User talk:Waggie/Archives/2020/April

Your attitude on IRC
Hello, I am an administrator here on en-wiki and an experienced Teahouse host. If you are the same @Waggie who has just blocked me on our IRC help forum, I just wanted to observe that your terse attitude toward me as a new visitor there was both extraordinarily unhelpful and unwelcoming. It certainly wasn't in the sprit of helpful friendly advice that I assumed IRC provided.

Maybe you have a jaded view of honest questioners, but hastily banning me for simply visiting and trying to watch and learn how users interact at IRC, and then failing to provide a clear explanation or any help-page link when I did ask a genuine question, is a pretty appalling way to welcome any user. (Providing a terse technobabble remark about needing a "Wikimedia cloak" and then banning me when I sought to understand what you meant is a particularly shoddy way to interact.)

If you are that same person as I had the misfortune to encounter on IRC just now, I suggest you rethink how you interact with confused users. If you're not the same editor, then I must apologise for bothering you here. Pinging, as it looks like I'm going to need some assistance before I ever dare to request access to use the administrator's IRC channel. I'd  also like to be 'unbanned' - whatever that may involve. Thank you. Nick Moyes (talk) 10:33, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Hello, I am sorry that your experience wasn't a more positive one. I have unbanned your IP address on the help channel. I do agree that I could have given you a more detailed explanation of what a cloak was, but I fear your characterization of the interaction is somewhat lacking. Reviewing my logs, I did answer all your questions fairly politely, if tersely. You asked if you could lurk, I apologized and said no. You asked why not, I explained that you needed a cloak. You asked what that was, I said it was a form of identification on IRC. You then did not ask for any further clarification on my response, nor provide any further response to me for several minutes, which is when I placed the ban. It's worth noting that I do stand by my actions. I'm happy to explain my actions and provide further context.
 * The bigger picture: We have a pernicious problem in the help channel of people trying to "help" who are actually LTAs, and also of people lurking in the channel "simply visiting and trying to watch and learn how users interact at IRC" but are actually people trying to solicit business via PM for their UPE businesses or otherwise troll confused new users. To add to all this, new and confused users sometimes divulge PII in the help channel without realizing the import of their actions. Unlike on-wiki, we do not have any sort of oversight or revdel function on IRC to protect them - it's one of the reasons for the no public logging policy on most support-oriented WM channels, but LTAs obviously won't respect this so we must be especially vigilant against bad actors lurking.
 * The specifics: You did not come across as a new and confused user, you clearly had experience with Wikipedia. In fact, your behavior was nearly identical to a very specific LTA (who I won't identify here, per WP:BEANS) that we deal with on a semi-regular basis. You were apparently challenging an experienced long-term helper about their helping technique repeatedly via PM (to the point where they put you on ignore), you hadn't identified yourself in any way, and had not parted the channel when asked to (parting and then almost immediately re-joining doesn't count). As such, by the time you got around to asking your question regarding cloaks (almost an hour after joining, and it being your first message to the channel), you really had not make a great first impression. Furthermore, you showed up right in the middle of a spambot attack on other WM channels for which I had been roused from slumber to handle. I also would disagree with the usage of the term "hastily", given that you'd been in the channel for almost an hour, and had already been parted once for being idling. In fact, you had been first asked to part over a half an hour before the ban took effect and had been given a full five minutes to respond after being asked the second time. So no, "hastily" would not be an accurate characterization of my actions at all.
 * Given you had been asked politely to leave if you did not have a question about editing Wikipedia twice (once by Jéské Couriano, and once - admittedly less politely - by myself), you were unidentified, and the overall circumstances and similarity to LTA behavior, I made the choice to remove you from the channel using a standard 24 hour ban.
 * For information regarding access to -en-admins, you can look here. For more information about IRC cloaks, please look here.
 * I hope this response clarifies matters for you. Congrats on your recent RfA, btw. Not sure what the point of pinging Oshwah here is. If it's some sort of attempt at holding my accountable and if my explanation is inadequate to you for whatever reason, you are welcome to discuss my conduct with the IRC group contacts. Waggie (talk) 16:45, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
 * He only PM'd me once. I put him on ignore after that. It wasn't "repeatedly". —A little blue Bori  v^_^v  Onward to 2020 21:54, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I have stricken that word from my response. Thank you. Waggie (talk) 22:03, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Just a courtesy note to say I am going to be busy IRL for the next few days, so will not be able to respond to you until sometime later next week. Many thanks. Nick Moyes (talk) 09:43, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
 * OK, Waggie, well it's been a much longer break than I had expected - I'm really sorry about that. But at least it gave me a chance to cool off and consider dispassionately my interaction with you. I thank you for taking the time here to give an explanation of your actions. Whilst I do accept that I was lying, prostrate in my bed, with a tablet (taking the chance for almost the first time in ten years here) to watch and to try to learn how IRC works for longer than I had realised, I must reject your attempt to justify your terse actions and eventual banning of me from IRC. If you can treat a genuinely Good Faith editor by banning them, then heaven help newcomers. I found that appalling. It's fine you coming out with gobbledook phrases about 'cloaks' and stuff, but if an administrator like me doesn't know what you're on about, then how on earth can any new editor ever be expected to be treated with consideration and understanding?
 * From the comment on my talk page, it sounds like at least one other editor has found the Help IRC channel an unpleasant place to visit. If the simple act of watching how interactions occur on IRC is a blockable offence, then there needs to be a much clearer and easy to understand set of rules that every newcomer needs to see before they arrive there. I did, at some point in our interactions, ask you where it said I wasn't allowed to remain and watch, but I received no answer, as far as I can recall. I realise that laying out clear guidelines on how IRC operates is beyond your paygrade, so I'm taking you up on your suggestion by pinging in order to flag up the need for far better and much clearer introductory guidance on the rules and protocols of the IRC Help channel. If editors are going to leave the 'safety' of Wikipedia and find themselves entering a 'wild west' environment of IRC where IRC admins can pounce on them, singularly or in gangs, with rules they simply have no chance of understanding, then there needs to be better communication of the rules and protocols that operate there - and with none of the technobabble that they, like me, simply can't be expected to understand. If I'm not allowed to 'lurk' and watch, then I should be timed out. If I'm expected to announce my Wikipedia username, then I should be told beforehand that it would be helpful (or necessary) for me to do so. None of us are mind-readers, so the managers of this IRC channel need to be aware of a serious failing in its operation. And, no, I did not ping  in order to hold you accountable. (It's now clear to me that there is virtually no accountability on IRC, apart from the private logs you hold) I pinged him because my goal is to learn how best to use the en-wiki administrators IRC channel, and I see him as someone who knows how to deal with people who are not sure what they're doing.
 * How could I, or anyone else visiting IRC for the first time, ever be expected to know of the 'pernicious problems' with WP:LTA editors that you describe? When I saw another IRC helper (who I now know was ) offering advice to a very obvious WP:COI editor (User:Srmc.marketing), without once highlighting the obvious breach of policy of using a shared account, it seemed a perfect opportunity for me to try out the direct communication option and advise them that they were failing to tell the editor about a very obvious editing issue. (I note that Srmc.marketing was soft-blocked shortly afterwards.) It doesn't bother me that that the IRC editor then chose to 'ignore' me, though it does indicate an approach to AGF editors which is far from ideal.
 * I wish you well in all that you do, and would invite you to participate at WP:TH where you may benefit from learning a few extra skills in how best to support new or confused editors, and to exhibit WP:AGF. Cheers, Nick Moyes (talk) 23:59, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I would like to direct you towards IRC/wikipedia-en-help. You'll note that it's been recently updated to include some of the guidelines that are under discussion here. These guidelines have been active for some time, but the page had not been updated to reflect it. Your recollection is incorrect, you did not ask where these guidelines were published, but I agree I should have linked you to this page during our IRC conversation. If you'd like, I can email you the logs of our discussion. As I mentioned above, I had been roused from sleep to deal with a spambot attack on other WM IRC channels and was pinged over to the help channel to address your idling there. I was on mobile, half-asleep, and already dealing with problems elsewhere on IRC - I readily admit that I was not at my best and did not have much patience. That said, this level of hostility and rudeness from you is unwarranted, considering my polite replies and explanations of the circumstances. Regarding the particular situation with Jeske and Srmc.marketing, your recollection is incorrect here, too - Jeske explained twice to them that their username did not meet policy requirements, in fact. You cite WP:AGF to me, but don't seem to be extending me the same courtesy. I work very hard to provide quality support to new and confused users and also to protect those new and confused users from trolls and LTAs. I believe that I do an excellent job of doing so, and have been for several years now. Frankly, I'm trying very hard not to find your comment about "learning a few extra skills" at the Tea House rather condescending. FYI: The Group Contacts don't usually manage the individual channels - the channel