[Foundation-l] privacy policy update

[Andrew Gray]

2008/5/9 Mike Godwin <mgodwin at wikimedia.org>:
>  Lodewijk writes:
>
>> That would still imply to the community that someone is falling under
>> this policy, and that the user is therefore "sought", something I'd
>> rather prefer to remain private information instead of public
>> knowledge :)
>
> I made exactly the same point when we were discussing revisions of our
> privacy policy with EFF.  The EFF lawyers suggested that, in instances
> where we don't have an active (working) e-mail for a User, we attempt
> notifying the User on the Talk page.  I suggested that many and
> perhaps most users would prefer that we not do this in public for all
> to see.

Surely if the message is something as simple as "could you please
activate your email? there's something we need to get in touch with
you over", then this won't imply anything to the community unless
there's no other possible interpretation of such a message.

I can't really imagine anyone digging deeply enough to figure out this
possibility on spotting such a message, but even if they do, one could
avoid this by making a habit of nagging users to enable their email,
thus creating plenty of misdirection ;-)

-- 
- Andrew Gray
 andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk