Wikipedia talk:Vandalism

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This is not the page for reporting vandalism. This page is for discussion of the Wikipedia:Vandalism page and the associated policy. Report obvious vandals at Administrator intervention against vandalism Report any other incidents at the incidents noticeboard. For common cases of vandalism, just revert them.

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Wikipedia:Vandalism page.
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See also: Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Removing warnings.

Archives

Past discussion prior to these archives is available in the page history. Dec 2005 Jan–Apr 2006 Apr–Jun 2006 Jul–Sep 2006 Oct 2006–March 2007 April 2007-January 2008

Contents 1 Freedom of Speech 2 Fixing Wikipedia 3 Vandalism is Important 4 Overlinking to this page. 5 Where are vandalism-only accounts defined? 6 How long? 7 Peeping 8 Adding whois templates 9 That weird guy 10 remove 11 Inappropriate edits in the sandbox 12 Warnings 13 Ease of Use Vinegar 14 Phenomenon on the increase 15 determining shared or not-shared IPs 16 'Internal Spam' wikilinks to Wikipedia:Canvassing? 17 A vandalism template for tagging vandalism? 18 Is this vandalism? 19 Edit Summaries Vandalism 20 Vandalism of Yourself? 21 Fanning the fire wikilink 22 Vandal warnings 23 Unclear language 24 Blanking vandalism in policy 25 Edit summaries 26 Protection/Semi-protection 27 "Stubbornness" and 3RR 28 Vandalism History 29 Handling Returning IP Vandals 30 Retalitory Vandalism 31 Vandalism policy & editing permissions 32 Contributions page as tool to find vandalism 33 Talk page warning removal 34 Making bold edits 35 Deletions 36 Willy on Wheels and others 37 When am i meant to go to WP:AIV? 38 Editing stuff on your user talk is vandalism? 39 Constantly editting UK English "-our" to US English "-or" 40 "hello" on top of article 41 NPOV 42 Warnings policy 43 Curious... 44 Question 45 Vandalism Study 46 Vandalism from dynamic IP addresses 47 Increasing strictness 48 Grammatical error 49 Suggestion to decrease vandalism 50 Some things that are not vandalism 51 "Only" warning 52 Lessening the tolerance for vandalism 53 Please Help 54 Mass Vandalism/Colbert Vandalism 55 Vandal Mumun 無文 56 Signature vandalism? 57 Baby-sitting vandals 58 Dealing with vandalism properly 59 User 'Mikey01' Constantly Vandalizing And Removing Valid Information From Page 60 Automation of vandal reversion and warning 61 IP versus account 61.1 Dealing with vandalism 61.2 Warnings 61.3 Tracing IP addresses 62 Disagreements over interpretation of policy is not vandalism 63 Data on vandalism 64 Redirecting UPV warnings 65 Don't have the time for your help's 66 Page shortcuts 67 Different types of vandalism 68 blatant POV warriors who delete large portions of text 69 Blanking 70 An Idea to Reduce Vandalism 71 Warning IP addresses for vandalism is useless 72 Someone vandaiized the sandbox! 73 April Fool's Day Jokes? 74 Operation: New Leaf Discussion 75 Why does WP:WHOIS redirect here? 76 Clarification of tag abuse 77 User Warnings 78 Edit history vandalism 79 Table of types of vandalism 80 Reality check

[edit] Freedom of Speech

Technically, vandalism is freedom of speech. Obstruction thereof violates the constitutions of numerous countries. I can understand wanting to remove "Britney is a b***h" from Britney Spears, but removing "What do you call a Lada with two exhaust pipes? A wheelbarrow!" from the Lada page is pure obstruction of freedom of speech. Blocking open proxies is also obstruction of freedom of speech. 75.157.191.45 (talk) 14:55, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

True enough. Wikipedia is a project to provide a free encyclopedia to as many people as possible, not a forum for free speech. Therefore, the content in the article namespace is restricted to reliable, encyclopedic information. Though plenty such forums exist on the Internet, if you're interested in one of those. delldot talk 15:19, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

You're still voilating the constitutions of most countries by obstructing freedom of speech. 75.157.191.45 (talk) 15:28, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Please read WP:RIGHTS. GlassCobra 16:59, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

It does not violate any freedom of speech laws. Wikipedia is a private website that can decide to display what it likes. You are allowed to put a sign up in your garden saying what you like, as you own the garden. However if you put the sign in your neighbour's garden, they have the right to get rid of it. Wikipedia is, in this analogy, your neighbour's garden. Hut 8.5 22:16, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I did, but does the constitution apply in the neighbour's garden? Y-E-S. 24.80.89.208 (talk) 01:37, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

What are you talking about? A private entity is under no obligation to act as host for everything anybody has to say. Oh, and a simple click shows that Hut 8.5 is British, and "neighbour" is correct British spelling of the word. Torc2 (talk) 02:11, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, they can get rid of it, but they aren't allowed to stop you in the first place as that's obstruction of freedom of speech. Basically: NO BLOCKING OPEN PROXIES. 24.80.89.208 (talk) 04:36, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

As Torc2 said, the Wikimedia foundation is a private entity and has the right to determine who has what access to its websites. If you want to discuss open proxies, please go to Wikipedia talk:Open proxies, and this is the page for discussing Wikipedia's vandalism policy. Hut 8.5 07:43, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Calling it vandalism is wrong. Vandalism implies an illegal act, such as smashing someones car window or spraying gafitti on a building. Vandalism is against the law. People who alter Wikipedia articles with purposely incorrect, humorous or vulgar information are not breaking any law and therefore are not vandals. The fact that you also threaten to report people who alter an article to their companies IT administrator is wrong. It is none of your business to do that and to threaten someone like that, with potential serious implications to that persons job or career is wrong. Especially since THEY ARE NOT BREAKING THE LAW. I assume you will not consider this "vandalism" as this is a discussion page and this is my free opinion. Thank you. Tornados28Tornados28 (talk) 22:05, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Freedom of speech doesn't mean you can yell fire in a crowded theater. MalwareSmarts (talk) 21:22, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I think points raised by IP address 75.157.191.45 are quite useless. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 12:33, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fixing Wikipedia

Vandalism is the single most dangerous threat to Wikipedia's credibility (see the rise of Citizendium).

How to fix it:

First of all, don't call it vandalism. See my opinion above in Freedom of Speech. And you better not consider this "vandalism" as well as it is not.Tornados28 (talk) 22:12, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

• Every edit needs to be approved (seconded) by at least one other editor, within a 24 hour waiting/cooling off period.
• Every time an editor gets an "approved edit" they (like on eBay) gain a "+" on your their wikiprofile. This would be a measure of their edit-credibility (edibility)
• Every time an editor gets a "disapproved edit", they gain a "-" on their wikiprofile.
• I'm sure editors will strive to keep their edibility high (expressed as a percentage).
• Other editors can suggest an improved text to a pending edit, say to fix typos in a pending edit, to stop essentially goods edits being voted down for trivial reasons.
• Also, a editor should have the right to retract an edit before the 24hr period expires if they change their mind about an edit, i.e. to avoid a "disapproved edit" if they agree with any comments made.
• If an editor gets 100% disapproved edits (e.g. 0% edibility), over say 10 edits, their account is suspended/barred.
• The bigger/more edits an article has, the more positive votes will be required before an edit gains the "approved edit" status, and thus gets posted on wikipedia, for example:
  • e.g. 1 net positive votes (over 24hr period) for new-ish article with say 100 edits
  • e.g. 2 net positive votes (over 24hr period) for an established article with say a 1000 edits
  • e.g. 5 net positive votes (over 24hr period) for a well established article with say a 10000 edits
  • e.g. 20 net positive votes (over 24hr period) for and article with say 100,000 edits (e.g. 22 positive votes verses 2 negative votes - this would count as one "positive edit", not 22 positives and 2 negatives edits). Obviously the threshold and amount of edits can be customised to best suit practice.

This will slow the growth of wikipedia down a little, but at least this would be steady growth with improved credibility, and there would be less time spent vandal-sweeping.

Job done?

(PS - Vote on this edit now ...?!)

81.107.214.224 (talk) 15:52, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

This is better off at WP:VPR. Hut 8.5 16:05, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

"...gain a "+" on your their wikiprofile." "your" should be omitted in the previous sentence. javaman (talk) 13:35, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism is Important

Is there a place in the article for information about how important vandalism is? Or maybe an essay somewhere? Or maybe this essay exists and I have not found it. Vandalism keeps Wikipedia on its toes. All of the discussion, intelligent thought and effort of the good people above constitutes the immune system of Wkipedia. This system not only fights the existing problems, but thinks creatively about potential problems in the future.

At a small extra level of abstraction, it becomes obvious that while the fight against vandalism is important, victory would be a disaster. Before long the immune system would wither, and the organism would be defenceless in a changing world.

