Ajit (given name)

Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/ScienceApologist

This page has turned into an attack page ripe with incivil, bad faith, personal attack speculation by User:Elonka, User:GRBerry, and User:Levine2112, to name a few of the people who have been in disputes with me in the past who are piling on here. Please delete this page so a clean slate can be started. ScienceApologist (talk) 02:20, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• Keep There is no reason to delete the whole page. As a third person, I think they have raised reasonable issues regarding you (if didn't, checkuser rejected the files) I sympathize you at the latest case, but if you have a privacy concern, you ask 'crat to delete the newest report. --Caspian blue (talk) 02:40, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
• I am not keen on deleting the entire page. I think maybe some of the commentary could be blanked, leaving only the initial report, and the CU findings, on a case by case basis... but the requests were valid enough to warrant reporting and investigation, and were made in good faith. Still I am sensitive to the issue. Would that be an acceptable compromise? ++Lar: t/c 02:50, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
• Keep - if there are attacks, why not pursue sanctions instead of hiding the evidence? It would seem as if the logic was backwards. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:54, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
• Keep - Relevant to an Arbcom sanction regarding SA. When I read this RFCU, and saw the various opinions, it was the first time I had a good look at what the whole SA sock thing was about. It's not that disturbing, and I wouldn't favor suppressing either the data or the discussion. Since SA plans to work in contentious areas, and nobody is telling him not to, the idea of a clean slate seems illusory. Criticism goes with the territory. EdJohnston (talk) 04:19, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
• Keep per Ottava CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 04:21, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
• Question. What personal attack did I possibly make in the one sentence I posted on that entire page? -- Levine2112 ^discuss 04:25, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• SA, are you asking for deletion of the most recent checkuser request, or also the three archived ones?--chaser - t 05:08, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• Keep - absent a valid reason for deletion. The repeated assertions by SA that others are acting in bad faith seem to be unsupported by any evidence. If editors truly are being uncivil, acting in bad faith, or engaging in personal attacks, those editors should be sanctioned according to WP policy. Dlabtot (talk) 05:41, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• Partial delete, immediately. The IP addresses resolve with (somewhat) personally identifiable information. Email me if you're an admin and need to know what. On the CU page, ScienceApologist has complained of "stalking attempts associated with the creation of this content". The assumption that that statement is true must acted upon because privacy is a right. The rest of the stuff can be debated, but in accordance with Wikipedia's privacy policies, the recent IP addresses must be removed. The CU has already taken place. The IPs serve no purpose. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 07:23, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• Partial delete as per Nealparr. No need to delete the whole page, but the recent IP addresses should be removed if there is a good reason to believe are being used to stalk/harass a user •CHILLDOUBT• 08:10, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• Keep I've been thinking about it and I do not think the any of the information here is harmful in any way. The CU neither confirmed nor denied anything related to the IP. However, I encourage SA to email a Checkuser familiar with the case who might be willing to reformat the case. -- lucasbfr ^talk 09:26, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
  • I was the CU that ran the most recent check, and I've indicated a willingness to do just that, while opposing an outright deletion. ++Lar: t/c 11:29, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
    • I have done so, see what you think. The IPs were not removed. ++Lar: t/c 11:46, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
• Comment The page can be modified by using Template:RPA - a notice that a comment has been removed from a discussion. -- Suntag ☼ 09:45, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't think the RPA template was the right one to use. I think just removing everything with an explanatory, as I did, is better than tagging things with RPA, as the general removal is less judgmental. Since this is tense situation that seems more de-escalatory. yes I just made that word up. Deal. ++Lar: t/c 11:46, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
    • That looks good. There's no reason for a process to do more than take action on it's findings. I found Template:Afd-privacy, which is for AfDs. So there seems to be precedent for courtesy blanking of a discussion. -- Suntag ☼ 14:20, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
      • OK, courtsey blanking info is at Wikipedia:Deletion_policy#Courtesy blanking. -- Suntag ☼ 14:24, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
• Delete, per reasons expressed by Chill, Nealparr. The IP's are out.. no reason to lose a good editor by denying symbolic actions. John Nevard (talk) 12:09, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. I cannot see as there are privacy issues here, especially for ScienceApologist (talk · contribs), who has repeatedly and publicly linked his real name and job with his Wikipedia account name, both on-wiki,[1] and in multiple places off-wiki (just do a simple Google search). He has also done such things as editing as an anon IP while manually signing his account name on the anon posts,[2] or using his anon to handle cleanup to his ScienceApologist talkpage.[3] If we had a case of a much more private user who had never had his real name or IP exposed, but it had happened accidentally and resulted in a CheckUser, then I could see possibly deleting or courtesy blanking an RFCU page. But for this particular user, no, he's already so public that it does not seem reasonable to do so. --Elonka 14:03, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

