On Sat, Jun 24, 2017 at 2:49 AM, Kerry Raymond <kerry.raym...@gmail.com> wrote:
> No right to be offended? To say to someone "you don't have the right to be > offended" seems pretty offensive in itself. It seems to imply that their > cultural norms are somehow inferior or unacceptable. > I'm not sure that I worded my comment clearly as I would like. I would like to reduce the intensity and frequency of toxic behavior, but there's some difficulty in defining what is toxic or unacceptable. If person X says something that person Y finds offensive, that in and of itself doesn't mean that person X was being intentionally malicious. Cultural norms and personal sensitivities vary widely, and there is a danger that attempts to reduce conflict will be done in such a way that freedom of expression is suppressed. As an example, there are statements in British English that I am told are highly offensive, but to me as an American seem mild when I hear them through an American cultural lens. Having an AI, or humans, attempt to police the degree to which a statement is offensive seems like a minefield. Perhaps a better way to approach the situation is to try to a look at intent, which I think is similar to your next point: > > With the global reach of Wikipedia, there are obviously many points of > view on what is or isn't offensive in what circumstances. Offence may not > be intended at first, but, if after a person is told their behaviour is > offensive and they persist with that behaviour, I think it is reasonable to > assume that they intend to offend. Which is why the data showing there is a > group of experienced users involved in numerous personal attacks demands > some human investigation of their behaviour. > I think that looking at intent, rather than solely at the content of what was said, sounds like a good idea. However, I'm not sure that I'd always agree that if person X is told that statement A is offensive to person Y that person X should necessarily stop, because what person X is saying may be seem reasonable to person X (for example "It's OK to eat meat") but highly offensive to person Y. I think maybe a more nuanced approach would be to look at what person X's intent is in saying "It's OK to eat meat": is the person expressing or arguing for their views in good faith, or are they acting in bad faith and intentionally trying to provoke person Y? Fortunately, in my experience, the cases where people are being malicious are usually clearer, such that admins and others are not usually called on to evaluate whether a statement was OK. "Calling names" in any language seems to not go over very well, and I think that most of us who have a tool to create blocks would be willing to use that tool if a conversation degenerated to that point. Unfortunately, like you, my perception in the past was that there were some experienced users on English Wikipedia (and perhaps other languages as well) where needlessly provocative behavior was tolerated; I would like to think that the standards for civility are being raised. I'm aware of WMF's research into the frequency of personal attacks; I wonder whether there are charts of how the frequency is changing over time. > Similarly for a person offended, if there is a genuinely innocent > interpretation to something they found offensive and that is explained to > them (perhaps by third parties), I think they need to be accepting that no > offence was intended on that occasion. Obviously we need a bit of give and > take. But I think there have to be limits on the repeated behaviour (either > in giving the offence or taking the offence). > In general, I agree. There are some actions for which I could support "one strike and you're out"; I once kicked someone out of an IRC channel for uncivil behavior with little (perhaps no) warning because the situation seemed so clear to me, and no one complained about my decision. I think that in many cases that it's clear whether someone is making a personal attack, but some cases are not so clear, and I want to be careful about the degree to which WMF encourages administrators to rely on an AI to make decisions. Even if an AI is trained extensively in with native language speakers, there can be significant differences in how a statement is interpreted. Pine > > Kerry > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Wiki-research-l mailing list > Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
