[Image: Pax speaks at WikiConference North America 2016. Photo by Ziggy.]

On August 10 I will be presenting a talk on combating harassment with user page protection at WikiConference North America 2017 in Montreal. The presentation will discuss the idea I submitted which led to protecting user pages on the English Wikipedia from editing by anonymous and new users. The working title for my talk is “Facing Defacement”.

In preparing for this talk, I’ve been monitoring the abuse log that captures attempted edits to user pages that were prevented by a filter. I’ve seen some pretty ugly examples of hate speech, particularly regarding sexual orientation. I’ve been subjected to racist and trans-antagonistic taunts on Wikipedia myself, which was what led me to submit the idea. While protecting user pages does not prevent harassment elsewhere on Wikipedia and the Internet, it’s an important start.

WikiConference North America leads into the Wikimania 2017 conference, which I will also be attending. I look forward to meeting with hundreds of Wikimedians from all over the globe.