[Foundation-l] Stalking, an attempt to clarify.

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 11:41 AM, John Barberio <barberio at lineone.net> wrote:
[snip]
> It's hugely important to understand that the Wikimedia foundation has
> no ability to take matters into it's own hands to deal with real life
> threats. They have no policing powers. At best, they could back people
> up when reporting things to the police or making a case for a
> restraining order. Wikimedia can neither force the police to take
> something seriously, or act as vigilantes and go after the stalkers
> themselves.
[snip]

Thank you.

[snip]
> Setting up "Anti-
> Stalking Task Forces" and private mailing lists is not only useless,
> it's counter productive.

Again, Thank you.

> Effort should be directed at helping people
> with support in contacting the police or getting a court order.

...and perhaps advising users how to avoid becoming a target:  There
are plenty of active and involved users busily doing both content and
administrative work who manage to touch controversy without becoming
embroiled in it.

An admission that we can each do things to avoid these problems *DOES
NOT* mean that the victim is at fault any more than advice against
walking through the bad part of town at night is a claim that mugging
victims are at fault.  .... but at least I feel that if I point out
ways users can avoid these problems the current culture here would
torch me as a victim blamer.  We need to get over that.  It's time for
Wikipedians to get street smart.