Harassment and blaming the victim

[Poetlister]

An interesting thread:

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."

It would be interesting to know exactly what this editor's personal experiences are.

[LynnWysong]

First think they could do is yank the pathological BRD essay. As I have been complaining about in the Buttinsky section, plain old rude behavior is not just tolerated on WP, it is sanctioned. What kind of crazy advice is it to tell people to be bold, but it's okay if someone just summarily reverts you? What WP needs is some plain old fashioned good manners. But when bad manners are encouraged, it's only one more small step to outright harassment.

[Jbhunley]

First think they could do is yank the pathological BRD essay. As I have been complaining about in the Buttinsky section, plain old rude behavior is not just tolerated on WP, it is sanctioned. What kind of crazy advice is it to tell people to be bold, but it's okay if someone just summarily reverts you? What WP needs is some plain old fashioned good manners. But when bad manners are encouraged, it's only one more small step to outright harassment.

How else would you suggest an article evolve within the constraints of "anyone can edit? Good manners only work if a large majority of a given community agree on what "good manners" are in the first place.

--Jbh

[LynnWysong]

First think they could do is yank the pathological BRD essay. As I have been complaining about in the Buttinsky section, plain old rude behavior is not just tolerated on WP, it is sanctioned. What kind of crazy advice is it to tell people to be bold, but it's okay if someone just summarily reverts you? What WP needs is some plain old fashioned good manners. But when bad manners are encouraged, it's only one more small step to outright harassment.

How else would you suggest an article evolve within the constraints of "anyone can edit? Good manners only work if a large majority of a given community agree on what "good manners" are in the first place.

--Jbh

They certainly don't evolve when BRD gives article owners an excuse to obstruct editing and insist that all changes be made on a talk page where they can then filibuster and take the discussion in circles until the new editor gives up. A "no reversion" policy for good faith edits with problems until the editor has had a chance to fix the problem should be the norm.

[Earthy Astringent]

An interesting thread:

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."

It would be interesting to know exactly what this editor's personal experiences are.

Not to throw the baby out with the bath water, but those numbered "points" [1] e.g. used made little sense to me.

The one thing that struck home to me was the contribution stalking, which all of us here are well to familiar with. I've used at least 100 accounts over the years. Not to sock on a particular subject, but to minimize my paper trail. About 1/4 of those accounts were created because of contrib stalking.

On one newish account the "owner" of the article takes umbrage at me removing a BLP attack and seeing a new account templates me and tells me why I'm wrong. I break down the text they used, point by point, examine what the sources say, and show them why I think they are wrong. I had no doubt in my mind it was created as an attack page. Unable to get his way, he begins stalking. I got blocked for telling one to "fuck off" (suspecting I would get blocked) then watched the little prick stalk my edit history, trying to convince an admin to indeff me. After the block was up I sent one of his articles to AfD and he shat a brick. Petty of me, but it was deleted so

But this kind of thing happens to new editors all the time. Not very sporting to pick on a novice, is it?

Has there ever been a thread on contribution stalkers? Similar to admins that edit once a year to keep the bit?

[Jbhunley]

First think they could do is yank the pathological BRD essay. As I have been complaining about in the Buttinsky section, plain old rude behavior is not just tolerated on WP, it is sanctioned. What kind of crazy advice is it to tell people to be bold, but it's okay if someone just summarily reverts you? What WP needs is some plain old fashioned good manners. But when bad manners are encouraged, it's only one more small step to outright harassment.

How else would you suggest an article evolve within the constraints of "anyone can edit? Good manners only work if a large majority of a given community agree on what "good manners" are in the first place.

--Jbh

They certainly don't evolve when BRD gives article owners an excuse to obstruct editing and insist that all changes be made on a talk page where they can then filibuster and take the discussion in circles until the new editor gives up. A "no reversion" policy for good faith edits with problems until the editor has had a chance to fix the problem should be the norm.

Who says the editor (or even another editor) *can* fix the problem and why should the article be in a possibly inaccurate or non-policy compliant state just because an edit was "good faith". BRD can, and is, misused but as long as Wikipedia is pushing "anyone can edit" it is necessary to lower the 'press the edit button bar' by saying it is OK to BOLDly make a change. But in order to keep wrong/contentious/non-policy ie copyvio/BLP/etc edits out of articles which may be viewed by several people a minute it is also necessary to keep the 'get the questionable stuff out' bar low as well. The discuss part is the 'avoid edit wars' part to try to give some stability to articles - Wikipedia (nominally) is a reference work so it is bad if readers see different versions of articles from minute to minute.

