Wikipedia talk:Requests for checkusership/Archive 1

Though I see this failing, I have to say that the "25 vote" thing seems an unnecessarily arbitrary number. If some user has 100 opposes and 126 supports, one should not logically grant said user checkuser authority. A majority by percentage is a far more reasonable idea. — Trust not the Penguin (T | C) 00:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is steward policy to give the right to users with 25 or more votes. Of course, this can be an exception here. Majorly (talk) 00:13, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Only in cases where there is no local Arbitration Committee (see [1]). Mackensen (talk) 00:15, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hence this proposal. Majorly (talk) 00:16, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We have an Arbitration Committee. Mackensen (talk) 00:16, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh no kidding :) Hence, this proposal to remove the need for arbcom to decide over this. Majorly (talk) 00:17, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Then you'll need to slug it out on meta. Mackensen (talk) 00:18, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Making exception for one wiki, this one, is best done on its own wiki, don't you think? Majorly (talk) 00:21, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent)I've no particular opinion on this proposal one way or another yet, but what benefits does Arbcom deciding who gets checkuser bring to the project, and what benefits would a community procedure such as this bring. What are the downsides of both methods of granting checkuser. It might be useful for a checkuser, retired Arbitrator and CU Ombudsmen to give us all a bit of an overview on this. Nick (talk) 00:21, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I sense I'm being put on the spot, although Rebecca (talk · contribs) also fits that description. First, from a purely practical standpoint, this isn't an issue that can be resolved here--checkuser policy is Foundation-wide, not local. This is all academic. Since you asked, though, the Arbitration Committee appoints users based a few criteria: technical know-how, trustworthiness, and availability. We/they want people who are around a lot, who know the job, and who are known to at least some of the arbs who can vouch for the candidate's character. Given the massive potential for abuse, it has always made sense to keep checkuser "close," as it were. The same principles, minus the technical knowledge, govern oversight. I don't see what benefits could be realized from an open-style confirmation; the community can barely promote a bureaucrat, the fights over checkuser would be terrifying. Some things simply should not be a popularity contest. Mackensen (talk) 00:27, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We can sort things out, both on meta and here, depending on how this goes. At the very least I've taken off the proposal tag, so folks can think things over quietly first, without having to fight :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 00:28, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wow - David Gerard (talk) 00:12, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

More like wish for accountability and community confidence. Majorly (talk) 00:16, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

More like you're annoyed that we didn't have a particularly high opinion of your objections to Thatcher receiving checkuser privileges. Why not just ask the community if it has confidence in Thatcher? Your timing is highly suspect. Or, rather, highly obvious. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 00:29, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please keep all comments constructive. I didn't ask for Thatcher to leak private IRC logs. Majorly (talk) 00:38, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nor did he, your protests to the contrary. Mackensen (talk) 00:48, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please try to make your wording less insulting in future, I find it offensive. Thanks, Majorly (talk) 00:51, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing in that comment is offensive. I'm stating that I believe your assertion to be wrong, and that I find your repeated assertions thereof to be misguided and harmful. Mackensen (talk) 00:55, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps stop talking to me like a piece of dirt? Thanks, Majorly (talk) 00:57, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea what you're talking about. Mackensen (talk) 01:03, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Checkuser is in the gift of Arbcom. Mackensen (talk) 00:12, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean? Majorly (talk) 00:14, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

[2]. Mackensen (talk) 00:16, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you haven't read the proposal: it's eliminating the need for arbcom. Majorly (talk) 00:18, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It can't. That decision is not up to the community. The Foundation has a clear policy and we must abide by it. This is a completely different issue from consultation. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 00:21, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Link? Majorly (talk) 00:24, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My mistake. Has it changed or did I always have it wrong? Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 00:32, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See FT2's proposal below. Also, I've taken the page out of proposal process, at least to give us more time to think.

Whatever the case, at the very least community input can always be useful for arbcom, perhaps we can set something up? :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 00:26, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There was input given in this situation that caused the proposal, but we did not agree with the conclusion of the person objecting. FloNight (talk) 00:30, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

*Nod* not all input is valid or useful, but it's important to allow for input, as a lot of input is useful, or has useful elements. And so I think it's cool that at least that person did give input. :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 01:19, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As proposed does not address the needs to make sure that users are well vetted for knowledge. And 25 votes of support is way off the mark. FloNight (talk) 00:19, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agree, made some changes already. See also below :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 00:20, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I honestly do not think that CU access consensus discussion scales with a wiki as large as Wikipedia English. FloNight (talk) 00:27, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't agree entirely with Majorly's proposal as written, but the goals are actually not too bad. I've taken off the proposal tag to give us more time to think about an appropriate mechanism.

