[Foundation-l] checkuser

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

On 7/30/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/30/07, Casey Brown <cbrown1023 at comcast.net> wrote:
> > I agree that the Ombudsman committee are supposed to hear all privacy policy
> > violations, and that this includes things other than CheckUser.  The only
> > thing is, most of these disputes arise from a CheckUser, which is the most
> > public item on our list of possible privacy policy violations.
>
> Privacy policy violations are fairly difficult to cause without being
> checkuser, someone with server access, or a few other things.
>
> While oversight has privacy implications it's a corner case. Has
> anyone actually suspected that the use of oversight has *created* a
> privacy policy issue?   The primary risks of the use of oversight are
> not privacy related.
>
> Keep in mind that the privacy policy only covers the foundation's
> stewardship of non-public data.
>
> If you leak your IP by accidently editing while logged out and some
> unkind regular user maliciously spreads the information around, it
> would be a bad thing and, no doubt, a blockable offense on the jerk's
> part, as per the standards of our communities.... but it would not be
> a violation of the foundation privacy policy.
>

I think these are all very good points, which brings to my mind another
thought...

Would it be a good idea to create a less binding privacy page, perhaps
not even privacy guidelines, but maybe more on the lines of "privacy
best practises", to help those who have to deal with privacy issues
in the line of their wikiwork. This page would necessarily have to have
a notice printed large and bold at the top that the best practises are
not an entitlement, and that to defend the integrity of the wiki any
actions that are in line with the more closely phrased _policy_ will
be robustly taken, if absolutely essential. It has long been a pretty
fundamental tenet that whatever it takes to maintain the integrity of
the site, and deter malicious bad faith users from running over the
site, will be done, without compunction, and will be done in a fashion
that denies those users any advantage or gain that can reasonably
be thwarted.


--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]