Wikiversity talk:Privacy policy

From Wikiversity

Contents 1 Making this Official 2 Privacy Policy link 3 Proposal to make WMF privacy policy explicit 4 privacy policy

[edit] Making this Official

I "demoted" this policy from being an official Wikiversity policy to merely a proposed one, and a weakly worded one at that. There certainly was not community concensus to adopt this as an official policy, nor do I think it was needed as such at this time.

Most of what is in the Foundation privacy policy is mainly legal disclaimers to let people know that if any personal information is disclosed, it is really too bad. Don't contribute to Wikimedia projects if you are worried about personal details being displayed on the front page of the New York Times or talked about on CNN. The rest is all syntatic fluff to make you feel warm and fuzzy that there is a privacy policy.

Very little of the "actual protection" is anything that an individual user, admin, or even somebody with check user privileges can even access anyway. The WMF suggests that formal disclosure to 3rd parties about information such as IP address for registered users (anon users already have this disclosed) will happen through legal due process. This is little comfort to Chinese or Saudi citizens who are worried that their governments are going to find out about their activities on Wikimedia projects, or specifically Wikiversity as is the case here. Those governments are going to find out, and can make a formal request where the WMF openly states they will reveal that information to government agencies, including the Saudi and Chinese governments. This policy shouldn't give you comfort at all but instead grave concern.

Of course, I don't think there is really much of formal policy that the WMF can give in this situation, as the legal exception is really required by law anyway. How far and in what aspect Wikiversity users can try to protect anonymity in Wikiversity is certainly something that deserves debate. Using the WMF privacy policy is not going to offer any of that protection. --Robert Horning 22:53, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps Wikiversity's policy should be a simple refreshingly honest statement that: "While Wikiversity editors are discouraged from disclosing personal information about others without their express permission; given the current state of the internet, international law, and the Wikimedia software it is not possible for Wikiversity to protect your anonymity. If you edit Wikiversity various means can be used to track your IP address and determine who you are and from where you are editing." Mirwin 05:36, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Privacy Policy link

From wikimedia:Privacy policy:

"The content of this page is an official policy approved by the Wikimedia Foundation wikimedia:Board of Trustees. This policy may not be circumvented, eroded, or ignored on local Wikimedia projects."

"This version of the Privacy policy was approved in June 2006 by the wikimedia:Board of Trustees. Discussion and proposed changes are welcome on the talk page at Meta."

"It is requested that this notice is translated and linked from the footer of every page."

I have edited MediaWiki:Privacypage so that it now links to wikimedia:Privacy_policy. (This is the link called Privacy policy at the bottom of every wv page.) This is done to conform with WMF policy. My suggestion is that the text on Wikiversity:Privacy policy be adopted as an additional guideline or something. But we need to have the link at the bottom of the page go to the WMF policy, or a local copy. --mikeu ^talk 18:55, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

My suggestion is that if we want to adopt a policy on privacy and minors we bring the topic up at meta. Such policy (if written to comply with child protection laws) should be vetted by a WMF lawyers. --mikeu ^talk 18:10, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikiversity has been explicitly designed to serve learners of all ages. This means that we get young editors who arrive and start sharing their personal information with the world. It is useful to have an explicit policy telling young editors not to add their personal information to Wikiversity. I do not understand why this requires the involvement of lawyers. --JWSchmidt 17:30, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Mikeu, I think JWschmidt is referring to the moral and ethical concerns (and rightly so), not the legal ones. Donek (talk) - Go raibh mile maith agaibh 15:13, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal to make WMF privacy policy explicit

I would like to replace Wikiversity:Privacy policy with a local copy of mw:Privacy policy and copy the existing "Under the age of 13" section to the talk page or a subpage. The WMF policy page should then be clearly tagged with an "official wv policy" template. Please discuss. --mikeu ^talk 18:26, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

• Support. --McCormack 04:27, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
• Support Donek (talk) - Go raibh mile maith agaibh 15:08, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose I see no point or benefit in copying global policies. Other projects that have copied global policies have lead to confusion and disagreement on which version of the policy applies. Also the WMF privacy policy as I recall is in the process of being updated. Its better to just link to WMF policies from within a project policy. --darklama 17:17, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
• Support Either the rules are clear, or chaos reigns. KillerChihuahua 21:30, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
• Support We need to have an "official" Privacy Policy, I cannot believe that Wikiversity hasn't even got an official privacy policy yet - already things are getting out of hand on Wikiversity, with a number of users. Dark Mage 21:35, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
• Support. I think it could use cleanup, but better to have it than nothing. The Jade Knight 00:57, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I think a policy would be helpful. Whether a WV specific one, or the WMF wide one. Because the lack of a clear policy may lead to confusion and possible acrimony about what is or is not allowed. What exactly is holding up adoption of something as a policy, with an effort to revise it if needed? That seems better than not having one. I think defacto the WMF wide one is in force here since there is not an explicit one present. ++Lar: t/c 23:17, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

The consensus has seemed to be in the past that if they are not needed, the fewer the policies the better. Arguably, having something revised later on would be more difficult and cumbersome than going by the consensus of the moment. Emesee 23:22, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

