Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/CheckUser and Oversight/February 2009 election/Oversight/DerHexer

DerHexer (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Hello, I'm DerHexer! You might conclude from this text that I'm not a native English speaker. I started editing the German Wikipedia in September 2005, and became a sysop there in October 2006. Two months earlier, I had joined this project, and I became a sysop here in July 2007. Five months later I was elected as a steward. Being a steward, I had to deal with some oversight requests on different wikis—whether declining the request or carrying it out, so that I think that I'm a bit experienced with the role. But normally I fight vandalism, block open proxies and delete nonsense on many projects. That's why I made about 170,000 edits and 300,000 log actions (75,000 resp. 140,000 here on en:wp).

But in my opinion stats are not so important; an oversighter should be available via mail(ing list), IRC and preferably OTRS, and though my studies prevent me from editing here as I did some months ago, I'm daily available via these three communication systems for some hours. I would help out as much as I can if I were elected, but it's at least an honour for me to be on this list with all these excellent candidates. Whomever you consider to be the best choice, I'll thank you for your participation in this election. Kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 22:53, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Anyone trusted enough to be a stewart has my confidence as a checkuser oversight. Seriously, DerHexer does very good work on Wikipedia. He is demonstratably trustworthy. Master&Expert (Talk) 01:59, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • psst! this is for oversight, not checkuser. EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:58, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks, but as you can see below, this thing is double-edged. —DerHexer (Talk) 11:50, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Whoops, fixed. Thank you for pointing that out. :) Master&Expert (Talk) 02:14, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• No objections to Der Hexer's worthiness, but am opposing as he's already a Steward I would prefer that these capabilities be spread over different people. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:20, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  This argument is reasonable for me, because although I was not asked if I want or have time to do this job before this election page has been created, it was my decision to participate since I've added my statement, so that I'll have to bear the consequences now. Kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 11:50, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• See Short Brigade Harvester Boris. Marcus Cyron (talk) 13:27, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• DerHexer, I really do hope you won't take my vote personally and there are hopefully no hard feelings on your part; I certainly appreciate you and your work. However, I simply think you're not active enough on this project resp. your activity levels tend to be instable/infrequent. Also, the areas in which you are active are quite limited. — Aitias // discussion 18:25, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  Well, it should be clear as mud that I can't be as active attending university than having vacations. ;) I nevertheless understand your concerns [and was a bit surprised that en:wp's arbcom nominated me], but in my [and maybe their] opinion it's more important for oversights to be daily available via IRC and mail (which I am) and know/respect the policies (which I have to do since I'm a steward). During my last vacation I created de:wp's former largest articles de:Ilias (=Iliad) which prevented me from editing here as much as I want and wanted. Kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 18:44, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• See User:Acalamari/CU-OV February 2009‎#DerHexer. Acalamari 19:45, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Generic question: Under what circumstances, if any, would you oversight an edit at the request of the user who made the edit? — CharlotteWebb 15:55, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  Under these circumstances, of course … especially 2b: "when the subject has specifically asked for the <potentially libellous> information to be removed from the history, the case is clear, and there is no editorial reason to keep the revision". 2a and 3 should just be done on the advice of WMF. 1(a) disallows to oversight these edits you've mentioned above: The user itself has published these informations. 1(b) is a bit tricky: The user who made the edit could request the removal of his edit because he might have seen, that he has published informations "of public individuals who have not made that personal information public". But though he might have seen that he added these informations [or got mail from this person to remove them] it might not always be obvious for oversighters: The "public individual" should better request the removal [on its own], preferably via OTRS. Kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 16:16, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I realize your English isn't perfect, but that's not an issue for me (neither is mine but I try). Just want to make sure I understand you correctly:

If I make an edit and later ask for it to be oversighted, you would do it if:

(a) My edit contained personal info of another person (but not if it was only info about myself), or

(b) My edit was potentially libelous (would this include libeling myself, or is that possible? If so, how would you define it? Would it include an edit which other users might use as the basis for potentially libelous statements against me?)

(c) No other cases (except possibly if I ask OTRS or the "Wikimedia Foundation counsel" a.k.a. Mike Godwin to make the same request to you on my behalf).

Is this correct? — CharlotteWebb 17:29, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(a) preferably requested by the "other person" itself (via OTRS, IRC, mail). I wouldn't say that I'd never hide revisions which were made by the requestor itself. There might be a reason to do that. But it normally does not fit into the rules (which is why I've had to deny some of these requests yet on other wikis, consulting with my steward fellows).

(b) it's always difficult to distinguish attack from libelous edits, imo. If you'd be (groundless) accused of child abuse, raping or things like these, it'd be advisable to hide these revisions when you request it. If you've said those things about yourself it'd possible, too, though I don't see a reason to tell those things about oneself …

(c) OTRS (contrary to the "Wikimedia Foundation counsel") has, according to m:Oversight, no power to direct those things. It's, imo, just a suitable way to handle requests. If Mike says that one revision should be hidden, I should obey, no matter what I've said before. Kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 21:05, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding (b): OK, so let's say for example that a user makes a significant content contribution to the zoophilia article, then other people accuse this user of engaging in animal sex, so the user asks for it to be oversighted, would you consider this an acceptable interpretation of policy? — CharlotteWebb 02:55, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, the zoophilia edit shouldn't be hidden, whereas the accusation of engaging in animal sex could be hidden, being a libelous edit. Kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 11:04, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, in this particular case the accusations were made elsewhere on the Internet, but thank you for your clarification regarding the edit(s) which triggered the accusation(s). Sorry if I jumped to unfortunate conclusions due to your broken English or my own mental state, not sure which. I'll support for now, but may oppose later if other candidates surprise me with better answers (don't take it personally). — CharlotteWebb 15:03, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Around a year ago, you and I had this interaction on your talk page. The article in question has now been deleted, but at the time it was completely unsourced and contained little other than personal anecdotes about the subject, including one piece of potential libel. When I left you a friendly reminder to make sure that when you revert a blanking, that you don't inadvertently restore libel, your reply puzzled me and seemed, to me, to demonstrate a lack of understanding of the importance of the BLP policy. My question is this: is there anything that you would have done differently if you were encountering the Dan Motuliak article today as it existed as of your 2007 edit? What, if any, of it do you believe should be oversighted? Thank you. --B (talk) 22:55, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that seems to be a very unsatisfying answer which I've given to you, but it's difficult for me to excuse this now. I might have not understood you properly because my answer seems the be beside the point so that I'm bit puzzled now, too. :-/ In normally perceive my errors and apologize, as you can see on my talk page (archives). Regarding you question: "Biographies of living persons" is one of our [and that does not only include en:wp] most important policies. Coincidentally I had to deal with a similar case today on de:wp via OTRS where another editor and I cleaned up an article which consisted of non-reliable sources. I've especially learned while dealing with OTRS how important WP:BLP and its equivalents are and would react now in a different way: I'd tell the IP to send a mail to the OTRS system where mail traffic can be filed and volunteers daily deal with such cases. Kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 23:56, 6 February 2009 (UTC) P. S.: I'm not sure if I've understood "What, if any, of it do you believe should be oversighted?" properly. If any of its revisions would fit in these three categories, it should be oversight.[reply]

Regarding the question you aren't clear on, the point of it is to gauge your application of the policy applicable to the position you are seeking. If you were, right now, an oversighter and the request was made to oversight revisions that contained things like [1] and [2], what would you do and why? Regarding the rest of your answer, this article was so terribly bad that I don't even see a reason for the IP to contact OTRS - the article should have just been deleted or stubified on sight. --B (talk) 03:52, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, it seems to be a misunderstanding. I thought that you wanted a more general anwser than a case-related one … normally an IP should rather contact the OTRS than edit the article. That's what I wanted to tell. That'd be imo more promising, imho. In this case it is possible to add a (speedy) deletion template to or stubify this article [but that could be done by every user]. I would not delete it on my own, being involved in that case [whereas I generally prefer in such cases the four-eye principle]. Oversight actions are not justified with these edits as you can see on m:Oversight#Use: "Potentially libellous information [should just be deleted] when the subject has specifically asked for the information to be removed from the history". It could be possible that this IP was Dan Motuliak (as you argued for on my talk page), but I would even in this case recommend to the IP sending a mail to the OTRS where its mail address can be compared with Dans normal one. The article might get/be deleted during that time (as I said above). Kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 10:34, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

2. Support--Iamawesome800 Talk to Me 00:14, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
3. Support --Kanonkas :  Talk  00:15, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
4. Support Arakunem^Talk 00:36, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
5. Support -- Avi (talk) 00:53, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
6. Support. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 00:57, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
7. Majorly talk 01:23, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
8. --S^[1] 01:25, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
9. — neuro^(talk) 01:28, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
10. Master&Expert (Talk) 02:00, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
11. Support Prodego ^talk 02:14, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
12. Noroton (talk) 02:53, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
13. NuclearWarfare _(Talk) 03:03, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
14. Support — Gavia immer (talk) 03:40, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
15. Support Jauerback^dude?/_dude. 04:00, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
16. Support. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 05:01, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
17. Support. bibliomaniac15 05:24, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
18. Davewild (talk) 08:36, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
19. --buecherwuermlein 13:07, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
20. Stifle (talk) 14:57, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
21. Guy (Help!) 15:16, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
22. لennavecia 15:35, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
23. ++Lar: t/c 18:02, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
24. Support. --Jo (talk) 19:51, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
25. MBisanz ^talk 21:10, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
26. LittleMountain5 23:11, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
27. Support - Jameson L. Tai ^{talk ♦ guestbook ♦ contribs} 01:35, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
28. Support Captain panda 03:52, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
29. ^Law _shoot! 04:27, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
30. Support - Sumoeagle179 (talk) 12:29, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
31. --Oxymoron⁸³ 18:57, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
32. arimareiji (talk) 19:08, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
33. The Helpful One 23:21, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
34. Support - shirulashem (talk) 21:47, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
35. Malinaccier (talk) 00:40, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
36. – wodup – 10:06, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
37. Support --Meno25 (talk) 13:46, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
38. - Philippe 22:40, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
39. utcursch | talk 02:38, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
40. CharlotteWebb 15:03, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
41. Support—Preceding unsigned comment added by Mayalld (talk • contribs) 16:29, 10 February 2009
42. Support Jayen466 09:35, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
43. Support —Wknight94 (talk) 12:51, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
44. Fritzpoll (talk) 16:42, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
45. Seraphim♥ 16:57, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
46. Support Trusilver 04:53, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
47. Support --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 01:54, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
48. Support -MBK₀₀₄ 14:01, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
49. Camaron | Chris (talk) 18:47, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
50. Acalamari 19:45, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

2. Gurch (talk) 01:03, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
3. RMHED. 01:03, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
4. Mr.Z-man 01:30, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
5. Everyking (talk) 01:38, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
6. Rjd0060 (talk) 02:04, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
7. rootology (C)(T) 02:06, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
8. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:17, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
9. --Aqwis (talk) 11:23, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
10. — Aitias // discussion 13:16, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
11. -- Marcus Cyron (talk) 13:20, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
12. Spencer^T♦C 22:13, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
13. --B (talk) 03:53, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
14. Pedro :  Chat  21:44, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
15. seresin ( ¡? )  20:41, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
16. A little strongly Secret ^account 14:09, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
17. Xasodfuih (talk) 18:13, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
18. Oppose Graham87 23:55, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]