Talk:RaceFail 09

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Names and pseudonyms

I'm really not digging this distinction between the pseudonyms and the driver's license names. Is this necessary, and if so, why? - vito excalibur

Yes. Since it is important to know who is speaking, and for half the participants, we don't. --Pleasantville 17:11, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

This was one the sub-issues raised in the events being documented, and so I personally disagree on the wiki taking a position on it here. --Kate Nepveu

There's really no way not to take a position on it: either we separate the names or we don't. -- vito excalibur

I don't see any point in separating people out under different headings. If the person has, themselves, associated their real name with their screen name or pen name, or if it is common public knowledge (as it is for my screen name of badgerbag), list one with the other(s) right next to it and alphabetize under the name you think people are most commonly known by. If there are pages for both identities, link them to each other or make a redirect page. By the way, to make this nifty name/time stamp, click the signature-looking thing in the little toolbar above the edit text input window, and it will magically appear.. --Liz Henry 17:59, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I put that badly. Let me rephrase: I disagree with Kathryn Cramer that the distinction was necessary or useful. And now I see that it's been changed while I was off. -- Kate Nepveu

I think it sort of speaks for itself anyway.--Pleasantville 18:37, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Which "we" is this? I don't need to know what name corresponds to a pseudonym in order to address that pseudonym's arguments. One of the central arguments in the debate was whether it was appropriate to use pseudonyms; outing someone who has explicitly chosen to be anonymous is cheap, and assumes a premise that was actually being debated. --Jonquil 22:18, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Seconded. I'm removing the outings. If you need to know who coffeeandink is, you can look at her *years* of public postings. --Vito excalibur 22:32, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

In terms of why this is necessary, I ask: Is it widely known, for example, that coffeeandink used to work at Tor, where she reported to pnh? (I presume it's not, since she doesn't include that job on her LinkedIn page.) People don't just spring into existence when they make up pseudonyms. --Pleasantville 19:22, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Pleasantville, if you think it's so important, why don't you just put that on her wiki page? I don't see why that requires people to be divided into separate categories on this page. --Vito excalibur 19:54, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I did already. --Pleasantville 20:14, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not seeing why it's necessary to know that. coffeeandink's many years of posting about race, cultural appropriation, fandom, writing, internet drama, and massive fail stand firmly behind anything she has said in this particular discussion about Patrick, teresa, or anyone else involved. Tempest 06:38, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I've just deleted the link to the LinkedIn page in your comment because coffeeandink does not want her LJ to be Googleable and connected to her full name. I hope we can respect that wish. --Vito excalibur 22:32, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I think that we can put that bit in about employment, which Pleasantville wants to be clear to outline some of the complexities of people's relationships. But I would like us to respect people's choices about pseudonymity as best we can. The need for anonymity is one of the reasons that women's history is hard to document. Let's do the best we can here. --Liz Henry 23:01, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I was formulating an argument along these lines in the car on the way home, but you did it better. Thank you. --Jonquil 02:14, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't have my full name on my LJ because it's unique and I don't want it Google-able. Please remove the redirect and the page account.

I feel my first name is sufficiently unusual that people who are looking for the connection can draw it on their own.(request from coffeeandink 2009-02-06T17:38:53)

Uh, yeeeahh. Speaking of which, does this Wiki have an outing policy? (Rather, an anti-outing policy?) Because if it doesn't, I foresee difficulties with outreach to media fannish communities. I did a quick search and didn't find anything.--Veejane 00:41, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Good idea. We have FSFwiki:Privacy, but perhaps it needs to be more specific. (Philosophically, I don't bother with pushing policy until it's an issue.) Veejane, do you have any examples? Or would you like to edit the current privacy policy? --LQ 11:56, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Neither of those wikilinks goes anywhere. The policy appears to be here and about a sentence long. (I also think it should be linked from the Getting Started page, since a privacy policy is baseline information for my attitude towards a site.) You've had one outing, above, and I can still find that outing by comparing the history of edits. So although the identifying data have been deleted from the page, they're still there for anyone to find. Basically, the outing is still occurring even now. By contrast, another wiki I've worked on, Fanlore, has a policy that not only requires removal of outing data, but also hides those particular edits from the history, so the data can't be recovered. It might also be worth asking what tools admins have to control malicious outing. Will that fall under a harassment policy? I.... can't find a harassment policy. This all sounds paranoid, I realize. But better to have a policy and not need it than be flailing in the middle of an emergency without one.--Veejane 16:11, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Veejane, no need to apologize for pushing for things like an outing policy and a harassment policy; they are things the wiki should probably have. I suspect it just hasn't needed them before now. --Vito excalibur 17:12, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