Am I in the right forum? Does anyone know where the right forum is? Joesydney (talk) 03:58, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Don't call it vandalism. See my opinion in the Freedom of Speech section above.Tornados28 (talk) 22:11, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Overlinking to this page.

Template:Pp-template links here, and thousands of templates transclude that template. The result is that tens of thousands of articles link here because they contain a template, even if neither the template nor the article have ever been vandalized. This, in turn, makes it overly difficult to search the pages that link to this page for anything. Any ideas on fixing this? bd2412 T 20:08, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Where are vandalism-only accounts defined?

It's becoming clear from discussion at Wikipedia talk:Username policy that there is a class of users whose username suggests they are just here to vandalize, but we need to assume good faith for those cases where people choose ugly usernames and turn out to be legitimate users. A prominent example is "banging on the keyboard" usernames. We've been discussing for a while what's the right thing to do with these. The status quo is that we softblock them, often before they've edited at all, which is problematic because it bites the legitimate newbies and doesn't prevent the illegitimate ones from vandalizing.

I'm making a proposal there that we wait for users with suspicious usernames to edit. If they vandalize, then we block them under the vandalism policy, as "vandalism only accounts", something I've often seen given as the reason for a block without warning. If they don't, we assume good faith, welcome them, and maybe drop them a note asking if they're really that attached to a username that sucks.

Now, here's the thing. I need to be able to point to the policy that says how and when to block "vandalism-only accounts", and I don't actually know where it is. This policy page seems to say that every vandal needs to be warned before blocking, no matter how blatant. Is the "vandalism-only accounts" thing just a big huge WP:IAR, or is it written down somewhere I haven't found yet?

Thanks, rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 09:12, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

A user can be permablocked without warning if their username is vulgar or designed to attack or impersonate another user. bd2412 T 09:48, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, but I didn't ask for a summary of the username policy. I work with the username policy all the time. I'm writing a proposal to deal with a much-discussed edge case. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 20:54, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Somebody needs to write a companion article for WP:AGF called "don't be a patsy". If someone creates a new account with an off-color name and starts to vandalize several articles using profanity, trying to WP:AGF is ridiculous. They're a vandal; treat them like one. —Torc. ^(Talk.) 11:10, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes. I'd say my proposal is a good example of "don't be a patsy" (though 'off-color names' are a side issue -- the usual example is a name that looks like it was produced by banging on the keyboard). This is why I want to be able to point to the policy, in my proposal, that says we don't need to give warnings in these cases -- if we know they're vandals based on their username and one of their edits, they get hardblocked. So where is the part of the vandalism policy that allows this? rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 20:50, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

rspeer, I don't think there's anything as specific as how and when to block vandalism-only accounts, but there's this from WP:BP:

Warning is not a prerequisite for blocking... ...and accounts whose main or only use is forbidden activity (sock-puppetry, obvious vandalism, personal attack, and so on) may not require further warning.

Sounds like a very sensible proposal you're bringing up. delldot talk 21:23, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah ha! That's exactly the text I was looking for. Thanks. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 21:48, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

You need to come up with a completely new name other than "Vandalism" as that word implies an illegal act. Defacing a Wikipedia article is not an illegal act. Maybe a better word would be defacing.Tornados28 (talk) 22:17, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How long?

How long can IP addresses be blocked for, if they can't be blocked permanently? SaintJimmy505 (talk) 00:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Peeping

Peeping is the name I believe is given to altering content and then changing it back fairly soon. It is a type of vandalism that tests whether an article is watched, before engaging in permanent damage. Is there a way of reducing its frequency, please? Vernon White ^{. . . Talk} 13:04, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I didn't know there was a name for that or why it occurred, but when I see that, I check the IPs other contributions to see what else they've done. Also, if the "test" edit is clearly vandalism (profanity, etc.), even if they change it back, I think it's OK to warn them on the basis they're inserting vandalism into the article history. —Torc. ^(Talk.) 20:16, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

In my experience, cases like this are often more than one person (e.g. a teacher reverting students). Or people testing. There's {{Uw-selfrevert}} for these cases. If they persist, they can receive escalating warnings and be blocked like other vandals, since they're still doing damage, though a personal note would be ideal. delldot talk 20:28, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

You should also check that they completely reverted themselves and didn't just add vandalism to 2 lines and remove it from one. Mr.Z-man 20:59, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Adding whois templates

