Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 01:53, 11 December 2014

The project page associated with this talk page is an official policy on Misplaced Pages. Policies have wide acceptance among editors and are considered a standard for all users to follow. Please review policy editing recommendations before making any substantive change to this page. Always remember to keep cool when editing, and don't panic.

See WP:PROPOSAL for Misplaced Pages's procedural policy on the creation of new guidelines and policies. See how to contribute to Misplaced Pages guidance for recommendations regarding the creation and updating of policy and guideline pages.

This page is only for discussion of the policy and not for reporting cases of harassment; if you require information on dealing with harassment click here. Thank you for your time.

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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 Misplaced Pages. 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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)

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 Misplaced Pages. 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 "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 Misplaced Pages, 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 Misplaced Pages matters, especially if it is done in an attempt to influence an on-wiki situation
• The off-wiki account claims to be a Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages and designed to influence Misplaced Pages; 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages, 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 Misplaced Pages. 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 Misplaced Pages 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)‎ . . Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents ‎ (→‎Tutelary: Restore, not WP:OUTING, no personal information)13:33, September 12, 2014 (diff | hist) . . (+2,303)‎ . . Misplaced Pages: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 , 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-Misplaced Pages 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)

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 . Rather than making spurious accusations of "hounding", making personal attacks and making harassing posts on editor's talk pages , Epeefleche should address the article issues I have raised . 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 and this . 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)