Proposal talk:Eliminate vandals on sight

My first experience on Wikipedia two years ago was being banned for six months as a sock-puppet. Except I'd never used WP before, never made an edit. My IP address was (and remains) dynamic, then rotating between a group of small ISPs. An arsehole had been repeatedly banned for bad edits, then banned for multiple account creation to get around those bans, I'd inherited his IP. You have to try to understand how daunting it is to be a complete newb, and drop into the middle of that. I couldn't edit main-pages, of course, nor discussion pages, nor user-pages/user-talk-pages. I couldn't even ask the banning admin a question on his user-talk page. Eventually I plucked up the courage to whine on the IP's user-page (the only place on Wikipedia I could edit), and a kind admin passed it onto the original banning admin. He withdrew the ban long enough for me to register my Wikipedia account.

Happy ending, but understand, that was my very first experience with Wikipedia.

If you ban an anon-IP (99.9% of vandalism is anon) you may be hitting an entire ISPs user-base.

I agree with banning main-article editing, but let the accused vandal's IP still edit talk-pages unless proven to be a true arsehole. Plus include a standard "Request an account" button when the "blocked" message appears, sending a "Help me" message to the banning admin.

-- 203.171.199.183 (PaulxSA) 09:01, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Stop this paranoid thinking. The german Wikipedia has included something calles "sighted versions", which includes an observationof the first 200 edits of a new user, because he could be a vandal. Most IPs are constructive. Dont block them out by generalistic paranoia. --90.146.217.210 20:25, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree

This proposal comes from a 'Once a vandal, always a vandal' mindset. Come on. Give give ex-vandals a chance. Give them room to change. Once, I saw a vandal apologizing and thanking a user for reverting his vandalism edits because he was not aware that his edits was considered vandalism. There's no harm in having to revert edits every now and then. Just give them a chance. Bejinhan 10:03, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If their IP's are only blocked for some specified period of time (as I believe the proposal specifies) that's not a 'Once a vandal, always a vandal' mindset.76.20.18.15 22:16, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was a vandal. Not out of a stupid reason do'h. In a article about the Military of Croatia some ignorant oron has put up pictures of Croatian fascist symbols. Those symbols are now being posed as symbols of the Croatian Ground Army. That is a discrase for our army and the only way to regain honour to the Army on which back my nation was buil on is vandalism.

Impact?

Some proposals will have massive impact on end-users, including non-editors. Some will have minimal impact. What will be the impact of this proposal on our end-users? -- Philippe 00:08, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Robots

The french wikipedia has robots like salebot that catch easily vandals. Biased edition IS NOT vandalism. Usually, vandals make very basic vandalism like using the Fxxx word that can be caught by robots. I only reverted ONCE a modification made by a vandal. Just to test Wikipedia, some people that are now good editors first vandalised the encyclopedia. We should not discourage newbees. (Malosse) 74.163.38.55 02:52, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism as a way of testing Wikipedia’s credibility

When people first encounter Wikipedia, it's natural to think, “I don't believe that I could actually edit this” – so they try it. Their next reaction is, “I don't trust a word of what's on here, because I can type rubbish into it” – and then they discover that their experimental edit quickly gets reverted. Slowly it dawns on them that there may be something in this Wikipedia thing, and many go on to develop an addiction to serious and valuable editing.

Our response to their first tentative incredulous edits shouldn't be, "You’re a vandal and should be eliminated,” but instead should be, “Come and join us – help us to build this amazing thing together”. 20.133.0.13 11:50, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]