Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/CharlotteWebb/Workshop

Proposed remedy
Greetings. I have an idea for a proposed remedy, but I'm not sure how best to word it. The idea behind it is, we don't want anyone's privacy violated, but on the other hand, it's good for the community to know if an admin candidate is violating policy or not. My idea is that one of the standard questions for admin candidates would be something like "Do you use TORs, and do you give a checkuser permission to state whether or not you use them?", worded generically enough to cover all bases and to avoid WP:BEANS, but specifically enough to avoid confusion. The admin candidate would, of course, not be required to answer this question, or could answer "I value my privacy and decline to authorize a needless checkuser search on me." If (s)he did, however, answer that (s)he did not use TORs and did authorize a checkuser to be performed on h(im|er), then it would be acceptable if someone with checkuser permissions state whether or not (s)he uses TORs.

I'm not writing this on the main page here, for two reasons. One, I'm unclear how best to word it. Two, I'm not sure whether ArbCom will end up stating what is appropriate checkuser conduct or not. (I or anyone else could, right now, ask this question of all admin candidates.) So I guess I'm looking for community input as well. Is there anything wrong with me asking a person with checkuser permissions to check whether I use TORs or not, and to state publicly whether I do or not? (Obviously I don't think anyone should feel pressured to ask for this.) It seems clear it doesn't violate my privacy if I'm the one who asks for this. – Quadell (talk) (random) 00:15, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not entirely sure, but I think that asking for checkuser to be carried out on yourself is considered an inappropriate use of checkuser. I can't remember the exact argument, but I think that it is essentially that checkuser can only be used to indicate guilt, not prove innocence, if that makes sense. In any case, TOR use can occur before, during and after RfAs, so focusing on that point doesn't really solve anything. Carcharoth 08:43, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, it's inappropriate if the community deems in inappropriate, and it's acceptable if the community deems it acceptable. I also don't see the argument that "the nominee could start using TORs later" as a good reason to discard the idea. I still think it would be useful. – Quadell (talk) (random) 10:35, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Carcharoth, what you were thinking of is at Requests for checkuser in the "Does your request belong here?" table. (Situation) Checkuser on yourself to "prove your innocence". (Solution) Such requests are not accepted. Please do not ask. Vassyana 11:28, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Under the new OP policy, this seems unnecessary. One point of argument of this arb case is that Charlotte's tor-using acts was revealed just before the policy was rewritten. Before the rewrite, her acts are illegal, while afterwards they are totally legitimate. --Deryck C. 17:55, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Blocks of IP's
Just a quick question, how are we going to know who did the blockings of all CharlotteWebb's IP's? It looks like that could be a key issue to the case, but there are serious privacy concerns involved in releasing the actual IP addresses - anyone any thoughts?  Ry an P os tl et hw ai te  16:59, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * All that is necessary is that the Arbitration Committee should know it, and as far as I am aware, they do. They are the ones who will be making a judgment on this case. It is not necessary that the community at large should know it. ElinorD (talk) 17:02, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * In the history of the Evidence page, there is a deleted edit which contains a link to wikipediareview. For some reason, the content of that link was determined to be an attack, when in fact it provides extremely poignant evidence as to who did the blocking (posted by a user on that site under the name Charlotte Webb - a user who does indeed seem to be the editor at the focus of this dispute).  My reading of our badsites policy is that we aviod linking to harrasing/attacking content.  We don't remove any and every link to even the "good" content on a site, based on some corners of it (think about it - having such an interpretation, with the general touchiness of some editors, could well lead us to prevent linking to nearly every blog!).  Needless to say, I disagree with the deletion of the link, and disagree on a procedural level wrt how it was carried out (no note in the edit summary attributing the original poster when the edit was reinstated, but that's me being pedantic!) - I also feel that the "Delete" button needn't have been used - a simple removal of the link from the active version of the page would have done fine. Martinp23 17:10, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with Elinor here. Also, I haven't seen this mentioned elsewhere: it is likely (in my view) that the admin who blocked CW's non-TOR IPs thought he/she was blocking only TORs. It's not obvious what's a TOR and what's not. Yes, he/she should have been more careful, but I doubt it was intentional. – Quadell (talk) (random) 17:14, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, a lot more careful... every single IP that she every used? Wouldn't that be a bit of a difficult accident? I also agree, deleting the page was not needed.  Majorly  (talk) 17:44, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not hard to imagine an admin looking through a list of the IPs that CW used, checking through, say, 50% of them, seeing that all the ones he's checked have been TORs, assuming all the rest are TORs as well, and blocking them all. I'm not saying it was appropriate, I'm just saying the admin in question probably thought she only used TORs and that he was only blocking TOR IPs. – Quadell (talk) (random) 18:25, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Regarding the appropriateness of linking, the MONGO ArbCom ruling said here, "A website that engages in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identities of Wikipedia participants will be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from Wikipedia pages under any circumstances." It also said here, "Links to attack sites may be removed by any user; such removals are exempt from 3RR. Deliberately linking to an attack site may be grounds for blocking." Fred Bauder, one of the Arbitrators, later clarified, "Obviously any ambiguity is inappropriate. Due to extensive attacks on SlimVirgin, Wikipedia Review should be considered an attack site."


 * Regarding the page deletion, it can be quietly undeleted in a few weeks from now, when the fuss has died down, or sooner, if the Arbitrators wish. I'm quite prepared to follow their judgment. I personally feel that deleting is a nicer way of preventing an edit war than blocking. There has already been extensive discussion of the fact that links to sites that publish private information about our editors can be privately emailed to the committee, and in fact I did that a few minutes after deleting and restoring the page. The user who added that link has already been blocked for continuing to post links to an attack site, after being warned, and has indicated that he/she does not agree with the ruling. In fact, at the time of the block, I offered to unblock immediately on condition of a commitment not to post such links again, and he/she refused. I have made the user fully aware of the MONGO arbcom rulings, and of the policy, but was not confident that there would not be an edit war.


 * I am not sure that the people who are so anxious to have the link visible so that everybody can see who blocked Charlotte's IPs have really taken her privacy into account. Jayjg is blamed by some for revealing that she used TOR, when in fact, the very use of TOR means that we cannot know anything about her identity or location. To reveal her non-TOR IPs could help pinpoint her location. So isn't it best if we don't make it public who carried out the blocks? ElinorD (talk) 18:17, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I have struck through part of my post, as the user has indicated that posting the link on the page instead of emailing it as evidence was an oversight. ElinorD (talk) 00:13, 28 June 2007 (UTC)


 * See the footnotes at WP:NPA, which do provide a more up-to-date ruling. I do agree with Matika below, and would honestly prefer to see a stop to the excess paranoia surrounding certain sites - sadly that won't happen. Martinp23 19:58, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * As Charlotte has spoken about it openly on Wikipedia Review, and expressed confusion that the information was removed, I think it's safe to say that (a) it is public and (b) she doesn't mind. I just thought it was relevant to the case.  Kamryn Matika  18:53, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Indeed - look at it this way. The blocking checkuser heard that CW had used Tor nodes for editing, and fairly enough saw this as a violation of policy and went forward with the intention to block more Tor IPs.  He ran the checkuser and, in good faith, blocked all of the IPs, expecting them to have been Tor exit nodes.  Of course, we can all appreciate that he should have been a lot more careful, and should have run a check on every IP to determine whether or not it was indeed a Tor node - it is certain that some public IP addresses will have been hardblocked because of this, which will cause untold collateral damage. Martinp23 17:51, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * "Untold"? Not really. Collateral blocks happen, people complain about the, and they are fixed. Even editors on hardblocked IPs get to edit their own talk pages. I'm not defending the blocker's actions, but re-checking hundreds and hundreds of IP addresses to ferret out the (apparently) small number that were not Tor nodes strikes me as a massive and unreasonable project; we do almost all of this by hand, and it would have taken days if not weeks to do this. As it turns out, the presence of CW on an IP was pretty strong evidence that the IP was a Tor node (or some other open proxy; I don't know offhand if CW used non-Tor anonymizers.) --jpgordon&#8711;&#8710;&#8711;&#8710; 18:06, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Deleting revision history, but leaving some of the content of the page, is most likely a violation of the GFDL. *Dan T.* 19:44, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * The Arbcom rules also appear to state that only a clerk can delete evidence from an RfAR evidence page. Thus, I believe ElinorD exceeded her authority.  Therefore, I formally request that an Arbcom clerk restore the evidence and that the arbitration committee members decide if it is acceptable evidence or not. CLA 23:54, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * As I stated above, the page deletion seemed a kinder way of preventing an edit war over links to a site which engages in privacy violations than blocking, especially as the editor in question had previously been blocked for the same thing. As I also stated above, I have no objection to having the deleted version restored when the heat has died down, or sooner, if an ArbCom member wishes me to. As it happens, the user who posted it had previously expressed an unwillingness to refrain from posting these links, but has indicated since on his/her talk page that posting the link instead of emailing it was an oversight, so I do not predict an edit war. As for the ArbCom deciding if it's appropriate evidence or not, I emailed it to them within minutes of deleting the page. The MONGO ruling did not say that such links could be removed unless they happened to be on a page where only Arbitrators and Clerks were allowed to remove evidence. A temporary deletion to prevent a possible edit war is not a big deal. ElinorD (talk) 00:09, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Since you continually cite that past ArbCom ruling, as if ArbCom makes policy and that the policy they allegedly make always trumps all other policy, I hope they come out with a ruling in conjunction with this case regarding that point, and hope that their position proves to be not quite so absolutist as Elinor thinks it ought to be. (See my essay for more views on the subject.) *Dan T.* 00:29, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Not Sure About this and where to put it
My thoughts on this subject are not at all clear as to the underlying issues of policy and implementation of policy. With one exception. Jayjg absolutely posted his question to CW with the intention of disrupting or killing her Rfadmin. Jayjg is far to experienced a wikipedian to have not understood what would happen. That seems to be against the policies regarding the use of the checkuser function. --Rocksanddirt 23:46, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Thoughts
To avoid going back and forth on the workshop page on multiple proposals, I'll simply offer my further thoughts here. 1. The reason asking first in a situation like this (where no public request has been made) is important is mostly to give the person some chance to explain the situation privately, or to discreetly stop using Tor or not to pursue an RfA. This may or may not resolve the issue. Jay having stated on the mailing list that he knows of others who use Tor for what he considers legitimate reasons, this is also the oddity of his decision here: how, then, did he overlook this? Still, this doesn't necessarily resolve whether the information should ultimately be released, and is also sensitive to the extent it raises issues of applying private pressure. In that regard, 2. I think there is still a real question as to whether general character evidence should be released into an RfA that wouldn't otherwise be released, per the limitation on use of the tool for "political control." A couple of questions: If an issue wouldn't be enough to desysop somebody, should it be released into their RfA? If an issue wouldn't be enough to block somebody, should it be released at all? I can understand if arbcom doesn't want to set checkuser limitations in stone, but I hope these are at least considered before endorsing this approach for the future. Mackan79 07:12, 5 July 2007 (UTC)