I had decided to leave Wikipedia. I enjoyed editing articles that i had a strong fondness of. My main goal was to make my favorite subject (Japan and Japanese media) well-sourced and recognized by those who rely on Wikipedia. I have made much progress.

Its just not a healthy environment. I can never truly advance and it has affected me more than some realize. I'm just no longer mentally stable, nor am i wanting to really stay alive at this point. I know Wikipedia only thing can do is block me and send the proper authorities to prevent my inevitable expiration. I'm just done. I don't think people realize how impact this place can be until they fall in the exact same situation.

I emailed her twice after her last edit. I told her that I suffered from the same sort of experiences and that I fully understood what she was going through, but I never received a reply. I'm still in total shock to find out that she's gone. I thought that she was misunderstood by a lot of people, and she didn't get treated with the amount of respect that she should have got. I asked her if she wanted to collaborate with me on something, but the next day she left. I waited too long.

What a sad situation. I wonder how many others the bullies have driven away or worse. That's why I think it's so important to stand up to them, as the people they harass might not be able to take the relentless punishment the sock hunters dish out.

It's always a shame when an editor passes, even ones with rocky histories. I am sure it happens a lot more than we realize though and I would suspect that a number of other editors who suddenly stop editing may have done so due to death. We may never know of course.

A part of me hopes someone gets to the bottom of this, just for closure's sake. Another part of me hopes that, whether she truly died or simply wished to vanish, Ms. Black's privacy is forever maintained.

To: salvidrim@salvidrim.net
Subject: Wikipedia email
From: (redacted)

I assume you are watching her, but this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =699803558

I don't recall the details but aren't things like this required to be reported up the chain?

Hi WMF,

Please see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =699803558

Lucia has been going through a very rough pass, she's always had a bit of a confrontational attitude which rubs people the wrong way, this morning she's been told off by a few editors (me included) and clearly isn't reacting well, now saying she's suicidal.

Thank you for all the help you can provide.
~Ben / Salvidrim

Took a look at this.
Sounds of a very low credibility.

--
Haitham

Hey Ben,

Thank you for letting us know . We will take a look.

Warm regards,

K.

Subject: Re: Suicidal editor
From: (redacted)
To: hshammaa@wikimedia.org
CC: ktsouroupidou@wikimedia.org; salvidrim@salvidrim.net; emergency@wikimedia.org

WMF,

I am not sure whether I should report each and every one of these, but for caution's sake... Lucia has made two more posts on this topic, even directly asking us to follow WP:Suicide:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =699822411



And again here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =699826799


Thanks,

Ferret

FWIW, Philippe (you know who he is, former WMF director) blocked Lucia for a week for disruptive editing: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =699951004

She reverted the block notice already.

~Ben/Salv

Thanks for the update, Ben.


Sometimes this has happened in the past, when editors are talking suicide. There can be real benefit in getting them away from the projects, especially if the projects are the source of their distress.


I'd love to have better resources for people suffering in this way. Right now, I think the best we have is what's linked in the suicide response template: http://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres


Best,


Maggie

FYI, an IP came along and declared Lucia Black deceased:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk ... _to_inform

I’m CC’ing Philippe as well. Just in case any of you would like to follow up on this case.

~ Benoit / Salvidrim

Thank you, Ben, for the update.


Best,


Maggie

Took a look at this.
Sounds of a very low credibility.

--
Haitham

The underlying issue seems to be the topic ban. One appeal was declined here in November 2014. There was another appeal in March 2015, which was also declined. The editor then requested a break in May 2015. The editor returned in December 2015 and made another appeal, which was also declined.

Thanks, Salvidrim, that's invaluable.

How the fuck is this person an emergency contact for suicide threat reports?

While agreeing with what Greg said, I agree with what you've said here as well. While on ArbCom, this sort of thing happened a couple of time. Sometimes it was passed to the WMF to deal with, sometimes individual arbitrators made calls to the appropriate authorities if they were in the right time zone/country. It requires some level of awareness and judgement (and training helps) to make what you always hope will be the right call. It is never an easy thing to deal with.

While agreeing with what Greg said, I agree with what you've said here as well. While on ArbCom, this sort of thing happened a couple of time. Sometimes it was passed to the WMF to deal with, sometimes individual arbitrators made calls to the appropriate authorities if they were in the right time zone/country. It requires some level of awareness and judgement (and training helps) to make what you always hope will be the right call. It is never an easy thing to deal with.

I agree, it would be terrible if they really did die but on the other hand, arguably, it would be equally terrible (though in a different way of course) if they didn't and lied about it.

The obvious advantage of reporting your own death (particularly if you are a banned user), is to avoid your enemies continuing to create "sockpuppet" edits and then attribute them back to you under WP:DUCK to prevent you from every coming back. Your enemies will not waste their time if they think that you are dead.

Haitham Shammaa is not a volunteer, he is a full-time employee of the WMF.
"(...) and in 2014 I shifted my focus to work on understanding and supporting the health of Wikimedia communities."

About me

I joined WMF in 2012 after completing my Ph.D. in precision engineering and briefly working as a researcher in geometric modeling

For how it evolved from volunteers to a push for the WMF to have an emergency contact and people at their end dealing with it, look at the editing history here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... on=history

e.g. this edit in October 2010:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =367373202

That policy mixes apples and oranges. Threats of suicide should be handled differently than threats to others.

And never by people with no training.

