Anthony wrote:
On Dec 12, 2007 1:45 AM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
I wonder if we might not argue that making this data private made somewhat more damages to the tissu of the community than if the data had been kept public. Legally speaking, it weakens our case. It goes against the principles of transparency and responsibility that we like to put upfront. It simplifies defense strategy against vandals and sockpuppets. It avoids power grabs (or perception there of) by the few members who succeed to get access to the data.
I am looking for some arguments to keep it private. Others than "well, this is the default behavior".
As long as it's made tremendously clear to everyone, before they post, I'm all for it. But it needs to be made really really clear. Not "oh, we mentioned it in our privacy policy" or "there's a message at the bottom of the edit page". More like spelling it out in BIG BOLD LETTERS and making people check a box saying "yes, I understand" before they can ever post again.
The argument against it would be, as Erik suggested, but as I'll rephrase, that it would mean that it'd be incredibly difficult to post with any significant degree of anonymity. But personally I'd see that as a good thing. I'd also support a policy requiring real names.
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.
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).
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)
Removing the tool entirely and making ip of registered users, public info
Making it mandatory to publicly log checkusers actions
Other options ?
Ant