Wikipedia talk:The motivation of a vandal

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is just an insight to the mentality of a vandal. Please contribute and expand.

Thetruthbelow 07:28, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ACCIDENTAL

Some vandalism is accidental, such as only putting in one = and thus not making it work

[edit] Hilarity

A lot of it stems from immaturity and or boredom . When I first discovered the Wikipedia I found it incredibly funny to change the content of some pages, but tried my best to make it seem fitting with the article e.g. changing Casey Donovan's homepage to that of a gay pornstar who shares the same name; making disparaging false comments regarding Bob Brown's stance on gay marriage.

Another significant factor was when I first tried to make constructive edits (about a place I used to live), a particularly overzealous RC patroller kept reverting all the information. In retaliation I abused them on their talk page, and was banished immediately for 24 hours. This served only to make me more pissed off, and I returned with more venom and anger than previously.

The temptation is still there - often I feel very tempted to make (what I think is) a funny or lewd remark, but I suppose it is a matter of mind over maturity. Wish me luck.

[edit] Not always...

A small majority are out there to just destroy this place, attention or otherwise. At least one (WP:TCV) has admitted it, and others (Think banned users with a grudge here) also follow the same rationale. 68.39.174.238 05:06, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes I totally agree. Many vandals are motivated by a bona fide desire to hurt Wikipedia, undermine its credibility, and drive productive users from the project.Wiki Mirabeau 04:06, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

A further example: User:Primetime. His motivation genuinely seems to be to help us out, albeit in an extremely misguided and dangerous manner. 68.39.174.238 00:50, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd imagine that would some would vandalise not to hurt anyone but just because they like the power or the ability to destroy, similarly to some arsonists perhaps. raptor 05:59, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I'd like to see . . .

I'd like to see this entire article recast in the plural, both to avoid the implication that all vandals are male (even though I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that they are) and to avoid the cumbersome "he or she" constructions that would be otherwise necessary. ForDorothy 20:06, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I was about to make that point. Actually, I could imagine there'd be some female vandals, but almost certainly outnumbered by males... most of whom are probably teenage boys.--HisSpaceResearch 19:30, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd estimate that about 90% of Wikipedia vandals are male, and about 90% of vandals being under the age of 20.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 20:38, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd also guess that the proportion of users making good-faith edits that are unhelpful has lower "male/under 20" percentages than the for plain vandalism.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 20:40, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

But there will be female vandals, especially young girls studying the encyclopedia for school purposes and getting pissed off with it in the same manner as young males.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 20:41, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Encountered some vandals that admit to being female.--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 17:12, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd also guess that you all have no basis for these statistics. ~~A self-confessed vandal

[edit] Not Always (Second the Motion)

I agree with the "Not Always" poster. The motivations of vandals may be various, and in some cases may boil down to nothing more complicated than a genetic preference to cause havoc irrespective of whether it brings attention to the vandal. (Many vandals, in fact, prefer that their acts remain anonymous, for obvious reasons.)

As I read this article, I was struck with a strong suspicion that the whole purpose behind the article is to discourage vandals while sounding like an objective dissertation on vandalism's cause. While dissuading vandalism may be a noble goal (to non-vandals, anyway), it is not necessarily synonymous with finding out what actually causes vandalism. --DarelRex 18:26, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This essay is written with a rather dated psychoanalytic view...

It's a little simplistic to say that a vandal just wants attention. I can think of a few other reasons, and have added them to the article.

Dismissing all vandalism as a mere 'cry for attention' isn't the most constructive way of viewing the problem, in my humble opinion. -- Chris 00:57, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I second this. Not only that, but all of this project seems to be like the users want to take a 'higher stance' over us vandals. There's constant talk about us being immature or childish, both in the discussion and the project page. Isn't that a form of vandalism in itself? Even if I know I myself do not fall into that category, I feel insulted. ~~A self-confessed vandal

It's probably the side-effect of reverting and blocking so many school IPs. Back when I regularly reverted vandalisms from such places, a some of it was genuinely immature. That said, I will admit that vandalizm is still "dark territory" we know little about, other then it happens. Seeing only the result, we are almost guaranteed to form erroneous conclusions. 68.39.174.238 15:15, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Solicitation for improvement

This is my basic suggestion for a revision to this page. I want to get other peoples different inputs on this here first, especially since this involves a significant change to the tone and direction of the page. In outline form:

1. Motivation of a vandal: we don't know unless they tell us (Note that this can include extremely obvious signs, however care should be exercised with these).
2. Common ones seen:
A. Amusement (EG. People who get a kick out of seeing damage, or seeing people repair it)
B. Outright malice (EG. Someone who genuinely has a grudge against us for some reason, some types of trolling)
C. Deliberate violation of the rules for their own reasons (EG. Jason Gastrich, maybe Karmafist)
D. Attention (EG. The North Carolina vandal)
E. Mental illness (EG. Randallrobinstine, MascotGuy)
G. Influence (EG. A worker being told to vandalize articels on their competitors, a SPAMmer being paid to, well, SPAM. (Note that both of these assume that the people involved know full well that what they're doing is wrong))
H. Misguidedness (EG. Primetime, who seems to want to make us the most concise encyclopedia ever... by dumping plagairized copyvios on us. Note again that he understands and refuses to follow copyright laws, "information ethics", etc)
H. Unique circumstances (EG. A vindictive person who loses an election may take it out by vandalizing their opponents page, or the victim of a fraudster, etc.)
2a. Note that none of these are inherently mutually exclusive. Failure to note this may lead to overly- to extremely- simplistic conclusions and assumptions, which may lead to trouble as outlined below in 3.
3. Application of this knowledge by possibly neutralizing the vandal by addressing the cause of the vandalism (EG. Dampening the amusement a vandal gets by showing them the one-sided-ness of their emotions and interpretations of their acts)
A. Care should be taken:
I. That the "cause" being addressed is the real cause, not a decoy or an incorrect interpretation. Missing this could result in someone looking foolish at best and being offensive and alienatory at worst.
II. To ensure that they don't relapse, especially for certain circumstances (EG. User:Michael)
III. To stop losses by being able to reasonably tell when a vandal has gone past the "point of no return", where they are obviously not interested in reform, are making (false) pretenses only to be able to troll or continue their vandalisms, etc.
4. Importance of not jumping to conclusions. Revert, block, but keep track. Share information, but not in a counterintuitive or counterproductive way.
5. [Forgot]

That's my suggestion anyway. My main concern is deviating from discussing vandals to the (ever present) discussion of HOW TO DEAL WITH THEM. 68.39.174.238 03:00, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Add:

breaching experiment
bigotry

^Blank ^Verse 03:14, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Boys want to destroy things, it's their nature

Teenage boys are angry, angry every waking hour. They do not need and generally do not have any specific reason to be angry. They punch holes in walls, they blow stuff up – if they have access to powerful M-80-type firecrackers, or gunpowder and metal pipes, they will blow up inanimate objects far and wide. They will run over small animals with their cars. If they see an unoccupied structure out in the woods they will break its windows, or even knock it down. Maybe they just need to leave traces of themselves somewhere. When I was a kid it was a smoking hole in the middle of a vacant lot, or a dozen holes kicked in a box of paper products in a supermarket backroom. I'm developing a theory as I type, kids (always at least two, that's where the attention comes in, not from wiki readers or the vandal patrol), kids knocking holes in Wikipedia, too lazy to go outside and do it the old-fashioned way. Maybe we are doing a public service and forestalling a certain amount of mayhem in the physical world by providing this fine playground. --CliffC 15:30, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Err... I'm not too sure about the thesis of that argument. Without compromizing anyones privacy, I can say that is a FAR too broad categorization. 68.39.174.238 06:16, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I notice you spell it "compromizing" so I'll refine my statement by saying that perhaps this behavior reflects more of the American "Wild West" mindset, and the lads are tamer over there. The behaviors I describe (excepting of course the cruelty to animals by a few very bad types) were common in suburban areas in the U.S. in years past when children actually went outside to play, and attracted little police attention as anything but noisy mischief. Of course not 100% of teenage boys are angry. Hopefully the many who are will take it out on the virtual world and not the real one. I think the "Motivations" essay needs to tip a big hat to the raging hormones of adolescence. --CliffC 19:36, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I spelt it "compromizing" because I'd just read a book on Benjamin Franklin and was rather taking by their enthusiastic use of the letter "Z". "Partizan" just looks better. 68.39.174.238 00:16, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

All people are angry some of the time, happy some of the time, thirsty at other times, et cetera. Stating "Teenage boys are angry, angry every waking hour." is a very simplistic view of the world.

Please see essay, and the {{essay}} tag on the subject project page. Welcome to Las Vegas. --CliffC 16:30, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm male and only turned 20 a couple of months ago and never had any great particular desire to destroy things when I was a teenager.--HisSpaceResearch 19:32, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Yep, on review, I'd say CliffC made a really broad and stereotyped generalisation about teenage boys.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 20:51, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Please do not allow such deliberately biased and rude commentary to make it to the original page. After all, this is about stopping wikipedia vandalism, and isn't deliberately changing information on the pages into biased statements a form of vandalism? ~~A self-confessed vandal who certainly doesn't find this applicable to himself

Don't worry, I don't think very many other people would agree. 68.39.174.238 15:05, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Footnote 4

The authors might want to look for another example of a vandalism "publicly humiliating someone". The diff used for footnote 4 includes the full name of the "fat gay kid from Mount Airy, NC" originally targeted. --CliffC 04:43, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Well Meaning? Benign?

The section "Well Meaning But Misguided Edits" added today describes a user deliberately tarring members of another political party. I don't think that behavior is "benign" or well-meaning at all, I think it's childish and spiteful. --CliffC 00:22, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I think it's spiteful as well. But this is a page about the motivation of vandals, not the reaction fo the community. People get involved with politics for two reasons: personal gain, or to make the world a better place. There's a lot of debate over what "a better place" means and how to get there, but that's what most people in grass-roots politics are genuinely working towards.

The edits have stopped and the user seems to have been banned, so ultimately the changes were all reverted back. But it should be noted that s/he was reporting an unpleasant truth, which is alltogether different from slander or spreading lies about a person to tarnish their reputation. This is part of why I see the edits as "well meaning." If somebody had added "Dick Cheney eats puppies and kills children" I would see that quite differently than, say, adding a section to his bio about Harry Whittington. The former would be nothing but vandalism and libel, while the second seems to be in good faith.

Ultimately this describes a lot of "edit wars." Both sides tend to believe their working in the interest of improving an article, yet they disagree on how this should be done. Each side may think of the other as vandals, but sometimes the line is blurred. 71.216.188.161 20:43, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

What I was criticising was not the vandals but the choice of the words "well meaning" and "benign" to decribe the libelous edits you mention. Libel is not "reporting an unpleasant truth". --CliffC 16:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Is it not true that Mark Foley at least attempted sexual relations with underage boys? As you say, this is not libel. I agree with you that this is also not "well meaning," but I'm a Republican. My instinct is to think of Democrats as lazy and evil, and their instinct is to see me as a demon from Hell. I'm forced to admit Foley's behavior shames the entire party he claimed membership in. And I can understand how a person might think they're doing the lord's work ( in other wordds, well meaning ) by "taking him down." DigitalEnthusiast 00:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps I should have refined my objection more before posting. The libel here is by adding "...links to the Log Cabin Republicans page. These people were never members of the group..." --CliffC 03:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

If this is an article on "The Motivation of a Vandal," then 71.216.188.161 is right. Some ( probably few, but some ) vandals are motivated by a mis-guided sense of altruism. Just like Democrats in general, I'd say. Most of them are good people, working to improve the world, and going about it the wrong way. Some wikipedian vandals are doing what they ( not us, they ) believe will make the world and wikipedia both better places. Unless you're a vandal and not telling us about your experience, then your thoughts on whether another person meant well or malign aren't relevant here.

DigitalEnthusiast 00:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Needs a split...

This may be an essay, but I highly doubt it'll ever be agreed by even a plurality of people what exactly motivates vandals (At least, untill there's a rigorous study done by a legitimate external organization), and I can see an edit war in the distance between at least two groups with opposing views on this. I suggest it be split into sections, or subpages, or something, to prevent this. 68.39.174.238 17:57, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Wow, this would have been my first edit war<g>. However, I don't see any point in going to war over anything as subjective as what motivates a vandal. I'm sure there are many motivations, but what difference does it make? We should instead be working on ways to discourage them. One way might be to depersonalize the (IMO) very personal feedback they get from the legitimate editors here; perhaps all reversions and warnings should be anonymized and standardized by sending them through a bot, similar to quietly and persistently painting over a (street) vandal's tagged wall every night. --CliffC 00:41, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandals using Wikipedia as a bulletin board

I believe many vandals use Wikipedia as a platform to communicate personal messages, either to their friends or to the world at large. Here's an extreme example of this (one that I didn't have the heart to delete when I saw it):

The most beautiful and amazing girl in the entire world loves this place with all her heart! She has stolen my heart and has made me the happiest person in the entire world! I love you BETH!!!

--orlady 05:42, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I can kind of see that myself. They strike me as little more than ignorant children who should go on MySpace for this kind of stuff.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 20:56, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

And I would have reverted that edit immediately had I seen it.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 20:58, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

A fair bit of the vandalism is written in hip-hop slang; for example, see this set of contributions.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 15:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

This one too.-h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 13:36, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

But hey, I've never loved a girl with that level of zeal and look at me, I've got 5000 plus edits on Wikipedia...-h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 15:15, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Contrasting your first and last contributions to this paragraph shows a charming increase in wisdom! Almost-instinct (talk) 17:13, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reformed ex-vandals who have turned into valuable contributors

Any clear cases of this in existence that anyone knows about? I myself have never vandalised Wikipedia to the best of my memory, having used it since early 2004, but in the early stages I made several good-faith edits that were deemed to be unconstructive, or about non-notable subjects.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 21:07, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Some went straight for awhile but soon returned to their old ways. See Flameviper as an example. --MichaelLinnear 21:15, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I made a few knowingly questionable edits, but always felt like improving rather then ruining. 68.39.174.238 15:06, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Citation of Wikipedia

It is common practice in New Zealand as well to NOT cite Wikipedia as a source. Academic work never quotes any encyclopeadias. With the current level of vandalism is is not a particulary reliable source of information. Alan Liefting 00:34, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

It's common practice in almost all academic institutions, I'm guessing, not to cite encyclopedias and particularly Wikipedia. What's new there? Still, if Wikipedia cites reliable sources, surely these sources (not Wikipedia) can often be used in academic work?--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 15:30, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Wikipedia functions as a source of information for those who are interested in obtaining information quickly in a summarised form and also for those who want a starting point for reseaching a topic to a more in depth level. Alan Liefting 20:42, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't see the connection to vandal motivation, and yes, citing encyclopedias is rarely tolerated outside of certain narrow exceptions. 68.39.174.238 17:12, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A thought

One thing that I've thought about is how "regular" people connect to writing (as opposed to speaking.) Many many people are rarely -- if ever -- given the opportunity to write something extensive that anyone other than a few people (mostly close family) will read. Writing original thoughts for an audience is something many learn in college, but not everyone goes and not everyone learns it there, either. But there's a steep learning curve, and I wonder if some vandalism is an example of that? Sdedeo (tips) 02:20, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Like this

This is what I would at like if I were a vandal "you all suck die die die die die"--Arceus fan 23:19, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Respectful disagreement

As a user of Uncyclopedia, I must disagree (respectfully of course) with the mention of said website in this essay. Uncyclopedia is not made to be vandalized. As far as I know, no wiki exists simply for the purpose of providing an area for vandalization. Therefore, I object to its inclusion in this essay. We treat vandals much the same way you do here. After all, you guys do parody us ;)-Ljlego 02:13, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Very true. Even Encyclopedia Dramatica is not a vandalism wiki. A wiki decidated to vandalism would not function.--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 12:40, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Less Wiki spin would be helpful

Most of the comments about this article are useful, and many well-considered. So without belaboring an opinion about which are the most central, let's talk briefly about Wiki's image of itself. Here's an opening Wiki sentence which seeks to support the Wiki effort, but in-and-of-itself embodies conceit which prompts aspects of vandalism:

"When a vandal stumbles upon Wikipedia, he/she immediately sees the large number of contributors who work tirelessly editing Wikipedia, sacrificing their personal time to help improve a project and a concept that is bigger than themselves."

This paragraph has several instances of marketing language which don't belong in Wiki.

In this marketing viewpoint, vandals don't come here intentionally, they stumble. I.e., they aren't competent individuals, they don't come here intentionally.

Once vandals are here, they "immediately see" something. Why is the word "immediately" included at all? Is there some importance to how long it takes a vandal to decide their course of action?

"Contributors who work tirelessly". A cliche. Hyperbole. Ok, some people do work themselves to exhaustion on Wiki. But many contributors have motivations which are -- who knows? -- perhaps little better than the vandals. They aren't necessarily honest or tireless.

"Sacrificing their personal time"? Hasn't it been shown in recent high profile cases that employees have used company time to modify Wiki? The point is this. Some people are sacrificing personal time, but many others have an axe to grind, and aren't doing it on personal time.

"A concept that is bigger than themselves". What concept isn't bigger than one's self? What difference would it make it if was a "smaller concept"? Would that make it not worth doing?

This Wiki article, perhaps above most others, should deal with straight facts, or well-considered speculation. Not marketing diatribes. 71.198.183.159 03:59, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Um, did you ever ask any former vandals why they did it?

I mention the question because, as everyone knows by now, I used to be a Wikipedia vandal a long time ago, and I've long since reformed and joined the forces of good. My thought processes when vandalizing (and when becoming an ex-vandal) were not similar to what's described in the article. I may have more to say about this later, or maybe not. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 21:41, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Indeed my experiences do not reflect this article either. I being an ex vandal as well whose seen the light find this page to have alot of inconsistancies to why i vandaled. For example, when i was a TA i suspected that people were using wikipedia to solve assignments for a history class so i changed the answers on wikipedia in order that the students who were cheating would be exposed...a minor vandel thing, but this was certaintly not to spite open source as suggested in the paragraph of motivations. I am very intrigued to add to this article in the coming days. I just think there needs alot more work and would encourage ex vandals to share their stories Ottawa4ever (talk) 00:07, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Heck, why not ask current vandals as well? I don't have a grudge against Wikipedia. In fact, I find the thought of creating a source of Open Learning to be something that should be strived for. I don't do vandalism to "expose the holes" in the system. If I wanted to do that, I'd just tell people and if they didn't listen, then that's their problem. I don't vandalize pages so that they'll express my ideas and opinions. If I wanted people to know my beliefs, I'd create or improve the article about them. And I especially resent the insinuation that my "judgment has been impaired, either by a chemical cause (e.g. drugs; alcohol) or by serious emotional and/or mental problems" (talk about POV).

I vandalize because in the act, I take part in both destruction and creation. I vandalize because the dadaist were right. I vandalize because exploiting holes is interesting. I vandalize because Loki, Brer Rabbit, and Timothy Leary aren't dead, but dreaming. But most of all, I do it because it's fun. —Preceding unsigned comment added by User:72.231.154.149 (talk • contribs)

This isn't articelspace, so WP:NOR doesn't really apply. If you know that something is missing, or something is completely erroneous, ... . That said, I'm not sure about removing things: Can we really know if it is never (or rarely enough) a cause or rationale. That said, I don't think any of us asked because "former vandal" isn't really a well known demographic: People don't (seem?) to advertize it, and there are no userboxes on it. 68.39.174.238 (talk) 20:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Userboxes

This user is a reformed vandal.

You're right. It's too bad that such a userbox doesn't exist. Because, if such a user box did exist, you could probably go to the template for that userbox, click on What Links Here and find over 500 users who all proclaim themselves to be reformed vandals. Too bad, I guess my sarcasm just doesn't have the power to make it happen. —Preceding unsigned comment added by User:Hey, that isn't my IP address! (talk • contribs)

[edit] Why not ask a professional psychologist?

They could put together information from many sources and give a better impression of why vandalism exists. Who knows, there may be one out there who is willing to dedicate their lives to researching vandalism on Wikipedia. Tcaudilllg (talk) 16:35, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

To "dedicate their life" is a strong phrase, but it's possible that a psychologist could conduct a study on it. I wouldn't bet on it though...--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 12:39, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Here's a study that discusses vandalism among other things, but not from a psychological perspective. PDF file--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 21:08, 7 December 2007 (UTC)