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Off-wiki contact

I've come across a situation that seems concerning, but I don't want to make a fuss over it in case it proves to be nothing. We have two editors in a dispute - one experienced, one not. The inexperienced editor has not enabled email, nor created a userpage, but at some point in the past included details about their involvement in an event as part of an edit summary and has been open about their identity. The experienced editor used those details to track down their phone number and call them off-wiki about the dispute. It isn't outing, in that the editor did reveal the personal details. However, if an editor chooses not to enable email, should other editors be contacting them off-wiki during disputes? Is this something we should be worried about, or just something that happens and is outside of the policy's scope? - Bilby (talk) 02:38, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Note: discussion about one specific instance and about the general case was intermingled and causing confusion. I have attempted to separate the two different discussions, but it may not be perfect. Please keep the specific and general separate going forward. Thryduulf (talk) 16:53, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

User:Thryduulf Fwiw I find this to be indeed imperfect and not good -- comments you have left in "general" section are reacting to the framing of the specific incident that was described in the OP (e.g the intentionality clearly implied in the "tracking down" framing which is right there in what User:Ivanvector wrote: Looking up an editor's undisclosed personal info to contact them about a dispute.... I did not go try to find their number in order to contact them about the dispute - I already had the phone number from the booth advertisment, and used it when things deteriorated to try to help them, given their troubles using our interface) Please undo. Jytdog (talk) 17:30, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

@Jytdog: I was explicitly referring only to the general case, not to your specific case. Whether the question as framed has similarities to your case or not is irrelevant. Just because one of the three examples of theoretically possible conduct I used bears a resemblance to something you may or may not have been accused of doing does not change that. Not everything is about you, even if you want it to be. Thryduulf (talk) 17:45, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

@Thryduulf: The OP is about the specific incident, and is framed in a way that doesn't reflect what happened and to cast it negatively. The discussion in the new "general discussion" subsection remains anchored in the specific incident in the OP and its framing (even now) - of course it is.

I agree that a general discussion would be useful, but it is not going to happen given the OP, which you left on top. If you want a general discussion, I suggest you open a new section. You will do as you will do, of course. Jytdog (talk) 17:53, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Given that there is a general discussion happening that is not about your specific case, and that the only reason there is any discussion of your specific case is because you started it, I see no need to start a second general discussion in parallel. Thryduulf (talk) 18:02, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

We don't agree on a) what people had already written there when you created the section; b) what people are actually doing there, after you created the section. So it goes. I asked you to undo it, you said no. Onwards.Jytdog (talk) 18:17, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

• Bilby, how did it come to light that this occurred? Did the person contact you somehow? I'm asking because I see no on-wiki communication about this anywhere, from the editor in question. Softlavender (talk) 12:30, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Jytdog left a message on the user's talk page saying that they had attempted to ring the user, and asking if Skype woudl be preferred instead. - Bilby (talk) 13:54, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Off-wiki contact (one instance involving Jytdog)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

That was me and the presentation is skewed. I don't mind making it clear. The other person has a very strong advocacy issue and has been floundering, and wasting the time of multiple people with 3O requests as you can see at Talk:Specific Carbohydrate Diet, and was in the process of getting themselves blocked for edit warring (they are indeed blocked now).

The person had left an edit note clearly identifying off-WP information (diff - the abstractexhibition booth description (an ad, really) is easy to find).

The situation went very downhill today (they edit warred against 2 3O helpers) and as it did, I thought about how to help them. I checked and they do indeed not have email enabled. I had already gone and found the abstractexhibition booth description to try to understand where they are coming from (what they are doing is baffling), and it has a phone number. So... I called to try to help them -- that was truly my intention. At the start of the call I introduced myself and asked if they were willing to try to talk, and they said "yes". I asked for consent and obtained it. I would not have been surprised, had they said "no", and was ready to end the discussion there.

Unfortunately, they turned out to be just as combative and unwilling to learn on the phone as they have been on-WP, so I ended the call, abruptly. (The abrupt ending is entirely on me.) It was an effort to help that did not go well for either of us. I have had off-WP communication with other advocates and conflicted editors that went well and clarified things that were causing them problems, and that is what I was hoping for.

I debated whether to post here but due to the presentation, which leads one to believe that I called to harass the person and continue the dispute, and which leaves out the crucial detail that the first thing I did was ask for consent, I felt little choice. I do appreciate that there is no claim of OUTING, at least. Jytdog (talk) 04:55, 27 November 2018 (UTC) (redact Jytdog (talk) 16:31, 27 November 2018 (UTC))

The issue remains then, should an editor use information revealed on WP to track down the phone number of an editor (whom they are in an active dispute with) and phone them at their workplace, when that editor has not given permission to be contacted in this manner and has not enabled off-wiki communication through email or any other means? Would this come under the existing harassment policy? Or is it otherwise out of scope? - Bilby (talk) 06:21, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Your framing is still showing, Bilby. Try "bending over backwards to try help a new editor understand what we do here," or if you want to cast it as an actual dispute, try "trying to work things out by talking, simply, as the first step in DR, with a person who can't figure out how to use WP" as alternative framings. You are trying very hard to make this stalker-y. I also am not sure where you are getting "at their workplace". Jytdog (talk) 06:54, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Talking is great. Perhaps that is better handled, though, on WP than through using information they provided to track down their phone number and ring them directly, without their permission, using contact information which they never provided. As someone who has been on the receiving end of calls from editors who have tracked down my details and rung me at work during disputes, it is more than a little disturbing when it happens. But I did want this to be a general discussion, not specific to you. If I wanted this specific to you I would have asked elsewhere. - Bilby (talk) 07:11, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

I handled the permission aspect as well as I could, by asking if they were willing to talk, the very first thing, and I have already explained that I reached out in this way because things had deteriorated rapidly today as the person demonstrated that they could not use the WP platform well.

You are continuing to strain to frame this negatively. You are also continuing to assert "workplace", multiple times. (I don't know if it is any better than "at home" or "on their personal cellphone". I have no idea what the number was that I called and am uncertain on what basis you keep making the "workplace" claim.) Jytdog (talk) 08:04, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

And your opening statement is 100% about this specific situation. Not a general discussion, as you just stated. Jytdog (talk) 08:10, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

If I wanted it to be about you, I would have mentioned you. I didn't. If you hadn't come in and said "this is about me" I would not have mentioned you at all. I understand why you are saying you contacted the editor. My problem is not why you contacted the editor, but how. And the general issue is under what circumstances someone should be contacting an editor in real life when their contact details have not been provided on wiki. - Bilby (talk)

I should have commented on the "track down" framing. The phone number is in the exhibition booth description that the person referred to. There was one step, not several. No "tracking down". And there was no intention on my part, whatsoever, to actually find their phone number. It was there and I was already aware of it when things rapidly deteriorated yesterday and I asked myself what alternatives there were to on-WP communication.

If you had done this with good faith, you would have reached out to me to hear what happened and posted a neutral summary of what happened as best you could. I can't help but see your actual posting as a continuation of your bizarre behavior toward me over the last year. Whatever - you did what you did and I will continue trying to avoid interacting with you.

What I asked myself, is what was this person's intention in writing this? That was definitely a "here is my real world bona fides" sort of thing which is why this is not OUTING. Calling the person was a high risk thing to do for sure. If it would have gone well -- if the person had come away understanding how we use MEDRS and what they were doing wrong -- it would have been good for everybody. However I should have a) had my act way more together in the call instead of getting upset by the person's combativeness and b) beforehand, considered the risk that (i) it would go south (ii) it would be badly received by the person afterwards if it went south; (iii) considered how it could be framed here. Considering those things now, I would not have done it and I will not be be trying that again. Jytdog (talk) 16:26, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

• Jytdog, really? Even if you're trying to be helpful this is not cool. Today I got an email from someone, not through the system, who had found my email address and threatened me. A few years ago, before I was an admin, some dude who'd been advertising himself on Wikipedia found my office phone number and called me at work. These things are scary, like real fucking scary. Please don't do that kind of thing, ever. Drmies (talk) 16:11, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

I am hearing what people are saying. I should not have taken the risk and will not do so again. Jytdog (talk) 16:34, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

I am glad to hear that... --kelapstick^(bainuu) 18:24, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

A request for arbitration regarding Jytdog's actions has been filed at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Jytdog by There'sNoTime. Thryduulf (talk) 22:18, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

• I observe that Jytdog's comment just above, [1], was timestamped at 16:34, 27 November 2018. The original, indefinite block was issued at 20:47, slightly more than four hours later, per the block log. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:49, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Off-wiki contact (the general case)

• Calling another editor over the phone for the first time is a stronger form of contact than usual. It can be perceived positively or negatively, depending on whether the contacted person is satisfied or not with the result, how unexpected it is to them that their contact details were found, etc.
  I actually think that the "workplace" point is not entirely irrelevant: with cultural institutions, for instance, it's not uncommon to go out of our way to help someone who we feel may be unaccustomed to on-wiki processes. Some of them may expect to serve and interact with the public as part of their work; it's not the same as being called at the office for an edit you made in the evening about a personal interest, or vice versa. Nemo 10:48, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
• Entirely inappropriate. Looking up an editor's undisclosed personal info to contact them about a dispute, even if you're pulling that info from freely-available sources, is 100% cyberstalking, creepy as hell, and disgusting. This has happened to me exactly twice, both times at work, and the police were called both times as well as contacting WMF Legal, and I would advise any editor who gets an unsolicited off-wiki contact to do the same. If you're an editor doing this you should be sitebanned. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 11:56, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
  • For clarity, what WP policy or what law has been violated? Also, has there been a specific claim of harassment on the part of the other party? This has been brought by a third party asking general questions.
     — Berean Hunter (talk) 12:52, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
    • @Borean Hunter: I read Ivanvector's comments as being about the general case in response to the general questions. In the general case I also agree that unsolicited contacting of another editor, regarding any Wikipedia matter, using any contact method they have not explicitly made available on wiki (or to you specifically) is an example of Wikipedia:Off-wiki harassment - doubly so if you are involved in a dispute with them, regardless of the circumstances of that dispute. What is "made available on wiki" can be a grey area, but if they've posted a link to their/their organisation's website which has a prominent contacts page then using the methods listed on that page would not involve stalking but might still be inappropriate and could still be perceived as harassment (depending on the context). If you have to actively search or dig for the contact details though then that is never appropriate. Anyone intentionally stalking or otherwise harassing another editor should indeed be site banned - this should be reported to the arbitration committee (by email in most cases). Thryduulf (talk) 13:38, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
• If the claim is that laws were violated, the editor who was harassed off-site should seek legal counsel in their jurisdiction (not a legal threat, generic advice I would give anyone who feels they are facing off-wiki harassment.)
  If they feel the contact violated our norms on harassment they should contact the arbitration committee, who are the only body able to fully deal with this on-wiki. We shouldn’t be using this talk page to decide a particular case, and that’s kinda what’s happening here. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:48, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
• WP:OWH is only relevant if the off-wiki contact is actually harrassment. Of which there is no evidence here. Unless you are going to take the extreme view that merely talking to someone off-wiki about a dispute they are engaged in consitutes harrassment, which would be idiotic. WP:OWH directly links to WP:NPA as an example. Where someone is open about their identity it is not cyberstalking. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:59, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
  • (a reminder that I'm speaking only about the general case) Just because somebody is open about their identity does not mean they automatically consent to being contacted off-wiki, either generally or by specific methods and/or about all matters. If they have made a phone number clearly available to editors then that is different to an editor who is public about their real name and employer being telephoned at work via the company switchboard regarding matters unrelated to their employment which is different again to calling someone on a personal phone number you found via the website of a local community organisation they volunteer for, which you found via a mention on their social media profile, which you found via searching on their name (mentioned on their userpage) and location (which you inferred from a discussion on the talk page of the article about that place). The latter is unquestionably stalking and unequestionably a site-banning offence, but as TB notes it is the arbitration committee who are the only people able to determine what the full circumstances were. Thryduulf (talk) 14:25, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
    • Wikipedia is an open-access 'discussion is required' project. Consent is implicit just by contributing that you may be contacted about your contributions. It may be an oversight in that policy does not explicitly lay out the only means of that contact, but currently none of the relevant policies forbid it. Editors currently use (amongst others) direct email, facebook (and other social media), public events, mailing lists, IRC etc to co-ordinate and discuss editing. If (as you seem to be saying) an editor has to explicitly consent in advance to being contacted by a specific method or it constitutes harrassment (not anything that is reflected in policy anywhere) you will need to get that agreed to by the community and nailed in policy before ARBCOM can touch it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:07, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Discussion may be required but not by phone. Phone calls are different. Paul August ☎ 17:15, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

That is not currently a position reflected in policy nor are there any restrictions on any other method as the restrictions on harrassment are rightly concerned with the motive, not the method. I am not saying it *shouldnt* be, but it currently isnt. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:24, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Some things should go without saying. Paul August ☎ 17:34, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes however 'some things' are not set up to be judged by a pseudo-legalistic body which may result in someone being labelled a harrasser under a definition that is not in line with either common usage or legal ones. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:41, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

@Only in death: what part of using someone's personal information, that they have not chosen to share with you, to contact them in a manner they nave not consented to is not harassment? Thryduulf (talk) 17:52, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Pretty simple really, every single reputable definition of 'harrassment' is taking an action where it is known in advance that the action is unwanted. Where there is no mechanism or requirement by which people give or reject consent, you certainly cannot say they have explicitly denied to be contacted in any manner except through their talkpage. You cant say they have implicitly rejected contact when they have signed up on a collaborative website thats core principles are open discussion. Especially when editors routinely utilise other methods. ENWP does not require that people give consent in advance to being contacted by (insert X method here) so you cannot call it harrassment just for intiating contact when someone has not said they dont want to be contacted. You cant imply something when you havnt even asked the question in the first place. There are rules and laws about explicit & implied consent, being added to marketing mailing lists when purchasing goods requires explicit consent as one example, but unsolicited contact is not remotely similar to harrassment and to suggest they are the same thing both weakens the definition of actual harrassment and would be borderline defamatory depending on how and who it was applied to. Only in death does duty end (talk) 19:57, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

@Only in death: Regarding discussion and consent for contact, this has already been fully refused below by Ivanvector (see the comment beginning "Wikipedia is a "discussion is required" project, sure,"). Tryptofish's comment starting "I'm speaking here of the general case. I'm late to this discussion," is also very much relevant. There ins't a need for me to say much more but your entire comment is missing the concept of reasonable expectation. Even if you don't know something will be poorly received it is still harassment if you could and should have had a reasonable expectation that it would be. If you supply an email address and enable email on your account it is reasonable to expect that other editors might contact you by email. There is though no reasonable expectation of contact by phone. I've been editing Wikipedia nearly 14 years, and only three has another edit has contacted me by phone about on-wiki matters without it being prearranged. The first two were when I was on arbcom and the person calling me was a fellow arbitrator and I had made my phone number available to other arbitrators and explicitly noted that I was happy to receive phone calls from them. On the only other occasion I was contacted by my partner, who is also a Wikipedian and someone I've had countless phone calls with before and since. Thryduulf (talk) 22:59, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

• I strongly agree with what Thryduulf has written above. Let me share a painful personal anecdote. Many years ago, I learned a hard lesson and lost a friend. I was very much worried about the health of a dear Wiki-friend who wasn't editing, and email correspondent who wasn't responding to emails. We had shared real names and other personal info, so it was easy to find their phone number and give them a call. They were shocked and angry that I had done so. Even though we were close wiki-friends, nevertheless they found a phone call a terrible invasion of their privacy. Looking back, it now seems obvious to me why. So if such an intrusion can feel deeply creepy, even from a worried "friend" how would it likely feel from a stranger? Paul August ☎ 16:08, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Paul August, yes--same here, with a fellow admin whom I didn't know personally, who was reported dead. I had sleuthed around and found his wife's email address, if I remember correctly, but procrastinated for a week, asking other people (I think I ask my fellow arbs, back two years ago) about what to do, and I felt terrible doing it. Fortunately they took it well, and the guy was alive and kicking still. But this is something that should NEVER be done lightly. Thank you for sharing. Drmies (talk) 16:13, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
• It sounds like underlying question is "Is it ever appropriate to make an unsolicited phone call to another Wikipedia Editor to discuss their edits, without their advanced permission?" The answer to that is "Unequivocally, no." The fact that this is actually a question that is being asked is, in my mind, ridiculous. --kelapstick^(bainuu) 18:22, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
• Entirely inappropriate, per all those above. Any kind of "I know where you live" behaviour (provided it's proved that editor A has actually initiated real life contact with editor B against editor B's wishes, as there's always going to be the possibility that editor B is trying to get editor A in trouble) should result in an instant and permanent site ban. (I'm reminded of an old case where one editor was emailing another photographs of the outside of their house; yes, the editor in question's identity wasn't secret, but it was still a truly weirdo thing to do.) The sole exception I can see is that in some extreme circumstances such as long-term TOU violations, it might be appropriate to contact someone either to begin legal proceedings or issue a formal cease-and-desist—and I can see theoretical instances where when someone is disrupting Wikipedia from a work computer it would be appropriate to contact their employer—but both of those sets of circumstances should only be done by the WMF themselves as they have the legal teams to decide what is and isn't appropriate and necessary. ‑ Iridescent 18:26, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Wikipedia is a "discussion is required" project, sure, but one's responsibility to respond to discussions on Wikipedia ends with the website. "Discussion is required" means that if you don't respond to a discussion you might lose your editing privileges. "Discussion is required" does not mean that if you don't respond then you'll have strangers on the internet looking up your personal information to contact your employer or your family, or, say, showing up at your home. And no, it's not a leap at all to think that someone who has gone to the trouble of looking up your info and thinks it's okay to call you uninvited won't also show up at your house uninvited. You know that Gamergaters have tried to kill people over shit like this, right? And those incidents are still happening? Editors should have a reasonable expectation that those kinds of things are not going to happen as a result of not answering a question here, and should be able to expect that we will react if it does happen. It is incredibly disappointing that some people think this is at all okay, for one thing, and also disappointing that we might actually have to write this into a policy for some people to realize it's a serious invasion of privacy and a fucking creepy thing to do to someone. There are awful people on the internet but that doesn't mean we have to tolerate it here. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:28, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
• The timing of this is interesting to me as I just spent about an hour on the phone talking to an editor. The situation isn't parallel, as they reached out to me and requested the phone call, but I mention it as anecdotal evidence that not everyone finds phone calls unwelcome. That shouldn't surprise anyone, but given two heartfelt anecdotes about unwelcome phone calls, I wanted to provide some perspective, and make sure that no one leads to the conclusion that all phone calls are unwelcome. Indeed, as an active OTRS agent, hardly a day goes by that I don't field a plea from someone to give them a call.

The challenge, of course, is that some phone calls are unwelcome, some are welcome or neutral, but it's virtually impossible to determine in advance what the reaction might be in any particular situation. That's a good reason for extreme caution.

