QUOTE(MBisanz @ Mon 7th September 2009, 1:14am)
The outing policy, as I see it, serves some useful Wiki-culture purposes, but also fails on some fronts. The policy's primary point is to encourage editors who do not want their name known to edit articles. I could imagine this being a positive motivation for people who have been stalked, are generally shy/quiet in real life, or who have a public position and want a hobby where they won't be criticized. I could imagine a medical doctor wanting to edit articles on medicine, but not wanting to assume the liability of people suing him for bad information or hounding him for free advice. Also, obviously, there is the idea that children shouldn't have their name on the internet since it simply makes pedophiles jobs that much easier. In these areas the outing policy is rather successful to the extent it encourages responsible contributions.
Where the policy fails is the same place the COI guideline and the external linking policy fail. While it is obviously OK for someone to mention a link to their website in a relevant context, most people on the internet seem intent on putting their link in as many places as possible, so Wikipedia adopts the counter-measure of reverting a good portion of links added. Similarly, if COI actually worked, it would tell people with a financial interest in something that they couldn't edit the article and could only suggest changes, but that would reduce content overall, so we allow people with conflicts to edit.
In this way the outing policy fails, since in order to protect the people mentioned above as completely as possible, it requires us to act without looking at the intentions of the person. So a sockpuppeter is generally protected from disclosure of his IPs or real name. And a self-promotional author is generally protected from linking names together to make the accusation. In a perfect world there would be some kind of "management" making the legally liable decision of when to out a person who refused to act collaboratively, but lacking that perfect world, I really don't see what other options we have other than to enforce the policy blindly.
Echo all of what you've said. The policy also fails in that it and any other anti-stalking stuff Wikipedia seems to have not actually
worked. Several users have been stalked horribly despite these policies, and the Foundation's only response is to put their hands over their ears and sing a loud song until everything goes away. Things like that will continue to be ineffective at driving off stalkers until the Foundation actually becomes prepared to get their hands dirty. The flip side of that, thinking about it, is that the policy could be very, very successful - it's quite hard to list "number of people who might have been harassed IRL if it wasn't for this policy".
In regards to Benjiboi's case - as said, he can't have his cake and eat it. If you want to keep your identity intact, here's a hint; don't write large articles on two of your personas, complete with pictures and real-life associations.
This post has been edited by Deodand: