Wikipedia:On privacy, confidentiality and discretion

This is an essay.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

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WP:OPCAD

This page in a nutshell: Be careful about revealing and handling personal and/or private information, as your rights to privacy may not extend as far as you believe.

As Wikipedia has grown to become one of the most popular websites on the internet, accessed daily by millions, numerous attempts have been made to develop a consistent way of protecting the private personal information^[1] of those who create and develop its content, while at the same time protecting the encyclopedia from abusive editing practices. The processes that have been developed over time are, in part, contradictory, because of the inherent tension between protecting the individual and protecting the institution. External pressures have resulted in paradoxical reactions within the English Wikipedia community.

The Wikimedia Foundation (owner of Wikipedia) is largely uninvolved in internal community decisions, and has therefore remained largely silent on project-specific privacy and confidentiality issues beyond its own privacy policies that are mandatory on all hosted projects.

^ For the purposes of this essay, private personal information includes full name, address information sufficient to locate the editor, date of birth, government or privately issued unique identifying numbers. It may also sometimes include sensitive information when this is of a non-encyclopedic nature, such as religion, close relatives, sexuality, online contact information, and the like.

[1] For the purposes of this essay, private personal information includes full name, address information sufficient to locate the editor, date of birth, government or privately issued unique identifying numbers. It may also sometimes include sensitive information when this is of a non-encyclopedic nature, such as religion, close relatives, sexuality, online contact information, and the like.

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