Wikipedia talk:Harassment/Archive 2

Archive 1

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Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Intro refactor

I've refactored the introduction a bit. The existing introduction was outdated and inaccurate in part, and had important omissions. Quick summary:

1. Added "intimidation" to nutshell and 1st section intro. Some of the worst harassers don't overtly "threaten", but they do intimidate. A good word to state more explicitly.
2. Avoid assuming intention. A hostile purpose is common but not always the case. Some of the worst real-world harassers express admiration not hostility, although to a scary level of intensity. So redefine it in terms of its impact, and the intentionality of targeting, but not assuming any specific purpose.
3. Make indirect harassment explicit - we get this as well and people often argue "but I didn't contact them". Indeed - they just made sure their edits were in a place they would get noticed, a form of gaming the system.

DIFF

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 18:52, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Quarterly update

It would be helpful if, sometime in the first week of July, someone would add the changes to this page from April 1 to July 1 to WP:Update/1/Enforcement policy changes, 2011, which is transcluded at WP:Update. - Dank (push to talk) 19:34, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

If it applies to non-editors too ...

... say so. WP:PRIVACY is supposed to apply to editors and non-editors alike (why would it be otherwise?). However, this is not clear until the middle of the first paragraph where it states "This applies to the personal information of both editors and non-editors." (sentence four). Why do the first and third sentences refer to "editors" only to have the fourth state that it applies to non-editors too? Why not just say so from the beginning? (Of course, encyclopædic content about people is a different thing entirely.) JIMp _talk·cont 03:21, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Clarification on offline opinions/COI

Article reads: Dredging up their off line opinions to be used to constantly challenge their edits can be a form of harassment, just as doing so regarding their past edits on other Wikipedia articles may be. However, once individuals have identified themselves, such information can be used for discussions of conflict of interest in appropriate forums. I discovered in researching an article that someone who does very biased and even slanderous edits to a Wiki article also posts using the same user name and the same kind of (or worse) comments on a lot of high profile sites. So is this a reportable conflict of interest? Or just a POV that you can't "out" them for. I'm confused!! (Also this person tends to stalk my various comments here and there so if they respond negatively, am I outing them for saying, "oh, you are biased in this discussion!") CarolMooreDC 19:30, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Update: OK, I can see my memory is shot since when I did ask this person about this, I forgot about the above quote from policy. Anyway, they refused to answer under "If you see an editor post personal information about another person, do not confirm or deny the accuracy of the information."

But the interesting intellectual question that this brings up, not relevant to this situation, is: If a user uses a name that may or may not be theirs or even a person's name, and then someone posts all sorts of things under the same user name elsewhere which perhaps DOES have serious COI implications, how do you know if it's the same person, a coincidence, or someone pretending to be that person? But that's the whole issue with anonymity on the internet, one never knows, so I guess it's best not to worry about it and just deal with specific policy issues and the obvious POV of their edits. Thanks for listening!! CarolMooreDC 03:21, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Enforced how?

Pardon my ignorance, but as far as I can see, there is no mechanism to report harassment? Is that right? And administrators won't intervene, as far as I can understand? So how is harassment prevented? Everything on this page says that harassment is widespread in Wikipedia.

How does a new user defend himself against attacks designed to upset or harass? (I'm presuming innocence) Is there some equivalent of the Facebook panic button? Sirpastealot (talk) 21:46, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

There is a box at the top which says "If you are a user who is being harassed, please see Dealing with harassment, below."

The text is a bit abstract, but if real harassment is being experienced that involves the disclosure of personal information, use email as indicated. If it is real harassment but not regarding personal information, request administrative assistance as indicated. By "real", I mean more than misguided bad language or occasional obnoxious behavior. For the latter, make a report at WP:WQA. Seriously bad behavior will be resolved immediately, while general obnoxiousness is more of a problem. Johnuniq (talk) 23:39, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I ought to say that to me, it all looks very intimidating. Sirpastealot (talk) 14:26, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Mechanism needed

We clearly should have a mechanism for reporting and responding to harassment. Have there been any specific suggestions on how to do this in the past? I've seen essays such as JzG's harassment links, but nothing about a response process.

Any update here would also be appropriate to link to from the meta page on m:Harassment policies. – SJ + 21:58, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

There is also the problem that people doing harassment use Wikipedia's policies to harass others. This particularly affects content contributors, who may be expert on their area of knowledge but will generally not be good at gaming Wikipedia or fighting with others, and will consequently find themselves blocked on the pretext of some technical infraction at the behest of a vandal. Whatever is done, must not be usable by harassers. It might be good to separate users by category for this purpose.. Sirpastealot (talk) 14:32, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Need clarifying language/advice on Wikihounding

Two issues here, based on recent experiences a couple editors have had, but I'll keep it general. The first I think is pretty clear. The second I am more unclear on:

1. A prolific editor does say a 1000 edits a month on 300 articles and probably has 4000+ articles on his/her watchlist, within or related tangentially to the same topic. Therefore an editor who edits less prolifically but regularly in this area - or one who edits on one article that leads to edits on a couple related ones - has a good chance of running into this (and perhaps other) editors repeatedly. If the editors have different perspectives on various content issues and policies there are bound to be some disputes. What if the more prolific editor starts charging "wikihounding" just because some AfD, RfC, Wikiproject notice, BLPN/NPOVN posting, or something in the news causes one to edit that article for the first time or the first time in a while, within the same month or so that editor has edited it??

I've now started a running list of when and why I run into a couple editors. However, I think it would help if this policy article mentions that when people edit in areas of mutual interest, running into each other frequently is inevitable and editors should not jump quickly to charging "wikihounding", even if these editors regularly have disputes.

2. Re: sentence: Therefore, it must be emphasized that one editor warning another for disruption or incivility is not harassment if the claims are presented civilly, made in good faith and in an attempt to resolve a dispute instead of escalating one. If an editor is brought to a noticeboard repeatedly with complaints by others and one happens to have similar recent complaints - whether or not they were previously brought to the noticeboard - is it wikihounding to give one's own example and complain in each incidence (assuming hard evidence, diffs, NPA, GFA, etc)? If not, does this need to be mentioned in this paragraph? Thanks. CarolMooreDC 19:42, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

"Fact based" Wikihounding

In one of the local Wikipedias I have recently been in situation when one of the users was posting a warning/notice on my talk page in response to near every my edit or action: a grammar mistake has been made in a new article, he thinks another way to translate the term is better, some wording is not accurate enough and could be differently rewritten and so on. It was in general difficult to prove that all these claims are groundless because some may be just a question of point of view, others are true but I think not making the contribution unacceptable. For instance, in the new article about 74181 I wrote "by the way" that 4 bits are enough to hold one decimal digit - and received a warning for posting "inaccurate information" as in this way of coding there are 5 unused combinations (I am software engineer so known myself). At the end, my talk page accumulated tens of warnings and notices, mixed with phrases in the spirit of "I do not think your are capable of contributing to the project" - all from one single user, and I have never received such warnings in comparable amounts during my long previous history. Some unsuccessful edits were pulled out of history for "attention and discussion" even if I fixed them myself after several minutes.

When I at the end told him this is unfair and he should stop trolling me, this my response was immediately called harassment as all these postings are the "fact based criticism". Likely redundant to say this was not a good experience. After having this experience, I think it may be important to say somehow in the rules that following edit history of another user and constant posting of warnings for inaccuracies that are "ok" for majority of typical contributions is the form of harassment. If somebody sees something as not yet perfect, nobody prevents from improving the article instead of posting warnings to the first author. Audriusa (talk) 12:13, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree. That's absolutely pathetic behaviour. People such as they clearly have nothing better to occupy themselves with, despite this being an online encyclopedia with tens of thousands of articles that need improvement. Regardless of their warnings' basis in reality, this is stalking - a veritable form of harassment - and is entirely unhelpful (that is to say, what purpose does it serve, other than to upset you?). No doubt they "get off" on this puerile ego-trip of theirs. I see this complaint is rather old, so I hope you managed to resolve it. I imagine there was much "gaming the system" on ther part, that seems to be the usual rigmarole... Peace :) 124.168.210.216 (talk) 03:00, 29 December 2012 (UTC) aka User:Psychonavigation

Oversight and outing

Dreadstar unilaterally changed the language of the policy to incorporate a position that he advocated in the TMArbCom, but which was rejected - that it was outing and harassment for an editor to repeat information that another editor had voluntarily disclosed, but which that editor subsequently got an admin (himself, not coincidentally) to redact and oversight. That position was rejected by ArbCom. It is disingenuous after having been rebuffed by ArbCom to try to sneak his rejected position on "semi-Outing" into a position of policy by the back door on the Harassment policy page when it is most definitely NOT policy on the Outing policy page, especially to do so without even attempting to discuss it on talkpages. It is rather entertaining to see an editing note "ArbCom doesn't make policy" from the same person who then tries to make policy unilaterally himself. Fladrif (talk) 20:21, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the problem is with this edit, obviously if personal information has been oversighted, then it would be outing for another editor to repeat it again on-wiki. ArbCom has never rejected this, so I don't know what Fladrif is talking about. It is rather entertaining to see an editor who has never made a single edit to this policy before today suddenly edit warring to take up the position of a banned editor. Dreadstar ☥ 20:23, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Fladrif, it seems to me that it would be outing if it's been oversighted and the person knows it's been oversighted. Harassment policy needs beefing up, I think, considering the problems with COI. B^e——C_ritical 20:36, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Nonsense. This is a "policy" of Dreadstar's own invention which he is edit warring to include rather than discuss. It is not part of the formal Outing policy. Attempts by Dreadstar to get ArbCom to sign on to it have been rejected repeatedly. Obviously, if an editor identifies themselves, or their place of employment on Wiki, and is then subsequently embarrassed to find that they have told the Wikipedia world that they have a COIn on a subject matter, one cannot unring that bell by deleting it, or even by asking an administrator to oversight it, and it is neither outing nor harassment for another editor to repeat the deleted information in an appropriate forum, such as COIN, ArbCom or AE, for example. If you want the policy to change, you need to start a RFC. Just unilaterally changing the policy and then edit warring to preserve the new version is improper and disruptive.Fladrif (talk) 20:46, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Certainly improper to edit war. But it looks like a) it's common sense that if it's oversighted there's a reason, and that reason should be respected, and b) I'm agreeing with Dreadstar here that this is what the policy should say. I think that if there is a slip-up with personally identifying information which then gets oversighted, then using that information should be considered outing/harassment. So I guess we need other editor's input. B^e——C_ritical 23:06, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Yep - what BeCritical and Dreadstar said is correct. If something is oversighted - it is to stay gone. Especially if something is personally identifying information. And just because something can be found "somewhere else on the Internet" - doesn't mean you can go "find it", and then bring it "here" without some serious repercussions. It's outing, it's harassment, and it's wrong. — Ched :  ?  23:46, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

and as a point of order - just being an administrator does not give one the ability to oversight anything. Oversight is a very select list ... which can be found here. — Ched :  ?  00:54, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

So, perhaps we need to distinguish between those things that have been Oversighted by one of the handful of people with that tool from those that have merely been RevDeleted or made to disappear through other Admin tricks. It's hard to keep all these straight. Oversight is not supposed to be used simply to remove information that an editor voluntarily posted that they now find embarassing or inconvenient. I've seen dozens of instances where Admins have RevDeleted or otherwise "disappeared" their own postings or those of their pals to protect their editing from scrutiny - including by Dreadstar. Those tools aren't to be used for that purpose either. Needless to say, I am highly skeptical in light of the history involved. It simply isn't outing to refer to information that an editor voluntarily posted at Wikipedia, even if they later delete it, or even if they later get a friendly admin to improperly revdel. Again, this is a matter that should be handled through RFC as a proposed changed in policy, not through a discussion on an obscure talk page rarely visited and most certainly not unilaterally by one admin trying to push his POV. Fladrif (talk) 01:15, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

• I strongly object to BeCritical once again reverting to Dreadstar's recent, unilateral change in policy language. An hour after posting "we need other editor's input", you do this [1]? Highly irregular and completely improper tag team edit warrring. Revert yourself until there has actually been a discussion and a RFC on this proposed policy change. Fladrif (talk) 01:46, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

• I think you have some valid points there Fladrif. Perhaps a RfC would be in order here. My biggest concerns here revolve around outing, and I fully feel that any sort of outing is indeed a form of harassment. If you do start a RfC (or happen to notice one) regarding this - I'd greatly appreciate being notified about it. While I haven't opined in the current COI RfC, I would be interested in reviewing the community's views on the re-posting of personal information (especially if they have requested the deletion of it) in any form. thanks and cheers. — Ched :  ?  02:37, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

• I don't think an RFC is necessary, this isn't a substantive or major change to the policy, it's a minor clarification. It's not at all what I suggested that ArbCom look into, and that would indeed be a major change that would probably need an RFC. What I suggested to ArbCom had nothing to do with Oversight, and was a much broader issue around reposting any redacted personal information on Wikipedia. There's a big difference between Oversighted personal data and personal data still available in the edit histories. Also, the focus should be on the edits, not the editor, so personally identifying information is of limited value when looking at NPOV editing - which is the core of COI issues - if it's NPOV editing, then COI doesn't matter. Dreadstar ☥ 03:07, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Which is of course the argument that COI should merely be a paragraph in NPOV. B^e——C_ritical 03:13, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Good point, I'll have to go over the the COI RFC and comment - although it doesn't look like it's going to do much. Dreadstar ☥ 03:17, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

• And just to clarify, ArbCom did not "reject" my proposal about Outing, they ignored it because it wasn't part of the case - and it's really for the community to decide. I'd also like Fladrif to retract his personal attack on me above, I have never "disappeared" any postings of "pals to protect their editing." Fladrif accused me of that at ArbCom and no merit was found for that accusation. Dreadstar ☥ 03:17, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
• To Fladrif's point about distinguishing between Oversight and Revdelete, it's already clearly stating it applies to Oversighted material, with the link to WP:OVERSIGHT right above it.[2] And I'm not so sure Revdeleted personally identifying content should be repeated on-wiki either. If you can't make the case with a general "COI" statement and evidence of POV editing, then you don't have a case to begin with. Dreadstar ☥ 03:23, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Consolidations

I've boldy tweaked the presentation of this article in two edits. Simplicity is also important in ensure that Wikipedia's policies are understandable, and concision lends itself here to understandability. With regards to "What harassment is not" the useful descriptive part of that section has been retained; I strongly felt that the rest was superfluous to sections explaining what harassment is. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:14, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I disagree, I think the "not" section is very important. For example, for a very long time, this used to be called "Wikistalking", that section explains why it no longer is. Providing some detail on what is not considered harassment and why is just as important as detail on what harassment is and why it is so. While I always appreciate consolidation and simplicity, this time it removed some important information. Dreadstar ☥ 18:48, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I retained what I believe was the most important part; in your re-instatement I think you unfortunately overlooked this because the policy now says the same thing in two places. "Wikistalking" now redirects much closer to where I've moved the information too that it was, which along the lines you say makes more sense. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 18:52, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, you believe and I believe, we all believe! It's fun believing! Now, I believe I've addressed both your concerns and my concerns by consolidating what was left in the 'not' section with the other sections. Hopefully we can now all believe that we're happy! (...and the word 'stalk' was not duplicated or even included anywhere, which is key to explaining why it's no longer Wikistalking, but Wikihounding instead. Now it's in there.) Dreadstar ☥ 19:09, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Yup, it's looking a lot better. Thanks for your time. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:17, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