Your "no reversion" assumes all "good faith" edits are not simply wrong, not violating some policy, not pushing some weird POV, not someone putting a "lies to children" explanation in place of a proper explanation or any one of many other possible ways even a "good faith" edit can screw up an article and give readers crappy information. It would work if the world were nice and no idiots/POV pushers/ignorant people ever tried to make a change to an article but that is not the case.

Wikipedia does not exist to serve editors - it just needs to keep some critical mass not disgusted and pissed off for long enough to get work out of them - it exists to serve readers.

Add: I do not disagree with you that BRD has, in many places, become weaponized. That is likely why it has remained an essay. I just disagree that there is any other change method that keeps 'anyone can edit' and the Wikipedia free ethos (good or bad) intact while preventing bad information and edit wars minimized.

--Jbh

[thekohser]

It would be interesting to know exactly what this editor's personal experiences are.

They say that they are "Queer, trans, and black". So, right there, you get a sense that they are extraordinarily rare not just in world demographics, but especially in Wikipedia demographics. Or, they're lying about who they are.

[Kingsindian]

I am not sure what that thread is about. Seems mostly like noise. Will it lead anywhere or is it just a place for people to vent? I would say the latter, at least for now.

[ats]

Meh, the whole problem is Wikipedia's asinine policy of anonymous but no not really anonymous. Like 99% of the problems on wikipedia would go away with the following:

- All contributions in article and article talk space are anonymous. Each user is randomly assigned a different random name for each Article/Talk page pair.
- All IP edits in article space are blocked. IPs editing an article with automatically generate an edit request. IPs can edit normally on the talk pages of article space.
- All accounts require a non-anonymous email address (aka no yahoo/google/hotmail/etc throw away email accounts. Only hard homed access based email addresses need apply).

Until those three things are done, anyone saying they give a shit about anything like harassment on wikipedia/WMF are frauds.

[Randy from Boise]

Meh, the whole problem is Wikipedia's asinine policy of anonymous but no not really anonymous. Like 99% of the problems on wikipedia would go away with the following:

- All contributions in article and article talk space are anonymous. Each user is randomly assigned a different random name for each Article/Talk page pair.
- All IP edits in article space are blocked. IPs editing an article with automatically generate an edit request. IPs can edit normally on the talk pages of article space.
- All accounts require a non-anonymous email address (aka no yahoo/google/hotmail/etc throw away email accounts. Only hard homed access based email addresses need apply).

Until those three things are done, anyone saying they give a shit about anything like harassment on wikipedia/WMF are frauds.

Basically you are calling for One Person/One Account + Sign In To Edit with the actual editing history anonymized.

The problem is that when a vandal or other bad actor is located, one needs to run through their edit history to locate other bad actions. Anonymization of edit history would prevent this. Just getting One Person/One Account + Sign In To Edit verges on the politically impossible at WP; that additional factor makes the probability exponentially less likely.

RfB

[Poetlister]

What kind of crazy advice is it to tell people to be bold, but it's okay if someone just summarily reverts you? What WP needs is some plain old fashioned good manners. But when bad manners are encouraged, it's only one more small step to outright harassment.

Being bold might well appear to others to be rude, for example making a major alteration without prior discussion and maybe going against a painfully hammered out consensus. Reverting a bold edit can also be regarded as making a bold edit. The whole concept of bold editing is not conducive to orderly co-operation, insofar as it exists on Wikipedia.

[Kumioko]

What kind of crazy advice is it to tell people to be bold, but it's okay if someone just summarily reverts you? What WP needs is some plain old fashioned good manners. But when bad manners are encouraged, it's only one more small step to outright harassment.

Being bold might well appear to others to be rude, for example making a major alteration without prior discussion and maybe going against a painfully hammered out consensus. Reverting a bold edit can also be regarded as making a bold edit. The whole concept of bold editing is not conducive to orderly co-operation, insofar as it exists on Wikipedia.

Be bold really only applies if you are an admin who can threaten to block anyone who reverts your edits or if you are one of the Unblockables who is allowed to do anything because they are under protection of one or more admins, a couple examples of problematic but protected editors include Beyond My Ken (T-C-L) or Binksternet (T-C-L).

