I've been involved in a pleasant private correspondence with a very controversial Internet figure who normally writes and works under a pseudonym. Wikipedia, along with many other outlets including prominent mainstream media outlets, publishes this person's real name.
I have been asked to remove the real name from the Wikipedia article, but of course given recent history in which random things I post to the mailing lists make international headlines :-(, me doing something like that would likely make his name more known rather than less known.
My correspondent claims that he's gotten death threats at his doorstep due to people knowing his real name (not necessarily due to our publishing it, of course).
Nonetheless, my correspondent asks me an interesting question: where do we draw the line?
As a practical matter, I think what we follow is a non-policy in this area, that is to say, we follow the same exact policies we follow for all sorts of information: is it verifiable, is it NPOV?
I am not asking about libel. We must not libel anyone, ever. I am asking about privacy and respect.
My own opinion is that in most cases we should publish real names if any mainstream media outlet has done so first. We should not (usually) regard blogs and hate sites as sufficiently reliable confirmation for real names. We never post anyone's home address (since this is just totally unencyclopedic and irrelevant to our mission anyway), though of course there could be some bizarre exceptions I suppose.
Your thoughts?
--Jimbo
On 11/13/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Nonetheless, my correspondent asks me an interesting question: where do we draw the line?
As a practical matter, I think what we follow is a non-policy in this area, that is to say, we follow the same exact policies we follow for all sorts of information: is it verifiable, is it NPOV?
I don't think we should treat personal information any differently to any other information. If there is evidence, cite it. If that evidence is not good enough, then the name *cannot* go in the article. Our verifiability policy already provides for this. Example: we can say that Bill Bryson was born and grew up in Des Moines, because he says so in his books. We could also say that his wife is British, because he says so in his books. However, we could not publish his current home address, or the names of his children, becuase these have never been quoted elsewhere.
Basically, the presence of someone's name/personal information in Wikipedia should never increase their danger. The information should only go in if it is already incontrovertibly in the public domain. WP:V and WP:NOR provide for this. The person's information would already be in the public domain, so there's no worry about keeping it there.
My own opinion is that in most cases we should publish real names if any mainstream media outlet has done so first. We should not (usually) regard blogs and hate sites as sufficiently reliable confirmation for real names. We never post anyone's home address (since this is just totally unencyclopedic and irrelevant to our mission anyway), though of course there could be some bizarre exceptions I suppose.
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington D.C. 20500 USA
Sam
On 13/11/05, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/13/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
We never post anyone's home address (since this is just totally unencyclopedic and irrelevant to our mission anyway), though of course there could be some bizarre exceptions I suppose.
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington D.C.
We publish quite a few, though rarely in the sense of literal street addresses - residents of individual buildings notable enough for an article, for example, or politicians with ex-officio residences as in this case.
-- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
On 11/13/05, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/11/05, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/13/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
We never post anyone's home address (since this is just totally unencyclopedic and irrelevant to our mission anyway), though of course there could be some bizarre exceptions I suppose.
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington D.C.
We publish quite a few, though rarely in the sense of literal street addresses - residents of individual buildings notable enough for an article, for example, or politicians with ex-officio residences as in this case.
I think (*think*) that was my point. ;=)
Sam
Jimmy Wales wrote:
My own opinion is that in most cases we should publish real names if any mainstream media outlet has done so first. We should not (usually) regard blogs and hate sites as sufficiently reliable confirmation for real names. We never post anyone's home address (since this is just totally unencyclopedic and irrelevant to our mission anyway), though of course there could be some bizarre exceptions I suppose.
I agree with that, and think this is similar (though not identical) to the more general issue of publishing supposedly secret information that is not really secret (or has been previously leaked by someone other than us). On most such cases we seem to have come to a pro-publication consensus, with the caveat that we should only publish it if it's actually useful to have in the article, not solely to give a "fuck you" to the people trying to keep it secret.
This has come up in a number of cases: -- The semi-secret higher-level books of Scientology -- Some semi-secret (or at least considered private) aspects of Mormon temple practices -- Details of how some U.S. military training programs work, based on published exposes in magazines -- Information on classified military programs in general -- Secrets of fraternal societies like the Freemasons
In most of those cases, there have been people who have tried to remove information, others who have tried to add more information mostly for the sake of doing so, and a bunch in between who have generally hammered out a compromise.
Personal information is slightly different, in that it can harm a particular person, but in a certain sense that's not all that different---at least one person has suggested that publishing non-public information on military training programs could lead to soldiers' deaths, and therefore that Wikipedia irresponsible in publishing it.
-Mark