Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-01-07/WikBack

Privacy

Good article, but I think that many readers would be interested in some more information about the privacy issues involved. (On the German Wikipedia, someone tried to establish a similar external forum years ago, and privacy issues were part of the reasons why it was not accepted by the community and folded.)

The IP address and browser data of a Wikipedia contributor are considered highly personal data which is protected under the Wikimedia Foundation's privacy policy. People like Daniel Brandt (who happens to be a Wikback participant too) have sought to collect and expose the IP addresses of several well-known Wikipedians, e.g. by evaluating IRC logs for non-cloaked nicks, or searching for edits where that person forgot to log in (this is what antisocialmedia did to SlimVirgin not long ago).

By requiring contributors to sign in under their Wikipedia user name, Wikback is collecting this data in its site logs. Now, UninvitedCompany is certainly a well-known individual in good standing, who, a checkuser, even has been given the capability of accessing this data in exceptional cases on the English Wikipedia; and a lot of people will feel more comfortable contributing to his site than posting at (or even just browsing) Brandt's. Also, from this post by UninvitedCompany, it appears that he is aware of these problems (I [...] have come to the conclusion that the most sensible policy is to refrain from any sharing or comparison of IP data between ENWP and other WMF sites and the WikBack). But it has to be said that Wikback's privacy statement still does not address this issue in any form.

Regards, High on a tree (talk) 18:32, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Old forum

Wikimedia used to host a forum like this, but as I recall, it was used primarily by arbitrators. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 23:47, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]