User talk:Ramir/5hoo case discussion

Let's see what really happened

On January 20 2006 ru:User:Dj_shoo created an article in ruwiki which related the story of a fictitious state called Virtustan (ru:Виртустан) which was later deleted by 17 to 6 majority of votes on the VfD page. During the discussions he claimed the information must be paid for, the wikigays and just gays must be eliminated from the face of the Earth and initiated a campaign against Wikipedia.

Later on he wrote in his lj that he avenged by mixing up facts and changing dates in numerous articles. E.g. he allegedly (confirmed by himself or his follower under the nickname ru:User:Loghtim) changed several facts concerning the nuclear reactor mechanisms.

to be continued...

Strange situation in Russian wiki

One of vandals started anti-russian-wikipedia campaign in livejournal (http://5h00.livejournal.com).

Almost all of his IP's was blocked (I'm one of admins on ru-wiki).

There also another abusive user (ru:User:Dart evader) who disputed with admins about this situation. In the heat of dispute he offended an admin (ru:User:Ramir), said Ramir is a stupid ("глупый") clown. Dart evader was repeatedly offend other users and permit himself personal attacks on another users, and previously was blocked for 1 week. So I blocked him for 2 weeks.

Now return to first sentence about vandal. One of user publish his personal details based on info from Livejournal in Wikipedia. Dart_evader says that one cannot publish that information in wiki, and in this reply he offend Ramir and was blocked by me. Now Dart_evader's friends threats to me and Ramir that they will complain this to stewards and stewards will remove our admin rights.

So, question is: What we have to do? Unblock Dart_evader? Remove personal information of vandal and unblock him?

Please, help. --Jaroslavleff 20:18, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Jaroslavleff:

1) Learnd emocracy, tolerance and justice!

2) you should not block somebody, whi criticises Wikipedia in WP or outside.

3) You should pardon Dart evader for blocking him.

4) You should block the user, who published IRL data about him.

5) You may try to do something against Dart evader if you feel, he is offending somebody, but not block him. Offending is a subjective cathegory, it should not be punished.

BTW: the admins in the Hungarian Wikipedia are doing the same. It seems that the entire Wikipedia i lslacking from democracy, tolerance and justice.

--Math 10:56, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Generally, I try to follow these guidelines

• Avoid blocking people. Generally, block people when they are damaging the content, to protect Wikipedia. Second option : to give users a time out when editing gets hot (edit war).
• Avoid publishing personal information. If some was published and the editor complained about the information being published, remove the information (when possible, remove it permanently). Publishing real life information against the user will is not wikilove at all.
• When someone is repeatedly having a wrong behavior, such as publishing data or being hurtful of others, two possibilities : the user is not providing good content (a vandal), then, block him. The user is providing good content, then first of all, talk to him to try to understand why he is doing it. Generally, best to talk than to block would be my handle :-)

anthere

Another viewpoint

Anthere, your advice does not apply in this situation. The vandal in question admitted (although rejected it after a legal threat) that he had corrupted “around 500 articles since January”, did this through an w:anonymiser with an intent to turn Wikipedia into a place that nobody would use, and promised to continue working towards this goal. I proposed a lawsuit against vandals like him as a means to several important goals:

• Probing the Russian legal system for its usefullness against vandals. I mean serious, devoted, maniacal vandals (otherwise, of course, it is easier to revert and clean up)
• Giving all potential vandals an idea of what they risk.
  • Accordingly, it would be an advantage to make them actually pay (for general vandalism and defacing the reputation of Wikipedia)
• Promotion of a positive image of Wikipedia as a serious reference work that is well-defended against anyone who tries to undermine it.
  • And indeed, an absence of such effective action against determined vandals gives Wikipedia a reputation of a sandbox.

The possible negative outcomes of such enterprise would be:

• Failure with the lawsuit (some money lost, a good way of dealing with vandals proven ineffective)
• Negative PR, as some would view Wikipedia as a greedy bunch who abuse the court system to rob the poor young people.
  • The solution to this is merely an open and detailed explanation of the situation (including the personal info of the vandal), our goals and intentions, and, in case of winning money, where it goes (donation to Wikimedia, less court expenses) Ramir 00:01, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Apparently, the voicing of my true intent to sue Aleksandr Shushpanov (the vandal) and compilation of his (publically available) personal details on the Wiki discussion worked. He backed of from his original claims, and apparently ceased the idea of continuing his vandalism.

Anthere, being an authoritative voice of the Foundation, what do you thing of this? Sincerely yours, Ramir 00:01, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Is WP open to anyone, or not?

1) Your solution is bad. If it worked, then you had luck.

2) The reason, why it is bad:

(i) As you pointed out, suing would not work. Deleting an open webpage content is not a legal issue. (ii) Publishing his IRL info was bad. (iii) All this leads to the conlcusion for vandals to very careful with anonymity, and continue vandalism.

So you had luck, but this is not the solution, it does harm the reputation of WP.

WP decided at the beginning, that anyone may edit the articles, even unregistered users. The intention of Wikipedia was that the consensus of many peaople will peacefully win against minority or vandalism.

If WP decided this, it should also accept the consequences of this.

The only two solutions are these:

1)Revert vandalism as much as needed.

2)WP decides that the policy of opennes was an error. Consequently, WP goes back to a solution closer to w:Nupedia, and gives up the policy that anyone can edit anything. This is the opinion of many peope, who criticise WP, for example the opinion of w:Larry Sanger.

--Math 07:48, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Dear Mátyás, I understand what you are saying and agree with the principles (“let’s be open to everyone, lawsuits give negative reputation, let’s try to manage vandalism in the usual way”). Similarly, Anthere’s advice is right for the general case. However, this is not a general case. Shushpanov was not the kind of guy whom one could talk to (he started his rhetoric on ru.Wikipedia by unforgivably insulting all contributors, and everyone who addressed him); he was not even the kind of user whom you can block, as he corrupted the articles without registration, from various IP-addresses, using an anonymiser (at least according to his own words). Such action can be compared to repetitive and ruthless vandalism offline, and I see no reasons to not begin a lawsuit, besides the pragmatic concerns of cost and success perspectives. But maybe that is just me? It may be that the Foundation are so scared of any lawsuits done on Wikipedia’s behalf that they would forbid them at all costs? Or, on the other hand, they may agree with me that in this case, a lawsuit against a vandal is even beneficial. Ramir 13:54, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

How about making some proof before calling somebody a vandal? I can claim I killed Kennedy, so would you sue me? According to Shooshpanov, he actually didnt do any vandalism corrections; his intentions was to provoke some easily-annoyed wikipedia administrators like you to look, well, funny. And he did succeeed. Lvn 01:20, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

If you agree on the principles, you should also use them in the particlular cases. Even if it is hard. That is the right way. If WP does not hold to its own principles then this creates bad reputation. One can say that:

"Wikipedia can not be trusted to hold its own principles".

If there is a principle then there should not be special exceptions. If there are special exceptions a posteriori, then that is not a principle.

WP decided to be open, to allow anonym users, and that the content is editable by everyone. So everyone may do this. The only thing you may do that you revert things, which you think to be vandalism. Shushpanov has also the right to do what he thinks to be right. Majority wins on WP in fight. That is a consequence of the WP policies.

This is a hard consequence of opennes. WP accepted this at the beginning, and has to hold to this, until it does not decide by consensus to modify this policy.

WP may decide not to allow anonym users, not to be open content lexicon, to adopt editors in chief, and such thing. But until that decision you should accept the current consequences of the policies of Wikipedia. Even the bad consequences.

The current policy is that vandalism is solved by many reverts.

--Math 07:22, 29 March 2006 (UTC)