Greg;
Thanks for your concerns. I believe that the Foundation should take the step of affirming that they will not stand for stalking of users, not necessaily a huge banhammer. The group of users would be more productive in hunting down and bringing justice to the stalkers.
As a side digression, there is a measure in Congress, HR 6123, that would outlaw stalking over the internet.
----- Original Message ---- From: Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sunday, June 8, 2008 10:19:00 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Stalking Article
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.
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Geoffrey Plourde wrote:
Greg;
Thanks for your concerns. I believe that the Foundation should take the step of affirming that they will not stand for stalking of users, not necessaily a huge banhammer. The group of users would be more productive in hunting down and bringing justice to the stalkers.
I'm not sure what exactly you mean with "will not stand for". But as I think Greg implied, it is a problem if the WMF opens up to abuse of any such protection. When people "cry wolf", how do we know if that is a real case of stalking or not? Is there a way? Who is an expert on how to deal with stalking? Can they write down some useful guidelines? Can we teach admins and stewards on this? Or is [[Wikipedia:Harassment]] fine already, with its recommendation that the harassed user should act calmly?
The article [[stalking]] begins with five message boxes requesting neutrality, improvement and input from experts.
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 2:39 AM, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
When people "cry wolf", how do we know if that is a real case of stalking or not? Is there a way? Who is an expert on how to deal with stalking? Can they write down some useful guidelines? Can we teach admins and stewards on this? Or is [[Wikipedia:Harassment]] fine already, with its recommendation that the harassed user should act calmly?
I believe the Foundation has hired the stalking expert Gavin de Becker to advise them on this issue. Can someone from the Foundation report on what kinds of things he has helped with so far?
Sarah
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 1:02 AM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
I believe the Foundation has hired the stalking expert Gavin de Becker to advise them on this issue. Can someone from the Foundation report on what kinds of things he has helped with so far?
When was this announced? I don't recall seeing that and couldn't find it on a search of Foundation-l?
- Joe
I believe it was actually Jimmy hiring him personally, rather than the foundation. At least, that's my understanding. Since I cannot remember where it was announced, I would rather not expound on it.
-Dan
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 1:06 PM, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 1:02 AM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
I believe the Foundation has hired the stalking expert Gavin de Becker to advise them on this issue. Can someone from the Foundation report on what kinds of things he has helped with so far?
When was this announced? I don't recall seeing that and couldn't find it on a search of Foundation-l?
- Joe
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On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 1:06 PM, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 1:02 AM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
I believe the Foundation has hired the stalking expert Gavin de Becker to advise them on this issue. Can someone from the Foundation report on what kinds of things he has helped with so far?
When was this announced? I don't recall seeing that and couldn't find it on a search of Foundation-l?
I think it was announced on the cyberstalking list.
Anthony
Hoi, Mike Godwin has indicated what it is Mr de Becker has been hired for. This means that there is no such thing as him working on cyber stalking of Wikimedians. It is therefore unlikely that a cyberstalking mailing list knows anything better... On that subject, how is this list organised and what is done to ensure the functioning of such a list ? I can envision that such a list has material that is utterly confidential .. what is done to ensure such confidentiality ??? Thanks, GerardM
On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 12:21 AM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 1:06 PM, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 1:02 AM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
I believe the Foundation has hired the stalking expert Gavin de Becker to advise them on this issue. Can someone from the Foundation report on what kinds of things he has helped with so far?
When was this announced? I don't recall seeing that and couldn't find it
on
a search of Foundation-l?
I think it was announced on the cyberstalking list.
Anthony
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On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 5:33 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Mike Godwin has indicated what it is Mr de Becker has been hired for. This means that there is no such thing as him working on cyber stalking of Wikimedians. It is therefore unlikely that a cyberstalking mailing list knows anything better... On that subject, how is this list organised and what is done to ensure the functioning of such a list ? I can envision that such a list has material that is utterly confidential .. what is done to ensure such confidentiality ??? Thanks, GerardM
We are careful about who we invite, Gerard, to ensure that members can speak freely. Two previous members leaked in the past, and that caused us to tighten the criteria further. It's open to people who've been stalked/harassed and to those who have been involved in efforts to stop it.
Sarah
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 6:33 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Mike Godwin has indicated what it is Mr de Becker has been hired for.
No, Godwin has indicated the primary reason he was hired.
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 6:39 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 6:33 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Mike Godwin has indicated what it is Mr de Becker has been hired for.
No, Godwin has indicated the primary reason he was hired.
Correction - the primary reason his firm was hired.
Oh for the love of whatever-deity-is-important-to-you-or-none-if-you- prefer.
It seems to me that Mike has been incredibly upfront, and we have no reason to question his word. Mike strikes me as the type that wouldn't be afraid to say "we hired Mr. de Becker's firm to consult on physical security and other issues, which we can't disclose at this point."
This is trolling, plain and simple.
_____________________ Philippe Beaudette Tulsa, OK philippebeaudette@gmail.com
On Jun 9, 2008, at 5:39 PM, Anthony wrote:
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 6:39 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 6:33 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Mike Godwin has indicated what it is Mr de Becker has been hired for.
No, Godwin has indicated the primary reason he was hired.
Correction - the primary reason his firm was hired.
