User talk:AmandaNP/Archives/2013/March

Please read my message to the ArbCom, as it directly concerns you. Int21h (talk) 00:31, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate your reply. Its a little late and a dollar short, but at least you said something of substance finally. And yes, I will continue on this trail, even though I know it does not lead to paradise. On the contrary, I know this will get me nothing but very powerful enemies and attacks from all directions. No one ever said doing the right thing was going to make you popular.

And your [censored] right I made personal attacks. I was banned. Not just banned, but emergency banned outta nowhere with no effective means to bring it to the attention of the community. My conduct was in no way covered by Wikipedia policy, given this affair has little or nothing to do with Wikipedia, besides the Wikipedia ArbCom being the source of your privledge which I seek to revoke (if only temporarily). My personal attacks ended as soon as your personal attack ended. I do not accept your apology nor will I tender one. The fact that ArbCom has let 3 other CheckUsers that obviously made the same ridiculously outrageous mistake just adds fuel to my fire. I will not troll them: I will seek to have their CheckUser status revoked. Please, please do not confuse the two.

I will not "troll" you. I did not even think we would ever carry on a conversation. If you consider this whole affair to be "trolling" by me, then I think this only gives more weight to my hunch that this is only the tip of the iceberg, that you ban users for things that do not warrant bans, and definitely not emergency bans with no public or even private discussion, and no much as even a shred of proof to refute. Your refusal to provide proof would likely have been a death knell for these so-called "appeals" for many others you have likely persecuted. How many "simple mistakes" you have made and how many good, competent editors are now banned for life? They cannot say, to be sure, because they have been silenced. I consider myself to be lucky that, yes, apparently there is someone on this board that is not incompetent. And I definitely think that should come up if and when they renew their membership. But they should renew their request for membership, in competition against everyone else who will potentially run.

You seek to minimize a complete and permanent emergency ban with absolutely no discussion, and no good reason for the ban to be emergency, as a simple mistake. The fact that it was an emergency ban with no prior discussion, even though I was obviously not being disruptive, is why I believe, yess still believe, it was malicious. Why else the emergency? Why else the complete lack of discussion even after the ban? Oh, right, you sent me emails that I magically didn't get, which is in no way your fault. Just another mistake I guess. But what mistake can possibly be more destructive? What, prey tell, is not a simple mistake then? How many is too many for you to step down? For you to be removed? How many? How many good editors must never be heard from again? Int21h (talk) 02:51, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

You were blocked, not banned, and it has since been lifted, let's keep that factor straight. Yes, you were emergency blocked by me. I understand you were frustrated with the block, and I don't blame you for your language used, and I'm not asking for an apology, nor have I asked for one in the past. There was a private discussion off-wiki with other CheckUsers in which ANY checkuser here on enwiki had the ability to review. I got three others to certify the results and two of those three to agree to an emergency block (they all agreed to a block if answers didn't satisfy), and then I made the block. I have not persecuted others, and that's another attack at me, but your still upset with me, so i'll let that go. All blocks I make are with reason justified under Wikipedia Policy, and the moment different light comes to, I reverse it. I do not seek to minimize it, I just seek to have a civil discussion if you wish, and no, civil is not going after my flags and the rest of ArbCom's positions. I'm not going to force you to believe anything, I'll let you come to your own conclusions. Also, the email I did send in reply is pasted below this thread and I can give you exact technical information about it. It was a disruptive mistake to your editing, I will absolutely agree with that. I will not however resign my flags unless I or my fellow CheckUsers or a good chunk of administrators agree that my opinion and judgement are clouded to the point where I can't hold an objective opinion. Again, you can still believe what you wish, I'm not forcing anything on you. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 07:47, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

If the change lie with Wikipedia or ArbCom Policy, then I will take what I can get. But it obviously is not going to come from this ArbCom; a new ArbCom must be constituted. Too much time has gone by for me to believe they will do anything but nothing. And you have to understand that my appropriate response simply cannot be to just take your apology on its face and leave things as they were--as they are. Something must give, something must change. And there is where ArbCom and I do not see eye-to-eye, they simply are not concerned, they simply think all fault lies with you, or that no fault lies with anyone, I am not sure because they say and do nothing. I reject that. I reject that you and your three amigos are the only one who are responsible, and that nothing besides an "apology" is required, or even that an apology means anything. (Is that what Wikipedia is? An apologists playground?) So the question I asked was "What must change" coupled with "What can I change"? I had to make a decision.

