On 15 Nov 2007 at 14:56:22 +0000, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
Which neatly proves that we need sockpuppeting banned users like a hole in the head.
But we have no power to make them go away, short of going the Citizendium route and limiting editing to approved accounts under the editor's real name. We only have power over what we do when they show up, and if what they crave is attention and drama, the more excessive and exaggerated our response to them is, the more we're playing into their hands.
If they send sockpuppets to take both sides of a contentious issue, then a policy of never reverting to the version that was the result of an edit by a banned user is a nonstarter, since *both* versions under contention were edited by banned users. Instead of a knee-jerk revert, one is compelled to actually consider which of the versions best serves the encyclopedia. Hopefully, this can be done through calm and rational discussion that doesn't give the trolls the drama they crave; this means that anybody who gets in a state of anger as a result of the trolling (it's immaterial whether it's anger that a link was added, anger that a link was deleted, anger that one or more banned users edited, or anger at the response of admins to this) really should step back from their keyboard and calm down before proceeding. Yes, that means me too. We were all suckered into taking the trolls' bait on this one; you, me, and everybody else who involved themselves in that issue.
Another troll tactic (as I think you pointed out yourself) is to purposely make good edits such as fixing typos and reverting vandalism, from an obvious sockpuppet account, in the hope of provoking admins into reverting them (and thus putting vandalism and typos back in) in the name of absolutism when dealing with banned editors. In these cases, the absolutists are giving the trolls what they want, compounded even more if the admins actually insist that nobody else is allowed to revert to the banned user's verion either, and the error is forced to be kept indefinitely.
That's a solution to the symptom. A better solution would be for them to go away and stop trying to plant disinformation via third party sources such as Robert Black.
Unfortunately, we have no control over what people do with regard to outside sites and blogs.
On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:41:12 -0500, "Daniel R. Tobias" dan@tobias.name wrote:
Which neatly proves that we need sockpuppeting banned users like a hole in the head.
But we have no power to make them go away, short of going the Citizendium route and limiting editing to approved accounts under the editor's real name. We only have power over what we do when they show up, and if what they crave is attention and drama, the more excessive and exaggerated our response to them is, the more we're playing into their hands.
[[WP:RBI]] is not an exaggerated response. Revert, block, ignore, unblock, wheel war, revert again, drama - that is the problem.
If they send sockpuppets to take both sides of a contentious issue, then a policy of never reverting to the version that was the result of an edit by a banned user is a nonstarter, since *both* versions under contention were edited by banned users. Instead of a knee-jerk revert, one is compelled to actually consider which of the versions best serves the encyclopedia. Hopefully, this can be done through calm and rational discussion that doesn't give the trolls the drama they crave; this means that anybody who gets in a state of anger as a result of the trolling (it's immaterial whether it's anger that a link was added, anger that a link was deleted, anger that one or more banned users edited, or anger at the response of admins to this) really should step back from their keyboard and calm down before proceeding. Yes, that means me too. We were all suckered into taking the trolls' bait on this one; you, me, and everybody else who involved themselves in that issue.
No, one removes all edits by both sides and then forgets about them and decides if the article actually needs editing.
Admittedly the waters get a little muddy when the abusers plant their harassment on outside websites that are already linked, but this is not exactly a common occurrence.
Another troll tactic (as I think you pointed out yourself) is to purposely make good edits such as fixing typos and reverting vandalism, from an obvious sockpuppet account, in the hope of provoking admins into reverting them (and thus putting vandalism and typos back in) in the name of absolutism when dealing with banned editors. In these cases, the absolutists are giving the trolls what they want, compounded even more if the admins actually insist that nobody else is allowed to revert to the banned user's verion either, and the error is forced to be kept indefinitely.
As David Gerard has previously said, checking the edits and making them again in your own name is the way to do that. Yes, tedious and to an outside view somewhat silly, but when we ban people *we ban them*, if we think they should be allowed to come along and edit some then *we should not ban them*.
You need to remember that the source of this problem is not our behaviour, it's theirs. They are the ones evading a ban. They are the ones deliberately gaming the system and disrupting Wikipedia to make their point. Sockpuppets of banned users correcting typos as a way of building up an edit history is *not actually a good thing* because the aim is to do some damage that is massively greater than the benefit of the trivial typo fixing.
Policy on banned users says that we should revert all edits made by banned users after banning. And we should, even if (as with Arch Coal) we then go and rewrite a whole article from scratch, from sources. I do not subscribe to the idea of being "a little bit banned".
Guy (JzG)