Wikipedia talk:Abuse response/Archive 5

Medeis Removed References without Discussion
During a discussion with Medeis, I referred to the Ducthman information on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs. Apparently out of his distaste, he immediately went over and removed all information on the item from the page without initiating any discussion. Please revert his changes and ban him from making similar actions in the future. Dwarm12345 (talk) 03:50, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Cant submit a report
probably need an account, but fu(k accounts. 188.221.48.17 has been blanking sections in hough transform and also apparently Chiranjeevi articles, as follows from its log at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/188.221.48.17 somebody do something. p.s. say 'hi' to your 'unconstructive' edits filter. 95.132.190.155 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:50, 25 September 2010 (UTC).

Rejected reports
There are currently around 150 pages in the rejected category, most of which serve no purpose. There is only one instance that a report may be rejected, when it does not meet the guidelines. Most often, the guideline that is not met is the requirement for a certain number of blocks before a report may be actioned upon. Thus, it serves us no purpose to keep rejected reports and the existence of such reports may be viewed as an unfair "blackmark" on the IP addresses's record. It is important to note that IP numbers do change, so the existence of this unfair blackmark may cause some people to automatically view the IP as an abusive IP. For comparison, long-term abuse reports that do not meet criteria are also deleted to avoid such blackmarks. The same is true for requests for comments - user conducts. I propose that:

All reports that have been rejected be checked one last time to see if they now meet the criteria, and if they do, the status be switched to open and the report be processed. If the report does not meet criteria (for example, should have been reported to AIV), the report should be deleted to protect the IP address from unfair bias. Netalarm talk 02:16, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I am not in full agreement with nuking these pages, but it might be good to keep the ones with recent blocks still/possibly merge cases. Some cases do need to be kept for the record of contact though & if it's a prolific range. -- DQ  (t)  (e)  19:27, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep the ones with the Wikipedia:Abuse_response/ prefix and delete the others, unless they're ranges. Nevertheless, I've already tagged several. —  Ancient Apparition •  Champagne?  • 11:17pm • 12:17, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Vandalized Watchlist Help Needed
My watchlist has been compromised and added to significantly with jibberish and profane entries for articles that don't exist and I don't know how to report it. There doesn't appear to be an obvious faculty in Wikipedia to do so. My searching says that ordinary users and admins do not have access to view, let alone edit, any particular users watchlist, but developers might be able to. I have no idea when the entries were added as I've had my account for about 7 years and there is no "history" tab to the watchlist itself (that I know of). My password is secure (moreso in recent years) but perhaps my account was unknowningly compromised years ago. I would like to be able to determine when the unwanted entries were added. I don't even know the proper venue to report this vandalism. Any help from an admin would be appreciated. TimothyPilgrim (talk) 17:02, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Would you be willing to post the names of some of the articles that you don't remember putting there? My first thought is that it might just be "HAGGER" vandalism, meaning that a vandal page-moved a legitimate page on your watchlist to a vandalized title. This would automatically put both names on your watchlist, and they would remain there even after the vandalism was fixed.  This sort of thing has led to similar problems in the past.  If you'd be willing to post the names of some of the nonexistent articles it'd be easy to tell if this was from "HAGGER". If this is the case then your account was likely never compromised.  —  Soap  —  17:10, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * HAGGAR is exactly what I found in multiple instances. Is there an "article" on this type of vandalism since it's already been encountered? TimothyPilgrim (talk) 17:17, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Some samples of my altered entries are below. Interestingly, they only appear in the "Edit Raw Watchlist" but not the "View and Edit Watchlist" tab:
 * H,E,R,M,E,E?
 * H...G....G....E....R??
 * H.A.G.G.E.R.??????
 * H.?.G-G.E.R??
 * HAGGER???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
 * The Simpsons ON WHEELS!
 * The Simpsons enjoying BRIAN PEPPERS DAY???
 * Fraud on Wheels!
 * G ZFFDQ? (To understand the true meaning, replace each letter with the one that comes after it in the alphabet. In the case of Z, replace it with an A.)
 * Ill Paper Tingzzz! Pure Pwnage! 1337 HEADSHOT!
 * Monosoupape engine vandalized by Nutz
 * Metallica On Wheels!
 * I've left out some of the more profane titles. TimothyPilgrim (talk) 17:31, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Yes, there's Long-term abuse/JarlaxleArtemis, though I believe he's done a lot less page move vandalism since the edit filter went live, and a lot more personal harrassment of various users on their talk pages.  —  Soap  —  17:36, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Excellent, thanks for posting that article for me. I feel a better knowing my account is okay. Happy New Year! TimothyPilgrim (talk) 18:29, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You can also go to Raw watchlist and edit the list like a wiki article to easily clean it. -- DQ  (t)  Merry Chrismasand a Happy New Year! 17:13, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That's indeed how I found out about this vandalism. TimothyPilgrim (talk) 17:17, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Time to revive
So I am doing a little CPR on the project, making some modifications to clear the back log. Shouldn't be too many, just let me know if there are any issues. -- DQ  (t)   (e)  01:03, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Doesn't look like you got too much done. I may start working on a few changes myself.  Here's one for you, tell your bot to give me my ops in IRC back, since I'm back from break. :P    AndrewN  talk  04:18, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

