UDWiki talk:Administration/Vandal Banning/Archive/2007 03

The Surgeon General

Breaking Rule #13 of the Suggestions page, twice, with this and this. Seems to be using Monty123 as cover - not sure if they're the same person. I know this isn't serious vandalism - but it's creating work for other contributers and wasting voters' time. --Funt Solo 11:15, 31 March 2007 (BST)

CheckUser shows that he's using a lot of IPs, and there is another user on one of those IPs, but the sheer volume of addresses can only mean AOL, I think. --Hubrid Nox ^{Sys WTF U! B!} 11:20, 31 March 2007 (BST)

Monty123 seems to in the DHPD and not particularly knowledgeabe about wiki formatting. And the "funny" stuff can be taken to adress the spam votes of the previous version. You should look into the history of the page to see what the rule was meant to adress. It most defintly wasn't meant for this sort of things.--Vista 14:06, 31 March 2007 (BST)

Yeah, a funny line in an otherwise serious suggestion is fine. Vandalism is more about stuff that would make the wiki unusable if it was left unchecked. --Toejam 14:48, 31 March 2007 (BST)

I'll assume that's a ruling of "not vandalism" from Vista, despite the fact that many of the voters on the second version of that suggestion deemed it to be humorous, and meant as such. My concern is that the people creating (especially the second version of) that suggestion were deliberately wasting the time of, not only the voters, but those responsible for moving suggestions around the place - a laborious and thankless task at the best of times. Quite how you can judge a suggestion that proposes we include Spiderman in the game to be intended as serious is beyond me. I can only assume that you realise full well that the person was taking the piss, and support him in that endeavour. Thanks for nothing. --Funt Solo 15:25, 31 March 2007 (BST)

Your welcome :)--Gage 16:48, 31 March 2007 (BST)

Go back to bed, Funt, and take the attitude with you. This is by no means a major issue - don't get so worked up over it. --Hubrid Nox ^{Sys WTF U! B!} 16:58, 31 March 2007 (BST)

There's a difference between an unreasonable attitude, and stating an opinion. I'm not "worked up", just slightly irritated, because, once again, there's a rule in place that's not being adhered to. You can hardly blame me for attempting to follow the rules as written. It would be a welcome surprise if, instead of sarcasm (from Gage) and smart-arse comments (from Cyberbob), you actually posited a reasoned argument in response to a valid complaint. Don't knock yourselves out, though - at this stage, I'm not expecting miracles. And Gage, it's "you're welcome". --Funt Solo 18:04, 31 March 2007 (BST)

Actually no, the rule is adhered too, but simply was not applicable here. The relevant part of the rule: created entirely for the purpose of satire, insult, or comedy.

The suggestion might be misguided but the humorous part was one sentence, which could easily be meant to lighten the mood with a reverence to the votes of the previous version, So it doesn't qualify.

In fact, the rule itself was ever meant to be used against this sort of suggestions at all. It was conceived at a time when suggestion to introduce Ninja Centaurs and zombies with rocket launchers were used as a political statements that sparked enormous debates and arguments on the suggestions page that was highly detrimental to it's use. That’s why I pointed you to the history of the page so you would understand that. At no point was that rule conceived so to punish people for making bad suggestions. Even if those suggestions included a funny line. I checked the users involved, I checked the votes and the suggestion. Cyberbob already came to the conclusion that this was unlikely to be sock puppetry. And I noted that this was not the breaking of any reasonable interpretation of rule 13 even in a as literal interpretation of the written text you would like.

And as a reminder; On this wiki we do not judge the merits of an edit in accordance of the letter of the law, we do judge the merits of an edit the spirit of the law. Toejam stated quite nicely what that spirit of the law is in this case. And as another aside, As I also moved quite a few suggestions back in my day, I know how thankless that job is. I appreciate your commitment to it and hope you’ll keep up the good work. I have a lot of respect for somebody who takes on that kind of work. Thank you for doing it.

But, Funt? Grow the fuck up. You threw a temper tantrum over one minute of work. And I really do not like to have my motives questioned by a petulant child who is trying to get somebody banned on basis of a highly spurious reading of a rule, gets all prissy when he is politely rebuffed at first. And then has the gall to be a passive aggressive dick about how his time is being wasted. As you said:There's a difference between an unreasonable attitude, and stating an opinion Next time you use this page? Know it.--Vista 22:20, 31 March 2007 (BST)

Actually, i think that funt is addressing the problem of using the suggestion page to post a humorous suggestion, which was something some mods addressed as vandalism before (and i think it might be in the suggestions rules somwehere). Anyway, its a silly idea to fight against something silly... so i dont think we need to be all "OHMAGAWD YOU POSTED A HUMUROUS SUGGESTION IN THE SUGGESTION PAGE YOU VANDAL!!!11!!ONE!". But, if this kind of behaviour starts being abused to the point that the suggestion page becomes a humorous suggestion page, i think then we will need to start warning these suggestors. --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 00:12, 1 April 2007 (BST)

First off, I accept your ruling, Vista, but that doesn't (and didn't) preclude me from disagreeing with your judgement. You make some valid points, but in that last paragraph you've just resorted to slinging insults at me and placing words in my mouth. I never complained specifically that my time was wasted. Also, I wasn't trying to get anyone banned. I'm aware that, despite the name of this page being "Vandal Banning", that most offences are dealt with by a warning. There is precedent for users being given warnings for posting humorous suggestions, so it's not as if this is totally out of the ordinary. Times have seemingly changed. What irked me about this case was the repetition - the suggestion was spammed the first time around, so one would think that posting up a hardly very different suggestion two days later wasn't a serious attempt to make a suggestion. I call that logic, and you call it my having a "tempter tantrum" and being a "petulant child". Just because someone's opinion differs from yours, it does not make them inferior to you, and worthy of base insults. I can't claim to have been a beacon of diplomacy myself, either, mind you. --Funt Solo 01:46, 1 April 2007 (BST)

Hold up, sport. You began all this when you accused us of supporting vandalism. I personally don't care if you disagree with a ruling, but when you spout shit like that, I'm going to respond (WTF did you expect?). I'm sure my fellows feel the same way. --Hubrid Nox ^{Sys WTF U! B!} 03:03, 1 April 2007 (BST)

Cyberbob, please, I did no such thing as accuse a group of sysops (the "us" you refer to) of supporting vandalism. That would be ridiculous. I thought I'd made it clear that I was replying to Vista's ruling only - perhaps I should have made that even clearer. Your information that they weren't the same person, I never complained about - as you can see from my original post, I wasn't sure that they were - it was just a suspicion that you proved to be false, to my mind. That aside, I didn't even accuse Vista of supporting vandalism - what I was trying to get across was that his ruling may support the breaking of Rule 13, as it's written. That's a long way from an accusation of actively supporting vandalism. --Funt Solo 10:10, 1 April 2007 (BST)

You didn't make the accusation, eh?

Funt Solo said:

I can only assume that you realise full well that the person was taking the piss, and support him in that endeavour.

Since breaking Rule 13 is treated as vandalism, I'm not quite sure where you're getting off trying to make a distinction there. Particularly since your vote on the suggestion described it as "spam / vandalism". --Hubrid Nox ^{Sys WTF U! B!} 10:13, 1 April 2007 (BST)

Well, firstly, I hope you see from the surrounding context that I was referring my comment to Vista, and not to the sysop community in general. Secondly, I still hold to that point - and still belive that Monty123 was breaking Rule 13, and that Vista supports him in doing so by the ruling he gave. I understand that Vista disagrees with me on that point, which I have to accept. And I still maintain that allowing Rule 13 to be broken is a lot more specific than a general accusation of actively supporting vandalism. I've already admitted that I'm hardly the best diplomat, and I could have worded it better, but I'm not stupid enough to assume that the sysop community likes vandalism in general. Get real. --Funt Solo 10:21, 1 April 2007 (BST)