Is there anything wrong with adding WHOIS on every IP address talk page that has done vandalism? Or is this only for serious offenders? Wont having a WHOIS description on their talk page act as a detterent? (If you place it after the first sign of vandalism?) I saw on the article that it mentioned multiple offenders, but I was wondering if it was strictly against the rules to place the notice after a few bouts of vandalism? Cheers.Calaka (talk) 14:24, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I've never heard of a rule against this and can't think of why one should exist. I think the reason it mentions repeat offenders is because those are more likely to be the shared IPs, e.g. schools, where the info is handiest. On the other hand, doing it on every talk page might not be the best use of your time. delldot talk 07:21, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Hehe good point. I envy people who are able to patrol and revert so much vandalism that occurs on a daily basis. I suppose the programs/scripts help though. Cheers!Calaka (talk) 08:14, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

• In my experience, more than 90% of the IP-address vandals I've seen are schools - middle schools up through colleges. I placed a LOT of those WHOIS notices, and they all seemed to do the trick. The vandals think they are completely untraceable, and the notice puts that notion to rest. The problem, from my point of view, is the huge amount of TIME it takes to put a proper one in place. You want to place a few? Great! You have my support. Go get 'em. Cbdorsett (talk) 11:31, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] That weird guy

There's nothing about Robert Boulders in the text. This seems odd; he declared war on this website. Imperial Star Destroyer (talk) 20:33, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:DENY. Bobby Boulders really isn't that much of a problem (and there are plenty of other people who hate Wikipedia just as much). Hut 8.5 20:37, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Who is Robert Boulders? SaintJimmy505 (talk) 00:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] remove

i want you to remove only images from the Mohammad page, as there are lots of Muslims who don't like them a/c to their personal opinions. its not a very big issue n don't try to make a big issue. Thanks.

A Muslim Pakistan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.63.227.81 (talk) 12:17, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Please go to Talk:Muhammad to discuss the Muhammad article. This is the discussion page for Wikipedia's vandalism policy. Hut 8.5 12:32, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Inappropriate edits in the sandbox

Can an edit in the sandbox be vandalism? "Copyrighted, offensive, or libelous content" is not to be added. Some users are using a 'reverted vandalism' summary for changing the header or testing a VFD template. Examples of editing [1], [2], [3]. --209.244.43.122 (talk) 20:18, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

No, because the idea of the sandbox is for people to test out editing, which means they can put ANYTHING on the page (an execption would be when someone adds something offensive or pornographic on the sandbox). Lightman2 (talk) 08:17, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Warnings

Hi, I'm a vandal fighter, and I'm just wondering what warnings I should use in individual situations. Like how should I differentiate someone putting "poop" in an article and "(whoever) is a big fat piece of gay poop he sucks lol"? Should I use different warnings if someone is a first time vandal or on the article being vandalized? MalwareSmarts (talk) 21:27, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Similar query: What I have to rev to the "last good version" involves what the page calls silly vandalism (one each of profanity and nonsense). What I want to know is what, and where, are the appropriate templates to slap on the User page? Both are unregistered users, but still I'd like to have a handy treatment for such occurrences. -- Deborahjay (talk) 14:36, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Per the query I left on the WP Help Desk:

Basically I'd like confirmation or advice on what I do:

• Rev by saving to last good version per history (is this "rollback"?)
• Leave a warning on the perp's Talk page, even if it's an unregistered user

That is pretty much it- check, revert, warn. If the suspect editor insists the edit is not vandalism and repeats it, then move it to the talk page and discuss it. If the vandalism i repeated and the the user is properly warned multiple times, then report it to WP:AIV. If you use FireFox, then you can enableWP:TWINKLE through My:Preferences → Gadgets; this adds tabs for warning templates. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 16:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

You can use Undo to revert a single edit, and if you have the function, Rollback will undo multiple edits (rollback should only ever be used for vandalism). If you do Rollback, always double check the edits afterwards, just in case there was a sensible edit in there.

As for warnings, there is a list of useful templates at WP:MLT. Always assume good faith, so only ever use the lowest level, or if there is a recent vandalism warning, the next level up. If they vandalise after level 4, you can notify the administrators at WP:AIV. StephenBuxton (talk) 16:07, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ease of Use Vinegar

Like syntactic vinegar, vandalism should be discouraged by requiring a logged in user to edit any page. This will prevent most casual vandals. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ggb667 (talk • contribs) 15:09, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

This has been rejected many times before. The main problems are that most (~70%) of unregistered edits are constructive, so requiring registration will remove many good editors, and many vandals will just register as it only requires a username and password. Plus we couldn't prevent most editing from vandalism hotspots such as schools as we do now. There are plenty of other problems that are more pressing than vandalism, and such a drastic change really isn't warranted. Hut 8.5 15:55, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I would like to know where this 70% figure comes from. In my experience, there's a lot of mindless vandalism from anonymous users. i can't see that it is asking too much to require editors to log in before editing. It's not exactly setting the bar very high. Michael Glass (talk) 13:55, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes me too. Problem is for schools like Primary schools the block should be lifted. Whats the probability of 7 to 11 year olds knowing about this site? Itfc+canes=me (talk) 16:37, 14 May 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Itfc+canes=me (talk • contribs)

[edit] Phenomenon on the increase

I get the feeling vandalism is increasing: on a given page that I am watching 1 in 8 edits are vandalism, previously it was much rarer? (This is not that important as vandals do not know the best way of vandalizing a page is by blanking, sabotaging redirects and writing obsceneties on the edit summary line.) Has anyone looking into vandalism trends? Above it is stated that 70% IP edits are good. That figure should be re-obtained in my opinion. --Squidonius (talk) 15:24, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] determining shared or not-shared IPs

I don't know how to read the DNS Stuff record to know if an IP is shared or not. A brief tutorial an example would help myself and future reporters. -- Sy / ^(talk) 18:49, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 'Internal Spam' wikilinks to Wikipedia:Canvassing?

In the Types of vandalism section under Discussion page vandalism. Any reason for this? it's doesn't seem correct. --neonwhite user page talk 01:27, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A vandalism template for tagging vandalism?

• --I like to help Wikipedia, but I'm a busy guy. Sometimes I see clear cases of vandalism (swears, completely off-topic sentences inserted, etc), but I don't have time to check page history, revert/edit the page, restore good edits, check the user to possibly report them, and leave a warning on their Talk page. So I do nothing. But if there were a simple way to help police the wiki, like I could just edit and add in a tag like "{{vandalism}}" or "{{questionable content}}", I could at least flag things so someone else could do the cleanup I don't have time to do. What do you think? Is there somewhere else I should make this suggestion? Or someone want to pass along the suggestion for me? If a new template were made perhaps it could be discussed in the vandalism article, and in this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_messages/Cleanup#Potentially_unwanted_content

--Jason C.K. (talk) 17:09, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem with flagging an article is that it would be unclear what revision you considered vandalism. Sometimes vandalism will be well-encrusted in an article, but 98% of what I deal with is someone inserting profanity/nonsense into an article and it getting caught right away. (Lots of us patrol Recent Changes to catch this stuff, though we can't claim to get 100%.) It's an interesting idea, though: a way to flag articles needing vandalism attention. (In lieu of adding a template to an article, I'd have a page where it could be reported, a la WP:AIV (that one's for persistent vandals who've been repeatedly warned)). There is the {{cleanup}} tag, though it's vague and seems to have a major backlog. Fogster (talk) 04:28, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Is this vandalism?

Is this edit vandalism? I'm wondering, since it removes a significant amount of content from the article, and the editor is an anon. However, none of the content is sourced. Some of the content is graffiti ("dounut boyy").

In general is the mass removal of unsourced content and original research (except in the cases of BLP, in which such actions would be sanctioned) considered vandalism?Bless sins (talk) 18:48, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

No, it's not. At least it was done in good faith. But it would have been better if the guy filled up the edit summary. It's a different situation if the removed content had some sort of refs. In the case of Shoah? Hmmmm, still needs consultation on the talk page. --Eaglestorm (talk) 19:40, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Edit Summaries Vandalism

I spend a lot of time fighting more clear-cut vandalism, but I wonder how to treat stuff like this edit. I don't wonder so much about the content of the linked edit (which was probably minor vandalism for changing the order erroneously, but it's a moot point right now), but more whether leaving irrelevant, racially inflammatory edit summaries constitutes vandalism, or if it's something else? Fogster (talk) 04:33, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

It's certainly a violation of WP:NOT#SOAPBOX and also probably WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA but I wouldn't call it vandalism. Hut 8.5 19:47, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism of Yourself?

