[WikiEN-l] Oh shit, Slashdot is an attack site!

Jimmy Wales jwales at wikia.com
Sat Jul 28 23:57:55 UTC 2007


This entire discussion really and truly misses the point in a grand way.

Yes, information has been oversighted to protect the personal identities 
of many people, both Wikipedia editors and members of the general 
public.  The reasons include inadvertantly revealing personal 
information as well as the deliberate posting by trolls of personal 
information.  This is policy and will continue to be policy.

In this particular case, due to some really spectacular nonsense, this 
is being treated as evidence that a private person who has been badly 
harassed by stalkers and lunatics is... a former spy?  Please.

Many editors at Wikipedia have been involved in dealing with 
extraordinarily crazy people.  Some of these people are dangerous in 
real life.  Some of them have made direct physical threats.  Others have 
made phone calls to people's employers.  Others have done some homemade 
self-styled "investigative journalism" that any rational and kind person 
would see as being what it really is: abusive stalking.

I fully support the right of the Wikipedia community to protect itself 
from those kinds of lunatics by giving support to those who need to 
maintain their privacy.

Have edits been oversighted to protect people's identity? Damn straight 
they have.

Are there massive factual errors that make me laugh out loud at the 
speculation in the weird rant Slashdot linked to?  Absolutely.  The 
amount of truth in that piece is so slim, you'd have to be a complete 
intellectual virgin to take any of it at face value.

--Jimbo



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