[WikiEN-l] Personal information - where do we draw the line

[Jimmy Wales]

I've been involved in a pleasant private correspondence with a very
controversial Internet figure who normally writes and works under a
pseudonym.  Wikipedia, along with many other outlets including prominent
mainstream media outlets, publishes this person's real name.

I have been asked to remove the real name from the Wikipedia article,
but of course given recent history in which random things I post to the
mailing lists make international headlines :-(, me doing something like
that would likely make his name more known rather than less known.

My correspondent claims that he's gotten death threats at his doorstep
due to people knowing his real name (not necessarily due to our
publishing it, of course).

Nonetheless, my correspondent asks me an interesting question: where do
we draw the line?

As a practical matter, I think what we follow is a non-policy in this
area, that is to say, we follow the same exact policies we follow for
all sorts of information: is it verifiable, is it NPOV?

I am not asking about libel.  We must not libel anyone, ever.  I am
asking about privacy and respect.

My own opinion is that in most cases we should publish real names if any
mainstream media outlet has done so first.  We should not (usually)
regard blogs and hate sites as sufficiently reliable confirmation for
real names.  We never post anyone's home address (since this is just
totally unencyclopedic and irrelevant to our mission anyway), though of
course there could be some bizarre exceptions I suppose.

Your thoughts?

--Jimbo