I've been exceptionally busy today dealing with juvenile vandalism, in between working on writing articles, and may have issued more blocks today than any other single day. The childish behavior is sure getting annoying.
Months back, I remember reading something on this mailing list about some stable version system or something that provides a delay before anon. edits go live. Does anyone know if that is going to happen (ever?) or what's going on with that? I don't expect anything anytime soon.
Alternatively, I know that when I go on the German, Italian, and some other Wikipedias, it seems they have many more pages (obvious vandalism targets) semi-protected. Our semi-protection policy says "Articles subject to heavy and continued vandalism" - what amount of vandalism has to happen to be considered "heavy and continued"? The situation is getting to be such that I would support a somewhat more liberal definition of "heavy and continued" for pages like Taco, Kyle, or Africa which might not experience vandalism as badly as George W. Bush or Gay but still experience too much vandalism.
Thoughts?
Months back, I remember reading something on this mailing list about some
stable version system or something that provides a delay before anon. edits go live. Does anyone know if that is going to happen (ever?) or what's going on with that? I don't expect anything anytime soon.
I suggest sending that to [wikitech-l] (wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org) where you're more likely to get a response from the developers. --Mets501
On popular articles, wouldn't this create huge edit-conflict problems?
Newyorkbrad
On 3/7/07, Mets501 mets501wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Months back, I remember reading something on this mailing list about
some stable version system or something that provides a delay before anon. edits go live. Does anyone know if that is going to happen (ever?) or what's going on with that? I don't expect anything anytime soon.
I suggest sending that to [wikitech-l] (wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org) where you're more likely to get a response from the developers. --Mets501
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On 3/8/07, Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) newyorkbrad@gmail.com wrote:
On popular articles, wouldn't this create huge edit-conflict problems?
The proposal was to simply hide the anon edits from the outside world. It would have no impact on edit conflicts, as the changes go live internally straight away.
I have always liked this proposal, but the consensus seemed to be more in favour of the "designated stable version" proposal.
Steve
There would still be edit conflicts. Let's say the delay is 15 minutes. At 8:00, anon edits a sentence (validly). At 8:05, registered user edits the same sentence differently. What happens? Okay, now it's 8:15, time for the anon edit to go live. What happens then?
Newyorkbrad
On 3/7/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/8/07, Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) newyorkbrad@gmail.com wrote:
On popular articles, wouldn't this create huge edit-conflict problems?
The proposal was to simply hide the anon edits from the outside world. It would have no impact on edit conflicts, as the changes go live internally straight away.
I have always liked this proposal, but the consensus seemed to be more in favour of the "designated stable version" proposal.
Steve
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On 3/8/07, Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) newyorkbrad@gmail.com wrote:
There would still be edit conflicts. Let's say the delay is 15 minutes. At 8:00, anon edits a sentence (validly). At 8:05, registered user edits the same sentence differently. What happens? Okay, now it's 8:15, time for the anon edit to go live. What happens then?
I may not have explained it well. Would this help:
7.55: World sees "Mary is smart." Editors see "Mary is smart." 8:00: World sees "Mary is smart." Editors see "Mary is a poopoo." 8:05: World sees "Mary has an IQ of 130." Editors see "Mary has an IQ of 130." 8:15: World sees "Mary has an IQ of 130." Editors see "Mary has an IQ of 130."
So you see, at 8:05, a registered editor sees the anon change, and fixes it. Since the editor is registered, their change goes live straight away.
Steve
On 3/8/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
So you see, at 8:05, a registered editor sees the anon change, and fixes it. Since the editor is registered, their change goes live straight away.
The obvious benefits here: - The world never saw the anon's (bad) edits - Registered editors were not inconvenienced at all - There is still scope for anon's edits to make it to the outside world. The 15 minute delay above could be 5 minutes for a heavily patrolled article, or 3 days for a more obscure one.
Unsolved questions: - What happens if a registered editor edits some unrelated part of the article? Is any change considered to implicitly "approve" any pending anon edits? - What version of the page should the anon see? His changes? Is this even possible? - What version of the page should other anons see if they edit? Presumably the real version...
Steve
On 3/8/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
I may not have explained it well. Would this help:
7.55: World sees "Mary is smart." Editors see "Mary is smart." 8:00: World sees "Mary is smart." Editors see "Mary is a poopoo." 8:05: World sees "Mary has an IQ of 130." Editors see "Mary has an IQ of 130." 8:15: World sees "Mary has an IQ of 130." Editors see "Mary has an IQ of 130."
