[Foundation-l] Stalking Article

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
Stalking and anonymous editing are two completely different subjects.
Stalking is the subject of this threat. When you argue that true anonymity
does not exist, it is a two way street. It is also the stalker who is not
anonymous, it is exactly the stalker who is to be researched for his IP
address and his personal details.

Anonymity is not at issue here. What is at issue is how we deal with people
that stalk and the people that are stalked. As has been stated time and
again, stalking is a continuum with people going to prison and dying on one
extreme and scrutiny of edits by people on the other.

What I am looking for is a protocol for the legally actionable stalking. In
this protocol we describe a way of helping stalking victims in their dealing
with the police, how to find help.. The aim is to protect and prevent harm
to the victims, the community and its projects.
Thanks,
     GerardM

On Sat, Jun 14, 2008 at 1:48 PM, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:

> >> > The main good reason to edit anonynously is because
> >> Wikipedia is an open wiki and is incapable of
> >> > preventing harrasment or any less seious sort of
> >> contact.
> >>
> >> That seems to me more like a reason not to edit at all.
> >
> > I don't see why.
> >
> Well, mainly because the popular Wikipedias don't have any remotely
> reasonable mechanism to allow anonymous edits.  Tor is banned from
> en.Wikipedia, so in order to edit anonymously you have to create a new
> account for each edit, and where's the fun in that?  Maybe Tor is
> allowed on the Wikipedia you edit?  I realize this is foundation-l, so
> I'm trying not to assume too much about which project you're referring
> to.
>
> I guess I should clarify that I don't think the fact that Wikipedia
> cannot prevent harassment is enough of a reason to not edit at all
> *for everyone*; only for those who find themselves unable to edit
> without hiding themselves from the other editors.  And I'm not really
> sure if you fall into that or not.  You say you "have no problem
> owning up to my pseudononymous edits", so 1) it sounds like you are
> willing to reveal your identity to other editors; and 2) you're not
> editing *anonymously* in any case, you're editing *pseudonymously*.
>
> This goes back to one of my earlier statements, which is that
> pseudonymity is incredibly difficult to maintain.  All it takes is one
> motivated person to decide to reveal your identity, and suddenly your
> pseudonymity is broadcast on so called "attack sites".  And there
> doesn't seem to be any way to eliminate the possibility that someone
> is going to be motivated like this.  So what do you do, scrutinize
> every edit to make sure that you're not revealing anything about
> yourself?  Never use IRC or skype or Yahoo email, lest you reveal your
> IP address?  Use Tor for every edit in case you accidentally get
> logged out or follow a link to an unfriendly outing site?  Where's the
> fun in that?  What's the purpose?  To make sure some African kid is
> well educated when he starves to death?
>
> I hope you don't mind that I'm putting this back on the list.  I don't
> think you've said anything confidential so I think this is OK.
>
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