As some of you know by now, Daniel Brandt recently published a list of all my friends on Facebook. The timing strongly implies he did so in response to my decision to step forward about having been the target of violent threats.
It is a great pleasure to report I now have more Facebook friends than I did when Mr. Brant published. Gerard Meijssen has set up a Facebook group called "Durova and friends" in protest against harassers and their enablers. The group is growing rapidly.
On a more practical and serious level, one thing that could have helped in David Shankbone's situation is if there were a global block feature, and perhaps a global protect for user pages. David's stalker followed him across dozens of projects. One thing that often happens with such people is that they test boundaries and become aggressive when they discover that boundaries are weak or absent. By erecting better boundaries onsite we improve the chances that a problem will end swiftly.
-Durova
On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 10:05 AM, Durova nadezhda.durova@gmail.com wrote:
As some of you know by now, Daniel Brandt recently published a list of all my friends on Facebook. The timing strongly implies he did so in response to my decision to step forward about having been the target of violent threats.
Wouldn't be the first time he's enabled stalking or harassment, whether intentionally or not.
On a more practical and serious level, one thing that could have helped in
David Shankbone's situation is if there were a global block feature, and perhaps a global protect for user pages. David's stalker followed him across dozens of projects. One thing that often happens with such people is that they test boundaries and become aggressive when they discover that boundaries are weak or absent. By erecting better boundaries onsite we improve the chances that a problem will end swiftly.
I rather appreciate that suggestion -- it's both an immediate problem and something we can hopefully fix within our current means. The global sysop proposal on meta might be relevant, here. I'll also mention that IRC has proven very useful to me in dealing with cross-wiki problems in real time, before.
Off-site and especially real world harassment and stalking are nothing short of heinous. Unfortunately, it's very difficult for most of us to help, once things go outside the WMF-sphere or offline altogether. That's a key topic: what can we do, as individual users and as a community?
As a cultural matter, we can and should encourage people to be very careful about what they reveal online. We should be supportive when someone is victimized. Beyond that, I hate to admit that I feel somewhat helpless.
On 6/11/08, Luna lunasantin@gmail.com wrote:
I rather appreciate that suggestion -- it's both an immediate problem and something we can hopefully fix within our current means. The global sysop proposal on meta might be relevant, here. I'll also mention that IRC has proven very useful to me in dealing with cross-wiki problems in real time, before.
I'm not sure a "global sysop" could keep an eye on 784 projects[1] without at least having a "global watchlist". In practice, admin-bots would probably be needed.
Off-site and especially real world harassment and stalking are nothing short of heinous. Unfortunately, it's very difficult for most of us to help, once things go outside the WMF-sphere or offline altogether. That's a key topic: what can we do, as individual users and as a community?
Focus on prevention rather than perpetually ineffective treatment. By more actively discouraging (perhaps outright prohibiting) the use of real-life identity or any information traceable to it. Ask Florence to buy some paper-shredders for the Office. Be creative.
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:SiteMatrix
—C.W.
2008/6/12 Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com:
Focus on prevention rather than perpetually ineffective treatment. By more actively discouraging (perhaps outright prohibiting) the use of real-life identity or any information traceable to it. Ask Florence to buy some paper-shredders for the Office. Be creative.
Contrariwise, there are those who move from a wacky net handle to their real name. I created my account in my real name because I started editing Wikipedia to do a serious job of work and didn't consider a wacky handle appropriate. Also, should copyright ever become an issue, I suspect having my real name being used will help. That is: I'm entirely unsure blanket discouragement of real names is actually a good idea.
- d.
On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 10:02 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2008/6/12 Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com:
Focus on prevention rather than perpetually ineffective treatment. By more actively discouraging (perhaps outright prohibiting) the use of real-life identity or any information traceable to it. Ask Florence to buy some paper-shredders for the Office. Be creative.
Contrariwise, there are those who move from a wacky net handle to their real name. I created my account in my real name because I started editing Wikipedia to do a serious job of work and didn't consider a wacky handle appropriate. Also, should copyright ever become an issue, I suspect having my real name being used will help. That is: I'm entirely unsure blanket discouragement of real names is actually a good idea.
I'd go so far as to say such blanket discouragement would be a bad idea. Pseudonymity is incredibly difficult to maintain. And where's the fun in contributing to a website if you've gotta worry constantly about whether or not you're revealing your identity?
I wouldn't recommend using your full real name as your username, mainly because the search engines overrank the talk and meta namespaces (I wouldn't go so far as discouraging it either, though). But I would recommend not trying to hide your identity, not making edits that you wouldn't be willing to attribute to your identity, not editing during work hours if you wouldn't be willing to have your employer find out about it, etc. At least, I'd make this recommendation to people who don't live in or plan on visiting places with highly oppressive governments.
