User:Martin Hogbin/Advice for younger editors

There are some discussions going on about what advice we should give younger editors on Wikipedia. To avoid repeating myself I will collect my thoughts here and link to this page from the various discussions.

This essay is my personal opinion,; if you want to challenge it or comment on it please feel free to do so on the talk page 

In short, I believe that we should never advise young people to make private contact over the internet with people not personally known to them and their parents or guardians.

Spelling it out
Some people do not seem to understand what the risks are to making private contact with strangers on the internet so I will spell them out below.

There are many bad people who see the internet as an easy and safe (for them) way of furthering their nefarious purpose. Anyone who doubts this need only look at how many emails they get each week trying to get their passwords or bank details or asking them to send money to a 'friend in difficulty' in a far away country. These people come in many guises Paedophiles, Terrorists, Fraudsters, Cult members, and others. For many of these people their evil activity may be the most important aspect of their life and they are willing to devote unlimited time, energy, and resources to achieving their objectives. This may include working their way into positions of power and responsibility and waiting for years for opportunities to come along. Obviously they do not advertise their malevolent purpose, in fact they will try to present exactly the opposite face to the world; one of kindness, peace, freedom, and protection. They may not always initiate contact with their targets but will try to get into positions where their intended targets will make contact with them. Of course, from their point of view, private contact is always preferable, if not essential. Once contact has been made they will initially appear generous and helpful but slowly they will try to gain control of their targets by any means that they can. No one can help the victim because no one knows what is happening.

I am well aware that the vast majority of the population do not fall into any of the above categories but the point that I am making here is that people you make contact with on the internet are not random, they are strongly biased towards people who want you to make contact with them (in most cases just to try and sell you something).

What is the problem?
There are three problems. Firstly, and most important, the harm caused to the young person who may be drawn into some kind of criminal or inappropriate activity. This can range from the trivial to the grave.

Secondly the damage that would be done to the reputation of Wikipedia if such an incident were to become public.

Thirdly the risk to the adult of a false accusation of impropriety. In a private conversation it might be very difficult to prove your innocence.

No need to panic
The first point that I want to make is that on Wikipedia there is no need to panic. All edits and conversations are recorded and can be seen by anyone. This makes for a very safe environment for everyone, including children and vulnerable adults as any inappropriate comments are likely to be picked up and dealt with by other editors. All this happens in the public gaze. Wikipedia also makes a very dangerous environment for the bad guys, whose evil activities are likely to rapidly attract unwanted attention.

So what do we do?
The answer, in my opinion, is to never promote private contact between users on Wikipedia. Many cases in which we need to give help can be dealt with perfectly well on the talk pages. Sometimes editors say things that they wish that they had not said. Users always have the option of asking, on a publicly visible page, to have comments (including the deletion request) deleted.

What about more serious issues? My answer to this is that the more serious the issue the less we should be wanting to deal with it privately. A young adolescent having an emotional crisis is the last person in the world that we should be directing to a private conversation with a stranger.

There might be a case for having a contact mechanism a Wikimedia for real emergencies but this would need to be a a system designed by child (and vulnerable adult) protection experts.