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
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> > >>
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >> GN.
> > >>
> > >> *Power of Diverse Collaboration*
> > >> *Sharing knowledge brings people together*
> > >> Wikimania Bangkok 2021
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