[WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

Sun Jun 11 17:30:27 UTC 2006

Daniel Brandt is a notable public figure. By all rights, he should  
have an article in Wikipedia. And the article we have on him is a  
good one.

We should also, after contacting Brandt, delete it.

I don't know if you all caught what Brandt and the folks at Wikipedia  
Review did to me last month. If you didn't, here: http:// 
www.boingboing.net/2006/05/22/u_florida_cops_ask_f.html Basically,  
someone on Wikipedia Review contacted my University to express  
concern that I was a murderer, and I got to deal with a week of being  
the subject of a police investigation that demanded my fingerprints.

In my case, who I am is public knowledge, and I decided to make it  
that way. But that's not the case for everyone on Brandt's Hive Mind  
site. A lot of them are people who didn't accept their RFA expecting  
that they'd have their names, cities of residence, and photos  
released. Nobody on Wikipedia, I don't think, realized that accepting  
adminship meant painting a target on yourself, and, frankly, on your  
family and friends.

The Foundation doesn't and can't provide admins with protection here.  
And we need protection. The other admins on this site should not get  
to go through what I did, or any of the far worse things that can and  
will eventually happen to us.

But, after thinking about it, its my belief that the Foundation owes  
its editors and admins the protections it can give. And one of those  
is offering to delete Brandt's article in exchange for the removal of  
the Hive Mind site. It's an awful trade. It's a horrible, awful  
trade. We should hate making it, and we should hate Brandt for  
forcing us to make it.

But we should make it. Because the consequences of not making it are  
just too dangerous.

-Phil