Wikipedia:Guide to administrator intervention against vandalism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
|
Editing abuse:
|
|
|---|---|
|
Noticeboards:
|
| Vandalism |
|---|
| Dealing with vandalism |
| Resources & assistance |
|
Counter-vandalism tools |
| Further information |
| Blocking IP addresses ISP contact information Don't provoke vandals |
This is a guide to reporting users to Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism (shortcuts WP:AIAV and WP:AIV). This guide is to help prevent invalid reports that needlessly take administrators' time, thereby allowing vandals more time to cause havoc before being blocked.
Contents |
[edit] What to report
First, read the policy at Wikipedia:Vandalism. Administrator intervention against vandalism is a place to report current vandals who are engaging in persistent vandalism. Other disruptive behaviour such as blatant violations of the username policy may also be reported, but be sure that there isn't somewhere more appropriate to report. For common incidents that do not warrant a report here and how best to deal with them, see the section "When reporting at AIV is not appropriate".
Report only clear violations that do not require discussion or detailed explanations. If there is a reasonable chance that something might not be vandalism, it probably should be reported elsewhere or not at all.
[edit] When to report
Vandals should always receive a sufficient number of warnings before being reported. What constitutes a sufficient number of warnings is left to your best judgment. Take into consideration the user's past edits, warnings and blocks, the severity of their offense and the likelihood that their edit could have been made in error or otherwise in good faith, and the type of user in question (IP addresses may be shared or dynamic, and old warnings could be irrelevant to the current situation).
Blocking is meant to be preventative rather than punitive. Therefore, the user must show a strong likelihood of making further disruptive edits despite being told not to and informed of the blocking policy. Always give a final warning before reporting, and only report if the vandal has vandalized at least once after the final warning. (A final warning is a "level 4" warning, usually {{uw-vandalism4}} or in more extreme cases {{uw-vandalism4im}}.) It is very unlikely that a user will be blocked if they are warned and reported without having edited again. Keep in mind that administrators are likely to ignore your report if they do not feel that the vandal has been sufficiently warned.
[edit] How to report a user to AIV
All reports should be placed at the very bottom of the "User-reported" section of the page, using one of the formats described below. One easy way to do this and avoid edit conflicts is to use the "+" link, which appears to the right of "edit this page" in the tabs across the top of the page (in the default skin). Just leave the "Subject/headline" field blank, and place your report in the big empty text box - it will automatically be appended to the end of the page.
[edit] Accounts
To report a user you should use the {{vandal}} template. Your report should look something like:
*{{vandal|Example user}} concise reason eg vandalised past 4th warning. ~~~~
This will appear as
- Example user (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log) concise reason e.g. vandalised past 4th warning. James086Talk 13:11, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Minor caveat: if the username has an equals sign (=) in it, you'll need to use {{vandal|1=Username}}. Don't worry too much about broken reports, though!
[edit] Anons / IP addresses
Anons' contributions are logged by their IP addresses so they may be traced to check if it is a shared IP (for example a school). Another template is used {{IPvandal}} which shows a few extra links. Reporting is the same, just with a different template:
*{{IPvandal|127.0.0.1}} concise reason e.g. vandalised past 4th warning. ~~~~
Which will appear as
[edit] When reporting at AIV is not appropriate
- Any vandal who hasn't been warned properly should not be reported.
- Violations of the three revert rule should be reported to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR
- If you suspect someone of sockpuppetry file a report at Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets. Obvious and malicious sockpuppets may be reported to AIV. A link to the sockpuppetry report should be included in the reason for reporting.
- Usernames that are not clear violations of username policy should be handled by following the guidelines at Wikipedia:Username policy#Dealing with problem usernames. A non-obvious violation should be reported to AIV only if clear consensus has been reached on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User names beforehand.
- Do not report edit wars or other disruptive behavior that doesn't fit the description at Wikipedia:Vandalism. These can instead be reported to the admins' noticeboard or incidents subpage. AIV deals mainly with obviously malicious edits that require no discussion; complex cases should usually be referred to other boards.
[edit] Why hasn't the user/anonymous I reported been blocked?
If you reported a user or IP address to administrator intervention against vandalism and they weren't blocked, you should first check the page history - most administrators explain in their edit summary why they are removing an entry without blocking it. If the reason is not there, you can (politely!) ask the administrator who removed the report from the page. Some of the more common reasons are listed below:
- The user/anonymous you reported hasn't been warned sufficiently.
- The user/anonymous hasn't made any malicious edits since the final warning, especially if it was an IP address
- The administrator deems the warnings inappropriate, for example a content dispute.
- If it was an IP address, it may be shared and block many users at once. Administrators are reluctant to block IPs because they may cause collateral damage, especially with Sensitive IP addresses.
- You haven't used the appropriate template and the bots removed the report as a comment.
