RationalWikiWiki:Privacy policy
From RationalWikiWiki
In articles about RationalWiki users, RationalWikiWiki may sometimes mention personal details about their real world existence, including their location, nationality, ethnicity, age and real name. We do, however, respect users' rights to privacy, and will only record such details as the user has made available.
The following are some guidelines regarding how personal information should be handled here at RationalWiki. Often the most important consideration is how the information has been obtained.
If it is something that the editor has written on their user page at RationalWiki, then obviously it is something they want to be known. In fact, anything they have said at RationalWiki at any time is information that they have made public.
On the other hand, any information or comments conveyed only in an email from a RationalWiki user, or obtained as a result of information in an email, may not be posted on RationalWikiWiki without the user's prior consent. That email is confidential, and you would betray that confidentiality by publishing any details.
Information about a RationalWiki user obtained at other sites is somewhat of a grey area, and whether it should be used tends to depend on how you got there from RationalWiki. If the user has added a link to their own website or blog on their user page, then of course they are expecting people to read it and it is reasonable to quote anything from it here. Similarly, if they have mentioned that they contribute at other wikis or forums, then comments made at these may be considered fair game. However, searching for RationalWikians at social networking sites, for example, is invasive and anything found out that way is unacceptable.
Please don't publish users' IP addresses or any information about their location or employment obtained by tracing their IP address. Even though that information may be available, the user has not consented for it to be used or recorded.
Photographs of RationalWiki users can only be uploaded here if the user has made the photo freely available at RationalWiki (e.g. on their user page), or has given their permission for the photo to be used at RationalWikiWiki. Even if the photograph is available through a website which they have linked to from RationalWiki, you must still ask their permission (preferably either at RWW or RW) before uploading it here.
Personal contact details such as a user's address, telephone number and email address must never be noted on RationalWiki.
Breaches of privacy
If you've found out something about a user but you're unsure whether it should be published on RationalWikiwiki (e.g. something they mentioned once but might not want to be permanently noted, or something you found out about them on another website), it may be best to discuss with other users here, ideally without revealing the full details, before adding it to an article, or else just asking the user for permission.
If you see something has been posted here which is an obvious breach of privacy, such as a home address or phone number, please delete it straight away. If it is a serious breach of privacy, it may be necessary to hide the edit from the page's revision history. Janitors have the ability (see RationalWikiWiki: user rights), so if you are unable to do it yourself, please ask another user to help.
If any RationalWiki user objects (here at RationalWikiWiki) to any personal details published about them, their complaint should be taken into consideration. Please take the offending information out of the article, and discuss the issue on the talk page, with the user and other RationalWikiWiki editors. The details may later be put back into the article if it is decided that they do not constitute a breach of privacy.
Such objections can only be raised at RationalWikiWiki. Complaints raised on RationalWiki about anything noted here will not get a response at RationalWikiWiki.
