[Foundation-l] Release of squid log data

[George Herbert]

On 9/20/07, Matthew Britton <matthew.britton at btinternet.com> wrote:
> SlimVirgin wrote:
> > On 9/20/07, Matthew Britton <matthew.britton at btinternet.com> wrote:
> >> Brian McNeil wrote:
> >>> Stalkers are not a nice thing to deal with and I think you're underplaying
> >>> the seriousness of the issue. They may be no serious risk of physical threat
> >>> and thus your comments about bodyguards are appropriate. However, you're not
> >>> taking into account what it is like when you get death threats by email and
> >>> snail-mail.
> >>>
> >>> About 6 years ago I had to deal with the divorce of my current partner when
> >>> she left her husband after he assaulted her. I was made aware through a
> >>> third party that he had obtained a shotgun and was looking for me. In the
> >>> end - thanks to me employing good legal representation and hiding my
> >>> location - he decided to turn the aforementioned weapon on himself.
> >>>
> >>> Don't joke about stalking, it happens.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Brian.
> >> Yes, stalking happens. It happens in situations such as that which you
> >> describe; this is certainly a problem and such incidents should
> >> certainly be taken seriously.
> >>
> >> But it doesn't happen because someone was banned from a website.
> >
> > I don't have time to respond in full to this, but I'm afraid it very
> > much does happen because people are blocked or banned, and some of it
> > has been quite serious. Nothing rising to the level of being pursued
> > with a weapon, but very upsetting threats of violence to family
> > members, and attempts to destroy people's careers and reputations.
> >
> > Sarah
>
> There is stalking, and then there is trolling with intent to cause the
> maximum amount of fuss and emotional distress.
>
> "I'm going to kill your family" is, in terms of emotional distress per
> word, about as efficient as you can get. It is therefore hardly
> surprising that it is a common trolling tactic.
>
> One or two unfortunate cases aside (which I cannot help but feel were
> not entirely unprovoked) it is this latter issue, not stalking per se,
> which Wikipedia is experiencing.
>
> Furthermore, the issue isn't limited to administrators -- it's perfectly
> possible to make enemies on-line without having any such extra abilities
> (though one could argue it helps) -- so discussion of the problem as
> though it is a phenomenon unique to administrators, as has been
> happening in this thread, is hardly useful.
>
> -Gurch

While I agree that 90-something % of "death threats" and the like
online amount to extreme cases of trolling (people who have no
real-world intent or practical mindset / opportunity to actually
commit violence against the threatened target), there is a small
fringe of actual legitimate threats of violence, and some are followed
through on.

Enough of them are real credible threats that it's not unreasonable to
treat them, categorically, as a legitimate risk.

A focusing phenomena has been noticed where more of both trolling and
legitimate threats are made to people percieved to be in positions of
authority - newsgroup moderators, AOL forum moderators, ISP staff, and
probably Wikipedia administrators.

That said, I don't agree with going into a bunker mentality about
this.  If you go into hiding afterwards, the bad guy / troll won.


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