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Grants:IdeaLab/Community discussion on harassment reporting

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Community discussion on harassment reporting
There are many current proposals as part of the 2015 Inspire Campaign related to harassment management. This page is meant to serve as a central space where the various stakeholders in these proposals and other community members can discuss which methods might serve our community best so that we can unify our ideas into collective action.
idea creator• Hexatekin
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Goals

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Better understand:

  • How the community and Foundation can collaborate on a long-term solution. What is the community's role vs. what is the Foundation's role?
  • How can the grants process be used to support tools and solutions for lessening harassment in the Wikipedia community?
  • How can we synthesize some of the various projects proposed?
  • How do we solicit, fund, and publish better research to understand the problem?
  • Where are the best spaces to discuss and collaborate on solutions? Meta? Grant pages? This page?
  • How do we makes solutions to harassment scalable, multi-lingual, and maximally accessible for all Wikimedians?

Harassment management proposals in the 2015 Inspire Campaign

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Other proposals

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Current policies

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Current response structures

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  • Removal of non-public personal information such as phone numbers, home addresses, workplaces or identities of pseudonymous or anonymous individuals who have not made their identity public, or of public individuals who have not made that personal information public.
  • Removal of potentially libelous information, either on the advice of Wikimedia Foundation counsel or when the case is clear, and there is no editorial reason to keep the revision.
  • Removal of copyright violations on the advice of Wikimedia Foundation counsel.
  • Hiding of blatant attack names on automated lists and logs, where this does not disrupt edit histories. A blatant attack is one obviously intended to denigrate, threaten, libel, insult, or harass someone.
  • Stewards- group of volunteers responsible for dealing with harassment and vandalism on smaller wikis without local people to do the work.
  • Arbitration Committee, approximately 10 exist around the globe.
  • WMF Legal/Legal Fees Assistance Program, may help find qualified lawyers or cover some or all of the legal fees and costs associated with defending eligible users in a support role (administrator, arbitrator, email response, or project governance) when such users are named in a legal proceeding as a defendant because of their support role on Wikimedia projects. This assistance, for example, could take the form of payment for legal fees and costs or putting the community member in touch with outside lawyers. Legal/Legal_Fees_Assistance_Program/FAQ

Community claims

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  1. There is significant harassment in the Wikipedia community and most online communities.
  2. The Terms of Use do not allow harassment, but harassment is not defined, and sexual harassment is not addressed at all.
  3. It is not spelled out anywhere who is responsible for enforcing the Terms of Use.
  4. The WMF has a formal privacy policy, but does not have means of enforcing it.
  5. The WMF currently only responds substantially to immediate threats of harm.
  6. There is no redress for off-site harassment that has its basis in Wikipedia other than communities mediating their own harassment.
  7. The policies that currently exist related to harassment are confusing because they may be dissimilar on different Wikimedia wikis, and some policies on the same wiki may conflict. (for example policies about outing and conflict of interest.)
  8. Even where disruptive comments are by the most widely accepted definitions misogynistic, transphobic or homophobic, any complaint expressed using these words on the projects using standard project processes is more likely to result in sanctions on the complainant than the perpetrator.
  9. English Wikipedia policies say users should report misconduct to WP:ANI, where they are often told they are in the wrong place.
  10. There is a double standard between admins and editors where admins are allowed to get away with conduct that would cause an editor to be blocked
  11. The people who are performing mediation and policy enforcement are not qualified mediators and have no qualified training in dealing with harassment or mediation
  12. There is a double standard between female and male editors where men are allowed to get away with conduct that would cause a woman to be blocked or banned
  13. When homophobic harassment was part of an Arbcom case, this was wiki-lawyered away into questions of "what is homophobia?" and parodying the issue with comparisons to articles about fisting
  14. [Put a claim here]

