The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was Keep (non-admin closure). Closing per WP:SNOW. This dicussion is not going to produce any result different from keep as two days showed. Ruslik (talk) 10:36, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Long term abuse[edit]

Wikipedia is not the wild west ("wanted posters"!? Really?). This page is also redundant to Wikipedia:List of banned users. Anyone can go to that page and click on the names to find links to ANI threads and checkusers. And in any event, we're here to write an encyclopedia, not compile evidence against each other. Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 17:25, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment. The sad fact is that there are some editors who keep popping back and disrupting the project despite having been blocked or banned multiple times. Many go out of their way to disguise themselves. Some have complicated histories. It is difficult for admins dealing with a problem user to do all of the research across categories, archives, and deleted pages necessary to get the whole story. While we don't want to feed the trolls, or given them recognition, some record-keeping is needed. OTOH, the page does seem less active than in the past, perhaps because other pages like Wikipedia:List of banned users have supplanted it. Overall, I see some benefit and little downside to keeping it. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 17:40, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think it adds to making Wikipedia a battleground and discourages those on it from even wanting to consider coming back to edit productively. I just think it would be easier to have the list of banned editors and then post whatever relevant links to ANI threads or checkusers on the banned accounts' user pages. The list of banned users links to any major banned account and so an admin can just put a summary on that user's page and we don't then have to go into having a "wanted posters" page, which seems to equate people disrupting a website, which while serious to us and certainly annoying, with real world felons. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 17:45, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I guess I don't understand the distinction you're making between a list of banned users, a list of long term abusers, and taking over a banned user's page to record matters related to long-term abuse. The folks on the LTA pages are indeed people who have repeatedly disrupted the project, not just minor vandals who can be redeemed. I agree that Wikipedia shouldn't be a battleground, but when there are folks attacking it then it's better to fight to protect it than to simply allow vandals to roam freely. Dealing with recurring, long term vandals requires information about the vnadals' behavior. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 18:10, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • I still just see it as redundant to the other pages and the whole "think of it as wanted posters" at the top comes off as hyperbole. Maybe that part of the wording is just jumping out at me. I don't know, but I think most editors who have been around long enough to become admins find out about the really problematic users by other means and those accounts that are socks of them wind up discovered in checkusers or other threads anyway. I agree that we have to deal with certain accounts, but I'm not convinced that a rogues gallery is the way to go. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 18:31, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep: There are truly some cases of long term abuse where such a page does help having some sort of record of their behaviour patterns. I have to agree with Will completely. This is a page that has easy access to information about long term abusers of Wikipedia, and I really think it should be kept. Steve Crossin ^Contact/₂₄ 19:01, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. I actually just used this page recently, investigating a messy Grawp-related situation. Sorting through multiple ANI threads might have accomplished the same result, but it would have taken a lot longer. I could see maybe merging this with the other list though. --Elonka 20:19, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep What Will said. I've had to deal at length with at least one of these users and it just saves time to be able to refer to this list instead of having to dig through the archives again and again. Sweeping problems under the carpet is never a solution.--Folantin (talk) 20:32, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Serious keep - these are not routine abusers. These are people who systematically vandalize, abuse, harass, subtle war, subtle vandalize or a combination of these. There are some users where it is genuinely helpful to list a degree of specific information for others, since over time many users will interact with them, and they will benefit from a way to be aware. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 21:47, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment. I've removed from the page this sentence: Think of it as a "post office wall" with wanted posters. While the page itself has value that line is unnecesssary. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 22:29, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's encouraging at least. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 06:33, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. I wish I could have back all the time, hours and hours and hours, I've spent digging to identify some troublemaker or other, only to find it was once housed here, on a now-deleted page. Its usefulness still exceeds its caloric content as troll food. Note that the standard recurring childish attention-seekers typically aren't here -- with some exceptions, this page, and especially its subpages, is for the serial harassers, spammers, sockpuppeteers, and POV-pushers of the most malicious and hateful kind. Antandrus (talk) 22:34, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong keep This is an important page that holds information about many serious troublemakers.—Chris! _ct 00:32, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep a useful tool to fight vandalism, spam, and other forms of abuse. -- Ned Scott 07:12, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - This is obviously useful. The only catch is that it takes time and thought to summarize a messy case here, and not everyone has the patience. EdJohnston (talk) 15:51, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: Doesn't this admin board page also "feed the trolls" by not denying recognition? Maybe some of them are even proud to be on it? --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 17:05, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  And the relevance to this discussion? Which admin board page? The WP:DENY essay indeed recognises that some information is going to be useful in dealing with vandalism, though doesn't go too far down emphasising neutrality of tone in that. Many of the pages left dealing with vandals/vandalism are fairly neutral in tone and/or are fairly transient the vandal listed on WP:AN today is probably lost in the archives tomorrow. I agree keeping an indefinite rogues gallery is a bad idea and a quick look through the page suggests it might do with some housekeeping to retire some of the long gone, or those who weren't difficult to recognise or deal with in the first place, but that doesn't mean elimination of the page in it's entirity. --82.7.39.174 (talk) 19:38, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  The one titled Wikipedia:Long term abuse, i.e. the one under discussion. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 03:59, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  OK, not sure why you'd term that an "admin board", since it is in no way limited or primarily focused at administrators. --82.7.39.174 (talk) 06:27, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  No problem. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 06:33, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per FT2, Antandrus et al. It's useful for newcomers to a situation to know what they're dealing with. Orderinchaos 17:54, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. This page holds important information about troublemakers (but not Osama Bin Laden), and can be quite helpful for users who have just recognised, for example, a Grawp sockpuppet and are not familiar with the case. It does more good than harm. Also, the policy of denying recognition is, to my knowledge, more relevant to pages that glorify vandals. The list of banned users doesn't show what they do, only that they're banned. WP:AIV could be nominated under the same conditions as this, but it is even more beneficial. WP:SNOW? Bart133 ^{t c @ How's my driving?} 00:26, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.