[WikiEN-l] Editing with open proxies

[Slim Virgin]

On 6/18/07, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 6/18/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 6/18/07, John Lee <johnleemk at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Nevertheless, the pertinent issue
> > > is whether it is against policy to edit through open proxies.
> >
> > I think the most pressing issue is not the policy thing, but that
> > someone who wanted adminship was very keen to ensure that no one, not
> > even the Foundation, could find out anything about them. Not even the
> > location s/he edits from, or the ISP.
> >
> > Perhaps we should focus on that question: do we want any kind of
> > minimum accountability from admins, or do we not care who they are, or
> > that one person might easily be controlling multiple admin accounts?
> >
> > If we do want minimum accountability, how do we get it?  If we don't
> > want minimum accountability, are we willing to accept the consequences
> > e.g. that it's currently easy for a  banned or malicious user to get
> > adminship, not just once, but multiple times?
>
> I'd support requiring admins to provide their real identity to the
> foundation.

I'm not sure that would help, unless we're willing to employ
investigators to make sure people have faxed the Foundation the right
ID. And knowing that Admin A is called Bill Smith in real life doesn't
tell us whether he's a banned or malicious user.

As I see it, what we need to start doing as a minimum, is stop
promoting people who've spent a few months hitting revert every few
seconds. That kind of profile tells us nothing about the person, and
it's too easy to build up several accounts that way. And we need to
ditch the "it's no big deal" thing. It's not for us to decide that
it's "no big deal" when hurtful material deleted from Wikipedia ends
up on Wikitruth, just because the material's not about us. The
existence of Wikitruth is a direct consequence of the "it's no big
deal" mentality.