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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Candybars (talk | contribs) at 22:00, 5 February 2006 (→‎Oppose). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Older comments have been moved to the Archives.

Dopamine?

Hello, I read through the page and couldn't find an apporpriate place to report this. I've noticed that the definition of dopamine appearing at the bottom of several pages. I have only kept track of two (Tom and Jerry and brotherhood) but, I can remember seeing it on other pages. Normally, I would have just removed it fromt he pages but, for some reason it dosn't even show up in edit view. Also, when you search the page with google it dosn't show up either. Also, if you look at the the "what links to this page?" for the dopamine article, it dosn't list Tom and Jerry, brotherhood, or any of the other articles that this is appearing on even though dopamine is wikified. Very weird. --The_stuart 19:36, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Someone messed with the disambig template. It was reverted, but for some reason the bad version of the template is still showing up on pages. I don't know how this can be fixed... --Etacar11 19:59, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
  • If such disambig pages are still around, there is a simple way to fix them individually. 1. delete the disambig tag 2. save the page 3. add the tag back in. --Candybars 21:48, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Megaman Battle Network 6

The non-registered user 203.124.2.18 has been consistantly editing this page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MegaMan_Battle_Network_6

They are adding reverting information, adding things that clutter the page (The /???), and refusing to stop after I asked on his talk page, someone else asked in the discussion page for it, and someone by the name of Werdna648 asked in his talk page. I would appreciate it if something could be done. Thank you very much. Sukecchi 18:19, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

A proposal that might eliminate 50% or more of vandalism

Dear fellow vandalism patrollers,
I've been involved on some cult related pages which it is my guess, probably suffer some of the highest rates of chronic vandalism within Wiki. The cult that I believe probably tops the list is Scientology, and related articles. I just did a review of the last 50 edits on the main Scientology article page. Of these last 50 edits, 14 were vandalism. This pattern of heavy vandalism by multiple seemingly random IP's at this page seems to possibly be an orchestrated strategy to encourage cult members to make frequent anonymous vandal attacks. Having thousands of members, obviously all they would need to do is to get a handful of volunteers to do this, and much key-pounding and frequent logins by vandal-patrol-editors become necessary in order to maintain any reasonable semblance of a good article there. Of the 14 vandalism edits, 12 were done via anonymous IP, and 2 were done by sock-puppets that had been created within the previous 20 days.

I have a humble proposal that I believe might be able to reduce the workload of vandal-patrolling by 50% or more.

Create a restriction on page editors, that could be called something like the Controversial material- editing restriction rule.

Then set this editing restriction up so that the only editors who will be permitted to edit these pages must:

  • Be registered.
  • Have been registered for at least one month.
  • Have at least 25 edits in their contributions file.

I know that all 14 of the recent vandal-edits the the Scientology page would have qualified for blocking under these rules. My guess is that probably at least 50% of these attempts would have been completely stopped, discouraging the prospective vandal from going through all of the trouble of jumping through all of the hoops, before doing the vandalizm. Perhaps even 90% or 95% would have been stopped, who knows?

Two further consideration about when such restrictions could be placed and/ or lifted.
(Please also note -and/ or comment on- the counter-proposal as discussed by Sherool and Scott P. in comment section below.)

For placing the restriction: Perhaps such a restriction could only be placed on pages for which:

  • Three or more editors had petitioned for such a restriction.
  • The article clearly showed at least a 1 month history of an average of one or more vandal-edits per day.
  • A discussion about the validity of the claim of such frequent vandalism was allowed for, that lasted 15 days, and which the outcome was that these vandalism-edits did indeed meet the criteria for frequency.

For removing the restriction: Perhaps such restrictions could only be removed by a special vote that required a 75% consensus vote.

I don't know. I am new to this page. Maybe this type of anti-vandalism measure has been proposed before. If so, still I would like to know why it hasn't been acted upon, and what others think about this proposal designed to cut down significantly on vandalism to high-vandalism types of articles, without significantly restricting access to serious editors.

Please let me know what you think about this by preceeding your comment with one of the following:

Support:,
Oppose:,
Neutral: or
Other/ reason:
(Note, before placing comment or vote, please review Other comment by Sherool, and followup comment by Scott P. below.)

Thanks for reading this,

-Scott P. 21:08, 15 September 2005 (UTC)


PS: I am not entirely familiar with what the software requirements would be to accomplish something like this, but if it appears that this proposal is met with a positive consensus here, I will promise to bring this proposal to Jimbo Wales' attention, and to make certain that the results of this interaction with Jimbo are reported here, whatever they might be. My sense is that it would probably be technically possible to do this, but might possibly be somewhat time consuming to write such a program.

Support

  1. Not necessarily support, but don't instantly reject. Right now we only have "unprotected" (anyone can edit it) and "protected" (only admins can edit it). It's not necessarily unwiki to have an intermediate "semi-protected" status, where only "users in good standing" can edit it. It may or may not be a good idea, but it's not necessarily "unwiki" to suggest it. However the normal status for nearly all Wikipedia pages at nearly all times should be "unprotected", not "protected" or "semi-protected" (with perhaps a handful of exceptions like the Main Page... remember we permanently protect the Main page by necessity, no matter how "unwiki" this may be... many pages that are currently permanently protected could become "semi-protected" instead, which would be a good thing). Read this insightful article by Clay Shirky and remember what Wikipedia is not: it's not a democracy. Right now sock puppets and anon IPs are actually more powerful than registered users in any edit war because they're effectively immune from 3RR, and that's not a good thing. When an edit war flares up, users in good standing should at least be on a level playing field, and quite possibly ought to be at an advantage. Again, read the Clay Shirky article (the part about "core group" and "members vs. users"). -- Curps 22:43, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
  2. Support Wikipedia will never be a real encyclopaedia until it adopts and enforces encyclopaedic standards, and one of the steps necessary to achieve that is doing something to deter vandals, particularly cranks and cultists. There is nothing in this proposal which would prevent or deter genuine editors from editing articles, and therefore it does not contravene Wikipedia's open access principles. Adam 22:58, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
  3. Support I'm supporting this, even though I don't necessarily the right implementation. But it doesn't matter. What matters is supporting people like you trying to make a difference on the wiki. If you listen to some people around here, you'll hear stuff like "Vandals cant' just be banned outright has they have equal rights and may become valuable editors anytime" - Yeah right! As if the schoolkids who write 'cunt' on 16 different pages of the wiki will ever notice the err of their ways and become valuable editors. Ha! You, on the other hand, will probably be slammed by the wiki jihad who will remind you that 'edition of editing by anyone' is one of the 5 wiki pillars. What those people don't understand is that because the man-hours of good editors are limited, reverting vandalism actually HAS a cost - unlike what the propaganda says. Anyone who has ever tried to combat vandalism is probably familiar with the 16 consecutive revert dance, followed by unanswered complaints to a non-existent or overworked admin. Then the vandal notices your warning on this page and stalks you, or revert your edits to that very page (because vandals have rights, remember?) Finally, if you are still part of the wikipedia after your ordeal (during which you could have read a book or spent time with your kids), the admin may freeze the page, but very rarely blocks an IP for more than a few days (after which the vandal comes back if he hasn't already via a sockpuppet). Adidas 23:33, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
  4. Support in principle, with details TBD. The number of pages that would need some kind of guardianship would be very small, the "open to all" provision would not be compromised (hang around just a little while and you can touch anything) and articles that are now functionally damaged goods would rise in quality. I had a page I cared about which is subject to constant reverts, edits, sabotage etc. I now ignore it because I don't have time, and other pages have collaborative work by editors. That means the "shout them down" people are winning. Thanks for listening. Coll7 01:04, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
  5. Support. I don't see this proposal as creating even more restrictions to users, but as removing some restrictions. The "semi-protected" articles could replace many of the completely protected ones, giving a chance for non-vandals to clean up and article and still add to it without giving the responsibility of cleaning up an article to an admin. Because of this, an article may be semi-protected for a shorter time than if one were completely protected. These semi-protected pages would not be permanent, but in some cases could be. The Main Page could even become semi-protected giving even more credit to the anyone-can-edit philosophy. Zhatt 21:05, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
  6. Support. I agree with Zhatt; it's more wiki to have some pages semi-protected long-term than to have them fully protected some of the time and constantly vandalized the rest of the time. And it isn't just cult articles like Scientology, it's articles on topics the immature find funny as well, like Homosexuality and Obesity. --Angr/tɔk tə mi 21:39, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
  7. Support. Details TBD. No need to repeat all the good reasons given by others. Brandon39 12:27, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
  8. Support. Unfortunately, rules like this will become indispensable with the growing popularity of WP. Just no way around it. I foresee a time when a certain class of editor will need to be defined: not Admins, but sort of "known and trusted editors". Contributions/edits to certain articles by all users not in that class will have to be "submitted in advance" to an editor in that class who has assumed "oversight" duties for that article. JDG 22:10, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
