Re: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 60, Issue 34

On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 2:29 PM, <wikien-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org> wrote: [Sigh] Let's try this again. The privacy policy covers *release* of non-public information. Complaints that someone peeped when they shouldn't have do not involve the privacy policy so long as the information is never released. After lengthy discussion on the checkuser mailing list, the current ombudsman commission came to the conclusion that they did not have jurisdiction over complaints that did not involve actual release of information. In part, this is due to their inability to properly assess different community standards of privacy; the privacy expectations on some wikis are much stricter than others, due to cultural differences. The ombudsman commission is a Foundation-level body and deals with the Privacy Policy as it applies to all wikis. Since the privacy policy discusses *release* of information as opposed to just checking, the ombudsman commission have decided to interpret their mandate in this narrow way. Certainly, abuse of checkuser is possible; it is possible that checkuser is abused for political reasons, to gain leverage in content disputes, or for any other nefarious reason you can think of. On enwiki, since arbcom grants checkuser, arbcom has jurisdiction (*and I think a responsibility) to investigate complaints of misuse. Certainly Arbcom censured Jayjg for his checkuser-related disclosures involving CharlotteWeb, even though the case did not involve the ombudsman (because the disclosure that she used Tor did not disclose any private information such as her real IP address or location). The dispute between Lar and SlimVirgin has aspects of both, but as far as I know, neither the ombudsman commission nor arbcom has actually received a formal complaint. Thatcher