Guys,
We need to decide on how to deal with persistent vandalism of Wikipedia by users already subjected to the maximum ban.
One user in the less than two months since his own year ban was imposed has launched 30 suspected sockpuppets and at this stage between 40 and 50 proven sockpuppets against Wikipedia pages. On occasions his attacks have occurred as frequently as every two minutes, with (at a guess) twenty talk pages targeted one night for attack with cut and paste abuse placed on them.
On another night a single talk page was targeted by 18 sockpuppets in 2 hours. (It has had to be protected.)
Tonight the page on admin incidents was attacked by 15 separate sockpuppets of his (many multiple attacks) in just over three hours. The user also created articles (since speedily deleted) and though banned carried out wholescale rewriting of articles using a secret identity to get around his ban. (He slipped up and used that identity to join in the sockpuppet attacks. Once the edit history was spotted, as per the arbcom ruling, everything done under that identity was undone and articles deleted, with in one case a Californian admin starting a new valid article to replace a speedily deleted one, to prevent the banned user creating a replacement.)
More than 10 admins have had to devote hours every night this week (bar one night the vandal took off) to undoing his attacks. They were so frequent that by the time an IP had been blocked and template added to its page, the user had created a new one and reimposed his attacks.
It is ridiculous that users have to waste their time dealing with this nutter. It is also ridiculous that he is in effect able to get around his ban. (He also spams users constantly with messages and emails though they tell him to stop, abuses people and highjacks user talk pages of people who have no idea who he is, but just find he has turned their page into one of his battle fronts.)
The guy has already driven some people off Wikipedia, and used off-Wikipedia sites to libel Wikipedians. Now he has turned some pages into battle grounds. Who knows what he will do next. We have a serious problem. He is probably the most persistent vandal Wikipedia has ever had to face. We need to develop a policy to deal with him before he ups the ante and causes further chaos. Simply restarting his one year ban every time and reverting his edits, the recommendations of the arbcom, are not working.
Thom
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