[Swiffy0]

I totally get it, when I think of it from a privacy and personal security point of views.

With wikipedia, it really is a sort of "He who controls the information, controls the world" type of scenario.

Imagine being a Wikipedia admin and editing something that can be viewed as very volatile, such as something religious or political with your own real name visible in the log - that's really scary!

It's not at all a tinfoil hat thing to say that there are people who have the will and the means to take down people such as Wikipedia admins for publishing information which doesn't align with everyone's worldviews.

It doesn't even have to be so political or religious. There are also people who go absolutely crazy over something like someone "disrespecting" their idols or favourite singer or something. If they knew where you lived, they would absolutely drive across 10 states to let you know what you did.

[knallfrosch]

If you edit a page about any Middle-East conflict, or gender - well you can expect at least one, if not both sides to hate you. Even if you were a perfectly rational and objective ideal editor.

[denton-scratch]

I've edited under a pseudonym since about 2015. I approach pages about the Middle East with trepidation; if I edited under my real name, I probably wouldn't edit at all. You'd think there were conflict-free topics, but I haven't found them.

~ Cooking: food nationalists are constantly claiming that Biryani belongs to their nation and nobody else's.

~ History: nationalists again, especially over Turkey, Cyprus, or anywhere in the Balkans.

~ Politicians: most articles about politicians are so bland as to be almost worthless, because anything interesting is quickly excised citing 'BLP' rules.

If I edited under my own name, I'd probably have to stick to articles about obscure botanical species, and places that nobody goes to.

[aCoreyJ]

I have no doubt those who worked on the US 2020 election page and pages like "Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election" would have death threats at the very least

[notahacker]

And weird messages from people who track down your social media identity. Don't ask me how I know..

[delinka]

I’ve been using this account on HN since 2010. I created a new HN identity because reasons [1]. Some time after I had reaped a bit of karma, I was replying to someone who was being fairly emotional (and a but irrational) in their arguments. Someone else in the thread flagged their next reply. They thought I did the flagging, looked up the domain that matched the handle, found me on LinkedIn, and complained at me in DMs on LinkedIn. I was freaked out a little.

1 - this pseudonym has followed me through many places and it was time for a change

[kurtreed2]

You'd be utterly shocked if you googled what the "Anvil email" is.

[acadapter]

You can do it by being an experienced non-admin user, too. Most edit-locked articles are actually semi-protected, a lower protection level.

[LeafItAlone]

A photo of the person who made the most edits (or something like that) on Wikipedia was posted on social media. And there were a lot of just rude and nasty comments about their appearance. It was despicable.

[Maxion]

Or simple any page on E.g. Russia or North Korea. Especially if you as the wiki admin lives in some non-western country.

Wouldn't be so surprised if you'd get a knock on the door or need a new window sometime soon...