Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Vandalism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Problem

There's nonsense in an article, or an article is blank.

Nonsense (or "vandalism") can include:

• Obviously fabricated information
• Profanity (where it's not relevant)
• Sexual remarks (where not relevant)
• Racist and other shocking remarks
• Inappropriate pictures
• Random junk text
• Explicit information on an individual, grotesque or malicious allegations, etc.

These are typically added by Internet users who want to "test" the Wikipedia system, or just enjoy shocking people. Such kinds of content are not regular Wikipedia content and are against Wikipedia's rules.

Please do not give more importance to these people than they should have. Remember: vandals enjoy seeing how much they shock people, how much indignation they create. The more fuss they create, the happier they are.

Solutions

Wikipedia is a wiki, so you can fix the article yourself

• If the offending content does not appear when you try edit, it has already been fixed. Do not email us in such cases, even to "let us know". Force your Web browser to reload the page with Ctrl-F5, shift-Reload or whatever your browser uses.
• Go to the article and click edit this page near the top.
  Never edited before? Read the Introduction to Wikipedia.
• Find out how to revert an article to a state before, much like "undo".

Wait a few hours

• Articles about major countries, personalities, scientific concepts etc. get vandalized fairly often. However, vandalism also gets removed pretty quickly, generally within minutes.
• Our volunteers process email vandalism reports quickly. However, vandalism also gets spotted even faster by volunteers patrolling the web site. In the case of articles about major topics, or of the "home page" or "main page", it is mostly useless to email us because by the time a volunteer gets around to reading the email, the problem has long been fixed. Almost all vandalism cases are solved before the emails are processed; it is well worth doing something else and coming back one hour later.

Email us

• PLEASE READ CAREFULLY We need the exact URL of the article that you refer to. The URL is the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... that your Web browser shows (typically above the article itself). Please copy and paste it exactly, without any change. We cannot deal with requests without that information.
• We do not deal with content on Answers.com, Google or other third party sites.
• Please also copy and paste what you think is wrong, including if it is offensive profanity.
• Please keep to the point: URL of the article and what is wrong. While general remarks on how to improve Wikipedia, the Internet, Internet-related law or other similar topics may be interesting, they just get in the way of telling us about the issue.
• We will not deal with disputes about content through this email address.
• We have means to restore pages to a state prior to the unsavory modifications.
• We have not been "hacked". Vandalism on Wikipedia is a side effect of the open editing process and does not require "hacking" in the sense of complex schemes of unauthorized entry.
• If the offending content has disappeared when you try to edit the page, reload the page, use the printable version, use a different browser or other action, then it has been corrected in our database. Please do not email us. There are no "hidden tricks" or "hacking issues" involved.
• Our email system does not show colors. Please stick to plain old text.
• Send your concerns to info-en-v@wikimedia.org with the details of the problem.