Problem: Vandals are hard to follow, as are new users.
Who would benefit: Better control of new users and vandals.
Proposed solution: At the very least, for administrators, it would be necessary to have a "user watchlist".
More comments: When we are reviewing articles, many times we see a user who has done something wrong, or has entered wrong data. We write a message to him in his discussion, and we watch the edits he makes for a while, to see if he has improved in his attitude. However, when you have written to many users, it is almost impossible to follow them all, so a watchlist of each user's edits would be interesting, at least for administrators.
We could have a star on the users, as we do with the articles, and have a "user watchlist" where a list of issues will appear separated by user, to see what each one has done. When we consider that a user is doing their job well, we can remove the star, just like we do with the articles. Thanks.
This was previously declined (5 whole years ago) as it was seen to be a major tool in 'harassment'. Basically, it would be trivial to write a script that does just this (User:MER-C just did that): collect the last ### edits of a set of users, sort them out, and display them in a watchlist-like-manner (that could be a user-script in my on-wiki .js, it could be on my own computer and no-one would see that I would 'script' except maybe CheckUsers). For N00bs: I can do the same things with a folder of bookmarks of user-contributions for these users and just every morning check them (as I do with my watchlist). Yes, having this might be a nice tool to harass users ('what have my favourite victims been up to') but that can be done anyway in undetectable ways.
Having this tool has some big benefits in 'following problematic users' (suspect spammers, socks, COI editors, etc.). To mitigate harassment one could make the user-watchlist-lists visible to users with advanced rights (e.g. that admins can see who others are following, though probably better only CheckUsers/Stewards can see it).
This ought only be implemented if for administrators only, and only usable on accounts with under a certain number of edits, as Bilorv suggests. Though I do often think of such a tool for keeping an eye on vandals, it could so easily be turned into a harassment tool. CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓03:32, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@CaptainEek: I strongly doubt whether this is becoming a harassment tool if you give visibility to the watchlist (e.g., admins can plainly see who you are watching, or have access to a Special:WhoWatchesWho which is bidirectional, or even a Special:WhoWatchesMe .. meh, even add a 'approve' for named accounts if someone wants to follow them - then in case of (group-)mentoring they will likely approve, but for regulars that will not happen, or they can later 'unapprove' if they at first did not have a problem with it). I have currently a watchlist of Wikipedia pages of my interest, which contains some filters and user contribs. This tool is literally nothing else than that. Whether I have 3 users that I 'follow around' through three clicks on bookmarks, or that I have one tool where I have all of that in one page is all the same. I really see no difference in harassing an editor through looking at their Special:Contribs every hour or by using this tool every hour. Can someone please explain me how this is (becoming) a harassment tool (pinging oppose !votes, I'd like to hear your reasoning: @MarioSuperstar77, Keepcalmandchill, Putnik, and NMaia:)? --Dirk BeetstraTC (en: U, T) 05:47, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I certainly think some checks and balances would be necessary, I like your suggestion of a needing approval, or making the watch watchlists be public/seen to admins. My fears would be that both our vandals and our veterans could use this tool for ill. Vandals could throw together a list of the admins they hate, and then use it to follow them and harass them, or keep an eye on who is active so as to evade them. Much harder to do with 50 contribs pages, but easy if its in one place. For veteran users, I can imagine it worsening feuds and disagreements and encouraging edit stalking. When two users don't quite like each other, and are on the other's watchlist, they would be more likely to follow the other around, and I can see a lot more IBans being handed out. I'm not fully against this, I too would like to be able to put vandals and hooligans on a sort of watchlist, but I do think a lot of preparation/rules are needed to ensure it doesn't become a tool of evil. CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓18:57, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Something like that is already working at pt.wiki and is actually helpful. We can track users that seems to be vandals/spammers at the beginning but we are not sure to block. We can track new users we are mentoring to see how their first edits are going.—Teles «Talk ˱CL@S˲» 17:05, 14 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
To further alleviate the concern of harassment: make it a right, ‘canwatchusers’, that is not standard given out to anyone. People who can show a use for it on a wiki can then be given this ability (mentors, spam-fighters), or wikis can decide never to give it out. The right can be temporary for mentors, who can only use it for the time of an event. —Dirk BeetstraTC (en: U, T) 04:29, 20 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Needs to be re-thought - for mentors/education/etc, allow users to specify who can "watch" them and for how long. For vandalism, make it a user-right, perhaps one that is NOT bundled into the "admin/sysop" bit. I have no problem with Stewards, Oversighters, ARBCOM, and others at that level being able to watchlist editors and make decisions about who else can watchlist people for vandalism control. On projects with many sysops/admins like en-wiki, I would be reluctant to include this in the "admin" bucket of rights. On projects with fewer admins, this might make more sense. There should also be a "global-watcher" user-right that is included in steward and some other highly trusted global- user-groups. I can also see value in having an "bot" account have this user-right to prepare off-wiki reports for use by highly-trusted abuse-fighting editors. Davidwr/talk15:29, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Voting
Support Should not only be possible for registered users but also for IP ranges, which should not be blocked for long-term, but from which vandalism occurs regularly. Aspiriniks (talk) 18:28, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support , especially for IP addresses, including the IPv6 /64 ranges who do not receive User_talk: messages due to IP hopping within the /64. Certes (talk) 20:44, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Conditional Support on this only working on accounts with fewer than X edits, and IP addresses and ranges. X should be as low as possible, like 100. I do not support unrestricted use for sysops or users in any group, as there are definitely cases of users with very advanced permissions using those for harassment or at least to BITE. The user should be unwatchlisted if/when they cross X edits. Positives would include mentoring new users and keeping an eye on IP ranges too large to block or people who have been given rope. — Bilorv (talk) 11:45, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose. Too much risk, if created that tool can be abused very easily and I think almost everyone can think of at least one admin on their project who they absolutely can not trust to use a tool like this. Meiræ14:38, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This will just lead to more HOUNDING or STALKING, absolutely not. If we want to mentor, there's some other ways to implement and if we want to monitor, we can use something less likely to be abused in the above mentioned manner. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 18:04, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Although I can see the uses; both from a counter-vandalism standpoint and from a mentoring standpoint, I share in the concerns about the potential for abuse. Moreover, I think this is pretty unnecessary, as the user contribution page exists. ONUnicorn (talk) 17:57, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose if users can't agree on being watched. Which means it could be a nice-to-have feature for mentors watching newcomers they agreed to work with. Trizekfrom FR18:49, 12 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support - access to admin only. And must have ability for admins to check who others are watching, for accountability reasons, etc. And based upon the "need" outlined in the discussion above, limit to very recent changes. (If an admin needed more than recent changes, they could just go and manually check a users edit history). Else, I would oppose this. - Jc37 (talk) 16:43, 14 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Already declined before, and too easy to abuse by random doofuses. For more experienced editors, MER-C and others have already built equivalent tools you can research how to find and use. This shouldn't be easy, since every troll and vandal would abuse it to harass legitimate editors. — SMcCandlish ☺☏¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 04:49, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
OpposeRhetos. I don't like the juxtaposition of "new users" and "vandals". As a casual editor, I would be quite put off if I knew there was some electronic ankle tag keeping track of me. Alternatively, I would welcome any electronic tool to notify mentors of my own choice of changes I have made. The difference is between Orwellian Control and Friendly Help. --Rhetos (talk) 08:33, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose the concept is good, yet that will base on an administrators personality and characteristics, and thus may spur harassment and cyberbullying in the internet :( JN Dela Cruz (talk) 05:38, 19 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There's definitely a good-faith way to use this to tackle serious vandalism, but I really really really don't see how this can ever be employed. What a user's watchlist contains is private information, and I don't think we could even imagine providing access to such private information to anyone below the level of an arbcom member. Uanfala (talk) 20:46, 19 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I think creating a page specifically dedicated for such users won't be much useful as it is just possible to look after them via bookmarking them and watching their Watchlist. Tylertoney Dude perfect (talk) 14:45, 20 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I understand how this can be useful in dealing with potential spammers, sockpuppets, vandals etc., but, in my opinion, it's too risky if used in bad faith. Ahmadtalk03:10, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Should not only be possible for registered users but also for IP ranges, which should not be blocked for long-term, but from which vandalism occurs regularly. Aspiriniks (talk) 18:28, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Per comment by Dirk Beetstra. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 21:03, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
Strong oppose. — putnik 18:48, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Weak oppose the concept is good, yet that will base on an administrators personality and characteristics, and thus may spur harassment and cyberbullying in the internet :( JN Dela Cruz (talk) 05:38, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
