Hello. I'd just like to draw attention to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Ram-Man#Spambot a discussion about whether Ram-Man should be permitted to use rambot to send unsolicited bulk messages (soliciting participation in a "dual-licensing drive") to thousands of user-talk pages. The bot is currently blocked indefinitely, pending the resolution of this issue.
Ram-Man seems to believe that an implicit community consens exists and approves of his use of the bot in this fashion. Currently, he claims to have "over 70% support" of users who responded to the message, although I believe this figure to be skewed by the "users who responded" part. I therefore would appreciate it if otherwise uninterested individuals provide Ram-Man with a more concrete measure of the level of community support which exists regarding this message.
Others have expressed concerns regarding the precedent which this sets for distribution of unsolicited user-talk messages, and suggest that a more concrete policy be formed to deal with this form of userpage spam.
Equally, there isn't any consensus against this. I received his message; I didn't mind at all.
If it does become a problem, then it may be wise to act then - but I don't think there is one at the moment. Ram-Man's proposal wasn't unreasonable, and due to the number of people it needed to reach (i.e. far more than the usual 100 people that vote on most polls), it wasn't necessarily a bad idea to choose talk pages over a post on the Village Pump or equivalent.
Frankly, unless this sort of thing becomes a regular occurrence, I don't see any need for action at all.
-- ambi
On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 01:20:49 -0500, Fennec Foxen fennec@gmail.com wrote:
Hello. I'd just like to draw attention to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Ram-Man#Spambot a discussion about whether Ram-Man should be permitted to use rambot to send unsolicited bulk messages (soliciting participation in a "dual-licensing drive") to thousands of user-talk pages. The bot is currently blocked indefinitely, pending the resolution of this issue.
Ram-Man seems to believe that an implicit community consens exists and approves of his use of the bot in this fashion. Currently, he claims to have "over 70% support" of users who responded to the message, although I believe this figure to be skewed by the "users who responded" part. I therefore would appreciate it if otherwise uninterested individuals provide Ram-Man with a more concrete measure of the level of community support which exists regarding this message.
Others have expressed concerns regarding the precedent which this sets for distribution of unsolicited user-talk messages, and suggest that a more concrete policy be formed to deal with this form of userpage spam. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Rebecca wrote
Equally, there isn't any consensus against this. I received his message; I didn't mind at all.
I had a personalised version, a little while ago. It wasn't expressed in a way that made it clear what I would be signing up for; so I haven't done anything about it.
Frankly, unless this sort of thing becomes a regular occurrence, I don't see any need for action at all.
How annoying would it be to find that 'you have messages' was some sort of bulk mail: "vote for me", "X has vandalised this ...", "all good Wikipedians must now come to the aid of the party", and so on?
It would be annoying. And undermine the sense of community. Spam me not.
Charles
On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 10:18:02 -0000, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Rebecca wrote
Equally, there isn't any consensus against this. I received his message; I didn't mind at all.
I had a personalised version, a little while ago. It wasn't expressed in a way that made it clear what I would be signing up for; so I haven't done anything about it.
Frankly, unless this sort of thing becomes a regular occurrence, I don't see any need for action at all.
How annoying would it be to find that 'you have messages' was some sort of bulk mail: "vote for me", "X has vandalised this ...", "all good Wikipedians must now come to the aid of the party", and so on?
It would be annoying. And undermine the sense of community. Spam me not.
Charles
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I think already it doesn't set a precedent, in that the issue has received due scrutiny. If anyone else tries the same again they will find themselves also being stopped/scrutinised.
I don't have a problem with this specific issue though, while I do understand the reservations of some about any mass messaging. And to be honest, while I don't think it will succeed, the mass messaging is about the only way to get enough feedback on this issue.
I say let this one pass, but subject any further mass messaging to a similar rigorous examination.
Zoney
Charles Matthews wrote:
It would be annoying. And undermine the sense of community. Spam me not.
Charles
I think it would show that the reform of the village pump into various moribund sections was a failure - previously the VP was a place that got a lot of eyeballs, recently not so much.
Pete
On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 20:43:35 +1100, Rebecca misfitgirl@gmail.com wrote:
Ram-Man's proposal wasn't unreasonable, and due to the number of people it needed to reach (i.e. far more than the usual 100 people that vote on most polls), it wasn't necessarily a bad idea to choose talk pages over a post on the Village Pump or equivalent.
Indeed, but we must consider what messages should be designated "reasonable", and the community must be involved in making this decision, not just the bot.
I say let this one pass, but subject any further mass messaging to a similar rigorous examination.
How about further mass-messaging be approved *beforehand* rather than ex post facto? This is the crux of the matter: not that "mass messaging is evil" or "mass messaging via bots is evil" or "bots are evil" or "mass messaging about licensing is evil" or anything like that. It's just that *any operation of a bot needs to be approved beforehand*. A reminder from Wikipedia:Bots --
Before running a bot, you must get approval on Wikipedia talk:Bots. State there precisely what the bot will do. Get a rough consensus on the talk page that it is a good idea. Wait a week to see if there are any objections ... <snip> 1. Sysops should block bots, without hesitation, if they are unapproved, ***doing something the operator didn't say they would do***, messing up articles or editing too rapidly.