As the person who wrote HA#NOT, it was in a time where the culture was that editing the same page as another user was considered harassment. I'm not sure which culture I like better, though: the one where the meaning of harassment is stretched, but is dealt with, or a culture where a user who's found to have seriously violated this policy gets off with a slap on the wrist despite the fact they have prior form. Sceptre ^(talk) 21:28, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you, Sceptre. I think I'm leaning more towards the culture where harassment is dealt with firmly rather than just a slap on the wrist. I'm not sure that the term "wikistalking" can be confused with 'real-life stalking', there always seemed to be a pretty clear distinction to me. Dreadstar ☥ 00:31, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I reverted the whole thing because it seems far too drastic a change to make without some community input. Is it OK if anyone who wants to make changes puts them up here on the talk page one sentence at a time in a separate section so we can talk about them? I also suggest that we wait at least a week to allow sufficient input before making changes to this page which might have serious unforeseen consequences.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 00:06, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Also, I'm starting a conversation at the village pump policy section about this, because I think it could use more eyes on it. Here's a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28policy%29#Harassment_policy — alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 00:12, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, although I don't think anything was changed besides format, no content was changed afaict. Dreadstar ☥ 00:31, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

That's possible, but I found it really hard to tell given the fact that the changes took place over a bunch of back and forth edits. I'd feel a lot safer if we could talk about it one sentence at a time.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 00:35, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, it was really mostly forth, with only one back...so not really a back and forth thing....I distributed it in incremental edits...but I understand what you're saying. :) And I'm not sure it's the right thing to do, it might be best to have a dedicated, clear section on what is 'not' harassment. Dreadstar ☥ 02:34, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

That sounds OK to me. Maybe we could wait a day or two until other people have a chance to look, and then consider one sentence at a time to be moved into or written expressly for such a section?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 03:04, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good! Dreadstar ☥ 03:18, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Seems to me nearly all of the material included in that section was redundant. Understanding of the policy would probably be aided more by having such a section, though. I also think it is an important enough point to mention in the lede of the page.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 14:43, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

While it can seem sensible to consolidate, when one actually has been helped by a section, it can be disturbing to see it removed. What Harassment is Not as a stand alone section and including all 3 items under it has been useful to me in the past. a) Just editing not harassment: One in which a powerful admin accused two editors in a week or so whom he disagreed with on one article for stalking him because we then edited another articles he was involved in; I got to one through the RfC bot; the other editor's explanation for his action seemed innocent enough. Our having that section to refer to on the relevant noticeboard helped. 2) Tracking: Another a couple years earlier where the same admin was tracking me for policy violations; the fact it was in writing he could kept me from going to WP:ANI. Of course, it also made me feel safer about tracking his possible violations! 3) "Unfounded accusations of harassment" do happen in my experience and having that in writing has helped people bring it up when those kind of discussions arise. While there doesn't have to be a "rule" for every situation, general guidance is helpful. People working on controversial articles, as I often do, find these most useful; in fact the solutions often probably have come out of situations with controversial articles and prevent duplicative trips to WP:ANI or other relevant noticeboards. CarolMooreDC 03:56, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Carol. The standalone section is important and should remain. JN466 08:04, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

On reflection I also agree with Carol and would prefer to leave the standalone section as it is. I have no objection to the Devil's Advocate's suggestion of mentioning something in the lead. Perhaps DA would like to suggest something? I'm not committed to the idea, though, and would be happy if things were left as they are.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 21:03, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

(Reply to all) All the meaningful content is important and has been retained. If you look where it was, then it would seem odd to drag it out of their again; however I'm not opposed completely to retaining the section if we could shorten it considerably - to the sort of length that is was in my change, only in a section of its own. At this stage though I would like to make sure that everyone is clear that a large part of the material is being retained in either case - and at least the first two of Carol's points remain. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 21:06, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Question regarding publicly avaliable official databases

In New Zealand there are publicly accessible official databases of all charities and all companies. These databases lists 'Registered Office' and 'Address for service' and often the residential addresses of office-holders. A problem has arisen in an AfD where a WP:SPA has outed themselves as being a particular person associated with the subject of the article. I used a reference to the companies database to help support the article at AfD. I was called out for posting links to the SPA's personal data, because the reference gave their address. Does this mean that we can't use these references in articles where people have self-outed? Are there any techniques we can use to mitigate this? (Any admins looking to expunge the edits, see my recent edit history). There would appear to be ~ 70 uses of the companies website and ~ 29 of the charities website according to Special:LinkSearch. If these links can't be included in articles, would it be suitable to add them to the Wikipedia:Spam blacklist? I know I've added several of these links to different articles, with the intention to support the content with references. Stuartyeates (talk) 06:59, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

The registered addresses on the New Zealand Companies and Charities office site are public information. If people choose to use a private residential address then that is the risk they have chosen. The information is public and not subject to the Privacy Act.NealeFamily (talk) 09:15, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Should begin by saying I was the editor who removed the link in question and User:Stuartyeates and I have been discussing this in very non-specific terms so as not to draw attention on the wider userspace. I should also say that I do not believe Stuartyeates' adding of the link was in any way bad faith or an attempt to "out" the SPA in question, in fact I actually think it was an attempt to help the editor in question to build references/links for their article. Part of the problem might be that while Stuartyeates and I are geographically close (New Zealand for him, Austraia for me), the information provided by his Government is far more substantive than that of mine. While the information provided on the equivalent Aus databases is "public knowledge", it can only be accessed by paying for it via a company search. Apparently, the same level of information is freely listed without payment in NZ. Though it may be I was looking through "Australian" goggles (beer goggles?), I saw information which effectively provided the name and address of a user and per WP:PRIVACY removed it without perticular reference to it and without confirming whether or not I thought the details were accurate. Stuartyeates has responded in (entirely) good faith and has raised this matter here so it can be discussed away from any corresponding discussions.

In this particular instance, the SPA editor in question has been editing an article and AfD relating to his own home business. There are acknolwedged WP:COI issues and he is working through them. Unfortunately, the editor has effectively confirmed they are the owner of the business (which has one employee from what I can tell, so there is little doubt) and so editors can (with little effort) determine the editor's offline identity. Though the information is clearly public information, the AfD in question allowed editors to make an immidiate link between a specific COI editor and their private information (that of their company - a home business). If the information was being provided with regard to a large public company or other entity I don't think it would have been of concern. But it rang alarm bells that an editor still getting to grips with WP:COI and guidelines generally was effectively being "outed", perhaps without a prior understanding that being outed might be an unintended outcome of their COI editing.

It might be that a good helping of WP:COMMONSENSE should be applied when using these particular databases, as other editors have done - having a look at some of the links, I couldn't find one single other instance where using these databases would cause any concern at all.

Will be interested in the views of other editors. Cheers all, Stalwart111 (talk) 10:47, 11 September 2012 (UTC).

Is it outing if the person has identified themselves elsewhere as being such-and-such Wikipedian...

...And their edits show a conflict of interest/vanity/advertising?

A certain user has attacked me personally and cited certain online sources to prove their points. When I checked the sources (links had been added to the Wikipedia article) to see if they were reliable, I found a link to the author's personal blog. Their handle on the blog-hosting site in question was the same as the Wikipedia user name of the user in question.

The editor in question had also claimed him/herself to be an author involved in the field under discussion.

Over half of this user's edits have consisted of posting links to the writings of the same source, and I am not sure how to react. The user has not made their real-world identity a secret, since the links he/she posted on Wikipedia clearly linked to sources that tied directly back to the user.

Should I bring this conflict of interest up on the relevant talk page, where the links to said Wikipedian's writings are still posted?elvenscout742 (talk) 05:07, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

No don't do that it would breach our outing policy. wp:OUTING is quite clear on this If redacted or oversighted personally identifying material is important to the COI discussion, then it should be emailed privately to an administrator or arbitrator – but not repeated on Wikipedia: it will be sufficient to say that the editor in question has a COI and the information has been emailed to the appropriate administrative authority. I'm not convinced that this is something for admins rather than Arbs - I certainly don't want to take on such an incident. But I can see some of the reasons for this policy. Remember we don't normally accept blogs as reliable sources for precisely the same reason - it is very difficult to tell whether an off wiki blog page is really done by the person who claims to have done it or by a malicious impersonator. That's in addition to the issue that some people may be quite happy deleting attack pages on this site and ignoring the odd death threat provided their personal details are more than a click away from the vandals they deal with on this site. ϢereSpielChequers 10:47, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

This answer confuses me, since the the info wasn't redacted or oversighted. But yes, there are lots of reasons not to consider a single blog source as reliable; you don't need to get into issues of the identity of the commentor. (Indeed, their identity usually doesn't matter to whether or not their comment is valid) – SJ + 05:13, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Checking user pages?

I was recently accused of "hounding" by another user. This user has admitted to having a grudge against a certain Wikipedia naming convention, and has on their user page a list of pages they created. When I merely clicked on their signature, I noticed that the user had violated said naming convention numerous times. Of course, putting article content above editors' personal feelings, I went to move all of the articles, but when I did so the user reverted me when he could, and posted a very bizarre personal attack against me elsewhere. When I made a valid argument in response to the personal attack, the user suddenly played the WIKIHOUND card.

I am just wondering -- was I wrong for attempting to impose Wikipedia guidelines where I could see they had been violated? Does it qualify as "harassment" to check a user's edit history when they have admitted they have it out for said guidelines? (By the way, I didn't actually check his edit history, just his user page.) elvenscout742 (talk) 06:58, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

This was my question as well. And it's discouraging to see that 7 months later, no one has responded to your question 69.125.134.86 (talk) 16:33, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Is it "outing" if one's Wikipedian account and real-name connection is publicly known?

For example, User:RandomName does not have his personal information posted on Wikipedia, yet Googling his username clearly shows his name is John Doe. Under the "outing"/harassment policy, I could not mention his real name on Wikipedia. Is this not lacking in common sense? User:RandomName (reminder: this is an example. I'm not "outing" someone to prove a WP:POINT, people) has admitted who he really is to the world and the Streisand Effect along with the nature of the Web would make it impossible to regain anonymity. Why should anyone be punished then for pointing out that User:RandomName is John Doe? Ripberger (talk) 05:30, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 05:52, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

How so? John Doe has already stated publicly that he is User:RandomName. Why try to suppress that information on Wikipedia? Ripberger (talk) 08:13, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Whatever the intent of the policy or whatever you think it should say, the policy is very clear on this. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:01, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

The policy seems to be poorly phrased. It might help to split the section on personal information into "No Muckraking" (Don't dig up identifying info about others that they don't want shared) and "Support Strong Pseudonymity" (Don't mention or link to off-wiki identifying info about others, even when it is commonly known or they have published it themselves elsewhere). The latter is more controversial. – SJ + 05:13, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

What matters to me is that the policy explicitly concerns privacy. If someone has not made the connection between their account name here and their real name a private matter, then I fail to see why we should act as if it is a private matter. The situation we have is that people who publicly tell people their real name and who they are on Wikipedia or otherwise make the connection obvious elsewhere, such as by using the same account name, are able to claim protection from outing here because they haven't publicly disclosed their real name on-wiki. It does not mean we should ignore someone who is excessively loose with personal information, but that we don't act like it is the greatest wikicrime ever to say an editor's real name when said editor doesn't even try to make it a big secret.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 05:57, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

That's what I'm thinking. John Doe yells in the city square that he also goes by User:RandomName, yet the police arrest anyone that points out the connection in the village bar. It makes no sense. Ripberger (talk) 08:13, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

I think you would need to raise a suggestion for a change at WP:VPR. However, the factual answer to the OP is yes. If User:X has "I am John Smith" on their user page, it is not a problem to mention that X is Smith (although the question should be asked as to why is someone mentioning that, and it should almost never occur on an article talk page). However, if Smith writes a blog and says "I am User:X", it would be a violation of OUTING to mention that on Wikipedia, or to mention that a Google search will reveal X's identity (the latter point is routinely violated, but any kind of outing is prohibited). More complex cases where Smith hints they are User:X are even clearer violations of OUTING. The essential point is, if someone mentions another editor's identity because they find it fascinating, they are misusing Wikipedia (we don't spend time speculating about other editors). And if the identity mention is specifically to bring trouble to the user, then the spirit of OUTING is clearly being violated. If necessary, trusted admins (or arbcom) can be emailed some information privately. Johnuniq (talk) 11:06, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

We have no way of verifying the John Doe really is User:RandomName -- see joe job. NE Ent 11:49, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

If user:RN says they are JD, we only know "user:RN says he is JD". If blogger JD says they are user:RN, we only know "JD says he is user:RN". Both scenarios are different from muckraking investigations. If the metric is "being crystal clear they don't mind the association" [to quote Jehochman below], I think a blog post saying "I am w:user:RN" is much more clear about this than simply having the blog "RN.blogspot.com" with a real name in the blogger profile. A rules-laywer might still suggest you should contact RN privately to make sure they don't mind having their announcement from their blog also posted on WP itself... but this sort of edge case has not come up in practice. – SJ + 05:13, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

• Yes, current policy states that unless he's identified himself as John Doe on Wikipedia, then it is outing for you to post information on Wikipedia linking user:RandomName to John Doe (cf "Posting another editor's personal information is harassment, unless that person voluntarily had posted his or her own information, or links to such information, on Wikipedia."), and any attempt to do so would result in the information being oversighted and you being cautioned against continuing to violate policy.

  There is pretty much only one body on Wikipedia charged with doing the sort of off-wiki investigation that would discover information linking a user to their real name if they haven't already posted it on Wikipedia: Arbcom. And even Arbcom does it only in extreme circumstances and pretty much never reveals the results, because it's generally felt that it is better for the project to set a very clear line about how unacceptable it is to a) research someone's offwiki life [answer: pretty darn unacceptable] and b) publicly publish the results of such an investigation [answer: completely unacceptable]. The latter, especially, is generally only performed by someone hoping to to (at best) use the person's [ offwiki | onwiki ] identity to discredit their [ onwiki | offwiki ] one, or (at worst) "get back" at the person by harming their real life. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 14:32, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

  • cautioned against continuing to violate policy - or in the current case of Cla68, immediately indefinitely blocked. Not temporarily, indefinitely. Maybe someone in this discussion can shed some light upon that. — Hex (❝?!❞) 15:51, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Indef is only until unblocked, and can be as short as a few minutes or as long as forever. It isn't forever; it is indefinite. Meaning, we dunno how long it will be. Altho now that Cla has doubled down, it very well might be. KillerChihuahua 16:05, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

• • • (edit conflict) As far as going right to a block: a caution would be used in a case of a new or inexperienced user, or where we otherwise had reason to believe they were not familiar with our policies, and where we have reason to believe that a simple caution will cause the behavior to stop. With a deeply experienced user (as Cla68 appears to be, going by his talk page and involvement in Arbcom/policy issues), or in a case where the behavior is ongoing/persistent/being performed in bad faith, a block can be the reasonable response given that it would appear the user already knows they're violating policy. As far as indef vs. temporary: a set-time block would be useless in a case of outing - the goal is to make sure the outing won't happen again, because harassment is such a significant policy violation that a "we'll just wait and see if they do it again" approach isn't acceptable. The trigger for the block to be lifted would be an acknowledgement that the harassment will stop, and that acknowledgement has to come from the blocked party and will come when they decide to give it, whether that's 5 minutes after the block is put in place or 5 years. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 16:13, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

(@Hex) I'd like to see an elimination of indef blocks, but I don't always get what I want. All blocks have a termination provision. In many cases, the termination provision is the passage of a defined period of time, or a satisfactory unblock request, other have only the latter. They are called indefinite, for that reason, but indefinite is not necessarily infinite.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 17:27, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I would prefer something like a fixed-length block that could be renewed on a rolling basis if there was sufficient consensus for doing so because the issue was yet to be resolved. — Hex (❝?!❞) 20:25, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think Cla68 was harassing anyone by linking to the blog post. The reasons he had for posting were more in the context of Sue Gardner being named in the blog post and he showed her the post to get her comment. He certainly wasn't harassing anyone by providing links to prove it wasn't outing.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 18:27, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

