On 8/13/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 8/13/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
Actually, as to your last, no! If you use the same IP as a sockpuppet, information about you that is NOT available to anyone else on Wikipedia in any other way except checkuser, is now open to be revealed as long as you are not being checked or accused of sockpuppetry, and as long as the information is not strictly covered by the privacy policy for check user, which ONLY covers those who have been checked.
I'm a little confused by the above, but I'll answer it to the best of my understanding. The privacy policy covers all information revealed by checkuser, whether or not the user is the initial subject of the search.
Information may be revealed through checkuser about individuals not the subject of the search, which is unavoidable. However, this does not mean it will be released.
There is some potential, of course, for confusion between different people using the same IP. However, as David said above, I assume good faith sharing of an IP unless the accounts work together.
I don't personally see what your issue is with checkusers sharing information. They can all find out the same information through the tool in any event.
...and through the logs.
Either Wikipedia considers users privacy important or it doesn't.
And, in this case it doesn't. I've never been the subject of a checkuser request, but if any information not strictly heald in privacy about me is revealed, that's too damned bad, because there is no privacy when it comes to checkuser.
Um, what? If information is not private about you then it is not private; there's no such thing as semi-private.
There are also quite a few things not shown to the CheckUser that your computer sends to the webpage whenever you visit the site, such as your browser.
It's not secure, it's not private, checkusers share information in a
cavalier manner with other checkers just for curiosity.
I personally think it quite important that the checkusers know what the others are doing. Why do you disagree?
This is one of the pivotal points made in the CheckUser policy, there is always two or more CheckUser on a given wiki so that they can check up on each other to make sure that no one is violating policies are acting naughty.
Access to something like checkuser should be strictly limited, and
100% confined to what it is designed for. There should be no, "hey anyone who's curious, I can send you what I found out," no sudden revelations of Tors in RfAs,
no debate about just where, if anywhere, people can go when incidental information about them is revealed,
There is no debate. If you feel that the checkuser has violated the Foundation's privacy policy, complain to the privacy ombudsman. If you feel that the checkuser has breached checkuser policy in ways not covered by the Foundation's privacy policy, complain to the Arbcom if it was on the English wikipedia.
If you think that checkuser policy should be changed, there are ways to promote change as well.
...and that promotion is not done on this mailing list. :-)
-Matt
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