[Foundation-l] Sexual harassment in Wikipedia

[Ray Saintonge]

Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>  
>
>>Titoxd at Wikimedia wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>I'm not entirely sure that a random user of an online site qualifies as an
>>>employee of any site, so I don't think that *workplace* sexual harassment
>>>laws have anything to do with this case. After all the commotion lately with
>>>MySpace, it seems quite real that these situations do have some sort of
>>>legal backing under some sort of sexual harassment statute, although IANAL.
>>>In many of these cases, it is just safer to report the case, and if the
>>>police asks for anything, just provide them access to the Apache and Recent
>>>Changes logs.
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>Providing this data should only be done in response to a court order.  
>>Mere police investigation is not enough.  There are many more situations 
>>where a person has legitimate reasons for remaining anonymous.  This 
>>might seem like very obvious circumstances for providing information, 
>>but there are other activities where we diverge significantly about the 
>>legality of the activity, and it is not our place to start making 
>>judgements about legality.  Civil rights and free speech are important, 
>>and if it means having to tolerate occasional idiotic speech that's a 
>>very small price to pay.
>>    
>>
>In some cases I would agree, but when there is a clear threat of 
>physical violence (rape), that's a simple boundary line for me.
>
There's a difference too between sexual harassment and threats of 
violence.  Telling a female Wikipedian, "A bitch like you belongs in the 
kitchen, not on ArbCom," may be fairly interpreted as sexual harassment, 
but it does not carry a threat of violence.  We can deal with that idiot 
through our own internal processes.  Credible threats of violence do 
raise the issue to a higher level.  We were certainly right to act when 
the kid in Connecticut was threatening suicide.

At the other end of the scale Canadian courts have consistently refused 
to force the release of such information when the recording industry was 
saying that they needed to know who was sharing music files.  We can 
delete what we suspect to be copyvios, but it would be over-the-top to 
tell the copyright owner about it every time it happened unless he had 
demanded that action in the first place

>Two examples: (1) a vandal posts "Principal Skinner is a poopy head", we 
>do not notify the school or authorities, because it is just a stupid 
>childish comment and who cares.  (2) a vandal posts a physical threat of 
>violence against Principal Skinner... we forward it to the school and/or 
>appropriate authorities, and cough up the ip address if we have it and 
>there is a police request.
>
In this example we also want to make sure we aren't sending them on a 
fool's errand in an imaginary Springfield. ;-)

>Is the second also just a stupid childish comment?  Yes, in many cases, 
>but I am personally not comfortable making that judgment.  Tolerating 
>the occassional idiotic speech really is a small price to pay, as you 
>say.  Tolerating threats of violence is just a bad idea.
>
Essentially I agree. It all comes down to mature judgement, and who is 
capable of exercising it.  We have a lot of people who can too easily 
jump to conclusions.

Ec