Wikipedia
offers no defense, and no protection. And users who have
had nothing to do with Daniel Brandt are put in danger. I had never
edited his article and had never spoken with him when he began
contemplating making me leave my PhD program. But I became a target.
I was and am powerless to stop being a target. So are about 200 other
people. Including, let's note, a bunch of teenagers. And do you
really think most of us, when we made our first edit or accepted our
RFA, thought we were getting into this?
So how is working on WP fundamentally different from selling items on
eBay, getting into arguments on Usenet, or sending patches to a Linux
mailing list? You play around on the net, you're going to be visible
to the whole world, for better or worse. The archives still record
various stupid things I wrote in public over two decades ago, they
are never going away.
Such is life. IMHO, Wikipedia could still do a better job in helping
its contributors protect their identities. Publishing "anonymous"
contributors IP numbers should have been fixed a long time ago.
Reminding users of the carelessness of putting personal information on
Wikipedia pages is another no-brainer. Encouraging users *not* to
reveal their real identity by using their real name as their Wikipedia
account name. Actually punish contributors who, without permission,
publishes personal details about another contributor. I don't know,
people are responsible for their own actions. But things could still
be improved.
--
mvh Björn