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When it comes to asking those questions face to face, yeh, I would probably ask phil because he's physically not a very intimidating figure as long as he doesn't sneak up on a person and try to play some fantasy role play i-dont-care-about-your-perceptions game.
He's a big cuddly-wuddly teddy bear and you know it!
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[paraphrasing]Did any of you regulars contact the police?
I can only speak for myself, but I did not. I can only think of two people that might have. Of course, this forum has a lot of lurkers also. It could just as easily been one of them.
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But until you can show me an instance of someone in power at Wikipedia doing something to another member which has real-world repercussions--that is, something that affects more than just Wikipedia--I really don't care.
I can think of many instances. Things on Wikipedia have far ranging effects.
Daniel Brandt (T-H-L-K-D),
Ashida Kim (T-H-L-K-D), etc. It is hard to boil such cases down to a quantizied version but I shall try through an example,
Stephanie Adams (T-H-L-K-D).
- Someone starts and article on her and it contains a great deal of unsourced claims (See the article history).
- Either the subject of the article or someone acting as an agent of said party tries to make the article not suck.
- They are met with opposition by other editors and are deemed disruptive because they do not conform to Wikipedia's conduct guidelines.
- They may even be "blocked"--which is banning really, but Wikipedia reserves the term banning for a more broad stroke (See block log).
- Those working on behalf of the subject are eventually forced to contact the Wikimedia Foundation to have their disputed resolved (See WP:OFFICE (T-H-L-K-D)).
- Jimbo (or Danny, or some random person from IRC) has to come along and actual inforce Wikipedia's content policies (See this edit).
- Jimbo tells the admin that was edit warring with said party how inappropriate they acted (See this diff and unblocks them).
Also note that this is one of the cases that eventually worked out relatively _well_ for those that have been wronged.
There is also the case of admins readily trying to dig up the private information of those that they have problems with or contact outside authorities (See
WP:ABUSE (T-H-L-K-D)) but will come to the defense of any admin that has the same done to them (See
WP:AN/I thread about the admin Gator1).
I've tried my best to write in such a way that a complete outsider could understand, but feel free to ask if you need elucidation. It is certainly clear that Wikipedia is not an island, but I am making broad generalizations, leaving out many examples, and glossing over details for the purpose of being succinct.
My opinion is that neither those in charge of wikipedia nor mere editors should have to worry about real-world repercussions for actions on Wikipedia outside of those that are obviously illegal (libel, harrassment, etc). As it is now, those in charge are not held accountable, but the little people are. Which is a more serious offense: some schoolkid vandalizing
George W. Bush (T-H-L-K-D) to say that he had sex with Osama Bin Laden (cf.
Hustler Magazine v. Falwell (T-H-L-K-D) or a myriad of other cases) or
Jeffrey Vernon Merkey (T-H-L-K-D) which is largely source from mailing list posts (See
WhatLinksHere for lots of dicussion of this, along with
this rejected case to Wikipedia's semi-mock court?
This article from
The Register also covers such interactions. If you do not like your biography (which can obviously have meatspace effects) Wikipedia is likely to ban you and call the dispute resolved, or keep the article around to spite you.
edit: I hate bbcode with a passion; I give up trying to make this look pretty.