[WikiEN-l] Policy on breaches of bans

Fri Oct 21 23:23:49 UTC 2005

Guys, 

We need to decide on how to deal with persistent
vandalism of Wikipedia by users already subjected to
the maximum ban. 

One user in the less than two months since his own
year ban was imposed has launched 30 suspected
sockpuppets and at this stage between 40 and 50 proven
sockpuppets against Wikipedia pages. On occasions his
attacks have occurred as frequently as every two
minutes, with (at a guess) twenty talk pages targeted
one night for attack with cut and paste abuse placed
on them. 

On another night a single talk page was targeted by 18
sockpuppets in 2 hours. (It has had to be protected.) 

Tonight the page on admin incidents was attacked by 15
separate sockpuppets of his (many multiple attacks) in
just over three hours. The user also created articles
(since speedily deleted) and though banned carried out
wholescale rewriting of articles using a secret
identity to get around his ban. (He slipped up and
used that identity to join in the sockpuppet attacks.
Once the edit history was spotted, as per the arbcom
ruling, everything done under that identity was undone
and articles deleted, with in one case a Californian
admin starting a new valid article to replace a
speedily deleted one, to prevent the banned user
creating a replacement.)

More than 10 admins have had to devote hours every
night this week (bar one night the vandal took off) to
undoing his attacks. They were so frequent that by the
time an IP had been blocked and template added to its
page, the user had created a new one and reimposed his
attacks.

It is ridiculous that users have to waste their time
dealing with this nutter. It is also ridiculous that
he is in effect able to get around his ban. (He also
spams users constantly with messages and emails though
they tell him to stop, abuses people and highjacks
user talk pages of people who have no idea who he is,
but just find he has turned their page into one of his
battle fronts.) 

The guy has already driven some people off Wikipedia,
and used off-Wikipedia sites to libel Wikipedians. Now
he has turned some pages into battle grounds. Who
knows what he will do next. We have a serious problem.
He is probably the most persistent vandal Wikipedia
has ever had to face. We need to develop a policy to
deal with him before he ups the ante and causes
further chaos. 
Simply restarting his one year ban every time and
reverting his edits, the recommendations of the
arbcom, are not working.

Thom 

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