Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Long-term abuse (2nd nomination)

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 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous 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 discussion was  keep per WP:SNOW. I think this has gone on for long enough, and that there is no chance that the consensus will suddenly turn to delete. Besides, as a couple of people have said, this seems like a pointy nomination, which the tone of the rationale (i.e. gratuitous quotation marks) and the nominator's snarky, sarcastic responses would support. As a final point, the nominator has indicated that they do not mind if the discussion is closed early; if taken as a withdrawal, WP:SK applies as well. (non-admin closure) ansh666 19:07, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Long-term abuse


There really is no difference between this list and the recently deleted WP:List of banned users, either in scope or purpose. Both lists are merely “Halls of Shame” that are “potentially" quite dangerous for several reasons, including:
 * 1) There is the very same “potential possibility” of real-life identities being disclosed here on this list. This would be damaging to both the abuser and the site’s desired “kinder, gentler” image. There is no more actual administrative oversight on this list at all, as there supposedly was none on the now-deleted list of banned users. Any additional “oversight” of such an enemies list has not been properly endorsed through the community process.


 * 2) As with the now defunct banned user list, the very existence of this list only serves to encourage further abuse by those listed here, as it only immortalizes their misdeeds.

What is unclear is how this list is in any way substantially different from the list of banned users aside from “maintenance” and “likes”. We have already determined that it is not “useful” to maintain any list of enemies here. There clearly will be no “transfer” of useless information from the deleted banned user list, as it’s all been sanitized and wiped away. There is no point in keeping any “Wall Of Shame” here on Wikipedia any longer. We should DENY recognition. Doc  talk  09:38, 3 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Support as proposer. Doc   talk  09:43, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: this page was previously nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Long-term abuse. — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 14:21, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Week keep - Unless if there's some other way for users to be alerted of persistent problem users, I think we should leave this one up at least for now. Take for example Malusia22 - not everyone knows about him or his antics, and it wasn't until users were directed to the LTA subpage that they knew as to how much damage he caused. I do believe that it's not worth putting up a shrine of shame for trolls like him, but other than the sockpuppet investigations case page, how can people tell that the seemingly legitimate page they came across with is actually his handiwork? Blake Gripling (talk) 14:39, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: Without regards for the merits of the nomination (I'm still formulating my own feelings on this, and don't have a strong feeling one way or the other right now), the statement "There clearly will be no “transfer” of useless information from the deleted banned user list, as it’s all been sanitized and wiped away" is factually and functionally incorrect. Whether or not anyone actually does it, it is still quite possible to transfer information from the deleted WP:List of banned users to LTA (should the community decide that is how they want to curate this).  Deleted information is not destroyed or sanitized.  It is viewable by anyone with the admin bit, and should the community decide to do so, we could easily transfer some, any, or all of the information from the deleted page to this one with little trouble.  (several people in the prior deletion discussion floated that, or something similar, as a possibility).  If the discussion should happen to lead towards keeping this page around, AND if another discussion decided to preserve some or all of the information from the now deleted banned user list, the technical means of transferring the information is not any sort of barrier.  The community may decide that it doesn't want to do so, but that's a different matter.  The information is not lost, and it can be accessed, restored, or transferred as needed without any difficulty.  -- Jayron  32  15:29, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment: Given the nominator's "keep" !vote and subsequent comments in Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:List of banned users (6th nomination), and those comments' stark contrast to the concern about a "kinder, gentler" Wikipedia expressed in the nomination statement for this MfD, I find it very difficult to interpret this MfD as anything other than point-making. 28bytes (talk) 15:44, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * People do change their opinions from time to time. Else, why try to argue with anyone?  Sometimes, people are convinced of the merits of arguments and alter their own opinions based on new evidence, additional time to think, or any number of reasons.  It isn't necessary for him to be "making a point", he could just have come to new conclusions and has decided that he now thinks differently.  It's a rather odd person who formulates every opinion instantly and holds it steadfastly for the rest of their life without ever considering the possibility of changing it.  That's not to say one way or the other whether the OP is making the nomination in good faith, but I don't see anything written on this page by the OP to doubt his earnestness right now.  Yesterday, and during the discussion, he did say some things which reflect poorly on himself.  Based on the tone of this nomination, however, it's reasonable to think that he's had some time to cool down a bit, become more emotionally detached from the situation, and has come to a more rational conclusion.  I still don't know how I feel based on the merits of the nomination and how (or even if) i'm going to register a formal vote here, but we shouldn't judge this nomination (and the merits of it) based solely on some (admittedly pretty inflammatory and unreasonable) things the OP said in the heat of an emotionally charged argument.  Could this all be a ruse?  Possibly, but anything could be.  It's much better for the encyclopedia, however, if we just take the nomination at face value, and debate the merits of the OPs cogently presented argument.  -- Jayron  32  15:54, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you are right. am I misjudging your intention? Do you sincerely consider Long-term abuse to be an "enemies list" and wish for it to be deleted? 