I am anonymizing this complaint, but I wanted to point it out to people and to point out that complaints of this type are increasingly common. As we get more and more popular, vandalism of popular articles, though corrected very very quickly, is also seen by more and more people.
My technical proposal to deal with this (and I did not invent this idea, I don't know who did, but it has been floating around) is a new form of page semi-protection for extremely popular/important articles.
Basically, pages in this case will have a published form and a working form. The working form automatically becomes the published form whenever one of two conditions is satisfied:
1. X minutes has passed with no new edits 2. A sysop forces publication immediately
'X' can be left variable, but for most cases I think 10 minutes would suffice. We might experiment with longer pauses for articles in cases other than "popular + vandalism", for example as a new approach to dealing with traditional edit wars in at least some cases.
For the user interface, when an article is in such a state, it looks totally normal at the usual url. But instead of 'edit this page' you see 'live version'. Click on that, and you're at the live version, warts and all, and you can operate normally from there.
I think this solution is softer than our current solution, which is just to protect the article. George W. Bush was protected for 8 days during the height of the election season because pranksters kept putting goatse.cx images, etc., on the article.
This option would give us 10 minutes to deal with vandalism, and would give us the opportunity to keep working on the article as well.
--Jimbo
p.s. In case someone thinks the 'sysop forces publication immediately' is somehow unfair, note that it is necessary to prevent a denial of service attack once a bit of vandalism *does* slip through, which is inevitable. That is, if someone managed to get vandalism on an important page, they could prevent others from removing it by simply repeatedly touching the page within the 10 minute window.
The 'sysop force' means that responsible people can get a sensible version back live. We can make clear that sysops are only supposed to do this in the case of vandalism, not just because they don't like the way the article is written.
----- Forwarded message from heather hudak heatherhudak@yahoo.com -----
From: heather hudak heatherhudak@yahoo.com Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2005 06:52:46 -0800 (PST) To: jwales@wikia.com Subject: Note: Obscene language on Tsunami Article
Hi Jimmy,
I often visit Wikipedia for info. I find it reasonably credible and it has a large amount of information. This morning, I was looking for a quick bite about Tsunamis. I was greeted by the used of the word "f*ckers" etc., numerous times throughout the text all the way to end of the article. It seems someone is playing a bit of a nasty gag on your site. It also takes away from the credibility Wikipedia has achieved. The following is the link at which I found this information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake
This is disturbing to find at any site, about any topic, but expecially a topic that encompasses so much devastation.
While I am a young, reasonable business woman, I am not necessarily offended by this, I just think it is highly inappropriate and will likely deter me from trusting Wikipedia information in the future. I use the site very frequently (daily), and I can't imagine that will continue. Prior to this, I was unaware that Wikipedia received submissions from outside sources. This situation encouraged me to learn more and trust less. I hope you will look into ways to prevent this sort of obscene language from penetrating the information on your web site.
Sincerely, Heather Hudak
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
----- End forwarded message -----
On Jan 7, 2005, at 10:02 AM, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
p.s. In case someone thinks the 'sysop forces publication immediately' is somehow unfair, note that it is necessary to prevent a denial of service attack once a bit of vandalism *does* slip through, which is inevitable. That is, if someone managed to get vandalism on an important page, they could prevent others from removing it by simply repeatedly touching the page within the 10 minute window.
The 'sysop force' means that responsible people can get a sensible version back live. We can make clear that sysops are only supposed to do this in the case of vandalism, not just because they don't like the way the article is written.
What about merely having a logged in user force publication? If a login repeatedly forces vandalizations in, then that would be grounds for banning.
In many CMS's there is the concept of a "trusted user", who has privileges to do such things, but is far from being a sysop. It might well be worth looking at a similar idea for wikipedia - which would allow such "judgment calls" to be made by users who have put the time in on wikipedia, but who aren't interested in, and do not need, full sysop privileges.
Stirling Newberry wrote:
What about merely having a logged in user force publication? If a login repeatedly forces vandalizations in, then that would be grounds for banning.
If a login even *once* vandalizes or forces a vandalization through, then that's grounds for immediate banning, I would say. In some cases of course good judgment is necessary (was it really vandalism, or just sandboxing by a new user?) but the kinds of cases I'm talking about are just goofy. (Replacing George Bush's photo with Hitler is good for a 3rd grade laugh, but, *ahem*, people are trying to do something useful around here. :-))
In many CMS's there is the concept of a "trusted user", who has privileges to do such things, but is far from being a sysop. It might well be worth looking at a similar idea for wikipedia - which would allow such "judgment calls" to be made by users who have put the time in on wikipedia, but who aren't interested in, and do not need, full sysop privileges.
Agreed. I think this makes perfect sense. It does mean that a vandal can still force through vandalism now and again, but it is more clicks for them to do it, and anyway this option is "softer" and therefore should be tried first. The harder option of restricting 'force publication' to sysops would still be available at a later date.
--Jimbo
Jimbo said:
Stirling Newberry wrote:>
In many CMS's there is the concept of a "trusted user", who has privileges to do such things, but is far from being a sysop. It might well be worth looking at a similar idea for wikipedia - which would allow such "judgment calls" to be made by users who have put the time in on wikipedia, but who aren't interested in, and do not need, full sysop privileges.
Agreed. I think this makes perfect sense. It does mean that a vandal can still force through vandalism now and again, but it is more clicks for them to do it, and anyway this option is "softer" and therefore should be tried first. The harder option of restricting 'force publication' to sysops would still be available at a later date.
I really like that idea of an intermediate user privilege level. Someone who has been around and is known after a couple of months of editing, regulars have seen and are able to make a judgement on. Newcomers less so, and conversely we should have lower expectations of newcomers and remember not to bite the newbies. This would also give more established users an incentive to keep their noses clean (though determined trolls could always use sock puppets, alas). Yes, a loss of this privilege would be an extra sanction available to rein in determined edit warriors.
On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 10:12:16 -0500, Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net wrote:
In many CMS's there is the concept of a "trusted user", who has privileges to do such things, but is far from being a sysop. It might well be worth looking at a similar idea for wikipedia - which would allow such "judgment calls" to be made by users who have put the time in on wikipedia, but who aren't interested in, and do not need, full sysop privileges.
Note that there is a fine-grained permissions system currently under development in MediaWiki. Theoretically, we will soon be able to have any number of levels of user, or even just grant individual users the rights "we" [the community] feel they deserve. And it's not beyond the realms of possibility that relatively minor privileges (like publishing changes to "semi-protected" pages, perhaps) could be granted to any user account that's existed for X days, or made Y edits, or perhaps submitted an automated request via a Special: page (i.e. you give yourself the rights, implying that you know vaguely what you're doing). See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:User_levels
As somebody pointed out, having a *universal* edit delay (e.g. for all edits by logged out users) would just be frustrating (and confusing) for people who wanted to do passing minor editing. But what Jimbo seems to be suggesting is a kind of "semi-protect" function which triggers such a display *for a particular page*, which seems like a very good idea.
I don't know if I much like the idea of a "fine-grained" system of user levels.
It sounds like the beginning of a caste system. Sysops, bureaucrats, and normal users is one thing and creates fairly little tention, but what will we do? Have [[Requests for Level 3]] and all the other levels? When does it become too much of a headache for everybody? I think the solution of published vs unpublished versions, with registered users being allowed to edit in real time, is good enough. If a registered user does something that beyond a sliver of doubt is vandalism, they can be punished through blocking or banning.
Mark
On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 03:09:31 +0000, Rowan Collins rowan.collins@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 10:12:16 -0500, Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net wrote:
In many CMS's there is the concept of a "trusted user", who has privileges to do such things, but is far from being a sysop. It might well be worth looking at a similar idea for wikipedia - which would allow such "judgment calls" to be made by users who have put the time in on wikipedia, but who aren't interested in, and do not need, full sysop privileges.
Note that there is a fine-grained permissions system currently under development in MediaWiki. Theoretically, we will soon be able to have any number of levels of user, or even just grant individual users the rights "we" [the community] feel they deserve. And it's not beyond the realms of possibility that relatively minor privileges (like publishing changes to "semi-protected" pages, perhaps) could be granted to any user account that's existed for X days, or made Y edits, or perhaps submitted an automated request via a Special: page (i.e. you give yourself the rights, implying that you know vaguely what you're doing). See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:User_levels
As somebody pointed out, having a *universal* edit delay (e.g. for all edits by logged out users) would just be frustrating (and confusing) for people who wanted to do passing minor editing. But what Jimbo seems to be suggesting is a kind of "semi-protect" function which triggers such a display *for a particular page*, which seems like a very good idea.
-- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP] _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 22:15:55 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
I don't know if I much like the idea of a "fine-grained" system of user levels.
It sounds like the beginning of a caste system. Sysops, bureaucrats, and normal users is one thing and creates fairly little tention, but what will we do? Have [[Requests for Level 3]] and all the other levels? When does it become too much of a headache for everybody?
While I see your point, the new user rights system, as I understand it, is not about creating "level 3 users" etc, but about being able to grant people some rights without granting them everything. Currently, we can't let somebody protect pages without also being able to delete them; or allow only some users to view deleted pages without being able to undelete them.
In practice, sysops will probably remain who can do basically everything, but if we want to grant extra rights here or take them away there, it should be possible. Or if the community decides that certain features are "too powerful for every sysop", or "safe enough for more people", it will only take a tweak in the user rights management. I imagine we will either end up with specific pages like "Requests for protection"; or, a "Requests for admin attention"-type page will be followed by users not all of whom will be able to fulfil all the requests - that doesn't matter, the request can stay there until someone comes along who can do it.
It's depressing to see how many times the Indian Ocean earthquake article has been vandalised and reverted. I think Jimbo's proposal is pretty good, but with the slow speed of the servers recently maybe 10 minutes isn't long enough.
I have previously defended the right of anyone to edit Wikipedia, but I'm afraid I'm increasingly coming to the view that anonymous users should be prevented from editing articles, or at least from editing anything linked to the main page. I would like to propose that we institute a policy of imposing immediate 24 hour bans, without prior warning, on any anon user that vandalises an "extremely popular" page as defined by Jimbo, or a page linked to the main page.
--Arwel (User:Arwel Parry)
In message 20050107150258.GT22568@wikia.com, "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" jwales@wikia.com writes
I am anonymizing this complaint, but I wanted to point it out to people and to point out that complaints of this type are increasingly common. As we get more and more popular, vandalism of popular articles, though corrected very very quickly, is also seen by more and more people.
My technical proposal to deal with this (and I did not invent this idea, I don't know who did, but it has been floating around) is a new form of page semi-protection for extremely popular/important articles.
Basically, pages in this case will have a published form and a working form. The working form automatically becomes the published form whenever one of two conditions is satisfied:
- X minutes has passed with no new edits
- A sysop forces publication immediately
'X' can be left variable, but for most cases I think 10 minutes would suffice. We might experiment with longer pauses for articles in cases other than "popular + vandalism", for example as a new approach to dealing with traditional edit wars in at least some cases.
For the user interface, when an article is in such a state, it looks totally normal at the usual url. But instead of 'edit this page' you see 'live version'. Click on that, and you're at the live version, warts and all, and you can operate normally from there.
I think this solution is softer than our current solution, which is just to protect the article. George W. Bush was protected for 8 days during the height of the election season because pranksters kept putting goatse.cx images, etc., on the article.
This option would give us 10 minutes to deal with vandalism, and would give us the opportunity to keep working on the article as well.
--Jimbo
p.s. In case someone thinks the 'sysop forces publication immediately' is somehow unfair, note that it is necessary to prevent a denial of service attack once a bit of vandalism *does* slip through, which is inevitable. That is, if someone managed to get vandalism on an important page, they could prevent others from removing it by simply repeatedly touching the page within the 10 minute window.
The 'sysop force' means that responsible people can get a sensible version back live. We can make clear that sysops are only supposed to do this in the case of vandalism, not just because they don't like the way the article is written.
----- Forwarded message from heather hudak heatherhudak@yahoo.com -----
From: heather hudak heatherhudak@yahoo.com Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2005 06:52:46 -0800 (PST) To: jwales@wikia.com Subject: Note: Obscene language on Tsunami Article
Hi Jimmy,
I often visit Wikipedia for info. I find it reasonably credible and it has a large amount of information. This morning, I was looking for a quick bite about Tsunamis. I was greeted by the used of the word "f*ckers" etc., numerous times throughout the text all the way to end of the article. It seems someone is playing a bit of a nasty gag on your site. It also takes away from the credibility Wikipedia has achieved. The following is the link at which I found this information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake
This is disturbing to find at any site, about any topic, but expecially a topic that encompasses so much devastation.
While I am a young, reasonable business woman, I am not necessarily offended by this, I just think it is highly inappropriate and will likely deter me from trusting Wikipedia information in the future. I use the site very frequently (daily), and I can't imagine that will continue. Prior to this, I was unaware that Wikipedia received submissions from outside sources. This situation encouraged me to learn more and trust less. I hope you will look into ways to prevent this sort of obscene language from penetrating the information on your web site.
Sincerely, Heather Hudak
Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
----- End forwarded message -----
Arwel Parry (arwel@cartref.demon.co.uk) [050108 02:43]:
I have previously defended the right of anyone to edit Wikipedia, but I'm afraid I'm increasingly coming to the view that anonymous users should be prevented from editing articles, or at least from editing anything linked to the main page. I would like to propose that we institute a policy of imposing immediate 24 hour bans, without prior warning, on any anon user that vandalises an "extremely popular" page as defined by Jimbo, or a page linked to the main page.
I and others have been shooting-to-kill (well, 12 to 24 hours) repeat vandals who hit the Featured Article of the Day. First-time if it's simple vandalism, they're logged in and should damn well know better. Check the edit history of [[Orca]] when it was the article of the day.
I would however advise taking *extreme care* to be sure it's actually vandalism - a lot of it will just be sandboxing, i.e. "I can edit this page? Huh? Let's see ... uh. I can. Um, what do I do now?"
Showing viewers who aren't logged in the 10-minute-delay version and logged-in users the current version would be an obvious step as well. Casual users who've read that [[2004 Indian Ocean earthquake]] is a fantastic article will get the 10-minute-delay version, but logged-in editors will understand what vandalism or sandboxing is and that they should fix it.
I suppose the edit message for anon users should say something like "As an anonymous editor, your edits will take up to 10 minutes to show on the live wiki. If you were just experimenting, click _here_ to revert to the version before your experiment, and try experimenting in the _Sandbox_."
The up-to-10-minute delay would I hope not hurt our Wiki nature too much. Is there anyone who disagrees, or has qualms?
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
I would however advise taking *extreme care* to be sure it's actually vandalism - a lot of it will just be sandboxing, i.e. "I can edit this page? Huh? Let's see ... uh. I can. Um, what do I do now?"
Well said. Sandboxing is *good*, I mean, *ahem* it would be nice if people had a clue to try it somewhere other than a hugely popular page, but we can't hardly blame people for it. I mean, most of them probably don't *believe* they can edit the page.
Hmm, "edit this page"? What? <click> edit box? That's weird. "blah blah blah" <click> Whoaaaa!
Wikipedia is insane, so of course people don't believe it.
Showing viewers who aren't logged in the 10-minute-delay version and logged-in users the current version would be an obvious step as well. Casual users who've read that [[2004 Indian Ocean earthquake]] is a fantastic article will get the 10-minute-delay version, but logged-in editors will understand what vandalism or sandboxing is and that they should fix it.
I suppose the edit message for anon users should say something like "As an anonymous editor, your edits will take up to 10 minutes to show on the live wiki. If you were just experimenting, click _here_ to revert to the version before your experiment, and try experimenting in the _Sandbox_."
