[WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

[Joseph Hiegel]

FWIW (and I agree with Sean that, were I involved in a situation à la Phil's, I'd not want my fellow Wikipedians to attempt to insinuate themselves into my life; I imagine that most are similarly disposed), there is a profound difference, at least in the United States, between that which inflicts emotional distress and that which is criminally prosecutable as stalking/harassment (as well, for reasons of, you know, free speech, there ought to be).  The psychological trauma of certain forms of harassment may be real, but not all of those forms of harassment are criminally proscribed (or even civilly actionable), and there is nothing at all wrong, IMHO, with our telling contributors who are disinclined to endure "harassment" that perhaps they ought to edit elsewhere; even as the project might lose certain valuable users, the loss of the disruption concomitant to those users and their expressions of woe over harassment would likely outweigh the former (pace Phil, Wikipedia
 isn't obligating users to endure harassment; at worst, we are saying that one may edit Wikipedia and open himself to harassment or elect not to edit and forgo harassment; I'm not at all uncomfortable with that).  In any event, as to the meta-question, I can't abide the suggestion that Brandt has done anything morally wrong; if he is able to coerce Wikipedians into arguing for the deletion of his article, he ought to essay such coercion.  In Phil's case, his quarrel ought to be with law enforcement, who may have violated his civil rights (or who, in any event, surely acted untowardly and ought to be reprimanded, even as there may be no legal means by which to compel such reprimanding), not with Brandt, et al., who acted simply to disseminate quasi-public information.  The question, of course, is whether the project ought to subjugate encyclopedic concerns to (at best) tangentially encyclopedic concerns.  We must weigh, I think, the potential loss of editors/sysops to the
 potential loss of encyclopedic content, and I think we must err on the side of preserving encyclopedic content.  As I noted at [[Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 May 10#Template:HurricaneWarning]], the loss of a few readers--or even excellent contributors--is likely to have only a de minimis deleterious effect on the project.  I am eminently confident that, even as longtime editors might be intimated off-wiki, other users will arrive to fill the vacated roles.  Many, in other contexts (e.g., userbox debates), often note that the community aspect of our project exists only to further encyclopedic goals; we ought not to forget that.  Just as we're not (or shouldn't be) concerned with the external consequences of our editing (we are, after all, disinterested encyclopedists, not harm-limiting journalists), so too ought not we to be concerned for the extra-Wiki harms that befall individual contributors, until the loss of contributors becomes so great that the project
 cannot survive; I do not believe our loss will ever reach that level.  
   
  Cordially,
   
   
  Joe Hiegel
  [[User:Jahiegel]]
  
poore5 at adelphia.net wrote:
  
> I made my name and my information publically viewable because I don't
> believe that these people can actually hurt me in any concrete way. Maybe
> that was naive but I still can't think of how. They can be annoying and
> harassing, but if I don't let it get to me, it won't. Part of administrative
> responsibility is having the force of will to brush aside the people who
> don't deserve the recognition that giving a damn about them or what they do
> gives them.
> 
> Ryan

Ryan,

Harassment and stalking are crimes for a reason. Though you probably don't mean to be dismissive of victims of these crimes, you come across that way when you say that you "don't let it get to you". The psychological trauma from harassment and stalking is real. Wikipedia needs to do a better job identifying the people that have harmed by this abuse and supporting them through the experience. This is a wise course of action for many reasons. 

Sydney


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