---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Durova
Date: Mon, May 19, 2008 at 2:12 AM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Durova's real name
To: Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>
Thank you for the heads up. Please post this to Wiki-en-I where I no
longer subscribe:
This is the second time it's been brought to my attention that
Wjhonson has approached third parties regarding this matter. He has
never asked me, and if he had I'd have given him a straightforward
answer. Now that he's brought the matter to a public forum I'll reply
in the same manner.
The reason my name is known elsewhere on the Internet is because
people who had an axe to grind outed my identity. I stood up to it.
The coercion clause of Wikipedia's banning policy is a direct result.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BAN#Coercion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Banning_policy/Archive_2#Coerci…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archiv…
Now Wjhonson complains that an editor named Eleemosynary was indeffed
for posting my name. Well, Eleemosynary wasn't exactly a model
Wiki-citizen. Here's the block log:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=User:Eleemos…
Significant parts of the talk page history itself have been deleted
and/or oversighted. The basic chain of events is this:
*Eleemosynary was involved in a bitter onsite dispute about a BLP
article. One editor was community banned over the dispute and later
another editor was banned at arbitration.
*The editor who was banned during arbitration remained in good
standing at another Wikimedia project and I was mentoring him there.
*I noticed that this banned editor had trolled Eleemosynary's user
space, so I confronted the banned editor about it and then made
Eleemosynary aware that I took the problem seriously.
*Eleemosynary insulted me and posted my real name.
*FT2 oversighted the real name and indeffed Eleemosynary.
*If Eleemosynary had promised not to repeat the mistake, then he or
she would have been unblocked quite swiftly. Instead this editor
followed up with more insults. Two more administrators stepped in to
try to quell the issue (it isn't often that JzG and Swatjester agree
on anything, but they did here). Eleemosynary continued to escalate
until Swatjester protected the talk page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=&user=…
Not surprisingly, Wjhonson has also been active in the underlying
dispute. I'm impartial in that dispute: I endorsed the Wikipedia
siteban of the same editor I'm mentoring on Commons, for instance.
But I did object to the obvious BLP violations that were occurring on
that page. Namely, editors had been attempting to cite non-notable
blogs, open edit forums, and copyvio YouTube videos as sources for
highly damaging information about the subject. In every instance
where I brought these issues to noticeboards for independent review,
the responses were solidly in my favor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Sanchez
Per Foundation privacy policy and arbitration precedent, I have never
disclosed my real name onsite. The fact that my name is known offsite
is irrelevant: plenty of people have been indeffed for revealing names
that were known elsewhere on the Internet.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Privacy_policy
Whjonson's recent actions have the appearance forum shopping in
attempt to rally political support and to damage my reputation. If he
wishes to dispel this appearance he may follow up with a post to that
effect and communicate directly with me in the future. Otherwise, if
a third instance occurs, his actions will compel me to seek formal
remedy. I bear no grudges; just raise your concerns directly.
-Durova