Craigslist founder fights for safer Wikipedia

Craig Newmark of eponymous website Craigslist wants to eradicate trolling and other forms of toxic behaviour on Wikipedia.

With a donation of $500,000, Newmark is the initial seed funder for a new initiative by the Wikimedia Foundation to address harassment and uncivil conduct on the collaborative online encyclopaedia.

The non-profit organisation, Wikimedia Foundation, reports that harassment on Wikipedia has been shown to reduce participation with over 50 per cent of Wikipedia contributors who had been victims of such online abuse stating that they withdrew from the site as a result.

“To ensure Wikipedia’s vitality, people of good will need to work together to prevent trolling, harassment and cyber-bullying from interfering with the common good,” said Newmark.

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The funding will drive what is being called a “community health initiative” to develop more and better tools for identifying, reporting and ridding the site of abusive content.

[ https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/26/community-health-initiative-grant/ ]