This is minor, but related to the overall "real name" discussion. Is there a reason why Elizabeth Bear's full name is after her pen name on the page? It's not as if she is known by her full name (she's been going by Elizabeth Bear and eBear since I've known her, lo these 10 years), nor is knowing her full name of use in the conversation. She's not hiding, it's not a "fan name" (not that I think we necessarily need to connect fan names to "real names"), so why is it necessary? --Tempest

Fair enough, I'ma take it out. Do you think she wouldn't want it up there and it should be a "hide from edit" thing, or just take it out? --Vito excalibur 17:12, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

It looks like she's completely comfortable with it -- I Googled the pair of their names and there's an interview with her whose first paragraph gives her real name. [1] On the other hand, I don't know why the legal name is necessary in the Wiki. --Jonquil 18:28, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not saying she'd be uncomfortable with it. It's not as if her real name is a secret, anyway. My larger point was: why was it there? Was it just due to the anti-pseudonym thing? This is one of the problems I have with the anti-pseud thing. Sometimes the real/legal name of a person is not necessary to identify them, what they say around the internet and in real life, etc. To use myself as an example, Tempest is no part of my legal name, and yet almost everyone in the SF/F community knows me by that name. Almost everything I write and do is connected to it. Thus, I'm not hiding, I'm just using a name I chose for myself. It's very much the same for people who go by fan names, I think. Even if your name is not Willow Wren, if that's what everyone knows you as, then it might as well be your real name for the purpose of identifying you and the things you have to say. --Tempest

When someone hides Micole's identity again, I won't correct it. I won't begin a wiki war, and I respect the right of site owners to do what they please. But just for the record: If the point of this wiki is to share information, don't censor the truth. Revise it when you have more information, delete what no longer seems pertinent, sure, but feminists should especially know that double standards stink. -- Will Shetterly, March 2, 2009

Hi Will. You sure won't start a wiki war here, because I just banned you. --Liz Henry 20:29, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

• Two points. (1) I am not clear on what the double standard that Will is referencing would be. Having a standard that respects privacy, and weighs the costs and benefits of privacy as well as openness of information, does not seem like a "double standard". If, in this discussion, there is someone else who has expressed a desire to not have their pseudonym tied to their real life identity, then we should consider that request just as we have considered coffeeandink's request. To not do so would indeed be a double standard. (And for the record I disagree that double standards in all cases stink. That argument might be tenable on a so-called level playing field, were such a thing to exist....)

(2) The addition and subtraction of "the great silliness" is clearly editorial on someone's part. Either it was referred to as "the great silliness" in some significant way, or it wasn't. If it was, then why shouldn't that language be in? If the concern is that all of these terms are implicitly judgmental then the solution is to include a section laying out the terminology & describing the people / positions behind particular terms. Otherwise a footnote (See, e.g., blah blah link blah blah.) should suffice. As it stands we have an assertion by Will that the phrase "the great silliness" was used; I haven't seen any counter-assertion that it was not used. Can someone please confirm or deny the use of this phrase?

Cheers, Laura Q. --LQ 23:19, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I've missed a lot of the RaceFail discussion as well, but a quick Google search seems to indicate that "the Great Silliness" is a term used only by Will Shetterly himself. Could someone who has more contextual knowledge weigh in on this? If this term wasn't actually used more widely, I would like to delete it. --Therem 04:54, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I reverted the addition of "the Great Silliness" because it was done in the same batch of edits and by the same person as the attacks on Micole and I saw it as tactic to minimise the subject and therefore a continuance of the attacks.

Laura, the supposed "double standard" is deciding whether to link someone's nickname and legal name based on their practice and wishes, rather than naming everyone under the same standard of specious apolitical uniformity (the "level playing field" you mention). See this recent thread on WS's LiveJournal. --Ide Cyan 12:02, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

He has a fairly long history in feminist/antiracist fandom which some people may not be aware of: Will Shetterly:Do Not Engage and there is more from deepad which influenced my snap decision to ban. I think this is the first ban we've had. --Liz Henry 20:10, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

• I added some additional more specific draft language to FSFwiki:Privacy policy. I'm not wedded to anything but thought some draft language might be helpful to jumpstart the process. Please have at it. LQ 20:55, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the editors have forgotten that wiki's have history logs showing all edits. If you want to remove the google link, you'll probably have to remove it from the history.

Biased

This article is rather biased in favor of the race wankers e.g "The comment thread, 78 responses long, was filled with fail. A lot of 101-level thinking. "