[WikiEN-l] SlimVirgin and CheckUser leaks

[Josh Gordon]

In what way is it an ethical violation to reveal the reason for a check?

On Sat, Jul 19, 2008 at 7:17 PM, Thatcher131 Wikipedia <
thatcher131 at gmail.com> wrote:

> > On 7/19/08, David Katz <dkatz2001 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> It certainly doesn't appear that SV was given this information so that
> she
> >>  could block or report the person on whom the CheckUser was run.
> Instead, it
> >>  appears that she was told so she could tip off the person.
> >
> > You've misunderstood what happened. I was told -- told, not "tipped
> > off" -- about the checkuser because I was one of the people Lar
> > checked. That is allowed under the policy.
> >
> >
>
> There are two issues here that I would like to comment on.
>
> First, on the issue of notification.  My personal approach is that if
> someone asks me, "Have I been checkusered," I will answer yes or no.
> I will not identify the checkuser, because I can not speak for why
> that checkuser ran the check, but I will offer to notify the checkuser
> that the editor in question would like to discuss the matter.  Then it
> is up to the checkuser who ran the check to decide whether or not to
> respond.  I think it would be pretty discourteous to the other
> checkuser to say directly, "Yes, you were checked by Smith" because
> that gets the editor angry at Smith without giving Smith a chance to
> explain the reason or context.
>
> Second, with respect to SlimVirgin and Lar.  Lar pretty much has his
> hands tied.  It would certainly be a breach of the privacy policy to
> discuss the results of the check, and it would be an ethical violation
> (if not a privacy violation) to discuss the reason for the check.  So
> his hands are tied; SlimVirgin can slag off on him publicly and he
> can't defend himself.  That's pretty low, and this is maybe the third
> time it has happened.  (Once before on checkuser-L and once at
> [[Wikipedia talk:Checkuser]].)  So I think it would be best for all
> concerned, if Slim believes that Lar is not trustworthy, that she make
> a formal request to Arbcom to consider the matter, and then keep it
> off the wiki.
>
> Thatcher
>
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