Wikiversity:Request custodian action/Moulton's talk page

User:Moulton, given his interest in wiki editors' identities, and as part of the "ethics" project, has published personal information about wiki editors on wikis (including Wikiversity), blogs, and forums - a practice known as "outing". This is to request community comments on Moulton's posting of personal information to Wikiversity. Please read (and develop) the activity under review, and the actions taken (so far), and add comments in the discussion section. Cormaggio talk 19:16, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Context
Cary Bass, WMF volunteer coordinator, sent an email to Foundation-l mailing list which spelled out his concerns - some of which related to Moulton's activity - as general project-wide questions. Wikiversity is a Wikimedia project, and therefore conforms to fundamental Wikimedia principles and policies (such as freedom of content); however Wikiversity, like all projects, has a certain autonomy in setting its own policies that support Wikiversity's scope and mission, provided they don't usurp fundamental WMF principles.

See:
 * Wikimedia's privacy policy - discusses what kinds of information you may make available to others by editing WMF sites, and what level of privacy you may expect with respect to the Wikimedia Foundation.
 * Wikiversity's (proposed) privacy policy - discusses the adding of personal information on Wikiversity
 * Wikipedia's policy on 'outing' and harassment - discusses the adding of others' personal information on Wikipedia

See also Request custodian action/Requests relating to Moulton for previous discussions around Moulton's activity.

Activity for community review
As stated, Moulton has been adding personal information to Wikiversity, or links from Wikiversity to other websites where personal information is presented. Moulton's co-founder of the ethics project, User:WAS_4.250, showed awareness and concern about the problems in posting personal info (eg here); and User:SB_Johnny warned Moulton that links to his blog that 'outed' people were not allowed (see). However Moulton has continued to post information linking names and/or email addresses to wiki user names, despite being asked several times on-wiki (across several WMF projects), and on IRC not to do so. The latest of these was today (12:06 (UTC), 23 September 2008), in which Moulton posted a private email he had sent to several Wikipedians, leaving names and email addresses intact. This latest edit has now been oversighted - i.e. deleted from the page's history - though Moulton has re-posted the content of that edit on the "media ethics" blog he contributes to. Several other requests for oversighting such material have been made to Wikimedia stewards over the past few weeks.

Additions
(If you know of other instances of personal information being added, or discussed, please add them here.)

Actions taken

 * Moulton's talk page has been protected from editing for now. This is intended to last until the outcomes of this discussion become clear.
 * Oversighting done (as mentioned).
 * The User:Moulton account has been blocked, but he has continued to edit as an anonymous ip. The following ip addresses that he has been using have also been blocked:


 * Special:Contributions/68.160.173.170
 * Special:Contributions/68.163.103.219
 * Special:Contributions/141.154.15.138
 * Special:Contributions/141.154.67.172
 * Special:Contributions/141.154.15.252
 * Special:Contributions/141.154.72.189
 * Special:Contributions/68.162.213.45
 * Special:Contributions/141.154.69.44
 * Special:Contributions/141.154.74.168
 * Special:Contributions/68.163.105.83
 * Special:Contributions/68.163.99.18
 * Special:Contributions/68.162.212.132
 * Special:Contributions/68.160.161.115
 * Special:Contributions/141.154.16.250
 * Special:Contributions/68.163.99.170
 * Special:Contributions/68.163.99.108
 * Special:Contributions/141.154.81.122
 * Special:Contributions/68.163.104.69

See block logs for more information

Discussion

 * I feel that Moulton's talk page should not be unprotected until he 1. wants to participate at Wikiversity and not continue his crusade and 2. is willing to conform to the community wide standards here. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:44, 23 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Personal information should not be posted carelessly or in a non-journalistic manner. It's not the mere act of someone's name being posted, but the effect that happens related to that event. For example, "X's real name is Y," followed with something like "Y is a Z." The fact that X is really Y may not be a big deal, but X's reputation is now Z. In order for X to show where X was "outed," X would have to point out the edit that stated "Y is a Z." Some will (and have) claim that X "outed" himself/herself just by pointing out that event, but obviously X was just trying to show that someone else made an earlier earlier statement that changes X's reputation. This may sound completely hypothetical, but this actually did happen (didn't involve Moulton). If it was said in any journalistic quality that X is Y and Y is a Z, then others may have not have seen it as X outing himself/herself. In this regards, I feel that Wales statement about the ethics project to only discuss notable people is a step in the right direction. With X being not notable, that leaves X to defend for himself/herself about Z, rather good or bad, because there is obviously no other (hence notable) sources to prove otherwise.
 * There are limits that WMF should recognize more, not that they haven't been recognized at all. One being able information posted on other websites. There are many websites linked to by Wikipedia and such, but they don't get the axe if they mention real identifiable information. If one does and it gets the axe for it, then maybe all should. Actually, that starts making WMF judge other websites by content, and that really can be avoided if WMF simply sets accord to ignore content of other websites. As long as the effect of "outing" (i.e. Y is a Z) is not being done on-wiki, then that covers the main concern.
 * There are too many "good" websites that will say "X's real name is Y." In fact, if WMF was to strictly say you can't link to anything that "outs" people, then the technical use of IP addresses does exactly that. There is lots of personal information that can be gathered by IP address. It appears by the stated benefits of having a regular account that this is clearly known. I've seen many log messages that state X and some IP address by admins. For example, they say, "this IP user is user X." *BAM* everybody can now find out Y about X. Moving on...
 * It appears Moulton has been given the chance to take a more careful and journalistic approach to his interests. He could easily take it all off-wiki and source himself here on Wikiversity in a way that would be more appropriate. He appears to know how to do it, and if he is sincere to journalistic quality on Wikiversity then he would actually do it. I'm wondering why he hasn't.
 * (If I need to expand this more, please note on my talk page.) Dzonatas 21:57, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * This is useful - thanks Dzonatas. I should point out however, that some of Moulton's 'outing' has been much more than the ability to link IP addresses and usernames (which, I think, is relevant to figuring out what's happening on the wiki), but rather links to real names, real jobs, real email addresses. You're right that his approach is journalistic - this is all possible to do - but the question is whether it's appropriate to do so on Wikiversity. Wikipedia very clearly frowns upon this (see policy above), but we haven't yet firmed up our own standards (pending further discussion of our own privacy policy). Also, I'll note that we clearly don't disallow pointing to external sites that contain personal information about living people (how would WP then cite sources for their biographies?), but rather this discussion concerns only information about WMF contributors. (Not sure if that was what you were referring to in your second paragraph.) Cormaggio talk 08:44, 24 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm in agreement with Ottava. Unless I missed it, Moulton has yet to recognize what he did wrong.  I find it unlikely that he's going to make any changes until he does. Sχeptomaniacχαιρετε 18:00, 24 September 2008 (UTC)


 * But those IPs are only posted because he abused them.... --Enric Naval 03:15, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

If Moulton's IP addresses will be allowed to freely cavort around without reprecussion he should be unblocked so he can be more easily ignored. An alternative solution would be to block anonymous IP addresses from verzion dsl in boston from editing wikiveristy or making accounts - this would force those IP addresses to request accounts. Salmon of Doubt 17:14, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Possible support blocking all anon ip address from boston. Emesee 05:28, 1 October 2008 (UTC)