[Foundation-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Expanding CheckUser permissions

Tue Apr 12 16:36:23 UTC 2005

On Apr 12, 2005 8:35 AM, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:

> > ...invasion of privacy by potentially removing anonymity from the use of
> > Wikipedia. Please let this tool be a last resort in serious cases.
> 
> Precisely. That's why anyone using it needs to have an awareness of these
> issues and proceed with extreme caution.
> 
> 
> - d.
> 

Guarantees of restraint from the current users of this feature are
fine, I'm sure that Tim and David are trustworthy, but that's the here
and now. The feature needs some built in oversight.

Users should be notified when CheckUser is run on them (something like
a message notice, that only they can see).   Waerth noted that this
will cause some controversy with users when they see they have been
investigated, which is true. But this makes a good deterrent of abuse.
 Anyone who runs it will have a damn good reason, knowing that they
may have to explain themselves.  Also, many requests for sockpuppet
checks are public, so informing the users who were checked isn't any
different in these cases.

Waerth also notes on, meta, that 90% of the checks will be on innocent
users. If this is the case, then I have to question how solid the
reasoning is for checking those 90%.

Finally, notifying a registered user when their identity is checked is
just a decent thing to do.