[ats]

Meh, the whole problem is Wikipedia's asinine policy of anonymous but no not really anonymous. Like 99% of the problems on wikipedia would go away with the following:

- All contributions in article and article talk space are anonymous. Each user is randomly assigned a different random name for each Article/Talk page pair.
- All IP edits in article space are blocked. IPs editing an article with automatically generate an edit request. IPs can edit normally on the talk pages of article space.
- All accounts require a non-anonymous email address (aka no yahoo/google/hotmail/etc throw away email accounts. Only hard homed access based email addresses need apply).

Until those three things are done, anyone saying they give a shit about anything like harassment on wikipedia/WMF are frauds.

Basically you are calling for One Person/One Account + Sign In To Edit with the actual editing history anonymized.

The problem is that when a vandal or other bad actor is located, one needs to run through their edit history to locate other bad actions. Anonymization of edit history would prevent this. Just getting One Person/One Account + Sign In To Edit verges on the politically impossible at WP; that additional factor makes the probability exponentially less likely.

RfB

Piercing the veil will of course be available to upper level admins. Normal admins would deal with direct action to anonymized accounts and flag anons for further review. The main point is to anonymize users to both the rank and file editors and admins.

Without these changes though anyone trying to do anything wrt puppets or harassment on wikipedia is just trying to tread water.

[Randy from Boise]

Meh, the whole problem is Wikipedia's asinine policy of anonymous but no not really anonymous. Like 99% of the problems on wikipedia would go away with the following:

- All contributions in article and article talk space are anonymous. Each user is randomly assigned a different random name for each Article/Talk page pair.
- All IP edits in article space are blocked. IPs editing an article with automatically generate an edit request. IPs can edit normally on the talk pages of article space.
- All accounts require a non-anonymous email address (aka no yahoo/google/hotmail/etc throw away email accounts. Only hard homed access based email addresses need apply).

Until those three things are done, anyone saying they give a shit about anything like harassment on wikipedia/WMF are frauds.

Basically you are calling for One Person/One Account + Sign In To Edit with the actual editing history anonymized.

The problem is that when a vandal or other bad actor is located, one needs to run through their edit history to locate other bad actions. Anonymization of edit history would prevent this. Just getting One Person/One Account + Sign In To Edit verges on the politically impossible at WP; that additional factor makes the probability exponentially less likely.

RfB

Piercing the veil will of course be available to upper level admins. Normal admins would deal with direct action to anonymized accounts and flag anons for further review. The main point is to anonymize users to both the rank and file editors and admins.

Without these changes though anyone trying to do anything wrt puppets or harassment on wikipedia is just trying to tread water.

So now you're calling for a new category of Administrators, thereby reducing the power of "ordinary Administrators," which while solving the problem of not being able to track the edit histories of bad actors is nevertheless equally unlikely to be approved by the core community (which includes a high percentage of Administrators)... How are you going to pick these people? How are you going to monitor them to prevent their own bad actions?

No, anonymization of editing would seem to be off the table.

A case can be made for One Person/One Account + Sign In To Edit. That would make the actual banning of vandals and harassers possible and would similarly make possible severe sanctions against paid editors.. Even that is a very longshot politically in the next 10 years, even assuming that the WMF were on board, which so far they are not. But anonymization of editing creates more problems than it solves...

RfB

[Kumioko]

I agree, we don't need more classes of admins, we simply need to get rid of the dozen shitheads making the entire admin corps look bad.

[tarantino]

It would be interesting to know exactly what this editor's personal experiences are.

They say that they are "Queer, trans, and black". So, right there, you get a sense that they are extraordinarily rare not just in world demographics, but especially in Wikipedia demographics. Or, they're lying about who they are.

They are also "vegan and atheist", and prefer to be referred to by the pronouns they, them and their. They aren't lying. I looked at them a while back.

funcrunch.org

[MysteriousStranger]

It would be interesting to know exactly what this editor's personal experiences are.

They say that they are "Queer, trans, and black". So, right there, you get a sense that they are extraordinarily rare not just in world demographics, but especially in Wikipedia demographics. Or, they're lying about who they are.

