On 7/19/08, Josh Gordon user.jpgordon@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Jul 19, 2008 at 1:50 PM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
There are editors who have argued that it should be mandatory, a view I'm increasingly coming around to myself.
I think I'm beginning to agree with you myself. But then, it wouldn't be right to publicly do this, and I'd venture that the vast majority of checkuser subjects have no legitimate email address to tell privately.
I'm thinking of a policy that says anyone who asks whether they've been checkusered must be told whether, why, and by whom, if they make the request within six months of the check. The request must come from the e-mail address the editor has added to their Wikipedia preferences. They may only ask whether that particular account has been checked. They need not be told the results of the check, in case that inadvertently implicates someone else, though they may be told it if no one else is involved.
We could build in a grandfather clause so that this doesn't apply retroactively. That would protect current checkusers who had performed checks without knowing the information might become public.
Sarah