[Foundation-l] new checkuser policy

[Kelly Martin]

On 4/20/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:

> So why doesn't the existing policy simply say this?  If the individuals
> have to be so trusted that they need formal approval of not only the
> project, but also the Foundation board itself, then it should be stated
> as such.  This is not currently the policy.

Indeed.  Perhaps it should be.  Perhaps it will someday.  That's not
my call; I'm not a member of the Board.

> As far as you not trusting
> these users, that is because you have not interacted with them and had a
> chance to see their editing and administrative styles, and more of a
> matter that they are not as active on en.wikipedia to your tastes.

I thank you to not put words in my mouth.  I don't trust them because
I've not interacted with them.  It's got nothing to do with whether or
not they've been active on en.wikipedia, except for the coincidence
that someone who is active on en.wikipedia is more likely to have
interacted with me.  It's not that I distrust them either; it's just
that none of these people has been introduced to me by a trusted
introducer, and so by default I don't grant a lot of trust.

> From
> my perspective, the Wikibooks candidates are as trustworthy as any
> Wikimedia user can possibly be without getting into cabal accusations or
> political arguments, and would very likely have recieved the checkuser
> status a long time ago if they had instead been working on Wikipedia
> instead of Wikibooks.  They are solid and very active Wikimedia users.

I'm not challenging that.  And if the Foundation has cause to trust
your evaluation of them (something which I cannot speak to, but the
Foundation presumably can), then that should be good enough.

> I guess I'm confused at the duties of stewards then.  Most of what they
> do is "promote" users to become admins or sysops, and now grant
> checkuser status as well based on a whole variety of standards, many of
> which even contradict currently the checkuser policy on Meta.  This by
> itself does require a certain level of technical competency, and I fail
> to see how comparing two different IP addresses from two users is really
> all that much more difficult of a technical task.  This is not operating
> system assembly-level driver writing we are talking about, just looking
> up an IP address or two and comparing numbers.

This, combined with the comments about policy I did not copy, lead me
to seriously question whether you are qualified to be granted
checkuser rights.  Using checkuser requires a thorough understanding
of the general geography of the Internet, a large battery of tools
(whois, google, nmap, etc.), and often painstakingly detailed
detective work.  It's not mechanical; if it were we wouldn't need
checkusers, but could just automate the process.

Kelly