What do we do with vandalism now?
1) Warned the user 2) Repeat vandalism results in a block for the user / IP 3) Persistent pattern of vandalism is escalated to WP:ABUSE which reports the matter to the IP owner concerned.
People in the past have been sacked by their employers for abusing Wikipedia and school kids have been disciplined.
Criminal sanctions takes it a step higher of course, but it's a tool open to us and I think we should consider using it when we can and when it's appropriate. You're probably right that this isn't exactly the right case - but I still think it's quite shocking and damaging to our reputation to hear a fairly mainstream British magazine bragging about vandalism in this way.
We reality is we haven't managed. We have an appalling reputation for vandalism - rightly or wrongly - and worse, a reputation that we simply don't care about vandalism. Particularly for BLPs, I would say this is the number one issue we have to deal with to safeguard our future. We need to take it more seriously and we need to change what we do. Personally I think criminal sanctions should be part of this.
There's also a broader reality here about the way the internet is changing. For years the internet was an anarchic place full of anonymous and untraceable users and zero policing. This has changed quite fundamentally in the last few years. Popular webpages use real names. People are sacked for writing things on facebook. Spammers and child porn users have been jailed. Bulletin board users have been sued for libels they've written. The "real world" and the "virtual world" are coming together in a way that was unimaginable five years ago.
In that context, the idea of prosecuting persistent or high-profile Wikipedia vandals shouldn't be out of the question.
Andrew
----- Original Message ----- From: "Andrew Gray" andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Friday, 17 April, 2009 11:36:28 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Rod Liddle, Spectator, on his Wikipedia article
2009/4/17 Oldak Quill oldakquill@gmail.com:
I'm not sure why we're discussing legal options. Even if there were legal avenues open to us, it would be silly to pursue them.
I endorse this comment entirely. It seems a little surreal to read some of the discussion in this thread, which whilst no doubt interesting from an academic perspective, doesn't sit very comfortably with our normal practice!
We've managed fine for eight years without suing people who do breaching experiments. Suddenly arguing we ought to change this in the case of someone who probably didn't do one as such anyway is a little uncharacteristic...
Andrew Turvey wrote:
Criminal sanctions takes it a step higher of course, but it's a tool open to us and I think we should consider using it when we can and when it's appropriate. You're probably right that this isn't exactly the right case - but I still think it's quite shocking and damaging to our reputation to hear a fairly mainstream British magazine bragging about vandalism in this way.
Sadly, once a judge or jury member has understood that our complaining about vandalism is equivalent to complaining about someone driving off in your car when you left it unlocked and with keys in the ignition and with a sign on the bonnet saying "you can drive this car right now", our tally of successful civil actions may be low, and criminal actions can be forgotten. The common sense of the situation is that we have to make our model of open editing work, rather than relying on the legal system to cover its deficiencies. And certainly I have taken the line with The Spectator that their reputation is rather more under threat than ours.
Charles
Charles Matthews wrote:
Andrew Turvey wrote:
Criminal sanctions takes it a step higher of course, but it's a tool open to us and I think we should consider using it when we can and when it's appropriate. You're probably right that this isn't exactly the right case - but I still think it's quite shocking and damaging to our reputation to hear a fairly mainstream British magazine bragging about vandalism in this way.
Sadly, once a judge or jury member has understood that our complaining about vandalism is equivalent to complaining about someone driving off in your car when you left it unlocked and with keys in the ignition and with a sign on the bonnet saying "you can drive this car right now", our tally of successful civil actions may be low, and criminal actions can be forgotten.
See http://www.buzzle.com/articles/121121.html
The common sense of the situation is that we have to make our model of open editing work, rather than relying on the legal system to cover its deficiencies.
To be sure, anyone has the right to prosecute a losing case in the courts, and to make a laughing stock of himself. Advocating and proclaiming for a legal solution to a problem is a common tactic among incompetents who have never seen the inside of a courtroom. It is often associated with a lack of legal standing in the matter.
Ec
Update on the farrago. Apparently they printed my letter in the 25 April edition of The Spectator.
Liddle responds:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/the-week/3573521/part_2/letters.thtm...
