4 ms·

I can't believe a half a million dollars is necessary to reduce harassment. I'm all for reducing harassment online but that much money could make a serious diff

I can't believe a half a million dollars is necessary to reduce harassment. I'm all for reducing harassment online but that much money could make a serious difference applied in a different way. Look at Wikimedia's report on harassment (which this is in response to): https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Harassment_Survey_2015_-_Results_Report.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Harassme... There's room for improvement but not a half a million dollars worth of room for improvement. I suppose people will donate to what's important to them, though.

fnovd 10y ago
That survey is from 2015. 2016 saw a surge in harassment (or, at the very least, a perceived surge in harassment). I'm sure this donation is somewhat of a preventative measure, given our political climate.
anigbrowl 10y ago
that much money could make a serious difference To what, things you care more about? You could make the same argument about anything. It would be one thing if you were critiquing the administrators of Wikipedia deciding to allocate resources to this - since they are answerable to a variety of stakeholders - but when you critique someone for choosing to donate to alleviate a specific problem then I fail to see how that's any of your business.
- Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
  Everyone is open to criticism for their actions. I'm free to disagree with this person just as much as you are free to disagree with me about it.
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    Sure, but I notice a distinct absence of any justification for why your concerns should hold a higher priority, which says to me that you consider harassment to be an issue of inherently low importance.
    - Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
      That's a real asinine assumption to make. I explicitly said in my comment that harassment is a worthy cause, but that a half a million dollars is excessive.
      - anigbrowl 10y ago
        By what standard? How much do you think would be appropriate to spend on this issue?
        Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
        A calculated sum based on an objective analysis of the needs of the situation to fit the financial requirements of specific action items.
        MBCook 10y ago
        How do you make an objective measure of the financing required to fix harassment problems to a reasonable degree?
        Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
        The same way you actually fix the problems. By figuring out the steps you need to take, and estimating their cost. If you can't do that then how are you going to fix the problems even when you do have the money?
        ericd 10y ago
        Having worked on anti-abuse/fraud work, I think $500k is light for a site the size of wikipedia. It takes people working full time to create and modify the systems to stop it.
        anigbrowl 10y ago
        Put a number on it, otherwise you're just blowing smoke. If you can't put a number on it, then you clearly haven't performed the analysis and so your claim of it not being a good use of money is untested.
libraryatnight 10y ago
Seems like a fine donation to me. Feels like a world where facts are just opinions to some folks, so I think (perhaps and hopefully only cynically) it is going to get worse. If everyone doing good work on Wiki pages is abused into not wanting to do it anymore, that would be a sad and significant loss indeed.
- Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
  >If everyone doing good work on Wiki pages is abused into not wanting to do it anymore, that would be a sad and significant loss indeed. Agreed, but Wikimedia's own report (linked above) contradicts this hypothesis. fnovd suggests 2016 is different, but no survey was conducted so it's difficult to say.
  - libraryatnight 10y ago
    I was glad to see a large percentage ignored it, only ~4% surveyed stopped editing in an old survey, but how long would you ignore being harassed? And the number that found it upsetting is higher than those that quit editing. Seems like a preemptive measure.
skybrian 10y ago
It sounds like you think this is easy. I think you're underestimating the difficulty in protecting a large, diverse, fairly open online community. In the general case, this is an unsolved problem (see Twitter and Reddit). I could easily see them spending half a million trying various things and not solving the problem. Or, more hopefully, they'll come up with some good ideas that will work elsewhere too.
DanBC 10y ago
> I can't believe a half a million dollars is necessary to reduce harassment. I can't believe they think half a million dollars is enough. Wikipedia is pretty toxic, even now after years of concerted effort to de-toxify it. I predict someone's going to launch this expensive thing; there are going to be about 750,000 words written about it across different wiki meta pages; some policies are going to be changed (with yet more meta discussion); and then the money is going to run out. I mean, just look at "Mexican–American War" versus "Mexican-American War" -- that was 20,000 words just on that meta page. (There are easily 500,000 words, some at Arbcom, about - vs – on wikipedia).
- chris_wot 10y ago
  It's not just toxic, it's deadly. It certainly brought me to the very edge. There are a number of people who have committed suicide after being harassed on Wikipedia.
WillyOnWheels 10y ago
Google hasn't solved harassment in Youtube comments. Twitter hasn't solved the problem of people tweeting images of lampshades at jews. Wikimedia's resources are quite a bit lower. Maybe we really just can't have nice things.