What types of harassment have been reported on Wikipedia

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  • Threats of harm
  • Trolling and stalking
  • Blatant / toxic masculinity, sexism, emasculation
  • Silencing - “not all men”
  • Othering - gender, racial and cultural sensitivities, pronoun use, essentialism, transphobia, ostracism
  • Invisibility - lack of representation
  • Condescension, ‘splaning, white knighting
  • Shaming / slut shaming
  • Tokenism
  • More indexed on the Geek Feminism Wiki
  • Misrepresentation / false narrative
  • Doxxing / privacy violations/ creation of draft "biography"
  • Failure to remove doxxing
  • Sexualized harassment, both on-wiki and by email
  • Collection of oversighted IP info and posting of geolocation on external sites
  • Retaliation against users who report harassment
  • Blackmail
  • Legal threats and arrest
  • Policy manipulation
  • Exclusion
  • Impersonation (also called Joe Jobbing)
  • Quid pro quo (this for that)
  • Homophobic hate-speech
  • Endless discussions about what is and isn’t disrespectful, often repeating gendered slurs in the process, and disrupting work flow

Research on harassment on Wikipedia

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See also: Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Research publications/harasssment

Analysis of and testimonials to harassment on Wikipedia

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See also: Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Research publications/harasssment

An effective response would include

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  • Cross-Wiki, international and multilingual assistance
  • Women, intersectionalist, LGBTQ friendly
  • Structures to alleviate emotional labor of project managers
  • Structures to protect project managers against trolling caused by publicness of this project
  • Clearly articulated standards of behavior (what is and what is not acceptable), including during administrative discussions
  • Clearly defined and enforced negative consequences for those not following standards of behavior
  • Private means of reporting harassment (such as a button similar to the "thank" button)
  • More than one path or committee for investigating, in case of a situation that involves someone in the investigating group
  • Adequate gender representation and inclusion of marginalized communities in the investigating group
  • Confidential investigation, to limit gossip and prevent people taking sides
  • Focus should be on removing on non-compliant postings and privacy violations, preferably by a moderator using specific criteria
  • Protection from retaliation
  • Training for admins and users, including mentoring of non-compliant users
  • The response group should report as high as possible in the organization structure, possibly to the ED, or to an independent outside entity
  • Multi tiered checks and balances system that starts at the admin level and continues on up to the WMF with a clearly established hierarchy of who is the next one in the chain
  • Timely turn-around for sending out an initial acknowledgement (not response) after receiving report if so desired/request not submitted anonymously
  • Mechanisms for ensuring designated point-people on committee from different time zones
  • Guidelines on dealing with any resulting/leaked/unavoidable publicity and media coverage
  • Ways of evaluating and reviewing work of the committee and processes
  • Clear definitions of what reporting information and data can be used for secondary purposes, for example developing WMF harassment prevention programs
  • A more effective way to respond to disrespectful negative comments based on identity
  • [Put other needs here]

Unsuccessful attempts by the community to solve the problem

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Community support

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Participants

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One way to participate is to add more links to this page, but feel free to start a discussion on this article's talk page, or contribute in a way that makes sense to you!

  • Volunteer I would like to help by giving background information on current policies, help notify stakeholders, and help keep advancing this discussion until there is a good plan for next steps. Sydney Poore/FloNight (talk) 01:01, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Volunteer - I cant post anything to ENWP but I can still do research and help with some things. Reguyla (talk) 22:23, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Volunteer to add more relevant links, for starters. Carolmooredc (talk) 15:58, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Volunteer I'd like to help make this project happen and would be happy to offer my assistance and give insight from other projects I've worked on. Steven Zhang (talk) 14:59, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Volunteer For the WMF. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 08:11, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Volunteer Hello. I am one of the publishers of the sites mentioned here in this study. Online collaboration is something I am very passionate about and would love to help anyway I can. SAS81 (talk) 15:45, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Staff/Volunteer I will be supporting and helping organize efforts for Community Advocacy, but also am very supportive as a volunteer. Patrick Earley (WMF) (talk) 01:57, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Volunteer volunteer! and add to the process Carolinesinders (talk) 20:37, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Volunteer I would like to organize some events in my own region to raise the public attention about this issue. Venuslui (talk) 08:31, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Endorsements

