Wikipedia talk:Harassment

Real name vs legal name

Legal name refers to the name that is used to identify a person for legal and administrative purposes. Usually, this is also the name a person is commonly known ("real name" or "personal name"), however some people are commonly known by a name that is different from their legal name (see the Personal name article).

Personal information is anything that can be used to identify a specific person. This can include a person's name, date of birth, e-mail address, phone number, physical address (however it could be shared by multiple people), identification numbers, credit card numbers and more. In some cases it even includes usernames or user account identification numbers (e.g. user_id in a database).

The Wikipedia:Harassment article contains the term "legal name" which could be replaced with "real name", "personal name" or just "name". I've replaced "legal name" with "real name" in the article mentioned above, then someone reverted my edit telling me that a consensus in the talk page is needed. WPEditor42 (talk) 13:58, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

It could also be replaced with "full name". WPEditor42 (talk) 14:19, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

I'll start by saying that significant changes to sensitive policy pages like this one really should be discussed in talk before being put onto the policy page, and should be given enough time to get responses to a proposal before implementing it. I had been thinking about this, and I agree that "real name" works better than "legal name". I would support the version you made that simply changed "legal" to "real". I oppose just "name" as being too vague, "personal name" as being too undefined, and "full name" because just a part of a real name can still be outing. I'm also unenthusiastic about the subsequent edits you made. They make it too roundabout, and if it isn't broken, don't fix it. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:41, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

"Real name" includes both preferred names (not nicknames or pseudonyms) and legal names. Both are considered personal information if you can accurately identify a person using it. WPEditor42 (talk) 16:19, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

UPDATE: Nicknames and pseudonyms can actually be considered personal information if you can identify a specific person using it. WPEditor42 (talk • contribs) 23:05, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

In the intervening time, it's been revised to "real-life name", which I think is the best way to put it. That distinguishes it from the WP username, but if someone is known by a nickname or pseudonym in real life, then that's covered. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:54, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree. WPEditor42 (talk • contribs) 23:58, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

shortcut links

Regarding this edit: the shortcut redirect WP:STALKING was removed earlier from the list of available shortcuts as the term has certain real-life connotations, as described at Wikipedia:Harassment § What harassment is not, and discussed at Wikipedia talk:Harassment/Archive 1 § Wikihounding. I feel the shortcut shouldn't be listed. Four listed shortcuts is more than enough (general guidance is to list no more than two), and I agree with not promoting usage of this redirect. (Both WP:STALK and WP:STALKING used to be soft redirects with a note discouraging their use, but the note was removed by one editor in 2022 and WP:STALKING was made into a hard redirect.) isaacl (talk) 17:54, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

WP:OUTING

As always, let me start by saying that if there is any material fact in what follows that I have overlooked, kindly point it out. With that said:

Most editors here are probably aware of the ongoing World War II ArbCom case. The essay that sparked this case mentions a Wikipedian's name and workplace, with a footnote citing a 2009 diff where the editor – apparently in some frustration at having been doxed off-site – signed with their real name and then added that anyone wanting more personal information could find it on Encylopedia Dramatica. Note that this was in plain text. The post contained no link to Dramatica. (I also understand that the editor at some point later on tried to have the diff oversighted but was refused.)

I mention the absence of a link because the wording of WP:OUTING specifically requires one:

• Posting another editor's personal information is harassment, unless that person has voluntarily posted their own information, or links to such information, on Wikipedia.

This aspect of the policy has been stable since at least 2008.

ArbCom appears to have taken the view that despite the absence of such a link to his workplace information, the contributor's 2009 statement still entitles everyone today and for the indefinite future to freely share the contributor's name and current workplace information (which is different from what it was then, nearly fifteen years ago) on- and off-wiki.

Now, it seems to me that posting a link to personal information is qualitatively different from exclaiming in frustration "I have been doxed on [name of site]." Posting a link signifies a different kind of intent than merely mentioning a doxing site.

In my view ArbCom should reconsider, but I'd be interested in other editors' views. But if consensus is against me, and it is the community's wish that the mere mention of a doxing site should suffice to make all information held on that site today and at any point in the future "fair game" and exempt from the WP:OUTING policy, then there is an easy test. It's to ask ourselves whether there is consensus to edit the sentence quoted above as follows:

• Posting another editor's personal information is harassment, unless that person has voluntarily posted their own information, or indicated where such information can be found, on Wikipedia.

Does that wording better reflect the will, consensus and understanding of the community? Andreas JN466 13:07, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Jayen466, I am a bit concerned here. The principle related to doxxing and harassment was a lot more nuanced, and most definitely did not include situations where a user mentioned having been doxxed on a certain site. In fact, in 2007 and 2008 (the time when this principle first took hold), editors would commonly complain about being doxxed on various sites, including but certainly not limited to Encyclopedia Dramatica. On the other hand, there was a very concerted effort to prevent anyone from linking to such doxxing, which amongst other things resulted in the failed WP:BADSITES proposal (which went too far) and ultimately resulted in significant changes to the harassment policy (which was a more appropriate location). And let's be honest, the entire point is that linking to an editor's doxxing is a form of harassment of the editor.

Many editors, especially newer or younger editors, aren't really aware of the potential impact of publishing their personal information on their user page or elsewhere on the project. It's one of the reasons that oversighters like myself will suppress information such as schools, names of minor children or siblings, telephone numbers, addresses, or similarly identifying personal information, without thinking twice. We'll usually follow up with a message to the user explaining why that information has been removed. If an apparently adult user puts their own personal information back on their userpage, we'll probably consider that they have been made aware of the risks of such and are consciously deciding to publish it. As any experienced Wikipedian knows, there are many reusers of Wikipedia content, some of which includes user pages; and of course, there are regularly produced "dumps" of the entire project that are available to anyone. Once that information has been on a page for a certain length of time, it has to be considered "available on the internet somewhere" even if it subsequently gets deleted or suppressed.

I'm having a hard time believing that a snarky comment from 2009 is being used to justify doxxing an editor, back in the ancient times when such editor complaints ("ED has doxxed me!") were commonplace, and there were no mechanisms for editors without the right connections to get such information removed. I understand why you have written what you have written, but I think you are probably wrong that the community thinks that's enough to allow doxxing and harassment of editors. Risker (talk) 22:04, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

I've been very concerned about the way that the ArbCom case has been treating this particular fact. For me, I don't see it the way that Andreas does here, in terms of whatever was or was not in that long-ago diff. Instead, I'm concerned about how publishing such personal information externally should be regarded, because the present case raises some complicated issues that the community has not had to deal with yet. It's starting to look to me like, maybe, ArbCom is going to interpret the policy here as not applying to peer-reviewed academic papers, which sounds reasonable on the surface, but raises some difficult problems when one looks beneath the surface. I think it may be a good idea to discuss this, and determine where community norms are now, and I'm starting to plan on initiating that discussion, but the time to do that will be after the case has closed, not now. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:19, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Just to add about what I'm thinking about, more specifically, I think the community has long agreed that posting a dox of an editor on an external website, such as a WP criticism site, is unacceptable. Not that WP will regulate what other websites contain, but that WP will regard that doxing as incompatible with being permitted to continue to participate here on WP. But what is new is finding personal information of editors posted in content about WP that is not a doxing website. Could be journalism, or here, an academic paper criticizing WP. Again, I doubt that anyone would think that we would regulate what journalists or academics could publish. But, if those journalists or academics also want to be editors here, this policy page may need to be updated to reflect when that is, and when that is not, going to be permitted. There are ways in which such publication by journalists or academics is ethically appropriate, and probably not something that we would want to make a policy violation. But the current case has shown that even a peer-reviewed academic paper can reside in what I think is a gray area, between good investigation, and doxing that might look more like a badsite. I'm not sure that the community will really want to give academics and journalists a free pass. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:26, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

@Risker: Thanks. Let me assure you that, like you, I think that the community would not consider a snarky comment from 2009 to be enough to allow an editor to be doxed with impunity for the rest of his life.

However, from the ArbCom responses posted here this appears to be the view ArbCom is taking: A review of the personal information in G&K by a few oversighters and then by the Committee as a whole determined the information had been disclosed on-wiki by those editors.

ArbCom appears to maintain that nothing untoward happened here, and it just doesn't make sense to me. Does it make sense to you?

Even quite apart from this specific case, where there wasn't even a link posted, as the project ages we should probably look at instituting some sort of time limit for these prior disclosures. If something is on someone's user page today, that is one thing. But it is ridiculous that disclosures made decades ago – in some cases when people were teenagers – should follow them around for the rest of their lives in this manner and still be dug up ten or twenty years later and used as justification for broadcasting all subsequent places of employment they might ever take up in the course of their lives. Regards, Andreas JN466 23:48, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Courtesy ping to Barkeep49 as the snippet I quoted above was part of a post he made in the linked section of the Analysis page. Andreas JN466 23:59, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Commenting only about your point about a time limit, this is a big issue that extends beyond Wikipedia. See, for example, Right to be forgotten. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:13, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

• How is this not WP:FORUMSHOPPING? CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 00:55, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

  I'm going to assume that you are directing that comment at the OP, Andreas, and not at me. To the extent that the discussion is about looking at how the policy page might need to be updated, it most certainly is not forum shopping. To the extent that there are comments finding fault with ArbCom, maybe, and maybe it's a matter of WP:STICK, but it's pretty ineffective as forum shopping, because nothing decided here can overrule ArbCom. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:10, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

  My biggest concern is the prominent attention Andres is bringing to sensitive information (information he thinks is so sensitive it qualifies for oversight) by raising this on the 4th high profile place across 3 venues. Barkeep49 (talk) 04:28, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

  Agreed. This has been an extended exercise in the Streisand effect. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 04:37, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

  I think you misconstrue my motives. At this point, I am really not concerned with preventing anyone from learning the information.

  Don't you think everyone who is interested in it has learned it already? Nor do I believe the Wikipedian in question is concerned about this conversation. Just look at where we are:

  • The essay has been viewed tens of thousands of times.
  • It's had exhaustive and at times highly controversial coverage in the Signpost.
  • Most importantly, you have made the essay the subject of a public arbitration case, in the course of which the outing has been discussed in detail for weeks, including by the Wikipedian most concerned who has repeatedly told you that he did not disclose the information on-wiki that you assert he disclosed on-wiki and that he's been suffering harassment for years already.

  What I am concerned with is the practical meaning of this policy (and the UCoC). You and your colleagues have indicated that you take the following views (do correct me if I am wrong):

  • Wikimedians who write academic papers are exempt from the Universal Code of Conduct and WP:OUTING.
  • If you mentioned in 2009 that you were doxed on Dramatica that makes your workplace information fair game for the rest of your life.

  Is this a correct summary? Note that this is not academic. For example, the essay's co-author is not the only party to the arbitration case authoring peer-reviewed papers. In addition, we have multiple Wikipedians who are active journalists. And so forth. Andreas JN466 12:36, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

  The paper is quite long and you've chosen to shine a spotlight on one sentence. I did not speculate or state a motive for why you've done this. I described your actions (raising this issue at multiple forums) and an outcome (more people will become aware of that specific issue). The signpost did not cover the outing issue which concerns you so much. The committee did address it at the case request, in response to others raising it. But sure I will grant you that is one prominent place the committee discussed it. Since then the focus has been on the rest of the paper except when you bring it up.

  Many people don't read Arbitration cases. And by bringing it up in your letter to the board I am quite confident that people who weren't aware of that element of the paper became aware. And bringing it up here I suspect the same. So yes your actions do concern me. Barkeep49 (talk) 13:36, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

  I have already laid out my thoughts at the case. Interested readers may find my comments on the matter at [1] (slight scrolling required, I have five comments on point). The TLDR version is I disagree with Andreas's characterization of the issue; the Committee found, in this specific case, given these specific facts, the use of a specific paper was fine. The implication here that we have somehow rewritten policy is absurd. Beyond that, I find Andreas's framing of the issue to be disingenuous: he admitted that his goal here was to get Chapmansh sanctioned [2]. Beyond that, I would be extremely resistant to rewriting the OUTING policy based on this one unusual incident, because bad cases make bad law. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 19:38, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

