Wikipedia talk:Harassment

Ongoing discussion at Meta

See meta:Grants talk:IdeaLab/Propose Wikimedia Code of Conduct (adapted from open source Contributor Covenant) Jbh^Talk 13:47, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Clarification: "Posting links to other accounts"

Hi all, we've recently seen a kerfuffle at AN/I regarding a possible OUTING. Some editors were suggesting that the line "Posting links to other accounts on other websites is allowable on a case-by-case basis" allows this to happen - it is noted that this line is "under discussion", however it seems no firm agreement or consensus was ever made. I would like to ask for a clarification on this line, and how it may relate to editors wishing to link an account to another account on another website in a COI investigation -- samtar ^{talk or stalk} 19:29, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Samtar, the key words are "on a case-by-case basis." The case you mentioned involved linking to someone's Linked in account, which included a full real name and other personal details the person had not offered. That's the kind of example that will normally attract a block. In addition, there's obviously no point in showing the person concerned what his own Linked in account is, which is what happened here. SarahSV ^(talk) 19:46, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

In case it's helpful, that sentence was added in February 2015 as:

Posting links to other accounts on other websites may occasionally be allowed such as when those accounts are being used to transact paid editing. [1]

then changed to:

Posting links to other accounts on other websites is allowable on a case by case basis. [2]

The addition followed this RfC, during which it was agreed that words to this effect had consensus. SarahSV ^(talk) 19:56, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Just remove the line. What a ridiculous loophole: "on a case-by-case basis". There's no reason person A should post a link to person B's account on another website, without their express consent, period. We have a privacy policy, oversighters and Arbcom, which should make it abundantly clear that posting such links is a bad idea.- MrX 19:59, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Also the RfC to clarify what would be allowable did not produce any results either. That discussion can be found here[3]. --Kyohyi (talk) 20:04, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the reply SlimVirgin - I do need to echo what MrX states above, I don't personally understand a situation where this would be useful. Could this not just be removed, as the RfC Kyohyi kindly links to above did indeed end without any real solid clarifications -- samtar ^{talk or stalk} 20:07, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

As can be seen in earlier talk, I have been of the opinion for some time that the community is unclear about the boundaries of outing, especially with regard to COI investigations, and I have been planning to initiate a community RfC in order to get these issues clarified. Seeing today's events as soon as I logged in today, I feel very, very saddened that I have not gotten that going yet. (I've been swamped with the GMO RfC, and just have not had enough Wiki-time to give this policy page the attention that it needs. Sorry.) The one fact that I think is abundantly clear is that anyone who claims that everything is already crystal-clear and anyone with clue knows outing when they see it, has not read the discussions at ANI and elsewhere about this case. It's readily apparent that experienced, good-faith editors are saying opposite things about whether what happened was block-worthy or not. (Myself, I honestly don't know!) The community is going to have to pin this down. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:11, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Couldn't agree more Tryptofish - kind of the reason why I wanted to kick off this discussion. It seems no one really knows what is and isn't acceptable (sure, I have my own ideas but I'd at least like a policy I can disagree with rather one where I don't know if I'm right or wrong!). The range of opinions at the above linked ANI thread shows we're currently a community divided -- samtar ^{talk or stalk} 20:13, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Exactly, thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:15, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

• Samtar, this sentence has had consensus whenever it has been discussed. Bear in mind that this policy isn't about COI. It has to cover lots of other situations.

One example would be when an editor, User:Blah (where Blah is an unusual name, but not a real name) makes edits that could arguably be racist. It goes to AN/I, where we discover that someone named Blah has a blog that shows he's a member of the Ku Klux Klan. The "case-by-case basis" sentence would allow editors to point out that connection.

That sentence would not extend to the Linked in situation that just occurred; that is a clear case of posting a real name without the person's consent, and also unnecessarily because the COI issue could have been handled without it. SarahSV ^(talk) 20:28, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

SarahSV: very true, and I agree that it should be allowable in that situation - I guess it's somewhat difficult for a lot of editors to draw the line. Do you think the "case-by-case" aspect could be clarified slightly more? -- samtar ^{talk or stalk} 20:32, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Samtar, the "case-by-case" issue has allowed admins to use judgment depending on whether the posting was necessary and done in good faith, how much information it revealed, and so on. I believe that that admin discretion is important, but of course it means editors are expected to be extremely careful when invoking that clause.

I think instead of focusing on that sentence we should have a discussion about what steps editors are expected to take when suspicions of COI editing necessarily involve a real name. I posted a suggestion on 26 June at WT:COI that we try to write a section on that, but it might be better in a policy than in a guideline.

Once we have those steps in place, we can adjust the "case-by-case" sentence accordingly. SarahSV ^(talk) 20:39, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't understand why we would allow random, anonymous Wikipedia editors to do amateur detective work outside of Wikipedia, and then post the results of it on Wikipedia. Does it occur to anyone that usernames are not always unique, and that anyone can create an account with anyone's username on virtually any other website? - MrX 20:44, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

It occurred to all of us. "amateur...work" is what we have, for all our work in writing, enhancing, defending, and protecting the Wikipedia. This is probably not the best project to gain popularity by denigrating amateur work.

We ought to put back in the clause such as when those accounts are being used to transact paid editing (except that "paid" should be replaced with "commercial" since it is more precise and for other reasons which I'll skip now but can explain if asked). Because this best reflects consensus. Looking over the discussions, here's one way to think of the issue:

1. A large percentage of people believe that linking to another account is never OK, period.
2. A large percentage of people believe that linking to another account is OK, but if and only if there's good reason to suspect and point out undisclosed commercial editing, since this is a special situation and a special problem for a volunteer organization.
3. A large percentage of people believe that linking to another is OK, if there's good reason to suspect undisclosed commercial editing but also perhaps for other reasons, such as maybe to show undisclosed non-commercial COI editing, or to show that the person has an account on a neo-Nazi site, or perhaps other situations of that type.

Well, suppose for the purposes of argument that each "large percentage" is 33% (it's not that neat of course, but bear with me). Well then you can combine the #2 and #3 people and get 66% in favor of #2. Even though the #3 people will believe it doesn't go far enough, it ought to be acceptable to them. You can't combine the #1 and #2 people (or the the #1 and #3 people) in the same way to get any meaningful agreement.

Note that while I have an opinion on the matter I haven't expressed it, and there's no need to, What we have here is an exercise in political logic. Political logic demands that, in order to be acceptable, the exception needs to be narrowly defined. Herostratus (talk) 21:08, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

I think that, approximately, you are correct about those three categories of editor opinion. The recurrent problem arises when an experienced editor, acting in good faith, is in one of those groups, and the administrator or oversighter acting on the case is in a different group. The administrator or oversighter may believe that it is clear in that they know it when they see it, and that it should have been equally clear to the experienced, good-faith editor. But it isn't. And the idea that we have to keep blocking good editors so that we can come to an agreement privately before unblocking them, only to find later that someone else was not in on the agreement, is not working. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:15, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Our purpose here is to build an encyclopedia, not comb the entire internet to try to connect accounts. Amateur writers—good; amateur detectives—not so good. NE Ent nailed in when he said "Support addition due to inability to actually know authorship of off-wiki content" in the RfC. We should be making decisions based on the quality of content, not based on suspicions of what people do outside of Wikipedia. If the WMF wants a no paid editing policy, let them enforce it.- MrX 22:01, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

I've thought some more about what I said just above about how some things are not working. I'll ping @GorillaWarfare:, because what I'm going to say relates in some ways to her oversighting and blocking in this case. Having a policy against outing, it should really be our top priority to protect the privacy of the users who might have been victimized. And, when there is a block of an experienced editor, it occurs to me that we often end up with a Streisand effect that ends up undermining exactly that top priority. Here, we had an IP open an ANI thread instead of contacting the oversight email list privately. The discussion that followed, that was significantly prolonged by editors discussing the block, contains enough information that, as I read it (after the discussion was already closed when I logged in), I can reconstruct pretty much exactly what the private information was, and if I were so inclined, could probably rediscover it on my own. And that is on a high-visibility noticeboard. I think that's exactly what should not happen, if we care about protecting privacy. We can't prevent IPs or anyone else from starting threads on noticeboards, but we should probably do more in the way of oversighting discussions about material that was itself oversighted. (I do see that GW blanked the ANI section, but then self-reverted.) Moreover, blocking an experienced editor also draws attention by virtue of the block itself. We really need to weigh the relative benefit of blocking presumably clueful editors just to be sure that they won't repeat the mistake, against the downside of creating Streisand effects. It makes real good sense to me to have oversighted the edit that was oversighted. But I'm not convinced that the subsequent block is really the most enlightened way to protect privacy. I have the blocked editor's talk page on my watchlist, so all of this was the first thing I saw when I logged in today. And as I said, I'm concerned that I can see too much that is still easily found onsite. If instead the edit were oversighted as it was, and then the editor was given a strong warning (with a block following if anything were repeated), it all would have passed with much less fanfare. I think that the privacy of the possibly outed user might actually have been better served. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:30, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, Tryptofish. I wholeheartedly agree with you that "it should really be our top priority to protect the privacy of the users who might have been victimized." I felt that removing the content that breached an editor's privacy was necessary, as well as blocking the editor who added it. I generally do blank posts on ANI or other noticeboards when someone is requesting removal of oversightable content, because though they are generally in good faith, they draw attention to the issue. In this case I self-reverted because the post was just a few sentences and beyond the link to the (now-oversighted) diff, did not contain any information that was concerning. Unfortunately I was just leaving my apartment as this issue came to my attention; had I been around I would have shut down the following ANI discussion much sooner, as ANI is quite obviously not the place for such things.

I guess the tl;dr here is: people should not discuss oversight-blocks/etc. on public and high-visibility fora such as ANI. The notice on Wikipedia:Oversight mentions this, and Wikipedia:Oversight/FAQ goes into more detail. I would love for the various oversighters/admins/editors who see such posts to shut them down quickly when they see them, and thank you to Mike V for doing so.

I disagree, however, that experienced editors should not be blocked when they breach these policies. While I agree that there are instances in which an editor should be warned instead of blocked for the first time they've brushed up against the outing line, I do not see this as one of those cases. In general I also worry about the repercussions of applying different block criteria to experienced vs. less experienced editors. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:45, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

About your last point (and without getting into the specifics of individual editors), I think that this goes in part to WP:NOTPUNITIVE and in part to placing a higher priority on avoiding the drawing of attention than on enforcement. I worry that sometimes we get so far into the desire to draw a clear line under the unacceptability of attempted outing that we treat blocking as more important than avoiding Streisand effects. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:03, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Whoa, hold on -- I'm sorry, I'm don't follow this stuff that closely, but on what planet could a person be blocked for posting a link to an off-site account? The policy -- and this page is a policy, not an essay or guideline -- says pretty clearly "Posting links to other accounts on other websites is allowable. Right? Isn't that what the policy says? Looks like plain English to me.

Granted, it then follows with "on a case-by-case basis", which is strictly indeterminate and meaningless hand-waving -- and anyone who understands policies and rules knows this, or should. It's like the preamble part of a law or something. It wouldn't be admissible in any court as having any meaning, generally. Which cases? Who decides which cases are covered? It doesn't say. Since it doesn't say, we don't know what the person writing it meant or intended. If I were judging it, I'd say the person making the link is best positioned to judge if this is an appropriate "case" of the larger set of instances described as "case-by-case" -- subject probably to what a reasonable person would consider at least arguably appropriate, to rule out obvious trolling or blackguardery.

I'm not saying its a good policy or bad policy. I'm just saying its the policy. You can't block people for closely following the letter and spirit of an important policy -- can you? If you can, what good are policies at all??? Herostratus (talk) 00:06, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

@Herostratus: I wouldn't call it "meaningless hand-waving" or "indeterminate," not if I am an experienced editor who is working in this "paid editing" area. Which I do. I have never, ever outed anyone nor even come close. I have never been accused of doing so. Nor do I believe that outing is a necessary byproduct of working in this area. It doesn't take enormous experience in this area to know that "outing" is o-u-t. If I wish to push against the boundaries of outing I am of course free to do so, but I risk getting blocked until the end of life on earth. Coretheapple (talk) 22:45, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

And what you just said goes exactly to why I feel that the community currently lacks consensus about what is or is not outing. I know for a fact that users are blocked for posting such links, or even mentioning that such links exist, without actually posting the link itself, quite regularly. In fairness, though, I think that the answer to your question is that the link reveals personal information about the other user, that the user never chose to make available on Wikipedia. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:13, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Herostratus makes a good point about the letter of policy, though I disagree with his conclusion that the outcome of this point should be not oversighting/blocking as needed in cases like this: as a result of the circa-early-2015 RfC, we have a policy that basically says "don't do this thing, except sometimes you can do it, maybe, who knows, we'll find out afterward" - with the waffling added because community members said they needed to be able to post outing information sometimes, Arbcom refused to handle such information instead, and an RfC closure to the effect of "sure, add that wording" was made, despite the protestations of at least one oversighter (me) to the effect of "all that's going to do is confuse people while oversighters continue to apply policy according to their judgment, as both the previous and revised wording basically state".

As a result of that change, we now have people who read the policy, take it at its word, and proceed to post off-wiki information and then are shocked to find that "case-by-case basis" doesn't actually mean "this type of information will never, or even mostly never, be oversighted" or "your judgment overrides global privacy policy regarding personally identifiable information". It's confusion for no gain: it doesn't stop privacy policy applying, nor does it stop oversighters from suppressing private information. All it does is make it unclear whether this type of thing is going to get one in trouble or not.

