Blocking users

post by PhilGoetz · 2011-02-08T23:55:55.090Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 13 comments

I noticed this recent Wiki edit:

http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/User:AllisonGibbons

which says:

This user is currently blocked. The latest block log entry is provided below for reference:

Odds are, it's a spambot.  But who can block a user, who decides who can block a user, what are users blocked for, and what recourse does a blocked user have?

13 comments

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comment by ata · 2011-02-09T01:02:20.466Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

But who can block a user

List of sysops

who decides who can block a user

List of "bureaucrats"

what are users blocked for

It appears that all blocked users so far have been spambots.

Replies from: None
↑ comment by [deleted] · 2011-02-09T01:55:06.819Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Interesting. Do all admins have the ability to promote articles, too?

Replies from: ata
↑ comment by ata · 2011-02-09T02:10:51.473Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Adminship on the wiki and on lesswrong.com are separate (they run on different software, with different user databases).

Here are the lesswrong.com moderators, though I think their powers are limited to editing posts and such. [Edit: that was incorrect, see Alicorn's reply.] Promoting posts is done by people labeled Editors (shown next to their karma score on their user pages), currently Eliezer, Robin Hanson, and wmoore. (I'm not sure if any of them actually do any editing/promoting other than Eliezer.)

And I don't think the LW software supports completely blocking a user, currently.

Replies from: Alicorn
↑ comment by Alicorn · 2011-02-09T03:25:25.479Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Moderators can't edit others' posts, we can just ban them.

Replies from: XiXiDu
↑ comment by XiXiDu · 2011-02-09T11:25:40.622Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Can mods see who voted on a post or comment?

Replies from: Vladimir_Nesov
↑ comment by Vladimir_Nesov · 2011-02-09T12:02:51.678Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

No.

comment by Vladimir_Nesov · 2011-02-08T23:59:33.814Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

This user posted spam. I banned 4 such users today that posted similar spam. Admins can ban users on the wiki, usually that's just me. I'm not aware of any case where a user that's not a spambot was banned on the wiki.

comment by gwern · 2011-02-09T01:51:48.650Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Is there anything wrong with adopting a standard like 'if it would get you banned on Wikipedia, it gets you banned here'?

Replies from: JoshuaZ, false_vacuum
↑ comment by JoshuaZ · 2011-02-09T03:18:21.551Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Is there anything wrong with adopting a standard like 'if it would get you banned on Wikipedia, it gets you banned here'?

Wikipedia has a lot of policies we wouldn't like. Neutral point of view would be the most obvious of them.

↑ comment by false_vacuum · 2011-02-09T02:00:08.049Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Do we even need to explicitly adopt such a standard at this point?

Wikipedia has its problems. I wouldn't be too eager to ape it in any detail.

Replies from: gwern
↑ comment by gwern · 2011-02-09T02:13:53.385Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Apparently we do given the existence of this Discussion post. Wikipedia's problems do not stem from its blocking policies but from subtler issues.

Replies from: false_vacuum, JoshuaZ
↑ comment by false_vacuum · 2011-02-09T02:27:52.984Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Didn't mean to imply that Wikipedia's blocking policies constitute a problem. Just that all we need here is the standard 'accounts that post spam will be blocked'. Which seems utterly uncontroversial, and doesn't even need to be made explicit.

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

↑ comment by JoshuaZ · 2011-02-09T03:17:43.960Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Wikipedia's problems stem from a variety of issues, including seriously haphazard ways of determining what results in banning for anything other than absolutely cut and dried stuff. Wikipedia has a lot of different problems. The project succeeds primarily because the problems exist around the edge cases and the vast majority of editing never runs into them.