Excellent suggestion.
The up-to-10-minute delay would I hope not hurt our Wiki nature too much. Is there anyone who disagrees, or has qualms?
A valid point here is that the 10 minute delay should actually be viewed as a step *back* to wiki nature. Because what we end up doing right now is protecting pages.. a very brutal measure if we can think of something more creative and open.
--Jimbo
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales (jwales@wikia.com) [050108 03:29]:
David Gerard wrote:
I would however advise taking *extreme care* to be sure it's actually vandalism - a lot of it will just be sandboxing, i.e. "I can edit this page? Huh? Let's see ... uh. I can. Um, what do I do now?"
Well said. Sandboxing is *good*, I mean, *ahem* it would be nice if people had a clue to try it somewhere other than a hugely popular page, but we can't hardly blame people for it. I mean, most of them probably don't *believe* they can edit the page. Hmm, "edit this page"? What? <click> edit box? That's weird. "blah blah blah"
<click> Whoaaaa! Wikipedia is insane, so of course people don't believe it.
c.f. Clay Shirky's five stages of Wikipedia grief ;-)
I suppose the edit message for anon users should say something like "As an anonymous editor, your edits will take up to 10 minutes to show on the live wiki. If you were just experimenting, click _here_ to revert to the version before your experiment, and try experimenting in the _Sandbox_."
Excellent suggestion.
I'm not familiar with the code, so I dunno if this is in fact easier - but if making the 10-minute delay feature seems a bit of a big goal in these busy and trying times, then perhaps text something like the above "If you were just experimenting" text - with a self-reversion link - could show up after an anon edit.
(Of course, this assumes AOL doesn't switch them to a different proxy between clicks or something ...)
The up-to-10-minute delay would I hope not hurt our Wiki nature too much. Is there anyone who disagrees, or has qualms?
A valid point here is that the 10 minute delay should actually be viewed as a step *back* to wiki nature. Because what we end up doing right now is protecting pages.. a very brutal measure if we can think of something more creative and open.
With luck we can get rid of protection for mere vandalism.
- d.
Team,
My thoughts:
The 10 minutes thing is no good, because if someone is on the page and sees a typo and wants to change it, then they get dumped to the newer page, that has completely different text, and they don't want to do the typo...
On vandalism: I think that there should be a Recent unpatrolled anon changes (RUAC) link for logged in users under the Recent Changes on the menu. Then it's a lot easier (and easier on the db) to get the last x unpatrolled items.
Also, when clicking the "this page has been patrolled", one should be returned immediately to the recent changes, or RUAC.
Finally, articles that currently have unpatrolled anon edits when viewed by an logged in user should have something to indicate that in the article display.
One more thing:
I think that in view of the tsunami tragedy and the fact that we're at war and that W is a "work in progress", we can cut new users some slack. They might come in and say "WTF" and click submit just for fun, but might also become a great contributor long term.
On the other hand, anons that put really obscene things, I go for 48 hrs immediate ban, no questions asked.
(You spit at a cop in public, you do not pass go, do not collect $200, and get an unconfortabe backseat ride to the station)
Ok, now I'm done. Whew!
===== Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan@yahoo.com chris.mahan@gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Easier than ever with enhanced search. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
Christopher Mahan schrieb:
On vandalism: I think that there should be a Recent unpatrolled anon changes (RUAC) link for logged in users under the Recent Changes on the menu. Then it's a lot easier (and easier on the db) to get the last x unpatrolled items.
It would also be much easier to code, compared to the 10-min-delay...
Magnus
In message 20050107174438.43885.qmail@web14004.mail.yahoo.com, Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com writes
On vandalism: I think that there should be a Recent unpatrolled anon changes (RUAC) link for logged in users under the Recent Changes on the menu. Then it's a lot easier (and easier on the db) to get the last x unpatrolled items.
Also, when clicking the "this page has been patrolled", one should be returned immediately to the recent changes, or RUAC.
Finally, articles that currently have unpatrolled anon edits when viewed by an logged in user should have something to indicate that in the article display.
I don't personally find the unpatrolled changes facility to be much use because I very rarely go to Recent Changes -- my base for keeping an eye on Wikipedia is my watchlist. What I'd find really useful would be a sort of "super watchlist", of edits to articles I'm interested in by anonymous users -- some of the edits will be OK, but for example on articles about football clubs there's a high likelihood that anon edits will be vandalism by supporters of other clubs! In general I'd like to be able to check out edits by anons quicker than edits by registered users.
--Arwel ([[en:User:Arwel Parry]])
--- Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com wrote:
Also, when clicking the "this page has been patrolled", one should be returned immediately to the recent changes, or RUAC.
Please no - just use a tabbed browser instead. Hitting RC after reviewing each and every edit is a huge waste of server resources.
--mav
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! http://my.yahoo.com
On Saturday 08 January 2005 03:22, Daniel Mayer wrote:
Please no - just use a tabbed browser instead. Hitting RC after reviewing each and every edit is a huge waste of server resources.
Wouldnt an html form with checkboxes and a button be better?
--- Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
--- Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com wrote:
Also, when clicking the "this page has been patrolled", one
should be
returned immediately to the recent changes, or RUAC.
Please no - just use a tabbed browser instead. Hitting RC after reviewing each and every edit is a huge waste of server resources.
Doh! (slaps forehead) And I've been using mozilla since 0.8...
===== Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan@yahoo.com chris.mahan@gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
One thing strikes me about this e-mail that makes a part of me say "Oh, well, good then" when I see it, which is the author's comment that she was unaware that Wikipedia accepted external submissions. Not that I think seeing a vandalized article is a good thing, but that... it is probably a good thing that she learned what kind of resource Wikipedia is and how it works.
So I take this as a sign also that we should probably do more to make users aware that they can edit Wikipedia.
-Snowspinner On Jan 7, 2005, at 9:02 AM, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
I am anonymizing this complaint, but I wanted to point it out to people and to point out that complaints of this type are increasingly common. As we get more and more popular, vandalism of popular articles, though corrected very very quickly, is also seen by more and more people.
Another solution would be to temporarily put the article in a template and protect the page itself. Most regular editors know how to edit a template, but not random vandals.
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales a écrit:
I am anonymizing this complaint, but I wanted to point it out to people and to point out that complaints of this type are increasingly common. As we get more and more popular, vandalism of popular articles, though corrected very very quickly, is also seen by more and more people.
My technical proposal to deal with this (and I did not invent this idea, I don't know who did, but it has been floating around) is a new form of page semi-protection for extremely popular/important articles.
Basically, pages in this case will have a published form and a working form. The working form automatically becomes the published form whenever one of two conditions is satisfied:
- X minutes has passed with no new edits
- A sysop forces publication immediately
'X' can be left variable, but for most cases I think 10 minutes would suffice. We might experiment with longer pauses for articles in cases other than "popular + vandalism", for example as a new approach to dealing with traditional edit wars in at least some cases.
For the user interface, when an article is in such a state, it looks totally normal at the usual url. But instead of 'edit this page' you see 'live version'. Click on that, and you're at the live version, warts and all, and you can operate normally from there.
I think this solution is softer than our current solution, which is just to protect the article. George W. Bush was protected for 8 days during the height of the election season because pranksters kept putting goatse.cx images, etc., on the article.
This option would give us 10 minutes to deal with vandalism, and would give us the opportunity to keep working on the article as well.
--Jimbo
p.s. In case someone thinks the 'sysop forces publication immediately' is somehow unfair, note that it is necessary to prevent a denial of service attack once a bit of vandalism *does* slip through, which is inevitable. That is, if someone managed to get vandalism on an important page, they could prevent others from removing it by simply repeatedly touching the page within the 10 minute window.
The 'sysop force' means that responsible people can get a sensible version back live. We can make clear that sysops are only supposed to do this in the case of vandalism, not just because they don't like the way the article is written.