  9. Support. It's better than any anti-vandalism idea I would have had. Since the controversial pages are the ones most vandalized, and since RUs don't vandalize (as much, since we can catch you guys), it will definitely cut down on vandalism. Better idea: Perhaps we could even restrict editing to RUs. Davidizer13 17:06, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
  10. Support. This will allow the trimming of vandalism. I imagine that some work will need to be done on determining when the semi-protection can start and how long it can last, but it will reduce the incidents of vandalism. --Habap 14:32, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
  11. Support For all the reasons stated above. Template:DaGizza/Sg 08:34, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
  12. Support It's a good idea as an alternative to full blown protection. Agree with many points others have made too Nil Einne 15:27, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Strongly oppose: This proposal is in complete contravention of what Wikipedia is, and I don't think you will find many people who support it. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:11, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
    Zoe, could you point to any guidelines or policies that might support what you just said? It seems to me that Wikipedia is a place designed to encourage honesty, community, and the free flow of information. Vandalism opposes all of these things. It is true that such a rule might place some minor restriction on some of this, but just as some rules are necessary for the betterment of all, even if they sometimes do create minor inconvenience for some, I believe that the net effect of this would be to free many of us up to focus on real edits, creating a better flow of information, rather than having to concentrate so much on vandalism. Also, can I take it that you would oppose this? -Scott P. 21:16, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
    I would strongly oppose it. See Wikipedia:Five pillars: "Recognize that articles can be changed by anyone". User:Zoe|(talk) 21:40, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
    All but heavily vandalized pages could still be changed by anyone at the spur of the moment. Heavily vandalized pages could be changed by anyone with a little patience. That would be the only difference. No?-Scott P. 22:22, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
    Actually, it isn't against the concept of Wikipedia. It is similar to protected pages. This type of page protection just restricts some edits instead of all edits. Similar to page protection it can be for a restricted amount of time. - Tεxτurε 21:24, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
    I don't see the proposal as being temporary. It seems to be permanent unless there can be a 75% consensus to unprotect it. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:40, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
    Zoe, how would you feel if some less restrictive unlocking rule were used instead? -Scott P. 21:58, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
  2. Oppose: This is unwiki.—encephalonὲγκέφαλον  22:02, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
    The problem here is a fundamental one. It goes to the heart of what a wiki is. It is proposed that new registered users be barred from editing certain articles, through no fault of their own, for a month. A wiki simply does not work that way. It must virtually always be open to editing—page protection must be applied with the greatest reluctance, for the strongest of reasons (ie. concerted, unrelenting, continuous, damaging vandalism or edit warring), and for the shortest possible time. And it must be open to every good faith user—registered, anonymous, steward, newbie—one and all. The solution to vandalism is not to lock down pages from users. It is to fight the vandals.—encephalonὲγκέφαλον  22:57, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
  3. Oppose. Wikipedia is not a clique, and we should not support the formation of such. siafu 22:34, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
  4. Absolutely not! I have to oppose this for all of the above reasons. It would also initiate voting, which is not tolerable. And a consensus has little to do with a hard number. And it's simply unwiki. --Phroziac (talk) 00:16, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
  5. Noooooooo. There's absolutely no way I would support this- the point of Wikipedia is to be open. Most controversial pages are the ones anons/new users want to edit, and in many cases, the edits are _GOOD_. There's no need to create another block for users to edit. And, as Ryan Delaney says below, Jimbo will never let it happen (rightly so). Ral315 00:26, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
  6. Oppose in its current form. However, a similar temporary flag to be used as an alternative to full page protection and in the same fashion as existing page protection might be useful--a temporary flag that prevents all anons or users created after the protection was placed from editing the page. It shouldn't be placed on pages forever, though, just for a brief period on pages facing a specific persistant vandal, the way full protection is occasionally used against vandalism now... and the only time I'd support that is when the alternative is having the page protected completely just to stop one persistant vandal attacking it via socks. Aquillion 00:28, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
  7. Completely and Fundamentally Opposed This is a terrible idea. It is entirely against everything that makes Wikipedia daring and innovative. The whole idea of Wikipedia comes down to freedom of everyone to edit everything (with a few exceptions where it is impossible to maintain any kind of consistent quality without some limits.) This is why there is so much concern about keeping pages linked from the main page open to edit; it is our ideology. The implementation of this proposal would essentially cut Wikipedia out from under its knees.

Neutral

Other Comments

  • If the same rules that apply to "regular" page blocking now where applied then I think it would be a good idea. It could be the first line of defence against vandals. Temporarily block anonymous users and very young (think a month is a bit long though, maybe use the same rules that apply for accessing the "move" feature) registered acounts only from editing for a brief period rather than blocking everyone like we do now. That way vandal blocks would be less intrusive for normal contributors, while still very effective against your average vandal. I do however not agree that all controversial pages should have this installed as a permanent measure. Strictly on a case by case basis just like page blocking works now. --Sherool 22:19, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
    Thanks for that idea Sherool. I think everyone agrees that Wiki's current page locking policy is beneficial. How about if we had a rule that said that if the vandalism-edits clearly exceeded 1 vandalism edit per day, for 1 week, then the restriction could be applied for 1 week (and if abused, could be removed prematurely by a sysop)? Would you support this? -Scott P. 22:32, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
      • Well as I said I think it would make a good alternative to the current "full block" protection we currently use, but I rely don't think we should apply it much more liberaly than we currently are. One or two vandalism-edits per day is not realy that much of a problem on an active article, and a week sounds a bit long. IMHO the first goal should be to get such a limited block feature actualy implemented into the software and then use it instead of regular page blocking (as a first resort anyway). If it works out we can discuss the finer points of when to use it and for how long at a later date. --Sherool 23:21, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose, Undecided. I think it's a good idea, but the problem is that it has an unintended side effect: namely, a group of devoted people who wanted to prevent anons from editing some pages might then vandalize some pages with the intent of getting this sort of block placed. I don't think we want to give people an additional motivation to vandalize. If this concern can be addressed somehow I would strongly support. Colin M. 22:47, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
You think anti-vandals will suddenly vandalize pages in order to get them semi-protected? Are they doing this now, when they can get full protection by being enough of a bother? I don't think that people who are anti-vandals would find it worth their time to game the system this way. Of course, with billions of potential editors, it is possible that someone besides you would think of this. --Habap 14:35, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
  • This is against the will of Jimbo, so this whole vote is pointless. It will never be implemented, regardless of the result of this straw poll --Ryan Delaney talk 00:19, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
    I know that Jimbo wants Wiki to be available to all users. But he also wants 3 revert rule violators to cool off with a lock. Do you know for sure that he doesn't want vandals to cool off at all? -Scott P. 00:46, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
  • While I agree that in the context of making decisions and setting policy for the community, it is important to differentiate between user account holders (for whom there is at least a somewhat accountable record) "in good standing", and anonymous or new users, this solution would institutionalize the idea that anonymous and new contributors are not as worthy as other users as editors. I don't see a way reconcile that conclusion with the spirit of wikipedia and 5P. siafu 00:29, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
  • While I think that this proposal would make certain Wikipedia articles better, on the whole quality would suffer Makenji-san 23:16, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm sure I've seen related proposals to give admins the additional power to "intermediate-protect" a page, as a less restrictive option than "protect". The problem with that was that if you merely excluded anonymous users, you encouraged vandals to sign up and vandalize, which is slightly harder to spot, and wastes account names. And a "good standing" criterion to get around that is a whole big nasty kettle of fish. Rd232 20:42, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
    • The obvious fix to that is to make it apply to users who had thier first edit after the protection started. Ofc this may encourage account stockpiling as our old friend willy does now for page moveing. Plugwash 01:05, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
      • The original proposal mentioned that only users that have been registered for at least one month and have at least 25 edits in their contributions would be able to work on these semi-protected pages. I believe that minimum number of contributions may need to be a bit higher (~100-500), but that should be able to remove the account stockpiling side of things. Zhatt 21:55, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Maybe we should redirect some vandals to Uncyclopedia. That site is pure vandalism (and very fun, too!). Davidizer13 22:10, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Samantha Bee article?