• Cla68's gross misconduct here is more than ironic, given his vehemence in the TimidGuy appeal case that WillBeback be banned for identifying to Jimbo TimidGuy's employer, something TimidGuy had previously posted himself, but had removed. And at least one of Cla68's defenders' like him, clamored for a ban of WillBeback, and is in the identical boat of having previously posted their employer but having had it redacted, making the defense puzzling at best. No admin or arb should be willing to lift Cla68's ban unless they are prepared to do the same simultaneously with respect to WillBeback. Fladrif (talk) 18:04, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

• This page is for discussing the policy, not specific cases. The editors' talk page, or, if you want a wider audience, the administrator's noticeboard are preferrable. NE Ent 18:25, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

• I would say that intent certainly plays a role. If it is an accidental outing that is not meant to be harmful (such as being friends with someone IRL and accidentally saying their real name on-wiki), then there shouldn't be an issue. But considering that Cla's intent was to bring up malicious info on Russavia's past...yeah, can't blame the indefinite block there. Silverseren^C 21:24, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
  • That's right. Intent matters. There's hella rules here and I sure can't remember all their clauses, so I try to suss the gist or spirit of the rule. The spirit of this rule is to be very very cautious about doing anything that could cause hurt to a colleague in real life. At the end of the day, the Wikipedia is just a website, but life is serious. Amount of harm or potential harm matters too -- "no harm no foul" is a reasonable standard for applying many rules, I think. In the particular case being discussed, I see a bloody-minded intent to damage a real life. The amount of potential actual harm I can't assess but it seems likely to be non-zero. Herostratus (talk) 15:21, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

• There is a difference between Wikipedia and every other site on the internet. I participate in a few message boards and I have never been especially careful about hiding my real world name - I've linked to my own blog, arranged for meetups, etc. But on Wikipedia, you encounter angry people who threaten real-world harm. Also, any and every term used on Wikipedia zooms instantly to the top of Google results. So even if you know that I am user such and such on some other message board and if you scour my posts there, you can find me giving my real name, that doesn't mean I want my real name published on Wikipedia. --B (talk) 22:45, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

• Yep. whether to have your real name known on Wikipedia is a choice every one of us is free to make, even banned users. In the specific case that led to this discussion there is an extremely simple way for the blocked user to come right back, they just have to indicate that they understand the outing policy and will abide by it in the future. They don't have to apologize, or say they agree with the policy, or tell Jimbo they see four lights when they know there are really only three, or swear a loyalty oath to ArbCom, just agree to follow this policy, which is here for the protection of any user who has not linked their WP account with their real world identity on-wiki. So, this is not about how hard it would be to put together who someone is,or the quality of the other edits made by the person who did the outing, or exactly how malicious they were being, it is about respecting their choice not to use their real name on Wikipedia, and that is all it is about. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:52, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
• The policy is correct and it does need to be observed. Putting aside issues of motivation or whatever, this was a deserved block. So yes... sigh... I agree with Beeblebrox, Seren, Herostratus and a few others here. The thing to do in these situation is to put yourself in the other person's shoes. Golden rule and all that. Even if this happens to someone you don't like, or even to someone who in some cosmic karma sense deserves it, it's still not right.Volunteer Marek 04:11, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

• The policy is correct. It's very easy for linking or threatening to link someone's identity to have a chilling effect on what articles people are willing to edit, or to discourage them from editing at all. Individual bits may be public, but the collection and correlation of them is more than their sum. It doesn't matter if they are assembled from public information, or even if they're partly or mostly inaccurate. Putting together a dossier on someone is threatening; it creeps people out; it discourages participation; and it makes Wikipedia look like the project of a bunch of internet psychos. Tom Harrison ^Talk 14:16, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

• Outing (or as someone has pointed out elsewhere, more accurately doxing) is a particularly noxious form of harassment: it's a way of saying "I know who you are and I know where you live/work", with the unspoken implication that the harasser will try to mess with your real-world life, job, relationships etc. Unfortunately that isn't always an idle threat; there are always people who are creepy and malicious enough to try to cause real-world harm in retaliation for supposed slights online, or just for malicious pleasure. Even if the harasser doesn't engage in offline harassment himself, he is advertising the information that a malicious or unhinged individual needs to go after someone. That's what makes it so dangerous. Prioryman (talk) 00:42, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

• Correct. "You've already been doxed, or you've been lax about keeping details private, so I should be allowed to dox you some more" is a really bad defense. It's just plain rude to talk about an editor's personally identifiable information unless it is crystal clear that they don't mind the association. For instance, my name is on my userpage, which links to my social media profiles, so it shouldn't be considered doxing if somebody mentions the facts that I've revealed so overtly on Wikipedia. As with everything, clue (social skills) is required. Jehochman ^Talk 01:09, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Outing is the wrong term

Suggest changing every instance of outing (read the article) to doxing, which is the technically accurate term. We are not speaking about the practice of publicizing people's sexual orientation. It is stupid to use terminology in an ambiguous way. Jehochman ^Talk 13:57, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

That's a useful improvement. For now we might say something like "doxing (also 'outing')" to make it clear this isn't really a change. Tom Harrison ^Talk 14:28, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Nobody knows what "doxing" means. Despite our outing article, which incorrectly claims that the term is only used for sexual orientation, everyone knows what "outing" means. A simple Google news search finds plenty of examples of "outed" being used for things unrelated to sexual preference. Changing the word to an esoteric term that nobody knows is only going to create confusion - we want this rule to be as clear as possible. --B (talk) 14:41, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I would support using both terms, doxing and outing, in the section for now. Long-term, I would prefer we use doxing rather than outing, as it's the usual term in Internet culture. Andreas JN466 17:46, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

The specific behavior that's banned is clearly delineated no matter what we call it. If we are going to use a label, let's use the correct one. Outing is about sexual orientation. Doxing is the practice of conducting research to gather personally identifiable information and then publishing it. We should be clear that both aspects are unwelcome: researching and publishing. I agree with Tom Harrison's suggestion to mention both terms for continuity. Jehochman ^Talk 15:22, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Whatever the term may have originally meant, we all understand that outed/outing now can refer to revealing someone's identity. Everyone knows this. The term is completely clear. Nobody knows what "doxing" means. And even if you click on the doxing link, it takes you to the personally identifiable information article, which does not help you understand what "doxing" is. And besides, "doxing" isn't the only thing that is prohibited. "Doxing", according to this definition or this definition is to conduct cyber-sleuthing to determine a person's identity. But that's not all that is prohibited. If I personally identify myself in email, for example, and you were to post that information here, there's no "doxing" involved, but it is still a prohibited "outing". If you change the term to "doxing", then you are opening the door to wiki-lawyering to get around the intent of the policy. --B (talk) 15:44, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

As B notes, the definition of 'outing' as it is widely used today – whatever its historical origins or usage – is far broader than our article suggests. A quick search of Google News for "was outed" pulls one or two columns that deal with sexual orientation, and a much wider assortment of individuals being 'outed' as investors in a business project, undercover cops, a British actor playing an American, or a dabbler in performance enhancing drugs. Speaking for my own fairly-technically-literate self, I understood immediately what was meant by 'outing' in this context; in contrast, despite being a regular reader of Bruce Schneier's blog I still had to go and Google 'doxing'. Switching to a still-obscure term of art probably isn't going to help us enforce this policy. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:02, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree. For the sake of general comprehension, "outing" is the better term, even if it's less precise than "doxing". Prioryman (talk) 19:53, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Neither term is ideal, but at least "outing" is understood in this context. If "doxing" was a better reflection of what is prohibited here I would support it, but this change is not an improvement. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:14, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

• What's going on at the article outing? Has that article been tilted very far away from NPOV? Jehochman ^Talk 16:49, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Outing has long been understood to mean disclosing or revealing hidden information. The close connection to "outing" closeted LGBT persons is quite recent. The word is still used, even here, in other contexts (see Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House as just one example). In fact, the lede of Outing used to say "In the late 20th century, outing became a common term for taking someone involuntarily "out of the closet"—that is, publicising that someone is gay, transgender, or intersex. The term can also be used more broadly to mean publicly disclosing other personal characteristics, such as political affiliation or religion, that someone wishes to keep private". (That was the whole lede, by the way.) Is the current article NPOV? Probably not, but it should not exclude the other meaning. Outing (disambiguation) currently says "Outing is act of disclosing a person's sexual orientation without their consent" before saying it "may also mean" other things. That is NPOV. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 17:09, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

• Being technically accurate is less important than communicating clearly. I'm sure I am, not the only one who never heard of "doxing" before a few days ago yet has been familiar witht he term "outing" in both a WP and real-world context for years. Outing is an easily understood term referring to the disclosure of personal information. It's sort of like a genericized trademark situation, it may have only meant outing homosexuals in the past, but it is now used to refer to any such situation, from "I've been outed as a closet fan of Dr. Who" all the way up to "I've been outed as supposed social conservative who in real life hangs out with male prostitutes smoking meth". Beeblebrox (talk) 19:16, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

• According to a usually reliable dictionary [doxing] is indeed a word and is internet slang. It is a new word to me, and I'd assumed it was an American English term for Outing though some of the editors who were unfamiliar with it are Americans so it could be an obscure alternate word for Outing in one or more English dialects or subcultures. I'd be OK with leaving it as a redirect, but see no benefit to moving wp:Outing to WP:Doxing. ϢereSpielChequers 11:02, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
• I support the change; the world is bigger than wikipedia, and although there are examples of non sexual orientation outing, the primary use of the word is in the sexual content. We often use English words on wikipedia to have wiki specific meanings check user, administrator (no, they can't reset your password or process your pay check), duck (no, don't feed them bread in the pond), sock (they don't keep your feet warm) or make up on own 3rr,?? or: who's this ani person and why shoud I tell them about my problems? If we decide to use doxing to mean violating the Wikipedia policy on personal information then that's what it will mean. NE Ent 13:41, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

OTRS, ArbCom and sexual harassment

Please excuse my poor English. If someone can correct my mistakes in the following post, feel free to do so !

I write here because I have some problems with the translation of this page in French. When I translated the part about "Dealing with harassment", someone on the French Wikipedia has deleted the part concerning private contacts of the ArbCom members and/or the OTRS team members ([3]), saying that the ArbCom or OTRS members have nothing to do with this ([4]). An admin ask questions about that on my user page too ([5]).

I think I understand why this page talk about the possibility of a private contact with persons trusted by the community and/or the Foundation in harassment cases. If we only think about some cases involving female editors, here or elsewhere on the Internet (see the second paragraph of meta:Gender gap to know more about this), we can easily understand why some cases must be treated in private.

So, I would like to suggest :

1. to add more details in the "Dealing with harassment" section about what to do in cases where people don't want to show publicly their case. There's no clear mention about harassment cases on the meta:OTRS page,
2. to create a new section about sexual harassment. I don't know if this problem occur frequently on the Wikimedia projects, but I know that people who have this problem must know that there's zero tolerance about that on the WMF projects,
3. to make clear the role of the ArbCom and OTRS in harassment cases. Do it depends only about the language version of Wikipedia (in French, I don't know what they think about that) or there's a "meta" approach here ?

Sincerely, Simon Villeneuve (talk) 14:28, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi Simon, the Arbcom on the English language wikipedia has no role on the French language wikipedia. I suggest you look at fr:Wikipédia:Comité_d'arbitrage instead. Someone there may also know if the French language community uses the OTRS system, and if so which queue. ϢereSpielChequers 17:28, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi WereSpielChequers,
I understand, but my suggestions here aren't concerning the French Wikipedia. They are concerning this particular English page. I think it must be more precise concerning my 3 points. --Simon Villeneuve (talk) 00:20, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

fr:Wikipédia:Harcèlement is not a translation of this page. fr:Wikipédia:Harcèlement is an infrastructure page describing how the French-language wikipedia handles harassment. Due to history and use of shared infrastructure there similarities. English-language wikipedia does not (and should not) impose particular policies or implementations on the French-language wikipedia. The WMF may be forced to impose policies or implementations on the French-language wikipedia for legal reasons (due to being based in the USA), but WMF is not the English-language wikipedia. You may wish to read http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Harassment and http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Harassement,_intimidation_and_WP%27s_rules_infringements_and_abuse_by_French_WP%27s_administrator_JPS68_and_others Stuartyeates (talk) 00:43, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the links. I have read them carefully and I asked a question on meta:Talk:Harassment_policies#A meta approach.
I knew before this post that, for now, each project have their way to treat harassment. I just want you to know that fr:Wikipédia:Harcèlement is a translation of this page (I've done it myself). It's not a rule for now on the French Wikipedia, but it's a beginning.
I try to help us, the French community, by showing you some unclear points in your page. I think we'll do better on our project if you specify the points I raised above on this page. --Simon Villeneuve (talk) 11:58, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

"or links to such information"

I checked in the archives but couldn't find a discussion about this topic already which is surprising because I've seen it take place elsewhere.

It seems to me that "or links to such information" in WP:OUTING is rather vague. More specifically, "links" can describe different things and depending on which definition you use, the scope of this policy changes drastically. For instance, is "links" means "hyperlinks", the policy is being violated regularly by COI investigations. If "links" means something like "evidence" or "information", the current methods being used to discern if there is a COI is not a violation of WP:OUTING.

Personally, I feel that if you, for instance, use your real name as your username and edit the article about the company you're the head of PR of, making the connection is not outing (as long as one assumes that it may be an impersonation). If anything, it's a person not understanding COI and/or how easy it is to make the connection. IP searches would fall under the same definition although I don't agree with a Checkuser linking accounts back to a company's IP address unless there's some extreme COI editing going on, especially if those editors haven't caused any COI or puppetry issues. Those opinions seem to be widely had.

Bottom line, I feel that our policy should more precisely reflect what we're doing. Does anyone else feel the need to clarify "unless that person had voluntarily posted his or her own information, or links to such information, on Wikipedia." to something more like "unless that person had voluntarily posted his or her own information, or any type of link to such information, on Wikipedia."? OlYeller21^Talktome 21:08, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Since this has garnered zero discussion, I'll go ahead and make an official proposal.

I propose that we change

• "unless that person had voluntarily posted his or her own information, or links to such information, on Wikipedia."

to

• "unless that person had voluntarily posted his or her own information, or any type of link to such information, on Wikipedia."

I feel that this policy needs to more directly reflect the way we operate as opposed to housing a vague statement that can be interpreted in very different ways. OlYeller21^Talktome 21:39, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Affiliation

Does stating another editor's alleged membership of an organization or political party count as outing if they have not revealed that information on Wikipedia? Should the person involved confirm or deny such statements? --Boson (talk) 19:54, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Any personal information that a user has not made public on Wikipedia is subject to the privacy policy and any edit that adds such information without the user's permission is outing. And nobody is ever required to answer any query of any kind about their personal life if they don't want to. (if you have see actual outing somewhere, please either email me the details or contact the suppression team as detailed at WP:RFO so that it can be dealt with quickly and above all quietly) Beeblebrox (talk) 20:00, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

What if the editor openly boasted about his membership of that organisation and his related editing of Wikipedia articles, including revealing his Wikipedia user id, in a related public web forum, and is clearly using Wikipedia as a vehicle for pushing the message of that organisation? R.stickler (talk) 20:12, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

ok, let's all just calm down here. I am now seeing what this is really about, and it is in fact possible that Boson is violating WP:ORGNAME regardless of whether or not they really have any affiliation with the actual organization. And no, pointing that out is not in and of itself harassment. We block people for using organizational names all day long every single day so I would strongly suggest changing that username and being very careful about WP:NPOV. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:50, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Actually no, I am now convinced I was not seeing what was "really" going on here and that there is no username violation. All the other stuff that is not struck out still stands though. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:04, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Professors who run assignments on Wikipedia vs. Regional Ambassadors who are Wikipedians

I have asked about a theoretical situation that might be considered outing at Wikipedia:Education_noticeboard#Concern_about_an_AFD. Comments appreciated. Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:59, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Reporting Paid Editing

Paid editing, in particular undisclosed paid editing (that is, editing where the payment is secret) is a current and growing threat to the integrity of Wikipedia. It is sometimes thought that the policy against outing, which is very strictly enforced, makes the enforcement of the policy against paid editing nearly impossible. There needs to be a balance between the two policies. Outing is a threat to individual editors, and therefore to editor recruitment and retention, and therefore to Wikipedia. Paid editing is an institutional threat to Wikipedia. My proposal would be that, while reporting the employment or compensation status of editors on talk pages should remain outing, the policy should state that reporting paid editing to particular trusted personnel, such as OTRS, is not only permitted, but may be necessary. Comments? Robert McClenon (talk) 01:25, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

You're on the right track. I think it's fairly clear that many of our rules were designed for a community of volunteers building an encyclopedia and were not intended to handle a paradigm where Wikipedia articles are commodities in the marketplace.

