Misplaced Pages

I recognize that this user page belongs to the Misplaced Pages project and not to me personally. As such, I recognize that I am expected to respectfully abide by community standards as to the presentation and content of this page, and that if I do not like these guidelines, I am welcome either to engage in reasonable discussion about it, to publish my material elsewhere, or to leave the project.

Please read the two blue boxes :).

What to Semi?

Frankly, I wouldn't mind if you semi-protected every NBA bio. They accumulate more vandalism and generally incompetent edits than any other class of articles I watch. But the two above would be a good place to start. Zagalejo^^^ 08:02, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

It's a thought... but I would want to see evidence of vandalism that wasn't instantly reverted before I liberally semi. Bringing them here seems good. I may not get to these right away so some other TPW should feel free. I go 1 year and give "per liberal use of semiprotection policy. Do not unprotect without contacting me" as the reason.++Lar: t/c 14:46, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Formalizing the process

I think I need to formalize this so I can do it faster... move it to a subpage and put some guidelines down, or something... I would appreciate it if people give the diffs (2 vandalisms that last longer than 5 min each or one that lasts more than an hour, from IPs or newly registered users that semi would have stopped) so I don't have to trawl through the article history... I didn't spot either of those situations but may have missed them. As for the OR and etc... ya, it's a crap article, but SP doesn't address that. Flagged revisions does a better job. ++Lar: t/c 00:54, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to move it to a subpage. I'll perform the move and write the guidelines later this week if you don't get to it. nearly 7 hours, if that counts. Hell, half the article was uncited borderline BLP violations until I gutted it. Enigma 05:48, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Give me a couple days to work on the page first, I have a couple of ideas. (I think a table format with the diffs in a separate column is a good way to go) ++Lar: t/c 05:53, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

This (and the page with it with the list) is that formalization. ++Lar: t/c 03:41, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Criteria questions

Time period

Over what time period can these diffs be from? I've just given an example where two IP vandalisms were from the last fortnight, but would we indef semi a BLP which was vandalised every couple of years? ϢereSpielChequers 11:59, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

This one seems clear... the time period can go as far back as you like, but not beyond the last time the article was semi (or full) protected, if any. However if an article is only getting vandalised once every two years, it's probably not a very good candidate. ++Lar: t/c 00:44, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Non Bios

Some articles that are definitely not bios can wind up with biographical information, can I suggest that we make bio related vandalism the threshold? So two diffs showing people being named at wanker for more than five minutes would get that article semiprotected. But a footballers bio would not be protected simply because his team was maligned (though I appreciate it isn't often that you could describe vandalism to somebodies bio as not being biographic vandalism). ϢereSpielChequers 12:18, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Seriousness

I would like to suggest that we factor the level of malice and harm into this policy. Taking the two examples I gave re Richard Dawkins, clearly some vandalism is more distasteful than others. At the other end of the scale I doubt if a certain TV personality would be greatly offended to discover that our article on Beaver once contained a warning that they were creating an army of 8 foot tall beavers to take over the world. ϢereSpielChequers 12:28, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

comments

The above are all good considerations but these take this out of the realm of "easy". I want easy to evaluate criteria because I think the volume may increase. ++Lar: t/c 17:23, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

maybe if one is not in the easy pile, who ever posts it could address some of the above concerns (at least the ones that take an article out of the easy category)? i.e., if we make it easy for you (or other tpw-admins) to decide, we've done the right thing. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 22:45, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the seriousness aspect should be doable, we already have a CSD category for attacks, so why not for this? ϢereSpielChequers 12:58, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Not opposed to the idea, just not sure how it would work. I'd like to see more people bringing stuff here before we try to get too elaborate, though. ++Lar: t/c 02:28, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Archiving strategy

Question was raised about archiving. I agree that monthly archiveing, if we get to that point, is a good approach. Probably the standard naming convention (names such as User:Lar/Liberal Semi/archive/2009-03 for the first one) is the way to go, rather than strict numerical as is done at ANI or my main talk page... Thoughts? ++Lar: t/c 15:24, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree. archive by month would be good, and easily trackable if we wanted to go back and look at why we did something. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 15:44, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I think we should have them be User:Lar/Liberal Semi/Archives/Archive 1 and pipe them to the date. As it is, the problem with noticeboard archiving, and that of DYK, for example, isn't that the archives themselves are numeric, but that there is nothing in the archive listing that makes them easily to search through. As long as the archives are piped in the list, it shouldn't be a problem. Naming them as Lar has them will prevent use of any templates to connect one archive to the next. لennavecia 15:50, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I am willing to handle the manual archiving, if you want. Set it up the way you want it, and I'll follow the format. I don't know how long this user project will last, but I would assume a few months at least? I hope it goes on in perpetuity, but obviously it isn't up to me. Enigma 17:31, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the goal is to see a change in standards, or use this until real improvements are made project wide. So, the hope would be that it doesn't last too long, at least not in user space. لennavecia 18:16, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Naturally I'd rather see something done project-wide and I've voted in the related polls, but I am not optimistic. Too many people are dead set against BLPs getting deleted or protected. Lar is a good bit more optimistic on the subject than I. I just hope that if changes aren't made, that there are admins willing to protect BLPs. Enigma 18:19, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Let's use numbers then, because if we use numbers we can set up a nav template easily enough (I'll just copy the nav template I did for my talk pages User:Lar/TalkArchiveNav which has back/forth scrolling that's numerically driven). It is my sincere hope that we will not be archiving this for long, though. Please spread the word though... the more articles get semiprotected this way, the harder it is to argue that they should not be semiprotected. And be rigorous on rejecting possibly good faith edits as a justification. If it's not CLEARLY vandalism, reject it... ++Lar: t/c 16:31, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Although, technically, a template that takes names of the form 2009-04 or whatever is easy enough to set up, it just takes more parameters (three) than just one and use of the {{#expr}} magic word construct...) ++Lar: t/c 16:34, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Probably time to start archiving. Can you set up the first archive page? I'll take it from there. Thanks! Enigma 15:26, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, I'll do the pure numeric we were talking about and do the template. Tonite hopefully. However I am not averse to waiting till partway into next month before archiving this month's items (ala how I do my talk page archives)... ++Lar: t/c 15:52, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Use of hidings

see ... strikes me as a good idea... that currently hidden stuff is the first thing to get archived, I think. Also I hadn't seen {{hidden begin}} and {{hidden end}} before, neat! ++Lar: t/c 05:15, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

• Glad you like - it's an easy way to compact and sectionalise whilst still maintaining fairly recent history on the page in question. Of course older sections after a few months can be archived in the usual fashion.--VS 05:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Questions about the process and the criteria, other ways to achieve the goal

(Refactored from User_talk:Lar#questions_about_User:Lar.2FLiberal_Semi to keep this discussion in the right place.)

Has User:Lar/Liberal Semi been approved (per se) by the community? I'm pretty uneasy with articles like Elijah Dukes going from no protection to a year semi-protection because someone didn't fix a couple bad edits within a few minutes. If that's the criteria, I can see much of the wiki being shut down to anonymous users in short order. Wknight94 14:44, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Hasn't been disapproved that I'm aware of, and a year feels about right when doing cost/benefit analysis of time wasted. Articles that get their vandalism reverted instantly and that don't see a lot of it aren't eligible under the criteria I'm using... all we have to do as a community is prevent vandalism, or get it cleaned up instantly, and we won't need to impose semiprotection, will we? ++Lar: t/c 16:32, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Let me share a few thoughts, and you can do with it as you wish. First of all, I'm with you on the underlying issue. The volume and persistence of BLP violations here is appalling. I'm a fan of semiprotection and I've long considered IP editing to be more trouble than it's worth, personally. I do think that it might be worth considering the means to the end, though.

I've seen a bunch of protections coming across with an edit summary citing your page, and basically ordering other admins not to unprotect the page without "consultation". I think if you just semiprotected these pages with the explanation that BLP was in play, you wouldn't get much argument. Experience teaches me, though, that excellent ideas can be undermined on Misplaced Pages if their implementation is perceived as high-handed. Reading these edit summaries, I feel like they're a bit peremptory, and I agree with what you're doing and have administrative rights. I think that the average non-admin editor, or an admin who doesn't necessarily agree with your approach, is going to be significantly put off.

Again, I agree with what you're doing. I've used semiprotection similarly where BLP has been an issue, and while I think a year is overkill, that's a relatively minor technical quibble. I guess what I'm saying is that it might be best to either a) evaluate each of these articles on a case-by-case basis and tailor semiprotection to the level and persistence of BLP violations in each, or b) if you're going to cite an organized effort & quasi-policy, and command other admins not to unprotect the page, it really would be best to put this forward at the Village Pump or other venue.

I realize that no one has disapproved yet - or I should say a few people have in a scattered fashion as Wknight94 does here. But at some point this will become an issue, and I think it might be pennywise but pound-foolish to have a bunch of admins semiprotecting articles and citing a personal policy which has not received formal community scrutiny. It'll just trigger the usual, predictable arguments and resentment. Anyhow, just a thought - do with it as you will.

By the way, if you have handy a list of ten or so BLP's that have been problematic, I can add them to my watchlist and keep an eye on them. If other interested parties are willing to do this too, we can probably alleviate some, but not all, of the violations that trigger the need for semiprotection - do you think that would be useful? MastCell  16:58, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

You can look at that page and find BLPs that have been problematic, and watch whatever ones you like... more eyes is goodness, after all. Perhaps mark with a comment that you're committing to personally watch them. As to why they're protected, each item on the list has links to why it's problematic, which the admin who protected it is committing that they've validated as BEING problematic. Tailor the length to the severity? Sure... come on over to the talk page and suggest suggest some guidelines. As for the wording, I'd welcome a better one, you're right, reading quickly might leave one with the notion that it's peremptory... Improvement welcomed.

I don't like BLP violations either but a year?! Like MastCell says (or implies anyway), let's start a coordinated effort of watchlisting troublesome BLPs, or some other solution. Blindly sprotecting them for a year is essentially shutting down the wiki. I don't think Elijah Dukes himself would care so much about his WP article to want a year of sprotection. How about starting with a year of sprotection and inviting that any admin that adds the article to their watchlist can decrease the length? Something other than the slightly WP:POINTy process going on at User:Lar/Liberal Semi now. Wknight94 18:24, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Come on over to the talk (User_talk:Lar/Liberal Semi) and let's talk about it. Thats why there's a talk page after all. ++Lar: t/c 18:30, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

← Well, I guess my suggestions (and they are only suggestions) would be:

• Alter the edit summary. Instead of linking to a quasi-policy, just state "Persistent and significant violations of policy on biographical articles by multiple IPs." I don't think anyone in their right mind would dispute that as a rationale for semiprotection, and it leverages existing policy. You can still keep going with this project, which I think is a Good Thing, but it may be most effective to base it explicitly on existing, accepted policy.
• Alter the duration. I understand you're being "liberal", but I took that to mean liberal with applying semiprotection where living people are concerned. A one-year first-time semiprotection for a single instance of recent vandalism isn't liberal - I think most admins would consider it excessive. Why not make the first semiprotection more in line with current standard durations, and watchlist the article so that it can be reapplied if the problem recurs? It will quickly become apparent when you go to semi an article that it's already been semi'd once or twice for the same problem, and the admin will be able to take this into account in imposing a longer duration.
• Alter the "please consult before reversing" bit. Hopefully, the admins we're promoting understand that they should discuss any potentially controversial reversal of an administrative action. If they don't get that, then an edit-summary demand isn't going to help. Also, you're semi'ing articles for 1 year. If I get a request to unprotect an article that's been semi'd for months, it's really not necessary to track down the protecting admin for a discussion. These sorts of requests are handled, and well-handled, at WP:RFPP all the time, usually down to the judgment of the admin reviewing the request rather than a discussion about a 4-month-old semiprotection. If people are reversing these protections right off the bat, that would be another matter - but that doesn't seem to be happening, so this wording is just going to put peoples' backs up to no good end.

Those are my thoughts. MastCell  19:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I am open to altering the edit summary, and mentioning WP:BLP seems valid, as it is what this is all about. As for the length, if an article has been vandalised by different IPs for months or years how does a short protection address the problem? I have protected articles for 1 or 2 weeks, only to see the vandalism return immediately the protection expires. Then we gradually increase the length until we are protecting for 6 months or a year anyway. I see no benefit in going through that process, and no evidence that escalating protection has any impact on IP vandalism during the periods when the protection has expired. Kevin (talk) 20:36, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with MastCell partially. The duration is fine to me, but the edit summary should be changed. Get rid of the "consult with me" part, because that sounds wrong and it's understood that admins are not supposed to overturn each other's actions without at least communicating. Reference the BLP policy, what the WMF has said, what ArbCom has said, etc. In fact, maybe there should be a page referencing those things, and the edit summary can point to that. As for the duration, one week and escalate from there is fine for Biomechanics and the like. It's not fine for BLPs. If multiple instances of vandalism (in many cases here, we're dealing with out and out defamation) can be shown, a year is appropriate, or at least 3 months. Enigma 23:50, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I am not opposed to altering the edit summary as well, as long as it's clear that the admin that placed the protection has staked their reputation on the protection being necessary and should be consulted. On the appropriate length, I agree with Kevin. These articles are here, nominated, because watchlists, bots, short protections, assumptions of good faith, best intentions, and so forth have failed them. I think a year is appropriate as a starting point.

Now, if someone turns up and says "I guarantee this article will not get vandalism that survives for more than a few seconds, ever" that would be a suitable substitute to semiprotection. Or reason to remove it. (note, that guarantor won't be me, I have decided not to fight vandalism until and unless flagged revisions are properly implemented). But not short of that. ++Lar: t/c 21:15, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

@Kevin: I think there's probably confirmation bias at work there. I also remember the cases where I've had to go back and reapply semiprotection. I tend to forget the ones I semiprotect for a week and never have trouble with again. In some cases, it's just a kid bored in his school library, and a week (or even a day) of semiprotection does the trick. On the other hand some biographies will always, always be a tempting target for anonymous vandalism and should be semiprotected for the long term or indefinitely. I'm sure your judgment, or that of the average admin, is sufficient to differentiate these - I'm just saying we should trust that judgment rather than "mandating" a 1-year semiprotection off the bat.

@Lar: I dunno, I guess I feel like admins stake their reputation on pretty much every action they take. Most active admins have a target of varying sizes on their backs and people waiting for them to slip up, and this site's quasijudicial processes are about as consistent and predictable as lightning strikes. So it's wise to behave as if your rep is always on the line. I'm not sure I agree with your point about this being a last resort - in the case of Elijah Dukes, it looks like a first resort. I see some sporadic vandalism and BLP violations - none of which appear to have lasted more than an hour or two at most - and no previous failures of semiprotection. Maybe that article isn't typical of where this is being applied. Again, I'm not agitated to unprotect it - I believe in the liberal use of semiprotection - but I think this is probably going beyond where the community (even the BLP-concerned community) is at present.

Maybe I'm wrong. I think flagged revisions are a great idea, and I personally would be very happy if IP editing disappeared tomorrow. But it's unrealistic to expect anyone, or even any group, to be able to guarantee that vandalism will be reverted in seconds. I assume that's just a way of saying that you don't see any alternative to liberal semiprotection. MastCell  22:03, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

But I do see an alternative to liberal semiprotection: Flagged revisions. ++Lar: t/c 22:35, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think we agree that flagged revisions would be a good solution, particularly where BLPs are concerned. MastCell  00:12, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I am uneasy with several aspects of this. The appearance of cabalism may be foremost. Why is this sitting off in the corner like this? Why not bring it up at a noticeboard somewhere? Why is there basically nothing at this link? Fear of backlash? Making a WP:POINT about flagged revisions? I'd love flagged revisions too but I'm not going to shut down the wiki to see it. Is someone going to undo all these extreme protections when flagged revisions goes into effect?