Since we were unanimous in our opinion, a charge of supporting vandalism aimed at one of us applies to all of us. And I'll say it again - do not try and feed me that bullshit about it not being "vandalism", as your vote on the suggestion indicated pretty clearly what you thought of it. Where did I say that you accused us of supporting vandalism "in general"? Stop putting words in my mouth, as I said no such thing. You accused us of supporting this specific act, which you yourself called vandalism. --Hubrid Nox ^{Sys WTF U! B!} 10:25, 1 April 2007 (BST)

Honestly, because you'd not specifically said "not vandalism", I assumed you were only ruling on the "are they the same person" part of my original posting. You can see from my first reply to Vista that I had to assume he was ruling "not vandalism" - and it's that part of my post that I believe shows I was replying to him alone. Also, I'm not sure who you're referring to with your "we" and "us" - you and Vista, or the entire sysop community? (As an aside, the breaking of Rule #13 is described in the text as "vandalism", which is what I've been referring to all along, as opposed to just any vandalism. I see a distinction, even if you do not.) As it is, we're now in disagreement - you think I was making an accusation of supporting vandalism in general. I'm sure that I wasn't. Probably, we should just leave it here. If you think I'm really that stupid, there's probably no point in us having any further discussion. --Funt Solo 10:34, 1 April 2007 (BST)

Actually I would still like to address a few points you made.

• Rule #13 was not broken. I have explained why, I also made clear what kind of suggestions would be breaking it. I was not alone in my assessment as two other sysops now have made clear that no warning should be given You may think otherwise but in vandal banning cases a consensus of sysops is the binding rule.
• When you make a vandal banning report. It’s precisely that. You put a report because an user has created vandalism that you felt was malicious and detrimental to the wiki in such a degree that the user should have his editing privileges revoked. We give warnings as a prelude to that, because we like to give people the benefit of the doubt. Think of it as a modified three strikes and you’re out system. But there is no difference in the degree of the infraction for warnings or bannings.
• I don’t care that you disagree with me and the other sysops, nor would I care if you did agree with me. My job as a sysop is well defined and I care about doing it the right way not the popular way. Agreement or disagreement is both fine. What is definitely not fine is doubting my motives and calling me a vandalism enabler/supporter. Without bothering to ask for clarification first. That is not “disagreeing with your judgement” or even “can't claim to have been a beacon of diplomacy myself” That was you just being insulting and combined with your general attitude it got me in the wrong way. My response to you was first explaining why I did what I did, and then in the last paragraph I gave you my feelings about your comments about me. Not particular helpful perhaps, but in my opinion then richly deserved. Later you clarified yourself that you meant it differently that was apparent. In that case consider it withdrawn.

Now with every said and done, lets hope next time we all take a little more time in explaining ourselves and asking for clarifications instead of jumping to conclusions.--Vista 16:11, 1 April 2007 (BST)

For my part, I'm sorry for insulting your integrity. Thanks for taking the time to explain your position. --Funt Solo 17:25, 1 April 2007 (BST)

First off, please forgive me for causing so much trouble. Monty123 is indeed in the DHPD, and I was merely transcribing the content that he gave to me to put up as a suggestion, verbatim, with the exception of spelling errors. He is a extremely new to the editing procedures used on the wiki, and after trying to submit his first suggestion, of the same type as I was submitting for him most recently, and he was unable, for whatever reason, to do so using the template provided on the Suggestions page, I offered to help him do so. I'm generally a nice guy, I try to help those who are unable to help themselves, and I saw no harm in forwarding his ideas to the wiki community, no matter the... quality of said suggestions. Although I personally felt little merit in his "Clawshot" idea, I did what I could to help him get feedback from the wiki community. I was not surprised when they were both heavily spammed, and actually foresaw it coming, as generally only the highest caliber of suggestions are permitted to enter the peer reviewed area. After observing the drama my facilitation has caused, I will definitely help him learn how to use the template and other subtleties of wiki editing so that he may be able to accomplish his goals under his own steam, instead of relying on others. Once again, let me apologize for the inconveniences I've caused. I never meant for this situation to arise, but as it has, I must take it in stride. Lastly, as Cyberbob240 assumed, I am indeed using AOL. --Banana reads Scoundrell for all of Yesterday's News, Today! 03:24, 1 April 2007 (BST)