[WikiEN-l] Example of a user who should have been banned a long time ago

Tue Sep 12 21:16:14 UTC 2006

From: Akash Mehta <draicone at gmail.com> wrote:
> Do we have a way where we can scan talk pages for
> such warnings and
> come up with a record of those with 20+? I know
> AmiDaniel's
> vandalproof can look for warnings, and I'm sure
> there could be a
> similar function implemented. 

I'm pretty sure it would mostly find IPs, which would
be meaningless for most pre-planned blocking, as we
would be unable to assess which were static and which
were dynamic in the same way we generally are now.

I personally like the idea of blocking the lot of them
and separating the sheep from the goats at our
leisure, but this is a *wiki* and we don't and can't
have this luxury. The benefits of having it outweigh
the problems we would have, except in one vital way:
we don't have enough excellent editors. If we prevent
en masse the the chaff, we will always catch some
wheat. And I speak as someone who has never, not even
once, not even by accident, edited without logging in.

There may be a couple, or a dozen, or even a thousand
account-holding editors who have had a set of repeated
warnings for various disruptions and could therefore
be streamed out by a bot. But then any sensible
blocking admin would check the talk page before
blocking anyway (and shame on both those that don't,
and those editors who complain if they do: which
someone did to me recently!) and see them and act
accordingly.

If the talk page has been blanked, a human editor
would check the history (one hopes). A bot could not
be expected to do so without making mistakes.

Certainly, a bot can't spot idiotic warnings from
trolls, which a qualified eye can, and generally does
- again I speak as someone who has suffered from mad
complaints from trolling users. And a bot can't spot
an idiot user who suddenly has touched the clue stick
and wised up, something a human /can/ do.

No. Bots have their place on Wikipedia, and I wouldn't
want to be without them. But no bot can substitute for
human intuition and judgment. Where such talents are
required, humans must be the ones to act.

-> REDVERS

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