----- Forwarded message from heather hudak heatherhudak@yahoo.com -----
From: heather hudak heatherhudak@yahoo.com Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2005 06:52:46 -0800 (PST) To: jwales@wikia.com Subject: Note: Obscene language on Tsunami Article
Hi Jimmy,
I often visit Wikipedia for info. I find it reasonably credible and it has a large amount of information. This morning, I was looking for a quick bite about Tsunamis. I was greeted by the used of the word "f*ckers" etc., numerous times throughout the text all the way to end of the article. It seems someone is playing a bit of a nasty gag on your site. It also takes away from the credibility Wikipedia has achieved. The following is the link at which I found this information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake
This is disturbing to find at any site, about any topic, but expecially a topic that encompasses so much devastation.
While I am a young, reasonable business woman, I am not necessarily offended by this, I just think it is highly inappropriate and will likely deter me from trusting Wikipedia information in the future. I use the site very frequently (daily), and I can't imagine that will continue. Prior to this, I was unaware that Wikipedia received submissions from outside sources. This situation encouraged me to learn more and trust less. I hope you will look into ways to prevent this sort of obscene language from penetrating the information on your web site.
Sincerely, Heather Hudak
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
----- End forwarded message -----
On Friday 07 January 2005 19:20, Anthere wrote:
Another solution would be to temporarily put the article in a template and protect the page itself. Most regular editors know how to edit a template, but not random vandals.
good idea to stop vandals, but a new user with good intentions will be seriously confused and probably not understand what the "edit" button is for.
best regards, Marco
I agree with Marco here. Even if we make clear what happens, I think it is a serious step away from the wiki principle. I would also be against implementation on Wikipedias other than en:, where control times are usually longer.
Andre Engels
On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 01:28:17 +0100, Marco Krohn marco.krohn@gmx.de wrote:
good idea to stop vandals, but a new user with good intentions will be seriously confused and probably not understand what the "edit" button is for.
Everything approved at some point on en, ultimately is applied on other projects...
But I do not really see how what I propose in against wiki principles while to my opinion, the time delay is and will be confusing. Or that means I really do not understand Jimbo's proposal. In any cases, I do not like it :-(
Andre Engels a écrit:
I agree with Marco here. Even if we make clear what happens, I think it is a serious step away from the wiki principle. I would also be against implementation on Wikipedias other than en:, where control times are usually longer.
Andre Engels
On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 01:28:17 +0100, Marco Krohn marco.krohn@gmx.de wrote:
good idea to stop vandals, but a new user with good intentions will be seriously confused and probably not understand what the "edit" button is for.
Anthere wrote:
Everything approved at some point on en, ultimately is applied on other projects...
This is exactly the reason why it is correct that things to do with en:wikipedia only should be discussed on the en:wikipedia mailing list.
This mailing list is to deal with all things wikipedia. When the en:wikipedia decides for all projects, it is hardly NPOV. I am sure that many feel ill at ease with the systemic bias that gives us everything what is decided in the en:wikipedia context. I believe that with the growth of the other projects it becomes less acceptable that the English language wikipedia decides how things will pan out. Yes, people could vote on en:wikipeda but do not, because it is not their project.
Thanks, GerardM
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Anthere wrote:
Everything approved at some point on en, ultimately is applied on other projects...
This is exactly the reason why it is correct that things to do with en:wikipedia only should be discussed on the en:wikipedia mailing list.
This mailing list is to deal with all things wikipedia. When the en:wikipedia decides for all projects, it is hardly NPOV. I am sure that many feel ill at ease with the systemic bias that gives us everything what is decided in the en:wikipedia context. I believe that with the growth of the other projects it becomes less acceptable that the English language wikipedia decides how things will pan out. Yes, people could vote on en:wikipeda but do not, because it is not their project.
Absolutely. Each project has its own set of problems. Even when they are the same problems they may have been solved differently. If the participants at Wiktionary have been able to resolve a problem by a friendly consensus while the same problem could only be resolved in the opposite way at en:Wikipedia after an acrimonious debate and vote I would certainly resent an imposition of the Wikipedia solution on Wiktionary. When a problem arises on en:Wikipedia the participants in another project may not see it as a problem at the time; the need to discuss it may not be relevant to them for a year or more. When it does arise we would not want to be bound by a closed year-old vote.
