Wikipedia talk:Deny recognition/Archive 2

Poll

This proposal was discussed between 26 March and 11 May 2006, during which time it received the support of fifteen users and the opposition of two users. All users who stated their position have been contacted to notify them of the poll, except two (one support who is indefinitely blocked, and one oppose who strongly disapproved of being notified). —{admin} Pathoschild 06:48, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

This poll is no longer active. —{admin} Pathoschild 04:09, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Support

1. Support as proposer. —{admin} Pathoschild 06:48, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
2. Strong Support as just good common sense. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 10:56, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
3. Support per previous unofficial vote. — Tangotango 15:20, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
4. Support. See my comments wherever I left them last time. Andre (talk) 15:37, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
5. Support per above.--Kungfu Adam ^(talk) 16:08, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
6. Support. NoSeptember ^talk 16:25, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
7. Support CalJW 18:48, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
8. Support if.... I can support this so long as the vandal-fighter-tools are somehow preserved. That's my only concern. ---J.S (t|c) 17:57, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
   • This proposal will not affect any countervandalism tools; it is intended to remove notoriety as an incentive, not handicap countervandalism efforts. :) —{admin} Pathoschild 01:23, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
9. Support. The policy makes sense; a recent, vandal on Wikispecies stated that they would stop vandalising so long as they got an entry on LTA something akin to Willy on Wheels'. Notoriety is an incentive, in some cases, to vandalise. If this incentive can be removed... Jude (talk,contribs,email) 10:13, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
10. Support. Seems a sensible move. --MarkS 18:50, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
11. Support per the above. Gyre 23:39, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
12. Support, great idea. --Rory096 06:00, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
13. Support I don't think vandals should get any recognition at all; WP:BEANS seems to agree with you and I on this. Danny Lilithborne 03:35, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
14. Support - I'v heard more about The Communism Vandal and Willy on Wheels than about Jimbo Wales. Fortunately, it's being done - most of the list I keep at User:CP\M/User turned red; I expect the rest to be killed soon. CP/M ^comm |Wikipedia Neutrality Project| 11:57, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
15. Support - I've seen a lot of copycat behavior, often of multiple vandals. This policy is similar to the policy of sports broadcasts refusing to show fan misbehavior. Don't recognize them; don't encourage them. Fan-1967 14:32, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose. Most ironic policy ever. --Urthogie 10:33, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
2. Oppose, on the simple grounds of humour. Viewing some of the wheels account, very simply, is funny. Also, have lets say Imposters of Computerjoe give Computerjoe a sense of his place. Computerjoe's talk 15:11, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
3. Oppose, per my 'skeptical' comment below. ~ PseudoSudo 15:06, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
4. Oppose, should be (at most) an essay, not a meta-policy. Andjam 14:21, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
5. Oppose -- I've stated my objections here before; they're available in history. John Reid 08:01, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
6. Oppose -- Vandals are annoying, granted, but a policy tends to add layers that down the road become cobwebs you can't get out from under. Sorry for mixing the metaphors, but we've all seen what happens when you make laws to solve annoyances. --MILH 05:02, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

   As stated in the box above, this won't create a new policy at all. It'll merely lead to the amendment of related policies like the criteria for speedy deletion. —{admin} Pathoschild 04:29, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

7. Oppose. Documentation allows us to examine past cases, and let us think about future ones. But if it does receive enough support to change policy, I think it should only be used with great caution, even more than removing personal attacks. Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 00:21, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
8. Strong Oppose I've been reading a bit on Wikipedian history, and this does nothing to stop the vandals and makes Wikipedia basically look Stalinist. I'm new here, so I don't know how this would stop being "proposed", but hopefully it'll never be more than that. Atlantic Gateways 01:02, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

   You're comparing DenyRecognition to the Russian Great Terror? Blatant vandals are not part of a political movement, and the page doesn't encourage imprisonment or mass execution. Refusing to build templates to vandals has nothing to do with an historical period of widespread political repression and persecution. —{admin} Pathoschild 05:31, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Comments

• Polls can't decide whether policies are accepted.--Urthogie 10:34, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
  • There are a rather large number of historical precedents which show otherwise. Polls are a good way to measure community support following discussion. —{admin} Pathoschild 18:43, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
• As I said before I support the principle, and most of what is proposed here. However, I think the point about deletion of vandal userspaces should be replaced with blanking of vandal userspaces and replacing with {{Indefblockeduser}} (i.e. not one of those countless custom templates, such as {{wow}} etc). Petros471 10:54, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
• What is the policy for someone keeping track of all that has been deleted for each case, and when it should be restored if the vandal/troll returns? NoSeptember ^talk 16:25, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
  • This proposal only concerns blatant vandals. If one needs to track previous usernames to figure out that a user should be blocked, then they're not blatant vandals and are not affected by this proposal. —{admin} Pathoschild 18:32, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Blatant meme vandal

I'm a bit concerned about the phrase "blatant meme vandal". Isn't calling something that a form of recognition?

I fear it's a worse form of recognition than what currently goes on. Vandals have only become "notable" on an ad-hoc basis, whereas creating a policy would ensure that any vandal is guaranteed "notability" if they try hard enough. Andjam 11:24, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

The recognition as a blatant meme vandal would lead to deletion and loss of recognition. Thus, vandals would be faced with the irony that recognition is the best way to remain unrecognized. However, the term "blatant meme vandal" is only used on this page, which won't be policy itself. The term won't be used in the policies it will amend, such as the deletion policy. —{admin} Pathoschild 18:35, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I hope people don't use the phrase in edit summaries. Andjam 14:15, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm skeptical

I'm skeptical as to the effectiveness of this proposal. Certainly it will reduce the number of vandals, but also inhibits the future potential of counter-vandalism movements.

Deciding which categories "serve no useful purpose" is very subjective to who you're asking. I feel as if Category:Wikipedia:Inappropriate username blocks is a source of knowledge; what's a better example for users and administrators to decide by what are inappropriate usernames?

I would personally support the creation of a page to the extent of Wikipedia:Vandals by tactic, so as a fairly new RC patroller, if I notice a particular pattern happening over a couple of days I can have a place to alert others and possibly write a regex to catch the diffs before they slip unnoticed through recent changes. This defies WP:BEANS as well as WP:DENY, but is the most effective way to catch new meme vandals recently on the rise.

This proposal would have to do a lot more to stop vandals seeking notoriety, such as to delete WP:LTA pages in their entirety. I'm worried that the measures outlined by this proposal will only hinder vandal-fighters; I think an active approach to vandalism is always the best approach. ~ PseudoSudo 15:06, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Inappropriate usernames, by their nature, should be obvious. There is no need for reference lists to recognize random strings of characters (User:1578187654348713441248131461), non-Roman scripts (User:땡이), curse words (User:Τroll penis), offensive names (User:!!!!!!!!!!Linuxfaggot is the gayest piece of shit on wikipedia), impersonations (User:ṀARMOT), or usernames obviously intended to boost their position in the categories (User:!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). If you need to refer to a list, then they probably shouldn't be blocked under the inappropriate clause of the username policy, which is very clear on what is considered inappropriate.

New account creations are closely watched by the countervandalism channels (see m:IRC channels#Countervandalism_channels); patterns are quickly recognized as they occur, and are blacklisted (often with regex) for bot tracking. Doing so with a category unnecessarily duplicates these efforts, and is entirely pointless— you'd be working from an outdated and incomplete list, since many blocked usernames are not tagged.

This proposal isn't intended to entirely eliminate notoriety as an incentive, only significantly weaken it without handicapping countervandalism efforts. —{admin} Pathoschild 02:04, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

If so, then, while I think I support deletion of the general "blocked" categories and lists, I suggest that we remove Sock puppets, and Suspected vandalbots as targets for removal, since they are more specific, and, I would presume, more useful for prevention, and aren't as useful for noteriety. - Jc37 16:43, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

This handicaps it because it deletes information that may be useful to a new admin and/or vandal fighter.--Crossmr 22:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Offensive username proposal

I started Wikipedia:Offensive username proposal without knowing that this proposal was underway - I think they would work well together. bd2412 T 22:11, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

WP:LTA subpages

SDhould we delete all of WP:LTA subpages to their entirety? -- FrostytheSnowman ^('sup?) 15:47, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

They do serve a purpose, and the proposal (now an essay) explicitly stated that they should be considered separately. Whether their usefulness outweighs the hefty notoriety they provide vandals is a matter of debate. —{admin} Pathoschild 04:11, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

This page is only an essay and not a policy, but it is being treated as a policy. Anomo 04:08, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Not at all; it's cited as an essay, much as Ignore all rules (or Don't ignore all rules). For discussion on making it policy, see "Indef blocked userpages - new policy" on the Administrators' noticeboard. —{admin} Pathoschild 04:24, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... I can't find much info on handling them. It only goes to the category page that says, "Essays about Wikipedia and related topics. These are not policy and are primarily opinion pieces." Anomo 05:40, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

irony of Herostratus see also

Herostratus is the name of an administrator. Anomo 04:30, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

RfC

I just added the vandal subpages] deletion debate to rfc.---Scott3 _{Talk Contributions Count: 950+} 22:39, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I assume that link to rfc was intended to point to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Style issues. —{admin} Pathoschild 03:51, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Evidence of notoriety-seeking?

I still haven't seen any evidence that the "vandal hall of fame" actually encourages vandalism. This seems to be speculation. --causa sui ^talk 00:26, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, no, the recent juvenile-feline-obsessed vandal didn't ever say "Hey everyone! I've thought of an eye-catching way to vandalise and I've got an ISP that will allow me to create lots of socks! Where's my unique sockpuppet template? Oh there it is, thanks!" But it's not really the sort of thing people say, and I can't think what actual 'evidence' you're expecting to see. IMO, it may be speculation, but it's speculation rooted in a very strong understanding of people's craving for attention, consistent with how Internet trolls generally work. On the other hand we have very little that justifies ignoring the basic Internet law of 'don't feed the trolls'. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 00:33, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

If you're looking for an admission from a vandal that they're seeking notoriety, please see Administrator intervention against vandalism (oldid 46068278). Of particular relevance are "To do list: [...] Become notorious" and "Start getting the pencil and pad out, from what I plan to do, you all better make a page for me like you all have done for the Wikipedia is Communism and Willy on Wheels! vandals. [...] By the way, I’d prefer to call myself either “the perfect vandal” or better yet, the “Why was I blocked?” vandalized[...].". —{admin} Pathoschild 00:54, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

On that note, see also Wikipedia talk:Long term abuse (oldid 11349398), where a user claiming to be a notorious vandal claims notoriety (through Google bombing vandal userpages) to be their goal. —{admin} Pathoschild 01:29, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Are you sure that's what they want? Just because there vandalising wikipedia pages saying that they want to be recogntion doesn't mean that what they want.---Scott3 _{Talk Contributions Count: 950+} 03:36, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

The comparison links I provided above are just supporting evidence for the well-known fact that trolls like to be fed, as Sam Blanning pointed out above. Returning your question, do you have any evidence that indefinitely keeping User:Hall Monitor is an unfair jerk who never answers questions containing {{attackuser-m|Hall Monitor}} helps countervandalism and does not in any way encourage vandals à la Herostratus? Does the fact that the page is indexed by google make a difference? —{admin} Pathoschild 10:13, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

"Don't feed the trolls" is good advice to a point, but WP:LTA pages help administrators fight vandalism by keeping track of the strategies of some of the most common vandals. I think that the example of ThePowerOfChaos's edit to AIV was a more extreme example. If I see some vandal and know that it's just one of the more well-known vandals, then it helps me because I can give him an immediate indefinite block rather than cycling through WP:WARN like I usually do with first-time vandals. We just shouldn't present it as a "gallery of all-star vandals"... maybe more as a short, one-page list of certain people to watch for, like the list of most vandalized pages. --Idont Havaname (Talk) 20:48, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

This all seems to me a bit like saying news media shouldn't make reports about terrorist attacks because then they wouldn't be effective at creating terror. There will still be vandalism whether we have these pages or not. The only difference is that the lack of information will make it harder to fight. --causa sui ^talk 20:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[1] is an example of the sock of one prolific vandal asking for an LTA page --pgk 12:34, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Deleting information

I personally thought those pages were immensely useful in identifying why future incarnations of the editors are blocked on sight. For example, they may often try to mix in "good" edits with the bad ones so it can be difficult at times to keep up with the latest "automatically blocked list of users". However, I can see how they may be construed as benificial to the vandals in question. So, the question is where does one then go for their vandal information :D? For example, without these pages one may have to dig through 5000 edits or something to find what could be presented on one nice little page - this isn't beneficial to anyone and likely leads to more accusations of admin abuse etc.. Maybe just keep the ones that have reappeared in the last 90 days or something? RN 03:23, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

It would make a lot more sense to put a time limit on keeping pages, otherwise it causes problems for vandal fighters and dealing with identifying those. While you might argue that any experienced vandal fighter may be well aware of all major issues and problem users currently, what about in 6 months, or a year? This type of thing makes things much less friendly and inviting to new users when information is being removed. This proposal is ill thought out, and there really should be more discussion before pages are continually deleted en masse. --Crossmr 21:59, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Proposal vs guideline or Policy

From what I've seen, this has become a very popular essay to be used. Perhaps it could become a guideline? —this is messedrocker (talk) 21:32, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to propose it. :) —{admin} Pathoschild 02:37, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Is this essay a proposed guideline or policy? -- FrostytheSnowman ^'sup? 20:56, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Just an essay, which is apparently almost like a proposed guideline, but not. Certainly not policy. (That said, it's good sense.) +sj + 21:53, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

In a few days this proposal seems to have changed the way we deal with recording vandalism. I guess we should stick a policy tag on it. --Tony Sidaway 15:03, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

did. ++Lar: t/c 15:16, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Talk page time : )

Scrolling up, I see that others have already commented that it's not policy, though could be considered close to a guideline.

While I agree that it's being used as a rationale for "actions" and "opinions", that doesn't mean that it's justified to do so.

To use some allegories:

• Just because a group of individuals claim "might makes right", that doesn't make that the policy on Wikipedia : )
• Just because a group of individuals claim that fair use images can be used anywhere, doesn't make it Wikipedia policy.

Besides that, I suggest that you read:

• Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#How are policies started?
• Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#The differences between policies, guidelines, essays, etc.

Specifically:

• A guideline is something that is: (1) actionable and (2) authorized by consensus. Guidelines are not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception. Amendments to a guideline should be discussed on its talk page, not on a new page - although it's generally acceptable to edit a guideline to improve it.

That's very much the goal of this essay, and please look at the associated list, for comparison.

To take it a step further, if you nominate it for guideline, I would likely vote for it. : )

- Jc37 17:24, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Guideline, policy, call it what you like. It's Wikipedia policy. And no, we're not going to vote on it. --Tony Sidaway 17:33, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate you taking the time to share your point of view, but since it is totally counter to the 5 pillars, I obviously must disagree.

btw... who's "we"? : ) - Jc37 17:38, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I can't make sense of your responses. I've tagged it as a guideline, which you have indicated you would accept. The meaning of "We" in this case should be obvious. --Tony Sidaway 17:50, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Which responses? I would be more than happy to clarify. And no, to me, the "we" wasn't/isn't obvious. Because I still don't think the two three of us can make this decision alone, I'll start a straw poll below. - Jc37

"Guideline" is OK with me, too (though I'd like to see it become policy at some point). It seems to have gathered quite a bit of support recently. Antandrus (talk) 17:58, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I will support if revert becomes deletion of record of vandalism. If there is no record of vandalism then that will be really denying recogntiion. WP doesn't need waste bandwith and memory on keeping records of vandalism. But of cource it shouldn't be done all the time just on WP:LTAers---Scott3 _{Talk Contributions Count: 950+} 20:44, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean, for example, a "destructive rollback" button, which when clicked would remove the previous edits from the article history entirely? (Interesting idea; I wonder if it has been debated somewhere?) Antandrus (talk) 23:30, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Straw poll

Well, wow.

On one hand, I wondering what you all are so afraid of. (I am, of course, referring to the repeated removal of an attempt to start a straw poll, in order to determine concensus about whether this should actually be a guideline, as according to actual Wikipedia policy.)

On the other, presuming that you all aren't just sock or meat puppets, I suppose that I could be content that we've at least begun to find out concensus. (Well, at least we can see one side of it : )

As I said, I don't necessarily oppose this as a guideline, but, again, wow at the lack of good faith. - Jc37 18:51, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't doubt your good faith in this. Your proposal to have a poll, however, did not command support. --Tony Sidaway 18:53, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

"command support"? - Jc37 18:55, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

It was opposed by three other editors, each of whom went so far as to remove it. --Tony Sidaway 18:59, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I was under the impression that you weren't to remove anything from a talk page (except to move it or archive it), save blatant vandalism. But be that as it may, perhaps the sentiment was correct, and I should have made this an RfC to begin with. Thank you for your help : ) - Jc37 19:06, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

• I believe the point Tony makes here is that proposals are not, as a rule, decided upon by voting on them (which, incidentally, is the very next line after the quote you made from WP:POL; see also WP:VIE). Removing other people's comments is not very nice, but a poll is not really a comment, and polls tend to create a barrier to further comments. So instead we ask, what are the objections to this proposal, and discuss those. HTH! >Radiant< 16:53, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Success of WP:DENY and strong consensus

The following deletion discussions were found by examining the links to WP:DENY:

• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Kitten Vandal
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Willy on Wheels 2
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Willy on Wheels/Appearances outside of the English Wikipedia
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Long term abuse/North Carolina vandal
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Outoftuneviolin
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit (second nomination)
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit (third nomination)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yahoo! trolling phenomena (second nomination)
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Blocked users with bizarre usernames
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Stephen Colbert's Neologisms Lack Truthiness

In nearly every case, longstanding pages have been deleted, and the arguments that have carried the day have been those presented in WP:DENY.

In the circumstances, the onus is on those who would argue that this is not a guideline or official policy of Wikipedia to present evidence to refute this evidence of strong support. --Tony Sidaway 23:05, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Official policy sounds a little strong, but this may be entering guideline territory. — xaosflux ^Talk 05:52, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Not to be snarky (really!), but this is a bizarre argument coming from you, Tony. You know better than anyone that support doesn't turn a bad policy/guideline/whatever into a good one. --causa sui ^talk 16:32, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I know nothing of the sort. Wikipedia guidelines are precisely descriptions of what prevails on Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway 10:48, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

List of reasons why this is a bad idea?

OK, there are some people who don't like this, and there are some people who are sceptical as to whether it will achieve much in the way of vandal reduction. I've heard one sensible person arguing for preserving the odd exceptional LTA page on a more subtle vandal. But can those opposed help me? Can they set down their reasons why this is in principle a bad idea? Why the notion is harmful? Please be explicit. Because, so far, I'm seeing no coherent reason why this isn't in general a good idea. Maybe I'm missing somthing? --Doc 23:39, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

It's unfunny? To be serious though, I'd selectively oppose it due to the fact that it removes a significant portion of Wikipedia's record. Because of this, I'm opposed to its being used as a retroactive law on existing pages. I have no problems with its being applied to future vandals, but deleting all reference to, for our most famous example, Willy on Wheels, including his archived case on the Long Term Abuse page, simply erases a major piece of Wikipedia's cultural history. I think some people also oppose it due to "zomg censorship!" reasons. --tjstrf 00:53, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I already raised some points up where it says "Deleting information". It isn't an objection, but a call for a bit more brainstorming on the issue... right now, my current thought is that perhaps read-only admin access for vandal pages might be an idea. I'd encourge people to think of ways to improve the proposal. RN 06:23, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Administrators do in effect have read-only access to all deleted pages. --Tony Sidaway 11:00, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to see admin-only access, but only if we could actually update the pages. Right now, there is no easy way to:

1. Edit a deleted page
2. Watchlist a deleted page
3. Post talk message and other communication related to a delted page
4. Etc

If there were some way to make the pages function as normal Wikipedia pages, but only be viewable to admins, that would be great. Of course, you would get accusations of cabalism and "secret police" or whatever. But, whatever. --causa sui ^talk 16:35, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

That's a good point, actually... RN 11:07, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

• My main objetion is that there isn't any evidence that this will reduce vandalism. --causa sui ^talk 16:35, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
  • On the other hand, neither is there evidence that keeping this information will help fight vandalism. And any psych student will tell you that attention seeking is a plausible motive for at least some vandals.
  • I think the main point here is that we're keeping way too many records. All the information we need to fight off present vandals could probably fit on a single, neutral page. A Category:Impostors of Jimbo or List of non-Wikipedia sockpuppets of Willy simply serves little purpose, if any. We don't really need to know that pageblanking or massive page moves is the modus operandi of any particular known vandal; we only need to know that if an account does nothing but vandalize in whatever way, we block them.
  • Of course this proposal should not be blindly invoked to strike any and all information on vandals, only the parts that aren't actually useful (which, incidentally, seems to be about 90% of it, but keeping info on linkspammers and subtle vandals sounds like a good idea) and possibly any vanity-seeming userpages of said vandals. The irony is that such information shouldn't really go to WP:MFD because in effect that's creating yet another page with (meta-)information on vandals.
  • Bottom line, we don't need excessive record-keeping. WP:NOT a bureaucracy. >Radiant< 16:53, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Hi Radiant! I didn't know you had returned to the project. I'm very happy to see you commenting on this issue. :-)
    • Unfortunately, I don't think you've answered my objection here. I still don't see evidence that this will reduce vandalism. If the pages are in fact not useful, then they aren't hurting anything. Anecdotaly, I've found them quite useful myself, since about 90% of my edits on the article namespace are vandalism related. Now, that doesn't establish that they are generally useful, but it does establish that they are useful to someone, and I think the precedent toward inclusionism ought to apply here. --causa sui ^talk 20:52, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

• I repeat my question - why is this a bad idea? Because I'm still getting no coherent answer. I'm only seeing two things said:

1. "Record keeping is good". But why is it good, and why is it helpful? I certainly don't want to delete anything that helps revert vandalism. Ryan Delaney says 'I've found them quite useful myself' - could he please be specific. If he can show what has been useful and why, then I'd certainly not want to delete it.
2. "There's no evidence that this will reduce vandalism". That's not actually a good argument in itself. If deleting vanal-cruft it is not harmful, and it might do some good, then there is no loss and a possible gain in doing so. Further, there is evidence that vandals are interested in their records. M62Manchester was one of those tagging and categorising indef blocked accounts - checkuser showed him also to be responsible for vandal accounts. There are several other single purpose accounts that have also been vandal record keeping - I'm highly suspicious of them. So there is at least some evidence that WP:DENY might be a helpful principle - so I ask again what is the actual practical downside to adopting this that counterballances that possitive possibility? --Doc 21:22, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

There is only one major downside, and that's when a single purpose account designed for vandalism does pattern vandalism, they should be blocked quickly, without the need for counting up the warnings. If you know the account is going to just be a vandalism account, as newbie vandalism isn't pattern vandalism, why bother warning for it? But that's the trick. How do you record certain types of recent pattern vandalism without giving recognition and self-satisfaction to them? Where's the limit? But there is no question that the concept behind deny recognition is a good idea, its how far to take it to eliminate the glee from vandalism. The person who joins wikipedia today, and in 2 years is an admin, how to tell them that replacing a page with a sickle and hammer image as the first edit an account makes should be something warrenting an immediate block? How much information do they really need in order to make that decision? That is the merit of why this proposal needs discussion before its really a guideline to be followed. Kevin_b_er 22:04, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Doc. You said that my request for evidence that the vandal pages encourage vandalism is not an argument. That is accurate; I am not making an argument here. I view this as an issue of burden of proof. I do not consider the burden of proof to be on me to show that the articles are not harmful; rather I consider it to be on those who support this essay to show that they are. Does that clarify your difficulty? --causa sui ^talk 22:13, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but it still doesn't answer it. Even if there is only a possible benefit in adoping this, if there is no downside, then there is no reason not to do it. What's th downside? Futher I think the evidence of benefit is actually quite strong (see above). --Doc 22:17, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Here's one downside: It makes even more redlinked pages, and destroys the context of talk page posts. In other words, it damages the archive. When we revert vandals, the edits are left in the history, and people can go back and see what people were talking about. When you actually delete the pages, you can't. Under this, unless you're an admin you cannot effectively read archives or tell what people are talking about when they mention some long-dead vandal unless you were there.

By deleting all the records, but still making it bannable to impersonate them, we turn major vandals from "Oh, he was this moron, and we banned him, as you can see here, here, and here" into a legend. Only now, due to the deletions, he's a mysterious legend. In other words, for an archive reader WP:DENY has an inverse effect to the one it's intended to have, making the vandal larger than life. --tjstrf 23:09, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Eh? --Doc 07:30, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I hadn't even thought of this. A clearer record is inherently more useful than any sort of mythological status that could be gleaned by troublemaking vandals. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:13, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Vandals favor this guideline too

I'm currently trying to examine this deeper, but Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Dr_Chatterjee shows that a vandal was actually active in pushing for this as a guideline/policy. The vandals want vandal info pages deleted? What? Some sense needs to be made of this. To a degree, the cutting down of things like Willy seems appropreate, as according to an email on the listserv, there were 6 people participating in it and its likely people have been duplicating that for fun. The communism vandalism is like to the point of , and many of the bad nickname vandals. The trick is to cut down on vanity for the vandals, while not destroying information pertaining to tracking them. The kind of irony is severe. The person behind Dr Chatterjee is also responsible for vandalism involving the identity 'bobby boulders', but checkuser shows them to have also done pagemove vandalism. Yet Dr. Chatterjee argues greatly that the 'bobby boulders' identity is not after a pagemove vandal when his LTA page was deleted by Cyde! So what, we've got a vandal who had fun with pagemove vandalism, then decided he wanted to make a personal glorification for himself. He or she decided to take up the name bobby boulders, and possibly enlist others to help. After the deletion of his subpage, he tried to target other stuff. See this. His rival subpage is deleted, though it probably should've gone anyways, but so is his/her. Ha, funny. The trick is that we find a good way to see to the erasure of their petty nonsense's identities without unrecording information to quickly render their attempts at damaging the encyclopedia useless. Kevin_b_er 21:56, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Who the fuck cares what the vandals think, or what they do? revert block ignore, move on. --Doc 21:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Uhm, this entire proposal is based on a psychic reading of the mind of the wily Wikipedia vandal. Saying we don't care what they think is obviously untrue, since we're discussing this propsal. --tjstrf 22:02, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't care, no one should, that's why I support this policy. --Doc 22:05, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, caring enough to go around hosting MfD's, large talk page discussions, and undoing the work of other editors just so that you can spite the fame-seeking vandals is far more "caring" than just slapping a "yet another idiot sockpuppet of x" template on them ever will be. If you really didn't care, you would not participate in the discussion at all, as it's just one more supposed glorification of them.

This entire proposal is based on spiting the motivations of certain vandals. However, the fact that certain vandals support it either means they've moved beyond merely disrupting articles into attempting to disrupt the meta, and are playing games with our discussions, or that its premise is inherently flawed. --tjstrf 22:16, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Utter codswallop! Vandalism is countered by revert block ignore. The role-playing game of cops and robbers is just bs, which both distracts from the encyclopedia and encourages vandals to enter into the same game. We've got hard evidence that's what's happening. This isn't psychoanalysis it's just common sense. --Doc 23:40, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh yes, I want to revert the vandalism and then get an admin to block them. Then I want to be rid of them from sight and mind(ignored) so I can go back to seeing the encyclopedia grow nicely. Revert block ignore is probably what they did years ago, then it got annoying enough that they started recording it. They must've recorded too much, and we're at now. If every last tidbit of information about vandalism is deleted, then people will get slowly get dumb about it, and I don't want to see 4 years down the road some new admin thinking that some newer editor reporting an account needs to be given a warning for moving a page to its name with "on goodyears" at the end. RBI could be applied in excess, and newbies get bitten. But as long as there's enough information to differentate that, everything's cool. As I said, need to record just enough to know what to do. Anything more could glorify or be a how-to guide. And the what-to-record needs to be specified better. Kevin_b_er 06:59, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

So stick a sentence on the username blocking bit of the blocking policy to point out certain vandal memes that should be instantly blocked. But the problem with your argument is that a) it isn't the end of the world if these accounts are not instantly blocked. b) I routinely block vandal accounts at creation - and I've never read an LTA page in my wiki-life. I suspect I'm not alone in that.--Doc 07:28, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

To me, this is all a waste of time. That's my verdict. :) --Woohookitty^(meow) 12:14, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

From my point of view the ones who have got LTA pages have done so because they are active over a period of time. Those doing RC Patrol soon notice a new format of vandalism. Along the same line as Doc, I've blocked plenty of these and I've never felt the need to read an LTA page to tell me history behind them. As to if everyone forgets, to me this seems unlikely, but assuming it does happen does it really matter if we have no page move vandalism for the next 4 years, that we then get a week or two when we have to deal with it as if it were a new form of vandalism? Quite honestly if someone offered me that deal 4 years of no type x vandalism, but then a week where you have to get up to speed again, I'd quite happily take it. Blatant vandalism will always be readily recognisable and blockable. --pgk 18:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Whether bobby/wow/kitten/etc supports or opposes this is irrelevant. There are two possible scenarios:

1. They like WP:DENY, so they push for it. They didn't mean to get caught, and did.
2. They don't like WP:DENY, so they push for it. They meant to get caught, did, and now we're saying that they want it, so let's trash it, playing into their hands.

It's a psychological game. Who gives a flying rip what they think. --Chris (talk) 06:22, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Oppose proposal

By nature vandals are attention seeking people, and the barebone logic behind this proposal (from what I understand) is that if you take that away what vandals want (attention/recognition), vandals wont be vandalising as much as they would get bored.

However in my opinion, this proposal emboldens vandals. Vandals will now be much more destructive to get their "recognition"/"attention". Even if we dont give them what they want, they will still work "hard" for it.

That is at the very least apperant with Dr Chatterjee's case, or shall I call that WoW, BB or wharever. The deletion of CVU is warmly welcome by him.

Furthermore this lack of information makes it harder to deal with vandalism. Information such as what ip ranges WoW uses is more than useful. Keeping track of the user accounts created by him or his imposters can also be useful, I made heavy use of that when writing my vandalism detection bot. Those keywords were more than useful.

--Cat out 17:59, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Vandals and other attention seeking people have always existed throughout history. People like Herostratus will exist weather or not we have an article about Herostratus or not.

Vandalism is no big deal, nor is it a state secret.

--Cat out 22:16, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Useful information?

It is my opinion that, unlike articles, pages in Wikipedia space need to be useful (or funny, I suppose) in order to be kept. "It does no harm" is no compelling reason to keep pointless clutter in our project space. The main argument against deletion of vandal-related pages is that some of the information would, in fact, be useful. Note that nobody here suggests blanket deletion of such pages, only of the parts that are pointless or vandal aggrandizement.

So the obvious question is, what of the vandal-related pages are useful, and what for? And I'm talking about real usability, not hypothetical situations. Now frankly I'm not familiar with all of those pages, but if a disruptive account is permablocked I don't see any need at all to neatly pigeonhole it as an "imposter of foo" or "sockpuppet of bar". It's a permablocked vandal, so who cares? Similarly, I fail to see the point of Wikipedia:Favorite pages of banned users. I'm sure the main list page WP:LTA is useful as a noticeboard, but please point out the other useful stuff. >Radiant< 20:04, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

This sort of debate is puzzling to me. Some people do apparently find these pages useful. If you go around deleting everything you think isn't useful, sometimes you'll be right, and sometimes you'll be wrong. Is it worth the times you'll be wrong to go through the debate and process and drama to delete all that "clutter"? The people who do think it's useful will obviously not want to let it go because they feel like they are losing something, both in terms of past effort (effort taken to create these pages) and future effort (the expected gain). Why not just leave it alone? --causa sui ^talk 20:13, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

• Yep, that's why I'm asking "which parts are useful" before deleting anything. This guideline needn't state "delete everything", it could give an indication of what is and is not necessary. If people indeed find all of these pages useful, that would be a surprise to me. >Radiant< 21:38, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
• In general I think it is best to bring any contentious case to MFD, and the community will be able to decide whether or not the benefits on keeping such tabs on vandals outweighs the benefit. Although a page like Administrator intervention against vandalism, gives attention and a brief recognition of vandals, it is a functioning page with an obvious benefit, and I don't think we would get a consensus to delete that. I remember tagging the WoW and WiC pages for deletion over a year ago and losing (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vanity pages for vandals) because several users at that time felt that the pages were beneficial in combatting the vandals. I disagree with them, but fair enough. Attitudes towards such pages have obviously changed over the past year and both pages are gone now. In general, I think WP:DENY has some very useful arguments against such pages, but it should be used as an argument in a broad discussion, and not on the whim of a single admin who decides to delete right there. Arguments against inclusion of indiscriminate lists, speculation on future events, one-man companies, etc. have also made their way to guideline status, but are still only used as arguments in a discussion where people may present valid counterarguments. By putting more borderline cases up for discussion, a decision which everyone accepts and respects is far more likely. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:17, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Compromise?

Would supporters of this measure be satisfied if we could get the devs to implement a page protection level that included "viewable only by admins"? --causa sui ^talk 13:59, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that's neccessary. I think there's a consensus for the principle, but also a consensus that stuff that is actually and specifically useful should not be deleted. Perhaps we need to list the different things that WP:DENY might encompass and try to work out what is 1) vandal-forensic cruft - which should be speedied. 2) What is actually useful and for which a real convincing case can be made - which should be kept whilst it remains useful - but minimised. 3) What is debatable, borderline, or about which we have no consensus - which should also be kept or only be deleted upon a successful xfD.--Doc 14:27, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

• I wholeheartedly agree with that. >Radiant< 21:26, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

All right well this sounds like a jumping off point for discussion -- it sure beats unilaterally speedying all of the anti-vandalism pages outright. --causa sui ^talk 22:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

To make a page viewable only by administrators, you can delete it. There is no need for extra developer work, and I'd rather see them get on with other stuff that we need. --Tony Sidaway 00:32, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Deleting it to make it read-protected cures the disease by killing the patient because it's far too much effort to update the pages. If you won't accept any compromise, discussion is pointless. --causa sui ^talk 02:29, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, being able to update the pages would be good. This could be achieved equally well by using an external, private, wiki. You can get one at schtuff.com. No need to bother the busy devs. --Tony Sidaway 02:38, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

