VANDALISM IN PROGRESS/Talk

Inevitably I suspect someone will complain that this page will only encourage trolls. However this page has now existed for several days, and I quite like it. It's attention getting, and will quickly recruit a number of people to stem the damage.

Even the most diehard troll will give up fairly quickly when their vandalism gets erased by the combined effort of 30+ people.

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Actually, I'm the person who orignally objected to your naughty person list, and I started this page. :) If everyone starts using this page, I suspect most vandalism will have a total existance time of about 30 seconds. --STG

Actually I think they both work - this page won't catch the "insidious" miscreants, the ones who edit only occasionally to try and promote a particlar viewpoint. My page is not realy useful for large-scale vandalism.

Agreed. --STG

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There is also opposite scenario available: Even the most diehard wikipedians will give up fairly quickly when a single perlscript will start vandaling. --Taw

OK - Taw, I agree that this page does not solve that problem. So what do we do then? - MMGB

Give short-term-IP-ban (like 30 minutes) rights to enough people, so that at least one of them is usually on wikipedia. Or rights of turning wikipedia into [War Mode]? for a short time (this will also work against distributed vandalism attack). During war mode all changes would be enqueued onto [War Mode/Proposed Changes Queue]? and could be accepted only by selected users. Of course this shouldn't be done unless somebody really attacks us with a perl script. Too much paranoia isn't really good. --Taw

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Move this to http://meta.wikipedia.com and then we'd be talking. If my blatherings shouldn't fill up the Recent Changes page, neither should this. It belongs in a separate namespace from the main encyclopedia (thus if not meta, then at least a subpage under Wikipedia. The ALL CAPS TITLE is a little much, too. --TheCunctator

I disagree - the purpose of this page is to catch everyone's attention. Hence it belongs on Recent Changes (where we spend a lot more time than on Meta), and needs the ALL CAPS, to stand out. - MMGB

You're missing the point, C. The page isn't commentary, it's a utility to bring attention to a sustained vandalism attack. The ALL CAPS TITLE fits perfectly with this purpose, and if I could, I'd make the title red too. ;-) --STG

Stephen, I'm not missing the point. Meta is for pages about Wikipedia. It's what meta means. (I know that some people are restricting it to "unofficial" meta-pages.) This is a meta-page.

I understand why you used the ALL CAPS TITLE, but I think that you should be more polite to people who don't care about this; meta was created so that people who don't want to see discussion on the Recent Changes page don't have to; similarly, the VANDALISM IN PROGRESS announcement, whether you consider it "commentary" or "utility", shouldn't be so obtrusive.

Note: I'm not complaining about the idea; I just think it doesn't have to be so loud to work; and if it doesn't have to be, then it shouldn't be. Please don't tell me that I'm missing the point. --TheCunctator

It's not meant to be an insult, but I'm afraid I still think you're missing the point as far as the meta site is concerned. The meta site is for extended discussion and commentary about Wikipedia, not for all pages that aren't encyclopedia articles. If it were for all non-article pages, all the Talk pages, personal pages, utility pages, FAQs, writing guides, help pages, announcement pages and policy pages would be over at meta.wikipedia.com.

Regarding this page specifically, I'm more than willing to change the name to be less obtrusive and/or move it to a subpage of Wikipedia utilities (or even delete the thing altogether), if that's what the rest of the community wants. However, I would argue that making the warning less obtrusive defeats the purpose of the utility; it is supposed to be obvious. Furthermore, it is meant to be used only once during a sustained vandalism attack, and such attacks are quite rare, so it won't be filling up Recent Changes. Finally, I think that it's safe to assume that if anyone finds the all caps title to be harmful or rude, they'll drop by the Talk page and say so. --STG

STG - you have my total support. If this thing was not so completely "in your face" I'd probably miss it and not be able to respond in time. - MMGB

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I like Taw's idea of a short-term-IP-ban facility. There should probably be some restriction to prevent a person using it more than once in any 24-hour period (say), just in case someone decided to misuse it. I was intending to write an anti-vandalism perl script, but never got around to doing it. The idea would be that as soon as a vandal is spotted, the script could be run to undo all his vandalism. --Zundark, 2001 Dec 2

Sounds excellent - who's got the coding chops to pull it off? (BTW this discussion about the Short-term ban facility SHOULD be moved to Meta) - MMGB

Because we're changing software anyway, such thing should be coded into PHPWiki. Try contacting Magnus Manske. --Taw

PHPWiki, I believe, is the name of a different PHP-based Wiki script. This script doesn't really have any name other than "Wikipedia PHP script" or "Magnus Manske's PHP script". --TheCunctator

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Moved from the main page:

Some vandals enjoy the satisfaction of seeing lots of comments about their work in Recent changes. Hence to minimise the fuss, just enter the letters "VR" as a comment, and choose "minor edit". This informs the other editors that a page has been repaired, but keeps the fanfare to a minimum.

I'm uncomfortable with making assertions about what other people's intentions or desires are; and "minimizing the fuss" often leads to unintentional suppression of useful information. I think it might be a better idea to keep this on meta; then it won't clutter up the main Wikipedia, but it will make sure that everyone's actions are clearly defined and accountable.

I believe that accountability is more important than worrying about whether idjots get satisfaction out of hearing their name in print. If we don't treat them like outlaws, they won't have anything to fight against. Branding juvies as "vandals" will just encourage them. (Of course, this is just one side...) --TheCunctator

I then promptly restored the deleted text, as Cunctator seems to have missed the point of the guideline - it is to provide a simple, understated method for editors to fix vandalised pages and notify others they have done so, and thus not trip over each other trying to figure out which pages have or have not been repaired. The simple code of "VR" is discrete, while still serving its purpose. MMGB

You not only restored the deleted text, but also deleted some of my additions. If you disagree with them, unless you feel that they must be removed immediately to protect Wikipedia, I would appreciate it if you expressed your disagreement here. Please stop making ad hominem attacks ("Cunctator seems to have missed the point of the guideline"). I have not impugned your talents for comprehension; rather, you seem very intelligent, though short with me. --TheCunctator

Actually there was no disagreement, that was simply a lack of diligence - I failed to check to see if there were any other changes. My apologies. - MMGB