Right on. Your enthusiasm is infectious, Danny. Congratulations to all who are making this a reality.
/a On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 8:24 AM, Danny Horn <dh...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > The project has four focus areas, and blocking is just one of them. Here's > the whole picture: > > * Detection and prevention: Using machine learning to help flag situations > for admin review -- both text that looks like it's harassing and > aggressive, as well as modeling patterns of user interaction, like stalking > and hounding, before the situation gets out of control. > > * Reporting: Building a new system to encourage editors to reach out for > help, in a way that's less chaotic and stressful than the current system. > > * Evaluation: Giving admins and others tools that help them evaluate > harassment cases, and make good decisions. > > * Blocking: Making it more difficult for banned users to come back. > > We'll be actively working on all four areas. There aren't a ton of details > right now about exactly what we'll build, for a couple reasons. The product > manager and the analyst haven't started yet, and the research that they do > will generate a lot of new ideas and insights. Also, we're going to work > closely with the community -- talking to people with different roles and > perspectives, and making plans in collaboration with contributors who are > interested in these issues. So there's lots of work and thinking and > consulting to do. > > But here's one idea that I'm personally excited about, which I think helps > to explain why we're focusing on tools: > > Right now, when two people end up at AN/I, the only way to figure out whose > version of the story to believe is by looking at individual, cherrypicked > diffs. You can also look through the two editors' contributions, but if > they're both active editors and the problem has been going on for a while, > then it's very difficult to get a sense of what's going on. Sometimes it > really matters who did what first, and you have to correlate the two > contributions logs, and pay attention to timestamps. > > The idea is: build a tool that helps admins (and others) follow the "story" > of this conflict. Look for the pages where the two editors have interacted, > and show a timeline that helps you see what happened first, how they > responded, and how the drama unfolded. That could reduce the time cost of > investigating and evaluating considerably, making it much easier for an > admin or mediator to get involved. > > There are lots of UI questions about how that would work and what it would > look like, but I don't think it would be too difficult on the tech side. > The information is already there in the contributions; it's just difficult > to correlate by hand. > > Assuming it works, that tool could have a lot of good outcomes. Admins > would be more likely to take on harassment cases, because there'd be > greater return for the time investment. It would take some of the burden > off the target, so they don't have to figure out which individual diffs > they should provide in order to make their case. Also, it would be harder > for harassers to get away with mistreating people, because they wouldn't be > able to hide behind a smokescreen of random diffs. > > As folks on this thread have said, there are lots of other components to > tackling the harassment problems. There will probably be groups of admins > and others who are especially interested in helping with the reporting and > evaluation, and the Foundation could provide trainings and resources for > those groups. Making changes to the reporting system will involve a lot of > community discussions about policies and competing values. Some of those > conversations and plans will probably be led by the Foundation, and some of > them will arise naturally within the community. > > For this specific team -- the Community Tech product team, working with the > community advocate -- our focus is on doing research and building tools > that will support those conversations and plans. We're not going to take > over the community's proper role in setting policy, or making decisions > about how to handle cases. > > To Fæ's point, the community will determine the social and cultural > decisions about how to treat harassment cases, and our team's job is to > build software that will help to put those decisions into practice. > > > > > > On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 3:06 AM, Fæ <fae...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > On 27 January 2017 at 09:21, Lodewijk <lodew...@effeietsanders.org> > wrote: > > ... > > > Do I understand correctly that this particular initiative will focus on > > > fighting harassment, and not necessarily on preventing it? Basically > in a > > > similar pattern that vandalism is fought on most wikipedia projects? > > > > > > I really hope that prevention, education and (social) training will > > become > > > a major point in the overall agenda, but I can imagine that we can't > pay > > > all that from the single grant :) So I just would like to place it in > the > > > proper context. > > > > > > Best, > > > Lodewijk > > > > +1 Spot on. > > > > The plan appears to hinge on blocks as the outcome. Based on cases of > > long term harassment targeted at individuals which invariably involved > > off-wiki doxxing or contacting friends and family members of their > > target, blocking Wikimedia accounts is an approach that may remove > > Wikimedia projects as a platform but does little to help reform the > > person causing harassment. I would rather see systems that include > > reaching out to the apparent harasser to help them recognize and deal > > with their anger or obsessive issues. Treating badly behaved > > individuals as the "other", without aiming for a lasting resolution, > > means we are back to the old days of telling the unfortunate > > target/victim to change their identity or grow a thicker skin as the > > on-line harassment may never stop. > > > > Fae > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > -- "If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it." - Margaret Fuller Anna Stillwell Director of Culture Wikimedia Foundation 415.806.1536 *www.wikimediafoundation.org <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>* _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
