Dear Owners, Editors and Staff at Chowk.com: This petition calls for the fair, just and timely implementation of the guidelines set up for interactors at your website. Several interactors on Chowk.com, particularly female gendered and those who express progressive, Muslim, Pakistani, gay and lesbian viewpoints have unfortunately been targets of harrassment by anonymous interactors. This harrassment has ranged from extensive personal invective directed at the targets to threats and harrassing comments to the targets and their famillies to the continous derogatory posting of names, names of relatives, occupations, home and work place addresses and pictures of interactors of recipients of harrassment. Those being targetted by these anonymous harrassers have little redress besides contacting chowk.com to mixed and erratic results. Some of the resulting actions taken by chowk.com include the target of harrassment being banned with the anonymous harrasser themselves. Others have reported being banned for fairly innocuous comments. This petition proposes the following protocol for dealing with cyber harrassment on chowk.com: 1. Transparency of ownership, editorshop and staff. Chowk cannot expect interactors to be targetted while they themselves are protected from the wrath of these anonymous interactors. Continually make the names and emails of those who work at chowk.com known and available to interactors. 2. Explicate and follow one set of procedures for banning that is timely, backed with legitimate evidence and implemented reasonably. Keep communication open with interactors as is reasonable given disruptive online behavior. 3. Permanently ban interactors who flagrantly and without regard continue to harrass interactors because of their nationality, political and personal perspectives, gender, etc. Acknowledge that interactors like reza_md who continually post the workplaces of interactors or those who post photos of interactors and comment on their attractiveness is unacceptable and should be addressed immediately and without tolerance. These suggestions are being made with the intentions of improving chowk.com. The signers of this petition want chowk.com to truly be a website that supports and respects their ideas, thoughts and interactions of their members as they reflect that respect for each other.

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