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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was Delete. I must admit that, when I saw the first few commenters citing WP:DENY, I instinctively prepared for a caustic argument to ensue over the utility of that essay, which is -- at this point -- formally only that. Surprisingly, the consensus here is fairly impressive for deletion, and arguments for retention have mostly (and weakly) asserted the historical value of the page. On the basis of the strength of this discussion, I think a real case could be made that the community values WP:DENY as -- at the very least -- a guideline. At any rate, for the page at issue here, there is substantial agreement that WP:DENY should govern, and that it requires deletion of the page. Those wishing to see a reduced (or radically different) version of this page are, of course, welcome to try their hands at writing one, as this is a wiki. Xoloz 06:13, 30 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Willy on Wheels

We don't need these elaborate pages giving a hall of fame to blatant vandals - if someone is blatantly compromising the integrity of the encyclopedia, we block them. For subtle vandals, such pages are useful, but for page move vandals? Cowman109 Talk 20:09, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply

  • These LTA subpages serve a useful purpose of informing people of vandals' habits/patterns/etc and coordinating vandal-fighting. However, they indeed are turning into "Halls of Fame", thus I propose that whatever useful information be moved to Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Willy on Wheels (same with other such pages - move to their respective categories) but stripped from the image/infobox. Keep useful stuff, but no more praise. M isza 13 20:16, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
    • In the Category, this can be served simply by saying, "User generally moves pages to "...on Wheels" and having the list of IP addresses (if these are even maintained). — Centrx→ talk • 20:21, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
    • I think we should stop calling everyone sock puppets of WoW (like they are him) and start saying copycats. Anomo 22:33, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Delete: Where it is not necessary to have these pages for identifying the vandalism, they are inappropriate (see also WP:DENY). Any newbie with 3 edits can recognize that moving pages to "...on Wheels" is bad, let alone any established user or administrator dealing with vandalism. Pages like this actually encourage vandalism; note, for example, the Willy on Wheels e-mail: what started as a drunken prank, ends up with "After we saw the reactions that people made, the vandalism became a bad habit. We would vandalize, or attempt to vandalize pages just to get a frantic reaction from Wikipedians." Identifying subtle vandalism makes sense, but where it is obvious vandalism these pages serve only to glorify bad behavior. — Centrx→ talk • 20:19, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
    • However, all the technical information such as IPs/proxies used, editing patterns (in case of more obscure vandals), relations to other abusers, etc. seem quite useful (especially to those new to the vandal-fighting craft) - where do you suggest we put it instead? M isza 13 20:25, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
      • Oh, yes. For subtle vandals that can't be easily spotted by moving a page to something incorrect, such records can be helpful. I'm simply arguing for deleting pages of blatant vandals, such as the communism vandal as well. Cowman109 Talk 20:28, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
      • If anywhere, the category, but I don't see how the IPs are useful. An admin doesn't need to look at the IPs to know that mass-moving pages to "...on Wheels" warrants a block. If the IPs are exclusive to Willy, then they can be blocked long-term and there is a record in the Block log where it belongs. If they aren't, then we are back at square one: they are blocked if they are vandalizing and not blocked if they are not vandalizing; Willy & admirers can use other IPs and will still get blocked, legitimate users can use these same IPs and not get blocked. — Centrx→ talk • 22:32, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • delete: This is what I'll hope be the first of many deleted "long-term vandal" pages. They only serve to glorify the abuse and make the vandals into notable individuals. I do agree that it is imperative that we maintain records in order to properly identify abusers. This is probably a poor way. Bastique▼ parler voir 20:20, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Delete pointless - we block willy wannabees on sight - we don't need criminology files. -- Doc 20:22, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Delete - maintaining records is one thing, giving vandals something to aspire to is another. Shell babelfish 20:29, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Keep Keep but shorten to 20 words (squeezing an edit in here Anomo 22:57, 25 August 2006 (UTC)) You people need to find a way to make non-glorification pages rather than deleting informative pages. In contradiction to this, it's my belief Willy has long quit and these are imposters. However, you can't delete this page without deleting the pages of less notable people in Category:Wikipedia_vandals so if you want this gone, then will of this category must go. Anomo 20:45, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
How is this useful? Yes, undoubtably these are imposters. Yes, we can delete this without deleting other pages. Why not? Delete the useless ones, keep if someone can show why they are useful. -- Doc 20:51, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
If this is deleted will it all be erased or will it be saved on Wikipedia:Long term abuse? Basically the URL link about him quitting and mention of imposters may be the only important thing anymore. But erasing everything would be bad. Anomo 21:03, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
You seem to just be making a vague assertion without telling us why. Why would it "be bad"? -- pgk( talk) 21:07, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
It seems to me that if all is deleted then there is no information and at least some should still be useful. I'm not saying that a lot isn't easily gotten rid of. Anomo 21:29, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
I guess this is the gap, I can't see what information here is useful. What is anyone going to use it for? Knowing we've had someone vandalise a load of pages in the past and has stopped now doesn't seem that useful to me. -- pgk( talk) 21:40, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
What's useful is this link, "Wikilifespan: August 20, 2004 — present? (Claims to have quit, but may have returned.)", "Physical location: Yorkshire, United Kingdom? [1]" and Image:Willys-Knight1920.jpg. That's about it. By the way, did Willy really get that on the front page of www.wikipedia.org temporarily? Anomo 22:16, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
Wait - you find the image useful? I think that's what glorifies vandals the most: giving them their own images to their templates and such. Cowman109 Talk 22:19, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
Well it's not like the lightbringer image (that's fancy!) I heard he put that image on a lot of places including the front page of all wikipedia portals, that's why. Anomo 22:20, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
Why are they useful? What do you intend to do with them? How does that information help wikipedia in any way shape or form? -- pgk( talk) 22:25, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
They are pretty much the only info on willy still useful at the present. Maybe they should be stored as a note somewhere. The image depends on whether it was on the front page of www.wikipedia.org and I would like to find that out. Anomo 22:31, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
I'll give this one last try. Why is that information useful, why would it having been used to vandalise the mainpage make it more useful? You just keep on saying it's useful but don't seem to be able to tell me why. -- pgk( talk) 22:37, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
Do you mean just the picture or the other stuff I mentioned, too? Forgetting about the picture, the other stuff I mentioned is just a brief info on that vandal that should just be kept as reference. It's maybe 20 words at most. Anomo 22:42, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
The fact that other pages maybe stronger candidates for deletion is usually a weak argument for not deleting, we have to start somewhere and we need to look at this page on it's own merit (or lack of), however I'd certainly support deleting more of the pages like this. As to notability of the subject WP:ASR -- pgk( talk) 21:05, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Delete pages like this may contain a small amount of useful information, but by and large don't. I've also seen them misused with individuals making vanity edits concerning their own vandalism... -- pgk( talk) 21:05, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Keep, important evidence record. -- TheM62Manchester 21:19, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
    Why is it important? What do we need such a record for? -- pgk( talk) 21:23, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
    Some people seem to think these pages are good; I've seen other wikis using them! -- TheM62Manchester 21:26, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
    Ok so it's important because some people else where think they are good. Sorry you still haven't told me why it is important. What value is it giving us, will wikipedia run any less smoothly for not having it? -- pgk( talk) 21:29, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
    To quote the last MFD:

for histroical purposes. Deleting this page will also result in mass confusion, for users who have never heard of him, there will be no refrence to him. Beside, most sockpuppets are probably just impersonators.

-- TheM62Manchester 21:30, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • I can't think of a non-sarcastic response to that, so I'll give up for now. -- pgk( talk) 21:40, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Delete I don't see that it adds to anything. Page move vandals will always be watched whether this page exists or not. Most, if not all, Willys are just copycats anyway and will be taken care off whether they add "On Wheels" to the end of the articles they move or not. As it is, it serves no point what-so-ever apart from honouring a vandal.-- Konstable 21:48, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Delete; I think TheM62Manchester's cargo cult reasoning really says it all. — Bunchofgrapes ( talk) 21:54, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
    Cargo cult programming - is that what you're referring to? Anyway, I'll stop participating in this MFD. -- TheM62Manchester 22:25, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
    Thank you for the better link. — Bunchofgrapes ( talk) 22:39, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. That page only severs to perpetuate the wheels meme, so wannabe vandals know what they should do. I believe if such page didn't exist, there wouldn't be so much clones by now. And the actual willy is not ever around, so why keep report on that? In short: it sounds like a good idea, but in practice it's not so much -- Drini 22:24, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Delete per the quality of TheM62Manchester's argument. JesseW, the juggling janitor 22:26, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
  • There may be some minor value in keeping some of this info around, if so, merge it to the category. But most of this page is glorification of a vandal who should instead be reverted on sight and otherwise ignored. Delete ++ Lar: t/ c 22:34, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Comment Probably the only argument for keeping it was based on Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Kitten Vandal's MFD. Anyway I have struck off my keep votes now, as there is seemingly consensus to delete this page. Oh, well, it can always be userfied, I suppose, if there are people who want to keep it. -- TheM62Manchester 22:35, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply

*Keep I was formerly a vandal, and like many wanted to be glorified. I see why maybe this would glorify vandals too much, but this page has been around for a long time and many users will lose their edits, more improtantly this is our most persistent vandal, and many other less persistent ones are able to keep their pages. Deloty 22:40, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply

The above user has three edits - so I can see why he minds losing one. -- Doc 22:44, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
Removed comment from Jake Remington sock -- Drini 22:50, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
See? That's precisely the problem with the page. It makes people believe we have important vandals, and they should have pages about them. -- Drini 22:47, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. No real use, and keeping such pages probably does encourage vandalism. -- Tony Sidaway 22:49, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Comment I agree about copycats (e.g. what Tony said it encourages vandalism). I also think Template:WoW needs to be changed to say copycat (the template has been protected as long as I can remember). This kind of phrasing I think is good. I also think if they are called copycats it would discourage them. Anomo 23:30, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • What's still useful? If nobody minds, how about we decide on what is still useful, like "Page move vandal; renaming pages to add "on wheels" to them. Wikilifespan: August 20, 2004 — ? (claims to have quit). Physical location: Yorkshire, United Kingdom. Only copycats now." This might be good. I am sure others can find something better. I am also not saying this need to be kept in its own article (I'm fine with the deletion of the article, just not with erasing all information.) Anomo 23:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
If we block them, yawn, forget them and ignore them, that is more likely to discourage them. Our only real strategy when blocks don't keep them away is to bore them into giving up. Putting tags on their pages, categorising their nil-edit accounts etc. is precisely the wrong answer. I think we need to delete the templates, the tags and all the other useless wiki-'department of criminology' toys. -- Doc 23:40, 25 August 2006 (UTC) reply
I agree on the templates. I think they should go. {{sockpuppet|willy on wheels}} and the regular banned template are fine. Today I found Template:WIC-real that before I edited it, glamorized the communist vandal. It seems a number of pages got marked with it. I also see that someone who isn't banned has that as a userbox. Anomo 00:59, 26 August 2006 (UTC) reply


  • Comment: What about the Bobby Boulders page? That LTA page was recently redirected here, so should we delete the WoW and page and recreate the other one, or what? 82 02:52, 26 August 2006 (UTC) reply
    • Take all the reasons to delete, above, and replace all occurrences of "Wow" or "Willy on Wheels" with "Bobby Boulders". OK, see how all the arguments still work? I think that tells us that the Bobby Boulders page should stay deleted. — Bunchofgrapes ( talk) 03:57, 26 August 2006 (UTC) reply
Transwiki ON WHEELS!!!! to countervandalism.org per above deletion reasons - specialised vandal pages don't belong here. MER-C 04:24, 26 August 2006 (UTC) reply
If Essjay wants it on his wiki, he's welcome - but I suspect he wont. -- Doc 11:34, 26 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Comment:Also, does anyone have any idea why all pagemove vandals are getting marked as Willy socks these days? 82 05:04, 26 August 2006 (UTC) reply
See WP:ANI. MER-C 05:24, 26 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Keep: Just what? It's an insanely old page with lots of useful info. 80.41.239.192 11:22, 26 August 2006 (UTC) reply
User's 7th edit.-- Doc 12:48, 26 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Keep It should be kept because it provides important info about the vandal. Hmrox
Important to whom and why? -- Doc 12:48, 26 August 2006 (UTC) reply
It's important for people who don't know about the vandal.That way they can stop them when they vandalize another page. Hmrox 00:54, 27 August 2006 (UTC) reply
Eh? We don't need to know anything about page move vandals to spot them and block them. -- Doc 01:04, 27 August 2006 (UTC) reply
Well, he merits a paragraph saying that users which move pages to 'on wheels' names and usernames which contain 'on wheels' patterns should be blocked immediately without warning. Examples of such usernames are also useful. That means we should have a paragraph in WP:LTA with a link to Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Willy on Wheels. The subpage, however, is a reward for vandalism and needs to be killed with fire. -- Sam Blanning (talk) 01:08, 27 August 2006 (UTC) reply
I'm with Doc. He doesn't even merit that much. Our admin pool is generally eager enough to block all such move-vandals and usernames very quickly; I'm confident that meme will persist without a page explaining it. — Bunchofgrapes ( talk) 02:25, 27 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • I mean, Keep the useful infos about the vandal. -- FrostytheSnowman ('sup?) 11:57, 26 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Comment another set of the vague assertion of being "useful". What is useful in it? Can anyone elaborate on the value this provides to wikipedia the free online encyclopedia. -- pgk( talk) 12:41, 26 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Delete this Willy on Wheels nonsense has gone on for over two years (Started on August 20 2004!) Enough is enough is enough. Vandalism is vandalism. Whether on wheels, on rails or on a plane. Maybe if we didn't glorify vandals we would not have had the elephant vandals attack us earlier this month. There is already information about page move vandalism on WP:VAND. Most of the Willy on Wheels sockpuppets are throwaway junk usernames which can easily be ignored. Does anyone learn anything from its thousands of sockpuppet accounts. If Wikipedia is to survive the test of time, it needs to crack down on vandals a lot harder by not playing their game. Roadsoap 13:02, 26 August 2006 (UTC) reply
    Note this use has since been blocked for pagemove vandalism. -- pgk( talk) 13:29, 28 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Keep This page was created for a reason.--- Scott3 Talk Contributions Count: 950+ 19:13, 26 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Delete as others have said, why glorify vandals by giving them their own personalized page? StudierMalMarburg 19:17, 26 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Delete per WP:DENY. Naconkantari 21:10, 26 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Comment WP:BEANS is also a good reason like WP:DENY. WP:BEANS is basically if you say "Don't move tons of pages to end in "on wheels!"" then people will do it. Anomo 22:12, 26 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Delete and replace with information on the main vandalism page about various types of vandalism, such as page move vandalism. Willy on Wheels has become a "Standalone Complex": the phenomenon consists entirely of imitators with no obvious original. The easy way to destroy such a phenomenon is to stop potential imitators from learning of it. — Dark Shikari talk/ contribs 01:13, 27 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Keep or transwiki We need this information. How else will newbies learn about the most prolific Wikipedia vandal ever? I learned everything I know about Willy from that page. 69.145.123.171 Hello! Sunday, August 27, 2006, 02:26 ( UTC)
    • Why did you need to know anything? — Bunchofgrapes ( talk) 02:27, 27 August 2006 (UTC) reply
      • Dunno. It wasn't quite vital to my Wiki-life, per se, but it did give me a lot of information that was helpful. Wouldn't people like to know if they get blocked by having 'Willy' in their name? 69.145.123.171 Hello! Sunday, August 27, 2006, 02:36 ( UTC)
        • Although, making it shorter and less glorifying is fine by me. I just think it's a helpful bit of info. 69.145.123.171 Hello! Sunday, August 27, 2006, 02:40 ( UTC)
  • Keep This vandal's notoriety may increase the rate of imposters, but as an extention of WP:AGF, I have to assume that more people here are likely to immediately recognize the vandal as such, and take actions to put a stop to it. We already operate on the assumption that far more people are here to help than to hurt, so why not keep these pages present and detailed to educate those who do wish to help? Besides, someone who wishes to vandalize doesn't do so because they've been exposed to the willy meme; such a person adopts the meme as a way to go about the vandalism they have already chosen to engage in. WhoMe? 14:22, 27 August 2006 (UTC) reply
So you think that if we didn't have this page people seeing someone move a load of pages to obviously stupid names would WP:AGF and do nothing about it? You think without this page people wouldn't immediately recognise it as vandalism? See someone engaging in vandalism and do something to bring it to a halt, don't go running looking for a page describing that vandalism. Same goes for educating those who do want to help, why are you attributing stupidity to those people such that they wouldn't be able to tell pretty obvious vandalism without a page describing it to them? -- pgk( talk) 14:34, 27 August 2006 (UTC) reply
It is important that people dealing with vandalism know that this is a serious ongoing issue, and not an isolated incident. Yes, dealing with vandalism involves reverting it. However, when a known vandal with an MO which includes multitudes of sleeper sockpuppets takes a chainsaw to the hard work of others, appropriate follow-up measures need to be taken. This can involve a CheckUser to identify the rest of the sleeper sockpuppets, the compilation of an abuse report to an ISP, and a notification to RC patrollers (however that is done) that more attacks may be imminent. I'm sure these hard line vandals use open proxies. While simple vandalism of an isolated nature does not warrant a proxy check, one should be considered if an aggressive vandal is tearing up pages. Police keep criminal records for a reason. WhoMe? 19:46, 27 August 2006 (UTC) reply
We aren't the police. But I take some of your point but it doesn't square with creating nice little pages with pretty little images, you can write up all you need to know about there being a spate of page move vandalism in a couple of sentences somewhere. In the case of this page since just about everyone agrees that the majority (if not all) page move vandalism of the "on wheels" type is by imitation, this isn't a "criminal record", this is a shrine. -- pgk( talk) 19:53, 27 August 2006 (UTC) reply
A Keep vote does not imply that the fluff (pictures, cute descriptions, off-wiki appearances, etc) needs to stay in the article, but rather, merely that the article should exist in the first place, in some form. WhoMe? 20:57, 27 August 2006 (UTC) reply
One thing I'd like to point out is that there is a great difference between recognizing vandalism and knowing it thoroughly. A 10 year old kid will recognize WoW's actions as vandalism, but associating other patterns/potiential dangers to be aware of with it is an entirely different thing. In some cases it is necessary to inform others about some subtle actions that, to an untrained eye, may seem as simple vandalism not worthy of more than pushing [rollback], while in fact a wider alert (or at least increased awareness) should be raised. I wouldn't like this MfD to be a precedent to deleting a wide range of potentially useful (especially to newcomers) pages - training new vandalfighters personally would be an inefficient use of our time. M isza 13 18:02, 27 August 2006 (UTC) reply
