Denny Colt wrote:
Every single link from Wikipedia back to hate
sites that out editors if
left
on-Wikipedia increases exposure and damage to the
Wikipedians in
question.
Why do we need a link that leads in 1-2 clicks to
'outed' personal
information to keep tabs on anything? That is what bookmarks are for.
There is no difference between posting on Wikipedia "Mgm is actually
Caroline Smith from Yorkshire, England, employed the Guardian Newspaper"
or
"Mgm is actually Bob Jones from Las Vegas,
Nevada, employed by the
United
States Postal service" and linking back to a
Website that says the exact
same thing. Both are equally damaging on-wiki to Mgm.
Opponents of protecting Wikipedians even had the very nerve to say that
being personally outed was at best an "nconvenience."
Denny
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WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l 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?
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). 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).
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.
The "damage" of exposure is overrated, by the way. Now, true, it does
give irate people an actual IRL target that they could harass, but most
trolls won't go that far, because it could lead to actual real-life
repercussions for themselves. It's also argued that it could cause
certain editors problems with their employer, but let's be blunt - if a
person is an a position that they could stand to lose their job by
editing Wikipedia, they have no business editing Wikipedia. There are
possibly other arguments for the horrible "damage", but I can't think of
any common ones at the moment.
I believe that "outing" Wikipedia administrators may be seen as
harassment toward those editors, but I do not agree that it can really
be seen as a major threat. I agree that it has no place on Wikipedia,
and current policy already states that. Blowing things out of proportion
gives trolls even more food than they get from Wikipedia in the first
place (and believe me, I know).
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.
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There have been people who had visits from the police or got passed on
promotions, fired or failed to get a job in the first place because of
harrasment. I don't call that overrated. It has real world repercussions,
but the harrassers hardly ever get caught.
About that last line: Would blatantly censoring harrasment be a bad thing?
We are already censoring illegal activities. It may be hard to prove, but
harrasment/libel is just as illegal especially if it has effects on the
harrased person.
Mgm