Samantha Bee was vandalised, I suspect. I did a search to see if she actually miscarried, but I found nothing. Moreover, given the comment about Michael Moore, I suspect it as vandalism. DoomBringer 07:24, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

This page vs. Administrator intervention against vandalism

Could someone please adjust the text of this page, and Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism, to make it clear when to list a vandal on one vs. the other. I find this really unclear. I see that WP:AIV seems to get much faster response. Why then would anyone ever list a vandal here? If there isn't a clear answer to this, perhaps this page should be deleted and/or merged into WP:AIV.--Srleffler 18:14, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Administrator intervention against vandalism is faster because few administrators are willing to tackle the backlog here. Once the backlog is cleared and the recent reforms here are completed, response time should not be much different. Vandalism in Progress is a sister page to Administrator intervention against vandalism, but very different in scope. I've expanded the introduction to help dispel any confusion between the two. Does the new version (quoted below) help?
For blatant vandalism within the last few hours, please see Administrator intervention against vandalism. This page is for reporting vandalism for which an ongoing response is required. This primarily includes multiple sockpuppets, pages currently being heavily vandalised, users that need to be monitored, and vandalism which requires study on the part of an administrator before responding. Accounts that have only been used for vandalism (with no recent activity) should also be reported on this page, so that an administrator can look through their edits. Please make sure to read the first two sections before using this page.
// Pathoschild 08:00, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
So... have all of the alerts from the previous version been disregarded? --Spring Rubber 05:44, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
All the alerts (excluding IPs) preceding the changes were dealt with under the new guidelines. The IP alerts were archived without response due to a radical shift in WP:VIP's focus regarding IP addresses and the fact that the vast majority of the IP addresses were dynamic or shared. // Pathoschild 04:49, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Admin Status

Basically, you go through a nomination and voting process. You might like to browse around Wikipedia:Administrators. Have fun · Katefan0(scribble)/mrp 00:37, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism on nba 1998 1999 season

Can somebody stop this sick vandal from altering prooven facts on nba 1998 1999, this KNIGHT fellow. Hope I placed this at right place.

Help?

I'm not exactly sure that this is the correct place to ask for help for correction of a vandalism or warning of a vandalizing member, so forgive me if this is the wrong place/protocol.

User V4ND4LTR0N 1.0 defaced the Imperial Japanese Navy talk page in a rather thorough manner. When I tried reverting to the last saved version, the spam (about five repeating images) reappeared, and was not deleted until I deleted the talk page, then cut and pasted the contents of the last legitimate edit once more. I can only assume that this V4ND4LTR0N 1.0 is only around to vandalize due to their username. I thought I should report it somewhere, and I tried to do it as quickly as possible, so once more, forgive me if it's the wrong place.

Alexander VII 01:39, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I reverted the talk page to the last good edit. I'm watching it now, too, in case anything happens again. --nihon 03:28, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
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