3 ms·

I read your comment, this sentence in particular, and thought, I wonder if this is related to a very particular group of people known for such harassment: > Th

by werdi 3y ago

I read your comment, this sentence in particular, and thought, I wonder if this is related to a very particular group of people known for such harassment: > That observation lead inevitably and inexorably, within a single week, in masterly chess moves, by people obviously coordinating, well versed in the rules of Wikipedia and with ungodly amounts of spare time, to my being harassed, doxxed, and sanctioned by Wikipedia. Decided to check your username on Wikipedia, went to your contribution history, and sure enough, it was those exact set of people I was thinking of. Reminds me of how they treated former Wikipedia admin Athaenara when she made a similarly critical comment. I'm sorry they inflicted their harassment tactics on you. I know how it feels, I had a similar experience a few years ago on a different forum and it soured me both to their activism and, after a long, critical look at what they were actually demanding, the entire concept behind their activism.

benterix 3y ago
Well, in today's world, there is just one group that will hunt you down, make your life miserable, harass you and your employer and so on - all this in the name of tolerance for minority. And for some strange reason the society just accepted it. When people throw the worst shit at the creator of a popular book series,[0] we look away and pretend we don't see, otherwise they may turn their attention to us. It makes me sad because the good intentions have been turned into something fundamentally wrong. [0] Apparently you can't even play the game based on it, at least in some circles.
rendall 3y ago
TL;DR Wikipedia has no defense against organized, bad actors. The institutional protection protocols are easily weaponized against unorganized and solo editors. My experience wasn't so bad. I was less irritated by the harassment and doxxing than I was by Wikipedia's reaction. While that crew's behavior was an attempt to intimidate, I was not really intimidated, but I was deeply disappointed in Wikipedia. Weird people gotta be weird, so I view them like the wind and sand, just part of the landscape. If I were to conclude that one whole class of people are bad because some people "supporting" them are bad, it'd be a bad conclusion. Every group has good and bad (and weird). Wikipedia for their part has pseudo-legalistic protocols and policies that are byzantine, contradictory and hard to navigate, rewarding invested troublemakers and discouraging ordinary volunteers. In my case, the crew dug into my contribution history, manufactured an accusation and threw it at the wall to see if it would stick. To my naive surprise and disappointment, their transparently harassing accusation was upheld. The admin literally looked at multiple instances of harassment and supported it. Was the admin colluding with them? Does not matter. Not a community I want to participate in either way. My conclusion from that experience is that, scratch the surface, and it's clear that Wikipedia as an institution has no effective defense against bad actors when - charitably - the thin line against are just solo, ordinarily volunteers like myself and a comparatively tiny full time staff. In a world of professional troll farms, all Wikipedia articles that have real-world political meaning, on the Holocaust for example, will inevitably have effective, bad acting editors pushing false ideological agendas, as we see here in the paper. They can and do weaponize the current policies cynically to push out opposing editors. It is an institutional problem and I don't see how it can be easily fixed.

by werdi 3y ago

benterix 3y ago

Well, in today's world, there is just one group that will hunt you down, make your life miserable, harass you and your employer and so on - all this in the name of tolerance for minority. And for some strange reason the society just accepted it. When people throw the worst shit at the creator of a popular book series,[0] we look away and pretend we don't see, otherwise they may turn their attention to us. It makes me sad because the good intentions have been turned into something fundamentally wrong. [0] Apparently you can't even play the game based on it, at least in some circles.

rendall 3y ago

TL;DR Wikipedia has no defense against organized, bad actors. The institutional protection protocols are easily weaponized against unorganized and solo editors. My experience wasn't so bad. I was less irritated by the harassment and doxxing than I was by Wikipedia's reaction. While that crew's behavior was an attempt to intimidate, I was not really intimidated, but I was deeply disappointed in Wikipedia. Weird people gotta be weird, so I view them like the wind and sand, just part of the landscape. If I were to conclude that one whole class of people are bad because some people "supporting" them are bad, it'd be a bad conclusion. Every group has good and bad (and weird). Wikipedia for their part has pseudo-legalistic protocols and policies that are byzantine, contradictory and hard to navigate, rewarding invested troublemakers and discouraging ordinary volunteers. In my case, the crew dug into my contribution history, manufactured an accusation and threw it at the wall to see if it would stick. To my naive surprise and disappointment, their transparently harassing accusation was upheld. The admin literally looked at multiple instances of harassment and supported it. Was the admin colluding with them? Does not matter. Not a community I want to participate in either way. My conclusion from that experience is that, scratch the surface, and it's clear that Wikipedia as an institution has no effective defense against bad actors when - charitably - the thin line against are just solo, ordinarily volunteers like myself and a comparatively tiny full time staff. In a world of professional troll farms, all Wikipedia articles that have real-world political meaning, on the Holocaust for example, will inevitably have effective, bad acting editors pushing false ideological agendas, as we see here in the paper. They can and do weaponize the current policies cynically to push out opposing editors. It is an institutional problem and I don't see how it can be easily fixed.