However, let's be careful not to overreact. I have enormous respect for kelapstick, but the suggestion that the answer to the question "Is it ever appropriate to make an unsolicited phone call to another Wikipedia Editor to discuss their edits, without their advanced permission?" is an unequivocal no, is an overstatement. Imagine a situation where someone invites a phone call, that phone call takes place, and the issue is resolved. Some time later, you note that the editor is running into some difficulty, and you think that calling them to talk about it may help. You call them and help them and they are thankful. Yet, that second phone call is technically unsolicited. It's an overstatement to say that it's unequivocally wrong.

In this particular situation the editor in question had posted some information that contained a phone number. Is that a solicitation? Reasonable people can differ. Personally, I would favor an approach where editor A posts a message on the talk page of editor B, explaining that they have access to the phone number of editor A and plan to call to help solve the problem unless they are explicitly told not to call. I would find that an acceptable circumstance, yet it would technically be an unsolicited phone call.

We probably ought to work out a formal protocol, but let's be careful not to overreact. As I mentioned in my previous paragraph, had I been solicited for advice by Jytdog, I would've suggested a slightly different sequence, but given that the first words of the phone call were to ask permission to continue and granted, my view is that the action was justified. We may want to modify how such a situation should be handled in the future but I'll push back against anyone who says Jytdog was not just wrong but should've known better.--S Philbrick(Talk) 19:45, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

@Sphilbrick, I don't believe for one second that you genuinely can't see the difference between "Hi, I don't know if you remember me, we met in the bar a few nights ago and you gave me your number" and "Hi, you don't know me but I saw you in the bar and liked the look of you, so I found out your name and went home and Googled it until I found your number".

Color me puzzled. Obviously those two situations are different. Neither matches my (original, now modified) understanding of this situation. Following your analogy, it would be, "Hi, I don't know if you remember me, we met in the bar a few nights ago and you handed out a flyer that had your phone number on it". That said, when I responded, I thought the phone number was on material linked, and I now see one had to take an extra step to track it down.--S Philbrick(Talk) 22:21, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

@Only in death, in this case it doesn't make the slightest difference what policy says. We're talking about something that's inherently unethical; that we don't have a formal policy saying "it is not appropriate to track down editors' real-life identities and stalk them" is owing to the fact that when the policies were written, it was assumed that no sane person would think otherwise. We likewise don't have an explicit policy banning editors from mailing dog-turds to the Wikimedia Foundation or from replacing their userpage with a 5000px-width image of themselves having sex with a dead badger; it doesn't mean either is considered acceptable. ‑ Iridescent 20:08, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Iridescent That is precisely what I wanted to say, you are just better at expressing yourself than I am. --kelapstick^(bainuu) 20:24, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

• I'm speaking here of the general case. I'm late to this discussion, but I would like to offer my take on the general case – to some extent repeating what other editors have said, but putting things together in the way that I see it. If an editor has indicated that they would like to get a phone call, or has done so in the past and common sense indicates that they would also like a phone call again, then there is nothing wrong with contacting them. If an editor has posted some personal information onsite, it is acceptable to be aware of that specific information. If an editor has posted some personal information onsite, it is never acceptable to use that information to obtain any other personal information that was not voluntarily posted. (There can be an exception in situations of personal jeopardy urgently requiring outreach to the editor.) To act on personal information that was not posted onsite is harassment, particularly so in cases where the editors are in any sort of dispute or where there is any kind of indication (such as not enabling email) that they are not welcoming contact. That kind of harassment can be very disturbing to the victim. Even when an editor uses another editor's posted information to try to better understand an editing situation, and in the course of doing so comes across additional personal information, that non-posted personal information is off-limits.

Now that said, it is very dismaying to me to see numerous users, including experienced administrators who should know better, assert that this is something that should always lead to a rapid indefinite block. There is a difference between a user who credibly says that they regret what they did and will never do it again, and a user who is acting out of malice (although there should not be much allowance of repeat behavior). Admins should always evaluate whether or not a block is needed. WP:BEFOREBLOCK says that, as a matter of policy. Frankly, I tend to think that issuance of an "automatic" block can be justification for desysopping. For whatever reason, the harassment policy brings out suspension-of-thoughtfulness in too many users; get over yourselves. And saying, in effect, that when editors in a discussion have differing views, no sane person could disagree with one view, is a violation of WP:NPA. Of course there are some things that can go without saying. But when various editors indicate in good faith that they have differing takes on something, then that makes it something that might not go without saying. What is obvious to you is not always obvious to someone else, and that does not automatically make them insane. So maybe we should look at clarifying some of the wording of policy about off-wiki harassment. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:20, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Tryptofish, is there a discussion taking place somewhere else? There is not a single person in this thread asserting that this is something that should always lead to a rapid indefinite block; indeed, thus far you're the only person even to use the words "indefinite" or "block". (There are a lot of people saying off-wiki conduct is inappropriate, but as far as I can see nobody except you is thinking about whether and how sanctions should be used.) ‑ Iridescent 22:27, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Keeping this to the general case, I'm glad to hear that. Please let me change that wording to "an instant and permanent site ban". --Tryptofish (talk) 22:31, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Then I suppose I should clarify that my earlier comment that such activity is a site-bannable offense was meant in the general sense, but of course not automatic. Few things call for automatic sanctions. An editor who makes a habit of contacting other editors in ways that ought reasonably to be seen as inappropriate may be someone who should not be allowed to edit here, but like most things that's case-by-case. I feel that it should be common sense (and basic human decency) not to contact people in ways which they have not given explicit permission, and that decent human beings ought to know better without having it written into a policy, but my faith in humanity has been challenged a lot this week. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 22:39, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Note that my "immediate site ban" comment was specifically aimed at Any kind of "I know where you live" behaviour and not just being inappropriate. I don't think you were around for the incident I have in mind, but anyone who was will know immediately to what I'm referring (and why I'm being slightly cryptic). We have empirical evidence for what is the worst that can happen when on-wiki disputes spill into real life, and why we should take any means necessary to prevent them doing so. ‑ Iridescent 22:42, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, both of you, for these additional replies. I agree with you both. (I myself can be a bit cryptic about an "automatic" block with which I am familiar.) But I think this illustrates my point that some things that are obvious to you might not be obvious to someone else. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:47, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

• Arguing for zero contact by means other than Wikipedia is not how academia works. I have emailed multiple owners of medical images (be they people or institutions) asking if they would be willing to release them under an open license. Images were up for deletion and it was unclear if the uploader was the owner (ie they could have been a new Wikipedian or someone could have been trying to infringe upon their copyright). Not a fan of phone calls generally but that is just me. I have had a user I was involved in a dispute with call me. Didn't resolve the dispute, did not see it as a big deal. My phone number is on my publications but not on Wikipedia. I see the content of the contact to be a bigger concern and the issue with a phone call is you do not have documentation. So yes would be supportive of a policy disallowing unrequested "voice / audio contact" Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:10, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
• Jytdog queried the subject after the phone call had been initiated to determine whether or not they could continue the call. I would question the reliability of an answer given under those circumstances. Much research has gone into what's known as the startle effect and the consequences that may occur to a person who is, for whatever reason, startled. Research particularly into pilots in training has shown that pilots who are startled by flashing claxons and alarms tend to carry out incorrect responses to certain actions in the cockpit. Somehow, this startle effect blocks or temporarily causes mild confusion or delay in carrying out a correct response. Even those pilots who previously knew a correct response would nonetheless carry out the incorrect response after being startled. I believe everyone here can recall their own personal reactions to being startled where they found it subsequently more difficult to carry out what they thought was the right action or where it took them longer to perform it. I can only assume that when this person answered the phone, the surprise at finding out who had called effected upon them a mild startle reaction, and their answer to the question "May I continue the call" was not the answer they intended to give. The chances for a more accurate answer might be obtained before making any such contact, while the person is not under the influence of a startle effect, especially in live circumstances such as phone calls. That being said, I hope Jytdog returns to Wikipedia soon where his work is much needed.  Spintendo  00:05, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

References

• I'm going to bring a note of "genderness" to this conversation - as a female ... I do not appreciate uninvited phone calls. I would find a wikipedia editor contacting me out of the blue by phone (not email, but phone) based off of some sleuthing they did by connecting my name with a phone number to be very creepy and I'm betting that a significant number of female editors would feel the same. And I'm not especially someone who has concerns about stalkers or other harassment in my outside-wiki life. I can only imagine how a woman editor who perhaps had experienced a stalking situation in their life would feel to be contacted out of the blue by someone who wanted to discuss their wiki-editing ... and finding out that that other person had gone hunting to find their phone number. (And I can easily say that at least a third if not half of my female friends have had at least one situation in their lives where they were stalked or harassed.) I'm very concerned that some editors don't seem to think that this behavior is concerning or creepy. Just shows how differently men often approach things - and how little the concerns of women about this behavior actually impinge on some folks' thinking. This doesn't mean that if an editor has email enabled (as I do), that they shouldn't be contacted, but if an editor does NOT have email enabled, it's quite likely that they don't desire contact outside wikipedia-space and that choice should be respected. Going beyond that to searching out a phone number from clues left behind on wiki is well beyond the pale, in my mind. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:58, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

• • Damn straight!!! Like Ealdgyth and Iri have said. Let me put it this way. No one has ever contacted me via phone unless we had previously agreed via email or other private messaging system to talk on the phone. No one. Not in 12 years of WP editing. Like Ealdgyth, I am not a person who has had concerns about stalkers in my real life, but I have chosen to keep my real-life identity minimal on WP. And let me tell you, the first time someone traced my real-life identity off-wiki at all, I was completely freaked out -- and they were just someone who was a new editor and pissed off at me -- and all they did was post my real name. By the time I was outed off-wiki during my RfA with outing here as well, I was more or less used to these little hiccup stalkers, but I was still quite concerned when a now-indeffed editor made edits that were basically saying "I know where you live and where you work". So yes, unsolicited off-wiki communication other than by means authorized by WP (i.e. email enabled or IRC or something the editor opts into using) IS HARASSMENT. End of story. If someone I didn't know called me about a WP edit without some prior communication either via enabled email or via a request on-wiki, I would not merely be creeped out, there's a better than 50-50 chance I'd call the cops. It's wrong to contact them unless they affirmatively agree to be contacted. Montanabw^(talk) 03:45, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

I have sometimes contacted strangers by telephone, on Wikipedia-related matters, using publicly available telephone numbers. It has never occurred to me that this might be a problem, and the people involved have never shown any sign of regarding it as a problem. I understand that some people don't like to be telephoned by strangers; but they generally don't permit their numbers to be published. Maproom (talk) 10:29, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

What about abuse reports?

I hate to revive a dead thread, but this brings to mind an elephant in the room: what about contacting vandals' ISPs, schools, and employers to report abuse, as we did with WP:ABUSE? Is this still allowed, or is this something that should not be done? PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 00:26, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, these "abuse" reports were submitted via email to the "abuse" center of the ISP, not by telephone; even if they had been done by telephone, they were not going to a specific editor, they were going to the ISP. There is a world of difference. And no, in this day and age where huge chunks of IPs are nearly hyper-dynamic (almost like the AOL IPs in the "olden" days), there's nearly no value in reporting an IP as being abusive to an ISP. I'm not sure why you might have equated "don't phone editors directly without prior agreement" with "report abusive editing by an IP to their ISP". Risker (talk) 01:57, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

A lot of the abuse reports were/are sent to schools and employers from which vandals were/are vandalizing from as opposed to ISPs like CenturyLink or Comcast, and from experience participating in the project, we would sometimes call these institutions on the phone. In one case, someone physically visited a school in Hawaii to report abuse from the students (and the school asked for an indef softblock, which was granted). I still notify schools, employers, and ISPs if I see an actual pattern of abuse (not just a shared school IP with several instances of kids being kids like a large percentage of what ended up at WP:ABUSE, more like if there's activity that is obviously the same person happening over and over again), but my question is, since calling a school or a company to report such activity is literally an attempt to get the "editor" in trouble at work or school, is that something I should continue doing? I know there is a difference, but it's still an off-wiki action likely to cause serious off-wiki consequences. PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 02:37, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

I'd suggest that either your request will be (largely) ignored or alternately may result in the organization blocking access to Wikipedia entirely. One needs to keep in mind that a stunning array of organizations (particularly those that serve the public) now have not just staff using their network, but also offer wi-fi or other internet access to their customers, and it is likely they will have no idea who created the vandalism. Risker (talk) 05:21, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Some places do respond well, others do not. As far as them disabling access to Wikipedia, I always stress the fact that it is not necessary as we can block the IPs from editing on our end... and although I don't say this to the network admins, blocking these shared IPs that represent thousands of students or employees is a really, really, really stupid thing to do unless there is a specific vandal (like the "dog and rapper vandal" or Keegscee) that we are trying to stop, because in an era in which networks to access the internet from are plentiful, trying to stop the casual "school vandal" is an exercise in futility; all it does is stop people who are trying to do something constructive from doing so. PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 12:40, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Question about relationship of WP:OUT with the Terms of Use and claim to copyright

See Wikipedia:Media copyright questions#Copyright holder posting their own text on Wikipedia? Basically I'm wondering if someone adding text to Wikipedia and implicitly claiming the copyright on that text means that they have admitted to being an off-wiki individual who had previously published the same text elsewhere. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:57, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

I think that if someone posts on-wiki something to the effect of "Here is some text that is authored by [name], and I am that person", that would be voluntarily posting their identity onsite. But it still would be a bad idea for other editors to search that information out if it isn't posted on that person's user page. Do other editors agree with that? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:36, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Abuse of Administrative Boards

Since people have noticed that it works very well to harass people by taking them to noticeboards (eventually if you complain enough and you're well enough known, you'll get the other person sanctioned regardless of the merits.

This is how Sagecandor operated. Another person, an inveterate administrative board user, was recently banned by the WMF. I have recently received a no-fault IBAN with someone who has contacted every disciplinary board known to Wikipedia to lobby against me.

This is also very much common knowledge to Wikipedians. (AE abuse, in particular, has been mentioned in the current ArbCom case on Poland.) So, could we have some statement as to why we should not include:

On-wiki harassment via repeated groundless prosecutions at administrative boards such as WP:ANI, WP:AE, WP:ARBCOM, or WP:AN can lead to sanctions. WP:GANG activity is likewise strictly frowned upon.

While this is in verity a special case of hounding it should be treated separately because it is so common. This seems signifcantly more important than the question of whether one may or may not restore user-deleted posts on a userpage (treated at length in the text), especially given the current discussions on community health related to another over-zealous prosecutor. 🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 11:51, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

The only problem with this is that sometimes people need to be taken to boards over and over again, like User:Keegscee. In my experience at the admin boards, people who make groundless claims often get WP:BOOMERANGed. PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 14:47, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

I would suggest that that is not a problem: you are saying that in fact we don't have a problem, based on what you've seen, that boomerangs happen when they should. I'm saying there is a problem, that I can and probably will eventually get around to further documenting. But regardless, administrative actions should follow policy, so it's a good thing when justified boomerangs happen, not a problem. It is pretty clear that the WMF did not feel that the "community" had done enough boomeranging in the much publicized case about the en.wp banned admin, suggesting that insufficient attention is perhaps paid to abuse of administrative boards. I believe they said there was a problem with the community's enforcement of the TOS. Sagecandor, incidentally, was never bothered for harassment, the case was just quietly zipped up in an SPI. 🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 15:21, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

I generally support the sentiment, but I think PCHS-NJROTC raises a valid practical concern. However, User:PCHS-NJROTC, isn't the fact that this Keegscee fella had to be taken to boards over and over again itself indicate that these boards fail at what they're suppose to do (assuming your characterization of the user is correct)? Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:20, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek: you make a great point there yourself. Keegscee got away with spreading a lot of garbage on Wikipedia because enough people gave him sympathy due to personal biases until finally he outright admitted to being WP:NOTHERE to build an encyclopedia and using WP:Open proxies to WP:HARASS people. As long as personal biases infiltrate objective discussion, the boards will be ineffective to a certain degree. PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 07:00, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

I think the more targeted question here is whether the proposed additional language actually accomplishes anything. I don't think it's likely to change the proportion of legitimate vs. abusive filings in administrative/beahvioural review spaces, nor change the realpolitik reasons why the inappropriate uses of such forums are difficult to contain while many perfectly reasonable fillings fail to address or restrain truly disruptive behaviour. The reasons for those issues are nuanced and too difficult to capture in brief format here, though at the same time, the proposed addition reflects something that is manifestly true and yet probably represents more complication than clarity to say expressly in this policy.

All factors weighed, I think I would oppose the additional of that sentence, under a WP:CREEP rationale: whether a given AN/I filing raises a legitimate issue for the community or represents harassment worthy of a WP:BOOMERANG is a case-specific call that the community will need to make in each instance (with the community members who volunteer in those spaces being largely practiced in making that call), and adding language that prejudices that call in one direction or the other here probably is not useful--afterall, can we really say that it's more common than not that a thread in an administrative space is frivolous? I'm certainly not comfortable making that assertion as an empirical matter. So it's probably not worthwhile to bloat out this policy by even one more sentence for the purpose of saying something that (as a textual matter) is taken for granted by most of the community, but which could be easily weaponized by repeat offenders who have to be brought to the community's attention time and again. So not withstanding Sashi's presumably good-faith motivation here, I'd be opposed to adding that language.Snow ^{let's rap} 20:32, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Were I to rewrite the policy, I would eliminate a lot of dross in other areas: the hounding section in particular is not well written. For example, the following is rather meandering:

Many users track other users' edits, although usually for collegial or administrative purposes. This should always be done carefully, and with good cause, to avoid raising the suspicion that an editor's contributions are being followed to cause them distress, or out of revenge for a perceived slight. Correct use of an editor's history includes (but is not limited to) fixing unambiguous errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, or correcting related problems on multiple articles. In fact, such practices are recommended both for Recent changes patrol and WikiProject Spam. The contribution logs can be used in the dispute resolution process to gather evidence to be presented in mediation, incidents, and arbitration cases. Using dispute resolution can itself constitute hounding if it involves persistently making frivolous or meritless complaints about another editor.

