Kelly Martin wrote:
On 11/14/05, Carbonite carbonite.wp@gmail.com wrote:
In case you are not aware of it, Yahoo recently helped the chinese government to uncover a chinese "dissident" and this lead the guy to prison. Have no doubts that some of our participants, in particular those from certain regions, or those participating to wikinews, are at the same amount of risk. *You* could yourself directly endanger a life in giving private information. I hope that in spite that you do not receive a sufficient financial compensation, you will be careful. I think feeling less responsability due to the fact you are not paid is not a very good approach of the tool.
If someone's life or family is endangered by editing Wikipedia, they should immediately stop. Seriously, if a user is in a situation where they'll lose their job, freedom or life because of what they contribute to a website, they need to take responsibility for themselves and cease all editing. Of course we need to protect the privacy of all editors, and I fully support removal of checkuser access for anyone who misuses the tool. However, ultimately it up to the every user to ensure they're not putting themselves at risk.
Indeed. While those of us who use checkuser are aware of the potential for either financial or personal injury to those who edit Wikipedia when they ought not be, and will endeavor to protect the privacy of such people, the onus on those who violate either employment agreements or local legal authorities by editing Wikipedia when they ought not be falls on them, and not on us.
Kelly
Yes ?
I think that if one chinese editor edit the english article on say... Tien An Men events, and a request comes from a chinese governement official saying you should provide private information about the editor, for the motive that talking about such a topic is violating their local laws, I will consider that any checkuser providing liberally such an information without first checking with the Foundation and its legal counselling, will be a violation of the tool use and of the trust put in the check user.
The argument that this chinese user knew he was at known risk for editing such an article and is fully responsable of being jailed, will not be an argument for me. Knowing that we are at risk should not lead us to censor ourselves in fear that some allegedly trusted editors on wikipedia could at any time lead us to jail. When someone gets in jail because he did not respected local laws which are fully against freedom, the responsibility is shared between himself and the person who denounced him.
Ant