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When we talk about real out-of-wiki harassment, we should also keep in mind that the experts here are really the police. We should be encouraging victims to reach out to the authorities for help, and not pretend that a community of volunteer editors can really solve these problems.
I assume the Foundation already has a policy of assisting the police in such investigations as necessary. -Robert Rohde
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 12:39 AM, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
Geoffrey Plourde wrote:
Greg;
Thanks for your concerns. I believe that the Foundation should take the step of affirming that they will not stand for stalking of users, not necessaily a huge banhammer. The group of users would be more productive in hunting down and bringing justice to the stalkers.
I'm not sure what exactly you mean with "will not stand for". But as I think Greg implied, it is a problem if the WMF opens up to abuse of any such protection. When people "cry wolf", how do we know if that is a real case of stalking or not? Is there a way? Who is an expert on how to deal with stalking? Can they write down some useful guidelines? Can we teach admins and stewards on this? Or is [[Wikipedia:Harassment]] fine already, with its recommendation that the harassed user should act calmly?
The article [[stalking]] begins with five message boxes requesting neutrality, improvement and input from experts.
-- Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
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On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 3:26 AM, Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com wrote:
When we talk about real out-of-wiki harassment, we should also keep in mind that the experts here are really the police. We should be encouraging victims to reach out to the authorities for help, and not pretend that a community of volunteer editors can really solve these problems.
The police will only deal with the most serious of cases. They're not going to get involved in a case where people are speculating on websites as to whether a woman wants to be raped, what kind of underwear she wears, and how many people she had to sleep with to get a job. This kind of talk has led to me receiving threats of violence, and even death, by e-mail, but they're from throwaway accounts, and there's no telling whether there's serious intent; in fact, there almost certainly isn't, but who knows whether there will be one day. The police need to see something solid before they can act.
In the meantime, it would help enormously if the Foundation would prevent wikiprojects from actually *helping* the people who are targeting volunteers -- for example, by promoting them to bureaucrat on other projects, or to admin on Wikipedia; by making sure their websites aren't on the spam list; by allowing their harassment to be discussed and linked to on Wikipedia -- which is what's currently happening.
Sarah
Hoi, I agree that it is the police that has to deal with these types of instances. The police is however not always as repsonsive as you would hope. There is anecdotal evidence that they typically do not want to get involved in these cases.
I do agree that getting the attention of the authorities is the best way to get some solution. How to get this attention is achieved best when there is a dossier about the case and the quality of such a dossier is enhanced when other people who know how to build such a dossier testify to the veracity of the claims.
I would love to learn that there is indeed a policy of the Foundation for such cases.. I would not presume either way that such a policy exists. Such a policy is problematic given our privacy rules... It is not obvious that the police should always get what it wants. For this reason it helps when there is a policy that deals with stalking cases because this can be made a clarification to the privacy rules that explains what data can be shared with law enforcement organisations...
NB Keep in your mind that we are not talking about US police alone.. Thanks, GerardM
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 10:26 AM, Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com wrote:
When we talk about real out-of-wiki harassment, we should also keep in mind that the experts here are really the police. We should be encouraging victims to reach out to the authorities for help, and not pretend that a community of volunteer editors can really solve these problems.
I assume the Foundation already has a policy of assisting the police in such investigations as necessary. -Robert Rohde
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 12:39 AM, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
Geoffrey Plourde wrote:
Greg;
Thanks for your concerns. I believe that the Foundation should take the step of affirming that they will not stand for stalking of users, not necessaily a huge banhammer. The group of users would be more productive in hunting down and bringing justice to the stalkers.
I'm not sure what exactly you mean with "will not stand for". But as I think Greg implied, it is a problem if the WMF opens up to abuse of any such protection. When people "cry wolf", how do we know if that is a real case of stalking or not? Is there a way? Who is an expert on how to deal with stalking? Can they write down some useful guidelines? Can we teach admins and stewards on this? Or is [[Wikipedia:Harassment]] fine already, with its recommendation that the harassed user should act calmly?
The article [[stalking]] begins with five message boxes requesting neutrality, improvement and input from experts.
-- Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
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WMF can assist law enforcement not by making complaints, which are abundant, but by making it easy for law enforcement to investigate and prosecute. It should be obvious that this risks violating the community's attitudes and preferences about privacy. Privacy often conflicts with responsibility. Finding ways of managing the conflict is a serious challenge. The biggest roles this list can perform are to call for action, to reflect community opinion, and to lead community opinion. IMHO.
Unfortunately a change in policy will only occur following a change in attitudes, which will probably only follow from instances of actual real-world stalking or recognized cyber-crime. Perhaps we can delay the day when some draconian measures will be taken by supporting modest preventive actions now that are consistent with moderate (realistic) views of privacy and the trade-offs with responsibility.
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 4:39 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I agree that it is the police that has to deal with these types of instances. The police is however not always as repsonsive as you would hope. There is anecdotal evidence that they typically do not want to get involved in these cases.
I do agree that getting the attention of the authorities is the best way to get some solution. How to get this attention is achieved best when there is a dossier about the case and the quality of such a dossier is enhanced when other people who know how to build such a dossier testify to the veracity of the claims.
I would love to learn that there is indeed a policy of the Foundation for such cases.. I would not presume either way that such a policy exists. Such a policy is problematic given our privacy rules... It is not obvious that the police should always get what it wants. For this reason it helps when there is a policy that deals with stalking cases because this can be made a clarification to the privacy rules that explains what data can be shared with law enforcement organisations...
