Guild Wars Wiki talk:Requests for technical administration/Archive 2

CheckUser

I'm not really sure how I feel about this idea, TBH. For those of you who don't know, the CheckUser extension allows people with CheckUser status to look up:

• All IP addresses a given registered user has logged in with
• All edits made by a certain IP address (including logged-in edits)
• All users who have logged in from a certain IP address.

I'm really just bringing this up as a discussion point, and I'm not really sure I want it installed. However, I can see how it might be useful (examples: [1], [2])
It's mainly designed for looking up sockpuppet accounts. Let me throw out a couple discussion points quickly:

• Privacy issues
• A log is kept of all CheckUser requests - this log is viewable by all users with CheckUser access
• Yet another position of trust on the wiki, or combine the permissions into the BCrat position?
• Guild Wars Wiki:Privacy policy
• The sensitive data is only kept for a fairly short period of time
• Is there a good reason to have it?

I'm sure I missed something, but I'm mainly just trying to get some input so that I can figure out where I stand =\ Thoughts? MisterPepe talk 05:27, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

With the possibility to only allow bureaucrats (and possibly sysops?) access to this tool I don't see a problem with the extension as the bureaucrats and sysops are trusted users who have dedicated a lot of spare time for the wiki. I don't think that there would be any privacy issues at all. The positive uses of this tool are limited, but there are cases where it would aid greatly. -- (gem / talk) 07:16, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I would say that this kind of role should fall under the bcrat role, but I don't think we really need it. It certainly wouldn't give us much of an advantage against those users using open proxies. LordBiro 17:15, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it's not something that SysOps should automatically have access to, as it goes against the idea of sysophood being No Big Dealtm. I'd say either restrict it to BCrats or have a new user class (CheckUser) that anyone could be elected into.

And yes, it doesn't give an advantage over open proxy users, but it does have potential to deal with spammers/Ampersand bots that create accounts, as well as vandals creating multiple logins (WikiRaptor comes to mind =P). Currently, we don't have a way to keep them from creating a new account and continuing. MisterPepe talk 17:21, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it's probably not good to give this possibility to sysops if we choose to implement it, but I also disagree with a new user group just for the sake of this, so it should be limited to bureaucrats only. -- (gem / talk) 17:42, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I mentioned the idea of a new user class only because that's how they do it on WP. It also has the added benefit of more flexibility (if need be), but the new user class is automatically created, afaik.

If we added the permissions to the BCrats, you'd see on the user list: Dirigible ‎(Bureaucrat, CheckUser, Sysop)

Since that new user class is automatically created, we could either give it automatically to the BCrats and no one else, or we could give it to the BCrats and leave the option open for more users. Either way, we'd probably end up making a page similar to WP:CHECK for the Sysops to get access that sort of information (without log access).

Meh. Personally, I'd like to hear from more people about whether this is a good idea before getting too far into implementation ideas. MisterPepe talk 17:53, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm personally strongly against this idea.

First of all, it's a recipe for paranoia. We'd be giving access to a very sensitive part of the wiki exclusively to a few people who can't be monitored by the community. Trusting someone only goes so far, they also need to be able to prove they're not abusing that trust. In fact, expect some discussions regarding transparency on and off the wiki to arise soon, and until we're on more solid ground about how much we can trust our electees and until we know for sure just what kind of decision-making power we are actually placing in their hands, I'd be opposed to creating any other positions which would create even more transparency concerns.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, our privacy policy currently doesn't make many exceptions about which third parties can get personal information of that kind. It mentions legal issues, it mentions law enforcement, and it mentions government officials, it doesn't mention Rust, Biro, Rezyk or me. If someone has chosen to register an username here on the wiki, one of the few perks they've gotten with that is somewhat more anonymity, their IP address isn't plastered all over the wiki. Compromising their identity by revealing that IP address seems to be against our privacy policy. Even if it weren't against that policy, I'd personally be ethically against it, it's just not right.

It'd open a whole new can of worms. It'd enable us to do things which we may not necessarily want to do. In Rust's example, do we actually really want to take up that responsibility, of making sure that identity on the wiki coincides with identity in-game/on the forums/elsewhere? If Dragonfire2073 complains to us that he is the real Dragon Fire in-game, and not DragonFire, do we really want to take upon ourselves the task to verify that? How about if Wolf vandalizes some page, and user Wolf002 complains that Wolf, together with users Wolf2581 and Wolf4355 are impersonating him and muddying his good name, requesting we out their identities and/or take punitive measures of some kind? Does it even matter to the wiki?

As for the WikiRaptor example, Pepe, see Wikipedia:Autoblock. The guy that evening must have also been using a proxy (unless Xas was disabling the autoblocker manually). CheckUser wouldn't really help with that.

You are correct in your first post when you mention that CheckUser was designed to deal with sockpuppet issues, Pepe, and so far I don't think we've had any problems of that kind (and hopefully we won't for a long time; sockpuppet witch-hunts rank pretty high on my personal Ugh-o-meter). So, I'm opposed to installing CheckUser here. --Dirigible 18:33, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

That actually helps a lot. I didn't know about the Autoblock thing, for one.

Anyway, thanks. MisterPepe talk 18:40, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I share Dirigible's stance against creating more positions (or expanding current positions) that will increase transparency concerns. I think a good level of transparency here is not insurmountable with the right structure (mostly because of the access log), but we have enough concerns elsewhere (notably the transparency of arbcomm, and perhaps the private mailing list) that should be ironed out first.

For privacy policy concerns, I believe CheckUser could be used somewhat effectively without revealing any IPs publicly, and thus (hopefully?) minimizing ethical/legal concerns. For example, a priviledged user could lookup 2 users' IPs, but only publicly state "matching IPs found" or "no matching IPs found".

I don't fully understand the argument regarding verifying wiki identities with in-game identities. I mean, I agree that it's a potentially messy can of worms and all, but:

• I can't see how IP lookup would really be useful at all for that.
• I think it is possible to do verification already (as long as the party is willing).
• It seems that guild page policy has opened this door already: In case of doubt, an administrator may ask the primary editors of a guild page to prove that they are members of the guild. How would that be done?

In general, I tend to agree with at least waiting on this for now; it's always been in the back of my mind as a possible inevitability for sockpuppet issues, but it can easily cause a lot of harm too. Also, keep in mind that it is not even a fix for sockpuppetry, just an unreliable extra clue at times. On the other hand, if/when we do have a major sockpuppet case and if we decide we want CheckUser for it, it may be ugly depending on how long we have to wait for it to be installed.

If/when we do want it, one major task is to iron out exactly when it should be used. At the discretion of bureaucrats/arbcomm? Only when all parties are willing? When there is strong evidence (defined as blah blah blah) of sockpuppetry being used to give a misleading impression of support? --Rezyk 21:41, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Reconsider?

Maybe it's time we reconsider this proposal? --Dirigible 12:41, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Why do you think so? poke | talk 12:50, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that this would help to cut down on vandals by seeing if they have sockpuppet account which they use for vandalizing or something. For example, those Link spammers, maybe it's all done under 1 IP, and with this, we'd be able to block that one IP which would hopefully put an end to the link spammers. — ク Eloc 貢 21:13, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

The link spammers generally don't use the ame IPs, it's manual vandalizers who do. -- (gem / talk) 21:23, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, but how do we know this? With CheckIP, we can know for sure ;P — ク Eloc 貢 21:30, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Also when we install this: Which people should be allowed to view the IPs? The bureaucrats or the sysops only? Or an entirely new GWW:RFCUA (Requests for Check User Admin)? (edit conflict, now I'll read that below :P) poke | talk 00:31, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

How this works in reality

We have CheckUser installed on PvXwiki, so I thought I'd give some input.

All PvX admins have checkuser access. If we trust you to be an admin, we trust you to to use the tools of an admin. (That said, we have a somewhat different way of recruiting admins.)

If any of us admins use Checkuser, we don't report the IPs used except in special circumstances (specifically, when a user is using an anonymous account as a sockpuppet), and a large number of user checks are done without anyone but the checker knowing. It's pointless; no one wants to wade through a bunch of numbers and try to match them up, and even if we did report the numbers, I'm willing to bet that 99% of users would forget who was on which IP within a few hours.

The log on CheckUser is absolutely pointless. I personally never use it; I could care less if Auron was looking up my IP, or if he was looking at other people's IPs for sockpuppetry. I trust him to do his job, and glancing at the logs (which are chock full of admins checking the same user over and over because we need to compare results) reveals no personal information.

As the IP is not revealed to the entire community, I don't see where any privacy concerns would come from... The best I can think of is that someone would be concerned about their IP revealed when they're blocked. But every site on the web that can block people will look at IP addresses; that's the nature of an IP block. More importantly, even if the admins were somehow malicious with the data, what would they do with it? Spam the IP's talk page?

When it comes to similar account names, that's generally not an issue; we have User:Shadowsin and User:Shadow sin, and until one or the other starts "sullying their good name", there's nothing to worry about. If, hypothetically, one or the other began vandalizing or whatnot... couldn't you just ban theme and not worry about it? I don't see any argument against banning a user for trolling, regardless of his username.

If you ask any random user on PvX, they'll know that we use "something" (they may or may not know the name of CheckUser) to check for IPs when regarding possible sockpuppetry in voting (and other areas, on occasion). And I'd be willing to bet that they're all ok with it, mostly because it'd be too much hassle to abuse it for too little benefit, but when it's used correctly, it's very helpful.

Most of all, I don't think a new policy should be created around this. Making a new policy regarding exactly when and where it should be used, and for what, and what to do afterwards, would just bog the wiki down more (and possibly lead to hysterics from those who don't bother to read the whole thing and/or learn the points I mention above). Trust the admins to do the job right, and if they don't, don't let them be admins; I personally don't think the bureaucrat station should be used to deal with all the ins and outs of daily business (I've been there; it's a hassle to have a sysop ask you to do something minor because they don't have the permissions, it's a hassle to have them do it four or five times, and it's a hassle to make the requests).

A last thing: I hope no user will seriously object to installing this on the mere basis that "PvXwiki uses it". I've seen a number of those (and "GuildWiki uses it", too) recently; they do not have any evidence behind them as to why it's a bad thing. Points as to why it's a bad thing when we use it, however, I'd have no problem with.

Anyway, that's my long rant of the day, which, as per usual, may or may not appear orderly or make sense...

Armond 00:30, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Just a minor note, regarding about the similar names point: the previous request for CheckUser above was made in response to an incident regarding a particular user and another user claiming that this was him (well, his character) in-game, and that someone had registered that account on the wiki to impersonate and slander. My point above was that issues like this don't (or shouldn't) matter to the wiki at all. And at that time, there was no other need for CheckUser on the wiki. With sockpuppet troubles finally showing up on this wiki (see Raptors' arbitration case), maybe now we do have concrete new reasons why CheckUser would help, hence the revival of this discussion.

I still think that installing CheckUser can have negative side effects. I disagree with you that no new policy would be needed; I'd want a) something to limit whoever can use CheckUser to only do so when sockpuppeting actually matters (voting, ban evasion) and b) to keep the rest of the community in the loop about the checks being made (the equivalent of Guild Wars Wiki:Mailing list topics for CU checks or such). PvX does votes 24/7, we only have RfAs once a blue moon and incidents such as Raptors' even more rarely. Other than those cases, I don't want Mr. Whomever Userchecker to know that Dirigible, Eloc and Gaile Gray are all the same person; it'd simply be none of their business. --Dirigible 02:49, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

You are a funny man, Mr. Bond. That actually did make me laugh. -elviondale (tahlk) 03:05, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Wow, were those the first names that came to your head Dirigible? :P — ク Eloc 貢 03:07, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

That would be a very strange thing if it were indeed true -elviondale (tahlk) 03:09, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes it is indeed untrue <.< — ク Eloc 貢 03:10, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

A severe case of multiple personality disorder? Lol -- ab.er.rant 06:08, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

lol — ク Eloc 貢 07:36, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Dirig: Why make a policy to restrict someone from doing something they aren't inclined to do in the first place? (Or is it time for a policy that says "don't delete the main page"?) Armond 10:03, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I think this is pointless. Any user with enough knowledge to make sockpuppet accounts (which isn't much in the first place) would also know how to hide his IP through proxies. Given how we already have Autoblock in place and how proxies are allowed here, being able to see the IP of users would be inconsequential. Erasculio 16:34, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

You would be exceedingly surprised at how many people don't, though. Armond 20:58, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

