Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/CharlotteWebb

What this case is about[edit]

Greetings. This case promises to produce a great deal of verbiage. It might help to reduce this if we could see, clearly, what the scope of this case is. One of the accepting ArbCom members said "Ombudsman action is limited to breach of the Foundation's privacy policy, which appears to have not occurred, and requires the affected user to complain. Checkuser policy outside of the Foundation's privacy policy is under the purview of the arbcom." I would assume this means that discussion of whether or how the Foundations privacy policy was breeched would not be helpful, right? It would seem to me that the Foundation's privacy policy is outside the scope of this case (except as a finding of fact, perhaps). Am I correct in this? Are there other aspects which this case explicitly does/does not cover? For example, one could comment on CharlotteWebb's behavior, advocating censure. Is this covered by the case? A statement by the ArbCom of the limits of this case's scope could help reduce much metaphorical ink from being needlessly wasted in these pages. All the best, – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 00:00, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that would be helpful. The privacy policy wasn't breached, because no identifying information was revealed; in fact, all that was revealed is that the person behind the account had gone to certain lengths to prevent identifying information from becoming known. Nothing was known about the person behind the account before the RfA, and nothing is known about that person now. In any event, the privacy policy does allow the ISP and the country of origin to be revealed, so revealing that Tor was being used would be covered by that. It's therefore unclear to me what this case is about. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:08, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's advisable to sweep this under the carpet. CharlotteWebb's IP address(es) were subsequently publicly revealed by another administrator and CheckUser (who I won't name here - yet) in the course of an indiscriminate block of every IP address that she'd used, including non-Tor IPs, even though the account itself was (and is) not blocked. The IPs are viewable in the logs. That will certainly merit some scrutiny. There's also a case to be made (per Seraphimblade) that Jayjg's public disclosure of the Tor usage was a violation of the spirit if not the letter of the CheckUser policy. A number of issues concerning Jay's timing and the purpose of his use of CheckUser privileges have also been raised by users. There's no doubt that the affair has caused a good deal of ill-feeling among the community and, I would say, a significant (further) loss of trust in Jayjg's judgment.

I'd suggest the following key issues need to be addressed:

1) Use of Tor proxies for non-abusive purposes. If there is no evidence that CharlotteWebb was editing abusively, was any harm caused?

2) Appropriateness of Jayjg disclosing CharlotteWebb's use of Tor proxies in the middle of an RFA, and Jay's actions beforehand (specifically the context of his use of CheckUser privileges in the first place).

3) Appropriateness of indiscriminate block and de facto public disclosure of CharlotteWebb's IP addresses by another admin. -- ChrisO 01:32, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are three major things of which is it unclear whether they are within the scope of this ArbCom case.

Whether the policy on open proxies in general must be altered
Whether it is harmful to edit via a proxy but not cause any abuse through it
Whether a privacy policy has been violated, or just the CheckUser policy/spirit

I think these points need clarity, in particular the first one. What exactly is the goal of this case? Sala Skan 14:25, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To determine whether it was right for CharlotteWebb to be editing through tor; whether Jayjg's conduct in releasing this information on her RfA was appropriate; whether CharlotteWebb actually caused any damage to the project and in determining all this, appropriate changes to be made. Majorly (talk) 15:39, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that ChrisO, Salaskan, and Marjorly have summarized the issues here fairly well. CLA 23:36, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Privacy versus censorship[edit]

One concern I have with regard to the handling of this arbcom case is privacy versus censorship. Are adequate provisions made for mailing data to arbcom? Is there a contact point set up? What are the rules for deleting or recontexting comments made on these wikipedia arbcom pages? Some people have indicated that they find Jayjg intimidating and perhaps a clear statement on where they can mail their claims would be useful. Just to be clear, I myself have no claims about Jayjg at all. I've run into him a couple of times on wikipedia and have had no problem. WAS 4.250 04:52, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The CU on the grassy knoll[edit]

I think it would make sense to add "John Doe Checkuser" (i.e. whoever blocked all CharlotteWebb's IPs) as a party, someone who knows who it is can notify him/her/it privately. --Random832 06:32, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wasting a year[edit]

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. — CharlotteWebb 00:17, 21 June 2007 (UTC) Diff (2 intermediate revisions not shown.)[reply]

This entry concerns me, what is the goal that is lost, what is the reason for starting over, what is the reward that is worth repeating a known violation? Jeepday (talk) 02:22, 6 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Uh, let's see now, she's lost.. reputation, respect, her name has been smeared, and as the findings of this ArbCom case show.. it's not even a violation. 86.137.57.73 15:58, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think this policy gap needs to be addressed. I'm quite confused now. hbdragon88 18:10, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why is this blanked?[edit]

I can understand a few blankings, but surely we shouldn't blank a request for ArbCom page? - Ta bu shi da yu 13:11, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The page history suggests it was on request. This discussion might bear relevance. --InkSplotch 13:54, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's not uncommon. The blanking was requested in email by Armedblowfish. I see no reason not to comply, since the content is available in the history, quod vides. --Tony Sidaway 13:59, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hm. That's odd; most of the arbitration has nothing to do with him at all; in fact, the name is mentioned exactly once. Why does he have standing to ask it be blanked? --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 14:14, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

He seems to think he has. I have to admit I often find his reasoning eccentric, but I acquiesce because it's harmless and it makes him feel better. --Tony Sidaway 15:11, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's perhaps out of line. Blanking is a courtesy to participants. He wasn't one; he just had opinions to offer. Blank his name or his contributions as a courtesy, maybe, but the whole thing? Way overkill. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 15:29, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since you think it's out of order, I'll unblank and see if I can identify sections that may be blanked without losing the sense of the case. --Tony Sidaway 15:38, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I blanked Dark Shikari's statement, and I'll leave a note on that user's talk page explaining it. --Tony Sidaway 15:43, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tony, you've also removed a statement by AldeBaer, which seems harmless. Can you say why?SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 04:33, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As there's been no response, I'm going to restore it. I've also noticed Armedblowfish asking admins to blank and delete other material in a way that's completely inappropriate, hinting at reasons without actually giving any. I think it needs to stop. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 22:20, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The usual rationale given for courtesy blanking of arbitration pages is that because of the large number of repetitions of usernames that occur on these pages, they tend to rank very high in Google searches on the username (which is particularly a concern when the username is based on a person's real name or is widely associated with a known individual, although to the best of my knowledge that's not the case here). The availability of courtesy blanking in some cases was publicized recently when Jimbo Wales blanked Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff and gave that explanation when asked about it. How far to extend this courtesy is a matter for discretion, but it should always be borne in mind that the pages are only blanked in whole or part, not deleted, and hence the complete page is available at any time simply by calling up the revision before the blanking. (Expressing no opinion on the scope of the blanking in this particular case.) Newyorkbrad 23:10, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that deletions have been requested too. Any admin who's approached in future by that user might want to be extra careful to determine that there's a valid reason. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 23:43, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to express an opinion on the merits of this particular blanking either, as I don't know the reasons. Just two points: one is that I'd be far more inclined to approve of courtesy blanking in the case of a Wikipedian whose user name is their real name or is widely associated with their real name. The other is that removing a section is more misleading than blanking a page, as people who read the remainder of the page will not know that it's incomplete. If there were anything that would cause embarrassment to someone in real life, I'd be very much in favour of blanking and even deleting it, but I don't see how that can be the case here. ElinorD (talk) 23:15, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry that Slim Virgin has restored the comment. Aldebaer contacted me in email asking for an explanation. My reply is below.

I blanked it as a courtesy to Armedblowfish, to whom I'm blind-copying this email. I don't find your comment inappropriate, but evidently it and other statements cause great pain to Armedblowfish, such that he feels unwelcome and (literally) banned.

I think it's stretching courtesy blanking a bit, and of course you could always unblank it. But I hope you will agree that, if Armedblowfish is determined to leave us, it would be as well to let him leave without feeling there are too many outstanding issues to drag him back to the wiki.

Aldebaer's response was basically that he'd not unblank it "when it causes pain to another person.".

I just want Armedblowfish--who we really should not be driving away from Wikipedia, to be able to walk away if he feels he needs to, without feeling as if he has been flayed alive. You might say he is too sensitive about this, and I might agree with you. However this is to us a very tiny, insignificant thing, and we lose nothing by it. The information is still there and the blanking is clearly noted so that those who read the arbitration page will know that they can see it what Aldebaer said in the history. --Tony Sidaway 00:09, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tony, you've lost me. Armedblowfish isn't even mentioned in the post you removed, unless I'm completely missing something. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 00:12, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I told you I thought he was somewhat over-sensitive. --Tony Sidaway 00:14, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The version Tony links to does contain one bit (literally) of information about ArmedBlowfish's identity, which he is so careful to protect that he has chosen to leave rather than give up TOR; and an assertion about his associations, which would be another lead. (I think this is vague enough for this page.) I am surprised that editors so careful about BLP are willing to revert-war to restore such information here; it might be better to redact the comment. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:15, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Noticed that page had been blanked again by now-banned user Melsaran (talk · contribs). Unblanked as vandalism. If ArbComm wants to blank this page, they can of course do so, but no one else should. --John Nagle (talk) 16:57, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Courtesy blanking is a long-standing and respectable response to issues raised by users with debate in project space. The history is intact. Wikipedia is not evil, after all. Guy (Help!) 19:59, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]