[Foundation-l] Privacy concerns

Sun Jul 10 10:48:12 UTC 2011

On Sun, Jul 10, 2011 at 12:03 PM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> The relevant paragraph appears to be
> http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sokpop#Ontsnappingsclausule
>
> The Google translation is "In order to be unblocked, the person behind
> the corresponding IP address is a letter (paper) to a community trust
> staff."
>
> Does it actually mean "staff" in Dutch? Does it imply *in any way*
> that the person to contact is officially sanctioned to deal with
> private information?
>

The Dutch word is "medewerker" which most closely translates to "coworker",
it does not have official connotations.

>
> http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blokkeringsmeldingen#Ontsnappingsclausule
>
> The Google translation for this one appears to quite definitely be
> trying to imply official status. Does it carry such implications in
> the original Dutch?
>

 I don't think so, but to be sure I would want to know from which wording
you are drawing these implications.

> It doesn't matter if Huib was blocked for good reason. This still
> looks very like a privacy disaster in the making, and the Foundation,
> and particularly the staff relating to privacy concerns, need to look
> into it very closely.
>

I do think it's a bad policy - apart from the privacy concerns I see no good
reason for it either. It's not like it's easier to check whether someone is
using a sock puppet when we know who they are (that's a part of the policy
that I DO agree with: that when someone who has abused sock puppets is
allowed re-entry in the project, they may not use sock puppets any more even
non-abusively).

-- 
André Engels, andreengels at gmail.com