[WikiEN-l] JzG's banning Private Musings regarding BADSITES debate

[Jimmy Wales]

Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> I don't think we should apply the same reasoning to participating in
> community discussions as we do with respect to editing a controversial
> article.
> 
> I think the use of a sock to 'partition' your Wikipedia identity in
> policy discussions so that you can take contentious positions, or
> behave in an  abrasive manner, without any negative consequences to
> the reputation of your primary account is an inappropriate use of a
> sock.

I agree.

The canonical example of a reasonable use of an alternative account is 
editing to counter activist bias in an area where even editing the 
articles is perhaps something you are concerned about from an external 
reputation point of view.

I remember a case of someone contacting me and saying that some 
pedophilia-related articles seemed to have a strong pro-pedophile bias. 
  I checked, and it looked true to me.  He said that he edits Wikipedia 
openly under his own name, and his colleagues at work know this and 
sometimes look at his contributions.  Even editing articles about 
pedophilia made him feel uncomfortable, with respect to his professional 
reputation.  He wanted to know if it was ok to use an alternative account.

Yes, of course.

This is very different from sockpuppeting to advocate for contentious 
positions in policy debates.

> Social pressure is a primary driving factor in creating cooperation
> and civility.  The ability to selective short circuit the social
> factors by occasionally dropping your pseudonym and commenting
> anonymously is an enemy to cooperation and civility.

That's right.

> Plus, it makes the rest of us tenured folks who have the courage to
> stick our names next to difficult positions, accepting the social
> consequences, look more unusually controversial than we are.
> 
> A little bit of this behavior here and there won't hurt us and we
> couldn't prevent it in any case, but I think privatemusings has gone
> too far and that outright endorsing this behavior in this case or for
> others would be terribly unwise.

I have not reviewed his contributions yet, and so I am commenting only 
on the general principles, not on this particular case.

--Jimbo