It won't get rid of the dedicated troublemakers but it will help remove the less dedicated ones I suppose. We can't get an agreement on this? -- ab.er.rant 14:56, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that the recent creation of the account User:Raptaz illustrates a need to install this extension. LordBiro 18:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I am VERY strongly opposed to this. I find it's proposal incredibly alarming and a revival of this discussion even more so alarming. The entire reason I created an account was so that I can remain completely anonymous - I don't want ANYONE gaining access to my ip and this kind of thing would scare me and I'm sure many other people away from the wiki. There is no need for something like this to happen - no matter how exclusive the people who have access to it might be. Like we have said before this doesn't target spam bots, it targets manual users and a manual user is likely going to put the effort in to use a proxy, if not now, they certainly will if this becomes enabled so you wouldn't be stopping anything, only scaring people. I'm not interested in anyone convincing me otherwise, this is what I beleive and I won't change my stance on this. My contributions as a registered user have so far been with the knowledge my ip is hidden, if this proposal were to go through I would feel like a betrayal of my trust would have taken place, as I have contributed knowing this was not possible. About the account, how do you even know it is him? For all you know it could just be an admirer wanting to get you all up in arms about him so they chose that name because they knew it would have an impact. It could be someone completely new, and I know my IP resets every time I reconnect with my modem, so much time has passed since raptors was here he probably has a new ip too. Hell he can just use proxies. I think this is a terrible proposal and an invasion of privacy - especially since people have been contributing up till now thinking their ip was hidden from everyone, where the implementation of this would disprove that.Anon

If you don't want anyone to see your IP, you should immediately disconnect from the internet and never come back. poke | talk 20:41, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The point that it will help deal with sock puppets is moot. Like someone above said, if they create a sock puppet they will likely use proxies - or start to if this ever went through. So the reality is, the only people who this will affect is maybe the occasional sock puppet who doesn't use a proxy and people like me, who don't like this kind of thing being viewable. Anon

Biro, assuming User:Raptaz is Raptor, CheckUser would not work - we already have Wikipedia:Autoblock installed, and, quoting from its article, "Each time a user edits Wikipedia, the IP address used to connect to the site is recorded by the MediaWiki software that powers Wikipedia. A log of IP addresses used by every user is kept privately, accessible only by users with checkuser access to the MediaWiki software. When a blocked user attempts to edit the site, the IP from which they are editing is 'autoblocked,' so that they may not make the same edit anonymously or under a different user name". So the fact Raptaz is making edits is a proof that he does not share Raptor's IP (if he's Raptor, it's a proxy; and I doubt Raptor would not know how to use a proxy anyway). Erasculio 20:53, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

So this change would almost be entirely useless aside from striking fear and paranoia in the community? Look what you are all letting happen, some guy creates an account and spams a few times to get 100 edits, didn't break any rules and then has been quiet since then and you are all acting like it's some horrible conspiracy - whoever it is is probably laughing his ass off at how insane your response has been over a silly name. Anon

I think its funny that you mention paranoia. -elviondale (tahlk) 21:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Anon, see your talk page. As for changing IPs, you'll always stay on the same range of an IP - such as 27.223.04.xxx (though it's far more likely that the last six digits are the variable ones, so the range would really be 27.223.xxx.xxx). CheckUser would help us see that. Armond 04:02, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Anon ,claiming that is strikes fear and paranoia into the community is over-exaggerating. More likely, it will garner a response like "Oh, ok" from most users. The issue of privacy is compromised the moment you connect to the internet. Exposing your IP to just a few more people isn't going to make your life any more horrible. How can this not help with at least reducing sockpuppet incidents? Are you assuming that everyone who can think of creating multiple accounts must know about proxies? You'd be surprised by how many vandals there are who have no idea what an IP is. -- ab.er.rant 05:16, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not really worried about the entire "IP privacy" thing; I just doubt CheckUser would help. As far as I know, this discussion has been brought back thanks to the problems with Raptors; but Raptors is using some kind of proxy anyway, so CheckUser does not help against him. With that in mind, I think we go back to the same discussion above (the old one): do we know of any case that has happened in this wiki in which CheckUser would have helped? If the answer is "yes" then I would be ok with installing it; but right now, I can't think of any such case. Erasculio 10:49, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

The User:Raptaz case? Granted, that issue was not serious, but it would've helped had CheckUser been in place. I suppose having something in anticipation of some future problem is not very well received by the opposers of CheckUser. The thing is that when we do need it, this process is too slow for any urgent need. I'll drop it. Between you and Anon, this will never get consensus :) -- ab.er.rant 11:22, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

The thing with the Raptaz case is that the discussion began with the suspicion that it was a Raptors' sockpuppet; but that's a question that CheckUser would have been unable to reply, given how Autoblock would have blocked Raptors if he were not using a proxy. But mine is a weak oppose against this - I just think it's not going to be useful, but if it were installed I would not complain. Erasculio 12:05, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

This is not exactly the case Erasculio. The wiki autoblock is very simplistic. If Raptors reconnects to his ISP and is given another, very similar, IP address then the wiki would not pick this up, but a person probably would. Personally I think that this extension adds to the number of tools at the disposal of the sysop; a user with a similar name to Raptors is acting in a suspicious manner, is the IP address very similar? If so I think that it is a reasonable assumption that this user is Raptors.

That said I entirely agree that this extension is useless while we allow open proxies. I think perhaps closing open proxies is a discussion that needs to take place first. LordBiro 16:47, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

To be brief, I fully support no open proxies policy, as I did when I proposed it and ported it over. —Tanaric 20:03, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of whether open proxies are allowed, people will always be able to slightly modify their IP by disconnecting and reconnecting to their modem. When they do that, they'll always stay in the same IP range. Armond 23:20, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation, Biro, I didn't know that about autoblock. So I'm ok with this feature now, although I still believe we need to close open proxies. Erasculio 10:50, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I think I get a /fail for putting .04. in an IP address. Regardless, autoblock will block a user if and only if that user shares the exact same IP as the one blocked. Range blocks are not possible with the autoblock. Armond 18:01, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Armond, as I'm sure you're aware, GWW is community run, so an admins job is what the community consensus says it is. A policy is simply the condensed form of that consensus. Which is needed because we can't expect admins to be mindreaders. Backsword 21:16, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

While I completely agree with you that the community is forbidding the admins freedom of action and disagree that admins need to be mind readers, this isn't the place to discuss it. Armond 23:20, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Parser function hooks — numberofedits

Name

numberofedits

Type

Parser function hooks

Reason

Easily allows you to see your # of edits in Special:MyPreferences

Links

Special:Version

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Special:Version

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki

Possible pitfalls

"Someone's number of contributions does not mean a damn." - Dirigible

I couldn't find the actual extension name of the Parser function hook for this, but if you go to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or MediaWiki, just make an account and click my preferences and you can see what I mean. — ク Eloc 貢 00:48, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

unfortunately it's now part of the latest version of MediaWiki. So, just wait until they upgrade the wiki to 1.11 -Smurf 02:03, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, so it's unavoidable? Huuray! XD. — ク Eloc 貢 03:21, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