I advocated at the time, and I advocate now, for a policy that clearly states that posting off-wiki information about someone else publicly on Wikipedia when the user has not placed that information on Wikipedia themselves is not ok. The fact is that in probably 90%+ of cases of such information that I can think of, that's bluntly true: it's private information, it should not be out there for public consumption, and it's well within the dictates of oversight policy, both global and local. If a case needs attention because of something like COI but involves off-wiki information, it should be passed to the venues that already exist to handle cases related to private information: arbcom-l (if Arbcom has changed its mind about not doing the job, and I don't know the answer to that) or oversight-l (Arbcom recently passed a motion mandating that the list be opened to accept emails from non-oversighters, and the list is attended to by, at the very least, at least one oversighter who is willing to look at such cases: me).

For the remaining 10% of cases where mayyyybe the info would be ok to post, there is zero harm in still directing it to private venues for handling. Is it possible there will someday be an edge case where that doesn't work and a user is forced to post something publicly after trying and failing with the private venues? I guess, maybe. But even in such a case, I'm of the opinion that it's better to have a policy that says "don't do X" and have someone be pleasantly surprised when their unique case is allowed to pass through, than to have a policy that says "hey, who knows? try X-ing!" and have users repeatedly forced to the unpleasant realization that the answer to "who knows" is "not you, and mostly really no one, as it turns out". A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 00:47, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I very much agree with you about the ambiguity problem. I think that we need the policy to say this, this, and this are prohibited, and this, this, and this are permitted and we should do away with "case-by-case". I also think that any changes to this policy need to be discussed with input from oversighters, because it would be a lousy outcome if the community decides something, and then the oversighters say that it contradicts meta policy. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:58, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

The reason it says "case by case basis" is because one has to use common sense. If someone says to me "hey are you Coretheapple at www.coretheapple.com" then it hardly a reason to throw them off Wikipedia. However, if a diligent probe on the Internet indicates that there is indeed a Corey Apple on LinkedIn who works for Company X and is writing about Company X, then yes, it is outing. It's not complicated. If I am clearly digging up dirt on someone then yes it is outing and I should be kicked out. Coretheapple (talk) 22:31, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Well, but that is, from an kind of of adjucational standpoint, insane -- and I mean, in all seriousness, literally insane. What you are saying is that there is a rule "Posting links to other accounts on other websites is allowable on a case-by-case basis", and what that means is:

• Sometimes you can post links to other accounts.
• But then someone else (not you) will come along and decide if that is an appropriate case under the "case-by-case" clause
• And you don't know who it will be (except that it will be an admin)
• And you have to guess whether that person will agree with you that if that is an appropriate case under the "case-by-case" clause
• And if you guess wrong you are terminated with extreme prejudice.

This IS what you are saying. You also say "It's not complicated" but it is in fact quite complicated, so you are being overly simple-minded on the matter, and please stop. It's not helpful. You say that all a person needs is "common sense" -- which is, sorry to be harsh, but just terrible arguing. To say "All you need to do is follow common sense, and we will decide what is common sense, and if you guess wrong what we will decide you will be terminated" is egregiously authoritarian thinking. We need a written rule that people can follow or else we should just replace ALL our rules with "Do whatever you like, and if an admin doesn't like it, you will know because you will you be indeffed". We can't function like that. No effective project can. Herostratus (talk) 23:04, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I disagree very strongly with that (responding to Coretheapple). Of course, there are obvious cases where it's just a matter of common sense. But just look at how editors disagree about the meaning of "case-by-case" for the less obvious cases. It's not because half the community has common sense and the other half does not. And by the way, do you realize that you just gave a map for anyone who wants to find out the private information of the user who was the victim in this case? So, let's say that someone has been blocked and their edit oversighted for posting that "name" is the same person who is shown as "name" at LinkedIn. Then Coretheapple posts that "example name" is the same person listed at LinkedIn as "example name", by way of illustrating an example that directly follows the oversighting incident. Should Coretheapple be blocked? My common sense tells me, after all, that I can see an obvious parallel between "name" and "example name" in this context. And you did make it simpler for your example. What happens if the question put to User:C.Apple is: "are you the same C.Apple listed at LinkedIn?" --Tryptofish (talk) 23:12, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

(ec)Herostratus, I don't think that editors are so clueless that there can't be "case by case" language in policies, including this one. I'm not opposed to necessarily adding more detail to this policy. I actually indicated on the COI guideline page[4] that I agreed that there should be greater detail overall on what to do in COI situations. I guess I just have a higher opinion of the intelligence of editors than you do, as well as a greater regard for their ability to distinguish between an innocent inquiry (or whatever Tryptofish is saying above) and outing someone. Coretheapple (talk) 23:19, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

I think that what I said was obvious to anyone with common sense. But, in any case, so long as you don't oppose adding more detail, then I think we have something where we can find agreement. (By the way, I really am not trying to give you a hard time. And I certainly don't really think that you should be blocked, of course. I'm just pointing out how, even for those who have plenty of common sense, the existing policy is unacceptably ambiguous. It's just not right to say that those who don't interpret the policy as you do, or who consider "case-by-case" to be less clear than you consider it to be, are lacking in common sense. I have a pretty good opinion of the intelligence of most editors, too. But I also recognize that these intelligent people disagree about what "case-by-case" means.) --Tryptofish (talk) 00:21, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

In that case we'd have to rewrite a lot of policies. By the way I wasn't ignoring your example above, or whatever it was, I just didn't understand it. But if I grasp your general point correctly: I agree that there are bad admins who will block over nothing, but, just to hesitantly opine on the case that gave rise to this discussion, I don't think that happened in this case at all. Coretheapple (talk) 00:27, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm really not talking at all about "bad" admins. Just below, Fluffernutter says it better than I did. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:01, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) But we know that the "case by case" thing draws lines (well, lack of lines) that are neither plain nor clear to a lot of people to people who aren't clueless, Coretheapple. We're sitting here talking about this today because of a situation in which someone believed quite strongly that they were posting content that was common-sense reasonable and found that they were mistaken in the eyes of the admins/functionaries who reviewed it. The people discussing this specific case's content and block in post-mortem are also not unanimous about whether it was across the line or not (see the ANI), and no one in these conversations is someone who I would describe as inexperienced with Wikipedia, poorly versed in policy, or lacking in common sense.

The fact is that a policy that says "it might be ok on a case-by-case basis" makes it impossible to be sure whether you're violating the policy or not, because the policy doesn't say which types cases are on which side of the line, it just inserts the concept of there being a random, unknowable line. It doesn't add any extra protection for the poster of the off-wiki information, because if an admin/oversighter reviews the edit, they're not going to go "Oh, well this gives away a person's home address, shoe size, and dog's mother's maiden name, but hey, policy says 'case-by-case,' so I can't do anything to remove that personal information from public view!" They're going to review the edit and suppress the content or not based on whether it violates the privacy of the person in question, which has nothing to do with whether the words "case by case" exist in WP:HARASS or not - because even if we are performing a case by case analysis, the deciding factor in separating "case" from "other case" is still going to be whether that individual edit violates our obligation to protect the privacy of our users.

The "case by case" wording as it stands is like handing someone a button and saying "if you press this button, you are definitely either going to not burst into flames, or else you'll burst into flames". It's meaningless to the process of deciding because the two options cancel each other out, and all it might do is make people who tune out after "not burst into flames" and mash the button a little more surprised when they self-ignite, which is a bit of a mean thing to set someone up for. - A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 00:46, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Very well-said, thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 01:01, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

We're sitting here talking about this today because of a situation in which someone believed quite strongly that they were posting content that was common-sense reasonable and found that they were mistaken in the eyes of the admins/functionaries....' A)That's mind-reading; B) This user was blocked for similar conduct before. I followed that ANI while the links were still alive, and all this hand-wringing strikes me as utterly inappropriate. Not saying that one can't make the policy and the COI guideline more specific. I have specifically advocated that on the COI guideline talk page, and frankly I'm not all that crazy about the "case by case" language here if it is giving people hives. But I just think the "sky is falling" rhetoric here is ridiculous given what actually happened. Coretheapple (talk) 13:42, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

We shouldn't have ambiguous language in important policies. If there are a few exceptions, and I'm not sure there should be, they should be sufficiently specific so that there is never any question about when a line is about be crossed. This nonsense of "we'll let you know if you broke the law" is pushed by the same users who complain about WP:CREEP and WP:NOTBURO whenever an effort is made to clarify the rules.- MrX 14:07, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Replying to Coretheapple, I don't think that it's mind-reading, any more than it is mind-reading to imply, based on your opinion of past events, that the alleged outing was done intentionally. I don't think that the sky is falling, but I also do not think that the sky would fall if we were to identify a consensus-based way to replace "case-by-case" with more unambiguous language. And the fact that you disagree with other editors over what you see as hand-wringing demonstrates that you and other editors have differing views. So in fact, I am correct in saying that the community has differing views about what should be permitted and what should be prohibited. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:25, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

OK, I would just suggest perusing the RfC that was previously created on this and then perhaps formulating a new one. I do recall you might be acquainted with that one. I'm not dead set against changing the language in the policy, just that the rhetoric had escaped earth's gravity and was going into orbit. Coretheapple (talk) 22:21, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Break

• I'll put this very simply. Such links are oversighted routinely. Unless the editor has provided the information him/herself, it is not okay, ever, for other editors to do this for any reason. Any editor who does so is in violation of the global privacy policy and is liable to be sanctioned, all the way up to indefinite oversighter blocks that may never be revoked. The line in the current policy needs to be removed because it is in direct conflict with the privacy policy. Oversighters have seen countless examples of editors being harassed with fake LinkedIn, Facebook and other internet information purporting to link to their real identities; indeed, many functionaries have been on the receiving end of such fake accounts. The evidence of advocacy editing - paid or unpaid - is in the edits; it cuts both ways, too, since "advocacy" can be both favourable or unfavourable. It is wrong to have a line in this policy that advocates an action that is likely to get an editor blocked. Risker (talk) 03:21, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
  • I'm with Risker here. The line should be removed. I'll also note that there are, for instance, plenty of "Doug Weller"s out there, one whose email I routinely get. Doug Weller talk 12:59, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
  • I also agree that it should not be in the policy. It is not in line with global policy, it is not in line with Oversight policy or practice, it is not mentioned in the RfC, nor is it justified by the subsequent discussion. Thank you, MrX, for taking the bold step of removing it. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 13:44, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
  • I concur with Risker and MrX's removal from the policy page. Mike V • Talk 14:30, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
  • I also agree with the removal. Furthermore, if anyone has any bright ideas about reinstating it, IMO they need to describe the exact circumstances under which linking is acceptable, show community consensus for such a change, and demonstrate how it complies with both WMF policy and the TOU.  Roger Davies ^talk 14:38, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
  • I too agree with the removal from the policy page, and would have removed it myself in a few minutes time had MrX not got there first. In addition to Roger's comments (which I endorse) any proposal must explicitly state what the objective of the linking is and demonstrate that posting such information is necessary to achieve that objective. Thryduulf (talk) 16:37, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
  • I also oppose having the case-by-case sentence on the page, and I'm not wild about the edit warring over it. I kinda wonder why it suddenly became an emergency that required its removal, as opposed to the opening of talk here, advocating its removal. I'm also observing with no small amount of irony who some of the users above are, in that they seem to have suddenly discovered that the ambiguity of the language here is misleading (they will know what I mean). --Tryptofish (talk) 21:05, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
  • I disagree with its removal and therefore have restored it. I would suggest people try a RfC. It is interested that people saying paid editing details should be handed over to functionaries. Which group of functionaries exactly? Arbcom has stated that they have no intention in being involved with the enforcement of our terms of use. Legal at the WMF states rightfully that they do not have the number of people required to enforce our TOU and believes the community should do it. Therefore what we have is the community doing the best they can with a difficult situation. In this case we have an editors whose user name is their real name and whose only edits are to promote a mid sized company. We do not need to pretend we live in a vacuum to figure out what has occurred. But what if we see a job post on Elance for someone offering money for the creation of an article? We post a note to COIN and that this is about to occur with the link to the job. What someone takes this job and than creates a new user name to create the article are we going to claim that this is pre "outing"? Do we really need to try to enforce the turns of use and trying to maintain the quality and reputation of Wikipedia blindfolded and with both hands tied behind our backs? Our goal is get human knowledge out to the largest number of people possible. Not to create some utopian anonymous movement. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:56, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
    • Doc: "arbcom has state they are simply not interested in enforcing our terms of use"--come on. And if it were true that neither the WMF or ArbCom couldn't or wouldn't uphold our terms of use, why should COI investigations come at the expense of our harassment policy? Drmies (talk) 01:08, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
    • The WMF does not have enough people to enforce one of their policies so we should enforce it by by violating one of their other policies. Really? - MrX 17:04, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

That is an excellent point. I will ask legal at the WMF if they feel that this case violated one of their policies and ask them to comment here. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:11, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Two questions for you, if I may: Would you please explain how an RfC asking if a policy should be changed, then closed as "no" (in other words, status quo), is perceived by you as a mandate to add new language to the policy? How exactly did you expect "case-by-case basis" to work?- MrX 17:14, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

The question was "RfC: should the policy extend harassment to include posting ANY other accounts on ANY other websites" to which the conclusion was "Consensus and practice say No." What this means is that posting links to other accounts on other websites is allowed able on a case by case basis. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:22, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

I can't tell if you are being deliberately evasive or you didn't understand the straightforward question posed in the RfC. It asks, should the words "including any other accounts on any other web sites" be added to the policy, thus expanding its scope. The result was "no". Again, how do you see that as a mandate or permission to add something completely different to the policy, and continue to defend it against the considerable objections above?- MrX 17:41, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Because that is what that conclusion equals. To keep this conversation civil I would request that no one involved make comments on others states of mind. You are free to start another balanced RfC to try to clarify the situation. There was no consensus to disallow linking to other accounts on other sites at the prior point in time. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:48, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You took the results of the RfC (don't change anything) and rather than leave the policy alone, you amplified an otherwise implicit exception. It's quite possible that because of the conflicting language that you added to the policy, a productive editor has been indefinitely blocked and can't even respond on his own talk page. You are free to start an RfC if you wish for the sentence in dispute to be retained. - MrX 18:04, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

