[Foundation-l] CheckUser (thoughts)

Sat Apr 22 14:25:29 UTC 2006

2006/4/22, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com>:

> Now, people have checkuser status only on one project/one language. Just
> as if Brion had help ip checking on the french wiktionary, whilst Tim
> was dedicated to the english wikipedia and Taw to the polish wikibooks.
> It makes NO sense whatsoever. The *only* unigue advantage of the current
> system is to understand the language of the project the checkuser make
> the job.

Not just understanding the language, also knowing the community,
including for example the background of the request. For example, I
once (before I de-sysoped myself) did a checkuser on two Dutch users A
and B, where B was believed to be a sockpuppet of A. Doing the check,
I found that B was not A, but that he was identical to some other
user.

I have chosen to report (to the sysops) about this outcome by saying
exactly the above. I did not give the actual other identity of B
(although later it came to be known through no action of mine),
because he was not involved under his other name in the dispute in
question. Someone who was not as well-versed might not know what issue
the request was about, or whether simply saying that he was a known
user would identify him, or even whether this other identity of B was
the better-known one etc.

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels