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

[Andrew Gray]

On 01/11/2007, Todd Allen <toddmallen at gmail.com> wrote:

> On the other hand, if you want to get into something controversial,
> either own up to it or stay out of it.

It's not quite that simple.

Normally, we say "if you personally, the Real You, don't want to be
linked to your work, use a pseudonym". But what if you are able and
willing to be linked to part of your work, but you would rather
disclaim the link for the rest?

There are a large number of topics that are more "embarrassing" than
controversial. The simplest case study (because I'm lazy) is myself -
when not setting out to write, I tend to copyedit as I go, and some
nights you can read my contribution history and pretty much follow the
chain of my reading through the evening.

There have been times when I've stopped myself doing something - or
deliberately signed out to do it - because, well, my employer knows
that I edit enwp, my friends know that I edit enwp, my *housemate*
knows I edit enwp, everything is public, and I'd much rather not have
any of them come up to me and start making amused comments about STDs.
(This is, of course, a hypothetical example! The things I'm
embarrassed about editing are less unsalubrious but a lot weirder...).

That's the most common case. It isn't much of a stretch from that to
contemplate people who compartmentalise their lives, who are happy to
sign their own name to the erudite work on Byzantine history but would
really rather prefer not to link that to their lovingly written
articles on sexual practices. Not for any dubious or malevolent
reasons, just that they'd rather keep some aspects of their life
private whilst being open about the others.

And when people want to have a reasonably normal and productive
editing career in these alternative topics, they're going to create an
account and get to it as normal. It doesn't matter what policy says on
the matter, this is what will happen, it's inevitable.

Maybe they say they edit under a different name on less exotic topics,
maybe they don't. Either way, it's *completely harmless to the
encyclopedia*; it means a bit of work gets done that wouldn't
otherwise get done, and everyone's happier. There's nothing wrong with
it, and I can't see any reason to try and "legislate it away".

The line that needs to be drawn - as in this case - is whether it's
appropriate to do this to compartmentalise engaging in meta-debate;
there are reasonable arguments both ways (as Greg is noticing...) but
it's pretty clearly a different case to a normal "editing funny stuff
account", and we should be very wary of throwing babies out with the
bathwater.

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk