[Foundation-l] CheckUser (thoughts)

[James D. Forrester]

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Anthere wrote:

[Snip "CheckUser is a bit of a mess"]

> I plead guilty for part of this.

I don't think that it's fair to blame anyone in particular for a
possibly non-optimal situation; certainly, what with your sterling work
getting an agreeable, if not perfect, policy in place, we would have
been in a much worse position without you. :-)

> I also think the arbcom of last summer 
> has a responsability in this, since it was asking for the arbcom to have 
> access, regardless of technical ability of its members.

I disagree with this; we said that we had one or two members who were
(far) more than sufficiently expert to be able to carry out the
analysis, and that it would be more sensible to have them carry it out
directly, rather than via the developers in the scant few moments they
weren't busy doing their fantastic work running the sites.

> And for what is 
> worth, I think Jimbo also has a responsability in this, since he himself 
> decided all english arbcom members would have access.

Except, err, we don't all have access; we chose who on our project has
both a sufficient (very great) level of trust, and also sufficient
technical expertise (or the willingness and aptitude to improve their
skills in this area a little). For example, I have elected not to have
access to the tool (though more for reasons of time).

> Then, there was a third mistake I think (it is not an accusation, just 
> an analysis). It was to make a tool dividing projects and languages. 
> Originally, we had a common set of volunteers to help us all. And this 
> was good. I am pretty sure some people did not know Brion intimately 
> enough to *trust* him, but they were told he was fine by people they 
> trusted, and they went to ask him with no fear. And Jimbo had no fear 
> either.
>
> Now, people have checkuser status only on one project/one language. Just 
> as if Brion had help ip checking on the french wiktionary, whilst Tim 
> was dedicated to the english wikipedia and Taw to the polish wikibooks. 
> It makes NO sense whatsoever. The *only* unigue advantage of the current 
> system is to understand the language of the project the checkuser make 
> the job.

I agree, this is indeed a problem.

[Snip]

> What that suggest me is this
> 
> We should not have checkusers with the tool access on a one project/one 
> language, but a POOL of COMMON checkusers. Those should all have good 
> technical abilities. Those would have access everywhere. They would be 
> listed on meta with their language ability. The biggest projects would 
> be used to always ask to their favorites. The small languages will try 
> to find the one with a basic knowledge of their language if they wish.
> 
> But all in all, checkusers should be a common good, just as our 
> developers right now are (and, hell, just as your board members are).

I think that this solution has some merit, but there exists the tricky
problem of language - if one does not read Russian, then no matter how
accurate and wide one's technical knowledge is, there is no point being
asked to carry out CheckUser checks on people. It isn't merely about
technical proficiency, but about judgement of editing patterns, of
style, and of content. This is something that is definitely
language-specific.

Yours sincerely,
- --
James D. Forrester
Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
E-Mail    : james at jdforrester.org
IM (MSN)  : jamesdforrester at hotmail.com
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