Someone asked me to send an issue to the list regarding bitey behavior...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Pkrev.
Now, mind you, it's evident the user was inserting advertisements into an article, and persisted in reverting the people who reverted him. However, it doesn't look like the issue was sufficiently addressed, nor the situation sufficiently explained. Furthermore, " It has become apparent that your account is being used only for vandalism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vandalism, so it has been *blocked indefinitely http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy*. " was completely inappropriate response at the end.
In hindsight (and having spoken to the user on the phone) he has a limited command of English. A short duration block while some explaining on the talk page would have been the proper response. It doesn't mean that the user is worth having on Wikipedia--but I do know of several individuals who started out as spammers and turned into good contributors.
Cary Bass Volunteer Coordinator
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On Tue, 06 Nov 2007 16:06:49 -0500, Cary Bass cbass@wikimedia.org wrote:
In hindsight (and having spoken to the user on the phone) he has a limited command of English. A short duration block while some explaining on the talk page would have been the proper response. It doesn't mean that the user is worth having on Wikipedia--but I do know of several individuals who started out as spammers and turned into good contributors.
Stephen B. Streater being an example - but he wasn't a *spammer* as such, just a reasonably notable individual writing about his own endeavours.
I would not like to speculate on the ratio of genuine spammers to well-intentioned people with poor command of English. I suspect that those who add only links are more likely to be evil spammers.
Guy (JzG)
Thanks Guy!
People forget that the rules developed over thousands (if not millions) of man hours are not obvious to new contributors.
The trick which is largely missed is to allow significant contributions without alienating the contributors by embroiling them in detailed technical arguments.
On 6 Nov 2007, at 21:40, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Tue, 06 Nov 2007 16:06:49 -0500, Cary Bass cbass@wikimedia.org wrote:
In hindsight (and having spoken to the user on the phone) he has a limited command of English. A short duration block while some explaining on the talk page would have been the proper response. It doesn't mean that the user is worth having on Wikipedia--but I do know of several individuals who started out as spammers and turned into good contributors.
Stephen B. Streater being an example - but he wasn't a *spammer* as such, just a reasonably notable individual writing about his own endeavours.
I would not like to speculate on the ratio of genuine spammers to well-intentioned people with poor command of English. I suspect that those who add only links are more likely to be evil spammers.
Guy (JzG)
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
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On Nov 6, 2007 4:06 PM, Cary Bass cbass@wikimedia.org wrote:
Someone asked me to send an issue to the list regarding bitey behavior... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Pkrev.
Now, mind you, it's evident the user was inserting advertisements into an article, and persisted in reverting the people who reverted him. However, it doesn't look like the issue was sufficiently addressed, nor the situation sufficiently explained. Furthermore, " It has become
Thank you for the example.
It appears to me that this one would have been greatly improved if, even if it wasn't human handled, we gave them a notice that said something like "Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for [{{{1}}} taking the time to edit]. Unfortunately, your edits appears to be of a promotional nature and have been done. As an educational resource Wikipedia must be as [[WP:NPOV|neutral]] as possible and we generally frown on edits from [[WP:COI|interested parties]]. In the future please consider these factors before you edit. Thank you for your patience."
Sure.. a nice 1:1 chat is ideal. But lets take baby steps. The notice templates are well defined, if we can make an improvement by tweaking them then we can improve situations like this without a Herculean effort.