XFF
Should we be linking to X-Forwarded-For and the XFF_project (cross wiki link)? Banaticus (talk) 11:04, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Crazy question...why? :P DQ.alt  (t)  (e)  18:53, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Guidelines
The guidelines haven't been updated in eons, I took the liberty of updating the "The Team" section to reflect the current hierarchy and nomination process, however, I'm not so sure about some of the other sections and if they reflect current changes to the project and administration. Does the guideline still deserve to be treated as a behavioural guideline, given the fact it has been overlooked for a long time? I'm still on wikibreak, however, the information presented in the guideline was quite shocking. —  Ancient Apparition •  Champagne?  • 12:28pm • 01:28, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
 * This project has needed some revamp for a while, the only things I have touched so far are the templates and requirements (knowing how much response we do get). Feel free to go bold and edit. There is BRD for a reason. I assume you mean WP:GTAR no? DQ.alt  (t)  (e)  04:46, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Righto then DQ, I'll be looking at the various pages of the project and seeing what needs to be changed. I was referring to Abuse response/Guidelines but GTAR will be needing an update, it has needed one for some time now. —  Ancient Apparition •  Champagne?  • 9:56am • 22:56, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Ya...taking a look now...that does need an update. I can take a good look at it when I get back home (as I am out of town, hense my alt account) on tues/wends. DQ.alt  (t)  (e)  04:52, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Alright, I just did some aesthetic changes and rewrote certain sections for WP:GTAR for Abuse response/Guidelines I rewrote and removed sections entirely. Off topic, how's the interface coming? —  Ancient Apparition •  Champagne?  • 11:34am • 00:34, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * EDIT: Are AbRep members allowed to participate in LTA? —  Ancient Apparition •  Champagne?  • 11:36am • 00:36, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I've updated part of the Case Processing section and the Contact templates subpage. I'll update the Group notices about the email templates that were discussed in the mailing list. —  Ancient Apparition •  Champagne?  • 12:02pm • 01:02, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll look a little later today. Abuse members are allowed to deal with LTA cases, but I have and continue to distance LTA from Abuse Response. We will not being taking cases from LTA for multiple reasons specified in cases. -- DQ  (t)   (e)  13:01, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh ok then, LTA seems a lot harder than the work we handle at AbRep. The JarlaxleArtemis/Grawp case looks especially tedious, anyhow, the guidelines look up to scratch now most of the information is still relevant and old irrelevant info has been removed. —  Ancient Apparition •  Champagne?  • 1:09pm • 02:09, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Anonymous user -> unregistered user
As per
 * WP:HUMAN,
 * WP:IP,
 * WP:ANONYMOUS,
 * WP:IP edits are not anonymous and
 * Unregistered user.

I think referring to unregistered users as "anonymous users" is incorrect and confusing. Registered users who do not adopt their real name as their username are also anonymous. In fact, registered users are arguably more anonymous, since their IP address is hidden.

Also, the phrases "anonymous user" or "anon" are often used in a discriminatory way by editors who do not fully appreciate (yet) the value and potential of unregistered users.

