[Foundation-l] Stalking Article

Tue Jun 10 22:56:15 UTC 2008

Hoi,
Lars you are absolutely right when you state that the WMF has limited
resources. It is exactly for this reason that I have repeatedly asked if and
to what extend the WMF is able and willing to play a part. Not asking this
question, not allowing for a reasonable period of time for any type of
response is in my opinion counter productive as in my opinion some of the
best responses of verified cases of stalking will involve speaking for the
WMF or a chapter when talking to authorities.

When I say "verified" cases, I mean a group of people that can be trusted
with these type of issues who have been learned sufficient to acknowledge
the seriousness of a particular case. In order to be trusted, some
qualifications need to be met. Being able to keep confidences is one. Having
experience with such issues either by schooling or experience is an
important factor.

I agree with you that we have to get a set of best practices. Given how
stalking is currently dealt with, there are no best practices yet. And I am
not sure that we have strategy that is even near to optimal. I think we have
to struggle with the issues as they occur and we need to learn from wherever
we can. I would not be surprised if some of the measures that have the most
effect are counter intuitive.. This is exactly why we need expert help to
get our best practices.
Thanks,
    GerardM

YES we need to be really analytical, we need to observe well, and we need to
learn from experience.. we need to learn this as a community, not only as
individuals. All this is really hard to do

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 12:21 AM, Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:

> Brian McNeil wrote:
>
> > Most of the people commenting on this issue have not experienced
> > anything like this, or are significantly more stress-resistant
> > than myself. The same is most definitely not true for all
> > people. Call us "delicate" if you like,
>
> First, I'm not calling you delicate.
>
> However, this is a situation where, if all I say is "poor you" and
> *hug*, then I will be viewed as sympathetic, but if I start to
> analyze the problem and ask questions, then I will be perceived as
> cold-hearted and doubting your personal story and whatever.
> Trying to *solve* a problem like this is very unrewarding.  It's a
> lot easier to utter empty phrases.  So, are we here to utter empty
> phrases, or are we here to seek a solution to the problem?
>
> When it is said that the Foundation has to act, this implies that
> no-one else can act, and absolutely nothing else can be done
> against the problem.  I refuse to believe that this is true.  A
> troll who just wants to stall the finding of a solution could in
> fact say exactly that. In everything we do, the Foundation is
> going to be a bottleneck with limited resources.  Every salaried
> hour, we need to cover with more donations.  It doesn't scale.
>
> > So, I'm all for some measures to size up and deal with on-wiki
> > harassment and stalking. I don't know what is needed,
>
> So apparently we need to get some idea of what can be done, not
> only centrally by the Foundation but by the local community, such
> as the language community or national chapter.  There has to be
> some "expert" or current best practices on how to deal with
> stalking (not just an expert on how to stalk) out there, that we
> can verify through sources.
>
> In addition to dealing with stalking, we also need a way to
> determine what is stalking and what is a false alarm or trolling.
> This is not because Brian's or David Shankbone's stories are
> false, but because false stories could have sounded exactly the
> same.  How do we tell the difference? The anonymity culture of
> Wikipedia means a completely anonymous username can claim to have
> been stalked and still refuse to reveal their identity to anybody.
> I just don't know how such a case can be handled.
>
>
>
> --
>   Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
>  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
>
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