[WikiEN-l] A modest proposal

[Casey Brown]

On 8/13/07, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> On 8/13/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 13/08/07, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
> > > OK, but barring that event (say the person had a static IP), there's
> > > pretty much a consensus that a checkuser who found out such
> > > information and never revealed it had broken checkuser policy (but not
> > > privacy policy), right?
> >
> >
> > I suspect it's the sort of thing that would make the other checkers
> > wonder what the hell they thought they were playing at. Do you have a
> > specific example in mind? In real life, carefully-worded theoreticals
> > are much harder to talk about than actual examples.
> >
> >
> I'll simplify the question, then.  Are checkusers allowed to checkuser
> a user that isn't clearly violating policy?  Is doing so a violation
> of the checkuser policy?


"The tool is to be used to fight vandalism, to check for sockpuppet abuse,
and to limit disruption of the project. It must be used only to prevent
damage to one or several of Wikimedia projects." is how the the checkuser
policy is formulated.  As long as it fits into that statement (which is not
very constricting), it is not a violation of the privacy policy.  If a
CheckUser believes you to be disrupting the project, vandalising, or abusing
multiple accounts, (s)he can do a check as they see fit.

Is it a violation of the privacy policy?


No, the privacy policy is only talking about *releasing* this information to
the public or other users (in the "Policy on release of data derived from
page logs" section).  The privacy policy does not explicitly state when a
CheckUser can be run, just that it may be run and that it is allowed under
the privacy policy.  The CheckUser policy (which I replied to above) is
where you would look for that.

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-- 
Casey Brown
Cbrown1023

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