Hi James,
I more or less agree with your comments and suggestions. But one
consideration is the damage that comes from ideas left unchallenged and the
readers of the ideas feel dispirited or alienated that no one spoke up
pointing out the problems/concerns.
That is the reason that take the time to comment on talk pages about ideas
that I both like and don't like.
Warm regards,
Sydney
Sydney Poore
User:FloNight
Wiki Project Med Foundation
WikiWomen's User Group
Facebook
On Sun, Jun 5, 2016 at 4:13 PM, James Alexander <jalexander(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
In general discussing specific cases on public
mailings lists is not
useful at helping the situation (Pax is, of course, feel free to do so if
they feel it would be right). I think if people want to help then thinking
about, and talking about, ways to do so is the best way to tackle the
problem. Those discussions (and possible solutions) can take many forms and
while the inspire campaign right now is a perfect (and tailor made)
opportunity to do so it is in now way the only one.
Some thoughts to help people having difficulty coming up with what to do:
1. Do you think that the social or policy rules that currently exist are
not enough? Then talk about that on the pages and what you think should be
changed (and why) and how to roll that out. Do we need another policy or a
global one? Do we need to rewrite an old one? Should it be a local/global
community policy or a part of the ToU? Something else entirely from the
board?
2. Do you think that the current rules are enough but are not being
enforced properly and/or not ABLE to be enforced properly? Then let's talk
about what could help. Is it other community members ignoring or
misunderstanding the rules? Is it people being able to evade too easily? Is
it that those who enforce the rules get harassed themselves and back off?
Are they just so overwhelmed that they can't keep up? Something else?
What would be good for this? Is it social pressure or support to enforce
the rules already in play? A global arbcom type body? Better blocking
tools? (do we have ideas on better how?) A "reporting" tool that reports to
admins/the community in some fashion with the ability to escalate to the
WMF (either harassment specific or made to deal with other reports as well
such as vandalism or COI)?
These and others have all been brought up to me in conversations by
community members so I know people are thinking about it. We want to get it
down where everyone can think about it. On a personal basis I think it's
likely it's a mix of different things + something we haven't thought about
before but we can only do so much at once obviously.
If someone sees a proposal that you think would cause more harm then good
I would strongly encourage them to consider making other proposals that
they think WOULD help rather then targeting and attacking those who created
other proposals (or even attacking the proposals themselves). Doing so has
a tendency only to help people feel harassed and attacked and moves them to
belittle and ignore your concerns. What we need is more ideas, not more
shit slung over the fence.
In the end I do agree that any idea that harassment is "not real" or not a
major problem right now is, at best, naive and could overall be very
dangerous not only to our users but the projects as a whole. That does not,
of course, mean we know the answer. In fact, we know we don't, it's what
we're (all) trying to figure out.
James Alexander
Manager, Trust & Safety
Sent from my iPhone
On Jun 5, 2016, at 12:31 PM, Pine W
<wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks, Patrick. The community regularly expends considerable volunteer
time and effort to protect the intrgrity of article content and to deal
with block evasion. I think it would be helpful if further efforts could
be
made to increase the efficiency and effectiveness
of tools and processes
for addressing block evasion, including the use of Legal Department
resources as appropriate. Block evasion is a problem that affects many
aspects of Wikimedia, including article integrity and loss of volunteer
time as already mentioned, as well as the harms to harassment victims,
the
stress on the volunteer admins and functionaries,
and negative impact on
community population and health.
Thanks for working on this. Is there anything more that you can do to
assist with Pax's situation in particular?
Pine
> On Jun 5, 2016 11:11, "Patrick Earley" <pearley(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
>
> Pine,
>
> As many of our admins and functionaries are well aware, both the
Wikimedia
> sites, and the internet architecture as a
whole, favour anonymity and
> protection of privacy over the ability to track individuals. When a
user
> is technically proficient in hiding
themselves, platforms and even law
> enforcement can have little luck in determining who or where they are.
> Anonymity has great benefits, but also can allow great abuses.
>
> There are of course "easy" solutions that would involve changes to our
> site accessibility - for instance, requiring secondary identification,
such
> as social media accounts or verified emails.
However, those are
decisions
> that the community as a whole needs to
discuss, and not something I or
my
> department can change unilaterally. That
said, improving Wikimedia's
> blocking tools and detection methods is an area where some progress can
be
> made.
>
> One of the benefits that this Inspire campaign can provide is open
> discussion and consideration of new approaches.
>
> Pax, I am disheartened to see how some of the IdeaLabs are being used to
> belittle this problem, and am working over the weekend to keep at least
the
> worst instances of abuse and hate-speech off
of the pages :(
>
> Best,
>
>> On Sun, Jun 5, 2016 at 9:48 AM, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Pax and Pete,
>>
>> It sounds like part of the issue in this case may be that may we need
>> more effective tools for dealing with troublemakers who are banned but
>> continue to return and cause problems. I'm wondering if Patrick Early
can
>> comment on what efforts WMF is making in
terms of dealing with
persistent
>> block evasion.
>>
>> Pine
>> On Jun 5, 2016 07:13, "Pax Ahimsa Gethen" <
list-wikimedia(a)funcrunch.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I am defining harassment primarily as personal attacks, not merely
>>> disputes (even strongly-worded disagreement) over content.
>>>
>>> Some examples of what I consider harassment:
>>>
>>> - Vandalizing an editor's user or talk page (hence my Inspire
proposal:
>>>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Protect_user_space_by_default
>>>> )
>>>
>>>> - Making
derogatory comments about an editor's gender, sex, race,
>>>> ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, or (dis)ability
>>>
>>>> - Posting
personal information about an editor that was gathered
off-Wiki
>>>
>>>> - Evading
bans with IP-hopping to do any of the above.
