[Foundation-l] spamming of the english wikipedia users detected

[Andrew Gray]

On 03/07/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>
> >We could possibly supplement an early delivered email which will reach
> >people who do not log in every day, with a dynamic notice that appears
> >on a non-cached page, such as watchlists, which says "You are eligible
> >to vote in the board election, but you have not done so yet."  I think
> >the biggest complication with that will be making it not show when
> >someone has voted from another project... I guess this will just be
> >something else we put off while waiting for SUL.
> >
> What I find most disturbing in this is that someone, other than the
> people who are independently running the election, should have access to
> records of who has and who hasn't voted

https://wikimedia.spi-inc.org/index.php/Special:Boardvote/list

I believe we call this "a feature". This has been done before without
outcry, I note.

One major reason behind it, as I recall, is the "no banned editors"
rule - only the local community can really provide oversight on who is
a legitimate voter in this manner - and to help people spot people
voting from different wikis. Identical usernames will be easy to spot,
but to find someone who goes by multiple names is impractical for the
election counters alone.

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk