On 7/19/08, Jon scream@datascreamer.com wrote:
Complaints of abuse of CheckUser or privacy policy breaches may also be brought to the Ombudsman committee.
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.
Someone asked how I knew about this. I was told by one of the people Lar checkusered, whom he told about it himself, then I was also told by a sitting member of ArbCom. People who have been checked are allowed to be told about it under the policy: "Notification to the account that is checked is permitted but is not mandatory." http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Checkuser#Use_of_the_tool
There are editors who have argued that it should be mandatory, a view I'm increasingly coming around to myself.
Sarah