Some sites ask users to "sign" agreements related to their activities on the site and absolving the site owner of any damage the site may cause the user's computer or brain. I don't recall having to agree to anything when I first joined Wikipedia except to allow my work to be mercilessly edited should I choose to submit any. Had I signed an agreement to abstain from behavior that could be considered mischevious or detrimental to the safety of Wiki and its members, on the consequence of (fill in here), then (a) I might be less inclined to launch vandal bots in the first place, and if I did then (b) all the yelling to lawyers I wanted to do would serve for nothing when I got banned for life.
The actions the bot took yesterday did not just affect Angela, Texture, and other users whose user pages were trashed, it affected a whole community. The letter replacements on Town Pump and cleanup were offensive to me, and the condition of the VfD page was such that I just refrained from participating.
When the action of one user has an impact such as this on an entire community, then there should be reasonable consequences. Certainly a hard ban, whether for three months or one year or life would not be inappropriate. It is time to kill the clowns.
Denni
-- "The difference between extra-marital sex and extra marital sex is not to be sneezed at." --George Will, on hyphen use _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Visit my Wikipedia user page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User%3ADwindrim Do you ICQ? I do - 276534369 Magpie
Wik still has lots of clout. The arbitration committee even now is not willing to ban him indefinitely. Still in wet noodle mode...
Fred
From: Denni dwindrim@shaw.ca Reply-To: dwindrim@shaw.ca, English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2004 10:31:30 -0600 To: WikiEN wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wik's Vandal Bot
When the action of one user has an impact such as this on an entire community, then there should be reasonable consequences. Certainly a hard ban, whether for three months or one year or life would not be inappropriate. It is time to kill the clowns.
Just wondering, is the argument that the current vandalism behaviour is not a bannable offense, or that it isn't necessarily Wik? If the first, wow is the AC ever tolerant.
moink
On Thu, 17 Jun 2004, Fred Bauder wrote:
Wik still has lots of clout. The arbitration committee even now is not willing to ban him indefinitely. Still in wet noodle mode...
Fred
From: Denni dwindrim@shaw.ca Reply-To: dwindrim@shaw.ca, English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2004 10:31:30 -0600 To: WikiEN wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wik's Vandal Bot
When the action of one user has an impact such as this on an entire community, then there should be reasonable consequences. Certainly a hard ban, whether for three months or one year or life would not be inappropriate. It is time to kill the clowns.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
The argument is that it is not necessary, after all, he is gone. There is no longer any doubt that it is him.
Fred
From: Theresa Robinson robinst@MIT.EDU Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2004 14:40:11 -0400 (EDT) To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wik's Vandal Bot
Just wondering, is the argument that the current vandalism behaviour is not a bannable offense, or that it isn't necessarily Wik? If the first, wow is the AC ever tolerant.
moink
On Thu, 17 Jun 2004, Fred Bauder wrote:
Wik still has lots of clout. The arbitration committee even now is not willing to ban him indefinitely. Still in wet noodle mode...
Fred
From: Denni dwindrim@shaw.ca Reply-To: dwindrim@shaw.ca, English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2004 10:31:30 -0600 To: WikiEN wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wik's Vandal Bot
When the action of one user has an impact such as this on an entire community, then there should be reasonable consequences. Certainly a hard ban, whether for three months or one year or life would not be inappropriate. It is time to kill the clowns.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Fred Bauder wrote:
The argument is that it is not necessary, after all, he is gone. There is no longer any doubt that it is him.
Fred
Is it not important to send a clear message that this is not to be taken lightly?
On 6/17/04 8:06 PM, "Rowan Collins [IMSoP]" siu01rc2@rdg.ac.uk wrote:
Fred Bauder wrote:
The argument is that it is not necessary, after all, he is gone. There is no longer any doubt that it is him.
Fred
Is it not important to send a clear message that this is not to be taken lightly?
Not really; although it is psychologically satisfying to the punisher to parade victims through the town square, in a society which affords anonymity, there is no scientific evidence (which I'm aware of) that such punishments deter other crimes.
Rather, it is likely to inspire other action, by setting up a challenge, throwing down the gauntlet.
It is better to treat such action with the contempt and disdain it deserves. After slapping away the fly buzzing around your head, you don't trumpet its demise. It is unworthy of notice.
It is best to solve problems and move on. At the same time, it is important not to bury history, but simply to keep a moderate tone and recognize that in the big scheme of things (i.e. that Wikipedia is just in its beginning stages now) most of the crises of today will be soon forgotten and seen as no more than annoyances.
Not really; although it is psychologically satisfying to the punisher to parade victims through the town square, in a society which affords anonymity, there is no scientific evidence (which I'm aware of) that such punishments deter other crimes.
Rather, it is likely to inspire other action, by setting up a challenge, throwing down the gauntlet.
It is better to treat such action with the contempt and disdain it deserves. After slapping away the fly buzzing around your head, you don't trumpet its demise. It is unworthy of notice.
It is best to solve problems and move on. At the same time, it is important not to bury history, but simply to keep a moderate tone and recognize that in the big scheme of things (i.e. that Wikipedia is just in its beginning stages now) most of the crises of today will be soon forgotten and seen as no more than annoyances.
I absolutely agree. Fix the vandalbot problems and otherwise ignore them. This does not deserve large amounts of attention. We don't want people thinking they can start huge crises within the community.
moink
--- Theresa Robinson robinst@MIT.EDU wrote:
Just wondering, is the argument that the current vandalism behaviour is not a bannable offense, or that it isn't necessarily Wik? If the first, wow is the AC ever tolerant.
Every admin already has the authority to ban vandals. Since it is plainly obvious that Wik has become a vandal, then there is no question that he is banned for an indefinite period of time. This is outside the AC's jurisdiction and I'm baffled why Fred thinks we need to rule on this.
-- mav
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As people are constantly pointing out to me, admins have the right to block accounts for simple vandalism, not ban users. The importance is that an account that is blocked does not 'carry over' to another 'sock puppet' that does not vandalise. A ban would. Mark
--- Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
--- Theresa Robinson robinst@MIT.EDU wrote:
Just wondering, is the argument that the current
vandalism behaviour is
not a bannable offense, or that it isn't
necessarily Wik? If the first,
wow is the AC ever tolerant.
Every admin already has the authority to ban vandals. Since it is plainly obvious that Wik has become a vandal, then there is no question that he is banned for an indefinite period of time. This is outside the AC's jurisdiction and I'm baffled why Fred thinks we need to rule on this.
-- mav
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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Fred Bauder wrote:
Wik still has lots of clout. The arbitration committee even now is not willing to ban him indefinitely. Still in wet noodle mode...
Not sure if I'm one of the people you were referring to but, I personally am fine with *indefinite* bans in cases like this, but that's not entirely the same as *permanent* bans. If this is indeed Wik, it certainly seems reasonable to say he's banned until further notice, and in fact that's probably already the case whether or not the arbitration committee says anything. The only way I could conceivably see him being unbanned is if he basically apologizes and agrees to become a productive Wikipedian again, in which case I'd be willing to see what happens. The chances of that seem minimal enough though that perhaps it's equivalent to a permanent ban.
-Mark
Why don't we adopt a methodology more like Britanica? We could choose editors, who would be accountable to us, then they could write articles that we'd be pleased with, and we could control the final version?
Oh, I remember, because this is a WIKI! Mark
--- Denni dwindrim@shaw.ca wrote:
Some sites ask users to "sign" agreements related to their activities on the site and absolving the site owner of any damage the site may cause the user's computer or brain. I don't recall having to agree to anything when I first joined Wikipedia except to allow my work to be mercilessly edited should I choose to submit any. Had I signed an agreement to abstain from behavior that could be considered mischevious or detrimental to the safety of Wiki and its members, on the consequence of (fill in here), then (a) I might be less inclined to launch vandal bots in the first place, and if I did then (b) all the yelling to lawyers I wanted to do would serve for nothing when I got banned for life.
The actions the bot took yesterday did not just affect Angela, Texture, and other users whose user pages were trashed, it affected a whole community. The letter replacements on Town Pump and cleanup were offensive to me, and the condition of the VfD page was such that I just refrained from participating.
When the action of one user has an impact such as this on an entire community, then there should be reasonable consequences. Certainly a hard ban, whether for three months or one year or life would not be inappropriate. It is time to kill the clowns.
Denni
-- �"The difference between extra-marital sex and extra marital sex is not to be sneezed at." --George Will, on hyphen use
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Visit my Wikipedia user page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User%3ADwindrim Do you ICQ? I do - 276534369 Magpie
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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