They are also "vegan and atheist", and prefer to be referred to by the pronouns they, them and their. They aren't lying. I looked at them a while back.

funcrunch.org

Yup, I read some of their blog one time out of curiosity. I thought, "Whoever this is, they're either the most sincere or the most pretentious person I've ever come across."

[MysteriousStranger]

It would be interesting to know exactly what this editor's personal experiences are.

They say that they are "Queer, trans, and black". So, right there, you get a sense that they are extraordinarily rare not just in world demographics, but especially in Wikipedia demographics. Or, they're lying about who they are.

Actually from what I've seen, a disproportionately large number of Wikipedians are LGBT of some sort, and a whole bunch are trans/genderqueer. Maybe it just seems that way because of their visibility on the site.

[Vigilant]

It would be interesting to know exactly what this editor's personal experiences are.

They say that they are "Queer, trans, and black". So, right there, you get a sense that they are extraordinarily rare not just in world demographics, but especially in Wikipedia demographics. Or, they're lying about who they are.

Actually from what I've seen, a disproportionately large number of Wikipedians are LGBT of some sort, and a whole bunch are trans/genderqueer. Maybe it just seems that way because of their visibility on the site.

Or that it's the cause du jour?

[MysteriousStranger]

It would be interesting to know exactly what this editor's personal experiences are.

They say that they are "Queer, trans, and black". So, right there, you get a sense that they are extraordinarily rare not just in world demographics, but especially in Wikipedia demographics. Or, they're lying about who they are.

Actually from what I've seen, a disproportionately large number of Wikipedians are LGBT of some sort, and a whole bunch are trans/genderqueer. Maybe it just seems that way because of their visibility on the site.

Or that it's the cause du jour?

Entirely possible. It really does seem to me that the site is very POV in favor of LGBT causes.

[Kumioko]

I totally agree in fact you can see that just by who is active in the top administrative positions. Several Arbs admin to being gay, several functionaries do as well, etc. not to mention the Gender warriors. There is definitely a very strong LGBT POV tone to the project these days and the attitude of the project in general seems to be much more biased on many subjects than it has in the past.

[MysteriousStranger]

I totally agree in fact you can see that just by who is active in the top administrative positions. Several Arbs admin to being gay, several functionaries do as well, etc. not to mention the Gender warriors. There is definitely a very strong LGBT POV tone to the project these days and the attitude of the project in general seems to be much more biased on many subjects than it has in the past.

I dunno, Kumi. I'm a person whose viewpoints have changed in the last ten years or so from generally anti-LGBT to generally pro-LGBT, and it seems to me like English Wikipedia has had a consistently pro-LGBT bias for that entire time. The gender warriors seem like a fairly recent development, however. They appeared to come out of the woodwork when Bradley/Chelsea Manning "came out" as trans, and they haven't let up since. The idea that article subjects should be allowed to define their own gender to be used on the project (because, of course, WP:HARM) is ridiculous. Protecting people from hurt feelings is not Wikipedia's responsibility.

[Kumioko]

I totally agree in fact you can see that just by who is active in the top administrative positions. Several Arbs admin to being gay, several functionaries do as well, etc. not to mention the Gender warriors. There is definitely a very strong LGBT POV tone to the project these days and the attitude of the project in general seems to be much more biased on many subjects than it has in the past.

I dunno, Kumi. I'm a person whose viewpoints have changed in the last ten years or so from generally anti-LGBT to generally pro-LGBT, and it seems to me like English Wikipedia has had a consistently pro-LGBT bias for that entire time. The gender warriors seem like a fairly recent development, however. They appeared to come out of the woodwork when Bradley/Chelsea Manning "came out" as trans, and they haven't let up since. The idea that article subjects should be allowed to define their own gender to be used on the project (because, of course, WP:HARM) is ridiculous. Protecting people from hurt feelings is not Wikipedia's responsibility.

I have pretty much always been a lesbian trapped in a man's body so I can empathize with that group at least, lol.

In all seriousness though I have always been pretty liberal and held the belief that as long as what people are doing isn't hurting others, then this is America and they should be generally free to do that. If 2 consenting adults want to be in love then that should have no effect on anyone but them. They may not like it, or believe in it but America is supposed to be the land of the free.

I also agree being the feelings police doesn't do anyone any good in fact I would argue it's crippling the person for life. When they grow up and get a job they are expected to perform that job without breaking into tears. They aren't going to worry themselves about hurt feelings for too long before that gets old.