On Fri, 30 Nov 2007 16:54:51 +0000, Kwan Ting Chan ktc@ktchan.info wrote:
If you are not able to see the essential difference between publishing an email on Wikipedia and quietly asking a few trusted friends for advice in confidence then I'm afraid I can't help you.
If you are not able to see that violating someone privacy is violating someone privacy no matter the method you choose to do it then I'm afraid I can't help you.
I am an administrator on the English Wikipedia. One of the things admins do is try to prevent disruption. Sometimes that means blocking an account. In this case I asked a small group of people I trust (and who the community trusts probably far more than it trusts me) to confirm my judgment. Had they said back off, I would have done. They did not, but the block was still mine and mine alone.
I did this by email because to user IRC or the admin noticeboard, as I usually would, would have been a serious violation of privacy. Bishonen, Geogre, and Paul August already knew anyway, because PM told them (and told me he'd told them), but I certainly did not want to spread this information far and wide.
There is a very big difference between sharing information with a small trusted group in order to sanity-check a conclusions, and posting the contents of an email on one of the ten most viewed websites in the world.
The arbitrators know what I did because I emailed Arbcom-L about it. They have chosen not to include any comment on it in the arbitration case on Privatemusings. I believe that probably tells you everything you need to know about how that strictly limited sharing is viewed.
Guy (JzG)