On Dec 12, 2007 8:59 AM, Florence Devouard <Anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
Anthony wrote:
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.
I very much agree with this. Though maybe we're talking about it on
the wrong list.
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).
In the limit of this idea, only giving access to WMF employees, and
only then giving them access from within the office.
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)
I doubt that would help, as you can't stop people in the different
roles from talking to each other.
Removing the tool entirely and making ip of registered
users, public info
Making it mandatory to publicly log checkusers actions
Not sure how that would work, as the actions of checkusers often
reveals the results.
Other options ?
Unblocking Tor and anonymizing proxies, thereby making checkuser
relatively useless.