[Foundation-l] FW: [Wikimediameta-l] Wikimedia and cyberstalking

[George Herbert]

On 9/4/07, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
> > I'm writing a paper on cyberstalking and harassment, which I hope to
> > hand to the Foundation with a view to educating people about the
> > extent of the problem on the Wikimedia projects, and if possible
> > improving their responses to it.
> >
> > I'd like to include some concrete examples of cyberstalking or offline
> > stalking that have happened to users as a result of their
> > participation in any of the Wikimedia projects, and particularly where
> > the target was picked on because they were an administrator.
> >
> > [...]
> > I'd also like to hear from women who feel they were subjected to
> > additional harassment because of their sex, or from gays and members
> > of ethnic minorities who feel they were picked on in whole or in part
> > because of that.
> >
>
> With all due respect this seems somewhat backwards. A useful
> sociological study would be: To what extent is "cyberstalking" and
> harrassment a problem on Wikimedia Foundation projects, and if it is a
> significant problem, what character does it take? This proposal puts the
> cart behind the horse, opining, despite admittedly not having "concrete
> examples", that it is a serious problem that the Foundation is not
> responding to appropriately, and then trolling for anecdotes. That
> strikes me as more like a class-action-lawyer's method of operating than
> a valid methodology for sociology research, and I can already guess what
> the results of a study carried out in that fashion are going to be,
> since the proposed study outlines pretty openly what it plans to find.
>
> -Mark

It's false to gather some ancedotes and then use that to try and
statistically demonstrate a problem.  But if the ancedotal incidents
have not been well understood or discussed in the community, they can
help characterize the problem (if not its extent, which requires
working in from the other side with population statistics).


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com