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: Wed 11th January 2012, 7:01pm

[gomi]

History has shown us that anonymity (and pseudonymity) can be an important factor in the ability to criticize and call attention to a corrupt regime. It has similarly shown that corrupt regimes often shroud themselves in various degrees of opacity and anonymity. This asymmetry befuddles some people, but it really shouldn't.

There is an argument that when Wikipedia was a fledgling startup website, no well-regarded person would want attribution for a couple of throw-away sentences typed into a somewhat quixotic experimental website styling itself as an "encyclopedia". And indeed, the earliest versions of Wikipedia had no user names, only IP addresses.

But now Wikipedia is the establishment. Protecting anonymity and pseudonymity for editors of what might be the world's most-read (or most searched) source of trivia is foolhardy now. I might not care about the credentials of whomever typed in the cast list from Gilligan's Island (T-H-L-K-D), but knowing the credentials of someone writing about Dawn Wells (T-H-L-K-D), informs us about why they might spin things a certain way. This, of course, is vastly more important for topical issues of current events, certain long-running controversies, and any time someone might wish to damage (or enhance) the reputation of a company, person, or idea.

We rightly treat a press release differently than a news article, and both of them differently than an encyclopedia entry. Yet Wikipedia does not allow us to distinguish the motivation of the author of an article between these very different styles. This is one reason why Jimmy Wales becomes apoplectic whenever it is revealed that PR firms are editing Wikipedia -- it reveals for all to see the potential for abuse, and the structural inability of Wikipedia to avoid that abuse.

We have similarly seen incidents of people stopped at borders based on inaccurate Wikipedia entries. If we cannot know that governments are manipulating Wikipedia articles, how can we evaluate the reliability of the information we read? In one well-publicized case, Wikipedia deliberately (and for noble and humanitarian reasons) willingly suppressed information about a journalist held captive in the Middle East. But all such suppressions of information -- or insertions -- are unlikely to be equally benign.

We already see operatives for both sides in various Middle Eastern conflicts, notably the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, warring over various topic entries, trying to spin them in a favorable way for their side. These become clearer when we know the identity of the partisans (and they do tend to drive away less partisan nobodies), but we still do not know, for example, whether Jayjg (T-C-L-K-R-D) is simply a concerned citizen writing about Israel, or a paid propagandist. The same can be said for his alter-egos on the other side of the argument.

This is not to say that encyclopedias are unbiased. Everything is biased, always, culturally, if not in other ways. Britannica is biased from a Western, British (despite now being American), Enlightenment, Scientific point of view. This is a point of view most of us understand, and the limitations of which educated people understand as well. Encyclopedias produced by the Vatican, the People's Republic of China, or the John Birch Society would have different, but discernible, biases.

Anonymity is completely incompatible with the concept of an encyclopedia. This is not to say that every author or critic at every stage of the process need be noted, biographied, and held to account. But someone must be accountable -- an editor, publisher, -- someone. But in Wikipedia, there is no editorial process, there are no standards that are above manipulation, there is no consistent editorial voice about which we can deduce policy or leaning. In Wikipedia, no one is accountable, and therefore, nothing is reliable.

[melloden]

Anonymity is one of the privileges (and disadvantages) of the Internet. Some users even on WR, myself included, enjoy the benefit of being nameless because it at least means we don't risk the possibility of being harassed off the Internet. And I use harass in the very loose manner that Wikipediots do. If people weren't so fanatical about Wikipedia, and being stalked or annoyed wasn't a major concern to most anonymous people in the Wikipedia circle, I hardly see why I should remain anonymous. But I don't want some wiki-freak making false complaints to my boss about my participation in this site. I participate because I can enjoy anonymity, to a point.

Many Wikipedia editors should not be anonymous for reasons such as exposure of COI or "abusive" editing, or just to satisfy our own curiosity. I've tried to find out the identities of quite a few editors, but it doesn't really matter in the end. We all know that the people running Wikipedia are either nerds or underqualified jobsless authority-mongers. Daniel Brandt isn't needed to show us that.

[EricBarbour]

We all know that the people running Wikipedia are either nerds or underqualified jobsless authority-mongers. Daniel Brandt isn't needed to show us that.

Us, perhaps. What about the millions of average people who read Wikipedia articles every day?
What about the trolls who hang out on Wiki-friendly places like this Reddit area?
You won't see any Wikipedia criticism there. Anyone who tries it gets downvoted aggressively.....