gerard.meijssen at gmail.com wrote:
There are in my opinion several issues at play. The most important one is that actual stalking, behaviour with real life threads is an observable phenomena and there are ample indications that the authorities fail to take these things seriously. When people are REALLY insistent they get the attention that is required. The notion to leave it all to the authorities leaves our fellow wikimedians that are threatened in this way isolated and threatened.
The police and the courts are the authorities to deal with real life threats. Yes, this means it's up to the police to take things seriously, and sometimes they don't. Unless you can think of some other tangible action Wikimedia could possibly take, all they can do is offer advice and support to victims of stalking, and co-operate with the authorities in investigation of stalking.
It's hugely important to understand that the Wikimedia foundation has no ability to take matters into it's own hands to deal with real life threats. They have no policing powers. At best, they could back people up when reporting things to the police or making a case for a restraining order. Wikimedia can neither force the police to take something seriously, or act as vigilantes and go after the stalkers themselves.
I think this discussion has detached off into the "The Wiki is it's own Country" fallacy. The Foundation is not a government, the wikis are not city states, the 'real world' laws and authorities are still in primacy. While Stalking and making threats of assault are indeed problems, it's far beyond the scope of Wikimedia to enforce laws and remedy's against it. These matters should and must be taken up with the government authorities of the police and courts. Setting up "Anti- Stalking Task Forces" and private mailing lists is not only useless, it's counter productive. Effort should be directed at helping people with support in contacting the police or getting a court order.
- John
On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 11:41 AM, John Barberio barberio@lineone.net wrote: [snip]
It's hugely important to understand that the Wikimedia foundation has no ability to take matters into it's own hands to deal with real life threats. They have no policing powers. At best, they could back people up when reporting things to the police or making a case for a restraining order. Wikimedia can neither force the police to take something seriously, or act as vigilantes and go after the stalkers themselves.
[snip]
Thank you.
[snip]
Setting up "Anti- Stalking Task Forces" and private mailing lists is not only useless, it's counter productive.
Again, Thank you.
Effort should be directed at helping people with support in contacting the police or getting a court order.
...and perhaps advising users how to avoid becoming a target: There are plenty of active and involved users busily doing both content and administrative work who manage to touch controversy without becoming embroiled in it.
An admission that we can each do things to avoid these problems *DOES NOT* mean that the victim is at fault any more than advice against walking through the bad part of town at night is a claim that mugging victims are at fault. .... but at least I feel that if I point out ways users can avoid these problems the current culture here would torch me as a victim blamer. We need to get over that. It's time for Wikipedians to get street smart.
On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 11:54 AM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 11:41 AM, John Barberio barberio@lineone.net wrote: [snip]
It's hugely important to understand that the Wikimedia foundation has no ability to take matters into it's own hands to deal with real life threats. They have no policing powers. At best, they could back people up when reporting things to the police or making a case for a restraining order. Wikimedia can neither force the police to take something seriously, or act as vigilantes and go after the stalkers themselves.
[snip]
Thank you.
[snip]
Setting up "Anti- Stalking Task Forces" and private mailing lists is not only useless, it's counter productive.
Again, Thank you.
Effort should be directed at helping people with support in contacting the police or getting a court order.
...and perhaps advising users how to avoid becoming a target: There are plenty of active and involved users busily doing both content and administrative work who manage to touch controversy without becoming embroiled in it.
An admission that we can each do things to avoid these problems *DOES NOT* mean that the victim is at fault any more than advice against walking through the bad part of town at night is a claim that mugging victims are at fault. .... but at least I feel that if I point out ways users can avoid these problems the current culture here would torch me as a victim blamer. We need to get over that. It's time for Wikipedians to get street smart.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[snip]
It's time for Wikipedians to get street smart.
[/snip]
That's the single best suggestion I've read on this list in ages.
-Chad
On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 8:54 AM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
...and perhaps advising users how to avoid becoming a target: There are plenty of active and involved users busily doing both content and administrative work who manage to touch controversy without becoming embroiled in it.
An admission that we can each do things to avoid these problems *DOES NOT* mean that the victim is at fault any more than advice against walking through the bad part of town at night is a claim that mugging victims are at fault. .... but at least I feel that if I point out ways users can avoid these problems the current culture here would torch me as a victim blamer. We need to get over that. It's time for Wikipedians to get street smart.
Strongly agreed, with an acknowledgment that everyone's experience is different, due both to the scope of the project and to the fact that you never really know what topics or actions are going to attract someone who is crazy or deeply deluded and unstable or angry. There is definitely no foolproof advice -- you can be the most street-smart Wikipedian in the world and you still might, while doing some routine action, stumble across tinfoil hat guy who takes a sudden interest in you and wants to visit you at your place of work and post pictures of your kids on the internet.
It's certainly possible to work for years on Wikipedia and never get in a serious dispute or be seriously harassed, beyond the occasional ranty email or talk page message (I've done it). It's also possible to make about five edits on a controversial article and find yourself in the middle of a raging argument between two irate IP addresses, both accusing the other of stalking (I just watched this happen to some poor newbie on a BLP article).
But there are probably strategies to mitigate the chances of drama and harassment, and we can give advice for new contributors at the very least. Things like: if you self identify as female, you might be harassed for it. If you use your real name, people may well track you down in real life. If you *don't* use your real name, some people will see it as a challenge to track you down in real life. If you edit controversial articles, you're going to have to deal with people who take it as a personal challenge to shout down opposing views. If you become an administrator, flame-proof armor is an advisory investment. And so on and so forth.
Somewhere or other I say an essay page with tips for new contributors choosing an account name/starting out that had similar pieces of advice; does anyone know what I'm talking about? It'd be nice to see if we could gather our collective wisdom on how to avoid harassment as an established user, as well. Sometimes I think just a serious, renewed commitment to *really* follow our core principles of civility and assuming good faith -- and not tolerating dialog that strays from this -- would help a fair amount with internal problems between editors; but it's hard to legislate how people speak to one another, on or off wiki.
-- phoebe
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