>>>
>>>> These actions
not only cause "net harm to community health," they
cause
>>>> unnecessary, avoidable harm to specific individuals, and discourage
>>>> marginalized people from participating in the project.
>>>
>>>> - Pax
>>>
>>>
>>>>> On 6/5/16 5:09 AM, Pine W wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi Pax,
>>>>>
>>>>> I agree that blaming the victim is an unsatisfactory resolution.
>>>>>
>>>>> On the other hand, defining what is meant by "incivility"
and
>>>>> "harassment"
>>>>> can be very tricky. Just because there is a strong disagreement
doesn't
>>>> imply that people are being
uncivil, and we cannot expect that no one
>>>> will
>>>> ever lose his or her temper when provoked. Similarly, a pattern of
>>>> disagreement doesn't necessarily imply harassment, and the
presumption
>>>> of
>>>> good faith is rebuttable which means that questioning the motives of
>>>> others
>>>> is occasionally OK.
>>>>
>>>> So, as Sumana once said, we have a tricky situation with regards to
>>>> balancing free speech with hospitality.
>>>>
>>>> I think there are situations in which behavior is egregious enough
that
>>>> it
>>>> is a net harm to community health and cannot be excused. For example,
>>>> comments that demean someone on the basis of race, gender, age,
>>>> nationality, or religious or political beliefs, are generally out of
>>>> bounds.
>>>>
>>>> I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts about how we should
define
>>>> harassment, and how we should seek to reduce the frequency of it on
>>>> Wikimedia sites.
>>>>
>>>> Thank you for speaking up.
>>>>
>>>> Pine
>>>> On Jun 4, 2016 19:15, "Pax Ahimsa Gethen" <
list-wikimedia(a)funcrunch.org
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi all, I'm Pax aka Funcrunch [1]. I've been a Wikipedian since
2008,
>>>>> but
>>>>> this is my first post to this mailing list. (I've been reading
list
>>>>> messages on the archives page occasionally for the last several
>>>>> months.)
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm writing because of a concern I have about the community's
attitude
>>>>> toward harassment on
Wikipedia. I got a Wikinotice about this
month's
>>>>> Inspire Campaign, which
specifically asks: "What ideas do you have
>>>>> that can
>>>>> help prevent and generally address cases of harassment?" [2] As
a
>>>>> victim of
>>>>> several of the harassing behaviors mentioned as examples - "
name
>>>>> calling,
>>>>> threats, discrimination, stalking, and impersonation" - I was
>>>>> encouraged to
>>>>> see that this problem was (hopefully) being taken seriously by the
>>>>> Foundation, and submitted a proposal.
>>>>>
>>>>> Looking at the other proposals submitted, I soon noticed that the
most
>>>>> popular "ideas" on
the list included complaints of "political
>>>>> correctness"
>>>>> and suggesting we shouldn't be so sensitive [3], and that we
should
>>>>> just
>>>>> get some sleep and exercise and reconsider why we're so offended.
[4]
>>>>> (That
>>>>> first "idea" has since been recategorized by a WMF staffer
to
remove it
>>>>> from the current campaign.)
>>>>>
>>>>> It really bothers me that a campaign specifically designed to combat
>>>>> harassment - which is a very serious and real problem for people of
>>>>> marginalized identities like myself [5]- is being co-opted by people
>>>>> saying
>>>>> things like " Harassment doesn't cause actual damage,"
" The
existence
>>>>> of
>>>>> harassment is an opportunity to improve ourselves further through
>>>>> self-discipline," and " Harassment on Wikimedia has been
exaggerated."
>>>>> I
>>>>> suggest that people who honestly believe this, but are willing to
>>>>> accept
>>>>> that they might be wrong, read a recent essay about online
harassment
>>>>> by
>>>>> Anil Dash: "The Immortal Myths About Online Abuse." [6]
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm not "looking to be offended," and I'm not
trying to "censor"
people
>>>>> who simply disagree with me.
I'm trying to help build an
encyclopedia,
>>>>> without being harassed by
block-evading stalkers hurling hate
speech my
>>>>> way. The existing tools and
policies are *not* sufficient to deal
with
>>>>> this. That's (what I
thought was) the point of this Inspire
campaign,
>>>>> not
>>>>> complaining about censorship and " crybullying."
>>>>>
>>>>> I've posted a much shorter version of this concern on the
Inspire
>>>>> Campaign
>>>>> talk page [7], so feel free to weigh in there instead of here on the
>>>>> list
>>>>> if that's more appropriate. Thank you for reading.
>>>>>
>>>>> - Pax, aka Funcrunch
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> [1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Funcrunch
>>>>> [2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire
>>>>> [3]
>>>>>
>>>>>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Stop_%22Political_Correctnes…
>>>>> !
>>>>> [4]
>>>>>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Don't_feed_the_trolls
>>>>> [5] Queer, trans, and black,
in my case.
>>>>> [6]
>>>>>
>>>>>
https://medium.com/humane-tech/the-immortal-myths-about-online-abuse-a156e3…
>>>>> [7]
>>>>>
>>>>>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:IdeaLab/Inspire/Meta#Blaming_th…
>>>> --
>>>> Pax Ahimsa Gethen | pax(a)funcrunch.org |
http://funcrunch.org
>>>
>>>
>>>>
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Patrick Earley
Senior Community Advocate
Wikimedia Foundation
pearley(a)wikimedia.org
(1) 415 975 1874
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