Shark Bot is a page-restoration program written by Dave Voorhis and designed to counteract page edits by Grammar Vandal ("Nomad") - see Anon Is Still Banned, Cease And Desist, Zero Tolerance, Pissed Off And Extremely Angry for context.
Its edits can be identified as originating from the machine shark.armchair.mb.ca and/or computing-technology.derby.ac.uk.
To avoid being caught by the Shark:
Don't be Hard Banned.
Avoid editing with your User Name cookie set. If Grammar Vandal spoofs your User Name and uses it to amend your edit, the edit is likely to be identified as Grammar Vandal's and will be reverted. Your content will be lost.
Avoid Stupid Little Edits.
Avoid editing from open Web proxies.
Avoid doing minor tweaks to pages currently or recently in an Edit War.
Avoid doing minor tweaks to pages currently or recently in active discussion or development.
Email Dave Voorhis with your IP if your gnoming has been or might be caught by Shark Bot.
Note: A succession of attempts by Grammar Vandal to delete this page has corrupted the display of editing history in New Recent Changes.
Shark Bot is developed, monitored, accessed and controlled by me and me alone, for the express and sole purpose of enforcing Hard Bans issued by the stewards -- in particular that on Grammar Vandal. I am not, nor have I ever been, a steward of Wards Wiki. The stewards do not have, and never have had, access to, control over, or anything to do with the Shark Bot. Shark Bot is multifaceted; some components operate continuously and autonomously, some operate periodically and autonomously, and some involve my participation or intervention. -- Dave Voorhis
Dave, there's one thing I don't understand. When the shark zaps the GV edits - hooray - why doesn't it also edit Recent Changes to remove its own spam? -- Pete
That would probably be because I haven't written anything to do that. -- Dave Voorhis
Well it didn't occur to me till today either. I confess to feeling rather stupid but then ... I am rather stupid so that's really not so bad I guess. I've really enjoyed the last few days of GV-ess-ness and it would be very cool if RC was like that all the time ...
Yikes, call off your shark! I can't edit Network Extensible Window System! -- Ian Osgood
I recommend not editing with your User Name cookie set. That will significantly reduce the likelihood of this occurring in the future, as Grammar Vandal has been known to spoof User Names. -- Dave Voorhis
Surely, your script is User Name agnostic? I'm not going to start editing anonymously. -- Ian Osgood
Shark Bot is User Name agnostic. Grammar Vandal is not. He has, it would appear, spoofed your User Name on more than one occasion to make your edit and his edit appear to be the same overall edit in Recent Changes. Hence, I would encourage you to not edit with your User Name cookie set, because the "Ian Osgood" that appears in Recent Changes isn't necessarily (entirely) you. -- Dave Voorhis
By the way, there are obvious flaws to using this as a Shark Bot bug report channel (quick, Anon, report every page), so I would like to ask that all further reports be sent to me via email as specified on my Home Page. Anonymous and/or unverifiable reports will be given a brief but courteous reply, but will otherwise be ignored. Presentations of opinion or suggestions will be duly read and considered, but quibbles and arguments will not be entertained or sustained. -- Dave Voorhis
In my opinion, your shark should only revert an edit if it consists of nothing but nitpicks. Dave, I don't envy you the position you are taking on yourself: arbiter of all gnoming. -- Ian Osgood
Shark Bot is intended to revert edits by banned individuals, thus enforcing the ban. Whether a banned individual makes picayune edits or writes a solid proof that P = NP, the effect will be the same. -- Dave Voorhis
Sorry if I have missed something more important, but is spamming in Recent Changes the most significant reason you are reverting the careful work of individual by bot? To me it seems unbalanced emotional response that does not help to grow wiki.
Among the reasons listed toward the end of the Grammar Vandal page, none is more significant than another, though the last one is certainly offensive. However, the reason for developing the 'bot is more fundamental: Grammar Vandal is subject to a Hard Ban. Comments were made that there is no way to enforce a Hard Ban; now there is. Internet fora do not survive without a means to block significantly disruptive individuals.
