[WikiEN-l] Re: Re: Michael's threats

Thu Apr 3 07:17:24 UTC 2003

On Wednesday 02 April 2003 08:39 pm, anthere wrote:
> Oh ! And since when *exactly* was it a consensus  that
> sysops would be allowed to see other people ip please
> ? Enlighten me on that, 'cause I have no memory of
> having ever since a consensus about that.

With the old version of the software that was in operation when I started 
yarns ago /everybody/ could view the IP of /anybody/ with mouse over text. 
The idea of allowing Admins have this long-lost ability arose for two 
reasons; 1) the so-called MIT-vandal was trashing en.wiki for 6 hours by 
creating dozens of different usernames 2) there was a suicide note placed on 
en.wiki that turned out to be the real thing. Luckily Jimbo just happened to 
find out about the MIT vandal and was able to find out the guys IPs and block 
them (it was on a Saturday morning and Jimbo hardly never checks his 
Wikipedia email or RC on Saturday morning). Very luckily the suicide note was 
submitted by an anon user so regular users were able to find out which 
college and computer lab the the submitter was writing from and this 
information was passed onto the police (the person was hospitalized and 
placed on suicide watch). But what if that person had created a login and 
there was´nt´t any developer around to find out the IP address?   

> Was it discussed in one of this remote places on a
> talk page on the en wiki ?  It sounds as if it was a
> consensus essentially reached by you.

Is there is reason why you are being so insulting? Have I personally offended 
you in some way? If I have then I´m sorry.

This has been discussed before. Most recent discussion;
On Wikipedia-l
http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-February/008954.html
On WikiEN-l
http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-February/001242.html
http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-February/001034.html
http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-February/001043.html
http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-February/001050.html
http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-February/001099.html
http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-February/001100.html
http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-February/001030.html
http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-February/001037.html
http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-February/001164.html
And on WikiTech-l
http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2003-February/002625.html
http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2003-February/002655.html

There was even more discussion on this in the Wikipedia-l archives even 
further in the past but I don´t feel like looking for it.  

> As far as I am concerned, I consider it a *very*
> dangerous breach on people privacy and freedom.

Since when has there been privacy on the Internet? 

> Through IPs, it is possible to find people real names,
> and I strongly object to this made possible. 

No - this is incorrect. With personally assigned IPs you can tell which ISP 
the person is using and guess which city a person is writing from. Any 
information beyond that has can only be obtained from the ISP (who are not at 
all likely to give out that information). Information on public computers and 
school computer lab computers is much easier to obtain though. 

>I see not
> why you - as a sysop - would be given the right to
> know who I am. 

Again - why are you taking this so personally and taking it out on me? Am I 
some type of criminal? If I have done something so terribly wrong then please 
tell me about it so that I don´t do it again.

>Sysop are there to help wikipedia, not
> to have power on people. There is an important notion
> in freedom, it is that everyone share the same rights.
> And giving denonciation abilities over the physical
> bodies of people while others lower their heads more
> and more in fear of having the cops called on them for
> any reason that a sysop would consider good enough to
> launch an attack, is not exactly what I would call a
> collaborative encyclopedia.

What? So you think it is OK for people to make death threats and not have the 
cops called on them? That type of morality seems very odd to me. Just because 
people would have tools doesn´t necessarily mean they will use them in bad 
ways. Knives are very useful things to have, for example, but they can be 
deadly if they are placed in the hands of a psychopath. Do you think that 
some sysops are psychopaths that would abuse otherwise useful tools? Do you 
really have such a low opinion of me and other people who are also sysops? If 
we can´t trust our sysops then we might as well forget the project 
alltogether.

>....

> The sysop role is to protect wikipedia against
> unacceptable aggression. This is not the role of a
> sysop to run after the people. Denonciation is not the
> role of a sysop. Read again what a sysop is.

Well I am an Admin and I battled the MIT vandal for 4 hours trying to protect 
Wikipedia. If I had the ability to view this person´s IP then I could have 
banned it very early on (several people got mad at me for not banning the IP 
- but I was as helpless as they were). And we are also talking about a death 
threat - don´t you think that it is important to report this to the police? 
Isn´t protecting the lives of our contributers also important? 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

WikiKarma
The usual at [[March 25]]