[WikiEN-l] Re: Wik's Vandal Bot

Thu Jun 17 16:31:30 UTC 2004

Some sites ask users to "sign" agreements related to their activities on
the site and absolving the site owner of any damage the site may cause
the user's computer or brain. I don't recall having to agree to anything
when I first joined Wikipedia except to allow my work to be mercilessly
edited should I choose to submit any. Had I signed an agreement to
abstain from behavior that could be considered mischevious or
detrimental to the safety of Wiki and its members, on the consequence
of  (fill in here), then (a) I might be less inclined to launch vandal
bots in the first place, and if I did then (b) all the yelling to
lawyers I wanted to do would serve for nothing when I got banned for
life.

The actions the bot took yesterday did not just affect Angela, Texture,
and other users whose user pages were trashed, it affected a whole
community. The letter replacements on Town Pump and cleanup were
offensive to me, and the condition of the VfD page was such that I just
refrained from participating.

When the action of one user has an impact such as this on an entire
community, then there should be reasonable consequences. Certainly a
hard ban, whether for three months or one year or life would not be
inappropriate. It is time to kill the clowns.

Denni

--
•"The difference between extra-marital sex and extra marital sex is not
to be sneezed at." --George Will, on hyphen use
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