Quote Originally Posted by Kaurie View Post
Now, I accept that there is a possibility that parsers cause harassment, but without any evidence or research, it's a bit unfair to say that they have caused harassment.
There is no possibility of parsers causing harassment, because a tool can't harass anyone. People using said tool can cause harassment, but as multiple people have pointed out, they can (and do) harass people without that tool. We don't need research for that, it's a plain illogical argument. The only thing that empiric research could show is whether there's a correlation between parsers and harassment, and if so, how strong it is. Even then, it would tell us nothing about parsers, but about people who use parsers, and as such what sort of measures we (or rather, SE) should take against these people and their actions (and not against parsers).