This is excellent news! I am particularly excited by the idea of a better suite of blocking tools, which will hopefully save admins from playing a game of whack-a-mole with particularly tenacious vandals and harassers.
Cheers, Craig On 27 January 2017 at 06:37, Danny Horn <dh...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > Hello, > > We have an update on the community health initiative mentioned following > the Board's Statement on Healthy Community Culture, Inclusivity, and Safe > Spaces.[1] > > As Patrick Earley from the Support and Safety team noted on Wikimedia-l > last month[2], we’ve been developing a community health initiative to help > address the harassment issues discussed in the Board's statement. We > believe an important aspect of our efforts to combat harassment is > providing the volunteer community with better tools to more effectively > respond to instances of harassment as they arise. > > We’re excited to announce that the Craig Newmark Foundation and craigslist > Charitable Fund have agreed to provide initial funding to help the > Wikimedia Foundation begin this work. The two seed restricted grants, > collectively a gift of $500,000, will enable the Foundation to scale up our > support of these efforts and provide us with the resources to do it right. > > In preparing for this work, we’ve been discussing issues with the current > tools and processes with active administrators and functionaries. These > discussions have resulted in requested improvements in several key areas > where admins and functionaries see immediate needs—better reporting systems > for volunteers, smarter ways to detect and address problems early, and > improved tools and workflows related to the blocking process. > > In the coming months, the Community Tech team, working with the Support and > Safety team, will be expanding their work on development of these tools. > The long-term goal for this effort is to build up the toolbox that > volunteers can use to combat harassment and other disruptive behavior on > our wikis. > > Specifically, there are four areas where we think new tools will help: > > 1. Detection - Improve our detection and prevention tools, like > AbuseFilter, and build new features to detect aggressive behavior. > > 2. Reporting - Design ways to report harassment that are less chaotic, more > respectful of privacy, and less stressful than the current workflow. > > 3. Evaluating - Offer admins tools that make evaluating harassment reports > easier, so that they can make good decisions. > > 4. Blocking - When someone is blocked from the site, we can make it more > difficult for them to return under a different name or IP address. > > Of course, these improvements need to be made with the participation and > support of the volunteers who will be using the tools. We don't want to > create new systems and workflows that create more work for an already > overburdened team of wiki administrators. We want to make these tasks less > grueling and able to more consistently produce effective outcomes. > > Work in other areas - such as project policies and better training for > administrators and functionaries - still needs to be done in order to > comprehensively tackle the overall issue of harassment and harmful behavior > on the projects. However, we believe that improving and building better > tools for volunteers currently most engaged in this effort is a necessary > first step. > > We welcome your feedback on this approach, and invite you to join us in > thanking Craig and his charitable organizations for their support of this > initiative! > > We’ll be sharing regular updates about the progress of this work in the > coming months. If you have any questions in the meantime, please reach out > to us on the talk page of the Meta-Wiki page where you can find more > information: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_health_initiative > > You can also find more details about this announcement in this blog post: > https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/26/community-health-initiative-grant > > Danny Horn (Product Manager, Community Tech) and Patrick Earley (Manager, > Support & Safety) > > [1] > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_ > Board_noticeboard/November_2016_-_Statement_on_Healthy_Community_Culture,_ > Inclusivity,_and_Safe_Spaces > > [2] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016- > December/085668.html > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