NB Keep in your mind that we are not talking about US police alone.. Thanks, GerardM
I have not personally hired Gavin de Becker or any similar firm.
It would be best if peopel not repeat rumors, particularly when people's personal safety may be at stake.
--Jimbo
The reason why stalking is a very serious problem is because people pretend as if it isn't a problem. Stalking typically only concerns the person that is been stalked and doesn't concern others in the sense it is .
As Jimbo pointed out if someone is getting stalked or harassed we have this strange culture of furthering whatever that is. It is rather easy for a stalker to find people to join him/her in the attack. Ah the "wiki-enemies"...
No one deserves to be stalked. Do not allow stalking of a stranger or even someone you dislike or even despise. You yourself may be even stalked.
Stalking is the #1 reason why our most notable and worthwhile contributors were disgusted away from this project. Do not count me, consider how NYB and many others were slowly but surely alienated from the project.
- White Cat
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 9:16 PM, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
I have not personally hired Gavin de Becker or any similar firm.
It would be best if peopel not repeat rumors, particularly when people's personal safety may be at stake.
--Jimbo
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I believe on English Wikipedia we have an arbitration finding to that effect (MONGO 1), that says that we should support victims of harassment (which stalking certainly qualifies as).
-Dan
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 3:57 PM, White Cat wikipedia.kawaii.neko@gmail.com wrote:
The reason why stalking is a very serious problem is because people pretend as if it isn't a problem. Stalking typically only concerns the person that is been stalked and doesn't concern others in the sense it is .
As Jimbo pointed out if someone is getting stalked or harassed we have this strange culture of furthering whatever that is. It is rather easy for a stalker to find people to join him/her in the attack. Ah the "wiki-enemies"...
No one deserves to be stalked. Do not allow stalking of a stranger or even someone you dislike or even despise. You yourself may be even stalked.
Stalking is the #1 reason why our most notable and worthwhile contributors were disgusted away from this project. Do not count me, consider how NYB and many others were slowly but surely alienated from the project.
- White Cat
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 9:16 PM, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
I have not personally hired Gavin de Becker or any similar firm.
It would be best if peopel not repeat rumors, particularly when people's personal safety may be at stake.
--Jimbo
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On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 3:29 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
I believe on English Wikipedia we have an arbitration finding to that effect (MONGO 1), that says that we should support victims of harassment (which stalking certainly qualifies as).
-Dan
We do have that ruling, but it's consistently ignored, including by ArbCom members. We allow people to use Wikipedia (posts to articles, to talk pages, to AN/I, RfCs, and RfArs) to harass others; and then we allow the harassment to be discussed; and then the discussions are discussed, all of which creates more harassment for the target -- which is often the intent. It's a situation that has been going on for a couple of years and is only getting worse; it's the reason the cyberstalking list was started, but despite a lot of talk, there has been no fundamental change. The bottom line is that we have to stop giving people who have engaged in harassment a platform in the name of free speech and AGF.
Sarah
You're preaching to the choir here with me Sarah. I fully support that principle being applied, and not ignored. I was just pointing out that there's a policy based reason that allows us to say "You know what, lets quit blathering about this and do something about it", if we can grab our collective balls and do it.
-Dan On Jun 9, 2008, at 4:46 PM, SlimVirgin wrote:
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 3:29 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
I believe on English Wikipedia we have an arbitration finding to that effect (MONGO 1), that says that we should support victims of harassment (which stalking certainly qualifies as).
-Dan
We do have that ruling, but it's consistently ignored, including by ArbCom members. We allow people to use Wikipedia (posts to articles, to talk pages, to AN/I, RfCs, and RfArs) to harass others; and then we allow the harassment to be discussed; and then the discussions are discussed, all of which creates more harassment for the target -- which is often the intent. It's a situation that has been going on for a couple of years and is only getting worse; it's the reason the cyberstalking list was started, but despite a lot of talk, there has been no fundamental change. The bottom line is that we have to stop giving people who have engaged in harassment a platform in the name of free speech and AGF.
Sarah
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On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 5:41 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
You're preaching to the choir here with me Sarah. I fully support that principle being applied, and not ignored. I was just pointing out that there's a policy based reason that allows us to say "You know what, lets quit blathering about this and do something about it", if we can grab our collective balls and do it.
-Dan
Dan, I feel we've almost left it too late. We currently have a situation where several of those involved in some of the stalking sites have been promoted to admins, and many more are regular editors who routinely pursue editors they don't like -- via wikistalking, RfCs, RfArs, and reports on AN/I -- in order to make their time on Wikipedia miserable. Shortly after people were shocked that NewYorkBrad was outed and left the project, one of the three people who was instrumental in trying to out me in 2006 was promoted to bureaucrat on another WMF project, with the support of FloNight of the ArbCom. What kind of message does that send?
Good editors are leaving because of this kind of thing. It's one thing not to be actively supported by the Foundation, but it's a real kick in the teeth when we see members of the ArbCom support any of these people, and board members (I'm thinking here of Erik when he was on the board) remove their sites from the spam blacklist.
It seems that people have short memories if they haven't been targeted themselves.