How do you think this is a parser hook? poke | talk 06:39, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

It's not. It's a Parser Function Hook. — ク Eloc 貢 02:14, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

External images

Thoughts on this: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:%24wgAllowExternalImages ? Then this would work: http://miniprofile.xfire.com/bg/bg/type/4/acatzr800.gif and show status of friends. -elviondale (tahlk) 04:46, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

It's not useful for our mission, and it's a huge avenue for abuse. I'd prefer this not be enabled. —Tanaric 05:03, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

iawtc. Images, someone wants to display, can always be uploaded in his/her userspace. poke | talk 09:52, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I understand that and I might have gotten carried away last night suggesting this, but the idea was for images that change based on login/game playing. See how it'd be used here. but like I said, forget I ever mentioned this. -elviondale (tahlk) 12:58, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the con's outweigh the pros of the limited use on userpages that you outlined. --Lemming 22:49, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Next MediaWiki version

Seeing as the GW2W is now "launched" and runs on the latest stable MediaWiki version, I'm wondering if there is any chance GWW would get an upgrade anytime soon? The new version has quite alot of small nifty upgrades and features that's handy for both regular users and admins, iirc. - anja 23:57, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

iawtc :) poke | talk 00:22, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

camels ahoy! (And me too finds it disheartening that GWW isn't updated.) --  (CoRrRan / talk) 11:48, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

pls update! - BeX 11:52, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

upgrade upgrade! :D -- ab.er.rant 00:54, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Bumping this request. 1.11.0 would be lovely, especially for some of the API upgrades. Pretty please :) -- AT(talk | contribs) 23:04, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Hiya guys! I got this request, and I'll pass it along to IT. -- Emily Diehl (talk) 03:33, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Yay, thanks :) poke | talk 06:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Brilliant, thanks Emily! -- AT(talk | contribs) 18:15, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Yay :) -- Brains12 \ Talk 15:57, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Good :D Calor 18:28, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay on all of this, guys. I just got word from IT that they'll be doing this upgrade on Wednesday, April 9. I'll get a downtime notice ready for the website, and I'll mention this on my userpage so we can get a site notice up. I'll see if they can roll Lucene into the update, but I'm not sure if that will happen or not. For things as large as version upgrades, we want to make sure there are as few variables as possible in case something blows up. I'll keep you all posted on what I find out. Until then...yay! :) -- Emily Diehl (talk) 23:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay :D. I guess we'll put the sitenotice up when we get the time and length of downtime. Thanks, Emily :)-- Brains12 \ Talk 23:22, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Great to hear :D --Kakarot 23:27, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Haha :) I just learned that the downtime will be on the 9th from 5am - 7am Pacific. Poor IT. I'll be sleeping soundly through the upgrade it seems. -- Emily Diehl (talk) 23:40, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) is this the same deal for the gw2 wiki? --Lemming 23:44, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

GW2W is already at version 1.11, so it's already fairly up to date. :) — Galil 00:40, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Interwiki

With the adding of new interwiki links, it seems like there was no distinction made between them here and on GW2W, and so now all of the policy quick links (the ones that start with GWW, such as [[GWW:NPA]]) are now treated as interwiki links and do not work properly. For example, [[GWW:NPA]] links to NPA, like so: GWW:NPA --Gimmethegepgun 20:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

See User talk:Emily Diehl#Interwiki links ;P -- Brains12 • Talk • 20:10, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

New wiki

Could we upgrade this to the new version? — ク Eloc 貢 02:39, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

IP signatures

Could we make it so that when IPs sign it links to their contributions page, sort of like on NewsWiki? — ク Eloc 貢 02:39, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

The new MediaWiki 1.12 (changes) does it by default now. Hopefully we'll get latest version soon. -Smurf 06:36, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Special:Mostlinked

Can we remove Guild Wars Wiki:Copyrights, ArenaNet, & NCsoft from Special:Mostlinked as Guild Wars Wiki:Copyrights is on every page and ArenaNet/NCsoft are like on every image? — ク Eloc 貢 04:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Why? Mostlinked has no real usage. poke | talk 06:25, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I dunno, just no need for them I suppose considering they are on like every page. — ク Eloc 貢 06:32, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

So you want ANet to work on something unneeded just to increase each user's ranking by 3..? poke | talk 06:38, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

The thought was probably not about "every" user, I suspect... --Snograt 07:06, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

We should also remove all non-user pages from the list, IMHO. That way it can be a 4srs competition of welcome template spammage. -Auron 10:04, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Stop attacking Eloc for every comment he does. - anja 09:49, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Official wiki in languages other than English

This feature is planned for nearly a year now and i don't expect to see it on GWW one day. But I was wondering if it was possible to have it on the new GW2 wiki? A language box in the left panel, just below the navigation one, would be great. It would let us change language at will, just like we do in wikipedia. Is it something reasonably conceivable? Chriskang 13:09, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Bump. Does someone know how it works on wikipedia? Is it a MediaWiki extension? Chriskang 09:29, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know, but my best guess is lots of (manually or maybe bot-wise) added interwiki links. The big deal about doing this is not adding the links, but translating and keeping updated all the content. --Xeeron 10:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Hiya Chris! This is a topic that we're actually currently working on and discussing. I'll predict that we'll be bringing it up to all of you guys here on the wiki in the near future, so keep an eye open. When we do start talking about options and ideas, I'll be sure to post a link to the conversation here :) -- Emily Diehl (talk) 17:48, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

IMO multiple languages is going to be a small pain in the butt due to the necessity to have more sysops to control all languages. That's going to be fun... --  (CoRrRan / talk) 12:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

LuceneSearch

This extension would make searching a whole lot easier and would render all the capitalization redirects and most of the other redirects obsolete. MediaWiki's search engine is crap, and this extension replaces it with one that uses Lucene for indexing. It's used on all Wikimedia projects and on the official MediaWiki wiki, so it is indeed stable enough. — Galil 05:08, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a great extension. - anja 08:23, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

And then we can have a project of tagging all categorised and non-categorised capitalization redirects for deletion! :D -- ab.er.rant 09:00, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I nominate Galil for doing the noncategorised ones. Backsword 12:47, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Seconded. --  (CoRrRan / talk) 12:49, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

The current search engine is indeed horrible, so installing a better one would be very helpful. --Xeeron 13:10, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

110% agree. GIve Galil the task of tagging and deleting (assuming he's promoted). Calor 18:27, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

sounds pretty good. oh, and the search engine is good too. --VVong|BA 17:46, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds nice. I'd use it. --People of Antioch talk 21:47, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, Lucene is pretty slick...I've used it a lot before, and it definitely trumps the MediaWiki default. I've passed the request along to IT. We're not going to roll it into this update, but it's something we'll get in the queue for install on both sites. I'll keep you updated! -- Emily Diehl (talk) 23:36, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Wonderful! :D — Galil 00:41, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Galil, time to go through Category:Capitalization redirects soon :P Calor 01:11, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Well... I... uh... figured it wouldn't be needed cause... it's better to get to the actual page rather than the search results page! >.> — Galil 01:20, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion: Use Bad Behavior to stop bots and spam

There seem to be a lot of complaints/bans about bots and spammers on here, so I figured offer this easy to implement suggestion.

Bad Behavior is a set of PHP scripts which prevents spambots from accessing your site by analyzing their actual HTTP requests and comparing them to profiles from known spambots. It goes far beyond User-Agent and Referer, however. Bad Behavior is available for several PHP-based software packages, and also can be integrated in seconds into any PHP script.

You can download Bad Behavior (which works with MediaWiki) here. -- Tarun 23:58, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Until the problem gets out of hand I see no reason to install it. The more things we install, the more things can go wrong, and the harder it is to find out what did go wrong when something does. Also, this line in their FAQ also makes me think there's no need to install it until we need it: "In extremely rare circumstances, Bad Behavior may block actual human visitors." — Galil 00:10, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

And maybe we will get problems when trying to use wikibots.. This could be possible as that thing does not look like it was created for MediaWiki alone.. So, as Galil said, as long as we can defeat the bots ourself and we still have less sysops than normal users (^^), I think we can handle it without that thing. poke | talk 01:44, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Request To Control Link Spambots

I know there have not been that many of them latley, but after joining other wikis I have learned that most of them have something similar to this when an external link is added. I think adding this feature to the wiki may help to prevent Link Spambots. They may not be hard to block but they still can be quite annoying. --Shadowphoenix 23:10, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

If we do add this, perhaps we should use reCaptcha, which presents images which confused OCR software while digitizing books - so we get security, and Cornegie Mellon gets better books. Just a thought. Though I'm not sure how necessary it is. - THARKUN 23:23, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

We already have confirmedit. More specifically "ConfirmEdit with the ConfirmEdit.php settings above requires all non-registered users adding an URL to an article to answer a simple text CAPTCHA before being able to save their changes." --Lemming 23:24, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but now they have accounts :P --Shadowphoenix 23:28, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Apart from the fact that the number of spam bots approaches ( (c) IRCabal ) 0, we actually have a captcha for external links poke | talk 23:28, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) x2!! Addition: it was discussed here what settings should be used and decided that only ip editors should have to answers the CAPTCHA before adding external links. If that helps at all. Basically the inconvience of having a bot every week or so is not outweighed by the inconvience of entering a CAPTCHA for everyone else who is registered. --Lemming 23:30, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I do not have a problem with entering it when I put an external link in. It is not that hard. However, the shorter tehy are the better. --Shadowphoenix 23:33, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually I would have a problem with that. And as I said the only spam bots we normally have don't post external links. poke | talk 23:35, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Two clicks (or one) is faster and easier than reading and entering a bunch of random characters. Oppose. Calor 23:36, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd have to concur with the others here - banning a bot and reverting their edits really isn't a problem, and having a captcha for every edit involving a link (which, actually, is a fair number of them for those of us who are active) is far more of an annoyance. Oppose adding captchas for registered users. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 22:57, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I oppose as well, unless there's a way for it to differentiate between the amount of external links added, so that only those spamming a lot of links will trigger it. -- ab.er.rant 20:01, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Really no need for them, we rarely get link spammers here. — ク Eloc 貢 03:31, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Editcount

The Editcount extension would make determining eligibility to vote in elections much, much easier :) ¬ Wizårdbõÿ777(talk) 23:16, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Does it allow segregation of the count number by namespace? (saw no info about it on MW, but didn't look too much either).--Fighterdoken 23:21, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes. See it in action on GuildWiki. ¬ Wizårdbõÿ777(talk) 23:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, yes, yes, ye, yes, 1000 times yes; I always wondered why it was never added here. This would really help, I hated having to count my contributions b4 the elections :P --Shadowphoenix 00:44, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Enter this into your location bar of your browser and press enter: javascript:addScript('User:Poke/GuildWarsWikiTools/ContributionCount.js');void(0); (Firefox only) poke | talk 12:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Very nice poke! How can I get the output somewhere on my user-namespace? --  (CoRrRan / talk) 13:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean, Cor? Do you want it dynamically on one of your user pages? That is not possible and would create far too much server load. poke | talk 14:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Very nice Poke, although it does seem to be off for my contribs, this reads 2,269 but in my preferences it says 3,012? --Kakarot 14:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Poke, I would prefer to have something do it for me (i.e. Editcount) rather than having to copy and paste that every time I wanted to check on contribs. -- Brains12 \ Talk 14:18, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The contributions in the preferences is somehow the GWW ones and the GW2W ones together.. But the value is still not correct. My script gets the real number of contributions visible on Special:Contributions. poke | talk 14:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok, just wondering would there be any way to add that link to kak's links, see my monobook.js. --Kakarot 14:40, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

GJ poke, but I agree with Brains; and not to mention I would rather not open up that wretched firefox everytime I want to do that :P --Shadowphoenix 16:14, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

"That wretched firefox" - what browser do you use? o.0 (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 17:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I did not make that script to let users check their own contributions three times a day; it is only meant for one-time checks which are needed for example for elections. I hesitated if I even should make that script public because I don't like the idea that people can check other's contributions that exactly without much work and use that for building up an opinion (for example on RfAs or something else). This is why I also disagree installing the EditCount extension. poke | talk 17:35, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

@ Aiiane IE8 + IE7 I do not like FF :P. The whole point is for bcrat elections, I don't think it would make a difference on RfA's --Shadowphoenix 18:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I also disagree with this as its under your preferences...Some people would *honestly* tell you there count, but IDK. @ SP XD I agree "that wretched firefox" Dominator Matrix 19:04, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok 4,275 is my current number of edits, but that is to all namspaces so that does not help me seperate my contributes from user/guild to everything else :P --Shadowphoenix 19:07, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

That contrib count in your Preferences isn't necessarily right DM, partly because it appears to be both GWW and GW2W and because for mine at least it is around 800 higher than the count Poke's tool gives. --Kakarot 19:11, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Im @ 1604 and...only half that is countable..Dominator Matrix 19:09, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for proving my point as to why we need editcount Kakarot :) --Shadowphoenix 19:13, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I did what with what now? --Kakarot 19:14, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

XD mine per the script is only 124 edits that are countable. I say we just need that...as some admins use that...Dominator Matrix 19:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) "That contrib count in your Preferences isn't necessarily right DM, partly because it appears to be both GWW and GW2W and because for mine at least it is around 800 higher than the count Poke's tool gives" proves that what we currently use is all messy and we need editcount --Shadowphoenix 19:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I believe the count in your preferences also includes edits made to pages that have since been deleted, so certain people who used to do lots of tagging for deletion will have a preferences count much higher than can be seen in their contribs. ¬ Wizårdbõÿ777(talk) 23:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Shadowphoenix, our current ways to count contributions is going on the contribution page and counting the contributions by looking at each namespace. That is probably one of the most secure ways to do it. Do you know if the Editcount extension counts correctly? Maybe it counts in the same way as the preferences do.

"I don't think it would make a difference on RfA's" - If you want I can give you some links where some people believe that the general contribution count is really important to an adminship status. However I don't think it should be made that easy for those. poke | talk 12:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Editcount type in my name is spilts the contributes into the namespaces. Oh and btw Contributes is a stupid reason to oppose and RfA :P --Shadowphoenix 17:24, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

There are still people who think different about that... poke | talk 17:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Update

• MediaWiki: 1.11.0
• PHP: 5.1.6 (apache2handler)
• MySQL: 5.0.41-community

Uhh thats a couple versions behind, on all counts. Could we get that updated for the wiki(s)? Dominator Matrix 17:39, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

How is that behind? The Special:Version gets updated automatically. -- Brains12 \ Talk 18:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Compared to what is listed on the sites. Eg. PHP is 5.2.5 now Dominator Matrix 18:11, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

"Sites"? -- Brains12 \ Talk 18:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Do you know what it takes to update the server settings? There is no need to update from php 5.1.x to 5.2.x when there is no benefit. poke | talk 18:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Was just going to say, as except for the media wiki update the other two are rather just bug fixes that don't relate to this wiki. Dominator Matrix 18:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Ohhhh, sorry! Now I get it... I thought you meant the Special:Version was behind what we actually have... (but I'm sure Poke would agree on upgrading the MediaWiki version :P) -- Brains12 \ Talk 18:18, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

If I remember correctly when we upgraded to the present version Emily mentioned that they were first updating to v1.11.0 and then to the latest version to reduce any issues that may come up with it. --Kakarot 18:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Ya new versions=new bugs, plus there minor updates nothing much. Dominator Matrix 18:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Hold off on MySQL, 5.1 is not stable yet (even though it went gold on the 15th). Though it soon should be.

5.1 is a critical update as it helps data management...(so no more opps sorry out of room errors).

The media wiki needs to be updated due to the amout of security fixes, bug fixes, and how old this version is (a LOT!)

PHP, it can stay as it is. Theres nothing major in 5.2.5 or 5.2.6 RC6 Needs to be updated per this PHP 5.2.3-5.2.5 Change Log (so many fixes O.O) Dominator Matrix 23:59, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Can we please limit our requests to wiki-related issues? We are not ArenaNet's IT group, we should not be concerned with PHP or MySQL. I strongly doubt that they need our help to keep them updated on whenever a new release for those packages comes out. Remember, they do this for a living. --Dirigible 03:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

That response has put me in such a foul mood i'm not even going to comment on it. And it is a wiki-realted issue as due to the recent bugs in all..Dominator Matrix 04:01, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok now after coming out of my rant I will give you a more general responce. Due to all the recent bugs in all I thought "was the wiki behind?" It was more then just behind..., it was left in the dust version wise. Plus it wont hurt to keep the wiki updated. Dominator Matrix 04:07, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The following is not an insurmountable problem, but: the new parser in MediaWiki 1.12.0+ would break most of our auto-generated table lists. --Rezyk 04:26, 26 April 2008 (UTC) attempting a distracting shot

Noo! Let's keep 1.11 :P - anja 09:22, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Why, Rezyk? Afaik only the current DPL version has made some updates which causes some older lists to not work correctly.

Dominator, language bugfixes doesn't help the software which is running on a machine. 95% of all bugs are because of the software itself not because of the language. And the small number of language bugs which really cause a software to be unstable or insecure are always fixed by a software update because it is not possible for webhoster to have daily updates. Look at the Wikimedia severs, they are still running MySQL 4! poke | talk 12:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

In 1.12, they revamped the parser in a way that is not strictly transparent / backward-compatible, and it changes some functionality that DPL depends on for nested templates. --Rezyk 21:51, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Update DPL to 1.7.4

I'd like to see the DynamicPageList extension updated to version 1.7.4 (current latest). It includes some potentially useful capabilities to query by image links, various minor bugfixes/improvements, and supposedly works with the new parser in MediaWiki 1.12. Any objections? --Rezyk 01:57, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

None at all. :) Dominator Matrix 02:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Hibber gibber, as Anja would say... Ah, and I think a reminder about LuceneSearch would be nice too - the last time it was mentioned, Emily said they would implement it along with/soon after the MediaWiki upgrade. -- Brains12 \ talk 02:42, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I do not not oppose not implementing this --Kakarot 03:03, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

This and a wiki-lag fix would be perfect! Dominator Matrix 03:18, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

That'd be grreat, captain, but you're expecting a bloody miracle! (+1 to whoever gets the reference) (excuse the randomness, I think get I'm getting Aberrant's insomnia-related illness) -- Brains12 \ talk 03:21, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I am also not opposed to allowing this to be included --Shadowphoenix 03:26, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Move rate limit

This has been brought up before, but in light of the move vandal the past few days, it's become rather more relevant. I'd like to suggest using $wgRateLimits to limit page moves to, say, 5 moves per 3 minutes for users. Looking through the move log, I don't think this will negatively affect normal day-to-day operation, though certainly it would slow one-time events like the recent moving of pages into the Arenanet namespace (would bot-flagged accounts be affected by this? would admins?). There's also an option for specifically limiting new accounts, but A: I for one don't know what the software considers a new account, and B: a sufficiently smart vandal could just pre-make accounts ahead of time. Do people have opinions on this? - Tanetris 19:18, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Admins and Bots can have an own limit which I would keep in this situation, as it is helpful from time to time. Another possibility to prevent that vandals from continuing would be adding the requirement to enter a valid email adress before being able to move pages. poke | talk 19:27, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Or a captcha? Calor 19:33, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd suggest limiting new accounts to 1 page move every 5 minutes. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 19:47, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

If it is possible to apply that to new accounts only, sure! What exactly qualifies for a new account? poke | talk 19:50, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Newbie would cover it and as long as it's a day or longer that would cover the recent incidents. --Kakarot 19:53, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

poke, there's a specific category already defined by mediawiki for "new" accounts (see mediawiki docs - although looking at that we'd probably actually want to set the restriction for the 'ip' category which includes anons as well). (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 19:57, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah, ok, didn't know about that; but I'm still missing some kind of definition :D

If we specify rate limits for normal users I would like to add the bot usergroup to $wgRateLimitsExcludedGroups. poke | talk 20:01, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Btw, looking through the MediaWiki source, 'newbie' accounts are defined as any which aren't 'autoconfirmed'. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 20:06, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah, good find Poke. I agree, bots should be added to the excluded groups. Aiiane: while I wouldn't mind an even harder limit for new users, I think we should also have some limitation on regular users simply because a vandal is likely able to make accounts ahead of time and get them autoconfirmed once they catch on. Certainly there are no shortage of free e-mail providers on the internet. Also note that anons can't move pages anyway, so limits on them are rather redundant. - Tanetris 20:21, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Seeing as the vandalism has seemed to pick up lately, and moves are more annoying to undo, I'd support this. --People of Antioch 20:24, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Same. Any way to stem the tide works for me. Calor 20:25, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) unconfirmed 1 move within 5 minutes, other users 3 within 5 minutes? Btw. what is with the automated talk page move? Does it count as an additional move? poke | talk 20:25, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict x1) I saw something in the mediawiki docs the other day . . . "Note that on many wikis you have to be logged in, and there may be a set length of time that you will have to have had an account for (often four days), along with a minimum number of edits having been made from that account (often zero)." http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Moving_a_page

Would something like that help with this? Requring ~4 days of account time and maybe 5-10 edits before someone can use the move button?

Also: Dear dog, please, no captchas.--Star Weaver 20:30, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, alternative:

$wgAutoConfirmCount = 5; - requires 5 edits to be autoconfirmed (additionally we could use $wgAutoConfirmAge, but I think the edit count is better)

$wgGroupPermissions['user']['move'] = false; - disallow all users from moving pages

$wgGroupPermissions['autoconfirmed']['move'] = true; - and allow all autoconfirmed users to move.

That should work. poke | talk 20:40, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

As Tanetris says, a dedicated vandal could set up an account and have it autoconfirmed before using it for vandalism. -- Brains12 \ talk 20:44, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

No reason we can't combine both ideas. - Tanetris 20:48, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I just assumed Poke meant to have only that, considering the "Ok, alternative" -- Brains12 \ talk 20:49, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

It would at least require the vandal to get some (good) contributions first. Based on the last used names, we could block him before the moving starts. poke | talk 20:51, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

We're talking about dedicated vandals here. One might make what seems to be a genuine account, have it autoconfirmed, then strike. -- Brains12 \ talk 20:56, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Combo plan:

• $wgRateLimits for moving for normal users be changed from no limit to 5 moves per 3 minutes
• $wgRateLimits for editting for new accounts (non-autoconfirmed) be changed from no limit to 9 edits per 3 minutes
• $wgRateLimitsExcludedGroups be changed from sysops and bureaucrats to sysops, bureaucrats, and bots
• $wgAutoConfirmCount be changed from nothing to 10 edits
• $wgAutoConfirmAge be changed from nothing to 1 day
• $wgGroupPermissions for users that are not yet autoconfirmed have move disallowed, but allowed for autoconfirmed.

Altogether, I would say that will nicely put a damper on the vandalism without hampering general wiki activity. Anything from the above discussion I've missed here, or any additional concerns? - Tanetris 21:02, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

What about the ratelimits for "newbies"? (not-autoconfirmed users) poke | talk 21:10, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

No need for a ratelimit for non-autoconfirmed moving as the last bit, as you suggested, removes their ability to move at all. I did, however, add in a minor limit on non-autoconfirmed so they can't make an account, wait a day, then quickly spam 10 edits and as many moves as they like. - Tanetris 21:22, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I've written up a proper request at Guild Wars Wiki:Requests for technical administration/Configuring page move limits, but I haven't added it to the page yet. Could someone who understands this stuff please double-check that I haven't screwed something up entirely in the code? - Tanetris 16:03, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Go for it :) poke | talk 16:39, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

poke, I partially reverted your changes to the code display, since this is being added to LocalSettings.php where it likely doesn't already exist to override DefaultSettings.php (where it exists by default). So they're not changes, they're additions; thus full code listing rather than partial is preferable. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 16:48, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Never actually looked into the LocalSettings.php :P poke | talk 17:39, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

CheckUser, revisited

Previous discussion got nowhere - I don't think Emily even heard about it.

Now that admins actually have a sane amount of discretion, are there any arguments against installing it? -- Armond Warblade 19:56, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I still don't see a real need for it. poke | talk 20:01, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Also it isn't Emily's job to look through our discussions and decide on her own. We decide if we want something and then ask ANet to approve that idea and install it. poke | talk 20:02, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Let me try giving one reason why it's needed. User:Droks is, allegedly, not the same person as Droks on PvX. At the very least, this would settle that.

Not enough? Then let's find out who User:Frozen Archer is, as he's... not banned yet.

Regardless, there probably shouldn't be a whole lot of immediate reasons to install CheckUser, no matter how you look at it, as it's... a long term thing. :/ -- Armond Warblade 21:40, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Well as long as there is not an Identity 2.0 where one account means that you are the same person all over the web, I don't see a problem with taking nicknames. The first who registers owns the accounts, that's kinda easy. poke | talk 21:50, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Also, if this were to be implemented, the hidden truth about this wiki could come to light, and we don't want that. (The truth being, we are all sockpuppets of raptors :P).

Now seriously: could this be used to detect a wanna-be vandal creating multiple accounts through proxies for later bypassing the move restrictions, in case they were to be implemented?--Fighterdoken 21:54, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

It gives us a far better chance of detecting pre-vandalism socking, so we can stop it all before they start. On another note, are there any visible downsides to this? Calor 21:57, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Just to point an argument against this and why said argument doesn't work: we have AutoBlock (that automatically blocks any IP linked to someone who has been banned), but the autoblock system, as Armond and Biro explained to me, is extremelly simplistic: an user going from IP 306.289.126.28 to 306.289.126.78 (no idea on the numbers, but the kind of thing I could get just by disconnecting and connecting again, for example) would completely bypass AutoBlock, while being easy to identify by a human watcher. Erasculio 22:04, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

u'd know how many of us who's actually raptors --Cancer Angel 22:08, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

We have very few cases where we would need to check for sockpuppets, mainly bureaucrat elections and those have worked fine without that before. So I don't see the need to install check user. --Xeeron 22:15, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Not installing something now because "things are ok now, but it might be needed later, but things are ok now so everything's fine" is, frankly, a bad reason. If it took five minutes to install, sure -- your reason would be fine. However, it takes a long time for something to be proposed, accepted, proposed to ArenaNet, accepted by ArenaNet, and then implemented by ArenaNet. In a case where someone is abusing multiple accounts for the sole reason of disruption, something that is incredibly feasible, that time simply does not exist. One has to have that tool ready in order to defuse such a situation. -- Brains12 \ talk 22:28, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Just a note, regardless of whether we decide to install checkuser or not, if this option isn't set, installing it retroactively won't allow its use for any case prior to its installation. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 01:29, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't see a need for it, we have not had many problems with socks (with the exception of the move vandal, but that got fixed). It just seems like a pointless invasion of privacy at this point (also, do we go by Anet's privacy policy... if so I don't think we can install it); abuse of multiple accounts has never really been a problem here afaik (again except for the move guy, but that was fixed a different way). I think this was just requested becuase of curiousity; heck I have even at points wished we had checkuser just so I would know who it was because of my curiosity, but it really isn't needed here. --Shadowphoenix 02:41, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Very well, let me try a different approach.

There has recently come to light a situation in which the username Droks has been taken on both PvXwiki and the official Guild Wars Wiki. The user of that name on PvXwiki claims that he does not own said username on this wiki, and expressed to me concerns that the account was "sullying his good name".

As an administrator of PvXwiki, it's my responsibility to help out in this sort of situation. With the user's concerns expressed (and, indeed, if the two accounts are not owned by the same person, the contributions on this wiki have shed an unwarrented dim light on the user of the other wiki), it's an administrator's job to address the concerns as best is possible.

In short: One administrator to another wiki, I want that user's IP addresses.

-- Armond Warblade 03:01, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Aren't names typically a first-come, first-serve thing, outside of a few significant exceptions? (ie: intentionally portraying one's self as Gaile Gray). Additionally, aren't you essentially asking for a breach of privacy? The use of information in that way would require an exchange of private information with a third party (PvXwiki), regardless of whether or not a person privy to the information is a member of both. I don't know if there's a special term for it, but it doesn't sit right with me. Unless PvXwiki and Guild Wars Wiki are essentially a single entity or are allowed to share information under their privacy policies. MA Anathe 03:55, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Edit - I see nothing that indicates the use of private information gathered by Guild Wars Wiki can or will be shared with PvXWiki, and I have to conclude that using information garnered at this wiki to make decisions at PvXwiki is a breach of privacy. However, PvXwiki has no such apparent constraints in its privacy policy, and using information from there to make decisions here doesn't appear to be problematic. MA Anathe 04:12, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

If one's IP address were private information, I could see where you're coming from. As it is, anyone on wiki can find out any user's IP with a few minute's work, assuming they've ever been banned, thanks to Special:Log. That is, of course, assuming they don't use any tools outside of the wiki - of which I'm sure there's plenty.

All the time I see people claiming that their IP is private information that can be used against them, when in reality the only thing you can do with that knowledge is spam the IP's talk page. (You could go into hacking business, of course, but if someone's determined to hack you, hiding your IP by not signing your comments isn't going to do you any good - as soon as you touch the internet, a determined hacker can find your IP relatively easily.) -- Armond Warblade 04:23, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm aware that even visiting a page logs your IP - but there's an expectation that your IP won't be distributed freely by most sites. For example, as a regular forum user, you don't get access to IP logs for Guild Wars Guru or Guild Wars Online. Perhaps wikis are different. *shrug*. MA Anathe 04:39, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Just a note, Special:Ipblocklist doesn't display the actual IPs for registered users, only numerical identifiers mapped to those IPs internally. You can't get the IP of a registered user from Ipblockist nor Special:Log. That doesn't, however, mean there aren't easy ways to acquire the IP address of pretty much any wiki user should a malicious individual wish to. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 06:55, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

So Armond, even if you get the (last used) IP of our Droks, what would that help? Most people of the world access the internet using a dynamical IP, so even if you find a good pair of IPs (one from here and one from PvX) that do match or do not, how could that help? If it is the same IP, you can assume that both users are the same so the user with the "good name" lied; if they are different, our Droks is a different one, and then? So do you want to punish someone because he was first and took a name which was used by someone else somewhere in the world wide web? Isn't it who registers a name first on a site, owns that name on that site? And even if a user would be punished, what would that change? The name will still remain registered. Also CheckUser won't help to prevent these things from happening.

Even as a sysop, who would probably even allowed to make use of CheckUser, I don't see a benefit from it. The MediaWiki software is made so when you are editing something as a registered user, your IP is hidden; so all contributions are assigned to your user account, not your IP identity. I agree that there might be a problem with users, creating a sockpuppet for malicious intent, but I still don't see how CheckUser would be good to resolve that. For me it is enough to block the user account which is doing those malicious edits. I don't see a need to try to find a user which's sockpuppet that account was; we don't disallow using sockpuppets (except for voting), so we don't need to find out about those sockpuppets. poke | talk 11:29, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm honestly surprised, Poke - I thought you would know that static IPs are, as a rule by every ISP I know of - quite different from dynamic IPs, numerically. I've yet to find a static IP that's similar to any other IP I've run across, and I actually started keeping track of some out of curiosity.

Additionally, as a rule, dynamic IPs only change the last octet or two of the IP. Even if Droks uses a dynamic IP, it should be fairly easy to tell if he's lying or not.

If he's telling the truth, then he gets a bit of respect on PvX and anyone with good sense ignores him here. (Just because usernames are first come, first serve doesn't mean it's right to try to impersonate someone else, deliberately or otherwise, imo.) If he's lying, he'll probably get a permaban over on PvX for even more trolling.

-- Armond Warblade 14:58, 20 June 2008 (UTC)