Difference between revisions of "SysopEditsArchive"

Latest revision as of 08:29, 8 December 2006

The Archive for SysopEdits

Complaint

We've had a complaint from Darren Vass, who to my knowledge is an IT teacher at BRGS, regarding the level of vandalism on this site. Personally I think we're doing all we can do, but please read the Email and see if we can come up with any ideas??

Chris ^mod 18:20, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

An Autumn Clean

I've tidied up some pages that were looking a bit messy, and had out of date material (basically the following):

HowToEdit

Community Portal

News

And a few others, including this one of course!

Also created archives for the "out of date" discussions, all of which are linked to from the original page(s).

(Apologies for the horrendous mess I've made of recent changes :S)

Chris ^mod 15:03, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

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Blocks/bans

I've created a new bans page with the guidelines discussed here, seems acceptable. If in doubt check out the bans page first so there's some consistency in decisions.

I've also started a page regarding what constitutes vandalism. For both these new pages please jump in and add/edit anything that needs doing!

Chris ^mod 15:03, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Moved to Archive

• I think a four tier system is too complex when there need only be one level. The real problem is people continually wasting our time.
• Vandalism be defined as making pages that insult people; maliciously changing redirects; defacing reasonable edits or any other edit that significantly degrades the quality of the wiki.
• All vandalism will be reversed when recognised.
• Repeated vandalism shall result in a ban of 1 or 3 days depending on severity, except no ban be applied during school hours and therefore is likely that a school IP is being used.

Clizard 22:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I've updated the Bans page with these simpler guidelines. Much better! Chris ^mod

Main website

Has anyone asked the school to put a link to this wiki on the actual school website? I'll do it if you want (most mods seem to have left!); but I was thinking that if we do that it'll increase the prominence of the wiki loads; and we'll hopefully get a load more visitors. Jonny ^{talk • mod} 22:15, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• I had this discussion with Mr Haycocks quite a while back (several thousand years) and their policy was not to link to external websites that weren't necessarily reliably going to stay the same after they were 'vetted'. I don't think they'd put a link to this from their site anyway, partly due to its highly dynamic nature. Clizard 22:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I doubt it would increase popularity at all, almost everyone knows about it currently anyway, although, it would be nice if the school did recognize this wiki, and include it in assemblies and such, or help to fund it...or something. Kronos^mod 19:26, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

How to make your signature awesome

I only just realised you could do this.

1. Go to 'Preferences'
2. Check the 'Use raw signatures' box.
3. In the 'nickname' box, type your name + a link (as you want it to appear). e.g [[User:Jonathan Parton|Jonny]]
4. Follow it with <sup> .
5. Put something like [[Special:Listusers/sysop|mod]]. Or whatever you want to appear.
6. Type </sup>.
7. Press save.
8. Whenever you sign, it now comes up like this: Jonny ^mod 17:37, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Genius! Chris ^mod

Blocks/bans

These should only really be used in serious circumstances, such as vandalism. In HowToEdit it clearly states that "Anyone posting derogatory, offensive or blatantly insulting comments will be banned for one day", which I think is clear enough. For 'serial offenders' three days may be better. Also, reasons should be given for blocking someone.

Blocking someone for making blank pages does seem slightly harsh, so a warning is often better in my opinion. Furthermore there is a warning on the main page so there's no excuse I guess!

Chris 14:08, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Blocking people for making one bad edit (which they may not even know is wrong) is just going to force people away. I've tried to ask people to stop (see here); and they usually do. Obviously this is harder with an IP; but then just put it as a note on the Main Page.

You can easily see how many times someone's been blocked too; so just use your judgement.

Also, I've made this page as a draft for users to request moderators to do anything - what do you think before it's copied over?

