Okay, maybe some people are unaware of CheeseDreams exponential use of sock puppets to get around the ArbCom's one year ban on Jesus (or is it Christianity?) related articles. I know I am partisan, but I think we can fairly say Cheese Dreams is now out of control:
Cheesedreams is now editing under User:Cheese-Dreams. I thought all the sockpuppets were blocked? I've blocked this one now anyway. --fvw* 23:44, 2005 Jan 31 (UTC) This is just a new sock. Sigh - I don't think CD gets it. --mav Darling, your so wrong, I get it very well, I just ignore you, darling. CheeseDreams 11:35, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC) The other note is that CheeseDreams uses a dialup and this makes it impossible to block her IP range. She can redial as many times as she likes, and she doesn't need to use open proxies. Rhobite 04:28, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC) LOL, you cant stop me now, darling. CheeseDreams 11:35, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
As Rhobite points out, it will be very difficult if not impossible to block CheeseDreams.
I know there has been much discussion of ways to get around the difficulties in blocking someone whose IP address is shared, or who can easily move from one IP address to another. I happen to know next to nothing about computers, so all I can say is I trust the people working on this problem and wish them luck.
But I do have another proposal for dealing with these kinds of situations: give the ArbCom the power to declare a user an "outlaw."
We would need clear guidelines for how to decide who is an outlaw, but for one thing we must be specific that this is someone who has utter disregards for bans or partial bans, and who cannot effectively be blocked.
There should be some deliberation at the ArbCom before declaring someone an outlaw, to ensure due process.
The consequence of being an outlaw is this: anyone -- any editor, sysop or not -- can revert an outlaw's work at any time, without restriction (so if doing so means that they must revert more than three times in one day, their reverts will still be considered legitimate and they won't be punished).
My thinking is this: in the case of CD right now, blocking is not effective so all we really can do is revert her work. Right now this is being done primarily by sysops, and however large the list of admins are, in the case of someone as reckless as CD this still becomes a big job. My idea is that there are some violations of behavior -- eg. when someone laughs and says "you can't stop me now" -- that the best thing to do is to mobilize the entire community to take action.
Okay, I know that this sounds off the wall. Please just think about it,
Steve
Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701
steven l. rubenstein (rubenste@ohiou.edu) [050206 03:10]:
But I do have another proposal for dealing with these kinds of situations: give the ArbCom the power to declare a user an "outlaw." We would need clear guidelines for how to decide who is an outlaw, but for one thing we must be specific that this is someone who has utter disregards for bans or partial bans, and who cannot effectively be blocked. There should be some deliberation at the ArbCom before declaring someone an outlaw, to ensure due process. The consequence of being an outlaw is this: anyone -- any editor, sysop or not -- can revert an outlaw's work at any time, without restriction (so if doing so means that they must revert more than three times in one day, their reverts will still be considered legitimate and they won't be punished).
This is similar to ban by acclamation, e.g. the Sollog pattern vandal or Willy On Wheels - there was no ruling against either, but both have acted with such egregius obnoxiousness that they're pretty mcuh revert and block on sight.
My thinking is this: in the case of CD right now, blocking is not effective so all we really can do is revert her work. Right now this is being done primarily by sysops, and however large the list of admins are, in the case of someone as reckless as CD this still becomes a big job. My idea is that there are some violations of behavior -- eg. when someone laughs and says "you can't stop me now" -- that the best thing to do is to mobilize the entire community to take action.
I think CD is still under her original short ban - every time she breaks it, she restarts the clock. Then the admins come along, block the sockpuppets and revert the edits. So the process you describe is pretty much how things are now ;-) So I'm not sure an additional ruling in CD is needed, particularly not one of a novel form.
- d.
steven l. rubenstein wrote:
Cheesedreams is now editing under User:Cheese-Dreams. I thought all the sockpuppets were blocked? I've blocked this one now anyway. --fvw* 23:44, 2005 Jan 31 (UTC) This is just a new sock. Sigh - I don't think CD gets it. --mav Darling, your so wrong, I get it very well, I just ignore you, darling. CheeseDreams 11:35, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC) The other note is that CheeseDreams uses a dialup and this makes it impossible to block her IP range. She can redial as many times as she likes, and she doesn't need to use open proxies. Rhobite 04:28, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC) LOL, you cant stop me now, darling. CheeseDreams 11:35, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Contact her ISP. If you can't get them to drop her, call the upstream provider(s). If that doesn't work, block every IP range associated with the ISP and tell anyone affected to complain to the ISP. Wikipedia is getting big, it's time to start throwing some weight around when users are engaging in wildly abusive activities.
"You are using <someISP> which harbours a user who has repeatedly engaged in egregious abuses against Wikipedia. Because it is impractical to block individual users of <someISP>, we have been forced to block everyone using <someISP>. It is up to <someISP> to remove the abusive user from their network. Users of <someISP> will remain blocked until confirmation has been recieved from <someISP> that the abusive user's service has been terminated. We urge you to contact <someISP> and request that they take action.
<someISP contact information>"
The abuser will be gone, and the ISP will have a (potentially large) PR problem until they decide to do the right thing.
On Sat, 05 Feb 2005 08:50:51 -0800, Nicholas Knight nknight@runawaynet.com wrote:
Contact her ISP. If you can't get them to drop her, call the upstream provider(s). If that doesn't work, block every IP range associated with the ISP and tell anyone affected to complain to the ISP. Wikipedia is getting big, it's time to start throwing some weight around when users are engaging in wildly abusive activities.
That's one way to do it. At some point, someone official may want to contact BT and see about getting her warned, although it's hard to believe that they'll drop her from the service for this. The tactics you describe are used by the anti-spam movement, but is her conduct as damaging as that of a spammer? Assuming that BT doesn't drop her, is Wikipedia prepared to embrace the "collateral damage" philosophy of the antispammers? It's controversial. I won't get into the pro/con arguments, but the debate is pretty heated. I'm not sure if this response fits in with Wikipedia's philosophy. Blocking all BT dialups would block many legitimate users.
Rhobite
Rhobite wrote:
On Sat, 05 Feb 2005 08:50:51 -0800, Nicholas Knight nknight@runawaynet.com wrote:
Contact her ISP. If you can't get them to drop her, call the upstream provider(s). If that doesn't work, block every IP range associated with the ISP and tell anyone affected to complain to the ISP. Wikipedia is getting big, it's time to start throwing some weight around when users are engaging in wildly abusive activities.
That's one way to do it. At some point, someone official may want to contact BT and see about getting her warned, although it's hard to
BT? As in British Telecom? That's terrific! More customers means more complaints and more bad publicity.
believe that they'll drop her from the service for this. The tactics you describe are used by the anti-spam movement, but is her conduct as damaging as that of a spammer? Assuming that BT doesn't drop her, is Wikipedia prepared to embrace the "collateral damage" philosophy of the antispammers? It's controversial. I won't get into the pro/con arguments, but the debate is pretty heated. I'm not sure if this
I'm familiar with the debate in anti-spam circles, and I fall into roughly the middle (blocking of an entire ISP should be used only in the most extreme cases where the ISP clearly has no interest in stemming the tide of spam). We're not cutting off a major avenue of day-to-day communication here, though. We're trying to write an encyclopedia.
response fits in with Wikipedia's philosophy. Blocking all BT dialups would block many legitimate users.
Which is exactly the point. Legitimate users will dislike being blocked, and we'll direct their wrath to the appropriate party: the irresponsible ISP.
At this point, Wikipedia has NO paid staff, and may well never have any real paid staff other than sysadmins and/or devs. Volunteers are going to get sick of not getting anywhere with abusive users.
I'm sure I'm not the only one whose editing has significantly dropped off because every time they come across a page they might be able to contribute something to, they have to worry about POV warriors and other uncooperative users that effective action is never taken against.
It's just going to get worse, and as legitimate users get fed up and leave, people like CD will turn Wikipedia into a laughing stock.
Either tough and effective action is taken, or Wikipedia is going to die.
BT? As in British Telecom? That's terrific! More customers means more complaints and more bad publicity.
It means you are likely to affect admins who can and will unblock themselves. Would you be happy if your ISP was blocked for a couple of weeks (even suposing the ISP choses to take actionm which it quite well may not)? The number of complaints would be pretty low anyway we may get a lot of readers but editors are far smaller in number. We would be the ones on the reciving end of bad PR for hopelessly over reacting.
geni
geni said:
BT? As in British Telecom? That's terrific! More customers means more complaints and more bad publicity.
It means you are likely to affect admins who can and will unblock themselves. Would you be happy if your ISP was blocked for a couple of weeks (even suposing the ISP choses to take actionm which it quite well may not)? The number of complaints would be pretty low anyway we may get a lot of readers but editors are far smaller in number. We would be the ones on the reciving end of bad PR for hopelessly over reacting.
the admins would not be able to unblock themselves from a website-wide block (just a line in an http config file). I don't know whether we should go head-to-head with ISP's yet, but we could. We should certainly consider some kind of working relationship with AOL, if we don't already have one, if only because of their unusual caching arrangements.
Tony Sidaway wrote:
geni said:
BT? As in British Telecom? That's terrific! More customers means more complaints and more bad publicity.
It means you are likely to affect admins who can and will unblock themselves. Would you be happy if your ISP was blocked for a couple of weeks (even suposing the ISP choses to take actionm which it quite well may not)? The number of complaints would be pretty low anyway we may get a lot of readers but editors are far smaller in number. We would be the ones on the reciving end of bad PR for hopelessly over reacting.
the admins would not be able to unblock themselves from a website-wide block (just a line in an http config file). I don't know whether we
Who said anything about going outside MediaWiki to do the block?
should go head-to-head with ISP's yet, but we could. We should certainly consider some kind of working relationship with AOL, if we don't already have one, if only because of their unusual caching arrangements.
geni wrote:
BT? As in British Telecom? That's terrific! More customers means more complaints and more bad publicity.
It means you are likely to affect admins who can and will unblock themselves. Would you be happy if your ISP was blocked for a couple of
As I recall, registered users are already exempt from IP blocks. The only change needed is to prevent blocked IPs from creating new accounts.
weeks (even suposing the ISP choses to take actionm which it quite well may not)? The number of complaints would be pretty low anyway we
It's a wholly moot point for me, anyway, I'm on a range of static IPs, and those on dynamic IPs at my ISP rarely get new IPs (and it's not as simple as disconnecting and reconnecting, you'd have to be disconnected for many hours if not days).
may get a lot of readers but editors are far smaller in number. We would be the ones on the reciving end of bad PR for hopelessly over reacting.
What choice do we have? There's no other effective way to block abusive users on dialups if the ISP won't get rid of them.
I don't think anyone will blame us for trying to maintain the integrity of an encyclopedia without running everyone off.
What choice do we have? There's no other effective way to block abusive users on dialups if the ISP won't get rid of them.
We handeled Mr treason. Remeber articles can be reverted and deleted faster than they can be created
I don't think anyone will blame us for trying to maintain the integrity of an encyclopedia without running everyone off.
Are we using the same internet here? You are propsing to block vast numbers of people from editing due to the crimes of a few and you don't think people will blame you?
First, we can whitelist anyone with an existing account from range blocks. Then people that already edit and love Wikipedia won't be affected by this.
Once that is done, we could further display a big, bold "request an account" link next to the "blocked" message. Following this link would allow users to request addition to the whitelist. It would take longer than the 15 seconds that creating a normal account takes -- more like minutes or hours. You would have to wait for some other user to notice the request and act on it. But that would greatly slow down the process of repeated logins, and add a layer of human filtering which would see through attempts to mass-create sockpuppet accounts. At the same time, it would avoid totally turning away users in the same IP range who honestly want to edit. [ Alternately, we could just make users from that range wait a certain amount of time to receive their account; perhaps requiring a valid email address and mailing them a password after a short delay. The delay could even be adjustable based on the amount of trouble we're having from that IP range. ]
+sj+
On Sun, 6 Feb 2005 04:23:06 +0000, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
What choice do we have? There's no other effective way to block abusive users on dialups if the ISP won't get rid of them.
We handeled Mr treason. Remeber articles can be reverted and deleted faster than they can be created
I don't think anyone will blame us for trying to maintain the integrity of an encyclopedia without running everyone off.
Are we using the same internet here? You are propsing to block vast numbers of people from editing due to the crimes of a few and you don't think people will blame you?
-- geni _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
geni wrote:
What choice do we have? There's no other effective way to block abusive users on dialups if the ISP won't get rid of them.
We handeled Mr treason. Remeber articles can be reverted and deleted faster than they can be created
And people are going to get sick of dealing with it. Some already have.
I don't think anyone will blame us for trying to maintain the integrity of an encyclopedia without running everyone off.
Are we using the same internet here? You are propsing to block vast numbers of people from editing due to the crimes of a few and you don't think people will blame you?
Two choices:
1) Collateral damage.
2) Worthless encyclopedia.
Anyone that blames us for choosing the first over the second is not worth worrying about.
And people are going to get sick of dealing with it. Some already have.
Have we run out of people yet and are we likely to?
Two choices:
Collateral damage.
Worthless encyclopedia.
Anyone that blames us for choosing the first over the second is not worth worrying about.
You can't prove the second and you have failed to show that there are only two options.
geni wrote:
And people are going to get sick of dealing with it. Some already have.
Have we run out of people yet and are we likely to?
I give it 12-24 months as a ballpark estimate before we're seriously short if action isn't taken. Maybe less -- the problem is only getting worse.
Even if we manage break even in our supply of people willing to spend large swaths of time performing thankless tasks for no compensation, it's most definitely the wrong approach. Instead of building a large and expanding base of volunteers, we'd be struggling to maintain the status quo.
Two choices:
Collateral damage.
Worthless encyclopedia.
Anyone that blames us for choosing the first over the second is not worth worrying about.
You can't prove the second and you have failed to show that there are only two options.
Can you come up with a practical third?
I give it 12-24 months as a ballpark estimate before we're seriously short if action isn't taken. Maybe less -- the problem is only getting worse.
However our number are increaseing
Even if we manage break even in our supply of people willing to spend large swaths of time performing thankless tasks for no compensation, it's most definitely the wrong approach. Instead of building a large and expanding base of volunteers, we'd be struggling to maintain the status quo.
That fact is that most vanderlism is one off. You could lock down every major ISP and you still need people (ie the people you have just prevented from become part of the project) to watch recent changes.
Can you come up with a practical third?
Getting serious about blocking every opensource proxy we can find would be a favorit. More filters on recentchages would be another.
geni wrote:
I give it 12-24 months as a ballpark estimate before we're seriously short if action isn't taken. Maybe less -- the problem is only getting worse.
However our number are increaseing
So are the number of problem users.
Even if we manage break even in our supply of people willing to spend large swaths of time performing thankless tasks for no compensation, it's most definitely the wrong approach. Instead of building a large and expanding base of volunteers, we'd be struggling to maintain the status quo.
That fact is that most vanderlism is one off. You could lock down every major ISP and you still need people (ie the people you have just prevented from become part of the project) to watch recent changes.
But one-off vandalism (even chronic simple vandalism) isn't the target here. The target is chronic problem users like POV warriors who repeatedly evade blocks. And then only after their ISP has refused to act.
Can you come up with a practical third?
Getting serious about blocking every opensource proxy we can find
Blocking open (not "open source") proxies is not going to get rid of CD or any other miscreant on dialup.
would be a favorit. More filters on recentchages would be another.
How do filters help?
So are the number of problem users.
Really? The rate appears to have been pretty much constant for the length of time I have been around
Blocking open (not "open source") proxies is not going to get rid of CD or any other miscreant on dialup.
They are only one source of problems
How do filters help?
I can't cheack every edit on RC I have to use various methods to select the ones most likely to be a problem.
geni wrote:
So are the number of problem users.
Really? The rate appears to have been pretty much constant for the length of time I have been around
That makes me think you haven't been around more than a few months.
Blocking open (not "open source") proxies is not going to get rid of CD or any other miscreant on dialup.
They are only one source of problems
But not a difficult to solve one (in fact a very easy to alleviate one, with an open proxy check in the software; I'm not sure why one hasn't been implemented), and not the one at issue here.
How do filters help?
I can't cheack every edit on RC I have to use various methods to select the ones most likely to be a problem.
So your solution to volunteer burnout is to help them find more problems to deal with?
On Sun, 06 Feb 2005 00:42:45 -0800, Nicholas Knight nknight@runawaynet.com wrote:
I can't cheack every edit on RC I have to use various methods to select the ones most likely to be a problem.
So your solution to volunteer burnout is to help them find more problems to deal with?
What? It was clearly intended to minimize the amount of legitimate edits on the Recent Changes list if a user is putting special filters on. The space for legitimate edits would then have possible vandalism instead.
