Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/CheckUser and Oversight/Rolling appointments/March 2025

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

I became a trainee SPI clerk in August 2021, and a full clerk in May 2022, the same week I became an admin. I took breaks from both of those things starting last February; I returned to adminship in November 2024 and clerkship in mid-February. In my time as an admin and clerk, I have never had a sockblock overturned and never been told I was wrong to endorse a check. I have been involved in many complex sockpuppetry blocks, including being the first to uncover GizzyCatBella and ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ as sockpuppets. Most importantly, though, I'm the person who standardized the capitalization of "checkuser"/"CheckUser"/"Checkuser" in Wikipedia:CheckUser.

I've long turned down suggestions that I apply for CU, primarily because I've noticed CUs often move away from behavior-based SPI work, a skillset I pride myself on. However, since I returned to being an AE admin and SPI clerk, it's become clear to me that there are not enough CUs available to run checks on difficult ARBPIA cases, an area I have years of experience in. Particularly with Icewhiz, cases often come down to a combination of CU and behavioral analysis. I have also been trying to bridge the gap between AE and SPI in cases where the two overlap; as we can see with a case like Boksi, that is easier done as a CU. These are my primary reasons for requesting, but I would use CU to help wherever I am able.

1. Please describe any relevant experience you have for this role.

   As described above, I have extensive experience in sockpuppet investigations, including ones that involved complex analysis based on both behavioral and CU evidence and required me to work closely with CUs, stewards, and arbitrators. A list of ~1,500 SPI actions can be seen here and a list of ~600 sockblocks here. (Both lists have some omissions and some erroneous inclusions, but I think they roughly cancel out.)

   My admin work has led to me dealing with non-public data several times, and as a result I have signed the ANPDP. I discovered and reported T310763/CVE-2022-39192, a vulnerability that made it possible for admins to deduce blocked users' IPs. I helped analyze vandals' CU data, as disclosed to me by sysadmins, during a series of vandal raids in 2023. I also have familiarity with working with private information outside of Wikimedia, having been subject to FERPA when I worked in a middle school while serving in AmeriCorps.

2. Please list any advanced permissions (checkuser, oversight, bureaucrat, steward) you hold or previously held on any WMF project.

   Admin on enwiki, mediawikiwiki, testwiki, and testwikidatawiki. Global renamer; global abuse filter helper. Former admin on Wikidata (desysopped for inactivity in 2014).

3. Do you have VRT permissions? If so, to which queues?

   info-en (inactive)

1. You and I have discussed some of this privately, but I figured it worth asking this question publicly so the whole community could see your answer and thought process: how would your actions as a checkuser and functionary resemble and be different from what we've historically seen of you as an admin and SPI clerk? Thanks and best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:57, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

   Overall I'm proud of my track record as an admin and SPI clerk. I've been open about my disillusionment with some of the kind of in-the-thick-of-it work I did for my first two years as an admin—less about the results, and more about what it took to get there. Since picking the mop back up in November, I've been a lot more focused on just doing what is correct in terms of policy and community expectations, and... well, ironically for someone with the Knight of Swords tattooed on their arm, remembering that it's not my job to fix every problem myself. That shift in paradigms hasn't made me gunshy: I've still been able to make some tough blocks and TBANs when needed at SPI and AE. What it has done is made me a better admin and clerk. As a checkuser, I'd carry that mentality forward. The checkuser team has multiple levels of quality control and redundancy, and I'd look forward to being a part of that system, more in the role of someone making checks and getting feedback on them, than someone involved in the internal policymaking that goes on on the lists. (I don't wish to entirely rule out the latter, but it's just not something that particularly interests me.) -- Tamzin (they|xe|🤷) 18:33, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

2. Arising from statements on the page linked by Cabayi, how open are you to interpreting checkuser evidence as inconclusive despite a shared IP? Yngvadottir (talk) 22:16, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

   IP evidence should never be the sole evidence for a block; there's an infinity of good-faith reasons two people might be on the same IP or even same device. In the RFAR referenced on that page, we had a case where two admins shared an IP and most of one admin's edits consisted of backing up the other in discussions. As a CU I'd have no problem inferring inappropriate off-wiki coordination from a fact pattern like that. On the other hand, I have quite a few times at SPI found editors either not at fault, or meriting only a warning, when there was a good explanation for a shared IP. A few years ago we had a number of high-profile cases of mistaken blocks of family members. I unblocked a user in one of those cases; the difficulty users have in being taken seriously when they claim a shared IP is one of the reasons I've been trying to work for significant reform in the unblock process. At SPI, when CUs have said that two accounts are technically confirmed but there hasn't been a clear behavioral link, I have tended to reach out to the users and ask for their explanation. I would continue that approach if I were a checkuser myself. Furthermore, I always watchlist the talkpages of users I block, so in the event that I did CUblock someone and they made a shared-IP defense, I'd look into that claim, and if I found it plausible I'd accept. If I found it implausible, I'd leave a comment for the reviewing admin explaining why.

   If there's any more specific question you have about shared-IP situations, please let me know. -- Tamzin (they|xe|🤷) 04:28, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

• Experienced, knowledgeable, and trustworthy. I think Tamzin would be a good fit for the CU team. —Ingenuity (t • c) 16:24, 24 March 2025 (UTC)
• Just the capitalization standardization work should be enough to become a CheckUser—uh, I mean a checkuser. :P In all seriousness, Tamzin is incredibly competent and steeped in experience, and I'd fully trust them with the role. ⟲ Three Sixty! (talk, edits) 11:09, 25 March 2025 (UTC)
• I didn't feel inclined to comment here today until I read our information page on functionaries by dumb chance. I saw in the last paragraph of that page that As functionaries have a high profile within the project and are the face of Wikipedia both to its editors and to the wider world, it is damaging to the integrity of the encyclopedia as a whole if these users are repeatedly embroiled in controversy. Tamzin once said to me a while ago something along the lines of "they don't do drama...". Well as RoySmith sagely noted at here more than two years ago, drama continues to follow Tamzin. The way that things work on-wiki means that people will probably discount what I have to say here, especially when my relationship with Tamzin has been poor. But my impression of Tamzin is that although they have the skill to be a functionary, probably more skill than I ever will have in some regards, but do they have the restraint to stay out of the limelight? In the time since I last spoke to them they were the subject of a highly contentious BLP discussion, and before that they've been involved in well… you don't receive mentions in multiple news articles by keeping your head down. I'm not pinning blame on anyone here but I don't want anyone to be worse off because of some situation that everyone could handle better. Through the way that our nebulous system of social capital works, comments like this one I'm making now probably only serve to damage my own credibility since I'm standing up to a bigger name than myself, especially given my own history with them. But either way I would feel worse if if I didn't say anything at all, and I want to minimize drama, even if it means handicapping myself and/or someone I respect. If you are appointed Tamzin, I will advise you to tread lightly. Fathoms Below (talk) 16:20, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

  Hi, Fathom. I wouldn't worry about damaging your credibility here. This is a totally fair set of concerns to raise. So fair, in fact, that several functionaries and arbs raised similar ones in the private phases of this process. Here is the answer I gave them, somewhat adapted to remove things not relevant or appropriate here:

  As explained in my February 2024 resignation from adminship and in a subsequent essay, I became very disillusioned with enwiki's backroom culture in the immediate aftermath of the suicide of Vami_IV. That disillusionment never went away. I'm open, on my userpage, about the fact that I remain a cynic about a lot of our internal processes. What did change is how I interact with drama. As I discuss in that essay, I made a decision when I passed RfA that, since my RfA had already made me controversial, I would roll with that, and do some of the things on-wiki that can only get done by someone willing to cause drama. But that's not in my nature and, as I wrote, "hurt my soul". When I resigned in February, it was on the assumption that it was either/or: Either I could be an admin and always be involved in this soul-crushing creation of drama; or I could stay away from that as a non-admin.

