RationalWiki:Chicken coop/Archive30

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, (new)(back)

Dirk.

Closed. No one lays a finger on precious Dirk. To be more specific, we just had a large discussion about what to do with him, and we don't need another one. Until new charges can be leveled, please refrain from starting new Coop/ATIM topics. Blue (pester) 02:47, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Solution to this problem in 65 characters or less

Don't want to feed the troll? Disappear the troll. Stick this in your monobook.js or vector.js file and remove Dirk Steele from Recent Changes. Better than crankspace.

$('ul.special>li>a[href*="User:Dirk_Steele"]').parent().remove();

Cheers. 23:24, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Ignoring trolls is not an option the cabalists are willing to entertain. Occasionaluse (talk) 15:15, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Their buddies get away with murder with dozens and dozens of capricious blocks and removing others' rights, yet the primary planks in their platform have been "order" and "rules" and how bad "trolling" is for RW and bitching about how the bureaucrat system was an unaccountable boys club. Nice. 16:07, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

It's disenfranchising. I admire your gumption in trying to make a difference. Occasionaluse (talk) 16:38, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Unless this magic solution of yours blocks him out of derailing conversations and stops him from editing mainspace, I'd say it pretty much sucks ass--"Shut up, Brx." 03:16, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Then just ignore hiss derailing and keep an eye on his contribs. Aceⁱ⁹ 03:18, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

And I'd say you're pretty much a fucking moron. It removes his edits from Recent Changes. Can't feed the troll if you don't see him working. I can also remove anything he writes anywhere from view. I wish we could permanently get rid of you a lot more than I wish people would just stop paying attention to Dirk Steele. 01:13, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Uh-huh. You wanna think about that for a minute? I'm sure that mainspace would look just lovely for site visitors, with our page on mental illness denial denouncing psychiatry as an evil global scam and a crime against humanity.--"Shut up, Brx." 01:39, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Do you know what else was a crime against humanity What happened to the Jews of Cordova in 1326. Theory of Practice "Now we stand outcast and starving 'mid the wonders we have made." 01:43, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Ahaha.--^talk 02:47, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

1391 is the brx-approved date of poorly chosen hyperbolic anti-Semitic atrocity analogy, not 1326--"Shut up, Brx." 03:21, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

As much as I hate to admit it, Brxbrx is right. Simply hiding Dirk from Recent Changes not only does not remove his posts on various talk pages, but puts us in danger of missing the few times he does add his drivel to mainspace. 3/10 would not recommend. Blue (pester) 01:49, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Don't be so fucking hysterical Blue/Brx. I haven't used the filter and not everyone is as half-cocked rabid to the point wherein they have to have to use a Dirk filter because they are powerless to respond to him - to the point they have to hide his edits. Aceⁱ⁹ 01:56, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I hide his edits because it's a certainty that someone will be following him around with their nose right up to his ass so they can yell at him when he opens his mouth. 03:23, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

This whole "hating to agree with each other" thing isn't really great for community cohesion. Can you guys maybe think about making a late New Year's resolution to get over it & not keep précising everything with "I hate you, but OK"? ₩€₳$€£ΘĪÐ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 01:56, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I thinl you're a giant doody-head, but I agree with you on this. Theory of Practice "Now we stand outcast and starving 'mid the wonders we have made." 02:01, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Trolls want attention. RationalWiki gives them attention. It never ends. sterile^{sporadic heavy hitter} 02:10, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Agree - if we ignore Brx he might just leave. Aceⁱ⁹ 02:12, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Brx, put this in your monobook.js or vector.js file. It will remove Dirk from everything but mainspace. $(document).click(function(e){e.preventDefault(); $("div").fadeOut(5000);} 03:20, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

03:20, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Dirk2

I level the new charge of spamming and propose that the most recent binning stick. Hipocrite (talk) 22:02, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I have fulfilled Dirk's request to be banned from the wiki. Theory of Practice "Now we stand outcast and starving 'mid the wonders we have made." 23:40, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Finally. Now to concentrate on the more important things in life.... Immortality's fun, except when you become a two-headed monster ^{Talk to me or view my art} 02:15, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

My recent ban by Inquisitor Ehrenstein

06:39, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

This is unacceptable

Guy threatens the wiki. We then have exactly that threat carried out. Guy continues to edit the wiki (note signature). Take home message -- you can come to our house, empty our liqour cabinet and shit on the rugs, and we'll keep the lights on for you so you can come back again. This is not how normal communities operate. Theory of Practice "...and we do love you madly." 14:47, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I completely agree. This never would have happened if Sophie wasn't harassing new users. Occasionaluse (talk) 15:23, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

WtF are you talking about TOP? Brasov's account is already blocked for 3 months so there is no "keeping the lights on for him" (though I guess that should probably be formalised by a community vote). Proxy-blocking is already under discussion at the SB, so it's unclear what other solution you're asking for here. ₩€₳$€£ΘĪÐ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 18:13, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I did not realize there was a proxy-blocking discussion afoot until after I posted this. That's exactly what I wanted to start a conversation about. Theory of Practice "...and we do love you madly." 18:29, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

