Thank you for your sympathy, and your kind words. It's been a nice anodyne to the usual jolt of "oh god" I always get whenever I see a comment repsonse in my inbox labeled anonymous, that's for sure :)
I've given a lot of thought to the best ways to handle the problem, as have a lot of other smart women out there, and I just don't have an answer. There have been a lot of suggestions that someone should maintain (for instance) a resource to display, name&shame, etc, threats and other harassment. I personally think that could be counterproductive -- either these troglodytes egging each other on to do worse and worse, or piling on a particular target, or just poisoning the well with false reports -- but I don't know; it could work. I wish I had solutions. All I can do is try to make Dreamwidth an open-source community where that kind of behavior will get your ass booted out the door in half a heartbeat if it happens. (And many, many people have thanked us for it.)
(Meanwhile, the problem with ISPs et al -- having been on the other side of that equation myself -- is that it's really, really hard to come up with a bright-line test for that kind of behavior. The stuff I'm discussing obviously falls over the foul line, but it is a continuum, and sometimes it's really hard to judge. There's also a very strong tension in most geek communities with the "free speech at all costs!" crowd, most of whom will stand up for the harassers to keep harassing because "it's not all that bad" and "censorship is a greater evil" and some nonsense about the slippery slope. You can see that attitude most prominently in ESR's response to MikeeUSA's removal from Sourceforge, and it's another reason why most women I know won't bother to report things like that in geek communities; they're tired of hearing that their harasser has more rights than they do.)
Power management, mobile and firmware developer on Linux. Security developer at Aurora. Ex-biologist. mjg59 on Twitter. Content here should not be interpreted as the opinion of my employer. Also on Mastodon.
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Date: 2011-10-31 05:57 am (UTC)I've given a lot of thought to the best ways to handle the problem, as have a lot of other smart women out there, and I just don't have an answer. There have been a lot of suggestions that someone should maintain (for instance) a resource to display, name&shame, etc, threats and other harassment. I personally think that could be counterproductive -- either these troglodytes egging each other on to do worse and worse, or piling on a particular target, or just poisoning the well with false reports -- but I don't know; it could work. I wish I had solutions. All I can do is try to make Dreamwidth an open-source community where that kind of behavior will get your ass booted out the door in half a heartbeat if it happens. (And many, many people have thanked us for it.)
(Meanwhile, the problem with ISPs et al -- having been on the other side of that equation myself -- is that it's really, really hard to come up with a bright-line test for that kind of behavior. The stuff I'm discussing obviously falls over the foul line, but it is a continuum, and sometimes it's really hard to judge. There's also a very strong tension in most geek communities with the "free speech at all costs!" crowd, most of whom will stand up for the harassers to keep harassing because "it's not all that bad" and "censorship is a greater evil" and some nonsense about the slippery slope. You can see that attitude most prominently in ESR's response to MikeeUSA's removal from Sourceforge, and it's another reason why most women I know won't bother to report things like that in geek communities; they're tired of hearing that their harasser has more rights than they do.)