Guild Wars Wiki talk:Admin noticeboard/Archive 1

In my opinion there are different kinds of user disputes. Most revolve around content, and I agree that this probably isn't the place to notify an admin in this situation (although I'm not 100% certain), the other is with regard to personal attacks, and I think personal attacks should be reported here. LordBiro 04:02, 27 April 2007 (EDT)
 * I was under the impression that the ArbComm would take care of those? Not sure, my memory's sorta hazy on the issue. --Dirigible 04:10, 27 April 2007 (EDT)


 * Hmm... yes actually, that does make sense ;) LordBiro 08:21, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

From where do we link to this page now? From the sidebar ("Support" box, maybe)? Or somewhere on one of the community pages? --Dirigible 18:15, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

Spambots
Their number seems to have increased dramatically over the last few days. Time to install SpamBlacklist, maybe? --Dirigible 10:29, 28 April 2007 (EDT)
 * I think that would be an excellent idea. --Rainith 14:42, 28 April 2007 (EDT)

Deleting
Is it best to delete IP addresses once they've been banned, or should they be kept for a certain length of time, with a note that they've been banned? LordBiro 13:23, 28 April 2007 (EDT)
 * We could have two sections. A "New issues" and a "Recently resolved", and/or create an archive page of resolved issues. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 12:16, 29 April 2007 (EDT)
 * No further comments ... should we have an archived issues page, or does no one care enough for it to matter? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 10:51, 1 May 2007 (EDT)
 * I say no archive page, and just remove stuff that's potentially resolved. (This board should just be a relatively lightweight and informal tool without a lot of rules. Any big discussions worth archiving should be started in or moved to some talk page instead.) --Rezyk 16:11, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

Tag
(moved here from the main article)

A tag for vandals is needed. Several incidences have occured. Perhaps, maybe some form of counter on the tag, and then after a certain number of infractions, said vandal loses editing and uploading rights. Discuss here. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:drago.
 * What's the difference between this page and using a tag? They both require the admins to look in one place (either Category:Candidates for banning or this article), but one of them leaves an ugly "You are candidate for banning" message on some poor guy's userpage possibly aggravating the situation, while the other does not. We just got rid of the ban and admin review tags, why go back? --Dirigible 16:34, 28 April 2007 (EDT)
 * I never said a ban tag, just a watch tag, for vandals. By no means does it have to be a ban tag. - [[Image:Drago-Shield-Mini.gif]] Drago 16:48, 28 April 2007 (EDT)


 * How about if you see a vandal you post his user id here? LordBiro 19:33, 28 April 2007 (EDT)


 * I don't see the need; the sysops seem to always notice the recurring vandals. If one is not noticed and continues to be a problem, dropping a note on this board should call enough attention to it. --Rezyk 21:46, 28 April 2007 (EDT)


 * I quite like this for notifying admins about vandals. A +ban template can be sneakily removed whereas any attempt to remove a call for admin intervention from this page is far more noticable. --Xasxas256 22:43, 28 April 2007 (EDT)


 * This page was created to replace the tag as no one liked the teg. Xas told a good reason above. -- [[Image:User Gem sig.png|Gem]] (gem / talk) 09:07, 29 April 2007 (EDT)
 * I liked the tag. -Auron[[Image:Elit Druin.jpg|||My Talk]] 09:13, 29 April 2007 (EDT)
 * The tag was being abused. It was routinely slapped up on a user page with no attempt to talk to the user first.  For someone new to the wiki or unfamiliar with it, a friendly helping hand to correct the behavior may have been all it took as they likely didn't know accepted wiki practices or formatting/content guidelines.  Instead, they received a notice on their talk page that they faced potential administrative action for what, in their mind, was often a good faith effort to help out the wiki.  The tags were not a very warm welcome to the community for new users.  For the tags to work, they should only be applied as a last attempt after other attempts to get the user's behavior to change have failed.  Also, as a bonus, if the user removes something from this page, it'll still be seen in the watch list that a change has been made - while if they removed the tag, it took someone to notice it as admins likely didn't have their user page on their watch list. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 12:15, 29 April 2007 (EDT)

Cat
Do we want this in Category:Guild Wars Wiki maintenance or in Category:Policies? There's only a bunch of admin's user pages and Help:Reverting that currently link here. I think there's a lack of categories at the moment for help stuff e.g. Help:Reverting and the others in Template:Help navbar header, is this page in a similar "help category" vein? Or something else? --Xasxas256 22:37, 28 April 2007 (EDT)