  This discussion has become something that does not really belong on this policy page talk page. It might be best, if the two Arbs want to pursue it further, to take it to Andreas' user talk. For me, the issue of whether it might be useful to revise the policy page is something that should be addressed only after ArbCom concludes the case. But the community, not ArbCom, writes policy. This unusual incident might very well alert the community that we are starting to face some new challenges, and that policy should keep up with currently evolving practice. (When the good Captain repeats that bad cases make bad law, I hope that they remember that ArbCom unilaterally decided to start this bad case.) But I agree that we shouldn't write policy based on a single incident. I would want to approach the future discussion with a broader view than that. There's no need for anyone to stake out a position of opposing any rewrite, before anyone even knows what, if anything, will be proposed for rewriting. In the mean time, I'd prefer to see more quiet on this talk page, and wait for the ArbCom case to work its way towards a conclusion. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:31, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

  (This is not a criticism of the committee, clarifying that because I know I have been quite critical in the past) CaptainEek, I've intentionally stayed as far away as possible from the case that started this thread, but I do think your last sentence is worth replying to, particularly the I would be extremely resistant to rewriting the OUTING policy based bit.

  My understanding of Tryptofish's and Jayen466's arguments on this page is that they think ArbCom misinterpreted the existing policy and/or applied it in a manner that is outside the historical norm (something I haven't looked closely enough at to have an opinion on.) If that's actually what they are arguing, and I'm not misreading this, any update to the policy wouldn't be a substantive change but probably a minor clarification consisting of less than a sentence. You might disagree with that characterization, and it seems you do, but it isn't outside the realm of reasonable discussion to have a this discussion if there's significant disagreement with the committee's point of view. You'd need an RfC for it, but it wouldn't be nearly anything as drastic as a complete re-write and this page would be the appropriate page start that RfC. The community can absolutely overrule ArbCom's interpretation of any policy by clarifying the policy.

  To use a legal analogy since I know you sometimes like thinking that way — its fairly common in the English-speaking world for legislatures to overrule courts by changing the specific wording of statutory law when they disagree with an interpretation a court has taken. Those usually aren't radical departures from how the law as originally written was enforced, and are more or less rebuffs of judicial interpretation — the court that ruled that way might disagree with that characterization, but the legislature obviously doesn't when it does this. Wikipedia obviously isn't a court and the community isn't a legislature, but the principle applies here as well.

  All that being said, if people actually want to do it, they should absolutely wait until after the case is done, and drop the discussion for now. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:46, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  @TonyBallioni Well said Tony, that was helpful to my understanding. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 06:04, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  Thank you, Tony. I confirm that you explained my view quite accurately. It might not be less than a sentence, more like adding a little bit to bring the policy up to date, but that's a discussion for a later time. And CaptainEek, I'm glad if that was helpful in us understanding one another better. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:12, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• WP:OUTING is an important policy, but also a dangerous one - it places severe restrictions, with potentially severe penalties, on posting certain things anywhere in any context. It's important to protect editors, but it's also important to avoid situations where it has a chilling effect on legitimate or important discussions (hence why it has narrow but specific exceptions.) Ultimately, the important point of OUTING is that it exists to protect editors from harm and harassment - that means that it's important and has a lot of teeth, but it also means that where there's no credible argument that something could harm them, and no credible argument that it constitutes harassment, it wouldn't be appropriate to apply a policy with OUTING's force. This has specific implications here. First, the publication of a peer-reviewed academic paper stating something makes it more difficult to argue that simply linking to that paper constitutes significant harm or harassment (although the context under which it's done might matter) - the paper itself is usually much higher-profile than a link to it on a Wikipedia talk page. The previous post also contributes to lowering this harm. Second, there are more situations where we might reasonably want to discuss an academic paper, especially in an arbitration case; unlike eg. linking to a forum post, it is more likely to have a legitimate use, which we have to weigh against the (here, minimal to nonexistent) harm. --Aquillion (talk) 17:58, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  There is another aspect here, which is that we can and should educate academics to avoid doxing contributors – especially when there is no discernible need to dox them.

  I am quite certain there are many academics who are blissfully unaware of both this policy and the Universal Code of Conduct. If an academic who is also a contributor here violates either, then we should use the opportunity to draw their attention to these norms. (Ultimately I am quite sure that most academics would, once aware of community norms, respect them.)

  This does not mean that we stop people from discussing this paper, or from linking to it.

  (@TonyBallioni: Thank you very much for your post. You did understand correctly.) Andreas JN466 18:13, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) As I said before, I don't want to get too deeply into this until after the case is over, and I also don't want to make it narrowly about this single case. But your last sentence leads me to something I'm thinking about very actively. You describe some situations as having "a legitimate use", and others not having one. It's easy to think think of examples at the polar opposites of that difference, but it gets very gray near the borderline. Doxers at forum sites sometimes self-style as "investigative journalists". They are going to start getting ideas about moving off of forum sites, and making themselves seem more "professional". I linked to this source during a discussion on the ArbCom case pages: [3]. It's interesting reading. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:17, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

A little ways back, Joe Roe pointed out how in abstract it was possible for a genuine contradiction between OUTING and NPOV to arise when an RS publishes the personal information of a contributor. I agree with the wisdom of delaying further discussion until passions have cooled and a more detached discussion is possible. But eventually that will need to be resolved. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 23:17, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm unsure whether the contradiction is actually in WP:OUTING as written, or in the (in my opinion extreme) reading of it typically applied by ArbCom and functionaries. Either way, I agree it needs to be resolved. – Joe (talk) 07:15, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

• I want to make a note that ArbCom seems likely to ask WMF to create a white paper on how academics and others should treat the issues we are discussing here. Personally, I'm OK with waiting to see what (if anything) comes of that, before attempting any revisions here. Obviously, we would want this policy page to (at a minimum) be consistent with what WMF says. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:53, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

I was recently accused at WP:ANI of outing. But AFAIK there is no basis in WP:PAGs for considering that reading the information from voluntary past edits performed by a certain account at English Wikipedia would amount to outing of that account. Well, unless those were already oversighted, which wasn't the case for me. Could you elaborate thereupon?

My point was very adeptly explained at Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2023 May 12#Username. They were advised to request oversighting, but no such oversighting happened yet. They accused me of harassing them, but fake accusations of outing are themselves harassment. This is an important policy issue, that's why I discuss it here, I don't wish to relitigate the ANI thread. tgeorgescu (talk) 10:03, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

Given the indenting, I'm not sure if you were asking me in particular, but I'm not sure I have a clear answer to your question. I don't know all the relevant facts, but I think that ArbCom's decision reinforces the idea that, if someone's information was, at one time, posted voluntarily onsite, and has not subsequently been oversighted, so that it's still there, then it is not an outing violation to refer to it. On the other hand, it may be against good judgment to refer to it, even if it isn't against policy – depending on how necessary or unnecessary the information is, and how likely the user is to not want it discussed. On the other hand, if someone is making a clean start, and not doing anything disruptive in so doing, it would probably violate outing if one were to reveal the connection between the new and old accounts. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:23, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

Tryptofish, coming back around to your last point as it sometimes gets raised and having commentary in the talk archives eventually might be useful. The relevant section of the CLEANSTART policy is If you attempt a clean start but are recognized, you will be held accountable for your actions under both the old and new accounts. The fact that you notified someone of the change will not excuse you from the consequences of your actions or protect you from recognition.

My reading of that has always been that any editor is free to make the connection between the two accounts. I have a vague memory of us suppressing such links in cases of extreme harassment (don't remember specifics), but generally speaking such a link would not be oversighted. Ancient history at this point but claiming that linking clean starts was outing was basically the MO of User:Zawl before he ended up community banned. I think we'd probably discuss any such situation on the list before suppressing, and I for one would argue fairly strongly against such a suppression outside of cases of off-site harassment.

To tgeorgescu's question which relates more closely to account renames: referring to someone by a past username might be rude, but is not against the outing policy and the Oversight team has documented our stance on it on the OSPOL page since it was at one point a very frequent request. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:48, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Tony for filling in those details. I can agree with all of it, so I can accept that, in the last sentence of what I had written, it probably would not violate outing to reveal that connection. I did, of course, specify that this was only if the clean start account was "not doing anything disruptive", and that was consistent with the fact that connecting back to the earlier account name is acceptable in cases of disruption. And I think we can all agree that it still is "against good judgment" to point out such a connection if the clean start is being done without causing problems. I agree that it's useful to have addressed these issues in the talk archives. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:25, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, we're in agreement on that. The reason I clarified is because, unfortunately, this is something people tend to get super technical about and that has caused headaches in the past because of people taking advantage of the community's good faith. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:11, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Should we resume the discussion that was prompted by the recent ArbCom proceedings now the case is over? My feeling was ArbCom basically made a political rather than policy-based decision not to consider the scholarly paper outing. Committee members gave different reasons at different times to justify this view – first it was the editor's on-wiki mention (but not linking) of Dramatica over a decade ago, then a contention that the UCoC would not apply to academic papers, and then a contention that the UCoC examples of unacceptable harassment behaviour should not be taken literally, but subjected to a further test. The white paper requested may help to clarify the WMF view at least, though I would not expect results to be forthcoming any time soon. Thoughts? Andreas JN466 06:16, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

This incident goes back less than two decades, the longer the digital age continues the further back such incidents will go and the larger the proportion of the community whose teenage years were in the digital era. The Universal Code of Conduct is new and is a bit of a curate's egg, unfortunately the WMF has steamrollered it in without fixing all the flaws that were pointed out by the community, and as a result it will have a more painful teething period than was needed. We can't expect our own rules to apply to outside bodies, especially if our internal rules clash with external norms. We are too big, and too important, for outsiders to ignore or judge against a lower standard than they'd expect to be judged by. AI is upon us and we can expect the unexpected, not just digital doxxers that can go through millions more diffs than a human doxxer, but editors being outed by AI on the basis of Word Frequency and similar digital signatures that we are not used to doxxers using. We live in interesting times, I'm off to make popcorn. Those of you with teleport devices or digital printers that work on edible ingredients are welcome to download some. ϢereSpielChequers 08:06, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Agreed about the lack of community input beforehand. As if to compensate for that, we now have an extra helping of bureaucracy – we have a "Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee Building Committee" (no kidding ... a committee to build a committee), or "U4CBC" (see current Signpost issue). This way of establishing policy, involving multiple committees and bureaucratic processes stretching over literally years has little to do with the wiki way any more (remember "wiki wiki"? We were told it meant really quick ... this feels more like 5-year-plan central planning). Meanwhile, the disenfranchisement of the community proceeds apace. Andreas JN466 11:37, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Here's what I think. I'm very interested in having the community examine and discuss these issues, and I would like for the community to take ownership of how we want to treat any policy ramifications. For now, what I want to do is to wait and see what (if anything) comes out of the White Paper that ArbCom has asked (is going to ask?) WMF to prepare on the subject. At first glance, that might sound like I'm enabling further disenfranchisement of the community, but I don't see it that way. Instead, I think that if WMF says anything about WMF recognizing that academics and other writers publishing personal information of editors goes against the values of the movement (or something along those lines), that gives the community an opening to say that we want to have policies that reflect that. I'm thinking about how difficult it always is to get consensus to change anything (especially now that ArbCom seems to have gone on record as saying that academics can be trusted to do whatever they want, and that Arbs are smart enough to tell the difference between legitimate and illegitimate academic writings), so I'm hoping it will be easier if an argument can be made that we need to bring our policies up to date with the new White Paper from WMF. I'm also thinking that this isn't an urgent problem, so much as an important one, so I'm not in a hurry, so much as I'm focused on getting it right (even if the White Paper ends up not helping, or never happens). And, as already said repeatedly, I don't think this is about WMF or the community telling outside entities what they can or cannot write, but rather us telling them that if they out someone they won't be welcome to edit here. (By the way, I was at a college reunion last week, and several people who have nothing to do with Wikipedia were nonetheless aware of, and asked me about, the controversy over the G&K paper.) --Tryptofish (talk) 18:51, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

The White Paper will be happening. There's a phab ticket (T337883). At the June ArbCom/WMF call, it was indicated this would likely be finished Jan - March 2024. The long timeline reflects both other foundation work and the foundation's need to do a fair amount of consultation in order to ensure that this is fully looked at and the resulting paper is high quality and robust across a wide variety of contexts and situations. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:47, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the update. Personally, I'm willing to wait, especially since it seems to be taken seriously. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:57, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

smart enough to tell the difference between legitimate and illegitimate academic writings That's the most problematic part, because it quite plainly jeopardises the principle of equality before the law.

Incidentally, according to the latest Wikihistories newsletter, Grabowski and Klein felt they needed to name editors because they were authors of content that was untrue and potentially harmful and they don’t have the confidence of Wikipedia’s ability to obtain redress when its highest body (ArbCom) only enforces conduct rather than truth. Isn't that "naming and shaming" exactly the same justification other editors gave when they outed people (and got banned for it)? Andreas JN466 08:19, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

If the desire is to empower the community to participate in the development of policy, I don't think the wiki way of individuals modifying living documents that take effect immediately would be good approach. The community needs to be given the opportunity to weigh in and then respond to each other. The resulting N-squared potential interactions means the process will take more and more time as the community grows larger. It's common and practical to have a subset of the community work on drafting policy in order to more effectively narrow down the options to a smaller number, so the time spent by the overall community can be used more efficiently. I appreciate the time required can be exasperating, but it's a direct consequence of the community's size. isaacl (talk) 21:45, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

I'd invite you to spend some time on stats.wikimedia.org. You'll find that the Wikimedia community is smaller than it was fifteen years ago, and that editor numbers across languages and projects have plateaued over the past five or ten years. Andreas JN466 07:03, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

The practical limits based on the N-squared communication problem kick in really, really quickly—well below the number of editors on the Wikimedia sites. isaacl (talk) 08:58, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

But those limits would have kicked in in 2004 ... This reminds me of a saying people were fond of then: "Wikipedia can never work in theory, it can only work in practice." Joking aside, most of the policies and guidelines the community developed over the first ten years of the projects' existence, when the English Wikipedia community in particular was significantly larger than today, are perfectly serviceable ... and actually fairly unique online. At the same time, the limits of the committee approach are all too apparent. The above description of the UCoC as a "curate's egg" is truly appropriate. Andreas JN466 14:01, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Andreas, I find it a bit rich that you agree the UCOC is a curate's egg when you spent a great deal of energy at the case to try to get us to enforce the UCOC (or at least your interpretation of it). CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 15:21, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

I find it an intolerable situation that on the one hand we have this Universal Code of Conduct, which everyone is warned may not be circumvented, eroded, or ignored by Wikimedia Foundation officers or staff nor local policies of any Wikimedia project, but on the other hand we think it is too crappy to enforce it. (I did suggest committee members unwilling to enforce the Code would have the honorable option to resign.)

Now, it's in the nature of a curate's egg (I'll try and resist the temptation to call it a cuckoo's egg) that they are a mixture of good and bad. Let me explain what I mean.

The code says that harassment is considered unacceptable within the Wikimedia movement. It goes on to say (my emphases) that harassment includes but is not limited to: Insults [...] Sexual harassment [...] Threats [...] Encouraging harm to others [...] Disclosure of personal data (Doxing): sharing other contributors' private information, such as name, place of employment, physical or email address without their explicit consent either on the Wikimedia projects or elsewhere, or sharing information concerning their Wikimedia activity outside the projects. [...]

Now, I and others like Vanamonde have said for well over a year that the bolded section is at best unclear. Because as written, it says that whenever I am sharing information about other people's Wikimedia activity outside the projects I am engaging in harassment.

To that degree I fully agree with Wugapodes, who said at one point during the case that if we took the UCoC literally, we'd have to class his private conversations about Wikipedia with his life partner as "harassment". The problem is that this is indeed what the UCoC says, and will continue to say for the foreseeable future. This is madness. A document of such central importance should be written clearly, so everyone knows what is meant and not meant. Community editing would achieve that in days; months of committee editing and board approval clearly did not.

And there ought to be reasonable exceptions. For according to UCoC standards, everyone who contributed to Wikipedia:Congressional_staffer_edits e.g. engaged in unacceptable behaviour and harassment (workplace disclosure without explicit consent). Is this what we want?

So much for the bad. Now for the good. I think it's correct that Wikipedians shouldn't go round publicising that User:MineEnemy is called Joe Bloggs and is a teacher of physics at the St Bartholomew School in Little Wilmington, especially when Joe's edits have nothing whatsoever to do with physics.

People have outed editors in the past because they didn't agree with the politics of their editing and hoped outing them would make them stop, and got banned for it. Now according to the above quote attributed to G&K in the Wikihistories piece, explaining their reasons for giving people's names and employers in their essay, G&K's motivation was no different. It had nothing to do with academic standards, as committee members charitably assumed. They didn't trust ArbCom to remove the editors they didn't like, and thought outing them would help remove them from the playing field.

As the UCoC puts it, in a passage I find unobjectionable, harassment includes any behaviour intended primarily to intimidate, outrage or upset a person [and] may include contacting workplaces or friends and family members in an effort to intimidate or embarrass. ArbCom took the view that this is not what happened here. I think reasonable people can disagree. Andreas JN466 19:14, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Please do not ping me. I have found your persistent wikilawyering at best annoying and at worst disruptive, so please do not involve me in the latest iteration. — Wug·a·po·des 23:09, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

There was a greater alignment in purpose during the initial years (though as I understand it by no means across all issues), and it's been a long time since policy could be significantly changed by a single individual to take effect immediately, which is the wiki way (allow anyone to change a living document). The limits were hit early on, and considerable discussion is required for meaningful changes. Wikipedia's policies and processes have grown more entrenched as a small number of objectors can stalemate progress. And most changes that do gain approval are still met with subsequent outcries of editors who felt they weren't sufficiently consulted. isaacl (talk) 16:43, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

As the person who first made the curate's egg analogy in this section, I'd like to respond to the criticism of those of us who think that the good parts of the UCOC should be taken seriously by the community. When a flawed document has some good features it is not hypocritical to call for the good parts to be enforced whilst still pointing out that other bits are flawed. What would be off would be to call for the whole of it to be treated as literally, whilst still pointing out that the first admin to get dementia but insist on the UCOC protecting them, or the reforms of the Scots Wiki should be undone because they gave preference to Scots Wiki contributors who actually understood Scots. In the case of Arbcom, I'm not aware of anyone, not even the WMF, who argues that the UCOC should be taken so literally that Arbcom should stop requiring its members to be at least 18 years old..... So we know that Arbcom and the WMF both have a defacto position of only enforcing the bits of the UCOC that they think are worth enforcing.

As for whether the size of the community is growing or stable, we need to remember that the currently active part of the community is only a subset of the community of everyone who has ever contributed to this project. By at least one measure the currently active part of the community is still larger than it was in the late 2014 minima. By every measure the community of people who have ever contributed to this project is still growing as it has continually since 2001. The longer this project continues for the more people will be out there relying on the currently active community to protect what they voluntarily did on this project. Even if there is no one currently active who they have interacted with, and the rules, norms and technology of doxxing have radically changed since they made their contributions to this project. ϢereSpielChequers 07:57, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

About "the rules, norms and technology of doxxing have radically changed", I agree, and I think that's important for the WMF to address in the White Paper, and for the community to examine after that. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:27, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Further information: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Postscript to World War II and the history of Jews in Poland case. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:41, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Just spitballing another thought that I had, another issue that came up in the ArbCom case was that an editor had some self-outing material that he later wanted to have oversighted/suppressed, but was turned down because the information had been posted for a long time, and the oversighters concluded that too much time had passed in order for it to be oversighted now. That personal information ended up being significant in the recent dispute. I can't fault the oversighters for following the existing policy. But the community might want to start taking a look at updating our policies for that, as a guide to oversighters in the future. We might want to do something roughly along the lines of saying that protecting the privacy of personal information should be prioritized above how much time has passed since the original edit, so that the personal information would not continue to remain readily visible where it could be used in a harassing manner. At the same time, we might also spell out that someone aware of the personal information from the more lengthy time interval between posting and oversight might not necessarily be sanctioned for outing simply because the well-known material was eventually oversighted. Or something like that. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:06, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Question on social media and outing

If somebody brags on social media in unsavory terms about having made a certain edit on Wikipedia, can I call them out on it on-Wiki? Is that outing?

And if somebody claims on social media to have ‘worked with Wikipedia moderators’ to make those edits? Hyperbolick (talk) 04:31, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

As a generalization, it would be better to deal with it privately (such as by email to an administrator or to ArbCom), than to post about it onsite. It might be OK to post if the social media post uses the exact same account name as the username here, and the social media post contains nothing to link the username to any aspect of real life identity. But it would have to satisfy both of those requirements, not just one or the other, and there would have to be no ambiguities about that. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:48, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Ok, this instance doesn't satisfy both, social media username is different. Can imagine a social media troll falsely claiming to be wiki editor for whatever reason. Hyperbolick (talk) 20:29, 13 February 2024 (UTC)