fnovd 10y ago

That survey is from 2015. 2016 saw a surge in harassment (or, at the very least, a perceived surge in harassment). I'm sure this donation is somewhat of a preventative measure, given our political climate.

anigbrowl 10y ago

that much money could make a serious difference To what, things you care more about? You could make the same argument about anything. It would be one thing if you were critiquing the administrators of Wikipedia deciding to allocate resources to this - since they are answerable to a variety of stakeholders - but when you critique someone for choosing to donate to alleviate a specific problem then I fail to see how that's any of your business.

Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
Everyone is open to criticism for their actions. I'm free to disagree with this person just as much as you are free to disagree with me about it.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  Sure, but I notice a distinct absence of any justification for why your concerns should hold a higher priority, which says to me that you consider harassment to be an issue of inherently low importance.
  - Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
    That's a real asinine assumption to make. I explicitly said in my comment that harassment is a worthy cause, but that a half a million dollars is excessive.
    - anigbrowl 10y ago
      By what standard? How much do you think would be appropriate to spend on this issue?
      - Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
        A calculated sum based on an objective analysis of the needs of the situation to fit the financial requirements of specific action items.
        MBCook 10y ago
        How do you make an objective measure of the financing required to fix harassment problems to a reasonable degree?
        Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
        The same way you actually fix the problems. By figuring out the steps you need to take, and estimating their cost. If you can't do that then how are you going to fix the problems even when you do have the money?
        ericd 10y ago
        Having worked on anti-abuse/fraud work, I think $500k is light for a site the size of wikipedia. It takes people working full time to create and modify the systems to stop it.
        anigbrowl 10y ago
        Put a number on it, otherwise you're just blowing smoke. If you can't put a number on it, then you clearly haven't performed the analysis and so your claim of it not being a good use of money is untested.

libraryatnight 10y ago

Seems like a fine donation to me. Feels like a world where facts are just opinions to some folks, so I think (perhaps and hopefully only cynically) it is going to get worse. If everyone doing good work on Wiki pages is abused into not wanting to do it anymore, that would be a sad and significant loss indeed.

Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
>If everyone doing good work on Wiki pages is abused into not wanting to do it anymore, that would be a sad and significant loss indeed. Agreed, but Wikimedia's own report (linked above) contradicts this hypothesis. fnovd suggests 2016 is different, but no survey was conducted so it's difficult to say.
- libraryatnight 10y ago
  I was glad to see a large percentage ignored it, only ~4% surveyed stopped editing in an old survey, but how long would you ignore being harassed? And the number that found it upsetting is higher than those that quit editing. Seems like a preemptive measure.

skybrian 10y ago

It sounds like you think this is easy. I think you're underestimating the difficulty in protecting a large, diverse, fairly open online community. In the general case, this is an unsolved problem (see Twitter and Reddit). I could easily see them spending half a million trying various things and not solving the problem. Or, more hopefully, they'll come up with some good ideas that will work elsewhere too.

DanBC 10y ago

> I can't believe a half a million dollars is necessary to reduce harassment. I can't believe they think half a million dollars is enough. Wikipedia is pretty toxic, even now after years of concerted effort to de-toxify it. I predict someone's going to launch this expensive thing; there are going to be about 750,000 words written about it across different wiki meta pages; some policies are going to be changed (with yet more meta discussion); and then the money is going to run out. I mean, just look at "Mexican–American War" versus "Mexican-American War" -- that was 20,000 words just on that meta page. (There are easily 500,000 words, some at Arbcom, about - vs – on wikipedia).

chris_wot 10y ago
It's not just toxic, it's deadly. It certainly brought me to the very edge. There are a number of people who have committed suicide after being harassed on Wikipedia.

WillyOnWheels 10y ago

Google hasn't solved harassment in Youtube comments. Twitter hasn't solved the problem of people tweeting images of lampshades at jews. Wikimedia's resources are quite a bit lower. Maybe we really just can't have nice things.