[snip] There are many motherfuckers, typically they have someone calling them dad or daddy. Thanks, GerardM

On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 4:18 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote: dad That last comment was not needed. I politely ask you to either use different words or retract the comment entirely. Thanks, -Chad _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

The outcome of the discussion on en.wp was clear - usurping en.wp contributors required the assent of an en.wp bureaucrat, who must abide by en.wp rules.

so its up to the local community to proscribe and police that sort of undesirable activity.

A bunch of en.wp users showing up to vote in a checkuser election on another project seems strange and wrong, but again its down to the suffrage policy of that project to control such events.

Luckily, there are many projects which do not have such a policy. Luckily, the wiki in question, and indeed most wikis, do not have a rule or guideline on this issue (though I believe it is fairly straightforward). Luckily, the wiki in question doesn't have a suffrage policy. Whether this lack of policy/rule/guideline/whatever is a problem is debatable. For example, English Wikibooks has not suffered for lack of a renaming policy (or blocking policy for that matter!). In other cases, a user may feel their hands are tied because there is no policy which says "This is the right thing to do." In cases where policy is lacking, good judgment must be used. When good judgment does not prevail, there is a problem. Those who whine about wikis not having a certain policy should realize that that situation is not in and of itself a problem. This applies as much on a single project as on multiple projects. We simply do not need a global policy for everything - efforts to do so will largely fail. That said, the issues raised by Cary are real, and we need to discuss how best to deal with them. My point here is to warn that writing a global policy for every niche where no policy lives may not be the best way forward. Mike

That would be odd. And how does creating a temp account give away one's IP to a local bureaucrat? If there are checkusers on any project that are sharing private data, that's another matter.

From: Joe Szilagyi <szilagyi(a)gmail.com> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] "Wikidrama" and autonomy of Wikimedia projects To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Date: Monday, August 11, 2008, 3:34 PM On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 12:57 PM, Cary Bass <cary(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: "outed" psuedonymous by compiling taken to another policy, has put back several pages deep) Just an additional note to what Cary wrote--this Scenario 2 in turn then spilled over to a separate third project, where users of the first project arrived in wide numbers to "vote" in an election of a Checkuser whose home project was the first project mentioned in the scenario. En.wiki users arrived on the third project after having in many cases little to no prior involvement in that third project, to actively vote on the election of a user who was primarily active on the first one and who had allegedly taken a side in that initial dispute that had nothing at all to do with the third project. So that scenario #2 actually impacted three projects, not just two...

From: mike.lifeguard <mike.lifeguard(a)gmail.com> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] "Wikidrama" and autonomy of Wikimedia projects To: birgitte_sb(a)yahoo.com, "'Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List'" <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Date: Tuesday, August 12, 2008, 9:51 AM Unfortunately, you've misunderstood the situation. Since discussing real situations is normally preferable, here's a hopefully quick, hopefully neutral description which names names. For your consideration: Moulton is indefinitely blocked (or maybe banned?) on enwiki, and has since moved to Meta, then to Wikiversity, where he is working on http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Ethical_Management_of_the_English_Language_Wi kipedia - until recently it contained links to his blog, which apparently outs Wikimedians. SB Johnny is a CheckUser there, and an admin at Commons (among other stuff) & was recently nominated for CU at Commons (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators/Requests_and_votes /SB_Johnny_(checkuser) with the aftermath located at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators/Requests_and_votes/ SB_Johnny_(checkuser)/Bureaucrats_discussion and the talk pages of both). Due to his involvement with Moulton and his project, several enwiki users came to Commons to voice opposition. There are some privacy issues involved, but that much should clarify what we're talking about. Commons does indeed have an active community - the issue was what to do about an influx of new users voting on an RFX. Commons doesn't have a suffrage policy, so there was a small amount of hand-wringing over that issue, and much drama surrounding the whole affair. So the situation is not that some outsider had requested CU, and the folks from elsewhere were largely opposing the nomination. And Johnny is not banned elsewhere - he is not the problem user. However, I think your prescription stands. It was appropriate to give light weight to new users' votes (actually, they were disregarded entirely; CheckUser uses a straight-up vote :\ ) and with the situation at Wikiversity, it is up to that community to reign in problem users or not as they see fit. Certainly past experience of other projects should guide & inform them though. Further discussion should not flog the horse described above, but should please look at the general issues raised. Thanks, Mike -----Original Message----- From: Birgitte SB [mailto:birgitte_sb@yahoo.com] Sent: August 11, 2008 9:39 PM To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] "Wikidrama" and autonomy of Wikimedia projects This is a problematic situation, but I don't understand why there is such a breakdown in communication between the project that it would get to this point. I certainly think that it out of line for a non-local community member to run for checkuser without the local communities blessing if that is indeed what has happened here. If there no local community to speak of it should be a steward issue, and no election of checkuser should be necessary. If there is a local community and this report is accurate, I cannot imagine more insurmountable error that could be made in good faith. I cannot even imagine how to overcome the cultural gaffe of trying to get checkuser rights within a local community that is not supportive of the idea. Now it could be the local community is supportive of checkuser and the difficulties in having 22 local voters is leading to crossover support from other wikis which the local communities is accepting of. But if the local communities did not invite the situation, I think the non-local editors need to back off let some people who are untainted by this gaffe try and salvage the situation and broker some kind of compromise and cooperation. If this is worse case, it is not the sort of situation which will work out on it's own to anyone's satisfaction. But this is all described so vaguely. Please make it clear about how substantial the local community is and if they are truly concerned. Birgitte SB _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

I do feel the need to clarify, since the user in Scenario 2 called me out on it. The hypothetical user is presently "indefinitely blocked" on on enwiki not banned.