Talk:Managing vandalism

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Name of page

Is it OK to use 'vandal fighting' or can we find a less oppositional name? What are other ways of expressing this? e.g., anti-vandalism? (still oppositional?) -- Jtneill - Talk - c 07:55, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Both words atm can bring negative associations. The wording plays a big role how we perceive things and then act because of this perception.

Some general ideas:

- An opportunity to transmit Wikiversity's mission to x

- Helping (x) understand Wikiversity's mission

- An opportunity to understand x better

- Outreach for x

(replace x with: other humans/participants ?)

So, what might be one scenario (please note that there are other pathways/scenarios possible) with a "vandal" ?

- red circle: a person/group acting weird (regarding - some - people's opinion)

- blue circle: let's say carelessly this is WV (though it consists of many individuals - note: I don't say pages) and the line is not drawn through to show that we cannot "shutdown gates" - our doors are open all the time.

1: both exist (somehow)

2: first contact (e.g. reading pages)

3. "inside" WV (and doing something)

4: contributing to Wikiversity's mission (the mission of WV from that time)

So, what can happen after situation 3 ? This is completely in our hands. In most projects very likely the vandal is being "fought" and is "brought" back to a previous state (and the game can continue again from that state). The more effort-taking way is to help the circle understand and realize what WV is about and ultimately making the circle contribute also to WV's mission.

Something to think:

- Who will take the effort to help a circle reach step >3 ? Why act at all like this ?

- Will this succeed with every "red circle" ?

- What happens when you exchange the meaning of the red and blue circle ?

- Why not read Vandal Wiki ?

- ... ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 20:57, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Erkan, yes, good stuff, would you put some/most of this on the main page? I think the page has a sufficient skeleton of detail, but lacks the more subtle understandings and positive potential of communication. And we still need a better name. I'm thinking maybe now more in terms of managing vandalism, i.e., moving away from typing people/users as black and white "vandals/not vandals/vandal fighters". -- Jtneill - Talk - c 03:06, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Some possibilities: Surviving vandalism / Coping with vandalism / Dealing with vandalism / Understanding the vandal / Responding to vandalism —Moulton 21:23, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Hello, thanks for your ideas. Below my comments:

• Surviving vandalism
  • Somehow this awakes in me the association that there has been something bad before and therefore we survive. When we see wikis as a place where everything can be restored again, this surviving is not so much fitting. It is just "normal life" - normal edits. If one sees edits as just saving - temporarily or more permanent - (learning) content that is nothing bad so far. Learning in users increases over time.
• Coping/Dealing with vandalism
  • not quite sure yet, but I assume somehow this goes into the same direction of "managing vandalism" ?
• Responding to vandalism
  • When I see responding in relation to that someone asks a question: I like this one. Because on a question there can be (many different kinds of) responses. So like: before doing things you just talk, action comes later on.
  • When I see responding as: reacting on someone's deeds I don't like it anymore. I would like to see the whole thing more as communicating with others.
• Understanding the vandal
  • atm I prefer this: because if we try to understand someone it hopefully also enlightens oneself. This can help that one should not be so rigid in her beliefs. It should be not like in the form of sophists, but if you can find 10 arguments why the other is right that helps already a lot in interacting with others and finding a compromise. That is actually the theory :-) practice is always a little different (I didn't in this response consider this also, it is 02:15 AM here).

well and still we have this bad term "vandal" :-) ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 00:17, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the term originates from an East Germanic tribe that sacked Rome in 455. Thus the term automatically implies a hostile intent. It's not obvious that every case of "vandalism" fits this historical metaphor. Very likely there are better ways to analyze and characterize antagonistic edits by parties who do not share the goals of the dominant clique. Were I to craft a learning resource that addresses this issue, I'd replace "vandal" with "adversarial editors" and "vandalism" with "adverse edits." —Moulton 23:34, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Where I got lost

I got lost during "One scenario". -- Thekohser 02:38, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Could you provide more info, so we can try to find a way out of this (if you perceive being lost as problem), ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 15:41, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that demonstrating the phenomenon of vandalism with a sort of "Venn diagram" is needlessly complicating what is a very simple thing to explain with words. For example:

1. Wikiversity is an open-door project.
2. Some people join us and blend in nicely with our stated mission and goals.
3. Other people do not. They can be against our stated objectives in either an inadvertent or a deliberate way.
4. Wikiversity typically wishes to "convert" the inadvertent un-blended visitor, and typically wishes to either convert or frustrate the deliberate un-blended visitor.

--Thekohser 16:26, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes a concrete example helps focus attention from the abstract to the concrete problem at hand. Consider the recent case of prima facie vandalism here by User:StreamingWeb600. What would be the ethical best practice in dealing with such an individual (whose identity and backstory are entirely unknown). Does he come here out of a grudge, out of some prior trauma elsewhere in a Wikimedia project? Is he just a random hooligan out for lulz? In any event, where is he in his lifelong learning journey, and what is his attitude toward learning the next valuable lesson in life that relates to his manifested actions here? Are we thrust into a reprise of Lord of the Flies? Is simply blocking him, without notice, the optimal practice? Just as Lonnie Athens and James Gilligan bothered to interview felonious miscreants, and just as Suzanne Retzinger listened to warring frenemies, perhaps we should (on a selective basis) do the same with the occasional vandal here. —Moulton 15:45, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, keep in mind that certain vandals follow a pattern, which is recognizable by people experienced with pattern vandals. That one in particular has visited us before, on numerous occasions. If someone creates an account and immediately begins trolling in that fashion, we simply block them quietly, clean up the mess, and move on. If they want to contribute positively, they can just create a new account. Not everyone is worth talking to. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 11:23, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

It would help me to know the parts of the backstory that are known to you but not to me. Constructing a character model of an antagonistic character is known to be a hard problem in general. I encountered several such characters on Wikipedia, including one who registered expressly to harass me. —Moulton 13:31, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm not going to discuss particular cases, but it's not so much about trying to figure out someone's character as it is simply recognizing a certain pattern of counter-constructive edits. There's also a difference between "pure trolls" (i.e., people who are being disruptive simply for the sake of being disruptive), "attack accounts", and "people who tend to go a bit overboard sometimes": of course, you need to be able to distinguish between the 3, and no, that's not necessarily easy to do. The latter group have the most to contribute: e.g. you (Moulton) have in the past perhaps hit people's buttons a few more times than was necessary, but (IMHO) you clearly have something productive to contribute to the community, and are certainly worth talking to. People who use "attack accounts" tend to get bored quickly if no-one gives them attention (much less makes them the center of attention)... they have an agenda, and aren't going to waste their time if it becomes clear that their agenda is not being forwarded. "Pure trolls" are likewise looking for attention, but only for the sake of getting attention (which is why there's no reason to bother trying to psychoanalyze them... they're loopy, so leave it at that and move on). As I once heard Jacques Derrida say, the problem with "sakes" is that you can't point to a "sake" and see it there. Nevertheless, you can still, with empathy and a cool head, determine what was done for the sake of what. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 14:26, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, for Pete's sake. I wonder if Jacques Derrida ever deconstructed the Dueling Banjos scene from Deliverance. —Moulton 21:15, 22 July 2008 (UTC)