[Foundation-l] Stalking Article

[Brian McNeil]

My Wikinews user page is fourth on a Google search for my name. I suspect
had I used my full name for my username it would be a position or two
higher.

Know what? This doesn't bother me. I check it from time to time to see where
I've moved to, I'm not going to knock the folk musician Brian McNeill off
the top spot, and I'm always going to have competition with the college
football player who shares the same spelling.

However, this should be a sobering warning for anyone who has an estranged
partner or a dodgy ex. Or, as Birgitte suggests, odd relatives who might
decide to bother you on-wiki. If you're using a derivative of your real name
(I use "brianmc") and not keeping your full name a secret, it takes the
"thrill out of the chase" for the Wikipedia Review trolls. What needs to be
considered is it can bring in a whole new set of potential sources of
problems or issues.

I spent years remaining under a pseudonym on Usenet, something I would
strongly recommend for that medium. I even went as far as using the MIT
nym.alias.net service to ensure nobody could trace where my messages came
from. My posts ranged from helpful to caustic flames, and I felt I could do
so with impunity. This has a strangely liberating effect, you perhaps learn
more about yourself than the other pseudonyms you spar with.

So, I would be opposed to either requiring real names, or to advising use of
pseudonyms. Guidelines for use in either case may be a good call, but there
should be no pressure one way or the other for Wikimedia contributors.


Brian McNeil

-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Birgitte SB
Sent: 13 June 2008 20:53
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Stalking Article




--- On Fri, 6/13/08, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:



> Anyway, I'd be wary about what contributions I make
> under these
> circumstances.  If I'm embarrassed by an edit, I should
> be resolving
> that inner conflict before editing on a public wiki.  If an
> edit would
> get me in trouble with a friend or relative (or boss or
> enemy), I
> should be resolving that external conflict before editing
> on a public
> wiki.  I can't think of any good reasons to edit
> Wikipedia
> anonymously, and thus I've stopped doing it.

The main good reason to edit anonynously is because Wikipedia is an open
wiki and is incapable of preventing harrasment or any less seious sort of
contact.  I have no problem owning up to my pseudononymous edits, however I
do not want an estranged relative who could easliy google my name to contact
me on the wiki or by email (or any way at all). This someone who already
knows my identity and a more about me than anyone online could ever dig up.
And I do not wish to have contact with or be bothered by them, and
unfortuantely they are not sane enough or sober enough to understand this.
I am not threatened by this person, but I can be distressed by them. The
internet can make 3,000 miles meaningless, so I do not use my real name
online.  

Not all people are targeted for harrassment because of their editing on
Wikipedia.  And if you are worried about being a recieving harrasment under
your real identity prior to editing a wiki; I don't think using that name
and making it highly googled is a good idea.

Birgitte SB


      

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