> On 29/12/2008, Brian <brian.min...@colorado.edu> wrote: >> So why are you wasting the ISPs time and the police's time when the best of >> the passive technology routes have not been explored? Using machine learning >> *you pit the vandals against themselves. *Every time they perform a >> particular kind of vandalism, it can never be performed again because the >> bot will recognize it.
on 12/31/08 1:15 PM, Ian Woollard at ian.wooll...@gmail.com wrote: > > There's an infinite number of ways to vandalise the wikipedia, and, in > practice, not all forms of vandalism can be detected by any known > design of bot, or humans with complete reliability for that matter. > > I know something of machine learning myself, although I am not an > expert. In principle it can learn anything, in practice, there are > many problems and if you have *any* other way to do something, you're > normally better off. > > Vandalism/spam is a difficult enough problem that *any* method should > be investigated and if it is found to be effective, applied, not > simply technological ones. But we need to stick to proportionality- we > should never use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. > > Jarlaxle is only 19; as I understand it the human brain does not fully > mature until maybe 25. Unless he's actually mentally ill (which is by > no means inconceivable) he is likely to stop of his own accord at some > point. You are treading on dangerous and uncertain ground here, Ian: the difference between mental health and emotional health. I am not suggesting that the guy be dragged off in chains to somewhere. But a strong, in-person message - both to him AND his parents - from an authority spelling out the consequences if he does not stop could go a long way towards resolving this. Marc Riddell _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
