[Foundation-l] Re: Expanding CheckUser permissions

Sun Apr 17 19:51:12 UTC 2005

On 4/17/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> Puddl Duk a écrit:
> >>I would not support any such list to be public. It seems to me that
> >>bringing public suspicion over someone is already a bit condemning him.
> >>This is not wikilove at all, and prone to further heat conflicts.
> >>
> >>Another solution could simply be to name two people ombudsmen over this
> >>topic. We should choose two people trusted by the community, BUT
> >>generally out of usual cabalistic discussions. Rather quiet and discreet
> >>people, not involved in current internal politics. These are most likely
> >>to be independant from those with the right to check the ips.
> >>
> >>Ant
> >>
> >
> > Secrecy checked by more secrecy. This is going in the wrong direction.
> > A user should be notified some way when they are targeted for
> > investigated.
> 
> I did not imply that the user should not know. I think he should probably.
> 

Yes, I agree. My suggestion on
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser accounts for this.

> However, I do not think the other editors should know.
> 
> In many countries, a person is considered not guilty until convinced of
> a crime. Now, we know better than that. Practically, when the police
> starts looking suspiciously to someone, the neighbours get suspicious as
> well.
> 

Also, with regards to Wikipedia, if editors don't know for sure that
their account information is private then they are less likely to
write honestly about  government, politics, the company they work at,
etc.

Whereas if an editor knows they will receive notification when someone
looks into their ip address, then they can have confidence in the
transparency and accountability of our privacy policy.