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I have trouble imagining truly complete anonymity being helpful. This is an invitation to abuse the system. Abuse could result from personal conflicts and offic

I have trouble imagining truly complete anonymity being helpful. This is an invitation to abuse the system. Abuse could result from personal conflicts and office politics, or even people who wish to undermine the system itself by entering bad data.

XorNot 8y ago
The point of an anonymous system is to encourage people to speak up without a first-mover problem, because in every case of ongoing sexual harassment there is never just 1 victim - it's always a pattern of behavior. Someone receiving exactly 1 report is probably not a problem. Someone who accumulates reports continuously as team members change probably is.
- jshevek 8y ago
  > Someone who accumulates reports continuously as team members change probably is. No. If the system is truly anonymous, then people outside the team can submit reports. Continuous accumulation would not indicate there is probably a problem with the accused, given the motive and opportunities for abuse of the reporting system. Elsewhere in this thread the difference between anonymous and private is discussed, along with semi-anonymizing strategies for achieving privacy protection, which I believe would be helpful for the outcome you describe.
- brokenmachine 8y ago
  > in every case of ongoing sexual harassment there is never just 1 victim - it's always a pattern of behavior. citation please
  - jki275 8y ago
    That's straight up hyperbole, and probably is totally false. But it's unprovable anyway.
    - XorNot 8y ago
      I'm genuinely confused by the apparently incredulousness at the idea that workplace sexual harassment is generally going to perpetrated (at it's roughly ~30% incidence rate) by "everyone" and not "a small but relatively powerful group of people who are generally not discovered". This was ultimately the pattern at Uber, it was the pattern at Fox News, it was the pattern in Hollywood.
- JPKab 8y ago
  This is a good point. What about a person who has a pattern of accusing multiple people over time? If each of the accused individuals are all not accused by others, would this undermine the accusers credibility? I wish this was hypothetical, but I once worked with a person that had 3 individuals over 2 years fired for this. Eventually they went too far and HR had to come to grips with an obvious mental illness being the root cause. This person was a great engineer and a good friend, which made it even harder for me and others to admit to ourselves the delusional nature of the claims.

XorNot 8y ago

The point of an anonymous system is to encourage people to speak up without a first-mover problem, because in every case of ongoing sexual harassment there is never just 1 victim - it's always a pattern of behavior. Someone receiving exactly 1 report is probably not a problem. Someone who accumulates reports continuously as team members change probably is.

jshevek 8y ago
> Someone who accumulates reports continuously as team members change probably is. No. If the system is truly anonymous, then people outside the team can submit reports. Continuous accumulation would not indicate there is probably a problem with the accused, given the motive and opportunities for abuse of the reporting system. Elsewhere in this thread the difference between anonymous and private is discussed, along with semi-anonymizing strategies for achieving privacy protection, which I believe would be helpful for the outcome you describe.
brokenmachine 8y ago
> in every case of ongoing sexual harassment there is never just 1 victim - it's always a pattern of behavior. citation please
- jki275 8y ago
  That's straight up hyperbole, and probably is totally false. But it's unprovable anyway.
  - XorNot 8y ago
    I'm genuinely confused by the apparently incredulousness at the idea that workplace sexual harassment is generally going to perpetrated (at it's roughly ~30% incidence rate) by "everyone" and not "a small but relatively powerful group of people who are generally not discovered". This was ultimately the pattern at Uber, it was the pattern at Fox News, it was the pattern in Hollywood.
JPKab 8y ago
This is a good point. What about a person who has a pattern of accusing multiple people over time? If each of the accused individuals are all not accused by others, would this undermine the accusers credibility? I wish this was hypothetical, but I once worked with a person that had 3 individuals over 2 years fired for this. Eventually they went too far and HR had to come to grips with an obvious mental illness being the root cause. This person was a great engineer and a good friend, which made it even harder for me and others to admit to ourselves the delusional nature of the claims.