User talk:Ilike2burnthing

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Happy editing! Cheers, Doug Weller talk 13:42, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Kaspersky bans and allegations of Russian government ties

WP:WARN templates are for user talk pages, not article talk pages. ThaddeusSholto (talk) 16:54, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Contentious topics alert for the topic area of the Balkans or Eastern Europe

You have recently made edits related to the Balkans or Eastern Europe. This is a standard message to inform you that the Balkans or Eastern Europe is a designated contentious topic. This message does not imply that there are any issues with your editing. Contentious topics are the successor to the former discretionary sanctions system, which you may be aware of. For more information about the contentious topics system, please see Wikipedia:Contentious topics. For a summary of difference between the former and new system, see WP:CTVSDS. Doug Weller talk 13:49, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Community sanctions alert for the Russo-Ukrainian War

This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date. You have shown interest in the Russo-Ukrainian War. Due to past disruption in this topic area, the community has authorised uninvolved administrators to impose contentious topics restrictions—such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks—on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, expected standards of behaviour, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic. For additional information, please see the guidance on these sanctions. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor.

Doug Weller talk 14:21, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

January 2024

Do not add personal information about other contributors to Wikipedia without their explicit permission, as you did at Talk:Kaspersky bans and allegations of Russian government ties. Wikipedia operates on the principle that every contributor has the right to remain completely anonymous. Posting personal information about another user is strictly prohibited under Wikipedia's harassment policy. Wikipedia's policy on this issue is strictly enforced and your edits have been reverted and/or suppressed, not least because such information can appear on web searches. Wikipedia's privacy policy is to protect the privacy of every user, including you. Persistently adding personal information about other contributors will result in being blocked from editing. Connecting an editor to an offwiki account can be considered WP:OUTING. ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 17:53, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

I realise that the edit in question was made on the 12th January; however I'm leaving this as the previous message was removed from the article talk page (as the warning messages are designed for user talk pages), and to clarify (based on your comment here) that linking editors to off-wiki accounts can still be considered to be WP:OUTING. Best, ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 17:58, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

@A smart kitten should WP:OUTING be updated then to specifically mention off-wiki anonymous account names?

Currently the examples given seem to very narrowly refer to information which could be used to identify the person IRL, "[...] real-life name, date of birth, identification numbers, home or workplace address, job title and work organisation, telephone number, email address, other contact information, or photograph [...]"

I suppose it could be covered by 'other contact information', but given the context of the rest of the examples that would not be my reading of it. Ilike2burnthing (talk) 18:22, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

See the Exceptions section of that policy, that begins: Posting links to other accounts on other websites is allowable in specific situations. Schazjmd (talk) 19:15, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping (& thanks Schazjmd for beating me to the reply) :) I've had a quick search of some archives of Wikipedia talk:Harassment, and I found Wikipedia talk:Harassment/Archive 21 § Outing and external accounts, where this was discussed a bit. That lead me to find this edit (which noted in the edit summary that the addition reflected what seemed to be current practice). That edit added wording regarding external accounts, which is currently present (in a slightly-modified format) at the bottom of WP:OUTING § Exceptions (my emphasis added):

While in the limited circumstances outlined above, links to external websites containing solicitations to edit Wikipedia may be posted on Wikipedia to demonstrate that there may be conflict of interest editing, links to personal profiles on external sites should not be connected to any specific Wikipedia editor unless that editor discloses it themselves.

This might not be the best sub-section header for the information to be under, though, and it might be worth potentially moving the information further up (though that's probably a discussion for another time). (For what it's worth, my personal opinion would be that such accounts would also be covered generally by personal information & other contact information, regardless of the additional prohibition).

All the best, ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 19:19, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

I think this is very much a case of if you know what it is 'supposed to mean' then it seems obvious.

I can only speak for myself, but it really isn't clear that external anonymous accounts are supposed to be regarded as even remotely on a par with someone's real name and home address. Somewhat echoing what you said, having a third of a sentence at the end of a separate section, especially a section titled 'Exceptions', does not help.

