[Foundation-l] new checkuser policy

Thu Apr 20 16:43:13 UTC 2006

Anthere wrote:

>You may find a new version of the checkuser access policy here
>
>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:CheckUser_Policy#Access_.28new_version.29
>
>the main differences are
>* it takes into account the fact some local communities with arbcom do 
>not necessarily want to delegate appointement of checkusers to their arbcom
>* any local project may choose at least 2 people amongst the already 
>approved checkusers, with localized requirement (the local community 
>choose itself percentage of support, minimum number of votes etc...)
>
>Which would allow to make Essjay and Karynn checkuser on en.wikibooks if 
>the en.wikibooks is happy with this.
>
>Warning : the idea is not that all checkusers be selected by wikipedias 
>and later imposed on other projects. The idea is rather that generally, 
>a person widely supported in one project to do a job... is some one we 
>generally trust to do the job properly anywhere.
>
>So, if wikicommons wants to appoints 5 checkusers from 5 different 
>languages, all those 5 may serve on various other projects. The one 
>requirement to keep though : always at least 2 checkusers per project.
>
>Opinion ? Please comment on the meta page. Trolls not welcome. I do not 
>have the time this week :-)
>
>
>ant
>
>  
>
I am not all that pleased with having to deal with "outsiders" in order 
to obtain this critical information, although having it is better than 
not having it.  I am really curious as to the reasons why Essjay and 
Karynn are any better candidates for checkuser status on en.wikibooks 
than the current two candidates on the request for checkuser status, and 
all I can say is that they enjoy somewhat better relationships with the 
Foundation board.  That seems hardly a reasonable policy.

It does indeed seem as though Wikibooks is being requested to get 
permission from Wikipedia, and all of the checkusers are selected by 
Wikipedias because they happen to, at the moment, be the big boys on the 
block, and that Wikipedia wants to have editorial control over all other 
Wikimedia projects of similar languages.  Or this is a crack in the door 
for this to happen.

Perhaps because this was buried under all of the previous comments, but 
it really hasn't been answered at least to my satisfaction.  Under what 
reasonable criteria is being applied that would allow somebody to become 
a bureaucrat on a project that would not also mean they are trusted 
enough to have checkuser status as well?  This is a critical question in 
the sense that the current approach isn't really scalable if you assume 
that the board have personal knowledge of each person with checkuser 
privileges.  It also strongly favors very large projects, and sets up a 
preceedence that all new administrator-like functions will only be 
allowed for very large projects, because of the sensitive nature of some 
of the information they are dealing with.  

I don't mind this approach if you are trying to suggest that people with 
checkuser privileges is more of a social experiment by the Wikimedia 
Foundation and that the whole issue of even allowing checkuser scans is 
still something that is being Beta tested to see if it is effective and 
worth the effort.  The official policy should state it in that manner, 
and suggest that it is only going to be tested on Wikipedias first. 
 That removes the ambiguity of the issue and makes it clear what is 
happening.  By only giving this to very trusted users known personally 
to the Foundation, the Foundation can then gague its effectiveness and 
keep watch on a much smaller group of users.  But a beta test also 
implies that it will only be available for a limited time before it is 
expanded to other areas or simply removed altogether.

And getting back to the original point of this thread, the Stewards who 
supposedly have at least the option of having checkuser status, and are 
allowed to act in the capacity of performing administrative actions 
where existing policies on individual projects are lacking these 
policies due to their size, are ignoring checkuser requests.  If Essjay 
and Karynn have the trust and support for this widespread and cross 
project assistance, perhaps they should simply be made stewards as well. 
 And to the point at hand, en.wikibooks is in English, which from what 
I've seen of the list of stewards is one of the languages of every 
current steward.  That these checkuser scans aren't being performed is 
more of a condemnation of all of the stewards, or a very serious 
misunderstanding of what their role is as backup administrators to 
smaller projects.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning