Requests have recently been made to the Board asking for verification that a user is sockpuppeting on one of the larger Wikipedias. At least two of the developers felt this was a matter for the Board or for an arbitration committee (although that Wikipedia doesn't have an arbcom), and were therefore not happy to give out details about the IP address of this user. Checking IPs is no longer a developer-only task since a new feature allows sockpuppet checks.
[[Special:CheckUser]] allows a user with "checkuser" permissions to find all the IP addresses used by a particular logged in user, and to show all the contributions from a given IP address, including those made by logged in users.
Currently the only people with the necessary permissions to use CheckUser are Tim Starling (who wrote the code for this) and David Gerard (who uses it on behalf of the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee).
This data is only stored for one week, so edits made prior to that will not be shown via CheckUser. A log is kept of who has made which queries with the tool. This log is available to those with the checkuser permissions.
I would personally like to see this feature be made available to more communities than just the English Wikipedia, but I am concerned about potential misuse of it, and the violation of privacy for users who have not been disruptive. I would appreciate any comments about this feature, and answers to the questions below, either here or on on Meta http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser.
Do you think this feature should be made more widely available?
If so, who should be given access to it?
Should it be limited to stewards, or to wikis with arbitration committees?
Does the privacy policy http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy need be adjusted to allow the use of this feature?
Angela.
-- Angela Beesley http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Angela
Agreed: it is becoming increasingly important to be able to check sockpuppets, and it would be beneficial to both the Wikipedia community (in all wikipedias) as well as the developers if the ability was made more widely available.
One feature that might be important in [[Special:CheckUser]] is to see matches in the class c subset (is that what the last few digits are called?)...IMO it should be able to do this if implemented.
There isn't too much violation of privacy since: a) User contributions are already made publicly available b) Their IP address isn't actually shown (or is it?)
But I would definitely understand that there might be some problems with it, and I think making it admin-only would be preferred.
Blog: http://frazzydee.ca
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GCS d? s:- a--- C+++ UL++ P+ L+ E---- W++ N+ o+ K+ w+ O? M-- V? PS++ PE Y PGP++ t 5-- X+ R tv b++ DI++ D+ G++ e- h! !r !z ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
Angela wrote:
Requests have recently been made to the Board asking for verification that a user is sockpuppeting on one of the larger Wikipedias. At least two of the developers felt this was a matter for the Board or for an arbitration committee (although that Wikipedia doesn't have an arbcom), and were therefore not happy to give out details about the IP address of this user. Checking IPs is no longer a developer-only task since a new feature allows sockpuppet checks.
[[Special:CheckUser]] allows a user with "checkuser" permissions to find all the IP addresses used by a particular logged in user, and to show all the contributions from a given IP address, including those made by logged in users.
Currently the only people with the necessary permissions to use CheckUser are Tim Starling (who wrote the code for this) and David Gerard (who uses it on behalf of the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee).
This data is only stored for one week, so edits made prior to that will not be shown via CheckUser. A log is kept of who has made which queries with the tool. This log is available to those with the checkuser permissions.
I would personally like to see this feature be made available to more communities than just the English Wikipedia, but I am concerned about potential misuse of it, and the violation of privacy for users who have not been disruptive. I would appreciate any comments about this feature, and answers to the questions below, either here or on on Meta http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser.
Do you think this feature should be made more widely available?
If so, who should be given access to it?
Should it be limited to stewards, or to wikis with arbitration committees?
Does the privacy policy http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy need be adjusted to allow the use of this feature?
Angela.
-- Angela Beesley http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Angela _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Hoi, There has been a lot of discussion about the use of this tool. When a community does NOT have this tool available, you will get yourself into funny situations as well. At this moment we have a person who has been banned because everyone believes this person to have used a sock puppet. He has been banned for a month. There is no willingness to have this person unblocked prior to the end of this period. The person banned insists that he is not the same person as the sock puppet.
The insistence of the primarily English oriented community to give it to the arb comm or not all means that there is no solution for this situation. The consequence is that either this person is correctly banned or is not correctly banned. With the CheckUser permissions given to Stewards or Bureaucrats, there are some selected people who can discreetly check out these situations and say that yes/no two persons are likely the same person.
As stewards are people who are explictly trusted to do right. Explicitly as they are chosen for this role I do believe there is little reason to make this more difficult by insisting on all kinds of auditing and registration with its own inherent insecurity.
Conclusion: Without the potential to explore the likelyhood of two users being the same, a user may suffer unjustly when a community is convinced that two users are the same person. The person for whom this discussion was started has been penalised with a ban of a month on the conviction that two users are actually the same person. This person insists that this is a false accusation and as much as I dislike this person, I do believe we should be able to investigate the likelyhood that his claim is true.
Thanks, GerardM
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
There has been a lot of discussion about the use of this tool. When a community does NOT have this tool available, you will get yourself into funny situations as well. At this moment we have a person who has been banned because everyone believes this person to have used a sock puppet. He has been banned for a month. There is no willingness to have this person unblocked prior to the end of this period. The person banned insists that he is not the same person as the sock puppet.
Simply using a sockpuppet to circumvent the time limit on a ban should not give rise to the use of this tool. If the sockpuppet edits responsibly he may not even be noticed. In practice they tend to repeat their crimes, and it is this repetition that will give rise to just cause. Simply suspecting that a person is reappearing before expiry of the ban is not enough.
