Inkipedia:Proposals/Failed/Personal Information Overhaul

This is a policy proposal.

The policy has not been approved yet.

This is a somewhat minor proposal to change the existing personal information policy. The primary changes are:

• Removing email address, as it is a MediaWiki supported feature.
• Making the reveal of personal information a stricter infraction.
• Defining a specific punishment for the revealing of other users' information (doxxing).

The full draft can be found here.

Start date: 28 August 2023

End date: 18 September 2023

Support

1. It's all common sense, good stuff! GloverMist (talk) 10:21, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
2. EminenceTalk 17:25, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
3. -Odd (Talk) 20:38, 28 August 2023 (UTC)>
4. -Xando (talk) 12:24, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Reasoning below. Heddy (talk) 21:09, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
2. Eli (talk) 13:53, 30 August 2023 (UTC) – Largely agree with Heddy. I'm really more "neutral" here but voting in this direction so the (current) vote as isn't completely lopsided, as this conversation should continue and not be pushed to the side.
3. EminenceTalk 13:27, 2 September 2023 (UTC) - I cannot support reducing the safety of our users. In my opinion, a website should do everything possible to ensure that it's users are safe while using that website and we shouldn't be removing safety features. Considering I've never seen anyone actually post their email on user page or ask to do that, I don't think allowing email on user pages is a wanted change either.
4. kris(talk) 14:30, 2 September 2023 (UTC) - I support the stricter consequences, but agree with the users above about sharing emails.
5. A lot has already been said above and in the discussion. I agree with all of the points made. Odd (Talk) 14:26, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Milchik (talk) 07:27, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
2. Per discussion below, changing my vote because of new information. GloverMist (talk) 18:40, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
3. Same with Glovermist -Xando (talk) 12:18, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

Email has always been a "MediaWiki supported feature", but that's not a valid reason to allow people to place their personal email directly on the page. That is dangerous, and exposes the email to web crawler bots that collect emails. Instead, people should continue to input the email into the Preferences page, and use the [[Special:EmailUser/YourUsername]] code on their user page. This hides your actual email address, while still allowing others to send you an email. Let's not remove mention of email from the policy, or better yet, we could offer specific guidance on how to safely add your email to the system and allow people to email you without ever giving them your email address. Heddy (talk) 22:10, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

I see it as a risk. People should expect a public-facing email to be violently scraped and spammed regardless of where it is placed by exterior third parties. Just because the mediawiki method hides this content doesn't mean that users *have* to (although they very well should). That is their responsibility, not inherently ours. Trig - 22:52, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

But they do currently *have* to use the MW email feature with the current policy. I think it's worth taking some responsibility in informing users to not post email publicly, as the current policy does. The whole point of the policy is to protect users, and I don't believe it's wise to strip it of one protection, when we should instead be enhancing that part with more info. It's possible to add an abuse filter to prevent emails in userspace, and possible to display a helpful instructional message to users attempting to add an email, that way we don't have to have email removal as our responsibility, as the system would totally prevent emails in the first place. Those are the kind of enhancements I would expect in an overhaul to this policy, not a removal where we just give up at protecting a certain aspect of user privacy. Heddy (talk) 23:50, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

+1 to everything @Heddy has said above. –Eli (talk) 13:54, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Our specific goal is to protect our users from harm from other users. I do not think that much internal abuse can stem from posting of emails. It's a deliberate choice for a user to release that information for communication, not particularly different from social media. Someone looking to post vile messages or engage in scams would have no difficulty in contacting both, but both are also not our responsibility to manage because they happen externally. We are not supposed to be teaching users about digital safety, we are supposed to be creating a system of rules to ensure other users cannot directly cause damage to other users through the abuse of personal information. Trig - 14:30, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Not much abuse is still abuse. Digital safety education (if that's what you're calling my suggested abuse filter error message and continued banning of unprotected emails) sounds like a good thing to me, especially considering the site's audience. What I have been discussing is not mutually exclusive with your stated goal of protecting our users from harm; we can do both. And when we consider the fact that emails often contain names, the email rule looks very, very sensible. Heddy (talk) 07:24, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

@GloverMist @Eminence @Oddlilgoof @Xando Requesting comment from the Support voters. See the above discussion regarding the proposed removal of the email rule, a rule that I believe is very sensible. If your mind has changed, remember to change your vote accordingly. Heddy (talk) 07:32, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

I have to admit, I actually misread the new draft version and failed to notice the removal of email addresses from the list. I agree with Heddy that it should be kept for basic data protection reasons, though the other changes I still support. As a result, I have to go neutral for now until this is resolved. GloverMist (talk) 18:40, 2 September 2023 (UTC)