[WikiEN-l] Featured editors?

[Daniel R. Tobias]

On 15 Nov 2007 at 14:56:22 +0000, Guy Chapman aka JzG 
<guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:

> Which neatly proves that we need sockpuppeting banned users like a
> hole in the head.

But we have no power to make them go away, short of going the 
Citizendium route and limiting editing to approved accounts under the 
editor's real name.  We only have power over what we do when they 
show up, and if what they crave is attention and drama, the more 
excessive and exaggerated our response to them is, the more we're 
playing into their hands.

If they send sockpuppets to take both sides of a contentious issue, 
then a policy of never reverting to the version that was the result 
of an edit by a banned user is a nonstarter, since *both* versions 
under contention were edited by banned users.  Instead of a knee-jerk 
revert, one is compelled to actually consider which of the versions 
best serves the encyclopedia.  Hopefully, this can be done through 
calm and rational discussion that doesn't give the trolls the drama 
they crave; this means that anybody who gets in a state of anger as a 
result of the trolling (it's immaterial whether it's anger that a 
link was added, anger that a link was deleted, anger that one or more 
banned users edited, or anger at the response of admins to this) 
really should step back from their keyboard and calm down before 
proceeding.  Yes, that means me too.  We were all suckered into 
taking the trolls' bait on this one; you, me, and everybody else who 
involved themselves in that issue.

Another troll tactic (as I think you pointed out yourself) is to 
purposely make good edits such as fixing typos and reverting 
vandalism, from an obvious sockpuppet account, in the hope of 
provoking admins into reverting them (and thus putting vandalism and 
typos back in) in the name of absolutism when dealing with banned 
editors.  In these cases, the absolutists are giving the trolls what 
they want, compounded even more if the admins actually insist that 
nobody else is allowed to revert to the banned user's verion either, 
and the error is forced to be kept indefinitely.

> That's a solution to the symptom.  A better solution would be for
> them to go away and stop trying to plant disinformation via third
> party sources such as Robert Black.

Unfortunately, we have no control over what people do with regard to 
outside sites and blogs.

-- 
== Dan ==
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