[WikiEN-l] The Sooper-Seekrit "harassment" list

[Daniel R. Tobias]

Geez... it took me a while to get through all the messages posted 
here in the last two days, and none of them were even posted by 
myself (though my name came up once or twice).

OK... let's see what's going on with regard to the secret... oops, I 
mean private (really, the only difference between "secrecy" and 
"privacy" is that "privacy" spins better when you're trying to 
support or endorse it) mailing list to discuss "harassment".

People on that list, or alleged to be on it, are becoming the subject 
of vague calumnies from others who intimate that all sorts of 
sinister things are getting plotted there for the purpose of causing 
trouble for others outside the list.  Presenting actual evidence for 
the purpose of either supporting or refuting such claims runs into 
difficulties due to aggressive enforcement of rules that get in the 
way of it, so the discussion mostly takes the form of wild 
speculation on the part of the accusers and defensiveness on the part 
of the targets.  Some claim that the list is doing actively malicious 
things; others who don't go so far still say that being on that list 
is likely to cause one to be enmeshed and reinforced in a cluster of 
memes, kept alive and magnified through the sounding board of a group 
of like-minded people, which will tend to bring about a bad attitude 
that is perhaps incompatible with being a good, non-drama-stirring 
member of the Wikipedia community.

Sound familiar?  How does it feel to have the shoe on the other foot 
for a change?

-- 
== Dan ==
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