Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 11/9/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote: [snip]
legality of the activity, and it is not our place to start making judgements about legality. Civil rights and free speech are important, and if it means having to tolerate occasional idiotic speech that's a very small price to pay.
We're past due for another line in WP:NOT:
Wikipedia is not an anonymity service.
I don't think that that is a place where such a rule would help.
Generally we work to increase the privacy of editors because it is the ethical thing to do and it furthers our interests. When someone attacks our users with frightening threats of violence or otherwise behaves in ways which are obviously harmful and malicious we should disclose their information as appropriate for the protection of our users and the betterment of our community... and this is for the same reasons as the above: it is the ethical thing to do and it furthers our interests.
We are under no obligation to provide protection to people who wish to cause harm to others.
We don't really disagree. It's all a matter of perspective. The primary rule should remain that we respect the privacy and anonymity of the user. Anything that deviates from that is an exception. Exceptions should be very specific. Rules should derive from ethics, but the two are not the same thing.
Although a certain degree of "thick skin" is required for us to avoid wasting time on every idiotic troll, this would appear to go far beyond the line.
Those with thin skins just don't last lang.
Ec