Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Favorite pages of banned users


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result of the debate was delete. —Doug Bell talk 19:06, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Favorite pages of banned users
WP:DENY --Qu e ntin Smith 16:00, 25 January 2007 (UTC), nomination listed by Danski14 18:22, 8 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Strong Delete - This page is like a "Hall of Fame". If any of these vandals ever saw it, they would probably convince all their friends to become vandals. Moreover, this page is useless... It's a couple "major" vandals and their "favorite" pages. Obviously much more useful is Most vandalized pages. It also suggests that banned users are still editiing and have "favorite pages". A much more accurate statement of the facts is given on the page's talk page here :) Danski14 18:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Hell, no I trust even those who hesitant about WP:DENY will agree that this is not on.--Docg 18:23, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Uh, Doc, is this a delete or keep opinion? —Doug Bell talk 00:17, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete I think there is a case for bending WP:DENY to keep pages that are useful in fighting vandals, but this does more harm than good. Hut 8.5 18:28, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Vandals don't deserve this. It's surely wikipedia history, wikipedia is even vandalism, but this page is, as Danski14 stated, something like a "Vandalism's Hall of Fame", and we shouldn't have this. Vandals, if the want, can build their Vandalpedia and publish there their stats, but probably such a thing will end with everyone vandalizing other's stats, a funny thing, wouldn't it? Anyway... Happy Editing by  Snowolf (talk) on  22:07, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per the other comments. Most vandalized pages serves much the same purpose as this page without recognizing individual "accomplishments". --UsaSatsui 00:17, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * This information is best kept on the page on the individual vandals, EG. WP:LB explains his obsession with Freemasonry better then this could. It served its purpose but that has now been supplanted. 68.39.174.238 03:11, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete. Why in the world would we need a centralized list of this stuff? -Amarkov moo! 06:05, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * comment I can see the use for this, in that many of Wikipedia's most prolific and dangerous vandals are frequent sockpuppeteers. Knowing what pages were hit most often can help build the case against a suspected sock, and a centralized list can help identify a new vandal as fitting the profile of a known and prolific vandal.  I would not oppose a name change however, for instance to "known modus operandi of prolific vandals" or something simular.  WP:DENY has been cited a lot lately to justify deletion attempts for many pages (mostly kept) that I don't think that it nessisarily applies. I take general issue with WP:DENY as a whole, it's overapplied, and it is not official core policy.  It's meant to avoid providing incentive to vandalize, not to hamstring our ability to track known vandals or catalog important (to the history of wikipedia) vandalism.  Many of the arguments that applied to the MfD for media personalities that vandalized Wikipedia could apply here as well. Wintermut3 10:29, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * We don't need to 'build a case' against a suspected sock. If they vandalise, we block them. These quasi-jurisprudential arguments are nearly always crap. They sound good, but only until you think about it.--Docg 15:18, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * If you don't believe it's arguments make sense in this case, that's fine, I don't think it pretends to be a simple rule which can be blindly applied and certainly takes interpretation as part of its application. I am however concerned about the "not official core policy" statement, Can you point me to the "official core policy" on creating pages which catalogue vandal activity? if the WP:DENY page had never been created, where people provided the same basic argument no one would be saying "this isn't a core policy", they'd either (a) cite genuine arguments refuting the view point or why it doesn't apply or (b) Cite actual policy which "overrides" it. The existance of the page without a magic tag doesn't make it a less valid viewpoint. --pgk 16:25, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * As an aside can you tell me why such vandalism is "important to the history of wikipedia", it's a rather vague assertion. What is important about it, if in 10 years time someone was writing a history of wikipedia would you expect it to be the significant milestones in terms of number of articles, users etc. etc. or an article telling you that some random troll vandalised page XXX between the dates of a and b--pgk 22:48, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep This is like a community watchlist: Wintermut3's argument above says it all. --sunstar nettalk 15:12, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete There maybe some informational value here, but it'd be better represented elsewhere. Some is junk - a user banned by arbcom for activity around Freemasonry likes to edit Freemasonry pages, who'd have thought it. As to the identification of possible socks issue there are a few points (a) as per Doc in many instances it is irrelevant, if they are vandalising or disrupting a page block them no need to build a sockpuppetry case. What benefit do we gain from getting it's the same as person X, other than to expand person X's legend/ego? We aren't here to perpetuate our own bogeymen or to build an encyclopedia of vandals (b) Sockpuppetry is more complex than that, jumping on editors as possible sockpuppets just on editing the same article pages is unhelpful (and possibly leads to WP:AGF issues). --pgk 15:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong delete - WP:AGF, WP:DENY, and WP:BEANS issues abound here. Various WP:LTA pages are more than sufficient. --Core desat  22:11, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * comment Rather than a straight delete/keep would the delete proponents be willing to work for a compromise here? I understand the concerns about assuming good faith, but I still maintain that there needs to be some centralized tracking for know prolific vandals to assist users in determining potential sockpuppetry.  In order to confirm a sock, you need a checkuser, in order to ask for a checkuser, you need to believe there's justifiable reason to suspect it's a sock.  Take the example of a new user that makes a series of pure POV vandalism edits to Freemasonry, the Order of the Eastern Star, Templar, ect.  With centralized tracking, you could go to the page, do a search for the keywords, and find that it exactly matches the modus operandi of an existing known sockpuppet vandal.  Right now that information is on a sub-page of either the arbcom rulings archive or of the LTA.  If a user didn't know Lightbringer existed, he wouldn't think to go looking up his arbcom ruling exactly, would he?  