[Foundation-l] "Wikidrama" and autonomy of Wikimedia projects

Mon Aug 11 23:02:08 UTC 2008

2008/8/11 Cary Bass <cary at wikimedia.org>:
> Scenario 1:
> An active user with an unusual username on the English Wikipedia has,
> for whatever reason, never taken advantage of SUL.  An account opens up
> on a much project which is, given the name, implausibly anything other
> than an impostor of the English Wikipedia account.  It does, however,
> have apparently useful contributions (no difficult matter on this wiki
> if one is familiar with it); and the local community, while believing
> that the account is an impostor account seems to be unwilling to resolve
> the situation without demanding that the user come to the smaller
> project and ask for usurpation.   Obviously, we wouldn't want to force
> the issue with an autonomous project.

Deal with if the "impostor" becomes a problem otherwise ignore.

> Scenario 2:
> A user has been banned on enwiki.  The user has "outed" psuedonymous
> individuals via his blog and threads Wikipedia Review by compiling
> information put together elsewhere on the net.  He has taken to another
> wiki and under the auspices of the local wiki's policy, has put back
> links to pages which have links to pages (sometimes several pages deep)
> which "outs" the individuals.
>
> Is this a violation of our privacy policy as it exists?  If not, how can
> we best address the needs of the local projects?  We have to assume the
> user is sincere about his project, because AGF is a core principle.  If
> he is sincere, can he not contribute in a fashion that doesn't create so
> much hardship on other contributors?
>
> Of course, we cannot gauge the sincerity, but if he is not, what then?
> Does allowing an enwiki user to game another of our projects create long
> term trouble for the wiki in the future (exportation of wikidrama from
> enwiki to another project).  Does the foundation or the community at
> large have an obligation to ensuring this doesn't happen?
>

En probably has a responsibility to warn. If that warning is ignored
there is not much to be done.

-- 
geni