Less time spent looking at legitimate edits = more time looking at vandals' edits.
No action is taken when no action is taken.
You have to use the dispute resolution procedure. Complaining on the mailing list does not deal effectively with individual violators.
Fred
From: Nicholas Knight nknight@runawaynet.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2005 11:23:12 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Cheese Dreams/proposal for a *new* policy
POV warriors and other uncooperative users that effective action is never taken against.
On Sat, Feb 05, 2005 at 12:11:17PM -0500, Rhobite wrote:
That's one way to do it. At some point, someone official may want to contact BT and see about getting her warned, although it's hard to believe that they'll drop her from the service for this.
Here's an angle:
She's been banned from Wikipedia according to policies imposed by the legal owners of Wikipedia's servers. This means that she does not have permission to use those servers. Doing so might actually be a criminal offense, depending on the laws in her jurisdiction.
Most ISPs do have acceptable-use policies that specifically exclude breaking the stated rules on other sites. BT states that users "must not gain or attempt to gain unauthorised access to any computer systems for any purpose" [1] -- which would seem to include setting up sock- puppet accounts to gain access to Wikipedia editing after being banned.
Setting up an account -- or, indeed, clicking on an edit link -- is certainly an instance of "gaining access". If the person doing so has been banned, that access is unauthorized. If they've been informed of the ban, they certainly can't rest upon ignorance. Open and shut case, no?
[1] http://www.abuse-guidance.com/ -- yes, BT puts their AUP on its own freakin' domain. Weird!
The tactics you describe are used by the anti-spam movement, but is her conduct as damaging as that of a spammer? Assuming that BT doesn't drop her, is Wikipedia prepared to embrace the "collateral damage" philosophy of the antispammers?
Ignoring the question of whether "the collateral damage philosophy" is mischaracterized, it is not appropriate for Wikipedia. We do not have an abuse problem comparable in scale or ind degree of criminality with the e-mail spam problem. Nor do we have a systematic problem of ISPs ignoring abuse reports or allowing privileged customers to abuse Wikipedia with impunity [2].
So there is no point in using tactics that are designed to (A) shun ISPs who are complicit in criminal activity that causes us problems, or (B) press awareness of that complicity onto the ISPs' other customers. ISP complicity is simply not evident here.
[2] Some ISPs -do- apparently allow privileged customers to spam with impunity. http://www.spamhaus.org/news.lasso?article=158
Karl A. Krueger wrote:
So there is no point in using tactics that are designed to (A) shun ISPs who are complicit in criminal activity that causes us problems, or (B) press awareness of that complicity onto the ISPs' other customers. ISP complicity is simply not evident here.
I'd like to point out, lest someone forget or fail to notice, that my suggestion was predicated on ISP complicity. The idea is that this is done AFTER attempts have been made to work with the ISP AND the ISP's upstream provider(s).
--- "Karl A. Krueger" kkrueger@whoi.edu wrote:
She's been banned from Wikipedia according to policies imposed by the legal owners of Wikipedia's servers. This means that she does not have permission to use those servers. Doing so might actually be a criminal offense, depending on the laws in her jurisdiction.
Anybody know if there is some case law in the U.S. about banned people from chat rooms / usenet? I think I remember something about that.
-- mav
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - What will yours do? http://my.yahoo.com
On Sunday, February 06, 2005 5:41 AM, wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org <> wrote:
--- "Karl A. Krueger" kkrueger@whoi.edu wrote:
She's been banned from Wikipedia according to policies imposed by the legal owners of Wikipedia's servers. This means that she does not have permission to use those servers. Doing so might actually be a criminal offense, depending on the laws in her jurisdiction.
Anybody know if there is some case law in the U.S. about banned people from chat rooms / usenet? I think I remember something about that.
Not entirely sure about US law, but UK law (which the ISP in this case, being British, would be more interested in) includes the Computer Misuse Act 1990 [1], which makes a criminal act of "any act which causes an unauthorised modification of the contents of any computer" which results in impairing "reliability of any such data". If you suggest that to BT, they will quite possibly pay attention.
-- mav
[1] - http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1990/Ukpga_19900018_en_1.htm
Yours,
Here's an angle:
She's been banned from Wikipedia according to policies imposed by the legal owners of Wikipedia's servers. This means that she does not have permission to use those servers. Doing so might actually be a criminal offense, depending on the laws in her jurisdiction.
