Lets Slow Down Deletions

From CrazyThingsThatMightSaveWiki

Make deletion of a page a 3-step process, which must be completed by 3 separate IP and/or each step must be separated by 24 hours.

• Step 1: Anyone can mark a page as "deletion candidate", this marking will not show-up in QuickChanges or RecentChanges. Any editing of the page will clear the "deletion candidate" marker.
• Step 2: Only deletion candidates may be deleted as before, but by IP other than the one marking
• Step 3: Commit the deletion as before.

The main purpose is to slow down the deletion process, with step 1 ensuring that actively editing pages will not be deleted easily. Step 1 not showing up as changes also discourages EditWar over the delete. That combined with the 24 hours delay makes it harder to delete a lot of pages because even if you have multiple IP, you still have to (1) remember the pages you have marked, (2) hopes no one edits them, (3) go back to delete them, (4) hopes no one undeletes them, (5) go back to commit the delete.

• It won't prevent people from blanking the whole page though.
• That's pretty clever, but note that it assumes that deletions are the problem, whereas sometimes page creation is the problem; the clearest example being pages created from scratch by spammers. This solution is unbalanced in actually assisting spammers to that extent.
• You may be assuming that recent wars have been primarily about inappropriate deletes only, but this is far from clear; multiple regulars here could be argued to be doing inappropriate deletes and inappropriate restores, both, sometimes by the same person. Alternately, you could claim that one side of these wars is right and the other is wrong, but which right and which is wrong is far from clear; it depends on personal opinion, and which page you're talking about.
• So any proposed solution really should be somehow balanced in addressing creation or restoration with delete.
  • Perhaps SlowDownToSpeedUp is applicable here? We somehow slow down both creation and deletion of pages, and thus forcing good-intentioned people to spend more time thinking, while at the same time make it less "interesting" for people looking for a fight, because any delete wars "volley" will span days instead of happening in minutes.

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Slow Delete mechanisms already exists in the form of IsThisPageOk? --DavidLiu

• It was observed before that creation has been much more laborious (spammers using automated tools aside). I agree and we need to slow down deletes (for pages without http links) much more than create new pages. A delete only takes less than 5 keystrokes.

I also think person(s) wishing to have an existing page deleted quickly should not operate from a IpUsername, as WikiTrolling operate in the same manner.

Slow delete mechanisms already exist in the form of self-control!! I never second a deletion until the next day when I can check the BackLinks.

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Automation is the root of all evil

I think it's quite easy to stop automated attacks. To edit a topic you should enter the letters that are drawn in a way that can't be OCRed. That's how Yahoo! stopped the automatic mail account creation. Isn't it a good idea? the principle naive. [That's not a bad idea, one small feature, and it'd at least keep the script kiddies away. But it won't stop the edit wars over these stupid blacklist pages.]

Edit wars are part of the wiki life. I don't know if we should stop them. Avoiding automated manipulation of the wiki seems the way to be able to make a human controlled enviroment possible.

-- To reduce random vandalism, make editing a bit more difficult to figure out. Make somebody read a FAQ for a few minutes before editing is explained.

Hmm...make the EditText link show up only if they've read the FAQ? That screws up people without cookies, though. Put the EditText link only on the FAQ page? Maybe not.

• Have the EditText link put you to a FAQ page or license page, or something like that. Then you have to OK or ACCEPT or something like that to actually edit a page.
  • And maybe have the order on the page of the I AGREE vs. QUIT boxes randomly generated like it is when starting up the WinZip? eval.

CategoryWikiProgress