[Foundation-l] Privacy policy, statistics and rankings

[emijrp]

Hi all;

Some days ago I was contacted in my user talk in Spanish Wikipedia about a
request for deletion in German Wikipedia.[1] An user opened a request for
deletion[2] for an user edits ranking[3] which my bot updates regularly in
German Wikipedia (also in many more projects[4][5]). Finally, the German
version of this ranking it was deleted some days ago.

I don't speak German, but, using a translator, I can understand that the
reason for the deletion was that German Wikipedia has got a "local privacy
policy" whichs avoid generating statistics of users which are not listed in
an opt-in page.[6]

The number of edits is a public number. For example, you can know my number
of edits in German Wikipedia, looking at[7][8], and the "official" top users
in[9]. So, what is the problem? data privacy or that this list was saved in
German Wikipedia?

Also, reading the Privacy Policy[10] of the Wikimedia Foundation, you can
see:

User contributions are also aggregated and publicly available. User
contributions are aggregated according to their registration and login
status. Data on user contributions, such as the times at which users edited
and the number of edits they have made, are publicly available via user
contributions lists, and in aggregated forms published by other users.

The privacy policy is clear. Your number of edits is public. And it can be
published in aggregated forms by other uses. And if you edit Wikipedia, you
accept the Privacy Policy. Also, on the top of the Privacy Policy page you
can read:

The content of this page is an official policy approved by the Wikimedia
Foundation Board of Trustees. This policy may not be circumvented, eroded,
or ignored on local Wikimedia projects.

But now, German Wikipedia has an "official local privacy policy" which is
opposed to that.

Finally, I would like to know what is the position of the Wikimedia
Foundation on this. I think that it is an important question, for users, for
researchers and for curious people.

Thanks,
emijrp

[1]
http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Usuario_Discusi%C3%B3n:Emijrp&diff=39192815&oldid=39180637
[2]
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:L%C3%B6schkandidaten/24._Juli_2010#Benutzer:Emijrp.2FList_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edits_.28gel.C3.B6scht.29
[3]
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Emijrp/List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edits
[4]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Emijrp/List_of_Wikimedians_by_number_of_edits
[5] Look at the interwikis:
http://af.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gebruiker:Emijrp/List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edits
[6] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Beitragszahlen/Opt-In
[7]
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=users&ususers=Emijrp&usprop=editcount
[8] http://toolserver.org/~vvv/sulutil.php?user=Emijrp
[9] http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaDE.htm#wikipedians
[10] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy