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

Tue May 11 11:15:02 UTC 2004

I have just blocked Yammy Yamathorne for 9999 hours. I did not go through 
Quickpolls. I have no regrets. 

This user created a page, [[The Lyceum]], based on the [[Akhmad Kadyrov]] 
page, in which he claimed that the "super smart kids" in his school are planning 
to bring down Wikipedia. The page itself was an act of vandalism, and I have 
deleted it (without going through Speedy Deletions).

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.

Danny
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