[WikiEN-l] Jayjg: Abusing CheckUser for political ends?

[Gracenotes]

On 6/15/07, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/15/07, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> >
> > Jayjg wrote:
> > > On 6/15/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > This policy would not allow a checkuser on CharlotteWebb
> > >
> > > As explained on the RFA, CharlotteWebb came to my attention while I
> was
> > > investigating other abuses and abusers. His/her name kept showing up
> on
> > the
> > > list of editors every time a TOR proxy was involved...
> >
> > Okay, but part of the trust that's involved in a tool like
> > checkuser is *not* paying attention to (let alone revealing)
> > stuff you accidentally notice while investigating something else.
>
>
> Except when it might become relevant to the protection of the project.
>
> If I'm a system administrator who has access to everyone's
> > mailbox, for example, and while investigating some mailbox
> > corruption I happen to notice a confidential email indicating
> > that an acquaintance of mine is screwing his sister-in-law,
> > I'm really supposed to keep that to myself.
>
>
> And what if you happen to notice that someone is using the e-mail system
> to
> send the blueprints of your latest product to your competitor? Are you
> supposed to keep that to yourself as well?
>

Hopefully anyone's ethics-meter would go off there. Not to say anything
about the ethics involved in stopping an otherwise adept and dedicated
contributor from gaining the adminship, starting a moral panic by baselessly
associating the contributor with malicious sockpuppets, and another item
that I won't mention because it would mean assuming bad faith and possibly
poisoning the well.

I certainly follow the policy, but it's not my favorite one.