Blu Aardvark wrote:
May I point out an interesting double-standard here?
Most Wikipedians
believes that publishing personal information is harmful (I agree with
them for the most part, by the way). Why, then, are there no qualms
about Wikipedia editors publishing personal information of those that
have fallen from favor?
I agree that whatever policy is generally agreed to must be applied
evenly across the board.
Wikipedia currently has several pages which contain my
real name, city
of residence, and phone number (granted, I initially supplied these
myself, but the point stands).
When you add these yourself your permission to include the material is
implicit.
Wikipedia contains virulent personal
attacks alleging that I am a neo-Nazi/anti-Semite/Nazi
sympathizer/holocaust denier - attacks that still remain on Wikipedia's
servers. This all has been copied to numerous websites all over the
internet as Wikipedia's content is scraped and spammed by anyone looking
to make a few quick advertising bucks, and I have actually received
telephone calls from people who got my number from Wikipedia. Yet that
information is not removed - or when it is, it is re-instated. (I'll
admit all this pissed me off at first, but I've found I don't really
care anymore).
If you are indeed involved in the kind of activities that you describe,
your personal involvement in Wikipedia is irrelevant to including this
information. What becomes important is whether the activities were
reliably reported elsewhere. Since many would consider that mentioning
one's involvement with such activities as derogatory, the sourcing of
such information is particularly important.
So let's get this straight - we're proposing a
Wikipedia policy to ban
all links to any website which might have a page identifying a Wikipedia
editor, and yet Wikipedia editors not only publish personal information
on their own servers, they ensure that that information stays in place,
and they allow it to be copied by any fuckwad hoping to get some cheap
content on the internet that they can use to hopefully turn a profit on.
We cannot control the behaviour of external "fuckwads".
I personally believe that [[WP:BADSITES]] is unneeded.
Current policy
already allows for reverting and blocking editors who post personal
information or links to such information. The proposed policy seeks to
ban all links to any site that has published the personal information of
Wikipedians, but I'll admit that I find the proposal quite silly. There
are occasions on which such links are not only beneficial to
discussions, but also necessary (in the proper citing of resources, for
example, or in relevant articles such as the one on Wikitruth). An
outright ban on them would amount to nothing more than blatant censorship.
It is presumptuous and arrogant to judge the behaviour of participants
on other sites. It is also contrary to the spirit of NPOV to impose
that principle on other sites. Of course other sites will engage in
libel or copyright infringement, or other activity that may be illegal.
Assuming good faith should include assuming that what is put on these
other sites is perfectly legal. If there is something illegal there it
is up to those affected to demand that they clean up their site. When
they do that our links will then be to cleaned up sites or dead.
Ec