I agree the structure of the page may be problematic, but as someone who puts in a fair amount of time on vandal and spurious-page fighting I can appreciate this as a tool for tracking patterns.  As to the 'assume good faith' issue, the only time this would come into play would be when someone is already vandalizing articles, rendering that somewhat moot. It's important not to go off half-cocked especially with potentially damaging accusations of sockpuppetry, therefore tracking of vandalism patterns in addition to checkuser use make a stronger case than simply sharing a simular IP or simular behavior alone and also serve as protection for some innocent user that happens to share either the editing pattern or IP range of a known vandal.  As to core policies, as mentioned above.  I think it's a good point that refuting an essay is not enough, there should be some argument, from policy and practice, for keeping.  I'd refer to past precedent (IE the media personalities MfD) and numerous other MfD matters that have uniformly broken from the logic of WP:DENY, it is, in my opinion superceeded by precident.  As to core policy, neither side of this debate really relate to core policy, because most of our core policies relate to article space, not the meta-space. But I'll give it a shot, going all the way to the top, the Five Pillars:  Wikipedia has a code of conduct.  It is only logical that we have tools for tracking violations of that code (of which vandalism is one) and records of violations as well.  Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.  Vandalism and spurious information are perhaps the biggest threat to the accuracy and reputation of the project, we must not ignore, must not pretend that vandalism doesn't occur.  I can see potential concerns about the nature of this material, but I think re-naming, re-writing and perhaps turning it into more of an administrative tool would all be viable options (not sure how plausable the last one is, but it's not a terrible idea) but I think the information itself needs to exist. Sticking your head in the sand is as bad as sticking beans in your ears.  Wintermut3 00:27, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Quite a lot there so I'm not going to try and respond to everything but a few points. You still don't address just why you need to build this sock case and prove it via checkuser, if someone is being disruptive and vandalising we block them, sock or not. Checkusers regularly reject cases where we they should just be blocked. I've already agree there maybe some information value here, but this just fragments it and keeps worthless info (WP:LTA makes a better centralised resource). "superceeded by precedent" - Wikipedia is not some legal system and we don't do precedent. Again you make a vague declaration "it is only logical... records of violations as well", this is the crux of the matter many can't see the logic in many of the records kept, so asserting it as a universally accepted truth isn't helpful.
 * Finally "Sticking your head in the sand is as bad as sticking beans in your ears" and this is where I think the problems start, I've seen WP:DENY represented as a call to ignore vandalism and/or pretend it doesn't exist/happen. That is absolute nonsense and I don't think that anyone I've seen believes in that. Vandalism and removal of vandalism is in no way central to our goal, if is an unfortunate side effect and the removal of such is a necessary function. What WP:DENY is about is not making it anything more than just that, it shouldn't be a huge focus and concern in it's own right, cataloguing of much (not all) vandal activity doesn't help. An example from this list Bobby Boulders, blanks pages placing a "vandal manifesto" stating "who he is". If I see a page like that, I have zero need to look and see if the page is on a list of his "favourite" pages, I have no need to look at an LTA page and see what IP range he may/may not have used or what country someone believes himself to be in. When WP:DENY first started gaining some attention we looked at the WP:LTA subpages and we deleted some, we kept some. We discussed and reached some agreement to put sensible guidelines in place for when a subpage would be providing useful background to help deal with a problem (e.g. Lightbringer) and when it was totally irrelevant (Bobbyboulders say). We also agreed that even in the most blindingly obvious cases like Bobby boulders, there would still be no harm in having the key information on the main LTA page (Which is really no more than a couple of sentences), along with all the others we catalogue there. To the best of my knowledge no one has ever tried to have WP:VANDAL or WP:LTA deleted citing WP:DENY. It's about keeping vandals and vandalism in perspective, not sticking your head in the sand. --pgk 09:38, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * (As another side point, many of the people who argue WP:DENY in some cases have spent much time dealing with vandalism over a long period of time, they aren't people away from the realities of the work, they are people who understand the issues of vandalism and wouldn't be advocating deletion of material they see as valued in doing the work - personally I've been dealing with vandalism for over a year, I wrote one of the main vandalism reporting irc bots used across numerous wikimedia projects and languagues, before this MFD I've never read this page and I can't say I feel I've been less effective as a result --pgk 09:48, 10 February 2007 (UTC))


 * Decentralize, make a profile if continued abuse occurs, although many people on this page are petty wannabes or overall inactive... this basically means delete; save useful information, if any. Grace notes T  &#167; 01:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Split and then delete per above. If you have a vandal you are tracking, make a sockpuppet page.  If you have an article you want to watch, use the watchlist.  There is little benefit in a centralized list because the vandals act independently. &mdash;Dgiest c 04:08, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: I agree. We might as well merge these lists into the vandal's userpages (or other tracking page), to assist in any future sockpuppet tracking. Otherwise, delete the page per above. Danski14 04:51, 10 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete I am not a fan of WP:DENY but even I have a problem with this. It's just unneeded. I agree with those who say that we should just combine this with the user's suspected sockpuppet pages. --WoohookittyWoohoo! 08:14, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect to WP:MVP. Jorcoga  ( Hi! / Review ) 00:01, Sunday, 11 February '07
 * Delete We don't need to keep a list of permanently semi-protected pages. RC patrol scripts detect vandalism just fine, so there's no reason to watchlist any of them. Also, a vandal would probably feel encouraged to create a buch of sockpuppets and start vandalizing the same page just to get on the list. -- Selmo  (talk) 03:13, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect as Jorcoga said above. Causesobad → (Talk) 14:17, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete, why do we need this? We should be watching all articles for vandalism (and as far as I'm aware we are) – Qxz 15:38, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.