Wyz_sub10

There is a track and field board where I am a participant. On that board, there are a number of people who work in the industry in some form or another. Although we basically know who's who, we still use aliases and do not address people personally. (i.e. "Jim")

In my case, I've done work in the industry and will point people on the board to it (i.e. "I just finished a meet preview and it's up at wherever-dot-com"). That basically supplies them with my real name, if little else.

So why the pretense? Probably just to avoid having it smattered all over the place. If someone wants to pick up clues and do the detective work, they can likely find out much about you. By why just throw it out there?

As for revealing info, I think it is the place of the poster to decide what to share with the world. Unless, as has been noted, there is an issue of safety or security at hand.

lunachick

I've obviously missed what this is all about, so I'll pretty much stay out of it, except to add that isn't saying "they deserved it" a bit like saying "she deserved to be raped because she showed too much cleavage at the football game"?.

I dunno - in this instance, I could be way off.

I just think that if you are going to expose someone, then you'd better make bloody sure it's justified - and from where I'm sitting, there are not too many justifications.

Personally, I would think that only well known dangerous internet predators who have the potential to do bodily harm to anyone would be enough to expose. (Which, I know contradicts my first statement, but I've slept on it since.)

And if publishing wife and childrens details is okay by people, then we live in a very sad world. To me this would only be okay if the wife was Imelda Marcos, and the year was...um...I forgot, 1980-something.

But as I said, I've obviously missed something here. Any relevant links to read?

Toto

<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=51&t=000807" target="_blank">The original post that started it</a>.

Tom Sawyer

Never post anything about people without their consent. If someone wants to bring up his personal info online, let him do it himself and don't do it for him. If he wants to remain completely anonymous, let him.

People's personal info is not your business nor anyone else's. Even in communities where that info has to be given to the board administrators to join, that's for administrative purposes and not for the general knowledge of the people on the board.

The only exception to this would be if you see someone engaging in an outright lie. For instance, if someone claims to be a biologist to back up some argument he's making, but his posts indicate that he doesn't know the first thing about biology, call him on it and if you happen to know that the guy's a truck driver in real life, mention that. If he's going to make blatant lies to back up his arguments, he deserves it.

Triple Six

Normally no, but in the case of spammers I'd make an exception. They are a pain to millions and deserve having their weapon backfire on them.

brighid

I don’t feel there is an absolute yes or no answer for this complex question. Are their instances we can think of where publishing personal information benefits society? Yes. I think many people in parishes serviced by pedophile priests wished they had been able to protect their children from harm armed with the knowledge that an offending priest was being shuffled to their neighborhood.

Should we do our very best to guard and respect personal information in the vast
majority of cases? YES! Unless I find a compelling reason to do otherwise, I would personally respect the privacy of a person and not publish their personal information. HOWEVER, if that information is readily available, and they have not taken the ordinary steps to block their phone number from public access, etc. I am not sure that compiling that information in one place is wholly unethical. Although I think it would be best to 1st gain the permission of said person to make sure their aren’t any privacy issues that need special care: such as they have been stalked or harassed previously and said person wasn’t aware that his/her information was so readily available.

I learned the hard way that as a woman in an Internet Community that anonymity was necessary for my own safety. Although people know many things about me I do my best not to reveal information that could track down my specific location. I am sure anyone with the skills and desire could probably discover that information, but only those who have earned my trust know a few of the specifics. I also trust that they would never share that information with any one else.

I would be VERY upset if someone discovered my personal information and posted here or on any forum. I have been stalked by someone on the internet before and it scares the bloody hell out of me to think it could happen again.

In the case of the information being published and that person did not give their consent, but later was not upset or bothered by that fact I can’t see the actual harm done, or the ethical quandary specific to that case. I can see the ethical questions coming into play with that general scenario, but I believe that circumstances should be judged individually for I have yet to find any contiguous, moral absolutes in life.

Brighid