On 7/22/08, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
At the time Kelly was a widely respected and trusted user. Her check of you *was* explained many times and supported by other people. You made a post to your talk page which looked completely out of character (which I believe has since been oversighted along with other large chunks of your history, so I can't point to it), so she check to see if there was any evidence that your account had been compromised. Nothing came out of the check, and no harm was done.
Gery, very few of my edits have been oversighted, so I'm sure you can still find the post in question, if it ever existed.
When first asked what her reason was, Kelly said she couldn't remember. The story about me making a post that was out of character came later. I still haven't been told which post. Also, I wasn't editing at all at the time she checked me -- I had taken a few days off.
The important point is that, had the check been legitimate, someone else would have done it instead. We need to emphasize to checkusers that they must not check people they could be seen to be in direct conflict with, or people they've previously expressed strong negative feelings about. Kelly was in the habit of attacking me viciously on IRC, so it doesn't take much common sense to realize that using the tool against me would look bad.
Wikipedia Review has made the claim that they have a checkuser in their pocket, a claim that was confirmed by one of the few posters there that I tend to trust. Therefore, in their own interests, checkusers who post there regularly should make it a point of principle never to use the tool against editors who are attacked there, or in whom Wikipedia Review expresses too much of an interest.
Sarah