So you see, at 8:05, a registered editor sees the anon change, and fixes it. Since the editor is registered, their change goes live straight away.
Steve
This sounds like a good idea in theory, but I rather think the implementation will be problematic. From what I understand of what you said, registered users will be able to see all edits immediately, and have all their edits applied immediately, while anons can not see the edits made by any other anon for fifteen minutes. If this is the case, it could be pretty jarring for an anon to go to the edit screen only to find out that three people have edited it but haven't had their edits made live yet, and will only make anonymous editing (which from what I understand constitutes the majority of the editing that takes place) of any highly trafficked article more annoying and stressful and could reduce the amount of editing that takes place altogether. It would (considering the speed at which any blatant vandalism is reverted) only moderately improve how the encyclopedia looks for the majority of readers at the expense of a rather large amount of inconvenience for the majority of editors, and from my point of view it is simply not worth the negative effects.
--Dycedarg
On 3/8/07, darthvader1219@gmail.com darthvader1219@gmail.com wrote:
edits made live yet, and will only make anonymous editing (which from what I understand constitutes the majority of the editing that takes place) of any highly trafficked article more annoying and stressful and could reduce the amount of editing that takes place altogether. It
That's one possible outcome.
would (considering the speed at which any blatant vandalism is reverted) only moderately improve how the encyclopedia looks for the majority of readers at the expense of a rather large amount of
Vastly reducing the chance of driveby vandalism being visible to the outside world is a "moderate improvement"?
inconvenience for the majority of editors, and from my point of view it is simply not worth the negative effects.
What inconvenience for the majority of editors? Logged-in editors would see no difference. Anons would see no difference in most cases, unless the particular text they want to edit has been modified. Minor inconvenience.
Steve
On 08/03/07, Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) newyorkbrad@gmail.com wrote:
There would still be edit conflicts. Let's say the delay is 15 minutes. At 8:00, anon edits a sentence (validly). At 8:05, registered user edits the same sentence differently. What happens? Okay, now it's 8:15, time for the anon edit to go live. What happens then?
The second user doesn't edit the original text; he edits the 0800 modified text, and *those* edits go live. No edit conflicts.
(The intent of that proposal is to do exactly this - it allows vandalism to be caught in that 15 minute lag time)
In effect, it's like what you have now when you edit a heavily trafficed page - the version you work on may be very different from the one you were reading two minutes ago, because you edit the version on the server not the version you're reading.
I have put together a few charts, with block activity for the period of February 19 - March 7th. May do more with this data later, tonight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Aude/adminactivity
My perception that vandalism drops off significantly on the weekends is true. I also recall a sharp increase in vandalism last September when school resumed in the U.S. and other places.
Vandalism is also highest during the day and evenings (in the U.S.), the U.S. is by far the biggest source of vandalism, and schools/universities comprise approximately 1/4 of all vandalism from IP addresses.
I think this means I (and others) need to make blocks of school IPs be for longer duration... the same for other repeat vandals.
-Aude
Aude wrote:
I have put together a few charts, with block activity for the period of February 19 - March 7th. May do more with this data later, tonight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Aude/adminactivity
My perception that vandalism drops off significantly on the weekends is true. I also recall a sharp increase in vandalism last September when school resumed in the U.S. and other places.
Vandalism is also highest during the day and evenings (in the U.S.), the U.S. is by far the biggest source of vandalism, and schools/universities comprise approximately 1/4 of all vandalism from IP addresses.
This is interesting data. I should add that I have observed that activity on this mailing list also drops dramatically on Saturdays.
I think this means I (and others) need to make blocks of school IPs be for longer duration... the same for other repeat vandals.
Not at all. That's a simplistic solution. Such blocks would have an effect of blocking all users from the school, including the good ones who do not condone vandalism. Developping some kind of working arrangement with the school involved would make more sense. Work with them to identify and deal with the offenders at a local level. Find out if they have local policies requiring students to log on that would lead to a possible identification of which users were on line at the time that the vandalism took place.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Not at all. That's a simplistic solution. Such blocks would have an effect of blocking all users from the school, including the good ones who do not condone vandalism. Developping some kind of working arrangement with the school involved would make more sense. Work with them to identify and deal with the offenders at a local level. Find out if they have local policies requiring students to log on that would lead to a possible identification of which users were on line at the time that the vandalism took place.
Might this call for some sort of bot that watches for IP range warnings and sends emails to any contacts listed on the talk page for the IP? The system would take a while to get started, but it seems like it would help close a feedback loop that is now often slow or broken.
William
William Pietri wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Not at all. That's a simplistic solution. Such blocks would have an effect of blocking all users from the school, including the good ones who do not condone vandalism. Developping some kind of working arrangement with the school involved would make more sense. Work with them to identify and deal with the offenders at a local level. Find out if they have local policies requiring students to log on that would lead to a possible identification of which users were on line at the time that the vandalism took place.
Might this call for some sort of bot that watches for IP range warnings and sends emails to any contacts listed on the talk page for the IP? The system would take a while to get started, but it seems like it would help close a feedback loop that is now often slow or broken.
Absolutely. Talking to people is always a good way to solve problems. It will take a while to build contact lists, but it's always good to srive for long-term solutions.
Ec
Another idea might be to show diffs in the comment lines.
Some of us use navpops and you can preview a diff in a popup, but including a diff within a comment would of course make it so anybody could spot plain vandalism from whatever RC they are using.
I dont know how diffs could actually be made more concise in order to best fit, but it seems that we can at least indicate whether text has been added or removed and what text that is.
-Stevertigo
On 3/10/07, stvrtg stvrtg@gmail.com wrote:
I dont know how diffs could actually be made more concise in order to best fit, but it seems that we can at least indicate whether text has been added or removed and what text that is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:EnhanceHistory-ShowerJuggling.png
Steve
On 10/03/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/10/07, stvrtg stvrtg@gmail.com wrote:
I dont know how diffs could actually be made more concise in order to best fit, but it seems that we can at least indicate whether text has been added or removed and what text that is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:EnhanceHistory-ShowerJuggling.png
ooh, nice option. Is that a funky bit of JavaScript? It should be considered for MediaWiki itself.
- d.
On 3/10/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/03/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/10/07, stvrtg stvrtg@gmail.com wrote:
I dont know how diffs could actually be made more concise in order to best fit, but it seems that we can at least indicate whether text has been added or removed and what text that is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:EnhanceHistory-ShowerJuggling.png
ooh, nice option. Is that a funky bit of JavaScript? It should be considered for MediaWiki itself.
Totally. But until then Ive added a suggestion for easy install at User talk:Stevage/EnhanceHistory.user.js I should be added to Wikipedia:Tools too. -Stevertigo
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Developping some kind of working arrangement with the school involved would make more sense. Work with them to identify and deal with the offenders at a local level. [...]
Might this call for some sort of bot that watches for IP range warnings and sends emails to any contacts listed on the talk page for the IP? The system would take a while to get started, but it seems like it would help close a feedback loop that is now often slow or broken.
Absolutely. Talking to people is always a good way to solve problems. It will take a while to build contact lists, but it's always good to srive for long-term solutions.
Agreed.
I don't have time to build this myself, but I have suggested it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bot_requests#TattletaleBot
William
One thing useful for schools might be to ask for an abuse contact to list on the IP page.
Although we've had some such contacts say "look, just block us, please!" ;-)
- d.
" Developping some kind of working arrangement with the school involved would make more sense." - don't think this is practical given the volume of vandalism coming from so many different school IPs, compared to our current level of resources. ( e.g. Wikipedians) We can always allow students to create accounts, so the impact on good users is minimized.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:156.3.138.6 - just blocked this one, after they started vandalizing immediately after coming off of a block. I looked at a sample of edits from this IP address and don't see any positive contributions. Just vandalism. There is a large {{schoolblock}} template at the top that explains that users can create accounts and edit with those.
Unless someone wants and can take the time to contact this school and the numerous others, I don't see any other choice at this point.
-Aude
I think this means I (and others) need to make blocks of school IPs be for
longer duration... the same for other repeat vandals.
Not at all. That's a simplistic solution. Such blocks would have an effect of blocking all users from the school, including the good ones who do not condone vandalism. Developping some kind of working arrangement with the school involved would make more sense. Work with them to identify and deal with the offenders at a local level. Find out if they have local policies requiring students to log on that would lead to a possible identification of which users were on line at the time that the vandalism took place.
Ec
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Aude wrote:
" Developping some kind of working arrangement with the school involved would make more sense." - don't think this is practical given the volume of vandalism coming from so many different school IPs, compared to our current level of resources. ( e.g. Wikipedians) We can always allow students to create accounts, so the impact on good users is minimized.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:156.3.138.6 - just blocked this one, after they started vandalizing immediately after coming off of a block. I looked at a sample of edits from this IP address and don't see any positive contributions. Just vandalism. There is a large {{schoolblock}} template at the top that explains that users can create accounts and edit with those.
Unless someone wants and can take the time to contact this school and the numerous others, I don't see any other choice at this point.
As long as there is no attempt to deal with the school administrations the problem will never be solved. All we'll have is short term paper-overs. If these schools had been dealt with correctly from the beginning the problem now would not seem so overwhelming.
Ec
Okay, I'm crossposting it, in hopes that someone technical can answer to the enwiki list.
Though, I get the sense that maybe it's not so much a technical issue of implementing it but some other issues holding it up? I thought the stable/delay thing was going to be tried on dewiki and then if it worked then brought over here. Has it even been tried yet on dewiki? or what?
-Aude
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Mets501 mets501wiki@gmail.com Date: Mar 7, 2007 8:40 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Dealing with juvenile vandalism To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Months back, I remember reading something on this mailing list about some
stable version system or something that provides a delay before anon. edits go live. Does anyone know if that is going to happen (ever?) or what's going on with that? I don't expect anything anytime soon.
I suggest sending that to [wikitech-l] (wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org) where you're more likely to get a response from the developers. --Mets501
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Aude wrote:
Though, I get the sense that maybe it's not so much a technical issue of implementing it but some other issues holding it up? I thought the stable/delay thing was going to be tried on dewiki and then if it worked then brought over here. Has it even been tried yet on dewiki? or what?
There was a pretty strong consensus against stable versions when it was first pushed last fall. I'm not sure if that consensus still exists (I'm strongly opposed to the concept myself), but it's worth noting.
-Jeff
Would you support a more liberal definition of "heavy and continued vandalism" or some other means (not sure what it would be) of curbing vandalism?
-Aude
On 3/7/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Aude wrote:
Though, I get the sense that maybe it's not so much a technical issue of implementing it but some other issues holding it up? I thought the stable/delay thing was going to be tried on dewiki and then if it worked then brought over here. Has it even been tried yet on dewiki? or what?
There was a pretty strong consensus against stable versions when it was first pushed last fall. I'm not sure if that consensus still exists (I'm strongly opposed to the concept myself), but it's worth noting.
-Jeff
-- Name: Jeff Raymond E-mail: jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com WWW: http://www.internationalhouseofbacon.com IM: badlydrawnjeff Quote: "I was always a fan of Lisa Loeb, particularly because you kind of get the impression she sang every song either about or to her cats. They seem to be the driving force in most of her creative process." - Chuck Klosterman
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Jeff Raymond wrote:
Aude wrote:
Though, I get the sense that maybe it's not so much a technical issue of implementing it but some other issues holding it up? I thought the stable/delay thing was going to be tried on dewiki and then if it worked then brought over here. Has it even been tried yet on dewiki? or what?
There was a pretty strong consensus against stable versions when it was first pushed last fall. I'm not sure if that consensus still exists (I'm strongly opposed to the concept myself), but it's worth noting.
I don't remember any such consensus against it.
Ec
On Thu, 08 Mar 2007 01:21:34 -0800, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
There was a pretty strong consensus against stable versions when it was first pushed last fall. I'm not sure if that consensus still exists (I'm strongly opposed to the concept myself), but it's worth noting.
I don't remember any such consensus against it.
Neither do I.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Thu, 08 Mar 2007 01:21:34 -0800, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
There was a pretty strong consensus against stable versions when it was first pushed last fall. I'm not sure if that consensus still exists (I'm strongly opposed to the concept myself), but it's worth noting.
I don't remember any such consensus against it.
Neither do I.
I recall it rather strongly, actually. It was around the same time we were preoccupied with the Elephant vandalism, and Cyde was the main guy saying let's do it anyway.
-Jeff
Jeff Raymond wrote:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Thu, 08 Mar 2007 01:21:34 -0800, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
There was a pretty strong consensus against stable versions when it was first pushed last fall. I'm not sure if that consensus still exists (I'm strongly opposed to the concept myself), but it's worth noting.
I don't remember any such consensus against it.
Neither do I.
I recall it rather strongly, actually. It was around the same time we were preoccupied with the Elephant vandalism, and Cyde was the main guy saying let's do it anyway.
I recall bringing the issue up on this mailing list (or possibly wikipedia-l?) a few months ago, and not only was consensus strongly in favor, but there wasn't a *single* post opposed to it. There were just disagreements over the best way to do it.
-Mark
On 3/9/07, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
I recall bringing the issue up on this mailing list (or possibly wikipedia-l?) a few months ago, and not only was consensus strongly in favor, but there wasn't a *single* post opposed to it. There were just disagreements over the best way to do it.