 * I don't think this is a policy, so I'd say it should probably go in the maintenance category. LordBiro 04:53, 29 April 2007 (EDT)

Signing
May I suggest that the person adding something to "Current Issues" signs it, or is that a very silly suggestion? -- (CoRrRan / talk) 16:11, 30 April 2007 (EDT)
 * What, even bureaucratic sysops? *cough* -- Snog  rat [[Image:User Snograt signature.png]] 16:19, 30 April 2007 (EDT)
 * Yeah, those scoundrels.. Anyways, I could see mild arguments for signing or not signing, depending on the case. I tend to prefer not enforcing it here, but it's not a big deal to me either. --Rezyk 20:08, 30 April 2007 (EDT)


 * Surely an issue is an issue regardless of who posts it? Are you suggesting that because Rezyk says it it should carry more weight? Or less weight? ;) hehe LordBiro 04:17, 1 May 2007 (EDT)
 * I don't know, somehow I expected to see a name with those issues. I guess it was kind of silly to suggest. :-) And yes, issues are issues regardless of who posts them, I agree. Just ignore my remark, I guess. -- [[Image:Corrran.png|CoRrRan]] (CoRrRan / talk) 05:04, 1 May 2007 (EDT)
 * I see no reason not to request signatures on anything added ... but I see no reason to require it, and no reason to add them via unsigned if they're forgotten or left off intentionally. It's a nice-to-have reference, but not really critical in any way.  If anyone wants to know and one's missing, they can just look at the history tab.
 * Okay, this was a pointless post I guess ... as my opinion is whatever everyone else decides on it is fine with me. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 10:51, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

page usage
So, we have this page and admins are aware of it ... should we also list it on other pages to direct users to it? Should it be listed at Guild Wars Wiki:How to help, Guild Wars Wiki:Administrators, or some other page? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 11:02, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

Reverted tag, requesting arbitration
Drago and I both disagree about the coloring of this tag. I feel that red means a notice that's urgent, like deletion. Blue should be used, imo, for things like a placeholder, it's not urgent, but it would be nice if you did it. Drago changed the tag to dotted red border, I reverted, then he reverted again.

Rather than wait for him to reply (he's already archived it without replying), I would rather ask the admins to help rather than fight. I don't wanna be banned again. Anyways, gotta go to bed, have a good one admins. B LASTED T 21:05, 16 May 2007 (EDT)
 * Moved your message to here, as resolving conflicts of this kind is really not the purpose of the admin noticeboard. If you're having trouble communicating and reaching consensus with Drago, drop a message in Guild Wars Wiki:Requests for comment, see what other editors have to say about the issue. --Dirigible 21:31, 16 May 2007 (EDT)
 * Personally, I usually agree that blue would be a better choise ... but not in this case. At least, not with that in-your-face hideous shade of blue contrasting sharply with the red exclamation point icon.  To me, in this case, the red is actually less intrusive of the two.  The newly proposed purple rates about the same to me as the red. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 00:28, 17 May 2007 (EDT)
 * I'm sorry, I saw it. It hurt my eyes, I changed it. Blue and red are not the best contrasting colors, especially when this tag is widely used while we are filling in the quest info. Perhaps we could use a blue background when and if we get a blue icon to use, but until then, my vote remains with the Red BG. - [[Image:Drago-Shield-Mini.gif]] Drago 14:18, 17 May 2007 (EDT)
 * The red icon was used simply because I knew no other icon names. I was looking for the blue I, but Bexor had a better one with the purple (?).  Purple also fits my laidback idea better than the blue or red.  On a side note, we should add that if they're using the ingame help, they could do the quest and give data on the way.  Maybe we can code an extension for that - to automatically record data if used in game. [[Image:User Blastedt sig.jpg]] B LASTED T  15:11, 17 May 2007 (EDT)
 * As I said in the edit summary, I can make an icon of any colour you like. User:BeXoR/Images has the ones that I uploaded already. - B e X  22:57, 17 May 2007 (EDT)
 * Btw, I've emailed LordBiro to discuss an arbcomm response to the request for arbitration (but I guess he hasn't had a chance to respond yet). --Rezyk 06:31, 18 May 2007 (EDT)
 * User talk:Drago/Archive2. Unless I've missed something, the issue has been resolved since the discussion above. Just a heads up, in case you haven't already seen that discussion. --Dirigible 06:54, 18 May 2007 (EDT)
 * Yeah -- I just figure that we should generally respond to any request, even if it's just to say "declined request because the issue has since been resolved". --Rezyk 11:41, 18 May 2007 (EDT)
 * Well, as moot as it may be, here is what LordBiro and I agreed on for future reference:
 * Arbcomm would decline the request for arbitration because this issue was primarily a content dispute and there were no (apparent) major user conduct problems that would justify arbitration. It should be dealt with through other avenues, like seeking a consensus through GWW:RFC, instead.
 * --Rezyk 13:04, 20 May 2007 (EDT)

