I SAW WHAT YOU DID THERE.

[reddragdiva]

WikiScanner is taking the press by storm. Two calls today from the BBC and one from The Independent. The line I took:

• We've had conflicted editing since the beginning, and companies getting caught out. This is just another example. We've told people over and over, and now this is hitting the press and the general public are up in arms about it.
• The almost-complete edit history of Wikipedia has always been available — click on the "history" tab. And people have been caught with it before. This is another approach to the same thing.
• We don't try to nail companies on it, because we appreciate they sometimes just don't know how to approach us. We don't want people scared to talk to us.
• The best way to deal with problems in your entry is to be completely honest and open about who you are and why you're there. In general, getting caught out being less than utterly honest online will get you eaten alive.
• If something's dangerous or slanderous, of course, contact the Foundation and you can be sure it'll be looked at seriously and quickly.

So I'm on BBC Radio 5 Live on Wake up To Money tomorrow morning around 5:55am. (There's an MP3 podcast of it.) The things I do for Wikipedia ... They got Virgil Griffiths, who wrote WikiScanner, to comment as well. Should be interesting.

By the way: I told you so.

Update: One quote! I got up at 5:45am for one quote! Mind you, I did start to waffle. MP3, 20:25 to 23:24. Pretty good.

Comments

[reddragdiva]

Blocking anons would stop a lot of random rubbish, but would also fail to hook new addicts. Forced logout to slow editing would slow good users but wouldn't stop problem users for a second, because a fuckhead is unstoppable by any mere technical obstacle.

[vatine]

Creating an account takes, what, 20 seconds. If you try to edit as anonymous, it could swing you past a login/create page on the way. It'd probably stop a fraction of "good first-comer edits", the question is if it'd be worth it from the lack of random click-by edits.

The forced log-out wasn't so much a "slow-down" as a "cool-down". But it's very MUCH a technical solution to a people problem. To fix the root cause would require predicting the ass-hattery potential for any new editor for up to 100 years in advance and fail those who would become ass-hattish enough to become a problem and I can think of no means to do this.