Talk:A Rape in Cyberspace

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jboey. Peer reviewers: Madelinemccluskey.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 16:43, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 14 August 2019 and 7 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Hthrxlynn, MGray1196. Peer reviewers: Sabub, Bridgette96.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 13:10, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Untitled

I've heard from fairly reputable sources (but only in person) that large parts of Dibbell's story were, while not outright lies, not precisely what happened either. Specifically, he talks about how exu claims to have been in tears during the event. I've heard this wasn't true, and was emblematic of Dibbell's general over-dramatizing of the events. Does anyone have any sources to back that up? I haven't seen anything on the net, and was hoping to find some of that here, but didn't.

---

As someone who has experienced actual sexual assault And rape, I am absolutely gobsmacked there is no rebuttal section in this page pointing out what happened is NOT RAPE, to compare someone taking control of others programs online to RAPE is abhorant, unacceptable, and a complete and utter insult to those that have experienced actual rape, and it is beyond offensive and a slap in the face to every survivor out there, to compare program stealing with ACTUAL REAL SEXUAL ASSAULT!!! Could someone PLEASE write a rebuttal section - if, as people insist in this talk page, this is such a 'important' case, there are surely students, professors, researchers out there that have pointed out the obvious - this was in NO WAY a rape, to conflate the two is to minimize and negate what REAL survivors

of REAL RAPE go through, and they and their research can be quoted. I am so disgusted that this is sitting on wiki for everyone to read, with no rebuttal.

2001:569:BDE6:1100:5C70:EF:CE1E:1232 (talk) 16:36, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

uh

This seems like a really strange thing to devote an entire article to. The last section is definitely not NPOV, and was pretty clearly written by a member of that community.

Unlikely. This 'case' is very important in Virtual World studies. ~~Nicholas A. Chambers 00:52, 22 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicholas.a.chambers (talk • contribs)

Summary section "in-universe"

The summary section blurs the lines between real events and things that occured within a computer program. This is easy to do, of course, because the original article itself is all about that blurring. Nevertheless, we must remain precise on Wikipedia. The founder should be referred to primarily by his name; the fact that he calls himself the Archiwizard Haakon isn't really relevant. The word "cyberrape" should never appear outside quotes; the article may call it that, but it's neither NPOV nor factually accurate to refer to it as analogous to a rape without making it clear whose term it is. Stuff like that. -- SCZenz 23:16, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I've rewritten the section in an attempt to clarify the difference between the real-world users and their online screennames/avatars. I think it's improved enough to remove the in-universe tag, but I'm still not clear myself on a few points - whether, for instance, messages posted on the mailing-list are posted by the users as their real-world selves or as their avatars. I suspect the former. --Smalljim 16:58, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I suspect the latter -- it's described as an "in-MOO mailing list", so it is probably the equivalent of getting personal messages on a typical forum. You log into your "screen name" (I think most MOOers would consider that an AOLism -- the terminology used seems to be variously "player" or "character"), and from there you have access to the full suite of MOO commands including the mail system. In general, though, I think your edits were helpful in making those distinctions to people who are thoroughly unfamiliar with virtual experience (as surprising as their existence may be to others). --Dhartung | Talk 08:04, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments, Dan. As you could tell, I'm no expert on MOOs - in fact I learned some interesting stuff while editing the article. Hope someone else can clean it up further. --Smalljim 10:16, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

It's definitely the latter; all in-MOO mailing lists, such as the *social-issues list referenced in the article, used in-game names ("player" names) for attribution. At the time of the events covered by the Village Voice article, there was little or no association between MOO player names and real-world names. Accounts are now associated with an email address (a regular Internet email address, that is), but I'm not sure that was even true at the time. There is no extensive user registration system for LambdaMOO. It would have been difficult to associate the perpetrator or victims with their real-world identities.

On a related note, almost all of the player names referenced in the Village Voice article are pseudonyms, except that of Haakon. I think it's worth mentioning that Pavel Curtis referred to himself as "Haakon" in the game, since the Village Voice article refers to him as Haakon. The other aliases are thinly-veiled, and those who were part of the community at that time were able to identify the pseudonyms chosen for themselves and others. The fact that they were pseudonyms may be worth a brief mention in the article, since some player pseudonyms are explicitly mentioned. I'm not going to modify the article, as I don't have sources that can be cited. I was present during some of the events and subsequent debate on corrective action, and I'm mentioned by pseudonym in the article, but I don't think that qualifies for citation. James A. Stewart (talk) 01:19, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Relevance

As there seems to be some debate (vis above) about the relevance of this article, it should be noted that it's regularly cited 15 years after the original publication, and used as course material in current university sociology courses. The cited Lessig influence alone is evidence of relevance. This is my clearly POV opinion, but I felt like weighing in. If there's any serious debate about relevance or a desire to remove the article entirely, I'd be happy to track down current sources to cite in defense of its retention. James A. Stewart (talk) 01:37, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

What makes something relevant is context. That's lacking here. 208.68.128.90 (talk) 22:45, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Why social instead of technical?

Why at the time this was approached under a social context instead of treating the ability to impersonate another user without authorization as a technical issue? If this sort of functionality was desirable, why not implement a permission authorization/revoking system, so users remained in control? --TiagoTiago (talk) 14:32, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Honestly, it's just an overblown drama about an early chat room learning to implement a kick feature. At the time, the people involved approached it as a lesson in the boundaries between tehcnical and social, perhaps for their own sake (not like RPers to be drama queens, eh?), but in hindsight it is ultimately a now-familiar technical issue. The article sort of predates that distinction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8800:2396:1B00:64A8:823F:9B0B:9C02 (talk) 21:36, 5 January 2022 (UTC)