Spectator readers respond to recent articles
I did foul Ronaldo
Sir: Let me assure Charles Matthews (Letters, 25 April) that I most certainly vandalised Cristiano Ronaldo’s Wikipedia page — on not one but two occasions. This would suggest that the site’s ‘history’ section is every bit as inaccurate as every other part of Wikipedia. It’s fun, but most people would be advised to trust it about as far as they would a press statement from Derek Draper.
Rod Liddle Marlborough, Wiltshire
My comment (placed onsite, may not get past moderation):
Rod, you don't convince. What you wrote can be checked. Article histories log all edits: it's a database, that's what the software does, no inaccuracies. Ask someone under 30. The odd thing is that journos wishing to convince the gullible that "the Internet" has intrinsic "low standards" tend to fall into this trap of making confident, wild claims (cf. Giles Hattersley of The Sunday Times); if you don't actually understand the medium yet, try not writing about it. Adopting perceived lazy standards as your own, where convenient, used to be called "going native", in the old days.
Charles
Maybe he hit preview and never saved the edits? :-) Or he edited the wrong article (you never know, it could be that simple). Ask him if he knows what "preview" and "diff" means.
Hmm. What was the date of all this again?
I've found vandalism on the *talk* page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Cristiano_Ronaldo&diff=28... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Cristiano_Ronaldo&diff=28...
Surely it couldn't be that simple?
Carcharoth
On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 6:18 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Update on the farrago. Apparently they printed my letter in the 25 April edition of The Spectator.
Liddle responds:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/the-week/3573521/part_2/letters.thtm...
Spectator readers respond to recent articles
I did foul Ronaldo
Sir: Let me assure Charles Matthews (Letters, 25 April) that I most certainly vandalised Cristiano Ronaldo’s Wikipedia page — on not one but two occasions. This would suggest that the site’s ‘history’ section is every bit as inaccurate as every other part of Wikipedia. It’s fun, but most people would be advised to trust it about as far as they would a press statement from Derek Draper.
Rod Liddle Marlborough, Wiltshire
My comment (placed onsite, may not get past moderation):
Rod, you don't convince. What you wrote can be checked. Article histories log all edits: it's a database, that's what the software does, no inaccuracies. Ask someone under 30. The odd thing is that journos wishing to convince the gullible that "the Internet" has intrinsic "low standards" tend to fall into this trap of making confident, wild claims (cf. Giles Hattersley of The Sunday Times); if you don't actually understand the medium yet, try not writing about it. Adopting perceived lazy standards as your own, where convenient, used to be called "going native", in the old days.
Charles
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/147.252.90.42
Dublin Institute of Technology, apparently.
Carcharoth
On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 6:31 PM, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Maybe he hit preview and never saved the edits? :-) Or he edited the wrong article (you never know, it could be that simple). Ask him if he knows what "preview" and "diff" means.
Hmm. What was the date of all this again?
I've found vandalism on the *talk* page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Cristiano_Ronaldo&diff=28... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Cristiano_Ronaldo&diff=28...
Surely it couldn't be that simple?
Carcharoth
On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 6:18 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Update on the farrago. Apparently they printed my letter in the 25 April edition of The Spectator.
Liddle responds:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/the-week/3573521/part_2/letters.thtm...
Spectator readers respond to recent articles
I did foul Ronaldo
Sir: Let me assure Charles Matthews (Letters, 25 April) that I most certainly vandalised Cristiano Ronaldo’s Wikipedia page — on not one but two occasions. This would suggest that the site’s ‘history’ section is every bit as inaccurate as every other part of Wikipedia. It’s fun, but most people would be advised to trust it about as far as they would a press statement from Derek Draper.
Rod Liddle Marlborough, Wiltshire
My comment (placed onsite, may not get past moderation):
Rod, you don't convince. What you wrote can be checked. Article histories log all edits: it's a database, that's what the software does, no inaccuracies. Ask someone under 30. The odd thing is that journos wishing to convince the gullible that "the Internet" has intrinsic "low standards" tend to fall into this trap of making confident, wild claims (cf. Giles Hattersley of The Sunday Times); if you don't actually understand the medium yet, try not writing about it. Adopting perceived lazy standards as your own, where convenient, used to be called "going native", in the old days.
Charles
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On reflection, there is lots of vandalism to that talk page, and it doesn't match Liddle's description of what he claims to have added. i.e. Unless he gives more details, he is almost certainly having us on here. But doing so in a magazine article like that without providing a link that would demonstrate the truth of what he is saying just shows how little he understands how a wiki works.
Carcharoth
On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 6:33 PM, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/147.252.90.42
Dublin Institute of Technology, apparently.
Carcharoth
On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 6:31 PM, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Maybe he hit preview and never saved the edits? :-) Or he edited the wrong article (you never know, it could be that simple). Ask him if he knows what "preview" and "diff" means.
Hmm. What was the date of all this again?
I've found vandalism on the *talk* page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Cristiano_Ronaldo&diff=28... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Cristiano_Ronaldo&diff=28...
Surely it couldn't be that simple?
Carcharoth
On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 6:18 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Update on the farrago. Apparently they printed my letter in the 25 April edition of The Spectator.
Liddle responds:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/the-week/3573521/part_2/letters.thtm...
Spectator readers respond to recent articles
I did foul Ronaldo
Sir: Let me assure Charles Matthews (Letters, 25 April) that I most certainly vandalised Cristiano Ronaldo’s Wikipedia page — on not one but two occasions. This would suggest that the site’s ‘history’ section is every bit as inaccurate as every other part of Wikipedia. It’s fun, but most people would be advised to trust it about as far as they would a press statement from Derek Draper.
Rod Liddle Marlborough, Wiltshire
My comment (placed onsite, may not get past moderation):
Rod, you don't convince. What you wrote can be checked. Article histories log all edits: it's a database, that's what the software does, no inaccuracies. Ask someone under 30. The odd thing is that journos wishing to convince the gullible that "the Internet" has intrinsic "low standards" tend to fall into this trap of making confident, wild claims (cf. Giles Hattersley of The Sunday Times); if you don't actually understand the medium yet, try not writing about it. Adopting perceived lazy standards as your own, where convenient, used to be called "going native", in the old days.
Charles
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2009/5/6 Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com:
On reflection, there is lots of vandalism to that talk page, and it doesn't match Liddle's description of what he claims to have added. i.e. Unless he gives more details, he is almost certainly having us on here. But doing so in a magazine article like that without providing a link that would demonstrate the truth of what he is saying just shows how little he understands how a wiki works.
Well I went through the [[Rob Liddle]] to see If I could find him defending himself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rod_Liddle&diff=104862199&...
Perhaps but nothing of significance on the Cristiano Ronaldo article around that date.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rod_Liddle&diff=prev&oldid...
Again possible but nothing of significance on the Cristiano Ronaldo article around that date
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rod_Liddle&diff=prev&oldid...
Loads of vandalism on Cristiano Ronaldo around that date but nothing that fits Liddle's claims.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/81.156.42.14
Is another candidate but again nothing
Follow-up letter I have emailed to the editor of The Spectator:
Sir,
An appeal to Rod Liddle’s better nature was indeed a long shot; he is after all paid to dispense laddish rudeness. Your salaried jester of a columnist has been given an opportunity to retract his fanciful account of what he sees (no doubt) as an amusing prank. The logic of the situation is that he continues to maintain that he committed a series of malicious actions on Wikipedia, while a number of those who have looked into the matter see no vestige of those edits.
Doubtless Liddle kept enough details to substantiate his side of this important slab of investigative journalism: the simple provision of dates, times and titles of the articles he defaced would be a convincing proof that the story contained no element of fabrication. Certainly the alarming news that he was thwarted in improving the article “Rod Liddle” would snap into focus if we could see how he attempted to remedy its deficiencies, and who prevented him from so doing.
The spat over this matter could therefore be resolved simply enough, if he could support vague assertions that he went to the site and did this and that, from his well-kept notes; with the added benefit that the harm he has done could be checked and corrected. This is what I meant in writing before about “professional courtesy”. It happens that Liddle’s manners and credibility are bound up together in this matter.
Charles