Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Audit Subcommittee/2012 appointments/Salvio giuliano

Salvio giuliano

AUSC candidate pages: Avraham • DeltaQuad • MBisanz • Ponyo • Salvio giuliano

Comment on the candidate below or by email to the Committee • Community consultation period is now closed.

Salvio giuliano (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Nomination statement (250 words max.)

I would like to put my name forward to serve as a member of the Audit Subcommittee. I am Salvio giuliano, an editor, an administrator and an ArbCom clerk. I have been active for a while and I believe I am in good standing with the community.

There is very little I can add about myself: I consider myself to be an experienced and dedicated metapedian and I deem it my responsibility as a sysop to always try to assist as much as I can in making things run smoothly on Wikipedia for those who create content. And in this spirit I would approach my role as a member of AUSC, if I were chosen. I consider the Subcommittee to be one of the most important bodies in Wikipedia's current structure, as checkuser and oversight actions share common elements which distinguish them from any other on-wiki activity: first of all, they can seriously impinge on the privacy of all users and, furthermore, their logs can only be consulted by a very limited number of Wikipedians. This makes abuse insidious and hard to detect, thus limiting these users' accountability, which is why diligent supervision is crucial.

Standard questions for all candidates

Please describe any relevant on-Wiki experience you have for this role.

A: As an administrator, I have to be experienced in data analysis to decide whether to use my tools. It can be something trivial – such as examining a newcomer’s short list of contributions to determine if they are a vandalism-only account. It can be something a bit more complex – examining an article’s edit history to determine whether it needs protection. And finally, it can be something complicated – such as examining a user’s track record, stretching back months or even years, to determine whether he is a POV-pusher in order to impose sanctions or examining the behavioural patterns of an editor, to determine whether he is a sockpuppet. More specifically, I have been involved in various SPIs in the past, both as filer and as reviewing admin and I have also blocked many more obvious ducks without filing SPIs when their quacking was particularly deafening. Furthermore, as many experienced users, I’ve become proficient at spotting certain repeat sockpuppeteers almost instantly. And I’ve made a couple of requests that edits be suppressed and they have all been oversighted.

Please outline, without breaching your personal privacy, what off-Wiki experience or technical expertise you have for this role.

A: My technical expertise is somewhat limited, though I think I’m fairly computer literate. I can read and understand a WHOIS, geolocate an IP and identify user agents; I am, furthermore, good at analysing and comparing data, which can be useful both to examine editing patterns and to compile statistics regarding CU and OS use. Due to my studies, finally, I’m also moderately versed in technology, media and telecommunications law – though I’m referring to Italian law, so I am persuaded this is pretty useless...

Do you hold advanced permissions (checkuser, oversight, bureaucrat, steward) on this or other WMF projects? If so, please list them. Also, do you have OTRS permissions? If so, to which queues?

A: No, I don't.

Questions for this candidate

1. Do you think AUSC members should actively use the CheckUser or Oversight tool? Amalthea 08:47, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

A: Though I am unaware of any formal prohibition, I personally believe that, as a general rule, it is inappropriate. Since the members of the Subcommittee are the ones tasked with dealing with complaints regarding the use of the CheckUser and Oversight tool, whose logs are not public, they don't just have to be neutral, they also must appear neutral. This means that all AUSC members should clearly differentiate themselves from the people they oversee, which implies that they should not use the tools themselves. Not to mention that to use the tools can lead to problems when the actions of a member of the AUSC are brought before the rest of Subcommittee. That said, I wish to emphasise once again that this is just my personal opinion – and that I recognise there may be cases where, due to a serious emergency, the use of the tools on the part of a member of AUSC may be warranted.

2. Why do you think it is important to keep AUSC investigations private? Whenaxis talk · contribs 23:02, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

A: AUSC investigations are not kept private, most of the evidence pertaining to them is because the Foundation's privacy policy so mandates or because commonsense so suggests. In the first case, just as much as all other Functionaries, Subcommittee members are subject to the Privacy, CheckUser and Oversight Policies and, therefore, forbidden to divulge non-public items of information, which of course implies that all the evidence gathered by the Subcommittee which falls into this category may not be discussed with non-members; in the second, reason suggests that to precisely explain to a blocked sockpuppeteer how he was caught is rather unwise, as it allows him to improve his skills and to possibly avoid detection in the future. For these reasons, most if not all evidence gathered during an AUSC investigation must be kept confidential; however, the existence of the investigation itself is not kept private and a summary of the Subcommittee's findings and of their conclusions or sanctions, if any, is published on-wiki.

3, 4, and 5. Part of the rationale for having non-Arb members on this committee, at least as I see it, is to give more voice to the 'common editor'. People who have had advanced permissions for long periods of time might view the use of those permissions differently from those that didn't have access to those rights before joining the committee. With this in mind, I note that several candidates have advanced permissions, including not only CU and OS but also permissions are more powerful and more exclusive that CU and OS. Firstly, do you consider my 'common editor' rationale to be accurate? If not, what is the reason that the committee contains non-Arbs? Secondly, do you believe that having advanced and ultra-advanced permissions for significant periods of time would alter how a user (not any specific user) would approach the position of AUSC member? Finally, do you believe that this 'overqualified' concern might reasonably apply to you, and if so, how would you go about handling such a concern and mitigating its impact? Sven Manguard Wha? 16:08, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

A: I think that the reason non-arbitrators are part of the Subcommittee is to make sure that the members of the community get to have a say in how the Functionaries are held accountable. Oversighters and CheckUsers are nominated by the Arbitration Committee and, due to privacy (and legal) issues, their actions cannot be reviewed by the community; the decision to have non-arbitrators in the AUSC is a good compromise which allows the ones you refer to as common editors – though I do not really like this definition – to exercise, at least indirectly, oversight over the various Functionaries. That said, I believe that holding advanced permissions may influence one's approach to his role as a member of the Subcommittee; on the one hand, a functionary is more familiar with the problems and issues generally faced by his fellow functionaries when using the tools and with the possible consequences of their involvement in those areas; however, on the other, this familiarity may lead to bias – or even just the perception of bias, which, when it comes to the members of a supervising body, is just as bad. That is why, to be honest, I am in two minds about the "overqualification concerns" you mention, though, as far as I am concerned those concerns do not apply, as I do not hold any advanced permission.

Comments

Comments may also be submitted in confidence to the Arbitration Committee privately by emailing arbcom-en-blists.wikimedia.org

• I can't make my mind up here, but I thought I'd leave a note to that effect here, rather than comment on all the candidates but one. From what I've seen of him, Salvio seems to be a sensible, level-headed admin. But he seems to keep out of the way a bit, and very rarely crosses my watchlist, which is unusual for an admin with ~30k edits, so all I have to go on is my general impression. I can't judge if he's well-suited to the role, but from my general impression, I think serious fuck-ups would be unlikely. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:18, 16 February 2012 (UTC)