CZ:Moderator Group

Welcome to your friendly local Constabulary!

Basic info

To "call a constable," please write constables@citizendium.com

Our list of constables

Constables are available to resolve disputes and rein in troublemakers. Please do not criticize other people's behavior on the wiki. Such criticisms may be deleted. Please bring the matter up with the Constabulary.

Some handy links for constables

Many of these links may not be visible to non-constables.

Listed below are the features, the functions associated with the features, and what we use those functions to do.

Block user

• Block IP address, email, or username: basic vandalism response is to block the username; we also block usernames for real names policy enforcement
• Prevent new account creation given IP, email, or domain: if a vandal might create new accounts, prevent him from doing so by checking "Prevent account creation"

Check user

• Look up IP addresses given username: when a vandal creates multiple accounts from the same IP address, ban the IP address using Block user; but the first step is to look it up using this tool
• Look up usernames given an IP address: use this to check if a vandal at a given IP address has created other usernames
• Get all edits associated with an IP address: use this to see what vandalism from a given IP address needs to be undone

List of blocked IP addresses and usernames

• Find recent blocks and list contributions: a way to list quickly the "contributions" made by vandals

Move log

• Lists recently moved pages: use the "revert" link to quickly revert illicitly moved pages, which has been a favorite pastime of vandals

User creation log

• Lists newly created accounts: an efficient way to scan new accounts, to check for well-formed names, people who haven't yet been welcomed, and review new bios

Block log

• Lists recently blocked usernames, IP addresses, e-mail addresses, and domains: used to tell which accounts have already been blocked by other constables; useful together with the user creation log

Policy and help pages

• Constabulary Policy (in Policy Outline)
• Constabulary Blocking Procedures
• New Account Review Procedure
• Blocked throwaway e-mail services

A guide to constable procedures

Constables, the following is an informal guide to how to do your job.

Account blocking

Constables are able to block accounts for various reasons. Here is how and when.

Ill-formed names

Our binding policy on what names are acceptable and unacceptable is found on the create account page and New Account Review Procedure. A few extra notes for constables:

• We don't like it, but we will accept lowercase names, names written in CamelCase, and the occasional other weird variant.
• We generally block accounts created in the form "F. M. Last". But a good idea is to put something like this in your block explanation: "please contact constables@citizendium.org if you can show that you publish under this name".
• If someone happens to have the name of some famous person, or some other unlikely name, but which could be a real name, then the procedure is to ask the person for some proof that it is in fact his/her name.

The easiest way to block an ill-formed name is to look at recent changes or the user creation log and click "block," found next to the offending username. Occasionally (for whatever reason) you need to get to the "block user" page directly. That is linked above.

When using the block user page, we always give a reason for blocking, such as "Incorrectly created account (full name needed)."

We do not give warnings to people with ill-formed names. That's because the solution is simply to create a new account.

Vandalism

The main way to stay on top of vandalism is to monitor recent changes on a regular basis, and ban vandals as soon as they appear. We aim to have at least one constable on the wiki at all times as a sort of vandalism watch.

To block a vandal's username, simply click "block" next to the username as it appears in recent changes.

But if it looks like a vandal is creating more than one account to vandalize from, then we should block the vandal's IP address for a week. To do that:

• Look up the IP address. Go to check user, paste in the vandal's username (doesn't matter whether the username has already been banned), and click "Get IPs". It isn't usually necessary to fill out the reason.
• Then go to "block user" and put the IP address in "IP Address, email, or username," select expiry of one week, and press "block this user." Done!

Note that this is not always effective, simply because some vandals' IP addresses are shifting within a range, or they switch proxies. (We should be banning all open proxies if we haven't already done so.)

Troublesome users

There are many other reasons to ban people other than ill-formed names and vandalism.

See Constabulary Rules Enforcement Procedures for details.

Undoing vandalism damage

So far we've seen basically two kinds of vandalism: old-fashioned idiotic misediting of pages (e.g., adding insults or dirty words), and page moving. Our tech guys are at work making the latter more difficult.

"Reverting" old-fashioned vandalism is as simple this:

• Go to the vandalized page.
• Click the "history" tab.
• Click on the last legitimate version in the history.
• Click the "edit" tab (for that old version).
• Simply press save.

Or even simpler...use the vandal's user contribution page...

"Reverting" page moves can be done in two different ways. First, the hard way:

• From recent changes (or another list of changes), click on the page that was moved (not the page that it was moved to!). Notice "(Redirected from <page title>)" in small print near the top of the page? Click on <page title>. This will take you to page that was moved.
• On that page, click "history". Make sure there's just one edit there (i.e., the move edit). It there is more than one, ask for help from someone more experienced.
• Go to the page that the page was moved to.
• Press the "move" tab.
• Type in the correct name.
• Do check the "move associated talk page" box (if it comes up; it will come up only if there is an associated talk page).
• Press "move page."
• Finally, you have to delete the old page that was moved from. To do that, click on the page you want to delete, follow the "(Redirected from <page title>)" link, and when you get to the redirect page (which you just created), click the "delete" tab.

Second, the easy way:

• Go to the move log.
• Locate the page that has been moved. Click "revert."
• Delete the old page that was moved from. To do that, click on the page you want to delete, follow the "(Redirected from <page title>)" link, and when you get to the redirect page (which you just created), click the "delete" tab.

The "constables" mailbox

You should get instructions from another constable about how to access the constables@citizendium.org mailbox.

We would like to keep "Inbox" clean. Most of the folders should be self-explanatory. Do look in and read the contents of "For our reference".

The constables mailing list

If you are a constable, you should be subscribed to this list. Contact Larry Sanger (at present) if you're not.