[Foundation-l] Fwd: Jimbo's response re:Rampant CheckuserPrivacy Abuse

[Jimmy Wales]

Brian McNeil wrote:
> I have CheckUser on the English Wikinews, and I am glad to say I have never
> been pressured to carry out a check in secret. My opinion is that no
> undocumented CheckUser should be performed.

I disagree.  CheckUser should be used liberally with absolutely no 
implication that the user being checked is suspected of wrongdoing. 
Indeed, in many cases, the purpose of CheckUser is to *clear people*.

A checkuser who has confirmed that nothing is going wrong, need not 
mention it.  This is just routine work.

> Had this been done in secret then
> all the average user would have seen in RC was a months long block on an IP
> without knowing it had been verified to be a source of vandalism.

That's about giving an appropriate justification for a block, as opposed 
to being about doing CheckUser quietly.