Jonny 17:10, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

It's a good idea but personally I don't imagine it'll get much use - I've never been asked to reinstate a page so I doubt anyone would pay it much attention. But you could certainly stick it on the main page and prove me wrong! Chris 17:16, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Ha, well, I was only thinking of the future :P (amazing I know!) I'll put it on then and see how many views it gets. Jonny 17:21, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Guidelines

I had a think of this while I was at parent's evening tonight. How about if we say (using 'vandalism' as an umbrella term for everything we don't want):

• For minor vandalism (i.e. moving pages, blanking pages, creating blank pages etc. [repeatedly]) from a user, we firstly ask them to stop, then secondly warn them they'll be banned if they continue then ban them for 1 day/3 days/1 week/and so on...

• For minor vandalism from IP addresses, we rollback the first one then if they do it again (easy to check what contributions they've made) block them in escalating bans, this time starting from 3 days.

• For major vandalism (i.e. pages that insult people, changing redirects to different pages, attacking "important" pages like the main page etc. [repeatedly]) from a user, we do a one-day ban immediately and leave a message on their talk page for when they're unbanned. Then the bans just escalate normally.

• For major vandalism from an IP address, it's a straight 3 day ban and then from there to one month if they do it again.

What I was thinking was: if you're changing redirects or creating insulting pages, you obviously want to disrupt the wiki; whereas blanking pages or moving them could just be a mistake by someone not familiar with the software. And let's be honest, it doesn't take more than about five seconds to rollback a page or move it back; so there's no big work invovled.

Obviously there's grey areas here; but it's not hard to use your judgement.

Jonny ^{talk • mod} 20:41, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

• I don't think there's anything wrong with making blank pages (not against guidlines). Edits are crossings out and in square brackets to how I think it should read. I will fix it so that moving pages can only be done by sysops also, so this can't be an offense. In terms of major and minor vandalism, I'd say that any minor vandalism doens't need any ban unless it's going to waste mod's time in a very serious way. I think this also needs to be changed to repeated vandalism in order to invoke a ban of up to 3 days (because one edit can easily be changed and may be a joke; doesn't waste much time). Any greater bans become ineffective, as IPs change; users get annoyed etc. On top of this, by laying down the law, users are discouraged from visiting the site and making changes. I had used bans a bit too liberally over the past few weeks, and I think it should be under more extreme cases.

I will also look into putting text directly onto the header when editing a page, relating to guidelines etc. instead of on the front page. Clizard 00:24, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• Agreed - I've handed out my fair share of bans too. It does seem to have worked though, as the majority of edits nowadays are positive, at least in my experience. Perhaps we can lay off the bans slightly now for minor idiocy, a warning is often enough. The guidelines above seem fine to me, should redraft again perhaps before it's posted. Chris ^mod 11:28, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

OK then, so it'll be something along these lines:

We (the moderators) have unfortunately had to ban some users for negative contributions towards the wiki. With this in mind, we have thought up some guidelines for when we will be using bans. Please remember that these will be used as a last resort - don't be afraid to edit and make a mistake - you won't be banned!

• For minor vandalism (i.e. blanking pages,) from a user, we firstly ask them to stop, then secondly warn them they'll be banned if they continue then ban them for 1 day, 3 days.

• For minor vandalism from IP addresses, we rollback the first one then if they do it again (easy to check what contributions they've made) block them for 3 days.

• For major vandalism (i.e. repeatedly making pages that insult people, repeatedly changing redirects to different pages, repeatedly attacking "important" pages like the main page etc.) from a user, we do a one-day ban immediately and leave a message on their talk page for when they're unbanned.

• For major vandalism from an IP address, it's a straight 3 day ban.

These guidelines have been put in place for the few users who choose to vandalise. Thanks to the majority of contributors who are helping this site become a success!

Also, we need to think of somewhere to put it. I imagine only new visitors bother to look at HowToEdit, so we either need a new page or someway of showing people that the page has been updated without messing up the formatting on the main page. Jonny ^{talk • mod} 12:52, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

EDIT:I just remembered - sorry for blocking the user who created all the pages; I thought that that wasn't allowed. Apologies Jonny ^{talk • mod} 12:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• Looks fine but just get Clizard to check it out first Chris ^mod 14:10, 29 November 2006 (UTC)