Depends what issue you're talking about. I strongly prefer a time-lag model to a stable version model. If you're conflating the two, yes I'm in favour of doing *something*. If you're separating them, I'm against the stable version model.
The stable version model is along the lines of certain users designating a particular revision as being "stable" and that being the one displayed to the outside world, permanently, until another "stable version" is chosen. It seems to have such obvious drawbacks: - choosing users to do the designation - stable versions being horribly out of date - killing the wiki model completely (now almost no one can edit and get the instant feedback)
Steve
The time-lag for anons. would greatly reduce the gratification and "rewards" of making vandalism edits. That would help a lot in reducing the volume of vandalism. I'm not sure if/how stable versions fits into this, but think it probably can be considered as a separate matter.
-Aude
On 3/8/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/9/07, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
I recall bringing the issue up on this mailing list (or possibly wikipedia-l?) a few months ago, and not only was consensus strongly in favor, but there wasn't a *single* post opposed to it. There were just disagreements over the best way to do it.
Depends what issue you're talking about. I strongly prefer a time-lag model to a stable version model. If you're conflating the two, yes I'm in favour of doing *something*. If you're separating them, I'm against the stable version model.
The stable version model is along the lines of certain users designating a particular revision as being "stable" and that being the one displayed to the outside world, permanently, until another "stable version" is chosen. It seems to have such obvious drawbacks:
- choosing users to do the designation
- stable versions being horribly out of date
- killing the wiki model completely (now almost no one can edit and
get the instant feedback)
Steve
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I'm aware of this page, marked as "currently inactive and is retained primarily for historical interest" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:STABLE
But, this isn't the same thing as the idea to be tried someday on dewiki and maybe enwiki, to delay anon. edits from going live. I found some pages that describe such ideas on meta wiki, but not sure which ideas actually are or might be pursued. Or if dewiki decided there was no consensus for it?
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2006_proposed_approval_for_anonymous_edits http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_subcommittees/2006/09/02_DE_ar... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Timed_article_change_stabilisation_me... http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Article_validation - some other ideas
-Aude
On 3/8/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Thu, 08 Mar 2007 01:21:34 -0800, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
There was a pretty strong consensus against stable versions when it was first pushed last fall. I'm not sure if that consensus still exists (I'm strongly opposed to the concept myself), but it's worth noting.
I don't remember any such consensus against it.
Neither do I.
I recall it rather strongly, actually. It was around the same time we were preoccupied with the Elephant vandalism, and Cyde was the main guy saying let's do it anyway.
-Jeff
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On 3/8/07, Aude audevivere@gmail.com wrote:
I've been exceptionally busy today dealing with juvenile vandalism, in between working on writing articles, and may have issued more blocks today than any other single day. The childish behavior is sure getting annoying.
Could we have more sophisticated auto-detect vandalism and blocks, that pick up on likely kiddie vandalism, and automatically issue short term blocks? Something like 30 minutes, and if they do it again, then we can (manually) intervene and escalate. The amount of manual work required to combat basic "o rly i can edit??" type vandalism is excessive - and as you point out, tiring.
Steve
I know there are issues with comparing one day's worth of activity against monthly averages.
But out of curiosity I've tabulated how much blocking has happened in the past day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Aude/adminactivity
This is to compare with: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Durin/Admin_activity#Top_twenty_for_time_p...
It seems the amount of blocks has gone up quite a bit since January. Compare Can't sleep clown will eat me's blocks for the two time periods. Or it could be higher, because today was a school day.
On 3/8/07, Aude audevivere@gmail.com wrote:
I've been exceptionally busy today dealing with juvenile vandalism, in between working on writing articles, and may have issued more blocks today than any other single day. The childish behavior is sure getting annoying.
Months back, I remember reading something on this mailing list about some stable version system or something that provides a delay before anon. edits go live. Does anyone know if that is going to happen (ever?) or what's going on with that? I don't expect anything anytime soon.
Work is ongoing (we've addressed this as a high priority issue on the Board level for some time now); however, I will only give a first report once I'm confident it will lead somewhere - not a good thing to announce potential vapourware.
In the meantime, I think people should apply semi-protection more liberally. Our first goal is to write an encyclopedia, and that can be often done perfectly well with the existing community. I find it absurd that the featured article is still not routinely semi-protected. Yes, everyone can edit Wikipedia. Everyone _knows_ that by now. Many people are starting to think it's a bug, not a feature.