You appear to be talking about site bans and indefinite blocks, Kumioko. What is being discussed here is topic bans, which are different. It might be rare as well for those to be lifted, but with those if someone shows they can edit responsibly, and shows they understand why they were topic banned, it is possible to get topic bans lifted. That doesn't appear to have been the case here. On the topic of the thread, I was not familiar with this editor, in what is clearly a very sad case. I'd like to echo what Zoloft said above about candles going out - more tenderness and warmth never goes amiss at such times.

The obvious advantage of reporting your own death (particularly if you are a banned user), is to avoid your enemies continuing to create "sockpuppet" edits and then attribute them back to you under WP:DUCK to prevent you from ever coming back. Your enemies will not waste their time if they think that you are dead.

Took a look at this.
Sounds of a very low credibility.
--
Haitham

WMF's handling of emergencies

User:Salvidrim!, it was brought to my attention that you have indicated that I "pretty much closed the case" of Lucia Black with my final note to you. (Basically, your thread on Wikipediocracy was mailed to me.) This seems to be based on the mistaken belief that we will report back to you what actions we have taken. Our work on emergencies does not include reporting back to our contacts on the outcome of investigations. Our emergency policy does not permit me to disclose how individual reports are handled to you, to any other volunteer, and to most staff (outside of the emergency response team). There are privacy factors at play. But the work that happens on them is begun by, not concluded with, contact with the reporter.

As I noted here in our blog (http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/09/22/wi ... se-system/), we have a reporting system developed in coordination with the FBI. We pass along issues brought to our attention (including suicide and threats against others) to law enforcement according to that protocol. They take the situations from there.

I'm concerned that your misunderstanding of when and how a case is closed may mislead others into failing to report on the mistaken assumption that because they do not know what we do on any one case, we do nothing with them. And this may result in issues not being reported to us...or to law enforcement through us...at all.

Some situations reported to us meet our protocol. Others do not. We report everything that does, with an explicit instruction to err on the side of caution - when in doubt of whether a situation meets the reporting criteria, we report, and the FBI makes the final call. I know of specific cases where this system has led to swift intervention from law enforcement. It would be a shame to lose any avenue of help because of misinformation. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 2:01 pm, Today (UTC−5)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#WMF.27s_handling_of_emergencies

... this is absolutely fucking shocking. How is this person still in a job?

The can of worms this horrific accidentally-cc'ed email has opened is huge. I've asked Maggie Dennis a lot of questions.

The can of worms this horrific accidentally-cc'ed email has opened is huge. I've asked Maggie Dennis a lot of questions.

Hello, User:Scott. While he is our newest emergency responder, Haitham has proven a valuable part of the team. I have all confidence in his ability to assess posts against the criteria. He is not a suicide hotline responder; none of us are. I want to be very clear here that we do not provide mental health support to people experiencing mental health crises. We have no training for this. In fact, our policy is that if a suicidal contributor reaches out directly to one of us, the person who receives that report escalates it to emergency for handling by others on the emergency response team just as community does public posts. While we have been looking into the possibility of expanding resources to offer people who are undergoing mental health crises (I spoke to HR recently about whether we could put together material for people), that is not part of our current role. Instead, the law enforcement personnel we contact deploy local, properly trained assistance.

All Support & Safety staff- and only Support & Safety staff- work on emergencies; a few others on staff (including legal representatives) receive reports and may be called upon to assist as necessary and as permitted by the Privacy Policy in follow-ups from law enforcement. Emergency staff are trained in the protocols that we developed with the FBI, including a period of one-on-one observation without action, where they are partnered with an existing staff person. Our process requires multiple team members to look at every threat for the specific reporting criteria. We have been advised against publishing this protocol to avoid its being misused (sadly, people do misuse any access paths to law enforcement), but as I have previously noted one of those factors is specificity. For example, a statement that "I am going to kill myself" meets reporting criteria for credibility on the specificity factor. A claim "I feel suicidal" does not, by itself. Other factors weigh in, and these factors are evaluated as part of the process. It is part of our job to share our thoughts on how the diff we are given fits into criteria. In this case, the conversation was begun accidentally on the email out. The evaluation does not end with reviewing that diff. It is the first point.

On average, we deal with one report every three days (in practice, for some reason they come in clusters). --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 20:57, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

I generally like Maggie but I have to say I am not really impressed with that statement.

She appears to be clumsily attempting to differentiate between a credible threat of suicide and mere suicidal ideation. She's correct that the distinction is important, and it helps determine what action WMF should take when this kind of situation arises, which is apparently as often as ten times per month. Wow!

What is even more concerning about that is that all the research shows that people who say "I am going to kill myself" on any sort of social media are actually less likely to do so (unless they are very specific about it) than those who are voicing severe depression issues which may include suicide. Indeed, the former are far more likely to be purely attention-seeking (although obviously not in all cases). I find it unbelievable that the WMF is so behind with this.

The "low credibility" comment is a personal opinion, made internally. FWIW, I also think it is low credibility. The bottom line is that it changed nothing at all - the proper procedures were followed.

But this is the point. This wasn't a random IP editor threatening to commit suicide, it was a fairly long standing editor who it was pretty clear had serious issues interacting with other people. Have a look at this diff, and there are many, many more like this. I'd wager my house on the fact that he didn't even look at anything other than the comment itself.

I am not sure what your point is. I claimed above that it changed nothing at all. Suppose he had not made the comment. Tell me what would have changed in the emails provided by Salvidrim.