It seems to me, by the way, that Wiki grows from contributions, not punctuation changes. Does changing '--' to '-', or "useable" to "usable", help grow Wiki? Does obstructing active discussions with pointless changes help grow Wiki? Does badgering an active participant until he leaves -- which Grammar Vandal did -- help grow Wiki? -- Dave Voorhis
I recognize Wiki Wiki as free game; if you wish to fight, do so. As You have better command of English than myself, I assume You are not against improving grammar here, but enforcing social norms. For various reasons I do not frequent wiki in last years, but too accurate grammar was never one of them. I would still suggest looking at each edit, to verify if text got better because of it. In many cases it's like that. -- Girts Kalnins (delete thread when read)
I am certainly not against the improvement of grammar or anything else. In this case, however, the improvement (or not) of text is not the issue. For reasons listed on the Grammar Vandal page, he is Hard Banned. The ban is enforced. The content, therefore, is irrelevant. Had Grammar Vandal not obviously acted in an anti-community manner, he would not have been banned, and he would be free to improve Wiki. Now, the improvements will be done by others. -- Dave Voorhis
April 2007: How sad that after all these months Grammar Vandal is still banging his head against the sharkwall. -- Earle Martin
August 2007: Folks, this page is active. I have no idea if these are good or sad news. -- Girts Kalnins
Attempts to engage Grammar Vandal in Positive Dialogue have been made numerous times. The most recent was my request that he email me. He did not do so, and instead posted an email address for me to email him. That was contrary to the conditions of the request, as I indicated at the time. The page was then deleted. Grammar Vandal has clearly indicated his unwillingness to compromise or alter his behaviour. Positive Dialogue works when the participants have a common goal. Grammar Vandal's goals are clearly something other. Furthermore, Grammar Vandal has been issued a Hard Ban by the stewards. This clearly indicates the time for dialogue is over. -- Dave Voorhis
Notice: old cruft on this page may be arbitrarily removed and discussion refactored, as is usual procedure on this site. -- Earle Martin
Any chance of a shark-vetted spin-off of Recent Changes - either a black-list-filtered one that shows all edits that haven't been made or reversed by Shark Bot, or a white-list one that shows the edits that have been passed by Shark Bot, again omitting edits by the Shark Bot itself? If the current situation has come down to a contest of patience between Anon and the rest of Wiki, then anything that makes the wait less unpleasant for the rest of us is conducive to victory as well as comfort.
The 'bot is a collection of heuristics. As such, it can and sometimes does trigger a false positive, in almost precisely the same manner that virus scanners and the like sometimes trigger a false positive. I will tune the heuristics to hopefully reduce the likelihood of this occurring in the future.
If anyone is interested, I've created a Grease Monkey (Mozilla Firefox plugin) script that hides the shark entries from the Recent Changes page. It's very nice.
-- Andrew Nelis
Sweet! -- Dave Voorhis
Returning after an absence, I crossed paths with shark.armchair.mb.ca zealously reverting changes in a way that I found troublesome. Questioning the Shark Bot in Wiki Vandals I was called ignorant or troll. Wards Wiki used to be a place where Positive Dialogue and Assume Good Faith where the normal. Harsh Words would be avoided or removed by a Wiki Gnome. I searched for shark.armchair.mb.ca and found no matches. After reading about the Shark Bot, I'm not convinced the cure is better than the disease. Wiki Gnome has stopped, the cure might be killing the patient -- Martin Spamer.
Since making this comment I’ve received an enlightening email that has convinced me that Shark Bot is necessary. I’m still disappointed that the first response to my initial comment was attack. Though I’m starting to appreciate the damage that has been done to this community that made this possible. This wouldn’t have been case in the past and I’d like to appeal to everybody to try harder to restore Wards Wiki to a Positive Dialogue Community. –- Martin Spamer.
How do the rest of us know that that last comment was really you, though?
My email address is easily found; feel free to email me for confirmation. -- Martin Spamer.
Additional comments moved from Wiki Vandals.
I forgot where I read it, I think it might have been personal e-mail, but I think this wiki will eventually be retrofitted to use some kind of public, open identification system to track legitimate users, and block known offenders. I wonder what the status of that is. -- Samuel Falvo
The "shark" thing is an (attempted) response to the Grammar Vandal. I don't think a sign-in system will provent Grammar Vandal-like attacks for the same reason that spam is such a difficult problem, mainly spoofing and zombies. Grammar Vandal is a determined person. I would guess the only way to stop him/her/it would be to trace the zombies back to the source and bust him in the courts for zombying. Many are just hoping he will tire and go away.
Need the Shark over at The Adjunct! Is it possible to get some help over there? We've got a spammer that just won't quit. -- Bruce Pennington
Dave, you have let the vandal mess up the version of the sandbox so that the ascii-art is now fouled when you, or your bot, restores it. Please do not reverse my changes. -- Dial1.Seattle1.Level3.net
That was me. Sorry. I thought I was smarter than my 'bot, but my 'bot is smarter than me. I should have left well enough alone and let it do its job... -- DV
Thanks! -- Dial1.Seattle1.Level3.net
DV, why is Changes In Week, and Recent Changes such a mess? Is anyone going to fix this, because so far I see your bot is insisting on reverting whatever it is that someone is trying to do. Should I just jump in and fix the mess, or are you going to do that? -- Dial1.Seattle1.Level3.net
Grammar Vandal has been doing Changes In Week. I allowed it for a while. Now, no more. I'll fix it when Grammar Vandal is gone. -- DV
OK, thanks! -- Dial1.Seattle1.Level3.net
Jeff Grigg did ChangesIn pages for a few years until GV took over that job. -- Eliz
A confirmation: Yes, I, Jeff Grigg came up with the ChangesIn pages, to replace the old ChangesIn pages when the monthly pages started to get crazy big. But I stopped maintaining them several years ago, and was happy to see that others (even if it was the Grammar Vandal) took it up. -- Jeff Grigg
Someone or something has broken Changes In Week Nineteen. The entries are not there, and neither are they on any of the entries at /wiki/history/Changes In Week Nineteen. If this is Shark Bot, then I suggest that the cure is now more harmful than the disease.
I don't have it set to auto-revert Changes In Week Nineteen, and I don't recall using the Shark Bot to manually revert any edit to Changes In Week Nineteen, though it's possible (but rather unlikely) that I did so in a fit of absent-mindedness. The Shark Bot has no special access to /wiki/history, and uses precisely the same mechanisms that a human editor uses. If there's a failure in /wiki/history, it must lie elsewhere.
This does make me wonder if anyone actually uses Changes In Week. It would be relatively trivial for me to use some of the Shark Bot infrastructure to automate Changes In Week, but there's not much point if Changes In Week are being updated without purpose. I've never seen the point in it myself, but maybe that's just me. -- Dave Voorhis
The top edit removed almost everything, and is identified as Donald Noyes, though given that he still self-identifies it could actually be an honest error by him. Alternatively, it could have been overlooked by someone doing the Changes In Week process. All of which leaves me confuddled as to what the numbers on New Recent Changes are supposed to mean, since in my moving some lines up the page and adding one word, NRC has recorded those two as "-141" and "0 del" respectively.
Grammar Vandal has deleted and re-created Changes In Week a number of times, perhaps in a futile attempt to confuse the Shark Bot. Repeatedly deleting and re-creating the same page often mungs New Recent Changes. -- DV
You're breaking it again. Regardless of causation, the actions of Shark Bot are your responsibility. I am not going to ask your permission to edit. -- Anonymous Coward
Why not? If you're not Grammar Vandal, I can whitelist your IP and you'll be free to edit all you like. -- Dave Voorhis
{You can't usefully whitelist a dynamic ip address.}
I can whitelist a range. -- Dave Voorhis
{That includes potentially anyone using the same service-provider.}
Possibly, but not necessarily, and ranges can be expanded or contracted as needed. IP-based filtering is an imperfect mechanism. -- DV
[Braces added to distinguish a different Anonymous Coward] I believe this still amounts to requiring your permission, not to mention defining me by my IP address(es). I don't believe you have any business in requiring anyone else to prove to you that they are not the Grammar Vandal, but rather it is for you to prove they are (which it would seem you've been able to do previously). "Tell me who you are, or the Shark will eat you!" Unless the entity known as Dave Voorhis is merely a alternate facet of Ward Cunningham, of course, in which case it would be entitled to do so :-)
I am not an alternate facet of Ward Cunningham, unless the voices in my head know something that they haven't been telling me...
I can appreciate your point that I shouldn't represent some gateway through which editing or identity must be proved, nor should I in general require participants prove they are not the Grammar Vandal. However, this is a special case, I think you may be making a mountain out of a molehill, and furthermore I would argue that the value of keeping Grammar Vandal at bay is worth the minor inconvenience of being whitelisted. The less he/she/it is allowed to edit at all, the more likely he/she/it will (eventually) recognise the utter futility of even attempting to edit anything here, and the sooner he/she/it will find other ways to amuse him-/her-/itself. At that point the Shark Bot can be turned off, and all this ceases to be an issue. -- Dave Voorhis
Rule #61: Any argument claiming "this is a special case" within five words of the start is wrong, without exception. There Is No Such Thing As Temporary :-) I as an Innocent Bystander am beginning to ponder the utter futility of my attempting to edit anything here, because of your zeal in dealing with one problem user.
Are you sure you're not overreacting here, and are being (at least in part) the architect of your own frustration? It is, after all, trivial for me to whitelist you. -- Dave Voorhis
My edits to this page are being reverted almost instantaneously, and somehow this is my fault? The bot is evidently slightly broken, and its behaviour as of this moment makes the cure worse than the disease. I object to needing to be whitelisted in the first place, and especially don't want to have to notify a complete stranger of all the places I could be access the Web from. It's a poor excuse for not simply improving your heuristics from observations. New term: Voorhis Turing Test - whether or not a given system is able to distinguish between a human being and the Grammar Vandal. :-)
Neither the Shark Bot nor myself are yet convinced that you aren't the Grammar Vandal. I note that you demonstrate a somewhat more, er, chatty style than that previously exhibited by Grammar Vandal, but I wouldn't put it past you, er, the Grammar Vandal to try new tactics. The Shark Bot, of course, has no opinion on that. It's a machine, and has other reasons to believe you might be the Grammar Vandal. If you're not the Grammar Vandal, then I apologise for the inconvenience and irritation. If you are the Grammar Vandal, then, well, nice try. For the time being, myself and the Shark Bot shall continue to gather data. If it turns out you're one of the good guys, then your continued tolerance would be most appreciated, and I will endeavour to re-instate your edits as appropriate. -- DV
The bot seems to rely on the nature of edits, and assumes that most articles will not be refactored or substantially changed very often. At times, it appears to be attempting to detect dictators by using vegetarianism, university education, and a love of the sound of their own voice as heuristics. A better solution would be to whitelist the Changes In Week pages, which - by their nature, and as a set - change radically and frequently. If you must insist on undoing edits to those pages, at least leave them out of the detection mechanism, since on pages where grammar and presentation play little part you have no reliable means to identify the GV from those pages alone - with other pages you might get false-positives, but if you include CIW then it appears that false-positives are guaranteed, and the bot will attack anyone it doesn't "know". It's generally clear from the diffs that substituting last week's edits for those from 53 weeks ago is certainly not a Stupid Little Edit, and "Grammar Vandal edited these" as a heuristic for detecting the GV is anywhere between not-particularly-good to Brain Damaged. Locking out legitimate users is not a desirable side-effect, and the general consensus is that sacrificing good users for the sake of one annoyance is a Bad Thing, and any time now I'm sure Top Mind will present us with Objective Evidence of such.