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  • Okay. QEDK (talk) 17:50, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
  • This looks like a great idea and could have a lot of value if the WMF takes it seriously and actually does something with the data to improve the projects. Reguyla (talk) 18:39, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Thanks for bringing us together in one space. Let me know if there's any way I can help! Jtmorgan (talk) 16:59, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Limited endorsement. The overall goal as captured in the title of the proposal is good, and I can certainly see a stronger role for the WMF in addressing claims #5, 6, and 7. However, the section "What types of harassment have been reported on Wikipedia" describes a list of issues so varied and diffuse that I have to question whether the discussion would be productive. I'd suggest working towards a narrower problem statement as an initial project, e.g. focusing on how to address severe harassment of Wikipedia editors that takes place on other sites such as 8chan. Our current practices for dealing with on-wiki harassment are (arguably) robust, but as soon as the problem goes off-wiki we throw up our hands. Clayoquot (talk) 18:19, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
  • I have been the victim of harassment on- and off-wiki. One of the worst yet was recently, which I've reported, but I support any foundation/community initiative that seeks to make Wikipedia a safer workplace. Lightbreather (talk) 14:08, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
  • --ChristophThomas (talk) 06:45, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
  • The aim of an anti-harassment policy is to provide a safe environment for workers. When asked for help, the community tends to force conflicting users to agree on content at all costs, rather than help enforce policy. I support any initiative which increases the community's resources and skills for tackling this problem. Burninthruthesky (talk) 07:58, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Note to the WMF

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There is an extraordinary outpouring of support here for the Foundation to take some action on sexual harassment. I count fourteen separate proposals made by twenty-six users.

But I see no indication that anyone in the WMF has seen this or considered it. How many of these proposals were funded? None, I think.

If these items are not going to be funded under a grant program, perhaps they could be passed on for inclusion in the regular WMF budget. Pinging Siko (WMF) and Luis Villa (WMF) I will ping Lila as well, although I would not expect her to respond here. Anyone else?

There is a wealth of ideas here, and some deeply felt needs. How can we make these proposals a reality?

Regards, Neotarf (talk) 04:00, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Backtracking to add in some clarification from the grantmaking end, so I'll just put this here: WMF grantmaking staff looked at all proposals that applied for funding during the Inspire campaign (as well as many of the ideas that didn't get turned into full grant proposals - note that the list above on this page is a mix of both). A committee of community members also reviewed and recommended that we fund 16 projects, and at that point we funded all the proposals that the committee felt were ready and likely to succeed with grant-funding. Ultimately, the gender gap admin training proposal was one that was funded, those that weren't selected had committee feedback posted on the discussion pages, and we escalated several of the harassment-focused proposals to Philippe's team to take into their thinking for the coming year. Not all ideas are immediately actionable, but like you I'm excited to see where that thinking goes next, as we figure out what kinds of resources and interventions will be most likely to succeed in terms of this super important issue. We'll also be happy to receive updated grant proposals in our standing grants programs as community thinking continues to develop as well. Siko (WMF) (talk) 00:33, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
MY guess is the only way to make any of these ideas actionable is to get new leadership at the WMF that understands the problems, because they have edited and seen it, rather than a leadership that does not edit, does not know how the community works and doesn't really seem to care as long as the pay checks continue to get deposited on time. Reguyla (talk) 14:06, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
I asked the Executive Director to take note of this discussion on the 25 May [1], in a comment which was archived on 22 June [2]. She, and other members of the WMF leadership had the opportunity to read it and respond if they chose. So we may conclude that the WMF senior leadership do not find this topic important enough to respond to. Make of that what you will. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 15:01, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
I hear your concern and I will have our team review. If there is a link to specific functions that are best performed by the WMF and the workflow as it exists today/should exist please put a link here. We have taken action on a few protection issues earlier this year (including some harassment cases), and we had to staff accordingly to do so. Please keep in mind that any addition of such work at the WMF needs to be taken seriously and applied globally, you can accelerate this by helping us understand size and scope of this work so we can budget and staff appropriately. Thank you. LilaTretikov (WMF) (talk) 18:36, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Currently, there are not enough WMF employees who are also Wikimedians in their own right, especially after some recent departures. As I'm sure you've become aware, we have a pretty unique culture, and outsiders do not always adapt well to it. So as one measure, I would suggest placing much greater emphasis in the hiring process on pre-existing contributions to the projects than their currently is. Generally speaking, I don't feel that the WMF has the staff in place to handle harrassment issues. I'm not a member of arbcom, but if I were, I would be very nervous doing things like handling child protection cases (and iirc several arbs have explicitly said they won't.) I would suggest that the WMF hire a much higher number of advocates from the community than they have in the past - even part time - that can understand both WMFness and Wikimedian-ness. Emily Templewood would be amazing to bring on part time for gender issues, and I can think of quite a few others who I think would be excellent additions (Ed Erhart, from the signpost and a recent hire, was also an excellent choice). Additionally, as you've seen, recently software rollouts have gone... badly. More WMF'ers who are also true Wikimedians will ease that problem, especially those who communicate well. Even though it sounds like a huge number, I would suggest that hiring a dozen additional part-time community advocates, with much hiring aimed at specific areas - like gender - would not be out of line.
  • There's no question in my mind that the WMF needs additional staff to handle harrassment issues as direct contacts. Philippe and Maggie are awesome, but they're a limited resource, and their job involves a lot beyond handling community complaints. Another few employees to handle harassment issues wouldn't at all be a bad idea - some non-Wikipedians don't know how to even begin to handle them, and some Wikipedians need help beyond what the community normally provides. I know from my past experience as a comms intern that there are at least occasional inter-WMF workshops about Wikimedia culture. I'd suggest hiring another community advocate, preferably full-time and SF based, who is a Wikimedian, to not only give more frequent workshops like these as the org grows, but to monitor the online activity of WMFers and step in when they violate community norms. I've also made some suggestions to incoming board candidates that I thnk are best not repeated here that I think will help out with some things. I realize I've touched on gender relatively little in this post except to suggest the hiring of part time community advocates like Emily, and will try to amend this soon. Kevin (talk) 02:04, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
Hi all, Lila asked me to respond here to let you know what we've been doing about these significant issues. Harassment and abuse (both gender-based and otherwise) on the wikis are clearly problems, and they’re ones that the community has said need to be addressed. We know that many believe this is work for the Foundation to do, because there may not be another entity positioned for this work. We hear you. While I'm hesitant to say that we'll jump right in and solve this - I truly believe that this work probably will be best executed with some combination of WMF staff, community members, and experts - I can see that there's a role for us, at very least, in convening the various parties to do this work (WMF, movement affiliates, community members, experts) and in doing initial research to figure out what the process will look like longer term. I think it’s likely that any long-term effort will necessarily include strong staff support in some fashion, though I’d hesitate to speculate exactly what that would look like at this point. I hope that is something that we can work out in coming days, when we have more people involved in the process, so that it’s not a WMF-driven process, but one that’s jointly owned with the editing community.
For the past several years, I’ve been advocating for an increase in resources dedicated to this issue, and I’m glad that this effort has finally started to take hold. The executive team with responsibility for my group, including Lila and Luis (and Geoff before him) have all clearly expressed their support for our efforts in this area. As you can see on the page about my team we are currently researching harassment and other behavioral issues. This work will include talking to internal and external stakeholders (and experts in the field) and investigating how other comparable organizations, both within the movement and externally, have handled similar issues in the past. Among other efforts, we’re also sending staff to a seminar hosted by Harvard’s Berkman Center to learn from some of the experts in this field.