On Fri, Jun 13, 2008 at 8:03 AM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 10:02 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2008/6/12 Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com:
Focus on prevention rather than perpetually ineffective treatment. By more actively discouraging (perhaps outright prohibiting) the use of real-life identity or any information traceable to it. Ask Florence to buy some paper-shredders for the Office. Be creative.
Contrariwise, there are those who move from a wacky net handle to their real name. I created my account in my real name because I started editing Wikipedia to do a serious job of work and didn't consider a wacky handle appropriate. Also, should copyright ever become an issue, I suspect having my real name being used will help. That is: I'm entirely unsure blanket discouragement of real names is actually a good idea.
My thinking was very similar.
I suspect that using a real name also helps prevent "casual harassment", as the would be harasser is aware that their comments will be associated with a real identity, who will likely get quite annoyed, and so they talk to the real identity more like they would in real life.
Using a real name does however assist the serious harasser, but keep in mind that the serious harasser would have squirreled their way through the pseudonym anyway, eventually obtaining the real identity, but because of the effort involved in obtaining it, it is their first victory and they will want to share it.
I'd go so far as to say such blanket discouragement would be a bad idea. Pseudonymity is incredibly difficult to maintain. And where's the fun in contributing to a website if you've gotta worry constantly about whether or not you're revealing your identity?
I wouldn't recommend using your full real name as your username, mainly because the search engines overrank the talk and meta namespaces (I wouldn't go so far as discouraging it either, though).
But I would recommend not trying to hide your identity, not making edits that you wouldn't be willing to attribute to your identity, not editing during work hours if you wouldn't be willing to have your employer find out about it, etc. At least, I'd make this recommendation to people who don't live in or plan on visiting places with highly oppressive governments.
.. and if there are edits which you dont want tied to your real identity, create a sock, send the checkusers or arbcom a note so that there can be no confusion, and state on the userpage that it is a sock that the checkusers are aware of.
-- John
On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 6:32 PM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
.. and if there are edits which you dont want tied to your real identity, create a sock, send the checkusers or arbcom a note so that there can be no confusion, and state on the userpage that it is a sock that the checkusers are aware of.
Well, I don't think I'd bother with all that checkuser/arbcom stuff. If someone is confused, that's their problem, not mine. They can contact me through email to my main account if they have any questions. Last time I checked SPA's did not break any rules, and there's a rule to ignore all rules anyway.
One thing I'd strongly recommend against is creating one of these SPAs with the same name as the article title. People are too dumb and paranoid and fail to assume good faith. Just ask [[User:Virgin_United]].
Anyway, I'd be wary about what contributions I make under these circumstances. If I'm embarrassed by an edit, I should be resolving that inner conflict before editing on a public wiki. If an edit would get me in trouble with a friend or relative (or boss or enemy), I should be resolving that external conflict before editing on a public wiki. I can't think of any good reasons to edit Wikipedia anonymously, and thus I've stopped doing it.
--- On Fri, 6/13/08, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Anyway, I'd be wary about what contributions I make under these circumstances. If I'm embarrassed by an edit, I should be resolving that inner conflict before editing on a public wiki. If an edit would get me in trouble with a friend or relative (or boss or enemy), I should be resolving that external conflict before editing on a public wiki. I can't think of any good reasons to edit Wikipedia anonymously, and thus I've stopped doing it.
The main good reason to edit anonynously is because Wikipedia is an open wiki and is incapable of preventing harrasment or any less seious sort of contact. I have no problem owning up to my pseudononymous edits, however I do not want an estranged relative who could easliy google my name to contact me on the wiki or by email (or any way at all). This someone who already knows my identity and a more about me than anyone online could ever dig up. And I do not wish to have contact with or be bothered by them, and unfortuantely they are not sane enough or sober enough to understand this. I am not threatened by this person, but I can be distressed by them. The internet can make 3,000 miles meaningless, so I do not use my real name online.
Not all people are targeted for harrassment because of their editing on Wikipedia. And if you are worried about being a recieving harrasment under your real identity prior to editing a wiki; I don't think using that name and making it highly googled is a good idea.
Birgitte SB
My Wikinews user page is fourth on a Google search for my name. I suspect had I used my full name for my username it would be a position or two higher.
Know what? This doesn't bother me. I check it from time to time to see where I've moved to, I'm not going to knock the folk musician Brian McNeill off the top spot, and I'm always going to have competition with the college football player who shares the same spelling.
However, this should be a sobering warning for anyone who has an estranged partner or a dodgy ex. Or, as Birgitte suggests, odd relatives who might decide to bother you on-wiki. If you're using a derivative of your real name (I use "brianmc") and not keeping your full name a secret, it takes the "thrill out of the chase" for the Wikipedia Review trolls. What needs to be considered is it can bring in a whole new set of potential sources of problems or issues.
