[WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee members granted checkuser tool

[Alphax (Wikipedia email)]

BJörn Lindqvist wrote:
> Hi Anthere
> 
> 
>>Checks should be done only on accounts doing abusive edits to Wikipedia
>>(vandalism, insults, spam, defaming etc...)
> 
>  > If checks are done without any relevant reasons related to abuse, then
> 
>>those checks are abusive and the person with the checkuser access should
>>(will) lose it.
> 
> 
> Just like admins wrongfully blocking accounts are also supposed to
> have their admin status revoked? Please realize that the two actions
> have very different worst cases.
> 
> Blocking: Worst case: You do not get to write in Wikipedia for a while.
> 
> IP Checking: Worst case: Someone who doesn't like you get your ip
> checked, calls your ISP and talks with a clueless receptionist who
> reveals your real life name. That person then publishes your name
> somewhere. Your boss who happens to also be a Wikipedia user finds out
> about it and fires you because s/he think your political stuff you've
> written on Wikipedia suck. So some brat on WIkipedia cost you your
> employment.
> 

Given the severe lack of static IPs that still exist, and the number of
ISPs who now pool subscribers together into regional proxies, an IP is
no longer the "personal" thing that it might once have been.

-- 
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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