• I have undone the reinsertion of the phrase. The RfC did not establish consensus for such a change, and even if it had, it would not be in line with current practice or global policy. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 17:53, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

@Doc James: you are the last editor on this website who should be reverting the removal of that sentence. You added it, you use it as a weapon, you have a conflict of interest in keeping it in. Keegan (talk) 18:08, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

1. Support leaving it in On wikipedia, we pretty much decide things by consensus, that consensus is decided by what evidence is presented. The best way to prove a COI is to prove a poster is associated to their article (employee of an organization , a paid editor ...etc...). How can you prove that without providing enough information to identify the user? How about a system whereby proof is presented to a trusted user (i.e: Oversight, arbcom, .etc.) first and if and only if that trusted user decided that the proof is valid, that user can state that proof exists, but that it has been privately submitted. Similar to how it's done presently with Arbcom, Checkuser and Oversight. In that way, proof is provided , but it's not publicly posted on Wikipedia. Just my .02. 17:31, 30 June 2016 (UTC) KoshVorlon 19:16, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

I agree reporting it to a group of functionaries is a good idea; however, arbcom has state they are simply not interested in enforcing our terms of use. I have previously proposed the creation of a new group of functionaries who could address these issues. Now might be a good time to move forwards with this groups creation. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:35, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

I disagree that we should business of proving anything. What we should do is determine if content meets our fundamental inclusion guidelines like NOTABILITY, and reject it it's NOT the kind of material that should be included in the encyclopedia. - MrX 17:47, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

So what you are arguing is that we get ride of the terms of use that requires disclosure of paid editing? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:50, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

I actually don't care one way or the other about the WMF's paid editing policy because it's turned into a golden hammer. I don't believe we need to connect accounts across the internet to deal with promotional editing. To be crystal clear, the potential for harm to real people outweighs the concerns about a few promotional editors slipping through our grasp.- MrX 18:19, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

"To be crystal clear, the potential for harm to real people outweighs the concerns about a few promotional editors slipping through our grasp." So much this, a million times over. Some of you are losing your way, and very badly. It's not hard to go from hero to villain when you lose sight of the principles you had to begin with. Assaulting a new editor with external links about them because they were editing promotionally? Shame. On. You.Keegan (talk) 18:26, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Keegan speaks for me as well. Some of you here know I have been an advocate for no paid editing under any circumstances. But as Core notes above, the editor that rightfully got the block had been blocked for similar behavior in late 2015. That now-blocked editor is also currently topic banned, as well as admonished for uncivil editing habits by ArbCom. There is an established pattern of what I will term needlessly mean-spirited editing by the blocked editor, and despite the previous warnings they continue to offend. We need to be vigilant regarding COI, but there is a right way, and a wrong way. The wrong way leaves me flat-out disgusted. Policy here has been correctly enforced in this instance. Jusdafax 20:32, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

• As I see it, the previous RfC indicated that the policy of making no exceptions did not have consensus; it also indicated nothing else really had consensus either. In such a situation we need to come up with a policy that might have consensus. I personally do not want to retain the line as is, but I also do not want us to say absolutely never. The alternative is to find some way of dealing with coi, which will sometimes involve confidential information and possibly disclosing a link. (there have been no or very few examples this far because the people at coi are almost always very cautious, and simply do not pursue those cases that would require it)

I will mention that I have said to some of my colleagues at arb/oversight that in my personal opinion no one should themselves remove the line without consensus. I still hold to that. This is major policy,and should not be played around with. As you can see above, some seem to think the change is so obvious that one person can do it. I think prior discussions have said otherwise. If it really is in conflict with the TOU, the foundation should be asked for its interpretation. I do not consider us able to predict what they would say.

But we do have to change the line at the very least. It's much too permissive. I agree to that extent with those who want to remove it.

It's unclear to me the extent to which dealing with confidential information about coi can be left to arb com. Last years arbcom positively refused by a large majority to take responsibility for enforcing the TOU, I hope that year's arbcom is willing to, but so far we've not said it. If we do spontaneously, or if the community explicitly says that we have the responsibility to, this could solve the situation. I do not think it would be good having yet a third set of functionaries. We have enough people as it is do do the work without adding more layers. DGG ( talk ) 17:55, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

• A very rigid stance on privacy increases rather than decreases harassment as it provides anonymity to those doing the harrassing. User:Keegan appear to feel that the heads of marketing of a multi billion dollar company should be able to email 300 of a physician's fellow physicians without that person being able to respond in either the popular press or on Wikipedia itself. We need to be able to address concerning actions head on and yes some of these concerns do involve details and events that have occurred outside of our websites. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:33, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

  Don't put words in my mouth. You have a bad habit of doing that to other editors to make a point using a hyperbole. It doesn't work. Keegan (talk) 18:40, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

  Okay I will quote what you said "As an oversighter for nearly seven years now, I've grown increasingly concerned by the attitudes of a few users that think it's okay to out editors as a "gotcha" against COI, in the name of defending the wiki against promotion, up to and including outing editors in The Atlantic." I assume you are referring to me with respect to the Atlantic mention and I am just filling in a few more details. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:49, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

  Right. Now please highlight where I said anything about the heads of marketing companies, please, or how anything that I said was false in any way. Two wrongs don't make a right. For a third time. Keegan (talk) 18:57, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

  Yes that is what your sentence "two wrongs don't make a right" implies. You do not feel that people who are harassed by the heads of marketing of a multi billion dollar company in manner that could potentially affect their employment have the right to defend themselves in the Atlantic. If I misinterpreted what you said happy to have you clarify Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:12, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

  You can absolutely defend yourself. However, your method of defense - outing people that you interacted with on Wikipedia, thus exposing them to retribution harassment for no reason other than "they started it" - is absolutely reprehensible to me and I feel goes against our morals and ethics as Wikipedians. You could have assisted the reporter with the piece without naming names, but it's clear you had a score to settle. As a then-sitting board member of the Wikimedia Foundation, a highly educated professional, and a trusted community member, I find your poor judgement in this circumstance to be beyond the pale. I respect and appreciate your contributions to the project, movement, and medicine as a whole, but I think what you did was wrong and you need to back away from this topic. I know I am not alone. Keegan (talk) 02:03, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

• The sentence under discussion should not be in the policy for the following reasons:
  • It had no consensus for addition (the RfC did not discuss this wording or anything similar to it)
  • It has clear support on this page for removal
  • It contradicts global policy
  • It contradicts actual practice - the majority of functionaries have commented (publicly and privately) and, with the possible exception of DGG, all are agree that there is no case in which posting links would not be outing. Remember that policy on the English Wikipedia is descriptive not prescriptive.
  • No suggested possible case has ever received consensus that it would be acceptable - several have received explicit consensus that they are not.
  • No suggested possible case has ever received consensus that it would even be necessary - several have received explicit consensus that they are not. (I will expand on this in a new section below)

  Accordingly, I will remove it again and strongly suggest that before anyone tries to restore it that they demonstrate that the above are incorrect. Thryduulf (talk) 18:42, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Hold on and let the discussion here occur. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:49, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)x multiple - Huh? You sound like you're referencing a very specific case here, Doc James, so maybe I'm missing some information, but I don't understand what person A contacting persons C-Z off-wiki has to do with person C responding in the press (??), nor what either of those has to do with outing any of A-Z on-wiki. That situation is so completely apart from what we're talking about here - which is Person A posting a link on-wiki to person B's personal, private, off-wiki information, usually because they think B is profiting from Wikipedia - that I feel like you're carrying on an entirely different argument than most of us, and it's confusing everything more. Similarly, we don't handle harassment by outing the harassers on-wiki (even in cases of truly vicious, damaging harassment), and I don't think I've ever seen anyone argue that we should (even in those very worst of cases). And even if that were an active debate, what would it have to do with the COI investigation angle people initially argued the "case by case" clause is necessary for? A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 18:43, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Clarified above. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:54, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Necessity

Leaving aside for one moment whether outing another user is ever acceptable (although it is not), there has never been a case presented that it is ever necessary. Indeed, I believe I can demonstrate that it is not:

Assuming user:Example has a conflict of interest, there are three possible actions they can take:

Edit non-neutrally

This is a problem for Wikipedia in that the quality of the edited pages goes down. The solution is to deal with the edits by making them neutral and/or reverting them, and to discuss the matter at user talk:Example and or relevant talk or project pages. If this leads to user:Example starting to edit neutrally then the encyclopaedia has gained a productive editor and everybody has won (if you out them before this point then you prevent it from happening) . If user:Example continues to edit non-neutrally then they can be (topic) banned or made subject to other sanctions as required. It is entirely irrelevant whether they are paid, unpaid or some mixture of the two.

Edit neutrally

This is not a problem for Wikipedia as the encyclopaedia is being improved, but if you out them then you prevent this from happening and harm the encyclopaedia. It is entirely irrelevant whether they are paid, unpaid or some mixture of the two.

Not edit

This is not a problem for Wikipedia as the encyclopaedia is not affected. It is entirely irrelevant whether they are paid, unpaid or some mixture of the two.

If they abuse any other tool or process (e.g. email) then they can be sanctioned and/or blocked in exactly the same way that an editor without a conflict of interest can be - it is entirely irrelevant whether they are paid, unpaid or some mixture of the two. Thryduulf (talk) 18:57, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

I would argue that there's a fourth option here, Thryduulf, which is "edit in a manner that appears neutral unless you are aware the person has a COI, in which case it becomes clear that they are subtly biasing the content." We've seen this in past cases where, for instance, it's only in aggregate that you would notice that an editor mysteriously never adds important negative content about the party they represent, even though each individual edit is well-sourced and otherwise acceptable. However, even in such a case, no more information need be revealed publicly than "Person X has a COI that biases them toward $topic". A need to doxx someone by linking onwiki to their linkedin, or their profile on their employer's website, or pretty much anything else isn't needed even in cases where, as Doc James is arguing, we need to discuss the existence of COI to be able to handle problem editing. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 19:10, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

There are ways of doing this without sleuthing into someone's life. I will point out that True Believers™ and other cranks do this more than paid editors --In actu (Guerillero) | My Talk 19:24, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

There is a huge problem with the policy, as it has been worded for the last year or so, being very unclear as to what "cases" are OK, and what are not. What is needed is a carefully constructed community RfC about when, if ever, such on-Wiki posting is justified (and the RfC below is not that carefully constructed one). Thryduulf is right that there are numerous ways to deal with COI or undisclosed paid editing, without needing to identify the user personally. (Indeed, it is generally possible to edit against POV-pushing without saying out loud that other editors are POV-pushers. It's enough to note that the edits are POV.) --Tryptofish (talk) 21:13, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

I've been thinking about the situation that Fluffernutter just described, where the pattern of COI only emerges gradually as one examines multiple edits. I agree with her, that it is enough to observe that the edits have a COI. I'm trying to think of a situation where one would also need to know the editor's identity, where seeing the editing pattern would not be enough, and I'm just not coming up with anything. Based on earlier discussions here, I'm reminded of other examples, where the editor has posted hateful or bigoted material at external sites. Some editors have argued that we need to be able to point out that the editor has posted that stuff elsewhere, in order to deal with POV or objectionable edits they make here. There is an emotional dimension to that argument: that person is a racist, so we need to expose him! But I think that, even there, the personal information really is not necessary. If they are making POV posts here, oppose the edits per the NPOV policy. And if they hypothetically make very good, neutral edits here, it is irrelevant if they act otherwise elsewhere. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:01, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Community attitudes about enforcement

I feel very strongly about some issues related to these discussions, and I posted something about it the other day on an editor's talk page. It was shortly later (for good reasons) archived, so I want to reproduce it here:

It's abundantly obvious that the community is far from having a consensus as to what is, and what is not, outing. And this is an unacceptable ambiguity. The fact that the way that Wikipedia deals with this is to block clueful editors so that there can be a private discussion in which the editor is "re-educated" before unblocking is, pardon me, stupid. It's stupid because the policy remains unclear, and no one else gets to "learn" from the private discussion with the blocked editor, so it's just a matter of time until someone else misunderstand the policy and has to be blocked, too. Rinse and repeat. And it's stupid because the ensuing discussions, here and at ANI, end up creating a Streisand effect that makes many more observers see what was supposed to be private information. At this point, anyone who looks at what has been posted can figure out the approximate real name of the possibly outed user, and can find the other webpage that apparently has the private information. Great job of protecting that person's privacy, right?

And there's another aspect that concerns me. We are dealing with two kinds of really important problems: outing and privacy, and COI and undisclosed paid editing. I think that all of us, whatever else we disagree about, can agree that all of those things are big deals, important threats to what Wikipedia ought to be. We have editors who step up to do the important volunteer work of searching out and fixing COI and paid editing. And we have oversighters and arbs who step up to do the important volunteer work of protecting editors' privacy. I think we can agree that it's a good thing when someone takes seriously the tasks of enforcing these community norms. But I think we can also see that there have been differing opinions about how much editor "enforcement" is too much, how much becomes heavy-handed or counter-productive. Maybe we need to be less strict, maybe less "self-righteous", about enforcing COI. But maybe we also need to be less "self-righteous", and more practical, about enforcing the outing policy.

--Tryptofish (talk) 21:18, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Can other site accounts ever be linked to

This article has contained the follow text for a fair amount of time "Posting links to other accounts on other websites may be allowable on a case-by-case basis."

With respect to providing links, one reason to do this would be:

a) someone posts a job offer money for article X on Elance

b) an editor notifies WT:COIN of that fact and provides the Elance link as proof, people than watch the article that does not yet exist

c) someone on Elance wins the job, creates a new Wikipedia account, and than creates the article.

