averting disaster, one of the best things you can do as an individual is actually *pay attention* to people in your everyday life. Especially in the school environment, simply interact with people who might otherwise avoid interaction altogether. Intervening with a friendly hello to the "invisible loner" is a minor gesture - inconsequential to you - but may have a butterfly effect on the depressed/disenchanted/isolated youth. Is anything enough to prevent an incident of this kind? We don't know. We can't know. But I think this community agrees that doing nothing is not an option.
B
On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 1:50 PM, Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 1:46 PM, Brad Patrick bradp.wmf@gmail.com wrote:
I have spoken publicly about this issue on several occasions. Using the "moral" argument, the fact of someone posting on a project in such a
manner
is grounds for another individual in receipt of this information to act.
In
previous instances too numerous to count, the posting was brought to the attention of the admin community, and inevitably someone at the office on IRC, with the question "what do we do?" "We" of course is the problem.
If
we mean the community, we're talking about a whole lot of editors around
the
world; if we are talking about admins, a narrower group; if we mean the foundation, then we are taking about a handful. Point being, you contact authorities if you believe the threat is credible. You do what you can because ethically you don't want to be responsible for having the
capacity
to act and not doing anything.
These kinds of situations are a tremendous time sink and a point of
stress
for all concerned. But, if they are simply ignored, one day it will turn out the warning signs were there, something awful will happen, and we
will
be tarred and feathered. In my view, imposing any type of obligation as
a
matter of policy is impossible. We assume good faith; we should assume people who intersect with something as unusual and concerning as this
will
do the right thing.
Brad _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Exactly what I was thinking, you just managed to express it better than any of the e-mails I drafted and subsequently tossed. Thank you Brad.
-Chad
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