On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 8:06 PM, Dominic McDevitt-Parks <[email protected]>wrote:
> I think the idea that making the log of checks public will necessarily be > a service to those subject to CheckUser is misguided. One of the best > reasons for keeping the logs private is not security through obscurity but > the prevention of unwarranted stigma and drama. Most checks (which aren't > just scanning a vandal or persistent sockpuppeteer's IP for other accounts) > are performed because there is some amount of uncertainty. Not all checks > are positive, and a negative result doesn't necessarily mean the check was > unwarranted. I think those who have been checked without a public request > deserve not to have suspicion cast on them by public logs if the check did > not produce evidence of guilt. At the same time, because even justified > checks will often upset the subject, the CheckUser deserves to be able to > act on valid suspicions without fear of retaliation. The community doesn't > need the discord that a public log would generate. That's not to say that > there should be no oversight, but that a public log is not the way to do it. > > > Dominic > The threat of stigma can be ameliorated by not making the logs public, which was never suggested. A simple system notification of "The data you provide to the Wikimedia web servers has been checked by a checkuser on this project, see [[wp:checkuser]] for more information" would be enough. En Pine's reply to my queries seems calibrated for someone who is unfamiliar with SPI and checkuser work. I'm not - in fact I worked as a clerk with checkusers at SPI for a long time and am quite familiar with the process and its limitations. I know what's disclosed, approximately how frequently checks are run, the general proportion of checks that are public vs. all checks, etc. I still am not clear on how disclosing the fact of a check helps socks avoid detection, and I still believe that it's worthwhile for a transparent organization like Wikimedia to alert users when their private information (information that is, as Risker has mentioned, potentially personally identifying) has been disclosed to another volunteer. Nathan _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