It could be shortened to:

Other users' edits should not be tracked when motivated by a desire for revenge or to harass. Edits can be tracked in the context of recent changes patrol or WikiProject spam to fix unambiguous errors, policy violations and related problems on multiple articles. While evidence from contribution logs can be gathered for use in dispute resolution. Repeated groundless prosecution at administrative boards -- such as WP:ANI, WP:AE, WP:ARBCOM, or WP:AN -- is considered hounding and can lead to sanctions. WP:GANG activity is a severe form of (tag-team) hounding and is strictly frowned upon wherever it takes place.

and still it contains more actual information. ^^ (The very important bit about the serious WP:GANG problem en.wp suffers from needs to be added.) 🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 21:23, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

I am strongly opposed to those changes, for the reasons I expressed above, and those of Tryptofish below. It would do next to nothing to forestall actual harassment via process, which is an issue that can (and should) be addressed by the community in the forum in question when the process is being abused (i.e. the most common context for a WP:BOOMERANG sanction). Meanwhile, every disruptive editor who legitimately need to be restrained via a community processes in one of those spaces would find rhetorical shelter in the language you want added and and constantly stonewall discussion by flippant reference to WP:Harassment--that is "This is the fifth time I have been brought to ANI by editors working on articles pertaining to subject matter X!" would become (to the mind or at least the tactics of the disruptive editor) evidence that they are being harassed, rather than evidence that maybe there is indeed a particular long-term behavioural issue needing addressing. ArbCom and the admins/community volunteers at AN/I know how to recognize and deal with abusive filings. They don't need this policy language to recognize and react to it, and the downsides are far too substantial. There are also a number of issues with the wording you've employed there. We don't "prosecute" at noticeboards or ArbCom, we discuss issues. Yes, we do occasionally sanction community members (very rarely, when compared against the over-all number of complaints), but it's not a punitive process and its not meant to be adversarial by design. Lastly, you cut out a lot of language there that stresses the precautionary principle and urges people to be mindful and cautious of anything that looks like it leans more towards harassment than productive activity. No, I'm sorry, I'm just very much opposed to replacing the present wording of that passage with your proposed language, well-intentioned as I am sure it is. Snow ^{let's rap} 06:05, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Basically I removed a bunch of adverbs, meandering text, and pointed out the gang problem which is sorely lacking from the policy. Policies should be clear and concise with pertinent examples. Tony gave one example wrt 'outing' below, about how on-wiki activity reported in off-wiki RS articles critical of Wikipedia, as long as a pseudonym is not doxxed, can be cited as evidence. Your point about discussion GOOD prosecution BAD is very much in line with my thinking. Here is a second draft:

Other users' edits should not be tracked when motivated by a desire for revenge or to harass. Edits can be tracked in the context of recent changes patrol or WikiProject spam to fix unambiguous errors, policy violations and related problems on multiple articles. While evidence from contribution logs can be gathered for use in dispute resolution, collegial and evidence-based community discussion should always be the goal. Repeated groundless prosecution at administrative boards -- such as WP:ANI, WP:AE, WP:ARBCOM, or WP:AN -- is considered hounding and can lead to sanctions in extreme cases. WP:GANG activity is a severe form of (tag-team) hounding and is strictly frowned upon wherever it takes place.

Also there are more paragraphs, the tag-team harassment bit does not need to be the renvoi of this paragraph, It could be in one of the other paragraphs. I just think this section is the right place to mention it, as that is often how it feels to many contributors who end up feeling, sometimes mostly mistakenly that they are dealing with teams. It is reassuring that policy reflects ideal practice, and from experience, I will tell you that tag-team behavior should be WP:NOTHERE but it's not. 🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 21:46, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Also just for info, you may want to compare two versions of WP:NOTHERE in terms of the veneer given to the question of tag-team POV Railroad: the current version " diverting dispute resolutions from objectives", which leads to the same place, is rather rickrolicking if you ask me, and is buried in a host of other boring links. Here is a proposed streamlining of the nothere policy, which can be commented on at the policy talkpage. The WMF should really activate wiki-who (authorship data) on wikipedia namespace (it's currently only activated for mainspace) so we could see who's effectively written the policies.🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 22:40, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

• I had no intention of commenting in this section, but because of the comments in a section below, where I had already commented earlier, I will now. I think that tightening up the existing wording in the Hounding section is a good idea. I think adding any of the proposed new material would be a mistake. It would open up the door to users who were properly being sanctioned for disruptive conduct trying to wikilawyer that they were being harassed by administrators and others. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:27, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Link to Trust & Safety ? Add section on legitimate criticism?

Strangely, the word "safety" appears only once on the page as I write, the words "trust" and "support" are both missing from the policy page. Shouldn't we have a link to the T&S anonymous tip jar?

I also notice that the root "crit" (criticize, criticism, criteria, critique, etc.) is nowhere to be found on this page. Shouldn't we have something defining legitimate critical inquiry in policy? 🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 12:42, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

It is interesting how the elephant in the room is being scrupulously avoided. T&S and ArbCom concur that en.wp is not doing a good job dealing with harassment (cf. ArbCom statement). Part of the problem is that there is no explanation of how the line should be drawn between legitimate criticism and harassment. We all agree that calling someone on the telephone after doing opposition research to dig up their phone number, as in the jytdog case, is harassment and not legitimate criticism. But some attempt should be made to define legitimate (i.e. diff-based and easily verifiable) criticism. Why is everyone avoiding the elephant and focusing on an already far too long section on outing?) 🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 21:48, 30 June 2019 (UTC)*

added a link to T&S, citing their meta page. I got a pat on the back then reverted. The board of trustees recently said this: "The Board views this as part of a much-needed community debate on toxic behavior. In spite of the considerable disruption this has caused for many, we hope this serves as a catalyzing moment for us to move forward together to ensure the health and vitality of our communities. source (in which nowhere is it said that the en.wp harassment policy should not have a link to T&S). Did I stumble into some sort of turf war again? ^^ 🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 23:09, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Proposal of adding a sentence to WP:OUTING

I would like to propose an addition to the second paragraph of WP:OUTING: Even in the case that a person claims on an external website to be a Wikipedia editor, sharing any external information not present on Wikipedia is still a form of outing. This sentence provides an example of outing, to clarify a potentially confusing situation, when external people claim to be Wikipedia editors. I can attest to this situation being confusing, having been blocked for it myself. I hope that this example will educate editors, and since it is just an example, I don't believe there are loopholes created, but please post any if you find them. Maybe this can be discussed for a week for any improvements before we go to asking for supports and opposes. starship.paint (talk) 14:07, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

What the section would look like

Any edit that "outs" someone must be reverted promptly, followed by a request for oversight to delete that edit from Wikipedia permanently. Any administrator may redact it pending oversight, even when the administrator is involved. If an editor has previously posted their own personal information but later redacted it, it should not be repeated on Wikipedia, although references to still-existing, self-disclosed information are not considered outing. If the previously posted information has been removed by oversight, then repeating it on Wikipedia is considered outing. Even in the case that a person claims on an external website to be a Wikipedia editor, sharing any external information not present on Wikipedia is still a form of outing.

Starship.paint, thank you for this proposal. I think that this clarification is important. I think the question that remains for me is how strictly this is to be interpreted: For instance, if a user links from their user page to their personal website and their personal website links to their Twitter account, can that Twitter account be referenced? StudiesWorld (talk) 14:25, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

I have no idea (obviously from recent events I'm not an expert in this policy). @Oshwah:, hard question here! starship.paint (talk) 14:38, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes, it can. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 14:39, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

starship.paint, if that's the case then I think there needs to be some clarification, but I'm not sure how best to clarify without opening a loophole or overcomplicating the policy. Let me think on it for a while and if I have a thought, I'll get back to you. StudiesWorld (talk) 14:51, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

@Oshwah: - since you said yes to the Twitter account being linked from that linked website, what about this example. Editor links to his website. His website says: "I'm gay." I discuss with that editor: "hey, you linked to your website, which said you're gay." Is it outing? starship.paint (talk) 15:02, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Starship.paint - No, it is not. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 15:29, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

I feel like that has to be decided on a case-by-case basis based on whether it's clear they intended to share that information on Wikipedia. Something like eg. someone using their userpage to link to their personal website, which has all their personal information prominently placed on the landing page you immediately arrive on after clicking the link, would reasonably mean they're sharing that information themselves on Wikipedia, so referencing it would not be outing. On the other hand, someone linking to their Reddit account, which happens to contain a post in their history from 2015 where they shared their personal details, probably would not count as intentionally sharing those details, so bringing them up on-wiki would probably still be outing. --Aquillion (talk) 16:40, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

• I see a complication here, related to socking and particularly self-promotion.

Editor Mr X makes a series of edits. They're not great, and they're somewhat self-promotional. They're reverted by numerous editors. Clearly consensus is against them.

IP *.999 comes along, makes the same edits again. An unproven suspicion arises that IP *.999 and Mr X are connected.

IP *.999 geolocates narrowly and robustly to Argleton. Mr X Industries is based in Argleton, as can be seen from their own website, or from their Facebook.

Is it permissible SPI investigation to connect all three? Or is that outing? Andy Dingley (talk) 14:31, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Erm, Andy Dingley … I'm not an expert on socking stuff … but can't an SPI investigation (and CheckUser requested) be proposed purely because Mr X and 999 have made the same (or very similar) edits? Is there even a need to mention the off-wiki stuff? starship.paint (talk) 14:38, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

SPI refuses to address IPs with checkuser. In some cases, the WP:QUACKing is enough to link them, or often it's errors by confusing which sock they're editing as. But there are certainly cases – and some are blog posts saying, "Ha ha, I'm socking on WP" – where it's off-wiki evidence that gives the link. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:44, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Andy Dingley - It's not outing to take on-wiki edits, evidence, and information and use them to connect the dots between users to genuinely assert that sock puppetry, block or ban evasion, abuse, or other policy violations in this aspect are occurring. Since you wouldn't have access to the geolocation of Mr X (only checkusers do, and after they retrieve the account's IP information), you'd be making the assertion in the SPI that, due to the very similar edits to the same article from the .999 IP and Mr X, they are most likely the same person and both users should be blocked due to repeated self-promotion. Saying that the .999 IP and Mr X are both from Argleton based off of the geolocation that you pull from the .999 IP is speculation based off of the similar edits that you believe links the two users as the same person.

