---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Chris Howie" cdhowie@gmail.com To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Wed, 21 May 2008 18:08:15 -0400 Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] School shooting threats On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 5:44 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
The question, then, is what if any moral imperative does this impose on us? And if some of us feel compelled to report such instances to the police, and others do not, what if any should the extent of policy be on this issue? Personally I can't agree to any Wikipedia policy that mandates or punishes behavior off-wiki. On the other hand, I do think a policy that encourages all editors to report specific school threats to AN and (when willing and possible) to the police is workable and a good idea. Frankly, I'm surprised and I'm sure many others would be as well to learn that there isn't already such a Wikipedia policy. At a minimum, we should have a policy of forwarding all such threats to the Wikimedia Foundation for "official" action if necessary.
If it only encourages people to do something then it's not a policy, it's an essay, which is more than appropriate in this case. Even a guideline would be better than policy.
IMO any threat with the slightest hint of seriousness should be immediately reported. But making it a blockable offense to not report would not only be very bad for the project, it would be unenforceable in just about every case. Which would in turn make it generally a useless policy.
On another note, a noticeboard where things like this can be posted would be helpful. People who know how to go about reporting something like this could monitor the page. (Law enforcement could even subscribe to an RSS feed of the page history, if they wanted to be proactive about it.)
-- Chris Howie http://www.chrishowie.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Crazycomputers
Michael Bimmler wrote:
On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 5:44 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
The question, then, is what if any moral imperative does this impose on us? And if some of us feel compelled to report such instances to the police, and others do not, what if any should the extent of policy be on this issue? Personally I can't agree to any Wikipedia policy that mandates or punishes behavior off-wiki. On the other hand, I do think a policy that encourages all editors to report specific school threats to AN and (when willing and possible) to the police is workable and a good idea. Frankly, I'm surprised and I'm sure many others would be as well to learn that there isn't already such a Wikipedia policy. At a minimum, we should have a policy of forwarding all such threats to the Wikimedia Foundation for "official" action if necessary.
If it only encourages people to do something then it's not a policy, it's an essay, which is more than appropriate in this case. Even a guideline would be better than policy.
IMO any threat with the slightest hint of seriousness should be immediately reported. But making it a blockable offense to not report would not only be very bad for the project, it would be unenforceable in just about every case. Which would in turn make it generally a useless policy.
On another note, a noticeboard where things like this can be posted would be helpful. People who know how to go about reporting something like this could monitor the page. (Law enforcement could even subscribe to an RSS feed of the page history, if they wanted to be proactive about it.)
I agree. Any pronouncement on this must be realistic, but evaluating the seriousness of a threat is an art that requires a great deal of experience to sort out those who are just talking like an idiot. I think we've all heard the expression, "I'll kill him," used to express displeasure in TV comedy, where there is no possibility of it being a serious threat. That evaluation is even more difficult when we are dealing with text that does not transmit the tone of voice.
We can recommend HOW a particular kind of threat can be reported, and that's a good thing for those who have no idea what to do when they find a threat they consider serious by whatever yardstick they use. But that all presupposes that they know on which page to look for those instructions, when it's the kind of experience that they do not encounter every day.
Requiring people to report these things makes no sense, and even if we did we would need some kind of viewing log of the affected page so that we could say, "These people looked at the article after the threat was posted, and need to be punished." That strikes me as completely unworkable, even to someone that fully supports mandatory reporting.l
Ec
On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 6:21 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Michael Bimmler wrote:
Eh? You're sure that I wrote this? The text looks rather unfamiliar to me and I didn't know that I had taken part in this thread :p
Michael Bimmler wrote:
On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 6:21 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Michael Bimmler wrote:
Eh? You're sure that I wrote this? The text looks rather unfamiliar to me and I didn't know that I had taken part in this thread :p
Sorry. I usually try to trim off the excess before replying at the bottom. In this case it looks like you were *forwarding* Chris Howie's response to Nathan. My error.
Ec
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
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
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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