[WikiEN-l] Proposal: Harassment victim support fund

[Phil Sandifer]

On Oct 17, 2007, at 5:24 PM, William Pietri wrote:

>     * Legal or investigative support to someone pursuing criminal
>       charges against a harasser.

This has never happened, nor, to my knowledge, come close to happening.

>     * Legal or investigative support to someone pursuing a civil suit
>       against a harasser, especially when seeking a protective order.

See above.

>     * Public relations assistance for the target of a high-profile
>       harassment campaign.

Issues arise here - most notably how, if at all, to coordinate that  
PR assistance with the Foundation. This may be something better  
subsumed into the Foundation.

> * Compensation for cash costs of dealing with harassment, like
>       changing phone numbers or moving.

Possible - again, I'm unaware of cases of things getting anywhere  
near this far.

>     * Legal support to someone frivolously sued for legitimate and
>       beneficial on-Wikipedia activity.

It has always been my assumption (though an untested one) that the  
Foundation would step in on this level.

We also have to watch out, though - for fuckheads like ED and even  
Bagley we're, honestly, well-equipped to handle them as-is because  
they're so self-obviously stupid. But we have to remember, we are the  
800 lb gorilla in most conflicts with people. We are huge. We are a  
huge fucking website staffed by people who do not know how to run the  
ninth biggest website on Teh Intarwebs. We are bigger than Blogger,  
bigger than eBay, and bigger than Amazon. We have no clue how to deal  
with that. And I count myself in that we - I have no fucking clue why  
I am a powerful and trusted administrator on the ninth biggest  
website in the world.

The point here being that we have a lot to lose by making a fund such  
as this. We can be a somewhat... doggedly insular group. Any such  
fund or body needs clear measures in place to make sure that it does  
not become a tool for smacking down people who are legitimately  
wronged and are simply choosing ineffectual or overly hostile ways of  
airing their grievances.

-Phil