Brion, I think that ultimately, you are right -- vigilance and patient
deletion or reversion is the only way to deal with such a troll.
But even reverting crap is a form of swatting. If the question is
whether we simply ignore someone and let them do what they want, or act
in some way against vandalism, it seems we all agree on some form of
action.
The question is, what form. From context it seems like you are
arguing against banning. Well -- and I raise this as a general
question, not just concerning No-FX -- would you ban under any
circumstances?
Clearly, banned people will always have a way to work around a ban.
But from the discussion I have seen on this page, the main point of
banning is not that it effectively keeps someone out; rather, once it is
clear that a banned person has returned, other members of the community
have more authority (ok, not a great word here -- let's say less cause
for self-doubt?) in deleting or reverting.
Steve
At 03:34 PM 5/22/2003 -0700, you wrote:
On Fri, 23 May 2003, Erik Moeller
wrote:
> No-Fx has vandalized Zoe's user page. He appears to be yet
another
> reincarnation of the banned user Michael, working on the same
articles in
> the same style and not responding to messages.
>
> So, should we ban him? He will probably just reappear under a new
name,
> but if we do this often enough, he might be deterred.
It seems he's found a delightful game: bait the Wikipedians and watch
them
swat. People play this game with their cats all the time; neither cat
nor
human ever seem to tire of it.
But what if the cat stops swatting? The cruel human will get bored
and
stop taunting the poor cat with yarn / flashlight / laser
pointer.
Stop giving him the satisfaction of making a big fuss. Just revert
crap
that's crap, and work with stuff that's good (should there be any).
What
more do we need?
> I should point out that the problem of users appearing under dozens
of
> names would probably go away if we required an email confirmation
during
> signup, although that might deter some users from creating an
account.
You have heard of hotmail and yahoo, right? :)
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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