This is something which is done on a regular basis such as in this example here were I added the following note in 2015:

Here we have someone who is buying an article on Anthony LaPine. They have already bought an article on HipLink and this sock created it UserJuliecameo3 who is already blocked. Doc James (talk · contribs · email)

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:54, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Support the allowance of the above practice

1. Support as proposer Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:06, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
2. Support This is an excellent idea Doc James ! KoshVorlon 19:25, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
3. Support. I'm mostly thinking of cases that have nothing to do with COI. A new account, User:Blah (unusual handle, not a real name) makes insensitive edits to Black Lives Matter. Someone brings him to AN/I and googles the name, and finds that Blah runs a Ku Klux Klan blog. It would be unfortunate to expect editors to wear blindfolds in that situation, forced to rely on "focus on content." We have never not allowed that kind of obvious connection to be made. I don't know when the idea developed that we can never in any circumstance link account names on Wikipedia to account names off it – that every example of "Blah 1 = Blah 2" is outing, even without real names – but it's relatively recent.
   This is where common sense kicks in: don't do it to be unkind, don't do it without very good reason (e.g. disruption that is otherwise difficult to handle), and don't do it to be lazy, i.e. think of other ways to deal with the issue first. If the link is going to reveal a real name that an editor hasn't volunteered, find another way to handle it. Discuss the connection without posting a link. But if a new account, User:JSmith, has made only two edits, and they are both promotional edits to Smith, Inc., then we ought not to regard it as outing to ask "might you have a connection to the John Smith who runs Smith, Inc.?" In such cases, it's always better to use conditionals: "if you have a connection to Smith, Inc., then our COI guideline applies," but if someone does specify the connection, that's a case of no harm no foul. And we should always be allowed to ask: "Are you Mr. Blah of the Ku Klux Klan?"
   Rather than remove the "case by case" sentence, we could pad it out with examples that most would agree are harmless and harmful. Or we could change it to "Connecting accounts on Wikipedia to accounts on other websites is allowable on a case-by-case basis, but do not post links if they lead to a real name the editor has not volunteered." SarahSV ^(talk) 20:00, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
4. support very good idea--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:18, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
5. support Where editor with username 'BDave' edits article 'BobDaves Finance' and has a public linkedin/facebook etc profile 'BobDave CEO@BobDaves Finance' linking the two a)does not violate outing as their identity is public, b)is comnnonsense. Prohibiting making connections through publically accessible and self-declared information is laughable. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:23, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

   @Only in death: Are you absolutely 100% sure that "BDave" is "Bob Dave" not, for example, "Brian Dave", "Bob Dave junior", or "Bethany Dave", etc? If they are the Bob Dave who is the CEO, are they being paid to edit Wikipedia or are they doing it on their own time? If you get it wrong then you are breaching the outing policy whether there is an exemption for paid editors or not. Also, why is it necessary to out them? If "BobDaves Finance" is notable and their edits are neutral and appropriate, you've just outed a good editor and harmed the encyclopaedia. If their edits are non-neutral then just revert them and discuss the matter on their talk page - blocking them if they continue. If BobDaves finance isn't notable then just delete the article and explain why on their talk page. In other words, what benefit does treating "user:BDave" differently to "user:RD601101" bring to the project? Thryduulf (talk) 12:43, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

   Best practice (and used currently) would be to post on the user's talkpage 'Are you the BDave <insert link to profile> who works for XXXX - be aware of the policies regarding COI editing'. It is not in any form of the word 'outing' if someone is registered under their own obviously linkable name, so anything that rests on the assumption the above is outing is erroneous. Outing is where you reveal someone's undisclosed identity. Currently the outing policy is wildly at odds with the way wikipedia operates both technically and culturally - another (current) example being: a SUL user self-identifies as person X on another language wiki (and their name is easily identifiable from their username) however on EN-Wiki because they have not self-identified here, we cannot make the connection - despite the reality being if you are a SUL user, anything you say on any wiki is linked to your identity *here*. The technical implementation of SUL automatically means when you log in with a SUL user you take responsible for all your comments on all wikis. It is not 'different identities'. Its the same identity in multiple places. Its completely bonkers. There is privacy protection (and anyone who has actually read anything I post on the subject knows I am hardline when it comes to privacy) and then there is public/private data. Quite a few policies here (primarily COI) rely on public but undisclosed data, the 'outing' section of the policy relies on a distinction of public/private that bears no relation to the correct usage of such, and the harrassment policy in general is concerned about privacy protection - which is not the same as correct use of public info. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:02, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

   There is no COI policy. It's a guideline, which happens to say "do not reveal the identity of editors against their wishes; Wikipedia's policy against harassment takes precedence over this guideline."- MrX 13:10, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

   Well fortunately in the case that sparked this, the editor revealed their own identity by their choice of username. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:23, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

6. --Andreas JN466 12:02, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
7. Tony (talk) 12:19, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
8. Support, with additional examples of innocent/acceptable practice. Coretheapple (talk) 15:16, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
9. Support but I would like a quantifier, e.g. ...but only when it is clearly in the best interests of the project. Obviously outing as a form of harassment is not acceptable. But sometimes there is a clear need to breach privacy to some extent, and some cases at WP:COIN are in my mind clear examples of this. Just like violence being generally prohibited by law, but in some cases violence used in self-defense is allowable. And this is what this is all about: defense of the integrity of the project. COIN is a serious risk to it, and this should be taken into account. It is acceptable that all outing is treated as it is now (blocks and oversight) but also it should be acceptable that there should be allowable defenses against it, in my view. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 15:39, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
10. Support Some thoughts -
    1. "Harassment" is something that does harm, and not an arbitrary procedural label that is automatically applied to certain actions. If a person is not harmed by an action, then that action should not be called "harassment" only as a matter of process or because similar actions have been harassment in different circumstances. I encourage caution in making harassment accusations and to reserve the term "harassment" for instances in which a person feels harassed. It is worthwhile to protect people from harassment, and some vulnerable groups may be harassed and not realize it. Still, if an informed person understands a situation and does not feel harassed, then actions should not be called "harassment" only to comply with an arbitrary definition.
    2. The Wikimedia community should not design processes which direct community members to feign ignorance of public information. Sometimes well-publicized information off-wiki comes to be common knowledge by participants in Wikimedia projects. The nature of Wikimedia projects is to bring the most public information from other websites into Wikimedia projects for sharing. At this time I will not say that hidden information about other people should be brought into Wikimedia projects, but I am comfortable saying that when an individual self-discloses information off-wiki with intent to publicize that information and make their identity and online publishing activities widely known, then sometimes it is appropriate to bring that self-disclosed, publicized, admitted connection between that off-wiki identity and on-wiki actitivity into Wikimedia projects.
    3. There is some confusion between legal obligation and community customs in this discussion. I would prefer to discount anyone playing lawyer here, until and unless the Wikimedia Foundation lawyers choose to step in and force a legal practice in the community. Until a legal ruling is forced on the community I think I will be viewing any discussion made here as a discussion about community customs. When the discussion seems legal, I think that gives undue weight to some points and bars some people from giving their opinion for fear that they are not fit to speak up in discussions about law. I wish that people here would not talk about the law, unless they are speaking for WMF lawyers.
    4. Both support and oppose votes are motivated by a desire to defend vulnerable Wikimedia community members. Many people speaking on the opposition side are opposing to defend individual Wikimedia contributors from being personally harassed in the traditional sense. Many people speaking on the support side are supporting to protect the Wikimedia community from corporate bullying. The two sides are not communicating directly to each other. The opposition is wanting to defend individuals from having their personal lives exposed. The support is wanting to protect the vulnerable from powerful, offensive corporate influence with a longstanding history of extremely disruptive (harassing!) paid thoughtful and intentional attacks on the Wikimedia community. I support protection for Wikipedians vulnerable to harassment, and a vote either for support or oppose can have that same motivation from different perspectives. It is not accurate to say that recognizing and noting corporate influence is traditionally defined as "harassment". Corporations cannot be harassed in the same way that individuals might be. People acting in official capacity as representatives of corporations should not be imagined entirely as vulnerable individuals. Corporate representatives do their jobs with the expectation that people might address them personally as representatives of their employers if they identify themselves as corporate representatives acting on behalf of their employer.

    Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:49, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Oppose the allowance of the above practice

1. Quite frankly, this is BS and feeds into a siege mentality. This issue can be dealt with via our existing NPOV, Speedy Deletion and Socking policies. This whole clause and the idea that some harassment is ok needs to go --In actu (Guerillero) | My Talk 19:18, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
2. It is not acceptable to link undisclosed, private information to an editor's account. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 19:24, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
3. (edit conflict) "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.". That includes (links to) accounts on other websites that are not disclosed on Wikipedia. Per Guerillero NPOV, speedy deletion, and socking policies can deal with any issues that arise from a non-neutral and/or non-notable article. If non-public information is truly required then the minimum necessary information should be emailed to arbcom, functionaries or the WMF. Thryduulf (talk) 19:27, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

   You do realize that in this example the editors account which eventually ends up being linked does not exist yet when the linking occured Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:30, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

   Why is that relevant? You are making a link between an account on Wikipedia and an account (holder) on another website that was not publicly disclosed on Wikipedia - something that is defined as harassment by the harassment policy. Thryduulf (talk) 19:36, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

   The link is only formed after the job is accepted and the person creates a WP account. The linking occurred before those two events. I guess we could refer to this as "pre outing". So are CU's planning on handing out indefinite blocks for this? If so we better make it widely known as it is a common practice. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:46, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

4. Linking one's personal identity to a Wikipedia account is considered harassment. (Unless he or she has disclosed the link on Wikipedia.) If for some reason the COI edits cannot be address on their own, a concerned member of the community can contact the functionary team privately to assist. Mike V • Talk 19:44, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
5. See my approximately novel-length comment below. There's nothing good that comes with leading people to believe they can post links that contain private/personal information about other people, because we know based on multiple other policies (and based on the oversight logs) that that's a lie - those things will be suppressed, almost invariably - and the people who relied on the misleading policy are going to be really confused when they do get in trouble for it. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 19:56, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
6. Permitting the inclusion of links to off-wiki identities on a "case by case basis" allows anyone to post a link to another user's LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc. profile in the name of fighting COI (or really in any instance that the user deems acceptable). It also permits the determination of which cases are acceptable, and which are not to be decided by literally anyone (from anonymous editor right up to Jimmy). Posting of personal information which has not been previously disclosed by the editor in question has never been an acceptable practice, and there are other means to handle these sorts of editors (as mentioned above). Sarah's suggestion may be leading to a reasonable compromise, but it would need to be expanded upon (or perhaps expanding "real name" to "not previously disclosed personally identifiable information" so it includes contact details, workplace, etc.). The blanket accepting of any linking off-site accounts to Wikipedia accounts as the policy permits now is wrong.--kelapstick^(bainuu) 20:43, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
7. No. One never needs to nor has to post a link to someone's external information to prove a point or win a conflict. One might want to, but that is no reason to do so. We have plenty of policies that cover non-neutral editing. Additionally, the serious consideration that if you edit under your real name that you are somehow voluntarily exposing you to outing would be laughable if it weren't straight-up victim blaming. Third, assume good faith still applies to all editors that aren't vandals. This dehumanizing of editors is pitiful and against the open, collaborative spirit that got us where we are now. Lastly, and to that point, as enough Arbitration decisions have pointed out repeatedly, Wikipedia is not a battleground and there is no war being waged here, no weapons are needed. We have tools to clean-up disruption. This "siege" and "us v. them" mentality is dangerous. Keegan (talk) 21:24, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
8. This RfC is very confusingly presented (and rife with typos, to boot). If I understand correctly, we are being asked whether we support or oppose linking "case-by-case" to such external sites, and that's what I am opposing. However, I also oppose what the people at Elance are doing in the example above. It is completely worthless to have a policy that says you can do this "case-by-case", because nobody knows which cases are or are not OK. But there is a good alternative: email that information about Elance to a trustworthy admin or functionary, and simply say on-Wiki that there is a problem with undisclosed paid editing, and that the evidence demonstrating that problem has been evaluated privately. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:27, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

   User:Tryptofish this is a discussion of if this one particularly case of linking can be done. Here is what I am referring to. Likely this will be used in the current arbcom case opened by a supporter of homeopathy a prior editor I have disagreed with to have me blocked. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:38, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

   I looked at that ArbCom case request, and it's being kicked to the curb, as it deserves to be. On the other hand, I think that the edit warring that continues over the sentence on this policy page is supremely lame. I answered the RfC question as it was posed here, rather than in terms of the case at COIN. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:58, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

   Both what was posted here and what was in the case at COIN are the same. User:Tryptofish do you have different opinions on them? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:43, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

   Life is short. I'm not going to read the COIN case. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:25, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

   Doc James, I categorically reject your assertion that I am a "supporter of homeopathy". Either provide evidence to back it up, or strike off that accusation once you see this message. RoseL2P (talk) 21:30, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

   That is how I interpreted your comment here. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:33, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

9. No. First, there is no existing consensus for the wording under dispute. The length of time that it has been in the policy unchallenged (silent consensus) is irrelevant now that it has been challenged. The previous RfC asked if the policy should be changed to include the words "including any other accounts on any other web sites". The result was "no" ( status quo). The sentence added by Doc James was out of process, and not a reasonable interpretation of the RfC result. The proposed exception has no place in the policy because...
   • Unreliable: Usernames are not always unique. Anyone can create an account with anyone else's username on virtually any other website. As others have noted, there have been false flag profiles created on other websites used to discredit users.
   • Not our remit: Our main purpose here is to build an encyclopedia, not comb the entire internet to try to connect accounts. Content decisions should be based on the quality of the content, not based on suspicions of what people do outside of Wikipedia. Our fundamental inclusion guidelines like NOTABILITY, and exclusion policy (WP:NOT) should determine what material is included in the encyclopedia.
   • Policy conflict: WMF's paid editing disclosure policy does not give editors the right to violate WMF's privacy policy while acting on WMF's behalf.
   • Vague and open to abuse:The proposed language is ambiguous and open to interpretation after the fact. The open-ended language invites abuse.
   • Potential for harm: The potential for harm to real people outweighs the concerns about a few promotional editors slipping through our grasp. Outing can cause loss employment, online and real life harassment and physical harm, damaged or destroyed reputations, and exposure to identity theft.

   - MrX 21:28, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

10. No. The reasons why have been exhaustively explained by experienced oversighters. 1) It's harassment. Allowing a little bit of harassment, when you think the person really really deserves it, is not appropriate. "If we suspect you might have violated the terms of use, our volunteers may harass you"? No. 2) It's bait. Editors who see "case-by-case" and believe their case must be one of the allowable ones will get themselves blocked. 3) It's error-prone. We are not internet detectives and amateur "investigations" risk misunderstandings and falling for joe-jobs. 4) It never had consensus to begin with. The "case-by-case" wording was inserted on the basis of an RfC to remove a different phrase. It's the RfC-interpretation equivalent of original research. Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:54, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
11. I would say something long-winded, but, largely echoing Opabinia. The entire "Posting links to other accounts on other websites may be allowable on a case-by-case basis." sentence needs to be removed, because the number of cases this should ever happen are zero, no exceptions. Courcelles (talk) 00:20, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
12. No. The sentence needs to go; it needs no clarification. BTW, I have a hard time understanding what exactly is being proposed, other than "linking to Elance is OK". COIs can be discovered in many ways, and then can be handled in many ways. Posting identifying information ("links to other accounts" is really rather vague, given that there are many kinds of accounts that do not involve a "real" name, like LinkedIn does) is not one of those ways. "Case by case" is very, very unfortunate (though no worse than "occasionally be allowed") since it practically invites a kind of freewheeling. If we can't specify what these cases may be (and how on earth could we possibly identify all such cases?), we should not have that clause. Drmies (talk) 01:17, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
13. No, essentially per Keegan and Opabinia regalis. COI editing is unwelcome, but can be addressed through other than via amateur internet sleuthing and outing attempts. I respect the good intentions of some of the supporters of this proposal, but in this case the means don't justify the end. - Euryalus (talk) 10:01, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

    All of use except for staff at the WMF and the paid editors are acting in an amateur capacity here. The WMF states they do not have the ability to address the issue raised. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:03, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

    Then the answer is better WMF resourcing, not amateur vigilantes. I share your opposition to paid editing, even when declared. But I also share a community disquiet with outing. The reality of a clause granting "case by case" approval is very one thinks their "case" is justified and the damage is done even if they're subsequently found to be wrong. On discovering an editor who might be editing for corporate pay, you think it justified to pursue their RL identity and publish your findings. The next person might find (say) an editor displaying a nationalist or religious view, or an editor with strong views on human sexuality, and do the same. And so we enter the territory of genuine harassment. There's no ill will in your part, and paid editing is an absolute curse. But this open-ended clause is not the answer - in fact it risks more harm to the editing environment than the problem that it aims to solve. -- Euryalus (talk) 23:23, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

14. No As others have said, "case by case" is pretty useless and invites linking. As Euryalus says, the means don't justify the ends. Other excellent reasons for no are above. Doug Weller talk 15:11, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

    Agree "Case by case" is not very useful without defining what cases are appropriate which is why this RfC Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:45, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

    Then why is this RfC titled Can other site accounts ever be linked to? Clarify your RfC, if your true intention is to clarify what the case-by-case means, not whether or not it's allowed at all. Your section header says one thing, your text says another. Keegan (talk) 22:27, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

    Seriously, start a new RfC with a clear yes/no question if you're truly striving for unambiguity. If the RfC says no, there is nothing for you to clarify. Don't offer cases or examples to sway your audience. Is outing ever allowed? Yes or no. Keegan (talk) 22:32, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

    Yes that is what the text under the heading is for, it is to clarify the RfC by going into detail about one possible example of when linking to an external account maybe appropriate. If people say one can never link to an external account it is going to make WP:V impossible. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:47, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

15. No. Primarily it is an unnecessary, the-means-justify-the-ends invasion of privacy. Secondarily no amount of clarification would make it straightforward to enforce, and it would trigger innumerable time-wasting arguments about whether something should be oversighted. Finally, it's a significant burden on the oversighters, a group of editors whom we supposedly trust to do the right thing.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:30, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
16. I locked this down in the The Wrong Version. There is no reason I have ever seen to link to an external link to try to show who one editor thinks another editor is. -- GB fan 23:33, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
17. We have ways to deal with this already through how many diffent policies. I am obsolutely opposed to other Wikipedians investigating other Wikipedians real lives. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 02:47, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Discussion

Please propose other cases for which practice on linking to other sites is unclear in further RfCs. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:15, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Comment Ironically, our three (edited) opposers are Checkusers and/ or Oversighters who actually view private information as a course of their duty here on Wikipedia. Interesting! KoshVorlon 19:28, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Why is it ironic that users who work to uphold the privacy policy, have formally agreed to be bound by the access to non-private information policy, and deal with the harassment of editors are opposed to a proposal that allows users to breach those policies and harass other users? Thryduulf (talk) 19:34, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Exactly. If the functionaries had a motto, it would be "First do no harm". --In actu (Guerillero) | My Talk 19:41, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Except the privacy of every user with IP block exemption (not a small number) was violated on the flimsy basis that at some indeterminate point in the future *registered users with no history of problematic editing* may possibly cause some harm to wikipedia. Said private information is now unreliably stored in a number of locations. The reality is, those with oversight and checkuser access have to provide an absolutely minimal rationale for using those tools and while there is no independent audit trail to see if their use is in line with policy, their statements that they are concerned about privacy and harrassment issues are laughable. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:09, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Said private information is now unreliably stored in a number of locations. I don't know where you got that idea, but no, it is not. At any rate, this has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 12:03, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Oddly enough given that private data is stored both on the checkuser wiki, the checkuser mailing list, and by extension, any email account used to access the mailing list, yes, private information is stored unreliably in a number of locations. Unless you are now saying that all private information on the mailing list is under the control of the WMF? (I know the answer to this, it isnt, this is a function of using mailing lists to conduct privacy-sensitive issues) But I was merely pointing out the folly of giving greater weight to people who have access to private information when they inconsistantly apply it, or rather, consistantly apply it if you consider they operate from a standpoint of 'my opinion is correct regardless of written policy on the matter'. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:24, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Comment I certainly see nothing wrong with posting information when it's not linked or purported to be linked to a particular user ("Heads up, someone's requesting "positive edits" for Example on Elance (link), keep an eye on the page for COI editors.") But linking a specific profile elsewhere to a specific editor here is generally outing, unless of course that editor has already themself disclosed the link between the two accounts. There is nothing wrong, of course, with calling out that an editor does not seem to be editing neutrally, remind them that the TOU requires disclosure if they are being compensated, and if necessary calling more attention to the problem. None of those steps requires knowing or saying who they actually are. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:37, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

User:Seraphimblade Yes and that is what is proposed in this RfC Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:48, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Comment Guerillero actually, I would argue that , at least in this user's case he was the victim of "siege mentality", and when the community try to discuss this, discussion was shutdown in not one area, but two.

DoRD "Posting links to other accounts on other websites may be allowable on a case-by-case basis." is still the policy. KoshVorlon 19:47, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

What do the policies say, and which bind us?

[I had begun writing this before Doc James opened this RfC, but now that it's here, this seems like the most appropriate place to put it]

We have a tangled web of policies covering this topic, running from Meta level to local, so perhaps it would be useful if I lay out my understanding of how these policies stack.

1. Global Oversight policy. This is a "global policy", a type of policy that obligates all Wikimedia projects to abide by it. Local policies can expand upon global ones (for instance, enwiki oversight policy adds more categories of private information than the global oversight policy has), but cannot negate global ones (for instance, by saying "well, global OS policy includes phone numbers, but we really don't think those are important so our policy will say phone numbers are not suppressable").
   • Relevant contents: "Removal of non-public personal information such as phone numbers, home addresses, workplaces or identities of pseudonymous or anonymous individuals who have not made their identity public, or of public individuals who have not made that personal information public."
   • Priority: Highest. Cannot be overruled by local projects.
2. Local oversight policy. This is a policy that applies to the English Wikipedia. It inherits its authority and its minimum parameters from the global Oversight plicy described above, but adds more categories of private information and notes that suppression of such information is the "first resort" action when these appear on the project.
   • Relevant contents: "Removal of non-public personal information, such as phone numbers, home addresses, workplaces or identities of pseudonymous or anonymous individuals who have not made their identity public. This includes hiding the IP data of editors who accidentally logged out and thus inadvertently revealed their own IP addresses as well as the IP data of editors without an account on request. Suppression is a tool of first resort in removing this information."
   • Priority: High. Inherits the majority of its force from the un-overrule-able global policy
3. Local harassment policy. This covers many more categories of misbehavior than oversight policy does (we would not suppress, for instance someone wikihounding another person from one on-wiki discussion to another, because that's not private information), but its description of private information is adopted essentially from the local oversight policy. Even if this page were to try to overrule local oversight policy (by saying "posting links to people's profiles on other sites is ok even if those contain private information"), it could not overrule global oversight policy, which will continue to include "private information" in the list of things to be oversighted.
   • Relevant contents: "Posting links to other accounts on other websites may be allowable on a case-by-case basis. However, links which are purported to contain non-public, personal, or identifying information (such as real names, workplaces, or contact details) will almost invariably be suppressed by a member of the oversight team; the editor posting the link bears full responsibility for it and risks being blocked from editing. Such blocks have been consistently upheld by the Arbitration Committee."
   • Priority: Medium. Fully enforceable policy locally, but cannot overrule global-based policies.

What does this set of interlocking policies add up to, at the end of the day? It means local policies like WP:HARASS can be more restrictive than global ones like m:Oversight, but they cannot be less. We cannot have a policy on enwiki that permits something that global policy forbids, nor would it be advisable to have a local policy that tells people they won't get in trouble for something, when we know local functionaries enforcing a globally-obligatory policy are saying (and have said) that they will get in quite a lot of trouble for it, actually.

What does this fact mean for people's desire to share on-wiki links to off-wiki other accounts? It means that this behavior is subject to both enwiki and meta-level oversight policies, which in turn means that the only possible case in which you could be sure such a link would not be suppressed (and the poster potentially blocked) if you post it would be a case in which it contains none of the following that have not already been self-shared on Wikipedia: all non-public personal information, phone numbers, home addresses, workplaces, identity or real name of an anonymous or pseudonymous editor, IP of a registered editor, and contact details. Note also that this is presented not as an exhaustive list, but as a list of examples ("such as..."), which means that even if it doesn't fall within one of those specific categories but a reasonable oversighter would categorize it was "non-public personal information", then it's still prohibited.

Perhaps the most relevant of these to this discussion are "workplaces", "phone numbers", "contact details", and "identity or real name of pseudonymous editors". Think about the ways in which you would identify someone as being a paid editor or having a COI - what would you link to to prove those things? You'd link to something identifying their profession/work, and that connects the Wikipedia account name to that work-related link. You'd have to, or else you're not showing that they're being paid. So how does that apply to places you might want to link to when you feel you need to reveal someone's true agenda?

• If you link to something like their LinkedIn profile, you're also linking to a page that has, generally, information on the person's workplace, their real name, and their position with their workplace. It will often also have physical location, phone number, names of professional connections, and political/hobby/volunteering preferences.
• An Elance profile will typically be less detailed, but often contains physical location, real name (full or partial), a photograph of the person, and a detailed personal biography of the type rarely shared on Wikipedia. It will also contain a work history.
• A "real name"-style social media account like Facebook will have practically every personal detail you could think of, from real name to physical location to mom's maiden name
• A "pseudonym"-style social media account like reddit seems safe, right? Well, those will often have participated in threads related to their physical location (that post in r/SanFrancisco about buying a house on Lombard Street would be pretty revealing, for instance), employment (regular poster in r/Legaladvice without adding an "IANAL" disclaimer? Guess we know what you do for a living!), or sexual proclivities (let's not even go into detail here, but I assure you that most of what I can think of that would fall into this category is things I would unhesitatingly suppress on-wiki as "private personal information").
  • But restricting links to stuff like reddit sounds silly, right? You're not linking TO their location, you're just linking to an account that happens to mention their location. Which is a nice academic point, but your disclaimer will do the person in question no good when someone follows your link, reads their post history, and discovers their life in enough detail to do things that could include doxxing, swatting, and doorstepping. This is a wiki. You are not the only person who is going to see/click that link, not even if the edit is immediately reverted, because hey! wikis preserve page histories!

So what's left? What type of account links can you post that aren't going to contain info covered by global and local oversight policy? Vanishingly few. Yes, there are possible cases. In a previous conversation about this topic, I gave the example of someone's reddit account which has only ever posted the word "awww" to r/adorablebunnies. That could exist. But how sure are you that that link you're about to add linking to someone's off-wiki profile is that safe? How sure are you really? Did you read all 10,000 of their contributions there and make sure there's nothing revealing? If so and you're sure there's nothing personally identifying anywhere in their account's history...then what the heck do you think it's going to prove to anyone on Wikipedia in the first place? A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 19:54, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Interesting. So even if the link was not originally outing when it was added, if someone changes the content of the link such that it than becomes outing that is a blockable offense. This of course would make even using PMIDs potentially blockable as someone might add details afterwards that links a user to to a person. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:06, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

But also largely irrelevant in a lot of cases. The particular bit to note is "of pseudonymous or anonymous individuals" - it does not say 'all users'. In the case that spawned this mess, the user was neither pseudonymous or anonymous. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:21, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

I could make an argument that being "JSmith" is not the same as making public "I am specifically John William Howard Smith" (given how many J Smiths exist in the world, us narrowing it down to a specific one and pointing to them is a pretty big leap), but more to the point, remember that global OS policy adds "...or of public individuals who have not made that personal information public.". Even if we accept that being "user:JSmith" makes one's name being "John William Howard Smith" "public", it is nevertheless the case that allowing that you are "John William Howard Smith" does not somehow entail that you are also choosing to make public on Wikipedia "...and I live in AnyTown, State, USA, am married to Jane Brown Doe, and work as an executive widget supervisor at ABC Corp, Inc. And by the way did I mention that you can call me at 555-555-5555, or email me at 'jsmithrockswithvanhalen@email.com', and I'm 62 years old?"

