Wikipedia talk:Counter-Vandalism Unit/Archive 3

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Admin trigger in the channel / separate chat channel

This is something that I may have mention in the channel before, I can't remember. One of the things that seems to be hard to do sometimes is to get an admin's attention to get an quick block. One of the things that having this unit can do is enable quick and swift blocks of persistent vandals. Is there a way to get some sort of universal, client-independent trigger that would play a noise or something that would alert admins that someone needs a block? Or is that asking too much?

Also, as a separate question, what is the status of the #wikipedia-en-cvu channel that I was invited to the other day? its that an official "Chat" channel, or are we still trying to find a way to chat around the bot? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mo0 (talk • contribs) 20:45, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure how to do it. I already watch the string adminAttn when I'm on the channel, but it is a ChatZilla-specific feature. However, I would do something similar to /msg *all users with voice* or something like that. Titoxd(?!? - did you read this?) 20:50, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Interesting suggestion. However admins wouldnt be paying attention to it if not paying attention to channel. :) --Cool CatTalk|@ 21:46, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Titoxd, you *might* be able to /notice +#wikipedia-en-vandalism hey, is there an admin around?, depending on your chat software --негіднийлють (Reply|Spam Me!*|RfS) 03:55, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Adding one's name to the list....

I would like to add my name to the members list, but clicking on the appropriate edit section for the letter "M" gets me a completely blank page, and I don't want to mess anything up, so I've left it alone thus far. Is that where I should put my name, or is there someplace else to do it? MSJapan 14:44, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I've added you (it's a bizarre page, not sure what's going on there) Dan100 (Talk) 15:03, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I've got the same problem – I want to add myself, but all I get is a blank page too, both clicking to edit the "M" section and the whole article. MJSkia1 23:07, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

It really is borked - can whoever created page/knows how it works fix it? Dan100 (Talk) 08:28, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

OK, I've added MJSkia1 and also a means for people to add themselves. Dan100 (Talk) 08:40, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Fixed the issue, I did have to sacrifice the numeric list. May the numericness rest in peices. :o --Cool CatTalk|@ 18:29, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks a bunch! MJSkia1 04:04, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Due to the huge list size, this process is a little diferant now, see Memberlist below for more info. xaosflux Talk/CVU 06:48, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Delete vandalism from history

I propose a cleanup campaign to clean histories from vandalism. Granted vandalism gets forgotten in history but why not clean up further than reverting vandalism. Granted this must be done carefuly and only by admins. --Cool CatTalk|@ 22:43, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

If only my Rfa were faring better...:) That sounds like a excellent idea, Cool Cat, and I think your reasoning and conjecture for that implentation is quite sound. Perhaps if I become an admin in the future, I would be estatic to help.-MegamanZero 22:53, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
  • This seems like a way to consume a lot of resources (both on the server side and in terms of user time) to deal with long-forgotten vandal edits, which are essentially a non-problem. Christopher Parham (talk) 21:59, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Recommend against doing this in quite strong terms; it increases load on the servers, and raises the potential for mistakes to occur. In addition, deleting and selectively-undeleting parts of our most vandalised articles can, and has been known to, render the article inaccessible for a period of time, usually requiring database administrator intervention to correct. 86.133.53.111 19:04, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, deleting vandalism from articles with a lot of edits is very hard. You have to delete the whole thing and then undelete one by one the versions you want to keep. All non vandalism versions must be undeleted for some reason in the GFDL. The George W. Bush article has over 2000 edits. It would be a waste of time undeleting the 1800 non vandalism versions. I know that developers can delete bad versions, but there are only seven of them. IMO this is a bad idea. Izehar 19:13, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

HELP!

I need help reverting a bunch of edits by Val42. As you can see from the contributions listing, Val42 was engaged in link spam on board game articles: alphabetically through the category starting with the first edit of December 12. Please help me in reverting this as it spans an entire category. WAvegetarian (talk) (email) (contribs) 06:50, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Specifically I'm referring to the addition of boardgamegeek.com links. WAvegetarian (talk) (email) (contribs) 06:51, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
That's definitely a lot of links - but should they be removed? Would it be any different from removing lots of IMDb links from movie articles? As far as I can tell, the linked pages don't seem to be commercial, and at least appear to be useful. Thoughts? --PeruvianLlama(spit) 07:30, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Hey there, my name's Mike Selinker. I find the current dispute between you guys and Val42 interesting, and I thought I'd give you my opinion as a game designer who has a number of games described on that site [1]. Personally, I don't care whether game entries have the BGG link. But I don't think they're spam per se. BGG is the encyclopedic database for every board and card game ever created. Mostly it's used as a reference and review site. People do trade games on the board, so that does make it commercial; still, imdb also has an amazon link. WAvegetarian's way more experienced on here than I am, so I'd defer to Connor as to whether it's appropriate; what I guess I'm saying is that it might be useful. Your mileage may vary.--Mike Selinker 14:55, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
WAvegetarian I also feel this isnt exactly "spamming" or "vandalsim". I am more than likely to give links to AnimeNewsNetwork.com when writing articles on anime. While I would not care to post the site on every posible anime page, I do not think I would be spamming... --Cool CatTalk|@ 16:06, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
There are many sites out there that exist only to make money by collecting eyeballs at the ads, they provide some info to try to pose as valid. I revert external links to sites like that all the time over on the dog project articles. I thought this site was one of those and reverted about 20 or 30 of the links myself before real life called me away. Maybe this site is actually the premier fan site for games - reading the External links guideline it could fit under that, so maybe it should stay. It is too ad filled for my tastes, but I won't object to leaving the links. - Trysha (talk) 17:23, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
I first discovered this when I found that a link had been added to Super Scrabble, an article in my watchlist. When I followed the link, I came to a page that to me seemed to have three prominent features: a rather uninformative infobox that duplicated info found in the article; one banner and two large text link ads in the center of the page and "above the fold," i.e. able to be seen without scrolling; further down there was an extremely brief summary of the game, covering some of the information in the article and nothing new, which was in the same box as a Google AdSense ad; below that were site hosted marketplace statistics, some pictures with questionable copyright status and an open web forum with pretty much nothing going on in it. From this page, the site appeared to be an excuse to show ads to people. I checked on the editor's contributions and discovered what I mentioned in the first comment of mine. I checked one other link and found a similar situation. The other thing that seemed sketchy was that every link added included next to it an internal link to BoardGameGeek, making it seem like self-promotion. That this article is very short and has had only one editor also made me suspicious. That is why this appeared to be advertising to me. I trust Mike Selinker to know what he's talking about when it comes to games. The manner and volume of the edits triggered the vandal fighter in me, but if it is indeed "encyclopedic database for every board and card game ever created," than I don't have a problem with its inclusion on the articles. WAvegetarian (talk) (email) (contribs) 18:03, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Again, I'm not trying to suggest what is appropriate, but I can give a fuller description of what this site is. Check out the link for Settlers of Catan. On this page you have all the game's publishers, all the expansions, files that people have created for playing the game in different ways, pictures of the game in play (almost certainly of questionable copyright status, as you say), forums, reviews, and lists in which people have included the game (sort of like Wiki categories only with lots of personal commentary). The ads are indeed obnoxious, but that doesn't detract from the site's utility. There still might be a strong reason to not have it in links, but utility probably isn't it.--Mike Selinker 18:28, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I have just been told about this discussion by WAvegetarian. I have chased down a few vandals by looking at their "contribution" history before. I evaluate the edits to see if there is still things to save, as (most) of the reverts have done. (I did other things to improve the articles besides just add the Board Game Geek links.) On my talk page and here, WAvegetarian has explained his reasoning as to why he thought that I was vandalizing pages. If I had seen a similar pattern, I may have come to a similar conclusion. I actually found out that the first revert (before it was even posted here) was because I had linked to the wrong BGG game.

Anyway, what I would have to say in my defense has already been said above. I would like a discussion as to whether or not BGG links belong in articles or not. Such links may even belong in some but not others. However, I suggest that such a discussion be taken to one of the groups about games. I've started such a discussion on the Board Game talk page. Val42 18:42, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

numbers on the members list

if the numbers were only removed to fix up the edit sections I would like them back once we have a way of not having the problem and the numbers. And I know just where we can get someone that can fix it Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) --Adam1213 Talk + 12:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Memberlist

Anyone else think that the memberlist on the Project Page isn't very helpful? A link to should suffice, with membership additions occuring by Users adding the category to themselves. It worked well for Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting#Participants and we only have 117 members over there. I think the same would improve our project page here. xaosflux Talk/CVU 05:44, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmm? Yeah perhaps. however one prolem we are facing is people placing the template in a sub user page causing multiple entries. Aside from that it would work since we have over 200 memebers now the list is just... umm too long... I have to agree. What do you guys feel? --Cool CatTalk|@ 11:36, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Sounds like a decent enough idea. As for the sub user page problem, it can easily be resolved by placing <includeonly></includeonly> tags around the template code on the sub user page. While this means the template is no longer visible on the sub page, it still remains visible on the main user page and most of all it results in only one entry in the category per user. — Impi 16:22, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Yea, but the volume of the task is a bit scary :o --Cool CatTalk|@ 16:31, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
True, I guess it's not quite a perfect solution. — Impi 23:02, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Ok lets make it happen then :P if 4-5 people did this task isnt that bad --Cool CatTalk|@ 19:34, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I've made these changes, hopefully everyone will like them, if not you know where the rollback button is! xaosflux Talk/CVU

Regarding subpage duplicate counts, there are about 3 or 4 out there right now, but still sitting at abou 320 members for en: xaosflux Talk/CVU 06:45, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

New RC bot!

Hey y'all, I wrote a new RC bot for meta. It's in #meta-vandalism. Works pretty much the same as cool cat's bot, but it runs on Linux using Eggdrop, TCL, and MySQL. It has one flaw so far, however. It runs on my laptop. Therefore, when I go to work, it goes with me. I'd host it on my colo box, but my ISP has broadly blocked IRC access, due to MASSIVE DDOS. Anyhow, enjoy it while it's there! --негіднийлють (Reply|Spam Me!*|RfS) 03:48, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Actualy there already is such a bot watching over meta. at #wikimedia-meta-vandalism I think. I'd have to check. :) --Cool CatTalk|@ 19:24, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia Watch

Has anybody read www.wikipedia-watch.org? It's hilarious! He's now milking that John Seigenthaler Sr. incident for all it's worth. Izehar (talk) 15:09, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it is hilarious, and to some extent, painfully accurate. Agent Blightsoot 16:08, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

The John Seigenthaler Sr. incident proved three things
  1. We RC patroles/CVU members are not doing a decent enough job to keep vandalism off of wikipedia. We need to work harder.
  2. RC patroles'/CVU members' work is imperiative for wikipedias survival.
  3. Wikipedia is notable enough to catch CNNs attention. Regardless of the mocking by CNN (understandable given the articles regarding CNN staff is full of "conspiracy theories" and a person not understanding NPOV would be as expected feel insulted) wikipedia still is around. I do not see a massive number of people leaving wikipedia. It really should be treated as a minor incident that the media exagarated (as they generaly do hence why I dont like the media in general)
Now time to revert vandalism! :) --Cool CatTalk|@ 19:22, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

" We RC patroles/CVU members are not doing a decent enough job to keep vandalism off of wikipedia. We need to work harder." I think it would be easy to say that, but I have to point out that we do have lives to lead (Well..some of us do) ......that means it shouldn't be a case of working harder, but having more CVU members....that way the load is spread out. I mean even if it is just a small contribution now and then, it can make the difference. We don't all need to be doing several hours a day. Agent Blightsoot 21:31, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Correct. Thats why we as an entier community need to work harder. All it takes to increase our efficency is perhaps 10 more reverts? If all 200+ members of CVU more actively patroling for vandalism things would be much much easier. For saying this I perhaps sound like a dick however I think it is necesary to call for more comunity cooperation. My comments are not to insult you or anyone but I really am pointing the facts. --Cool CatTalk|@ 11:15, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

George W. Bush

The George W. Bush (primary vandal target) is exposed again. Everyone added it to your watchlists? It would be terribly embarrassing if a journalist was google searching for Bush (he's always in the news) and they got WoW's genitalia filled article of GWB. Izehar (talk) 19:38, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Altough GWB is considered as a dick in many medians, I'd rather not see any evidence of dicks on that article. ^.^ --Cool CatTalk|@ 11:17, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

How valid is www.completewhois.com for CVU use?

I came across the www.completewhois.com website and used it already for one repeat vandal. I sent an email to the IT guy's email address which was listed in the data. Do you guys think this would be another avenue we could explore to see if we can curb some vandals right at their own servers? --LifeStar 16:13, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Why not use [2] it is what that website uses as well :) --Cool CatTalk|@ 18:54, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
In case anyone missed it, this gotten taken several steps further, and the RIR links are on the bottom of all anon's talk pages now, hope it helps! xaosflux Talk/CVU 03:37, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Help - how do I get this warning to show up?

I would like the below standardize message to show up at the bottom of a anon IP address, specifically User talk:207.63.63.204 because of a message left me on my talk page. I don't think that {{sharedIP}} {{sharedwelcome}} seem quite appropriate quite yet since there is not rampant vandalism coming from the IP, which is a high school. I orginally saw the message at User talk:86.134.35.152. Does it automatically appear with high enough level of warnings of anon IPs?? Thanks --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 18:33, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

This is the discussion page for an anonymous user who has not created an account yet or is not signed in. We therefore have to use his or her numerical IP address to identify him or her. Such an IP address can be shared by several users. If you are an anonymous user and feel that irrelevant comments have been directed at you, please create an account or log in to avoid future confusion with other anonymous users. We also recommend creating an account if you do not want anyone to see your IP address.

Copy paste? --Cool CatTalk|@ 18:45, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
That is a software embeded message. It appears a little bit after the page gets created, depending on the server caches. When you put the first message on the page you create the page. xaosflux Talk/CVU 08:07, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Invisible spam, fyi

I saw this invisible spam today. The spammer put the link inside a div with style="o.v.e.r.f.l.o.w:auto; height: 1px;" Tom Harrison (talk) 18:40, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Huh. So, (read: no technical knowledge) the purpose is to generate googlable (is that a word yet?) rating links?--Bookandcoffee(Leave msg.) 19:51, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes; The spammer hopes that it looks to Google as if Wikipedia has linked to his page, and that the spammer's page will be more prominently displayed in the search results. See Link farm. Tom Harrison (talk) 20:03, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, the more accurate term for what he is doing is Googlebombing. He's a recurrent vandal, should be shot blocked on sight. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 22:16, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Fixing What is Broken

The current vandalism is out of control and is destroying our encyclopedia; we need to take action immediately, or everything we've worked for will be annihilated by the ever-increasing stream of vandals, both long-term and short-term. CVU needs to take on expanded powers to be able to counter this ever increasing threat; thus, it should be operated as a military body, and be given broad powers to further its mission. The fact that Willy and tCV have been operating unchecked for months is a disgrace; an efficient vandal fighting team would have blocked them and every subnet they've operated from by now.

We need dozens more administrators, as well as a minimum of 10 current CVU administrators with CheckUser rights. CVU members should be immune from ArbCom decisions, and should be able to dispatch vandals and problematic netblocks as they see fit. The notions of community consensus and assuming good faith are standing in the way of operating an efficient vandal fighting team.

Anyone who stands in our way is just as good as the vandals themselves. --Hexagonal, December 24, 2005 at 19:40:59

You're being paranoid and over-reactive. If you see a problem, just fix it. If you seem someone being abusive, report them. Claiming that you need "expanded powers" is just bunk. --nihon 02:46, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
CheckUser rights cannot, and will not, be given out to a large number of users due to legal and technical issues. Forget it. Furthermore, being jumpy with rangeblocks will cause a developer to desysop you in rapid order. Immunising CVU members from ArbCom will also not happen, as ArbCom are a Board-mandated body within Wikipedia; the CVU is not, and a good number of CVU members are abusive enough that taking them out of jurisdiction of ArbCom would be idiotic, to say the least. Calm down, and remember - this is an encyclopedia, not a war. 86.133.53.111 19:10, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
As our logged-out developer pointed out, more powers are not going to help a bit, and taking any subset of users out of ArbCom jurisdiction is simply a bad idea. We don't need more powers, we need more patrollers. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 19:58, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Checkuser rights are given to people who have the technical knowlege to put it to good use. Also the comunity or board (representing the comunity) should feel confortable enough to hand over that power.
CVU is NOT above the law. CVU enforces existing policies. If you think a policy/rule needs to be changed (including Wikipedia:Vandalism) please use the polcy/rule talk page. While everyone is welcome to discuss any policy here we (CVU) do not make the policy.
Adminship and check-user rights are not a privilage. Use what you have to combat vandalism. The most important tool in reverting vandalism is the actual revert. Blocks and checkusers are only usefull in preventing future vandalism.
Any CVU member being M:dicks are to be dealt with just like how any other user would be. CVU members and RC patrolers are generaly need to be extra careful so as not to feed trolls.
I am the fouder of the CVU. I am neither an admin nor do I have checkuser rights. I had two RFAs and the comunity concensus felt they were not ready to hand over admin powa to me. I do not believe the comunity thinks I am a potential threat. They are simply playing it safe. Adminship is not necesary to revert vandalism. Blocking and deleteing nonsense pages are a very useful tools but please understand we do not want people who have a hidden agenda (such as vandalising wikipedia with admin powers) to be granted such power. Admins are given powers which they can cause havoc such as the power to delete any page (such as WP:VfD). Trust comes over time. --Cool CatTalk|@ 21:16, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't think that the CVU needs any more powers than it already has. This is not a official Wikipedia body, this is a group of people who have joined together to join the same goal. I personally don't see the pressing need to do this RIGHT NOW, because to me this all doesn't seem to be as much of an imminent threat. Locking down the site would go against its intent. We just need to roll with the punches. Mo0[talk] 23:59, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
This casual attitude is part of the problem. A casual attitude toward vandalism might be acceptable for fighting casual vandals, but we aren't dealing with casual vandals. Do you think that people like Willy on Wheels and the various people using Wikipedia to spread viscious lies are casual? The CVU needs hard line tactics to fight hard line vandals. I finally registered here after the FUD campaign conducted by The Register. Vandalism is unacceptable and we must take the fight to the vandals. If there were a more potent CVU, it would be easy to identify the sources of the vandalism, ferret out sleeper accounts, and block ranges to prevent future attacks. If we are to be taken seriously as an encyclopedia, we need to take an aggressive stance against vandalism. Hexagonal 03:46, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
CVU as a body has no power. Every individual has their own power. CVU merely merges the powa. ::::ttnet (my isp) is known to cause a level of vandalism and spamming not just on wikipedia but thorughout the internet (and is banned from several IRC servers for example). Many of the ttnet ips are blocked regularly on wikipedia some by CVU members. What you are suggesting is me getting blocked as I use ttnet and I have a dynamic IP. I also do not have an alternative as far as ISPs go.
UKs second largest ISP is where vandals WoW and MARMOT orriginate. Blocking this ISP completely will however block majority of English speaking contribution form the UK. Also blocking AOL comletely would make wikipedia basicaly no diferent from britanica, editable by the few.
I understand what you are trying to do but that is liek curing the patient by nuking the city. --Cool CatTalk|@ 17:13, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
It isn't necessary to block a whole ISP in order to block the ranges used by hard line vandals. If you don't like my solution, how about you come up with an idea to keep Willy and the rest under control. Hexagonal 22:49, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
We have them. We keep doing what we've been doing all this time. Willy hasn't ruined this encyclopedia, nor has he come close. We're not an army. If there's vandalism, we revert it. If they persist, we block them. I don't see that becoming any less effective in the future. --InShaneee 03:35, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
We should function as a military unit though. Current vandalism fighting methods are ineffective, and good editors are wasting time on RC patrol when they could be contributing. Simply waiting for vandals to show up, then using weak countermeasures, only wastes editors' time. Think of all the people sitting around for hours on RC patrol, when a vandal only has to show up for 10 minutes to cause a disturbance. Hexagonal 09:24, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
The day this place becomes a "military unit" I will abandon this place. The idea war originaly generated by a misguided individual who though Counter Vandalism Unit was a military body based on its title. I am tired of explaining Arbcomers and board members that this place has nothing to do with the millitary. I refuse to take orders or give them.
CVU was formed because I and several others (basicaly first 4 members) thought the methods used to combad vandalism was inefective. After colaborations (mostly on IRC) methods in dealing with vandalism have been improved.
Improvement was mostly through bots as well as policies such as semi-protect:
  1. Semi-protect was my initial idea (or I was not aware of similar requests) on villige pump and the wikiproject I started for it. I was mocked for that one for about a month but it has been implemented. They are using my template design somewhat I think. The idea was revived after I gave up all hope and left it alone. People need to get mocked on CNN so they start thinking...
  2. Vandals such as willy on wheels is dealt with a great ease since the developement of tools against them spesificaly (such as my bot) as well as wikimedia code adjustments (IP's (anons) used to be able to move pages for example).
  3. Giving hordes "power" will not even slow down vandalism. You do not need to know an IP to block it. Wikimedia software allows admins to block all IPs of a spesific username without knowing the actual IPs. English wikipedia has about 700+ admins now and the number is increasing by the week.
Mocking minor vandalism on wikipedia have been a recent media habit. Since the interview I will only bother citing CNN as a 'reputable source' for fatality tolls etc. I never trusted CNN much anyways (I just dont trust anyone or any organisation easily) now I have spesific reasons why I shouldn't. I would not take anything John Seigenthaler Sr. writes about for granted either. I guess Comedy Central will be my news source (which generaly is mocking of Fox news which is highly aproporate). Media likes manipulating facts so they sell more newspapers or have more viewers for better comercial profits. Media, such as CNN, should see wikipedia as a threat as we make their lying much much harder.
I understand what you are trying to do, however please understand that the best way against vandalism is not always the most efficent way. We should not create policies and restrictions in the expense of what makes wikipedia great.
--Cool CatTalk|@ 10:29, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Vandalism is ruining this encyclopedia, and fast. The sheer quantity of it is making janitors out of good editors. We know that the hard line vandals are busy developing high powered vandalbots. What are we going to do when Willy gets a proxy-aware vandalbot that can cycle through 1000 proxies?
I HIGHLY doubt there are THAT many open proxies out there, and some users are like to run proxy detectors and ban them. 68.39.174.238 23:52, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Oh really? 1000 proxies is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Wikipedia administrators have banned off proxies in the thousands already, and these were just the ones which were used for abuse, thus bringing attention to themselves. The ISC estimates that 0.007% of all address space is running a proxy in some form (note that not all of these proxies can be used by the public, and not all of these proxies follow a standard proxy protocol) Hexagonal 01:44, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Willy is among us, and we can't forget that. We've been lucky so far, that his sleepers mainly involve the words "Willy", "on Wheels", or some variant. If he began mass-creating sleeper accounts with normal names, we'd never be able to catch them. We would be at his mercy whenever he decided to put them to use.
But forget Willy. There are many, many other people who would like to execute mass vandalism. The GNAA could be watching us right now, trying to learn how to best disrupt the encyclopedia. All they would have to do is read any of the numerous discussions about vandalism to know how vulnerable the encyclopedia is. What if the Milk Man comes back? What happens when, not if, tCV goes on another attack spree? We MUST be proactive about this! Hexagonal 23:46, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
User:SPUI is an ex-gnaa member. As far as I care he is no better but thats just me. Willy likes to be detected and there is evidence willy on wheels found a new hobby and the people we see are his imposters although I wouldn't count on it. Proxies are mild irritation. Your average vandal is a HS kid who has too much free time. People who are more dedicated in vandalising wikipeida will always find ways. Letting them vandalise in a way we can detect them is a better option. We cant really prevent vandalism. NYPD couldn't, I do not believe we can. However we can revert, remove and block the people commiting the act. No need to arm nuclear missles. --Cool CatTalk|@ 10:17, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
WOW has 1094 sockpuppets now, few share IPs. None of the range blocks would slow him down. --Cool CatTalk|@ 13:44, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS, Counter-Vandalism Unit/Archive 3! For all to share--Santa on Sleigh 22:00, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
MERRY CHRISTMAS, Counter-Vandalism Unit/Archive 3! For all to share--Santa on Sleigh 22:00, 24 December 2005 (UTC)


Radio Maryja and the vandalism of one of the members of Counter Vandalism Unit

I am sorry to say it, but one of Your members, Ksenon, is leading with me an editorial war in the article entitled Radio Maryja. He erases everything that I have written about antisemitism and xenophobia in this radio, and then says that I do not follow the neutral point of view in my edits that he usually reverts. Then he replaces it by his own accusations. This user is strongly politically biased, and he made the article a complete nonsense now. The two main features about radio Maryja are that this is a strongly antisemitic radio station, its listeners are informed about conspiracy theories, and that the radio is officially owned by the catohlic church. It all was erased. Your Counter Vandalism Unit is, I am afraid to say it, not free of some fauls. Cheers, Moa anbessa 11:24, 25 December 2005 (UTC) PS. Here is a perfect article about racism in this catholic radio, well sourced etc, unfortunatelly in Polish: http://www.or.org.pl/artykuly/acala-rm.html Pity to say it, but a link to this article was also erased by the "CVU" member.

After reviewing the entire history of the article, I can say that I think Ksenon may have been a little over zealous by deleting rather than editing and modifying, especially with this edit. Outside of of that one edit, I don't think Ksenon is doing anything out of hand. On the other hand, I can see many instances where you (Moa anbessa) were addiing clearly POV information. As it currently stands, I think the article is doing quite well, though it still needs a bit of cleanup. --nihon 22:55, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
Gees POV articles are such a pain... --Cool CatTalk|@ 21:18, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree, especially when one of the people obviously has an agenda for or against the particular subject. --nihon 21:57, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Sci.psychology.psychotherapy and the vandalism of one of the members of Counter Vandalism Unit

Main article: Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Sci.psychology.psychotherapy

Ok this is WAY OUT OF THE LINE. CVU members are allowed to place articles for deletion. There is no rule that prevents people from placing articles for deletion, this is not the page to discuss articles for deletion. Take it to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sci.psychology.psychotherapy. Geez! I am moving this to the talk page of the VFD page. --Cool CatTalk|@ 16:57, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Combatting vandalism on user pages

Yesterday, I saw an IP blanking someone's userpage. I thought to myself, shouldn't I revert this. So that's what I did. I was quite surprised to receive a thank you note on my talk page from the user. Surely, shouldn't we all look out for our fellow Wikipedians? And revert any vandalism to any page. Also, one final request - unlock your vandal counts so we can add the vandalism we've stopped. Your thoughts? Perhaps we should make a template saying Feel Free to Revert Me. ComputerJoe 20:27, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

My vandal counter isn't locked and I welcome anyone reverting vandalism on it although it is not a vandal pit-stop (should be after I said this), I generaly do not thank for reverts of vandalism. People who know anythng about me know I am greatfull and my thank you is the revert of vandalism on your userpage. :) --Cool CatTalk|@ 09:43, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
They're tempting targets, especially for persistent vandals, but attacking user pages is the Wiki equivalent of flying toward a bug zapper. Frequently vandals go after them to retaliate against rollbacks and warning messages, which just proves they are aware that what they're doing isn't appreciated. It's strong evidence they aren't making good faith edits, and just expedites a block. I suspect most neophyte vandals assume that user pages aren't closely monitored, when, of course, it's exactly the opposite. There are some gotchas when it comes to dealing with user page vandalism, though. For various reasons, a lot of people edit their own pages when they're not logged in. Other user pages are collaborations, with many editors contributing. In either case, you may get chewed out for reverting when you just thought you were doing a good deed. For the non-obvious cases I've taken to peering at page histories and user contributions, but sometimes I just wish people would make proper use of edit summaries, sub-pages, and talk pages. –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 20:49, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Also by spendin tome on userpages they aren't vandalising wikipedia pages ^-^' --Cool CatTalk|@ 10:05, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Please dont overly discuss "Counter Vandalism Unit"

Instead lets discuss vandalism on wikipedia (spesific repeating cases) and ways to counter them. After all that is what "Counter Vandalism Unit" is about, right? --Cool CatTalk|@ 12:24, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Godmode on Safari

Is there a way to add the godmode script to Safari? It seems very useful. GabrielF 04:07, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

What do you mean? The scripts are added to your monobook.js file, which is browser-independent. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 04:08, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
I never was able to get it to work. Every time I tried to its rollback button, Safari would crash. Until I got my mop, I used Firefox for Wikipedia (and pretty much only Wikipedia). –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 12:34, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Vandal wishing to convert

Please direct me to the right venure for this...

Tried to vandalize a page, and was really impressed with the response time, less than a minute.

I am interested in the process. Not to promote vandalism, but just in general. I've installed a copy of mediawiki at work and the company loves it. We use it for all kinds of stuff.

One of the issues in proper adoption at a corporate level is the issue of vandalism.

I'm also keen to NLP studies, which I have a feeling you guys are interested in too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.204.237.156 (talk • contribs) 09:20, December 30, 2005

We keep track of the Recent Changes. Some people run bots that scan this list for specific criteria that they think makes an edit more likely to be vandalism. Each registered user also has a personal watch list, where they can track the most recent changes to pages they have added to their list. WAvegetarian (talk) (email) (contribs) 11:53, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

You can help (and you did:)

Thanks!

Thanks to all who helped take care of the Richard O'Connor article while it was on the mainpage. The CV unit and RC Patrol truly ROCK most righteously, and I salute you! Once more, thanks --R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 06:09, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Crocodile Dundee Vandal

Can whoever runs an autoblocker bot PLEASE start countering this idiot? He's taken over half the bloody blocklist in a matter of a day. Hexagonal 17:05, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how the CVU determines things, but perhaps Crocodile Dundee should be considered a persistent vandal? But then, it's mostly manageable, given he targets the same pages.--cj | talk 15:50, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

"Vandalism Unit"

I found this one amusing, so I thought I'd share. User:OmegaStauf vandalized Wikipedia:Vandalism by adding Image:Wmvu.png to it. Cute. I added it to my watchlist, since anything that links to that is suspect. It'll work as a quasi-honeypot, perhaps. –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 22:34, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Code of Conduct

Should there not be a code of conduct for (new) members of the CVU? Otherwise, the problem might arise that vandals or pov-warriors would use the CVU as a means to legitmize their actions (although this may also have advantages, one would find them easier). I'm asking this because Street Scholar (talk · contribs) joined the CVU on December 15., 2005. Only four days before he was edit-warring and pov-warring in wikipedia articles (which included the blanking of text and references). [3] [4] [[5]] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]. These are only examples of December 11., 2005; many more can be found in his contributions (for example see [11]) --Kefalonia 16:32, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think a code of conduct is needed, being a member of the CVU does not afford any special benefits or privileges. CVU members are bound by the Wikipedia policies and guidelines just as much as any other contributor. If there is a particular user who is causing problems, take it to the dispute resolution process the same as would happen with any other Wikipedian. --GraemeL (talk) 16:45, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Backslashes?

What's up with the backslashes? Has anyone seen this before? Tom Harrison Talk 17:45, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

  • I've been seeing that more often as well. I mentioned it to an anonymous editor who'd been making otherwise okay edits, except they were filled with backslashes like that. He said he was just editing the articles and didn't actually see the backslashes. So, maybe it's browser-related or perhaps an external program "helpfully" commenting out things it shouldn't? –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 17:51, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Interestingly, according to the Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Wikipedia is Communism, the Communist vandal has recently being "inserting backslashes before all apostrophies, ruining much formatting." - Akamad 19:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I found something here [12] that suggests these backslashes indicate a compromised webhost that should be blocked. I want to know more about this before I start blocking these on sight. Tom Harrison Talk 19:51, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Hmm...this is sounding like his browser is inserting escape characters. For instance, in Perl, you have to put the slash before any character you don't want interpreted. --nihon 23:27, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Channels

Can we get a listing of all the channels used by the bot on a subpage somewhere? Everytime I need to know if we have a bot for a particular project, I find myself banging my head against the wall... -- Essjay · Talk 11:17, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh... --Cool CatTalk|@ 22:13, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
1. #wikimedia-meta-vandalism.txt
#wikimedia-commons-vandalism.txt
2. #wikipedia-en-vandalism.txt
#wiktionary-en-vandalism.txt
#wikibooks-en-vandalism.txt
3. #wikipedia-de-vandalism.txt
4. #wikipedia-fr-vandalism.txt
5. #wikipedia-es-vandalism.txt
6. #wikipedia-bg-vandalism.txt
7. #wikipedia-ja-vandalism.txt
8. #wikipedia-it-vandalism.txt
9. #wikipedia-pl-vandalism.txt
10. #wikipedia-pt-vandalism.txt