Sections
Perhaps someone could fix the sections used on page. I never know wether to use 2 or 3 ===- MSorglos (talk|contrib) 13:17, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, hope all use that sections now - MSorglos (talk|contrib) 13:35, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Archiving
Should we archive resolved issues, or just delete them? The noticeboard is getting long - anja   15:32, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * We'll have to see how the vandal situations goes. I'd suggest weekly archiving. --Santax (talk · contribs) 15:33, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think they just got wiped last time by Gares. I can see why archiving could be useful though, I'd prefer that personally, although I don't know if it has to be a "weekly" thing, just when someone snaps and does it is fine by me! --Xasxas256 15:38, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think archiving can be good, especially since we are seeing alot of anons doing the same kind of vandalism lately. And I agree, weekly might not be needed, but when it catches someones eye :) - anja  [[Image:User Anja Astor sig icon.png|talk]] 15:42, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think archiving does any good. It's not like we're going to remember all those IPs, and even if we do remember, it doesn't really help anything because some other non-vandal could just come in with the same IP. A periodical wipe when the edit page gets that page size warning would be fine. -- ab.er. rant [[Image:User Ab.er.rant Sig.png|sig]] 17:03, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * When you block someone you can check to see if they have been blocked before easily enough from the same screen. No need to save this stuff IMO.  --Rainith 19:36, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, when you block you see all easrlier block on the IP. However, the Raptor case and the vandalism bot one are so big that they might be good to archive. The random IP vandalism ones can be just removed imho. -- [[Image:User Gem sig.png|Gem]] (gem / talk) 11:12, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * For those that developed into full-blown discussions worth saving, one way is to go about it is to move them into this talk page. --Rezyk 14:06, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Who decides what's interesting enough to save? It can be useful to look back, if you're trying to work out how long someone should be blocked for but remember that was a short discussion about some vandalism type or you want to quickly look up those links Dirigible posted or whatever it's useful to have. I reckon just whack it all into an achieve file, if it's only one line then it doesn't take up much space anyway. --Xasxas256 15:33, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with Xas; while perhaps only 1 in 10 posts have anything interesting in them, it would be time consuming to filter them out. Far easier to just archive everything by date, in my opinion. LordBiro 16:02, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Cheers Biro, love your work too! "...if it's only one line then it doesn't take up much space anyway" doesn't actually make sense in English. What I meant to say was those random IP vandals which are just someone saying "this person is blanking articles" and an admin going "blocked." won't take up much space in the achieve so it may as well be left in. But it's ok, I don't need to make sense in English any more, I've got LordBiro support. That's like having incredibly persuasive arguments, written by the world's finest authors in 3 different languages! Yeah! Ok, time for Xas to go to bed, even I'm a little scared now. --Xasxas256 16:49, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * So it's like I've been shot down by the world's finest authors, in 3 different languages? Ouch! Anyways -- okay, fine; I can understand that view and it's not a big deal for me. --Rezyk 17:29, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Registered users
We're seeing some new way of doing the usual + and & vandalism, namely through registering a user and do it from there. Should these user be treated as normal users (I would say, one time is nothing, several times should be dealt with) or is it safe to assume they are also bots and can be blocked for long/infinitely? One example is Special:Contributions/PagU1p, found at least two of those today. - anja   16:41, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Indefinite block imho, but no automatic IP ban for IPs that try to log in with them. -- [[Image:User Gem sig.png|Gem]] (gem / talk) 19:11, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Why shouldn't autoblock be on, Gem? It automatically bans for 24 hours access from the IP of the banned account, so that the spammer can't just hop on a new account and use that, or just log out and post anonymously. Likewise, for spammers (linkers, ampersandbots, etc) I'd probably also keep the anon-only option always disabled, so they can't log in to an account and carry on from there, as well as block account creation. Of course, since using all these is as blocking as a block gets, indefinite bans would probably be too long. --Dirigible 02:00, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Autoblock doesn't blovk the IPs indefinitely if the user is blocked indefinitely? Then it isn't a problem. -- [[Image:User Gem sig.png|Gem]] (gem / talk) 04:14, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * o.O I need a manual. Apparently I still don't understand those three options, and I've read about them ten times. :P Is it necessary to make guidelines for this, or should we just act as we find appropriate? - anja  [[Image:User Anja Astor sig icon.png|talk]] 09:16, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia:Help:Block and unblock is very useful, it explains it well IMO. --Xasxas256 09:19, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * That's the one I read, and I still don't fully understand the last option. Does it block all ip's using that username as long as the block is in effect, and for how long does it block those ip's then? If a user name is blocked indefinitely, would all ip's trying to log in with that name be blocked indefinitely? - anja  [[Image:User Anja Astor sig icon.png|talk]] 11:06, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * If you look at Special:Ipblocklist theres an autoblock there and its duration is 1 day. The account block was about a month. - B e X  [[Image:User BeXoR sig.gif|iawtc]] 11:13, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah ok, that helps. I think I'll stay off blocking until I've figured what's good to use and when. I'm all confused atm. -  anja  [[Image:User Anja Astor sig icon.png|talk]] 11:16, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * When you get all un-confused, I'd be a very good listener and let you explain it to me to sort out your thoughts (so you can sort out mine! :P ) -- ab.er. rant [[Image:User Ab.er.rant Sig.png|sig]] 11:28, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * (e.c.) Need blocking policy tbh! - B e X  [[Image:User BeXoR sig.gif|iawtc]] 11:28, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Maybe not a strict policy, but some guidelines to follow which explain why you should tick one option in this case, but not in that case, etc. - anja  [[Image:User Anja Astor sig icon.png|talk]] 11:32, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Does anyone else think that some sort of sysop guide would be useful? LordBiro 12:11, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


 * If it helps, I was a bit worried I'd mess something up by unchecking the wrong boxes myself way back when. Wikipedia has some good help articles for admins as Xas has shown. Other than that, the best way to learn in this type of position is to ask someone for now. If another admin is not around, do what you think is best and contact an admin to review your block if you are unsure. You won't be unsure for long.


 * A guideline does not sound like a bad idea, but I do want to say blocking a vandal and doing it correctly is basically a user by user experience, though a majority can grouped together. However, it is case by case for which an appropriate time should be placed. A page blanking vandal is a group in itself, but some can be more vicious than others, so a documented block time or options would not be wise. As of now, it is at an admin's discretion on the time limit of a block. Please still review the links regarding blocking on wikipedia and with anything else, just ask. :) &mdash; Gares 12:14, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Wouldn't the use of CAPTCHA be usefull? I think it is allready active for IP-users so isn't there an option to also enable it during registration? [[Image:User_Der_moon_sig.png| ]] Der moon 12:34, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It's not so much about the time of the block, Gares, as all those different options to tick, at least in my case. The guideline would state what each option does and why it should be applied in diffrerent cases. Maybe not even a guideline, but a centralised discussion place so we can share our thoughts and concerns and have experienced sysops put their view of things. Of course it is still the admin's descretion, but it would be good to share I think :) Yes, Biro, I think a small sysop guide would be very useful :) - anja  [[Image:User Anja Astor sig icon.png|talk]] 12:43, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

(resent indent) Now that no one has come into my office in the last 2 minutes, I can review my thoughts. As there was mention of a guide after your concern of the checkboxes, I took it further. When mentioning a guide, I think of something complete on a subject, not just as in this case regarding the checkboxes. I know it's nervous when you think you might make a mistake, but what would you want in the guide? Just reasons for when to check or uncheck a box? I want to help, but if all you want is a guide, I'd love to know a little more of any other problems you may be having. &mdash; Gares 13:17, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I would like longer explanations on what each of the options do, than those found in the linked help. I would also like examples of when this option should be used (and why) and when it should not be used (and why). If this is all based on opinions, I don't mind having it on a talk page where every admin can add his/her thoughts. I'm not thinking of a complete guide about sysoping, more like starting points to learn the way the system works. I'll take a break for now, and see if I find something more I'd like to know or ask about. :) - anja  [[Image:User Anja Astor sig icon.png|talk]] 13:25, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


 * "Does anyone else think that some sort of sysop guide would be useful?"
 * Yes. MisterPepe talk 17:29, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed with sysop guide. -- [[Image:User Gem sig.png|Gem]] (gem / talk) 20:17, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * So the question is who should we get to draft it? -- ab.er. rant [[Image:User Ab.er.rant Sig.png|sig]] 02:41, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * If nobody else wants to, I'd be happy to go through meta tonight and take a crack at it. I'm not exactly the most qualified person, though... MisterPepe talk 02:56, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Pepechu, I choose YOU! - B e X  [[Image:User BeXoR sig.gif|iawtc]] 03:00, 17 July 2007 (UTC)


 * MisterPepe - qualifications aren't a major issue, it's just a draft. Besides, somnething I found out long ago ... the fastest way to learn something is to dive in and try documenting and/or teaching the subject to others. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 03:04, 17 July 2007 (UTC)


 * User:MisterPepe/Sandbox - too tired to do more. I'll keep plugging away at it in the morning (oh, wait - it is morning. Bugger.). Change anything you want. I've only really touched blocking so far, though. MisterPepe talk 07:08, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Pending deletion
Some images aren't showing up properly in Category:Pending deletion, image:Guild Real Teazer groupe.jpg for example. Anyone know why? - anja   09:31, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * In fact an awful lot of images aren't showing up. -- Lemming64 09:33, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Do they need a null edit to show up? >< - anja  [[Image:User Anja Astor sig icon.png|talk]] 09:37, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Seems so. --Karlos 10:24, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Should probably get a bot to do it, there is over 100 at the moment. -- Lemming64 10:26, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think MisterPepe already does it periodically with his bot. --Rezyk 11:44, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Someone might want to check with Pepe, and make sure the touchbot isn't ignoring the Image: namespace. [[Image:User Aiiane-a.gif|Go to Aiiane's Talk page]] (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 11:46, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The touch ranger, as I like to repeatedly refer to it in the hope that it will catch on. LordBiro 18:15, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It doesn't ignore the image namespace, I just usually only get a chance to run the bot once a day or so. Last night, I missed it because of the Tabula Rasa beta (sorry!) =P
 * Usually, I'll update CfD, then update the categories on the Guild articles needing cleanup while I clear out the Pending category. I'll fire it up in about half an hour. MisterPepe talk 18:32, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Recent changes - patrolling
This is probably not the correct page but I think I can catch all Sysops here. In the last 2 days I was using the patroll function in Recent changes, I tagged all pages (you won't find any not-patrolled pages from yesterday to some hours before now). Now, after having tagged a lot pages, I'm tired of clicking through all pages and clicking "tag this page as patrolled" ;)

So I'm writing this because I think that the patrolling function is a great feature but it's only useful if more sysops use it. So maybe you could - when you go through the recent changes - click the diff link and then click "tag this page as patrolled"? :)

Thanks! poke | talk 18:39, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
 * If you like to use it, I'm all for it, I shall try to remember to click it. We discussed it earlier (with the first wave of new sysops) but most of the old ones said they like to check each change themselves anyway. :) - anja  [[Image:User Anja Astor sig icon.png|talk]] 18:42, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Reason d'etre for spambots?
Just out of curiosity, does anyone know why someone creates tons of spambots that add stuff like "lac4tdar" to wiki pages? --Xeeron 13:36, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
 * The best suggestion I've heard is that it's to check what editing rights they have, so that they can come back later and spam links. Pure speculation though, it may just be for giggles. -- AT (talk | contribs) 13:41, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Given how long this has been going on, I'm thinking it's more someone's attempt to annoy this wiki for even existing in the first place. -- ab.er. rant [[Image:User Ab.er.rant Sig.png|sig]] 13:43, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Ya, I do believe it's one person though because it doesn't happen 24/7...why not start banning those IPs forever as they only come right back when they are unblocked.-- §  Eloc   §  14:00, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with Eloc. It's likely someone, or a small group of people trying to disrupt the wiki because something, in-game or real life, got them angry, and here's an apparently wonderful place to vent their anger by making a bot to put random punch-the-keyboard garbage on to pages. Also agree on perma-banning...it's not like they're gonna want to make the wiki better any time soon.  Calor  - talk 18:43, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
 * There is still a possibility the IPs will be used by legitimate editors, since the vandals seem to be using proxies. There is some new IPs every day, about half the vandalism is done by "new" IPs I'd say - anja  [[Image:User Anja Astor sig icon.png|talk]] 18:49, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
 * The ones that are used often could be banned for a few months or maby even a year as they are likely not to be ones that change. And if someone gets a banned IP somehow it's pretty easy to contact someone to get the ban lifted. -- [[Image:User Gem sig.png|Gem]] (gem / talk) 19:43, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not a mailcious user. Trust me, someone with the skill to make a bot could do much worse. Backsword 23:58, 26 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Counter-evidence that the bots are not run by someone with an innate dislike for this wiki in particular: many other wikis (not necessarily GW related) experience similar bot spam (including random letter sequences). [[Image:User Aiiane-a.gif|Go to Aiiane's Talk page]] (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 19:50, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
 * As for the IP blocking suggestion, what are the odds that out of all the people in the world, that 1 IP will most likely never be used on this site as I believe like 5mill people play GW, so the odds are low that someone will be using that IP here. Also, as for the possible hate against this wiki, it could just be random vandalism for fun. It's like asking why people screw over wikipedia. I see people all the time at my school do that to Wikipedia, and I highly doubt they have anything against it.-- §  Eloc   §  22:34, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I've never seen the random garbage bot spam on GWiki or Wikipedia, so I'd assumed it was solely here. Learning that it's on other wikis means it's (likely) more than a single group of people, which means some large group is doing bot runs to see where they can linkspam, which gives even greater reason to perma-ban these IPs, because they've likely never heard of Guild Wars before, and have absolutely no reason to play the game, or make constructive contributions to this (or any other) wiki.  Calor  - talk 23:33, 26 October 2007 (UTC)


 * It's obviously intended to spam links useful to the operator. May be multiple operators using the same software. Presumably, much of the spam is GW unrelated, and the operator runs the bot against a list of known mediawiki software using wikis. They wouldn't know, or much care, about the results on a single wiki. The reason it produces gibberish may be that the script, while working fine on some test wiki, don't get just the right effect here. One possiblity is the captcha; either as an failed attempt to guess it or simply the script not being able to deal with it. Could just be that they are using software written by someone else, and they don't know how to operate it. Backsword 23:58, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Maybe it's a series of malfunctioning spam zombies. -- Gordon Ecker 00:12, 27 October 2007 (UTC)


 * We have enough active sysops on this wiki that I think we could quickly ban those IPs should they begin to linkspam. I don't think this is a huge concern. But to answer Xeeron's initial question, I have no idea. Surely these bots wouldn't have to carry out this many edits in order to determine that they have edit rights! LordBiro 08:32, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
 * The most logical suggestion I've seen so far is that it's bots trying to answer the captcha but failing and/or placing the answer in the wrong field. [[Image:User Aiiane-a.gif|Go to Aiiane's Talk page]] (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 07:55, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Inconsistancy of blocking
So how come we all seem to be inconsistant of how long someone is blocked? See here & here. Both users have been blocked before, but Skuld just gets a 1 day, even though several cases of NPA compared to Raptors who gets 2 weeks for sometihng along the same lines as Skuld? Is this biast that Raptors gets 14x more punishment than Skuld? or what's happening here?-- §  Eloc   §  01:30, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Knowing that i have nothing to do in this, and just as background. Did User:Skuld did something in the same level as the article mentioned in [|Talk Page Deletion] created by User:Raptors right before the sanction? --Fighterdoken 01:39, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
 * We do not have a blocking policy right now so technically it is admin discretion. I am pretty sure Skuld did not ever create a page called Fuck This Wiki and on it write an horrible attack with about 20 violations of NPA. -- Lemming [[Image:User Lemming64 sigicon.png]] 12:57, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Ya, true. When you think we are going to get a blocking policy? or are we ever?-- §  Eloc   §  18:59, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Guild Wars Wiki:Blocking policy -- Lemming [[Image:User Lemming64 sigicon.png]] 20:51, 28 October 2007 (UTC)