[Commons-l] [Toolserver-l] Stats on deletion

Thu Aug 10 12:08:10 UTC 2006

> interiot wrote:
> Okay, do individuals' deletion totals need to be made opt-in then?

Not sure - I would have thought that is uncritical, but Paddy's comments
on Commons-l imply the opposite.

> If I have a question about whether specific feature is okay, who is the best person to ask?

I think it would be a very good idea to ask the Foundation to develop a
privacy guideline for MediaWiki and tool developers.

> Does a user's total number of edits count as "intelligence that is not relevant to Wikipedia activity"?

Since several wikis have policies requiring a minimum number of edits to
the main namespace, etc, it *is* relevant. OTOH, I'm a bit undecided if
it's really OK to expose this information without asking.

Ideally, new users would be presented with a text explaining what data
they expose when they contribute, and how this may be analyzed. This may
even be made a click-through part of the account creation process.

Also ideally, users would be able to state which types of analysis they
want to allow. Perhaps a simple scheme of "no statistics", "simple
statistics" and "detailed statistics" would be enough, with a default of
"simple". "Simple" statistics would basically be total counts (number of
edits, maybe per namespace, number of deletions, etc), "detailed" would
be "anything goes". A per-project policy could then require admins to at
least allow simple statistics, or something like that.

I'm not sure if this would be feasible and/or legally sound. I'm just
brainstorming here.

-- Daniel

PS: sorry for cross-posting again. I guess this discussion should be
moved to the foundation list or something.

-- 
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