[Foundation-l] "Wikidrama" and autonomy of Wikimedia projects

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi all, I'm sending this email to foundation-l because there are a couple of situations evolving in our projects that I'm having a rough time dealing with, notably because the issues raised involve matters touching on privacy and the autonomy of the Wikimedia projects. People know my interest lies with the well being of the volunteers of our projects and our projects in general. It's because of that interest that when I am sent issues about a dispute involving members of the community I have to look to the well-being of the projects themselves and see how this is being impacted. Sometimes the issue involves the interests of one project over another. Often, the issues are only resolved by bringing the light of day to the matter and allow the broader community at large to discuss the issues. Scenario 1: An active user with an unusual username on the English Wikipedia has, for whatever reason, never taken advantage of SUL. An account opens up on a much project which is, given the name, implausibly anything other than an impostor of the English Wikipedia account. It does, however, have apparently useful contributions (no difficult matter on this wiki if one is familiar with it); and the local community, while believing that the account is an impostor account seems to be unwilling to resolve the situation without demanding that the user come to the smaller project and ask for usurpation. Obviously, we wouldn't want to force the issue with an autonomous project. How should this be addressed? Does the user have any other option than editing the smaller wiki and adding the Username Change request, which basically subjects the user to his/her IP information being revealed to additional individuals, not of his/her own wiki? Scenario 2: A user has been banned on enwiki. The user has "outed" psuedonymous individuals via his blog and threads Wikipedia Review by compiling information put together elsewhere on the net. He has taken to another wiki and under the auspices of the local wiki's policy, has put back links to pages which have links to pages (sometimes several pages deep) which "outs" the individuals. Is this a violation of our privacy policy as it exists? If not, how can we best address the needs of the local projects? We have to assume the user is sincere about his project, because AGF is a core principle. If he is sincere, can he not contribute in a fashion that doesn't create so much hardship on other contributors? Of course, we cannot gauge the sincerity, but if he is not, what then? Does allowing an enwiki user to game another of our projects create long term trouble for the wiki in the future (exportation of wikidrama from enwiki to another project). Does the foundation or the community at large have an obligation to ensuring this doesn't happen? - ---- These are but two issues which may or may not deserve the light of the community at large. I'd like to know the range of opinions and help in determining where the foundation's responsibility ends, my responsibility as VolCo, and the meta community (given that this involves cross-wiki issues) at large. - -- Cary Bass Volunteer Coordinator Your continued donations keep Wikipedia running! Support the Wikimedia Foundation today: http://donate.wikimedia.org Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Phone: 415.839.6885 x 601 Fax: 415.882.0495 E-Mail: cary(a)wikimedia.org