And this page doesn't address that, sure expand WP:VANDALISM to give more detail on what page move vandalism is if you think it will help, can't say I can see the kind of vandalism which gets attributed to wow as particularly subtle and requiring training. I suggest anyone interested in helping "train" people focus on generality rather than specific individuals, try popping over to cleaning up vandalism and expand that into a useful general purpose resource. I think if your goal is getting people to be more effective at removing vandalism pages like this fail as witnessed by the number of people who spends hours tagging pages as possible socks of WIC, WOW etc. In terms of reversion of vandalism that process contributes absolutely nothing. -- pgk( talk) 18:10, 27 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Split into a public page and an administrator's page. The public page should contain what normal users and newbies need to know what to do with this vandal. For example, it should contain a description of his attack patterns like page move vandalism and the replacement of pages with his "Bobby Boulders" manifesto; and it should als contain instructions on what to do with this vandal, like reporting to WP:AIV and requesting a CheckUser to hunt down the open proxies used. The administrators only page should contain stuff needed to file ISP abuse reports and police reports like CheckUser results and other things that would be helpful to administrators (and prosecutors, if anyone wants to try to send Willy to prison under computer crime and cyberterrorism laws). Jesse Viviano 18:54, 27 August 2006 (UTC) reply
    You mean, prosecute the original WoW? -- FrostytheSnowman ('sup?) 19:03, 27 August 2006 (UTC) reply
    Yes. Cyde recently proved that Bobby Boulders is really Willy on Wheels to Kelly Martin's satisfaction, who is highly regarded enough that she has CheckUser rights and is a retired member of the ArbCom. Therefore, this computer crook is still around messing Wikipedia up. Maybe a prosecution or two may scare some vandals away, leaving more time for productive edits. Jesse Viviano 23:47, 27 August 2006 (UTC) reply
    I saw vandalism recently where Bobby Boulders claims to be a different person. Anomo 19:04, 28 August 2006 (UTC) reply
    Can you tell me what would be useful about that. Why does anybody need to assign a name and detail to this person. If you see someone move a load of pages to silly names, revert them. If you see someone replace a page with rubbish (be that gibberish, a vandal manifesto etc. etc.) revert them. If they continue report to WP:AIV the process is the same no matter who the vandal is and how they want to glamourise themself. We don't need to create a directory of past/present vandals. -- pgk( talk) 19:12, 27 August 2006 (UTC) reply
    This will let newbies who find out about this vandal to know that this user should be taken to WP:AIV without any need for user warning templates. Jesse Viviano 01:50, 28 August 2006 (UTC) reply
    As I said I can get rid of all these pages and replace them with one which says, if you see someone doing loads of vandalism report them. You don't need to know who this vandal is, see a load of pages being moved to silly names, revert and report. -- pgk( talk) 08:53, 28 August 2006 (UTC) reply
    In fact for newbies rather than having a lot of pages listed by name of vandal wouldn't it be better to have either (a) A single page which lists the types of vandalism and appropriate responses of (b) A set of pages listed by the type of vandalism which acts as a much simpler reference? -- pgk( talk) 09:00, 28 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Comment I took a look at the alledged email sent by willy that everyone is talking about, and it could very well be a hoax. I'm immediately made suspicious by the email signature, which is in SPANISH. If that mail were sent from an English-speaking country, Hotmail/MSN would have put an ENGLISH advertisement in the signature. WhoMe? 19:50, 27 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Keep This should be kept, I didnot know about WoW until I read this page several months ago. This as important information on how this vandal operates, what to look for, possible sock puppet name (By looking at the past useage of sock puppets), and IP addresses. Æon Insane Ward 23:12, 27 August 2006 (UTC) reply
    • How is any of that necessary? We don't need to have a page with an M.O. about wheels for someone to know that it is blatant, blockable vandalism. What is the need to have related sockpuppets? Why not just have a plain list of a bad usernames that warrant blocking? How are the IP addresses useful? Legitimate editors editor from those IP addresses, and they shouldn't be blocked, while page-move vandals also use other IP addresses, which should still be blocked. For Checkuser reference, again a plain list would suffice. — Centrx→ talk • 04:23, 28 August 2006 (UTC) reply
      • Because this vandal is so prolific. You don't delete the Intel on one of your enemies (for want of a better word). Especialy one who keeps coming back (whether it is the Orginal or Imposter). How ever I do support page reduction with only the relevent informtion. Information in this article as ben useful in the base and may be needed. Also WoW has returned (or at least an imposter is running around) under a new name. So we might want to keep this. Æon Insanity Now! EA! 16:39, 28 August 2006 (UTC) reply
        • Well that seems to demonstrate how misleading this page is, most people agree that the majority of vandalism attributed to WoW is not actually wow at all but imitators. It is simply what we call pagemove vandalism. What Intel do you think we need? See someone move pages to silly names, revert, report block. As already described in place like WP:VANDALISM -- pgk( talk) 17:00, 28 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Enforce Page Reduction to make sure that it's a basic wanted-criminal page instead of a hall-of-fame entry. Actually, it looks shorter than I remember it. That's good. — this is messedrocker (talk) 02:01, 28 August 2006 (UTC) reply
    a "wanted-criminal" page is pretty much the objection of many here, we don't want to single out individual vandals as special. If we see page move vandalism who cares if it WoW, WiC, someones brother etc. etc. Revert and report. -- pgk( talk) 08:56, 28 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Keep for historical purposes. And don't complain, rebut or try and discredit my vote for any reason like you have done above, because I will not change. I am sickened by the way someone is pestered, bordering on attacked, for saying "Keep" on this page. Daniel. Bryant 09:02, 28 August 2006 (UTC) reply
    Well believe it or not I'm actually trying to get to the bottom of why people think it's important to keep. The discussion so far have helped to get out that most people are actually voting to keep the basic information concerning page move vandalism. Since you aren't willing to discuss your input, I'll just have to guess what "historical purposes" means and why that is of any use to wikipedia. -- pgk( talk) 09:07, 28 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Comment This is a debate/discussion, not a vote. People who indicate their preferance but decline to discuss it, or explain it are liable to have their input ignored by the closing admin. Reasons have been given for deletion - if no-one gives any coherent reason for keeping, that will stand up under questioning, then the item will be deleted, regardless of the arithmetic. If you are not willing to enter into the discussion - don't bother posting here. -- Doc 09:26, 28 August 2006 (UTC) reply
    • Comment I've seen that said on tons of AFDs, but the end result is always whoever closes it goes by consensus and not best argument, so the most votes always wins. Anomo 16:27, 28 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Delete, we can block page-move vandals without glorifying them or identifying them. If anybody wants to investigate the abuse, it might be better not to do it in public anyway. Kusma (討論) 11:35, 28 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Weak Keep Willy does need special treatment (aka tougher blocking than standard), and he is so good at what he does that vandal fighters should know of his existance and tactics. Furthermore, he does more than just plain old page moving. Without this page, newbies will not know what is going on when a vandal refers to himself as "WOW" and they will probably treat him more nicely than Willy deserves.-- MrFi s h Go Fish 15:00, 28 August 2006 (UTC) reply
WTF? What the hell is 'tougher than blocking'? Admins don't yet have a 'castrate' button (*although sometimes I'd like one*). Page move vandals, wether they call themselveselves will or not) are blocked - period. There is no more we need to know. -- Doc 15:05, 28 August 2006 (UTC) reply
Vandalism only accounts tend to be blocked indefinitely very quickly, anyway. Cowman109 Talk 16:36, 28 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Comment. My feelings on this matter are mixed and perhaps a bit complicated. Willy on Wheels has been a presence on Wikipedia for a long time than many of our current sysops. I remember him vandalizing Recent Changes on Christmas Day–a rude if somehwat amusing surprise (especially as no one seemed to remember where the proper MediaWiki template was). "On Wheels" is a recognizable Wikipedia meme, which befits one of our most prolific vandals. That being said, there's nothing particularly special about Willy-style vandalism. He's a page-mover, nothing more. We have tools to repair that, and any admin worth his or her salt knows that page-move vandals get neither warnings nor mercy. Furthermore, page-move vandalism is now a common malady practised by many vandals, most of whom are definitely not the actual Willy on Wheels. That's the other thing: we know where Willy is. We know his ISP. I've blocked his exit proxy multiple times. This is fairly common knowledge for those who care to know. Any Willy-style edits from other ISPs that are not open proxies are patently not him, and those from open proxies could be anybody and assigning them to him is un-necessary aggrandizement on our part. I don't object to keeping those IPs we know to be his categorized, nor do I object to keeping a short write-up of his depradations there. However, I see little utility in keeping a separate page on him. He's essentially inseparable from page-move vandalism, which we all recognize as a Bad Thing. In this regard the term Willy has become so diluted as to have little or no meaning of its own. Keeping this page separate, it seems to me, serves to glorify a common form of vandalism while offering little in the way of practical, useful information to sysops. Anyway, those are my thoughts. Do as you will. Mackensen (talk) 17:24, 28 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Delete per above/ WP:DENY. As long as we continue to glorify Willy on Wheels as some mythical figure we give motivation for a new generation of vandals to aspire to reach his level of infamy. — GT 17:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Delete - the best way to deal with vandals is revert, block, ignore. And besides, Willy is a fictional creation anyway. -- Cyde Weys 19:41, 28 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Delete - Delete this and all subpages on vandals. If vandals are a problem, leave a brief message on WP:LTA or WP:CVU about them, but don't create a subpage on them. These subpages are probably one of the reasons that these attention freaks keep coming back.-- Lorrainier 22:19, 28 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Delete Too glorifying to what is now 'page move vandalism'. Lets regeneralize the fact that pagemove vandalism exists and there was a vandal and impersonators named 'willy on wheels', nothing more. All that needs to be known about this guy I just said. Put it WP:VAND somewhere, without explaining what page move vandalism is. Kevin_b_er 02:12, 29 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Speedy Delete This page has done more to set back the cause of counter-vandalism than almost any other page in Wikipedia's history. It created a glorified myth surrounding Willy, and inspired countless vandals to vandalism in imitation or in search of the fame and notoriety Willy achieved. Dr Chatterjee 03:26, 29 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Strong Keep: An important piece of history. D e on555 talk Review 03:53, 29 August 2006 (UTC) reply
In what way important? Wikipedia is a project to build an encyclopaedia, not self perpetuate its own folk lore. ( WP:ASR) -- pgk( talk) 06:43, 29 August 2006 (UTC) reply
By that logic, wouldn't WP:ASR make most of the "Wikipedia:" namespace pages have to be deleted? Anomo 07:26, 29 August 2006 (UTC) reply
Some possibly but the fact that we still have other pages that should go is never a good argument for keeping something. If you believe that the many of the wikipedia project and policy pages are "self perpetuating its own folk lore" then I think you've misread them. -- pgk( talk) 11:08, 29 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Speedy Delete. Unintentionally glorifies vandals. -- JS talk 04:01, 29 August 2006 (UTC) reply
  • Delete With respect to Cyde, does it really matter that he proved Bobby Builders was Willy? Would Bobby not be blocked otherwise? Vandals are vandals. I could walk over to Starbucks with my laptop and in 5 minutes be Squidward, Willy, EnthusiastFrance, North Carolina, Rajput, and every other vandal you can name, and it would all be simple vandalism; revert, block, move on. Thatcher131 (talk) 15:38, 29 August 2006 (UTC) reply
Amen.-- Lorrainier 21:33, 29 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Comment - Regarding the concern over the IPs/ISPs that the vandals used, maybe we could create a page that just lists the IPs and/or ISPs that each vandal uses but nothing else.-- Lorrainier 21:35, 29 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Are the IPs that vandals use really of use to anyone but administrators? If anything things like that should be left to those with checkuser who can make sure of open proxies and such, but there is no need to keep a public record of user's ips from my understanding. Cowman109 Talk 22:43, 29 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Most WOW sock puppets are probably just impersonators or joke user names that are not vandal accounts. If this page get deleted good info about WOW will be lost. least keep the talk page. Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Willy on Wheels already had bin voted keep see here.** My Cat inn @ (talk)** 02:39, 30 August 2006 (UTC) reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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