That's completely different than (for example) performing an internet search for "Mr X", finding that there's LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube accounts that are very similarly spelled or worded as "Mr X", finding a tweet that the Twitter account you found posted saying that they're "Mr X" on Wikipedia, then going back to Wikipedia, posting the external links there and saying that you found "Mr X" on the internet, here's his other accounts, and look - his name is actually Richard Head from California. Do you see the (very big) difference between the first example above regarding the SPI, and this one? The first example is not considered outing. This example here is absolutely a violation of policy and would be considered outing if Mr X did not publicly disclose those links on Wikipedia or any WMF project site using his account. :-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 14:55, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

So what about a case where we're dealing with Commons, and Commons content sourced from Flickr or Facebook, where there's a clear indication from the Mr X account that they are Mr X industries (they're claiming this as justification for using the images), and where the off-wiki Mr X identity links publicly to Argleton. Similarly those who (Mr Y) who are linking their on-wiki edits as promotion of Mr Y's other interests, such as th Mr Y public Facebook. Now yes, none of this is proof that they are Mr X (they could simply be joe-jobbing). But if there is then an IP which geolocates to Mr X (with a degree of confidence, if not certainty, as good as any other use of IPs in CU) I see that as a reasonable connection to draw. No off-wiki information has been acquired here beyond what Mr X has offered themselves ("I am Mr X of Facebook", "Mr X of Facebook is based in Argleton"), and so it's no more than if Mr X on WP had claimed directly to be based in Argleton, then the IP's geolocation reveals the crossover.

Also there's some inconsistency of IPs at SPI. Some CUs won't reveal linking information in order to avoid making such a link. However others simply refuse to look at IPs at all, even keeping the results to themselves, so IPs effectively get a free hand. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:01, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Andy Dingley - If the images were uploaded by Mr X himself, and they clearly display or show that he has a non-ambiguous and obvious relationship with Mr X Industries, I would not consider it outing for you to discuss on-wiki what you see in the image and what you believe that it means. This is a case where the user has provided (and hence disclosed) that information themselves, and so long as you're not disclosing or sharing information that you found on your own by using external off-wiki searches, websites, or other means in your comments or statements, I don't see an issue with "calling it as you see it". It's perfectly fine for you to see an image that Mr X uploaded to Commons that shows him wearing a Mr X Industries uniform and posing together with other Mr X Industries employees, and then say in a comment, "hey, this image Mr X uploaded looks to be an image of him wearing a Mr X Industries uniform. He edits that article a lot, and he includes a lot of unsourced and non-neutral content that adds a positive bias to the article's content. I believe that he works for this company and that there's a COI issue with him and this article subject." ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 18:45, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

My goodness, my ears are burning.- MrX 🖋 19:06, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

The gig is up, MrX! You've been able to fly under the radar for a long time, but you put your hand in the cookie jar too many times to not be caught. We know what you're up to, and your tyranny toward everyone while behind the cloak and sword of Mr X Incorporated is over! I'm gonna go blow the lid off the whole conspiracy, and the trails are all going to point to you! I also have evidence that will lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton. (I hope people here will get that joke and reference) :-P ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 00:13, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Oshwah, please retract that statement or I'll have to take you to WP:ANI for casting WP:ASPERSIONS that MrX could be related to Mr C Incorporated or Hillary Clinton. StudiesWorld (talk) 00:15, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Neverrrr! :-P ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 00:21, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

This makes me think we may need a joke version of ANI, if only for April Fool's Day. StudiesWorld (talk) 00:24, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Oh no! I knew my day of reckoning would eventually come.- MrX 🖋 00:46, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Andy Dingley - After re-reading your follow-up question above, I'll expand a bit in order to try and fully answer your question regarding the situation. So long as you're using on-wiki information that the user disclosed or added themselves to directly connect the dots to information (wherever it may be), you will not be engaging in outing of the user. I'll summarize it in a simple manner by saying it like this: If the user discloses the information or URLs, etc using their account, then they opened that door for you to walk through. Going through the door that they opened is not outing. If you go out and begin searches on your own to find information about that user and then publish that information about the user on-wiki (meaning you didn't start from information they posted on-wiki, but instead started from searches or other external means that you instigated on your own), you opened that door. If you walk through the door that you opened for yourself, it will be considered outing and a severe breach of Wikipedia policy.

If Mr X publishes an external URL to website A on their user page using their account, and website A contains their personal information, posts, photos, whatever..., and you click on a URL that you found on website A to go to website B, and website B contains more information about them that website A doesn't have published, discussing the additional information about the user that you found on website B is not outing. You used the URL that he disclosed, visited the site, found the other site directly from the first site, and found that information. Now, lets say that Mr X discloses the URL to website A just like in the previous example, but website A does not contain a link to website B. Instead, you use information from website A to start a web search about Mr X and/or start looking around the internet for more stuff on Mr X yourself and on your own, and you then run into website B from your searches, discussing the additional information you found on website B that was not shared on website A would not be acceptable. You didn't find website B and the additional information from website A and hence from information that Mr X disclosed on Wikipedia using his account. You found that information on website B using other searches or means. That's the difference. I hope these simple examples help put everything into perspective and that they make sense. :-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 00:34, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't agree with the final paragraph. If someone doesn't intend to share information, spending time researching (including eg. pouring over every post on a social media account they linked) and then sharing it on-wiki is outing them. The example I posted above is someone linking to their Reddit account; if you go through their posts and find one from 2015 where they shared personal information, then post that information on-wiki, you are absolutely outing them, since it's unreasonable to infer that they intended to share that information themselves, and since it could reasonably be considered to have been hidden before. More generally, outing will almost always involve a user accidentally leaking information in some form; interpreting an accidental release of information as sufficient to make something not outing them would undermine the entire policy. I don't see how "you posted your real name, which I was able to use to connect the dots and find your address even though you wanted to keep it hidden" is any different from "you posted a link to your Reddit account, which I was able to pour over and find your address within even though you wanted to keep it hidden." --Aquillion (talk) 16:50, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

• I think the policy is already fairly clear on this: simply editing under a real name is not an invitation to off-wiki opposition research. I think a lot of the confusion here is that this isn’t really outing in the sense of making a real life identity known. It very much is harassment as opposition research. If anything, I’d be more inclined to add an ALLCAPS anchor and shortcut about opposition research than anything else.
  Speaking more generally, people get caught up in the specifics of the harassment policy and question what the lines are, which I don’t think is a good approach to it. A good axiom to follow about the harassment policy is this: if it’s creepy or would make someone feel violated in real life, it will be creepy or make someone feel violated on Wikipedia.
  In the recent case: yes, 100%, if you came up to random strangers in real life, at their job, and knowing who they were asked them to verify their social media profiles, it would be creepy and make someone feel violated. People don’t like strangers looking through their details and letting them know they’re being watched, even if the info is public. I’ve said it before: if anyone came around doing that at any workplace I’ve been at, the cops would be called and they’d have been trespassed. I don’t mean to harp on it, but it is a really good example of the creepy IRL is creepy on-wiki rule. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:30, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I agree with everything that Tony said. I think it's also important to recognize that there can be false flags in these kinds of situations. It occurs to me: maybe it would be a good idea to have a quote box on the page about the "creepy IRL" rule. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:22, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm looking closely at the existing language in terms of the proposed clarification. I see that the policy already says:

The fact that an editor has posted personal information or edits under their own name, making them easily identifiable through online searches, is not an excuse to post the results of "opposition research"

and Posting links to other accounts on other websites is allowable in specific situations (but see also Wikipedia:Linking to external harassment). There are job posting sites where employers publicly post advertisements to recruit paid Wikipedia editors. Linking to such an ad in a forum such as the Conflict of interest noticeboard is not a violation of this policy... To combat impersonation (an editor claiming falsely to be a particular person), it is permissible to post or link to disavowals from that person, provided that the person has explicitly and in good faith given their consent, and provided that there is a high degree of confidence in the authenticity of the source.

This already covers a lot of what the proposed sentence would address. As I see it, the only new information it would add is that, outside of the "specific situations" that are cited, such linking is usually not permitted – and it seems to me that this fact really is already so clearly implied that we would be getting into a situation of instruction creep if we were to add some version of the proposed sentence. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:48, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

And the danger of instruction creep on this policy in particular is pretty big. It gets us focused on red lines and on the assumption that if you don't cross one, you're okay. The difficult cases are ones where there aren't red lines, but there exists enough of a pattern that a block is justified. When we get into instruction creep, those situations become much more difficult from the oversighter/admin side of things. The policy here is clear: do not do off-wiki opposition research. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:01, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

What some call "opposition research" others call investigative reporting. I must say knowing that a user who harassed me was associated with the "donkey punch" entries and the Dan Savage Rick Santorum meme (as well as being topic banned from the area they were editing) would not have been possible were it not for off-wiki sources (i.e. the wider world). Those of us who are a bit cynical about the state of the current health of en.wp (like T&S, like the NYT, like Salon, like ArbCom, etc.) might suggest that saying "do not do off-wiki investigation" gives embedded power users a pass allowing them to avoid legitimate scrutiny/criticism of their actions. The problems with Cirt, jytdog, Fram, and many others would all have been much more quickly resolved if more people had listened to the off-wiki wiki-watchers. Walled gardens & echo chambers are dangerous, especially when people get gagged or gas-lighted in those lovely gardeny spaces. 🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 21:57, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Jytdog was blocked for violating the very policy you're critiquing. Sagecandor was not blocked because of off-wiki stuff, even if it existed. He was blocked based on a publicly filed SPI containing diffs and based off of CheckUser data reviewed by a local functionary. That didn't require digging into his personal life off-wiki, and anyone could have done it. Those are both very good examples of why this policy works. Off-wiki opposition research of personal lives is entirely unneeded. If there really does need to be off-wiki evidence submitted, ArbCom or the functionaries list are always available for people, and speaking from the perspective of the functionaries list, we do treat allegations, even made against "power users", very seriously. If people don't trust ArbCom or the functionaries team, T&S exists as well. There are structures in place where the people involved are held accountable for any actions they take so we don't need individuals who have no source of accountability taking matters into their own hands and posting opposition research on a public wiki. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:21, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