We need to determine what he wants, and prevent him from getting it until the vandal attack stops. I believe he wants attention. As such, he should be reverted, blocked, and ignored, regardless of where he attempts to get attention - from his talk page, to any other page, to this page. We should consider taking all of his contributions and throwing them in the memory hole. Hipocrite (talk) 20:27, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

"Attention"... You keep using this word, but I don't think you know what it means... Occasionaluse (talk) 20:31, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

This has been my second comment to date regarding this individual. I assumed that when he was engaged with again at Talk:Big Placebo, he would stop, as he was getting his constructive attention. He did not stop. As such, merely ignoring him will not work. He needs to be shown that his valuable additions to dialogue will disappear into the ether if the bot attacks continue. Hipocrite (talk) 20:33, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Eh? What? Guy? Not me, guv, I was just standing here minding my own business... JzG (talk) 02:11, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Why do we need to formalize the banning of a plain vandal? Blue (is useful) 02:28, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

I will note that with the block on open proxies appears to have stopped the vandalbot nicely - now we just have to deal with regular idjits. I'm not saying we should keep the open proxy block ... but we should keep the open proxy block - David Gerard (talk) 08:30, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Huh? Wèàšèìòìď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 12:16, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Open proxy block. I mean that I am in no way declaring this, and tomorrow morning I will put up a poll about it for the mob to fling faeces at each other concerning, but as an editor I think the open proxy block has worked wonderfully so far. There are ways to get fresh IPs, but they're work, and we can deal with them as and when they're actively a problem - David Gerard (talk) 12:51, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Poll: Keep the open proxy blackhole?

(I can hardly think of a more suitable page to do this than here.)

So, some vandal, who we're assuming is Brasov, has been running a RW-specific vandalbot against us from open proxies. The difficult part is how to stop this without locking down the wiki to IP editors.

With my sysadmin hat on, I'm going to describe what the current open proxy block does:

• An open proxy is a misconfigured web server that anyone on the Internet can access other sites through. Many of these mask the attacker's IP address, making it look like they're coming from the proxy itself.
• Open proxies are innumerable and indefinitely replenished, wherever there is a misconfigured proxy server.
• To preserve user-editable sites against trolls and vandals, there are blackhole lists which keep usably up to date with fresh open proxies. This is what I've switched on, per the estimable advice of User:Inquisitor Ehrenstein (BIG ROUND OF APPLAUSE).
• It's not perfect - the vandal managed one 10-minute run in two days by finding an open proxy not on the lists - but it's pretty good.
• If you are just an ordinary IP editor, you are not affected. Drive-by IP editors have been able to edit just fine the last coupla days.
• If you are logged-in and not going through an open proxy, you are not affected. If you are ... I dunno what happens. I asked for any affected users to email me, 0 so far.
• If you are going through your normal ISP/work proxy, that's fine if it's not a misconfigured open proxy on the blackhole lists.

tl;dr: Normal IP edits are not affected. Only edits through an open, misconfigured, broken proxy.

There are valid non-trivial free-speech arguments for open proxy editing - see comments.

So, here is the poll question. Please enter # ~~~~ under the heading you concur with. I'll act on the result in about 24 hours, assuming it's not severely contentious. - David Gerard (talk) 11:30, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Keep the open proxy blackhole (block open proxies)

1. David Gerard (talk) 11:30, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
2. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 11:33, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
3. Blue (pester) 11:35, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
4. --PsyGremlin^Sermā! 11:44, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
5. -- ^{Jabba de Chops} 12:03, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
6. For a while, until the current vandal spree has blown over. Then I think we should disable the blacklist & see what happens. Keep the option around for if we get a similar attack in future, but don't keep the proxy block up permanently. Wèàšèìòìď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 12:12, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
7. Of course. And can we ave IP blocklist exemption for people who ask nicely? JzG (talk) 15:22, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

   I'm pretty sure the blackhole list doesn't have an exemption list. (edit: it does indeed, see below!) If you're being caught by IP blocks in your usual editing - which shouldn't happen, given JzG is a sysop - please email me with all reasonable details of where this is happening so I at least know (e.g. out and about with a phone?) - David Gerard (talk) 17:06, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

8. Ty^{Carnival time.} 15:40, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
9. --Token Conservative (talk) 16:24, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
10. Polar Bear In the Jungle Peter Tosh > Bob Marley 18:08, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
11. + What Weaseloid said. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 18:43, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
12. Keep it permanently, unless a better alternative presents itself. Peter ^mqzp 21:24, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
13. Sam ^Tally-ho! 22:07, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
14. Keep it up permanently. There's really no need to allow people to use proxies. If people really do need or want to use proxies, they can make a few useful edits here and then request demotion, which will allow them to be IP block exempt. I think allowing proxies would just encourage misbehavior if people think they're completely anonymous. ఠ_ఠ Inquisitor Sasha Ehrenstein des Sturmkrieg Sector 22:46, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
15. Forever. If you can't edit because you really need your privacy, make an account. If you can't edit because your government might kill you for editing, don't fucking edit. Hipocrite (talk) 02:14, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

With my editor hat on: HELL YES. Minimal theoretical side-effects, none I know of in practice. I am very cautious about IP blocking, because we do openly invite bozos to engage with us and it's good for us, but this hasn't stopped that at all - David Gerard (talk) 11:30, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

I guess what I would like to know is what is the ratio of vandal edits from IPs to "normal" edits everyday and what is the ratio of vandal edits coming from open proxies to "normal" edits coming from open proxies. - π 11:37, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea - we just see an IP and can't tell what it is at a glance. (I could grovel through the entire recent changes list and check each IP against the open proxy blackhole lists, but I'm really not going to bother; anyone else who wants the answer could also do so). The point of open proxies is not just to stay untraceable, but that they're incredibly readily available and you can hop from open proxy to open proxy really fast - IP-hopping without them is a lot more work.

If you don't want people seeing your IP, create an account - then the only two people who could know even in theory are Trent and me, and we really wouldn't look unless and until there was an operational reason. The threat model for the editing user is that a legal subpoena or the authorities could demand IPs from the RWF, and we'd be obliged to give them up in certain circumstances; this is possible if RW editors piss off enough litigious lunatics who them want to sue the writers (RWF itself is probably protected under Section 230).

Most RW vandalism is upset readers blanking stuff they don't like, which is a sort of engagement, and we can steer them to talk pages at least some of the time - David Gerard (talk) 11:44, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

So which way around does this poll work? - π 11:51, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Keep the blackhole = block the proxies. I'll add a note to clarify. - David Gerard (talk) 11:53, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

You realise this will get shot down once the hyper-free speechers and angry technologically illiterate show up? - π 12:06, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Never understood that cohort. David, would you email me the source list you're working off? I suck so terribly as js that I'm taking this as an opportunity to learn something new. May never materialize but hey. Fun Sunday. 16:55, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Welcome back Pi. I'm emailing you about some code. 16:57, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

The lists I'm using are the ones listed here, which are the two mediawiki.org advises. MediaWiki makes this just ridiculously simple - David Gerard (talk) 17:05, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm a pretty strong frea-speacher, but the vandalism was enough for me to say "nuh uh, operational issue mate" - David Gerard (talk) 17:08, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

I just tried editing through the last IP Brasov used. I could edit logged-in (see sandbox); when I tried to edit again as an IP, it told me I was vandalbinned - on a completely different IP. Weirdness in the world of misconfigured proxies. So I don't know if a logged-in editor gets caught by the blackhole lists. The manual seems to say the IP of every edit, which is different to "every edit by an IP" and presumably would catch logged-in users. Anyone else patient enough to try editing through a crappy open proxy who can report back? - David Gerard (talk) 17:04, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

As an aside, the account creation bots seem to have been slowed down drastically as well. Sophie^Wilder 18:22, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Oh, even better! - David Gerard (talk) 18:24, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

proxyunbannable and ipblock-exempt users are not affected, other logged in users are. Both rights are assigned to sysops only on RW.

Btw, are we still using that "xth letter in the site name" captcha? Changing that back to a proper captcha should stop a single user vandalbotting RW, but might bring back the spambots. Maybe try combining the two: "Type the word below and the xth letter of the site name" -- Nx / talk 19:25, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

We are still using the "Xth letter" captcha - I tried editing from elsewhere last week. Sophie^Wilder 19:33, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

i like the one where you have to tell cats from dogs. Sophie^Wilder 19:34, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

How about sheep from goats? Or weasels from stoats? Wèàšèìòìď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 19:54, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Kara Duhe form Helena Bonham Carter? I am a horrible person.. Polar Bear in the Jungle Peter Tosh > Bob Marley 19:58, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

The captcha questions are embedded in LocalSettings.php, not in something that e.g. any admin could edit. Anyone want to extend QuestyCaptcha? - David Gerard (talk) 21:50, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Oh, and there's mediawikiwiki:Manual:$wgProxyWhitelist if you need to allow IPs that the blacklist says are open proxies. -- Nx / talk 19:27, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

WIN - David Gerard (talk) 21:50, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

I've heard the argument that proxies need to be allowed because of people editing from places where it would be considered undesirable for them to be editing the material they contribute to. I've never really cared much about that, except for maybe really large wikis like Wikipedia. As has been said, anyone who lives in a crazy Christian community can log in, it doesn't seem many users have CheckUser if we have it, and if they're in a country where they'll get killed, then they shouldn't be editing here. If they still want to, they just have to get demoted to be IP block exempt.
I use the same configuration at Sturmkrieg, which is exceptional for preventing trolling. I also doubt that many people are going to be claiming that they need protection from their government to be editing a 40k wiki. Privacy shouldn't be an issue as I'm considering restricting CheckUser to sysadmins. If not, it's going to be restricted a small number of users anyway. ఠ_ఠ Inquisitor Sasha Ehrenstein des Sturmkrieg Sector 17:26, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Result

I left it several hours longer than I was thinking and so far it's unanimous: leave it on. So we'll be leaving open proxies blocked for now.

Some have asked this be reviewed after a time, so I would suggest someone bring it up again when they think it's safe enough to leave off (and that they can convince the mob) - David Gerard (talk) 19:50, 11 February 2013 (UTC)