You have a privacy policy. That's not really a question. The question is, do you have the WMF wide one, or one you yourself modify (within limits) to fit your own circumstances. I suggest you'd rather prefer the latter. So you should adopt one, I think. ++Lar: t/c 00:57, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Foundation's privacy policy has always applied to Wikiversity....it does not really matter if a copy of the WMF policy is here......a link to it from every page of this wiki should make this clear to all wikilawyers. The purpose of this page is to deal with privacy issues that are of particular relevance to this project. For example, sometimes young editors place personal information (such as age) on their user page. I think we should discourage that kind of thing...Wikiversity participants do not need to state their age. There are other issues that have arisen due to Wikiversity's openness to research projects. Wikiversity research policy explicitly calls for high ethical standards, and part of research ethics is protecting the privacy of people who are the subject of your research. I made a link from this page to the research policy because of the relationship between these two policies. --JWSchmidt 18:05, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

The privacy policy needs to go both ways. If an academic wishes to voluntarily disclose his professional credentials, bona fides, and publications. it should be a violation of policy for a rival to redact the voluntary and intentional disclosure of someone else's valid credentials, affiliations, and publications. —Moulton 18:10, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

If the community feels that a policy is needed then it is needed for the community. Do we need a procedure in place as well for when the policy is violated? Donek (talk) - Go raibh mile maith agaibh 15:08, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Anytime you have a policy, it's because you anticipate the occasional breach of policy (especially if it's not an express policy that everyone can read in advance). Anytime you have a breach of policy, you need a process, procedure, or protocol to recover from any misadventures arising in the wake of a breach. In the absence of such a recovery process, you get what Anthropologist Victor Turner called a Liminal Social Drama. If the community is mature, the Liminal Social Drama results in the construction and adoption of a suitable process, procedure, or recovery protocol. If the community is not mature, the Liminal Social Drama typically devolves into a Lunatic Drama. —Moulton 16:11, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree completely, which is why everyone should sign-up to the learning project we recently signed up to. A policy without a procedure is functionally useless. I think we should use learning projects to develop policies and procedures for quick and easy resolution of any past, present or future incidents that the community may find undesirable. Donek (talk) - Go raibh mile maith agaibh 17:49, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

• "you need a process, procedure, or protocol", "A policy without a procedure is functionally useless": This is not Wikipedia. We may have some "Lunatic Drama" but it is probably better described as frontier justice mixed with a large amount of hesitant hand-wringing. The hidden "procedure" behind policy at Wikiversity is basically "if there is a problem talk about it" and "if someone spills a mess on the floor, clean it up". --JWSchmidt 18:53, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I am not a member of wikipedia, nor have I ever been. But, I am certainly not in favour of frontier justice or hesitant hand-wringing. We are a community of learning. I hope we can learn about how we function and behave compared to how we wish to function and behave, through learning projects. Donek (talk) - Go raibh mile maith agaibh 18:57, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

"frontier justice or hesitant hand-wringing" <-- These are not things that are designed or that anyone favors, they are just things that happen in a small community. In general, the community learns from errors. For example, if someone is sloppy with publishing private information then the community reacts to put restraints on such behavior. However, I think it is an error to think that we should legislate simplistic "one size fits all" remedies for problems or complex webs of thousands of "procedures" for every potential problem......this community is just too small for the later.....and some of has learned that it only invites time-wasting wiki-lawyering. So far, our few policies describe a small set of principles that guide us in dealing with problems that arise. Let's get these principles right. --JWSchmidt 01:16, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

We need a Policy like Meta's Privacy Policy , they're far more strict in safe guarding personal information and from what I see in the Recent Changes they're also strict in normal activities - although this site is a learning community, but we need to be slightly strict with user's who reveal information including Anonymous user's, regardless if it's their information, they need to know the dangers of revealing personal information.Dark Mage 19:19, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the "Meta's Privacy Policy" you linked to is the Foundation's policy and it applies to Wikiversity. --JWSchmidt 01:19, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

What do we think about number 4? - in principle. Please leave comments about practicality to a later stage. I want to know about the idea of using learning projects to create and review policy in a learning community. Please leave comments here. Thank you, Donek (talk) - Go raibh mile maith agaibh 19:26, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm in favor of making use of main namespace learning projects as part of crafting policy, but it is "traditional" to have policy discussions in the project namespace. Any wiki editing process can be a learning project, no matter what namespace it is in. --JWSchmidt 01:35, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

The flipside of publishing true information that is considered private is the publishing of patently false information, unsupported by evidence or analysis. I put it to the community: which is more problematic, publishing true information that someone wishes to keep private, or pseudonymously publishing false and defamatory information about an identifiable living person in a blatant breach of scholarly ethics? —Moulton 05:26, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

This discussion is about the privacy policy, not one that has not yet been created. Donek (talk) - Go raibh mile maith agaibh 17:33, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, that begs the question of the definition of privacy, doesn't it? Does the definition of privacy apply to private information that happens to be untrue canards? —Moulton 18:49, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

According to wiktionary, yes. If information is about an individual, true or not, it prevents them from being unseen, so, it is an invasion of privacy. However, remember that dictionaries do not define usage, they describe it. The wikiversity community can decide on the definition of words contained in their own published policies. Donek (talk) - Go raibh mile maith agaibh 19:23, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] privacy policy

I updated Template:Official policies to include the WMF Privacy policy. That is the current official policy if we have not made our local policy official. --mikeu ^talk 03:23, 22 September 2008 (UTC)