Wiki Vandalism Analysis

What are the requirements for good WikiVandalismSolutions? It is a tough question. I suggest we break the analysis into four phases:

  1. Phase one, we list our internal factors that annoy us.
  2. Phase two, we list specific externally observable triggers that lead to the phase one items.
  3. Phase three, we describe the externally observable behavior of others that leads to the phase two items.
  4. Phase four, we enumerate whole strategies that others take, leading to observable actions listed in phase three.
  5. Phase five, we guess about the internal motivations of the others that lead to the phase four items.

All jokes about "phase zero, we list the phases", will be promptly vandalized. :)

Note that these lists are formatted in a specific way so that they can be processed by the visualization program. Please stick with the format, or at least make your format change consistent so that the page is still machine-readable. Each item has a short name that is highlighted in bold. Items can refer to other items with the (leads to: xyz) syntax, where xyz is a short name that is defined elsewhere.

Phase one: What are the things we dislike?

  1. I dislike clutter. (leads to: gnome, topicality)
  2. I dislike offensive content. (leads to: topicality)
  3. I dislike being tricked into reading nonsense.
  4. I dislike when useful content is discarded.
  5. I dislike extra work.
  6. I dislike being singled out. (leads to: wronged)
  7. I dislike dishonest people. (leads to: suspicion)

Phase two: What are the patterns we recognize in the actions of other users?
  1. I conclude a massive spam attack happened. (requires: spam, quickly) (leads to: clutter, extra work)
  2. I conclude a user's edits have been targeted. (requires: delete, revert, offend) (leads to: singled out, discarded)
  3. I conclude useful content has been removed. (requires: delete, revert) (leads to: discarded)
  4. I conclude many minor edits have been made. (requires: quickly) (leads to: clutter)
  5. I conclude someone has stubbornness beyond normal limits. (requires: controversial) (leads to: nonsense, dishonest)
  6. I conclude flame bait was added. (requires: offend, controversial) (leads to: offensive, nonsense)
  7. I conclude off-topic content was added. (requires: new, offend, controversial) (leads to: clutter)
  8. I conclude that someone is masquerading. (requires: masquerade) (leads to: dishonest)

Phase three: What are the externally observable behaviors of others that lead to the above triggers?
  1. I place new useful content on wiki.
  2. I place spam on wiki.
  3. I add content that is designed to offend.
  4. I place clearly controversial content on wiki.
  5. I delete a page.
  6. I revert a page to its previous state.
  7. I make changes quickly.
  8. I masquerade as multiple personas.

Phase four: What are the strategies that users take to annoy us?
  1. I will spam many pages. (leads to: spam, quickly)
  2. I will hide spam on a small number of pages. (leads to: spam)
  3. I will target any action taken by a specific user. (leads to: delete, revert, offend)
  4. I will expose another user as being bad. (leads to: offend, controversial)
  5. I will ignore relevant content or customs. (leads to: offend)
  6. I will delete offtopic pages. (leads to: delete)
  7. I will make minor corrections to many pages. (leads to: quickly)
  8. I will contribute new content to wiki. (leads to: new)
  9. I will defend my views by talking louder than everyone else. (leads to: quickly, controversial, masquerade)
  10. I will repeat my views. (leads to: delete)
  11. I will do anything and everything to annoy others. (leads to: offend, controversial, delete, revert, quickly, masquerade)

Phase five: What are the intentions that lead users to do things that annoy us?
  1. I want to increase my google page rank. (leads to: spam many, hide spam)
  2. I want to irritate others. (leads to: annoy)
  3. I want to expose wiki as a failed technology. (leads to: annoy)
  4. I have suspicion of others. (leads to: target, expose)
  5. I feel I have been wronged. (leads to: target)
  6. I want to enforce my personal view of topicality. (leads to: delete offtopic)
  7. I like to be a wiki gnome. (leads to: corrections, delete offtopic)
  8. I like to defend my controversial views. (leads to: louder)

[[[This is a work in progress. I expect to do some more refactoring and then tie the two ends together, showing how regular users can be drawn to the dark side. Also, add a section to discuss cycles in the graph.]]]

Here is a visualization of the dependencies among the above items (the "leads to:" references). The colors indicate which phase an item belongs to (in R,G,B,C,Y,M order). See WikiVandalismAnalysisVisualization for details.

The picture came out as pretty unintelligible this time... still trying to tweak with dot's attributes.

Q: The pictures may look pretty and allow the occasional cycle to be spotted, but what other use do they have?

A: Some people think better in pictures than in lists.

Q: How will guessing the internal motivations of vandals help us find solutions?

A: Technical solutions can only address some problems. Many problems are better solved by improved understanding and communication.

Q: Given a large enough population or enough time, every possible internal motivation will induce vandalism. Any effective solution must succeed regardless of a vandal's motivation.

A: We can't address everyone's unique motivations, but we may have some success by generalizing and addressing some that appear to be common.

CategoryWikiSecurity

EditText of this page (last edited May 9, 2005) or FindPage with title or text search