Wiktionary talk:Votes/2023-07/Unblocking Wonderfool

This is a far more generous proposal than others have advanced. Since this vote is not yet live, I want to explain my rationale here (not in the Beer Parlour thread which is already very long).

It is the position of English Wiktionary to not enforce the global lock on Wonderfool's account.

This will be contentious, and it's good to start off with the most important statement. I would have worded this differently, saying instead that it's our position to handle our blocks and bans internally through community consensus, rather than seeking external authorities. If this vote passes, we will unban Wonderfool and then petition the stewards to respect our decision by removing the global lock on Wonderfool's account. If they choose not to do this, then I would say that they are the ones who are out of line by ignoring the will of the much larger English Wiktionary community. If we could reword point 1 to sound something more like what I'm saying, I think this proposal might get more support. It should not be necessary to state that we will openly defy the stewards. I will still vote support on this proposal, even if the wording remains as it is, but I would like to see this first statement be reworded.

Wonderfool's original account will be unblocked and the page unprotected. Wonderfool may treat it as their user page.

This should be fairly uncontentious.

Should the need arise for any future block(s), nothing which occurred prior to this vote may be used against Wonderfool. They will be re-starting with a clean slate.

I agree with this, as all of their block-worthy behavior is very old. Childish vandalism such as this and this (the latter of which they quickly self-reverted) would not likely lead to an indefinite block just by itself for any other user. But, if this vote passes, I encourage Wonderfool to put the childish jokes somewhere else, like the rest of us do.

Wonderfool will be allowed to use multiple accounts just like any other user, provided these accounts are not used for abusive purposes.

Many people might oppose this, but it makes sense to me. If he wants to have one account for the Spanish projects, one account for collocations, and so on, even simultaneously, I think this makes perfect sense. It seems Wonderfool may just have a thing for creative usernames, and that's fine by me too. Even in the current state, they've never used their many accounts abusively in the traditional sense, such as by double-voting; they've only used them to evade blocks, but if this vote passes there will no longer be a block to evade.

I will follow this thread. I'm sometimes slow to respond to stressful conversations ... I'm just apologizing in advance for if I can't keep up with the conversation I started here ... but I will say that I didn't form my opinions on the spur of the moment, because I've been following this situation for months now and simply haven't said much until now.

Best regards,

—Soap— 09:59, 20 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

Regarding your first point: If the vote passes, we petition the stewards to rescind WF's global lock, and they refuse, the end result is we would still be openly defying the global lock. I'm open to rewording this, but I don't think including a provision for us to petition is a good idea in light of what Amanda (a steward) said: "The only exception to the third-party appeal is if you start a global RfC on the matter to force our hand to unban, but I think that's a waste of community resources when we haven't even considered it first." Mainly, it would be better for WF to appeal the lock themselves, as opposed to us doing it on their behalf with a global RfC. Megathonic (talk) 10:18, 20 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

The statement about a global RFC is in reference to reversing a global ban, which is not in effect here. All we should need to do, should this vote pass, is to go to Meta and let the stewards know that the consensus on en.wikt has changed and that the global lock is no longer necessary. We have seven more days to work this out before the vote goes live, but I strongly encourage you to re-word the first sentence (or allow me to do so) to remove any suggestion of conflict between our community and the stewards.

The stewards exist to enforce a community's consensus, not to overrule it. If for whatever reason, we get through all of this and then find out the stewards are pushing back against us, that's something we should handle on Meta, because it is completely out of our hands at that point, and, as I said on the Beer Parlour thread above, it would be the stewards who are out of line at that point, not us. As such, I strongly believe that this hypothetical future conflict with Meta should have no influence on our vote to handle our internal proposal on whether to rescind the community ban on Wonderfool. —Soap— 10:30, 20 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

I agree with Soap's assessment. Global locks are somewhat odd to begin with and the lock on some of WFs accounts are odder still (made long after the accounts were in use). I think we can essentially ignore the WMF/steward concerns with regards to WF and decide just what is best for this project. If they choose to ban him that is another thing entirely. - TheDaveRoss 13:34, 20 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

@Soap @TheDaveRoss. All right, I updated the wording. Thanks for the feedback. Megathonic (talk) 15:27, 20 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

@Megathonic. I'm already likely to oppose reinstatement of WF (deleting the main page multiple times is a big issue in itself), but in the spirit of feedback, the points specifically that raise concern are:

• "Should the need arise for any future block(s), nothing which occurred prior to this vote may be used against Wonderfool. They will be re-starting with a clean slate."

  We don't provide this treatment for anyone else. If we're going to unblock them, then they should be on higher alert since they've had problematic behavior in the past (it's not just childish edits). That's way too far-reaching of a policy.

• "It is the position of English Wiktionary to handle our blocks and bans internally through community consensus, rather than seeking external authorities."

