Wikipedia talk:CheckUser

Latest comment: 2 months ago by Æo in topic 17 January email

CheckUser VRT Role Account edit

Hi,

I’m not sure what would need to happen to set this up — or if it would be technically prohibitive — but I was wondering if it would be possible to set up a CheckUser role account, similar to User:Oversight, for the purpose of sending emails through Wikipedia to the CheckUser VRT queue.

My reason for asking this is because the email linked to my WP account is an anonymous one, which I can reply to emails sent to, but can’t initiate emails from that specific address directly (or at least, I don’t think I can). Therefore, if I sent an email from my email client to the CheckUser email address, it wouldn’t be able to be verified to my account; whereas one sent through the Wikipedia interface would be.

Best, A smart kitten (talk) 11:52, 1 September 2023 (UTC)Reply

This is certainly possible from a technical standpoint. The Arbitration Committee is the entity that owns the User:Oversight role account, and they could pretty easily spin up a similar one for the CheckUser VRT queue—if you would like to see this happen, the best approach might be to reach out to an arbitrator directly to ask if they could raise it with their colleagues. The only thing I would call out is that the CheckUser VRT queue is not very actively monitored, and not all checkusers have access to it. On the other hand, I do think having a role account for Special:EmailUser access could be useful for things like WP:IPBE requests (probably the most common use of the queue), as it would definitively link the IPBE request with the requesting account. Mz7 (talk) 03:35, 5 November 2023 (UTC)Reply

The "contacting a checkuser" section. edit

Currently, it advises users to look at the "active users" list, which shows which user who happen to have CU bits have done literally anything lately, while Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Audit/Statistics shows who has been recently active as a CU. Should we replace and/or just add a link to the stats? Thoughts? Beeblebrox (talk) 18:51, 28 September 2023 (UTC)Reply

That makes sense to me. I'd go with prominently adding the stats, on the basis that more choice of information is good. -- zzuuzz (talk) 21:23, 28 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
I'd say both. Show the stats while letting them see who is currently active. Better to know that someone who has been using it frequently is around right now than know one or the other. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:47, 29 September 2023 (UTC)Reply

Notification of discussion at WT:AC/N regarding CU blocks edit

  You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Clarification/update request: Statement on checkuser blocks. Best, ‍—‍a smart kitten[meow] 18:54, 18 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

Cabal Search edit

Are there any policies arround a cabal of individual users acting together to influece the bias of a wiki article? If they are coordinating their efforts, what differentiates this from a single user's sockpuppetry? Thank you for your time. 2600:8804:6600:4:BD84:27CE:9D3F:EBC5 (talk) 20:53, 9 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

We call that meatpuppetry and if it's done abusively we can treat it the same as sockpuppetry but checkuser won't be much use in detecting it. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:57, 9 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

17 January email edit

Dear CU team,

This is to notify you that on 17 January, h18:28, I sent a request for investigation to checkuser-en-wpATwikipedia.org, given that in a comment from November 2023 hereabove I read that the latter is not actively monitored.

Best regards, Æo (talk) 12:31, 19 January 2024 (UTC)Reply