Anonymity, Good or bad Options

[Peter Damian]

I noticed the mail below on one of the Wiki-lists (public). It seemed immediately that there was much wrong with the logic, but I wonder what others think?

The first argument that occurred to me was that, if his argument was valid, then the same conclusion would apply to banks, public companies, charities and so forth. Yet we require public companies to publish the names of their directors, likewise charities. But that begs the question. Why do we require directors of companies, charities, etc to declare identities?

[edit] On second thoughts, the analogy with companies and charities is imperfect, because of the point he makes about every action being transparent.

----- Original Message -----
From: Happy Melon
To: peterc@cix.compulink.co.uk ; Functionaries email list for the English Wikipedia
Cc: office@wikimedia.org.uk ; wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2012 1:21 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] [Functionaries-en] Edward Buckner/Peter Damian& W


What possible need is there to know the personal life story of a community member in order to "scrutinise" their actions on-wiki? In an environment where every action is quite deliberately laid open for transparent 'scrutiny', *precisely* to engender a culture where members are judged on their actions, not any personal characteristic? Why is it any more important that the name, birthday and home address of the admin who blocks "established editors" is known publically, than the same of the admin who 'only' blocks IPs? Why does knowing the marital status of your arbitrators help you or anyone else to "scrutinise" their behaviour? There is absolutely no justification from the "ends" of outing to justify any means.

Conversely, those members of the community who *have* "got further up the hierarchy" have done so with the support and endorsement of the community which is *well aware* of their pseudonymous status, anonymous or otherwise. They have done so in line with Foundation policy, which is fully protective of that anonymity. They have done so in a *legal* environment which is sympathetic to people's right to privacy and comes down hard on people who harrass others by breaking it. The entire structure is established, with increasingly broad mandates, on the basis that pseudonymity is acceptable and to be protected. What right does any single person have to declare that establishment 'wrong' and unilaterally overturn it?

Of course, I'm writing from an anonymous email account with a pseudonym that has always been in place, and probably always will. I've had things oversighted on five different projects, and removed from places where 'oversight' is far from standard practice, to protect that anonymity. Is the fact that you don't know my name, address and date of birth a concern to you? Is the fact that I've written code for the cluster, or administrated three ArbCom elections, a problem for you? Would you sleep better at night if I *hadn't* once had the Oversight bit? Please do tell me, how would your "scrutiny" of my actions be improved if my personal life was public record?

--HM

This post has been edited by Peter Damian:

[Eppur si muove]

I'd like to push things back slightly from the quote which started the thread. The man with the ridiculous name was replying to the following post to the list.

Anthony,

I am just an ordinary Wikipedian. Although I have contemplated becoming an admin in the past, I have never applied to be one and don't intend to do so in the foreseeable future. As such, I have no obligation to acknowledge anything about anyone.

It so happens that the Wikipedian I have probably had most contact with as a Wikipedian is an anonymous editor and I understand enough of his circumstances to know why it is appropriate in his case. I am not going to out him or other ordinary editors or admins who focus on using the brush
end of the broom. However, the higher someone gets up the hierarchy the less appropriate it is for someone to be granted anonymity.

When someone is active in AE or has an extensive history of using blocks against established editors, then the right to privacy becomes questionable. Wikipedia isn't just a private club. It is one of the most powerful websites in the world.

Arbitrators, senior Foundation staff and directors of WMUK and the like are in positions of authority over that website and it is entirely appropriate that they should be scrutinised publcly.

I don't know as much about Buckner as you do. Maybe I would be horrified by him if I did. But I'm not going to accept that everyone in high-profile roles should be above external scrutiny. And actually it's surprising how restrained people are being. As far as I know, no one seems to have gone to Private Eye.

Peter

> Peter,
>
> The additional issues with Buckner, who routinely tries to uncover the identity of Wikipedians who
> are in high-profile roles, mean it is quite appropriate to ban him from these events.
>
> Nobody said he was a "security risk", but it is the case that he has caused stress among many
> editors for no other reason than that he can. A subset of these editors have resigned because of
> Buckner/Damian. He should not be welcome at WMUK events because of his behaviour, period. It
> astounds me that you don't acknowledge the ongoing issues with this man's actions.
>
> Anthony

Peter is Peter cohen (T-C-L-K-R-D) and Anthony is AGK (T-C-L-K-R-D) . Private Eye is a British satirical magazine which likes to dish the dirt on corruption and hypocrisy in public office.

The bolding does not appear in the original email. While quoting from the original email willy-nilly, Happy Melon seems to have "overlooked" that text. If he had, then the idea that the Wikimedia "community"were the only people scrutinising those who exercise power over one of the most read sites would be shown to be ridiculous. However the likes of Happy Melon want the power without the responsibility that goes with it.

It would be nice to force anyone editing a BLP to do so under their real name. Unfortunately, there would need to be some protection for people in police states or with relatives there.

I suppose that I have to think about why I use a pseudonym here if I am critical of Dopey Fruit's defence of his and his co-conspirators' use of them. One key difference is that WR is not a powerful site compared with the one it is scrutinising. WRers have certainly had real fears of retaliation in the past.

Pseudonymns also allow a certain distancing from the tone. A lot of satirical newspaper columns have been written pseudonymously. My original userid here was ironic in nature, using an insult that had been thrown at me. But then the WR police forced me to change it. If I were contributing here under my real name, I would not have started a thread referring to the macho posturings by certain admins against Malleus by saying that they had their dicks out. Some [Malleus]fucking cunts[/Malleus] might rather that I had not done so but I think the availability of a certain amount of colourful language is appropriate on this site provided that it doesn't reach Wikifan proportions.

I therefore persist with a pseudonym even though it is not the hardest challenge to work out who I am. Rest assured that if, say, I were to write to a parliamentary committee about why I felt that a senior Wikimedian had not been altogether frank with them, then I would do so under my real name.

Which reminds me. The fact that said Wikimedian is on the board of a charity that professes to be educational in nature and has previously uploaded educational pornographic pictures of himself to the website most associated with that charity, surely that is just the sort of thing that should be subject to public scrutiny? If he had not used a form of his real name as his initial id, then this would never have become known. But I haven't seen WikimediaUK making all the previous accounts of their Trustees and senior staff publicly known.

This post has been edited by Eppur si muove:

[lilburne]

It would be nice to force anyone editing a BLP to do so under their real name. Unfortunately, there would need to be some protection for people in police states or with relatives there.

I was thinking about that, but came to the conclusion that such reasoning doesn't really apply wrt to wikipedia. That is because if you are seriously concerned about repercussions then why are you contributing to an encyclopaedia, especially as you are only supposed to add content based on published sources. If you are putting stuff in that will get you in trouble then you are almost certainly proselytizing in some form or other.

I suspect that one has other outlets other than an encyclopaedia for doing that.

If I were contributing here under my real name, I would not have started a thread referring to the macho posturings by certain admins against Malleus by saying that they had their dicks out. Some [Malleus]fucking cunts[/Malleus] might rather that I had not done so but I think the availability of a certain amount of colourful language is appropriate on this site provided that it doesn't reach Wikifan proportions.

Now there is the real reason for remaining anonymous where you are concerned that the expression of your opinions will somehow get you into trouble. That is fine here, and why you should have the right to be anonymous here. But it doesn't follow that editing WP should be the same, as your opinions and biases should be left outside that particular door.