On Sun, Jul 10, 2011 at 12:03 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The relevant paragraph appears to be http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sokpop#Ontsnappingsclausule
The Google translation is "In order to be unblocked, the person behind the corresponding IP address is a letter (paper) to a community trust staff."
Does it actually mean "staff" in Dutch? Does it imply *in any way* that the person to contact is officially sanctioned to deal with private information?
The Dutch word is "medewerker" which most closely translates to "coworker", it does not have official connotations.
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blokkeringsmeldingen#Ontsnappingsclau...
The Google translation for this one appears to quite definitely be trying to imply official status. Does it carry such implications in the original Dutch?
I don't think so, but to be sure I would want to know from which wording you are drawing these implications.
It doesn't matter if Huib was blocked for good reason. This still looks very like a privacy disaster in the making, and the Foundation, and particularly the staff relating to privacy concerns, need to look into it very closely.
I do think it's a bad policy - apart from the privacy concerns I see no good reason for it either. It's not like it's easier to check whether someone is using a sock puppet when we know who they are (that's a part of the policy that I DO agree with: that when someone who has abused sock puppets is allowed re-entry in the project, they may not use sock puppets any more even non-abusively).