THE MEAT OF MY ARGUMENT

This was simply to drastic an action, with no prior discussion in the community. And to make things worse, and why I place blame squarely on ArbCom, is it is ArbCom's doing, what you did. It is their doing. ArbCom made those policies. ArbCom gave you the power. ArbCom immunized you from any and all community discussion or meaningful review. What?! Why are you above reproach? ArbCom decrees that any Administrator, as you so eloquently stated in your permablock messaged, who attempts to overrule you would be himself potentially permablocked. And lets say an Admin did just that? They would have broken the rules, and though I would have been unpermablocked technically they would have to stay permablocked. I reject that logic. It is the logic of tyrants. ArbCom still to this day does not demand you provide an explanation; they don't even demand you provide an apology (to be fair neither do I).

Because that is the ultimate exoneration of your actions, that it was within Wikipedia--nay ArbCom--Policy. But unfortunately what releases you binds them. I refuse to accept that a six year editor, quite plainly doing nothing wrong as a User required a User block, an emergency User block at that. Your lack of explanation made me angry, to be sure. Its as if I was doing something minding my own business and some guy comes out of out nowhere and wants to take away my "WikiLife". And without any further discussion or warning, immediately proceeds to do the deed. Oops, sorry, you looked like someone else. I was angry, I was permablocked, and my appeal was or was (obviously) going to be denied, that much was clear.

But so what? Is that the solution for the next time this happens? For the User who has been "accidentally" surprise permablocked to have no other recourse besides a single appeal directly to the court of last resort (ArbCom), with nothing but a pen and paper and a "reasonable amount of time"? I threw that last part in because the appeal procedures, now as it was then, only require "community discussion", which is quite obviously precluded by both the permablock and the admonition that you as a CheckUser are immune from community discussion. Their silence, ambiguity, and inability to foresee the results of such an inflexible policy, this is what irritates me, as it is their doing, and theirs alone. Its ArbCom policy. This may come off as insulting, and I'm sure if I didn't say this may come of as insulting, but, they would surely permablock me for it and end this quickly (Ὁ λόγος δηλοῖ ὅτι οἷα ἡ πρόθεσίς ἐστιν ἀδικεῖν, παρ᾿ αὐτοῖς οὐδὲ δικαία ἀπολογία ἰσχύει), but oh'well: they were the hunters, and you were nothing but the hound. I will not be content with choking out some errant dog in a dark alleyway. I will not be swayed by his puppy wuppy eyes as his master releases yet more hounds on the world to do what they were trained to do. I think it would do all of us editors a disservice.

Hence my problem with ArbCom. And I can do nothing about the procedure. That is all internal ArbCom policy, their prerogative. I will not waste my time going through a pointless exercises of pleading for change with an ArbCom that plainly does not care about my problem. They have bigger problems to deal with, like trivial editwars on trivial articles. The fact that I must plead with you--who only now admits you were wrong--after you outright said, and I quote, you and "several CheckUsers" had "verified the results" is folly. They say I must plead with the judge after sentence has been pronounced before I can appeal, but also say if I squabble with the judge, and other contradictory nonsense, I will be permablocked.

SOME RANTING

I have heard it before. It is the language of tyrants. It is time we stop pretending that oh no not ArbCom, ArbCom would never, could never... They do all this as volunteers, we simply could not live without them, without our dear leaders, and no one else could possibly be Caesar, any claim to the contrary is tantamount to climbing buildings as spiderman yadda yadda yadda. They must quit modelling their actions on the judiciary of Germany or the International Criminal Court, whose only vaguely similar counterpart in the United States as I have pointed out is the US Guantanamo military commissions, and more like what we expect here in America and England. Germany is used to it, it is all she has ever known, accept for brief periods of revolutionary fervor or American occupation. But this is not Germany. Wikimedia and Wikipedia, and definitely not the English Wikipedia and ArbCom, should not be run like Germany and their Germanic and Latin counterparts. More is expected of us. What happens here matters, and every single good editor lost because of malfeasance or incompetence is a punishing blow, and there are so many one can take before it spells the end, maybe only even one could be enough. A single court (no chambers or presidiums or working committees with a role of the dice to see who will decide your fate) with a cohesive and identifiable policy that can be relied on, something you will not find in any other court system. Because that's what they are, a judiciary. They judge or judice. Its time to start asking some serious questions. Its time to stop pretending Wikipedia exists in a vacuum or that this is someone else's problem.

IN CLOSING

And on top of it is the notion that your powers directly result as a delegation of their powers, so they should be held responsible for your [censored] ups. ArbCom is responsible. If they are not, then who? What is an appeal if not to a superior power? It would not be an appeal then, it would be a lie. An outright lie to claim such a procedure is an appeal. Yes, I believe they are both a superior power and responsible for their subordinates. What I am asking for is a serious review of what happened here--and all I got was threats of permabans and other adverse actions. So be it then, this is how it will begin.

The more I discuss this the more I realize it isn't you. The more I read about ArbCom's behaviour the more vital I see it is to get these guys out. And so, like I said, this is how I see all this ending: they must step down, they must ban me, or I must incessantly call for their removal and any and all appropriate times and places. No, I will not disrupt editing, or at least make an effort not to. But do not despair, do not think all this is just because of you and your three amigos, I actually am somewhat thankful that now I see it is bigger than that, bigger than you or me or this ban or any other. Because if not me then who? Those who have been unfairly banned? If not now then when? It is ArbCom. Its a pattern. And its ArbCom who is to blame, and ArbCom should do the right thing--something, anything--or suffer the consequences. And since many months now have passed, with out so much as even a peep, there it is.

FIAT IVSTITIA ET PEREAT MVNDVS ET HOC NVLLATENVS OMITTATIS

Respectfully, Int21h (talk) 00:19, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

And, to be clear, I think you still have not given me an explanation. You have said you were sorry, about which I could care less, but you haven't told me what happened. Still. What information did you rely on? That is what I asked for from day 1. (Yes, other things were said.) Was it the HTTP headers? Was it my IP? What else is there? Do you know now that there are those of us out there, many of us, who do not want to be easily identified by every scumbag on the Internet? And that we know how? And that its easy and only getting easier? I do not want an apology. I want, at a minimum, an explanation. The fact that you keep ignoring my demands, as ArbCom is, is still quite frustrating.

But at least I can edit now while we have this long ... conversation. Int21h (talk) 01:18, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

To answer your question it was the useragent provided by the HTTP of the software Tor browser that you were using for the two operating systems you used as you mentioned on your talkpage. That and the IPs also matched up. Tor is a shared IP as you would know, so other blocked/banned users showed up on those IPs, and a fair chunk of the huge list of Tor IPs you used had socks that linked back to a longterm banned user who put obscenities in the names of it's socks. Furthermore, there were overlaps between the times that you were using those Tor IPs, and when this sockmaster was using the same Tor IPs. Since you are denying my apology now, I won't try and give you another one, I'm just going to try and work through this with you to get the answers you want the best I can provide them. You are also right, I didn't hold an onwiki community discussion about this, I did it offwiki between checkusers, and then applied the block. I should have done my investigation first, presented it to the community, and then seen how that took it's course. Did I do that? No, bluntly, I fucked it up, and not just a little, I fucked it up bad. Why? Because I did not have the knowledge that the Firefox provided by Tor lied to me about your operating system, web browser, and it's version. Since that version is also a very old version (since were now at Firefox 20 in betas if not higher), not many people use versions that old, and I thought that was more evidence with the already matching Tor IPs, UA matches, and time overlaps. But lets be clear, I was absolutely wrong and it's going to make me 10x more cautious dealing with Tor IPs now. That point has been nailed into me. Now I am happy to answer your questions about circumstances, but talking to me about ArbCom and the appeals procedure is a dead wall, because I can't change any of that on my own. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 22:11, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, as to the apologies I would appreciate it because every time I refuse to accept it I look like an asshole. Which I may be, to be sure. I hope you understand it is on principle: people come to expect that apologies must be accepted, or must be accepted right away, or must be accepted publicly. I simply will not commit or contribute to that line of thought. Its time that being politically correct isn't a pejorative. As for my conduct, I simply just did not think a situation would ever come up where I would have to explain myself on these very personal beliefs. They are just that, personal beliefs, and any and all such demands for them will and should be met with scorn, if only because they change so frequently--and everything one says can and will be used against me in the court of public opinion, thereby holding one to beliefs he may have held in error. But I digress. I simply was not planning for anyone to change their minds or do the right thing here. And yes, my conduct was possibly vindictive, possibly still vindictive, but I will not suppress my feelings, or censor my speech, at the drop of someone else's hat. Yes, that's probably in violation of community policy or ArbCom policy or whatever. I considered myself unbound by any such external moral systems after I was banned--or permanently blocked or whatever. Was I wrong? Possibly, but I'll tell you I would do it again.

This was my first introduction to the CheckUser was when this started; to ArbCom as well. This whole affair is bringing major flaws in this whole procedure, this whole system, to my attention. Very little in all this has made me less angry. That this discussion has started, yes, this is good. But jeez. All that to get here?

This is why I was so pissed. I knew, as I wrote on my talk page, there was nothing besides my IPs that was personally identifiable for anyone who knew what they are doing. This is by design. None of this should have ever come up, that my User-Agent is apparently spoofed (fuck if I knew), but now its all in the fucking open. I view any and all information about my location and software used as a vulnerability. Vulnerabilities sometimes do no damage, sometimes vulnerability can have far worse consequences. You may not realize this, but the CheckUser has a government counterpart in many countries. And when those CheckUsers find you, when they match up personally identifiable information, it doesn't result in a fucking ban, it results in violence, and there is no violence like government violence. These CheckUsers will fuck your shit up. They will take turns in 8 hour shifts fucking your shit up, shift after shift and into your night and day, until you are fucking begging them to kill you. I'll bet you think I'm fucking joking, or overracting or something. These things are not relegated to history, they do not always happen to someone else, the world is not like America or Wikipedia. And yes, they should thank their lucky fucking stars there are so many of us, here in America and some in Europe and elsewhere, that spend a ridiculous amount of time and effort making sure those CheckUsers can't. Any information you think you have that is identifiable is, at best, identifiable only of stupid or disadvantaged trolls. A smart and resourceful troll or sockpuppet or whatever the hell you guys hunt is going to, or at least should if he was smart, use public computers--libraries, public wifis, etc.--or some other form of open or semi-open proxy. He's isn't going to use his real fucking name and set up a fucking 5 year old account to get an IPBE. And for the open proxies, these crap IRC-era proxy scans will soon be at an end I hope, but until then there are plenty of alternatives. A smart troll is going to go into "about:config"--no plugin needed. And with these simple steps, what else does the CheckUser have? That's right, you guessed it--judgement based on editing content. That's what all this hinges on for the hard to catch troll. Editing content. You are targeting people for content. This is why I assume all this is malicious--no competent admin is going to base their decisions on easily spoofable information tracking down a hardened troll, and my IPBE should have covered me from the whole IP-based decision making. I simply thought it would be common knowledge, I mean "general.useragent.override" has been there for like fucking ever. And that's the solution, to ban a User account? WTF? That doesn't even make any fucking sense, but with the reasoning I have seen thus far I am less and less surprised. And all that is because of ArbCom and their policies, so strike fucking one.

The fact that, as I said from the beginning, you were not aware of all this? You fucked up? You should have known? Its all your fault? And ArbCom bestowed on you, from what I can tell, a pretty fucking awesome power? That's strike two against ArbCom.

And to the so-called "appeal" procedure. Does anyone see all this as anything but arbitrary? As a giant and ongoing fuck up on ArbCom's part that they refuse to even discuss? Does anyone see that if it were not because of ArbCom, you would not have been able to do this as an emergency, that your actions are still within policy, wrong as though they may be? I mean, its hard to not miss anything as I sum up my argument in one swing like this, but the appeal procedure is a joke, non-existent. It contradicts not only what I have come to expect, but itself. They have written it as if its not the first and only appeal available. That's a fucking lie. They have wrote it to be ambiguous that a permablock, given all the information we know now, still would be in order. Community discussion is fruitless (you cannot be overridden, and as you say it was already "verified" by the only "community" that could do anything), fruitless discussion is forbidden (TROLL! TROLL! GET THE TROLL!), and community discussion is required. I mean, what the fuck? A violation of any of those is grounds to deny the so-called appeal. Is that suppose to be a joke? Am I reading something wrong? That's fucking strike three, and that is why they're out.

To top it if they as much as told me to go fuck myself--sorry, told me to discuss it with you, using my personal email account, the one that might has well have had my fucking social security number printed on it (ohhh then just change it after your done--we're only volunteers here you know), or to switch it to some other email account, after you were plainly and explicitly ignoring me. (Lets not revisit why or if it was correct.) That's just being a fucking asshole. Int21h (talk) 00:18, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

And, to repeat myself, its not as if I want them banned from the game, I just think they should get the hell out of the batter's box and let the other players play. Int21h (talk) 00:26, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Per WP:ADMINACCT and WP:DR, could you please answer the following questions about your erroneous block of the Int21h account for sockpuppetry:

• When making the block, did you take into account the age of the Int21h account (created 29 May 2007) or the fact that it had a clean block log?
• When you informed Int21h of the block[1], you gave the following as your reason:

  You have been blocked based on CheckUser evidence that you are clearly abusing multiple accounts. If you believe this is a mistake, you may email me. At this time, until my investigation is complete, i'm not going to release the account names in which are matching with you as this is a big investigation and is not complete, but several CheckUsers have already looked into this offwiki and have verified the results. If you wish not to email me, you can appeal right to the Ban Appeals Subcommittee by emailing arbcom-appeals-enlists.wikimedia.org.

  Why did you feel it necessary to ban the Int21h account immediately with an incomplete block explanation, rather than wait until your investigation was complete and you could provide a full explanation of the block?
• You also mentioned that several other CheckUsers corroborated your block. Please name them.
• If Int21h was "clearly abusing multiple accounts", why could you not name at least some of the other accounts?
• Did you have any evidence that the Int21h itself account was disrupting the project, or that the sock accounts were assisting the Int21h on talkpages, etc?
• Int21h correctly described the mistake you made on 28 December 2012[2] Did you investigate whether his assertion was correct? Why did it take three weeks to discover that he was correct?
• You have indicated that you wish to retain CheckUser access despite this incident[3]. When you made the block, you placed a template warning that any non-CU admin undoing the block risked losing their admin status.[4] In the future, how can non-CheckUser editors check your blocks and ensure you have not made another mistake?

Regards, --Surturz (talk) 23:56, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

This sounds like "And did you stop beating your wife?", to be honest. --Rschen7754 00:31, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

These are all questions that either have been answered, cannot be answered due to WP:BEANS concerns, or are based on faulty premises which assume wrongdoing. If this is your attempt to "resolve" the "dispute" (which is already resolved as best as anyone uninvolved can tell, and has been apologized and compensated for, and exists now only in the mind of Int21h, who refuses to acknowledge apologies or explanations of how the error happened and will be corrected for the future), you really need to go back to the drawing board and try to organize your thoughts again before attempting to draw anyone else into it. WP:AUSC exists to address complaints about checkuser use, and if you're determined to pursue this you're free to contact them, but I suspect you'll hear the same thing from them that you and Int21h have heard from multiple other editors this week: yes, it appears an error was made; yes, that error has been corrected, explained, apologized for, and discussed among checkusers; and no, that error was not part of a pattern of abuse or incompetence that would make it rise to the level of censuring any checkuser or abritrator involved. There is literally nothing else that can reasonably be requested of the involved users at this point, and continuing to beat the drum of "but something ELSE must happen!" is becoming unreasonable. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 04:44, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Fluffernutter nailed this mostly, especially how this appears to be in bad faith making it look like I was acting out of malice, against policy, and wanting to target Int21h directly, which to be very very clear is not true. I do want to add though that some of it is covered under the Privacy policy/CU policy, and other parts of it are covered by access to private lists and wikis that I can't post without the direct permission of the authors or owners. You may wish to read the above section which answers some of your questions and the ArbCom talkpage which also answers some. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 05:28, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Apologies if I appear to be acting in bad faith - I am not. I do not think I have any history with either you or Int21h and believe I am uninvolved. Apologies also if I have implied you acted out of malice or were targeting Int21h, FWIW I do not think you were acting with anything except a desire to improve WP. However, I do think you were acting outside of the WP:ADMINACCT policy, which states:

Administrators are accountable for their actions involving administrator tools, and unexplained administrator actions can demoralize other editors who lack such tools. Subject only to the bounds of civility, avoiding personal attacks, and reasonable good faith, editors are free to question or to criticize administrator actions. Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrator actions and to justify them when needed.

