Hello all,

What's everyone's thoughts of filtering email to a repository if the email contains certain words? This could be using tools currently being honed with the Detox project: https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Detox/Resources

This way, they could be viewed or not viewed by the recipient, or the recipient could choose to have the emails caught by the filter to be directly deleted. Yes, people could set up their own filters on their email accounts, but then that puts responsibility on the victims, and arguably wouldn't be as comprehensive as the Detox tools. 

I would say users having this "tool" in use might want to have a message on their user page saying they are using such tool to filter potentially harmful communication. This is because these tools are imperfect and innocent communication might be caught inadvertently by the filter and never reach the recipient. I would hate for this to stifle true collaboration and communication efforts, so hopefully this note on the user page (of course at the user's choice), would help to mitigate potential upset from an unanswered communication. 

The trouble I would find in using such tools would perhaps affect the most visible and most in-need of the tool of the community, and due to their role, might not be able to use said tools. I'm thinking of administrators and others who might receive communication with inappropriate language not directed at them, but as an example when users are asking for help with situations.

--
Jackiekoerner

On Feb 12, 2017, at 1:25 PM, Risker <risker.wp@gmail.com> wrote:

I am extremely, extremely uncomfortable with email moderation. I cannot emphasize this enough.  Frankly, I'd rather the NSA be reading my mail than my fellow Wikimedians - they have no actual interest in anything that I'm writing. If moderation became standard, I'd shut off "email this user". It would be a cure far worse than the disease.

It would also be unacceptable for the role accounts that are standard on many projects - on English, we have special role accounts that link directly to the Oversight mailing list, Arbcom, and a few other places. Not only are they moderated by the list owners themselves already, but the contents are usually far more confidential than would be appropriate for a moderator without the same level of access as the list itself.

I do like the idea of being able to block emails from certain accounts or to only accept them from certain accounts. 


Risker/Anne


On 12 February 2017 at 08:04, Jonathan Cardy <werespielchequers@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks Ryan and Chris,  I've endorsed the Bethnaught proposal which covers all of this idea except the email filter bits. I think the privacy issues of a moderated email stream can be resolved by OTRS style checking of the moderators. As for the staffing issues I'm optimistic that there are plenty of people willing to help this sort of issue if we can identify a role for them. If it does prove difficult to staff we could always make it a service we limit to people who have had problems and asked for help as opposed to an option in their email preferences.

On 9 February 2017 at 22:36, Ryan Kaldari <rkaldari@wikimedia.org> wrote:
On Thu, Feb 9, 2017 at 3:44 PM, WereSpielChequers <werespielchequers@gmail.com> wrote:
...

The first would be to allow editors to set their email to only receive from confirmed or even extended confirmed accounts. This would be invisible to new editors, they'd just not see the email this user option for people they weren't entitled to email.

This is a great idea. I wish I had this now.
 
The second would be an opt in Email moderation service. Similarly to only receiving email from confirmed or extended confirmed accounts, this would enable editors to opt all or parts of their email via the "email this user" function into a moderated stream. Much as with moderated posts to lists like this, a list admin would see the email and either approve it or take other action. You'd presumably need to having something on the send email screen to say that "this editor has opted into email moderation and your email will be delayed slightly before being screened and forwarded" You'd also need a group of volunteers to do the moderation, spot abusive emails and block abusers.

Also a good idea, but I doubt it would be scalable. We have a hard enough time finding volunteers to moderate this mailing list, much less, hundreds of people's incoming email streams. Plus there would be serious privacy issues to worry about.
 
The third would be an AI driven filter that people could opt into and which would screen emails going through this system and put high risk ones into a moderation queue.

This might be a more workable implementation of the previous idea.

Another idea I've heard would be to let people use email aliases similar to Craigslist. That way you could respond to wiki-related emails without giving away your actual email address.


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