[WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

[Thomas Dalton]

> Of course, when making this assessment you are assuming the current
> MediaWiki software. Unfortunately, the current software is inefficient
> at undoing large amounts of activity. For example, the User
> Contributions page should have an "undo all of this user's
> contributions" button, especially if it isn't many. At the same time,
> this undoing of all contributions should also be undoable with a single
> command. There should also be a selective feature, e.g. undo only all
> image uploads or undo only the article edits that involve adding an
> external link. All of these are non-trivial to code, which is why no-one
> has done it yet, but it would make cleaning up after vandalism much more
> efficient, even if the vandal is himself an admin.

Trying to code automated fixes to admin vandalism can have only
limited effectiveness. A skilled vandal could easily find some form of
vandalism that you haven't coded a way to undo yet. Or, better yet,
use your "undo all contributions" button as a form of vandalism in
itself. (If you restrict access to that button, then you've just
recreated all the problems we have now, just with different names.)