I have just blocked Yammy Yamathorne for 9999 hours. I did not go through Quickpolls. I have no regrets.
This user created a page, [[The Lyceum]], based on the [[Akhmad Kadyrov]] page, in which he claimed that the "super smart kids" in his school are planning to bring down Wikipedia. The page itself was an act of vandalism, and I have deleted it (without going through Speedy Deletions).
This is an increasing problem here on Wikipedia. As we grow, we are no longer able to monitor the Recent Changes adequately. If I recall correctly, Horace had been vandalized for two weeks recently before someone noticed.
I am proposing the following radical solutions:
1. Empower sysops to make on-the-spot decisions and act accordingly. If most people don't trust them to act wisely, they should not be sysops. 2. Reinvigorate Seth Ilys's New Pages Patrol and expand it to include Recent Changes in general. Lots of crap is getting through, as well as considerable the duplication of articles. 3. Stiffen penalties. If a group of people (like a school) are planning to damage Wikipedia, it will last longer than 24 hours. 4. Act quickly and decisively with POV pushers. I recently received an email from a colleague at work, that was forwarded to her. Someone posted to a professional mailing list, asking them to join Wikipedia en masse to ensure that certain articles maintain their point of view. Their POV is often close to my own, however, I am disturbed that a group can potentially band together to push a particular POV, regardless of what it is. At one point, such a group will succeed. (I have forwarded the email to Jimbo, but will say no more about it to protect the confidence of my colleague). 5. Put together a SMALL group of trusted users to consider ways to redefine Wikipedia, considering the remarkable growth spurt we are experiencing. This can be a blessing, but it can also lead to our complete collapse. I propose that Jimbo select the users and oversee the process, since he is the one person who is trusted by everyone and whose authority is (more or less) unchallenged.
Danny
Danny wrote
[Deletion story]
This is an increasing problem here on Wikipedia. As we grow, we are no
longer able to monitor the Recent Changes adequately. If I recall correctly, Horace had been vandalized for two weeks recently before someone noticed.
I am proposing the following radical solutions:
- Empower sysops to make on-the-spot decisions and act accordingly. If
most people don't trust them to act wisely, they should not be sysops.
- Reinvigorate Seth Ilys's New Pages Patrol and expand it to include
Recent Changes in general. Lots of crap is getting through, as well as considerable the duplication of articles.
- Stiffen penalties. If a group of people (like a school) are planning to
damage Wikipedia, it will last longer than 24 hours.
- Act quickly and decisively with POV pushers. I recently received an
email from a colleague at work, that was forwarded to her. Someone posted to a professional mailing list, asking them to join Wikipedia en masse to ensure that certain articles maintain their point of view. Their POV is often close to my own, however, I am disturbed that a group can potentially band together to push a particular POV, regardless of what it is. At one point, such a group will succeed. (I have forwarded the email to Jimbo, but will say no more about it to protect the confidence of my colleague).
- Put together a SMALL group of trusted users to consider ways to redefine
Wikipedia, considering the remarkable growth spurt we are experiencing. This can be a blessing, but it can also lead to our complete collapse. I propose that Jimbo select the users and oversee the process, since he is the one person who is trusted by everyone and whose authority is (more or less) unchallenged.
I'd like to respond to these points.
First, though, a comment: I don't personally feel there are current 'bad content'/'problem user' crises. Certainly not on the scale that server problems cause (20% drop in traffic, and probably at least that in fresh postings).
In detail:
1. OK - but if this is done in a provocative way, who's to say it will decrease malicious vandalism?
2. Article duplication is the inevitable consequence of filling up topics. Needs someone knowledgeable, who knows an area. I do spend more and more time on this, myself.
3. It is quite hard to damage as much as 0.01% of Wikipedia. Let's keep this in perspective, while assuming that vigilance is going to be needed.
4. I think we'd notice these things, and get to the bottom of them in time.
5. Not my decision. As I said, 'collapse' seems hyperbolic to me, right now.
Charles
daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
I am proposing the following radical solutions:
[...]
Most of what you suggest is to combat trolling or vadalism, but one thing you mention -- duplication of articles -- almost always happens by accident rather than malice.
To combat that, I think we really should make more redirects when pages are created. Just the other day, I was going to start an article on http://www.memory-alpha.org/ and called it [[MemoryAlpha]] without realising that there was already [[Memory Alpha]]. There should have been a redirect!
So, I was wondering if the New Pages Patrol (which I think is a good idea even though I don't have time to participate in it before my exams) should include the "duty" of creating redirects from alternative names, titles, spellings, etc.etc.etc.
Timwi
I don't necessarily oppose the principle of giving sysops more power to act quickly, but if this is given, it must be with more opportunity for the community to review those decisions. Kind of a retroactive Votes for Deletion if you like.
For example, if you quickly delete a page, and ban a user in a way that is not currently supported by policy, your action should be listed for a week for people to comment on, and reviewed if necessary.
Mark
--- daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
I have just blocked Yammy Yamathorne for 9999 hours. I did not go through Quickpolls. I have no regrets.
This user created a page, [[The Lyceum]], based on the [[Akhmad Kadyrov]] page, in which he claimed that the "super smart kids" in his school are planning to bring down Wikipedia. The page itself was an act of vandalism, and I have deleted it (without going through Speedy Deletions).
This is an increasing problem here on Wikipedia. As we grow, we are no longer able to monitor the Recent Changes adequately. If I recall correctly, Horace had been vandalized for two weeks recently before someone noticed.
I am proposing the following radical solutions:
- Empower sysops to make on-the-spot decisions and
act accordingly. If most people don't trust them to act wisely, they should not be sysops. 2. Reinvigorate Seth Ilys's New Pages Patrol and expand it to include Recent Changes in general. Lots of crap is getting through, as well as considerable the duplication of articles. 3. Stiffen penalties. If a group of people (like a school) are planning to damage Wikipedia, it will last longer than 24 hours.
- Act quickly and decisively with POV pushers. I
recently received an email from a colleague at work, that was forwarded to her. Someone posted to a professional mailing list, asking them to join Wikipedia en masse to ensure that certain articles maintain their point of view. Their POV is often close to my own, however, I am disturbed that a group can potentially band together to push a particular POV, regardless of what it is. At one point, such a group will succeed. (I have forwarded the email to Jimbo, but will say no more about it to protect the confidence of my colleague). 5. Put together a SMALL group of trusted users to consider ways to redefine Wikipedia, considering the remarkable growth spurt we are experiencing. This can be a blessing, but it can also lead to our complete collapse. I propose that Jimbo select the users and oversee the process, since he is the one person who is trusted by everyone and whose authority is (more or less) unchallenged.
Danny
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Mark Richards wrote:
I don't necessarily oppose the principle of giving sysops more power to act quickly, but if this is given, it must be with more opportunity for the community to review those decisions. Kind of a retroactive Votes for Deletion if you like.
For example, if you quickly delete a page, and ban a user in a way that is not currently supported by policy, your action should be listed for a week for people to comment on, and reviewed if necessary.
It's difficult to review a page that has been deleted like that.
Ec
--- Mark Richards marich712000@yahoo.com wrote:
I don't necessarily oppose the principle of giving sysops more power to act quickly, but if this is given, it must be with more opportunity for the community to review those decisions. Kind of a retroactive Votes for Deletion if you like.
For example, if you quickly delete a page, and ban a user in a way that is not currently supported by policy, your action should be listed for a week for people to comment on, and reviewed if necessary.
This is what this mailing list is for (public record, more so than the pedia itself) and gives ample time for all interested parties to discuss). He did post this here.
===== Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com 818.943.1850 cell http://www.christophermahan.com/
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
- Empower sysops to make on-the-spot decisions and act
accordingly. If most people don't trust them to act wisely, they should not be sysops.
In this case, you had a case of obvious vandalism and a threat to do more. Policy already supports you 100% in this, and we absolutely should make it clear to all sysops that this is perfectly fine.
(Actually, I just re-read the vandalism policy, and it doesn't quite say that, does it? Well, it should.)
- Stiffen penalties. If a group of people (like a school) are
planning to damage Wikipedia, it will last longer than 24 hours.
I think that's sensible.
- Act quickly and decisively with POV pushers. I recently received
an email from a colleague at work, that was forwarded to her. Someone posted to a professional mailing list, asking them to join Wikipedia en masse to ensure that certain articles maintain their point of view. Their POV is often close to my own, however, I am disturbed that a group can potentially band together to push a particular POV, regardless of what it is. At one point, such a group will succeed. (I have forwarded the email to Jimbo, but will say no more about it to protect the confidence of my colleague).
*nod* -- The issue here is subtle but potentially a huge deal, as follows.
Each of us has come to the project individually, and so whatever POV we may have, we don't imagine that we could get away with pushing it. I mentioned the other day that I think a lot of our gun rights articles have a pro-gun bias, but I have to admit that the main reason I looked at them in the first place was to check for anti-gun bias, which I care about as a personal issue of interest to me.
Because we have come here individually, we have come mostly because of our interest in the encyclopedia _per se_, as opposed to a particular narrow agenda. (Not true for everyone, obviously, but I'm speaking in generalities.)
It would be unfortunate if it became common practice for groups of people to come _with a specific agenda_, as a group.
(I agreed with pretty much everything else Danny said, too, I just omitted it because I didn't have much comment.)
--Jimbo
I deleted that nonsense yesterday. If it returns, it should be immediatley deleted again.
RickK
daniwo59@aol.com wrote: I have just blocked Yammy Yamathorne for 9999 hours. I did not go through Quickpolls. I have no regrets.
This user created a page, [[The Lyceum]], based on the [[Akhmad Kadyrov]] page, in which he claimed that the "super smart kids" in his school are planning to bring down Wikipedia. The page itself was an act of vandalism, and I have deleted it (without going through Speedy Deletions).
This is an increasing problem here on Wikipedia. As we grow, we are no longer able to monitor the Recent Changes adequately. If I recall correctly, Horace had been vandalized for two weeks recently before someone noticed.
I am proposing the following radical solutions:
1. Empower sysops to make on-the-spot decisions and act accordingly. If most people don't trust them to act wisely, they should not be sysops. 2. Reinvigorate Seth Ilys's New Pages Patrol and expand it to include Recent Changes in general. Lots of crap is getting through, as well as considerable the duplication of articles. 3. Stiffen penalties. If a group of people (like a school) are planning to damage Wikipedia, it will last longer than 24 hours. 4. Act quickly and decisively with POV pushers. I recently received an email from a colleague at work, that was forwarded to her. Someone posted to a professional mailing list, asking them to join Wikipedia en masse to ensure that certain articles maintain their point of view. Their POV is often close to my own, however, I am disturbed that a group can potentially band together to push a particular POV, regardless of what it is. At one point, such a group will succeed. (I have forwarded the email to Jimbo, but will say no more about it to protect the confidence of my colleague). 5. Put together a SMALL group of trusted users to consider ways to redefine Wikipedia, considering the remarkable growth spurt we are experiencing. This can be a blessing, but it can also lead to our complete collapse. I propose that Jimbo select the users and oversee the process, since he is the one person who is trusted by everyone and whose authority is (more or less) unchallenged.
Danny _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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For an idea on how to do the increasing warning, then block thing, check out MediaWiki:Test2, MediaWiki:Test3, and MediaWiki:Test4, which I've been using for a while now.
moink