Andrew Lih wrote:
Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
Maybe I didn't do enough RC patrol today, but are you sure? WP seemed pretty normal to me.
There was definitely more going on the last 36 hours. Obvious vandalism, is easy to detect and rollback, but were coming at a quicker rate. An anecdote and some stats:
Block log - Perhaps the best informal "vandal meter" we have, here are some quick numbers from the last week, and a partial April 1 for the list of blocked IPs and names. There is definitely a spike.
blocks-0322 4 blocks-0323 4 blocks-0324 7 blocks-0325 15 blocks-0326 14 blocks-0327 9 blocks-0328 15 blocks-0329 21 blocks-0330 6 blocks-0331 40 blocks-0401 62 (as of 21:30 EST)
If my attempt to reconstruct these statistics is correct, they were taken from [[Special:Ipblocklist]] and not [[Special:Log/block]]. As a result, they are highly misleading with respect to the number of blocks performed on particular days.
[[Special:Ipblocklist]] contains a list of currently active blocks. Most blocks for vandalism are only for 24 hours, sometimes longer for repeat offenders. This means that the contents of [[Special:Ipblocklist]] will be weighted heavily toward the most recent days, except for periods where there is a surge of permanent blocks (e.g., a problem user engaging in serial sockpuppetry, or a proxy-blocking binge). Furthermore, [[Special:Ipblocklist]] also contains the autoblocks triggered for IPs when a blocked user tries to edit, and these are always for 24-hour periods.
On the other hand, [[Special:Log/block]] is the full log of all blocks and unblocks (except for blocks set by the autoblocking feature). Reviewing this does not show much of a spike in blocks for April 1 in my judgment. If there is a slight increase, it might easily be explained based on the recent problems with [[User:Martin2000]] over the [[Bahá'u'lláh]] article, which has flooded the log with his sockpuppets (every Nitram00xx user is one of these). The incident there has nothing to do with April Fool's Day.
I agree that there was more frivolity on Wikipedia for April 1, and some frivolity elsewhere may have spread here. But in terms of malicious vandalism, I don't think the evidence indicates that the problem was worse than any other day.
--Michael Snow
Michael Snow said:
If there is a slight increase, it might easily be explained based on the recent problems with [[User:Martin2000]] over the [[Bahá'u'lláh]] article, which has flooded the log with his sockpuppets (every Nitram00xx user is one of these). The incident there has nothing to do with April Fool's Day.
Indeed, I was the one of those who placed those very blocks. Martin2000's socks accounted for many blocks on April 1 and none of this is in any way attributable to April Foolery. Last time I looked, someone said he was up to Nitram0023--twenty-two sock puppets, starting with Nitram0002, an anagram of his original username.
I agree that there was more frivolity on Wikipedia for April 1, and some frivolity elsewhere may have spread here. But in terms of malicious vandalism, I don't think the evidence indicates that the problem was worse than any other day.
Thank you.
I have to admit, though, that I seldom enter Wikipedia by the main page, and when I do so I'm at work and I have images turned off. If Mr Autofellatio showed his estimable pecker there, I would not have noticed.
Tony Sidaway wrote:
I have to admit, though, that I seldom enter Wikipedia by the main page, and when I do so I'm at work and I have images turned off. If Mr Autofellatio showed his estimable pecker there, I would not have noticed.
I usually enter WP via my user page or the Reference Desk.