Forum:Troll Hunting


 * This is the conversation as of 20:50, October 3, 2012 (UTC)

 Yutfgh http://thetekkit.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Contributions/78.40.232.6 has been making some unwanted edits. Happy hunting! 2 days ago MinecraftRogue I banned him for 2 weeks. Thanks! 2 days ago Yutfgh http://thetekkit.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Contributions/125.238.31.159 only made one edit (I have reverted it) but it did involve swearing. a day ago Cacher97 This is making me slightly more inclined to turn on revert bot.. a day ago MinecraftRogue I have a plan for this. You know how admins can protect pages? Well there's an option to protect from anonymous IPs and new users (<10 edits). I was thinking we could protect most of the popular pages like this and leave some of the less edited pages so new users could actually get 10 edits. What do you guys think? a day ago Mdouglas3 I would be in favor of restricting edit rights from anonymous IPs. Force them to do the work of creating an account.

I think restricting new users would be a bit harsh. We still want to be open.

Also, does Wikia have the option of only allowing an email address to be used once? And does the account have to be confirmed? Such as clicking a link to prove it's real? That would be a nice feature as Trolls are too lazy to go through all the trouble. a day ago Zycro I say no anonymous editing (people who have not confirmed their email address). Not sure if you are getting notifications on this thread-- please give it a look!

http://thetekkit.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:MinecraftRogue/Contact_the_Admins!#comm-47813 a day ago Cacher97 err.

read here:

http://community.wikia.com/wiki/Community_Central:Protection

also. could you do a trace route on the vandals and record them. we can slowly create a database and see if it is the same person. a day ago Cacher97 also can we get this?

http://community.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:Protect/Unprotect_page_icon a day ago Cacher97 also... its not that hard to use mailinator or to change your IP.. a day ago Mdouglas3 Doing tracerouts, building databases of vandals, changing IPs, using mail anonymizers? I think you're over-complicating this. We're not dealing with hackers here, we're dealing with immature brats who think it's funny to write "PENISPENISPENIS" on a page. I believe turning off anonymous editing will eliminate 99% of the vandalism. Remember: Trolls are lazy. And a locked door keeps an honest man honest.

However, reading Wikia's protection policy makes me think they would be against the idea of restricting edit access to registered users. Anybody else get that impression? a day ago Zycro And it's even easier to use tor. Which is why you need to confirm your email address. It takes effort to make a new email addresses. That's the barrier here. a day ago Cacher97 Lol, I think that is what happens when your very security conscious. But yes, from the sounds of it we are not allowed to do that. That's why I think the revert bot should come; in handy.. revert their edit and add their user page to a category of "Vandal".

In which admins can look to ban users. Also the vandal will never be able to out do the bot. Zycro: Google mailinator for me ,please? Then reconsider your statement? a day ago MinecraftRogue I agree with Mdouglas. This doesn't have to be complicated. All we need to do is enable this protection option on some of the most visited pages. Thoughts on that? Edited by MinecraftRogue	 a day ago Zycro Thanks for the support, Mdouglas3. Glad to know I am making sense to someone.

To your second point, not at all. That's why every wiki page has a Talk:page. It's built into the Wikimedia (the folks that power Wikipedia) that every page has a talk page. I get the feeling things are very informal here, which leads to many, many edits without insightful comments and no needing for justification on reverts (that I've seen). It's common Wiki practice to edit this Talk: page before changing the page on the wiki. It keeps things clean. a day ago Cacher97 We could lock it on "most vandalized pages?". I agree we need to lock, but my worry is that we might lose future editors... a day ago Jguy There should be a permission available to crats called Autoconfirmed that we can use.

http://community.wikia.com/wiki/Help:User_access_levels#Autoconfirmed_users a day ago Zycro Cacher97, it's like im speaking French to you. You need to click a link, not just spoof an address. And yes, emails can be banned/whitelisted by domain. I know you found some bot on a website, but these things are built into wikia.

MinecraftRogue, please see my other posts. WIth all due respect It's frustrating having to repeat myself. What I am proposing requires 5 minutes of their time (register) and seconds to log in. (Even faster if login is remembered). This is not complicated. If you sign up for a forum, you will need to confirm your email before posting. People are used to that. a day ago Cacher97 Question: what pages would "auto confirmed" be applied to?

Reply: Wikipedia does not block edits just because it is by an anonymous editor. They prefer to revert edits rather than to lock pages. Honestly, I think a bot would do the best job here. a day ago MinecraftRogue That is what I meant in the 5th comment from the top. All I am saying is we could semi-protect most visited pages from IPs and new users. a day ago Zycro I have very few worries about the most visited pages. Someone would be crazy to edit those -- so many people would pick up on it. I'm talking about the vandalism on the smaller pages that screws over the people who take time to write articles. If something gets vandalized, people just revert. Changes can be lost if this is careless. a day ago Jguy Banning anonymous IP's from editing is not going to get us anywhere. It takes less time to create another account than it does to change your IP. We'd be shooting ourselves in the foot with blocking out a lot of the anonymous editors who are good ones. Some people don't want to register for privacy reasons or otherwise. Besides, I do not believe that wikia has an option to block all anonymous editing.

What would be alright, though, is preventing all anonymous IP's from creating new pages. Not sure if we can even do that. a day ago Cacher97 I understand you.... However you're missing my point.... The bot won't miss (many) things, it has a very low error rate. It is also available to run constantly.

You may also be getting me wrong because I'm thinking long term. a day ago Zycro MinecraftRogue, the "new users" having to make 10+ edits before editing a main page does not solve the problem of people making new accounts just to spam/vandalize. They can still vandalize every other page that isn't protected.

So you may ask, why not protect them all from vandalism?

That is my proposal. Only allow edits form confirmed accounts.

Cacher97: Do you know what a white list is? If we only allow Yahoo, gmail, Aol, etc the problem is solved. a day ago Cacher97 But as far as I'm aware, we don't have access to things like that because user accounts are inter wiki... a day ago Zycro Your bot does stuff the wiki already does on it's own! Constantly! a day ago Zycro That could be a show stopper / ligitamate reason for a bot. This is news to me. Can MinecraftRogue confirm? a day ago Cacher97 Show me where the wiki has reverted stuff because of vandalism? Or has an option to mass delete files? Or an option to record chat? Or an option create offline logs of every action? a day ago Zycro Files: Any admin can delete files. You can delete all from a specific user. You shouldn't need to mass delete on a proper wiki.

Record chat: (Why?) Official talk of pages should happen on their Talk:page or in the comments. Chat isn't a good way to have a conversation out in the open.

Logs: Everything on the wiki is already logged.

Your bot is pulling from these pages http://thetekkit.wikia.com/wiki/Special:SpecialPages Edited by Zycro	 a day ago Cacher97 Files: they aren't being used. There were over 1000 of them and according to the admins there is no option to delete them all. Record chat: my bot doesn't do this (and I'm not interested in coding in js anyway. But many wiki's record chat to find spammers and such. Logs: those logs are online an cannot be used for other functions. And i wasn't talking about history logs anyway. Special: the uses that the bot has now yes. Other endless possibilities ,no. a day ago Zycro reply to #17 Jguy wrote: There should be a permission available to crats called Autoconfirmed that we can use. http://community.wikia.com/wiki/Help:User_access_levels#Autoconfirmed_users

I would support this as a first step. a day ago Zycro reply to #16 Cacher97 wrote: We could lock it on "most vandalized pages?". I agree we need to lock, but my worry is that we might lose future editors...

Not being anonymous allows us to thank editors for their work. a day ago MinecraftRogue I realize now that blocking anonymous IPs may not be the best idea. However, I do not support any action for the bot other than what we have been using it for, which is deleting files. I trust real people infinitely more than a predetermined program. The bot may can check for vulgar language, but real people can check for things like small removal of content and random non-vulgar gibberish that can't be detected by bots. a day ago Yutfgh Banning, or even restricting, anonymous users from editing makes far more problems than simply undoing vandalism. Since I've joined the wiki instances of trolling/vandalism have decreased loads. There are always going to be trolls, and it's the admins and other dedicated users (people with accounts) job to undo such instances. I like the idea of a bot reverting cases of swearing, it makes are job alot easier. 21 hours ago Zycro "Banning, or even restricting, anonymous users from editing makes far more problems than simply undoing vandalism."

Name one. One single problem this creates. You make a claim and don't mention it at all in your paragraph.

" it's the admins and other dedicated users (people with accounts) job to undo such instances"

Do you know what you're saying? It's not the admins' jobs to nanny the wiki 24/7. Admins are for making admin decisions. Blocking anonymous edits is one of those decisions. Instead of treating the symptoms (the burden of stalking the recent changes log to check for vandalism) this is a solution to the problem. (preventing / minimizing vandalism BEFORE it happens)

"It makes more problems.... but it's the admin's job"

MinecraftRogue - Can you please confirm if blocking anonymous edits is possible? Not sure if you are reading all of these. 17 hours ago MinecraftRogue Blocking anonymous edits is possible through "semi-protection". I am suggesting this for highly vandalized pages, in order to prevent vandalism and excessive rollbacks and blocking. 17 hours ago Zycro Make it so!

Picard.jpg 17 hours ago MinecraftRogue Picard.jpg? 17 hours ago Mdouglas3 The problem is, once you protect the "highly vandalized" pages then other pages start becoming "highly vandalized", until eventually you have to protect the entire wiki.

I like the idea of a bot that automatically reverts (and hopefully reports) obviously trolls, such as any edit with a curse word. 17 hours ago The Exterminator I'd still prefer to handle all of those situations personally. It's best to use personal judgment to either remove or simply edit whatever was posted as opposed to leaving the job to a bot that only acts based on what commands were given. Mass protecting pages is a bad idea in any case, with the exception of needing to stop a spambot (VSTF handles those situations anyway, as they have the tools). 16 hours ago Zycro What about a bot...

genius idea* THAT PROTECTS EVERY PAGE?

Down with anonymous editing!!

Catcher, can you do that? 16 hours ago MinecraftRogue I'm not suggesting mass protection at all. I'm suggesting page semi-protection on a case-by-case basis, like I had to do for the Balkons Weapon Mod page, due to the very large amount of griefing the page was receiving at the time from various anonymous IPs (20 edits from 5 different IPs). Other than that, I agree with exterminator; I'd like to keep these situations in our own hands, rather than letting a bot do it. Edited by MinecraftRogue	 16 hours ago Zycro Why are you against mass protection? 16 hours ago The Exterminator Okay, no. Definitely not. That is improper use for a bot in a wiki that is well capable of dealing with vandalism. No, leave the bot for maintenance purposes. NOT for administrative purposes. 16 hours ago MinecraftRogue Letting a bot have administrative powers means that it starts to send welcome messages. This is a problem we have had before, which is one of the reasons I am sketchy about letting bots have admin abilities at all, even for its current and only task of deleting unused files. 16 hours ago The Exterminator Even on case by case basis, protections should not be permanent. A wiki is designed for everyone to contribute to, and infinitely blocking editors from doing so is going against wiki ethics. The only pages that should be permanently protected are templates, which are frequently used in most places and can significantly alter many pages if vandalized. 16 hours ago Zycro If it wasn't clear, that was a joke. I have said in many, many posts how useless I think it is to have a bot do something the wiki can already do.

Please, admins, this post isn't about bots. Stop talking about bots!!

Yes or no to blocking anonymous posting as a vandalism solution. And why. 16 hours ago MinecraftRogue Sometimes, but on very few instances, and for a limited period of time. 16 hours ago The Exterminator Sarcasm is lost in text.

No on mass blocking and not permanent on case-by-case as per my reasons that I have said above. 16 hours ago MinecraftRogue Argh; why is it my message wall that is clogged up? TekkitPlayer has 23 responses and this one has 50+! And this is in the past 30 minutes! 16 hours ago The Exterminator Well, you are the most well known administrator around here. 16 hours ago Zycro

Exterminator, the ONLY type of restriction I am talking about is making it so only account with a confirmed email address can edit.

THIS ENTIRE PROCESS IS ALREADY POSSIBLE USING THE WIKI SOFTWARE

I have been at this for a number of days now, working to make something better, and I am getting a mix between "BOTZ LETS USE BOTXZZZZZZZZZZZZ" and "I don't want to limit people"

I am NOT limiting the wiki. ANYONE can register an account. ANYONE can log in.

If you have not read every post in this comment thread, do it now. Edited by Zycro	 16 hours ago MinecraftRogue Woo! It's probably because I'm on here 24/7. I'm gonna get some sleep everyone. We can discuss this tomorrow. 16 hours ago Zycro Please point all of the admins to this thread. 16 hours ago The Exterminator But not everyone will make an account. I have been reading this post. Twice now actually. My position remains the same. If you have not noticed, a large portion of edits are made by those without accounts. For whatever reasons, they have chosen to not make an account and edit as unregistered users. By limiting who can edit, you actually are limiting the wiki. If anyone can make an account, then those who have wanted one have done so already. The fact remains that a wiki, especially one hosted by Wikia, should not be closed to anonymous editors. Edited by The Exterminator	 16 hours ago Cacher97 "preventing all anonymous IP's from creating new pages. "

yes! this. 16 hours ago The Exterminator Cacher: that will create some problems with forums. Some use them, and I have seen anonymous editors create them. Again, the admin team is well capable of handling vandalism. 16 hours ago Cacher97 Wikipedia has it?

we could lock them from creating pages outside of the Forums: namespace 16 hours ago Yutfgh I think we should move this conversation over to a blog, it is easier for multiple people to find it, is more relevant to where this conversation is headed and MinecraftRogue doesn't have to worry about hundreds of messages being posted on his wall. I'm happy to start the blog, what do you guys think? 11 hours ago Cacher97 reply to #59 Yutfgh wrote: I think we should move this conversation over to a blog, it is easier for multiple people to find it, is more relevant to where this conversation is headed and MinecraftRogue doesn't have to worry about hundreds of messages being posted on his wall. I'm happy to start the blog, what do you guys think? It should be moved to the forums or to its own page. Not to a blog... 11 hours ago Yutfgh Sorry my bad. But I do think it needs to leave the message wall. 9 hours ago MinecraftRogue Ok guys. My opinion has changed throughout this blog. I believe we should keep as many pages as possible open for free editing by anyone. However, some pages may need to be semi-protected for a short (<week) amount of time. Let's get this moved to a blog so others can discuss it. 6 hours ago