And then vandals would get their "notoriety" from the off-wiki site instead. Again, I'm not optimistic about the productivity of this line of dialogue. --causa sui ^talk 02:54, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely not. schtuff.com wikis, for instance, have full access control systems. The dialog will only become productive if you accept that you may not know everything and that the suggestions I'm making could be implemented here and now by anybody who wants to. No developer expertise required, no long waits for the devs to code and test. Just do it. --Tony Sidaway 03:27, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

It's incredible to me that you could turn this into a personal issue. I'm not going to respond to this anymore. --causa sui ^talk 13:47, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I've toned it down a bit. --Tony Sidaway 05:04, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to agree with what Doc said above, but doing things like going after the CVU is deleting everything including that which is useful. In that same way, I'd like to agree with the basic idea of what this essay is, but it seems to me that this is just a way to sneak in flat out deletion rational instead of improvement. I'm sorry that some people want to glorify vandals (even if they don't mean to), and I agree with many of the points made, but the spirit of discussion is going down the wrong path. We're supposed to improve things, not destroy things. I don't think WP:DENY will be used responsibly, but instead it's a knee-jerk reaction out of frustration. We all know that stuff like this happens with articles, where two editors disagree so one of them makes a POV fork of the article. We don't allow that, so why is this different? If you don't agree with how some pages and groups (such as the CVU) handle things then change the issue there and place this as a guideline in those places. Right now this is just a band-aid. -- Ned Scott 01:13, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

In other words, I agree with the text, but it seems to have different meaning to different people right now. A lot of that misinterpretation has to do with how these recent events have been handled, causing a lot of mistrust and resentment. -- Ned Scott 01:15, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Number of mirrors

"Vandal userspaces are archived and exported to over twenty thousand mirror websites, including highly visible websites like About.com"

Most don't bother with the wikipedia namespace and I don't think we have 20,000 mirrors.Geni 01:57, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree 20,000 seems like a lot. Æon ^{Insanity Now!}_EA! 03:38, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

That number was derived from the number of Google-indexed mirrors of a given userpage, although in retrospect the number is flawed. It counts one mirror's copy of several projects as several mirrors, for example. I've changed "twenty thousand" to "hundreds". —{admin} Pathoschild 16:27, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

how many grab the wikipedia namespace? In a form that can be acessed?Geni 22:36, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

for the record User:genidealingwithfairuse gives four results. Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Genisock2 produces 2. "Requests for adminship/Genisock2" produces fewer still.Geni 22:41, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

"Willy on Wheels" produces 34,800 results (the phrase "This user is a suspected sock puppet of Willy on Wheels" obtains 9,740). On a lesser note, "User:Pathoschild" produces 13,200 from the dozen or so user pages I have. —{admin} Pathoschild 03:20, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

that is because theuy appear on wikipedia a lot and google finds them all. by comparison the ones I used only appear in a very small number of places in wikipedia so they gave a much better idea how much they are mirrored.Geni 11:38, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

By the way, Google shows Wikipedia pages that are not up-to-date, as well as the current version. That is why you get a lot of search results of Willy on Wheels.

site:en.wikipedia.org "Willy on Wheels" returns only 3,290 pages. —{admin} Pathoschild 03:40, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Start off somewhere

Okay, just to find some common ground to start from - does anyone disagree with me that the following are pointless and thus deletable:

1. Any categories or templates of "this user is an imposter of <foo>", as that is generally bloody obvious from the username
2. Any list or page about vandalism in wikis unrelated to Wikipedia, as it is not our job to coordinate worldwide vandal control.

• >Radiant< 19:09, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

The second one is unquestionably useless in my opinion. Only information about the Wikipedia project should go in the Wikipedia namespace. As for the first, categories are most likely not needed. Templates can be useful but I would let them go in favor of a generic one since people can always look at the block log to find out why the user was blocked. --causa sui ^talk 19:47, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

the second one has use in the case of trying to predict future attack styles.Geni 23:22, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

That's really a stretch. Since we're trying to compromise I think it's something we ought to let go. --causa sui ^talk 04:59, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I see no reason to compramise with something that is a bad idea.Geni 11:34, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Then please remove yourself from a discussion. This isn't a democracy, but it isn't a dictatorship either. --causa sui ^talk 13:14, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

interesting. Yuo take the position that other people are so closed minded that they will not withdraw from their position even when shown that it is logicaly imposible to support.Geni 13:47, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Marking as rejected

I've yet to see a valid use of or for this proposal, so I'm being WP:BOLD and marking it as rejected. Marking it as an essay was another option suggested, but this seems to run up directly against Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_censored. ^Thanks, _{Luc "Somethingorother" French} 06:18, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this proposal is a pile of crap. Knowing vandals and their patterns is necessary to defend from then. I don't know who got the ridiculous idea that vandals are doing it for recognition. Recognized vandal is much less effective than unrecognized one.  Grue  07:05, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

"Recognized vandal is much less effective than unrecognized one." absolutely. So you think the user(s) creating the "outoftune<whatever>" usernames are doing so because it's likely to keep them incognito and therefore more effective as a vandal? It is exactly that sort of stuff that suggests the motivation is more about attention and "recognition" in many cases. Why else create dozens of obvious sockpuppets name "outoftune<whatever>" which is so easily recognisable? Why move everything to "on wheels"? why have dozens of people decided to create "on wheels" usernames? etc. etc. If as a vandal you weren't attempting to be recognised you wouldn't keep these patterns and many of the LTA pages would never have been created since the absolutely bloody obvious connection between the accounts wouldn't be easily spelt out. Now there are some much more subtle vandals and having details of that can be useful, and indeed most people seem in agreement about that. The willy on wheels type vandals are so blatant that writing a page about it is at best a waste of time and worst it is giving undue recognition to a page move vandal. --pgk 11:40, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree with it either, and I think there's enough resistance to avoid marking this as any kind of policy or guideline, but it does describe the strong opinions of several users. Marking it as an essay makes most sense in my opinion. --causa sui ^talk 08:32, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the censorship policy completely applies outside of the article namespace. I would agree that this is better as an essay than a guideline. -- Ned Scott 09:38, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

• This is little if anything to do with censorship; I'd call that a straw man, actually. While I see several strong objections here, an interesting question would be how this page works in practice. Now I haven't waded through any deletion logs lately, but are pages being succesfully deleted per WP:DENY? If there are, then in my opinion we should reduce this page to something like this:

Some people believe that one motivation behind vandalism is attention-seeking. As such, it may be useful to deny recognition to vandals. If you see any page that describes vandalism and seems to serve no practical purpose, take it to WP:MFD.

• That would be a plausible guideline, I think. Speedy deletion would be appropriate only for attack pages and the vandalism itself. --Radiant! 09:50, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I think it's seen enough highly successful use to be marked as a guideline. See my thread above: "Success_of_WP:DENY_and_strong_consensus." --Tony Sidaway 10:43, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I would not call that success. -- Ned Scott 11:56, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

And would you stop editing people's signatures. -- Ned Scott 11:58, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

It's a wiki. Tony has stated that he will edit down sigs that make it hard to edit comments, if he sees them. You may not agree with it but it's within guidelines... "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it.". I found it annoying enough when it happened to me that I changed my sig to be shorter. Perhaps that was his intent. ++Lar: t/c 13:54, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Lol, this page is full of people who absolutely must have everything their way...written exactly the way they think it should be written, right down to wiki markup and so forth. They can't even let minor things go. And that's the main source of the problems with Wikipedia. Just thought I would point that out. --causa sui ^talk 14:19, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I guess I don't see how it can be effectively argued that DENY isn't at least a guideline if not actual defacto policy at this point. It's certainly not "rejected" it is used all the time. ++Lar: t/c 13:54, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we should mark it as policy or guideline, whatever. Somebody restored a whole heap of those pages yesterday but I understand they were all deleted again. It's being enforced. --Tony Sidaway 16:19, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Sounds more like it's being fought over, but that's all a question of semantics : ) - jc37 16:25, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

In this case, it was undeleted by one admin on one side, and all the MfDs, CfDs, and other admins were on the other side. —Centrx→talk • 16:37, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Compromise/start somewhere

Looking above, attempts so far seem to have degenerated into personal attacks.

We also have the "confusion" caused by several vandals/sockpuppets/etc.

However, I'm going to try to restart the discussion, since I do think at least some of what WP:DENY is trying to do does have value.

Let's start with some basics:

1. WP:DENY status:
   1. WP:DENY is currently a work-in-progress (not yet "stable") essay.
   2. Several editors would like to see it elevated to at least guideline status, and have made proposals to that effect.
2. WP:DENY content:
   1. Several editors would like to see vandal listings, such as list pages and categories, reduced (at least), including those which may be seen as "trophy" lists to the vandals themselves, and/or those which may not be effectively useful in preventing vandalism (such as "generic" block lists).
   2. This also includes such pages like: "Wikipedians who have had their user pages vandalized", or "Articles which have been vandalized" - which, depending on how one defines vandalism, could include the whole of Wikipedia.

If we can agree on the above as a starting point, then I think we'll be much more able to move forward in developing the essay. (Compare this to work on an article towards making it a featured article.) - jc37 14:26, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, nothing about those statements seems controversial. --causa sui ^talk 14:57, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

One thing about these statements that torques me off, at least, is the implication that the promotion of Internet memes is inherantly wrong. -Toptomcat 03:45, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I also agree to that. If I understand correctly, the contention is (1) the scope of what is deletable, and (2) whether it should be speediable or MFD. I think a good place to start is to mention that "vandal listings" can be listed on MFD and have in several cases been deleted as such. The good point of MFD'ing is that it allows for debate on specifics and on scope. >Radiant< 15:00, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree, this sounds good so far. -- Ned Scott 15:04, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Scope

Ok Basics for scope of what should go or stay.

Contentions:

1. Such lists may be used as "trophy" lists for vandals.
2. Such lists may be used for dealing with repeat vandalism
3. Such lists may be too expansive to be helpful
4. General "who's been blocked" lists duplicate existing admin tools
5. Some of the LTA pages/lists only exist on the basis of the vandal having been prolific in obvious vandalism, rather than any value in detecting future issues.
6. The lists can out live their initial usefulness, certain material may only be valuable in the short term.

(add any more you think appropriate at the bottom, to retain number reference consistancy for comments)

Comments

Personally, I think these block lists tend to perpetuate the idea that "once blocked, you're always considered a vandal", which is contrary to "wikilove", "Wikiquette", etc. The list in question shouldn't be about the block, but the user action which caused the user to be blocked. It's about the action, not the user (keeping in line with "no personal attacks"). I also think that lists about the targets of vandalism are not useful either, and should be removed, since they could become "reverse" trophy lists. - jc37 15:43, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you when it comes to the categories of blocked sockpuppets and think it's a good idea to avoid "branding" users as vandals with the use of these pages. I have to take strong exception when it comes to the "list of common targets" however, as this is, in my opinion, the most useful function the pages served; when a vandal hits a page, I know to check all the other pages he commonly hits for edits by sockpuppets. --causa sui ^talk 17:08, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Making my job in dealing with vandalism difficult by eliminating tools should not be the intention of this campaign (this is neither a policy, guideline or an essay but a full scale lobbying). Mass deleting pages wont prevent vandalism. Also see: #Oppose proposal.

I need information (ISP info, IP ranges, and etc) on MARMOT, WOW and other vandals in dealing with them on other wikis.

Detectable vandalism should not be discouraged. Removing a hitlist only means that the vandal will have to select a random target (some vandals already do this).

Please dont act over your analysis of human/vandal behavior (dont mass delete pages thank you). I think WP:NOR can be interpreted to apply here.

--Cat out 22:20, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Ironically, interpreting No original research to apply here would mean the immediate deletion of all relevant pages, which are original research in their entirety. That aside, MARMOT has been unblocked, and Willy on Wheels is a vandal meme (ergo having no set ISP or meaningful IP ranges). Putting that too aside, this page originally stated (explicitly) that it didn't concern informational pages like Long term abuse subpages; I think any such opposition should concern that change in particular, and not the essay itself. —{admin} Pathoschild 03:51, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. It seems that a great many "Long term abuse" pages have been deleted as an (in)direct result of this essay though. --causa sui ^talk 00:58, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

"in dealing with them on other wikis", then take it to meta, I'm sure those other wikis also have their own unique vandals are we going to start hosting information about those on en wiki also? If it's outside mediawiki wikis, take in somewhere else, the suggestion of needing this information to help me deal with vandalism have been touted before but when challenged no one has been able to actually say what they use that information for and how it helps them preventing vandalism, MARMOT as we know used NTL, the largest (or second largest) broadband ISP in the UK, that's 100s of thousands of IP addresses and 100s of transparent proxies, what value is there in that list? WoW well there isn't a WoW anymore is there, it's so generic any page move vandal is WoW in fact anyone who vaguely mentions WoW without pagemove vandalism is WoW these days. Really I understand what you are getting at that some information is useful but much of the stuff on the LTA pages is pretty worthless (allocating pretty pictures to a vandal is pointless, IP addresses for vandals who unever edit anonymously (WoW type vandals can't), is also pretty useless). etc. etc. We could probably distill the useful information down into no more than a couple of sentences and in many cases need nothing at all. (I know of at least two highly prolific vandals where there have never been LTA pages, and I've never seen huge amounts of discussion on, we've coped quite nicely with those). I'm not sure if you'll remember but a certain person once told me when describing the IRC bots functioning that the fairly simple techniques worked well because most vandals fundamentally want to get caught, blanking GWB and replacing with a picture of a penis is about attention, no one believes it will stay that way for long. The person who told me that was User:Cool_cat --pgk 09:47, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Simplify

Since I felt the discussion wasn't going anywhere in particular, in a potentially overly bold move, I have reduced this page to "Some pages glorify vandals. If you see any, drop them on MFD". That's what makes sense, and it's what we already do, and it allows for discussion on MFD on whether a page is in fact useful.

Think this could work? I'd hope so, but I'd like some feedback and additions, as always. Please do not revert unless you really really must. >Radiant< 17:08, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I've partially unsimplified it, but left it much simpler than it was before your change; some explanation and details are still needed. —{admin} Pathoschild 03:07, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Oddly enough, I see nothing in this formulation that I particularly disagree with. So it is a matter of curiosity to ponder why the other side of this debate thinks this means the Long term abuse pages should be deleted and I don't? How is our thought diverging here? --causa sui ^talk 05:40, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Messing with the tag

Messing with the tag is ridiculous. Obviously this is a de facto policy, we have implemented extremely successfully in the past few weeks. Playing silly games with the tags isn't a good idea. I propose that we either keep the existing tag or, in the interests of avoiding silly wars, remove all tags. --Tony Sidaway 01:31, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you should assume people actually have a reason for putting it up. It's obvious, obvious that this is in dispute. Why not talk it out instead of cutting off discussion and steamrolling any dissenters? That's essentially what you are doing by removing acknowledgement that this is in dispute. How could you not know an action like that would be inflammatory and distracting? What can such a childish and dismissive method of "getting your way" hope to achieve? Karwynn (talk) 01:42, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Additionally, have a read. As intentful on reducing frivolous discussion your actions may be, sometimes the best way to avoid having to deal with complaints is to not generate them in the first place. Karwynn (talk) 01:48, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

There is really nothing to be gained by such inflammatory and emotionally loaded language. Please try to discuss this rationally and with civility. Thanks. --causa sui ^talk 01:46, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, this is completely ridiculousness. It is a childish and counterproductive way to achieve one's ends, and it is hard to believe one wouldn't know that such an action would incite outrage, whether valid or not. THese sort of steamrolling is completely against any principle of consensus, and generates unnecessary conflict. THere is absolutely no reason to remove an indication of dispute - there are much better ways of dealing with people who have the "wrong" opinion than just silencing them. It shows no respect for discussion nor consensus, something we should all agree are two fundamental concepts to Wikipedia's improvement. Bluntness is not the same as incivility, by the way.Karwynn (talk) 01:51, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

• Removing all the tags seems like the best option. I don't mind calling it an essay or even a guideline, but calling it a policy suggests somehow that people who disagree are not welcome on the project, and is very alienating. --causa sui ^talk 01:44, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Even the disputed one? What's the gain in removing a notice of dispute? Karwynn (talk) 01:48, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

De Facto Policy? I don't think those exist, nor should they. Also, its relative importance is at best, guideline level. Even Vanity is just a guideline. --tjstrf 01:49, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

De facto policy exists. That's just the way it is. --Tony Sidaway 01:50, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

You just said we have a de facto existance of de facto policy. The levels of logic, justification, and coherent explanation here are overwhelming, to say the very least. Non-sarcastically, I respectfully request a reasonably well-thought explanation for why a policy, of all things, should need to be de facto rather than have a consensus-determined status. --tjstrf 02:00, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

It would seem to rely on the premise that most people who participate in discussion of Wikipedia policy don't know what's best for it. Karwynn (talk) 02:03, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Tony, if that is your attitude, it is really pointless to discuss this with you. If your mind is totally made up and you have no intention of explaining yourself to anyone, then I'm sorry but I don't think you have any authority to edit this page. I can't believe I have to say something so obvious but Wikipedia is supposed to be a collaborative project. You don't get to say "that's the way it is" as if people should just accept your view. --causa sui ^talk 02:02, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. Having the "product" of Wikipedia in mind is great, but not so much when you don't have the foresight to see what sort of conflict this action or that edit will generate. THere are others here as well, who have input in how best to write Wikipedia. Karwynn (talk) 02:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Policy is descriptive, not prescriptive. --Tony Sidaway 02:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

THe dispute is not over whether or not this should be "implemented in the future", it's about whether or not it's a good idea in the first place. I think you're misunderstanding the scope of conflict. Karwynn (talk) 02:07, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

It's already been implemented. The discussion is over and this is policy. --Tony Sidaway 02:09, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

You made that decision, did you? I guess none of our opinions matter and we should just leave the encyclopedia to you then. --causa sui ^talk 02:17, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

The discussion is obviously not over. Why on earth you would think you alone can determine that is out of my reach. You need to consider that you may be wrong about this being the best thing for Wikipedia, as is everyone else who is trying to facilitate productive discussion of the best way to prevent disruption of the encyclopedia instead of finding the most gentlemanly way to say that others' opinions are not welcome. Karwynn (talk) 02:22, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I think Tony's position arises from a perception that community agreement in a certain number of individual cases makes something policy. In order for something to actually be a policy, it must be widely considered to apply in all or nearly all cases. In other words, possess a mass consensus proven over a long period of time. The only other basises for policy are the WP:OFFICE and the Local Patron Deity. If we have not even determined what article classes exactly this essayguidepolicyline will apply to, if it is too be mass-implemented at all, we cannot fairly make it a rule of any sort. --tjstrf 02:21, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I have to say I've started to agree more and more with this essay, but the impatience that Tony, Doc, and others are demonstrating is an example of what has me worried about the intentions and future use behind all of this. What's the point in rushing this? This is a rather hidden discussion, it seems, and isn't getting the proper exposure it should to be considered a guideline or not. If this is a good idea then we shouldn't have problem going out to talk pages, requesting comments, and making this a strong consensus instead of a flimsy decision (which could all bite us in the ass down the road). In other words, it should not matter if you support this or not, if we want to make this a consensus then we should do so firmly, without doubt. No matter how frustrated you guys are, by rushing this you are only hurting the very guideline you propose. -- Ned Scott 03:56, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

It's a de facto policy. This endless foot-dragging is pointless. --Tony Sidaway 00:41, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

If it is a de facto policy then what's the big deal? Why are you afraid of discussion? And please have a bit more respect for the concerns of editors on this talk page, and try to not be such a dick about it. Calling valid and reasonable concerns "foot-dragging" is not a good way to get others to see your point of view. -- Ned Scott 07:29, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

We've already seen lots and lots of evidence that this is working exactly as intended. I'll admit, I was a bit iffy when we first started trying it out, but now that we've actually gone ahead and done some of it, the results have been great. --Cyde Weys 02:08, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Straw poll

Guys, we do not vote on proposals. >Radiant< 16:17, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

If you believe in this

(and I don't, it's a backwards, stupid idea)

Then let's see one of you "supporters" stand behind your conviction and nominate the GNAA article under WP:DENY. Any takers? Someguy555 05:56, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Failed comparison. The GNAA is not a Wikipedia vandal account, and has notability outside of the Wikipedia community. --tjstrf 06:01, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

They have vandalized WP (they hype this) and their notability is borderline, and their a troll org. They only exist to troll, and all their RS aren't. Forums? Random pages they own? Not really a bad analogy at all. Someguy555 06:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

But we aren't including them because of their wikivandalism, we're including them because of their other activities. We're also including them because we included them last time, because we included them last time, because.... This is a meta space proposal, we aren't going to use it as a justification to delete vandalism, trolling, graffiti, and Category:Crime because they glorify vandals and law-breakers. --tjstrf 06:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

This idiocy should never, ever, ever used to get rid of any encyclopedic content. Wikipedia articles do not take a stand for or against trolling, violence, or even vandalism (although I don't think any vandalism would be notable enough to be included, but anyway...). This thing is being used as a reason to remove valid links to a website because Wikipedians don't like it. End result: links to encyclopedia-supporting content that Wikipedians don't like are excluded. Karwynn (talk) 12:03, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:DENY does not and should not affect anything in the article namespace. — Dark Shikari ^talk/_contribs 13:52, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I also don't think they're not responible for any seouris vandalism. User:gnaa is a dooplanger account so I don't think they will.---Scott3 _{Talk Contributions Count: 950+} 22:43, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

The Important Difference

It seems people have lost sight of one important point... this page was reworded lately. When it was an essay, it argued for deleting quite a lot of stuff. That happened, and people objected. So now the (proposed) guideline states to discuss the issues at MFD. The guideline argues against unilateral deletion. >Radiant< 16:18, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Yet another reason not to "promote" it at this time. The new version will need discussion and test application. Actually, the current version can operate properly without being a guideline, since it merely suggests you do something without implementing any new processes. --tjstrf 16:25, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

And that sounds like what essays are for. jgp ^T_C 17:26, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Guidlines of vandal subpages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Long_term_abuse#Guidelines_on_subpages

This a good guidline for vandal subpages should this get it's guidline or could it possible be merged with WP:DENY it would be good to have somthing in the guidline about when to give recognition.---Scott3 _{Talk Contributions Count: 950+} 22:38, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

• Excellent idea. >Radiant< 23:06, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

So could put in there?---Scott3 _{Talk Contributions Count: 950+} 01:57, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

• I approve of this also. Thankfully these standards wouldn't support the deletion of information about Wikipedia's most prolific and dangerous vandals. --causa sui ^talk 02:27, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

HaH! I'm amazed that that was mentioned here. I don't know how much of it should be put where, but if you do want to take some of it and add it to this page, the most important part (IMAO) is whether or not the page/category/whatever's "...increased exposure for the vandal outweighed by the increased visibility to the Community and people who may run across them?". If I can suggest conclusions, I don't mind the idea inherent to this page's content, but I'm worried that it might be used to remove information that is far more useful to US (One way or another) then it is useful or entertaining to the malefactor. That's when it's shot itself in the foot and we (all) lose. 68.39.174.238 04:58, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Guideline status? It can work without it.

All other arguments aside this proposal/essay/whatever, like WP:TGS, does not actually need a guideline or rule status to be effective. Since it is not a speedy criteria its aims and goals can be accomplished quite nicely through the existing MfD process. In other words, the outcome of the status debate is not cardinal, and simply causing strife and reflexive backlash.

So, how about we debate on how this project page should and should not be applied? --tjstrf 00:55, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

If it is effective without the tag, it already has "guideline status". The tag would just be an accurate descriptor. —Centrx→talk • 01:18, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

He's saying that edit warring about the tag is pointless since it represents a common belief among Wikipedians. If you think it's a guideline, it is, regardless of what tag is on the page. Edit warring over it only makes the environment acrimonious and less likely to promote productive dialogue. --causa sui ^talk 04:01, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm saying that the effectiveness is independant of the "official status". Since all the suggestion consists of is nominate vandal-related articles for MfD, you can do that without needing a guideline to mandate your actions, and you can cite WP:DENY's reasoning for doing so. So, the edit war is LAME because it won't change anything no matter what the outcome is. --tjstrf 05:03, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

• It is quite true that the efficacy of this (or indeed, any) page is not related to what kind of tag it has. However, this only applies to people already familiar with it. We owe it to people unfamiliar with the page (and we get a lot of new users each day) to be properly educated about the situation, and as such we really should put proper tags on pages. Some controversial steps were made using WP:DENY, and now we have changed the wording to prevent such abuse in the future. That is important, and it means that people who oppose it on principle or history should read over it again, and make further improvement as they see fit. >Radiant< 15:24, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

User talk pages of Indef banned users

Does this also include blanking user talk pages of indefinately banned users and putting an indef banned template there? --Nearly Headless Nick 12:45, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Interesting question. I've also seen redirects from a main user page to the user's talk page. A standard should probably be set, if it isn't already. - jc37 14:30, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

"Userpages for indefinitely blocked users (except sockpuppets and banned users) that have no practical purpose should be deleted after a short while." - If an indefinitely blocked user succeeds in a request for unblocking, should the user's user page history be undeleted? - jc37 14:30, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

• Sounds reasonable. Note that redirs from mainspace to userspace are already speedily deletable. >Radiant< 16:16, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Guideline?