I spent years remaining under a pseudonym on Usenet, something I would strongly recommend for that medium. I even went as far as using the MIT nym.alias.net service to ensure nobody could trace where my messages came from. My posts ranged from helpful to caustic flames, and I felt I could do so with impunity. This has a strangely liberating effect, you perhaps learn more about yourself than the other pseudonyms you spar with.
So, I would be opposed to either requiring real names, or to advising use of pseudonyms. Guidelines for use in either case may be a good call, but there should be no pressure one way or the other for Wikimedia contributors.
Brian McNeil
-----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Birgitte SB Sent: 13 June 2008 20:53 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Stalking Article
--- On Fri, 6/13/08, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Anyway, I'd be wary about what contributions I make under these circumstances. If I'm embarrassed by an edit, I should be resolving that inner conflict before editing on a public wiki. If an edit would get me in trouble with a friend or relative (or boss or enemy), I should be resolving that external conflict before editing on a public wiki. I can't think of any good reasons to edit Wikipedia anonymously, and thus I've stopped doing it.
The main good reason to edit anonynously is because Wikipedia is an open wiki and is incapable of preventing harrasment or any less seious sort of contact. I have no problem owning up to my pseudononymous edits, however I do not want an estranged relative who could easliy google my name to contact me on the wiki or by email (or any way at all). This someone who already knows my identity and a more about me than anyone online could ever dig up. And I do not wish to have contact with or be bothered by them, and unfortuantely they are not sane enough or sober enough to understand this. I am not threatened by this person, but I can be distressed by them. The internet can make 3,000 miles meaningless, so I do not use my real name online.
Not all people are targeted for harrassment because of their editing on Wikipedia. And if you are worried about being a recieving harrasment under your real identity prior to editing a wiki; I don't think using that name and making it highly googled is a good idea.
Birgitte SB
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--- On Fri, 6/13/08, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Anyway, I'd be wary about what contributions I make under these circumstances. If I'm embarrassed by an edit, I should be resolving that inner conflict before editing on a public wiki. If an edit would get me in trouble with a friend or relative (or boss or enemy), I should be resolving that external conflict before editing on a public wiki. I can't think of any good reasons to edit Wikipedia anonymously, and thus I've stopped doing it.
The main good reason to edit anonynously is because Wikipedia is an open wiki and is incapable of preventing harrasment or any less seious sort of contact. I have no problem owning up to my pseudononymous edits, however I do not want an estranged relative who could easliy google my name to contact me on the wiki or by email (or any way at all). This someone who already knows my identity and a more about me than anyone online could ever dig up. And I do not wish to have contact with or be bothered by them, and unfortuantely they are not sane enough or sober enough to understand this. I am not threatened by this person, but I can be distressed by them. The internet can make 3,000 miles meaningless, so I do not use my real name online.
Not all people are targeted for harrassment because of their editing on Wikipedia. And if you are worried about being a recieving harrasment under your real identity prior to editing a wiki; I don't think using that name and making it highly googled is a good idea.
Birgitte SB
On Fri, Jun 13, 2008 at 2:53 PM, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
The main good reason to edit anonynously is because Wikipedia is an open wiki and is incapable of preventing harrasment or any less seious sort of contact.
That seems to me more like a reason not to edit at all.
On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 7:02 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2008/6/12 Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com:
Focus on prevention rather than perpetually ineffective treatment. By more actively discouraging (perhaps outright prohibiting) the use of real-life identity or any information traceable to it. Ask Florence to buy some paper-shredders for the Office. Be creative.
Contrariwise, there are those who move from a wacky net handle to their real name. I created my account in my real name because I started editing Wikipedia to do a serious job of work and didn't consider a wacky handle appropriate. Also, should copyright ever become an issue, I suspect having my real name being used will help. That is: I'm entirely unsure blanket discouragement of real names is actually a good idea.
Agreed. Using a real name is one indication of professionalism and bypasses a lot of the "is anonymity a good idea for a reference work?!?!!11" issue. I've not had any problems in a few years of using my real name and publicly speaking about wikipedia -- once a person unhappy with my changes tracked down my work email and sent a litany of polite, if somewhat off the wall, complaints there. For my situation, that's fine -- my coworkers and I had a good laugh about it.
But then, a whole lot of you have met me in real life, also, and at least three readers of this list have stayed at my house :) So I suspect my identity would be rather difficult to hide over the long term. I think it should be an individual choice, and we should do our best to give good information to new contributors about the pros and cons. And the rule "don't do anything you wouldn't be comfortable with being attributed to you" is a good one whether you use your real name or not.
-- phoebe
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