Even if we assume John W.H. Smith is as public a personality as Britney Spears, it's still pretty uncommon for "public" people to want to release stuff like their personal home address, phone number, exact city of residence, etc to a website that runs on the explicit principle of "anything you put here will be saved pretty much forever and can be copied, adapted, and reused by anyone, anywhere, also forever." Or to put it another way, if I'm a widget manager and create a page for myself on widgetsunion.org giving some detail about myself for my coworkers to get to know me better, are we to assume that the existence of that page also means that I am cool with my personal bio being pasted onto Wikipedia, or Encyclopedia Dramatica, or wehatewidgetpeople.net? People often share information in one context where they can be reasonably sure it won't be misused (linkedin or facebook) that they would never, ever share in another (say, reddit or wikipedia), and we do not have the authority to decide that their choice to limit that info to a smaller context don't matter, we're gonna splash that info all over our public pages and permanent archives. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:22, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm puzzled why it's thought personal information posted to Wikipedia is more likely to be "misused" than when it's posted on Facebook or Linkedin. Could it be the very privacy Wikipedia so values (wrongly in my view) is ripe for exploitation by those who would engage in such misuse (e.g. by making anonynmous threats to get an editor in trouble with their employer). Alexbrn (talk) 15:36, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

My personal feeling is that it's a matter of choosing one's own audience. For instance, if I post something on my facebook wall, I intend for it to be consumed by people who are my friends on Facebook - those are people I generally trust and know on a personal level, who I can safely assume are not going to, say, react to knowing my phone number by calling it at all hours to heavy-breathe into the receiver. However, the same information, copied to or linked to from Wikipedia, directs the attention of a very different audience to it - suddenly my phone number is had not only by people I trust, but also by people who have a specific editing grudge against me, by people who think talking on the phone is the best way to sort out an edit war, and by people who maybe just aren't clear on phone etiquette. If I put my current employer on my LinkedIn page, I'm doing that so potential future employers can see my employment background and perhaps contact my references; if the same information is posted on Wikipedia, sudden;y it's being consumed by an audience who would be more inclined to use it to call my employer and allege I'm satan. It's not that Wikipedia is somehow more vicious than Facebook, it's that what people here would tend to do with personal information about someone is almost never what the owner of that information intended it to be used for when they posted it on, say, Facebook. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:51, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

I could add WP:COI to the list above, and note that it is a guideline rather than a policy. That places it clearly below all of the above. Although I guess I should also note that the prohibition of undisclosed paid editing is part of the global terms of use. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:31, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Note from Wikimedia Foundation Legal

I've been asked to clarify how this discussion fits with the Wikimedia privacy policy. It is not a violation of the Wikimedia privacy policy for editors to post links to public information about other editors. The privacy policy applies to how the Wikimedia Foundation collects and handles personal information, as well as users who have access to nonpublic information. The underlying principle in our privacy policy is that respecting and protecting anonymity and pseudonymity is essential for encouraging free expression. Posting links to public information on other sites is a question of balancing this underlying principle, not a direct violation of the privacy policy. It's up to community consensus here to decide when the harassment policy should allow editors to reasonably link to public information on other sites. Thanks, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 20:50, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks User:Slaporte (WMF) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:23, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

respecting and protecting anonymity and pseudonymity is essential for encouraging free expression ← interesting. This may be true, but it seems to me that enjoying "free expression" is not quite the same as "creating an encyclopedia". Most of what goes on here should be the drudgery work of finding good sources and summarizing their content to make articles. By creating a venue where "free expression" is core this privacy imperative actually encourages an environment where Wikipedia becomes something it should WP:NOT be: a place for people to "express themselves". In my view this privacy imperative is rooted in mentality of the early days of the internet where pseudonyms and anonymity were part of the counter-cultural vibe. Nowadays in Wikipedia it largely works against the interests of the project. Personally I would much prefer to see the principles of openness and transparency as core to the Project. Alexbrn (talk) 13:48, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Also easily proven to be untrue. There are whole swathes of policy, guidelines etc dedicated to restricting 'free expression' on wikipedia. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:00, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Question about another scenario

There is another kind of scenario, where I have some ambivalence, and I'd like to hear from other editors about how they view it. (This grows out of earlier discussion at Wikipedia talk:Harassment/Archive 8.) Let's say that there is a concern about undisclosed paid editing. The editor who is suspected has voluntarily posted information about that editing at an external website, in a commercial context where the posting is intended to be freely available to the public, and thus was not intended to be private information at the time that it was posted. But they have not disclosed it on-Wiki. Their user name here is the same as the name used at the external site, and they say at the external site that they are editing here. Is it outing to link to that? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:47, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

There's no need to link to that.

"Hi there,

I'm Keegan, a Wikipedia contributor like yourself. I'm contacting you over some concerns I have over your contributions. In reading over them and looking to verify their contents, I believe that they are violating some of the important policies that we have here, namely that I strongly suspect that you might be compensated for your editing. Wikipedia's Terms of Use require that you provide notices if this is the case, and I'll assume good faith that you might not be aware of this. Here is where you can learn more about how to follow the Terms of User: <link>. I understand that I may be in error, but do be aware that assuming good faith only goes so far, and if your contributions do not change or there is not a notice to bring your edits in compliance with the Terms of Use, this account may be blocked from editing with or without further notice and appropriate evidence of potential violations of the Terms of Use may be sent to <people>. These matters are taken very seriously by Wikipedians, thank you for your understanding. ~~~~"

If the user protests, it's no different than sock puppets or vandals: give it the duck test and if behavior continues, block them and send your evidence to the Arbitration Committee. Leave a note in the block notice that ArbCom has information about this block. Been here, done this, got a drawer full of the t-shirts they hand out with checkusering and blocking promo accounts. I've never had to out someone, there is no need. Keegan (talk) 00:34, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Keegan, those are good ideas. At the same time, I wonder what is appropriate if an editor fails to do it that way. Is it really outing? --Tryptofish (talk) 00:49, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

The problem I'm seeing with this approach is that it can violate WP:ASPERSIONS. We've made it clear whether through policy, guideline, or ArbCom that we need to provide evidence when approaching a COI issue. This is to counteract editors who like to sling around COI accusations simply because the way the editor edits doesn't match their POV (e.g. this edit doesn't vilify a particular industry so there must be a COI). We definitely need to balance OUTING and COI, but disallowing evidence while still posting these notices would run editors into trouble too. Kingofaces43 (talk) 01:41, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree that it's the same as WP:ASPERSIONS (which is an essay, not sure you can violate an essay). But, thanks for this, because it lead me to this: "When investigating COI editing, the policy against harassment takes precedence; it requires that Wikipedians must take care not to reveal the identity of editors against their wishes. Instead, examine editors' behavior and refer to Wikipedia:Checkuser." from Arbitration this past December. Please note that the approach that I take does specifically focus on the content and the user's behavior, not the user themselves. That is what is at stake here, the ability to go after a contributor over content. Keegan (talk) 07:42, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

I remember pretty recently that WP:ASPERSIONS directed instead to an ArbCom finding, so in any case, aspersions are a big deal (see the ongoing mess in the GMO topic area). But Keegan, I repeat my question that was not answered. I agree that your approach is the best practice – but if someone fails to follow your best practice, is that really outing in this case? --Tryptofish (talk) 19:17, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes. There are some folks here that are forgetting, or will not recognize, that the vast majority of people using the internet are not aware of the difference between public and private. They are not aware that contributing to this website under their real name makes it open season to reveal avenues of off-wiki harassment. Treating people as "they should know better" is yet another form of victim blaming. Keegan (talk) 21:45, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

You are still not answering the question that I asked you. Please re-read the scenario that I described at the top of this section. I'm talking about a situation in which the posting at the other site was knowingly intended to be public, not a situation in which the person did not understand the difference. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:51, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

If the information was not linked to on Wikipedia by the person who posted it on another website, posting it by another user is not acceptable. Having a Facebook profile set to public != link to me on Wikipedia. Keegan (talk) 23:50, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

The difference between saying:

• I think that you (User:JSmith) have a conflict of interest with the article you created, Smith's Widget Emporium. Please be mindful of our COI policy. vs.
• I think that you (User:JSmith) are John Smith (see this LinkedIn profile) of Smith's Widget Emporium. Please be mindful of our COI policy.

is the latter will get you blocked, the former will not. --kelapstick^(bainuu) 09:42, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Kelapstick, I agree with that distinction, but it wasn't what I asked.

1. What if someone says (in between your two examples) "I think that you (User:JSmith) have a conflict of interest with respect to the Smith's Widget Emporium company and that it affects your editing of that page."?
2. Or: "I think that you (User:JSmith) have a conflict of interest with article you created, Smith's Widget Emporium, where it says that John Smith is the head of the company."?
3. Or: "I think that you (User:John B. Smith) have a conflict of interest with article you created, Smith's Widget Emporium, where it says that John B. Smith is the head of the company."?
4. And my question was not about a LinkedIn profile. I asked specifically about a commercial page where the information that is posted was intended to be public information. So: "I think that you (User:JSmith) have a conflict of interest with article you created, Smith's Widget Emporium. The company website, that is linked in the EL section of the page, says that the head of the company is John Smith, as does the infobox at the top of the page."?

That last example is really what I am asking about. I'll stipulate that it is better practice to do it per Keegan or per your first example, even in this situation. But if instead an editor says that last version, is it really outing? --Tryptofish (talk) 19:17, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Would it get you blocked, possibly not. Could it, yes. To what end does asking if they are the person listed on the company website serve. In this case, you are pretty confident in who they are, the user in question obviously knows who they are, you've suggested that they have a COI, they should understand why you think that. Why would you want (or need) to post a direct link between the user and their real life identity (not just their name, but which specific John Smith they are) on their talk page. --kelapstick^(bainuu) 21:47, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that's an accurate description of current practice. In other words, most of the time, doing that will be allowed to happen, and then, every now and then, it will suddenly result in a block, and a brouhaha, and a Streisand effect. I agree with you that focusing on the edit and not the person is always better, but we have too many gray areas where commenting on the person nonetheless is going to happen, and what this policy has been telling editors is that it is a "case-by-case" matter. This is no way to run a policy. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:57, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

(Responding to Kingofaces43.) That's a really good point. I've observed editors who are trying to deal with COI try to communicate with editors in the way that Keegan recommends, and then find themselves in a Catch-22 when the editor they approach complains that they are being accused without evidence. And I've also seen firsthand (even been on the receiving end myself) POV-pushers who allege COI without evidence. We have a contradiction: we do not allow posting information that establishes a COI problem if it is private, but we want to discourage COI accusations that are not evidence-based. On the other hand, I do think that private emailing of evidence (see the thread below) could be an ideal solution. If credible evidence is confirmed after it is emailed, then it is not a personal attack, whereas a failure to provide the evidence privately is the casting of an aspersion. --Tryptofish (talk) 02:17, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Per "posting information that establishes a COI problem if it is private" I completely agree with. But the rest of the internet apart from Wikipedia is simply not private. The rest of the internet is mostly public. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:00, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

A clarification on what this RfC would mean

So what happens if people reject Doc James' proposals, will the "case by case basis" bit be removed? Because I don't have particularly strong thoughts on Elance, but think the outing policy would be ridiculous without that line. I made a proposal a while back which I withdrew because an RfC was running on a similar topic, and I believe the OUTING policy should be revised, but I have no strong thoughts on the above proposals. Brustopher (talk) 23:32, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

If no linking to other accounts is every allowed, does this mean pubmed references are no longer to be used as they now contain links to personal accounts? Not only do the extreme positions on outing makes enforcement of our terms of use difficult but it also conflicts with one of our five pillars WP:V Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:35, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Need for a better mechanism for private reporting

I take note of this existing language in the outing policy: Nothing in this policy prohibits the emailing of personal information about editors to individual administrators, functionaries, or arbitrators, or to the Wikimedia Foundation, when doing so is necessary to report violations of confidentiality-sensitive policies (such as conflict-of-interest or paid editing, harassment, or violations of the child-protection policy). Only the minimum information necessary should be conveyed and the minimum number of people contacted.

To some extent, I think that the outpouring of opposition to outing in the course of COI investigations, that has emerged in the last 24 hours or so, is a little too emotional and self-righteous. After all, COI editing and undisclosed paid editing are serious matters, and there can be a reasonable case for the language that I just quoted. It's a good alternative to posting the private information on-site.

Aside from the WMF, however, it is not particularly clear whom to email within the English Wikipedia. And I think the perception that emailing is kludgy contributes to the belief by some editors who care about COI, that they should just post on-site. It would be good to have a designated address to email such private information in the case of COI or undisclosed paid editing. Then, we could have a strict and unambiguous policy against outing while still having effective enforcement of COI and paid editing restrictions. A trusted functionary, for example, could confirm or deny that there is private information that supports an investigation, without disclosing the private information

I think emailing ArbCom is a bad idea, because they get too much email as it is. One possibility would be to designate the email for Oversighters for this purpose. Another would be to create a designated OTRS channel. Ideas? --Tryptofish (talk) 00:46, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

User:Tryptofish I agree this is a good idea. However, the WMF is not willing / able to take on this role and we have not found any group of functionaries interested in doing it either. I tried to have created a group of functionaries to take on this work but did not succeed previously. Maybe this will change. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:25, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

You are very right about that. Some of that depends, I think, upon the specific problem at hand. We really have nothing right now for COI or undisclosed paid editing, and that's what the current brouhaha is focused on. But I think that for other kinds of harassment, ArbCom is willing to be contacted, and for severe threats, the WMF does have a response team. I also think the WMF is prepared to handle child protection issues. Please correct me if I am wrong about any of that. But it really seems to me that we need something for COI if we are going to eliminate on-site posting of information. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:22, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

If you are harassed or see someone else being harassed, you can contact arbcom. If the matter is severe (e.g. threats of harm, potential suicide, etc) or otherwise an emergency you should also contact the WMF using emergencywikimedia.org (see also Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm. If you see any child protection issues (including child pornography) you should email legal-reportswikimedia.org - see Wikipedia:Child protection. Last year's arbcom (of which I was a member) were of the opinion that investigating conflicts of interest was outside its scope and was best dealt with by the WMF. This year's arbcom (of which I am not a member) have informed the functionaries that the matter is currently being discussed on the arbcom mailing list - I expect the outcome will be posted on this page when agreement is reached one way or the other. Thryduulf (talk) 20:50, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Thryduulf, that's very helpful information. So clearly, the need for now is to have a local mechanism for COI and undisclosed paid editing. We should not wait on the WMF for that. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:28, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

We have them, WP:NPOV WP:UNDUE WP:VERIFY WP:PROMO etc. When people violate them and do not change their behavior after notice, they are blocked. The contributions reverted, articles deleted. If they sock, that is covered under policy as well. There is nothing being discussed that is unique, we've been doing this for fifteen years now. Keegan (talk) 22:46, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Oh, come on! The "mechanism" I am talking about is an email address to which private information can be sent, instead of posting it on-site. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:25, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Emailing Arbcom is a bad idea because the last time someone emailed them with a COI issue, they banned them. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:50, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Well User:Only in death there's a pretty strong implication in your statement that that ArbCom banned a persons because they reported a COI issue. Wonder if there were were extenuating circumstances. Are you saying that the ArbCom has a general policy "If you report COI to us we will ban you"? Because that's a pretty strong statement, and if it's mendacious (as I suspect) you should not make such statements. And if that's not what you're trying to say, I'm not sure what the purpose of your statement is, except to spread poison and despair without warrant.

That being said, I agree that ArbCom is probably too busy to take on most COI. I'd be willing to help out if asked. Herostratus (talk) 14:06, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

I agree that part of why we're in this predicament today is because we (both collectively and in terms of Arbcom or some other body taking responsibility for this) have failed to present the community with viable and reliable options other than "*shrug* Iunno, y'all are on your own for this one". I think either Arbcom or the Oversight team would be a proper private venue to direct these issues, and I encourage both groups to consider coordinating, and then presenting to the community, a way for them to do so. The only thing preventing community from sending these cases to, say, oversight-en-wp-at-wikipedia.org for handling is that people currently have no way of knowing whether the team at the other end of that address is going to handle the case or stick it in the "not our job" trashcan. Speaking as one person on the OS team, I see no reason to not handle these with the OS team, especially as it will reduce our firefighting workload by heading off cases where the info would otherwise be posted on-wiki; colleagues, what say you? A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:05, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea and a good point. These things should be handled privately, but they should not fail to be handled altogether. Commercial advocacy and shills are a serious problem, they suck up a massively inordinate amount of community time and resources, and we need to tell them in no uncertain terms to follow our policies (without needing to be constantly reminded and prompted) or to leave. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:19, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

I would be happy to see functionaries join in the efforts. The degree of problems however is such that they are not going to be able to manage it alone. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:58, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Fluffernutter and Seraphimblade, yes, what you are saying is exactly what I am trying to get at. Maybe the Oversight list, or maybe the Functionaries list, or something like those. It's really for the people on those lists to say. But you are right that handling it that way can head off larger problems following blocks, like the block that exists right now. And there is another aspect that I think is very important. If it gets handled privately, then we are much less likely to have Streisand effects, which become very large effects when discussions like this break out. After all, the real consideration that matters most is protecting the private information of the potentially outed person. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:29, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Ones public linked in profile is not private information. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:49, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Unless a user has linked to that profile on Wikipedia then that information must be treated as private (it is equivalent to personal information of notable people which they have not made public). Simply sharing a username, no matter how unusual that username is, does not constitute a link (for example, my username is among the more unusual I've seen yet not every account on every website with this name is anything to do with me). If you post private information about a user then you are outing them - it is never acceptable to out or attempt to out someone. It is particularly bad when you make an incorrect link as you are harming two (or more) people without even potential justificiation. Thryduulf (talk) 20:57, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

The extreme view by many appears to be that linking to any information off of WP is disallowed. That would mean that those taking this position would need to remove the pillar WP:V and would make writing a verifiable encyclopedia impossible. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:22, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

There are a couple of issues with this though (putting aside my objection of Wikipedians investigating other Wikipedians real lives).

1. This group that would be setup and making decisions on whether to block someone because of conflict of interest would get super litigous, real fast, whether it has basis or not right now. ArbCom has recently had it's fair share of possible legal cases, so I'm not even inclined to put myself into even more risk. The disruption of one litigation issue is going to be substaintail. I don't want to know what more would be like.
2. The resources. Neither ArbCom nor the functionaries list (especially looking at the discussion and the number of opposes) will have enough manpower. I'm assuming there are many cases that would come up in an average week espeically if the whole of Wikipedia is reporting on them. So it's going to get backlogged, and then there will be complains about backlogs and wanting to onboard new members.
3. That wanting to onboard leads to more issues now as we'd need community members to be handling extremely private information sensitively. So now we either gotta build another RfA or ArbCom has to appoint them. Anything less...I'd be scared of what people could get on and see private information about so many wikipedians, and then the risk of it leaking just like functionaries and arbcom goes astronomical.
4. What about cases that are declined to be acted on? Will that person who filed the report simply disengage or will they still have the same drive now to post that information onwiki because morally they believe people should not get away with COI editing?

This is a solution with a lot of bullets through it already, and it hasn't even started. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 02:38, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Certainly Kohs has already threatened to sue me for the work I have done on COI. There are also legal risks when dealing with content though. I ended up with a bunch of legal issues for supporting the inclusion of the images of the 10 Rorschach ink blots and had to get a lawyer for 8 months to defend my case. One of those who launched an attack was a fellow Wikipedian. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:36, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Why is there a rule against posting personal information, specifically against pointing to other accounts?

I ask, not as a leading question, but as the basis for people to think (and maybe re-examine their thoughts) and discuss thoughtfully, the question "WHY is there a rule against posting personal information, specifically against pointing to other accounts?"

Looking at first principles, it seems to be that these statements are true:

1. Our rules exist to enhance, defend, and protect the Wikipedia.
2. For the Wikipedia to thrive, the community of editors must thrive.
3. Regardless of any other considerations, we must not do or countenance things that are morally repugnant.

Most of the material here in Wikipedia:Harassment is supported by all three statements. As a general rule, hounding and threatening someone (or allowing it) is harmful to the project and also immoral.

However, the question of personal identity are more complicated.

There are some websites that require you to have to identify yourself in order to post. Few people believe that such sites are inherently evil. Some people believe that we ought to require people to establish their identities to post here; I think that'd be stupid, counter-productive, and harmful to the project, but not evil.

We provide anonymity not because it'd be immoral not to, but because it is a more effective way to run the project.

However, morality comes into play once we have promised anonymity. We have to honor that, for practical reasons (the editor community must be able to trust our promised protections) and moral reasons (breaking that promise causes distress to humans, for starters).

Usually.

But there's a big gaping hole in the class of people who have been promised anonymity for whom we need to honor that promise, and that's people who are here to damage, degrade, and destroy the Wikipedia.

There's no practical reason to specifically protect the class "people who are incontrovertibly here to damage, degrade, and destroy the Wikipedia". It does not enhance, defend, and protect the Wikipedia to nurture that subset of editors. (There is the objection "Yes but as a matter of technical ability we cannot usually clearly discern the class of people who are incontrovertibly here to damage, degrade, and destroy the Wikipedia". This is cogent and I'll discuss it presently.)

On the moral point I'd make two assertions:

First, people who are incontrovertibly here to damage, degrade, and destroy the Wikipedia have forfeited their moral right to our protection. They are still eligible to be projected in other spheres of their life, but not here. (We see this in real life for instance when the class "people whom it is immoral to shoot" starts off at "all people" as a baseline but is then drawn to exclude the subclasses "enemy soldiers, convicted murders [maybe], and people who are currently stabbing us".)

Second, although to this point I've been accepting the primacy of moral reasoning and will continue to do so for my personal part, we have to acknowledge that many, perhaps most, Wikipedians do not. See Wikipedia:AMORAL. I've been here long enough to hear very many Wikipedians state "we do not make moral judgements here". It'd be a bit rich for the community to make the argument "we don't judge against showing schoolchildren detailed images of of women enjoying being sexually abused, but when you talk about OUR ANONYMITY we are suddenly more Catholic than the Pope".

So for all those reasons I'd say that people who are incontrovertibly here to damage, degrade, and destroy the Wikipedia are not protected from outing at the margins.

By "at the margins" I mean we have to be careful -- only delve into personal information when the person is incontrovertibly here to damage, degrade, and destroy the Wikipedia, and then only the minimum extent required to enhance, defend, and protect the Wikipedia. This is just prudent acknowledgement of our human inability to be perfect in knowing things. If someone is incontrovertibly here to damage, degrade, and destroy the Wikipedia but revealing any of her personal information will not help to enhance, defend, and protect the Wikipedia, then doing so would be egregious, and we shouldn't. If revealing only some personal information (such as a link to another account) is called for, then only that amount should be revealed. Prudence.

So how to do we know who is incontrovertibly here to damage, degrade, and destroy the Wikipedia? Again, we want to cast that net narrowly, but certainly first in the net would be commercial public relations operatives. They are playing us and using our graciousness, good will, and rules designed for a community of altruistic public-spirited volunteers to line their pockets and attack our articles. Linking their node accounts can help reveal their noxious webs and thereby enhance, defend, and protect the Wikipedia.

(I grant that by "commercial public relations operatives" I am really saying "people who, using the intelligence and sense that has been granted us, we believe are commercial public relations operatives", and I know that there's no way to be 100% sure of that -- but there's no way to be 100% sure of anything and if that's our standards let's close the project and stay in bed.)

You know, reporters hold the anonymity of people speaking on background to be sacrosanct. But the if they lie to you on background? Burn 'em. You have to, if you're going to have any self-respect, and uphold the integrity of the whole process. Same deal for us.

Posting links to other accounts on other websites is allowable on a case-by-case basis. It's not just a good idea. It's the rule. (Although IMO it ought to be more narrowly cast as "Posting links to other accounts on other websites is allowable if the editor in question is doing commercial public relations work (or giving a reasonable person cause to believe this, and such link would be helpful in investigating or demonstrating this" or something, as a matter of better expressing community consensus). Herostratus (talk) 16:14, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

+1 to this User:Herostratus

The original wording was "Posting links to other accounts on other websites may occasionally be allowed such as when those accounts are being used to transact paid editing."[5]

Also happy with your proposed wording. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:56, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

I think that it is very helpful to examine underlying principles like this, so thank you for starting the discussion. Please see also what I said above, at #Community attitudes about enforcement. I'm interested in this issue of a moral position, from another angle. As I look at these discussions, I'm seeing both moral and emotional arguments, from both "sides". Part of what happens in COI investigations is that the investigators feel moral outrage at the onslaught of people who try to use Wikipedia as free advertising, and who may be sneaky about it. Likewise, it gets pretty hard to feel sorry for persons who try to use Wikipedia for child abuse or for hate speech. On the other hand, I think the reason for privacy is that editors should have the right to edit in good faith without having to look over their shoulders, worrying about harassment in real life. And it's a valid concern, a valid reason for an outing policy. Doxing can be a horrible thing. But I see some moral emotionality on the side of those (including a lot of functionaries who have commented here) who argue that any editor who violates the outing policy must likewise be punished. I think that some of it gets mixed up with revulsion over doxing, and some of it with revulsion over online abuse of women. It goes so far as to see the blocking process as a venue for a sort of forced "re-education", and so far as being willing to create a Streisand effect that actually hurts the outed user further, so long as the block makes a point. What I'm saying is that it would be better if both "sides" were to set aside the moral outrage, recognize that both oversighters and COI fighters want what's best for Wikipedia, and seek practical rather than retributive solutions. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:43, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

No, a lot of functionaries are not arguing that people who out people must likewise be punished. What we are saying is that outing should not be and is not permitted, and repeated violations may result in punishment just like violating any other Wikipedia policy. The question of the RfC is: should external links to information about another person, not provided by that person, ever be allowed? We are saying no, it should not, because there are other ways to handle the situation. The yes's are saying "but we really want to so we can prove ToU violations," which again, isn't necessary to enforce policy as has been explained over and over and over and over. And no, I will not set aside my moral, ethics, and obligations as a Wikipedian to compromise on outing people "just a little bit." It's wrong. Keegan (talk) 21:52, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Well, I think that some functionaries may believe that they are doing it that way, but I think I understand human nature pretty well, and maybe some people are not as self-aware as they think they are. Perhaps it would be a good idea to set aside one's indignation, as opposed to setting aside one's moral compass. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:03, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm not going to set aside my disgust and indignation, no, not when such unethical and immoral standards to our projects are attempting to have their way. I never claimed to mask it, I'm very aware- I'm saying it. There will be no pretending this is okay. Edit: Because this is not just about a difference of opinions here, which can be hammered out and compromised. This is about the right to open up someone on-wiki to their life off-wiki for any reason, with callous disregard to the repercussions. Seriously, "the asked for it" will not be tolerated. Keegan (talk) 22:22, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

You just proved my point. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:27, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Tryptofish, I would point out that 1) no one is required to perform commercial public relations work here -- they choose to, and 2) if they do choose to, they are supposed to reveal themselves as PR operatives. You are saying that even if a person chooses to perform commercial public relations work here and declines to reveal herself, we still have a moral obligation to hold her well-being sacrosanct. I submit that that's highly idiosyncratic, I don't agree, and I'd like to delve deeper into the "why" of that.