As far as I have been able to figure out the laws in this area probably not. If she was hacking someone elsees acount or using a hack to edit from a blocked IP then it probably would be but not until then.
On Sun, Feb 06, 2005 at 05:41:27AM +0000, geni wrote:
She's been banned from Wikipedia according to policies imposed by the legal owners of Wikipedia's servers. This means that she does not have permission to use those servers. Doing so might actually be a criminal offense, depending on the laws in her jurisdiction.
As far as I have been able to figure out the laws in this area probably not. If she was hacking someone elsees acount or using a hack to edit from a blocked IP then it probably would be but not until then.
I'm not so sure. Authorization tends to be about permission, not about the technical capability to do something. (For a U.S. example, consider Perl guru Randal Schwartz's difficulties with his former employer Intel. Schwartz clearly had the technical capability to do what he did, but -- to take Intel's side -- lacked the permission to do so. So he was convicted.)
Wikipedia clearly states up front that by default, "anyone can edit". However, Wikipedia's policies -- endorsed by the owners of the servers it runs on -- state that this permission can be withdrawn by the Arbitration Committee in case of policy violation. The proceedings for doing this are clearly laid out and have been followed. I don't see any reason that this withdrawing of permission should be taken any less seriously than any other.
The technical details -- usernames, passwords, IP blocks and so forth -- are peripheral. Computer misuse laws in both the US and UK talk about unauthorized access to computer resources -- not "hacking accounts" or the like. The core of the matter is that a person (a human being; not an IP address or an account) has been told that they are not authorized to use these computer resources ... and that the person persists in using those resources regardless.
Karl A. Krueger (kkrueger@whoi.edu) [050206 16:20]:
Most ISPs do have acceptable-use policies that specifically exclude breaking the stated rules on other sites. BT states that users "must not gain or attempt to gain unauthorised access to any computer systems for any purpose" [1] -- which would seem to include setting up sock- puppet accounts to gain access to Wikipedia editing after being banned.
[...]
[2] Some ISPs -do- apparently allow privileged customers to spam with impunity. http://www.spamhaus.org/news.lasso?article=158
This sort of thing is what I mean by the difference between the TOS that is written and the TOS that is acted upon. Read http://www.btopenwoe.co.uk/read_woe.asp?id=879 and tell me BT have a clue.
- d.
Nicholas Knight (nknight@runawaynet.com) [050206 03:51]:
Contact her ISP. If you can't get them to drop her, call the upstream provider(s). If that doesn't work, block every IP range associated with the ISP and tell anyone affected to complain to the ISP. Wikipedia is getting big, it's time to start throwing some weight around when users are engaging in wildly abusive activities.
Contacting ISPs is a step I'm really not comfortable with. Even in the case of Michael, when he was vandalising continuously, the only reason for contacting AOL was that their network was effectively one large anonymiser. CD is nothing like at that level. Also, there really is no reason to presume an ISP will necessarily give a shit. We're not paying her fees.
At this stage I see nothing wrong with letting her bust a gut creating sockpuppets and "editing proxies" and extending a short ban into infinity. There are quite enough admins watching her favourite articles to keep an eye on her while the rest of us get on with writing an encyclopedia.
- d.
The Arbcom will enforce any Wikipedia policy you choose to make subject to limitations Jimbo may impose. Problem here is that outlaw status might extend for over one year.
Fred
From: "steven l. rubenstein" rubenste@ohiou.edu Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2005 11:08:40 -0500 To: wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Cheese Dreams/proposal for a *new* policy
Okay, maybe some people are unaware of CheeseDreams exponential use of sock puppets to get around the ArbCom's one year ban on Jesus (or is it Christianity?) related articles. I know I am partisan, but I think we can fairly say Cheese Dreams is now out of control:
Cheesedreams is now editing under User:Cheese-Dreams. I thought all the sockpuppets were blocked? I've blocked this one now anyway. --fvw* 23:44, 2005 Jan 31 (UTC) This is just a new sock. Sigh - I don't think CD gets it. --mav Darling, your so wrong, I get it very well, I just ignore you, darling. CheeseDreams 11:35, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC) The other note is that CheeseDreams uses a dialup and this makes it impossible to block her IP range. She can redial as many times as she likes, and she doesn't need to use open proxies. Rhobite 04:28, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC) LOL, you cant stop me now, darling. CheeseDreams 11:35, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
As Rhobite points out, it will be very difficult if not impossible to block CheeseDreams.