Another bothersome aspect about this - and overprotection in general - is people forgetting how many good edits are made by IPs and the autoconfirmed-challenged. As MastCell said, I am hearing a lot of confirmation bias. If all you're looking for is IP vandalism, that's all you'll see. In the case of Elijah Dukes, semi-protection would have killed several good edits. The vandalism gets reverted - the lost good edits are unrecoverable. And let's not forget that semi-protection doesn't just stop IPs, it also stops new registered editors. In a few minutes, I found some notable edits that would not have happened if your BLP sprotection strategy were in effect:

I'm scared to pull up Recent Changes and count how many legit IP edits are being made to BLP articles every minute. This is becoming a slippery-slope situation. Wknight94 01:35, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is much different than it was in 2005, or even 2007. We have many more articles than we did before, and maintenance is becoming more difficult (especially with so many talented editors spending hours at RFA, or working on less-than-essential articles like Featured Lists just so they can collect awards.) Logging in a few minutes ago, I found this, this, this, this, and this, and I'm sure I'll find more acts of vandalism soon. (Not all are edits to BLP, and none are libelous or anything, but they're all examples of vandalism that lasted too long. And these aren't obscure Tongan politicians or Cambodian villages. They're all articles that should be on someone's watchlist.)

I agree that many IPs make positive contributions, but ten positive contributions don't make up for a nasty piece of libel. Until we get flagged revisions or the overall culture of the site changes, I see no other choice but to make new editors jump through a few hoops. Zagalejo^^^ 05:37, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

@WK - You ask a number of good questions. I'll try to address them as best I can. Cabalism? Hardly. This is just something that got started because one editor, Enigmaman, was asking Sarcasticidealist, now retired, to protect articles he was watching... when SI retired, he asked if I would as well. I started, but I realised that it is important to track these... for several reasons. Most importantly so that if Flagged Revisions gets implemented, that they aren't forgotten about, and can be unprotected after a good flagged revision is found (unless, by then, the community as a whole has decided that all BLP's should be indefinitely semiprotected). (answering your "Is someone going to ..." question, with a "yes"). So the page came into existance in stages to enable tracking, and a few people have helped out, among them one of our sitting arbitrators, Risker. No cabal. No secret. No desire to hide. Just not a big deal yet because it's not necessarily all worked out.

To your second major point, which is essentially "some edits are being lost". Granted. I'm absolutely sure some good edits that otherwise would have been made, aren't. But... there is no deadline. We have plenty of time for good edits to be made, and if they truly are good, eventually they WILL be made. On the other hand, every second that a bad edit persists is a second when the project is being actively damaged. The cost to the project in damaged reputation, and FAR more importantly, the cost to the BLP victim, far far outweighs the benefit of the good edits foregone. We are not here to damage the lives and reputations of BLP victims. I'm willing to lose 1000 good edits, temporarily, in exchange for preventing one bad one, indefinitely.

So I stand behind this tiny step, this drop in the fire bucket that will do a tiny bit to quench the raging fire of damage that vandalism and malicious edits to BLPs are doing... I stand behind every protection I placed as being justified, unless I'm presented with evidence that it wasn't, in which case I'll pull it. (and that's another reason for this page, to keep all this info about protections I placed in one place where it's easy to work with) I've chosen not to spend time on fighting vandalism directly (although if others want to, they're welcome to it), but I'm willing to spend time fighting vandalism at a more effective level. Hope that clarifies matters. ++Lar: t/c 11:21, 23 April 2009 (UTC)