[1][2][3][4] The information is often shared between women by word of mouth or online in private communities, forums, spreadsheets, and crowd-sourced documents.
[12][13] Karen Kelsky created a less controversial list about men in academia called "Sexual Harassment In the Academy: A Crowdsourced Survey" which had grown to over 2000 entries by the end of 2017.
[5] Kelsky said she hoped the list would help demonstrate the scope of sexual misconduct in the academic field,[5][12] and it has resulted in the investigation of twelve men at the University of Michigan.
[14] Publishing whisper networks to the public has been widely criticized for spreading unsubstantiated rumors that can damage reputations.
[7][13][17] The main problem with trying to protect more potential victims by publishing whisper networks is determining the best mechanism to verify allegations.