Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Long-term abuse (3rd nomination)

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The result of the discussion was: withdrawn by nominator, as it is clear that no one agrees with me that this page should be deleted, and there is thus no chance that it will be deleted. Every morning (there's a halo...) 13:46, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Long-term abuse

This page was nominated for deletion. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination:

Keep, 3 October 2014, see discussion.
Keep, 28 April 2010, see discussion.
Keep, 10 August 2008, see discussion.

This page does much more harm than good by encouraging vandals and trolls to vandalize and troll as much as possible, in the hopes that they will be "honored" with a listing in this "hall of fame". If someone is editing disruptively or engaging in simple vandalism, or doing anything else warranting a block, they should be blocked on a case-by-case basis; coordinating information regarding the modus operandi of a particular troll/vandal is unnecessary. Instead, we can, and should, simply block anyone who we need to when it becomes clear that this is necessary to prevent disruption. I am aware that what I have just said will meet with a lot of vigorous opposition but I still want to ask all editors to seriously consider whether a list of Wikipedia's most disruptive and persistent editors is really beneficial. Every morning (there's a halo...) 01:08, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What do you suggest we do instead? Keeping track of vandals over time is useful for identifying their activities. Some of us has taken to keeping sandboxes instead, but that it not a feasible site-wide solution. EvergreenFir (talk) 01:20, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What I suggest we do instead is just block vandals/trolls/long-term POV-pushing disruptive users when necessary. Whether they are the reincarnation of a previous long-blocked/banned user or they are here for the first time, they should not be allowed to disrupt Wikipedia, and should be blocked from doing so if appropriate. Knowing whether or not they appear to be a sock of a long-term abusive user is 100% irrelevant to the question of whether their behavior warrants a block. That said, I suppose the only real reason to keep this page around would be to track down those violating WP:SOCK but none of our other policies, to which I say: if they are violating WP:SOCK but not doing anything else blockable, let them continue editing. If a (formerly) abusive user is making benign/helpful edits through a sockpuppet account, so what? Again I realize this is clearly a very unpopular opinion, but I still believe it. Every morning (there's a halo...) 04:17, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If someone is being unhelpful that can be hard to figure out if they're working in obscure articles making changes that appear ok but are really hoaxes/made up etc. The more obvious vandalism ones are often not made a page for. Galobtter (pingó mió) 11:08, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep "coordinating information regarding the modus operandi of a particular troll/vandal is unnecessary" Not so. Wikipedia relies too much on institutional knowledge held by a handful of experienced editors. While I agree with the DENY logic, I don't think deleting this page would prevent vandalism without hurting our ability to recognize "M.O.". Honestly, for a third nomination this should have been better thought-out. Chris Troutman (talk) 01:28, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep (edit conflict) The benefit far outweighs the costs. An institution such as Wikipedia maintains its 'memory' by capturing information via documentation. That way we do not 'forget' when the people who personally held the knowledge leave. Jbh ^Talk 01:29, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - I've only had to use LTA pages a few times, thankfully, but they've been really valuable to, for example, understand the patterns of particular sock masters. Since everything we do is transparent, every measure we take could be taken to encourage someone looking to do harm. That's not a reason not to track long-term issues in a central place rather than have a handful of people carry forward some knowledge and have everyone else piece it together from 50 different threads. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 02:42, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - That being said, is there an alternative venue to track vandal activity without attracting their attention and further drive them into wreaking havoc? Not everyone is familiar with Bertrand101's bizarre hoaxing or similarly esoteric misdeeds, hence the need for a repository. Sure, we could pool such modus operandi in private, but at a glance, what would an admin or a non-admin counter-vandal user look up to in lieu of IRC channels and Discord boards? Blake Gripling (talk) 03:37, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
keep Per all the above. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:01, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I would also note that this is actually the fourth deletion discussion for htis page and that the last two were in WP:SNOW territory, which is where I suspect this will land as well. I’ve added the template from the talkpage in order to make it easy to find the previous discussions. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:06, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Per all of the above. This fourth MfD really is flogging a dead horse. As I said in the previous MfD, 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 ANI discussion at about a particularly nasty and persistent group, known to use legal threats and extreme harassment (both on and off-wiki) to intimidate editors and now the subjects of this LTA. We need to have a place where all the information is collated and documented to prevent further disruption as quickly as possible. This other LTA for a globally locked account which continues edit to this day, both here and globally, under constantly shifting IPs illustrates why simple blocking doesn't work. Voceditenore (talk) 10:38, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Further comment The notion that LTAs encourage vandals and trolls to vandalize and troll as much as possible in the hopes that they will be "honored" with a listing in this "hall of fame" simply doesn't hold up. Observe this edit by this IP sock to the first LTA I mentioned—clearly not feeling "honored". With respect to the second LTA I mentioned, the motivation wasn't and isn't vandalism. He is simply determined to keep adding promotional and often spurious material related to his family, their alleged acquaintances, and their possessions. Voceditenore (talk) 11:13, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, at least until we have much more effective means of dealing with long-term abuse, and much better integration between local and global control thereof – which at present seems to be close to zero. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 11:05, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
WP:SNOW Speedy Keep What's the chances of this actually getting deleted? ^{[Username Needed]} 11:36, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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.