Anthony wrote:
On Dec 12, 2007 1:45 AM, Florence Devouard
<Anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
I wonder if we might not argue that making this
data private made
somewhat more damages to the tissu of the community than if the data had
been kept public. Legally speaking, it weakens our case. It goes against
the principles of transparency and responsibility that we like to put
upfront. It simplifies defense strategy against vandals and sockpuppets.
It avoids power grabs (or perception there of) by the few members who
succeed to get access to the data.
I am looking for some arguments to keep it private. Others than "well,
this is the default behavior".
As long as it's made tremendously clear to everyone, before they post,
I'm all for it. But it needs to be made really really clear. Not
"oh, we mentioned it in our privacy policy" or "there's a message at
the bottom of the edit page". More like spelling it out in BIG BOLD
LETTERS and making people check a box saying "yes, I understand"
before they can ever post again.
The argument against it would be, as Erik suggested, but as I'll
rephrase, that it would mean that it'd be incredibly difficult to post
with any significant degree of anonymity. But personally I'd see that
as a good thing. I'd also support a policy requiring real names.
Do you want to force contributors to Wikipedia to use their real
names? If not, then I really don't think you want this.
I would not support that.
However, I can not help thinking that the rather ugly atmosphere that
developped on enwiki is largely due to the very large and uncontrolled
use of the checkuser tool by a minority.
When one gives specific tools to a person, that's creates a power lever
which may be used to grab bits of power. Which is more or less what is
happening, much to the dismay of those who do not have that power.
There are several possibilities to fix that.
Either the use of the tool is much more widely made possible, increasing
the check and balances (and thus reducing risks of abuse). Eg, giving
the tool to all admins.
Or on the contrary, limiting the use of the tool by reducing number of
people with access, strengthening the rules, and applying the rules
strictly (in short, in case of abuse, removing access rather than simply
whining).
Or dividing strategy (which seems a good idea anyway), to flatten the
roles and responsabilities (eg, a checkuser can not be oversight; an
arbcom member can not be steward; or even a checkuser can not be arbcom)
Removing the tool entirely and making ip of registered users, public info
Making it mandatory to publicly log checkusers actions
Other options ?
Ant