Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Evidence storage (talk | contribs) at 14:29, 6 September 2007 (Added section: Reprinting a statement made on 26 August). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Editor identity and self-disclosure

Part of this case reflects an unresolved dilemma from Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Barrett v. Rosenthal in which Fyslee had disclosed his real life identity onsite, then attempted to recover his privacy afterward. During that case I requested the Committee make a ruling on the principle and I repeat that request now.

Such disclosures have played an important role in cracking some of the tougher investigations. For instance:

• The Joan of Arc vandal: shortly after creating the original account, this editor disclosed his real name as Allen Williamson. 1 1/2 years (and many disruptions) later he mocked up a PDF file to resemble a scholarly journal and tried to circumvent WP:NOR, WP:V, and WP:RS by citing himself - also listing his real name as the author. That connection played a significant role in the community's decision to siteban him.

• JB196: self-identified as Jonathan Barber, later indef blocked and evaded the ban as BooyakaDell. One of the factors that led to BooyakaDell's identification as a sockpuppet was a post in which BooyakaDell cited a source as Jonathan Barber's work although the original article had no byline.

I hope the Committee can formulate some principle that would allow good faith editors to recover privacy without excluding key evidence in long term disruption investigations. Every version I've considered boils down to WP:ILIKEIT v. WP:IDONTLIKEIT - which leads me to conclude that the lesser of two evils is to continue permitting these investigations at the cost of some discomfort to the adults who later regret the disclosure. The right to vanish depends upon the dedication of the individual who exercises it: an editor who returns to familiar topics and reenters conflicts can expect that sooner or later enough evidence will accumulate to reestablish their identity beyond reasonable doubt. Durova 04:51, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Reprinting a statement made on 26 August

There has been a lot of criticism and failure to AGF in the workshop and on the evidence page about my supposed inconsistencies regarding the use of my real name, especially with respect to Jance. All of this was explained in an apology I left on the VPP board on 26 August, which I reprint here, since my merely linking to it in my evidence page seems to be being ignored. User:THF 14:29, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

THF

Per WP:COOL, I have not edit-warred on this, but I'm asking for the end of hostilities and edit-warring on a remarkably silly issue, and have one apology and one request, which I split into separate sections. THF 15:09, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

1. On the question of WP:HARASS

Over the last six months, I have been subjected to an extraordinary amount of harassment because I sought to comply with WP:COI and disclosed my identity. In an effort to reduce the harassment, I made a username change, which I thought was a good compromise: long-time editors generally inclined to behave themselves knew who I was, trolls wouldn't be able to immediately pick me out. Unfortunately, due to a number of unenforced violations of WP:CIVIL and WP:STALK, this has had a counterproductive effect, as efforts to politely ask people not to gratuitously throw my real name around merely encouraged canvassing for systematic harassment. I strongly suspect that much of the combat over this was a proxy war for other Misplaced Pages controversies that had nothing to with me, but that some editors were seizing upon this dispute to create a precedent for attacking a more popular editor. So I'm just not going to ask any more, and would encourage people to not fight about it, and instead focus on the production of the encyclopedia.

I have to suspect that Misplaced Pages would not have treated me this way if I were left-wing, rather than right-wing.

Except this is more than a suspicion: it's a demonstrable fact. In February, I complained that the Drum Major Institute had retained two attorneys to act as "Civil Justice Misplaced Pages editors", and was systematically subverting Misplaced Pages by completely rewriting every article in my field, legal reform, to reflect solely left-wing views, making literally thousands of POV-pushing and original-research edits that violated Misplaced Pages policy even without the WP:COI violations. But when I linked to the blog post where they indicated their conflict of interest, I was immediately threatened with an indefinite block, administrators debated whether I should even be given the chance to apologize, and was sternly warned never to do it again--even though the same editor previously edited under her real name before starting a new account with a new username, but no record of her previous account's edit history. No one even suggested that I was not in the wrong, and I abjectly apologized.

I apologize to those who were offended by my invocation of WP:HARASS in what were literally identical circumstances. I am an attorney by training, and my mind thinks in terms of precedent, and this was an obvious application of precedent to facts precisely on point. It should have occurred to me sooner that the problem was with the original administrative decision in the first case to demand an apology from me and forbid me from repeating the evidence of COI.

I want to thank those who came to my defense, and I apologize to them if they are frustrated by my concession here after they spent so much effort on the issue.

I apologize to Misplaced Pages to the extent that my request for straightforward policies to be enforced as they had been previously enforced was disruptive. For the reasons stated above, these requests were in good faith.

I note that this incident raises three issues for discussion:

• The need to modify WP:HARASS.
• Whether Misplaced Pages has a bias in enforcement of its blocking policies.
• Whether Misplaced Pages should be permitting any anonymous editing of the encyclopedia. THF 15:09, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

2. On the question of WP:COI

I would like to repeat again that, over the course of 7000 edits in over 2500 pages at Misplaced Pages, I have consistently tried to comply in good faith with the WP:COI guideline, seeking guidance from admins with legal training. I would again like to ask editors to comply with WP:NPA, and comment on edits, not editors: for all the complaining about me, no one has identified a single instance of a bad-faith mainspace edit. Compare and contrast SPA User:Drum Major Institute, which has made precisely one non-promotional edit in the course of its Misplaced Pages career without anyone saying boo or nominating its articles for AFDs.

I again ask that COI guidelines be enforced neutrally. Chip Berlet and William Connolley are permitted to edit articles in their field, even though they have very strong opinions, and even though they are attacked by trolls on- and off-wiki for the appearance of COI. But when they are attacked and harassed by trolls on-wiki, the trolls are blocked. In my case, however, not only are the trolls not blocked, but their demands are taken seriously: there are editors who are demanding that I entirely avoid not just articles in my field of expertise, but any controversial articles. I'd like not to have to fight the same battles over and over, and not have to wade through mud on such simple basic tasks as participation on the WP:BLP/N cleanup. Can we get a definitive and internally consistent ruling: are Chip, William, and I permitted to edit, and if so, under what constraints?

I note that an overexpansive COI ruling, while simultaneously permitting anonymous edits, is only going to cause more conflicts of interest, by making it perfectly clear that different rules apply for anonymous editors and non-anonymous editors. There is also discussion at WP:COI/N#Sicko, where I demonstrate that there is no reasonable interpretation of the COI guideline that suggests I should be prohibited from editing that article. THF 15:09, 26 August 2007 (UTC)