Wikipedia talk:Long-term abuse

Deletion of old reports

WARNING!Do not delete http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Long-term_abuse/Universe_Daily Spamming by definition is the promotion of web addresses or products with the intention of making money. Wayne Robert Smith does not make money from the net but only posts links at Wikipedia to annoy the people working there in retribution for being called a vandal on his first visit years previously. You called him a vandal so he has spent years vandalising your pages in exchange for the insult. He is currently laying charges against wikipedia for libel and expects about 3 million dollars for mental anguish caused by the innacurate website comments. Please leave all insulting comments intact for the police prosecutor. Deleting them now would be pointless as hardcopy has been printed and is in the hands of his attorney. Jimmy Donal Wales has already been informed of this decision by Wayne Smith to pursue legal action. Thank you. Tony Fitzgerald QC. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.155.114.32 (talk) 22:52, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

As the old long-term abuse project deleted useless old reports, the new long-term abuse project should do the same to maintain a clean project that can easily be searched for information. Thus, I've been reviewing the old reports and looking to see if any of them are candidates for deletion. If it is decided that old reports should be deleted, Wikipedia:Long-term_abuse/Page_2, Wikipedia:Long-term_abuse/Archive_2, and Wikipedia:Long-term_abuse/Archive_1 are naturally candidates for deletion. Should old inactive reports be deleted? And if so, when should a report be considered inactive (I'm thinking no activity in 2010)? Netalarm^talk 14:43, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Agree on both cleaning up the project, and no activity within this year is a good cutoff point. Mlpearc powwow 16:03, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

This is so complicated, even more than when abuse response was being revamped. I think I'll go create a subpage that discusses the pros and cons of deleting old reports. Netalarm^talk 20:08, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I think I could concur with a one year cut off as well for inactivity, though ive been biased before in favour of deleting these pages (last AFD discussion) so I fully support further discussion of pros and cons on this Ottawa4ever (talk) 21:39, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Before doing anything along those lines I strongly suggest discussing and defining the goal, scope, definition and vision of the project, as was done for AR. Once that is established, answering these kinds of technical questions might become more self-evident.   Thorncrag  04:58, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

This is just from the old LTA page, but I believe the goal of LTA has always been to provide a central location for editors to find information on suspicious editors and see if they're actually a long-term vandal. LTA was never designed to contact the Internet service providers, it has always been more of a repository of information about vandals. And with no one managing it, it naturally got messy and useless, hence the multiple MfDs. Long-term abuse handles long-term abusive users, defined as users that have disrupted Wikipedia over a long duration of time. The definition of vandalism can be found here.

There were never any formal criteria for inclusion. It's always been "if a user abuses Wikipedia over a long duration of time..." Formal criteria approved by the community would make LTA more definite and more useful. In the future, I hope to see LTA and abuse response more closely integrated to provide a more effective solution to combating long-term abuse. See User:Netalarm/Deleting_LTA_reports for pros and cons, feel free to modify. Netalarm^talk 11:23, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I am not too sure about deleting old reports. That a long term vandal is gone for some time does not mean they is really gone. One case (which is, by the way, not listed here as it is pretty localised) has forced editors to apply long term protection of a page, but .. well .. BLP violation diff, Revision as of 23:55, 2 August 2007, protection diff, Revision as of 23:57, 2 August 2007 (1/2 year), next BLP violation diff, Revision as of 23:14, 22 February 2008; 20 days after expiration of protection. I'd be careful with the term 'useless' and would not delete based on long term inactivity of a vandal. Please, just apply archiving (for that, 1 year might be fine). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:42, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

There's at least one active vandal in Wikipedia:Long-term_abuse/Page_2, and another who returned after a gap of two years. Just recently I looked up another who hasn't been active for two years, when looking at unblocking an IP address (207.7.163.203). The benefit of archives over deletion is that they provide context for older discussions and administrative actions. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 11:54, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually, if we use a category based system that will automatically archive old reports, it would both cleanup the system and keep records in the rare even that they are needed. Netalarm^talk 20:16, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

If the archive is similarly organised as the main pages, and clearly linked, then I think that that would be a good solution. It is a matter of moving 'older' cases to archive pages, where again they can be linked from a table, and on another archive be all transcluded. Problem is, that it is difficult to see when activity stops, that is not automatically 'one year after the last update of the page' .. it would be one year after the 'vandal' (in the broadest sense of the word) 'stops' with their actions. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:20, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Ya, the table could work here to, but something like Category:Abuse_response_-_Closed could also work, since a user would only be looking for information if they knew what they would be looking for. Regarding the vandal one year limit, that's what I've been doing. Looking at the sock categories and messaging users isn't exactly easy, so this cleanup is going a bit slower. Netalarm^talk 21:56, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Suggested resolution

• Old legitimate reports on actual long-term abusive users will be kept, but archived so they will not be displayed on the main page.
• Old reports that do not fit the criteria of long-term abuse will be removed, or deleted.

I think we can use categories to sort this out. However, criteria on when a long-term abuse report can be created still needs to be discussed, since it would make administration easier. Netalarm^talk 14:37, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Move category from Category:Wikipedia long-term abuse to Category:Long-term abuse

There's no need for the "Wikipedia" there. Other projects such as WP:SPI and WP:ABUSE do not use the Wikipedia prefix in the category. Can we retag all long-term abuse pages with Category:Long-term abuse and remove the old category? We'll also delete the old category. Netalarm^talk 20:00, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

 Done - EdoDodo ^talk 21:02, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Formal set of criteria

Before I go into detail on a formal set of criteria, I believe it's important to note that the current directions of "In the vast majority of cases Deny Recognition and Revert block ignore are more suitable approaches." still hold, and the both that criteria and these new ones have to be met before a report is to be accepted. The current directions also state that "Names should only be added for the most egregious and well-attested cases." Since these terms have not been defined, I believe that a formal set of criteria would make it easier for an editor to decide whether or not to create a report. I'm proposing that reports only be accepted if the following conditions are met:

• The user must have a sockpuppet category. This requirement is to ensure that only abusive users are listed at long-term abuse, since a sockpuppet category shows that the user has abused multiple accounts.
• The user must have at least one blocked account. This shows that the user has indeed disrupted Wikipedia.
• The abuse must have continued over at least a duration of six months. This shows that the user was abusive over a long duration of time.

Of course, these need to be discussed and modified as deemed fit. Netalarm^talk 03:39, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Those sound minimal and sensible.   Will Beback  talk  05:39, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Agree - Good sound base. Mlpearc powwow 06:23, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Agree I think socking is a clear sign of long term vandalism and perhaps the only characteristic that remains common between the two different LTA accounts. Time frame looks ok to me as well. Its a good working principal I think. Ottawa4ever (talk) 07:43, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Agree Sounds okay. - EdoDodo ^talk 11:04, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Some sects of DENY/RBI advocate listing enough information at LTA for the vandal to be identified, but not having each of the sockpuppets meticulously categorised and tagged. There are several LTA vandals without meaningful categories (Erik Young and AnonTalk spring immediately to mind), and I foresee more of those categories will be deleted in the future. The first criteria should be replaced with a list of example sockpuppets instead. Additionally, one blocked account is not a high enough entry level. I would suggest multiple blocks as a minimum. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 11:39, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Ya, I'm beginning to notice that some of them don't have categories - but have lists. How many socks should we agree on? Bear in mind that there are suspected and confirmed. I'm thinking around 50 confirmed? It should be quite difficult to get reported to long-term abuse, but not too difficult so that we don't have the necessary reports. Regarding the block count, I think one is enough since someone with a lot of socks would likely have all of the socks blocked. Netalarm^talk 02:45, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Non-signing of reports

The old prevamped long-term abuse stated that reports should not be signed, and I believe that this should be carried over to the newly revamped system. Also, I've removed the "list of users to contact" section, as there is no need to direct people to certain editors. I believe that all the information should be listed on the report so it can be available to everyone immediately. Thoughts? Note: I'm still cleaning up the reports. Netalarm^talk 23:31, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I think in a way its good not to associated names of editors to the LTA reports, By listing names it opens a level of harrassemnet from some of the listees (assuming the vandal comes to look at this report). In that sense, the report should have detailed information to accurately tell a user if they are dealing with a LTA themselves, refering to an 'expert' per se will slow the process down. And its likely if the report is written well enough that it would be unnecessary anyway. Very much agreed with your non-signing idea. Ottawa4ever (talk) 08:05, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I feel that if someone is going to expend the energy and effort to raise a campaign to harass a reporter, then they will easily be willing to expend the effort to look at a page's history to find out who made that report.   Thorncrag  23:54, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Reports that do not meet criteria

Legitimate reports should be archived, as we have established above, but reports that do not meet the criteria for when a long-term abuse report may be submitted should be deleted. I've reviewed some reports and found that a few of them are either incomplete or not at the level of abuse that warrants a long-term abuse report

• Wikipedia:Long-term_abuse/Consist. User is relatively low-key and does not vandalize to the extent that a long-term abuse report is needed. The confirmed sockpuppet category shows only 1 IP and 1 username, and the suspected sockpuppet category shows only 7 IPs and 1 username.

Netalarm^talk 02:23, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

• I've removed one of the LTA "names" above, which was causing harm to the reputation of a RL person who probably had nothing to do with whatever was being addressed here. Risker (talk) 23:56, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Shortcuts for reports

Providing the information on a one-page report is fine, allowing access to it is fine, but having a shortcut to the report? I don't feel there is the need to have shortcuts such as WP:TREASON. I'm proposing that we remove the shortcuts and delete them. Netalarm^talk 02:48, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Treason can go, especially since he's fallen by the wayside for a long time. I WOULD however keep WP:'T for quite reference because of his noxiousness. 76.117.247.55 (talk) 04:03, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Long-term abuse and user rehab

Please see this. Netalarm^talk 05:17, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Question

How useful is this towards stopping or getting quicker attentions against a sockmaster who is determined to continue editing through a community ban, who is stalking multiple editors and who has become quite nasty in some comments made about it's main target stalked? There are a few of us who have been catching the socks and getting them blocked but it takes time to get this done and usually some damage is incurred to articles and/or editor(s). We haven't added the sockmaster yet because we aren't sure if this is a viable thing to utilize. Thank you for any helpful information. I am going to share my posting here with the editors who are interested which includes an administrator, thanks again, --CrohnieGal^Talk 12:22, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Long-term abuse isn't helpful in stopping or getting quicker attention against long-term abusive users at all. The intent of this page / project is to provide a central place to provide information on users so they may be identified in the future. Basically, this is a place to record the behavior and typical actions of long-term abusive users in the hope that someone will recognize them when they see them. If you've found someone who you suspect to have been abusive WP for a long time now, enter some keywords into the search box and see if any reports show up. Alternative, you can message me about his behavior (I've read every case to clean them up) and I can tell you if there's a match. Quick response needed? WP:ANI would be where you want to report that. Just link to the long-term abuse report so people will know who you're talking about. If you want to report sockpuppetry, WP:SPI would be the best place. Netalarm^talk 03:25, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Added note: Are you asking about whether a report should be created, or are you asking about the purpose of this project? Netalarm^talk 05:00, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

How to edit this page?

How do I get into this page to edit it? I want to change the article in the sentence beginning "Consider providing just an summary of the behaviors and nature of disruption . . ." Yours, GeorgeLouis (talk) 18:44, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

The page you want is Wikipedia:Long-term_abuse/Header. There's a tiny little "v * e" near the bottom right of the orange box which is the links to view and edit that particular template. If you can't see it just go to Wikipedia:Long-term_abuse/Header and click "edit". —Soap— 23:46, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. A tiny e? Fine, I did it. Is there a page somewhere that tells editors about this function? Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 01:02, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Not really, as that "e" was coded into this template and isn't part of anything bigger. Most pages that have a header have it saved at /Header to make it easier to find. Netalarm^talk 03:18, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

A cleanup

WP:LTA/MPS can be deleted. He was a really old project vandal (before my time mostly) who is easily detectable and preventable with modern methods. Also WP:TREASON can probably go. 76.117.247.55 (talk) 04:06, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

A note: I had to abbreviate MPS because I was blocked, undoubtedly by "P e l i c a n s h i t". We definitely don't need that page anymore. 76.117.247.55 (talk) 04:07, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Orowole.S.Oyedele

The Help talk:Special page was recently edited by Orowole.S.Oyedele, who deleted and spammed the page. Not sure what the procedure is, but I am hoping someone could take this case up. Cheers --Squidonius (talk) 21:03, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Fake Report

There is a case in the category that shouldn't exist Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/RussBot. The file was created by a user who haas be warned for disruptive editing, and the subject of the report is innocent. for a conversation I had with operator of the bot in the report see here the user talk linked from the report. Fastpatrol, wikimaintenance and counter vandalism unit hows it goin? 13:21, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for noting this. I have reported it to RussBot's owner: User talk:R'n'B#Fake LTA report. Johnuniq (talk) 03:44, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Disruptive User

User:GoodDay is a chronic troll and disruptor who primarily attacks, disrupts and inflames articles on Irish related issues and persons, highlights himself as a Canadian to appear unbiast, but it is obvious he is not. When a issue has been resolved he drags it down again for his own entertainment, constantly trys toprovoke reactions from people and trys to delete the evidence from his talk page, how can I report him?Sheodred (talk) 16:09, 27 October 2011 (UTC)