[Foundation-l] Assume Good Faith and Don't Bite Newbees

[Lodewijk]

Hi all,

Although I do realize this is a Dutch Wikipedia-topic, I would like to
get a somewhat broader set of input on this. I'll first sketch the
situation a bit, and then explain what my interpretation is.

On the Dutch Wikipedia, there are two related, relatively long
standing, policies:
* Usernames linked to companies / organizations / brands are not allowed
* Usernames are supposed to be strictly personal: groups of people
using one user name is not allowed.
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 find this practice very unfortunate, for a few reasons. For one, we
assume bad faith: We assume that companies or even organizations are
not able and willing to edit NPOV. This is mentioned often as a main
reason for this policy. Often they are already blocked before they
even can make their first edit. This does not only harm their
feelings, it leaves a trail on the internet that is potentially
harmful for their PR (just imagine: "Company XX got blocked on
Wikipedia on sight"). As soon as a search engine does not fully
respect (intentionally or not) the limitations we asked them to comply
with, such as not search in these talk pages, this might even show up
in a query. In short: companies and organizations are being punisched
for trying to identify themselves.

In the past, there was a lot of hush about companies and organizations
who edited anonymously and they were even named and shamed (although
not by us). Now companies tell in advance who they are, so we can pay
close attention to their edits, and we ask them now to take another
name, which would be not recognizable? I think that is actually an
editorial disadvantage! If we can recognize them easier, we can make
sure they edit NPOV. Please, let's judge users on their actions, not
on their names... This way, also the Tropenmuseum got blocked at some
point, even though the account was created on another wiki!

Also, why would group accounts be bad? I mean, the only one that has
disadvantage from it, is the people using the account, right? If we
treat them as if they are one user, and we block them accordingly if
necessary, it is their problem if someone else on that account did
something bad and got the whole account blocked for it. We don't block
IP-adresses either just because they could be used by multiple people?

I assume this is no WMF topic (thy shall not block people because of
their username won't make it I guess), but I would like to get a
little more insight and experiences from you guys.

* Should editing by multiple people from one account be reason for
blocking on sight?
* Should usernames related to a company/organization name be blocked on sight?
** If not, should additional measures be taken for identification?
* 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?

Thanks,

Lodewijk