Well, I'd respond by saying that I'm not sure I'll be elected, although I say so reluctantly - lack of bullish certainty of election cost me at least one oppose at my RfB!

I nominated myself because I like helping people and find doing so a refreshing complement to my content work. I've also been a little frustrated at not being able to handle some username change work myself (see my statement, above).

It's hard for me to say that I'm better qualified than anyone else, whether standing or not. But I would hope that the community has seen enough of my work to know that they can trust me to apply policy properly and use a sensitive tool with care and consideration. -- Dweller ( talk) 11:40, 27 July 2009 (UTC) reply

Hi Tony1, thanks for the compliments - and criticism! I must say I found Aitias' question awkward, as I felt it presupposed things that are not the case, which left the entire structure somewhat shaky.

Thanks also for the questions. I was hoping not to put off readers with masses of text, but now I'm boxed in! OK, I'll take your questions in turn:

1 There will be lots - I'm not signing up for an easy task. As usual with policy, difficulty will arise where individual circumstances can push the boundaries. But even more tricky is where a quick look makes a case look simple, when deeper consideration would be valuable.

For example, if a user inadvertently gave away personal information that would be considered by most to be of a trivial nature. Hypothetically, and deliberately using an extreme example, if user Z's cat's name were revealed in a way that would remain in a log that normal deletion could not address.

This is not something mentioned in #1 of the policy, nor is it something that seems to be in the spirit of that policy. It would be all too easy to deny the request.

However, there may be extenuating circumstances, and I'd be prepared to listen to the user's request sympathetically. Although I'd be looking for an exceptionally strong rationale, it is possible that there may be good reasons to suppress it - hypothetically again, a highly unusual pet's name combined with a Google-able news story linking editor/owner's RL identity with the animal's.

The challenge here is to ensure that the request is heard sympathetically, to ensure that any extenuating circumstances are heard before a decision is made.

Another example from the world of name suppression, which as a Crat, I'm very interested in. A user pleads a change with suppression, citing wikistalking, but no evidence of such stalking is clear. "Stalking" is sometimes very much in the eye of the beholder.

In such borderline cases, I'd use all my experience of talking with editors to work out the fine points of detail on which such things frequently depend. And I wouldn't be too proud to ask for advice from others - second opinions are often crucial. I did this recently for a request that came to me via email for help with an RTV issue - I was uncomfortable with making a call and received permission from the requester to discuss it confidentially with another Crat.

More answers to follow - I currently have a world-class headache. -- Dweller ( talk) 15:41, 27 July 2009 (UTC) reply

2. This is hard to answer. The best examples are unrepeatable because of combinations of BEANS and privacy issues. Perhaps this one will suffice. A former admin contacted me offwiki and asked me to restore their admin privileges for a brief period so that they could fish stuff out of their old userspace, now deleted. They claimed to have resigned in good standing. I looked into the detail behind their account and was uncomfortable - it did not seem clear to me that they restored in good standing. This, combined with their desire to keep everything off the record was a bad combination. I felt I had to decline the request. However, I dislike being unhelpful, so I offered to dig out the versions they wanted and paste them somewhere including an email. I also suggested that I tend to be one of the more conservative crats, so told the user I'd be fine with them "forum shopping" asking a different crat. Both offers were turned down. I hope that helps. -- Dweller ( talk) 20:36, 27 July 2009 (UTC) reply

3. I have complex views and think that the discussion at Sock puppets may not be considering all the angles, which is fine, as it's in its early days. I for one can think of at least one circumstance where it may be appropriate for a user to have more than one account and am happy to discuss that elsewhere. I am also unconvinced that policy needs to change - the abusive sockers won't care a jot what policy says and the unabusive ones presumably are not harming the project, so why fix it? I'm not sure why people are suggesting Oversighters might be useful for giving green light for breaches - CU maybe and CU+OS yeeessss, but OS alone? Can't see the value, but perhaps that's a conversation for elsewhere and perhaps my creative thought is being blocked by this infernal headache. -- Dweller ( talk) 20:44, 27 July 2009 (UTC) reply

Post headache thought - of course, the logical step missing in the third sentence ("I am also unconvinced...") is that abusive socking is already prohibited by policy. If that wasn't clear before, it is now, hopefully... -- Dweller ( talk) 08:39, 28 July 2009 (UTC) reply

Hello Mailer Diablo. What a thought-provoking question. It can be hard to spot people gaming the system - it's often highly subjective, as a trawl through any ANI archive will quickly reveal. I suppose it depends. A polite and explanatory decline is usually all that's needed, but those who are being thoroughly disruptive would need stronger action. This may be a block or even, following the appropriate channels, a ban, or possibly it may need collaboration with a CU or other OSers to see if something more deeply nefarious is going on - or to double-check that others concur, in borderline cases. One thing that is intolerable is if material is Oversighted and another user is clearly hell-bent on disruptively reposting that information. That might require intervention that is swift, as well as strong. -- Dweller ( talk) 10:29, 28 July 2009 (UTC) reply

Hello, sorry you've had to wait for an answer to this. I think what you're asking is the main thing I'd do with Oversight, rather than what I think Oversight is for...? Yes, I'd be using it with sensitive renames, but that's more the driver that brought me here, not what I'd expect to do with the tool. Such renames are still, thankfully, relatively uncommon, as far as I know (Crats with OS may well receive and deal with requests I'm unaware of). I'm intending to use the tool on a more usual basis in response to regular privacy of editor and gross BLP issue requests. As stated above, I believe I'm in a slightly unusual time zone compared to other users with the tool, so I'd be looking to respond quickly during my hours of activity to these general requests.