Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-06-25/RFA and open proxies

During the course of the last week, an RfA on behalf of CharlotteWebb has spurred major discussions. Although the discussion closed as an unsuccessful request for adminship, the debate continues on the use of open proxies. Extended discussion on the policy has even gotten to the talk page of the RfA page, the talk page of the Meta version, and the mailing list. A request for arbitration has been filed as well because of possible misuse of checkuser privileges by revealing private information.

On 14 June 2007, Acalamari nominated CharlotteWebb for adminship. Several hours after the nomination, Jayjg asked this revealing question, which would be the center of controversy: "Can you explain why you edit using Tor proxies?" Before the question was asked, the tally was 32/4/3, and the only concerns raised were on civility. From this, it seems that the question has completely changed the state of the RfA from a likely successful request to a state of fury on both sides.

A couple of days later, CharlotteWebb posted a message on her talk page stating that her IP addresses had been blocked because they were suspected open proxies. Another industrious checkuser has taken it upon himself to identify and block every IP address I have used in the last three months. I know this because I have read the block logs and noticed that several of the IPs blocked as part of this spree have (oh, shit!) nothing to do with the Tor network. For obvious reasons it would be foolish of me to say which is which, though I don't doubt everything about me will be revealed soon enough. It's so refreshing to know that my privacy is in such safe, competent hands! This looks and smells like an unannounced de facto ban from the English Wikipedia (one having nothing to do with my behavior). Because of the heightened level of surveillance I'm under, any further edits I make from this account will only have a denial-of-service effect on myself and any other legitimate users of the Tor network. So, all I can say is I hope to meet you all again in the future when I feel safer.

She also states that she has been editing under a new username:

"I have already chosen to create a new username, after wasting a year of my life on this one. Of course I do realize that anyone with unrestricted use of checkuser will be able to find me if they fish long and hard enough for it. I'll just have to deal with it when the time comes."

After the standard seven days of discussion, Cecropia closed the RfA as "consensus not reached".

During the RfA and after the closure, discussion ensued and still ensues in various areas. The discussion is not on the contributions of the candidate, but rather the policy which the candidate may have broken by using an open proxy. For example, a concern was raised by Gurch that the opposition was concerned more with the breach of policy than the merits of the candidate (e.g. civility was the only concern raised prior to the question by Jayjg) and that the candidate has left the project because of the RfA. There were also a number of comments made on the issue at the mailing list as well. There is a current arbitration case on "whether Jayjg's actions were appropriate and within the limits of the privacy policy".