947961 - Block/Remove user wiki account Taewong

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Websites :: wiki.mozilla.org, defect)

Description

[Jeff Beatty [:gueroJeff]]

The user Taewong has been performing unsolicited, unwelcome, and incorrect edits on Mozilla l10n team wiki pages. They do not appear to be associated with any Mozilla l10n team and have behaved in a manner consistant with behavior that resulted in their bugzilla account being revoked on the dev.l10n mailing list.

Comment 1

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

Note, Tae got his bugzilla access blocked over similar concerns in bug 594788.

Comment 2

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

Account disabled.

Comment 3

[Jeff Beatty [:gueroJeff]]

(In reply to Reed Loden [:reed] from comment #2)
> Account disabled.

Thanks Reed.

Comment 4

[Alison Wheeler [:AlisonW]]

I'm looking at the history of what this user has been up to [1] and I'm not sure I see anything 'wrong' (enough) to justify a ban per se. They appear to be doing mostly tidying-up stuff (correcting spelling, sorting lists into alphabetical order, etc) which, while it may not have been explicitly requested by anyone, doesn't seem as though ti should be objectionable. There are a lot of "(top)" edits there, meaning that their changes haven't been reverted (ie have been accepted).

In some ways it is nice that someone wishes to be a 'wiki gnome' and tidy things up / try to be useful; has anyone tried discussing the issues with the user to direct their energy into something maybe more useful? Is it worth trying? (I don't know what they did with Bugzilla though)






[1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Special:Contributions/Taewong

Comment 5

[Jeff Beatty [:gueroJeff]]

(In reply to Alison Wheeler [:AlisonW] from comment #4)
> I'm looking at the history of what this user has been up to [1] and I'm not
> sure I see anything 'wrong' (enough) to justify a ban per se. They appear to
> be doing mostly tidying-up stuff (correcting spelling, sorting lists into
> alphabetical order, etc) which, while it may not have been explicitly
> requested by anyone, doesn't seem as though ti should be objectionable.
> There are a lot of "(top)" edits there, meaning that their changes haven't
> been reverted (ie have been accepted).
> 
> In some ways it is nice that someone wishes to be a 'wiki gnome' and tidy
> things up / try to be useful; has anyone tried discussing the issues with
> the user to direct their energy into something maybe more useful? Is it
> worth trying? (I don't know what they did with Bugzilla though)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> [1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Special:Contributions/Taewong

I received complaints from localizers that the edits Tae was making were incorrect and being made without contacting the page owners first. Tae's edits incorrectly aim to correct the spelling of individual's names and their sorting. This ultimately adds more work for the l10n teams.

As for Tae's bugzilla activity, bug 594788#c44 is a good place to start. Tae has exhibited the same behavior on the dev.l10n mailing list.

Comment 6

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Tae also regularly sends me 90% incorrect edits to the Credits page. If he were able to edit it himself, I'm sure it would now have many errors.

Gerv

Comment 7

[Alison Wheeler [:AlisonW]]

Thank you both for the updates; clearly the right solution has been taken.

One thing though: guerojeff commented "without contacting the page owners first" - as this is a wiki then the existence of a 'page owner' is contrary to usual practice. The very core idea of a wiki is that anyone can edit and make corrections (so long as they *are*). Is it a general view that some pages should, however, not be as free to edit by all as they presently are? If so it might be more than appropriate to make that explicit, at least on those pages where someone/some team wishes to exert such control. 

A simple banner-via-template would suffice, but I hesitate to make such a policy change without clarification of whether that is truly the intention.

Comment 8

[Jeff Beatty [:gueroJeff]]

(In reply to Alison Wheeler [:AlisonW] from comment #7)
> Thank you both for the updates; clearly the right solution has been taken.
> 
> One thing though: guerojeff commented "without contacting the page owners
> first" - as this is a wiki then the existence of a 'page owner' is contrary
> to usual practice. The very core idea of a wiki is that anyone can edit and
> make corrections (so long as they *are*). Is it a general view that some
> pages should, however, not be as free to edit by all as they presently are?
> If so it might be more than appropriate to make that explicit, at least on
> those pages where someone/some team wishes to exert such control. 
> 
> A simple banner-via-template would suffice, but I hesitate to make such a
> policy change without clarification of whether that is truly the intention.

That is something that we'll have to figure out how to define. Off the top of my head, however, I would say that it's not so much a matter of control as it is a matter of responsibility. The l10n team leaders are responsible for ensuring that information is accurate and up-to-date. Anyone is able to edit the page to add themselves as members of the team or add information about the l10n work they do, but being that these team leaders are responsible for the content on these pages, it becomes a chore & a threat to that information's integrity when a user makes incorrect changes without the team leader being aware of the edits.

Comment 9

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

I'd add that the edits were also on information people added about themselves, and those weren't looped in. At least in the aspect of "I add my email here this way", it's OK IMHO to talk about ownership of the individual on that particular line in the wiki page. That's not how Jeff worded it, obviously. Just adding it as an additional perspective.

Comment 10

[Jeff Beatty [:gueroJeff]]

(In reply to Axel Hecht [:Pike] from comment #9)
> I'd add that the edits were also on information people added about
> themselves, and those weren't looped in. At least in the aspect of "I add my
> email here this way", it's OK IMHO to talk about ownership of the individual
> on that particular line in the wiki page. That's not how Jeff worded it,
> obviously. Just adding it as an additional perspective.

+1