If you're a Wikipedian, you have an expectation of privacy. However, being a Wikipedian means you're here to help build the Wikipedia. If you're here to degrade, disgrace, and weaken it, you're not any kind of proper Wikipedian so you have no reasonable expectation of privacy. All of our rules -- all of our rules -- are in place to help us build an encyclopedia. If new conditions arise such that a rule needs to be modified to better serve that purpose, we should do it. (Right now, WP:IAR not only permits but requires Wikipedians to defend the Wikipedia against paid advocacy attacks, using whatever means are necessary and appropriate, and the WP:IAR brief to defend the Wikipedia already trumps subsidiary rules such as this one, but it'd be good to clarify that with a modification to this rule also.) Herostratus (talk) 06:45, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Posting of personal information from another Wikimedia project

The policy says, "Posting another editor's personal information is harassment, unless that person had voluntarily posted his or her own information, or links to such information, on Wikipedia." What if the person had voluntarily posted his or her own information, or links to such information, on another Wikimedia project? Nurg (talk) 00:58, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi Nurg,

I don't think that there is an easy answer. The interpretations run from "must be posted specifically here on the English Wikipedia" to "could be posted on any WP:Unified login account" (see Special:CentralAuth/Nurg for yours). I don't think that anyone would want to say that you could post information about unassociated accounts (e.g., WP:SOCK#LEGIT, if the person doesn't voluntarily disclose the alternate account name).

In practice, I believe that the interpretation varies depending on the situation. If you just feel like saying, "Hey, fellow resident of ____", and the editor's upset that you disclosed his location, then you'd probably be asked to remove it. But if you're dealing with an editor who is behaving very badly, and it's relevant to the dispute (e.g., POV editing against a company, and he posted elsewhere that he'd been fired from the company), then it might be accepted.

One of the challenges here is that we're dealing with about 800 different WMF wikis, which means 800 different policies on what's okay. So we say, for example, that if you ever posted your hometown on your userpage, even if you removed it ten minutes later, then that's fair game. But at another wiki, the rules might be very different. Their policy might say that if remove that information from your userpage, then everyone is required to pretend that it was never present. It wouldn't be very nice to violate their policies to gain an advantage here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:36, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Student editors and outing

Editors here may perhaps be interested in a discussion at WP:Education noticeboard#About outing students. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:59, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

IP addresses and outing

Wikipedia:OUTING#Posting_of_personal_information reads: Personal information includes legal name, date of birth, identification numbers, home or workplace address, job title and work organisation, telephone number, email address, or other contact information, whether any such information is accurate or not.

It doesn't mention IP addresses and in 7 years of editing I've seen editors discuss various accidentally revealed IP addresses (usually in regard to possibly or alleged sockpuppetry, and usually on article talk pages or WP:ANI) numerous times without anyone yelling harassment and demanding removal of material. (Though obviously some were mad it was discussed.)

However, if you look at WP:ANI history on December 27 a bunch of edits were removed because an editor accidentally revealed his IP address and then demanded that every post mentioning it be removed, which an admin complied with. The admin also left this message on an editors talk page, with his reply about his having reverted the editors deletion of his comment mentioning the IP address. It would help if the sentence clarified the above. Thanks. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 03:42, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

The Oversight policy covers the removal of the IP address of an editor editing while logged out on request of the user. In addition, the privacy policy treats IPs as protected information, as they can sometimes disclose an editors' region, workplace, or (in some cases) even building or room number.

If a request for removal has been received and acted upon, it should not be re-added without consulting with the Oversight team or AUSC. That said, the team isn't notified about every instance of an accidental IP disclosure, and I at least don't proactively look for such instances to suppress. LFaraone 04:55, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for info. I guess people don't request it often, though that may explain some of the mysterious crossouts I've seen from time to time that didn't seem to be vandalism related.

If privacy policy does forbid discussions of accidental IP release outside of an SPI, few editors know about it. I'm ambivalent about advertising it myself since have had more problems with socks than an innocent person being hurt by an accidental IP release.

Also, I assume that if someone starts editing as an Anon IP and then very publicly starts an account and makes clear what Anon IP they were and leaves that info public a few months or more, it's not a problem to mention it in an administrative noticeboard where that factoid might be relevant. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 15:11, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Geolocation and COI

Every IP's user contributions page has a Geolocate feature at the bottom. If this reveals that the IP address relates to a company, is it "Outing" to reveal that the address relates to this "work organization" ? Or is an IP address not considered "an editor", as it can be used by numerous different people? - This often comes up with COI editing, and I'm never sure if I am allowed to say "it appears from your IP address that you have a conflict of interest in editing this article" or not. - Arjayay (talk) 16:40, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Sexual harassment

With substantial ongoing discussions of gender gap issues (see User talk:Jimbo Wales) it is striking that we do not mention the word "sex" in this policy. While clearly policies on sexual harassment vary widely and have been known to get out of hand, I think we send the wrong message to people who might have been harassed on this basis if we literally do not have the word in the policy. We never know what happens when people don't speak up based on what the text says.

I think a fairly moderate text might be

Sexual harassment

This policy applies to sexual harassment on an equitable basis when the offensive behavior is targeted to a person or group of people based on their sex, gender, or appearance. Sexual bullying and coercion, repeated unwelcome or spammed sexual advances, and other harassment meant to cause a hostile and discriminatory work environment are unacceptable. Additionally, sexual favoritism or the promise of rewards for sex are regarded as "WP:Meatpuppetry" and also contrary to policy.

This might go, perhaps, under User space harassment in the policy. Comments? Wnt (talk) 23:55, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

No, nothing extra is needed. If sexual harassment is mentioned, others will want their favorite harassment target mentioned, with the silly result shown at WP:NPA#WHATIS. For example, anyone found to have "spammed sexual advances" will be indeffed regardless of words in this policy, and anyone objecting to the indef on the basis that there is no rule against sexual advances fails to understand Wikipedia. Johnuniq (talk) 00:32, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Ordinarily, I might think the same thing. But I think it's true that there is a perception out there that Wikipedia is hostile to women. Now some of that we can't do anything about - for example, we rightly embrace WP:Not censored]], which also leads some to say we're hostile to Muslims, etc.; I simply reject those who say that censorship is a female or a minority right - but I don't see any reason why we have to rely on an unwritten policy for something that could be written out. There will probably be at least some people who read the policy and think that they're not protected from sexual harassment, and some others who read it and think they won't get banned for sexual harassment, and it wouldn't be bad to avoid these. I would like to give ground where it should be given so that we can preserve other policies where we ought not to compromise. Wnt (talk) 00:40, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

It's not unwritten—the nutshell says all that needs to said: "Do not stop other editors from enjoying Wikipedia by making threats, repeated annoying and unwanted contacts, repeated personal attacks, intimidation, or posting personal information." The lead has more that absolutely forbids anything that even approached sexual harassment. Johnuniq (talk) 01:12, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, as a fall-back, do you think it would hurt to put "including sexual harassment" after "repeated annoying and unwanted contact or attention"? I just think it would be sensible to let users know we are aware of complaints about the issue.

I should add that the way I came to this in the first place was that I was going through WP:Civility stripping out all the dreck for a version WT:Civility/sandbox, and noticed that the present policy there actually lists sexual harassment as a separate kind of incivility apart from WP:Harassment, linking to the Wikipedia article on the term. I would like to lump them together and further trim the size of my proposed revision but I can see why the previous writer was unsure that this policy directly addressed the topic. Wnt (talk) 14:51, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that if one type of harassment is mentioned, all the others have to be mentioned as well—do not harass young editors by suggesting they are inherently immature; do not harass old editors by suggesting they are past it; do not harass male editors by suggesting they would say that wouldn't they. And then all the sexual orientation and religious affiliation gibes that I barely understand; and more. Johnuniq (talk) 01:53, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, nowhere in the text above did I say anything female-specific, so your comment on harassing male editors misses the mark. There's something at least a little different about sexual harassment in that it can involve unwanted advances and such. But it is indeed possible that some other sentence covering a broader variety of people would be better. Wnt (talk) 09:59, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Proposed addition to "Avoiding personal attacks"

There is a proposal to add a short paragraph to the "Avoiding personal attacks" section of the No personal attacks policy page. The discussion is Proposed addition to "Avoiding personal attacks". Your participation is welcome. Lightbreather (talk) 00:13, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Photographs as personal information

I was recently blocked for tweeting and linking to a photograph of an editor, though the photograph contained no name or other personal information, under WP:OUTING. I think it should be made more clear that photographs are verboten. Phil Kerpen (talk) 02:07, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Suggestions?

What should I do with regard to the below?

This is the background to my concern about being hounded.

Since a dispute weeks ago, an editor followed me around the Project to confront my edits, at articles he had never edited before. For which he was warned by sysop Callanecc, among others (see here).

The editor's latest efforts included following me to an article today, and to my DYK nomination of this article, to confront my edits.

When I raised my concerns about hounding to him on his talkpage, he warned me to stay off his talkpage .... and then tagged the above article I had worked on recently (with a dubious tag), and !voted against the article's DYK nomination I had made.

Suggestions? Thanks. Epeefleche (talk) 20:49, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Epeefleche cries "harassment" when anyone dares edit any article he has worked on. In this instance I have "dared" to point out very serious problems in an article and a claim that Epeefleche thinks suitable for a DYN [6]. Rather than making spurious accusations of "hounding", making personal attacks [7] and making harassing posts on editor's talk pages [8], Epeefleche should address the article issues I have raised [9]. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:34, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Rather than making talk page posts addressing the article issues I raised, Epeefleche is misusing the article talk page to deliberately avoid responding to the issues raised, to manufacture drama, and to make personal attacks that are full of bad faith. I am talking about this [10] and this [11]. Can I delete them as off-topic distractions for a talk page? Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:53, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

• Note: Tiptoe, having been warned in the past by a sysop that if he were to "continue to follow Epeefleche's" edits he may be blocked from editing for "harassment", has now been blocked for "hounding another editor; egregious personal attack" with regard to this matter. Epeefleche (talk) 01:52, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Outing a company

If a company's business is to spam Wikipedia, does linking that companies 100s of sock puppets to it count as outing? What if the company only has a few employees? What about individuals who livelihood is writing Wikipedia articles for pay using socks? Can these issues be discussed on Wikipedia as part of an effort to clean up / block all the socks in question? What about the companies that pay for these services can we mention them? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:30, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

The policy is about "target(ing) a specific person or persons" which would seem to exclude large companies or businesses in general being covered by this policy. Probably a 2-3 person business would be covered though. Just my 2 cents. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 05:15, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Does this policy protect companies and individuals who are paid to spam Wikipedia? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:39, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

It kinda does, at least from public discussions. However, paid editing without disclosure is now a TOS violations, isn't it? So such information can still be forwarded to legal who should handle it from there, making this, imo, a non-issue. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 00:04, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

And if legal wishes the community to help deal with it? I assume that we can also enforce TOS violations.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:51, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

• Legal has responded and stated they see enforcement of paid editing issues as up to the community. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:37, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Do you truly need to post the company's actual name with the list of accounts on wiki, or do you have other, less outing-like options? For example, would it be sufficient to post the list of accounts with a name-free comment like "I suspect these accounts of being undisclosed paid editors, and I think their contributions should be reviewed"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:32, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
    • We already from time to time post links to the urls of companies were there are descriptions of their spamming techniques for Wikipedia. I think many of those who are attempting to address these issues do not know whether or not this is allowed thus the request for clarification. In these cases we are starting with a known entity and than linking dozens of accounts to them rather than linking accounts to entities. In this case most of the accounts only make a couple of edits before they are on to the next one. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:46, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
      • Are you actually saying things on wiki like "this account belongs to this small business"? Or are you just posting, "Here's is a website that says the owner was paid to edit this article"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:51, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
        • We are saying this website describes this technique of spamming. Lets run the last month of edits to pick up concerns. We are than generating a list of edits and thus accounts that are using this technique and potentially associated with the website in question. Of course one never knows. And who cares if an account with 4 or 5 edits is in some companies sock army. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:54, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
          • Something like that should be okay. You're not actually posting the names of the accounts (right?). You're just posting diffs to edits that would benefit from review. What the famous web search engines (which is one of the main motivations here) will see isn't "User:Example is James Real"; they'll see something like "Here's a link that describes a spamming technique. Here's a list of diffs that might be employing it. Can someone help me check these?" No names (at all), no foul. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:15, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
            • Yes more or less. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:21, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

While the laws of some countries consider corporations to be people, I don't think we should. Chillum 04:03, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

A "company" is not necessarily a "corporation". AFAICT, most corporations in the US are owned by one person or a (small) family (usually husband and wife, sometimes parent and child). It's not unusual for a single business person to own multiple corporations here. Thus the question becomes, if I have a small, zero-employees business, should you treat me differently based on your best guess about my tax-driven business structure? If I convert from a sole proprietorship to a registered corporation, or the other way around, but nothing else about my tiny business changes, should the rules for how you treat me change? WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:32, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Question about outing section

In terms of posting another editor's personal information, does linking a Wikipedia account to an account on a different website count as personal information (perhaps as defined by the phrase "other contact information")? If so, should this be something that is explicitly specified in the text? Deli nk (talk) 22:05, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

That is currently under active debate - see Wikipedia_talk:Harassment#Other_contact_information. My read is that there is likely no consensus that such is harassment, but it is possible that there is consensus that it is not, in and of itself, harassment. There are, of course, extenuating factors, which could turn it into harassment. Hipocrite (talk) 22:07, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick reply. I should have looked at this page more closely before posting. :) Deli nk (talk) 22:09, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

query

[12] called another editor a "former professor at Yale"

That person's user page does say he got his Ph.D. at Yale and is a Research Professor at Montana State University. He is, however, not a former professor at Yale, and he has now indicated in his reply that he was a professor at Harvard. He also does give his "real name" on his user page.

Is the odd misstatement as to where he was a professor of any import at all under this policy? Thanks - this one puzzles me a tad. Collect (talk) 14:21, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Not particularly. NE Ent 14:30, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I had seen "outing" complaints which seemed even less substantial in the past - and wondered here. Clearly the person "wanted" to make a disparaging personal comment about the other editor - but screwed it up. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:35, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Dealing with harassment

For simpler, on-wiki matters, such as a user with whom you have arguments, see dispute resolution as the usual first step. It makes it easier to identify the problem you are having if there are some specific diffs. For more serious cases where you are willing to address it on-wiki, you may request administrative assistance.

The linked text in WP:DR#Resolving user conduct disputes says:

If the problem is with the editor's conduct, not their position on some matter of article content, then you may ask an administrator to evaluate the conduct of the user. You can ask for an administrator's attention at a noticeboard such as the administrators' noticeboard for incidents (ANI).

Both steps go to ANI. Is one of these sentences out of date? Burninthruthesky (talk) 16:56, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Other contact information

Under Posting Personal Information there's the sentence: Posting another editor's personal information is harassment, unless that person had voluntarily posted his or her own information, or links to such information, on Wikipedia. Personal information includes legal name, date of birth, identification numbers, home or workplace address, job title and work organisation, telephone number, email address, other contact information, or photograph whether any such information is accurate or not.