Your block did not adequately explain the reasons for your block. It was essentially your word against Int21h's. I realise it must be extremely tiresome to be grilled over one mistake, particularly with Int21h as hostile as he is. However, if we are to accept CheckUsers blocks where the reasons for the block are not revealed due to privacy concerns, then we must be assured that they are worthy of the highest trust. I believe I have been civil, I have not made any personal attacks, and I hope I have now convinced you that I am not acting in bad faith - so per the WP:ADMINACCT policy, could you please answer my questions? Thank you. --Surturz (talk) 10:15, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

You have been told by DQ and two others to drop it, so please do so. The proper venue if you still have a complaint is WP:AUSC as you have been told numerous times. Thank you. --Rschen7754 10:20, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

You're missing one key point. DQ made the block on CheckUser evidence, which isn't covered by WP:ADMINACCT, and is only reviewable by WP:AUSC or technically the Ombudsmen. Legoktm (talk) 10:32, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Sorry guys, but I'm just frankly getting very tired of this, so I'm going to answer the questions, so people can sit down, have a coffee and give me some breather room before asking the same questions again along with some new questions pointing to the fact that I am not being accountable or that i'm acting with malice towards a user in the community or to the community. For the record, I always invite second reviews (and in this whole mess a whole 3 other CUs with the rest of the CU team being able to comment) so that if I make a bloody mistake like this, someone can point it out and I can clean up the mess I created.

• Q: When making the block, did you take into account the age of the Int21h account (created 29 May 2007) or the fact that it had a clean block log?

• A: The age of the account, I can't tell you specifically how much I paid attention to that factor, but I understood that Int21h's account was at the very least over 1 if not 2 years old. I did take into account the clean block log.

• Q: When you informed Int21h of the block[5], you gave the following as your reason:

  You have been blocked based on CheckUser evidence that you are clearly abusing multiple accounts. If you believe this is a mistake, you may email me. At this time, until my investigation is complete, i'm not going to release the account names in which are matching with you as this is a big investigation and is not complete, but several CheckUsers have already looked into this offwiki and have verified the results. If you wish not to email me, you can appeal right to the Ban Appeals Subcommittee by emailing arbcom-appeals-enlists.wikimedia.org.

  Why did you feel it necessary to ban the Int21h account immediately with an incomplete block explanation, rather than wait until your investigation was complete and you could provide a full explanation of the block?

• A: As I've said at least once (in the above thread) and if I remember correctly two times already, the number of accounts with overlapping time frames, the same technical information, and the immediate appearance (but needed time to investigate and verify) of it being a long term banned serial sockmaster is why I blocked with the information I had. To further note I also provided the {{checkuserblock-account}} template which provides some comments within itself.

• Q: You also mentioned that several other CheckUsers corroborated your block. Please name them.

• A: I told you above that there was stuff on confidential functionary resources that I couldn't tell you without the explicit permission of the functionary who said it, and this is one of those answers. If I posted the names here, I would be violating access to private data because the intended audience was only functionaries. It would be like another ArbCom-l leak. So no, I won't release names without permission.

• Q: If Int21h was "clearly abusing multiple accounts", why could you not name at least some of the other accounts?

• A: Looking back at it now, in rear view sight, I could have at least listed 1-3 accounts that were involved. I failed there, and I will completely admit that.

• Q: Did you have any evidence that the Int21h itself account was disrupting the project, or that the sock accounts were assisting the Int21h on talkpages, etc?

• A: At the time, no, I did not have any evidence to say that the Int21h account was being disruptive 'by itself, or that any of the sock accounts were editing the same articles, project space pages, talkpages, etc. together.

• Q: Int21h correctly described the mistake you made on 28 December 2012[6] Did you investigate whether his assertion was correct? Why did it take three weeks to discover that he was correct?

• A: His assertion, at the time, was that I was completely wrong in what I had already investigated, double, and triple checked including with other CUs. So if I read this correctly your asking if I went back and poured over it again wasting time on what I was already convinced on? Please tell me where the logic is in proving to yourself that you think that you are right when your sure of it.

