[WikiEN-l] I just blocked someone for 9999 hours

Tue May 11 11:31:37 UTC 2004

Danny wrote

>[Deletion story]

>This is an increasing problem here on Wikipedia. As we grow, we are no
longer able to monitor the Recent Changes adequately. If I recall correctly,
Horace had been vandalized for two weeks recently before someone noticed.

>I am proposing the following radical solutions:

>1. Empower sysops to make on-the-spot decisions and act accordingly. If
most people don't trust them to act wisely, they should not be sysops.
>2. Reinvigorate Seth Ilys's New Pages Patrol and expand it to include
Recent Changes in general. Lots of crap is getting through, as well as
considerable the duplication of articles.
>3. Stiffen penalties. If a group of people (like a school) are planning to
damage Wikipedia, it will last longer than 24 hours.
>4. Act quickly and decisively with POV pushers. I recently received an
email from a colleague at work, that was forwarded to her. Someone posted to
a professional mailing list, asking them to join Wikipedia en masse to
ensure that certain articles maintain their point of view. Their POV is
often close to my own, however, I am disturbed that a group can potentially
band together to push a particular POV, regardless of what it is. At one
point, such a group will succeed. (I have forwarded the email to Jimbo, but
will say no more about it to protect the confidence of my colleague).
>5. Put together a SMALL group of trusted users to consider ways to redefine
Wikipedia, considering the remarkable growth spurt we are experiencing. This
can be a blessing, but it can also lead to our complete collapse. I propose
that Jimbo select the users and oversee the process, since he is the one
person who is trusted by everyone and whose authority is (more or less)
unchallenged.

I'd like to respond to these points.

First, though, a comment: I don't personally feel there are current 'bad
content'/'problem user' crises.  Certainly not on the scale that server
problems cause (20% drop in traffic, and probably at least that in fresh
postings).

In detail:

1. OK - but if this is done in a provocative way, who's to say it will
decrease malicious vandalism?

2. Article duplication is the inevitable consequence of filling up topics.
Needs someone knowledgeable, who knows an area.  I do spend more and more
time on this, myself.

3. It is quite hard to damage as much as 0.01% of Wikipedia.  Let's keep
this in perspective, while assuming that vigilance is going to be needed.

4. I think we'd notice these things, and get to the bottom of them in time.

5. Not my decision.  As I said, 'collapse' seems hyperbolic to me, right
now.

Charles