On Sat, Aug 2, 2014 at 7:25 AM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Are you able to specify which policy or statement entitles you to the information you request? I can find no basis for it in the privacy policy, the Meta checkuser policy or the checkuser page on Commons. Can you also outline for your audience what harm you believe you have suffered?
Regarding policy, Russavia is claiming that the CU results were given to someone who wasnt a CU on Commons. In my experience sometimes that happens in cross-wiki investigations, but it should not be given to someone who isnt a CU anywhere, and it would be a very clear violation of CU policy for it to have been given to someone who wasnt WMF identified. It would be good if Russavia could clarify, and/or the OC could confirm, that the person who received the CU data was WMF identified at least.
I am guessing that Russavia has yet to hear how the CU on his account complies with the CU policy. There must be a valid reason to check a user. Was there a serious concern that Russavia was using alternative accounts in a prohibited manner? Was he vandalising? Hmm.
CU's performing unwarranted CU investigations on users harms the entire project. This is especially true of regular contributors, as their CU data often provides a lot of information about their daily lives, and may 'reveal' real life connections with other contributors, sometimes very explicitly and other times it is vaguely and unwarranted suspicions are formed and rumours spread.
Here's why I ask the second question: Following your breadcrumbs led me to only one CU, but I was puzzled to discover this comment from you on this users talk page "let me say thank you from myself and the rest of the community for all the great work you've done on this project over the years." Puzzled because it was left several weeks after you say you filed a formal complaint.
Russavia said something nice to someone in 2013 on their retirement, and raised a formal complaint about an unknown CU's action in 2014. How are these related??
That a well respected CU has retired isnt a good reason for the OC to not investigate a complaint, especially if that CU data was passed around. It may make the investigation less fruitful, and it is a good reason for the outcome to be measured against the good done by the volunteer when they were active. Mistakes happen. Usually apologies follow, and that is the end of it, or maybe some lessons learnt bring about improvements to the system.
-- John Vandenberg