  In November, I realized that there was a middle ground. I could retain my healthy cynicism but resume adminship, avoiding most of those backrooms while using the tools to make things better. I started small, mostly CSD and AIV work, but after finding that I'd reached a happy balance, returned to AE and SPI. I remain opinionated; I remain plainspoken; I remain willing to disagree with other admins; but none of that has led to drama in the way it once did, so I think I'm doing something right.

  Overall, it was a shitty situation. In a perfect world, I'd have taken a better tone when I criticized the way my complaints about errors were being handled, and would have been clearer that my negative reaction was mostly directed at the person who objected to me requesting corrections at all. I think most people in the same situation, though, would have had the same struggle; I've seen plenty of them at BLPN before.

  My borderline-notability brings us to public stature. I've never told any journalist that I speak on behalf of Wikipedia, Wikipedia admins, the WMF, etc. (indeed my email signature says the opposite), and no journalist has ever had trouble making this distinction, even for interviews that discussed Wikipedia admin work. This would not change if I were a CU. As a CU, I would refuse any comment on specific CU-related cases if talking to a journalist, even if it were not technically a disclosure. For instance, I wouldn't say " is probably tied to intelligence", even though that's a purely behavioral assessment, because I wouldn't want that misconstrued as "Wikipedia admin says vandal uses IPs". Where I've been most useful to journalists is high-level explanation—"here's what ECP is", "here's what '' means", etc.—and I don't think any part of that is incompatible with being a checkuser, any more than it is with being an administrator.

  Please let me know if there's any other concerns I can address. -- Tamzin (they|xe|🤷) 06:14, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  I have a longer reply that I'm willing to say here, but it is over the 500 word limit imposed. Do I have permission from the Arbs and/or clerks to have this restriction temporarily lifted? Fathoms Below (talk) 19:55, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

  This has been declined. This request notwithstanding, you have 176 words remaining; please use them judiciously. Do note that the point of this consultation is to provide information that is helpful to the Committee making a decision: as the box at the top states, it is not a consensus-building exercise. Sdrqaz (talk) 22:48, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

• I have the same concerns I had here about accountability. Administrators should strive to be civil at all times. Requesting additional permissions after they reacted like this bothers me. All I ever wanted was an apology for how I was treated, and being gaslit about how it was actually someone else that they had a problem with is not one. I'm fine with mistakes, but they need to be recognized as mistakes. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 17:40, 28 March 2025 (UTC)
• I have no doubt that Tamzin would be an able user of the CU tool. I have reservations that the user who decries "our shitty backroom culture", a user who found the private handling of an Arbcom case problematic, and a user who offers comment to the media will be best suited to the private nature of the work. As User:Tamzin/ACE2023 guide involved me, I have recused as an Arb from consideration of Tamzin's request. Cabayi (talk) 18:36, 28 March 2025 (UTC)
• FWIW, I have complete faith in Tamzin's competence and integrity to be a CU, and her experience at SPI means it would benefit WP for her to be one. She is active, so I think the tools would be well used. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:58, 28 March 2025 (UTC)
• Temperamentally ill-suited to be a functionary. Too much drama, too much controversy, too much period. Disclaimer: Tamzin and I have clashed repeatedly in the past, although we haven't crossed swords much in the more recent past.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:25, 28 March 2025 (UTC)
• I'll break with the club here and say that as another person who has clashed with Tamzin once before (and in the cold light of dawn regretted it!), I have found then to be level headed, wise, and an exemplar of what we should expect from not just admins, but editors more broadly. Tact, knowledge and integrity should be what we look for in CUs. I have no idea how giving informational quotes about our how backroom processes function to journalists speaks negatively to one's fitness, when articles getting that wrong is a constant thorn in Arbcom's side. Similarly, I think being willing to politely disagree with Arbcom decisions speaks positively to one's character. I struggle to find most of the opposition here relevant. Parabolist (talk) 09:13, 29 March 2025 (UTC)
  • What "club"?--Bbb23 (talk) 13:18, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

