"Limited Lock" feature?

Pretty much what I have in mind would work out something like this:

• Keeps out newbies and recently-editbanned users (like one or two months minimum for both perhaps?; if they wish to have a meaningful edit they can take it up to the "Locked Page Edit Request" thread)
• Cannot be applied to members of the Permanent Red Link Club
• Abusing the limited lock (ie shitposting, trolling, natter) as a bannable offense.
• Goes without saying that normal users cannot lift the lock, and only mods can lift them.

Will this work out?

Or that could work too.

edited 15th Apr '12 3:41:09 PM by EarlOfSandvich

I think that a handle whitelist could be an option alternatively to newbie lockout.

Also, "newbie" will be something much longer than a week and a few edits, methinks.

Actually, come to think a whitelist would be a good idea.

Just wondering what sort of things would qualify an editor to the whitelist then...

In other words, a "semi-lock" ?

Compare Wikimedia platforms: "Semi-protection" means the page is locked against all anonymous edits, but regular editors in good standing (the definition of which depends on the wiki) are allowed to make edits.

edited 16th Apr '12 11:07:03 PM by Stratadrake

We already disallow anonymous edits. We've talked about greylisting new accounts but it hasn't matured into anything finished. We do have a newbie period on the forums, mainly to prevent spammers and trolls from doing excessive damage.

But yeah, I think whitelisting would be a better idea, come to think, because I think it should take a certain amount of time and a substantial number of useful edits in order for one to edit on locked pages (like a month or two AND at least a hundred useful edits, maybe?). Also, given what I stated in my OP, I believe that such priveleges can be revoked (whether or not for good would be up to the powers that be) when one edits a locked page with either natter/shitposting or just generally posting on a member of the Permanent Red Link Club.

edited 17th Apr '12 11:28:08 AM by EarlOfSandvich

What's so hard about posting in the edit requests thread for locked pages? If it keeps the number of edits to those pages to a minimum, I consider that a good thing.

Slowness, fear of forums or tetchy mods, the non-obviousness of this possibility when you're on a locked page and the poor argument given in: "Minimum edits are good"

Locked Pages says to go to that thread as well. People aren't doing the minimum work and are complaining about it. Besides, how is an "elevated privileges" system supposed to be an improvement to the accessibility of editing? We can presume that anyone who'd be on the whitelist would know to use the thread anyway, so that still leaves less-privileged users flailing around impotently.

A locked page is not Locked Pages, by the way.

Try clicking the "edit page" button on a locked article — or rather, the lock icon that replaces it. (It doesn't work for mods, by the way — we see Edit Page regardless of the lock status.)

It already does that. Again, people aren't going to even the minimum effort to find out how the wiki works. I see no need to help them.

edited 17th Apr '12 12:15:04 PM by Fighteer

Wasn't there talk about the padlock icon linking directly to the Locked Pages article? Or does it already do that?

Because of some recent events that have gone out of hand (The Incredibles being locked because of one guy's blatant disregard of formatting rules, namespace-related efforts pages through the same wonk with various aliases), I'm bringing this back to attention.

I still think that yes, we should mull over the idea of whitelisting, with the sorts of ideas I've laid out in my OP.

edited 16th Feb '14 1:28:58 PM by EarlOfSandvich

We're contemplating a different system, along the lines of an editing account whitelist. This is purely speculative, however, and I'd prefer not to have people running around panicking about what-ifs. Just know that the inconvenience to you over this particular vandal is doubly the case for us.

I think a soft/limited/semi lock sounds like a good idea, and it might not be that time-consuming for Eddie to implement.(I mean he had the time that he wasted on this relationship status thingy. ) We already have a feature that limits the number of edits and forum posts for new members. So a limited lock based on that should be possible (but it should obviously be longer, like three months or something).

There is also the system that allow the moderators to edit the pages, so making a white-list of "mini-editors" that only can do that should be possible. I would actually prefer that, at least if it comes with a badge, and if I get one.

edited 28th Feb '14 1:26:59 PM by m8e

We may have a use for a whitelist soon. Tropers with a certain seniority level will have the power to approve new account requests. All the issues listed in this thread, BTW, are due to ONE person. Amazing how one person can make such problems for so many others.

We're looking at a bunch of ideas here, but a key question would seem to be at what point in the account creation/editing process we'd need to whitelist an account. Too early and it's a lot of work for screeners. Too late and it's a burden on the editor.

Soft-locking articles is not a perfect answer because: a) we still have the problem of being reactive to vandalism, b) we have to have some way to decide which tropers get elevated privileges.

That latter is also an issue with potential screeners, of course.

edited 28th Feb '14 1:26:02 PM by Fighteer

Plus there's the problem that the pages that would benefit the most from this (that is, the ones that are the biggest troll targets) are also the ones from most popular series, which are where new tropers tend to gravitate.

I have a feeling this is going to cause a lot of headaches in the first few months, as we try and work out all the kinks. I suppose my first suggestion is a customized "You cannot edit this" screen. So when a new troper tries to edit a half-locked page, it takes them to a page that explains the policy clearly and makes it obvious it's not their fault.

For what it's worth, in Wikipedia's soft lock, "Not being a new account or an IP" is the "elevated privilege".

About the whitelist idea, the description of the idea makes me wonder how many articles that would cover. If it's a limited number, it would probably work by request and-then-screening.

As far as I'm concerned soft-locking against "new accounts" would only serve to drive vandals to the articles that are not soft-locked. At that point you might as well put all new accounts on an editing delay.

Wikipedia IP bans its known vandals. Soft locks seem like they're mainly to stop people who fixate on particular articles, not people who are just out to cause mayhem.

Is anyone here well versed in open proxy detection — such as where you can find the most effective and current blacklists? Most of the lists I've seen have to do with email spam rather than vandalism. Wikimedia maintains a global block list as well as blocking all known Tor exits; is that the best source?

edited 28th Feb '14 1:45:03 PM by Fighteer

Wikipedia has a system to dedect and block open proxies, yes. But it relies on people reporting suspicious IP addresses and other people screening them. And I don't know how many of all the proxies they block.

Here's the page on the project. They also have a bot that does proxy-blocking.

It's worth examining whether we want to use a whitelist/softblock for any "problem page" or only for selected vandals/pages. The reason why this idea was resurrected, after all, is because one vandal was hitting two particular pages so hard that they had to be locked when they have a need for frequent editing.

As soon as we locked those pages, he moved on to others. We currently have 40 articles locked because of him.

That ProcseeBot thing is cool; I wonder if we could piggyback on it somehow.

Edit: As it is closed source, the only way to pull data from it would be to co-opt Wikimedia's global IP block list. I've queried it a few times for the IP addresses Nate uses and while some of them are present, not all of them are.

edited 28th Feb '14 2:25:26 PM by Fighteer

Hrmm ... I can see that trying to reduce the access of open proxies is going to be a dicey task. I'm guessing that there are some sites making lists of these things out there, which Nate might be using.

About your check, did you use this list? The Procsee list is this one.

edited 28th Feb '14 3:12:45 PM by SeptimusHeap

There are a lot of logs. I checked a few of today's batch of IPs against the entire log and there were no matches.

Bringing this back up because of a certain [NAME REDACTED].

Seriously, if we are going to keep the likes of... it... from singlehandedly paralyzing pages we really have got to consider a whitelist pronto!

edited 6th Jul '14 9:21:20 PM by EarlOfSandvich