28bytes (talk) 16:35, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * It is an enemies list. A list of the enemies of Wikipedia. I don't care what is done with it at this point, however. Snow close it if you want to. Doc   talk  23:21, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep this page, or something very much like it, is necessary and useful and there are no other existing pages providing the same information. An example will illustrate this. Suppose an admin has to deal with a report alleging that a certain account is a sockpuppet of a persistent sockmaster. Unless the admin happens to be familiar with the characteristics of that sockmaster they are going to have to get some information about them in order to make that judgement. What is really helpful in this situation is a page summarising the sockmaster's behaviour and containing useful links for anyone who wants more information. There is no other page or process containing anything like this information any more, and if this one didn't exist then the admin in this example would have to spend ages digging through contribution histories or old archives in order to get the same information. This is a complete waste of time and would likely deter uninvolved admins from taking action with respect to that sockmaster, which doesn't help admin accountability or the people who have to clean up after the sockmaster. Furthermore the page has completely different inclusion criteria from the list of banned users (that page listed everyone who is considered banned, this page lists only persistent sockmasters, banned or not). In the MfD cited by the nominator a number of people argued that this page could serve the same purpose as that page, so deleting this page would undermine the rationale for deleting that one.  Hut 8.5  15:57, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment/Addendum - If we base it on the rationale for deletion, it would be like the FBI taking down its Most Wanted list on the grounds that it glamorises or attracts unwanted attention to them. How can the public know about their modus operandi if there's no such noticeboard. Imo WP:DENY doesn't mean we don't have the right to warn people about nuisance users. Blake Gripling (talk) 16:17, 3 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep Just the other day this was used to recognize a disruptive POV pushing sock puppet. Long term abuse is for people engaging in long term abuse, we need this record. This is getting silly, should we expunge our block logs next? Chillum 16:20, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep It's taken me some time to decide how I felt about this page, and I've given it some serious thought.  I think that, on the balance, this page should be kept.  I'm voting that way on this page despite ultimately voting for "delete" on the prior page.  It's worth noting that the reason the prior page was deleted is not as simple as the OP makes it out to be.  The decision was not made for one single reason.  Many people who voted in the discussion had different rationales for why they thought it should be deleted.  Also worth noting that many of the people who voted delete for the list of banned users not only considered, but gave value to, the argument that the list had usefulness.  Some people clearly understood the use of such a list, but found that the negatives attached to it outweighed the positives.  It wasn't merely that every single person who voted delete was 100% against it, and didn't find any merit to the list at all, many of the arguments indicated that there was competing rationales for both deleting and keeping the list, and they just found themselves leaning on the delete side by the end.  Likewise, my coming to a decision to vote "keep" here was not a knee-jerk reaction, and it is based on a lot of thought.  To briefly share my rationale, here's why I think it should be kept:
 * I think this page does not have the same purpose as the banned user list, and it's purpose is different enough to merit keeping around. Here's the difference: The prior list was supposed to keep track of every banned user, a task which it was not well suited for.  Not every banned user needs to be kept track of.  Most of them simply go away; and when they do, there's no impending need to keep record of them on one page, besides the Category:Banned Wikipedia users performs the same function and does it better.  However, this page documents not historical users who were banned and went away (information about whom is of limited utility) but actively disrupting users who are currently trying to disrupt Wikipedia and this page has the use of documenting the patterns of behavior which is useful to identify them.  We don't have the need to identify a banned user who has shown no evidence they are trying to come back.  However, we do need to keep information on people who are still actively trying to disrupt Wikipedia, and THAT is the key difference between this list and the prior one.  It isn't that Wikipedia should never ever document any banned user ever (which is what the OP seems to think the deletion of the prior List means).  Instead, the utility of keeping the information around must be weighed against the possibility of abuse of the information itself.  For the list of banned users, that see-saw tilted far enough towards the "causes more harm than good" side to merit deletion.  For THIS page, the see-saw tilts in the other direction just far enough to argue for keeping it around.  -- Jayron  32  16:23, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I see no one cleaning up the sloppy Category:Banned Wikipedia users. Just starting from the beginning: why are User:AbsoluteGleek92 and User talk:AbsoluteGleek92 both banned? Seems redundant at best. And how is banned... with one freaking edit? The IP was used as sock of a banned user... but who? Think about it, folks.  Doc   talk  06:15, 6 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep I used this in the last few days to ID a sock of Malusia22. I had no prior experience to draw upon, except for recalling that on NPP a few weeks ago, a flood of "Sindikato" articles was posted with obviously pattern-dodging titles ("S1nd1kat0" or some such). I reported that user and saw them all deleted, so when the latest one cropped up, I knew it was more than a random vandal, so went looking and found this page. The entry for this user contained some patterns to alert upon, which matched the history of the latest article, thus solidifying the match. Without this page, the worst that might have happened was that the article would have been CSD, leaving the sock to continue on until a more experienced admin caught on. (And the article might not have even been deleted: It was reviewed as being "very good" by another editor, and my CSD tag was declined by an admin, so....).
