On Fri, 30 Nov 2007 16:54:51 +0000, Kwan Ting Chan <ktc(a)ktchan.info>
wrote:
> If you are not able to see the essential
difference between
> publishing an email on Wikipedia and quietly asking a few trusted
> friends for advice in confidence then I'm afraid I can't help you.
If you are not able to see that violating someone
privacy is violating
someone privacy no matter the method you choose to do it then I'm afraid
I can't help you.
I am an administrator on the English Wikipedia. One of the things
admins do is try to prevent disruption. Sometimes that means
blocking an account. In this case I asked a small group of people I
trust (and who the community trusts probably far more than it trusts
me) to confirm my judgment. Had they said back off, I would have
done. They did not, but the block was still mine and mine alone.
I did this by email because to user IRC or the admin noticeboard, as
I usually would, would have been a serious violation of privacy.
Bishonen, Geogre, and Paul August already knew anyway, because PM
told them (and told me he'd told them), but I certainly did not want
to spread this information far and wide.
There is a very big difference between sharing information with a
small trusted group in order to sanity-check a conclusions, and
posting the contents of an email on one of the ten most viewed
websites in the world.
The arbitrators know what I did because I emailed Arbcom-L about it.
They have chosen not to include any comment on it in the arbitration
case on Privatemusings. I believe that probably tells you
everything you need to know about how that strictly limited sharing
is viewed.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG