Forum:Troll-feeding on Halopedia

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Feeding the trolls is never a good thing. According to English-language Wikipedia, trolling is deliberate and intentional attempts to disrupt the usability of Wikipedia for its editors, administrators, developers, and other people who work to create content for and help run Wikipedia. Trolling is deliberate violation of the implicit rules of Internet social spaces.

One general rule on any wiki is to not feed the trolls. Sannse and Angela have discouraged making "anti-vandal coalitions" and such pages, as they glamorize vandalism by turning it into a game.

The best thing to do is to revert, block and ignore them. By making all kinds of anti-vandal coalitions, you just encourage them vandalizing your wiki.

As Angela has said, thus, ironically enough, in glamorizing the act of counter-vandalism we create an incentive for vandalism itself.

There is no point of creating these troll-feeding pages, as they distract you from normal editing and creating more articles about the subject of this Wikia wiki, Halo. Anyone is able to revert vandalism and you really should not make a big deal out of it.

So, please consider this. And just for your information, this is not a Cabal joke, but instead a message for real to the community of Halopedia. --Jack Phoenix _(Contact) 15:36, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd agree with this. The best way to deal with vandals is silently. They want to get a reaction out of the community. If you let them provoke you in any way (whether it's righteous anger, annoyance, eye-rolling, or the full-blown creation of massive anti-vandalism squads), you're letting them win. If you just quietly revert their edits as soon as they make them, without fuss, they eventually get bored and go away. [Heck, if their edits are not blatantly offensive, just leave them for a few hours, or a day. Imagine the vandal sitting there refreshing every five minutes to see you respond. Laugh softly to yourself.] Without getting satisfaction here, perhaps the vandal move on to bother some more easily-provoked community, or perhaps they will actually add some useful content. Either way, you win.

Please see the essay I added at Halopedia:Vandalism is not a game and think a little further about what is gained and lost by bringing the competitive us-vs-them strategies of gaming into your wiki. Thanks for your consideration!

— Catherine o' the ComTeam 04:29, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Some pages, like Halopedia:Anti Vandal Coalition, are unnecessary and attract trolls. There is no need to sign up to anything to revert vandalism. Contributors should know that if they see vandalism in progress, they start reverting and contact an admin/staff to deal with the vandal. In addition, it's not a good idea to give recognition to the vandal]]. If there is an obvious vandal like User:F.U.C.K or User:P.E.N.I.S, simply block for infinite and continue on with life. In such cases, there is no need to post copious amounts of messages on the vandal's user/talk page, because by giving all that attention, it tells the vandal that he/she is winning and encourage the continuation of vandalism. Please remember that vandalism is not a game. Thanks. G.He_(Talk!) 04:49, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. While it may encourage vandals to see the AVC page I feel that there should be places to report a vandal so that a part of the populas knows to be on the lookout. And if you go with this logic would't warning them that their acts are not permitted also invite more of it?--Spartan 1138 04:55, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Reporting is okay, but the entry should be removed after it has been dealt with. Warning is also okay, but the amount of content on User talk:F.U.C.K before its deletion was ridiculous. If it's an inappropriate username, it's not going to be okay to use anyway. User:F.U.C.K is currently blocked for 6 months, but it's still not going to be okay for that username to be used even after that time. G.He_(Talk!) 05:00, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

If the vandal keeps returning, the warnings can't go on forever. After a certain amount of offenses, it becomes a long or infinite block. G.He_(Talk!) 05:04, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

One thing I'm worried about is blocking some IP address that might be used by a legitimate user. F.U.C.K may not return after the ban is up, and then all the IPs used by that user would be non-banned as I understand it. AOL uses a different IP for every page loaded, right? If the vandal uses AOL then some user completely unrelated to them could be banned for no reason. Correct me if I'm wrong. --Dragonclaws^(talk) 18:06, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

ISPs like AOL only change IPs upon (re-)connection, not every page load. If the vandal is not logged on and uses an ISP like AOL, short blocks should be considered. In addition, one of the newer block options allows only the IP to be blocked, so logged in users may still edit. If the vandal is actually vandalizing with a vandalism-only account, there's no problem if the account is blocked for infinite. Another new block option is to turn autoblocks off so the IP itself won't be blocked. Even if autoblock is left on, the max length for an autoblock does not exceed 24h. So if a user is blocked for 12 hours, the autoblock will expire in 12 hours. If the user is blocked for 48 hours, the autoblock will expire in 24 hours, not 48 hours. G.He_(Talk!) 20:38, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for clearing that up. --Dragonclaws^(talk) 20:49, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

And as I've mentioned before, there's no need to sign up to anything if one wishes to help revert vandalism. G.He_(Talk!) 05:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I see what you mean now. But most vandals either vandalize random pages or attack random users. Take Uncivilgoth666 this past week. He was attacking random users not pinpointing anti-vadal people.--Spartan 1138 06:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Spartan: you don't need a place to report a vandal. The dedicated community members who care about maintaining this site are going to be watching Special:Recentchanges. Seeing another member's "revert vandalism" in the edit summary should be all the warning they need. From Recentchanges it is easy to go to a user's contribs, and from there it is easy to see whether this is a new user who needs guidance or warnings, or a repeat vandal who needs to be blocked. If you must talk to the rest of the community about a vandal, I'd suggest using your IRC channel for it -- less public, less permanent, and far less gratifying for the vandals.

As for user warnings being feedback for vandals too, well, that's a chance you take when you assume good faith. Many vandalistic edits by newbies are just people testing the system, finding out if there are limits. Put up a hand and say "that's not allowed", and they'll stop. But if they don't, don't waste a lot of time giving warning after warning. Tell them you're going to block them if they do it again, and then follow through, with the length of the block reflecting your belief that they might learn their lesson.

And no, not all vandals go after vandal-fighters, but they should all be dealt with the same way: swiftly, silently, without fuss. — Catherine o' the ComTeam 06:16, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Rollback privledges have now been given to a number of users to help make reverting vandalism much easier. ---ED_(talk)^(shockfront) 06:20, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

but it's a lot more fun to get promotions, electons etc. than just reverting it which is boring. General Spartytime "Failure is not an option" 17:01, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

And you really do want vandals here, especially when nobody of the admins are one? This is a wiki, not a video game, I'm afraid. --Jack Phoenix _(Contact) 17:48, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. You have 4 user groups with rank systems. If you want to play these rank games, get involved with those groups. ---ED_(talk)^(shockfront) 22:18, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I can understand that. Vandals look at it as a game anyway, so best not to encourage it. --Dragonclaws^(talk) 18:06, 2 April 2007 (UTC)