[Foundation-l] Stalking Article

[Mark Williamson]

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 at 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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