Thogo, et al
On Sat, Aug 2, 2014 at 3:58 PM, Thomas Goldammer thogol@gmail.com wrote:
- There was indeed a leak of my CU data. An unknown Commons CU had
indeed leaked my CU data to another person who was NOT a CU on Commons. The information given to this non-CU person included the very name of the person who ran the CU on me; information which was so sensitive to keep from me, but not sensitive enough that it was able to be shared with every Tom, Dick and Harry that wasn't me.
I wonder why the OC never got any information about this from you. So
would
you please write us where that information comes from and what exactly happened? Thanks.
I'm not sure I understand you Thogo. A steward contacted the OC about the leaking of my CU data to a non-CU, not me. The nature of Points 1 and 2 from my initial email were relayed to me by a member of the OC in a private conversation and that individual shall forever remain nameless, of course. I'm not sure how the OC, or anyone, expects me to give any information on an issue that I am not totally aware of, and never would have been aware of if it weren't for me being provided with full #wikimedia-steward-internal logs. I am happy to publicly replicate these unaltered and unedited logs if actually required.
It had, on the basis of the information we got from you. We can obviously not base our decision on information that is not relayed to us, like that mentioned one section above.
This is not what was told to me on email by the member of the OC who was liaising with me on email as a result of the complaint. Perhaps permission to release that email from the individual concerned will show others that the investigation was not over, but had instead been referred for investigation to the WMF based upon the CU in question having left all Wikimedia projects. Not sure if permission will be forthcoming given the person is no longer on the OC.[1]
Given this, I am asking very publicly the following questions:
- (1) on what grounds a CheckUser action was performed on my account
on Wikimedia Commons?
- (2) who requested that it be performed on Commons?
- (3) who fulfilled the request?
- (4) why is it acceptable for CUs to share actions related to my
account with non-CUs whilst at the same time actively keeping this information from me?
- (5) why are complaints such as this actively ignored by the WMF Board?
(1) through (3) can only be answered by the Commons community. It is completely outside the OC's remit to answer this. @ (4): You might want to discuss this with the OC non-publicly. We are very interested in getting any available information about this. In general, you are right that it is not acceptable to share non-public information with non-CUs. However, it
is
acceptable to give CU information to stewards (who might not be CU on Commons), for example, under certain circumstances.
Sorry, but I beg to differ here. It is within the remit of the OC to investigate issues of the abuse of the CU tool.[2]
"The tool is to be used to fight vandalism, to check for sockpuppet abuse, and to limit disruption of the project. It must be used only to prevent damage to any of Wikimedia projects."
There is zero evidence that the check was done for any of these reasons, and hence it is a violation of the privacy policy and is absolutely within the remit of the OC.
Furthermore, at this time it might be pertinent to add that in May 2014 when the issue was being quite openly discussed on IRC in #wikimedia-commons, a Commons CU at that stage stated that they had no idea why the CU was run. In July 2014, when the issue was again being openly discussed in the same IRC channel, the same Commons CU publicly stated that they were in possession of the full story ("I know everything and I also know what's true and what's not, but I won't share with you" and "I know the whole story"). This CU, given they are in possession of the "whole story" should be able to tell us publicly what vandalism, sockpuppet abuse or disruption I was involved in on Commons in April 2013 which necessitated the uber-secretive use of the CU tool on my Commons account; but NOT on other accounts on other projects.
Given that at least one Commons CU has been able to get the full story in the short space of 2 months, I fail to see why the OC has been unable to get the same fully story and instead has publicly thrown its hands up in the air and claimed one thing, whilst privately I am being told something else completely different.
Russavia
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:List_of_administrators... [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser_policy#Use_of_the_tool