What is classified as other contact information? As an example, Would it be accounts a person has on another site or forum? --Kyohyi (talk) 15:28, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

other websites

Somebody recently added [13] "including any other accounts on any other web sites" to that phrase, without any visible discussion here, allegedly after off-wiki discussion on a functionaries e-mail list (which I haven't checked). I believe that clause does not have consensus in the present form and certainly doesn't reflect established practice. While I can certainly imagine situations where posting claims about other websites may constitute harassment, there are certainly situations where it doesn't. If somebody posts, say, on Wikipediocracy under the username of "Newyorkbrad" and states – on Wikipediocracy – that he is the same "Newyorkbrad" as the one here on Wikipedia, then no matter whether our on-Wiki Newyorkbrad has previouly also confirmed that identity here or not, I will have no qualms addressing him about it here (for example in order to find out whether it's really him or an impostor).

Among factors that I believe commonly contribute to making open discussion of such identifications justified are the following:

• The apparent identity between the on-wiki and off-wiki accounts is deduced from data that was made freely available on either site (e.g. shared nicknames on both sites)
• The other site is being used by the off-wiki account to discuss Wikipedia matters, especially if it is done in an attempt to influence an on-wiki situation
• The off-wiki account claims to be a Wikipedia editor, and their statements and attitude (POV, cooperation with other accounts, etc.) appear consistent with those of the on-wiki account
• The off-wiki activity does not link to more real-life identifying data (real names etc.) than the on-wiki account does.

Depending on the combined presence or absence of these and other factors I can see that there may be a gray area between what is or isn't legitimate, but the strong statement as it is now certainly doesn't work. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:36, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Note: For further information, see here. Flyer22 (talk) 19:05, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

I support the addition per meta:Privacy_policy#your-account-info. What a Wikipedian does off wiki isn't anyone's business, except in rare cases. And posting information deduced from off-site has long been considered doxing. NE Ent 19:12, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

What, "per meta:Privacy_policy#your-account-info"? That section is about what the Wikimedia Foundation can or cannot do with your account data; it has nothing whatsoever to do with what other wikipedians can or cannot discuss about you. Completely off-topic. And whether off-wiki activities aren't "anyone's business" is just the question. I was talking about situations where off-wiki activities are clearly directed at Wikipedia and designed to influence Wikipedia; I consider it plain common sense that such activities are in fact our business – and of course they have always been considered as such in common practice. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:24, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

• I think the previous edit (allegedly an interpretation of policy from the functionaries) is a reasonable interpretation of the policy before that edit (although not the only reasonable interpretation). As such without an assertion that it was not based on an interpretation of the functionaries, I don’t think we should change the policy from that edit without consensus. If the edit was not under the authority of the functionaries it should be reverted immediately (no-consensus for a change in policy and fraudulently claiming authority).

We have a private process people could go through to make accusations based off of off-wiki information. Currently off-wiki activities are not subject to WP policies/sanctions unless it “involving grave acts of overt and persistent harassment or threats or other serious misconduct” which was intended or had a “direct and foreseeable damaging effect on the encyclopedia or on members of the community.” (see WP:EEML#Off-wiki_conduct) More minor infractions are unlikely to rise to that level of importance. But if it does, current policy is to email a functionary (or potentially all of ArbCom/Functionaries at their email lists if it is serious enough), thereby not violating WP:OUTING.

Assuming for a moment that the previous edit was from the functionaries and as such that it was current policy to that other website’s account names were personal information. I think that just removing “other websites” from the list of personal information would be a bad idea. Let’s say someone has a twitter handle that is “somewhat” close to their wikiname but not exact. And on their twitter account they confirm their real life name/address/employment. Assume for a moment that one of the WP editors thinks based on this that the user has a COI about a given page they were editing (say they revealed on twitter that they donated to the politician’s page that they are editing). I don’t want someone on WP to be able to go to that person and force them to confirm or deny that the twitter account is “really theirs.” That opens the person up to potential harassment at their business/home from other wikiusers that don’t like that editor. I would support a change that did not consider it outing if the other sites account claims to be someone on WP. At that point the person has either outted themselves (on the other site), or the other account is a fake (either way it doesn’t matter anymore if someone on WP talks about it). That would be a good policy change in my opinion, but it requires more than just removing it from the list of personal information.

As to your factors. The first one of what can be deduced might be open to a lot of interpretation in some cases, and your last one may be one in which the WP editor thinks there is not more real life information attached (but say misses the tweet from 5 years ago). I would be fine with #3 (even if that was all we had that they claimed to be the same off-wiki). --Obsidi (talk) 22:21, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

(ec) Functionaries don't create policy. The community creates policy. It doesn't matter one jot what some people on some non-public mailing list discussed that allegedly led to that edit (plus, I wonder what kind of discussion it can have been anyway, given that the editor who made the edit here, @GRuban:, isn't a functionary and hence doesn't have access to their list, and gave no indication anywhere here on the wiki in what form and through what channels and with whom he discussed it.) What we have here is a recent, contentious addition to a policy that was made without discussion (in the only place that matters, i.e. here), and which rather blatantly goes against established long-standing practice, so the addition gets removed until a consensus is achieved for its addition. Simple. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:24, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't claim that functionaries create policy. But they are the ones who are tasked with dealing with potential off-site confidential problems that would otherwise be considered WP:OUTING. Also, all members of ArbCom are functionaries. ArbCom again doesn't create policy, but it does interpret policy (as it must to enforce it). This appears to me to be a reasonable interpretation of policy, which I think ArbCom would have the authority to make. As such its at least a borderline case, one in which I would like to find out if this change was actually made by the functionaries (or if it was just a lie). --Obsidi (talk) 22:32, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Also I just saw Arbitrator Beeblebrox say on the Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate/Evidence page about what evidence for ArbCom is: "It is clear, specific evidence that a specific Wikipedia user, who has tied an off-wiki identity with their WP username by (and this is the really important part) publicly making the connection known here on Wikipedia is co-ordinating or encouraging unacceptable behavior on other websites. Attempts to tie WP usernames with off-wiki identities without on-wiki supporting evidence are not acceptable, per WP:OUTING." Which I think suggests what he thinks current WP:OUTING policy is. --Obsidi (talk) 22:44, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

He may of course well think that, but he is wrong. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:59, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Could you define why you believe he is wrong in what way and how? As far as I know, if there is an issue of COI and posing info would violate OUTING, then the issue can only be brought up in the beginning through private communication with a member of ArbCom. --Super Goku V (talk) 03:05, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Duh. Begging the question, much? We are just discussing here what actually does or doesn't "violate OUTING". Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:02, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

If I am begging the question, then it is because of what I have understood from the archives of OUTING, COI, and COIN seems to conflict with what your belief is of the issue. That is why my question stands as I do not see how he is incorrect. --Super Goku V (talk) 20:30, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

(I have notified functionaries-l of this discussion; I'm not sure why no one thought to tell us a change made in our name was being reverted/discussed.) I have not checked the mailing list archives, and though I do recall us discussing "accounts on other sites", I don't remember offhand whether we requested or condoned a change to the policy page on that basis. That said, however, it would make sense to me if we had, as a matter of clarification of practice: there are absolutely situations where a linking a user to an account on another site constitutes outing and/or harassment. To make one up off the top of my head, most dating site accounts link the user to personal photos and their location; if someone posted a link to what they claimed was someone else's Match.com account on Wikipedia, that would unquestionably be, in my mind, the posting of non-public personally identifying information, and subject to removal and suppression under the same policy that covers all other personally identifying information. Certainly not all online accounts carry that level of information (linking someone to, say, their Reddit account that only posts gifs in r/ILoveCuddlyPuppies or something would hardly be considered personal), but the fact is that almost no one's accounts are that spotless, and tracing a person through their other online accounts will, much of the time, reveal information that person has chosen not to share on Wikipedia. It's how many doxx are assembled, in my experience: find a common link and trace it back to any other place you can find it. It is not a change in policy to say that linking to accounts or websites which may contain personal information is outing; that's the same policy that covers, say, linking a user to their personal website, or linking to a website that has doxxed them. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 00:42, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• While we would like Wikipedia to be an island of tranquility where no one mentions what goes on elsewhere, the current Gamergate issues demonstrate that the encyclopedia is sometimes attacked by people organizing off-wiki. Having a policy that editors cannot provide links to show what is happening would be extremely unhelpful. Like most policy matters, no pre-defined rule covers every situation and the context needs to be examined. If someone makes a habit of posting off-wiki links because they can, and if there is no apparent reason for the posts other than to be obnoxious, then the poster needs to dissuaded with blocks if necessary. However, it is sometimes necessary to point out off-wiki activity with the aim of developing a strategy to protect the encyclopedia from a particular incident—judicial standards of proof are not required. Johnuniq (talk) 21:39, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

I would think, with or without this change that you could link to off-wiki things that seem to be talking about WP. Just you couldn't claim that user X on WP is User Y on the off-wiki site (at least not to anyone other then a WP:FUNC via email). That might not be good enough (ie may we want the community to be able to sanction these users for the off-wiki behavior rather then just WP:FUNC's), but it is better then nothing. --Obsidi (talk) 06:46, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

"somebody" in the original post was me, and in this case it does seem that functionaries do create policy, since they enforce it, even the part that isn't written down yet. In this case my post (specifically, 13:43, September 12, 2014 (diff | hist) . . (+2,744)‎ . . Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents ‎ (→‎Tutelary: Restore, not WP:OUTING, no personal information)13:33, September 12, 2014 (diff | hist) . . (+2,303)‎ . . Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents ‎ (→‎Tutelary: Support ban, per Essjay precedent, convinced by evidence)) was removed based on the fact that it mentioned "off-wiki information in the context of OUTING, namely the reddit username... Although it seems your intention was to stay within the letter of the law of the WP:OUTING policy, in this case this particular edit violated the current interpretation of outing. Although in this case the user has not posted their real name, you are obtaining alternate contact information which was previously undisclosed." That was on the functionaries mailing list, and can presumably be found in the archive by those with access. (It also took several months to get; getting oversighters to respond to why exactly they oversighted your post is like pulling teeth. They never did respond to whether it was all right for the original oversighter to delete the post, then vanish for a month when asked why that was done.) So any alternate user account on any other website is alternate contact information, and they feel that is removable. This needs to be written in the policy, since it's silly to have a policy that the only way to find out about is after it hits you. --GRuban (talk) 15:00, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, I still disagree, though of course I see your point from your perspective: if this is what some of the oversighters think the policy is, then the oversighters need to be told the community disagrees with them. The oversighters simply do not have the right to impose a form of the policy on the community that the community doesn't want. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:22, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

The oversighters disagree. :-) --GRuban (talk) 20:15, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

I really don't see this as some sort of ideological war between different policies, or between policy-changing oversighters and policy-maintaining community members. In the particular case GRuban experienced, the decision was apparently that the link constituted or contained private information (I don't remember the specific context, but this seems a safe assumption given the result); that doesn't mean that every link ever is going to be suppressed, any more than it means no links ever will be suppressed. Again, we're not making new policy here. We're determining whether content that's submitted to us contains (or is) information that's covered in the policy that's already there, which does not and cannot exhaustively list every BEANSy, possible type of content that we would suppress (what about "person goes by a name not their legal name, and that name is posted onwiki", or any number of other things that aren't explicitly listed?) - that's why it says "personal information includes", not "personal information is the following exclusive list". A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 20:42, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, but the problem was that, at least according to what GRuban understood the Oversighters' position to be, and according to the change to the policy text he submitted [14], each and every such link was supposed to fall under "personal information". That's what we are discussing here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:03, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

There was explicitly no private information except the specific account on the alternate site, and that was what the responding oversighter wrote: "namely the reddit username" - that's a direct quote. --GRuban (talk) 21:41, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Right but my point is, knowing someone's username on another site will, very often, open up a treasure trove of other information about them. If I know someone's Reddit username, maybe I can see what subreddits they follow, and find out that they really love asparagus. If I search that username on asparagus.com, then, I may well find them discussing how their local grocery store in Nowhereville, Maryland only stocks white asparagus, and does anyone know of other stores in CountyName that has green asparagus. Now, that's obviously a deliberately-absurd example (no one likes asparagus!), but hopefully you take my point: a username is rarely just a username. If knowing that username means you can find out other, probably-not-published-on-Wikipedia stuff about them, then that username is essentially a link to private, personal information - and we suppress links to private, personal information. Again, on this specific case I haven't looked into the details, and I would not encourage you to share any more here; if someone thinks the oversight done in Gruban's case was improper/overreaching, AUSC would probably love to hear from you so they can have something to do. They're really your only port of call for hashing out specific oversight cases.A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 14:43, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

My respondent was quite clear that the reason was "you are obtaining alternate contact information which was previously undisclosed". Nothing about what information is associated with the username, just that you can use it to contact the person. That's true of all usernames on other sites. --GRuban (talk) 01:07, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

That's not true actually; there are plenty of circumstances where it is not possible to contact that person even after registering at the relevant website. In fact, an user may only be able to make a post on that website in the hopes that the person responds. Ncmvocalist (talk) 04:36, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

RfC: should the policy extend harassment to include posting ANY other accounts on ANY other websites?

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Consensus and practice say No. Guy (Help!) 00:13, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

---

This concerns the first paragraph of WP:OUTING as below:

Posting another editor's personal information is harassment, unless that person had voluntarily posted his or her own information, or links to such information, on Wikipedia. Personal information includes legal name, date of birth, identification numbers, home or workplace address, job title and work organisation, telephone number, email address, other contact information (including any other accounts on any other web sites), or photograph whether any such information is accurate or not. Posting such information about another editor is an unjustifiable and uninvited invasion of privacy and may place that editor at risk of harm outside of their activities on Wikipedia. This applies to the personal information of both editors and non-editors. Any edit that "outs" someone must be reverted promptly, followed by a request for oversight to delete that edit from Wikipedia permanently. If an editor has previously posted their own personal information but later redacted it, it should not be repeated on Wikipedia; although references to still-existing, self-disclosed information is not considered outing. If the previously posted information has been removed by oversight, then repeating it on Wikipedia is considered outing.

The bolded words were added on 22 October 2014 by GRuban on the basis of a discussion with the functionaries on their private mailing list. This has been subject to some discussion above though it was never resolved. I have reverted this to seek clarity from the community before an alternate version is inserted (or before this is reinserted if there is no suitable alternative, or to confirm that the text need not be inserted again). Is the blanket statement that 'any other accounts from any other websites should never be posted' consistent with the community's view? If not, but something does need to be in the policy, how can it be reworded or reintroduced - as I am not sure myself how to cater for this yet. Also pinging the other users from the above discussion: Fut.Perf., A fluffernutter is a sandwich!, Obsidi, Johnuniq, NE Ent, Super Goku V, Kyohyi, as I'd rather put this right the first time around than find ourselves here again when something doesn't work. Ncmvocalist (talk) 04:12, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose this addition. We have cases of people using multiple sockpuppets. The are running businesses where they sell their Wikipedia editing and were they link together their many sock puppets. Basically it is usually one sock per job. These businesses are not always attached to their real names. Thus in these cases this evidence should be allowed. We need to add an exception to the posting of information which joins socks together after a SPI confirms the issue in question. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:48, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support language noting that posting another editor's accounts on other websites can be outing. Iffy on the exact wording involving "any account on any" website. It is absolutely indisputable in my mind that connecting a Wikipedia editor to their accounts on other websites can be outing - to re-use the example I've used before, connecting a Wikipedian to their dating site profile means you're revealing their location, sexual preferences, etc. Not all other-site accounts are going to contain this level of information, and I can think of cases where it would constitute no personal information at all, but I would rather err on the side of protecting our users and include "other accounts" in the policy. In addition, it's not like we don't have venues to submit evidence that might constitute outing if posted onwiki. The Arbcom-l and Functionaries-l mailing lists deal with that sort of information regularly. So I'm not sure that even in cases where the link is obvious, we need to allow space for it publicly onwiki. It seems to me that the choices are:
  1. Remove "other sites" from policy entirely, and err on the side of people getting outed when those "other sites" contain private information. Result: everything from Reddit to OKCupid to genealogy websites becomes fair game to publicly post about other people.
  2. Leave the clause as it stood before this RfC, so it bars the public sharing of any other account from any other website, to draw a clear line in the sand. Result: No one may post another user's accounts from another website, even when they're so obvious they nearly punch you in the face. ("OMG Fluffernutter is "Wikipedia user Fluffernutter" on this subreddit! Outing!"). However, users still have the option to submit this information to Arbcom if they feel it needs to be actioned.
  3. Soften the clause somewhat, to say something along the lines of "including accounts on other websites that contain information the user has not shared on Wikipedia". Result: editors are advised that linking a user to another account on another website might be outing; the Oversight team is able to review each case individually and decide whether suppression would be appropriate.

Now, to me, Option 1 is a clear no-go. It's not ok; we need room to handle the cases where the other account reveals serious personal information. Option 2 is draconian, but it has the benefit of being clear as crystal: if you have information about a user's accounts elsewhere, submit it to Arbcom or drop it. Option 3 brings in a little of the best of both, allowing leeway for the obvious or silly cases. The disadvantage to option 3, though, is also its leeway. Nobody will be sure what kind of other-site accounts are across the line; they will either over- or under-submit requests to the OS team, and oversighters have no more magic powers than anyone else when it comes to figuring out in a timely manner what information a Reddit account with 50,000 posts may or may not have shared at some point in its 6-year history.

Given that people seem very concerned about being allowed the freedom to post people's other accounts in some circumstances, I am willing to support Option 3 as a middle ground that allows the "bleedin' obvious" cases to pass through the net that otherwise catches the "actual private information" cases. However, I have a feeling that in the long term, "it could be, or it could not be, take your chances and find out" isn't really a solution to the question of other-site accounts, and when we run up against this again and have to discard option 3 and choose between options 1 and 2, I'm going to go with the option that errs on the side of overprotecting editor's personal information. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 05:28, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

• If option 3 route is taken, it does need to work in the short & long-term too - so it may need a bit of thought, and a bit of work, but it needs to be done rather than reacting to obviously foreseeable problems later, like with the bolded words insertion (with just a mailing list and a few users apparently knowing about it). Other than Doc James comment above, Fut.Perf.'s comment below explains why there are too many problems with option 2 (the bold words) both in the long-term and the short-term; that signals removal unless it is tweaked through rewording/restructuring. There is more which could be added to that too. So rather than just a few words, perhaps a paragraph, or part-paragraph and bullet points, or something along those lines would need to be drafted to start off the option 3 proposal...? Ncmvocalist (talk) 11:37, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

• 1. Fluffernutter You do realize that option 3 leaves AN/Arb/Etc open to zero investment JoeJobs right? Hasteur (talk) 17:55, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

     No more than, and probably less than, Option 1, Hasteur. 3 is a compromise position I'm willing to take in light of how strongly some people seem to feel about how they must out COI editors onwiki; 3 is at least somewhat less harmful than just declaring open season on all offsite accounts, as Option 1 does. As I said in my vote, I don't think 3 is a long-term solution, but if it's as much as people can agree on, it's still better than nothing. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 18:07, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

• Endorse said revision. Outing another person's account on another website should never be acceptable unless that person has posted a link on the domain 'en.wikipedia.org' linking directly to said account. Doing such is an attempt to harass the individual by attempting to bring out of dispute matters into dispute. For example, I have a Twitter account in which I post more political stuff. Should my opponents (using it in the context of people who've taken an opposite position from me, not actual opponents) then be allowed to dox me, post my account link and remark about how the political stuff I said and that I shouldn't be able to rule on X topic? No, because that's harassment. If we allow people to post sites or supposed accounts that people have registered with, on other forums, that's bringing that account into the discussion when it should never be in the discussion. Posting someone's apparently account link on Wikipedia is harassment, and I can't really believe that OP would find it otherwise. Additionally, why are you only restarting this discussion now? Tutelary (talk) 05:33, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
• Comment: @Ncmvocalist: Notifications (pings) only work if it is a "simple" comment with the ping and the signature added in the same edit. This diff did not notify me. I am pinging everyone mentioned who has not replied here: Fut.Perf., Obsidi, NE Ent, Super Goku V, Kyohyi. Johnuniq (talk) 05:34, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the note. I'll also ping Black Kite who highlighted the need for at least tweaking the change, which got me looking at this now. Ncmvocalist (talk) 11:37, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose addition, as before. The addition is far too broad. In principle, off-wiki activities are fair game for on-wiki discussion if those activities are related to and directed at Wikipedia, in a way that influences Wikipedia editing procedures (e.g. participation in a web forum dedicated to criticising Wikipedia or organising POV campaigns on Wikipedia). Identification of an on-wiki account with an off-wiki identity is fair game for on-wiki discussion if it is based on voluntarily disclosed information, no matter where and how it was disclosed. If Wikipediocracy account X chooses to say, on Wikipediocracy, that they are Wikipedia account Y (but haven't said so on-wiki), then that is still voluntary disclosure, and we'd be mad if we were to prohibit mentioning the obvious connection (if relevant to on-wiki affairs). Likewise, if somebody chooses to edit both Wikipedia and an external Wikipedia-related webforum under the same anonymous nickname, that too is voluntary disclosure: they have freely chosen to invite the inference that they are the same person, so they can't complain. It really is no different from the situation where somebody works under the same (apparent) real-name identity on-wiki and elsewhere, which we've always treated as voluntary self-disclosure. Of course, in all these cases, including the real-name one, there is still the issue of how to be certain they actually are the same (the "joe-job" issue), but acknowledging that as a possibility is a very different thing from claiming that the mere raising of the question on-wiki would automatically amount to "harassment". Doing that would lay Wikipedia open to the most brazen-faced forms of abuse – people could openly engage in abusive behaviour off-wiki as much as they liked, and just thumb their nose at people on-wiki observing them, or even use it as a weapon against on-wiki opponents to get them blocked if they finally speak up about it. (Actually, that's exactly what we have been seeing in a recent dispute, isn't it?) Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:29, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Indeed (and I couldn't believe we have been seeing that so soon after the change was made to the policy). Ncmvocalist (talk) 11:37, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
    • Thanks User:Future Perfect at Sunrise. Does this mean it is acceptable to link the accounts of paid editors on Elance.com with their army of sock puppets on Wikipedia? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:07, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
      • I should say, yes, certainly (and now I look at it, I notice my previous statement wasn't even yet broad enough to cover this case: in the case of obviously abusive behaviour such as paid-editor COI socking, we indeed shouldn't place ourselves under any artificial restrictions whatsoever, no matter if there is "self-disclosed" identification or not.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:25, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
        • Do we need a RfC before we can add this to the policy? Or is it already sufficiently accepted that we can go ahead and clarify this? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:16, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
          • I believe you would need to change the WP:COI guideline before you could do anything like that. Last time I checked, it placed some pretty serious "artificial restrictions" like absolutely prohibiting editors from OUTING suspected COI violators. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:21, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
• "there is still the issue of how to be certain they actually are the same." Exactly. We can't; therefore anyone wishing to smear a wiki editor could create "evidence" off-wiki and then use it on-wiki if this proposal were to pass. Furthermore, while there's no policy against individual Wikipedians participating at Wikipediocracy, as that site does not have the privacy safeguards of WMF sponsored sites, the last thing we should be doing is promoting it. NE Ent 20:11, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Red herrings are flying low today, it seems. Who said anything about "promoting" Wikipediocracy? (I was merely mentioning it as one external website whose authors we do in fact routinely link to their on-wiki accounts.) About the joe-job issue, the fact you are missing is that this theoretical problem is exactly the same in the case of the real-name situation. What's the difference between these two scenarios: (1) We know that a person with the real name "John W. Doe" is the publicity manager of real-world company X; a Wikipedia account who says on their user page that their name is "John W. Doe" has been editing the article on company X on Wikipedia; and (2) A person under the anonymous nickname "TheTruthDefender" has been posting on an external web forum trying to organize a meatpuppet campaign regarding article Y; a Wikipedia account named "TruthDefender" has been editing that article? In case (1), everybody has always taken for granted that the obvious link is fair game (e.g. when assessing a potential COI situation), since the identity is "self-disclosed on-wiki", but for case (2) you suddenly want to impose a taboo upon us all against even mentioning the coincidence? The truth is that, if we are to take the possibility of "joe-jobs" into account, the identity in case (1) is just as likely to be a fake as that in case (2), and the person in case (1) has made precisely the same free choice to publicly invite their identification as the one in case (2). Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:05, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
• Endorse per Tutelary, and sorry to say, but its unfathomable to me to think we can extend Wikipedia's influence to include basically any other account on the web. This is an encyclopedia lest we forget not an empire whose control extends beyond our own borders. While the wording change seems small; it is in fact highly significant and requires more input than from a few editors.(Littleolive oil (talk) 19:12, 10 January 2015 (UTC))

Who on earth said anything about "influence" or "control"? Nobody has suggested we should be trying to "control" what people can or cannot do elsewhere. What we can and must do, however, is react to what people do elsewhere, if and when those activities are directed at influencing Wikipedia from the outside, and in order to do that we obviously have to be able to talk about such activities. That's the only thing that is at issue here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:04, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

The result is influence and control. Nor did I say we are trying to control anyone. What I see and have seen is permission to out which I do not agree with.(Littleolive oil (talk) 20:09, 10 January 2015 (UTC))

• Support addition due to inability to actually know authorship of off-wiki content. NE Ent 20:12, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Another red herring. It is one thing to remain aware that it is sometimes (by no means always) difficult to know with ultimate certainty that two accounts are the same person. It is an entirely different matter to suggest, as this addition seeks to do, that the mere mentioning of the possibility of such a link by a Wikipedia editor should automatically be treated as a block-worthy offence. That is sheer madness. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:42, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Future Perfect, I would rather users not get harassed because some trolls on some other site decide to want to get other users on Wikipedia blocked. That's how I see this working out. 'Same name = automatically true = blocked'. Seriously, it's a recipe for disaster. Tutelary (talk) 21:45, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

What about the elance.com accounts were people say "I was paid to start these 6 pages and am taking money to start more pages. Please hire me."? Doc James (talk ·contribs · email) 21:48, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Great, look at the pages involved and see if they correlate. Talk it over with the user if they do. "Is this your account on X website advertising Wikipedia services?" is a fine question to ask. If yes, advise them on the policies. Only if there is an affirmative 'Yes, that's my account' then you can link on site identity with off site identity. Otherwise, if they're 'No, that's not my account', then you can't continually assert that it is because that's harassment. If you want to conduct an elaborative investigation regarding it and the user has denied such, contact ArbCom. Tutelary (talk) 22:04, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

The above question - "Is this your account on X website advertising Wikipedia services?" is a violation of the exact policy you support. Hipocrite (talk) 14:35, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

More often than not it is are these 10 accounts yours? :-) And then once they admit that these are there 10 accounts what can we do? Still nothing? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:11, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose addition. Buckets of AGF are lovely, but tying up good editors by preventing them from alerting others to off-wiki campaigns is very counterproductive. Each case has to be considered on its merits—if someone makes a habit of linking editors to their off-wiki profiles where the linking has no discernible benefit, the person needs to be given a final warning and indeffed on the next repeat because they are just being obnoxious. However, if a handful of good editors defending the gamergate articles are being pounded, they need to be free to provide links demonstrating what is going on. That applies also to pages enlisting paid editors, or any other kind of unforeseen malfeasance. The outing provisions still apply—no linking to personal profiles that out an editor. NE Ent's concern regarding authorship of off-wiki comments is not a reason to prevent all linking—we know about joe jobs and other forms of planting false allegations, and people are able to evaluate evidence, but we have to at least see what evidence is available. Johnuniq (talk) 21:47, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Read the actual wording. This would not prevent alerting editors from off site campaigns. "X subreddit is saying 'EDIT THIS PAGE', be aware of SPA votes and reminder that this is not a !vote!" You would still be allowed to do that. What you can't do is 'This user on Reddit seems to be the Wikipedia user Tutelary" because there's no proof, and would lead to witch hunting, harassment, and the like. Only if they confirm then can you be allowed to do a COI investigation or the like. Otherwise its baseless speculation. Tutelary (talk) 22:07, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

No, under the wording of the proposed addition, the mere mentioning of the connection, including the asking of a question about it, would be automatically deemed "harassment". As for "baseless speculation": Wikipedia is not a court of law, and when it comes to countering disruption, we rightly do not demand judicial standards of proof. There is, in principle, no more and no less "speculation" involved in linking an on-wiki account with an off-wiki one on the basis of shared behaviour and shared names, than in linking two on-wiki socks with each other on the basis of "Duck" behavioral evidence. If we routinely do the latter, I don't see why we can't in principle also do the former, which you seek to exclude so categorically. Both are things where there will, of course, often be doubtful cases where the connection is not safe enough to justify action, but there is no reason to think it categorically impossible to reach a reasonable degree of certainty in some. We all know that there is at least one case in connection with the recent Gamergate fracas where it's plain obvious to everybody with half a brain that editor "L." on Wikipedia is the same person as participant "L." in a certain troll forum; I, for one, will not be silenced from speaking out about this obvious fact, whenever I choose to. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:18, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

If individual editors choose to make this kind of reference that's one matter, giving an implied permission to do so is another. Further once an editor has to cry harassment the damage is done, and frankly depending on who the editor is many won't care in the least if some editor is being harassed. Better to not sanction the behaviour and thus open the door for misuse in the first place.(Littleolive oil (talk) 22:45, 10 January 2015 (UTC))

Wikipedia is not a court of law, and when it comes to countering disruption, we rightly do not demand judicial standards of proof. This is incorrect from my point of view. A judge is required to be impartial to the case that they represent. To quote User:Beeblebrox once more, This came up in an off-wiki matter the committee dealt with earlier this year, where a user who had just been blocked here was severely harassing another user via youtube, using the same username. I was personally 100% convinced that they were one in the same, and I believe most of the arbs were as well, but the user in question denied it was them so we simply couldn't consider the connection verified. --Super Goku V (talk) 00:45, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

• @Littleolive oil: Frankly, that doesn't make any sense to me. I've been on this site for several years, and I have especially cared that editors should not be harassed. In fact, I specifically recall assisting then-arbitrators in drafting a decision in 2009 which dealt with such a case. My contention with the bolded words which I removed are that: (1) it is a loophole which permits more effective and aggressive harassment to be effective, (2) relies on a set of functionaries to sanction such disruption despite the fact they are often unable to address concerns of this nature in a timely manner, and (3) prevents the community from otherwise handling such disruption effectively. Historically, we have seen many for coordinated POV-pushing and disrupting Wikipedia on other websites, public mailing lists, and forums, and this will no doubt continue. The bolded words mean that no reference can be made about posts or pages on such sites - anywhere on Wikipedia - because it might "out" an editor from here who has an account on such a site. I find that utterly ludicrous, and that is what led me to pose this question here. There are several trigger-happy bureaucracy-loving administrators who will be all too happy to enforce the bolded words in the most bogus of circumstances, and nothing can be done to prevent the damage that will cause for the site and its users because of the superficial way in which it is dealt with in the policy, and because of the foolishly broad language used found in the bold words. Even ArbCom is bound by the policy and would be unable to address any issues. We have many big name editors and administrators complain that editor participation is declining; is it any wonder a harassment policy permits editors to be harassed and all efforts put in the project to be so-easily disrupted? If there is a desire to place some limits around the way in which off-site accounts expressly, that's one thing, but that so obviously cannot be dealt with as it is above (it would need to be more detailed and well-considered). However, the bold words here simply go too far (even if it is just in the interim). Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:06, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Yes this would prevent the addressing of users who create attack pages about other users. Recently we had a user get a friend to create an attack page about me and forward it to my university. Now if he would have just emailed it to me and not also posted the url on Wikipedia I would not have been able to have brought the evidence to ANI. The harassment policy unfortunately often protects and thus promotes harassment. In fact this policy was used as justification for why this evidence and the evidence of this user was being paid to edit Wikipedia should not be allowed at ANI. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:20, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
• Endorse Addition The additional text does nothing to change the policy on outing, merely clarify application. The previous wording included other contact information, I'm fairly certain that accounts on other sites can be used to contact that user, or at least who you believe that user to be. What's more, the second paragraph of the Harassment policy "The fact that a person either has posted personal information or edits under their own name, making them easily identifiable through online searches, is not an excuse for "opposition research". Dredging up their off line opinions to be used to repeatedly challenge their edits can be a form of harassment, just as doing so regarding their past edits on other Wikipedia articles may be." would imply that going around and posting a users other accounts is opposition research. While I am sympathetic to the intents of curbing off-wiki coordination of disruption on wiki, I don't think weakening this policy is the appropriate approach. --Kyohyi (talk) 14:22, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose this addition. It's not harassment de jure to say "Hey, User:FlyOffTheHandle, are you FlyOffTheHandle on Elance?" Now, it might be harassment if it meets other tests in this policy, but just connecting the accounts is not the harassing act. Hipocrite (talk) 20:14, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. This represents an unwarranted expansion of the outing policy. It actually could increase harassment, by encouraging people to go off-wiki to harass Wikipedia editors, and give them a safe haven by making it impossible to talk about their off-wiki activities. Terrible idea. Coretheapple (talk) 22:18, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