In the light of this, and in the spirit of calling a spade a spade, I have made a change to Abuse_response/Header. This change was reverted, but the rationale of that revert is unclear to me. Please reconsider or further explain the revert. 220.100.118.232 (talk) 22:06, 8 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Noted, I'll duly change any instance of anonymous users. Regards, —  Ancient Apparition •  Champagne?  • 10:14am • 23:14, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Coordinators
A while back, Coordinators were removed from the whole aspect of Abuse without much discussion. I am proposing to reinstate this and currently have myself and Ancient Apparition serve as Coords for the moment. Anyone else in? DQ.alt (t)  (e)  14:58, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support DQ.alt  (t)  (e)
 * Support I don't see why not - Rich (MTCD) Talk Page 19:37, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Weak oppose Sorry, and let me first say that I think you and Ancient would certainly be great co-ords, I'm just not really sure if its worth it. I mean, including myself, we only have 6 active members, and I'm just not really sure if it's needed. As we're a small group, most things can simply be decided by discussion and consensus - I can't actually see what the co-ords would do, either. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but for now I'm going to have to oppose, as I just can't see the point, quite frankly. Sorry. Acather96 (talk) 19:20, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support Most of the inactive users are currently participating in other projects and are current editors, I don't know if they'll resume activity at AR again though. Coords would deal with project organisation and probably interface administration (when it is released), at least that's what I imagine. —  Ancient Apparition •  Champagne?  • 9:33pm • 10:33, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment We need Joe, MacMed and Banaticus to opine, this proposal's been drying in the sun for 10 days now. —  Ancient Apparition  •  Champagne?  • 7:16pm • 08:16, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Neutral I agree with Acather, I just don't really see the need. With such a small group we can discuss whatever we need to and I think any of us could confidently answer questions about the project. I wouldn't be upset if co-ords were reinstated though. Doesn't really matter. Regards, MacMedtalk stalk 21:30, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment I have emailed the list. Also, I know we are a small group, but this is for 1) if we get bigger (aka some people come back or new people come in) and for the interface administration really (once it's up, but not for another while). Coords would be leading/closing discussions or nominations. (Sometime even getting people to finish their reports or finishing it :P) -- DQ  (t)   (e)  00:02, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * We can always reopen this proposal if more people do arrive. And I would assume the interface would have it's own admins and such, removed from the wiki. Reasonably, all of us could/should be admins on the interface so that new users can be accepted after discussion. From looking at the (rather small) archive of membership requests, consensus is usually quite clear. Regards, MacMedtalk stalk 00:09, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * True there is no need for co-ords, since at the moment all cases are dealt with in a timely manner and thus we have no backlog, but when we do and there's a shortage of users we'll need some form of government (so to speak). —  Ancient Apparition •  Champagne?  • 11:39am • 00:39, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Let me start with, DQ and Ancient would be excellent coordinators, but, I don't see a need for these positions. There are 6 of us, what are they going to do? I mean, when the interface is up, we MAY need them, but for now, I don't see it fit for just a page on wiki. So they are going to head a group of 4 users? That is my point, we should all just work together as a community of members and not really need coordinators for a small group of people.  JoeGazz  ▲ 01:19, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose I don't see how it would benefit the project in any way, since communication among project participants is easy through IRC and the mailing list. A little information on the original coordinator thing (from a long time ago): It was there so interested individuals could fine someone to talk to if they wanted to help out. Now that this project is a lot more active than it was, it's not really needed. Netalarm talk 20:15, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Bot, maybe?
I was wondering about building a bot to automatically notify filers of case acceptance/rejection, and update the IP talk page if the case is accepted. Might even build in the ability to add in the WHOIS if the requester doesn't. I don't want to start work until others have approved, in case consensus is that such a bot is unneeded :p Any thoughts or suggestions? Regards, MacMedtalk stalk 12:52, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Not right now, we still have the interface (attempting to) setup. I invision a bot going right along with the interface to track changes to cases, posting the whois, etc. For that reason I would like to hold off will we have the interface. DQ.alt  (t)  (e)  13:48, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay sounds fair. Regards, MacMed<sup style="color:red;">talk <sub style="color:black;">stalk 20:08, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * A bot would certainly make things easier and less tedious. —  Ancient Apparition •  Champagne?  • 6:55pm • 08:55, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Threshold for removal
For inactive users, ie. those that don't do any editing for more than a certain amount of months or don't want anything to do with AR, what is the threshold from removal of the list of volunteers? I go for 2 months plus and semi-retirement, I don't remove users who are taking a temporary sabbatical though. —  Ancient Apparition •  Champagne?  • 10:15am • 00:15, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd say two months, leave a message on their talk asking if they are still interested, and then if they say no or don't reply within (5?) days then we remove them from the list. Regards, <b style="color:green;">MacMed</b><sup style="color:red;">talk <sub style="color:black;">stalk 00:18, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't bother leaving a request on users with NO editing for over 5 months though or those that retire, I'll clarify the time a team member can stay in the "inactive" section before needing to reapply. —  Ancient Apparition •  Champagne?  • 11:39am • 01:39, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I am technically announced as but will still help out should I choose to come back, so I think if the user decides to come back and has a /good/ reason for the break, there should be a very simple way for them to return. Just my thoughts...  JoeGazz  ▲  00:20, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm all good with a project consensus on a number over two months including IRC, mailing list, and onwiki activities. -- DQ  (t)   (e)  00:49, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Volunteers list reorganisation
I've removed Technical Contributors (we've not had one since Thorncrag retired) and I changed Investigators to Team members, all team members are investigators and contactors, though they can choose how much investigating and contacting (liaising) they choose to do. Regards, —  Ancient Apparition •  Champagne?  • 11:50am • 01:50, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * What were technical contributors? Just out of curiosity. Regards, <b style="color:green;">MacMed</b><sup style="color:red;">talk <sub style="color:black;">stalk 02:18, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Systems admins I believe. —  Ancient Apparition •  Champagne?  • 6:52pm • 08:52, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * We had one guy trying out a few interfaces for us and he was setting them up for us...not a category of use. -- DQ  (t)   (e)  00:46, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clarification DQ. Also with the enwp-abuse website, I can't access it, was that used for anything? — James (Talk • Contribs) • 3:31pm • 05:31, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, now that en-wp-abuse.org is gone, we need to get a new email system set up. Might get in touch with Wikimedia Tech to see if they'll help us with that, but I bet we're on our own.  I can register a domain with Network Solutions for $35/year, and point it to pretty much any email server (probably use Google Apps or Outlook Online).  Anyone want to propose a new email domain?  (If you want to help pay, just shoot me an email.) <font color="#990000">  AndrewN  talk  04:16, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, I presume Thorncrag managed that then... wait I thought the mailing list was our email system... I'm thorougly confused. — James (Talk • Contribs) • 8:18pm • 10:18, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

AR Bot
Having looked through the archives of the old Abuse reports project, I notice that we used to have a bot once used to decline reports, on what basis I didn't bother looking at. Now I want to know, what did the bot do and is it still feasible to have such a bot run again? Also, whatever happened to most of the older project members when founded the project? — James (Talk • Contribs) • 5:18pm • 07:18, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

History merge

 * I propose history merging Abuse reports with Abuse response and Wikipedia talk:Abuse reports into this talk page, the project got renamed, but the purpose never changed so I don't see the value of having separate page histories. Thoughts? — James (Talk • Contribs) • 9:39pm • 11:39, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Makes sense, no reason not too, I support this proposal. Thanks, Acather96 (talk) 18:54, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Cannot be done: WP:Parallel histories. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 20:40, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Per Anthony's concern, I see no reason why we cannot just place it on a subpage and mark it as historical for reference only. I see no issue with that whatsoever, I strongly support this and suggest we BE BOLD.  JoeGazz  ▲ 23:55, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
 * History-merge ✅: I left the parallel history parts of Abuse reports and Wikipedia talk:Abuse reports there and moved the parallel history parts of Abuse response and Wikipedia talk:Abuse response to Abuse response/revamp and Wikipedia talk:Abuse response/revamp. The job took a long time because of the size of the history of Abuse reports to be deleted and undeleted for this history-split (> 2300 edits): Wikipedia's system delayed and said "wait while slave catches up with master". The old individual abuse reports are still where they were: they are listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3APrefixIndex&prefix=Abuse+reports&namespace=4 . Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:57, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much Anthony, sorry for the trouble, I never knew about Parallel histories up until now >.<, with the old Abuse Reports... I'll think of something. — James (Talk • Contribs) • 5:07pm • 07:07, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Wait, what do you intend network admins to do?
This is a college IP, I just saw a warning message on the talk page...it warns network admins may be contacted. What do you expect them to do exactly? --193.1.104.2 (talk) 18:14, 11 May 2011 (UTC)


 * They might not do anything. Alternatively, they might choose to block access to Wikipedia from their systems, or they might monitor access to Wikipedia from their systems, to discover which individual users are responsible for disruption. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:12, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah. Well I'm sorry but I think you overestimate how much Colleges will care about its students vandalizing Wikipedia .I can't see many Colleges having enough care for Wikipedia to block its students or put in effort to track their edits, haha. :P (I haven't vandalized though, FWIW.) -- occono (talk) 20:39, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh indeed. Most would be too clueless to do much tracking or investigating of individuals. However, there have been several instances where educational institutions have removed computer privileges from individual students after I complained about said students' online behaviour. Many educational institutions do already block access to Wikipedia for a variety of reasons (not all valid ones). --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:01, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, having worked with the IT administration team at several schools, I've come to find that it's against their acceptable use policies to "vandalize" websites, and I've seen action taken before. When I worked for the local school district a while back, I remember the tech director revoking 2 student accounts because they were vandalizing pages on WP, and got an email about it.
 * We have also had ISPs take action against account holders. "Vandalism" is against the Terms of Service of most internet providers.  You seriously underestimate the power a simple email can have.  Granted, we've been ignored several times, we have still been successful overall. <font color="#990000">  AndrewN  talk  04:11, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Those that don't respond are those with a smaller customer base or composed primarily of WP:DICKs like the kind folks at Verizon who couldn't care less if a serial sockpuppeteer and vandal is using their services. — James (Talk • Contribs) • 8:42pm • 10:42, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Thoughts
Where/ how should this be reported? This anonymous editor is clearly abusive and should be blocked. <B>Erikeltic</B> ( Talk ) 02:33, 29 June 2011 (UTC)


 * At Abuse_response, if you scroll down an inch or so, there's a big blue "File a new report here" section. Just follow the directions, filling in the blanks.  :) Banaticus (talk) 20:18, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Feeler probe... am I suitable?
Not sure that I want to put myself forward unless I have a reasonable chance of success. So with my block log do I have a chance of being approved as a volunteer? Experience wise I have a degree in computer science so while I don't work in IT, I do understand all relevant technical principles... regarding dealing with folk as well as extensive work experience in negotiating deals of obscene notional value, I have various peculiar specialist qualifications in jibber-jabba (and once attended a course in cold reading given by Ian Rowland). More details would be forthcoming in a submission, but I don't want to waste either your (cumulative) time or my time if I have no prospect of success.

Naturally I feel I am entirely suitable (and am willing to communicate via phone with anyone worldwide (seemingly uniquely) and even in person to London based ISPs [or further afield if my expenses are met]) and see no barrier myself - but I am realistic enough to known others may have different standards other than mere trustworthiness and competence. Egg Centric 19:42, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The thing is #6 and possibly #5. Remember that all the blocks were in 2011.  #6, would be serious blocks.  I think of personal attacks or Harassement serious but that depends.  Also, the "user is being a problem" is pretty bad.  #5 would be personal attacks or bug Harassement (in this case, outing).  Also, we don't need that much new people.  The reason that its inactive most of the time is because people arn't submitting cases.  I think that if you feel suitable, be daring and go right to the volunteer page.   Ebe 123  (+) $talk Contribs$ 21:07, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
 * (totally irrelevant to my suitability one way or the other) I think the reason so few cases are being submitted is that this is such an obscure part of the project to most people; given the proper emphasis I believe reports could literally increase by two orders of magnitude. For a start, bots do so much anti vandalism work now but so far as I'm aware do not keep track of IP ranges or abuse patterns like a human would. Egg Centric 22:04, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I would go for it and nominate yourself, be bold and try it. I mean, yes the one block is serious, but I think you've been working hard to change your image and I think it's working.  JoeGazz  ♂ 20:59, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I told Egg to go nominate self. (I think that if you feel suitable, be daring and go right to the volunteer page)  Ebe 123   (+) $talk Contribs$ 21:06, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Report criteria
The current criteria states that an IP must have been blocked five times and for over a year. Only static IP addresses are blocked that many times and for that long - however they are incredibly easy to deal with, just point an admin at them and we softblock them long time and they don't bother us again. What this project would be really useful for is vandals who aren't on static IPs, who abuse dynamic ranges which we can't easily stop but their network admins may be able to. Now, I've just seen a report declined, for an IP address I recently blocked for 31 hours, because it hadn't been blocked for a length of over a year. The abuse from this same vandal has been going on for over four years. I could point to another vandal who's been abusing dynamic ranges for over six years. More than one actually. It is absolutely pointless blocking these individual IPs for longer than a few hours, as they get reassigned that often. Thus they'll never meet the requirements for an abuse response. It seems to me that this is all the wrong way round. You're wasting everyone's time dealing with static IPs and IPs which are already blocked. Please focus on the users we can't deal with ourselves. Please consider changing the criteria. Thanks. -- zzuuzz (talk) 11:36, 10 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I think changes do need to be made, and not just in the criteria. I've recently seen a report opened here where the IP address being investigated is registered to a school and has just been blocked for ten years. Well, if it's blocked for ten years, what's the purpose of reporting it to anyone, if there's no confirmation of problems from other IPs at the same school? What is expected - that the school or school district are going to take some measures (whether technical or disciplinary) that are going to be so drastic that they will still be having an effect when the IP gets unblocked ten years later? What sort of thinking is going into this?


