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

[Delirium]

Jimmy Wales wrote:

>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.
>  
>

I agree with that, and think this is similar (though not identical) to 
the more general issue of publishing supposedly secret information that 
is not really secret (or has been previously leaked by someone other 
than us).  On most such cases we seem to have come to a pro-publication 
consensus, with the caveat that we should only publish it if it's 
actually useful to have in the article, not solely to give a "fuck you" 
to the people trying to keep it secret.

This has come up in a number of cases:
-- The semi-secret higher-level books of Scientology
-- Some semi-secret (or at least considered private) aspects of Mormon 
temple practices
-- Details of how some U.S. military training programs work, based on 
published exposes in magazines
-- Information on classified military programs in general
-- Secrets of fraternal societies like the Freemasons

In most of those cases, there have been people who have tried to remove 
information, others who have tried to add more information mostly for 
the sake of doing so, and a bunch in between who have generally hammered 
out a compromise.

Personal information is slightly different, in that it can harm a 
particular person, but in a certain sense that's not all that 
different---at least one person has suggested that publishing non-public 
information on military training programs could lead to soldiers' 
deaths, and therefore that Wikipedia irresponsible in publishing it.

-Mark