On 8/10/06, Patrick-Emil Zörner <paddyez(a)yahoo.de> wrote:
PS I wonder if more comments like the german law is
stupid, pack your
bags and leave, bizzare,... follow. There has only been one person
that is answering to the topic and that is daniel.
My comments were not with regard to German law whatsoever, but purely
in response to your belief that actions - admin actions especially -
should not be subject to oversight or statistics.
I could be persuaded that the actions of non-admin users might have
this expectation of privacy.
I explicitly do NOT agree that oversight of the administrative actions
of administrators should be restricted by privacy concerns. I believe
that ordinary users of Wikipedia are already, rightly, cautious of
over-reach in the use of admin powers, and that full openness is a
crucial part of dealing with community concerns on that matter.
However, I do also agree that bare statistics, without explanation,
are often less useful than they may seem, and the availability of a
statistic may influence users socially in a way that might not be for
the best. As an example, the use of ever-more-nitpicking standards
for granting of admin rights, I think, can be laid partly at the feet
of greater availability of highly detailed statistics on a user's
history obtained via toolserver scripts.
Thus, I agree, caution is a good thing; I do not, however, agree that
such caution is mandated by a right to privacy over one's admin
actions, but rather by considering the value to the project.
-Matt