Sarah
On Jun 9, 2008, at 4:46 PM, SlimVirgin wrote:
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 3:29 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
I believe on English Wikipedia we have an arbitration finding to that effect (MONGO 1), that says that we should support victims of harassment (which stalking certainly qualifies as).
-Dan
We do have that ruling, but it's consistently ignored, including by ArbCom members. We allow people to use Wikipedia (posts to articles, to talk pages, to AN/I, RfCs, and RfArs) to harass others; and then we allow the harassment to be discussed; and then the discussions are discussed, all of which creates more harassment for the target -- which is often the intent. It's a situation that has been going on for a couple of years and is only getting worse; it's the reason the cyberstalking list was started, but despite a lot of talk, there has been no fundamental change. The bottom line is that we have to stop giving people who have engaged in harassment a platform in the name of free speech and AGF.
Sarah
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SlimVirgin wrote:
Dan, I feel we've almost left it too late. We currently have a situation where several of those involved in some of the stalking sites have been promoted to admins, and many more are regular editors who routinely pursue editors they don't like -- via wikistalking, RfCs, RfArs, and reports on AN/I -- in order to make their time on Wikipedia miserable. Shortly after people were shocked that NewYorkBrad was outed and left the project, one of the three people who was instrumental in trying to out me in 2006 was promoted to bureaucrat on another WMF project, with the support of FloNight of the ArbCom. What kind of message does that send?
The message it sends is that projects are not administrated as a monolith, and rules vary from project to project while generally not taking into account the history of a user on other projects. You've mentioned "other project" actions several times - perhaps the next stage to approach would be developing a way to handle these serious conduct issues in a cross-wiki way. What I think the Foundation has been trying to stay away from is getting deeply involved in the user administration aspects of operating Wikimedia projects. There are various good reasons for this, reasons that make attempting other mechanisms worthwhile before involving the WMF directly.
Nathan
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 6:12 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
SlimVirgin wrote:
Dan, I feel we've almost left it too late. We currently have a situation where several of those involved in some of the stalking sites have been promoted to admins, and many more are regular editors who routinely pursue editors they don't like -- via wikistalking, RfCs, RfArs, and reports on AN/I -- in order to make their time on Wikipedia miserable. Shortly after people were shocked that NewYorkBrad was outed and left the project, one of the three people who was instrumental in trying to out me in 2006 was promoted to bureaucrat on another WMF project, with the support of FloNight of the ArbCom. What kind of message does that send?
The message it sends is that projects are not administrated as a monolith, and rules vary from project to project while generally not taking into account the history of a user on other projects. You've mentioned "other project" actions several times - perhaps the next stage to approach would be developing a way to handle these serious conduct issues in a cross-wiki way. What I think the Foundation has been trying to stay away from is getting deeply involved in the user administration aspects of operating Wikimedia projects. There are various good reasons for this, reasons that make attempting other mechanisms worthwhile before involving the WMF directly.
My point, Nathan, is that someone from the English Arbitration Committee supported the appointment of that person to bureaucrat. If they had somehow only slipped through, it would say less about us -- it would only tell us, as you say, that we are not monolithic.
The point is, what can we do? Dan talks about action, but what action is possible when admins, bureaucrats, stewards, and ArbCom members are either involved or are not sympathetic?
Sarah
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 7:24 PM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
My point, Nathan, is that someone from the English Arbitration Committee supported the appointment of that person to bureaucrat. If they had somehow only slipped through, it would say less about us -- it would only tell us, as you say, that we are not monolithic.
The point is, what can we do?
One thing that would probably help is more information on what you're talking about.
On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 9:24 AM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 6:12 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
SlimVirgin wrote:
Dan, I feel we've almost left it too late. We currently have a situation where several of those involved in some of the stalking sites have been promoted to admins, and many more are regular editors who routinely pursue editors they don't like -- via wikistalking, RfCs, RfArs, and reports on AN/I -- in order to make their time on Wikipedia miserable. Shortly after people were shocked that NewYorkBrad was outed and left the project, one of the three people who was instrumental in trying to out me in 2006 was promoted to bureaucrat on another WMF project, with the support of FloNight of the ArbCom. What kind of message does that send?
The message it sends is that projects are not administrated as a monolith, and rules vary from project to project while generally not taking into account the history of a user on other projects. You've mentioned "other project" actions several times - perhaps the next stage to approach would be developing a way to handle these serious conduct issues in a cross-wiki way. What I think the Foundation has been trying to stay away from is getting deeply involved in the user administration aspects of operating Wikimedia projects. There are various good reasons for this, reasons that make attempting other mechanisms worthwhile before involving the WMF directly.
My point, Nathan, is that someone from the English Arbitration Committee supported the appointment of that person to bureaucrat. If they had somehow only slipped through, it would say less about us -- it would only tell us, as you say, that we are not monolithic.
The point is, what can we do? Dan talks about action, but what action is possible when admins, bureaucrats, stewards, and ArbCom members are either involved or are not sympathetic?
Sarah,
You are making these actions the focal point of your argument, yet I for one am in the dark about these historical events that you see as problematic, and you view as roadblocks to addressing the problem.
Could you please be plain and provide the specifics so that we can understand your argument a little better, perhaps review those decisions with the benefit of hindsight, and hopefully obtain either justification or regret from those who have made the wrong decision.
-- John
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 6:34 PM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
Could you please be plain and provide the specifics so that we can understand your argument a little better, perhaps review those decisions with the benefit of hindsight, and hopefully obtain either justification or regret from those who have made the wrong decision.
I can go into some detail, John, if you need it, but my point is a general one, namely that there is no will on Wikipedia to do anything about this. Anyone who has tried has ended up as a target themselves. So we do need leadership from the Foundation, but the question arises as to what exactly they could do that wouldn't be prohibitive financially.
Sarah
I wouldn't mind seeing some more detail, Sarah. Holding folks accountable for their judgment is something we can do without the Foundation's input. I think its clear to everyone that part of the problem, whatever its scope, is the lack of more general recognition in the Wikimedia community of its seriousness.
There are a few ways that the problem can become high profile enough for everyone to think about it and take it seriously - the most obvious is publicity following an attack of some sort, but another method can be pointing out to people and the community when serious problems are overlooked by people known for their judgment and awareness. It demonstrates that stalkers and those whose history includes cross-project harassment can be easily overlooked and even praised because we don't have an organized way to track them, maintain a consolidated history or deal with them across the larger community.
Nathan
Nathan wrote:
I wouldn't mind seeing some more detail, Sarah. Holding folks accountable for their judgment is something we can do without the Foundation's input. I think its clear to everyone that part of the problem, whatever its scope, is the lack of more general recognition in the Wikimedia community of its seriousness.
There are a few ways that the problem can become high profile enough for everyone to think about it and take it seriously - the most obvious is publicity following an attack of some sort, but another method can be pointing out to people and the community when serious problems are overlooked by people known for their judgment and awareness. It demonstrates that stalkers and those whose history includes cross-project harassment can be easily overlooked and even praised because we don't have an organized way to track them, maintain a consolidated history or deal with them across the larger community.
Do we have statistics about the extent of cross-project harassment? How many of these people really go on to another project to cause the same kind of problems?
Ec
Hoi, It would be one of the issues for a project / volunteer council.. Having a platform to get these issues trashed out makes sense. Having the Foundation involved can be a bad idea on many levels. However, not addressing this is bad in and of itself.
Sure the projects are not monolithic, and there has been many examples of people who did not do too good on one project to be perfectly at home in another project. When stalking is perpetrated by admins, when the policies are clear how stalking can be dealt with, make sure that these admins get blocked first and de-adminned second.. Not doing this is giving in to the dark side.
What I would like to know from people like Mike, Erik or Sue is what room they have to get involved in this issue. When this is better understood, it gives a clue to those opposed to stalkers what more and what else needs to be done.
Thanks, GerardM
On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 1:12 AM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
SlimVirgin wrote:
Dan, I feel we've almost left it too late. We currently have a situation where several of those involved in some of the stalking sites have been promoted to admins, and many more are regular editors who routinely pursue editors they don't like -- via wikistalking, RfCs, RfArs, and reports on AN/I -- in order to make their time on Wikipedia miserable. Shortly after people were shocked that NewYorkBrad was outed and left the project, one of the three people who was instrumental in trying to out me in 2006 was promoted to bureaucrat on another WMF project, with the support of FloNight of the ArbCom. What kind of message does that send?
The message it sends is that projects are not administrated as a monolith, and rules vary from project to project while generally not taking into account the history of a user on other projects. You've mentioned "other project" actions several times - perhaps the next stage to approach would be developing a way to handle these serious conduct issues in a cross-wiki way. What I think the Foundation has been trying to stay away from is getting deeply involved in the user administration aspects of operating Wikimedia projects. There are various good reasons for this, reasons that make attempting other mechanisms worthwhile before involving the WMF directly.
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Off wiki stalking is one thing e have limited control over. It is very easy to manupilate the inner workings with an external site to destroy any person you dislike - or at least so it appears on my screen. People should not care much about these sites.
On-wiki stalking is something we have actual control but we hardly even try to do something about it.
- White Cat
On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 2:03 AM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 5:41 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
You're preaching to the choir here with me Sarah. I fully support that principle being applied, and not ignored. I was just pointing out that there's a policy based reason that allows us to say "You know what, lets quit blathering about this and do something about it", if we can grab our collective balls and do it.
-Dan
Dan, I feel we've almost left it too late. We currently have a situation where several of those involved in some of the stalking sites have been promoted to admins, and many more are regular editors who routinely pursue editors they don't like -- via wikistalking, RfCs, RfArs, and reports on AN/I -- in order to make their time on Wikipedia miserable. Shortly after people were shocked that NewYorkBrad was outed and left the project, one of the three people who was instrumental in trying to out me in 2006 was promoted to bureaucrat on another WMF project, with the support of FloNight of the ArbCom. What kind of message does that send?
Good editors are leaving because of this kind of thing. It's one thing not to be actively supported by the Foundation, but it's a real kick in the teeth when we see members of the ArbCom support any of these people, and board members (I'm thinking here of Erik when he was on the board) remove their sites from the spam blacklist.
It seems that people have short memories if they haven't been targeted themselves.
Sarah
On Jun 9, 2008, at 4:46 PM, SlimVirgin wrote:
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 3:29 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
I believe on English Wikipedia we have an arbitration finding to that effect (MONGO 1), that says that we should support victims of harassment (which stalking certainly qualifies as).