contacts and accessmods do. The most appropriate person to ping to the discussion would probably be the most active and "senior" accessmod in the help channel,, and is also the person who set the chanop and accessmod flags for me in -help. Deskana is the registered channel contact, but is fairly inactive there. Best wishes to you. Waggie (talk) 01:24, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I like you both, so I want to step in here and ease the waters a bit. Nick, I think your characterization of Waggie may seem fair to you from a on-wiki perspective, but I find it lacking in knowledge of how tightly that channel has to be run to prevent PR personnel from overtaking it or finding loopholes in our system for their personal benefit. While it is true there are sometimes helpers that do not properly AGF (and I do call people out on this when I see it, as do others), it is in reaction to a larger problem. The channel is a system that does need work to ensure people don't feel bitten (as there are many new users who come there in perfectly good faith)... but it also needs to maintain some order to ensure the right questions are asked of anyone who enters (to ensure they aren't trying to manipulate the system, [or most often, to perform paid editing without disclosure]). I suggest you continue to lurk there, and get a feel overtime of the issues. Perhaps you can even find a good way to start evolving the system of the channel, but that will take time. Waggie you could have been more clear in your communication with Nick regarding why cloaking is necessary (from my review of the logs), but I feel you were truly enforcing the standards as is expected out of channel ops (and once Nick does get experience in that channel, I think he'll come to see why). I assure everyone it isn't the "Wild West" (although I do feel tempted to ride in on a horse from time to time to scare off the bandits). Indeed Nick, you could have actually taken the time in en-help to actually explain who you were (or at least state you were an admin, if you didn't wish to tie your visible IP to your username). Waggie is one of the most helpful and open to conversation IRC ops we have, and is rather good (IMO) at fulfilling his role to prevent disruption (and has helped countless new users). I'm sure he would have been more amicable with you, if you had stated more than your intention to lurk in that channel. So, can we all just try to just see past our emotions here, and perhaps understand everyone involved had good intentions. Mistakes happen, but we're all in this together. I think everyone can learn from this a bit, but importantly I think it's always good to try to listen to the advice of whomever happens to have functioned in an area for a while, before assuming their actions were improper (as on the flip side, it's always good to get a sense of how well/unwell such actions are working - which your outside perspective can provide]).  Nick, as I stated in your RFA, I believe you are very good at discussing matters of utmost importance with new users. And I think you will make a great addition to the helpers team on IRC. Your expertise is needed there, and I hope in time you come to see why Waggie's is as well. — Coffee  //  have a ☕️ //  beans  // 02:38, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for stepping in. Because of your intervention I won't come back to address and dismiss the points raised in Waggie's subsequent response. I guess we can both 'agree to disagree'. But nothing I've experienced thus far makes me want to participate in what I perceived was a seemingly one-sided, non-AGF IRC channel. I fully accept that my understanding of the IRC help channel is extremely limited - that was precisely why I visited and had hoped to lurk there to watch the goings on. But if the genuine consensus is that it needs to be tightly run, and that simple watching is forbidden, then new users need to know what the key rules are. They need to be spelled out prior to entry. If an experienced editor like me, visiting in good faith, can get challenged and banned for simply 'being there', then something has gone very wrong; other newcomers must surely be having similar unpleasant experiences. I really can't accept that I was under any obligation to declare that I was an experienced editor or admin to avoid being jumped on. I was explicitly told by another editor on my return visit later that day that "we do not allow people to idle here". I asked - in Waggie's presence - where it was stated that an editor isn't allowed to watch from the wings and learn, but have still received no satisfactory answer (the only thing wrong with my recollection was that I posed the question on my follow-up visit; being summarily banned tends to limit one's question-asking abilities). So, to that end, I shall put forward some proposals for rewording the notice that newcomers see prior to entering the IRC Help channel, and I hope you will both contribute. I'm quite happy to be informed that 'lurking' is forbidden on IRC. But nothing in IRC/wikipedia-en-help (especially WP:IRC/HELPG) or in the current log-in notice (at IRC help disclaimer) tells anyone that. So it would not be unreasonable to assume that one or two editors were simply making up their own rules to restrict what they mistakenly judged was a non-constructive editor. If, as you indicate, that's not the case, then for everyone's benefit things need to be much clearer, and right from the outset. Had they been clear, none of this conversation would have been necessary. Regards to both, Nick Moyes (talk) 13:50, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

"Users who are unvoiced, or are currently blocked and/or banned from English Wikipedia will not be permitted to help or idle in the channel." in WP:IRC/HELPG. Waggie (talk) 15:38, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
 * That's as clear as mud to a newcomer to IRC. Might as well link to this. Nick Moyes (talk) 18:30, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi there! Just responding because I was ping-a-ding'd here. ;-) From what I've read, it appears that there might've been confusion about the #wikipedia-en-help channel. I assume that this is what Nick Moyes was referring to as the "IRC help forum" in his message here. Confirming some information that was discussed above, I can assert that, yes, the help channel has had issues of abuse and trolling by LTA users. Aside from that, there have also been issues in the past where users who were not designated as "helpers" were legitimately trying to offer assistance to other users in that channel. Many times, their statements, advice, and recommendations were confusing, incorrect, and (at times) against policy and the opposite of the advice that should've been offered. These instances and issues had to be dealt with so that they didn't continue (as you would imagine), and it didn't make the situation better when the users who were trying to offer help did not take the discussions well, and became angry and combative when attempts were made to talk to them, ask them them stop, and offer to help them understand what they were doing was wrong.


 * Also, as pointed out above, accountability on IRC is naturally less predominant due to the fact that some important rules can't be restricted, enforced, or monitored (one of which being the "no public logging" rules that many channels forbid). If a new or novice IRC user accidentally discloses their personal identifiable information believing that it's secure and won't leave the channel, an LTA who is present within that channel would now have that information and could proceed to publish it (or any other channel logs) publicly, and there wouldn't be much that any channel operator, moderator, or group contact could do outside of using evidence, IP information, and patterns to guess who they might be, and ban then when they come back or rejoin...


 * It's also worth noting that, if your IRC nick (AKA "IRC username") isn't registered with Freenode so that it requires a password to use (and hence cannot be taken by other users), that means that anyone could literally connect with their IRC nick set to "Nick Moyes", and there would be no way to verify the legitimacy behind that IRC nick. This obviously only adds more kindling to the fire if you take into account the LTA abuse activity, the attempts at impersonation, spamming, harassment, and other issues that happen. I'm happy that Waggie responded after some self-reflection and offered to clarify his position and discuss it openly. Although we try our best to act in good faith and assume such with others, the fast and open nature of IRC and how quickly things can get out of control, disclosed, shared, and end up causing harm can often make that balancing act a bit difficult at times. I'm a channel operator on the vast majority of popular and widely-used Wikimedia channels on IRC, and I can attest and confirm (often from my own experience) that we're sometimes given no choice but to "shoot now, ask questions later" in order to prevent major abuse and get things back under control and in civil order. ;-)


 * By the way, Nick Moyes, if you haven't already registered your nick with freenode and signed up to receive a cloak (see WP:IRCREG and WP:IRCCLOAK for instructions), you'll be required to do so before you'll be able to have access to the #wikipedia-en-admins channel. Otherwise, the channel operator will have no way of inviting you into the channel and making sure that whoever joins as you really is you. ;-) After you've done all that, you'll be able to request access to the admins channel no problem. All current administrators in good standing (including former administrators who did not lose their tools involuntarily, for cause, or under a cloud) have presumptive entry into that channel. You've already met the main requirements (other than what I pointed out above, of course) when you passed your RFA. ;-)


 * Anyways, I hope that my two cents was at least somewhat helpful here. ;-) Cheers -  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   09:06, 14 April 2020 (UTC)