On 15 Nov 2007 at 14:56:22 +0000, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@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.