Problem: There are certain crosswiki vandals who will go to a user's talk page and leave harassing comments. When they get blocked from that wiki, they will just go onto another wiki where an account exists for that user and leave more harassing comments. And on and on until a steward intervenes. Since these are done with throwaway accounts and proxies in many cases, this just repeats itself over and over.
Who would benefit: Those being harassed crosswiki
Proposed solution: Allow for a user's talk pages on every wiki to require autoconfirmed permission to be created/edited, using some sort of list hosted on Meta that only stewards can edit (similar to what we have for spam and titles).
Can't this just be done using a bot? (& if so, that'd be easier to do, too). It'd have to run under the account of someone authorised to semi-protect pages globally (a steward, I guess?). It'd be a diversion from the global bot policy and the steward policy, I guess, so maybe it needs an RfC to be permissible or whatever, dunno. But I think technically this may be more feasible than a software edit. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 02:43, 17 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Even better, a user should be able to activate semi protection on their own pages themselves, and do it globally as well. No need to bother stewards or others with this - if I want to enable semi for my user talk pages on one or more wikis, I should be able to do it, easily. Just like we now have some enhanced options for who can send email to you. --Piotrus (talk) 04:12, 17 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Piotrus, it comes to mind for me that such an option might be able to be abused by users trying to prevent others from having real discussions with them, but I don't know how likely or serious of a problem that could be. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 18:51, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah. If the harassed user semi-protect their user page, the harassing user would just edit their talk page or ping them on any page. Some users may also semi-protect their page to avoid having a discussion instead. RXerself (talk) 00:19, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
They are not, afaik there is no steward crosswiki bot that performs actions on local wikis (the proxy one takes actions on meta I think), but community consensus can probably change that for this limited usecase. I disagree with the suggestion that users can protect their own pages. Different wikis have different protection policies on this, so users shouldn't be able to protect their talk pages without having valid reason, and some wikis may only allow it for limited times. With a protected talk page, it's harder to get in touch with someone (give or take Echo notifications). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:58, 19 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Can't you also have individual users block certain comments? I mean, I don't see a problem in making that happen.
Hi. User:Bédévore/Harassment I'm a target of LTA, made by vandalism-only accounts who leave me their insults and threats cross-wiki, including on wikis where I have never written a single word. I don't really see why an IP user or single-purpose account would contact me on hu. or ko. or az.: I never write there--I don't know the language. If I don't edit at all these wikis, why on earth would an IP choose to leave me a relevant message in russian or persian? Especially when my meta page is clear about the stuff. - Bédévore (talk) 23:03, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
By the proposed solution, will a new user still be able to edit their user page (since they won't be autoconfirmed)? Adding basic info on their user page by the new user is a common task in Wikipedia training events. RXerself (talk) 00:24, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest renaming this from "Global semiprotection of user talk pages" to "Global semiprotection of specific user talk pages" to avoid the implication that this would be applied to all user pages. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:56, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This could be done by a global abuse filter. Updating a user list inside an abuse filter is not a great experience; I wonder if some generic mechanism for having abuse filters which are restricted to some list of pages (with a mechanism for storing that list outside the filter logic) could fulfill this use case while being useful for other issues as well. --Tgr (talk) 04:08, 13 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Discussion pages have to be open also for IPs so that communication is possible at any time. We are a collaborative project and availability is a fundamental characteristic in such one. Protection of discussion pages should only be a rare exception in urgent cases. Chaddy (talk) 19:28, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Many sysops/Stewards and other User has a problem with harassment. Affected users have already a protected talk page in many projects.--𝐖𝐢𝐤𝐢𝐁𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫👤💬20:12, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, but we also need a safety net because no volunteer should have to network around to find a friendly admin/steward on a dozen projects to help them defend against death threats and doxxing crosswiki. --Rschen775401:42, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Is user harassment really a thing? I think adding protection to the pages would make it harder for people to discuss things when they're not behaving like animals. Tyrekecorrea (talk) 19:11, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment@Tyrekecorrea: It is and most Wikipedians can edit on semi-protected articles, only new users/sockpuppets can't, so all your argument comes down to is : "I have never been harassed and people should have the freedom of speech to say whatever they want, so this feature is pointless lol." MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 19:49, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it is a thing. I've seen users leaving Wikimedia for continuous cross-wiki harassment. In some cases, that could be avoided by this exact feature, but without it, it's almost impossible to keep track of all the vandalism on different talk pages and to effectively request deletion for each of them. Ahmadtalk03:20, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The problem isn't that big. Spam should not be confused with unpleasant words. If someone is angry at you he will find some another way to express his hatered Yanpas (talk) 10:31, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment@Yanpas: Sure, buddy. How about I create 70 alternative accounts just to harass you from each one of them and once they are all permanently banned from Wikipedia I will create 70 more and if Wikipedia decides to block my IP address I can simply change my IP via a dynamic IP, mobile data, a public WI-FI or a proxy. This feature would be more beneficial than detrimental, especially for cross-wiki abuse. If someone is angry at someone else and has to call them names, they can do it from their active Wikipedia account since they probably already earned their autoconfirmed status, this feature won't affect them, it only stops sockpuppets from harassing one person repeatedly. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 11:08, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support It needs to be only in serious cases of harassment, that is, when there is a recurrence, so it will be possible to semiprotection these talk pages globally. WikiFermsg21:59, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral Concerned this is putting the chicken before the egg. First, what about community consensus? Local projects have protection policies which may/may not permit this. The software can't override policy. Second, indef protections get out of hand; overused and people forget to remove. Generally, any user should be easy to contact by another. I get the harassment concern above, so I get that this idealism isn't always feasible, but we should probably discuss it as policy first. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:19, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment So you are suggesting that a Stewart should turn into a nanny to keep an eye on that one user who keeps getting unwanted comments from sockpuppets and IPs? It seems to be more counter-productive than anything else. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 16:37, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support For self-service talk page protection from IPs and maybe new SPAs, if possible. Many years asks ago I had to ask WP EN admins to manually protect mine from IP aspersions (granted for some months): I then adorned it with the "Apage socks" pic there. (It did work to an extent, I guess, apart from a spate of renewed attacks in 2020, including JOEJOBs and more). Zezen (talk) 19:00, 19 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support —Giovanni Ussi (Talk - Contribs) 12:45, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Discussion pages have to be open also for IPs so that communication is possible at any time. We are a collaborative project and availability is a fundamental characteristic in such one. Protection of discussion pages should only be a rare exception in urgent cases. Chaddy (talk) 19:28, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
Comment Many sysops/Stewards and other User has a problem with harassment. Affected users have already a protected talk page in many projects.--𝐖𝐢𝐤𝐢𝐁𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫 👤💬 20:12, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
Strong support That's the most effective way to deal with anonymous vandals or trolls who use newly-created sockpuppets. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 19:30, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
Neutral Not sure how big of a problem this is, but it sounds like this could also scare away genuine new editors. // Lollipoplollipoplollipop :: talk 05:22, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
Strong oppose agree with Chaddy. Golmore (talk) 17:37, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
23:44, 20 December 2020 (UTC)