Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Archive.is RFC/Rotlink email attempt

From what domain were the emails from Denis sent?

Lexein, one of the telling points would be what domain these emails were sent from. It would be necessary to actually look in the headers to see the IP address of the originating machine. Not foolproof, but it would give an indication that these might have actually been from the Denis appearing on the Archive.is Whois results. — Makyen (talk) 01:10, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Even better, please provide the whole mail headers for analysis, Lexein. While it won't help us a bit in regard to the operator(s) of the IP bot net, it might at least help to either establish or rule out with reasonable probability a connection between the Rotlink account and archive.is. Much better than the speculation happening so far... --Matthiaspaul (talk) 01:52, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Lexein, I would also prefer to see the entire headers for all the emails which would then permit correlating any issues between the emails. However, I consider that information to be private and thus inappropriate to post. Based on the fact that you specifically did not previously provide any identifying information other than "Denis" for the source of the emails, I had assumed you also considered the information private. However, I would not consider it private for you to confirm that the emails originated, by the originating IP address, from within the archive.is domain or one closely associated with it (e.g denis.biz, the domain for the archive.is whois contact). Given that Rotlink himself claimed to be the owner of archive.is, I don't think your providing a statement of confirm/not associated/inconclusive would be unreasonable.

As to others reviewing the message headers, that might be something for which it is appropriate to find a willing WP:CHECKUSER. Checkusers are those the community has put their trust in to handle such private information and provide analysis based upon it. While this is not a use of the CheckUser tool, the situation appears to be something that would fit the general concept behind what CheckUsers are here for. — Makyen (talk) 04:46, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

That's true, even if the user agreed to publishing his mails, depending on the outcome the headers might reveal a lot additional information, which can still be considered private. I agree with you, it's a task for a checkuser, who can analyze mail headers and has enough technical experience not to be fooled by some possibly faked entries. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 09:28, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Ok, glad to see something happening on this talk page. To start the conversation with User:Rotlink, I clicked on "Email this user" on their user page. "Denis@redacted.redacted" replied. Yes, I omitted the sending domain, because it was not @archive.is, or @denis.biz, nor any subdomains nor derivatives thereof. Yes the sending domain was the same throughout our conversation. I omitted the IP addresses, too. I considered that part private. I have not received a request from a Checkuser clerk, nor any other administrator in a supertrusted group, asking me to forward the entire thread to them, intact. It is a strong guideline, I think, (which?) NOT to publish any user's email addresses, even one's own, unless it also appears unambiguously already on the user page. Because Rotlink does not publish his email address or IP address, and neither do I, I omitted them on the WP:Archive.is RFC/Rotlink email attempt page.

As my conversation with (not investigation of) Rotlink went on, I requested permission to publish here, and it was unambiguously granted, with their foreknowledge of Wikipedia's "you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL" license agreement. I interpreted/assumed that the scope of Rotlink's permission included the text of the conversation, and not the metadata, much as standard Wikipedia user contribution history does not include metadata other than publication date.

I've requested Checkuser examination of extremely disruptive contributions in the past, and was rebuffed all three times, with the admonition, "Checkuser is not for fishing expeditions". So, I've given up on asking Checkuser clerks for anything. Trusted, yes, but insular, with extremely narrow, almost inscrutable, criteria.

BTW others can email Rotlink and probably get a reply from Denis, too, and can then make their own decisions about what to do with the headers wrt WP policy, guideline, and practice. --Lexein (talk) 13:51, 2 July 2014 (UTC)