hello, i can only speak for the dutch wiki that is the only place where i am confrontid with it. the local policy is very bad. if someone attack me and keep doing that i have to proof he now's i don't like that. maybe is a global policy a idea? and that a person also lose his rights at al wiki's (global block) greatzz, huib nl:gebruiker:sterkebak 2008/6/10, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net>et>:

gerard, i have write a article on the dutch wiki with the name church of satan. and some other articles with satanism. the article and my userpage where almost every day the target of vandals. i had to disable my emailfunction for people hoe make a account send a threat. en never work on the wiki again. i scared the most of two death threat via de dutch otrs. so i don't now where you are talking about? if you don't like me in this discussion i will stop. greatzz huib 2008/6/10, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>om>:

Many, many people who "stalk" do not do so with any intention of meeting you in real life. Their aim is to make you leave the project, or in their "wet dream scenario", have a stress-related mental breakdown and become irrational. I know this, but not from trolls on-wiki. I spent weeks in hospital because I became so paranoid that I thought people were following me everywhere. What prompted this was dealing with my current partner's divorce case. Her estranged husband was unable to locate where I was, but was able to make sure I found out he had managed to obtain a firearm. As rumour and innuendo, the local police did not take this seriously and I started seeing shadows everywhere. When I got really irrational, my partner was able to convince me that the ambulance crew that had arrived were, "the angels come to save me". I spent six weeks in hospital; I'm lucky I'm in Belgium, for people in the U.S. an experience like that could be financially crippling. Most of the people commenting on this issue have not experienced anything like this, or are significantly more stress-resistant than myself. The same is most definitely not true for all people. Call us "delicate" if you like, but do not dismiss this as an inability to deal with trolling. I've fought my corner on Usenet and issued serious flammage, I'd actually recommend anyone who wants to learn how to deal with online communication spend some time using the medium. To be honest, one of my pet peeves with Wikipedia is there isn't enough "nuke 'em till they glow" with unrepentant trolls and the like. So, I'm all for some measures to size up and deal with on-wiki harassment and stalking. I don't know what is needed, but threats to out, outings, and indications of the possibility of a physical confrontation are unacceptable. Brian McNeil -----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ray Saintonge Sent: 10 June 2008 20:17 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Stalking Article Gerard Meijssen wrote: good Taking on neglected issues does not mean suicidally jumping into every problem that people have previously been unable or unwilling to tackle. Building authority does not equate to building a reputation of being authoritarian. Ec _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Hoi, Lars you are absolutely right when you state that the WMF has limited resources. It is exactly for this reason that I have repeatedly asked if and to what extend the WMF is able and willing to play a part. Not asking this question, not allowing for a reasonable period of time for any type of response is in my opinion counter productive as in my opinion some of the best responses of verified cases of stalking will involve speaking for the WMF or a chapter when talking to authorities. When I say "verified" cases, I mean a group of people that can be trusted with these type of issues who have been learned sufficient to acknowledge the seriousness of a particular case. In order to be trusted, some qualifications need to be met. Being able to keep confidences is one. Having experience with such issues either by schooling or experience is an important factor. I agree with you that we have to get a set of best practices. Given how stalking is currently dealt with, there are no best practices yet. And I am not sure that we have strategy that is even near to optimal. I think we have to struggle with the issues as they occur and we need to learn from wherever we can. I would not be surprised if some of the measures that have the most effect are counter intuitive.. This is exactly why we need expert help to get our best practices. Thanks, GerardM YES we need to be really analytical, we need to observe well, and we need to learn from experience.. we need to learn this as a community, not only as individuals. All this is really hard to do On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 12:21 AM, Lars Aronsson <lars(a)aronsson.se> wrote:

Because I am late to the discussion and the list, I may be stating the obvious. Please forgive me if I am. 1. One useful thing that WMF can do that no individual project can is to provide some kind of authentication for any criminal threat conveyed using any wiki function. That would mean a personal contact (name, e-mail, phone #) for a law-enforcement agency to contact to verify that a person saying they were threatened was actually threatened. 2. If the threat is made on-wiki I believe that WMF has to provide any assistance possible to locate the person making the threat. 3. If the threat is off-wiki WMF ought to be able to provide information useful to connecting the actual criminal threat made to on-wiki behavior, if there is any connection. 4. I am not sure at what point in this last case, WMF would have an obligation to help locate the person making the threat. 5. Finally, it might be nice if WMF could put together a webpage of information, including links, about on-wiki and off-wiki criminality to help any victims or potential victims of criminal behavior or even just those who feel threatened though there is no overt illegal behavior. On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 7:49 PM, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- Dennis C. During