Guild Wars Wiki talk:Talk pages/Archive 3

"Removal of clear vandalism and spam. "

I take issue with this clause, since it's clearly easily misinterpreted as "I can remove anything I want and justify it by calling it spam." See User talk:Ryuu Desu, User talk:Kaisha. I strongly suggest removing the phrase "and spam" completely; if something is clearly spam (for instance, the same message 30 times), then it falls into the vandalism category anyway. When there is gray area, it causes needless disputes, revert wars, and butthurts. elix Omni 03:37, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Removing the spam clause would pretty much allow free reign for "legitimate spam", however. "Spam" should probably be better defined so that the grey area is eliminated. -- Wandering Traveler 03:40, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Either way, the wiki is not msn/facebook/aim/myspace/kazaa. -- Armond Warblade{{Bacon}} 03:42, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) There is no legitimate spam. Either something is spam, and thus bad, or it's not. A message may be pointless without being spam- and you can argue that it's a "waste of bits and bytes," but removing the comment does not actually free up any space- neither does deleting the page. And Armond, that phrase has become as empty as calling Wyn passive aggressive. It's not an argument, it's just another way of saying "Herf derf." elix Omni 03:45, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

What is spam and what is not is just as you said: "Clearly misinterpreted". Simply defining it better would solve that. -- Wandering Traveler 03:46, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Call it empty if you want, but that doesn't make it not true. If you want to chat, wiki is fine. If you want to social network, there's a plethora of other ways to do it without annoying the shit out of the rest of the wiki. -- Armond Warblade{{Bacon}} 03:50, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) But it doesn't matter, because a comment simply shouldn't be removed just because someone thinks it is spam. If it's disruptive, intentionally obtuse, insulting, argumentative, etc, then it's vandalism or NPAing, and no one would argue against its removal, because arguably its removal will have a positive effect on the wiki. But removing a comment just because one person sees it and thinks "Huh, that's spam" has absolutely NO benefit to the wiki. However, it CAN be destructive, as tonight's events show. elix Omni 03:51, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Clearly, we need a much more concrete boundary as to what's acceptable and what's not on the User space. There is too much wikilawyering on both sides because the language of the user policy is too loose. --Lania Elderfire 04:05, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with language. I will state this as simply as I can. Regular users should not be removing other users' comments unless it is clear-cut vandalism. Regular users should not have the discretion to censor each other. That is an administrative function. elix Omni 04:14, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to have to agree with felix on this point. Spam isn't just a message you don't like on a talk page. It either needs to be clear vandalism, or overt spam (which this last incident did not fall under). --JonTheMon 04:16, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I guess one way to look at it would be that spam = vandalism....which would remove a good portion of gray area. From a personal perspective, I thought UF's comment was spam, but if the user has no problem with it and it isn't "vandalism" then its okay.

Ugh, this is confusing. -- Wandering Traveler 04:23, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

WT, why would the policy mention both vandalism and spam if they weren't different? --JonTheMon 04:29, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I'd prefer if it didn't. Vandalism is something every user should be able to recognize and agree upon; spam is far too subjective, and giving all users license to remove any comment by labeling it as "spam" is simply asking for trouble, since no one is going to bother gathering consensus before removing it. elix Omni 04:34, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Honestly, Jon, I'm still trying to figure that out. Theres a gray area, and discretion has led to cases like this. So....I'm not sure what to think at the moment. -- Wandering Traveler 04:42, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I switched every instance of the words spam and vandalism in this section and got the same conclusions. :/ -- Armond Warblade{{Bacon}} 04:44, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

In that case, you should probably learn to read and stop spamming a discussion about spam. elix Omni 04:50, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Spam is filling up the RC with wtf entries for an hour. Again, this is NOT MSN, facebook, or any other type of IM or social networking. Talk pages in general, and more specifically User talk pages are suppose to be used to contact the user with legitimate questions, concerns about something they have posted, or other Guild Wars Wiki related topics or the specific content of the associated article. Unfortunately, on a wiki such as GWW, where 95% of the game documentation is complete, and the tasks left are in so many peoples opinions minor (meaning they don't wish to spend their time doing them), this community has degraded to the point where that is being forgotten, and the use of talk pages has degraded to the state of an instant messenger. I think rather than removing this clause from the policy, the community needs to remember the purpose of GWW, and if they want to "poke" each other, they should get an IM, facebook, or other more appropriate form of contacting each other. Those users who abuse this clause to remove legitimate topics/comments from their talk page should be warned, and face bans. -- Wyn talk 04:51, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I think that the things like what UF did (I did like it, though). Was considered spam as It is something you'd find on a myspace, facebook, etc., page. Not here. This is more like what Wyn said and I feel those like Felix, etc., have forgotten that. This is not a forum or a community (like those just mentioned) personal gathering, this is more so a wiki based for a game, about a game. Kaisha 04:56, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) @Wyn: If your primary concern is recent changes, then surely you realize that the removal of so-called spam only adds more entries? Furthermore, I have never seen anyone attempt to remove the type of spam that you speak of- that is, long conversations made of single-sentence posts, usually about some deviant sexual act, that go on for hours.

