It would also be a massive resourcing challenge, particularly to get identification working across all projects. What is ideal is not always what is feasible.
On Fri, May 10, 2013 at 7:51 PM, Andreas Kolbe <jayen...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Thu, May 9, 2013 at 9:42 PM, Oliver Keyes <ironho...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> >> >> >> On Thu, May 9, 2013 at 9:35 PM, Andreas Kolbe <jayen...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Two good posts. >>> >>> Bear in mind though that there is also a half-way house solution, >>> whereby contributors would identify to the Foundation, but remain at >>> liberty to use a pseudonymous user name. >>> >>> This would involve incredible overhead on the Foundation's role. It also >> wouldn't provide any real protection for the individuals being harassed. >> >> Let's be clear here; there are really two types of harassment we should >> be concerned about. The first is, simply, illegal; where such harassment >> occurs, and a complaint to the police results, the WMF has procedures in >> place to provide (for example) IP addresses and other identifying >> information on receipt of a valid request from a court, and these can then >> percolate back through ISPs and such to identify the person responsible for >> the statements or actions. All very simple, all very well-handled. I'd >> argue our failing here is not in not having a mechanism for illegal >> harassment, but simply a greater societal issue; internet harassment is, >> while a crime, something with few benefits for the police to prosecute. We >> can't solve for that; we could reduce the barrier a bit by cutting out the >> middle man and being able to provide the police with the real-world >> identity of contributors, sure, but again, that's going to be a ton of work. >> >> The second type of harassment is motivated by, well, John Gabriel's >> Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.[1] Some people, to be cynical, behave well >> because people see and judge them by their behaviour. As a result, when you >> get anonymity or pseudonymity - more specifically, a type of pseudonymity >> that does not overlap with their real-world reputation, or reputation in >> other domains, you get people misbehaving, because their actions and the >> consequences of those actions cannot follow them back to a reputation they >> care about. It's as simple as that. Merely knowing that someone, somewhere, >> knows who they are is not going to get these people to act differently; >> there is no immediate action/reaction interaction between "them >> misbehaving" and "this biting them on the backside". >> >> [1] http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19 >> >> Identification might then be a prerequisite for certain community roles >>> (as indeed it is today). >>> >> >> Then the change is...? >> > > > The difference might be for example that editing biographies of living > persons would be a right reserved to editors who have identified to the > Foundation. I am pretty certain that this would have prevented cases like > Johann Hari's, for example. > > > http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/david-allen-green/2011/09/hari-rose-wikipedia-admitted > > It would also prevent people from returning with sock after sock to add > negative material to the biographies of people they don't like, or indeed > fluff up their own. > > Let's not forget that a significant number of editors and administrators > have for years edited under their real names, or have their identities > known. At the moment, I believe the only editors required to identify are > arbitrators and chapter members. It would be conceivable to expand that > requirement to various other user rights. > > Andreas > > _______________________________________________ > Gendergap mailing list > Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap > >
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