    To be clear, that was just a fun turn of phrase on my part given that there'd been a run of people coming in self identifying as such, not an implication or accusation or anything. Parabolist (talk) 19:30, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

• I consider that a very good answer to my question; it goes a long way towards assuaging my concern about the references to shared IP in the ACE2023 guide that could be read as if sharing an IP is in itself indicative of involvement. Also, one person's "drama" is another's issue that they need resolved or disagreement as to policy, so I can see both sides of that, and more broadly I'm not sure that the same inscrutability/dispassion should be expected of all functionaries, in particular of CUs as opposed to crats. Tamzin's very evident intelligence, competence and desire to do the right thing make them a good candidate for CU, in my view, and in particular, having access to the CU tool should complement and correct the behavioural analyses they've been doing in SPI investigation. However, I am not in the trenches of either SPI or policy-related debate, so Clovermoss's and Bbb23's viewpoints weigh heavily with me, and I do have a concern that Tamzin does not always make clear when their thinking has evolved or changed; it may be a matter as much of their language tending to be informed by political/philosophical discourse as of a lack of forthrightness. But if confirmed, I hope they'll take care to be clear, including in cases where they need to walk back previous statements. That is something I expect of a functionary on a text-based project where people of extremely varied backgrounds participate, and where rules as well as circumstances can change. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:23, 29 March 2025 (UTC)
• I have to admit that I have reservations about this request. I trust that Tamzin is clueful and experienced at SPI, and that they know what they're doing in all aspects of being a checkuser. However, I have trouble reconciling their 2024 resignation statement, essay, and userpage statement with their desire to take on more responsibility. Among the three pieces, they condemned the "shitty backrooms", calling them "toxic" and saying i'll still be around, just not as an admin or anything admin-adjacent, made a thinly-veiled jab at an admin (in the context of Vami's RfA, there's one editor, one admin who obviously, like, shouldn't be a part of this community), and described themselves as being the troublemaker who got important things done by causing drama in the right places. These statements were posted over a year ago but have remained present—the essay was published in The Signpost in December, and the userpage post stayed there until as recently as last month. It's not my place here to judge the sentiment of those words, but the manner in which they was delivered is, to me, indicative of someone who should have stepped away much earlier. I read those comments as being written as a consequence of strong emotion—something I think functionaries need to be especially careful of.
  When Tamzin says they've changed in their approach to drama, I'm inclined to believe them. But I also think that when someone expresses such strong disdain for the administrative environment in the way Tamzin did, assigning them more individual responsibility this soon afterwards is a risk, and I feel that in this instance, it is too much of one. Giraffer (talk) 19:59, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

  I feel like quoting the part about them saying they were stepping back from administrative work, and not quoting the part in the signpost essay where they said and I was wrong about that is perhaps misleading, Giraffer. However, I'm glad we both agree on the fact that, given their knowledge and past experience at SPI, that they're qualified to be a CheckUser. It's a good argument in favour of them having the rights, isn't it? GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 10:26, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

• I have to agree with the above comments, and honestly, the comment made towards Clovermoss is far past the behavior expected of functionaries, and frankly, if similar behavior were to be repeated, should be grounds for recall. A non-admin making that type of comment would likely find themselves in hot water quite quickly. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 04:12, 30 March 2025 (UTC)
• I find myself in agreement with the concerns of several editors, particularly EggRoll97. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 23:39, 30 March 2025 (UTC)
• Still opposed per RfA question 14. I reiterate my opinion that that is disqualifying for an admin, and even worse to have in a functionary. Jclemens (talk) 05:35, 31 March 2025 (UTC)