On 6/18/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 6/18/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/18/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 6/18/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/18/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
Nevertheless, the pertinent issue is whether it is against policy to edit through open proxies.
I think the most pressing issue is not the policy thing, but that someone who wanted adminship was very keen to ensure that no one, not even the Foundation, could find out anything about them. Not even the location s/he edits from, or the ISP.
Perhaps we should focus on that question: do we want any kind of minimum accountability from admins, or do we not care who they are, or that one person might easily be controlling multiple admin accounts?
If we do want minimum accountability, how do we get it? If we don't want minimum accountability, are we willing to accept the consequences e.g. that it's currently easy for a banned or malicious user to get adminship, not just once, but multiple times?
I'd support requiring admins to provide their real identity to the foundation.
I'm not sure that would help, unless we're willing to employ investigators to make sure people have faxed the Foundation the right ID.
How does it currently work for checkusers and others that have to verify their identity? In the US notary publics are available to verify the identity of a signature on a document. Surely something like this is available in most other countries where en-wikipedia admins are located, right? Maybe you could have the person send in a photo of themselves holding up a sign with their username on it. I don't know, I'm open for suggestions. You seem to want accountability from admins - the way you get that is by having admins provide their identity.
And knowing that Admin A is called Bill Smith in real life doesn't tell us whether he's a banned or malicious user.
No, it doesn't. Of course, *nothing* is going to tell us that unless you intend to get every *user* to verify their identity.
As I see it, what we need to start doing as a minimum, is stop promoting people who've spent a few months hitting revert every few seconds. That kind of profile tells us nothing about the person, and it's too easy to build up several accounts that way. And we need to ditch the "it's no big deal" thing. It's not for us to decide that it's "no big deal" when hurtful material deleted from Wikipedia ends up on Wikitruth, just because the material's not about us. The existence of Wikitruth is a direct consequence of the "it's no big deal" mentality.
I think it's far too late for that, and that the only solution is to embrace the "it's no big deal" mentality. Any information which is a [[clear and present danger]] should be oversighted and taken away from the view of even the admins.
Then you have to trust the oversighters.
Look, Wikitruth was able to evolve because we regarded adminship as "no big deal" while giving admins access to deleted material. That meant we regarded undeleting deleted material as "no big deal." When it started happening, we realized that in fact it was biggish, and we developed oversight, which is restricted to fewer people than adminship.
But the people with oversight are selected by the community (most of whom are unknown) from the set of current admins (most of whom are unknown). So in fact, nothing has changed.
All that has to happen now is for Wikitruth (or anyone else interested in causing trouble) to get someone on the ArbCom so they have access to oversight. It's only a matter of time before it happens.
This is the rule of evolution. Niches will be filled. The only way to thwart it is to anticipate and fill the niches ahead of time. We seem to be very bad at doing that.
What I am arguing here and elsewhere is that one of the very obvious niches is that people can get to be admins by hitting revert for a few months. I think we need to put a stop to that.