 * The request to be working on IP-hopping vandals instead, makes far more sense. Yes, it will require more complex criteria, and it will require serious thought when applying them, and it might require working with the people dealing with long term abuse or with the individual administrators dealing with the most problematic vandals; and it will definitely require a lot more detailed investigations. But it stands far more chance of serving a useful purpose. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 12:38, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * That example would have been my second point. To report blocked IPs like this (particularly school IPs) might result in a bollocking (or worse disciplinary action) for the most recent student to use it, which might give us a warm glow but won't help them or us. The network admin will either block Wikipedia entirely with a blacklist, or if they're clever will prevent editing pages which will also affect logged in users. This would be worse (for them and us) than the softblock we would give them. And while they might also tighten up their network usage policies, they're still not going to otherwise stop the next bunch of freshers making their first unconstructive unregistered edits. So we'd just block them again for longer. In these cases it's not just one student, but an ongoing and repeating trend. Almost every school network admin I've spoken to about their vandalous IP address has readily said, in as many words, "just softblock it, what do you expect from kids?". No, these ones we can deal with better ourselves. The lone vandals on dynamic ranges are the ones we need help with. -- zzuuzz (talk) 13:25, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * What I expect from kids, I expect that the teachers should teach kids not to vandalize like what kids and to watch out for that happening. They can handle it better that we ever could.    Ebe 123   (+) $talk Contribs$ 17:27, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Uh. Teachers are not paid to monitor their school's WP edits and/or to teach kids about a rather esoteric topic like that. They're paid to teach them to pass exams. sonia ♫ 08:41, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I meant to get them to know what's right and wrong to do anywhere.   Ebe 123   (+) $talk Contribs$ 09:54, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Might I just say that I disagree with the 10 year block (and 1000 day blocks).   Ebe 123   (+) $talk Contribs$ 17:27, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * While I agree that blocks longer than 4-5 years may be unnecessary (I've been dealing with a vandal abusing my talk page since December last year), I think that year long blocks do serve as a deterrent. Dynamic IP vandalism is a whole new ball game altogether. Successfully tracking dynamic IPs to locate its user is quite difficult (I'm no network guy, but I'm quite sure one will say the same thing).
 * What we are doing is simple. Our mandate is to take care of static IPs, and send a report to their owners in the hope that the ISP will hammer some sense into our dear vandal. I think your concern is genuine, and probably a good point of discussion, but definitely not here in this (nearly dead) noticeboard. I don't know where else, but somewhere like the Village Pump looks good.  Lynch 7  17:48, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I've said elsewhere that no IP should be blocked for more than five years (unless it's kept monitored). With schools and many other shared IPs, yes they should given a chance to prove themselves every now and then. I often aim for the blocks to finish at the end of the school year. And blocks with silly time limit strings are just harder to parse for everyone except the vandal.
 * This discussion is really to be had by the participants here, as you're the ones who set the criteria. Your mandate is self-imposed. I know the rest of us would love to have an effective place to report dynamic IP abuse (even if the ISP's response is not initially helpful). But it's down to the people here to set the rules. Unfortunately I'm not prepared to deal with the ISPs as you are, so I will leave this totally to you. But as an admin heavily involved with our anti-vandalism efforts, and someone who know about abuse from both static and dynamic IP ranges, as well as most of the long term abusers, I can tell you what we do and don't need. We don't need to hammer sense into vandals who have already been blocked or easily can be, we need help stopping the vandals on dynamic IPs from making abusive edits spanning years. Unfortunately most of this project appears to deal with vandals we've already taken care of. -- zzuuzz (talk) 18:34, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't disagree with that. We do get the odd IP range reports filed here, but that's few and far between. But of course, dynamic IPs are very difficult to track (my IP range is used by nearly half a million people in my state). I agree with you when you say that our focus should widen to include dynamic IPs, but it is likely to be a hundred times that difficult. If we do get an effective way to manage that, that would be best for everyone.  Lynch 7  19:01, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * A tool on the server would be good then. Or put it with the Interface under development.    Ebe 123   (+) $talk Contribs$ 19:21, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * We could start by liberalizing our criteria :) (Which, I is what zzuuzz asked for in the first place I guess). The difficulty in tracking dynamic IPs are more technical than anything else I guess.  Lynch 7  19:26, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Examples of this seem to be coming up all the time now. The discussion at the end of this page revision is exactly the sort of request that's getting repeatedly rejected when it's potentially a request that it might be possible to do something useful about, at the same time that requests that clearly are not useful in any way (individual IPs that are already blocked for long periods of time and have mostly only engaged in trivial run-of-the-mill vandalism anyway) are accepted and acted upon. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:50, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * To be fair, that's the same one I was referring to, though I didn't refer to it directly (or see the intial report or that talk page discussion). Four years and ongoing. I appreciate dynamic IP investigations are much more involved, as Demiurge1000 points out above. And they are probably less likely to initially get meaningful responses from the network providers than other IPs. But that is where the value to the project is to be had. I don't get the "not wiki lifespan" and the long block thing. It is all about the level of abuse from one user on one network. There has to be something to filter out trivial reports, but enforcing that rule is probably not the best way. -- zzuuzz (talk) 00:41, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * What(s the mean time people stay with the same ISP? Ten year blocks seem a bit over the top for individuals. DS Belgium (talk) 16:04, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Some relevant discussion at Jimbo's page
Just a note that there's some vaguely relevant discussion at User talk:Jimbo Wales, although it's worth pointing out that the sort of actions being discussed there would most definitely not be brought into play against a single IP address just for receiving a lot of vandalism blocks. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 05:29, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Confused about some of the criteria
Two of the criteria confuse me:
 * Been blocked for over a period of a year

Does this mean the user must have been blocked for a period of at least a year (at some point in time) or does it mean the first block (of whatever length) must have occurred at least a year before the most recent block (of whatever length)?
 * The block was placed less than 3 months ago (ideally 1 month)

Is this referring to the most recent block? I'm mainly interested in determining whether this repeat-vandal, admin-mocking IP is a candidate: first blocked 8/7/10, just blocked today 8/17/10, but never blocked for a period of more than 6 months in that time:

Joja lozzo  03:20, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, the IP is not a candidate since it was not blocked with an expiry of 1 year or more.


 * Been blocked for over a period of a year is that the user must have been blocked for a period of at least a year, and The block was placed less than 3 months ago (ideally 1 month) is for the most recent block.   Ebe 123   (+) $talk Contribs$ 12:33, 17 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the clarification. Does it have to be the most recent block that is for a year? If so, I think it might be an improvement if we said that, i.e. "Been blocked within the last three months for at least a year" (that's actually not the same as what it says now: "over a year"). If not, then I suggest we say "Been blocked at some point in time for at least a year." What do you think? Joja  lozzo  15:06, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, the most recent doesn't have to be 1 year or more. I like your proposed change, so do the changes.    Ebe 123   (+) $talk Contribs$ 23:06, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Soft block needed against high school IP
From what I can see, this "abuse response" page and its criteria, are nearly worthless. Because nobody wants to block IP's they think are rotating IPs or high school IPs, they don't bother. And since they haven't been blocked, although they continue to be single-purpose vandal accounts (albeit with an IP number instead of a username) NOTHING HAPPENS.

