This is the SCP Foundation's official policy on harassment cases.
If there are any questions, concerns, etc. Please do let me know.
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Official Anti-Harassment Policy / Discussion
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This is the discussion related to the wiki page Official Anti-Harassment Policy.
Just two things:
1. After typing "harassment" that many times, did it lose all semantic meaning?
2. This is a moderately abuseable policy. Have there been enough cases (either in absolute number or in terms of severity) of harassment to justify "MTF-Harassment-Slappers"? I really, genuinely would like to know, because I've been getting a little weirded out by all the Tumblr-fringe-friendly policies and such being proposed lately.
Or, to phrase it a bit better: what the hell has been going on in the forums? Are people really requiring this degree of policing, or are we dancing to the tune of the Concern Trolls?
There was one very, very nasty and high profile case a while ago.
Also, TBH, while I'm the first person usually opposed to tumblr bullshit, there's little I find wrong or questionable with this policy. At most the fact that it should emphasise private communication in at least the non-sexual cases as being the thing there (since, you know - some people tried to invoke harrassment when one user posted a factual rebuttal to a guide written by another which they have clashed with extensively, but I digress), and I think that while not necessarily harrassment, it should mention the official staff ruling (which I wholesale support btw) that SCP is not a dating site and as such any sort of sexual advances will be dealt with as inappropriate conduct (so don't even try.)
So yeah, don't worry here - the stuff here is eminently reasonable. Besides, there's a harrassment team for ages now, and I think having a set of rules they are forced to abide by, even if they mostly say "we do it right (AKA permaban) the first time" is good.
1. After typing "harassment" that many times, did it lose all semantic meaning?
Uhm, no?
I've been getting a little weirded out by all the Tumblr-fringe-friendly policies
If you're weirded out by "hey don't harass people" I don't know what to tell you except to say that, actually, it's not that weird to say harassment isn't acceptable?
what the hell has been going on in the forums? Are people really requiring this degree of policing
Yes. Especially if people are assuming that having a policy against harassment is "tumblr-fringe-friendly".
Living the dream, or dreaming the life?
Me: 1. After typing "harassment" that many times, did it lose all semantic meaning?
SS: Uhm, no?
Sorry, tried to lead with a light touch there. Disregard.
Me: I've been getting a little weirded out by all the Tumblr-fringe-friendly policies
SS: If you're weirded out by "hey don't harass people" I don't know what to tell you except to say that, actually, it's not that weird to say harassment isn't acceptable?
Oh, come on. I've read a lot of your work, and I know damn well that you're a lot smarter than that. Or you're assuming I'm not that bright, which is your right to assume based on a badly-worded post. Let's go with the latter, here.
I am extremely anti-harassment, but writing up a formal policy (in a non-corporate environment) to that effect always raises an eyebrow… Or perhaps I should say, it raises the question of "Who is this policy targeted at, the users or the mods?"
If it's targeted at the users, this is all such common-sense stuff that if people didn't already "know" it's wrong to harass, a single warning and then temporary banhammering would normally get the lesson through. Y'know, like most sites do.
If, however, it's targeted at the mods, then that implies that someone thinks that someone else was sitting on their hands instead of dealing with overt harassment in an appropriate manner. In this case, the policy would be written to give admins/fellow mods cause to strip "non-compliant" mods of their mod powers.
In the first case, it almost seems silly to write it up, but understandable enough. That is not what concerns me at all. If it's the second case, I am very concerned, because it means that with half a dozen sock-puppets I personally could get almost any mod removed in a week (by having the socks "harass" each other, then reveal information after a banning that makes the mod look foolish, or play off of known mod biases, or play with "not-quite-harassment" that a mod doesn't perceive as ban-worthy but then suddenly leads to a couple of very aggressive messages… Which my fake harassee then waves all over the site as proof that the mod in question is non-compliant with harassment policy and that led to a bad outcome… And I could go on here for some time, but you get the idea).
My point is that by making this a formal and fairly rigid policy that is not well-designed for a relatively anonymous website and protects nobody from anything (Seriously, how could annoying someone on an anonymous site lead to a tort? And why exactly couldn't a harrass-y person just use multiple accounts?), it will just make the mods trigger-happy but not curb the worst behaviors, since all the banned folks have to do is get a new account (or 50) via the many anonymous webmail services out there or reset their router (if it's an IP-based ban).
Did you really think that anyone with an objection to this is just an idiot or "doesn't get it"? I am concerned that this can be abused to hell and back to gut mods that someone doesn't like, and don't see how it will stop people from consciously harassing each other.
what the hell has been going on in the forums? Are people really requiring this degree of policing
Yes. Especially if people are assuming that having a policy against harassment is "tumblr-fringe-friendly".
Okay, that was terrible phrasing on my part. I should, and do, apologize for using loaded language where rational debate is needed.
As above, my concern was not about "OMG we're getting Tumberized because of your policy!!!1". It's about how we could quite easily, since (again, as above) I can think of, in just a few minutes, dozens of ways to use this policy to attack mods unless they literally jump and overreact to even the most minimal complaints… Which is a horrible outcome, since it means that the only mods not vulnerable to (very) easy social engineering attacks are the kind that you don't want as mods: no ability to distinguish shades of gray, no common sense, and no ability or desire to work with their community to correct minor transgressions instead of banning the hell out of anyone that someone else wants to complain about for pretty much any reason.
So, again, I apologize for giving you the wrong idea about where I was coming from; my issues with this policy have nothing to do with harassment, really. It's about trying to understand if the cost/benefit of an official policy like this is worth it. So far, it doesn't really sound like it to me, but I also assume that I'm not privy to all of the information and behind-the-scenes implementation of this policy that might make my concerns ridiculous. Or, at least, I hope so.
Hope I didn't offend, and sorry again for coming off like an angry MRA-twit when I wasn't even thinking along those lines.
Collapsed the wall of text. ~Zyn
I'll respond to this, since I suppose I'm in the know. I think there's a bit of confusion going on here, and clearing it up should help smooth things over. Allow me to explain.
The policy, like you initially stated, is for the users. In the past, there have been issues with user/user harassment, which eventually resulted in at least one major user being removed from the site, wholesale. The issue in this case, as far as I am aware, was not a staff issue; the people being harassed didn't feel comfortable stepping up, or other people knew and didn't know what to do about it, given the circumstances.
The point, then, of this policy is to make ourselves clear (from a staff point of view) about where we stand on the issue. If it wasn't clear already, now it is. You might consider this kind of trivial, and indeed, I don't necessarily see anything on this guide that assumes anything that wasn't fairly well understood before. The important thing, though, is that it's there. It's another base that we have covered, and for that reason, it absolutely deserves a place on the wiki.
Your concern about it being for the mods kind of confuses me, and makes me think you don't exactly understand how our disciplinary process works. To be clear, it's like this:
1.) User1 commits an harassment of some kind against User2.
2.) User2 finds a member of the staff and reports the harassment.
3.) Staff member asks to see proof of harassment.
4.) User2 provides proof, which they have logged of course because this is the internet.
5.) Staff member accepts proof, brings it before the harassment team, and assess the issue, decides how best to handle it.
6.) The issue is resolved when staff make a decision and implements it.
The key here is that everything, everything is logged, always. We do that for a reason, so that everybody is held accountable and nothing is left to hearsay.
And as such, we haven't had many issues with the staff/user harassment recently. In fact, none that I can remember since I got here. With this system in place, there are a dozen different oversights, so there's little risk of… mod-abuse? that you're claiming will be the doom of us all.
harassment is my trigger word this is harassment
Seriously though, good stuff. More comprehensive than Bright's post, and for a topic like this, a necessity.
If it isn't already, I would suggest that [links to] this get stickied in each sub-forum, and perhaps on the chat page as well.
Do not contact the person person […]
Mistake.
Thanks, fixed.
Living the dream, or dreaming the life?
If someone asks you to stop talking to them, stop. Do not apologize. Do not demand a reason. Do not ask if you've been forgiven after a week. Stop talking to them entirely.
This is really important advice.
Also, there's harrassment staff? Now I know who to harass who will harass me.
(account deleted)Nice. Now upload this to Tumblr. I'm glad this has a page now instead of whatever it was before. I think it was just a tab on one of the required reading pages, or something… eh, I don't remember. Anyway, thank you. :)
Heh, I didn't realize this was a real world/out of character article until I got to the punishment section.
Anyways it's nice to see that this got its own page.
Supporting this.
Former CI Wiki Administrator Now just CI Wiki member: | Tuum Est: It's up to you
Looks very promising and I really hope this will improve the site community, especially in regards to some horrid double standards one witnesses in very old posts.
If you feel that site staff is being unfair to anyone, please contact an administrator. I'm not sure how old the "horrid double standards" you're referring to are, but if there's any unresolved issues you feel should be addressed, directly contacting a high-up staff member is the best way to get it dealt with efficiently.
Something that occurred to me: Might repeated false, misleading, or spurious complaints/reports of misbehavior to staff also qualify as harassment? It wouldn't necessarily entail any particular interaction with the user in question, but insofar as those complaints are documented publicly and/or followed up on, it could certainly have the effect of diminishing the target's reputation, causing stress/worry, and basically using the administration as a venue to harass someone. Kind of like how calling the cops on someone for no good reason would be harassment.
I should note that this is entirely hypothetical, and I don't know whether this has been a problem before. I was, however, 'inspired' by at least one anonymous complaint documented on O5 Command whose spuriousness made it difficult to read as anything but a personal attack, which got me thinking.
if your reading this your gay
If a staff member believes that they are being repeatedly reported for nonexistent misconduct, I welcome them to contact any member of the harassment team so we can properly deal with shitty people.
Yes, it's intensely shitty to target a staff member by making false reports repeatedly for no other purpose than aforementioned targeting. It's harassment.
Living the dream, or dreaming the life?
Interesting. Sounds like the concern (how this policy can and almost certainly will be abused by malicious actors) I raised in my wall-o'-text discussion with SS was a bit prophetic, non?
/forum/t-1047816/official-anti-harassment-policy#post-
page revision: 1, last edited: 02 Apr 2021 15:16