• Comment This addition would also protect those that pay people to edit Wikipedia. Often the evidence of paid editing include those paying and those being paid. For example should our readers not be informed that some of the content of this article, Derwick_Associates for example, was written by someone paid to do so and which accounts specifically are being paid? The companies often also pay people to remove the COI tags though but that is another issue. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:32, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

That's absolutely correct. Coretheapple (talk) 22:35, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

• Endorse with Support for rewording - As stated by Arbitrator Beeblebrox on a recent Arbitration Case, "It is clear, specific evidence that a specific Wikipedia user, who has tied an off-wiki identity with their WP username by (and this is the really important part) publicly making the connection known here on Wikipedia is co-ordinating or encouraging unacceptable behavior on other websites. Attempts to tie WP usernames with off-wiki identities without on-wiki supporting evidence are not acceptable, per WP:OUTING." I will support a rewording and working with WP:COIN over the exact wording, but the policy already prevents contact information which an account on another website is. --Super Goku V (talk) 22:58, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

• Note: I have left a pointer to this RfC on the Administrators Noticeboard, as either outcome of this RfC will affect how administrative actions are applied. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 23:06, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
• Endorse the addition per Tutelary, Kyohyi, and NE Ent. We should be very specific and clear in our language regarding outing being unacceptable. Additionally, NE Ent makes a good point regarding lack of ability to verify the authorship of such off-wiki content. Given the level of wp:battleground , POV pushing, and harassment I've seen on WP, I wouldn't be surprised if such wiki-warriors created fake Twitter account etc, with same username as the wiki-target, and use that manufactured account to harass or attempt to discredit/eliminate opponents. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 23:49, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

• Please comment on the actual problem: this proposal would mean that anyone linking to any of the several off-wiki sites coordinating attacks on the gamergate articles would be blocked for harassment because they contain posts by people with the same user names as editors. Suppose you wanted to show that www.example.com has discussions about how paid editors are puffing-up a politician's article and adding negativity to the opponent's article—adding that link would get you blocked if any user names are shown there, despite there being no personal information. Naturally we do not accept an off-wiki page as evidence that someone is being paid to puff-up articles, but we should be able to link to evidence that such discussions are occurring. Johnuniq (talk) 00:25, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

• I think our exiting policies on WP:NPOV, WP:OWN, WP:CABAL etc should be used to handles those situations. I also think Fluffernutter makes a good point above with this statement, "it's not like we don't have venues to submit evidence that might constitute outing if posted onwiki. The Arbcom-l and Functionaries-l mailing lists deal with that sort of information regularly. when necessary, it seems such links could be sent to ArbCom."--BoboMeowCat (talk) 00:36, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

• Using Arbcom or Functionaries will not scale—they already have too much work and cannot respond to relatively minor issues such as an elance.com page soliciting socks to puff-up an article. Good editors cannot combat off-wiki recruitment without alerting other good editors about the problem. Johnuniq (talk) 01:49, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Johnuniq, I understand what you're saying but don't think ArbCom would be only way to deal with problem. Editing behavior tends to make it clear when an article is being puffed up. Such articles can be brought to BLP noticeboard or other noticeboard to notify good editors. I agree that paid or recruited editors are really bad for the project and that they need to be dealt with, I just think it's better to deal with them on the basis of their editing behavior not a twitter account or a website that may or may not be legit, and I don't think we should deal with this problem at the expense of relaxing our harassment/outing policy. Also, I think such links unfortunately only scratch the surface with the respect to this problem. The most established and problematic paid or recruited editors will tend to be smart enough to not leave such an obvious online evidence trail, so it seems the best way to deal with this very real problem is to get more serious about enforcing our existing polices of WP:NPOV and WP:OWN and also be more on the look out for WP:TAGTEAM and WP:CABAL behavior.--BoboMeowCat (talk) 02:23, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support bolded addition per various arguments above. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 02:03, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
• Endorse additions The reason for requiring disclosure to be on-wiki is that on-wiki is the only place where we can verify that the one disclosing is actually the editor in question. Apart from such disclosures, the principle of on-wiki anonymity should be protected. The attempt to link an editor with an off-wiki account is bad for all the same reasons that attempting to link an editor to a real-world identity is bad. Why is there any difference? Anonymity is anonymity, whether online or offline, and the community has chosen anonymity. When it comes to the problem of off-wiki organization, what is it about such organization happening on the internet that means we should make an exception to the outing policy? If I posted an advertisement in a newspaper, offering to edit for pay and giving my telephone number, then linking that advertisement to my account would be a violation of the outing policy and should be. How is this any different to the scenarios posited above? GoldenRing (talk) 02:46, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose per Fut. Perf., Doc James, Johnuniq and Coretheapple. The abuses this proposed change enables are greater than those it is trying to prevent. Andreas JN466 04:44, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Am I wrong in seeing that this addition allows editors to link to off Wikipedia information topotentially use against editors here? Am I missing something? I'm not sure why we should enable that kind of behaviour. I'm open to explanation.(Littleolive oil (talk) 05:02, 13 January 2015 (UTC))

This user was involved in creating an attack page, was involved in encouraging fellow vapors to create accounts and vote in discussions and was involved in paid editing were they removed negative content about a Venezuelan company for money from said company among others.[15] They edit warred to do this.

They posted the link to the attack page on Wikipedia which led to their paid editing work. But what if they would have just emailed it to me, would I still have been able to submit it as evidence? Per the change one could then create attack pages on what ever site they want and email them to the employers of Wikipedians and the Wikipedians themselves without repercussions. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:12, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for responding to my question: What I see is that harassment occurs off Wikipedia no matter what we do and has to be dealt with. However we have a route for dealing with personal information with out posting it on WP. If we allow the posting of information at the discretion of the posting editor we open the door for on WP harassment and the eroding of the protection we afford to our editors anonymity. As one who has been harassed off and on WP what I see is that we are opening a Pandora's box of problems. (Littleolive oil (talk) 18:30, 13 January 2015 (UTC))

I aswell have been extensively harassed on and off wiki. Being harassed on wiki is less of a problem than being harassed off wiki. Thus addition would help with the "off wiki" harassment IMO Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:32, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose per the above opposers. I don't really see a need to further strengthen the policy with this wording, as putting that information out there does not necessarily constitute outing. In the case of Elance, it would hamper any and all efforts to enforce efforts against paid editing, and would cause chaos for anyone who wanted to stop this trend from occurring. In terms of harming others, if you put up information on the internet, you should reasonably expect that it will be found by someone, as the internet is a very powerful tool. Unfortunately, we live in a world where anyone can be found and stalked based on what they put online (and that is a horrible issue in and of itself that needs serious addressing), but that does not mean that we need to strengthen our policies to address this with overly-broad terminology, as we have no control what goes on outside of WMF sites. This is a solution seeking a problem, not the other way around, at this point. I do think that something should be done to address the rules (maybe state that an exception can be made if you're violating our terms of use or something), but an overly-broad action won't really solve anything at this time, as it will harm people who are trying to help combat paid editors. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 05:43, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

WP:OUTING takes precedence over WP:COI, according to ArbCom. Tutelary (talk) 03:23, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

• Clarification Opposing the proposal is not an attempt to allow off-wiki links in order to sanction an editor—obviously that would lead to all kinds of trolling and joe jobbing. The purpose of linking to, say, elance.com would be so an editor could ask for help dealing with off-wiki coordination to subvert Wikipedia's procedures. People may try to help with such a request, but would ignore a generic request because the topic does not appeal. Johnuniq (talk) 06:35, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

• If the purpose of such off-site coordination is to improve the encyclopaedia, then I don't see a problem. If the purpose of the coordination is to disrupt the encyclopaedia, then I don't see any indication that our existing processes for dealing with disruption are not up to the job.

• I think we need to be careful here. It is fairly clear that a lot of the opposition to the revised wording is related to the current situation with reddit, 8chan and the GamerGate controversy. But any change that would allow linking eg a reddit account to a Wikipedia editor could also be used the other way. I believe that it is not exactly a secret, for instance, that various members (and ex-members) of WP:GGTF co-ordinate off-wiki. Do you really want to encourage digging up links between editors and off-wiki co-ordination? GoldenRing (talk) 06:51, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support the addition of the bold-face words.
  Separately, I think it would be useful to consider expanding this policy's ==Dealing with harassment== section to explain that "posting" (notice that first word in this paragraph) identifying personal information is harassment, but "e-mailing" exactly the same thing to a relevant team of volunteers is fine. Despite the comments above, the rule that says not to post someone's real name in public, right in the middle of one of the busiest and most heavily indexed websites in the world does not actually mean "sit on your hands while crying 'boo-hoo, I can't post this private information on wiki, so nothing can be done to stop this bad editor'". The rule is don't spam the world with your (possibly wrong) doxxing; instead, e-mail it to the group that's supposed to deal with it. Private information belongs in private communication channels. We have lots of them. You should use them whenever you have private information about an editor. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:21, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
• I'd oppose such a change. In some circumstances, linking off-wiki accounts can constitute outing - and I trust the functionaries to act to suppress such information - but come on, such a blanket lock down is insane. People's actions outside Wikipedia can have consequences on Wikipedia - Wikipedia is not an island. Worm^TT(talk) 13:35, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support. Linking to off-wiki personal chaff is frequently used as hounding or harassment. We have often seen banned users posting allegations of this sort on forums, email lists and even other Wikimedia projects, which are immediately raised on-wiki to inflame drama. Wikipedians should be accountable for their on-wiki edits and they should be accountable in rare and exceptional circumstances, such as if they are demonstrably gaming the system by off-wiki means such as faking sources or maliciously cyberbullying and doxxing Wikimedians to get their way. The exceptions have pretty much been defined by past Arbcom cases. Wikipedia has a long way to go before it could be a safe space for contributors, restricting personal information and links where the user has not clearly done this themselves would help, in a further qualified form if necessary for consensus. --Fæ (talk) 13:59, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. When one or more editors engage in WP:Canvassing by asking another website's editors to help them influence a Wikipedia dispute, as seen in this case, there should be freedom to mention that matter on Wikipedia...even if mentioning it clearly ties the WP:Canvasser to another website account. Flyer22 (talk) 14:36, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

  I would argue that you could post that something was being coordinated off-site -- you just couldn't draw conclusions as to who was doing it.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:44, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

That would be explicitly allowed under the wording. You are not outing another person's account, you are merely letting someone know that a Reddit thread was created with the implicit request to edit a Wikipedia article. What would not be allowed would be. "X's editing habits make it obvious that he is Y on Wikipedia.' That's outing. Tutelary (talk) 03:23, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I read a similar argument above, and then I read Future Perfect at Sunrise (Fut.Perf.)'s "22:18, 10 January 2015 (UTC)" reply to it. Flyer22 (talk) 14:54, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

I disagree with him. That's not what the wording says. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:45, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose This would hinder my job as m:SWMT member when I trying to track spammer IPs (when I try to report Cross wiki vandals IP and information on en.wp to be handled locally), not only that, because of this restrictions now people can do canvassing freely per Flyer22.--AldNon^Ucallin?☎ 16:57, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose Because it doesnt matter what the wording says, functionaries will interpret it any way they like anyway. When I requested an edit (by a now indef'd editor) be oversighted in which one of my off-site identities had been posted, one which I had not previously made any link to on-wiki, I received a lovely email reply from Salvio Giuliano saying that it could not be oversighted as it was not covered by the oversight policy. Glad to hear everyone works from the same book! Only in death does duty end (talk) 18:29, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Only in death does duty end, is your off-site identity still on Wikipedia? If so, perhaps Daniel Case can help you out? He's been helpful to me with personal WP:Oversight cases. Flyer22 (talk) 03:08, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose as written ("including any other accounts on any other web sites"). It would seem odd not to be allowed to ask, "are you the XYZ123 who also posts on ...?", when it's obvious that it's the same person and they're using the same name. It's sometimes important to discuss those connections when someone is causing the same type of problem on WP that they've caused elsewhere, or where there might be COI/paid advocacy. I wouldn't oppose similar wording if it excluded the obvious cases. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:45, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

  Since WP:COI says not to reveal such alleged "connections" without permission from the editor, even for suspected paid advocacy, maybe it isn't all that "important to discuss those connections" on wiki. The COI guideline tells you to e-mail your information to Checkuser; this policy gives additional options. I'm not sure that I've seen a case in which it's actually "important" to discuss such connections in public and without the user's permission. I've seen lots in which it was convenient for editors (and especially for POV pushers on the other side of a dispute), but I'm not sure that I ever saw a case in which it was actually necessary (and I did spend a couple of years over at COIN, so I've seen more than a couple of cases).
  Speaking of COIN, overall, I think that a bright-line clarification might make COIN discussions much easier, but it might tend to fill up the e-mail inboxes of whoever has been dealing with that noticeboard since Atama disappeared. Did anyone post a notice over at WT:COIN to solicit their opinions? WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:09, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support - it's not a change in policy, just a clarification of some examples of "other contact information". That has always included "any other accounts on any other web sites" and rightly so. WaggersTALK 14:27, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
• Specify. I actually oppose the policy (as per the legendary SlimVirgin's example), but I will absolutely insist that it be written down. It's ridiculous that the post "Editor XYZ123 posted as Reddit user XYZ123" may be seen as completely fine by some oversighters and a clear violation of WP:OUTING by others, and it's a matter of luck or persistence until you find someone who will remove and oversight it. This common case should be made quite clear in our policy. --GRuban (talk) 15:36, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

  I think this is a very sound rationale. We should have fewer unwritten rules and fewer gotchas. If we're enforcing this (and therefore if we are punishing people who post such information in perfectly good faith), then we need to write down this rule. Some people actually read this policy to make sure that it's okay, and we don't want them to read the policy, rationally conclude that their message is safe, and then get embarrassed or punished because someone else read the policy and came to a different conclusion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:57, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose change in policy, as too many policies too strongly worded can be too easy of a target for too many malicious people to use to gain the system. (And, yes, I did try to think of additional places to add "to(o)" to that sentence.;) ) No objections and some support to GRuban's proposal immediately above, provided that all due effort is spent to verify that the person is in fact identical. However, speaking strictly on my own, I think, maybe irrationally, that in most of the cases where this might reasonably apply policy changes might be ultimately unnecessary, although if GRuban or anyone else can think of instances where such action was not taken that would be very welcome information and might help me change my mind. John Carter (talk) 16:30, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose when directly related to Wikipedia and discussion of Wikipedia and Wikipedia editors. But when not related to Wikipedia in any way shape or form it is indeed inappropriate and should be covered under outing. KonveyorBelt 18:30, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

  Yes the policy need to be clarified to say this. If someone is running a Wikipedia editing business, use not being able to discuss said business as the money end of things occurs off wiki is while, unreasonable. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:53, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

  How do you get from "don't link to other accounts on any other web sites" to "you're not allowed to discuss a business"? Businesses aren't "accounts at web sites". WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:57, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

  At Elance businesses / individuals operate through accounts. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:25, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose I think User:Protonk has summed up best why this is a dreadful change that leads to absolutely farcical situations. So I'll just post diffs of what he's said (can I notify him about this discussion or would that break canvassing rules?) [16][17] Bosstopher (talk) 21:50, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support per WP:OUTING, nothing is stopping me from creating an account named XYZ on twitter and saying I'm XYZ on Wikipedia Loganmac (talk) 02:14, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

• That is not the issue—everyone understands that impersonation and trolling are easy. This is nothing to do with OUTING—linking to personal information is prohibited, and will remain prohibited. The proposed wording means that we cannot link to a page showing off-wiki coordination if that page has posts by someone with the same name as an editor. Paid advocacy or POV pushing could be planned on a website and no one could expose the situation if someone calling themselves, say, Jimbo Wales was posting there. Johnuniq (talk) 06:03, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

• Let's be crystal clear what Loganmac is complaining about here - he's transparently, obviously Logan_Mac on reddit. In fact, he uses his Wikipedia reputation on reddit to increase his reddit reputation - ref (redacted). (redacted) - of the main harassment board on reddit focused on GamerGate - he wouldn't want anyone to think he's biased on wikipedia however, so he wants this policy in place so he can continue to lobby people offsite to harangue people on wikipedia. That's why this addition is ridiculous. Hipocrite (talk) 13:39, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

You do not need to out someone to raise the issue of gaming the system or harassing others using off-wiki tactics. Arbcom has banned users who have deliberately manipulated Wikipedia this way in the past. We just need to move away from a system that allows irrelevant allegations to be made or linked to publicly on-wiki, unless there are indisputable reasons to publicly discuss this, say during an Arbcom case or where there is legitimate whistle-blowing, for example in cases of paid editing that may be introducing bias.