At no point in time did Ram-Man say on Wikipedia_talk:Bots that he would be using the bot to send solicit thousands of users via their talk pages. Wikipedia:Bots just says that Rambot "scans and modifys all existing county and city articles to implement miscellaneous changes and updates. As time permits, the bot also functions as a generic SpellBot with human interaction." A note on the talk page from Nov 8 also indicates that Rambot will resume its *normal* operation, citing "requests for changes that are months and months overdue". He linked to Rambot's user page at that time, where there was no mention of a mass messaging project: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User:Rambot&oldid=7257037
This is clearly not something Ram-Man said the bot would do.
In this case, perhaps the consensus to run the bot would have been achieved, allowing the bot to operate, but in general I do not think that the "implicit consent" measure employed by Ram-Man ("I already have explicit and implicit permission from hundreds of users to perform this action") based upon nonnegative replies to his solicitation should be considered a valid measure of community consensus in these matters. Indeed, Ram-Man states "After all, I have a track record of not asking for permission" and complains of the lack of attention to the WIkipedia_talk:Bots page, using these as excuses not to file for permission. I think that this is already deemed unacceptable by standing bot policy.
On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 10:44:37 -0500, Fennec Foxen fennec@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 20:43:35 +1100, Rebecca misfitgirl@gmail.com wrote:
Ram-Man's proposal wasn't unreasonable, and due to the number of people it needed to reach (i.e. far more than the usual 100 people that vote on most polls), it wasn't necessarily a bad idea to choose talk pages over a post on the Village Pump or equivalent.
Indeed, but we must consider what messages should be designated "reasonable", and the community must be involved in making this decision, not just the bot.
I say let this one pass, but subject any further mass messaging to a similar rigorous examination.
How about further mass-messaging be approved *beforehand* rather than ex post facto? This is the crux of the matter: not that "mass messaging is evil" or "mass messaging via bots is evil" or "bots are evil" or "mass messaging about licensing is evil" or anything like that. It's just that *any operation of a bot needs to be approved beforehand*. A reminder from Wikipedia:Bots --
Before running a bot, you must get approval on Wikipedia talk:Bots. State there precisely what the bot will do. Get a rough consensus on the talk page that it is a good idea. Wait a week to see if there are any objections ... <snip>
- Sysops should block bots, without hesitation, if they are
unapproved, ***doing something the operator didn't say they would do***, messing up articles or editing too rapidly.
At no point in time did Ram-Man say on Wikipedia_talk:Bots that he would be using the bot to send solicit thousands of users via their talk pages. Wikipedia:Bots just says that Rambot "scans and modifys all existing county and city articles to implement miscellaneous changes and updates. As time permits, the bot also functions as a generic SpellBot with human interaction." A note on the talk page from Nov 8 also indicates that Rambot will resume its *normal* operation, citing "requests for changes that are months and months overdue". He linked to Rambot's user page at that time, where there was no mention of a mass messaging project: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User:Rambot&oldid=7257037
This is clearly not something Ram-Man said the bot would do.
In this case, perhaps the consensus to run the bot would have been achieved, allowing the bot to operate, but in general I do not think that the "implicit consent" measure employed by Ram-Man ("I already have explicit and implicit permission from hundreds of users to perform this action") based upon nonnegative replies to his solicitation should be considered a valid measure of community consensus in these matters. Indeed, Ram-Man states "After all, I have a track record of not asking for permission" and complains of the lack of attention to the WIkipedia_talk:Bots page, using these as excuses not to file for permission. I think that this is already deemed unacceptable by standing bot policy. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
While it is a bit rich to claim retro-active consensus for the bot, I for one wouldn't be pushed about making a big deal out of this specific abuse of a bot (I mean, it admittedly doesn't look like the guidelines have been followed).
Perhaps others too agree.
Once again, I re-iterate that I consider that this doesn't need to set any kind of precedent. If there is a "next time", simply visit it again as we are doing now, and hey, if it's a different issue where everyone is baying for blood, take serious action. There's no specific reason not to treat things on a case by case basis. And it's not "unfair", because if the "next time" is worse, then it deserves to be treated differently.
There's no call to make a big fuss over this bot messaging out of fear of future (more serious/widespread?) abuses.
Well. That's all my two eurocent anyways. I may be out of touch with reality (again!)
Zoney
--- Zoney zoney.ie@gmail.com wrote:
Once again, I re-iterate that I consider that this doesn't need to set any kind of precedent. If there is a "next time", simply visit it again as we are doing now, and hey, if it's a different issue where everyone is baying for blood, take serious action. There's no specific reason not to treat things on a case by case basis. And it's not "unfair", because if the "next time" is worse, then it deserves to be treated differently.
Things have a way of setting precedent whether we want them to or not. If nothing else, letting this stand without some sort of response has the effect of setting the precedent that future cases will be handled after-the-fact as well.
We don't need to do anything until after a major problem has already happened? We don't need to do anything unless some future case turns out to be a problem?
We don't need to fix the intersection until people actually die in an accident?
I don't think we necessarily need to make a formal policy about this, but we should make it very clear that this sort of behavior requires _prior_ discussion and consensus.
-Rich Holton (en.wikipedia:user:rholton)
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
G'day y'all
On IRC we have been discussing the probs of trying to announce important messages (like for example 'vote in the arbcom elections' or 'consider dual licensing your contributions' etc.). Now one road is spam which is great fun (*cough*) Now i came up with two other possible solutions which i have already floated on IRC.
One) A template that could be put on any user/user talk page (since most users -i think- visit one or the other reasonably frequently) which would have a list of important votes, polls, requests, etc. perhaps three at a time, with no more than two line discriptions, and no more than one new one added per day? or whatever....
Two) a spam catogry (again on a user talk page), that says that you will accept spam (obviuosly not commercial spam, just relevant spam).
These two could even be combined by having two different identicle announcement templates one of which adds the spam catogary and one which doesnt.
Now the reason that i think this is necessary is that there are A LOT of people who never go on IRC, or read this list, and only very rarely visit the VP.
So what do people think, yay or nay... (oh, and another thing, i have no friggin' idea how to make a template... so if the answer is yay could someone umm.... lend me a hand or two, thanks.)
paz y amor, [[User:The bellman]]
On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 20:43:35 +1100, Rebecca misfitgirl@gmail.com wrote:
Ram-Man's proposal wasn't unreasonable, and due to the number of people it needed to reach (i.e. far more than the usual 100 people that vote on most polls), it wasn't necessarily a bad idea to choose talk pages over a post on the Village Pump or equivalent.
Ambi said:
Equally, there isn't any consensus against this. I received his message; I didn't mind at all.
If it does become a problem, then it may be wise to act then - but I don't think there is one at the moment. Ram-Man's proposal wasn't unreasonable, and due to the number of people it needed to reach (i.e. far more than the usual 100 people that vote on most polls), it wasn't necessarily a bad idea to choose talk pages over a post on the Village Pump or equivalent.
Frankly, unless this sort of thing becomes a regular occurrence, I don't see any need for action at all.
I think there might need to be some sort of policy developed around this. Recently User:Ta bu shi da yu was blocked (albeit briefly) for "spamming" User talk: pages of admins with a question. More seriously, User:IZAK was taken to arbitration for, in part, "spamming" a much smaller number of User talk: pages on issues of interest to him (and presumably, to the people he "spammed" as well).
Jay.
I agree that were this to become common practice it would get annoying, but in this case I think it was appropriate. Someone wants to use editor's material in another project, and is required by the gfdl to seek their consent. He is doing this in pretty much the only reasonable way I can think of.
If the licensing on WP wasn't broken, he wouldn't have to do it. The sooner we fix the license the sooner we can be done with all of this.
Mark
--- Fennec Foxen fennec@gmail.com wrote:
Hello. I'd just like to draw attention to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Ram-Man#Spambot
a discussion about whether Ram-Man should be permitted to use rambot to send unsolicited bulk messages (soliciting participation in a "dual-licensing drive") to thousands of user-talk pages. The bot is currently blocked indefinitely, pending the resolution of this issue.
Ram-Man seems to believe that an implicit community consens exists and approves of his use of the bot in this fashion. Currently, he claims to have "over 70% support" of users who responded to the message, although I believe this figure to be skewed by the "users who responded" part. I therefore would appreciate it if otherwise uninterested individuals provide Ram-Man with a more concrete measure of the level of community support which exists regarding this message.
Others have expressed concerns regarding the precedent which this sets for distribution of unsolicited user-talk messages, and suggest that a more concrete policy be formed to deal with this form of userpage spam. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! http://my.yahoo.com
I wasn't particularly bothered by this, but then considering the amount of spam that I receive it's hard to get upset over a single item that may at least be marginally relevant to what interests me.
I read the proposal, thought it was fair and reasonable, but did nothing since I found the implications unclear.
Ec
Fennec Foxen wrote:
Hello. I'd just like to draw attention to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Ram-Man#Spambot a discussion about whether Ram-Man should be permitted to use rambot to send unsolicited bulk messages (soliciting participation in a "dual-licensing drive") to thousands of user-talk pages. The bot is currently blocked indefinitely, pending the resolution of this issue.
Ram-Man seems to believe that an implicit community consens exists and approves of his use of the bot in this fashion. Currently, he claims to have "over 70% support" of users who responded to the message, although I believe this figure to be skewed by the "users who responded" part. I therefore would appreciate it if otherwise uninterested individuals provide Ram-Man with a more concrete measure of the level of community support which exists regarding this message.
Others have expressed concerns regarding the precedent which this sets for distribution of unsolicited user-talk messages, and suggest that a more concrete policy be formed to deal with this form of userpage spam.