[WikiEN-l] the elephant in the room

[Ray Saintonge]

Slim Virgin wrote:

>On 6/17/07, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
>  
>
>>The problem is that Wikipedia, for better or worse, has an inquisitorial system, with all the dangers such a system presents. We need to limit our investigations to harmful activities. Harmful activities cause harm, observable trouble. An administrator who uses open proxies but does not engage in vandalism or sockpuppetry is not producing observable trouble.
>>
>>Fred
>>    
>>
>Fred, a banned user could cause a lot of trouble if he got elected to
>ArbCom using open proxies and a concocted admin account, built up
>easily by doing lots of vandalism reverting. There has to be some
>minimal accountability with admins, in part because they can be
>elected to these positions, and in part because they can cause big
>problems even without these extra powers.
>
"Could" is what paranoia is built on.  How many such banned users have 
ever been elected to Arbcom?  How many have even come close?  Since you 
say that such a person would build up his account with lots of vandalism 
reverting, maybe the rule should be that a person with too much 
(whatever too much is) vandalism reverting should not be eligible for 
Arbcom because they would have a clear prosecutorial bias.  At least 
such activity would be more revealing than simply using an open proxy 
for ordinary edits.

>The concern with CW was in part the use of proxies, in part the low
>level of content contribution, and in part his/her unwillingness to
>explain, even by e-mail, why s/he was using open proxies. It's this
>last point that has attracted a lot of the opposition on the RfA. All
>in all, it added up to a worrying picture.
>
Sometimes when you begin by accusing someone of wrongdoing, and 
everybody starts shouting "WHY?" in her ear, clamming up is the 
preferred strategy.  One possible parallel in US law is Miranda rights.

Ec