UDWiki talk:Administration/Policy Discussion/Vandal

Discussion on the Basic Idea

after writting this down, i thought that this could be implemented without going through policy discussion... all it would take was someone with some spare time to create and move things around... sadly, i am not that kind of guy anymore, and am not 100% sure about the whole it doesnt need to go through policy discussion thing. --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 03:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Going trough policy discussion is always the right thing. Anyways, it's not such a great idea as you present it: I really don't like the ammount of pages something like this will generate, and the work that making and maintaining them will take probably overweight the pros of this suggestion. --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 03:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Matt has a point with the ammount of pages, but the idea is good. Thumbs up.--Thari ^{TжFedCom is BFI!} 03:55, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Very good idea. Though, as Matthew pointed out, there would quite alot of pages to manage. --Kamden 03:59, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

it takes a lot more to manage than the current system, which doesnt allow an easy way to dig through reports to know what a single user have ever done. and i think that wikipedia uses a similar system... even for page deletions. --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 11:19, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

So this is replacing vandal data too? But - I'll report you for example, there will be the debate on the page, then it gets moved to your subpage for posterity? --Darth Sensitive ^W! 15:42, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The whole idea was to discuss the entire case in the subpage... leaving the vandal banning page just for reference on new cases. And yes, this would replace vandal data. --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 16:32, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

A/VD is replaced? I suppose that you will dig troghout the history to fill most people vandals pages, but those that are too old and have been purgued? The current system works fine, maybe not perfectly but people doesn't have to "dig trough history" as often as you point out - if there's a failure it's the human factor, people that sometimes forget to add a warning to A/VD or something else. We're not Wikipedia, we don't handle nearly the same ammount of data to need these kind of archive strategies, or even consider them desirable. --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 17:14, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, but, it's only a one time thing and can be done over a period of time. It doesn't need to be done over and over again. --Kamden 00:26, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Every time a new vandal presents himself a new page should be created, then every time someone wants to check A/VB cases they should check dozens of pages. I'm not saying that "current Sysops do it all the time already", but this will give more room to lock up cases and give poor rulings going unnoticed (like here). Also, if serial vandals rarely get reported to the A/VB and A/VD pages, they won't be at all if Sysops have to create a new page for every account that they ban. Don't misunderstand me, as I would be the first one to volunteer to create the archive pages if this passes, but will this overcomplicated system be properly maintained if even the current one isn't? My guess is not. Resume: this system would be overcomplicated, counterintuitive and not transparent: We would be better off if they just archived the A/VB page instead of flush it every two months or so. --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 05:46, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that's an example of a bad decision Matt, the guy did something dodgey... there was at least an element of "bad faith" in it, and he only got a warning. If he doesn't do it again, no consequences at all -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 00:34, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Isn't the talk page on vandal banning used for discussion of cases? -- 16:02, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm thinking of how many extra lines of code would be added to the database due to all the extra pages. If we archived them off M/VB onto a subpage after a couple of weeks, then maybe. But it's too much trouble to create a new page every time we ban someone.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 00:20, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd be a little cautious about each user having a page with both the true and false allegations on it. If your page gets long, people could presume you caused a lot of drama, even if every case against you was unfounded. Thus, your reputation would suffer unfairly. --Toejam 15:35, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it is a good idea actually. No unfounded allegations would be added, only confirmed (by a sysops) vandalism reports. And we wouldn't need to create a new page for any of the straight out permabanned vandals (unless they persist under socks), only members who receive a warning. The report would still go on A/VB, and if confirmed, cut'n'pasted to the individual's warning archive page. There arn't that many users that get actually warned really -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 00:34, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, you know Matt may be right. Yes, this system could be used sometime in the future, but not now. The fact that sandbagged cases occur on a regular basis proves that the wiki shouldn't be upgraded to Vandal sub pages just yet. Perhaps if the system were more fine tuned in a way. --Kamden 05:33, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, we quite fancy the idea - knowing what vandal reports people have already had helps indicate what they've actually done, and we've dug through histories before.... it saves time trying to prove that they're actually inclined to such - that said, we were accused (although, as far as we know, not formally warned) not so long ago of vandalising a talk page, which we thought were pretty much where slagging matches were meant to be relegated to..... and sysops aren't infallible. Anyway, the bottom line is, in a game where an awful lot of material is deleted quite often, we assume there is already either a space issue or admin issue with what is already a rather large amount of data. Hmmmm - on balance, more pro than con, though, assuming there's the room --Crabappleslegalteam 01:44, 29 March 2007 (BST)

Discussion on the Evolved Idea

(Not sure if this goes here) Well, I have an Idea. How 'bout instead of creating /vandal subpage for each alt that a vandal creates, we simply place them under the IP address of the User that using Alts (User: xxxxxxxxxx). That should handle the massive amount of Alts that could be created, so you don't have the subpages taking up space on the wiki. If the User is using Proxy's, we'll place him under a characteristic he uses often(Like say, lets say the vandal uses the username Blik alot, then we'd place him and his alts under Blik). If the User is a numberer (Alt 1,2,3,4....) then we'll place him under 12345. Simple enough, isn't it? --Kamden 05:50, 29 March 2007 (BST)

I don't think that we can reveal the IP address of the original user due to the privacy policy. --^T 06:07, 29 March 2007 (BST)

I agree. Also, most of the time the guys using alts just vandalize in a generic way and you cannot really tell who it was, plus they use a different proxy IP every time. The IP argument on a vandal is kinda weak becasue you can tell almost for certain the IP of the last guy blocked on the block logs, as User and IP usually get blocked within seconds. --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 07:44, 29 March 2007 (BST)

The idea would be (I imagine) to place any alt, vandal, data on the main account's vandal archive page, rather than create a new page for every vandal alt created -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 15:18, 29 March 2007 (BST)

Didn't know I made it so hard to understand, but Boxy has the idea as to what my suggested change is. Of course, I don't have a suggestion for vandalizing in a generic way. --Kamden 15:51, 29 March 2007 (BST)