First of all, tl;dr. Secondly, of the bits that I could pick up, the following insupportable assumptions stand out: a) "the request was made by a known troublemaker makes things even worse": It is perhaps time that you realised that Mackan79 is "known" to be exactly as much of a "troublemaker" as you or Crum275, in that s/he edits in similarly difficult areas. I don't think checkusers should determine the usefulness of a suggested check on the basis of whether they agree with the on-wiki POV of the person requesting it. I believe this is something that other people hold to be true as well. b)"I assume that his interest in Crum derived from his interest in me, and that the involvement of Wikitumnus was to give him and Lar a back door into a check of Crum." Do you have any basis for this assumption? And if so, can you please explain why, given the extensive agreement that you and Crum turn up to support each other on undiscussed reverts unwholesomely often, that checkusers should not be on the look-out for abuse? c)I believe that I have been told often by various people that private requests to checkusers are often carried out, even when there is no direct evidence of the possibility of abusive sockpuppetry. I understand that I myself have been checkusered for that reason. Can we be clear that this is what you are referring to? If not, I see this entire thing as a waste of time. RR
On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 2:28 PM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/19/08, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2008/7/19 SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com:
There was no reason at all to check the first account(s) that Lar checked.
Your accounts? Please detail why you feel you are immune to checkuser. (I ask this while reminding all here that several admins have been caught severely sockpuppeting and then deadminned.)
I don't feel I'm immune, but I do feel there should be a presumption against long-term contributors being checked, unless there are serious grounds to suspect abuse.
But I am not complaining about the check against me. I'm complaining about the check against the other two. I have their permission to explain further.
Lar was (he said) contacted privately by Mackan79 and was asked to perform a check on Wikitumnus and Crum375, on the grounds that they appeared to be sockpuppets.
Mackan79 is an editor who has been trying to cause me problems for about 12-18 months, ever since Dmcdevit blocked him for 3RR and he blamed me, both for the block in the first place, and for not persuading Dmcdevit to unblock him. I assume that his interest in Crum derived from his interest in me, and that the involvement of Wikitumnus was to give him and Lar a back door into a check of Crum.
The only "evidence" Lar had of a relationship between Wiktumnus and Crum was that Wikitumnus had ONCE reverted vandalism from Crum's talk page in November 2007 -- four months before Mackan asked Lar for a check.
It was on this basis that Lar performed a check of Wikitumnus a few days later at Mackan's request, later telling Wikitumnus and other checkusers and ArbCom members that there were grounds to believe that Wikitumnus was Crum. This is a clear fishing expedition, because there is *nothing* about that diff that would give rise to a suspicion of sockpuppetry. Wikitumnus had never edited the same articles as Crum, had never voted with him, had never supported him, had never shown up on noticeboards to comment on him, or anything else.
Personally, I have no problem with allowing checkuser to be used for fishing *so long as the policy makes clear that it may be so used* because then editors can arrange to use open or closed proxies if they don't want their real IPs to become known during random checks. What I object to is the policy saying one thing, and checkusers doing another.
When Lar performed his check of Wikitumnus, he discovered that it was an established editor who is well known to Lar, and who had abandoned their original account for various reasons. He knew *for certain* that this person was not Crum375. Yet he went on to peform the check of Crum anyway. If you want to say that, once he had checked Crum, he had reason to check me, then fine. Ignore the check of me. But his check of Wikitumnus was made on the flimsiest of grounds. And his check of Crum was made *on no grounds whatsoever*. That the request was made by a known troublemaker makes things even worse, but even if you ignore that too, you are left with two checks performed for no reason.
Sarah