[Foundation-l] Oversight rights

[Gregory Maxwell]

On 12/20/06, Jon Harald Søby <jhsoby at gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> oversight globallt, much like [[m:RfCU]]. However, since requests for
> oversighting will naturally be a lot more sensitive than requests for
> checkuser information,
[snip]

This is almost off-topic because it doesn't impact the main point of
your post, we still do need a way of dealing with oversight requests,
but I think this needs to be said:

Oversight can, with great annoyance, be undone. Oversight's only real
risk is causing misleading attribution, but the same thing is true of
deletion so long as your standard of misleading is focused on casual
readers rather admins (as it should be).

The effect of an inappropriate release of checkuser data is an
irreparable loss of privacy. I wouldn't go so far as saying that a
carelessly performed checkuser could be life threatening, since if
your life is on the line over any websites ability to protect your
privacy thats your mistake.. but it is clear that often the result of
a mistake made with checkuser data can not simply be undone.

As such I don't think we should get in the practice of considering
oversight a more sensitive privilege than checkuser.