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 _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@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.