Example: the Comcast IP 173.161.134.100 which serves Belvidere High School in New Jersey, allows sweet students there to vandalize wikipedia from the high school library. This IP has never been used by anybody other than this high school in two years, so far as I can tell. It has never made any other type of edit other than a vandalistic edit, although it has made 43 vandalisms since Sept 2010, and has been warned 24 times (!) yet only blocked ONCE (for 24 hours). Need I comment on the stupidity of a system which allows this kind of thing?

All that is needed for this page is a soft block. No students will be prevented from editing constructively from this IP, since no student ever HAS edited constructively from this IP. (Although one student posted something so nasty on a sports figure BLP, that it had to be oversighted).

So that's an example of a problem which you're not doing anything about, and are not constructed to do anything about. But this kind of thing is one of the most pervasive and timewasting problems on Wikipedia. So what good are you? S B Harris 18:54, 17 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Later: user:zzuuzz has "schoolblocked" it. Way to go, zzuuzz! S  B Harris 20:13, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Come talk to me if there's a need, as well, Sbharris. And we do our best but we have limited resources and aren't paid.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:32, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
 * We are always available for IAR. Still, how about loosining up the criteria to alot of warnings.    Ebe 123   → report ← Contribs 21:40, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, you're both going on my "goto" list for outrageous IP pages full of warnings that haven't been blocked because somebody is afraid it will keep the kids from editing. This whole thing is very strange. What prevents us from soft-schoolblocking at the first IP-vandalism that emanates from a school-IP? There's no point in warning such a page-- who reads those? And who cares? The average vandal student would be delighted if their school got disabled from all editing, as it would cause some chaos. OTOH, a schoolblock when done in a softblock manner (new account creation left enabled) will let individual students continue to create nameuser accounts from that IP, right? It's not much fun to vandalize from a nameuser account since it's not shared, and it gets indeff'ed pretty fast (thus you wasted the time you spent ripening it, if you wanted to edit sprotected articles and at least you lose very fast as a nameuser if it's clear you're a vandal-only one). School vandals with no ability to defer gratification really hate being made to differentiate themselves into nameuser accounts. If you make them all use them, that clears up most of the problem right there. So what excuse is there, for the existence of shared school-IP pages with pages and pages of warnings, going on for years? What am I missing?  S  B Harris 23:26, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
 * There are really two factors at play: The first is the staticness of the IP address. If it makes one edit which is vandalism, you have no idea how long it's belonged to a school and therefore how long to block for. If it makes few edits it's often too small a sample to base a block on. The second factor is that, believe it or not, schools can make productive edits. It's generally down to the culture at the school, and the maturity of its students, but it can be unproductive to block an IP just because it belongs to an educational institution. Sometimes the productive edits and new regular editors outweigh a small amount of vandalism or test edits. You're right that warnings often do little, but they can put an immediate stop to 'day-vandals'. After a while though you really have to take a measure of the proportion of vandalism coming from the IP address, without any regard for the warnings. Admins are usually not shy of blocking them when all they do is spew crap at us. You just have to find the right way to report them for blocking. AIV has strict criteria for reporting because it's just too busy to deal with them. If everyone reported every IP address that could do with a block to AIV it would be chaos, and the active vandals would run rampant. I outlined the issues from an AIV perspective in another thread. So, yes as you've guessed, the best thing is probably to build up a list of go-to admins for this type of situation. You could take a chance with AIV or WP:AN, but they're not ideal. -- zzuuzz (talk) 11:11, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Nomination
Hello, I have been researching the project for a couple of months now, and upon reviewing criteria, have decided to nominate myself for membership. I appreciate any comments/criticism you may have. Thanks, Tarheel95 (talk) 02:02, 20 November 2011 (UTC)