No, Sagecandor was blocked because a whole host of evidence was compiled for the SPI through work done by several people off-wiki... (and it still took over a year from the time ArbCom was first informed). I am not criticizing the "outing" policy, I am saying that "off-wiki investigation" is not at all the same thing as "trawling through someone's FB and linkedin", so we should be very careful not to say, as you did, that policy prohibits "off-wiki opposition research" unless we're clear about exactly what that means. For example, by linking to the mainspace definition of opposition research this policy page currently suggests that we cannot use prior media coverage about problems on en.wp to point out further problems on en.wp... that's rather odd, no? 🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 22:36, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

You can't use press coverage of individuals for their off-wiki activity. You can use press coverage that critiques Wikipedia in general. That is my understanding of the policy, and I think it is one that would be shared by others thinking back to a few cases we've had. On the Sagecandor point: yes, you can gather diffs via email or other forums, but the things that are posted on-wiki cannot be things such as "SashiRolls publicly identifies as Example Person and here is their Twitter." You could send it to a CU via email or to the functionaries list or the CheckUser OTRS queue. In general, off-wiki evidence is much less damning than people involved think, and I can personally only think of one SPI where it made me change my mind. I'm sure there are others, but the percentage is pretty small, and the CU team is able to handle it to the point where people posting it in a public forum is unneeded. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:46, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your response here... it's clear and concise. Maybe we could focus on some of the difficult questions in other sections? ^^ 🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 00:53, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni: - I don't agree with your approach that you're looking at it that simply editing under a real name is not an invitation to off-wiki opposition research. Yes, there may be cases of opposition research, I don't like Editor Z, I search for things about him online. But what if things weren't opposition research (it wasn't, in my case, not sure if you knew). Let's say on Twitter, there's this user that is the #1 supporter of Fraser Anning, and is posting comments many view as racist. Let's say this user claims to be an English Wikipedian, regularly edits articles on Fraser Anning, and uses the same user name both on Wikipedia and Twitter, but did not reveal it on Wikipedia. If I discussed the Twitter comments with this editor, that would be outing, which is not permissible. But that wouldn't be opposition research, don't you agree? starship.paint (talk) 03:44, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Starship.paint, uh, that's pretty much the definition of opposition research and that was what you were doing before... TonyBallioni (talk) 03:47, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni: - no argh. I think I wasn't clear. Let's say I am totally unaware of Editor A on Wikipedia. I start by chancing upon the Twitter account that claims to be Editor A. So, I ask Editor A a question about Twitter on Wikipedia. That is outing, but is that opposition research? starship.paint (talk) 03:49, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

I think it falls under the same premise. We can come up with all of these hypotheticals, but in practice, it is not going to be likely that someone comes across a Wikipedia editor's external accounts unless they were looking for them. Most Wikipedians are not public figures, and the odds of someone finding a Tweet from a random account related to Fraser Anning unless one was looking up things related to Fraser Anning with an eye for controversy are relatively low.

If you were to find the name of an editor you recognized on Twitter, go to the article and see them editing it, and then ask the person if it was them, yes, I would classify it as opposition research because that's exactly how it looks to me, a neutral third-party. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:57, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni: - it is not going to be likely that someone comes across a Wikipedia editor's external accounts unless they were looking for them - it may not be likely, but that's what happened in my case. Was I performing opposition research on specific WMF staffers? I would say no, because I've never known of them before. However, I was probably performing opposition research on the WMF in general, yes. Was that permissible? Floquenbeam and Espresso Addict, probably did similar actions in this case. GorillaWarfare, Swarm and Wehwalt responded to my 'opposition research on the WMF' actions, but did not object. Casliber probably read what I wrote, and didn't object either. Moe Epsilon did object. And then, we have people who posted / discussed Katherine's tweets, a larger group I won't identify. Is discussing Katherine's tweets opposition research? Is opposition research on the WMF not permissible? It's all not very clear. starship.paint (talk) 04:20, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't want to relitigate your block, but what you did was indeed opposition research. Looking up negative information in general about people off-site, finding specific people as a part of that research, and then coming back to use that information against them is opposition research. I'll repeat what I said above: we don't want this page to be overly specific. If we start listing everything that is inappropriate, we get into the realm where if something isn't listed here it is okay, which is not how a policy like this should operate. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:43, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni: - I'm not looking to relitigate my block. If what I did was indeed opposition research, then it was tolerated by several prominent members of the community. If opposition research is bad, do you see how that would be a problem? starship.paint (talk) 04:49, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

I’m done here. Cheerios. Someone else will have to officially table my proposal, if it ever comes to that. starship.paint (talk) 06:59, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

• I'm a little late here but I do think the policy should be clarified, even if not with the exact wording as proposed. Maybe different wording? Maybe it needs an information page with examples of do's and don'ts? Pinging Winged Blades of Godric in case he has some ideas. – Levivich 01:50, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

This discussion has not been formulated as a straw poll, but I'm personally prepared to support the additional language more or less as Starship presented it. It's clearly what the policy has always urged, and how it has been consistently interpreted by the community, including by ArbCom and admins and veteran community members working in relevant spaces such as SPI and ANI--at least to the extent that I've ever seen the issue expressed. There are massively important community priorities behind our commitment to protecting the identities of our users their access to anonymity if they so choose to embrace it when participating in this project, and it's manifestly clear that it cannot be abrogated by technicality, no matter what someone says off-project; connecting on-project and off-project conduct is vastly beyond the permitted remit of another community member, no matter that might allow this or that editor "make a case" against a sock puppet who will otherwise go un-blocked, or a similar situation. Clarifying the language to formalize that point can only be a positive change. Frankly, I'm a little confused by the back and forth above between Starship and Tony as to where the line between outing and "opposition research" is. Clearly there's a lot of overlap between the two and, regardless, it's not the like the proposed change is a zero-sum contest between those two interests: making the outing rules more express will eliminate (or at least proscribe) more instances of outing, regardless of whether they contain opposition research or not. those two concerns are in alignment, with regard to the proposed change, as far as I can tell. Snow ^{let's rap} 06:25, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't have any good ideas, but is there perhaps an alternative way of wording it? --Tryptofish (talk) 15:53, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

I disagree quite strongly: spelling things out will name it significantly easier for people to harass others because of the “it’s not forbidden” effect. On the opposition research point: not sure what’s confusing. Don’t be creepy and go through another editor’s Facebook looking for pictures of them drunk while in school, even if they say their identity on here.

I’m fine with tweaking wording here, but spelling out specifics is less than ideal. What about this Dredging up their off-site opinions or other undisclosed off-wiki information to repeatedly challenge their edits can be a form of harassment, even if their identity is public. change is in the bold, I also removed the clause about past edits since it’s a bit weird in that section and it’s covered adequately elsewhere. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:32, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

I guess I'm still not following the nature of your argument. We are still talking about Starship's proposed addition, right? Why would adding "Even in the case that a person claims on an external website to be a Wikipedia editor, sharing any external information not present on Wikipedia is still a form of outing." to the existing language regarding WP:outing lead to more, rather than less, undesirable behaviou?. It would be an express expansion of the definition of what is considered outing. And I've seen the situation Starship describes happen several times, only for the outing editor to (at least initially) argue that the policy is ambiguous to this point. It's not, really, as I see it: the prohibition on bringing any outside evidence of another's identity here at least implicitly makes this behaviour proscribed, and it's clear from community discussions (up to and including ArbCom) that this is not allowed, no matter the their level of disclosure off-site. But insofar as there is some confusion out there, why would we not sharpen to language of the policy as Starship suggests, so this point gets enshrined in the most relevant policy and strengthened as common knowledge, rather than something we have to deal with at ANI after the principle has already been violated? Our admins have enough work to do without adding in needless WP:OVERSIGHT work that could have been prevented in the first instance.

Your alternative proposal may very well be something we would want to consider in addition, but your wording doesn't really address the issue that Starship brought up here and which the rest of us are discussing; there's a lot of overlap (that is, there would be plenty of disruptive behaviour that would be covered by both Starship's proposed addition and your proposed additions), but the issue of whether or not to add wording saying essentially "You cannot connect an editor to their off-project identities, even if they identify themselves as a Wikipedian on other webpages." is not really the same question as to whether or not to also sharpen language regarding "opposition research". Plenty of conduct would be covered by both proposals, but they're not in opposition (they'd actually row together in pretty much all circumstances). More to the point, I'm still struggling to understand why you would think that Starship's proposed additional wording would invite more outing, when it simply clarifies that the particular behaviour of bringing a person's off-project identity and activities into a discussion here is textbook outing, regardless of whether they disclose their editorial identity elsewhere. And again, that's already the standard: we're just making it clear for those who didn't realize that was there is no exception to the general outing principle here, just because someone discloses (or seems to disclose) their identity as a Wikipedian on another site.

