The simplest thing to do with regard to trolls, vandals, and problematic POV editors with agendas is to formulate a clear policy and then authorize the existing administrators to enforce it. It is not necessary for it to be prescriptive (3 edits in 24 hours etc), just clear.
The quickpoll system is divisive and should be dismantled. Bans and blocks can be reversed, and should be, when improperly used.
Some examples to consider:
* If a user edits the same article with more than one user ID (sock puppet) within 10 days, they will be banned for a period of 7 days. * If a user reverts an article excessively without discussion and in such a way as to prevent useful work from being done on the article, the article should be protected. If the user is culpable in more than three such pages within 10 days, they will be banned for a period of 7 days. * If a user has a pattern of editing in bad faith, such as vandalism, threats of violence, personal attacks, legal threats, racism, the problematic edits should be reverted, regardless of where they are made (talk space, user page). If they continue (more than five?) the user should be banned for 7 days.
Make it clear. Make it reasonably objective. Leave it to administrators to be fair. If the policy doesn't work, fix it, or go back to the current state of affairs.
Does that make Wikipedia a cabal? With 221 administrators and counting I think not.
UninvitedCompany
Hi!
On Fri, 7 May 2004 14:37:06 -0700, uninvited@nerstrand.net wrote:
- If a user edits the same article with more than one user ID (sock puppet) within 10 days, they will be banned
for a period of 7 days.
Then you have to be able to definitely tell who is and is not a sock puppet. I have been accused of being one myself, although I have no clue whom I was supposed to be a sock puppet for. (Not to mention that I had to look up the word in the first place.) Also, some users simply share the same opinion, without them being the same person. And IP addresses don't work all the time, either; most Europeans don't have a fixed one, and I guess many non-Europeans neither.
- If a user reverts an article excessively without discussion and in such a way as to prevent useful work from
being done on the article, the article should be protected. If the user is culpable in more than three such pages within 10 days, they will be banned for a period of 7 days.
Again, this is easily written, but not always easy to confirm. The one who's work is reverted will always complain "that they are just trying to do useful work" and the one doing the reverting will always consider it "vandalising" or "trolling". And not every article is about subjects easily understood by other people, so that decision might be a triffle difficult to make.
- If a user has a pattern of editing in bad faith, such as vandalism, threats of violence, personal attacks,
legal threats, racism, the problematic edits should be reverted, regardless of where they are made (talk space, user page). If they continue (more than five?) the user should be banned for 7 days.
That is the one point that can be easily determined to have taken place.
Greetings from Cologne Alex
uninvited@nerstrand.net a écrit:
The simplest thing to do with regard to trolls, vandals, and problematic POV editors with agendas is to formulate a clear policy and then authorize the existing administrators to enforce it. It is not necessary for it to be prescriptive (3 edits in 24 hours etc), just clear.
The quickpoll system is divisive and should be dismantled. Bans and blocks can be reversed, and should be, when improperly used.
Some examples to consider:
- If a user edits the same article with more than one user ID (sock puppet) within 10 days, they will be banned
for a period of 7 days.
- If a user reverts an article excessively without discussion and in such a way as to prevent useful work from
being done on the article, the article should be protected. If the user is culpable in more than three such pages within 10 days, they will be banned for a period of 7 days.
- If a user has a pattern of editing in bad faith, such as vandalism, threats of violence, personal attacks,
legal threats, racism, the problematic edits should be reverted, regardless of where they are made (talk space, user page). If they continue (more than five?) the user should be banned for 7 days.
Make it clear. Make it reasonably objective. Leave it to administrators to be fair. If the policy doesn't work, fix it, or go back to the current state of affairs.
Does that make Wikipedia a cabal? With 221 administrators and counting I think not.
UninvitedCompany
Well, why not. But it all depends whether the policy has to be followed to the point or not. If one sysop can enforce it, and another sysop removing the enforcement is automatically labelled "wrong-doing sysop", we in effect have a better management of bad people, but it does not matter that there 220 other administrators.
The policy should then be such that * there are *good* blocking guidelines * a sysop following those guidelines can't be "guilty of sysop abuse" * and a sysop reverting the first sysop can't be "guilty of sysop abuse" either.
So, if the community widely agree, the guy will be blocked, but a unique sysop trying to act will not be criticized too heavily for having blocked perhaps too quickly. I think "fear" of acting often paralyse our sysop :-)
Which I understand...
Anthere wrote:
So, if the community widely agree, the guy will be blocked, but a unique sysop trying to act will not be criticized too heavily for having blocked perhaps too quickly. I think "fear" of acting often paralyse our sysop :-)
Which I understand...
I think Anthere is very wise here.
I think that one key is that any system under which a sysop is supposed to make a *sole* judgment is going to necessarily involve second-guessing afterwards as to whether that judgment was right.
The advantage of quickpolls (in some configuration) is that they allow a fast method to *get something done* but which also allow for *community oversight* and *legitimacy*. Setting a high percentage threshold is a good way to avoid "personality contests", at least I hope so.
It's very easy to say "This sysop blocked me because of political bias" or "This sysop blocked me because of a personal grudge". And it sounds plausible, because no matter how good we all are, we all know that personal temptation to bonk someone can get pretty high sometimes. (One reason I decided to form the mediation/arbitration system is that I was getting perilously close to a banning rampage myself, but thought that some form of due process was critical.)
So single-person-deciding solutions are going to be very efficient in one sense, but extremely divisive in another sense.
--Jimbo