Rosa Williams wrote:
What with the recent discussion of banning "problem" users, I thought I'd bring this up for discussion/re-discussion.
Our policy on banning people for vandalism is (as I interpret what I've read) that we restrict it to "repeated and sustained" non-useful alterations of articles.
However, it's September, the high school and college students are back with their free school accounts, and inevitably the amount of drive-by vandalism seems to be on the increase. Several of us constantly check new edits by unknown contributors, and even then, we're missing vandalism that only turns up later when paging through via "Random Page" or otherwise coming across an article. As the number of articles goes up, the chance of locating such vandalism goes down.
I've tried a few approaches to ameliorating this. I regularly check "this user's contributions" for vandals, and even sometimes for unfamiliar IP's (*thank* you folks for adding that code feature!) I do keyword searches for common obscenities, et cetera. (No, Cunctator, I don't remove them if they're obviously part of the article.) And, of course, I haunt the "Recent Changes" page. But I think it's getting harder to keep up.
I would like to suggest we add "obviously malicious vandalism" to reasons for an immediate (if temporary) IP ban: a single "Ths page is stupid" should be, in my opinion, enough to ban the address. This saves us from having to spend time on the next five instances of vandalism from that contributor, which could be better spent searching for other graffiti or *gasp* actually adding content.
My understanding of how ip banning and common use of reassignment of IP numbers leads me to this concern:
If too many casual or hit and run type vandals are banned that we are likely banning the next users, not the vandal. This could be counterproductive if it occurs in conjunction with recruiting efforts or methods under discussion in other threads.
For high school or college users to begin relying on the Wikipedia as a resource timely access is required due to homework deadlines, typically on the order of days or hours, not weeks. Encountering frequent blocks due to local vandals on the same pool of IP addresses is likely to encourage the view that Wikipedia is unreliable, not that inappropriate local use is causing the problem. If the user becomes aware that he/she is being punished for another's misdeeds this could form an even worse impression.
Sure, one person's vandalism is another person's newbie goof. I would agree that if there's any reasonable possibility that a change was just a newbie goof or something similar, we should err on the side of caution and not ban. But in the really obvious cases - "PHREAK WUZ HERE!!" "Louis IV was a dirty frog" "f*ck you all", and similar - I honestly think we should go ahead and administer a slapdown in the form of a temporary IP ban. If they' re just drive-by vandals, they'll lose interest that much faster; if it is a serious vandal, they'll at least have to go to the trouble of getting a new IP# for each new instance of vandalism.
What period of time for routine banning would you (anyone) suggest as an estimate of the initial proper tradeoff between potential denial of service to legitimate users and the attention span of casual or hit and run type vandalism?
Are you aware that denial of service is often the goal of low level crackers or "script kiddies"?
This type of banning could actually become an incentive or invitation to certain types of vandal mentalities if structured and managed carefully.
Yes, there's the possibility that someone may be too quick on the gun and ban someone who might, in the fullness of time, have become a useful contributor. But me, I think... do we really *want* a contributor who is starting off on the level of adding "This is so gay" to a page?
Yes. If they (some threshold percentage to be determined later with empirical data) become productive contributers we should eventually show a profit.
I agree it is a long term investment. I agree it is possible to be losing more initially than we are gaining until more effective methods are found.
If the decision (for now) is to stick with quick, known, short term returns then I propose we plan to periodically reassess the policy. We should document the periodic review process so that interested members of the community know when, where, how to appropriately express their current views.
The time just bringing them up to speed hardly seems worth it.
It seems worth it to me. If there is sufficient interest in mutual self education then this can be left to those who choose to volunteer for it. If we decide that we have no time for this in the stacks then perhaps an alternate medium for "remedial" students and volunteer contributors can be established.
Directing newcomer's to an NPOV editing tutorial for practice if interested may be more effective that directing them to the current draft of the policy which is only lightly endorsed by members of the community and is at least subtle for many people if not actually "obviously" confusing.
Elsewhere I have proposed an ECP (engineering change proposal) or code walkthrough type of approach that would require three "vandals" to agree with each other that the "vandalism" is an appropriate change. This should slow down and break up vandalism, without potential denial of service, in several ways.
1. More effort is required to create the fake accounts and engage in the vandalism. It may be easier to delete 3 accounts and revert the damage than it is for the creator of the vandalism. Perhaps a delay on account creation with an appropriate explanation would slow down vandals while not discouraging new dropings unduly.
2. Any "vandals" editing in good faith are likley to encounter resistance from cohorts. They can spend some time bickering among themselves on the talk page or elsewhere determining what is or is not appropriate. Any defectors to our published guidelines should be welcomed.
Perhaps an appropriate modification of my proposed approached could be combined with the page freezing proposed elsewhere for occasional testing. When a freeze is invoked, changes could only proceed once the requirements of the ECP process are met. The parties to the controversy now have an incentive to agree or move on, not all Wiki authority has been stripped away for excessive controversiality. Only unilateral editing of the controversial subject page undergoing excessive flip flop editing or "edit war".
If they're really *serious* about becoming a real contributor, they'll just have to wait for the ban to expire or appeal to the list.
It is my impression that we get more casual contributors that become serious with increasing contribution and recognition of the long term value, than that people who show up intending initially to be seriously committed long term contributors.
In other words, we have a buy in process that works if people do not face too high a bar to begin contributing or do not suffer burn out attempting to do too much work themselves.
Regards, Mike Irwin