Wha? --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:48, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Some IP editor changed that. And then Doc reverted me when I reverted it. Personally, I think the above debate shows that we don't have consensus for it, but I'm not going to do multi-reverts over the issue. --tjstrf 22:51, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

• If it matches common practice, it is a de facto guideline. Doc claims it is often used on CFD debates; if he can back up that statement with some links then he has a very strong point. It happens at times that guidelines that document status quo are opposed by people who don't like the status quo, but since Wikipedia guidelines are descriptive rather than prescriptive this is not a very compelling argument. >Radiant< 23:03, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

• I've moved on from this discussion. WP:DENY is policy, as it is happening. Slap whatever tag you like on it, that's still the case. Mark it was 'rejected' if you like, makes no odds. The debate isn't here anymore.--Doc 23:09, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Because everyone loves unilateral declarations... And if DENY is policy, would that be the new version or the old version? And if not here, then where is the debate? --tjstrf 23:17, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

You miss the point, policy pages are ment to reflect what is happening, not create it. Look at the MfDs of vandal-cruft, and see what admins and others are actually doing (or no longer tagging) without serious objection. That's our policy, we can write up this page later. Policy pages are not legislation. --Doc 23:44, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually that's "all of the above", as shown on WP:POL. Right now, it's used the same way WP:BEANS is used. It's being used as an example, which explains an editor's opinion, without that editor needing to rewrite the essay everytime they wish to offer that opinion. In order for this to go to guideline status, it needs to have an established set of standards, among other things. Either be content that it's an essay that's found to be useful, or join in the discussion to improve it, but please let's stop the reversion and fighting. - jc37 23:56, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

As I said, I no longer care how it is tagged. My only reason for reverting was that someone had assumed bad faith with an IP. Define this how you like, I'm just going to do it - that's more useful.--Doc 00:12, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Doc glasgow. Whether it is followed as a guideline or linked to as an explanatory essay, the result is largely the same. —{admin} Pathoschild 07:05, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Moving from Essay to Guideline

Just as has been done for the change on the main page, and other potentially controversial changes/decisions in wikipedia, starting a separate page to discuss this: Wikipedia talk:Deny recognition/Guideline proposal - jc37 23:24, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

• [That page (without its template headers) is archived directly below.]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Where do we go from here?

Just as has been done for the change on the main page, and other potentially controversial changes/decisions in wikipedia, this is to discuss the essay Deny Recognition. Once the essay is determined by concensus to be in a stable form, discussion will follow to determine concensus for upgrading to a guideline.

General Comments

Making this an official policy may cause controversy with Wikipedians, and it won't help the site, rather damaging it. --VelairWight 04:12, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Making this a guideline will reduce controversy among Wikipedians, and will help the site by discouraging vandalism. // [admin] Pathoschild (^talk/_map) 16:45, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Making this policy will make no quantifiable difference, as its instructions operate entirely within existing policy. This entire page could be 2 sentences in WP:VANDAL and work just as well. --tjstrf 00:25, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Disagree

We shouldn't do things that make vandals feel honoured, that's for sure. However, I believe this is going too far. If I had gotten here a few months later than I did, I would have no idea about this "Willy on Wheels" people mention and what he did. Shall we not at least keep a paragraph or two about notorious vandals to look out for on Wikipedia:Long term abuse‽ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gray Porpoise (talk • contribs)

It might be good to clarify what precisely this will entail. It isn't clear to me whether a single paragraph note would run afoul of it. I think it wouldn't but others may disagree. JoshuaZ 00:25, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

• It wouldn't. The intent is to avoid glorifying vandals, but there's nothing wrong with documenting them in a way that helps countering their actions. If this isn't clear from the page, please edit it. >Radiant< 09:40, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

A detailed history of what Willy on Wheels did is unneccessary and probably against the spirit of this. However, a note somewhere saying that 'on wheels' is a common page move vandal meme - and such accounts should be blocked on sight, is certainly useful. Useful things should stay.--Doc 09:56, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

That's exactly what I meant. Maybe a subpage of Long-term abuse could be made, with information on the actions/account names of, and what to do when you have sighted, the infamous vandals whose subpages on LTA were deleted. --Gray Porpoise 19:20, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

A detailed history of what Willy on Wheels did is useful. --causa sui ^talk 05:58, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

No it isn't. All we need is words that say "Historically, 'Willy on Wheels' was a page move vandal, and the 'on wheels' theme is one commonly use by vandals. Any account with derivatives of this meme should be blocked on sight, such as 'x on wheels' 'x on skates' etc." Indeed we could just add a list of common vandal memes to the 'usernameblock' guidelines. --Doc 08:08, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Doc; I think all the information we need on Willy could be summarized in a sentence or two, given that there's no associated IP range or such any more with all the copycats. >Radiant< 08:29, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Hang on. If you successfully reduce all references to the "on wheels" meme to a footnote in Wikipedia history, and delete lots of pages that help people understand what happened, then I can guarantee that in 5 years time someone unaware of the history will, quite innocently, create a "X on wheels" user account, and will be ruthlessly hunted down, quite unfairly. Keep the history. Document the decisions. Avoid glamorising. These are not incompatible aims. Deletions merely cause confusion a couple of years down the line as people find themselves referring to things they can't point people at because it all got deleted. Carcharoth 01:03, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

The problem here is not a lack of documentation, it's the situation in which users are "ruthlessly hunted down". I block apparent meme usernames with a polite message to contact me by email for verification, which solves the problem of legitimate users being affected by providing a quick way to get the account unblocked. We should not forever prohibit certain words or phrases in names simply because a known vandal used them. —{admin} Pathoschild 02:10, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, the average new user coming here doesn't go and hunt out obscure (to the new user) non main space pages to see if their username may or may not be a problem. They create a name they are happy with. Sometimes that will be considered unacceptable (for various reasons) as Pathoschild says, it is how we deal with that which is important. --pgk 21:04, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

• {{usernameblock}} is supposed to be reasonably friendly for such cases. >Radiant< 07:55, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

What about CSD G5?

I have started a deletion review that concerns problems I have with the speedy deletion criterion G5 ("delete pages created by banned users"). My concern is that this currently goes too far, and what is happenning 'out there' is that people are deleting stuff on sight without checking to see if a good-faith debate or extensive good-faith editing has taken place. The basic idea is that speedy deletion of stuff created by a banned user should only take place if spotted immediately. If (during the period that the banned user remains undetected) others engage in the page or talk page, and this results in salvageable content, then G5 should not be applied. Instead, the debate, talk, or whatever, should run its course (with an appropriate tag used to notify the participants that it was started by a banned user), and the appropriate action be taken. In other words, if something useful emerges from the banned user's creation of the page, keep the useful stuff (deleting useful stuff would be like shooting yourself in the foot). If there is nothing useful, apply a "rejected" tag (to avoid repeating the debate later, and to point people at later) and move on. The argument I usually encounter against this, is that banned users are monstrous creatures that poison the minds of good, honest Wikipedians. I believe, however, that we should have more faith in the community to reject or accept the ideas, regardless of who proposes them. The deletion review in question can be seen here. Carcharoth 01:17, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

That criteria is a different attitude for dealing with a different kind of bad-faith user. The criteria has little to do with DenyRecognition, and predates the essay by about three years. —{admin} Pathoschild 02:29, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. I was getting the impression that this might be the case. Thanks for pointing this out. I suspect that others might be confusing these two things as well. Would you have time to explain the difference? Carcharoth 03:40, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

This is bad policy

This is bad policy; deleting the associated category "Wikipedia vandals" was a bad move. The LTA pages are the pillory for web trolls on a wiki.

Maybe restore the pages/categories/templates/and export them to the test Wikipedia. --82.42.237.173 09:02, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

• It's not policy though, and nobody is suggesting it should be. >Radiant< 09:11, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Interesting claim since that IP identifies itself to be User:Gold-Horn, who is clearly a sock of User:Sunfazer/User:Sunholm etc. etc. who had dozens of vandal accounts "sharing" his IP, reincarnated as User:TheM62Manchester who also had page move vandals "sharing" his IP, and was obsessed with WoW, keeping the WoW LTA page etc. His comments here actually reinforce why this is sensible. --pgk 21:22, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

This policy is a little "err"

I think that this policy is a good one; it will really make vandals wither away. I know as a fact that bored schoolchildren vandalise Wikipedia and think it's funny (until I tell them they're being stupid and immature).

BUT! The "revert, block, ignore" policy is dangerous. I was once a vandal; I did not seek attention, I just got a little goofy sometimes. Well, I got ignored and generally abused when I attempted to commune with the admins (who thought I was a troll). Now, I'm a contributor, and a a darn good one at that. So I see things from a vandal's point of view.

In conclusion, the policy really has to distinguish between glory-seeking vandals and lost souls who are getting hosed. ~ Flameviper 16:46, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Revert. block, ignore is precisely the right policy here. RBI makes vandalising boring as it provokes no response - hopefully the perpetrator will wither give up, or consider that editing constructively might be more fun. Blocks are generally temporary anyway (unless on logged in accounts, in which case new ones can be created after 24 hours). So there is plently of scope for reform, whether the user wishes to say 'I was a vandal - but now I'm not', or simply wants to get one with good contributions. We differentiate between serial-vandals and lost souls based on their subsequent actions, no more.--Doc 16:59, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

RIGHT!

Now people won't understand Willy on Wheels jokes, thanks to you idiots. I fart in your general direction!!! oTHErONE _(Contribs) 05:27, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

That somehow came off as a personal attack. I'm sorry, I was pissed at the time. oTHErONE _(Contribs) 06:43, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I doubt anyone will mind if you refactor it, with notice that you have done so. Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 14:00, 4 November 2006 (UTC)