The insistence of the primarily English oriented community to give it to the arb comm or not all means that there is no solution for this situation. The consequence is that either this person is correctly banned or is not correctly banned. With the CheckUser permissions given to Stewards or Bureaucrats, there are some selected people who can discreetly check out these situations and say that yes/no two persons are likely the same person.
A positive correlation will not always be definitive; a negative one will almost certainly exonerate the suspect. In the latter case it should be enough to report back to the claimant that the inquiry found no match, and to do so without providing any further details.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
There has been a lot of discussion about the use of this tool. When a community does NOT have this tool available, you will get yourself into funny situations as well. At this moment we have a person who has been banned because everyone believes this person to have used a sock puppet. He has been banned for a month. There is no willingness to have this person unblocked prior to the end of this period. The person banned insists that he is not the same person as the sock puppet.
Simply using a sockpuppet to circumvent the time limit on a ban should not give rise to the use of this tool. If the sockpuppet edits responsibly he may not even be noticed. In practice they tend to repeat their crimes, and it is this repetition that will give rise to just cause. Simply suspecting that a person is reappearing before expiry of the ban is not enough.
This may be the practise on the en:wikipedia. It is not necessarily the same on all projects. The sockpuppets were not responsible and they were noticed, it led to a lot of bad blood and it is one thing to say what the practice is on one project this may mean little on an other.
The insistence of the primarily English oriented community to give it to the arb comm or not all means that there is no solution for this situation. The consequence is that either this person is correctly banned or is not correctly banned. With the CheckUser permissions given to Stewards or Bureaucrats, there are some selected people who can discreetly check out these situations and say that yes/no two persons are likely the same person.
A positive correlation will not always be definitive; a negative one will almost certainly exonerate the suspect. In the latter case it should be enough to report back to the claimant that the inquiry found no match, and to do so without providing any further details.
Ec
We are looking for a negative colleration. The person has a bad reputation. Before he adopted a user profile he was known for doing his thing with any number of IP numbers. When he was blocked he was almost instantly back on another IP-number. Given this past behaviour and his subsequent behaviour as a user there are many that would not mind to see the back of this person. However as he claims that he is not the same, I would not mind to give him the opportunity to give some credence to his claim by having a negative colleration. In this case it will give credence it will not exonerate. It will be the difference of allowing him prematurely to end the blocking period or the insistence by many that he waits out his entire blocking period.
Thanks, GerardM
Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
We are looking for a negative colleration. The person has a bad reputation. Before he adopted a user profile he was known for doing his thing with any number of IP numbers. When he was blocked he was almost instantly back on another IP-number.
Who blocked him? Why? Based on what? Was this an official decision made by one person, a small group of people, all sysops together, the entire community? If either of the first two, you evidently have natural candidates to form an official blocking group, of whom one might be appropriate to grant access to such an easily-abused tool, no? What, exactly, is the problem, then?
Yours,
James D. Forrester wrote:
Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
We are looking for a negative colleration. The person has a bad reputation. Before he adopted a user profile he was known for doing his thing with any number of IP numbers. When he was blocked he was almost instantly back on another IP-number.
Who blocked him? Why? Based on what? Was this an official decision made by one person, a small group of people, all sysops together, the entire community? If either of the first two, you evidently have natural candidates
Everytime he was blocked this got majority community support. Everytime he evaded. The user is tiresome, extremely tiresome. Though he seems to have found a second home ..... en.wikipedia ...... untill his block expires on the 25th I guess.
Waerth/Walter
James D. Forrester wrote:
Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
We are looking for a negative colleration. The person has a bad reputation. Before he adopted a user profile he was known for doing his thing with any number of IP numbers. When he was blocked he was almost instantly back on another IP-number.
Who blocked him? Why? Based on what? Was this an official decision made by one person, a small group of people, all sysops together, the entire community? If either of the first two, you evidently have natural candidates to form an official blocking group, of whom one might be appropriate to grant access to such an easily-abused tool, no? What, exactly, is the problem, then?
Yours,
The decision to block and maintain this long block was done by an official vote on the nl:wikipedia. There are two sides to the argument.
*There are some that want to unblock this person. This is possible when the indication that this person and the user that is also a troll are not the same. *Second, this is something that is outside the English language projects, it is a big project, many moderators that requests the use of this analysis. Why can a project as big as the nl:wikipedia not be trusted to request for the execution of this. Why should a substantial group of moderators be denied this ??
The way the nl:wikipedia is ruled is subtly different from the other projects. The nl:wikipedia has proven that it does do a proper job of having a healthy atmosphere. Given the small size of the world population speaking Dutch, we do a great job. Why should this tool not be used in this instance when the object is to allow a person that many are disgusted with to be deblocked sooner because his claim is true that he is not this other troll as well ?? If anything it is in the intrest of this person. If you do not understand this, please deny this reasonable request. If you do understand this, you realise that this a situation where it is in the intrest of the person involved that he is likely NOT to be the same person.
This is similar to people in jail who claim to be innocent and are denied a DNA test. You read that this happens a lot in the US justice system.
Thanks, GerardM
On Apr 12, 2005 10:41 PM, James D. Forrester james@jdforrester.org wrote:
Who blocked him? Why? Based on what?