I'd like to encourage strong (self) selection, so that only few people get nommed at any time. I think a full discussion of a user has merit, if done correctly. So that's the edits that I've made so far. Let's see if we can work on the page a bit more, and see if we can get something useful out of it.

Community input and community oversight are -in themselves- not bad objectives, after all.

--Kim Bruning (talk) 00:19, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not opposed to communal discussion and identification of any concerns that may exist; but I don't think this specific approach addresses the need well.

Since there is never a need to rush a CU or OS appointment, maybe this would be better:

"Users who are anticipated to be given checkuser or oversight access, and whom Arbcom are willing to authorize such, should be named to the community as such, and a period of (5? 7? 10?) days allowed for public or private submissions of any third party comments."

(Sole exception: - new arbcom appointees, who are given these ex officio as part of their need to do their job properly, and whom will have been very carefully considered by the community and Jimbo before appointment. A separate period to check views, given there was likely an election 1-2 weeks beforehand, is redundant.)

This may be a more viable way. Input is rarely a bad thing. There is potential for drama, but I don't expect that to be a problem really. The same could be said for RfB, and that works smoothly. In general I'd expect CU/OS appointees to generally be editors that enjoy a wide degree of communal respect/trust, hence not usually much drama if their names are checked by the community. Just there's no need for "why not User:X?" type posts :)

Thoughts. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 00:20, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We're still editing, ne? Try it on for size and see if it looks pretty! :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 00:21, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd disagree with the respect element, I can think of administrators I respect immensely but who I wouldn't trust with sensitive information and completely the opposite. It's trust that's crucial here, not popularity nor respect. Nick (talk) 00:24, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Respect/trust. Agree, but the point is, people being considered probably wont be the kind that drama exists around, very often. Edited to clarify lest it be unclear, though :) Thanks. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 00:29, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's obviously true that many other wikimedia communities elect their own CheckUsers, the problem here is, we are far bigger than they are. CheckUsers should be trusted members of the community, be respected by their fellow wikipedians and have the required skills to carry out the job effectively. Putting this to a community vote is just looking for trouble - it turns it into a popularity contest, with most popular getting the tool, who quite probably aren't the users that are going to use the tool the best way we could hope for. The method that works the best is by ArbCom selecting our CU's - they are a small group of people who are able to thoroughly vet people for their appropriatness, in a neutral manner and are therefore far more likely to choose the best candidates, not neccessarily the most popular. I would possibly suggest that a couple of days before the flag is set, ArbCom post to a noticeboard so if there were any serious concerns brought about a candidate, they could be aired pre-flagging, but apart from that, we should stick the system that has got us some very good CU's in the past. Ryan Postlethwaite 00:24, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I honestly do not think that CU access consensus discussion scales with a wiki as large as Wikipedia English. FloNight (talk) 00:27, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, and have told Majorly as much. We need to figure out more robust mechanisms for this kind of thing.--Kim Bruning (talk) 00:30, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The present system works just fine, barring sour grapes. Put another way, the system accomplishes the task of furnishing us with checkusers who get the job done without abusing the tool. Mackensen (talk) 00:35, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Let's hope our latest appointment doesn't leak anything else then! :) Majorly (talk) 00:38, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd agree, the present system works, but it's far from ideal, it relies on Arbcom noticing a user who they think would make a good checkuser and correctly guessing they know what they're doing, won't leak CU data and won't leave a week on Tuesday. There are hundreds of good administrators out there who meet the Arbitration Committee's publicly mentioned requirements but presumable because they're not interacting with the committee all the time, they will never be noticed, despite possibly having as good a need for Checkuser, oversight or both as any present Checkuser. The present system isn't bad, it's just not good. It just doesn't get tools for those people who might need them, could use them and so on. It might be sensible for the committee to go through the entire list of administrators, find users who could use the tools and even if it means promoting another 20 or 100 checkusers, do so. Regular promotions and removal of permissions for inactive users gets rid of this idea that it's a closed, elitist group. Nick (talk) 00:51, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that anything can be improved. :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 00:43, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good point, nick. There are indeed going to be users who are worth serious respect and trust (above the norm for admins) but are not well known in admin circles. Question is, how would one identify them? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 01:28, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know the answer to that, I was going to suggest that Arbcom perhaps asks users who could use Checkuser and/or Oversight to e-mail with a little statement, and whilst it might help, it relies on interested parties noticing any announcement and there's admins who wouldn't notice if the Main Page was deleted for a month, let alone spot an announcement somewhere. Plucking administrators from the list of admins would be good too, but there's almost 1500 to choose from and there's all sorts of problems with that, is the user over 18, would they identify to the Foundation and so on, let alone Arbcom not having the time to look through the contributions of most of our admins. Nick (talk) 08:58, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As a note, users do contact Arbcom now and then asking for checkuser. Mackensen (talk) 01:30, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, this was probably a bad way to go about things. However, my concerns about behind the scenes appointments haven't gone away. I agree, mostly with Ryan's comments above in that ArbCom should post to a noticeboard that they intend to give extra rights to somebody (anyone not in arbcom). I'd suggest 5 days prior, and give the opportunity for users to contact the mailing list with any concerns they may have. ArbCom should consider all concerns, if any and give feedback to the community about it. The situation is, that suddenly there's a new checkuser/oversight among us, and no one has had a chance to give any concern they may have had about the said user, and that isn't good. Thoughts? Majorly (talk) 00:36, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is a reasonably fair comment, I came to a similar conclusion above. Note the feedback may be limited to none (or private) if some matters are privacy related etc. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 00:39, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As one of those very people who appeared without warning, I endorse your suggestion here, too. At the very least, a message to WP:AN by ArbCom would be appropriate on the imminent appointing of a new checkuser - Alison ^❤ 00:42, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have noted that I will post a note on the administrators' noticeboard inviting comment if we consider people for CheckUser in the future, but ultimately the decision does remain with us. --Deskana (talk) 00:45, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent :) - Alison ^❤ 00:47, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think keeping it all a secret is at all positive? Anyhow, it is lucky I am active on Meta, where requests are made. If a bad decision is made again, I will of course know about it. But I worry for other users who may have issues, and how arbcom are deliberately preventing the community from knowing until the last minute. Majorly (talk) 00:49, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Again"?? - Alison ^❤ 00:58, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, again. Why do think I initiated this? Majorly (talk) 00:58, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Because it sounds like it could make useful policy? Either way, I wasn't aware that ArbCom had made a decision recently, bad or otherwise. Are you referring to my own case, BTW? - Alison ^❤ 01:02, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

He's pissed off that we appointed Thatcher (talk · contribs), based on his belief that Thatcher "leaked" IRC logs and whatnot. The Arbitration Committee did not agree that such an event had taken place, and believed that Thatcher acted appropriately. Hence here we are. Mackensen (talk) 01:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oops! You're wrong. I'm not pissed off as such. More concerned that ArbCom prefers to make decisions the community should know about behind our backs. It seems to me that the community is not thought of as "good enough" to get to know about this sort of thing. Majorly (talk) 01:17, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sure you're not. In the interests of transparency, perhaps your correspondence with Arbcom should be laid on the table (with your permission). The Arbitration Committee is entrusted by the community to undertake certain tasks. This is one of them. Checkuser appointments will not be made or unmade on the basis of an ill-considered grudge. Mackensen (talk) 01:22, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What does permission mean to you then? Even if I said no, would it matter? Majorly (talk) 01:25, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, actually, it would. If you're disavowing your earlier note then that's fine, but you can't expect arbs and ex-arbs to enter into this discussion without bearing it in mind. Mackensen (talk) 01:29, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) There does need to be a period of time after a proposal gets traction, to put the proposed decision into public discussion and have a chance for individuals to consider their feelings, and to be made aware of any comments (positive or otherwise) that may come up. If the appointment's a good one there should be no real surprises of any significance to the matter. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 01:03, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Alison, it would not make useful policy. His Lordships David Gerard, Mackensen and Jpgordon don't like it, so that's how it'll be :) Alison, you are clearly not the user I am talking about. I would have said so whilst congratulating you otherwise :) Majorly (talk) 01:05, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You've got some nerve to make a comment like that after complaining about my tone above. Mackensen (talk) 01:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Majorly - whatever your personal upset, theres a need for good faith here. "Arbcom are deliberately preventing" is not representative (it's not been a norm. That can change, but there was no "deliberate" in it per se), and calling others like above sarcastic names isn't helpful. Maybe we can we stick to the subject, not drift off to unhelpful areas that can only cause upset? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 01:23, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just rumbling on from some comments above, which I shall refrain from repeating in such pleasent company, would it be possible for a checkuser to confirm if the present checkusers are indeed all active (I know some are and more importantly some aren't for very good reasons) or whether the permission is being retained by inactive checkusers. Would it be possible to have some sort of statistics on the number of requests and who performed them, if at all possible. Perhaps, if nothing else, we could have in place some policy whereby checkusers who are inactive lose their permissions, either permanently or temporarily, much like the way we do/will do things on Commons for inactive administrators. Nick (talk) 01:11, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would, of course agree with such removals, same with oversight and bureaucrat. The number in these positions are low enough to be able to consider removals. Majorly (talk) 01:14, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking solely for the English Wikipedia, I'm not aware of any inactive checkusers, nor am I aware of a situation in the past where a checkuser was out of all contact for an extended period. If that were to happen I suspect something would be done, but as it has never happened before and is likely to be such an infrequent event I think it could be handled on a case by case basis. It might be possible to compile such statistics, but given the nature of the tool they wouldn't mean much (that is, one "check" might involve dozens of sub-checks). Mackensen (talk) 01:17, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While I understand its not exactly the same, the ArbCom has become something of a "Supreme Court" of Wikipedia. They are elected and chosen for their upstanding and impecable character. I inherently trust them with this process; the numbers of CUs are so few, that I don't see it getting away from them. Beyond the sheer beaurocracy of it, what is the need for this entire process to be public. If it ain't broke... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 05:52, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, though the problem being discussed (and this is in no way a comment on this particular case) is that ArbCom may not actually have access to full information about a candidate. Hence an announcement on AN (or elsewhere) prior to appointment would be useful. BLACKKITE 07:45, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, but ArbCom should solicit community feedback. How is this rejected after a matter of hours? -- Kendrick7^talk 18:08, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The nominator tagged it as rejected. Ryan Postlethwaite 18:11, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good for them. That doesn't mean there's nothing salvagable here. -- Kendrick7^talk 18:15, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well it does given the rejection from almost everyone above - there is no chance of getting a consensus with it. Ryan Postlethwaite 18:16, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps not as written. Is it that consensus that "requests for checkusers are not allowed"? -- Kendrick7^talk 18:20, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

People request it all the time. It's a private matter -- especially since a public rejection could seem like the Committee is expressing distrust of the candidate, even though it might simply be that they have too little knowledge of the candidate. Sometimes the private rejection has a positive effect on the candidate. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 18:27, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, well I've rewritten this to reflect what seems to be the policy on this wikipedia, which isn't of course clear from the meta page. Of course, this ends up rather short, and if this is duplicated elsewhere a merge might be in order. -- Kendrick7^talk 18:46, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

At first I thought this new policy was promulgated with limited community discussion or even awareness. As of now, the only inbound links to the policy are:

• Wikipedia:Village pump
• Wikipedia:Village pump
• User talk:CBM

The Village pump (policy) has a notice from 22 January of a discussion of checkusers and then there's a bot-generated notice on 25 January of this new policy.

On closer examination, I see that this actually derives from a Foundation-level policy:

• meta:CheckUser policy#Access to checkuser

I think it would give this local policy a little more legitimacy to link to the Meta policy. It would also be good to state this is the way it's been done before and that the policy is just making existing practice explicit. Otherwise this may be mistaken for a power grab; if it weren't for the Foundation policy, this policy would need greater notice and discussion per WP:POLICY than has took place over a 3-day period.--A. B. ^(talk) 21:21, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've detagged this as "policy" and retagged as "proposed".

The {{Policy}} tag states that this is "an official English Wikipedia policy" and "a widely accepted standard that all users should follow". Paragraph #1 is unnecessary (selfref -> meta), and para 2 just states "arbcom grants checkuser, comments by email" which is not really needing its own page to say.

WMF policy states that:

"On wikis with an Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) which has been approved by the Foundation to assign CheckUser status, users can be appointed by the Arbitrators only."

End of sentence.

More useful to merge into a general CheckUser policy that documents how CU is used on English Wikipedia generally. Which oddly enough, I was drafting for feedback, yesterday :-)

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 16:55, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]