For serious cases, the starting point should be raising the off-wiki material by email, then agreeing that it is appropriate to become part of a public case, not potentially making false allegations using Wikipedia as a platform. My experience on Wikipedia was to have false assertions that I supported publishing sexual images of children while at the same time having my home phone number published off-wiki, and some rather stupidly irrelevant claims about my gay sex life both on and off Wikipedia. We need to move away from an environment where these types of "debating techniques" are used to inflame drama and may cause real life harm. --Fæ (talk) 14:34, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

You just accussed an entire group of people of being harassers, and you accused me of lobbying people here, when links to the Cultural Marxism articles have been posted everywhere from Twitter to 8chan, The Escapist forums, etc. Suddently I'm to blame, alright. An Arb already said on the case to stop bringing this up since it's irrelevant to anything, now on the topic of this policy, frankly I don't give a damn about the result of the vote, but you just gave the perfect example of why it is in place. User PresN already did a long rant on offsite accounts and was deleted, so did The Devil Advocate. If criticism of Wikipedia is forbidden, then you should ban the entire staff of Wikipediocracy, Wikireview, etc. At no point have I sent harassing tweets to Ryulong or anyone related to Wikipedia. I don't know why am I to blame for what happens to people when as seen by a quick GamerGate Ryulong search, the entire movement is angry with him and others, see Operation Five Horsemen. As other fandoms are angry with him. NorthBySouthBaranof was according to him doxxed by 8chan, will you try and say that was me too? Because I got someone already saying I was an "8chan troll". On the topic of being biased, let me remind you that we're not forbidden from having personal views, as long as those views don't interfere with our neutral editing. My last edit to the 8chan article included mentioning that they were reported for alleged child pornography, would a biased editor include that? David Jaffe came out saying he found GamerGate stupid, and I made the entire article on his latest game Drawn to Death. I'm a lefitst, I intend to vote the Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner party yet I helped fix the William S. Lind lede, a conservative, I watch this little show that analyses the rightist media called 678, I follow them on Facebook and Twitter. I understand how Wikipedia works, I'm here since 2007, I have helped on es.wikipedia, I have NEVER been sanctioned for anything. I know how to be neutral. Now I think this is personal drama and I would even hat myself Loganmac (talk) 03:30, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

What on earth are you talking about? There's no way Logan_mac and Loganmac are the same person. In fact I have proof! Here is Loganmac talking about canvassing being a boogeyman, and asking people to not make accusations unless they can pinpoint editors canvassing. Yet on the very same day, this mysterious "Logan_mac" figure (whoever he is), was canvassing the same topic on Kotaku in Action. If Loganmac and Logan_mac were indeed the same person, wikiLogan would never have done something so foolish as to dare other editors to pinpoint canvassing. Either that or our outing policy is currently so broken in its current state to allow flagrant breakers of rules to rub it everyones faces. But I am certain that it is the former, and that Logan_mac and Loganmac are two separate people. Bosstopher (talk) 19:52, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

• @Loganmac: Do you honestly think we're all fucking stupid? Protonk (talk) 02:38, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. It seems pretty obvious that posting a link to someone's profile on a dating site falls afoul of the policy as it stands. But step back for a moment and think about the reason we have this policy in the first place. Policy exists to support the goals of the project - that being, to write a fucking awesome freely available, NPOV encyclopaedia. Outing is a problem because it's a way to harass editors, to drive them away from the project. Which undercuts our ability to do what we're here to do.

  Adding the proposed text to the policy would hamstring work to prevent paid editing, work to identify off-wiki canvassing, work to identify people who are harassing editors. The good stuff exists already - if someone posts a link to another site which includes your home address, and does it as a way to out you, they are working against the best interests of the project, and should probably be banned. If someone posts a link to a site where you're organising a sock army, they're working to further the aims of the project. And shouldn't be punished. Guettarda (talk) 00:27, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. As written this would constrain open discussion too much. If linking to the "other site" account discloses truly sensitive identifying information such as real name or address, then the offending link can be deleted. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:06, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose - Not all so-called "outing" is a bad thing. See, for example, the Qworty affair. We can either have a dedication to NPOV and periodic revelation of real life identities to expose underhanded COI editing behavior or we can have a Cult of Anonymity. I choose the former. Carrite (talk) 21:27, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose - I would support a slight change such that asking if someone is another account with the same name on a different site or that claims to be a WP user on another site is not outing. Beyond that, unless the account on the other site takes actions that reasonably lead someone to believe they are the same person, they should never be linked on WP. Even if the other account outside of WP claims to be a WP user, we should not assume that they are the same person on WP until the WP user says so on WP (and claims to do so would should be casting aspersions). My main objection to the "revert back" was to make sure that the change was actually authorized by the functionaries (which so far it seems to not have been as they did not revert it back once notified). I do think it is CRITICAL that we resolve this dispute in a clear manner such that there is no doubt as to what is considered outing (either all connections to off-wiki accounts is outing, or none of them are, or explicit exceptions are laid out). --Obsidi (talk) 03:17, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Uhm, "oppose" means "oppose the addition of the wording about off-wiki accounts". You seem to be supporting the addition in principle, are you not? Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:44, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
    • I oppose the proposed wording which prohibits any linking of WP account to an offsite account. I would support a more limited wording that allowed linking WP to an offsite account in some circumstances where the offsite account claims to be the onsite account or has the same name. --Obsidi (talk) 20:19, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
      • How about were the off site account claims to have written the content written by an onsite account? One does not need to claim that one is the same as the other. Maybe just allow "account X on site Y states they have written Z for this much money. User A on Wikipedia has written Z. User X has also claimed to have written this other stuff. Are these other accounts associated with User A?" Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:14, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
• As has been noted above, I'm on record opposing this. We need a common sense OUTING policy, not one twisted primarily to avoid inconveniencing people who want to harry and "expose" editors on reddit. Protonk (talk) 19:44, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. There have been many recent examples of misuse of the bolded words in WP:OUT to suppress evidence of off-wiki canvassing and meatpuppetry. For instance, a Reddit user coached other redditors on how to circumvent our content policies. He then announced his changes on Reddit and preformed said edits on-wiki, under the same name as on Reddit. He also volunteered information about himself on Reddit that had very serious implications for the safety of Wikipedia editors. Editors must be able to discuss and report such misconduct without being accused of "outing" the canvassers, although no identifying information has been mentioned. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 18:10, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose the added parenthetical. The outing policy should be weakened as necessary to strengthen defenses against paid advocacy. But I am not opposed to paid editing under the COI guidelines, because I think it's inevitable. We need a policy of disclosure of paid editing just as we expect editors to disclose their conflicts of interest. EllenCT (talk) 12:53, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Question

For those who wish to be able to post other accounts on other websites, have you tried using the methods already described in the policy? Meaning, have you emailed administrators with your concerns? And if so, did you find the process lacking? --Kyohyi (talk) 14:20, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

If one has found a bunch of undisclosed paid editors running businesses through a number of websites and both arbcom and the WMF feel the community should address this if they so desire, trying to address the issues without being able to talk openly about the evidence is difficult.

It is unclear if one is allowed to say on Wikipedia: "X website has a job posting to write Y article on Z date. Two days later it was picked up by A editor and on B date a Wikipedia article by the same name was created by this new account. Likely editor A is one of many sock puppets of this individual as they have picked up 20 other Wikipedia related jobs. We should run a check user and look at all the articles created by these sock puppets." Etc etc etc. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:44, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

James, do you really, truly need to post that? (Note that I'm using the word "need" in the sense of "this trauma patient needs emergency surgery, or he will die" and not in the sense of "I need to eat some cookies")?

Wouldn't it be equally effective to say ""X website has a job posting to write Y article on Z date. There's been some spammy activity at that article recently. I'm going to e-mail my concerns to Checkuser right now, exactly like all of our policies and the COI guideline tell me to do with information like that"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:46, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

There are two problems with that approach. First, many would regard posting information about X, Y and Z as a recipe for how to find the page in question (Google would probably show it without effort), and therefore the post would be seen as an attempt to wikilawyer the policy, and the poster should be blocked. Second, editors have limited time, and if they see a generic message with an unsupported claim of yet-another problem they are likely to move on to something else. By contrast, it was when people could easily click a provided link for one of the gamergate forums and see the problem staring them in the face that they understood the severity of the situation. Such a link would violate policy if it contained a single post by someone with the same user name as an editor (or even a similar name—see the Loganmac vs. Logan_mac discussion above). Johnuniq (talk) 09:04, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Why do we have to ask the question outright on Wikipedia? Why not send that question, and supporting evidence directly to the functionaries? --Kyohyi (talk) 19:33, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

There is no magic process at Wikipedia. The pages showing off-wiki plans to disrupt the gamergate articles would be ignored by functionaries and arbcom—they just show people planning to push certain points of view in articles, and discussing how to subvert Wikipedia's procedures. Such pages alert editors that attention is needed to defend the encylopedia—that's all we can do. Notifying functionaries would achieve nothing. Johnuniq (talk) 23:08, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

So why do we need to post such information on Wikipedia? Well the functionaries have stated that they do not see that they currently have in the mandate to address this. While others state they do not have the staff to deal with such an issue. The WMF sees this as a community issue. Arbcom does not feel like they have a direct role in undisclosed paid advocacy editing as it is not supposedly prohibited by policy. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:19, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Linking a user's Twitter feed

I asked this question a few days ago at WT:SPI but got no response. I'm interested in presenting evidence per WP:OTHERSITES that an editor here who uses the same username as his Twitter account is the same as an IP account he has been using to avoid recognition. If I link to the Twitter account in the SPI then would that be considered outing? -Thibbs (talk) 19:13, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

There is discussion above which covers this, and it is still ongoing. My opinion however is that yes, it would, underneath "other contact information". And as such, the evidence should be sent by email, instead of on wiki. --Kyohyi (talk) 19:25, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your helpful response. This is in agreement with the answer I've now received at WT:SPI too. -Thibbs (talk) 21:18, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

The RfC on "should the policy extend harassment to include posting ANY other accounts on ANY other websites?" has been closed and states that posting of other accounts is sometimes allowed. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:04, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

OUTING as applied to external links

There is an article on a third-party site that discusses a recent issue on WP. There are two editors specifically named - one has clearly made their real name and WP editor name connected on WP and elsewhere (thus no OUTING issue), the other, based on the tone of the article, willing gave their real name to this article alongside their WP name to provide comments for the article. There is an edit war against including this article on a talk page with some editors here claiming that because the OUTING was not made crystal clear on WP by this second editor named in the article, we cannot include the article here. This seems to be beyond the scope of what OUTING is meant to prevent (the outing of personal details unwillingly by a third-party within WP's edit space); if the person has opted to reveal their details to this third party, OUTING no longer applies. Could use a check to make sure of this. (I won't like the article unless asked, just in case). --MASEM (t) 19:36, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

How do you know the person making the claim on the third-party site genuinely is the Wikipedia editor with the same username? Squinge (talk) 19:41, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

UPDATE: The editor in question has said it's fine, and really him.[18] Would be an interesting question to consider in general though. What would happen if a large number of reliable source were to out a wiki editor, would they be postable on site? Bosstopher (talk) 21:18, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

There's at least 4 5 editors mentioned with real world names. Two Three are easily identified, two other are more difficult. The one editor that mentioned by Bosstopher has not published his information on-wiki. That's the standard requirement. An editor that repeats the articles identification has no on-wiki source that is required by WP:OUTING. The information needs to be published on-wiki by the editor in question before other editors can repeat it or link to it. --DHeyward (talk) 21:45, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

User:GorillaWarfare discloses she is Molly White on her userpage, and Sarah Stierch that she is User:Missvain. User:MarkBernstein's real name is his username. There is one other person, who claims to edit wikipedia mentioned by name in the article, but (at least from what I know) they aren't easily identified, also their name has been referenced in the Signpost before. With regards to NBSB, this seems like an open and shut case of Ignore All Rules, as we are clearly not harassing him by posting the link. Bosstopher (talk) 22:17, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

I've just (bizarrely) been topic-banned, so I have no idea if I'm permitted to contribute here in the event I wanted to. It’s also quite odd that an article on a major American site, one which has evoked hundreds of thoughtful Twitter comments, thousands of Facebook shares, and at least one follow-on article in slate in the day after it appeared, apparently cannot be identified or mentioned in Wikipedia. Since I'm pinged above, please email me if you'd like my help for anything. MarkBernstein (talk) 22:24, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Just clarifying that the Molly White named in that article is indeed me, that I gave the journalist permission to use my name, and that I disclose my real name on my userpage. GorillaWarfare (talk) 05:18, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Does the article meet WP:RS? If so, and you genuinely want to use it as a reference (as in, it sources a point That has both policy support and consensus for inclusion) then away you go. Mind you, it's a blog post and contains at least one fundamental factual error, so the RS hurdle might be hard to jump than it appears. -- Euryalus (talk) 10:28, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually, the intended use is a "in the media" link regarding the article. (It might be a reference for a different but not on the page where edit warring is going on). --MASEM (t) 15:13, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Stalking

Can one of the policy writers here explain how to ascertain wikistalking? Both in articlespace and personal and others' userspace. Middayexpress (talk) 22:14, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Community discussion on harassment reporting

There are many current proposals as part of the 2015 Inspire Campaign related to harassment management. I’ve created a page, Meta:Grants:IdeaLab/Community discussion on harassment reporting meant to serve as a central space where the various stakeholders in these proposals and other community members can discuss which methods might serve our community best so that we can unify our ideas into collective action. I encourage you to join the conversation and contribute your ideas! OR drohowa (talk) 02:47, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, OR drohowa. Quite helpful. Best, Middayexpress (talk) 16:11, 30 April 2015 (UTC)