I know there has been much discussion of ways to get around the difficulties in blocking someone whose IP address is shared, or who can easily move from one IP address to another. I happen to know next to nothing about computers, so all I can say is I trust the people working on this problem and wish them luck.
But I do have another proposal for dealing with these kinds of situations: give the ArbCom the power to declare a user an "outlaw."
We would need clear guidelines for how to decide who is an outlaw, but for one thing we must be specific that this is someone who has utter disregards for bans or partial bans, and who cannot effectively be blocked.
There should be some deliberation at the ArbCom before declaring someone an outlaw, to ensure due process.
The consequence of being an outlaw is this: anyone -- any editor, sysop or not -- can revert an outlaw's work at any time, without restriction (so if doing so means that they must revert more than three times in one day, their reverts will still be considered legitimate and they won't be punished).
My thinking is this: in the case of CD right now, blocking is not effective so all we really can do is revert her work. Right now this is being done primarily by sysops, and however large the list of admins are, in the case of someone as reckless as CD this still becomes a big job. My idea is that there are some violations of behavior -- eg. when someone laughs and says "you can't stop me now" -- that the best thing to do is to mobilize the entire community to take action.
Okay, I know that this sounds off the wall. Please just think about it,
Steve
Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Fred Bauder stated for the record:
The Arbcom will enforce any Wikipedia policy you choose to make subject to limitations Jimbo may impose. Problem here is that outlaw status might extend for over one year.
Other incorrigible scofflaws have been "hard-banned" for life; for CheeseDreams to be added to that list is hardly inconceivable.
I haven't seen CheeseDreams' proposal so perhaps it's the same as this one; but why not just have say 3 to 5 links at the bottom of every article marked "alternative article"? Then users of the wikipedia could use the version of the article they find they prefer. The editors of that version will also be much more likely to agree on editing its content. This wouldn't be difficult software-wise.
As almost all disagreements on the wikipedia are about/caused by disagreements on an article version this would solve a lot of problems. People who impose a final version of an article, hold it captive to their group view, forget that there might be plenty of readers out there who don't agree with their view of what should be the "consensus" article version.
This also takes into account that there are millions of people using te web who might have the bad luck to find the wikipedia and edit it, and this proposal would help to deal with the dfferent backgrounds and views of these people.-WikiUser.
----- Original Message ----- From: "steven l. rubenstein" rubenste@ohiou.edu To: wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2005 03:10 PM Subject: [WikiEN-l] Cheese Dreams/proposal for a *new* policy
Okay, maybe some people are unaware of CheeseDreams exponential use of sock puppets to get around the ArbCom's one year ban on Jesus (or is it Christianity?) related articles. I know I am partisan, but I think we can fairly say Cheese Dreams is now out of control:
Cheesedreams is now editing under User:Cheese-Dreams. I thought all the sockpuppets were blocked? I've blocked this one now anyway. --fvw* 23:44, 2005 Jan 31 (UTC) This is just a new sock. Sigh - I don't think CD gets it. --mav Darling, your so wrong, I get it very well, I just ignore you, darling. CheeseDreams 11:35, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC) The other note is that CheeseDreams uses a dialup and this makes it impossible to block her IP range. She can redial as many times as she likes, and she doesn't need to use open proxies. Rhobite 04:28, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC) LOL, you cant stop me now, darling. CheeseDreams 11:35, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
As Rhobite points out, it will be very difficult if not impossible to block CheeseDreams.
I know there has been much discussion of ways to get around the difficulties in blocking someone whose IP address is shared, or who can easily move from one IP address to another. I happen to know next to nothing about computers, so all I can say is I trust the people working on this problem and wish them luck.
But I do have another proposal for dealing with these kinds of situations: give the ArbCom the power to declare a user an "outlaw."
We would need clear guidelines for how to decide who is an outlaw, but for one thing we must be specific that this is someone who has utter disregards for bans or partial bans, and who cannot effectively be blocked.
There should be some deliberation at the ArbCom before declaring someone an outlaw, to ensure due process.
The consequence of being an outlaw is this: anyone -- any editor, sysop or not -- can revert an outlaw's work at any time, without restriction (so if doing so means that they must revert more than three times in one day, their reverts will still be considered legitimate and they won't be punished).
My thinking is this: in the case of CD right now, blocking is not effective so all we really can do is revert her work. Right now this is being done primarily by sysops, and however large the list of admins are, in the case of someone as reckless as CD this still becomes a big job. My idea is that there are some violations of behavior -- eg. when someone laughs and says "you can't stop me now" -- that the best thing to do is to mobilize the entire community to take action.
Okay, I know that this sounds off the wall. Please just think about it,
Steve
Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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On Sat, 5 Feb 2005, steven l. rubenstein wrote:
[snipping details concerning a known problem contributor]
As Rhobite points out, it will be very difficult if not impossible to block CheeseDreams.
I know there has been much discussion of ways to get around the difficulties in blocking someone whose IP address is shared, or who can easily move from one IP address to another. I happen to know next to nothing about computers, so all I can say is I trust the people working on this problem and wish them luck.
But I do have another proposal for dealing with these kinds of situations: give the ArbCom the power to declare a user an "outlaw."
There may come a time when we need to start declaring users outlaws, but in this situation, invovling CheeseDreams, I'm convinced that it won't work.
CD's behavior has always been aggressive. She marked a number of Bible-related articles as NPOV without explaining why. When questioned, she responds aggressively -- if not with hostility -- as if out of reflex. When approached in a way that could be seen in any possible way as hostile, she responds with escalated hostility. (She seems to spend more effort into her aggression than into the logical strength of her convictions. Which is sad, because many of the POVs she advocates do have some support amongst authorities; she make a lot more positive contributions to Wikipedia were she to engage in reasoned exchanges instead of stirring up trouble.) And she's well aware that behavior antagonizes people -- witness the comment on her User page: "I edit controversial articles. They are more controversial after I'm finished with them."
In short, CD *wants* to stir up trouble & get people angry at her. (I have an idea why, but it's not directly relevant to my point.) And if we declare her an "Outlaw", it will just encourage her to more extreme displays of aggression & rule-breaking. Right now, she's under a ban from Wikipedia, which I fully expect her to keep breaking & thus restart the ban again. If need be, I'm sure a petition to the ArbCom about her abuse of sock puppets would result in getting her banned for a year -- which would result in the same penalties as being declared an "Outlaw".
And unless I'm mistaken, by being banned, any changes she makes to WP -- whether under her own name, thru a proxy, or from an IP -- are subject to immediate rollback, regardles of the quality of the material. It's what happened to Michael & Lir, & should be aplied to her until her ban has been expired.
And if this is not enough, perhaps we should bring her behavior to the notice of BT. Wikipedia has enough credibility & stature now in the "Real World" that leads me to assume contact with an ISP would result with her internet account being terminated, & likely those of her friends. There would be no need to threaten an embargo against BT; after a few of her friends lost their 'Net accounts because of their involvement with her, she'd be forced to use public kiosks like libraries or Internet Cafes -- & I doubt she'd be much of a threat if limited to hour-long sessions online.
In other words, let's try this series of options before we start resorting to new ones. Hmm. IIRC, some of the steps I listed above have never been attempted, although they have been discussed on this mailing list. But then, CD has managed to achieve a new low that prior problem users failed to reach. :-(
We would need clear guidelines for how to decide who is an outlaw, but for one thing we must be specific that this is someone who has utter disregards for bans or partial bans, and who cannot effectively be blocked.
There should be some deliberation at the ArbCom before declaring someone an outlaw, to ensure due process.
The consequence of being an outlaw is this: anyone -- any editor, sysop or not -- can revert an outlaw's work at any time, without restriction (so if doing so means that they must revert more than three times in one day, their reverts will still be considered legitimate and they won't be punished).
My thinking is this: in the case of CD right now, blocking is not effective so all we really can do is revert her work. Right now this is being done primarily by sysops, and however large the list of admins are, in the case of someone as reckless as CD this still becomes a big job. My idea is that there are some violations of behavior -- eg. when someone laughs and says "you can't stop me now" -- that the best thing to do is to mobilize the entire community to take action.
Okay, I know that this sounds off the wall. Please just think about it,