In my opinion, doing this right is not a 5 day job; it is a process that is going to take some time to get right (and no doubt, will require several iterations to fine tune). Most importantly, it’s a process that will require the support of both the foundation AND the community. We've already begun the research phase (including some early discussion - mostly near the end of the Inspire campaign where so many of these proposals originated) and it will be continuing for some time. We will be having discussions with community members at and after Wikimania, and it’s likely that this work will include wide public consultation. I’d be willing to bet that a page on-wiki to flesh this out is in the offing, as well, once we get a bit more oriented to the work that needs to be done.
For the record I'd like to point out that while it's true that not everyone at the foundation has deep history with the wikis, the team tasked with looking at this (mine) includes six people with a good mix of skills for this work. It includes staff members from both outside and inside the community (the community members have a combined total of 43 years Wikimedia experience) who have experience in the trust and safety field that ranges from child protection issues to in-person physical harassment and sexual abuse issues. Talking to colleagues in other large online companies (and for that matter, simply reading the news) makes it clear that none of our peers in the online field has quite gotten this right yet - frankly, I’ve been involved in Trust and Safety work on-and-off for almost 20 years, and I’ll tell you that most companies suck at this - even when they have hundreds of employees working on it. Our law enforcement contacts have also made it very clear that in some ways we're significantly BETTER than those other sites, both at the early phases of handling but also at liaising with law enforcement when required. That probably says more about the sad state of affairs online in this realm than it does about our abilities - there is no doubt that we have an awful lot of work to do here. We need to be better at ensuring harassment does not occur on the Wikimedia projects, however, I am confident that my team is best positioned to investigate this, and will do a fine job. I'll continue to monitor this page for comments. Best, Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 07:38, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
There is always more that could be said on this issue but I am satisfied with Philippe's response. He has expressed that he and the WMF recognize the problem and are allotting funding to develop responses to it. I agree with Philippe that probably it is not the WMF's place to directly address harassment but I like the idea of the WMF giving social support to those who do, offering funding for solutions, and helping to convene the right experts and stakeholders to develop a long term response. More can be done but this statement of good will means a lot to me. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:10, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
Hi Philippe - like Lane I always find it kind of hard not to be satisfied with your responses in general. I have the feeling that a large part of the answer wlll be more heavily resourcing your department, as well as dealing with the occasional sort of issue that I think Lila emailed you about earlier today. Here's another awkward situation you may not have thought about that would require WMF action: we allow users under 17. Multiple arbitrators have stated that they will decline from either cases that involve open minors, or child protection cases in problem. What will the WMF response be when an arbcom case comes up where too many arbs excuse because matter they're not comfortable dealing with but there is a real problem? It'd be even awkwarder if the arb recusal was due to known minor status but the actual problem at hand wasn't directly related to that, but something else, like the sort of behavioral issue normally dealt with by arbcom. Just another thing to think about, though I suspect you've thought about it. Kevin (talk) 22:12, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, Kevin, I've considered similar situations. Frankly, if that were to occur while I hold this position, I would strongly advocate that the Committee consider some sort of alternative on their own, rather than the WMF mandating it. We would, of course, stand ready to assist with that effort, but I strongly believe that for the solution to have credibility, it would need to originate in the community. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 08:06, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
LilaTretikov (WMF) So as I read this, the WMF doesn't understand the problem, doesn't know if they have the staff to support it and there is no funding currently allocated to addressing it. I bet if it was a priority of the Director of the Wikimedia Foundation that it would be addressed and funded appropriately. Maybe, the director should make time to become more familiar with the projects and their problems? May I suggest creating an account, other than your WMF one and edit ENWP for a while. Create a couple new articles using the Article wizard, ask questions at talk pages and the teahouse, make sure they know you are a female and see if you are treated appropriately? Make sure not to tell them who you are for a while otherwise they are going to treat you with white gloves and pander to your position rather than treat you as a new user. Because the new user experience sucks! Reguyla (talk) 19:15, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
Thanks are due to Lila for responding, although I am disappointed that she sees it as down to the community to do the work here. My point was that only action by the WMF itself can demonstrate a real commitment by the WMF to resolving these issues. Passing responsibility back to the community is not going to work and is likely to be seen as abdication of that responsibility. My suggestion for a first step would be to take one of the new hires and give them a short exercise to summarise the fourteen or so projects here with a brief indication of the nature of the events or events that seem to have inspired each and summarise for Lila's attention. The idea of trying out en.wp as a female novice is interesting if controversial, but if agreed then could be carried out as a parallel exercise. To have a novice do the investigation would be a useful way of learning how certain parts of the WMF work and interact (or not) with the volunteer community. I am sure the ED is able to scope that little exercise: my guess at a ball park figure is probably five days of effort over the next four weeks, so a report for the WMF leadership and the community could be ready by August. Leaving it up to the community is a recipe for not getting it done: after all we are all volunteers who already contribrte in numerous other ways to the project, and for free. The WMF has paid staff who can be allocated to the projects that the WMF leadership think most important. The paid staff can be given deadlines and priorities in a way that is not going to work for volunteers. For example, one team has just spent time designing itself a new logo. Was that a more important use of paid staff time (and hence donor's money) than this little exercise I suggest would have been? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 20:07, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Regardless of original response or lack therof, I would pint out that I think it's pretty laudable that the executive director is directly responding to user concerns on a Saturday evening. Further comments to follow. Best, Kevin (talk) 01:50, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
Given that the issue was flagged up on her talk page over a month ago, there was plenty of time to respond in normal working hours. But my original request was not that she do it in person, merely that she have one of her 268 staff do it in such a way that the WMF would take ownership of the issue formally and in full view of the community. I don;t think that has happened yet Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 06:48, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

