have Larry et. al. stated that Citizendium could have avoided Essjay problem?

[bennett]

Any change to the draft will not appear on the main public end so if you mess up it doesn't matter so much.

I would have thought so too.  Unfortunately it sounds like Larry said the vandals are quite "motivated and pathetic", and Nancy said in her comment that the constant vandalism was making it difficult to get any work done -- and these vandals knew their work was never going to be displayed on the public face of the site, but they did it anyway.  I wouldn't have expected a problem that severe, but if it has come about, then moderating a new user's first 3 edits would be one way of dealing with it.

[Zachary Pruckowski]

Any change to the draft will not appear on the main public end so if you mess up it doesn't matter so much.

I would have thought so too.  Unfortunately it sounds like Larry said the vandals are quite "motivated and pathetic", and Nancy said in her comment that the constant vandalism was making it difficult to get any work done -- and these vandals knew their work was never going to be displayed on the public face of the site, but they did it anyway.  I wouldn't have expected a problem that severe, but if it has come about, then moderating a new user's first 3 edits would be one way of dealing with it.

The specific vandalism issues were:

1)  Constant (probably scripted) page moves.
2)  A DDOS attack from an account-creating script
3)  Some tool cleverly using unicode to impersonate a constable(s).

Obviously, we've taken steps to deal with all three specific instances.

I think a lot of the problem arose from not having fully trained our constables in the intricacies of Mediawiki - they were picked for their maturity and wisdom, and not for technical prowess, which led them to make a few mistakes that they've collectively learned from (deleting pages when they get blanked and moved to obviously vandalized pagenames instead of realizing that they were former legit pages).

[Stephen Ewen]

Excerpted from [[CZ:Professionalism]], still a pilot draft, but gives the gist of the direction we are going on this matter:

Reversion and deletion as unprofessional behaviors

To "revert" a page is simply to undo all the edits that someone else has made, without warning or explanation. This is unprofessional because it demonstrates contempt for the person whose work was undone. If I spend ten minutes working on a page, and you simply undo my changes, you render my time spent pointless--which is tantamount to the claim that I spend significant time doing pointless things, and that your judgment is so superior to mine that you need not offer an explanation. Therefore, if you're tempted simply to revert what someone else has done, discussion on the talk page is warranted. Indeed, sometimes the polite way is to let the other person undo his or her own work, once a mistake is pointed out.

Of course, vandalism and abuse can be instantly reverted (without explanation) by anyone.

If you find yourself the "victim" of an unexplained reversion, the best way forward is not to revert back, but to e-mail constables AT citizendium.org--and let the constables do it. This will not only solve the problem, it will help ensure that the offending behavior is not repeated.

Wikipedians note: needless to say, the Wikipedia "three revert rule" is not in effect here.

Similarly, deletion of others' work without explanation is clearly unprofessional, and deletion of more than 50 words can result in a warning, followed by a ban. Again, for you to delete, without a careful explanation, a paragraph--or article--that I have carefully crafted is essentially to assert that my work was wholly worthless, and that your judgment is so much more refined than mine that I am not owed an explanation. Your aggressive act places me into a defensive and hurt posture.

That just isn't professional behavior--which you don't have to be a professional to emulate.

[luke brandt]

Excerpted from [[CZ:Professionalism]], still a pilot draft, but gives the gist of the direction we are going on this matter:
...Of course, vandalism and abuse can be instantly reverted (without explanation) by anyone. ...

Therefore it's important to appreciate what we mean by "vandalism and abuse" - luke

[Nat Krause]

Excerpted from [[CZ:Professionalism]], still a pilot draft, but gives the gist of the direction we are going on this matter:

Reversion and deletion as unprofessional behaviors

I'm never sure where the best place to discuss this sort of thing is, but I have left some comments at http://pilot.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ_Talk:Professionalism#Comments_about_the_section_on_reversion

[Peter J. King]

While I agree about the notion of reversion, I'm not clear that it's different in kind from many other sorts of editing.  It can be as annoying and demoralising to spend a great deal of time on a piece of writing and have another editor immediately make a series of changes -- yet, up to a point, that's what we have to expect on a  project like this.  The balance has to be struck between a debilitating politeness and an infuriating indifference to others' feelings.

One option, which my short time at Wikipedia suggests to me, is to make filling out the edit summary box compulsory; no-one should make an edit, no matter how minor, without some explanation.

Peter

[Zachary Pruckowski]

Excerpted from [[CZ:Professionalism]], still a pilot draft, but gives the gist of the direction we are going on this matter:
...Of course, vandalism and abuse can be instantly reverted (without explanation) by anyone. ...

Therefore it's important to appreciate what we mean by "vandalism and abuse" - luke

I have a feeling that's one of those "I can't describe it, but I know it when I see it" sort of deals.

[Nat Krause]

I have a feeling that's one of those "I can't describe it, but I know it when I see it" sort of deals.

However, that seems to leave a lot of room for gray areas which could lead to potential problems when it is applied in the future.

[Zachary Pruckowski]

I have a feeling that's one of those "I can't describe it, but I know it when I see it" sort of deals.

However, that seems to leave a lot of room for gray areas which could lead to potential problems when it is applied in the future.

Which is why we select constables specifically to help resolve and interpret these sorts of situations.  We'll have guidelines obviously, but human interpretation is a vital part of the system.

[Larry Sanger]

One option, which my short time at Wikipedia suggests to me, is to make filling out the edit summary box compulsory; no-one should make an edit, no matter how minor, without some explanation.

Could be a really good idea.  Definitely worth discussing.  Also, an excellent candidate for a marshalling of arguments, as the question is clear: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Summaries_of_policy_arguments