On 6/23/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)ctelco.net> wrote:
George Herbert wrote:
Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote:
I think people are seriously underestimating the
seriousness of some
personal privacy violations.
I am curious as to what situations could have happened here.
Coming from almost 20 years experience in Usenet, having trolls and
kooks show up and sometimes post people's home addresses and phone
numbers and work contact info including boss and so on... most of
these blow over without any notable harm other than people's
sensitivity.
I would be less happy with my Social Security Number or Drivers
License going up somewhere, but I've had my home address and phone
number spammed by nuts.
You take your victim as you find them. If you kill a person with a
thin skull it is still manslaughter.
Some of our editor are not very tough characters. Perhaps they have
led sheltered scholarly lives.
We do what we can to prevent harassment.
I certainly don't intend to stand for the proposition that we should
encourage or stand passively by in cases of harrassment. Deleting it
when inappropriate personal info is inserted somewhere is clearly good
policy. Taking action against chronic abuser accounts is fine by me,
too.
What worries me is the apparent prevailing opinion that this is such a
terrible, serious problem. I don't see it that way, based on my prior
internet experience. I don't see it that way, based on the cases I
have seen on Wikipedia in the last year. I don't see it as necessary
to exaggerate how serious a problem it is, to justify continuing to
remove the material and block or ban accounts which post it.
The responses are justified to end attempts to cause serious
harrassment of WP editors, whether those attempts are ultimately
successful or not. As a rule I would expect them not to be
successful, based on prior experience. They should still be responded
to as a legitimate attempt to harrass someone, and all such attempts
should be taken seriously, ineffectual or not.
--
-george william herbert
gherbert(a)retro.com / george.herbert(a)gmail.com