On Dec 12, 2007 8:59 AM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Anthony wrote:
Do you want to force contributors to Wikipedia to use their real names? If not, then I really don't think you want this.
I would not support that. However, I can not help thinking that the rather ugly atmosphere that developped on enwiki is largely due to the very large and uncontrolled use of the checkuser tool by a minority. When one gives specific tools to a person, that's creates a power lever which may be used to grab bits of power. Which is more or less what is happening, much to the dismay of those who do not have that power.
I very much agree with this. Though maybe we're talking about it on the wrong list.
There are several possibilities to fix that.
Either the use of the tool is much more widely made possible, increasing the check and balances (and thus reducing risks of abuse). Eg, giving the tool to all admins.
Or on the contrary, limiting the use of the tool by reducing number of people with access, strengthening the rules, and applying the rules strictly (in short, in case of abuse, removing access rather than simply whining).
In the limit of this idea, only giving access to WMF employees, and only then giving them access from within the office.
Or dividing strategy (which seems a good idea anyway), to flatten the roles and responsabilities (eg, a checkuser can not be oversight; an arbcom member can not be steward; or even a checkuser can not be arbcom)
I doubt that would help, as you can't stop people in the different roles from talking to each other.
Removing the tool entirely and making ip of registered users, public info
Making it mandatory to publicly log checkusers actions
Not sure how that would work, as the actions of checkusers often reveals the results.
Other options ?
Unblocking Tor and anonymizing proxies, thereby making checkuser relatively useless.