  Why is this needed? This portion is very concerning, and it makes it seem like we need community consensus for blocks and bans in general. If not, you need to be more specific. Also, we are still beholden to WMF's rules, so regardless of whether or not we seek it, external intervention can very much still happen. In the hypothetical case of a bureaucrat causing harm or admin as a whole with corruption, I'd rather not cripple ourselves in advance. Also this position imho is out of scope for this vote and hurts the main rationale. If the goal is to unblock WF, then it should only do that.

The other points are fine. Overall though, where is this policy supposed to go? What page would it be on? AG202 (talk) 18:47, 20 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

• Your first point: My starting point for that was Benwing's suggestion to have standard blocking rules apply, instead of reaching for a stronger block hammer right off the bat. They also mentioned having WF edit from a single account, but that's about as likely as snow on the 4th of July (and we'd get into another argument among admins over whether to block these if they're not being abusive), so I left that part out. It's true that we don't do this for other users, but we also don't have formal votes for blocking/unblocking users. This is a unique situation. I'm not going to vote in support of this, but I do think there are other users who want to take the step of offering WF a "fresh start" if they behave, so I think it's important to include it here to see if there's consensus for that.
• Your second point: I added that based on my understanding of Soap's suggestion, so your question would be better directed towards them, unless I'm misunderstanding what Soap wrote. Regardless, I don't have a problem with removing it and agree that it's not necessary to include, so I'll strike it out.
• If the vote passes, the person unblocking WF should link to it in their unblock summary. As for whether the results of this vote should be added anywhere else and where, I don't have an answer for that. If it should go somewhere, perhaps on User:AryamanA/Wonderfool? Or directly on Wonderfool's user page? Megathonic (talk) 19:29, 20 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

• I would say that all sysop actions require consensus, yes. It's just that the vast majority are so uncontroversial that we can safely assume consensus for them. The few exceptions are the ones that spawn long Beer Parlour threads. This is the way it's been for as long as I've been participating here. It may seem that I brought this up because Koavf has been arguably going against consensus in his recent blocks of Wonderfool; to be honest, this wasn't my intent, but that issue needs to be resolved as well. Whether this vote passes or not, differences of opinion in what constitutes a block-worthy offense are likely to remain.
• Rather, I wrote the paragraph, specifically intending community consensus in the sense of local consensus, because some participants here seem to think that the stewards on Meta are a sort of super-administrator class with the authority to overrule a larger project's local administrators, unilaterally and without discussion. This is not the case, unless I am badly mistaken, and I'm not aware of such a case. (The handling of small wiki projects with few or no local admins is a separate matter.) The stewards' actions on Meta should not be confused with the much rarer WMF Office actions, which really do come from a higher authority, but mostly (if not entirely) pertain to legal threats and perhaps threats of violence. I'm not aware of the WMF Office locking an account simply for vandalism, even for a vandal who takes their hobby to the utmost extreme.
• Anyway, to move on .... I am okay with removing this paragraph from the proposal, as it's not a thing we need to vote on, just a statement of the status quo. It seems it was unnecessary and may have served only to distract the voters. I will keep watching this thread. Best regards, —Soap— 08:09, 21 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

  @Soap You're absolutely right that stewards do not have the authority at act like super-administrators by overriding consensus. That kind of community override was tried in the past elsewhere, and caused a complete shitstorm. Theknightwho (talk) 14:50, 22 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

  Thanks @Megathonic! @Soap, I wasn’t referencing the stewards specifically or saying that we need WMF in the case of WF. However, I have seen cases here that may need WMF intervention in the future if they get worse with no action, so I would like to avoid any statements that we shouldn’t seek external support if needed. AG202 (talk) 16:30, 22 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

I would like to urge respectfulness, kindness, friendliness, tolerance and general decency toward the editor regardless of what the results are, and regardless of the checkered history of the editor. It's probably pretty stressful being the focus of a vote of this kind. This is a for-fun, volunteer enterprise. It is a dictionary website. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 20:53, 20 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

• Wonderfool here. I may as well reply to one of the points, and this is the easiest :) It's not stressful for me, don't worry, and I am sorry if it is for other people. The outcome of the vote, and of the huge number of shit-slingings going on around here, is unlikely to make any difference, unless you get the range-blocks in place. NiceWordCombo (talk) 16:54, 21 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

  Thanks for letting us know. Perhaps you enjoy the thrill of the chase more than you'd enjoy returning to the community as a regular user. And it's occurred to me that you may be in a better position if this vote fails than if it passes. Indeed, I wonder if this vote was created in part as a means to show that when we give you everything you could possibly ask for except the ability to break the rules, you'll throw it all away like soiled tissue paper. I dont know. I cant read your mind nor the minds of anyone else here. But I do have to wonder if even your supporters might start to run thin on patience if we do all this and then you continue on with your old behavior and perhaps even start roaming on VPN's to evade the range blocks you've several times dared us to enact. Best wishes, —Soap— 18:56, 21 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

