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> bans harassment on and off the site I wonder if "harassment" will be in the eye of the beholder. If you read someone's Tweets and find an opinion that you t

> bans harassment on and off the site I wonder if "harassment" will be in the eye of the beholder. If you read someone's Tweets and find an opinion that you think is insulting towards the rich or immigrants or men or women, is that grounds to get that person's Wikipedia account deleted?

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
We don't have to leap to an extreme, paint this in black and white. Some cases may be shades of grey, but 'insulting' is fairly obvious when you see it.
- dane-pgp 6y ago
  So you're advocating for an "I know it when I see it" standard for assigning guilt to people? If you're familiar with the phrase "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" then you might understand why people could be concerned about selective enforcement of these rules.
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    Again, trying to put words in others' mouths. Abusive language, slurs, ad-hominem attacks are not ambiguous. Neither is 'putting words in other's mouths', which is against this (HNs) site's rules. Lets do better.
    - dane-pgp 6y ago
      You said "'insulting' is fairly obvious when you see it" and I asked if you supported the standard of "I know it when I see it". I'm sorry if I misunderstood you, jumped to conclusions, or phrased my question poorly, but I hope you can forgive me for finding those two approaches very similar. If you think there is a universal unambiguous system for deciding whether a claim is "insulting" then I'd be happy to learn about it. For example, I can imagine people disagreeing about whether the statement "Country X has a problem with corruption." is insulting to people in country X.
      - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
        I listed three criterion. Is that not enough?
        dane-pgp 6y ago
        If those three criteria are the only valid grounds for deeming a statement "insulting", then I agree that the risk of the rules being misused is greatly reduced. Let's hope that the people enforcing them show such restraint.
    - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
      They are very often ambiguous and different arbitrators of rules will come to different conclusions, and their own political opinions will definitely play a factor in which way they will swing. If an editor hold political opinions that the arbitrator agrees with, he will suddenly find various things to not be insults, which he would have, were he to politically disagree with the editor.
  - ericbarrett 6y ago
    At some point, in human affairs, judgement requires nuance.
    - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
      In my experience, it mostly requires nuance for those who want the rules to be arbitrary and who want different men to be treated differently based on whether they be friend of foe. It is often quite easy to make black and white rules with no ambiguities, but then one would have to accept actually not having dual standards. Nuance and letting human heart play a factor, is a requirement for the man who espouses dual standards.
notahacker 6y ago
Of all the issues Wikipedia admins have to deal with whilst trying to ensure the world's popular and most edited information resource is complete, adequately sourced, not expressing a Wikipedian point of view but also not giving much weight to 'fringe' perspectives and pseudoscience, defining 'what is harassment' is pretty low down the list of complexity and ambiguity...
- Retric 6y ago
  The Wikipedia foundation seems to think they have plenty of funds to focus on things outside of maintaining Wikipedia. I think that is a sign the organization’s goals don’t really match up with people’s expectations.
Blikkentrekker 6y ago
It will be when they need a reason to, no doubt. These rules carry the stench of only being enforced when the powers so will it. Not as though that would make a difference, hitherto they could surely find a way regardless. Rule of law has never existed anywhere, especially since those who desire most to be the arbitrators of the law are also the ones who desire most to bend it to their will. The man who desires to be a judge is often indeed quite judgemental.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago

We don't have to leap to an extreme, paint this in black and white. Some cases may be shades of grey, but 'insulting' is fairly obvious when you see it.

dane-pgp 6y ago
So you're advocating for an "I know it when I see it" standard for assigning guilt to people? If you're familiar with the phrase "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" then you might understand why people could be concerned about selective enforcement of these rules.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Again, trying to put words in others' mouths. Abusive language, slurs, ad-hominem attacks are not ambiguous. Neither is 'putting words in other's mouths', which is against this (HNs) site's rules. Lets do better.
  - dane-pgp 6y ago
    You said "'insulting' is fairly obvious when you see it" and I asked if you supported the standard of "I know it when I see it". I'm sorry if I misunderstood you, jumped to conclusions, or phrased my question poorly, but I hope you can forgive me for finding those two approaches very similar. If you think there is a universal unambiguous system for deciding whether a claim is "insulting" then I'd be happy to learn about it. For example, I can imagine people disagreeing about whether the statement "Country X has a problem with corruption." is insulting to people in country X.
    - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
      I listed three criterion. Is that not enough?
      - dane-pgp 6y ago
        If those three criteria are the only valid grounds for deeming a statement "insulting", then I agree that the risk of the rules being misused is greatly reduced. Let's hope that the people enforcing them show such restraint.
  - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
    They are very often ambiguous and different arbitrators of rules will come to different conclusions, and their own political opinions will definitely play a factor in which way they will swing. If an editor hold political opinions that the arbitrator agrees with, he will suddenly find various things to not be insults, which he would have, were he to politically disagree with the editor.
- ericbarrett 6y ago
  At some point, in human affairs, judgement requires nuance.
  - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
    In my experience, it mostly requires nuance for those who want the rules to be arbitrary and who want different men to be treated differently based on whether they be friend of foe. It is often quite easy to make black and white rules with no ambiguities, but then one would have to accept actually not having dual standards. Nuance and letting human heart play a factor, is a requirement for the man who espouses dual standards.

notahacker 6y ago

Of all the issues Wikipedia admins have to deal with whilst trying to ensure the world's popular and most edited information resource is complete, adequately sourced, not expressing a Wikipedian point of view but also not giving much weight to 'fringe' perspectives and pseudoscience, defining 'what is harassment' is pretty low down the list of complexity and ambiguity...

Retric 6y ago
The Wikipedia foundation seems to think they have plenty of funds to focus on things outside of maintaining Wikipedia. I think that is a sign the organization’s goals don’t really match up with people’s expectations.

Blikkentrekker 6y ago

It will be when they need a reason to, no doubt. These rules carry the stench of only being enforced when the powers so will it. Not as though that would make a difference, hitherto they could surely find a way regardless. Rule of law has never existed anywhere, especially since those who desire most to be the arbitrators of the law are also the ones who desire most to bend it to their will. The man who desires to be a judge is often indeed quite judgemental.