On 12/30/06, Stephen Park stephenpark15@gmail.com wrote:
Currently Wikipedia has a policy protecting individuals who use pseudonyms from being "outed" and having their legal names revealed. I think this is generally a good policy and I use it myself since I edit using a pseudonym.
The problem is when use of a pseudonym allows individuals to surreptitiously edit an article on themselves in a self-promotional or at least a self-interested way. The guideline in WP:AUTO is that individuals are discouraged from editing in an autobiographical manner and that if they do so it's a "good idea" if they identify themselves. However, if they don't, anyone who suspects someone of editing autobiographically is restrained from voicing their suspicions, even if they have very strong evidence, by WP:HARASSMENT's prohibition against "outing" people.
I think we should allow people to maintain their anonymity but that there needs to be an understanding that if you want to be anonymous you can't take advantage of that anonymity by editing an article on yourself ie your right to anonymity ends once you transgress WP:AUTO.
What do people think about have a policy (say as part of BLP) that states that any editor who edits a biographical article on themselves must identify disclose that they are doing so and modifying WP:HARASS in order to create an exception to the "no posting of private information" rule in the case where someone is editing an autobiographical article surreptitiously? And how should this be permitted? Should editors be permitted to ask CheckUsers to verify that a suspected auotobiographer's location is consistent with that of the person they're writing about? Should editors be permitted to go to WP:ANI or WP:Request for Arbitration and voice a concern that someone is editing autobiographically without declaring themselves?
As one example, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/ScienceApolo... there's a balance between anonymity and WP:AUTO and WP:COI (which may be more important). The underlying issue is, if you can write an NPOV article about yourself, no one will be any the wiser. If you write something that sounds promotional, most people will change it if they notice. If you edit-war to remove unfavourable material from a bio, and you only edit articles related to that bio, then people will figure things out quickly enough.
We don't have policies and guidelines just for the fun of it - we discourage editing articles about yourself and your family members because even good editors have a hard time writing an NPOV article about topics like that. If you suspect that someone is too close to the subject then you can politely point them towards AUTO and COI - these guidelines are most effective when people voluntarily respect them. If they are still disruptive, treat them as you would any other disruptive editor.
Ian