David Gerard wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 10/13/05, David Gerard <dgerard at
gmail.com> wrote:
>* Remember that a small number of the
developers (those who have
>access to the database) already have this power and use it. They
>control the horizontal, they control the vertical, they see all and
>know all — because they have to have complete control in order to
>administer a top-50 website. But they respect the privacy policy,
>because that's what you do as a sysadmin. The proposal is to extend
>access to just one power, so as to avoid a bottleneck of too few
>people for the job.
Do you really think there are people at other
top-50 websites with unlogged
and unfettered access to this sort of information?
If so, do you think they had to go through any background checks, and sign
a non-disclosure agreement?
It certainly *is* possible to set up a system so that *no single person*
can "see all and know all". I would hope all the other top-50 websites have
set up such a system.
You can either try to Taylorise the process of trusting people, or you
can get in people you trust. Sysadmins *could* do any destructive
thing they want. But they pretty much *don't*. I wonder why that is.
Most of them do not do anything wrong because anything they do can be
easily seen by ANYONE (sysops and non sysops).
And aside from deleting an image, everything they do can be reverted.
If they block, someone else can unblock
If they delete a page, someone else can undelete
If they protect a page, someone else can unprotect
Reversion of an admin action is actually done pretty frequently.
Also, some sysops make mistakes, but how many were ever unsysoped for
their errors ? Hardly any on the english wikipedia.
They pretty much do not do anything destructive, because they are
intelligent people who know not to do bad things AND because others can
revert what they do. So there can not be any destruction.
And this is why, nothing being definitive, few are punished. I am quite
sure that if their action were final, there will be more punishment.
What a check user can do can hardly be checked by anyone. And definitly
not by the common user, who have no idea of what is going on. So, how
could he complain ? Note that this is in favor of having more check user
editors.
Also, a check user can do destructing things, that no other check user
can restore. He can publish ips of an editor. And once the information
is known, nothing can be done to have people magically forgot the
information. It is OUT.
Note that anything a steward can do is visible by anyone as well (on
meta log), and can be reverted by anyone as well.
This is NOT the case of check user right now.
Usually it works that the sysadmins have the access
they need to keep
stuff working. Around here, where all day every day is a "WTF?!"
moment, the present process seems to work. I'm sure you can outline
many reasons why the present way of doing things is utterly broken and
can't possibly work in theory, never mind that it does in practice.
You don't actually know much about systems administration in practice, do you?
Actually, Karynn suggested all checkuser rightsholders should sign a NDA
with the Foundation. It could be a good idea...;
Anthere
- d.
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