I think greg was attacking "drama hounds"
----- Original Message ---- From: Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sunday, June 8, 2008 10:48:11 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Stalking Article
I have to agree with both Gerard and Greg. While there isn't much that the WMF can do to actively and immediately stop stalking, we can take measures to make it less palatable to stalkers. The threat of foundation-wide bans for stalkers discourages some (and any reduction is a good one). The foundation can make a strong public statement against stalking. We certainly won't be able to completely stop it, or stop it immediately; but to stand by and do nothing while good contributors are being threatened, harassed, driven from the project, and having their lives put into shambles is unacceptable customer service in my book.
-Dan On Jun 9, 2008, at 1:40 AM, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, I think you should take a closer look.. It is way beyond a pissing contest. Belittling it as "people taking it way to serious" negates the real chilling effect it has.
There are good people, some of the very best in my book, that are leaving and have left our projects because they feel threatened, because they do not want to be the next road kill, the next statistic. If anything, once people start leaving our project because of stalkers, when you can force your way by this type of behaviour, there is no longer a NPOV Wikipedia.
When you suggest that it is part of a tit for tat game, you may be right but it does not matter. This type of behaviour is not acceptable and the most important part that we can to address it is to deal with it in a professional way. This means serious attention of the issues from within our organisation and it may include contacting the appropriate police organisation and following up / monitoring the further evolution of this behaviour.
Suggesting murder, rape, the disfigurement with sulphuric acid is not acceptable either on wiki or off wiki. It is not only a threat to the person involved, it is a threat to us all. This is not a figure of speech, this is not freedom of expression, this is the stuff where we have to defend *our *freedom of expression. My and your freedom is limited by where the freedom of someone else starts and so is the freedom of the hoodlums who behave in this way.
Thanks, GerardM
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 7:19 AM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Jun 8, 2008 at 11:54 PM, Geoffrey Plourde geo.plrd@yahoo.com wrote: [snip]
RickK left because his family was threatened.
Not to belittle your concern about Cyberstalking... but ... RickK 'left' after being blocked for 3RR in a dispute with SPUI of all people. (A tangent, I know but I've found that uncorrected statements have a terrible tendency of becoming 'the truth'. ... )
At the end of the day no one on Wikipedia or at Wikimedia is empowered to stop real staking (can we drop the 'cyber'? It makes it sound like a video game. If you're being stalked does it matter how it got started?)... Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a vigilante posse, not law enforcement.
Stalking which is serious and real.. rather than an extended online pissing match... stuff that endangers people can't be improved by anointing a few more users as holy emperors of the Wiki. Take a look at DavidShankbone's comments on Digg: David's a nice guy and I have a lot of sympathy for what he's gone through... But he writes: "The Wikimedia Foundation needs to publicly support the creation of a group of Wikipedia volunteers who have the authority to define harassment and stalking and take action against it. They will advise the Stewards of cases that require a full block across all projects of an IP range." ... Now seriously, if your problems can be actually resolved by smacking the enemy with a ZOMG WMF WIDE BAN, thats not stalking... it's an internet pissing match between people who are taking Wikipedia far too seriously.
Is it a problem that so many good contributors have a problem avoiding Internet Drama? Sure... But to call random internet drama stalking is akin to yelling "rape" every time you get some unwanted flirtation. Overuse of the a serious word diminishes its importance and makes it insufficiently expressive when we really need it.
In fairness, there are a lot of people on English Wikipedia who have been stalked, attacked, and otherwise mistreated in serious ways. Yet, many of those people have also been among those calling for more impressive ban hammers. I don't think that just because someone is asking for an internet-drama solution doesn't mean they don't haven't been harmed in a serious way.
But the ZOMG WMF WIDE BAN can't actually solve their real problems... but the real stalking is always intermixed with regular Internet drama, so I guess that internet drama solutions are what get called for because actually addressing the stalking is much harder, if not sometimes impossible, and perhaps when you're looking for revenge you'll take what you can get... ::shrugs:: I can only guess.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/ foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
_______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org