Wikipedia talk:Privacy

w00t
Well done. Matt Yeager ♫ ( Talk? ) 22:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Alternative proposal
quoted from Wikipedia talk:Protecting children's privacy

I like the alternative proposal a lot. It gets the point across without resorting to moral panic and without demeaning minors by insisting they are all helpless and naive. Ironically, senior citizens are more often victimized by breaches of their privacy than children. Why should we only be worried about children? Kaldari 06:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. Crum375 15:17, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
 * It doesn't need to be any more than an essay, does it? It's much better than "We're going to tell you what you may or may not do, and if you don't listen, we're going to block you, but it's for your safety!", of course. -Amarkov blahedits 15:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, as I noted a long time ago elsewhere here, all we need is a general cautionary note to users about safe surfing and WP use habits. It should apply to all users - a computer-phobic grandma could be even more gullible (and vulnerable) than a smarty-pants 13 year old. Crum375 23:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Of course it doesn't need to be anything, but actually it might help to make it a guideline in this case. I see little reason why not to - all it needs is to be actionable and consensual. It is obviouisly actionable since it tells people what not to do; it appears consensual to me because I haven't seen anyone disagreeing with that. Of course, some people state it is insufficient and that more and more stringent rules are needed. Maybe they are, but this can at least be a starting point. ( Radiant ) 11:37, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
 * end quote
 * Well, in terms of stringency, I think the urge more editors have (I know I do) is for individuals who do this to acknowledge the dangers. Maybe this is too weird, but could there be an aspect of this where, if challenged by another editor about the personal info posting, the editor  who did it would have to somehow assert that they understood they dangers?  I'm thinking by doing something a bit tricky -- substing a template asserting that onto their userpage or something, thereby demonstrating a)they know some people consider it foolish b)they are at least marginally computer-literate and therefore somewhat more likely to really understand the dangers?  I mean, obligating people to jump through a few small technical hoops in order to post personal info on their userpage is a little mean, but it sort of addresses the problem. This is not a fully fleshed out idea however, so its possible I missed something. Dina 14:30, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Some issues
This seems well intentioned, but I think it has some issues that ought to be addressed: CMummert 13:27, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * The part about obscene phone calls and police reports is certainly WP:BEANS.
 * The part about being "advised" doesn't say who is doing the advising.
 * The final paragraph is more stern than actual arbitration committee decisions. Speculating on the true identity of sockpuppets may be thought of as posting personal information, but has it "usually led to permanent blocks"? Some links to block logs would be appropriate here.
 * I'll think about this. In the meantime, you are of course welcome to edit the page to improve it. ( Radiant ) 13:40, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Removal of personal information
Does a policy exist about other editor's removing personal information that is posted? I generally remove email addies and phone numbers from speedy candidates while tagging them, and I certainly remove them from articles, because they simply don't belong there. I have been tempted from time to time to remove overly personal info from the userpages of people who seem "naive", but have restrained myself to suggesting on their talk pages that they do it themselves. It's common practice to remove contact info from posts on the various help and reference desks. However, informed individuals do sometimes make the choice to make some of their information public and they should be allowed to do that. Perhaps the policy (or some kind of boilerplate talk page warning to go along with it) could include whatever data is available about how many people read wikipedia, something like this:
 * You have recently posted personal contact information about yourself on Wikipedia. I wanted to inform you that while this is not against policy the best estimate is that XX,000 people consult Wikipedia daily and every page has the potential to be viewed by XX# of strangers.  This is more visitors than the average public bathroom has in a year.  Please don't post information here that you would not write on a bathroom wall.  If you wish this information to be expunged, consult WP:PRIVACY.  Cheers. Dina 14:18, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * it could have a cute little graphic of a bathroom wall with "for a good time call..." scrawled on it (I am getting ahead of myself I know) Dina 14:23, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Guideline?
Why? It's perfectly fine as an essay, and having it be a guideline only encourages people who to remove all personal information posted, and tell people they aren't allowed to put it in, "per WP:PRIVACY". -Amarkov blahedits 23:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

This is too strong

 * Although it is your own responsibility, you are advised not to list personal details such as contact information on your user space, or to discuss them over the various contact channels, including IRC.

I don't think we should advise people not to share personal information. I think that is too strong of a position to take. —Doug Bell talk 00:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I'd prefer it stronger, actually. We shouldn't make it an absolute "you may not", but unless you have a good reason to, you really should not post personal information. -Amarkov blahedits 02:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Note that a stronger version of this page is proposed as either policy or guideline at WP:CHILD. ( Radiant ) 14:45, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I know, and that one is too strong. I'm going to complain about warring proposals now.
 * DISCUSS IT ON ONE PAGE! -Amarkov blahedits 02:45, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree, and it would be preferable to merge the two, but I'm at a loss as to how to do that without upsetting involved people. ( Radiant ) 09:30, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
 * WP:CHILD should just go, this guideline here compliments WP:HA and how to avoid harassment. However IMHO the question "why should I not release personal info" isn't answered on the page yet. -- Cat out 13:06, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * sofixit? :)  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  13:28, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

New merge tags
I see that merge tags have been placed on WP:YOUTH, WP:CHILD and WP:PRIV, but there is no indication in the tags of the direction that the merges would run or what information, if any, would be deleted from any of the pages, or on whether the resulting page(s) would end up being tagged as guideline, essay, policy, etc. Additionally, the "discuss" links all point back to the talk page for that page, which would potentially result in a discussion of the proposed merge (or merges) in three different places. Can we have a discussion in one location? (For now I am putting this comment on all three pages, but if a single page is designated for discussion and the links in the tags are changed, I wouldn't mind this comment being removed from the other pages.) And can we have some details of what exactly is being proposed? Once we have that settled, I will have some comments and possibly counter-proposals. I do think that, at the very least, some material should be added to WP:PRIV that is currently on one or both of the other two pages. 6SJ7 19:39, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Yipes, whatever. Anyway, I support this guideline, with some minor revisions that others have suggested. YechielMan 08:21, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Not a guideline
I dispute that this has project-wide consensus. If proponents feel that it does, they should advertise it (again) at the village pump and RFC/Policy. The fact that it was tagged historical for two weeks means nobody was expecting to have to comment on it.