• Q: You have indicated that you wish to retain CheckUser access despite this incident[7]. When you made the block, you placed a template warning that any non-CU admin undoing the block risked losing their admin status.[8] In the future, how can non-CheckUser editors check your blocks and ensure you have not made another mistake?

• A: This is not a fair question. Your directly questioning my judgement on things I don't have control over and "threatening", if you will (though you can't actually do it), for my CU flags to be pulled. Because it is private evidence I must notify users that it is a checkuser block, and use that template when evidence is involved related to the use of CheckUser. Now the Arbitration Committee ruled a long time ago that these blocks, because they contain sensitive and private data that only CUs can see, can not be overturned by a normal administrator. That was not my decision, it was the decision of an ArbCom before I actively started editing here IIRC (or at least before I knew about the effect of a CU block). Non-Checkusers would have to confer with another CheckUser to verify my blocks in the future (which again, as I indicated above, I am open to at any time, because I am accountable). I did not mandate the access level of this private data, the WMF did with the Privacy policy. If you don't want either of those constraints to be there, then go chuck the whole CU system and say goodbye to getting and additional help with sockpuppet detection and investigation, because I can't do a thing about it.

Now I've sat down and answered every single one of your questions, despite some of them being already answered, and explained to the best of my ability why the hell I fucked up. Maybe I didn't do it in exactly a civil manner, but when your asked to answer stuff that you've already been over, being watched by the whole community and being examined into pieces, and have people making nice tl;drs a mile long that you actually go and read through and answer, and then get personal attacks and people questioning your motives and beliefs (and i'm not saying this one is you, Surturz) that you try and defend on this wiki, they will get defensive. I'm sorry that you have to read through all the incivility, it's not how I normally am, but it's necessary in this case. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 14:30, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for answering my questions, I appreciate that this is no fun for you. I don't think there is a privacy concern naming the three certifying CheckUsers because your fellow checkusers have already publicly discussed the identity of the certifying users - Elockid has said that they were not involved in the block[9], J.delanoy has also said that he was not one[10]. Coren said that he "probably" was one of the confirming CheckUsers[11] and it is this "probably" that worries me - perhaps you thought the three confirmed your verdict, but there was a misunderstanding. I would like to independently verify your claim that three CheckUsers certified your block reason. So please name the three certifying checkusers. Ask them for permission first, if you like. If they don't grant permission just state that. I reiterate that I do not think you have been dishonest here, I am sure you think you have told the truth, but I think it is worth also making your claim publicly verifiable.

Finally, I am not threatening you with anything - I'm not even an admin. Please realise it would be very easy for me to say nothing and that it is reasonably scary demanding answers from a CheckUser about governance issues. --Surturz (talk) 11:02, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm sufficiently concerned with the tack that you are choosing to take here - you are acting like your own self-appointed Audit Subcommittee. Functionaries are bound by privacy rules, and DeltaQuad cannot release the names of the CUs who were involved, or he could lose access to the tool on those grounds alone. CheckUser is not subject to the dispute resolution process, contrary to what you believe; it is under the jurisdiction of the Arbitration Committee, the stewards, and the Wikimedia Foundation staff, due to the privacy matters involved. FWIW I am only a SPI clerk and not a CheckUser, oversighter, or ArbCom member. Now please let the matter rest. --Rschen7754 11:14, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

I would be telling you who ran the checks against Int21h, which is data contained in the checkuser log which you don't have access to and is covered by the Privacy policy. To release data from the checkuser log, or from the resource that contains these names is not only inappropriate, it's against policy to reveal that private data. I'm also not going to ask my fellow functionaries to go through what i've gone through to satisfy your curiosity, or for you to question them about these matters, and that's completely unprofessional. A similar thread like this was posted sometime last year on the on the checkuser talkpage and was declined and forwarded to the Audit Subcommittee. There was no misunderstanding, I made three direct statements about what I thought was going on, and asked them to certify it or not. Your directly questioning my ability to read, if not my ability to tell the truth. I told you the results of that above. If you don't trust my word on that, I'm sorry, take it up with the Audit Subcommittee. It's not my information to release. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 12:41, 3 March 2013 (UTC)