[Foundation-l] Note regarding status of privacy policy (suggestion)

Sun Aug 10 13:16:05 UTC 2008

On Sun, Aug 10, 2008 at 7:00 AM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> 2008/8/10 private musings <thepmaccount at gmail.com>:
>
> > ...I think we probably could work out way towards agreeing to disagree on
> > this one - but I also suspect there's some common ground hiding there
> > somewhere!
> > Yes - full openness surrounding the length of time IP data is stored for
> may
> > increase 'gamability' in some areas - it may also cause other unspoken,
> or
> > un-thought of problems.
> > The benefits to doing so are in my view a bit fuzzier and related to big
> > picture community health issues and an abstract concept of what's 'right'
> -
> > perhaps it'll suffice to say for now that I currently believe it would be
> a
> > net gain to be open, honest, and clear about this sort of stuff.
>
> It should be noted here that PM's opinions on the matter should be
> taken in the context of (a) having been thoroughly busted massively
> sockpuppeting on en:wp (b) at no stage accepting that he did anything
> wrong in doing so, and that there must be a problem with the checkuser
> procedures for him to have been caught.
>

Well, sure, he's experienced first hand the silliness of the whole system,
where people are secretly investigated for what are at worst minor rules
violations and then railroaded with the gathered up data all at once.  It's
as though the police installed secret speed cameras, gathered up evidence of
your speeding over a period of several months, then suspended your license
and threw you in jail as a habitual traffic violator when you were convicted
of 7 counts of going 9 mph (14 kmph) over the speed limit.