Overview

Wikimail is the system used by volunteers on WMF projects to send e-mail to each other by means of an online messaging interface. Users have repeatedly complained that by disclosing their private e-mail address via Wikimail they open themselves to the risk of abuse by harassers sending unsolicited messages or hackers targeting their e-mail provider. This core problem has inspired a range of anti-harassment proposals over the past five years.

Top High Level Takeaways

• The Wikimedia community reacts to online harassment as if it were an unavoidable force of nature. The anti-harassment proposals from the past five years collectively represent a defensive community mindset. The improvements would help victims to evade Wikimail harassment but do nothing to address the abusive behavior itself.

• Wikimail abuse has never been addressed by name in a survey. This makes it difficult to judge the extent of the problem or how widespread the problem is across language communities.

Findings

Project Objective