Not to sound like a broken record, but your proposal may well be worth considering, and you should open a separate thread to consider it. But it's a discrete issue from that which Starship has raised here, and the two are by no means mutually exclusive proposals. Unless I'm misapprehending your position in some way--which I may very well be, because your argument is still not adding up for me, if I'm reading it correctly. Snow ^{let's rap} 21:52, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

My issue with Starship's addition is that the entire point of the current wording of this policy is that it is intentionally ambiguous as to what is and isn't allowed. This is because of the complexity of these situations. Adding hard and fast rules makes it more like a checklist and instruction creep. We don't want to list that many specifics here otherwise it will look like things we don't list are things that are permissible to do. In the case of harassment, this is not ideal as unfortunately people will find new and unique ways to target other human beings. I think my addition makes the point Starship is trying to make more clear without the risk of instruction creep, and I don't think it needs a new section to discuss it because the idea is similar. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:33, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

I agree in general with the principle that when connections to a real-world identity are only incoming (from other sites) and not outgoing (from here to those other sites) then they cannot be revealed per OUTING, and with the idea of making that more explicit. However, I think the exact sentence "Even in the case that a person claims on an external website to be a Wikipedia editor, sharing any external information not present on Wikipedia is still a form of outing." goes too far, in that it requires people to write on Wikipedia all possible information that can be shared. As an example, I link from my Wikipedia user page my real name, my professional home page, my blog, and a Wikipedia article that happens to be about me. I do not link from my user page various other network identities that are, however, linked elsewhere: my home page links to an account on the Mastodon social media server, and to my Google Scholar profile, for instance, neither of which is linked on my user page. The proposed wording would make it a violation of OUTING to mention my Mastodon account or my Google Scholar account, even though I make no secret of those accounts, because they are not explicitly mentioned on-Wikipedia. I think that it should be allowed to mention identities such as these that are either linked directly on-Wikipedia or indirectly and publicly from a page that is linked on-Wikipedia (only one level of indirection to prevent gaming by following long chains of links). We could either make a rule about this or let common sense prevail. But I don't think we should make it ridiculously difficult for users to disclose their identity even when they try, by adding requirements that the user page should be an exhaustive list of all possible connected accounts that might ever come up in conversation. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:22, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

But why would we balance the policy to facilitate easier willing disclosures rather than to proscribe inappropriate ones? Remember, this is WP:NOTASOCIALNETWORK. A person's off-project activities should rarely, if ever, be a source of significant discussion on this project. Besides, if we're talking about not getting in the way of editors who wanted the information in question disclosed here, this policy is not a problem, because they aren't going to be pushing for sanctions/oversighting on something they want people to know. This policy, rather, is aimed at protecting the right to anonymity that has been enshrined as a protected feature of this project and community since their inception, and which assurance is absolutely vital to large numbers of out editors (sometimes as a question of livelihood or even personal safety). The policy against outing needs to stay focused on that interest, not making things easier for those who have no such concerns and wish to promote or socialize and link to aspects of their identities that have nothing to do with the workings of this project.

If people want to index their social media, career, or other personal webpages here, I guess more power to them, though I don't see the point of it, given what we are meant to be focused on here. And I suppose to the extent that such information is listed here, referencing those accounts here should be considered an exception to outing (I don't why you would ever do that in a way that has anything to do with this project's work, but whatever). But allowing a daisy-chain exception would be a stupendously bad idea to me: even if we attempted to limit it to a "two degrees of separation only" rule as you suggest (which I think would actually be extremely difficult to catch in the policy in a manner that is both clear and succinct) it would still invite all manner of gamesmanship of our outing principles and focus on off-project activities that are just not appropriate topics of discussion here to begin. Even if someone lists their Facebook account on their en.WP user page, I would still consider it borderline (if not outright) inappropriate to go look at their conduct on that site and then bring here whatever is found there. There's just no legitimate project-oriented purpose for it. And we definitely should not be watering down (even a small amount) protections for people who wouldn't want their off-project identities/activities mentioned here, just to make willing disclosures more convenient for those who want to. That would just turn our hierarchy of priorities (regarding the people and interests WP:OUTING is meant to protect), completely on its head. Snow ^{let's rap} 22:28, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

It is not just on-Wiki discussions that this policy affects. As an active Wikipedia editor, I don't want to fall afoul of this policy even in my off-wiki activity. Because of this, this policy has already repeatedly prevented me from publicly crediting editors with their good edits. To do so, I would have to name those editors in a way recognizable to the external communities in which I want to give the credit. And although the people I have in mind have not actually been hiding their identity here, they have also not been familiar enough with the ins and outs of this policy to have created an explicit link from their userpages here to their identities elsewhere. If we can't tell the world about the good edits people are doing, it makes it harder to attract other people to help edit. And if we make our outing policy so complicated and difficult that only experts on outing policy are capable of making their identities public, we won't be able to tell the world about anyone else's good works. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:57, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, such concerns, if they require more finessed language to avoid issue, are better addressed in WP:OWH rather than WP:OUTING, since they would involve activities covered by the former rather than the latter. But generally speaking, this community does not get involved in policing off-project behaviour. It occasionally comes up in an ArbCom case, where it involves harassment that is directly and clearly related to an on-project dispute, but if the significant nexus of the dispute doesn't arise here, it's generally seen as beyond this community's remit to police off-project activity, owing to the facts that A) it is often difficult to establish identity with certainty (and dubiously ethical under our policies to publicly probe that question in depth), or to establish the facts and chain of events (it's not like our admins have revision histories and checkuser tools to work with on other sites as they do here), and B) because that's just not seen as an appropriate function for our community to get entangled in off-project matters. There are exceptions, but they are rare and I can't imagine anyone getting taken to ArbCom by a party who got celebrated for something off-project, when they make the connection between their off-project accounts and their account here and are looking to engage in cross-site chatter.

Basically the harassment policy as it is currently written is just never going to be invoked by somebody who doesn't mind your off-project comment. And if you messed up and did contact someone off site who didn't want that attention, then it's hardly a benefit if the policy is changed to greenlight that behaviour, because you clearly were over-confident in your analysis that the person was seeking or open to such plaudits. Either way, it's virtually impossible that you'd end up with a sanction for one off-hand compliment: you'd either have to be repeatedly contacting someone who already made it clear to you that they didn't want to hear from you off-project, or you'd have to have made a large number of similar blunders involving a significant number of editors, all of whom brought their concerns to ArbCom. And if either of those things is happening, I can't see it as a positive development to weaken our WP:OUTING standards for the sake of protecting the ability of someone to thank others off-project who don't even want that communication. Snow ^{let's rap} 00:21, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

I think it's worth considering that the outing policy already defines outing in terms of the disclosure of "personal information". So, working off of David Eppstein's examples, his disclosure of his real name, professional page, blog, and BLP makes the associated kinds of personal information (such as his real name, profession, workplace, and anything else at his BLP) voluntarily disclosed. He doesn't link from here to his Google Scholar account, so (unless it's in his BLP; I didn't look) some information about how many times he has been cited by other scholars might not be directly linked to from on-wiki. But is "number of cites" considered to be "personal information" as defined by this policy? I don't think so. So if an editor looked that information up and added it to his BLP would that be outing? No, I don't think it would. But if they found his home phone number at an external site and posted that? Yes, it would. One way to think about it is whether the kind of information could be considered to be something that a person could be harassed with, or as TonyBallioni put it, whether that kind of information would come across as creepy. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:49, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

One problem to be solved here is clarifying the (as David Eppstein put it) "inbound/outbound" dichotomy–the notion that "outing" your WP account off-wiki isn't the same as "outing" yourself on-wiki. I like Snow's formulation of "You cannot connect an editor to their off-project identities, even if they identify themselves as a Wikipedian on other webpages", to which I would add, "unless they have posted their identity on wiki" (or language to that effect, noting the #RfC: Clarification of OUTING thread above about what "on wiki" means, exactly). A second issue is the scope-of-outing issue raised by David Eppstein immediately above. That's an interesting question that ties into the opposition research concerns, and that whole "I know it when I see it" line-of-thinking about whether something is "creepy" or just referring to public information. I'm not sure that there is a "rule" that can be written for that particular point, as it's a very fine line between saying (hypothetical example) "Hey David, I read in the newspaper you won the Nobel Prize–congratulations!" and "Hey David, I read in the newspaper you didn't win the Nobel Prize–too bad!" The latter can be an honest expression of sympathy, or it can be sarcastic trolling or "opposition research", depending on who's saying it and in what context. However, to TonyB's point about leaving it vague, I must disagree about the philosophy behind it; I've never before heard someone make the argument that the clearer you spell out a rule, the easier it becomes to break, and thus what we want are vague rules. I believe the point of a rule (or policy) should be to set clear expectations of behavior for the purpose of teaching people what to do and what not to do, so that they can do (or not do) the right thing. Thus, I think we want clear rules, so that people can read and follow them, as opposed to vague "principles" whose purpose is to provide justification for future enforcement actions without first being clear about what does and what does not violate the principle. – Levivich 17:32, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Sarcasm is one thing. It's easy enough for people who think they can get a rise out of you to say other borderline-insulting sarcastic things without having to out you to do it (I probably shouldn't name names). Complaining to your employer (which has happened to me, not recently) is an entirely different matter, and something that I think should be disallowed regardless of how public the identity is. But often the people who do that sort of thing are not actually editors, just people who dislike something we include in our articles. Maybe we should keep in mind that there's this bigger class of potential outing violators over whom we have little or no control. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:04, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

From the Board statement

I think there have been some questions about whether the WMF T&S are currently handling basic harassment issues at en-wiki. Here is the link to what the WMF Board have said: [2], where they say that they have instructed T&S to work only on things like "legal issues, threats of violence, cross-wiki abuse, and child protection issues until consultation and agreement between T&S and the community are achieved." --Tryptofish (talk) 20:28, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

WP:GASLIGHTING

There is a discussion about where, if anywhere, it is best for the WP:GASLIGHTING shortcut to point (it currently links to Wikipedia:Gaming the system#Gaming the use of policies and guidelines). Your input to this discussion is invited at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2019 July 26#Wikipedia:GASLIGHTING. Thryduulf (talk) 18:26, 26 July 2019 (UTC)