[Wikimedia-l] CheckUser openness

[Nathan]

On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 4:07 PM, John <phoenixoverride at gmail.com> wrote:

> I am not asking for full disclosure, what I am asking is that established
> user have the right to be notified when and why they are being checkusered.
> The evidence checkusers get do not need to be disclosed, Its as simple as:
>
>  X performed a checkuser on you because Y at Z UTC
>
> that provides clarity and openness while keeping the information checkusers
> use confidential. A note like that would provide vandals with very little
> information. And the second step of defining a threshold would eliminate
> most of the vandal checks.
>
> To me this screams of lets keep oversight of checkuser to a minimum. Right
> now there is the ombudsman committee globally (to ask for review from them
> we need evidence, realistically only other checkusers can provide that)
> and on enwp there is the Audit Subcommittee, which 75% of are either arbcom
> members (be defacto are granted CU ), former arbcom, or former CU. To me
> that really reeks of lack of independent oversight. Notifying an
> established user that they are subject to a CU doesnt harm the CU's ability
> to do their job unless they themselves have something to hide. Its not like
> I am asking for CU's to release IP addresses/user-agents or anything else
> that could assist me in avoiding scrutiny.
>

Don't even need to go that far - just say "A checkuser viewed the
information stored by the web server about you, this information may
include [[xyz list if informations]]."