I have nothing against WF. I have found it hard to keep track of him lately, and now find that User:Koavf is a far worse problem than WF ever is. But maybe WF enjoys being a fugitive, gets bored with the same user name day in, day out (unlike me), and Koavf, whom I have no high regard for, is simply wasting his time. DonnanZ (talk) 00:22, 22 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

If there's something that I've done that makes it harder for you to edit here, I'm all ears. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:30, 22 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

At some point, after enough people have told you that it's a problem, isn't the onus on you to respect that even if you don't fully understand it? I'm not going to respond here beyond this one comment, but it really is a matter of basic decency at this point. Theknightwho (talk) 14:10, 22 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

At some point, after someone telling you over and over again to leave him alone and stop inserting himself into discussions where you are irrelevant, shouldn't you just do it, even if you don't fully understand it? It really is a matter of basic decency at this point. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:12, 22 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure how to say this in a way that won't come across as more aggressive than I intend, but at the risk of being hypocritical, I will make one comment and leave. I think both of you would do well to not interact with each other. It really isn't necessary to have the last word all the time. From an outsider perspective, both of you appear to be at fault in the way you respond to each other and the respective criticisms you have levelled against each other both seem accurate. It is unlikely that you will resolve anything by talking directly to each other, since it will take good will and tact on the part of both of you, which isn't likely to happen until things cool down more around here. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 16:32, 22 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

+1 to that AG202 (talk) 16:47, 22 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

Somewhat talking to myself here: I am not in favour of blocking every WF appearance immediately, as it's quite pointless. I also don't think we should grant him some special formal "pardon" when he still eventually ends up trolling every single time. The only person who benefits from this vote is WF, who rather revels in the attention. Equinox ◑ 16:28, 22 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

Another user who took pleasure in blocking WF was Metaknowledge, but he seems to have gone QRT. DonnanZ (talk) 17:59, 22 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

I'm so sorry Ioaxxere (talk) 18:33, 22 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

I'm afraid we all have to go sooner or later. DonnanZ (talk) 23:47, 22 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

My opinion basically matches Equinox's. - -sche (discuss) 04:57, 23 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

Mine as well, and I dislike that the issue has essentially been forced. Theknightwho (talk) 05:26, 23 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

It seems that more people are commenting that a "pardon" provision is not necessary, both here and in the BP, so I have removed it. Now it's purely a vote to remove the permablock and the logical consequence of what that entails (petitioning the stewards to unlock the account and allowing WF to use multiple accounts without them getting blocked on sight). Megathonic (talk) 16:21, 23 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

Could it be an option to unblock Wonderfool's main account, but keep blocking all the others, to force him to use only that account? Or will he keep creating new ones? PUC – 13:40, 25 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

As I said, he still always ends up trolling. So either we ignore this and allow him to troll without restriction (impossible) or we eventually have to block the one account, whereupon he creates another. Equinox ◑ 13:44, 25 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

One option to try and force a single account would be to systematically block all their socks and undo all edits that these socks make. A bot could be set up to run every minute to check for accounts which are permanently blocked from this date forward and contain a block description of "wf" or "wonderfool" (case insensitive), and to automatically revert all edits/delete all pages that these socks create. The total count of these socks would also not be recorded in a table. The only account that would be exempt from this is Wonderfool's original account. Without the willingness to purge everything that their socks create, no, it's not possible to force WF into using only one account. Of course, WF could continue using multiple socks anyway, but ultimately all of these edits would be effectively erased within minutes of being detected, making such edits pointless, and then WF would not have come any closer to finishing their "to-do" lists.

But since there doesn't seem to be much appetite for this approach, it's not part of the vote. Megathonic (talk) 17:14, 25 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

I would have much more serious suspicions about anyone suggesting something like that than about WF to be honest. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 17:46, 25 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

How so? Megathonic (talk) 18:01, 25 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure that I understand trolling, but is there any other users guilty of it? (I hope I'm not!) DonnanZ (talk) 22:59, 25 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

Many, but I don't believe you, no. Have you done things purely for the purpose of getting a rise out of others? If so, then you've been trolling. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:02, 25 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

"A bot could be set up to run every minute" -- jesus I've worked with people like you. What if we do intense ActiveX hacking rather than using modern technology. lol. The usual solution is "just upgrade!" or "just code it the right way!". I certainly can't see any reason to write special-case code for one deliberate troll. Equinox ◑ 06:05, 26 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

@Donnanz: "Trolling" (as Koavf correctly said) is deliberately messing around to upset other users. As far as I can tell, WF just gets bored, so for example he might add words for "doggish", "cattish", and then (giving up on reality) "capybaraish" and "stick-insectish". This is funny but stupid and they aren't attestable. If you hang around as long as some of us have, this will be a very tiresome recognisable pattern. Equinox ◑ 05:59, 26 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

OK, monitoring new entries is not in my job description, but rubbishy ones can be reverted or RFVed, rather than reverting WF. Some of his audio contribs are quite good. I find his football quotes everywhere (there's one in today's WOTD, rejig). He has suggested to me, on occasion, entries I could create, and I have obliged most of the time. He does annoy me with some RFD noms though, but in the RFD dept other users annoy me too. DonnanZ (talk) 09:10, 26 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

I'd estimate that around 25% of the WOTDs contain both a football quote and a RAIL quote. Lol, both Donnanz and WF have their fetishes! BeirutGirlXX (talk) 21:41, 26 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

You can strike oil sometimes, and use the same quote in four or five entries. Copy, paste, and modify. DonnanZ (talk) 08:45, 27 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

@Donnanz: Fine, but I assume you would feel the same about any user, in which case this "special" vote for WF only is not necessary or helpful. Equinox ◑ 23:19, 26 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

@Equinox: Hmm, any user can annoy me on occasion, including your good self. I feel this vote should go ahead, as matters have come to a head, and WF is irrepressible - I wouldn't like the treatment he has received for serious misdemeanours in the past. I trust that he wouldn't repeat those if given official user status again. Fingers crossed... we have to give him a chance, maybe in the form of probation. DonnanZ (talk) 00:23, 27 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

For the record, I would also prefer that this vote didn't have to happen. I will probably vote support, but only to appease Koavf by having some sort of policy. I much prefer the way things were before Koavf started obsessively forcing a rule the community broadly agreed was pointless with WF. Then again, I'm not optimistic it'll make much of a difference regardless of what we do. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 00:01, 27 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

The last sock that I saw from Wonderfool speaking in third person wrote "she sometimes does..." attempts to respect pronoun usage are admirable, but this is all part of the game. If you need a diff, please let me know. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:04, 24 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

Well then I guess there's no reason for the vote to mention that. Megathonic (talk) 02:30, 24 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

Probably not, but again, nice sentiment. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:41, 24 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

Indeed, don't fall for yet another easy troll. (Remember User:New WT User Girl? Also you can hear his voice in all those audio files.) Equinox ◑ 06:01, 26 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

Has Wonderfool been blocked for their actions on other wikis? If so, aren't permablocks wiki-wide? --{{victar|talk}} 08:41, 25 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

WF did the same thing (becoming an admin and deleting the main page) on Wikipedia back in 2007. Since then, we haven't seen anything on other projects to my knowledge. @Surjection, @This, that and the other? Theknightwho (talk) 11:32, 25 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

To my knowledge WF has only expressed his capricious side on English Wikipedia and English Wiktionary. He is formally blocked on both wikis, although his WP socks tend to go unnoticed, making productive contributions directly related to his Wiktionary activities. WF also contributes on French Wikipedia - mainly to football articles (hence the name of one of his more prolific accounts), edits articles about various topics on Spanish Wikipedia, and uploads audio files of English pronunciations to Commons. On these wikis, he is not blocked, banned, etc. There are also rare and sporadic contributions to other wikis. This, that and the other (talk) 12:27, 25 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

(sorry WF... the sortable table at WT:WF plus Special:CentralAuth made it too easy... anyway, that can go in chapter 5 of your autobiography or sth) This, that and the other (talk) 12:34, 25 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

Aren't their main accounts global locked? AG202 (talk) 13:24, 25 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

We think that is likely to have been done in error, since 4 WF accounts were locked in 2019 - i.e. over a decade later - grouped together with some problematic non-WF socks that were active at the time on WP. See meta:Stewards' noticeboard#Seeking clarity on global locks. Theknightwho (talk) 14:22, 25 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

Yes. For instance, User:Allkokf009 on Meta. Those who say that he doesn't edit or cause problems elsewhere are mistaken. He also somewhat regularly edits fr.wp and fr.wikt (or at least has in the past, I didn't do a thorough review of 800+ socks). —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:20, 25 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

Someone decided to chime in and then un-chime about whether or not what he did was "block-worthy", but he did in fact do something block-worthy on Meta: use sockpuppets to avoid bans (hence, he was blocked for exactly that behavior). As a reminder, there is a general acceptance through the Wikimedia community that the principle of "one person, one vote" is a circumstance that should be a base for community participation and that there are sometimes narrow exceptions for why one person would have more than one account, but those must be disclosed and follow rules for how and why to use said accounts, not just "because I feel like it" or "because the WMF is a big fun game that I am enabled to exploit" to use two completely hypothetical examples. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:12, 25 July 2023 (UTC)Reply