[Foundation-l] Stalking Article - Wikimedia-l

Gregory Maxwell

9 Jun 9 Jun

5:19 a.m.

On Sun, Jun 8, 2008 at 11:54 PM, Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd(a)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.

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Dan Rosenthal

5:48 a.m.

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(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, Jun 8, 2008 at 11:54 PM, Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd(a)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(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/ foundation-l

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Gerard Meijssen

6:35 a.m.

Hoi, I am not aware of the WMF being practically involved in these kind of issues. As I understand it, the WMF is severely undermanned and underfinanced and consequently does not get involved in these issues. When there would be a strategy on how to deal with issues like the Youtube video, I expect it can be hightly effective. Because the WMF is a 500 pound gorilla in its own right :) The issue is that as time goes by, it becomes more expensive to become effective at fighting this behaviour that is clearly illegal under many laws. Once you start to do something about it, there wil be a nearly constant need for some attention. What I can imagine is that with a tiered system including arbitration boards involvement it could be manageable. In my mind there is a need for both action and the containment of that same action. Involvement of the WMF itself needs to be carefully and judicially applied. Thanks, GerardM On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 8:14 AM, Harel Cain <harel.cain(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

I agree with others here that there is a distinction to be made between a wiki-war gone out of control (where the warring parties would be long time users, in most cases) and the really nasty cases of stalking, threats, libelous publications and the like, usually directed by recently arrived (banned?) users at long time users, mainly those who blocked them. I can think of a famous case in hewiki where a very well-known admin got into a fight with a certain extremist political group and they posted the most horribly, shockingly defamatory video about him in response, on Youtube, where I think it exists to that day (mainly because apparently Youtube admins don't speak Hebrew and disregarded the dozens of complaints about the video). I don't think the Foundation can do anything practical to handle this second type of cases, which are clearly in the legal sphere between victim, victimizer (and state persecution), and I agree that taking wiki actions against these cases just downplays them into the wiki drama (which is too inflated anyway, and which we have to abate, not encourage). But there has to be a very clear signal coming from the Foundation that these issues are taken very seriously and will not be tolerated. It's all on the declaratory sphere, not the practical one. Harel On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 8:48 AM, Dan Rosenthal <swatjester(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, Jun 8, 2008 at 11:54 PM, Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd(a)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(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/ foundation-l

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dott.Piergiorgio

11 Jun 11 Jun

2:12 a.m.

Geoffrey Plourde ha scritto: [SNIP] Hope that this post pass around the gmane mechanism (whose I haven't fully understand) My opinion is that on this (that is, criminal behavior, and is also my opinion on the former discussion on school threats) is that is better to let professional people (that is, cops/bobbies/whatever, for me Carabinieri) I want to address mrs./ms. "Durova" on this. I guess from what you narrate, that you refer to the (complex and IMHO messed up) US law enforcement environment; in my opinion, with US law enforcement, is really a YMMV situation; cops in one city/county/state can and will vary re. that of another city/county/state; but for what I read about US cops (I mean, news and press releases, not detective fiction !) a constant is here whose can work: kids/childrens. Declaring, for example, that the stalker endanger a child (for example, a little niece) will get in full gear the LE agency involved. But I digress.... Returning to the main point, and referring also to the school threat discussion earlier, I think that the best policy is collaboration and cooperation to the law enforcement issue on hand; and that is, after a quick assessment if is the "real thing" and not a case of angst and/or flaming (In my experience, angst/rage and flames are often together) Of course there, albeit better safe than sorry, is also the problem of the crying wolf too often, with the related desensiziting (sp?) of the involved LE agencies. On this, I can't give suggestion. Hope that this is a good base for discussing about the general issue of criminal behavior on WP. Best regards from Italy, Dott. Piergiorgio.

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