[Foundation-l] Stalking Article

[phoebe ayers]

On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 7:02 AM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2008/6/12 Charlotte Webb <charlottethewebb at gmail.com>:
>
>> Focus on prevention rather than perpetually ineffective treatment. By
>> more actively discouraging (perhaps outright prohibiting) the use of
>> real-life identity or any information traceable to it. Ask Florence to
>> buy some paper-shredders for the Office. Be creative.
>
>
> Contrariwise, there are those who move from a wacky net handle to
> their real name. I created my account in my real name because I
> started editing Wikipedia to do a serious job of work and didn't
> consider a wacky handle appropriate. Also, should copyright ever
> become an issue, I suspect having my real name being used will help.
> That is: I'm entirely unsure blanket discouragement of real names is
> actually a good idea.

Agreed. Using a real name is one indication of professionalism and
bypasses a lot of the "is anonymity a good idea for a reference
work?!?!!11" issue. I've not had any problems in a few years of using
my real name and publicly speaking about wikipedia -- once a person
unhappy with my changes tracked down my work email and sent a litany
of polite, if somewhat off the wall, complaints there. For my
situation, that's fine -- my coworkers and I had a good laugh about
it.

But then, a whole lot of you have met me in real life, also, and at
least three readers of this list have stayed at my house :) So I
suspect my identity would be rather difficult to hide over the long
term. I think it should be an individual choice, and we should do our
best to give good information to new contributors about the pros and
cons. And the rule "don't do anything you wouldn't be comfortable with
being attributed to you" is a good one whether you use your real name
or not.

-- phoebe