UDWiki talk:Administration/Policy Discussion/Better Protection for User talk: Kevan

The reason I bring that up is this VB discussion. (If you are a visitor from a future where the edit history has been purged, you find it here instead.)
Obviously, Kevan's talk page is a special case and should have special protection. But there's no policy covering that yet, which might not only lead to Doodles being let off the hook, but might encourage similar spamming among other drama mongers. Time to provide the ops with a legal foundation from which to tackle such bad faith edits.
For now to get the ball rolling, I simply went with Kevan's page rules and added a bullet point for general spam/harassment/off-topic blathering. But I'm certain there's more that should be discouraged.-- Spiderzed▋ 17:44, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Not in its current form

Things like this are of a serious enough nature to warrant inclusion on the mighty one's talk page, because of the issue of game-breakingness. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 18:04, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Agreed in such severe cases. I was thinking more about the 9,345th "Halp, I see no HP outside of bank ruins" report. -- Spiderzed▋ 18:10, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Some wording alteration may be needed then. Or indeed let us Crats post whatever we want. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 18:11, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Being chosen as crat means you can perform easily abused janitorial functions; not that you receive any political power anywhere, including when whispering in the Almighty's ear. --VVV ^RPMBG 20:01, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The implication is that the crats would know the difference between a minor bug and a major bug. Besides crats don't do easily abused janitorial processes. We do one easily abusable janitorial function. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 22:15, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

No. Will provide a better argument later on but now I just want to say that this is overkill, and needlessly creates an ivory tower around Kev.--Thadeous Oakley ^Talk 18:26, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree. At first, when I read the bullet points, I thought they were things you could do, and saying you can't is massively and ridiculously overkill.--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 19:08, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Well it's basically what Kevan himself has written at the top of his talk page. So it's not as bad as it sounds. If he doesn't want it there, don't put it there. - User:Whitehouse 19:14, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Going slightly off of what Yon said, under this policy what can you do on Kevan's page that won't get you booked? ~ Red Hawk One ^{Talk | space for lease} 19:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

^What Whitehouse said. Those are the friggin' rules friggin' Kevan himself has placed on top of his friggin' talk page. Only that currently they have only as much legal weight as the rules on anyone else's talk page (i.e. none at all, unless they get enforced by A/A). I personally don't like all of them (e.g., I'd _love_ to discuss some balance issues like hopelessly weenie ferals vs unstoppable cade-blocking strike-teams with Kevan), but they have been put in place by himself. -- Spiderzed▋ 19:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

To quote Kevan's talk page rules: If you'd like to speak to an operator, please hold. If it's something that is of concern for Kevan and not adressing bug reports/game balance/future-of-the-game, it has its place on Kevan's talk page. Things like donation issues, notifying Kevan of the Sears incident, reinstalling the crats after Grim's coup or also Doodles' initial question about snow would be fine, just to pick a few examples from the current talk page. -- Spiderzed▋ 19:49, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

That's actually incorrect, anything Kevan says becomes official policy immediately because of owner privilege, so if those were rules, they'd be immediately enforceable. However, there's a clear gulf between what he's said and: "If you post here about these things it's vandalism".--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 22:17, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Thad, that policy is the entire point of your current A/VB case vs Doodles. You know, that case that will likely get closed as "Not Vandalism", because by current policy, all talk page rules can only be enforced by A/A. With this policy in place, Doodles' snow spamming would have been clear-cut vandalism. -- Spiderzed▋ 19:39, 12 December 2010 (UTC)-- Spiderzed▋ 19:39, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Overkill. Most of the people who do the first four things do so in good faith, and we're supposed to have this divine shroud of assurance that unless you specifically try to hurt the wiki, you'll be allowed on it forever. The last point, I'd accept, but only because it's for Keven. It's certainly a slippery slope between keeping his page clean and adding loads of censorship elsewhere. --VVV ^RPMBG 20:01, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

It definitely seems like overkill in its current form, but I'm not sure that it is. I think it sounds so bad because you've enumerated all of his rules and added some more text to them. Instead, I might redo it to simply say, "The rules that Kevan has posted to his talk page are to be treated as official policy on his talk page. Breaking them without good reason will generally be considered an act of vandalism." That would allow for the sysops to skip A/A and go straight to A/VB (which is preferred), and would also allow for leniency in the case of game-breaking bugs, serious issues, or honest questions that deserve to be there. It also would allow for the sysops to handle newbs as newbs. —Aichon— 22:09, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I had assumed that in all rules and policies there's a certain leeway to account for such things as severe exceptions or newb mistakes. But I can see how the wording makes it sound like something that always applies all of the time without any exception. I'll overhaul the wording. -- Spiderzed▋ 22:26, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I suggest making the language a bit more lenient - discourage, rather than dictate. I'd also suggest a clause allowing users to delete entries that should be placed elsewhere, provided they also replicate them there - so bug reports being moved to Bug Reports can be wiped from Kev's talk, etc. Also mention General Discussion as well as/instead of Unofficial UD Forums. 22:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

That's actually taken straight from what Kevan wrote on his page. Changing it wouldn't make sense, considering that was the intent he wanted. Basically. all he's doing is making Kevan's talk page rules enforceable. At least, that's what I get the impression that he's trying to do, though the wording might need some work still. —Aichon— 23:48, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I mean more the direct mention of taking it to A/VB. Could be replaced with something like "Users may be officially warned if thought to be in flagrant breach of these guidelines" rather than directly using the word "vandal". 23:54, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I was talking about the Unofficial UD Forums part, not the vandal stuff. —Aichon— 23:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the general idea is to make sure that it is legal to completely skip A/A and move straight to A/VB in the case of the rules on Kevan's talk page. Thus, changing the actual rules isn't really feasible. (But additional alternate locations might be added - the goal of the talk page rules is to keep inappropriate content from it, not to dictate where unrelated stuff ends up. Same for moving rather than deleting content.) -- Spiderzed▋ 00:02, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Defining Spam

Might I suggest trying to write out a definition of Spam, and creating a policy regarding the spaming of any pages, included a single, or multiple talk pages, instead of trying to define what can be put on Kevans Talk Page? Then, if someone else comes along, and starts spamming random pages, it could be vandalism. -Estacado^Talk 22:21, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

^^^^. This seems more useful than the proposed policy. -MHSstaff 22:25, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

That's a big ol' can of worms that should be tackled on its own, not as an addendum to this. 22:54, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. But If I had to give the simplest definition, it would be "repeated bad faith edits". ~ 22:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. If I finish some of the stuff I'm working on right now, I might throw up an OD on the subject with a view to a policy. 22:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

You're making it to simple Vapor, otherwise being a noob could be a bannable offense. One should, instead, look at the precedent, and derive a definition, and constitution from that. -Estacado^Talk 04:33, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Who said spam is a bannable offense (unless you're talking about actual spam from spambits)? Also, most newbs make edits in good faith, they're just really bad at it. ~ 04:51, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

"Repeated Bad Faith Edits" can be defined as a lot of things. -Estacado^Talk 14:59, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes it could, but as others said, this really isn't the place to define spam, particularly since, judging by the reaction of everyone, this policy won't likely make it to voting. But as far as you statement about precedence, that's exactly what I've done. Let's use your edits to Kevan's talk since that seems to be what spawned this discussion. You posted "where's my snow". That was a bad faith edit since you knew well that wasn't the place to post such comments. Even if you had not know, that fact was pointed out to you. You then edited twice more asking the same question (and then went on a tangent about dwarfs or some such nonsense). So there you have "repeated bad faith edits". But I digress. I personally don't think there needs to be a policy about making spam a bannable offense. It might be interesting to see how others define spam, but again this really isn't the place to make an "official" ruling on that definition. ~ 15:21, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. Pointlessness stupidity shouldn't be a bannable offense, but repeated, malicious, patent nonsense should. --VVV ^RPMBG 23:03, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

There is absolutely no way Poodle's edits counted as that at all. no way, absolutely not. -- LEMON #1 03:27, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Poppycock. -Estacado^Talk 04:33, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I like it

You've got my vote.--_GANG Giles Sednik _CAPD 01:17, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

No

This is pointless, just pester the admin team to nut up, take practicality pills and make proper (ie poodle) spam count as vandalism and we won't need to just hinder the wiki with more red tape. -- LEMON #1 03:25, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Amen. ~ 03:29, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Apparently, in the current case they haven't nutted up and taken their practicality pills. (And honestly I'm glad for that in that case, as that would have set a bad precedent regarding other user talk pages. Policy is the only way to ensure a different treatment for user talk: kevan than for other user talks.) -- Spiderzed▋ 06:53, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

No it isn't, it's already been widely recognised that the only reason there was a large fuss made about it was because it was Kevan's talk, and furthermore (if a precedent like this came to fruition) the sysop team would be more than capable of recognising the difference between Kevan's talk and a regular user's talk in a spam precedent like this. As we've always said with spamming, "it's a situational thing".

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to shoot you down personally for suggesting this policy. It's good that people are still trying to fix the place and if it were to pass voting then it's more than worthy I guess. My ire coming about is more because the ops had the opportunity to just make this a given (whilst also doing what IMO is the right thing). As it happens, everyone who's ruled pretty much thinks its bad, but one guy thinks it should be a soft warning, one guy thinks its vandalism but not yet, and the other thinks it should be done at A/A. Oh well -- LEMON #1 09:12, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

i agree with fuckface (ddr). more red tape is not needed. people should just follow the rules of the talk page and let the janitors do their jobs. i think god having a talk page is ridiculous to begin with.----sexualharrison ¯\()/¯ 01:40, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Nope :(

Laissez-faire, already. The policy's not for me because I'm of the opinion that each talk page is equal and owned by its creator, if that person has a problem with it, then they should report it, or, in special cases, propose a policy like this. If Kevan shows support for this, then my opinion may change, if he doesn't then I'm sticking against it. --Ash  ^{|  T  |  яя  |} 16:59, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

+1--THE Godfather of Яesensitized, Anime Sucks ^{Yalk | W! U! WMM| CC CPFOAS LOE ZHU | Яezzens} 16:27, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Are we serious with this?

This is pointless. It's just going to create extra work for the administration team. User pages and user talk pages are the responsibility of the user in question. If he wanted people to not post, he could protect it himself, or be more aggressive about his wording.

Fucking hell. Even Jimmy Wales allows anyone to post on his talk page all they want. This is retarded.--jorm 20:53, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

This, to be honest. --DT^PK 21:27, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I've filed a question about the policy proposal on Kevan's talk page, which he might answer (or not - we all know how much such things are hit-or-miss). But frankly, short of Kevan himself showing up and endorsing this proposal, it's doomed anyway looking at the current state of discussion. There's hardly a majority, even less so the 2/3 majority required to make a policy pass. I'm just leaving this proposal up to be cycled (rather than taking it to vote), unless I hear back differently and thus possibly swaying community opinion. -- Spiderzed▋ 21:32, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

From Kevan's talk:

Kevan said:

Thanks, but no, don't worry about it

--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 11:15, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Will leave this open until the automated cycling kicks in case anyone wants to do anything with it. But, frankly, that has been the headshot for this proposal. -- Spiderzed▋ 17:28, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Was worth a go I guess, whether people wanted the policy or not, we got the best result and that was that Kevan gave his own preference, rather than us having to blindly assume what he may want. -- LEMON #1 01:19, 23 December 2010 (UTC)