Ec
Gerard Meijssen a écrit:
Anthere wrote:
Everything approved at some point on en, ultimately is applied on other projects...
This is exactly the reason why it is correct that things to do with en:wikipedia only should be discussed on the en:wikipedia mailing list.
This mailing list is to deal with all things wikipedia. When the en:wikipedia decides for all projects, it is hardly NPOV. I am sure that many feel ill at ease with the systemic bias that gives us everything what is decided in the en:wikipedia context. I believe that with the growth of the other projects it becomes less acceptable that the English language wikipedia decides how things will pan out. Yes, people could vote on en:wikipeda but do not, because it is not their project.
Thanks, GerardM
You know...
Given the complaints we sometimes can read now about "why was this decision taken and we never heard about it" from english editors, I think we can basically say that most decisions are now not taken any more by english wikipedia.
Though, it still is the case for software features. Typically, a feature such as the one suggested by Jimbo, will mostly interest english editors, because the english wikipedia is basically the one project really suffering vandalism on its most famous current event articles. Since other pedias do not have yet this problem, they are hardly motivated to discuss it yet. When this will happen, the decision will already have been taken. This is a systematic bias we can not really do anything against ;-)
Warning: this e-mail is [probably unnecessary] rather long; sorry, I seem to be in "verbose" mode. :-/
On Sat, 08 Jan 2005 12:55:00 +0100, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
But I do not really see how what I propose in against wiki principles while to my opinion, the time delay is and will be confusing. Or that means I really do not understand Jimbo's proposal. In any cases, I do not like it :-(
Well, I'm not 100% sure that everybody's sure what proposals they're talking about, but *my* understanding is:
Jimbo proposed a software feature that allowed a page to remain editable by any user, but with ["untrusted"?] edits not visible [to certain people, e.g. "anons"] until they have remained unchallenged for a certain time, *or* explicitly approved by a "trusted" user [where "trusted" may be a user level somewhere between logged in and sysop, possibly available to anyone with "enough" experience]. This could replace, in certain circumstances, the current practice of protecting the page from *any* editting, and therefore *increase* the "wikiness" of the wiki.
The most confusing element of this proposal is that people may come to the site, try to correct an error, and find it has already been corrected by someone else, but is stuck in the time delay [the software can display a message explaining that this is an exceptional measure, but that's still confusing]. But depending on the exact details - how long before automatic publication, how many users able to manually "approve" a new version - this may be a very unlikely occurence. Note that this is only intended for the specific case of articles that are, for instance, in the news, and likely to receive a lot of attention; by their very nature, these articles are likely to be on plenty of watchlists etc, so people will be likely to "approve" good changes well before the time limit. And if they don't, the edit will go through anyway, and the "live" and "current" versions will match.
[To develop from Jimbo's description a bit, I think users could perhaps be presented with an edit box straight away, but with a big note about the article being in "deferred mode" (or whatever). If (and only if) the "current" version is not the same as the "live" version, the note could be followed by a diff between the two, with an additional note/reminder to check that the change hadn't already been made.]
Anthere, OTOH, proposed that in similar situations, pages could be protected, but editable via templates, as a deliberate confusion tactic. In my personal opinion, this would be far *more* confusing than a [well designed] "deferred edit" feature in the software. I would also note that it has been used for some time on the Front page of the en: WP, with only limited success - it confuses a lot of people who want to make genuine changes, and yet the front page still receives vandalism [albeit a no doubt reduced amount]. There has been much discussion of whether the templates themselves should now be protected, but it looks like this has been avoided for the time being.
Basically, I think some intermediate state (or even more than one!) is needed between "editable" and "protected", and however tricksy we are, this can only really be achieved by a carefully designed software feature. "Deffered edits" are actually *less* restrictive than the other alternative that might be worth considering - that of protecting pages *but allowing more than just admins to edit them* (i.e. edittable by "trusted users", however we want to define that).
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