The original blocking was made by one of the sysops, based on reverting. After that the original block (which was 6 hours or 24 hours or something like that) was lengthened to a week, based on repeated problematic behaviour (doing his own thing after a discussion where everyone else had the opposite opinion, POV editing, and such), with a request for some kind of mediation. This was done after a vote on the village pump. Because he was believed to have edited during his blocked period, the block was lengthened to 2 weeks then to 4 weeks, which was retroactively approved by a vote of the community.
Was this an official decision made by one person, a small group of people, all sysops together, the entire community?
The original block was made by a small group, the lengthening to more than a few hours was made by the entire community.
If either of the first two, you evidently have natural candidates to form an official blocking group, of whom one might be appropriate to grant access to such an easily-abused tool, no? What, exactly, is the problem, then?
The problem is that some of the sysops want to use the tool, but nobody has access to it.
Andre Engels
On Tuesday, April 12, 2005 10:38 PM, wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org <> wrote:
On Apr 12, 2005 10:41 PM, James D. Forrester james@jdforrester.org wrote:
If either of the first two, you evidently have natural candidates to form an official blocking group, of whom one might be appropriate to grant access to such an easily-abused tool, no? What, exactly, is the problem, then?
The problem is that some of the sysops want to use the tool, but nobody has access to it.
Yes, I know - I'm trying to help the w:nl community select people to put forward to have access to the tool. "All sysops" is far too broad (indeed, "all bureaucrats" is, too). Thus we must find a singleton (or other very small) set of people trusted sufficiently to be given access to the tool, as it is a very powerful and very easily abused tool and should not be (and will not be) given out wantonly.
Am I being confusing? Sorry.
Yours,
James D. Forrester wrote:
On Tuesday, April 12, 2005 10:38 PM, wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org <> wrote:
n Apr 12, 2005 10:41 PM, James D. Forrester james@jdforrester.org wrote:
If either of the first two, you evidently have natural candidates to form an official blocking group, of whom one might be appropriate to grant access to such an easily-abused tool, no? What, exactly, is the problem, then?
The problem is that some of the sysops want to use the tool, but nobody has access to it.
Yes, I know - I'm trying to help the w:nl community select people to put forward to have access to the tool. "All sysops" is far too broad (indeed, "all bureaucrats" is, too). Thus we must find a singleton (or other very small) set of people trusted sufficiently to be given access to the tool, as it is a very powerful and very easily abused tool and should not be (and will not be) given out wantonly.
Am I being confusing? Sorry.
Yours,
Hoi, This problem is something that needs a proper solution. There is a small band of people who do things for all communities they are explicitly trusted by Jimbo as he handpicks them. They are the Stewards. There is a need for more of them but it would be good if they are entrusted with this task if they are willing. The benefit is that this way we have a group that is trusted and already acting on all the projects. The need for people to perform this function is something that may occur in any project and therefore the solution should be one that helps all projects and all communities.
PS you are not confusing :)
Thanks, GerardM
With all the talk about stewards ...... I thought the stewardcollection would be expanded in March? Either through election or by Jimbo's choice?
Waerth/Walter
I was pretty sure there were going to be elections, but I don't remember anything about them being in March... I thought it was may or july or something.
Mark
On 4/12/05, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
With all the talk about stewards ...... I thought the stewardcollection would be expanded in March? Either through election or by Jimbo's choice?
Waerth/Walter _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On 4/13/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
I was pretty sure there were going to be elections, but I don't remember anything about them being in March... I thought it was may or july or something.
No date was ever set. The issue has been brought up a number of times over the last year, and Anthere created a page about elections at the start of March. Shortly after this, Jimbo said he wanted to appoint all stewards himself (See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Stewards/elections_2005#No_elections.3F) but never actually got round to doing so.
Angela.
I don't see what's so wrong with an election, so long as there isn't a chance of a "bad" candidate winning (which of course there always is, but the candidacy can be monitored and chances are such a person won't win an election).
While I favour more community involvement in all areas of Wikimedia, I think that matters in the actual projects, such as stewards, new rules, &c, should all be democratically chosen by all Wikimedia-ans (I believe Tim made a page about the difference between people who are Wikipedians, Wiktionarians, Wikibooksians, Wikiquotians, Wikisourcians, Wikispecians, Wikinewsians, Commonsians, and/or Metans and people who are "Wikimedians" - that's why I use the term "Wikimedia-ans" to refer to participants from all projects) and I don't see a real excuse for not having this. (like the understandable excuses for not having democratic votes for all foundation matters)
In matters of this sort (I keep wanting to call them "domestic issues"), I believe the old maxim "VOX POPVLI VOX DEI" should apply and that there are no plausible reasons for it not to. The CIVES VICIPAEDIANI should be allowed to decide on such "internal affairs" insofar as their/our decisions do not threaten the continued existance of the Foundation or one of the projects, and do not go against the general philosophies of Wikimedia and the open-source movement in general.
But then that is just my opinion.
Mark
On 4/12/05, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/13/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
I was pretty sure there were going to be elections, but I don't remember anything about them being in March... I thought it was may or july or something.
No date was ever set. The issue has been brought up a number of times over the last year, and Anthere created a page about elections at the start of March. Shortly after this, Jimbo said he wanted to appoint all stewards himself (See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Stewards/elections_2005#No_elections.3F) but never actually got round to doing so.
