Logistics behind promoting and planning a long-term solution to online harassment with partners

Dorothy and I have been talking about the long-term solution to online harassment. The ideal “solution” is whatever intervention prevents the maximum amount of online harassment, paired with a satisfying support system for targets of harassment. No one knows what this would be or how it would work, so Dorothy and I have been talking this through with others.

Today Dorothy and I had a call with James Alexander and Philippe Beaudette. I do not want to misrepresent anything they said, but sometimes when repeating what others said, things get misinterpreted or inappropriately expressed. I think none of what they said was private because they reviewed some Wikimedia Foundation policy on harassment and crisis situations with us. In my opinion, the Wikimedia Foundation has the best existing infrastructure in place for responding to crisis. Dorothy and I have other ideas for handling harassment, and if we criticize what the Wikimedia Foundation does, it is just because we are imagining something which gives better outcomes than the best existing system on earth, which is what they are already using. The WMF continually improves its system. With the resources they have they can do no more than they are already doing. I am happy with their pace of progress. I only talk about them because I want the best on earth to become a lot better.

When we talked, one summary of what we discussed could be as follows:

• Dorothy shared experiences as a Wikimedia community volunteer who receives complaints of harassment and who has been the target of harassment. She wished for support for all people who experience harassment, and said that this support was either nonexistent or inaccessible.
• Philippe discussed movement roles, and said that the Wikimedia Foundation especially wants to support people online and on Wikimedia projects, and historically has had trouble determining when it should intervene in affairs which seem to be outside the scope of its direct control. The ambiguity is that the WMF fosters a community which acts independently of the WMF and outside of WMF-controlled spaces, and the WMF might do well to avoid taking responsibility for the things done out of its own spaces. A troublesome situation is when Wikimedia community members experience harassment as a result of their Wikimedia participation, but when that harassment happens outside the Wikimedia websites. I understand why the Wikimedia Foundation would not want to promise policing and support throughout the world beyond the limits of its authority on the website it oversees.
• I reviewed some talking points which Dorothy and I were considering bringing out into the community – that harassment exists, that there is no obvious solution to the problem, that perhaps an external organization could propose a response approaching a solution, and that asking the WMF to fund a solution perhaps starting on the order of USD 300k/year would be appropriate. The only ask here was whether James or Philippe thought it might be harmful to raise these points to advance conversation, and there was no opposition.
• James reviewed some existing processes in place, with suicide reporting as a model.

I understand that the Wikimedia Foundation is not able to do impossible things, and that finding international protection for all people in all circumstances at all levels of affiliation with the Wikimedia Foundation is a seemingly impossible task. I recognize the Wikimedia Foundation as a leader in responding to problems reported online, and I do not fault the Wikimedia Foundation for harassment when it happens or when it goes addressed. I continue to feel strongly that anyone who experiences harassment should have the right to confidentially report it and seek assistance. I further feel that reporting ought to be easy for the victim. I am not sure where the report should go, who should give support in response, or what kind of support ought to be available.

I understand that the Wikimedia Foundation is adverse to touching complaints for which it wants no responsibility. James and Philippe said, for example, that the WMF does good work in responding to suicide alerts when people write to Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm. I am happy for this, but the response should not end here. I know that a gap in their support is that they prefer to respond in English language, and then have some ability to respond in some other popular languages, then declining ability should someone write in using a language that no one at the help line understands. If someone writes to the suicide line and they do so in a language that no one at the line can read, then I would be comfortable saying that the crisis line receiving the complaint should not be expected to recognize it as a suicide alert, and should not be held responsible to responding to it when it cannot be read and when it probably when something is written in an obscure language then it probably comes from a place where a network of support would be difficult to connect to the problem. By this I mean to give an example of the general case that I want to exist – that anyone ought to be able to complain or make reports as they like; and that in receiving a complaint, it is nice to help whenever it is possible; but after assistance resources are allocated to establish a support base if problems arise that are beyond the capacity of the system to resolve, then there should be no responsibility to resolve them nor shame in failing to resolve them. The alternative to this is to burden the person who wishes to make a complaint with a series of barriers so that a chilling effect is encouraged to prevent anyone from making a complaint which is unlike the ideal complaint which the respondent wishes to resolve. I would accept a complaint system that informs the complaining persons that they are directing their complaint to a channel from where help will not likely come, but if possible then something might be done to support them, and maybe someday someone may personally acknowledge their complaint, and a little hope and a promise to be read eventually might be the best that we can offer some people in some cases. For harassment of all kinds, hope of being heard is often the only benefit available to people, because the alternative is to keep harassment as a private relationship between the actor and target as it has always been. I want for someday for people to have hope or maybe even help, and without empowering people to speak up to ask for help, there is no chance of them ever getting help, because everyone in a community is pressured to suppress information that the problem even exists.

I expect that it can only be troublesome for an organization like the Wikimedia Foundation to get a request for help, and then to say that it is not responsible to help or that it is responsible but lacks the resources to do anything. Again, I do not expect the Wikimedia Foundation or anyone else to help when it is not possible, but some people might expect the impossible and might defame the Wikimedia Foundation if it becomes known that it failed to provide an impossible solution to some problem.

From the victim perspective, it is crushing to be in trouble, and to seek help, and to have no chance or hope anywhere in the world to even be able to ask for help. It is unfair to the targets of harassment to force them to do research to ask for help in the right place, and to tell them to not ask for help if they want an impossible sort of help, and to propagate the idea that victims should be silent when they have a problem. People asking for help should not be imagined as a burden to the people who receive their requests, but instead, should be acknowledged and told directly “I am unable to help you, sorry, I wish you the best. I am listening now so that I can prepare to help others in the future, but right now, please seek help elsewhere because I have no help to share. Since you are telling me this, you must think that I should help, and I will think about what that means.”

In the end of the call, Dorothy and I are still left with the base problem of being representatives of something much bigger than ourselves. Although the Wikimedia Foundation has some barriers which prevent all but certain types of complaints from being on it, volunteers in the field have the social, emotional, and spiritual burden of dealing with any complaint that comes to us, whether it is fair or not for us to be asked to resolve it, whether we are responsible or not for following through to its solution. The sad part about this is that the Wikimedia movement machine is a lever which dregs up both good and bad things from entire geographic regions then pours all of these concerns onto a few volunteer individuals in the field. I wish that the burden could somehow be shared with paid staff of the Wikimedia Foundation, but I understand that organizations necessarily have to be risk adverse and of course organizational structures force people to behave in ways that people without a conflict of interest would never behave.

I pray for the Wikimedia movement’s aims to be achieved, and I pray for safety and respect for anyone who participates in it. There is significant danger and risk in being a Wikimedia community volunteer, and the risk increases with increased engagement and more positive contributions. Dorothy and I have a proposal for development at Centralised harassment reporting and referral service. It is a wild idea, really, and I am not sure what kind of organization would ever want to go on a crazy protection crusade no matter what kind of support there was for it.