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)

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)

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)

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)

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)