On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 10:55 AM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:
This is enforced by a group of moderators by blocking the usernames who fulfill one of these conditions, and notifying them on their talkpage they can create a new username, but that their current is blocked indefinitely.
I support policy that no organizational/group accounts should be used. It is not just about NPOV, but about liability, as well as WMF's position toward other organizations (imagine an account "Coca Cola"; is it really Coca Cola account? should we ask every such entity to prove that it is so? and so on).
However, you described the exactly wrong method for doing so. While it is not so easy to give some definite suggestions to English or Chinese Wikipedia because of the amount of possible companies, on the projects with smaller number of speakers (like Dutch is), I suggest much softer approach: Don't block them immediately. Talk with them. Explain to them that it is a problem for Wikipedia. Ask them to create their own accounts. And after that, with their approval, block the original account indefinitely.
- Should editing by multiple people from one account be reason for
blocking on sight?
No. As explained above.
- Should usernames related to a company/organization name be blocked on sight?
** If not, should additional measures be taken for identification?
No. No. As explained above.
- Should wiki's be allowed in the first place to have naming policies
considering the SUL? ** If yes, should they be allowed to enforce them on people who registered on another wiki?
This is a general rule, not just nl.wp rule. Probably, it should be WMF rule and thus in this particular case it is not a valid question.
At the other side, there are two approaches: autonomist and globalist. No one of two approaches allow to one wiki to enforce anything on another wiki. In the autonomist scenario, if the user comes from one wiki to another with an unacceptable username, it is up to the community at the destination wiki would they block such user or not. (Personally, I don't think that there is a space for any kind of policy autonomy on Wikimedia projects [if general policies are good enough]. However, that position is not a dominant one.)