Since I removed the guideline tag, i should give some specific objections. Here goes: There are also minor problems with the organization and phrasing that I will not go into. CMummert · talk 12:19, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
 * There is virtually no content; the entire page here could be a single paragraph in WP:USER. Avoid instruction creep and policy creep.
 * There is no need to tell adult editors what is good for them.

I have requested comments on the status of this page at Village pump (policy). CMummert · talk 01:56, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Essay status perhapse? It offers fairly reasonable advice, but it's not something we would want to force. ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 23:22, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Merge proposal
The Private correspondence proposal could be merged into this guideline. Tim Vickers (talk) 03:50, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, it could, if it were stable. (I'm going to refrain from commenting on the consensus acceptance of any particular version of it; its content varying wildly is enough to say the proposal is not "ripe" yet.) —Random832 19:34, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I would concur with you, Random832. That proposal is all over the map and I for one would strongly resist its being accepted as either policy or guideline. As it stands now, it creates a chilling effect on reporting abuse, which could well include privacy abuses. Risker (talk) 06:09, 24 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Why does Tim Vickers think they should be merged? ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 07:25, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Guideline? Changing back to proposed
I missed when this was promoted to guideline from historic, after sitting untouched for six months. I'm going to change it back to "proposed" for the time being. It never had consensus to be a guideline when it was actively discussed; it seems to have been changed without any announcement, when nobody expected the need to watch it any longer. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 20:01, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Opoosition to anonymity
Wikipedia may have too much anonymity now.

Serious multi-contributor sites like Citizendium and LinkedIn do not allow anonymous use. Facebook is not very anonymous. Anonymous handles are more associated with social networking sites like AOL, EZboard Nerve, GeoCities, Myspace etc. This is a legacy of the BBS era, and seems to be on the way out.

At the higher levels of Wikipedia, it's time to reconsider anonymity. Proposed:
 * Highly privileged users (sysop, oversight) should not be anonymous.
 * ArbComm members should not be anonymous.

Whether ordinary "admin" privilege should require giving up anonymity is not clear, but it's probably not necessary at this time. --John Nagle (talk) 21:15, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Isn't "sysop" the same thing as "admin" on Wikipedia? Do you mean "bureaucrat" when you say "sysop"?  In any event, in light of events that have occurred in and around Wikipedia, I think there is more reason than ever to be anonymous.  To reveal one's real name and location on this site is to put one's personal and financial well-being at risk.  As for Citizendium, I am sure they have lost many potential contributors due to that policy.  6SJ7 (talk) 04:05, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Checkusers are not truly anonymous since their identity is known by the foundation. See Nil Einne (talk) 17:05, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Privacy versus off-wiki research to show editors conflict of interest
I edit under my own name and there is a Carol Moore article about me showing my interests. Someone who didn't like my revert in a clear case of WP:OR didn't even bother to respond on the talk page but immediately said they were going to complain about my bias to an editor! Then when I tried to discuss the revert on the talk page they included two personal pieces of info about my outside activities in this area of interest that were not linked from my article or my personal web page.

Note this really shows more this persons bias since I've done many edits on many topics; they only have edited on this one topic.

Is this a violation per: "Posting personal information about someone else (regardless of whether it's true or not) is a serious case of harassment and usually results in the offender getting permanently blocked."?? I see Conflict_of_interest doesn't say anything about it.

I think the issue of revealing "opposition research" on editors one feel are biased needs to be covered in this article. Any suggestions for wording? Carol Moore 23:49, 17 January 2008 (UTC)User:Carolmooredc User talk:Carolmooredc


 * To answer my own question, have since found discussion of these issues here Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest. I also suggest this page be merged into OUTING because when there are too many pages one can waste too much time trying to figure out what policy is.  Thanks. Carol Moore 22:00, 19 January 2008 (UTC)User:Carolmooredc User talk:Carolmooredc
 * I would disagree with a merger for the reasons I just stated at Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest, the other place where you brought up this subject. As for people finding this page but not WP:OUTING, I am going to edit this page to make the cross-reference clearer.  6SJ7 (talk) 04:29, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I got it. Too much to read and understand for it all to sink in! Your additions I think will help others, including those like me who who end up here because "WP:privacy" is the first thing they think of to type in when faced with the problem! :-) Carol Moore 04:53, 20 January 2008 (UTC)User:Carolmooredc User talk:Carolmooredc
 * WP:PRIVACY used to point at Respect privacy, which more directly relates to that sort of issue LinaMishima (talk) 06:16, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Historical?
Does this page really need the historical tag with the big red X as if readers shouldn't trust this page? As far as I know this information is still relevant and very important... -- &oelig; &trade; 10:03, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Distinguish between editors and subjects of articles
Currently the first point under "Related issues" says "Posting personal information about someone else ... is a serious case of harassment". In context, I think this is only intended to posting information about another editor. Wikipedia articles are full of personal information about their subjects. So I propose changing this to read "Posting personal information about another editor..." Comments? --Gronk Oz (talk) 03:30, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * The wording I proposed above would be consistent with Harassment, which says "Posting another editor's personal information is harassment..." --Gronk Oz (talk) 03:32, 16 March 2019 (UTC)