[WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

Mon Jun 12 10:10:49 UTC 2006

> >Wikipedia offers no defense, and no protection. And users who have
> >had nothing to do with Daniel Brandt are put in danger. I had never
> >edited his article and had never spoken with him when he began
> >contemplating making me leave my PhD program. But I became a target.
> >I was and am powerless to stop being a target. So are about 200 other
> >people. Including, let's note, a bunch of teenagers. And do you
> >really think most of us, when we made our first edit or accepted our
> >RFA, thought we were getting into this?
> >
> So how is working on WP fundamentally different from selling items on
> eBay, getting into arguments on Usenet, or sending patches to a Linux
> mailing list? You play around on the net, you're going to be visible
> to the whole world, for better or worse. The archives still record
> various stupid things I wrote in public over two decades ago, they
> are never going away.

Such is life. IMHO, Wikipedia could still do a better job in helping
its contributors protect their identities. Publishing "anonymous"
contributors IP numbers should have been fixed a long time ago.
Reminding users of the carelessness of putting personal information on
Wikipedia pages is another no-brainer. Encouraging users *not* to
reveal their real identity by using their real name as their Wikipedia
account name. Actually punish contributors who, without permission,
publishes personal details about another contributor. I don't know,
people are responsible for their own actions. But things could still
be improved.

-- 
mvh Björn