@Kaisha: Show me where on facebook or myspace you can find a meow made of hearts. Don't whine about the social networking crap again, because it's non-applicable. elix Omni 05:01, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Create a page and I'll place it there. :-P . Just attempt it yourself as well. Btw, it is applicable here, can't say it's not. Kaisha 05:03, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

As we discussed in IRC, a lot of people here seem to have no idea what social networking actually is. Social networking is building friendly connections with other people that will prove mutually beneficial later, particularly in a business sense. It's not just shooting the breeze, and it's definitely not a single message composed of little hearts. elix Omni 05:05, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

OMG! Shows what little you know of Social Networking. I have been on Many and some I prefer not to name. Several sites have used comments similar to the heart and even the heart. I can say that a single message of hearts, would be removed on many places that are not Social Networking. As many of these places call things like that "spam", not just here recently. Kaisha 05:09, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

OMG! Good argument. Learn to write, I'm sick of not knowing what you're talking about. Now then, returning to the topic, which doesn't have to do with social networking.

Wyn, I don't think it's a realistic solution to punish people who misuse the policy by removing whatever they please, because such a judgment applies discretion upon discretion, creating even more complicated unnecessary nonsense. Simply remove the possibility in the first place, and you remove the problem. As for the mindless drivel that actually is an issue on this wiki, this particular proposed change does not deal with it, but if you have any workable ideas I'd be happy to support them. elix Omni 05:13, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

What's the matter Felix? Can't you tell a legitimate talk page question from spam? If it's related to a wiki issue, discussion of something someone posted, etc, it should stay, if it's bs back and forth crap about what their dog did, or things that are just simply not GW related, it doesn't belong. And yes, RC is where spam is a problem for this community, I mean, seriously, where else would spam be a problem? Please keep IRC discussion out of your arguments, since not everyone in this community is on IRC, and therefore they have no relevance to this. As for the wub spams, blame Pling for that, he created the wub template to begin with, and yes, I was a major abuser of it for about a month when he did. Get off it Felix, there is no need to change the policy, rather there is a need to change people's attitudes. -- Wyn talk 05:34, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

@Felix, Learn Life, Social Networking, etc., and stop hiding behind a chat place that will teach you nothing. Kaisha 05:50, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I only mentioned IRC to let you know that I and other people have already discussed the relevance to social networking (there is none), and then I recapped it all for you anyway. I guess it was a sensitive buzzword for you two though, so I apologize. I don't really see how you got the idea of the wub template being a problem, but for the most part I think your input can be summarized as "the policy shouldn't be changed, and people should be removing everything they consider spam whenever they see it." Yes? elix Omni 05:57, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Only you and the buddies of the IRCabal discussed it. Which by the way should be "what goes on the wiki, stays on the wiki" not bringing it here. You forget that part. You obviously don't know spam or how all of this relates to the other sites, nor what a real wiki is. You apparently want to leave things on here to clutter up the wiki and to allow trolls more attention.

Let me refresh your memory. A wiki is NOT a Social Networking site and should NOT be treated as such. That's why we have Guidelines and Policies to help maintain what this wiki is. People are allowed to remove spam. Definition: Spam is flooding the Internet with many copies of the same thing. Basically multiple of images, etc. Kaisha 06:16, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Felix, I don't have a clue why you are being so hostile about this. Obvious spam does not belong on talk pages, and a user should be free to remove it, as they remove vandalism. I don't propose that people go around removing "spam" from talk pages willy nilly, but rather that the community as a whole needs a wake up call, from those who care about it that their behavior is inappropriate, and if such warnings are ignored and the behavior continues, the sysop team should be asked to place a ban, as that is a part of their function. Removing clauses from policies because it is too much trouble for people to actually enforce it properly is not necessarily the best answer for gww in general.

Kaisha.. give it a rest. Or take it to your talk page or Felix's. -- Wyn talk 06:33, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) I suppose I am coming off hostile, Wyn, so I will try to tone that down. It does irritate me, though, that people are using a policy mainly to piss each other off with no benefit to anyone. What I'm really opposed to here is not the removal of spam- I can't tell you how sick I am of seeing the same little group of people cluttering up talk pages with the same garbage every day. But I am very much opposed to users policing each other's talk pages, cherry-picking single contributions to remove (and then argue about) while entire pages are filled with useless crap elsewhere. I really do feel that removal of non-vandal edits is best left to the user of the associated talk page or to a sysop's discretion. When 90% of contributions currently occur on talk pages, it's simply not a good idea to grant the power to remove those contributions to the entire userbase. elix Omni 07:12, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

People seem to be under the false impression that any communication unrelated to GW or GWW is detrimental to the purpose of this wiki. A small amount of idle chatter and building relationships is a good thing. Naturally 30kbs of hearts or wtf or talk about how fat my dog is getting since he found my secret stash of twinkies is less appropriate. The policy says "clear spam", at least I believe the adjective clear is supposed to apply to both nouns. The case that riled all this up was far from clear. One section, about 30 lines, one off. It would be ridiculous to ban for it, has proven pretty ridiculous to remove it, but a warning that in the future this is not acceptable from a sysop or community consensus would be fine. With full community backing removal of clear spam is no problem. Someone trying to restore the word "gil wors!" repeated over and over to a level that required significant scrolling would be facing bans. A revert war followed by walls of text over this is pretty ridiculous. Misery 07:08, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

The practice of the community (meaning the entire userbase) policing itself is a core principle of wiki's. Warning users that their behavior is inappropriate has always been open to everyone, and imo should continue to be. Where I see the problem is not in the policies, but in the wiki lawyering that they are being used for. No, users should not just remove what they consider "spam" from other user talk pages, but should let the posters know that it is inappropriate. Yes, users should be allowed to remove "spam" from talk pages associated to their userpage, especially if a "warning" has been placed, thus the clause in the policy. As for non user associated talk pages, I believe that the spam clause is more related to things like this, where the post was clearly unrelated to the main page, or for that matter Guild Wars in general. Quite honestly, I have no clue what triggered this, but off the top of my head, I would guess that Kaisha removed something that she considered "spam" from someone else's talk page, citing this policy as the basis for that removal. This would be inappropriate in my eyes, as are many of the things that Kaisha does in the name of GWW policies, but that is neither here nor there, and if this is indeed the case, the call to remove the clause is inappropriate. -- Wyn talk 07:33, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. Let's do nothing and just act more sensibly in the future. Misery 08:57, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Felix on this. The policy was fine when nobody was trying to wikilawyer with it, but people like Ariyen haven't a clue as to what constitutes actual spam and will bend the rules to the limit in order to remove comments s/he disagrees with. Our options to deal with the situation are thus; ban the user (that removed comments) for wikilawyering and sticking with the "loose rules enforced by sysop discretion" method (and then actually enforce it), or update the policy in some way to let it be known that users aren't supposed to do that. Doing absolutely nothing here, as Misery suggests, is a bad thing, unless the addendum "act more sensibly" somehow includes punishment for future disruption caused by removal of valid comments. Until now, nobody was clueless enough to try to break the rules and use this policy to defend themselves; but when people see that it's okay to do so, more and more people will remove comments and claim that it's spam. Doing nothing, as sysops, will let it snowball into an actual problem. -Auron 09:58, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

And the problem with ban the user (that removed comments) for wikilawyering when that is an obvious disruption is? But ok.. if you want to update the policy, try a "How do deal with spam" section that says:

Users should not remove what they consider "spam" from other user talk pages, but should let the posters know that it is inappropriate.

Users are allowed to remove "spam" from talk pages associated to with their userpage user space, especially if a "warning" has been placed.

That, imo would be better than simply removing the clause from the policy, since it does have other uses (see my above example). -- Wyn talk 12:18, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Well Auron, Kaisha has already been told by me that her actions were inappropriate, so sensible future operation would be for a sysop to ban her if she did it again. A sysop could be more specific in their warning if they wish. That being said, not super opposed to Wyn's suggestion. Misery 13:09, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I guess I may as well say my part as it was my initial revert that most likely started this. As I said on my talk page, while it may be spam, it may be a legitimate message for Ryuu. If Ryuu considers it spam, on his/her page, then shouldn't Ryuu remove it? And for the record, what do you know, Ryuu actually wanted it kept.

While I'm not a fan of UF's comment of making a message out of the wuv template, why should users be able to go around and find what they define as "spam" and remove it. If it was extremely clear spam, like filling a page with how much Mhenlo likes the male genitalia, yes go ahead and remove it... There's been plenty of this sort of stuff around, even on sysop pages (even though they should be treated as equals, they aren't), have these users gone around and removed that "spam"? Also may I ask, it was a huge wall to read, but why is Kaisha taking more of the brunt for this? She shouldn't be the scapegoat for it, she was but one of the three people that removed it. ~Celestia 13:32, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

what are you even talking about? -Auron 13:54, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Along the lines of Wyn's suggestion, I'd just move the "and spam" down to a new line with Wyn's second clause. And really, a lot of people are just being overzealous about this, especially the people after Celestia's re-adding of it. An edit war over spam is.... ironic, actually. I didn't think a policy change was needed, but it just seems that people have forced it to be clarified. --JonTheMon 14:01, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Wyn's clause is definitely a good solution. Not much else to say there. -- Wandering Traveler 15:55, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I prefer wyn's clause, so that problems like this don't escalade to my talk, when I'm not the only one reverting obvious spam. Secondly, it'd help solve this type issue, despite that spam in it's self really shouldn't be allowed, but i prefer it limited then at least. Makes for less problems and issues and people realize what can be / can't be accepted. Kaisha 16:50, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Wyn's clause is nice, it'll help a lot. But it won't help with people who still use talk pages like myspace etc; which only a subset of users here feel that it's a major problem, and others don't feel using it like myspace is even a problem at all.--Lania Elderfire 17:42, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

The only ones that don't think it's a problem at all are the ones doing it... my guess is that if everyone who thinks it's a problem tells them they think it's a problem, and they continue, the admins would then have something to act on. I do agree that a small amount of socializing is not a problem, but when two or three people fill up the RC with idle banter on user talk pages, it then becomes spam, and is a problem. That's when they need to be told to get an IM program.... and most often they are. I don't believe this needs to made into policy, as long as it's treated with some consistency. -- Wyn talk 20:13, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I also have no problem with Wyn's clause, except change "associated to" to "associated with." But that's just wording. elix Omni 20:20, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with that. The "to" is more with subpages, etc. I don't think the "with" would fit all that well. Kaisha 20:49, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

No, you don't understand. "Associated with" is proper English. "Associated to" is not. elix Omni 21:10, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, "associated with" is grammatically correct. "associated to" is not grammatically correct but it pops up a lot on translated technical reports and articles so much that some of us has accepted it...and I didn't even notice it until you brought it up since I got used to seeing that so often.--Lania Elderfire 21:23, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Associated to is grammar correct in the way it's used. Kaisha 21:25, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

No it's not. You're wrong. Stop sidetracking. elix Omni 21:26, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Am in college and it shows that usage. You're the one sidetracking. Kaisha 21:28, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

"with" ftw (not that you can really win against grammar, devil that it is) --JonTheMon 21:31, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Just because published articles, books, and journals use improper grammar doesn't make it proper. Many foreign countries use bastardized version of English. I know because I have to deal with horribly translated "official" published peer-reviewed documents from other countries on a daily basis. --Lania Elderfire 21:35, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

So English books are wrong, and you're right? *laughs*Okay, go have fun with what you "know'. Kaisha 21:49, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

And again, "Kaisha" is largely involved in some drama due to her hubris and absolute lack of common sense the moment I come back to check things on wiki. Pika Fan 21:53, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

zzz. A couple of years ago, people used to discuss policy all the time (and arguably too much), and people, looking back, feel that the utter bureaucracy was stifling and ridiculous and that it was a low point in the history or development of the wiki. I kinda wonder how people in a few more years time will view the crap into which discussions nowadays descend. It probably won't be any better. -- pling 00:06, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I think we've still got too much bureaucracy. I wish people could just improve things when they need improving and ban people when they need banning. I'm very liberal. :> is for Raine, etc. 15:47, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

+1 too much bureaucracy. Rules are meant to be broken. If it's not a rule, it can't be broken, if you catch my drift. --Macros 16:28, 24 March 2010 (UTC)