Wikipedia talk:Pledges

Confidentiality: Is it OK to summarize statements?

(The following grew out of a discussion of whether IP users should be permitted to contribute in a certain process. Sebastian, who was a moderator in that situation, offered to allow IP users under condition that they provide a moderator with sufficient explanation.)

I think that the idea of an explanation is a good one, but I am concerned about the notion of it being only a private explanation. There may be elements of detail which need to be private, but if the moderators do conclude that there are genuinely pressing reasons why an editor prefers to reveal more about themselves by using an IP address than a username of their choice, then I think it would be fair for the moderators to explain this strange situation as far as can be done without breach of privacy. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:46, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I disagree as a matter of principle. Any information that a person wants to keep confidential, and that I would not have known without the person entrusting it to me, is confidential to me. Releasing that information or a single-handed synthesis of parts of that information would be a violation of my pledge of confidentiality. — Sebastian 05:44, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, this sort of situation arises frequently, and can usually be handled quite simply with a brief generalised summary which is agreed with the person concerned. For example, if the reason is "my husband will kill me if I get so far involved in wikipedia as to register a username", summarise it as "family concerns" --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:30, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

That still is releasing information, isn't it? We don't know a person's private situation. I understand that your example was just a thought experiment; so allow me to spin it further: Imagine, the husband also threatened to kill the wife if she complained about him. In that case, releasing even the summary could be fatal. Now, there are ways to solve that, too: I (or generally the "pledger" - I'd like to see a better term for that) could ask the user if it is OK, and it is likely that the two will find some wording that will not cause problems. That's what I would do if it was vital for the community to know the information. — Sebastian 16:57, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

No, I don't agree that it's a release: it is describing the nature of information, rather than releasing the information. The solution of asking the user to agree a form of words is what I suggested :)

The reason I'm pressing this point is that the IP concerned has not suggested that there is any such confidential reason, merely a general dislike of the username system. It is important for the community to know whether there are some real-world reasons for refusing to register an ID, or just a dislike of the way wikipedia works. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:33, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm a bit disappointed that you're evading my thought experiment. But to address your point: If you feel the community needs to understand reasons against signing up then there is no need to connect that to an individual person; no more than we need to know who was the first person who suffered from a rare disease. Medicine has ways to deal with that, and so can we. — Sebastian 17:52, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not evading, just suggesting that the form of words could be agreed at the time. That might be a particularly extreme case where no generalisation would do, in which case the public explanation could just be "reasons which must remain confidential".

My concern here was not "reasons for signing up", it was the question of whether an individual might have "reasons for not signing up". Since there doesn't seem to be any general guidance on that, it seems reasonable for the admin concerned to strive to find some way of conveying to the community something about the nature of the exceptional reason for an exemption. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:04, 14 March 2009 (UTC)