Angela. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Angela (beesley@gmail.com) [050412 13:43]:
Currently the only people with the necessary permissions to use CheckUser are Tim Starling (who wrote the code for this) and David Gerard (who uses it on behalf of the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee).
I should also point out that I *barely* use it - its availability to the Ac directly is somewhat controversial, but I've some experience of net-abuse tracing and know what the results mean or don't, and I only use it when there's clearly some important issue. (Last use was to check on an apparent sock of Rienzo. Use before that was to check the zillion abusive socks in the Baku Ibne arb com case.) I get a lot of people asking me to check something casually and I have to say "no". Although if people on en: think it's relevant to an arb com case, the "Requests for clarification" section on WP:RFAr is the right place to suggest. The edit evidence had better be there, though, I'm not going on fishing expeditions.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
Angela (beesley@gmail.com) [050412 13:43]:
Currently the only people with the necessary permissions to use CheckUser are Tim Starling (who wrote the code for this) and David Gerard (who uses it on behalf of the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee).
I should also point out that I *barely* use it - its availability to the Ac directly is somewhat controversial, but I've some experience of net-abuse tracing and know what the results mean or don't, and I only use it when there's clearly some important issue. (Last use was to check on an apparent sock of Rienzo. Use before that was to check the zillion abusive socks in the Baku Ibne arb com case.) I get a lot of people asking me to check something casually and I have to say "no". Although if people on en: think it's relevant to an arb com case, the "Requests for clarification" section on WP:RFAr is the right place to suggest. The edit evidence had better be there, though, I'm not going on fishing expeditions.
This sounds like a wise approach. Some ultra-zealous vandal chasers are much too quick to jump to conclusions when finding fault.
Ec
Ray Saintonge (saintonge@telus.net) [050413 02:35]:
David Gerard wrote:
Angela (beesley@gmail.com) [050412 13:43]:
Currently the only people with the necessary permissions to use CheckUser are Tim Starling (who wrote the code for this) and David Gerard (who uses it on behalf of the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee).
I should also point out that I *barely* use it - its availability to the Ac directly is somewhat controversial, but I've some experience of net-abuse tracing and know what the results mean or don't, and I only use it when there's clearly some important issue. (Last use was to check on an apparent sock of Rienzo. Use before that was to check the zillion abusive socks in the Baku Ibne arb com case.) I get a lot of people asking me to check something casually and I have to say "no". Although if people on en: think it's relevant to an arb com case, the "Requests for clarification" section on WP:RFAr is the right place to suggest. The edit evidence had better be there, though, I'm not going on fishing expeditions.
This sounds like a wise approach. Some ultra-zealous vandal chasers are much too quick to jump to conclusions when finding fault.
The problem I find in practice is that there is no guideline, and I'm not quite sure sometimes myself. I've added a question to [[m:CheckUser]] asking for suggestions on when it's appropriate to look this stuff up. Then I'll probably take those and see if something that's clearly good sense emerges from them.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
Ray Saintonge (saintonge@telus.net) [050413 02:35]:
David Gerard wrote:
I should also point out that I *barely* use it - its availability to the Ac directly is somewhat controversial, but I've some experience of net-abuse tracing and know what the results mean or don't, and I only use it when there's clearly some important issue. (Last use was to check on an apparent sock of Rienzo. Use before that was to check the zillion abusive socks in the Baku Ibne arb com case.) I get a lot of people asking me to check something casually and I have to say "no". Although if people on en: think it's relevant to an arb com case, the "Requests for clarification" section on WP:RFAr is the right place to suggest. The edit evidence had better be there, though, I'm not going on fishing expeditions.
This sounds like a wise approach. Some ultra-zealous vandal chasers are much too quick to jump to conclusions when finding fault.
The problem I find in practice is that there is no guideline, and I'm not quite sure sometimes myself. I've added a question to [[m:CheckUser]] asking for suggestions on when it's appropriate to look this stuff up. Then I'll probably take those and see if something that's clearly good sense emerges from them.
- d.
People who've asked me for sock puppet checks in the past probably know that I'm much more permissive than this. My personal guidelines have been:
1. Only research bad people. The first thing I do when I get a request is to look up the user's contributions and make sure that they have indeed been vandalising. The privacy of good users should be sacrosanct, even if they are using sock puppets. (The exception to this is RFA)
2. Do not give away IP addresses unless it's necessary. In 90% of cases I interpret the IP evidence myself and give the requester a statement such as "yes they are probably the same person" or "they share the same ISP".
There are two cases where it is necessary to give away IP addresses. One is where an anonymous (logged-out) user is involved, and a link between the anonymous contributions and the logged-in contributions is required. The other is when there is a desire to make a complaint to the user's ISP. I encourage this course of action in extreme cases, despite the fact that it has never actually worked. There's at least a slight chance that the vandal will see some real-life consequences for their actions, even if it's just a stern phone call from their ISP.
I've always been sympathetic to requests for sock puppet checks, because shortly before I got shell access, I was nearly driven crazy by a user with 9 sock puppets, each claiming to be a separate person. Each would demand my attention, make their own arguments and even post bogus real names and addresses to "prove" their identity. All these identities were active in the same week. It's hard to describe how hard this was for me, but suffice to say looking up the guy in the apache logs was the first thing I did when I got shell access. I resolved at that point to try to help anyone who was in a similar situation.