  SA expresses his concern for his privacy and everyone can change their mind regarding the matter. You're intentionally "outing" him here as publicizing his identity and kindly instruct people to "google" his name. That is clearly a bad faith comment. You'd better remove the links and retract the comment. I see why people have expressed "many" concerns about you --Caspian blue (talk) 14:12, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

  • Agree. Elonka's information is a deliberate violation of WP:OUTING. Remove the links and instruction. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:21, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

    • Elonka, what possible purpose would keeping the IP addresses serve? They don't need to be there, and the fact that they do resolve to personal information and the user has complained about that, dictates that they should be removed. It doesn't matter if a user was previously a public person. We have policies like WP:RTV which, although not the exact same thing, set out the spirit of Wikipedia's stance toward privacy. Did I mention that the IPs serve no purpose? This seems like a no brainer that doesn't even need to be discussed. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 14:46, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
      • Nealparr, I don't understand your complaint. IP addresses used by people are listed all the time, and are available through the edits, so people can trace the edit back to the original person regardless. This would be more of a reason for him not to edit as an IP to begin with. Furthermore, listing the IPs gives a public record so that other people aren't confused by it. And if you don't want your IP revealed, don't edit with it. Your objections don't seem to have any real basis, so please do not bring them up unless you can actually prove that there is harm beyond any harm that comes from him not signing in anyway to make these edits, especially when he has fake signed the name as ScienceApologist while on an IP. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:38, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
        • User says he's being harrassed in real life. Wikipedia respects privacy. Whatever you don't like about ScienceApologist, whatever ScienceApologist's mistakes are in protecting his own privacy, whatever he has or has not done in other regards... all moot. Wikipedia respects privacy, user complains, remove the sensitive information. Simple. It's ridiculous to tell me my points have "[no] real basis, so please do not bring them up" when your "public record" basis has no validity at all. IP addresses (with rare exception) change often. What "public record" is served by technical data that will be irrelevant in a week or month anyway. User complains that the data is causing real life problems now -- present tense. Wikipedia as an institution assumes the user is telling the truth and acts accordingly. There is absolutely no reason not to. My complaint is that if I were harassed IRL because of a privacy mistake I made at Wikipedia, and after asking for remedy, the Wikipedia community took the stance of basically saying "Ha, ha", there's a fundamental problem with that. Wikipedia should not be acting like that when there's a simple, no-brainer remedy available. Like I said, the IP addresses shouldn't even be up for discussion. I can't imagine why it's even an issue to not remove them. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 18:16, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
          • Neal, please provide a reliable source backing up your claim. Then take that source, have Wikipedia ban displaying IP's IP addresses when they post. Once that is done, and only when that is done, do you have the right to come here and claim that there is a privacy violation, especially when this user has switched back and forth between using his IP and his account, and even puts his tag after his IP. There is no privacy violation. There is no right to claim a privacy violation. And any harassment is not backed up with any proof. Now, your actions are downright tendentious and I would ask for any third party admin to perform an investigation into your actions as of late, especially in mind with you claiming that people are being harassed and falsely blaming this harassment on admin for doing their job. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:27, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
            • A) I'm getting a little tired of you telling me I don't have a right to post concerns. Everyone does except banned users. B) IP addresses are usually tied to a generic ISP and not linked to anything personally identifiable. SA's IP addresses are linked to personally identifiable information. Completely different scenario. C) Typically no one complains about there IP address being used to stalk in real life. SA has. Wikipedia doesn't have to launch an FBI investigation to determine if that is true. There's no reason not to assume it is true. There's nothing to be gained by keeping them. Again, like I said in my very first post here, the IP addresses serve no purpose. I want to stress this again: Stop telling me I don't have the right to post. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 12:08, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
              • Neal, your posts are off topic. This is not a discussion about allegations of revealing person information. This is a deletion section. You have also provided no evidence to verify your claims, even after repeated requests. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:53, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

• Keep Removing the case would have the effect of giving the user multiple second chances. The appearance of logging out to be snarky or to do extra reverts needs to be documented. The user is on notice to be more careful now. Let's not erase the record, or there will have been no progress whatsoever. The prior checkuser cases did not show socking, which is also valid information that should be available to future editors. Jehochman ^Talk 14:14, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
• Keep The history, but courtesy blank it; we aren't unreasonable people. -- how do you turn this on 14:19, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I might agree with blanking if SA accepted responsibility for their actions, acknowledged valid concerns, and stated that they would try to do better in the future. Instead, all we have seen is rules lawyering and casting blame at other people. Jehochman ^Talk 14:21, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Two "wrongs" don't make a right. I don't agree with the idea that if someone does something wrong and won't admit it, we "get back" at them by refusing to do something we can very easily do without a problem. -- how do you turn this on 14:27, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Blanking is a courtesy, not a requirement. We don't give courtesy to those who fail to reciprocate. As a courtesy, would SA please stop this massive wikilawyering and instigation of drama? It is silly for SA to complain about an obscure checkuser page and to then go off and start high visibility threads on ANI and MfD. Why not just ask the checkusers nicely to blank the page? Jehochman ^Talk 14:30, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Right, I feel we should rise above his wikilawyering and just get on with life. It's not hurting anyone being blanked, and if it will get SA to stop wikilawyering, then I think we should do it. It might be silly to you, but it's obviously not to him. I do believe we can be doing better things than arguing to keep a record of an old checkuser case. -- how do you turn this on 14:54, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• I prefer a courtesy blanking to a partial deletion. Frankly, SA has repeatedly revealed his IP information on multiple occasions and multiple pages, so anyone that wants to find the IPs will be able to regardless of what happens to this page. So the only possible benefit to deletion is to SAs emotions, not to his privacy. I don't see a way for SA to get privacy back short of 1) abandoning Wikipedia completely, 2) getting permission from ArbComm to cease all use of this account and come back as another account, or 3) moving in real life so that he has new IP accounts that he takes care not to reveal. (Most editors wouldn't need prior ArbComm permission for option #2, but SA does given his prior abuse of multiple accounts.) The nomination description of the page as an attack page is so far divorced from reality as to be given no credibility; examination of the history proves the nominator wrong in making that description. Nealparr's concerns are actually reasonable and valid, and thus why I don't object to the deletion, even though I do not think it would accomplish the intended objective. A selective deletion of the October edits is all that is arguably useful; there is no benefit at all to deletion of the earlier edits. GRBerry 15:36, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. Lar's removals were certainly satisfactory, issues appear resolved from what I can see now. Wizardman 15:52, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
• Keep - Per Lar's removals. Tiptoety ^talk 16:14, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
• Keep per EdJohnston and Lar. — Athaenara ✉ 16:50, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

  You're doing the exactly same thing as Elonka did here.--Caspian blue (talk) 03:12, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

• We can and should take steps to remove this information from casual searching (Lar's courtesy blanking, for example); I'm not sure if we even could put it beyond a determined or exhaustive search -- taking SA at his word about off-wiki harassment, it seems that more important personal details must already be available to someone who has a bone to pick, which seems to me a greater point of concern. =\ – Luna Santin (talk) 18:53, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
• Removal of at least most of the IP's numbers using x's or something else could be possible right? I really think that RL concerns of phone calls and harassments should be taken seriously no matter who the editor is. I've seen at the boards this courtesy being done for others without this kind of drama going on. Personally I feel that the case (s) have been resolved so why do they not deserve to be archived or something? Please think about how you would feel if someone was calling and harassing you in real life, would you want the community to ignore your wishes to try to stop the harassment or pay attention. I think the community here is better than ignoring others problems like this. Lets try to at least get the information out of the eyes of whoever it is that is trying to harass this editor. Thanks, --CrohnieGal^Talk 19:05, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't see anyone here disputing that harassing phone calls are bad. What information, currently available on this wiki, has to do with that, though? For example, is SA's phone number posted anywhere? Is there some connection between his IP address and his phone number that I'm missing? – Luna Santin (talk) 19:19, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
    • I'm not going to divulge the steps, but there's only three from that IP address to both his name and place of employment. As other users have pointed out, it's not like that information hasn't been put forth before. ScienceApologist has been public about his identity before. But my point is that no matter what the other circumstances, if any user complains about personably identifiable information, for whatever reason, that info should come down. It's not like it's hard to do so, or there's any reason not to do it. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 19:47, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
      • The possibility of such a link does, I think, prescribe slightly more care than is usually afforded to the average "forgot to log in" scenario. – Luna Santin (talk) 21:42, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
• Edit - remove the IPs. FWIW Elonka is engaged in pretty much a textbook case of outing here that would have normal editors indef blocked. There is no case for the IPs to remain in Wikipedia regardless of stalked off wiki information (BADSITES and all that...). The remainder of the information can stay. I'm disturbed by the number of admins that have no issue with this outing to continue. It's disgraceful and continuously has Wiki editors ending up in hotwater (NYB anybody??) yet the above is allowed to continue to happen. Shot info (talk) 22:08, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Elonka is not outing anybody. It is a fact that our software occasionally reveals IP addresses. An experienced editor could find the IP address for any of you who make a sufficient number of edits. By scouring your edit histories and referring to Google they could pick up clues to your real life identity. Anonymity on Wikipedia is an illusion. It is wise to assume you are not anonymous, even if you try to be. Jehochman ^Talk 22:47, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
    • It is wise to assume you are not anonymous, even if you try to be. However, even if it is possible to collect all the information from a user's wikipedia contributions, it is directly in the face of WP:OUTING to collect and publish this information. If any editor chooses to try to be anonymous, or to slip back into anonymity, all editors should support this choice. See Wikipedia:Editors matter. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:04, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
      • Per WP:OUTING Elonka is outing an editor - regardless of how much of this is "known" information - OUTING is quite specific. Elonka should have the intelligence to know when to quit it. While we in Wikipedia cannot stop the stalkers in the real world...we can do our bit to slow them down (<koff> NYB anybody...anybody...). So are we going to, or is this just a case of "The Editor In Question Deserves Everything He/She Gets"? What we should do as responsible wikipedian's, is do what we can to preserve all editors privacy...especially when specifically requested - the IPs should be removed. Shot info (talk) 23:46, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
        • • Which of the following did Elonka post? "legal name, date of birth, social security number, home or workplace address, telephone number, email address, or other contact information" Sure seems like none. The most an IP produces is a computer terminal address of the hosting company, and nothing more or less. You can tell the network. However, all of the "personal" information is not there, and as stated before by those pleading "outing", the IP changes after a week, so there is nothing permanent that could have been construed as being attached to the IP. Using the term "outing" improperly is one of the breaches of civility, and I would recommend that you accuse an admin in good standing of such a thing after providing actual evidence, otherwise, you will be blocked for being incivil. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:33, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
            • LOL at your last sentence - I would recommend that you inform yourself of recent RfCs and the like. But Ottava, if you enjoy stalkers contacting you at your place of work via Wikipedia, and editors at said Wikipedia don't do anything about it - well then you are in the correct place it seems - I suppose you agree with what happened to NYB at well? Shot info (talk) 02:41, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
              • ".If "stalkers" are contacting anyone, please prove how this is tied to an IP. Otherwise, your comments are unfounded and are unnecessary accusations that have no place on Wikipedia. If you have any evidence of inpropriety, please take them to the appropriate forum. The deletion forums are not that place. Ottava Rima (talk)
                • Ottava, please read the other parts of my edits, the bits that do relate to this forum, instead on commenting of other sections that you consider that don't - thereby exacerbating the growth of edits that you don't consider appropriate for this forum. Thanks Shot info (talk) 03:34, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

• Delete and block any editor who is engaging in outing. This is a serious matter and things are getting out of control. QuackGuru 02:19, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Then I guess you are in agreement that, if revealing an IP address is "outing", then ScienceApologist should be banned for signing his account name while using said IP address, right? Ottava Rima (talk) 02:29, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

• Comment On inspection I cannot see evidence that the page as it stands, has "turned into an attack page ripe with incivil, bad faith, personal attack". if it was one at any time, that has apparently been remedied. Courtesy blanking is an option. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 02:52, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
• Keep, lar has sensibly blanked parts of it already. (hmm, and maybe we should block any editor who is engaging in opportunitistic accusations of "outing". I have informed Zvika that they have been implicitly accused of outing SA without being informed.) John Vandenberg ^(chat) 02:55, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

  I think we should block any editor who makes a threat with false accusations. The problem is that Elonka intentionally did the outing. That is so true.--Caspian blue (talk) 03:12, 10 October 2008 (UTC)