I agree that locking out legitimate users is not a desirable effect, but I would argue that allowing Grammar Vandal (as determined by a gaggle of heuristics, which are -- like any heuristics -- prone to false positives and negatives) any opportunity to edit is worse than preventing edits to Changes In Week. I have offered to automate updates to Changes In Week, pending some confirmation that it's actually of use to someone. I've not seen any such confirmation, and strongly suspect that Changes In Week are being maintained purely because it seemed like a good idea at the time, not because the good (?) idea is actually of value to anyone. As such, I have little problem regarding Changes In Week as nowt but maintenance for maintenance's sake. Therefore, inadvertently preventing legitimate users from maintaining an apparently pointless index is of considerably lower concern to me than (a) allowing Grammar Vandal any edit opportunities, or (b) inadvertently locking out legitimate users from editing meaningful content.
I'm not sure that the decision of whether or not CIW is useful is yours to make on behalf of the rest of us. After all, people that do use it don't have to tell you. Certainly from watching Recent Changes, it appears that Donald Noyes certainly finds it useful - the relevant evidence might be on Changes In WeekSomething if you've allowed it to stay there. I find it useful, particularly as a back-reference when I've been off-grid for any length of time. A good part of the problem is that your perception of CIW as useless may be self-fulfilling - your bot specifically breaks the most useful part, namely that around the join point, since attacking recent behaviour is by necessity. I still suggest that to be hitting legitimate users this badly all for the sake of excluding one person is overkill. The Grammar Vandal may have behaved despicably, but I'm fairly sure it can't give you AIDS. You also need to think about how long the Grammar Vandal has been a problem - the earliest trace I can find in January 2006. The cad has been at it for two and a half years - you need to stop and consider whether GV is actually taking some perverse pleasure from all the in-fighting and that your actions are actually feeding the troll. The assertion that allowing even the slightest opportunity for GV (one user) is a worse outcome than inconveniencing dozens of real people (including some that unlike me have been here even longer than yourself), however slightly, is nothing short of crazy talk. A little less aggression is needed here - the Shark can patrol the bulk of wiki while any damage that GV does to CIW would be manageable by humans. Maybe there's even a good edit in there, and there's no sense in killing good edits just because of who's done it - otherwise you risk Demolishing The Autobahn.
You've made some good points. In the interest of moving forward on this, I will turn off automated reversion of Changes In Week edits (at least under the conditions that have caught you) if others are in agreement that doing so is the right course of action. I think it is appropriate, at this juncture, to solicit comments on this matter from other participants.
By the way, why the pot-shot at Top Mind?
-- Dave Voorhis
Perhaps a more pressing problem should be the fact that that there is a gateway not requiring the magic code on simplewebs.com.
Can you confirm that simplewebs.com bypasses the secret code word, as opposed to the public code word? -- DV
All I can see is that an edit can be pushed here through there (preserving the source IP address) without having to enter anything. Without access to any logs or the internals, I can't say which code word it's passing on. I edited through it earlier, and it seems to have added a smiley at the top. However, I'm not going to remove it for fear that the shark will simply undo the entirety of my edit.
A simple investigation suggests that simplewebs always provides 567 as the code word, as it's hardcoded. I would think your reply above practically guarantees GV will continue, whilst all other users, unless "recognized" will not be able to, say, correct spelling alone, since that would be assumed to be a GV edit. Similarly, your logic implies that a whitelisted ip that reverted your bot's edits more than once would almost certainly cease to be whitelisted unless you knew for certain it wan't GV, despite your assurances that users other than GV would be allowed to correct spelling, etc.
Other users are free to make spelling corrections, etc. Mere spelling corrections are generally not sufficient to trigger the Shark Bot; other indicators are used. However, Changes In Week, due to their obvious lack of textual content per se, are handled differently. -- DV
By definition, a simple reversion of a Shark Bot edit would be sufficient, but in many cases would be the simplest way to correct spelling. Your remark above about not being convinced implies that even as a human, you can't identify edits accurately.
Identification of Grammar Vandal is based on a determination of probability, which in many cases -- but not all -- is 100%. That applies to both human and 'bot. -- DV
The wording "but not all" implies "not 100%", but if you rate yourself on a par with your bot, you must concede you have no real basis on which you can spot mistakes by the bot; by definition, you must almost always agree, even when in error.
Over time, the 'bot has proven better at some things than I am. I am better at some things -- e.g., softer "human" heuristics -- than the 'bot. In some cases, like this one, the 'bot's confidence in detecting Grammar Vandal is high in areas that have proven reliable in the past, but mine is somewhat (but only somewhat) lower due to certain "human" factors mentioned above. Therefore, I will defer overriding the 'bot until I have more data. -- DV
20080627T1604Z - the top edit on Aviv Eyal appears to be a null edit:
img104.imageshack.us
vdiff doesn't show any change either.
The Shark Bot reverted a change to whitespace. -- Dave Voorhis
The last change to Edit Page was a null edit by the bot, not even whitespace changed.
It was a reversion to a prior version of that page, distinct from the subsequent edits. -- DV
There are no subsequent edits to that page.
I meant those edits subsequent to the prior version. -- DV
It was distinct by definition, but it was a null edit, so it did precisely nothing. Why make a null edit?
The Shark Bot determined that one of the edits, subsequent to the version to which it reverted, was made by Grammar Vandal. -- DV
Then it should have reverted that edit, not made a null edit. If someone else reverted it first, that should have been detected and no action taken.
Why bother? The Shark Bot was designed to Do The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work, much like this wiki. As such, it oozes imperfection but gets the job done. Grammar Vandal: Go edit Wiki Pedia, and it becomes a non-issue. -- DV
That is untrue, since taking no action is necessarily simpler than making a null edit.
Given a set of conditions C which may trigger a reversion R, and another set of conditions Q which may desirably -- but not necessarily -- prevent a reversion R, it is simpler to consider only C in performing R, than to consider both C and Q in performing R. In other words, Do The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work means the minimum code needed to trigger necessary reversions, even if that has a side-effect of very rarely generating a so-called "null edit". More code would be needed to prevent the occasional "null edit", so it would no longer be the simplest thing that could possibly work. -- DV
What you called "one of the edits" must have been the last edit, so reverting the previous edit as well by restoring an earlier version (which happened to be the same as the current version) cannot possibly have been a simpler choice corresponding to a simpler condition C.
...Except that "one of the edits" doesn't have to be the last edit. Is there some point to this, or are you just quibbling? For the last time, let me put this very simply: Like a dozen or so similar quirks, the "null edit" would take more code to "fix". Hence, the simplest thing that could possibly work is to leave such issues rather than "fix" them. Now go edit Wiki Pedia. -- DV
It did have to be the last edit in the particular circumstances, where the previous edit occurred a long time earlier and had nothing in common with a GV edit and everything in common with a newbie test edit. That edit was (correctly) left unchanged by the bot . . . until a second edit occurred. Your explanation is absurd, as the action taken plainly was not the simplest way to act that would "work". The bot could not have known that its restoration would be a null edit, as discovering that needs a far from simple process. It's also absurd to suggest that pursuing the simplest course involves a dozen or so similar quirks. The simplest course is to revert (or not revert) the last edit, and that cannot result in numerous quirks capable of being noticed, only a very occasional false positive.
Pursuing the simplest course of development action almost inevitably results in quirks and oddities, especially given the Good Enough-is-more-than-enough development process I used to construct the 'bot in the first place. Note the number of quirks and oddities in this Wiki, which was presumably developed in a similar manner. Also, what might appear to be "the simplest course" from an observer's point of view is not necessarily the simplest course from the developer's point of view. Furthermore, I happily admit the 'bot is imperfect, and that there's a list of bugs as long as your arm. However, it does the job for which it was designed and the net negative effect of the bugs (most of which no one sees but me) is minimal. This "null edit" issue, for example, I consider so negligible as to be unworthy of further consideration. If it really upsets you, then it's a feature, not a bug. -- DV
The fact remains that the bot failed to revert the preceding edit that it deemed to be by GV, carrying out a null edit instead.
Could be. It happens. -- DV
A False Positive occurred recently when a valid change (not by GV) to Abilene Paradox was reverted.
Could be. It happens. -- DV
So it's down to you to rectify the situation, not just shrug your shoulders.
It's on my "to do" list, but with one so-called "null edit" occuring per several thousand reversions, and given a "null edit" (or a whitespace alteration) has no effect on actual content, it's not a high priority. Even better would be for Grammar Vandal to finally realise that his/her editing here is a futile waste of energy, and find a place where his/her efforts will be appreciated, like Wiki Pedia. -- DV
Nomad will never understand priorities because it is a sociopath, and cares only for what it wants. I wouldn't bother devoting too much time to replying to it if I were you. -- Earle Martin
Point taken. Sometimes I forget that attempting to reason with Grammar Vandal is also a futile waste of energy. -- DV
There are other people that disagree with you, you know.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck... -- DV
Dave, check the bot's protection of Wiki Ascii Math Symbols [and Boost Library Discussion [fighting over the letter a?]]. -- Seattle1
I think there was a false positive today reverting some changes to Wiki Wiki Web. Someone else has reverted back. -- John Fletcher
Yup. I think I've fixed it. -- DV
All excuses aside, this bot causes me to cuss a lot. After all of this time, my IP address is hardly a secret, yet the bot causes me to still heartily cuss at its author whenever we cross paths. -- Seattle1
It's a machine, dude. It's got all the intelligence of a toaster (or, more accurately but less dramatically, all the intelligence of a spam filter), and it can't tell your IP address from a hole in the wall until I tell it your IP is "special". If it makes you feel better to cuss at me, that's cool, but it won't help. What might help is to remember what Wiki was like when Grammar Vandal was unrestricted. -- DV
Yes I know, the bot is needed and has made a difference (both good and bad), but it still makes me cuss sometimes. I will choose to Cuss The Shark, that way I won't offend you as much, and I can still vent! -- Seattle1
It was much better then, as changes by Seattle1 could stand without your permission being sought in advance.
Of course you'd think so -- you're Grammar Vandal. Bye bye! -- DV
Why (a) require permission to be sought in advance, and (b) have no provision for those who don't have a fixed ip? You seem to have no reason for either.
I don't require (a), and (b) would require ESP or magic. Now go edit Wiki Pedia and leave us alone. -- DV
You do require (a), as you said so above in reply to Seattle1 after his edit was reverted for no reason, and (b) is no problem for other sites.
I do not require (a), however in some cases whitelisting the IP is helpful. On other sites, there are login-based authentication mechanisms that reduce the need for IP-based identification, but still typically employ it as part of a blacklist capability. Now go edit Wiki Pedia and leave us alone. Kthxbye. -- DV
[August 16 2010] First I played the game with the cookie name before seeing the cookie was pirated. So I removed the cookie and then, my categorizing actions were reverted by the Shark Bot (I did quite a few bunch on hundreds of pages - sorry to try to help). That's really stupid!
Shark Bot is decategorizing pages I just categorized to have an automatic index! Guys, this is really really counter productive. Those pages will be hard to find again. Cause I am not going to play the Wiki Gnome again on those pages - and believe me some of them are very interesting but a new comer will have no chance to find them. So what! What's the philosophy behind? Having content that people won't be able to find? If it is not, the Shark Bot will have to be recoded to be smarter: For instance not revert small changes that contain the word "Category" in the text! (terrific enhancement!)
Frankly, coming from other wikis, I must say that reverting good actions (including "small things" such as categorization notes) is the best way to have this wiki abandoned despite of its great content and to legitimate the non structuration of the content. At least, you can be sure that it is a way to prevent occasional users to dive into the wiki to discover its marvelous content. That seems totally silly to me, I can hardly believe it!
Proposition of (smarter) solution against spam: Why don't you name official Wiki Gnomes (with some rights) for a while that take a commitment that they will do cleanup and categorizing in a set of pages for let's say 1 or 2 months? Guyz, with the number of people that have a page here!
I think people got probably used to that stupid bot with time and so they probably limit their actions to adding content + category (when they think about it). I was caught, I understood the message. What is pissing me off is not really understand the full rules or to discover them far after the changes are done - THANKS GUYZ I TOTALLY LOST MY TIME HERE (several hours). Cause we're here in the summum of the Anti Patterns applied in real life, before my eyes, live and in action! A code that is worst that the syndrome it is fighting against! That's not serious.
And for new comers for me, full of envy to make the content findable (and structured - guyz we're in IT and we like structuring things don't we?), OK, that's a really Bad Thing. For me, I'm done, I'm over. I accept having disagreements with people and fighting about editing pages (It occurred to me twice in more than 10 years) but doing a nice job and seeing it destroyed by a stupid bot, that's really silly.
Well I guess, the priority of c2.com is the content and the priority is not finding it. But remember Borges and its Babel library: all users of c2.com don't have a lifetime to find "the" page they are looking for - or to lead some kind of investigation. Better pirate those pages and put them in another wiki where anti-spam will be less silly. I am very upset by that but well, I have to think about helping somewhere else. You killed my motivation, really. On the other hand, noone invited me here so I suppose this is all my fault for trying to help on subjects I like a lot.
Best regards Shark Bot, Wiki Gnome killer. You had me.
-- Olivier Rey
P.S. I let a page full of things to do. I am so bummed out!
The pages that you categorised, which were reverted, were reverted because Grammar Vandal edited them after you did. You used a User Name cookie and Grammar Vandal spoofed it. Unfortunately, due to the way Wards Wiki works, edits with the same User Name cookie are amalgamated. When Grammar Vandal edited the same pages you edited, his edits were reverted, which obviously reverted yours as well since they're now the same edit.
When I see this sort of thing happening "live", I generally override the Sharkbot in order to preserve the legitimate edits. In this case, I didn't happen to see it happening. The Shark Bot's reversions were retained. Since you now edit without a User Name cookie, it won't happen to you again.
In the long term, deleting the pages referencing the User Name cookie would probably be a good idea. It will prevent future Wiki Gnomes from being caught by this sort of thing.
Sorry for any inconvenience. -- Dave Voorhis
Yeah, uh, Olivier, about that -- not every page of this Wiki need be categorized. Sometimes pages just need to be. It might be a Good Thing to wait a while before jumping in as you did. You created a huge pile of new "categories" that were minor branches of already existing categories. We don't need quite that level of detail in organizing this Wiki's content. Please Please Dont Categorize Every Page On Wiki.
And as for newbies and casual visitors: if you found it why can't they? This is what Find Page is all about, is it not? Yes, the search functionality is a bit weak, but it will suffice to find discussions on topics of interest. Trust the other visitors to this Wiki to be as smart and as persistent as you are.
Really?!! Regarding Wabi Sabi, you want the bot to choose "embrassed" over "embraced"? This is the problem, no? Really now...
The 'bot can't spell. It's really good at other things, though. -- Dave Voorhis
See: Grammar Vandal, Anon Is Still Banned, Cease And Desist, Zero Tolerance, Pissed Off And Extremely Angry, Shark Bot Considered Harmful
See original on c2.com 