On Dec 12, 2007 1:45 AM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
I wonder if we might not argue that making this data private made somewhat more damages to the tissu of the community than if the data had been kept public. Legally speaking, it weakens our case. It goes against the principles of transparency and responsibility that we like to put upfront. It simplifies defense strategy against vandals and sockpuppets. It avoids power grabs (or perception there of) by the few members who succeed to get access to the data.
I am looking for some arguments to keep it private. Others than "well, this is the default behavior".
As long as it's made tremendously clear to everyone, before they post, I'm all for it. But it needs to be made really really clear. Not "oh, we mentioned it in our privacy policy" or "there's a message at the bottom of the edit page". More like spelling it out in BIG BOLD LETTERS and making people check a box saying "yes, I understand" before they can ever post again.
The argument against it would be, as Erik suggested, but as I'll rephrase, that it would mean that it'd be incredibly difficult to post with any significant degree of anonymity. But personally I'd see that as a good thing. I'd also support a policy requiring real names.
Do you want to force contributors to Wikipedia to use their real names? If not, then I really don't think you want this.