Forum:Ruling pages, false rulings prevention idea.

I have noticed many problems with the current Rulings pages. The main problem is the lack of ability to prevent false rulings from being placed on those pages. Currently, the Ruling pages have a block on them that prevents unregistered users from editing those pages. This is not strong enough. I was able to register with a new account and change a Ruling page within a minute. With the ability to change pages so quickly, the damage done can become troubling to undo. The page I changed, Card_Rulings:Winged_Kuriboh, was fixed by me immediately, however the point is that I was able to do this with a brand new account. I feel that there should be a block on all Ruling pages that prevents False Rulings from being created. instead, when a ruling is created or updated, for users to bring notice to an admin and they be the ones capable of adding/editing them. This would solve a lot of problems such as the False Rulings that have plagued pages such as Card Rulings:Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. It was recently blocked further, however I think there should be a site wide block. This is an attempt to get support for this idea as well as hear other's opinions. How do you feel on this? --LordGeovanni- (Talk To Me) *Kupo* 15:14, March 4, 2011 (UTC)

This should sum things up. Pretty much all new members do not know that they aren't meant to add unofficial/unsourced rulings, and some (albeit, very few) are just there to modify rulings to suit their own needs.

Hence restricting the Card Rulings namespace from being created/edited by new members as well would be good, and if possible, a note saying why and a link to Project:Card Rulings if they happen to try to edit the page would also be nice. -Falzar FZ- (talk page|useful stuff) 22:50, March 4, 2011 (UTC)

Since ATEM and many known judges as well as cool (not calm, just no-heat head) Admins have known all the rulings and always post correct rulings in those articles, not us the useless registered users and unregistered users. So I would like to know why those all ruling articles being lock and can only edit by Admins? So it could prevent the further chaos of argue and pie-smacking on the face rulings... I am still drink the coffee at this minute I am post this comment. --FredCat 12:23, March 7, 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with locking the namespace to admins only. Users who aren't administrators like ATEMVEGETA and Tetisheri edit a lot of rulings pages.

• For TCG rulings, what you'd basically have to do is leave a message on an administrator's talk page saying "Extreme Victory's rulings are up" and watch the admin do everything you would have done. That's basically getting someone to make both your edits and their own edits, while you do nothing. Having multiple editors to different things is a huge advantage, which would just go to waste.
• For OCG rulings, you'd have to locate and translate the individual ruling yourself and post it and the source the admin's talk page. That's about the same amount of effort as making the edit yourself, plus extra effort from the admin. Result is delay and unnecessary extra effort.
• When I first started here, I edited a lot of rulings pages. I don't think I would have done nearly as much if I had to ask someone else to make the edits for me. I'd imagine it would be the same with many other editors.

I don't think it's worth that hassle to avoid making ~3 reverts a day. The edits often get reverted quickly. Sometimes it does take a few hours, but that's the nature of a wiki. If we want this to be a site anyone can edit we can reduce but not eliminate the threat of someone reading false information. If you want a site with complete control over everything that gets posted, Wikia isn't the ideal place to start.

Pages where there is a persistent problem can be protected individually, like any other article. But I don't think it's necessary to lock all of them.

As Falzar said above, in most cases the problem is the users don't understand/know about the concept that rulings be sourced. It should be possible to add the notice that appears when you edit the namespace, saying what you can't add or change. -- Deltaneos (talk) 18:13, March 7, 2011 (UTC)

You would be talking about editnotices. I've been meaning to get them set up on this wiki for forever, but haven't taken the time to do so yet. 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · ☎ Dinoguy1000} 19:22, March 7, 2011 (UTC)

