[WikiEN-l] Editing with open proxies

[Ray Saintonge]

Slim Virgin wrote:

>On 6/16/07, K P <kpbotany at gmail.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>Possibly I would be more concerned about the TOR account if I knew
>>more about it.  But I can't be too concerned about them when Charlotte
>>was allowed to edit with it for the many times it was seen by numerous
>>people with check user powers that Charlotte had one.
>>    
>>
>There's a lot of unclear thinking about this issue. The people raising
>a lot of the objections to Tor being banned are the same ones who
>regularly complain about admin abuse, but suddenly they don't care
>about electing an admin who wants to make sure that no one --
>including the Foundation -- is able to find out anything about them.
>Why would an admin want to hide their identity even from the
>Foundation?
>
I suppose that if the Foundation has the need to know this about any 
particular user (including admins) the starting place would be to simply 
ask.  Apart from that there appears to be very little need for such 
information to be known.  The onus is upon those seeking that 
information to show a need.  It doesn't surprise me that those who 
regularly complain about admin abuse would be the ones objecting in this 
issue; I guess it also correlates with perceptiveness.  Those who by 
innuendo suggest that any proxy user necessarily does so to harm the 
project are indeed guilty of unclear thinking.

>You have to ask yourself whether you care if (a) one person is running
>four admin accounts that are being used to back each other up; 
>
Did CW do this?

>(b) that person manages to get one or more of them elected to ArbCom; 
>
Did CW do this?

>(c) that person is copying deleted material and posting it on other
>websites; 
>
Did CW do this?

>(d) that person gets access to checkuser and oversight,
>meaning they can see where other editors are posting from, and can
>read even the most sensitive deleted material.
>
I thought that CW was only seeking to be an admin.  When did checkuser 
and oversight become tools that are available to all admins?

>If you don't care about any of the above, by all means allow admins to
>use open proxies. All they currently have to do is fax a copy of their
>drivers license to the Foundation if elected to ArbCom and given
>access to check user, 
>
I'm sure that if CW wants these privileges she will take that into account.

>but it's a trivial matter to fax a friend's ID
>instead, so that's no security at all.
>
Do you have any statistics to show how many people have done this?

>The one solid thing the Foundation has is the ability to at least see
>where an admin is posting from, and their ISP, and in the event of
>serious abuse, it can act on the basis of that information.
>
What kind of abuse are you talking about?  An admin who abuses that 
privilege can be desysopped.  What more is needed?  Similarly a person 
whos abuses checkuser privileges by improperly revealing information 
should have that privilege withdrawn.  The higher the privileges a 
person has, the more serious a breach of those privileges.  Failing to 
act when a high profile person has done so only diminishes the respect 
for that position.

>Without that, for all we know, we could have 100 admins with 1200
>accounts administering this website. The only question that matters
>here is: do you care about that?
>
I would care about it if there was a reasonable apprehension that it was 
happening.  Are you seriously suggesting that we are anywhere near to 
having only 100 admins doing all this?  Or even only 1000?  Who even has 
the time to maintain so many accounts? Do you honestly think that such a 
state of things could happen without being noticed?  Please avoid 
substituting your paranoia for facts.

Ec