Requests to fulfill curiosity might seem gratuitous, but it's amazing how much a simple yes or no can do for the sanity of an embattled Wikipedian. Even if you give them no solid evidence that they can repeat publically, it's still enough to allow them to deal with the problem rationally rather than be overwhelmed with uncertainty.
In recent times, the number of requests for sock puppet checks has been rising, and I've had less time on my hands, so I've had to ignore many of them. I'd be very happy if a small group of users, with public logging for oversight, could take over the role that I've been filling.
There are many dangers; like Ray says, some people are very quick to jump to conclusions. The danger comes when you present tenuous evidence of sock puppetry as ammunition in an argument -- that should be avoided at all costs. People with checkuser access should be careful to emphasize the uncertain nature of IP evidence.
-- Tim Starling
Tim Starling (t.starling@physics.unimelb.edu.au) [050413 05:49]:
People who've asked me for sock puppet checks in the past probably know that I'm much more permissive than this. My personal guidelines have been:
- Only research bad people. The first thing I do when I get a request
is to look up the user's contributions and make sure that they have indeed been vandalising. The privacy of good users should be sacrosanct, even if they are using sock puppets. (The exception to this is RFA) 2. Do not give away IP addresses unless it's necessary. In 90% of cases I interpret the IP evidence myself and give the requester a statement such as "yes they are probably the same person" or "they share the same ISP".
Please do add the text of this message to [[m:CheckUser]].
- d.
Tim Starling wrote:
shortly before I got shell access, I was nearly driven crazy by a user with 9 sock puppets, each claiming to be a separate person. Each would demand my attention, make their own arguments and even post bogus real names and addresses to "prove" their identity. All these identities were active in the same week. It's hard to describe how hard this was for me, but suffice to say looking up the guy in the apache logs was the first thing I did when I got shell access. I resolved at that point to try to help anyone who was in a similar situation.
I think it would help if we could separate these "hard cases" from the everyday spam and edit wars. I predict that sociology and psychology (or psychiatry?) is the next thing in wiki studies, because only now do we have the size of community where these things happen. Has anybody compiled a list of the "worst" cases and how they were dealt with?
Hi,
Le Tuesday 12 April 2005 05:42, Angela a écrit :
Requests have recently been made to the Board asking for verification that a user is sockpuppeting on one of the larger Wikipedias. At least two of the developers felt this was a matter for the Board or for an arbitration committee (although that Wikipedia doesn't have an arbcom), and were therefore not happy to give out details about the IP address of this user. Checking IPs is no longer a developer-only task since a new feature allows sockpuppet checks.
[[Special:CheckUser]] allows a user with "checkuser" permissions to find all the IP addresses used by a particular logged in user, and to show all the contributions from a given IP address, including those made by logged in users.
(...)
I would personally like to see this feature be made available to more communities than just the English Wikipedia, but I am concerned about potential misuse of it, and the violation of privacy for users who have not been disruptive. I would appreciate any comments about this feature, and answers to the questions below, either here or on on Meta http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser.
Do you think this feature should be made more widely available?
Yes.
If so, who should be given access to it?
Stewards, bureaucrates.
Should it be limited to stewards, or to wikis with arbitration committees?
Does the privacy policy http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy need be adjusted to allow the use of this feature?
Can't say.
Angela.
Yann
Even small community, Serbian Wikipedia has potentail for such need. However, I don't think that we need to have person with such privileges, but I would like to have possibility to ask some steward for that, not some busy developer. Also, I suppose that larger communities need persons with such privlieges.
Milos Rancic a écrit:
Even small community, Serbian Wikipedia has potentail for such need. However, I don't think that we need to have person with such privileges, but I would like to have possibility to ask some steward for that, not some busy developer. Also, I suppose that larger communities need persons with such privlieges.
Stewards are also very busy ;-)
Ant
As I mentioned on this list a couple of weeks ago, [[Special:CheckUser]] allows a user with "checkuser" permissions to check the IP address of a logged in user in order to investigate abuse or check for "sockpuppetting".
Thanks to everyone who gave feedback on this at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser or on the mailing list. The majority of people commenting there thought the feature should be made more widely available. However, there was little agreement on who should be given access to the feature or to the logs.
Currently, only David Gerard and Tim Starling have access to this feature. David pointed out that he barely uses it, and that its availability to the English Arbitration Committee has been controversial. He felt the issue is less "who should have access" than "what circumstances justify checking?". See [[meta:CheckUser]] for details on how David is currently using it. Tim starling suggested two guidelines on the mailing list; only research bad people and do not give away IP addresses unless it's necessary.
There was general agreement on making CheckUser more widely available, but many thought this should only be done with restrictions, limits and/or penalties. There were mixed views on who should be given access to it, with suggestions including sysops, bureaucrats, bureaucrats of the larger wikis, stewards, or something between one and three elected users per project. Some felt people should use it only on their own project. There was no general agreement on whether it should be limited to stewards.
The most contentious question was whether the user being checked should be notified about the check. Some people felt very strongly that they should, but there were also many arguments against doing this. See [[meta:CheckUser]] for full details. Some felt that, not only should the checked user be told, but that the logs should be public. Anthere suggested ombudsmen should be appointed to oversee the use of it.
David Gerard added a question about which circumstances merit checking. Two people said that there must be reasonable cause for it. Guidelines such as requiring another user request it so it can't be used for personal reasons, and using it only as a last resort, were also suggested. One person felt the user that is checked has to approve.
If anyone else would like to add to these comments, please do so at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser so that decisions can be made about how this feature should be used, and who should be able to use it.
Thanks.
Angela.
Angela said:
If anyone else would like to add to these comments, please do so at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser so that decisions can be made about how this feature should be used, and who should be able to use it.
Thanks. I've outlined my thoughts in a section titled (appropriately) "At discretion of arbcom, subject to veto".
Tony Sidaway said:
Angela said:
If anyone else would like to add to these comments, please do so at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser so that decisions can be made about how this feature should be used, and who should be able to use it.
Thanks. I've outlined my thoughts in a section titled (appropriately) "At discretion of arbcom, subject to veto".
..or would if I could!
I get a maintenance lock right now.
Here's the text:
At discretion of arbcom, subject to veto
All the gubbins seems to me to be a symptom of our understandable suspicion about abuse of this feature. The best solution to me seems to be to place this feature at the discretion of the arbitration apparatus of each individual Wiki, subject to veto, separately, by the board and Jimbo. Power to flip the appropriate bits to grant or revoke the ability to use this feature should continue to reside with whoever has it now, who as de facto custodian of user privacy would have an absolute veto. Arbcom should also be responsible for ensuring that the feature is used only according to its instructions. The log of all accesses of this feature (when used and by whom) should be public if possible. Further information should not be made available but should be available by a report run by the developers on request of arbcom. User:Tony Sidaway 15:30, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Tony Sidaway wrote:
Tony Sidaway said:
Angela said:
If anyone else would like to add to these comments, please do so at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser so that decisions can be made about how this feature should be used, and who should be able to use it.
Thanks. I've outlined my thoughts in a section titled (appropriately) "At discretion of arbcom, subject to veto".
..or would if I could!
I get a maintenance lock right now.
Here's the text:
At discretion of arbcom, subject to veto
All the gubbins seems to me to be a symptom of our understandable suspicion about abuse of this feature. The best solution to me seems to be to place this feature at the discretion of the arbitration apparatus of each individual Wiki, subject to veto, separately, by the board and Jimbo. Power to flip the appropriate bits to grant or revoke the ability to use this feature should continue to reside with whoever has it now, who as de facto custodian of user privacy would have an absolute veto. Arbcom should also be responsible for ensuring that the feature is used only according to its instructions. The log of all accesses of this feature (when used and by whom) should be public if possible. Further information should not be made available but should be available by a report run by the developers on request of arbcom. User:Tony Sidaway 15:30, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Hoi, Some big projects have an arbitration committee some do not. On the Dutch wikipedia a user who vehemently denied he used a particular sock puppet, but who had a history of using sock puppets was banned because he was not believed and, because the nl:wikipedia was denied to have the CheckUser tool used in a timely fashion. The user is banned and will propably not be back for some time because of it.
Blanket policies that expect that an arbitration committee exists are stupid when there is no such thing. Denying the use of the tool results result in a situation does hurt a project. When a user is openly accused of using specific sock puppets, and when this user openly denies this accusation, NOT using the tool denies this user a proper investigation and as a result may be convicted because of an honest belief that he is guilty as charged. It would have been much better if the tool had proven either that the user is propably guilty or that it is inconclusive.
Without some "public" people who can be asked to perform this investigation, you discriminate against the smaller projects. This does result in situations that are worse than the perceived invasion of privacy. People can be and are judged to use sock puppets with or without the aditional proof that CheckUser supplies. If this is what we want than by all means restrict it to arbitration commissions.
Thanks, GerardM
I think that, for the sort of cases outlined below, CheckUser could be used perhaps if the user themselves specifically said it would be OK.
Mark
On 28/04/05, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
Tony Sidaway said:
Angela said:
If anyone else would like to add to these comments, please do so at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser so that decisions can be made about how this feature should be used, and who should be able to use it.
Thanks. I've outlined my thoughts in a section titled (appropriately) "At discretion of arbcom, subject to veto".
..or would if I could!
I get a maintenance lock right now.
Here's the text:
At discretion of arbcom, subject to veto
All the gubbins seems to me to be a symptom of our understandable suspicion about abuse of this feature. The best solution to me seems to be to place this feature at the discretion of the arbitration apparatus of each individual Wiki, subject to veto, separately, by the board and Jimbo. Power to flip the appropriate bits to grant or revoke the ability to use this feature should continue to reside with whoever has it now, who as de facto custodian of user privacy would have an absolute veto. Arbcom should also be responsible for ensuring that the feature is used only according to its instructions. The log of all accesses of this feature (when used and by whom) should be public if possible. Further information should not be made available but should be available by a report run by the developers on request of arbcom. User:Tony Sidaway 15:30, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Hoi, Some big projects have an arbitration committee some do not. On the Dutch wikipedia a user who vehemently denied he used a particular sock puppet, but who had a history of using sock puppets was banned because he was not believed and, because the nl:wikipedia was denied to have the CheckUser tool used in a timely fashion. The user is banned and will propably not be back for some time because of it.
Blanket policies that expect that an arbitration committee exists are stupid when there is no such thing. Denying the use of the tool results result in a situation does hurt a project. When a user is openly accused of using specific sock puppets, and when this user openly denies this accusation, NOT using the tool denies this user a proper investigation and as a result may be convicted because of an honest belief that he is guilty as charged. It would have been much better if the tool had proven either that the user is propably guilty or that it is inconclusive.
Without some "public" people who can be asked to perform this investigation, you discriminate against the smaller projects. This does result in situations that are worse than the perceived invasion of privacy. People can be and are judged to use sock puppets with or without the aditional proof that CheckUser supplies. If this is what we want than by all means restrict it to arbitration commissions.
Thanks, GerardM _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Mark Williamson wrote:
I think that, for the sort of cases outlined below, CheckUser could be used perhaps if the user themselves specifically said it would be OK.
ROTFL! It means that we should ask every sockpuppet for permission to check to see if he is a sockpuppet. :-D
Ec
I think that, for the sort of cases outlined below, CheckUser could be used perhaps if the user themselves specifically said it would be OK.
ROTFL! It means that we should ask every sockpuppet for permission to check to see if he is a sockpuppet. :-D
If the sockpuppet is denying that it is a sockpuppet, it should be willing to give permission, ne?
"Sean Barrett" sean@epoptic.org wrote in message news:200504282019.j3SKJkT3030227@orwen.epoptic.com...
I think that, for the sort of cases outlined below, CheckUser could be used perhaps if the user themselves specifically said it would be OK.
ROTFL! It means that we should ask every sockpuppet for permission to check to see if he is a sockpuppet. :-D
If the sockpuppet is denying that it is a sockpuppet, it should be willing to give permission, ne?
So when the sockpuppet in question effectively dances just out of reach taunting you, what do you do?
"I'm not a sockpuppet, so you can take a hike!"
Or are you then going to introduce the offence of "refusing the non-mandatory sockpuppet test"?
Phil Boswell stated for the record:
"Sean Barrett" sean@epoptic.org wrote in message news:200504282019.j3SKJkT3030227@orwen.epoptic.com...
I think that, for the sort of cases outlined below, CheckUser could be used perhaps if the user themselves specifically said it would be OK.
ROTFL! It means that we should ask every sockpuppet for permission to check to see if he is a sockpuppet. :-D
If the sockpuppet is denying that it is a sockpuppet, it should be willing to give permission, ne?
So when the sockpuppet in question effectively dances just out of reach taunting you, what do you do?
"I'm not a sockpuppet, so you can take a hike!"
Or are you then going to introduce the offence of "refusing the non-mandatory sockpuppet test"?
No, then we're going to do what we do today.
-- Sean Barrett | Deceive the rich, but don't insult them. sean@epoptic.com |
Sean Barrett said:
I think that, for the sort of cases outlined below, CheckUser could be used perhaps if the user themselves specifically said it would be OK.
ROTFL! It means that we should ask every sockpuppet for permission to check to see if he is a sockpuppet. :-D
If the sockpuppet is denying that it is a sockpuppet, it should be willing to give permission, ne?
Not necessarily. Someone wrongly accused of being a sock puppet could well have objections to an IP check on grounds of privacy.
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Tony Sidaway wrote:
Sean Barrett said:
I think that, for the sort of cases outlined below, CheckUser could be used perhaps if the user themselves specifically said it would be OK.
ROTFL! It means that we should ask every sockpuppet for permission to check to see if he is a sockpuppet. :-D
If the sockpuppet is denying that it is a sockpuppet, it should be willing to give permission, ne?
Not necessarily. Someone wrongly accused of being a sock puppet could well have objections to an IP check on grounds of privacy.
But how would we know if they were wrongly accused or not, unless we check? And isn't that already covered by the privacy policy? It's not like they have a right to deny - anyone who edits Wikipedia should realise that they're playing Calvinball, and they're not Calvin - and many other website respect people's privacy far less than Wikipedia does. Anyway, with dynamic IPv4 and proxy servers, an IP can mean very little. AOL users are probably more anonymous than logged in users.
- -- Alphax GnuPG key: 0xF874C613 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis
Tony Sidaway stated for the record:
Sean Barrett said:
I think that, for the sort of cases outlined below, CheckUser could be used perhaps if the user themselves specifically said it would be OK.
ROTFL! It means that we should ask every sockpuppet for permission to check to see if he is a sockpuppet. :-D
If the sockpuppet is denying that it is a sockpuppet, it should be willing to give permission, ne?
Not necessarily. Someone wrongly accused of being a sock puppet could well have objections to an IP check on grounds of privacy.
There is a technical term for people who think they can use the Internet while keeping their IP addresses private.
Gerard Meijssen said:
Blanket policies that expect that an arbitration committee exists are stupid when there is no such thing.
Absolutely. This is why I refer to "the arbitration apparatus" and not specifically to an all-singing all-dancing arbitration committee--I'd be pretty surprised if any other WikiMedia project had reached the stage that it required the miniature court we have on en.
Denying the use of the tool results result in a situation does hurt a project.
Again I agree. At least one person on each Wiki should have the right to grant and revoke the right to use this feature.
Looking at a scroll of Recent Changes, I noticed that usage of the summary field has plummeted. I strongly recommend a simple change: making summaries mandatory for edits not checked as "minor". This is non-obtrusive and helpful. An example of a wiki that uses this feature is at http://www.technomanifestos.net.