-Dan
We do have that ruling, but it's consistently ignored, including by ArbCom members. We allow people to use Wikipedia (posts to articles, to talk pages, to AN/I, RfCs, and RfArs) to harass others; and then we allow the harassment to be discussed; and then the discussions are discussed, all of which creates more harassment for the target -- which is often the intent. It's a situation that has been going on for a couple of years and is only getting worse; it's the reason the cyberstalking list was started, but despite a lot of talk, there has been no fundamental change. The bottom line is that we have to stop giving people who have engaged in harassment a platform in the name of free speech and AGF.
Sarah
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the nice thing about law is that there a far behind with the cyberstuf.
i went to the police. you may threat a person if you put it in a quistion. the did not en anything.
but if the mail function is used. is it than on wiki or off wiki?
huib
2008/6/10, White Cat wikipedia.kawaii.neko@gmail.com:
Off wiki stalking is one thing e have limited control over. It is very easy to manupilate the inner workings with an external site to destroy any person you dislike - or at least so it appears on my screen. People should not care much about these sites.
On-wiki stalking is something we have actual control but we hardly even try to do something about it.
- White CatOn Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 2:03 AM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 5:41 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
You're preaching to the choir here with me Sarah. I fully support that principle being applied, and not ignored. I was just pointing out that there's a policy based reason that allows us to say "You know what, lets quit blathering about this and do something about it", if we can grab our collective balls and do it.
-Dan
Dan, I feel we've almost left it too late. We currently have a situation where several of those involved in some of the stalking sites have been promoted to admins, and many more are regular editors who routinely pursue editors they don't like -- via wikistalking, RfCs, RfArs, and reports on AN/I -- in order to make their time on Wikipedia miserable. Shortly after people were shocked that NewYorkBrad was outed and left the project, one of the three people who was instrumental in trying to out me in 2006 was promoted to bureaucrat on another WMF project, with the support of FloNight of the ArbCom. What kind of message does that send?
Good editors are leaving because of this kind of thing. It's one thing not to be actively supported by the Foundation, but it's a real kick in the teeth when we see members of the ArbCom support any of these people, and board members (I'm thinking here of Erik when he was on the board) remove their sites from the spam blacklist.
It seems that people have short memories if they haven't been targeted themselves.
Sarah
On Jun 9, 2008, at 4:46 PM, SlimVirgin wrote:
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 3:29 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
I believe on English Wikipedia we have an arbitration finding to that effect (MONGO 1), that says that we should support victims of harassment (which stalking certainly qualifies as).
-Dan
We do have that ruling, but it's consistently ignored, including by ArbCom members. We allow people to use Wikipedia (posts to articles, to talk pages, to AN/I, RfCs, and RfArs) to harass others; and then we allow the harassment to be discussed; and then the discussions are discussed, all of which creates more harassment for the target -- which is often the intent. It's a situation that has been going on for a couple of years and is only getting worse; it's the reason the cyberstalking list was started, but despite a lot of talk, there has been no fundamental change. The bottom line is that we have to stop giving people who have engaged in harassment a platform in the name of free speech and AGF.
Sarah
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The hardest problem about this is that in the more severe cases, even effective permanent bans from Wikipedia are irrelevant to the stalking problem. It may start in a conflict on-wiki, but the dangerous stalkers find other venues rapidly which are friendly or neutral and won't ban them, or create their own venues to proliferate their activities.
Once that happens, Wikipedia is merely the activity which interests the stalker, and less the media by which they express their terroristic behavior.
Tracking these people down can be extremely hard. I have a largely Wikipedia-unrelated stalking going on in my real life right now, in which knowing the person's identity already has done no good in us or several law enforcement agencies actually tracking them down and the police being able to arrest them. I spent all morning in court... Grumble.
Even if you know who it is, even if you know where they are, if they haven't crossed the line into clearly criminal conduct then getting law enforcement to stop them may be difficult or impossible. You can try a restraining order in some cases, or suing them, but that's not always useful either.
What should Wikipedia / the WMF do here? There are some things it could do - make more explicit the policy that those who stalk are not welcome at all on any project (sitewide bans). Some en.wp gadflys are friendly with some of the stalkers, and have "taken up their case" because they see it as a power struggle against The Man (the cabal of admins etc), even though the gadflys themselves don't in general stalk. That has become a rather bad problem, but it's a political one.
Perhaps things like having the foundation get restraining orders against serial stalkers, which restrain them from coming back to the site and stalking again on-wiki.
We already provide checkuer info where legally requested, and stalkees should file cases and have attorneys request the info.
But there are limits. Because fundamentally, the really bad stalkers can and do effectively completely detach the stalking from being carried out on-wiki, by creating off-site focus sites, and encouraging gadflys and vandals to keep a buzz going on wiki. If stalker stops editing Wikipedia themselves, what can the foundation do about it directly?
We could theoretically try to take some form of legal offensive action against those people, in the name of defending the community. Sue them over harrassing our community members, etc. That seems like it would be very hard, though, and borders on SLAPP territory (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, in US legal talk). Some people in the community will likely find this approach offensive.
I'd like to see the Board take up the question of a harder policy banning stalkers.
I'd also like to see the Board and Mike consider whether having the Foundation take out restraining orders against participation in the case of serial sockpuppet stalkers is an activity which the Foundation can get into doing.