 * Also, I feel this page is different than the raw list of banned users. As mentioned above, many/most of the Banned Users page were banned and never returned, so that page could indeed be seen as a "hall of shame". THIS page is concerned with banned editors who have made a habit of returning to screw with the encyclopedia. So why remove a tool that can be useful to fight them, with the rationale of extending them some consideration? Crow  Caw  22:14, 3 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep, by and large. Unlike the list of banned users, LTA has a specific purpose and deals with users who repeatedly return to the wiki with the same behavior. Protonk (talk) 18:42, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
 * All the users on the list of banned users never repeatedly returned to the wiki with the same behavior? Just those on this list? Whew! What a misunderstanding! Doc   talk  06:37, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
 * What a useful reply. Protonk (talk) 17:35, 6 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep This allows users to identify and recognize users who continually damage Wikipedia. Without this information, a lot more of their vandalism would go unnoticed. Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:12, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
 * No user on this list could possibly be on the other list. Doc   talk  06:37, 6 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep I completely understand the WP:DENY mentality but I feel like these long-term hoodlums will disrupt regardless of whether we're keeping records. Having a reference point only allows us to react to newfound abuse quicker. How do I tell the next guy that this user is a blatant sockpuppet of someone who has been disrupting for years? I don't want to have to recompile the evidence. It's good to have something to link to. "Recognition" is just a side effect of controlling vandalism, a natural pitfall of the wiki. I'm not sure I agree with the deletion of banned users list either, but I wasn't around for that discussion. &mdash;  MusikAnimal talk 01:26, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I was the person who nominated the list of banned users, and have to say this seems like a rather pointy nomination - Doc9871 appears to have taken the result personally. As to this list, it has procedures/warnings at the top, it has useful information on "tells" regarding the users and I do not see supposed difficulty in removing editors who are demonstrably no longer abusing the encyclopedia (sub page could be deleted for example, and restored upon their return). I'm not going to go so far as to advocate it being kept - I'd need to do more research before coming to a conclusion either way, but this is a very different beast to the "List of banned users" and the arguments should not be transplanted across. Worm TT( talk ) 11:53, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep We need LTA to keep track of serious long-term abuse, especially when those involved use multiple sock/meat farms which are difficult, nigh impossible to adequately deal with or document in a single SPI because of shifting IPs, proxy servers, etc.. For an illustration of why LTA needs to be kept, please read this current discussion at ANI about a particularly nasty and persistent group, known to use legal threats and extreme harassment (both on and off-wiki) to intimidate editors. We need to have a place where all the information is collated and documented to prevent further disruption as quickly as possible. Voceditenore (talk) 18:04, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep LTA is about Users who have neither left the project nor are allowed to edit due to bans or indef blocks and there disruption is ongoing and is a serious long-term abuse.Further we have corporate socking by banned paid editors like WikiExperts who are here to stay, also CastleKing1440 and earlier Morning277 amongst others .Banned List mostly was about those who were those who have left the project, there are a few who are also socking if found currently socking they can be added.This list needs to maintained.Banned or indef blocked users not socking can removed from any list but those socking need to be maintained.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 18:23, 8 October 2014 (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.