The Cunctator wrote:
Looking at a scroll of Recent Changes, I noticed that usage of the summary field has plummeted. I strongly recommend a simple change: making summaries mandatory for edits not checked as "minor". This is non-obtrusive and helpful. An example of a wiki that uses this feature is at http://www.technomanifestos.net.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
The monobook.js file I'm using (derived from [[User:ABCD/monobook.js]] and [[User:Lupo/monobook.js]] has a Javascript alert for when the Edit Summary is left blank (or doesn't change for section editing).
Sounds like a good idea. Even if some people fill it with a single period, it will definitely increase the readability of RC. I admit to being a culprit; I often hit Alt-S without remembering to add an edit-summary. Perhaps we could make Alt-S move your focus to the summary field if it's empty, and only save if it's full?
This regular appearance of this suggestion inspired the newly-created Village Pump section for "perennial proposals". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28perennial_proposals%2...
SJ
On 4/28/05, The Cunctator cunctator@kband.com wrote:
Looking at a scroll of Recent Changes, I noticed that usage of the summary field has plummeted. I strongly recommend a simple change: making summaries mandatory for edits not checked as "minor". This is non-obtrusive and helpful. An example of a wiki that uses this feature is at http://www.technomanifestos.net.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Sj wrote:
Sounds like a good idea. Even if some people fill it with a single period, it will definitely increase the readability of RC. I admit to being a culprit; I often hit Alt-S without remembering to add an edit-summary. Perhaps we could make Alt-S move your focus to the summary field if it's empty, and only save if it's full?
This regular appearance of this suggestion inspired the newly-created Village Pump section for "perennial proposals". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28perennial_proposals%2...
SJ
On 4/28/05, The Cunctator cunctator@kband.com wrote:
Looking at a scroll of Recent Changes, I noticed that usage of the summary field has plummeted. I strongly recommend a simple change: making summaries mandatory for edits not checked as "minor". This is non-obtrusive and helpful. An example of a wiki that uses this feature is at http://www.technomanifestos.net.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Hoi, The more restrictions you put into place, the more you will find people reluctant to do something for you. When it is ESSENTIAL that you get specific information, you make it mandatory. But if this summary is a good idea, it is a much better idea to have compulsory license info with digital content. We do not even do that. Pictures without license info are deleted and some wonderfull people do a lot of good work to get this info. The extended descripton box is a lifesaver, it allows you to add these fields during upload time :)
Yes, there are perenial proposals and there must a good reason why most of these stay that way.
Thanks, GerardM
On 5/5/05, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, The more restrictions you put into place, the more you will find people reluctant to do something for you. When it is ESSENTIAL that you get specific information, you make it mandatory. But if this summary is a good idea, it is a much better idea to have compulsory license info with digital content. We do not even do that. Pictures without license info are deleted and some wonderfull people do a lot of good work to get this info. The extended descripton box is a lifesaver, it allows you to add these fields during upload time :)
There are already those that blindly revert many changes made by people they don't know with robot like efficiency.
If we make edit summaries mandatory, we'll just cause newbies to make something us... and as a result have less ability to discern experienced edits from new editors.
Actually, I agree that there's no need to make the poor editor's life harder.
The latest proposal on the VP was to auto-fill the summary box with some of the text of the edit... perhaps prefaced by a string that makes it clear that it is an auto-summary (so you can still tell it is a 'newbie', if that's what no summary told you before). This simply lets more information about the edit drift up to the RC and history views. This conceptual change is about improving the density of information provided by those views, not about forcing people to do anything.
SJ
On 5/5/05, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/5/05, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, The more restrictions you put into place, the more you will find people reluctant to do something for you. When it is ESSENTIAL that you get specific information, you make it mandatory. But if this summary is a good idea, it is a much better idea to have compulsory license info with digital content. We do not even do that. Pictures without license info are deleted and some wonderfull people do a lot of good work to get this info. The extended descripton box is a lifesaver, it allows you to add these fields during upload time :)
There are already those that blindly revert many changes made by people they don't know with robot like efficiency.
If we make edit summaries mandatory, we'll just cause newbies to make something us... and as a result have less ability to discern experienced edits from new editors. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On 5/5/05, Sj 2.718281828@gmail.com wrote:
Actually, I agree that there's no need to make the poor editor's life harder.
The latest proposal on the VP was to auto-fill the summary box with some of the text of the edit... perhaps prefaced by a string that makes it clear that it is an auto-summary (so you can still tell it is a 'newbie', if that's what no summary told you before). This simply lets more information about the edit drift up to the RC and history views. This conceptual change is about improving the density of information provided by those views, not about forcing people to do anything.
Or rather than changing summaries, which might actually be metadata useful for something in the future, we should make the places where we see lists of changes (history, RC, etc) show some of the change text itself.
Conceptually, this isn't much different from a summary. say we decide that 8-50 chars is a reasonable default summary length, and add text to shorter summaries. Some simple possible cases:
1) minor edit. one word changed, no summary. summary changed to read "'// word1 --> word2" 2) minor edit. a few words changed, summary 'typos'. summary changed to read "typos // word1 --> word2, word3 --> word4, ..." 3) major edit. a few sentences moved around. summary "rewrite". summary changed to read "rewrite // 'Start of first old changed para...' --> 'New paragraph...' "
Or rather than changing summaries, which might actually be metadata useful for something in the future, we should make the places where we see lists of changes (history, RC, etc) show some of the change text itself.
We could also add ways to see a larger chunk of changed text; this is just a simple suggestion for enhancing the current interface (and the metadata in the database)
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