@Lila, Thank you so much for taking time out of your Saturday night to respond. I may have more to say after thinking about this a little more, but my initial reaction is that the most important thing the Foundation could do right now would be to

1) establish an independent office to deal with women's issues. The goals of the office would be to

  • Establish a focal point for a strategic role in internal gender mainstreaming and in the implementation of related policies and procedures and
  • Strengthen personnel capacity to promote the establishment of data collection and reporting of information on the incidence, types and patterns of gender-related incidents and barriers to editing
  • Serve as a focal point for reporting sexual harassment or incidents of sexual exploitation, exclusionary speech, and abuse, and provide support and intervention services for female users who are subjected to negative gender-based incidents.
  • Develop communications campaigns and materials or participation in public events on the issue.
  • Enhance sensitization and awareness; site administrators and vulnerable groups should be prioritized for training.
  • Gender issue coordinators should be placed highly enough within the institutional hierarchy to ensure they can authorize and implement proposed changes as needed and should have adequate resources and decision-making authority.

2) Metrics. The last survey to measure the gender of editors was in 2012 and the results were not published until this year. The importance of regularly collecting and publicizing data about women is echoed in the first item in this Forbes article, which I got from Sue Gardner's Twitter feed last week.

As far as understanding "the size and scope of this work", Wikipedia is an experiment of one, and a work in progress. I don't think anyone can determine the scope of this work until it is started. Your staff should be able to give you feedback, and engage the community for answers it is lacking. One thing that is sorely needed is a comprehensive harassment policy. Something like that may need input from the legal department as well as the community, and may even need to effect changes in the legal structure. Solving problems like this may require broad community participation and long-range planning. The answers may not be evident at first, but the most important thing is to start.

Thank you again for taking an interest in this.

Regards, —Neotarf (talk) 04:00, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

  • I would just like to note that I pretty much agree with pretty much Neo's post. Kevin (talk) 04:09, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Also generally in agreement with Neo's post. As per above, there is a need for an independent, well-trained organization to assist the community in dealing with gender issues, and for WMF to build adequate capacity as a partner.
In addition, there is a need for WMF to take more immediate action to indicate what direction it wants the site to take. A quick reading suggests that existing governance at ANI/Arbcom is not up to the task of dealing with pushback against allies training at WM2015, and unwilling to ban an editor making an online threat of violence. This is not acceptable. --Djembayz (talk) 14:59, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
Thank you User:LilaTretikov, and everyone for due diligence commenting on this issue. I am happy to hear that the WMF are taking steps to allocate funding and staff time towards this issue. This page demonstrates the high community interest, and a good start at researching the problem to find solutions, such as streamlining the reporting and response process.
I support User:Kevin’s proposal of hiring additional staff or working with partner organizations that design strategies and response structures for global communities to deal with the harassment issue. I think that an important qualification for this person would be health or social work credentials, and I would almost preference these credentials over having experience with the Wikipedia community, because that much could be learned on the job, while tactics for mediation, confidentiality considerations, how to talk to victims, etc. would best be done by a trained professional or group of professionals.
In the meantime, to help move along this conversation, and community discussion of solutions, I would like to ask the Foundation to provide the following information / answers to these questions, so we can better understand the issue.
Information we are seeking:
  • Count of harassment reports the WMF has received
  • Count of harassment reports the WMF by “minor” and “serious” labels
  • Count of how many reports the WMF has addressed
  • Count of how many of each were complaints directed at WMF staff or contractors
  • What kinds of harassment are acknowledged?
  • What funds or staff time that has gone to addressing harassment is available?
  • What language Wikipedias have harassment reporting procedures in place?
  • Explanation of what should be done when someone is
  • Explanation of if / how a harasser can go through a process of reentering the community after being forced to leave
Thanks again for due diligence and I hope to keep up the conversation. Vaughn88 (talk) 14:52, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
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