Wikiquote:Requests for checkuser/BD2412

The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new topic on this or other appropriate talk page. No further edits should be made to this text.

The result was: Unsuccessful. Per m:Checkuser#Access_to_CheckUser. — RyanCross (talk) 19:07, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

BD2412 (talk · contributions)

I am nominating myself, BD2412, as a candidate for checkuser permissions. I have been an admin here for so long that my adminship nom doesn't even have its own subpage, as well as on Wikipedia and Wiktionary. In light of User:Jusjih's resignation after his fine service in this capacity, I feel that Wikiquote could use an additional CU just to be sure there is generally someone available to perform the task. I am here frequently these days, and can make a point of checking in at times when I am usually not here. Cheers!

Vote ends: 15:20:00 10 June 2011 (UTC) (can stay open longer than 2 weeks if need be)

Per m:Checkuser#Access_to_CheckUser, candidate must receive consensus (at least 70%-80% in pro/con voting), and at least 25-30 editors' approval, to be considered for promotion.

• Please note that this is a separate discussion from my RFB. Thanks. BD2412 T 17:54, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Support

1. Support. BD2412 has been one of the major contributors to this project, and though we have disagreed strongly on some issues, I recognize this person as fair and honest in performing many duties as an long standing admin, and stating assessments, even with such opinions as must be opposed to my own. I truly sorrow that principled partial support of me in situations where somehat unprincipled distortions and manipulations of the opinions and prejudices of those who might have some reasonably principled presumptions against me has generated any opposition at all to this nomination. I also sorrow for any burdens this role might have on this candidate; it was one I chose NOT to pursue, back in the "good old days" when most others here considered me an ideal candidate for such a position, and had asked me to be such, but I declined because I neither desired such abilities, nor to confront potential conflicts of interests I perceived might arise in some of my activities. There is much more I might say on this and other matters, but for now I simply support this nomination of a person who has exhibited what I consider to be a fair and judicious examination of many matters, even where we must disagree. ~ Kalki (talk · contributions) 21:42, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
2. Support. Again, as with the request for Bureaucratship, I believe that BD2412 will be a strong addition to the CU team and will use the tools to provide value to the project. ~ UDScott 00:57, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose. , with over 200 sockpuppets "without reservation" for admin. diff, diff. Even after being blocked indefinitely for socking on multiple projects, Kalki openly continues to utilize sock accounts on other Wikimedia Foundation projects: "I have used many account names here in the past, and continue to do so elsewhere..." BD2412 is an inappropriate candidate for Bureaucrat, because sockmasters with over 200 plus socks, who continue to sock on Wikimedia Foundation projects after being indefinitely blocked should not be promoted to admin, and that is poor judgment by BD2412. BD2412 is an inappropriate candidate for Checkuser, because he cannot be expected to perform neutrally and without bias towards a sockmaster with over 200 socks who continues to operate socks across multiple WMF projects — and this demonstrates severe judgment problems. -- Cirt (talk) 18:20, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Cirt's presumptive "neutrality" on this and many other matters seems certainly beyond question — to Cirt — and Cirt alone. I must sorrow that principled support of a few of my contentions has led to what I consider to be a rather unprincipled hostility to this nomination. I expect that amidst all the storms of contentions generated by malice and disagreement, Truth will abide, and eventually prevail — and the contemptible distortions, deliberate deceitfulness and outright lies which have been made will be exposed for what they are. I can trust in the good nature of MOST people, even when it is for a time blinded by misuse and abuse of supposed "facts" and claims about supposed facts. ~ Kalki (talk · contributions) 21:42, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Neutral as BD2412 supported a confirmed sockmaster, Kalki for admin.--Jusjih 08:07, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Comment

• Questions. Do you think that it is appropriate for someone to be both a checkuser and a bureaucrat? Can you explain how you see the two roles and the requirements for two different sorts of approaches working together. What risks do you see in jointly holding the two roles? Billinghurst 12:44, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
  • I have been around long enough to remember when adminship bids (on Wikipedia, not as much on this project) were considered "no big deal" because they merely indicated that the editor making the request was trusted enough by the community to be given a mop with which to do more cleaning up. Since then they have sort of grown to be a far more searching process, tending to mystify the position itself, as though admins were intended to be leaders of public discourse, and to have a super-set of talents in article writing, conflict resolution, vandal hunting, and so forth. However, I continue to believe that the various levels of user privileges available through wikiprojects are basically mops to be awarded to users who can be trusted not to misuse them, nefariously or accidentally. CU probably requires the highest level of trust of any position that can be granted to a member of the community by the community itself, and I therefore believe that anyone trusted to not misuse the CU tools would be trusted to not misuse the 'crat tools either. On that basis, it is appropriate for anyone who is a CU to also be a 'crat because there is no reason that the community should have the level of trust to make someone a CU in the first place if they didn't trust that editor with the 'crat powers.
    Regarding the two different sorts of approaches, there really is only one approach to both jobs, and that is to use these additional tools with judiciousness, respect for the community, and common sense.
    Regarding the risks of jointly holding the two roles, it would be problematic if a project had only one person exercising both roles, either formally or in practice. Obviously, if these powers were to fall into the hands of a vandal, they would be able to make a pretty big mess. The worst-case scenario would be a vandal with access to CU powers, who could do irreparable damage by disclosing private information about editors discernible from their IP addresses. That is a risk of making anyone a CU, whether they are a 'crat or not, although vandalism could be compounded by someone using 'crat powers to de-admin everyone else while making a bunch of vandal edits. I believe we had a 'crat go bad one time on Wikipedia, and WMF had to step in and undo the damage, all of which was undone by the end of the day. Furthermore, a well-meaning but biased individual holding both roles could conceivably want a particular admin candidate to succeed so strongly that he might first misuse his role as a CU to conceal sockpuppet activity by the candidate from the community by falsely reporting an absence of it, and then use his role as a 'crat to promote that individual at the end of the process if consensus to promote is murky. The possibility of these things occurring is why we require the trust of the community to give a candidate these powers at all, and why we are required to have multiple CU's and multiple 'crats at any given time. I can only give my word that I will not misuse those powers just as I have not misused my admin powers, and point to my own record of openly expressing my opinions in discussions, and carrying out the consensus of the community when it differed from my own views. BD2412 T 16:25, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

As a checkuser at another of WMF's projects, I personally have a concerns that there should be a separation of powers of checkusers and bureaucrats, and that the separation should be specifically demonstrated to exist. While I sometimes wish that I could wave the 'crat wand to make certain issues go away, I also note that these tasks are generally not time critical. With CU they are time critical, and where I have issues that need a 'crat hat, I see positive aspects in actually undertaking the discussion and explicitly going through the rationale of my thinking. Also, when at the other site we had issues with a particular user, the ability to use my CU tools, and to answer the 'crat with some yes/no answers enabled us to have a clear separation thinking. I would encourage you to consider the undertaking one of these roles as being sufficient, not undertaking both. Billinghurst 13:07, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Although I am not personally concerned with my ability to segregate my thought processes when wearing different hats - this being the stock and trade of my profession - I understand your objection. I would think that the best way to effect a "separation of powers" would be for someone who happens to be both a CU and a 'crat to not close adminship requests for which they had performed CU tasks. The availability of persons able to do perform either would be enhanced by increasing the number of CU's and 'crats on this project generally. My view is that I am basically just volunteering to do additional work for this project, the need for which is apparent from the relatively small number of persons holding each position on this project. From my review of FloNight's investigation of Kalki's multiple accounts, I can see that this can be tedious and thankless work. If another trusted user is interested in taking on the CU task, I'll withdraw this application and stand for Bureaucrat only, but we would certainly benefit from having more of both. BD2412 T 16:42, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

• Could you please respond to Cirt's oppose? Thank you, NuclearWarfare 02:17, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Cirt made the same comment on my RFB, and I gave a fairly thorough response there. Although Kalki's cadre of sockpuppets has certainly been eccentric, Kalki has never been shown to have used them to vandalize or fix votes. I have looked over some of Kalki's sockpuppet edits, and although he has on occasion used them to talk to himself, his motivation seems primarily to be using them to make improvements to articles through the addition of properly sourced quotes, corrections to formatting, and addition of unobjectionable images. On the other hand, when Kalki was an admin, he primarily used his adminship powers to block vandals, delete pages created in the course of such vandalism, and edit the protected 'quote-of-the-day' pages. Despite his eccentricity, Kalki was useful to Wikiquote as an admin.
    However, I also explained to Cirt in my RfB response that I respected community consensus not to re-admin Kalki, and if I were the 'crat closing that discussion, I would have closed it as having failed. If, as a CU, I was asked to investigate and report on Kalki's sockpuppet activities, I would do so without hesitation. I believe my history of activity on this project is one of openly expressing my views and then respecting and implementing consensus, whether I agree with it or not. BD2412 T 02:42, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
    • Wrong. See for example comment by FloNight (talk · contributions), "The use of this many accounts was disruptive and had to be evaluated by checkusers and other people experienced with evaluation socking. And I stand by my assertion that the accounts were used in a deceptive manner." -- Cirt (talk) 02:45, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
      • Cirt, I feel that you have been trying to make these processes yet another referendum on Kalki. Please feud elsewhere. I concede that the hundreds of sockpuppets that Kalki had was problematic, but as I recall he agreed to keep the number down, and has done so. I am aware that he did use them to have conversations with himself, but so far as anyone has demonstrated he didn't do so in any formal process where community consensus was being gauged. We had a difference of opinion in the last discussion on this, and, as an administrator, I will now do whatever is required of me to enforce the consensus of the community coming out of that process. Cheers! BD2412 T 03:07, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
        • Wrong again. See Use admin tool/mult accounts same page, Use in policy discussion, and Vfd votes by multiple accounts. Clear violations and disruption. -- Cirt (talk) 03:37, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
          • I had not seen those before. I really wish you had brought them up to me when we had been discussing the matter in Kalki's re-adminship discussion. It would certainly have made me rethink my position. BD2412 T 03:51, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
            • They have been brought up, multiple times, by myself and by FloNight (talk · contributions). They have been linked for a long time, at User:FloNight/Kalki. I find it shocking that a Checkuser candidate on this project has not carefully read through all of User:FloNight/Kalki. -- Cirt (talk) 03:53, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
              • I will do so now - thank you for bringing this to my attention, it is indeed very instructive. Cheers! BD2412 T 04:02, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
                • Please, let us know your thoughts, after you have done so. -- Cirt (talk) 16:12, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
                  • I have initiated a dialogue with Kalki about making amends to FloNight for all the work she had to do on his account. I continue to believe that Kalki has good intentions toward the project - for example, that dialogue where he used a sockpuppet to warn a vandal, and then used his primary account to block the vandal, was unquestionably improper, but the block itself was definitely correct, as the vandal was inserting false statements into an article. However, I think Kalki also fails to understand how his eccentricities burden other editors. I mentioned in Kalki's re-adminship discussion that I wish there were some way to separate the adminship tools from the leadership role, as it would certainly be useful to the project to have more hands blocking vandals and engaging in mundane tasks that require the tools. BD2412 T 16:42, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
  • So I had originally somehow read Cirt's comment as "Oppose, BD2412 is blocked on several wikis for sockpuppetry," which is obviously not what he actually said. I'm not really a member of the Wikiquote community, so I likely will not be returning here. My apologies, NuclearWarfare 03:23, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
    • No problem - we're all human here. Cheers! BD2412 T 03:27, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new topic on this or other appropriate talk page. No further edits should be made to this text.