I'd also also like to see if people get any bright ideas on what to do about the hard cases, either as the Foundation, as the Community, or as individuals. How do we push back and get these things stopped? Is there a way to do so under US laws which is effective?
-george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 3:41 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
You're preaching to the choir here with me Sarah. I fully support that principle being applied, and not ignored. I was just pointing out that there's a policy based reason that allows us to say "You know what, lets quit blathering about this and do something about it", if we can grab our collective balls and do it.
-Dan On Jun 9, 2008, at 4:46 PM, SlimVirgin wrote:
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 3:29 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
I believe on English Wikipedia we have an arbitration finding to that effect (MONGO 1), that says that we should support victims of harassment (which stalking certainly qualifies as).
-Dan
We do have that ruling, but it's consistently ignored, including by ArbCom members. We allow people to use Wikipedia (posts to articles, to talk pages, to AN/I, RfCs, and RfArs) to harass others; and then we allow the harassment to be discussed; and then the discussions are discussed, all of which creates more harassment for the target -- which is often the intent. It's a situation that has been going on for a couple of years and is only getting worse; it's the reason the cyberstalking list was started, but despite a lot of talk, there has been no fundamental change. The bottom line is that we have to stop giving people who have engaged in harassment a platform in the name of free speech and AGF.
Sarah
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I think this is the most realistic analysis of the situation in the thread.
I'm assuming from your statement that you ended up in court, that your stalker at least lives in the same state as you. When you add jurisdictional issues to the mix the problem becomes even worse. Law enforcement people would rather have a clear-cut case that they can take to court for a quick conviction. They don't want to be spending a lot of resources in cases where there is a lack of solid evidence. It's on a par with a law that says that you can't kill a rattlesnake unless it has bitten you.
Sitewide banning is a problem when the alleged stalker's behaviour on the secondary wiki has been exemplary for a considerable time. The regular participants on the secondary site likely know nothing of the dispute until the ban is applied. For them the dispute is starting from square one. They have never expressed their view, or even had an opportunity to express their view when the problem was first heard. When someone from another project begins his pursuit on the secondary project the pursuer becomes identified as the stalker.
You are right in saying that the most effective and serious stalkers are not going to do their worst damage on the site. Often the evidence is nothing more than a claim that threats have been made in a private e-mail or a phone call. I don't doubt that the person making the claim believes that there has been a threat, but not everyone would treat the same words as a threat. We are dealing with a one-sided interpretation of the facts.
I can agree that questions of real illegality need to be dealt with at the Board level, but the risk is that too easily leads to simplistic solutions which can be either ineffectual or overkill.
Ec
George Herbert wrote:
The hardest problem about this is that in the more severe cases, even effective permanent bans from Wikipedia are irrelevant to the stalking problem. It may start in a conflict on-wiki, but the dangerous stalkers find other venues rapidly which are friendly or neutral and won't ban them, or create their own venues to proliferate their activities.
Once that happens, Wikipedia is merely the activity which interests the stalker, and less the media by which they express their terroristic behavior.
Tracking these people down can be extremely hard. I have a largely Wikipedia-unrelated stalking going on in my real life right now, in which knowing the person's identity already has done no good in us or several law enforcement agencies actually tracking them down and the police being able to arrest them. I spent all morning in court... Grumble.
Even if you know who it is, even if you know where they are, if they haven't crossed the line into clearly criminal conduct then getting law enforcement to stop them may be difficult or impossible. You can try a restraining order in some cases, or suing them, but that's not always useful either.
What should Wikipedia / the WMF do here? There are some things it could do - make more explicit the policy that those who stalk are not welcome at all on any project (sitewide bans). Some en.wp gadflys are friendly with some of the stalkers, and have "taken up their case" because they see it as a power struggle against The Man (the cabal of admins etc), even though the gadflys themselves don't in general stalk. That has become a rather bad problem, but it's a political one.
Perhaps things like having the foundation get restraining orders against serial stalkers, which restrain them from coming back to the site and stalking again on-wiki.
We already provide checkuer info where legally requested, and stalkees should file cases and have attorneys request the info.
But there are limits. Because fundamentally, the really bad stalkers can and do effectively completely detach the stalking from being carried out on-wiki, by creating off-site focus sites, and encouraging gadflys and vandals to keep a buzz going on wiki. If stalker stops editing Wikipedia themselves, what can the foundation do about it directly?
We could theoretically try to take some form of legal offensive action against those people, in the name of defending the community. Sue them over harrassing our community members, etc. That seems like it would be very hard, though, and borders on SLAPP territory (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, in US legal talk). Some people in the community will likely find this approach offensive.
I'd like to see the Board take up the question of a harder policy banning stalkers.
I'd also like to see the Board and Mike consider whether having the Foundation take out restraining orders against participation in the case of serial sockpuppet stalkers is an activity which the Foundation can get into doing.
I'd also also like to see if people get any bright ideas on what to do about the hard cases, either as the Foundation, as the Community, or as individuals. How do we push back and get these things stopped? Is there a way to do so under US laws which is effective?
Exactly what I am saying. I never said that any of this wasn't serious, but apparently everybody here but Gerard is pretending stalking doesn't really happen and this is all a video game. =)
On 10/06/2008, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I think this is the most realistic analysis of the situation in the thread.
I'm assuming from your statement that you ended up in court, that your stalker at least lives in the same state as you. When you add jurisdictional issues to the mix the problem becomes even worse. Law enforcement people would rather have a clear-cut case that they can take to court for a quick conviction. They don't want to be spending a lot of resources in cases where there is a lack of solid evidence. It's on a par with a law that says that you can't kill a rattlesnake unless it has bitten you.
Sitewide banning is a problem when the alleged stalker's behaviour on the secondary wiki has been exemplary for a considerable time. The regular participants on the secondary site likely know nothing of the dispute until the ban is applied. For them the dispute is starting from square one. They have never expressed their view, or even had an opportunity to express their view when the problem was first heard. When someone from another project begins his pursuit on the secondary project the pursuer becomes identified as the stalker.
You are right in saying that the most effective and serious stalkers are not going to do their worst damage on the site. Often the evidence is nothing more than a claim that threats have been made in a private e-mail or a phone call. I don't doubt that the person making the claim believes that there has been a threat, but not everyone would treat the same words as a threat. We are dealing with a one-sided interpretation of the facts.
I can agree that questions of real illegality need to be dealt with at the Board level, but the risk is that too easily leads to simplistic solutions which can be either ineffectual or overkill.
Ec
George Herbert wrote:
The hardest problem about this is that in the more severe cases, even effective permanent bans from Wikipedia are irrelevant to the stalking problem. It may start in a conflict on-wiki, but the dangerous stalkers find other venues rapidly which are friendly or neutral and won't ban them, or create their own venues to proliferate their activities.
Once that happens, Wikipedia is merely the activity which interests the stalker, and less the media by which they express their terroristic behavior.
Tracking these people down can be extremely hard. I have a largely Wikipedia-unrelated stalking going on in my real life right now, in which knowing the person's identity already has done no good in us or several law enforcement agencies actually tracking them down and the police being able to arrest them. I spent all morning in court... Grumble.
Even if you know who it is, even if you know where they are, if they haven't crossed the line into clearly criminal conduct then getting law enforcement to stop them may be difficult or impossible. You can try a restraining order in some cases, or suing them, but that's not always useful either.
What should Wikipedia / the WMF do here? There are some things it could do - make more explicit the policy that those who stalk are not welcome at all on any project (sitewide bans). Some en.wp gadflys are friendly with some of the stalkers, and have "taken up their case" because they see it as a power struggle against The Man (the cabal of admins etc), even though the gadflys themselves don't in general stalk. That has become a rather bad problem, but it's a political one.
Perhaps things like having the foundation get restraining orders against serial stalkers, which restrain them from coming back to the site and stalking again on-wiki.
We already provide checkuer info where legally requested, and stalkees should file cases and have attorneys request the info.
But there are limits. Because fundamentally, the really bad stalkers can and do effectively completely detach the stalking from being carried out on-wiki, by creating off-site focus sites, and encouraging gadflys and vandals to keep a buzz going on wiki. If stalker stops editing Wikipedia themselves, what can the foundation do about it directly?
We could theoretically try to take some form of legal offensive action against those people, in the name of defending the community. Sue them over harrassing our community members, etc. That seems like it would be very hard, though, and borders on SLAPP territory (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, in US legal talk). Some people in the community will likely find this approach offensive.
I'd like to see the Board take up the question of a harder policy banning stalkers.
I'd also like to see the Board and Mike consider whether having the Foundation take out restraining orders against participation in the case of serial sockpuppet stalkers is an activity which the Foundation can get into doing.
I'd also also like to see if people get any bright ideas on what to do about the hard cases, either as the Foundation, as the Community, or as individuals. How do we push back and get these things stopped? Is there a way to do so under US laws which is effective?
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On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 5:26 PM, Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com wrote:
When we talk about real out-of-wiki harassment, we should also keep in mind that the experts here are really the police. We should be encouraging victims to reach out to the authorities for help, and not pretend that a community of volunteer editors can really solve these problems.
In some countries, the authority might be a real help. In others, unfortunately their reply may be "you could stop using the Internet not to see those nasty words" & "you could hire a lawyer and complain them". It is a sort of gambit.
The authorities are not always almighty either.
I assume the Foundation already has a policy of assisting the police in such investigations as necessary. -Robert Rohde
On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 12:39 AM, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
Geoffrey Plourde wrote:
Greg;
Thanks for your concerns. I believe that the Foundation should take the step of affirming that they will not stand for stalking of users, not necessaily a huge banhammer. The group of users would be more productive in hunting down and bringing justice to the stalkers.
I'm not sure what exactly you mean with "will not stand for". But as I think Greg implied, it is a problem if the WMF opens up to abuse of any such protection. When people "cry wolf", how do we know if that is a real case of stalking or not? Is there a way? Who is an expert on how to deal with stalking? Can they write down some useful guidelines? Can we teach admins and stewards on this? Or is [[Wikipedia:Harassment]] fine already, with its recommendation that the harassed user should act calmly?
The article [[stalking]] begins with five message boxes requesting neutrality, improvement and input from experts.
-- Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
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On 6/9/08, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
The article [[stalking]] begins with five message boxes requesting neutrality, improvement and input from experts.
Unfortunately most experts on stalking are in fact stalkers. This is can be generalized as a rule of thumb for articles about socially unacceptable behavior.
—C.W.
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