Although it is a well known issue, this issue has finally made its way to spotlight with the ongoing CAMERA incident on English wikipedia... I am sure English wikipedia's arbcom will come up with a reasonable conclusion and the purpose of this email is not related to the CAMERA arbcom case directly. Due to the very nature of wikis they are very open to outside interference and manipulation. Although there had been many discussions on the matter, they never generated the intended level of brainstorming. I am sure someone can provide a brief history of past external manipulations so I will avoid listing them on this email. You may be under the false impression that large wikis such as en.wikipedia is invulnerable to such attacks, but this would be a fatal mistake. English wikipedia is probably the most vulnerable language edition of wikipedia. If a lobby group were to secure some 10 admin accounts they can effectively overwhelm any process we have on English Wikipedia. So lets discuss possible solutions and precautions. I recommend that foundation pass a ruling on the matter of lobby takeovers. Although it goes without saying along with NPOV, spelling it out has benefits and no harm. This way we can more easily and promptly purge them on wikis that did not have a serious conversation on this matter enough to come up with a policy. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l