David A. Wheeler wrote:
Attacks on users and sysops - particularly highly
dedicated ones -
are much more dangerous to the Wikipedia than
simple attacks on a few pages. If these kinds of attacks cause
people to stop weeding out bad pages or vandals for
fear of retribution, the project is doomed.
I agree, but in large part this is a social phenomenon, and the best
defense that we can have against it is a strong culture of mutual
support and caring. Regular users should know that they are in the
family, so to speak, and that the malicious actions of a few newcomers
or passerby are not worthy of a lot of emotional energy.
Is there any way the software could be modified to
make it harder
for vandals to counter-attack the people who are trying to
remove vandalism?
Quite possibly -- subtle changes to software can make for big changes
to social environments. But, the changes aren't always what are hoped
for. It's a tricky business.
At the least, why not let the User:NAME pages be ONLY
editable
by NAME? The "User_talk:" spaces need to be editable in some way,
but I don't see a need for others to "fix" the User: space of someone;
it's not critical that that content be fixed, and there's advantanges
to having some areas that are "precious" to each user.
But there are disadvantages as well. We aren't a free homepage
provider, so although custom has it that the User: space is relatively
wide open, a big part of what makes wiki work so well is mutual
vulnerability. That mutual vulnerability carries risks, of course,
but it also encourages individual responsibility, thoughtfulness
towards others, etc.
I don't agree at all with your ideas of hiding some information from
users... one of our great strengths is transparency and openness.
We've tried really hard -- and with some success -- to avoid
cliquishness in terms of sysops, banning, policy discussions, etc.
One of the things that keeps the "in crowd" honest is a commitment to
transparency and personal accountability. Moves away from that may
help sysops avoid being yelled at by trolls, but it also risks bad
behavior on *our* part.
--Jimbo