Deltaneos, the biggest problem is that there are so many false rulings being created. I talk often with other duelers over which site I use for Yugioh information. I always have someone make a jab about our site when I say that I use Yugioh Wikia. This site has a poor reputation because of these false rulings among other reasons. I am not asking for blocks on all pages or for someone to screen every edit before it is posted. I am asking for this wikia to prevent people from making incorrect edits to the Ruling pages, through ignorance or malicious ideals. The two options available to prevent these false rulings from continuing their oppresive rule over our reputation is to either block all non-Admins from editing those pages or to have an Admin who is always on, refreshing their watch page which has every single Ruling page watched. Since the second is not likely to occur, and the main idea that false edits even being able to occur is the main target for the opposition to our wikia, I think the Rulings pages should be blocked. With what you said, specifically that others (non-Admins that work on the Ruling pages) cannot edit those pages and the amount of work that would be needed to keep them current by Admins alone, yes that would cause some problems. I actually thought that ATEMVEGETA was already an Admin. Is there any level of blocking that can be placed on the pages, or position that can be given to users that Admins agree would only benefit the Rulings pages, that would solve this problem? I don't see a problem with a few more Admins that focus on the Rulings pages. I do see a problem with my example above. I created an account and damaged a Ruling page within 2 minutes. How many computers do I have access to? I am in college with access to many multiple computers. Block them all? I have libraries. I can go to over 12 different ones on my commute to college. Block all of them? I have many different friends who each have different IPs. This is the problem I see. I love quotes so I will end with one: "Anything worth doing is worth doing well". --LordGeovanni- (Talk To Me) *Kupo* 12:50, March 8, 2011 (UTC)

As Falzar pointed out above, this isn't nearly as large a problem as you think. There are not a bunch of false rulings being created; the rulings pages are only edited maybe 1-2 dozen times a week - and that is across an entire namespace containing several thousand pages. I don't think protecting all Rulings pages would do much of anything to improve our reputation among others; if you read between the lines, their real issue is with the fact that we're on a wiki, not that we occasionally have false rulings being posted, and as I have said before, people should not take what they read on the wiki as absolute truth. Especially in the case of rulings, we provide sources specifically so readers can confirm what they're reading against an official/reliable source; this is exactly the same as how Wikipedia works. 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · ☎ Dinoguy1000} 18:10, March 8, 2011 (UTC)

~3 false edits a day is not plenty and its easy to keep track of them since the recent changes can be filtered to rulings only. Out of all the areas of this site where false information can get posted, rulings is probably the most under control and the most reliable, since it includes sources. People who are saying not to trust this site because of a tiny amount of false rulings out of thousands (which include sources so you can check if they are right) are shown for a short period of time each day aren't going to be satisfied regardless of what we do.

It might be possible to have the namespace locked to autoconfirmed users, meaning you must have made ten edits and your account must be four days old before you can edit it. But I doubt that will change people who dislike this site's mind and it is unwelcoming to new users and may cost us potential new editors.

Someone with that many IPs and an intent to ruin the site is no more of a threat to rulings pages than any other pages. They're not that difficult to deal with and range blocks can be used if necessary. They usually do it to get attention, so it's unlikely that they keep looking for more IPs if they don't get the desired reaction to the first time around.

This site and most wikis makes information easy to access, but doesn't guarantee it to be correct. So nobody should be using this site as proof of rulings anyway. They can quickly look them up here, but if you want absolute proof, you must check the reference. That's the way this site is. If we change that we're not openly editable by everyone, which is the whole point of Wikia. If people don't want to use this site for that reason, that's their own business. If people aren't going to believe you because you got information from this site, the source is also listed on this site, so you can show them that instead. If people are going to tell people not to use this site, it is upsetting, but we shouldn't have to change just for them. The ideal response to them is to explain the nature of the site and how to use it to the same people that they've told not to use it.

-- Deltaneos (talk) 20:20, March 8, 2011 (UTC)

Well, I'll say my opinion too!

The main problem is that we have vandalisms on the Ruling Pages almost every day (even by just preventing unregistered users from editing). Ok maybe not so many vandalisms that can't be handled but we never had more than 2-3 per day. Before or after preventing unregistered users from editing we have more-or-less the same number of vandalisms per day -_-. So it would be good if we find a(nother) way so we can prevent those vandalisms to some level.

From what I read above there are 2 ways: The "only-admins can edit" way and the "namespace locked to autoconfirmed users" way.

Locking the Ruling pages so only admins can edit them isn't of course a solution because, first it goes against Wikia's mechanics that anyone can edit*, and second this would prevent some of the no-admin users that post official stuff to the Pages from editing. (Besides, this includes myself, so.... no thanks! xD )

The other way is the "namespace locked to autoconfirmed users" way, and I find it a great idea. Going with this, first does not goes against the Wikia's mechanics that anyone can edit, as anyone would be able to edit after they meet the requirement of the lock, and then I think that it would completely prevent the quick-account-and-vandalism users. Note that the most of the vandalisms come from those users, so preventing those should help a lot. Also I don't see why this is that much unwelcoming to new users. New users shouldn't start their membership to Wikia by editing the Ruling pages, right?

*By the way, lets remember that it shouldn't be that much of a problem if people couldn't edit the Ruling pages so free. We are talking about the Ruling pages here. Think that everything that's in there MUST be official, and I don't see many people besides a few posting something official there. Ok yes people are free to edit the Wikia but not the Ruling Pages.

So, my opinion is we put the "namespace locked to autoconfirmed users" and see how it's going. Will we have less vandalisms to the Ruling pages that way, or not? We can remove it later if we see that we still have the same vandalisms per day as before. Thoughts?

ATEMVEGETA (Talk) 20:23, March 14, 2011 (UTC)

I thought you were just guessing when you said we have about the same amount of vandalism/false additions now as before having the namespace locked to registered only, but looking at the stats Deus Ex Machina gave last time, it seems we are actually getting more false additions these days than the time sample back then.

To ruling pages in the past 30 days, there were 36 edits by registered user and 38 by anonymous ones (excluding sysops and repeated edits by the same user). Of these, 10 registered edits and 26 anonymous edits ultimately had to be reverted. There were 22 registered users editting and 34 anonymous users editting, of which 8 registered and 22 anonymous users made only erroneous edits. That's about 1/3 of registered users and 2/3 of anonymous users
Of these anonymous users, 7 were spamming, 5 were adding in correct but not on-official-rulings-pages rulings (or attempts to "correct"/add to official rulings), and 10 were adding incorrect rulings (or changing "cannot" to "can", etc). For registered ones, it's 1/3/4... --Deus Ex Machina (Talk) 17:53, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Also looking at that page, it was possible to add a prompt that appears when an anon (probably can be applied to autoconfirmed either) clicks save on a rulings page, asking if they're sure their edit applies to a given policy before they proceed to save. It can include a captcha if we want, but doesn't have to.

I think we should give the editnotices a try. If we still have a problem after that, then look at the autoconfirmed restrictions. -- Deltaneos (talk) 21:38, March 14, 2011 (UTC)

lol yea I kinda said in random that the vandalisms in the past days were more-or-less the same as now as I remember back then we had vandalisms almost every day as well. I haven't done a research or something as Deus Ex Machina did. xD

By the way, I don't think that a prompt will stop those quick-account-and-vandalism users from editing, but I agree to try it out and see if it will really work. If we still have the same vandalisms per day then we should try some more effective measures like the "namespace locked to autoconfirmed users" or something.

ATEMVEGETA (Talk) 22:39, March 14, 2011 (UTC)

Look like ATEM have grasp on what I was thinking, but I don't mean by just limited to only Admin, since ATEM is not Admin himself. "Autoconfirmed Users" is what I was looking for, as it helped to slow down the whole chaos all over the site. --FredCat 22:47, March 14, 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for not posting in a while, I agree with the "autoconfirmed Users" idea. Additionally, I agree that the "locked to only Admins" would probably not work. The main reason I made this pasge was already said above: Official Rulings rarely change, why should random users be able to edit them when they shouldn't change any more than once or twice a year. --LordGeovanni- (Talk To Me) *Kupo* 11:45, March 20, 2011 (UTC)

• Soooooo..... can we lock the namespace to Autoconfirmed Users some time soon?-Falzar FZ- (talk page|useful stuff) 02:23, April 22, 2011 (UTC)

Why bump up the month old article? --FredCat 02:29, April 22, 2011 (UTC)

Because it was never implemented and is still a problem. -Falzar FZ- (talk page|useful stuff) 02:31, April 22, 2011 (UTC)

If more people would comment maybe. This is a big change. Three users supporting and two somewhat neutral seems a bit too few to go to the next step. -- Deltaneos (talk) 14:00, April 23, 2011 (UTC)

I support, as it would save some time each date at least,-Resk™ (Talk) 09:19, April 24, 2011 (UTC)

Just to let everyone know, it's been done now. Only autoconfirmed users should be able to edit the rulings namespace now. -- Deltaneos (talk) 22:33, January 30, 2012 (UTC)