On 7/19/08, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2008/7/19 SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com:
No, in fact only privacy policy breaches can be brought to the Ombudsman committee. There is no process, as I understand it, for dealing with checkuser misuse, except taking it to a full ArbCom hearing, which is why no complaint was brought against Lar, the checkuser in this case. The editor and two admins who were checked-usered by him, and I was one of them, didn't have the time or energy to start an ArbCom case over it.
It would and should be rejected.
Perhaps we should submit one and see.
There was no reason at all to check the first account(s) that Lar checked. If you know some of the details of the case, and I assume you do (though I also know you don't know all of them), you'll know that he had no grounds *whatsoever* to perform the first check, or the second, but it was assumed and hoped that both checks might lead to me. He performed the check upon the private request of a troublemaker who has been harassing me for over a year.
Both the first and second editor were affected by this. The first abandoned the checked accounts because Lar is not trusted. The second editor began to wind down his or her involvement in Wikipedia, as did I to a lesser degree.
I find your attitude worrying. The Ombudsman committee cannot hear the case because they don't cover checkuser misuse. And you say the ArbCom *should* not hear it. So there is nothing left to curb this kind of behavior, despite this person's involvement with Wikipedia Review.
I have no problem with people being checked randomly by anyone. In fact, if that's the de facto situation, why not give everyone access to checkuser and allow it to be used wily nily?
But if you're going to pretend to editors that they are checks and balances on the use of it -- and so long as the policy on meta gives that impression -- there needs to be a protection mechanism, or at least peer pressure from other checkusers, and at the moment, we have neither.
Sarah