As a thought experiment, suppose someone were physically damaging the project, in that they were firing mortar shells into the building housing the main servers. (Leave aside the question of human law (which is peripheral to this thought experiment) and assume this was done to a building empty of people.) Would we still be required to valorize that person's privacy and well-being above the project? Why? What's the difference? Herostratus (talk) 01:15, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Those are very good questions. I'm actually much less decided about these things than you make me out to be. You see, I actually am very uncomfortable with saying that anything should be "sacrosanct". I would tend to come down on the side of saying that a good-faith editor (not necessarily one that is "correct" according to policies and guidelines, but rather, one that believes that they are helping to make Wikipedia better) has more of a right to privacy than does one who comes here with a deliberate intention to be harmful. We also have to keep in mind that one editor may regard a user as being disruptive while another editor may regard the same conduct as OK, and we should not harm the user's privacy over an ambiguous case – and that means that our policies should err on the side of not harming the privacy of good-faith users. But my most important (to me) point in this discussion thread is that I want everyone here to step back from arguing that anything is "sacrosanct". As much as I care about privacy – and I care about it a lot! – I also think it's really bad policy to block an editor accused of outing in such a fashion that it creates a Streisand effect for the private information. That's the kind of poor practice that arises from seeing things as a battle between good and evil. I don't think that COI-fighters should prioritize the fighting of COI over everything else, and I don't think that functionaries should prioritize prevention of outing over everything else. Better that both "sides" recognize that we all want what's best for Wikipedia, and stop treating this discussion like a war between two camps. --Tryptofish (talk) 02:12, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Functionaries do not prioritize prevention of outing over everything else. If there's no outing, there is no problem. Prevent, cleanup, and administrate bad editing! Please! Just don't post links to someone's external site/profile/blog. Comment on the content, not the contributor. When you work in a collaborative environment whose contents are freely available for download, distribution, modification, and any other reuse you should have an expectation of privacy. Without it, discussion and debate cannot flourish. In addition, it's harassing and intimidating to the unassuming victim who was not asking for such a link out there. With outing allow "case-by-case" or with any other wording, that shield is gone as the policy becomes completely toothless. No one is asking for the moon, and no one's hands are being tied behind their back. Block people and move on, email whomever if you feel someone is violating the ToU. At the end of the day the result is the same: a block, a cessation of the disruption of editing. Keegan (talk) 02:59, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

+1 to Herostratus' writing here, it's the most coherent thinking on this topic I've seen lately. Getting this right is of vital importance to the project. Also endorsing xyr proposed wording: the reasonable person test is as close as we're going to get to defining when off-wiki info can be posted. Brianhe (talk) 03:53, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

• So how to do we know who is incontrovertibly here to damage, degrade, and destroy the Wikipedia? The same way we do with vandals and trolls. We review their contributions and act accordingly. One of the reasons that I'm so adamantly against exceptional outing as some of you propose is the image conjured in my mind when ideas like "Burn 'em" are suggested as a consequence of for lying (presumably referring to undisclosed paid editing). If I have misread the implied intent there, please do correct me.- MrX 13:19, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Well, lying is a moral fault too. If moral faults are not policed, you end up with a degraded society. I wouldn't get too hung up on imagery. "Burning your sources" is just an American colloquialism for revealing the names of anonymous sources. Reporters will fight like tigers, even go to jail, to protect their sources. Although framed morally, and with legitimate moral reasons, this is actually practical code which enhances the ability of all future journalists to get sources, and this benefits society.

But the honor code of anonymous sourcing has an explicit quid pro quo: you will describe them as "an unnamed source" and they will tell you the truth. If they don't, they've broken the honor code and you are justified in revealing your sources (or "burning" them, in sporty journalist lingo). (This is actually debatable; different journalists will handle this in different ways, depending on various circumstances.)

If journalists aren't willing to ever burn their sources, then sources will suss that there's no penalty for lying, and they will eventually degrade background interviews into just another opportunity to spin the media for their own ends -- enough, anyway, so that background interviews lose their assumed veracity and become much less useful. An so society suffers, from a decreased ability to learn the truth about important stuff.

IMO this translates well to our situation vis-a-vis commercial public relations operatives lying to us about being innocent editors. Remember that we are not just your personal hobby here, but one of the major world sources for information. Our articles on corporations are a main source of information about those entities for millions of people and for society as a whole. To the extent that we allow our delicate sensibilities to be played so that commercial public relations operatives can pollute the well, we are ourselves entering into moral fault. Herostratus (talk) 14:30, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Posting of personal information

I made a slight modification to the following sentence:

Posting links to other accounts on other websites is allowable on a case-by-case basis.

And have changed it to:

Posting links to other accounts on other websites is not permitted, unless under exceptional circumstances.

If there's no clear consensus for removing the entire sentence, please let the second option stay - It's less ambiguous and doesn't leave room for creative interpretation of "case-by-case basis".

RoseL2P (talk) 21:04, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

That's pretty much saying the same thing, and changing it in the middle of an RfC is only complicating matters.- MrX 21:26, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

And whatever else may be the case, it really is best to discuss this stuff here in talk, and not for anyone to edit war on the policy page (that's directed at everyone, and at no one in particular). --Tryptofish (talk) 21:31, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Also "under exceptional circumstances" is just as meaningless as "case-by-case". --Tryptofish (talk) 21:39, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Sorry about that, I just felt it necessary to make it clear that any posting of personal information (unless already published on WP) is usually a form of harassment. I didn't realize my edit (a very minor one) would be controversial but if someone feels strongly against these changes, please feel free to restore the original wording. RoseL2P (talk) 21:51, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

I think RoseL2P's wording is better--it clarifies that this is rare and that the presumption is that it is not permitted. However, it still is vague, and doesn't really solve the problem. DGG ( talk ) 22:26, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

So now that pubmed contains comments by accounts are we now no longer allowed to link to it? For example this paper contains "personal information" in the way some are interpreting it http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24778001/#comments

If this is the case we at WikiProject Medicine need to look at forking as we would no longer be welcome here. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:40, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

With respect, I think most editors would see this example as a straw man. -- Euryalus (talk) 07:29, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Doc James, your argument is fallacious because it refutes a position that none of us will support. Many people (rightfully) disagree with the posting of personal information in the following manner:

According to my opposition research, you have previously commented on PubMed [insert link] under the following name: [insert name].

This should not be allowed because it will result in someone being "outed". If the link was cited without reference to anyone in particular, no one will be "outed" by it. Since nobody will oppose the citing of such links for genuine encyclopedic purposes (i.e. without attempting to harass or intimidate), you are esentially refuting an unsupported position.

That is why your argument is fallacious.

RoseL2P (talk) 09:49, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

While the question you post is not the one asked in this RfC. The question asked here is "Can other site accounts ever be linked to" and right now we have a fairly large group of functionaries saying no other account can ever be linked to. From my reading zero exceptions are to be given. This would means that no links to the NYT as comments at the bottom contain "other site accounts" and pubmed may not be linked to either for the same reason.

• User:Thryduulf writes ""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.". That includes (links to) accounts on other websites that are not disclosed on Wikipedia." So if we see a few hundred comments on a NYTs article and one of those comments is by an editor here than that link appears to be unsafe to use. In our example for this RfC the comment can even occur after the link is used on WP.
• User:A fluffernutter is a sandwich! writes "There's nothing good that comes with leading people to believe they can post links that contain private/personal information about other people, because we know based on multiple other policies (and based on the oversight logs) that that's a lie - those things will be suppressed, almost invariably - and the people who relied on the misleading policy are going to be really confused when they do get in trouble for it." In this statement the definition of "private information / personal information" appears to be all information about a person that exists in some place other than Wikipedia.
• User:Keegan makes it clear that by "private information" the functionaries mean all information not disclosed on WP "No. One never needs to nor has to post a link to someone's external information to prove a point or win a conflict."
• User:Courcelles is even clearer when they write ""Posting links to other accounts on other websites may be allowable on a case-by-case basis." sentence needs to be removed, because the number of cases this should ever happen are zero, no exceptions." It does not even appear that accounts need to be belong to a Wikipedian or any attempt to connect between a Wikipedia account and that account is required for it to be disallowed.

If these users do not mean what they have written and have a more nuanced stance of when other accounts can and cannot be linked to it would be useful to hear them. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:54, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Articles with comments at the bottom are not user accounts. This is a straw man.- MrX 13:07, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

If you look here http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24778001/#comments you will notice personal details including full name, city, employment, etc so yes it is a type of "other account" on another website. These accounts require a fair bit of work to set up before you can comment with them and the account owner can if they wish connect that account to a Wikipedian account in their comments. Not that different from Elance really, where people can state a Wikipedia account they claim to use. I have seen some claim to be admins here on Elance. If someone was claiming to be me on Elance I would appreciate it if someone told me. If I did not have email enabled some peoples interpretation of the WP:OUTING policy would make this very dangerous to do on Wikipedia. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:23, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

If you are referring to the person whose last name is a fruit, he has already disclosed his identity on Wikipedia. An exception already exists for that case in the first sentence of of WP:OUTING. It's possible I'm missing your point though. Could give a better example demonstrating why connecting an undisclosed identity of a Wikipedia user account to a PubMed paper would be necessary.- MrX 13:39, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

You have (deliberately?) misunderstood or misrepresented my comment and your characterisation of it raises a straw man. You may use an article that has been commented on by one or more editors as a reference in an article or as part of a talk page discussion about an article, or for any other encyclopaedic purpose, as long as you do not (attempt to) identify one or more commenters there as editors here (or vice versa) unless the editor(s) in question have made that link themselves. Not that I can imagine any circumstance in which there would be any need to do so. Thryduulf (talk) 14:03, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

I don't believe Doc James is suggesting that "connecting an undisclosed identity of a Wikipedia user account to a PubMed paper would be necessary". The proposal under discussion is to remove the case by case exceptions, which would make it a policy violation to post a link to a website which contains identifiable information. I don't see that the proposed policy talks about a link to an outside website which is also connected to a Wikipedia user.--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:15, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Words matter. The prohibitions on posting personal information, including links to other websites, is in the context that such links are used as a connection to an existing editor. Yet, that is not explicitly stated. I'm not sure it is even implicit. You have to know the back-story to understand why we even have such a prohibition. However, if an editor is charged with violating the policy, they will be found guilty if the violate the actual words of the policy, not an "well, we all knew what it meant, even if it didn't say it." Doc James is making the point that many, many links used as references do contain personal information. We need to work on the words to distinguish that perfectly allowable practice from that which we wish to prohibit.--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:31, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

The RfC is about removing the entire sentence "Posting links to other accounts on other websites is allowable on a case-by-case basis.", a version of which was added by Doc James over a year ago. When that sentence goes away, everything falls into place and there's no more dilemma because the policy is sufficiently clear in the first two sentences of WP:OUTING. - MrX 14:33, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

I get that you think we're handcuffing you with barbed wire, and are therefore both annoyed at the restraints and panicked about potential for pain, Doc James, but please pause for a moment and remember that we are reasonable, experienced Wikipedians who are dedicated to the good of the project and its users, and consider how likely that makes it that we're advocating the banning of external links on Wikipedia. Do you really think that's what any of us are saying? Or even that it's a reasonable extension of what we're saying? Because what we're saying is "Don't put something on Wikipedia identifying user:blah as John Smith", and what you're saying we're saying is "don't put anything on Wikipedia, ever." The operative point here is making a link between a Wikipedia user and a purported offsite identity or personal details when the user has not already made that link for themselves. Not "making a link to somewhere on the internet where a human's name is mentioned".

Look at it like a flow chart:

1. Step 1: Are you making an edit that provides or purports to bring in off-wiki information about/account(s) of a specific user or users of Wikipedia?

   If yes -> move to Step 2

   If no -> you're not outing another editor, don't worry

2. Ste 2: Does your edit link to or contain information about a specific user or users on Wikipedia that they have not voluntarily released on Wikipedia?

   If yes -> move to step 3

   If no -> you're not outing another editor, don't worry

3. Step 3: Does your edit link to or contain information that is personally identifying or private about the specific user or users (for instance: real name, location, employer)?

   If yes -> Stop, do not pass Go, do not collect COI bounty. You are outing this person.

   If no -> you're not outing someone if this is truly "no", but it's your responsibility to make sure that the answer is "no" before you save that edit

So to take your PubMed link as an example, if I were to be Dr. Sandwich, MD in real life, and I comment on PubMed with that identity and related information about myself but Wikipedia user:Fluffernutter has, nowhere in her Wikipedia history, identified herself as "Dr. Sandwich, M.D. from Johns Hopkins, currently employed at Princeton", then for you to decide whether posting that PubMed link is going to be outing me and/or get you in trouble, what you need to think about is "Am I making this external link in a context of 'Here's who user:Fluffernutter really is, Wikipedia!'?" If the answer is yes, then yes, you're about to out my secret identity as a mega-doctor. If the answer is no, you're just citing that PubMed page as a source and my comment is peripheral and your link draws no particular connection between my comment and my Wikipedia account, then you're not outing me and you have nothing to worry about, at least in the context of outing and harassment policy. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 14:36, 2 July 2016 (UTC)