To be particular, a username is not a 'link to a personal profile' (the word 'link' in the context of that sentence is specifically a URL, not a synonym for connecting or relating).

Given that I now understand the wider intention of the policy, I agree that external anonymous usernames should not be mentioned. The simplest solution would seem to me to be modifying the list to, "[...] email address, usernames for external accounts, other contact information, or photograph [...]" Ilike2burnthing (talk) 20:04, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

A big issue is that we really don't want to worry about what people have and have not disclosed elsewhere. It may be someone's external account really has no other info disclosed that they have not disclosed here in which case you might arguably be correct there's little more revealed (although you still shouldn't post it). It may be that they're given a birth date, locale related information, family details (e.g. whether they're married, whether they have children), educational achievements, work details or even a name. Unless you've looked through every single one of someone's posts on whatever external site, you have no idea of knowing if they've given more information either, so you really shouldn't assuming something is "anonymous accounts". For example, I've definitely revealed details about myself elsewhere that I have never revealed on Wikipedia and do not want to reveal on Wikipedia. (And if you have looked through every single one of someone's post on an external site, why on earth did you do that?) Nil Einne (talk) 19:40, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, so that should be very clearly stated then, rather than the confusing state it is currently. Ilike2burnthing (talk) 19:53, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

I modified my reply but got hit by an edit conflict since you replied. I'll leave my original reply along with this modification. A big issue is that we really don't want to worry about what people have and have not disclosed elsewhere. It may be someone's external account really has no other info disclosed that they have not disclosed here in which case you might arguably be correct there's little more revealed (although you still shouldn't post it). It may be that they're given a birth date, locale related information, family details (e.g. whether they're married, whether they have children), educational achievements, work details or even a name. It may be that they've given a link to some other profile of theirs where something like this is revealed. (Noting if there is a link to some other profile, again even if this might seem "anonymous" you really need to look throughout the entire thing to work it out. Sometimes there might even be stuff elsewhere e.g. if it's a personal website perhaps there are details in the WHOIS or even hidden in the HTML. Likewise photos might have metadata. Heck some websites to preserve metadata on photos so any analysis of the original website you linked to will need to consider this.) Unless you've looked carefully through every single one of someone's posts as well as any user details etc, on whatever external site, you have no idea of knowing if they've given more information either, so you really shouldn't assuming something is "anonymous accounts". Note that sometimes it may not even be obvious that something is revealing such information. For example, if someone posts "look at this, for some info" that may seem fairly innocuous, but it could easily be a link to a blog post or something else the person has posted, and it might be clear from careful analysis of the context that this is the case. I've definitely revealed details about myself elsewhere that I have never revealed on Wikipedia and do not want to reveal on Wikipedia. And if you have carefully looked through every single one of someone's posts on an external site and considered all other factors like metadata, details in the HTML source, WHOIS and whatever else (some of which I as a reasonably technically competent person wouldn't be confident I'd know to look out for), why on earth did you do that? Heck one thing which just occurred to me is that in some cases it might not even be the person who's profile you're linking to. For example, on some websites it might be perfectly reasonably that someone else might reply revealing some details about the person you're linking to without there being anything wrong with that given the website, relationship and context. So frankly, in the vast majority of cases, no matter your level of technical competence and no matter how carefully you've looked, I would really question any statement from you that you're not revealing extra personal details because there's nothing there. Nil Einne (talk) 19:55, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Apologies for the overly quick reply :P

Yep, I agree with the idea behind the policy. My only issue now is that WP:OUTING is currently poorly written in this regard. Simple solution provided above. Ilike2burnthing (talk) 20:48, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

FYI, I've edited the page to add profiles on external sites to the opening paragraph. Best, ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 00:25, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! Ilike2burnthing (talk) 01:26, 30 January 2024 (UTC)