I have a question for Wiki Admin. I recently decided that I do not wish to have my old negative discussions with a bothersome individual remain on the discussion page for an article. I recently went and deleted MY OWN posts. Is deleting your own words in a way that does not impact the article's content AT ALL considered "vandalism"? I have an individual playing admin (not actually) following my every edit and move around Wiki attempting to point out that everything I do is somehow against Wiki rules. I come here to bring legitimate content to certain articles, not bicker or be stalked. So I deleted such bicker matches which should never have occured anyway, my side anyway, and am now having this person undo my removal of my own words, citing that I am vandalising. Is it against wiki rules to remove YOUR OWN posts on discussion pages? If so then how can one protect their rights to free speech, or better yet, freedom of removing their own speech which in effect is it's own speech. If I want to edit my own posts (or remove them) I am allowed to do so, correct? LBear08 (talk) 18:18, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

No, you aren't generally allowed to remove them (or change the content substantially, especially if someone else has replied to you). When you submit content to Wikipedia, you release your rights to it, so it's not "yours". It's considered highly disruptive to remove content from article discussions, whoever added it. And regarding the person "playing admin" you don't need to have administrative tools to enforce policy. --Hut 8.5 18:33, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

There is a difference between submitting content and speaking for yourself on a discussion page though. It's my free speech (see US Constitution) to speak or remove such speak. My words are my own, not Wiki's unless I'm submitting to to the article pages themselves. It's absolutely understandable for someone to make suggestions, but to dictate and dominate and stalk, that's just silly. Anyway thank you for the response, it's good to know that anything I say here can and will be used against me in the hilarious court of Wiki, lol. LBear08 (talk) 21:26, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

When reviewing the link you provided, the rules clearly discuss the ownership over ARTICLE content. If I post in an article, it belongs to Wikipedia. It does not say that my words in discussion pages belong to Wikipedia, therefore if I want to delete my own comments in a discussion page in order to remove past silly conflict on my side, it is entirely within my "wiki rights" to do so without punishment nor revision from others. If you have a rule already in existence that says specifically I cannot edit my own comments, please provide me a link, otherwise I will continue to remove them. Thank you though for your assistance. LBear08 (talk) 11:27, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fanning the fire wikilink

How not to respond to vandalism section of project page

Do not feed the trolls. fanning the fire will make the situation worse. If the behavior escalates, it is easy to deal with those things.

The wikilink fanning the fire goes to a nonexistant page. I am interested in learning whether or not I have just made this mistake on this anon IP address talk page here:User talk:82.44.249.110

Please fix link or provide a valid alternative so that I don't BITE the vandals! Thankyou Marcia Wright (talk) 17:33, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vandal warnings

Should I sign warning posts to vandal talk pages? It seems that this would be an invitation for vandals to vandalize my user/talk page. Asmeurer (talk ♬ contribs) 01:58, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, vandalism warnings should be signed, just like all talk page posts. It provides accountability and makes it easier for other editors to know who was doing the warning - the information is there in the history for the vandal to find it if they really want to, anyway. —Krellis (Talk) 02:11, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Userpage vandalism is reverted rather quickly most of the time anyway (as I should know...) Hut 8.5 09:25, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unclear language

The following sentence in the section "Unintentional Misinformation" is unclear: "Sometimes a user will add content to an article that is factually inaccurate, but in the belief that it is." In the belief that it is . . . misinformation?

The sentence should be rewritten thusly: "Sometimes a user will add to an article content that she believes to be factually accurate, but is not," or something along those lines. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 8.6.1.127 (talk) 00:31, 24 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Blanking vandalism in policy

The "blanking section" reads:

Removing all or significant parts of pages or replacing entire established pages with one's own version without first gaining consensus both constitute vandalism.

This strikes me as inconsistent with

Vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia. … Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism. Apparent bad-faith edits that do not make their bad-faith nature inarguably explicit are not considered vandalism at Wikipedia.

I suggest rewriting the blanking section by adding a clause so it reads "both constitute vandalism if their motive is malicious". semper fictilis 14:42, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edit summaries

I have often found that people reverting vandalism will put what they removed in the edit summary. This can merely move the obscenities. Can we ask for people to not perpetuate the vandalism in the history? Goldfritha 01:42, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I have seen this myself and I agree. The summary "vandalism" suffices plenty. I might even go so far as t o suggest that a message to this efect be automatically placed on the edit page where editors will see it when they make reverts. Asmeurer (talk ♬ contribs) 02:00, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, if no one disagrees, I will put it in soon. Goldfritha 20:05, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

It's soon; it's in. Goldfritha 00:39, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Protection/Semi-protection

Any reason for page protection or semi-protection not being discussed or at least linked from in this article? (That is, described as an anti-vandalism tool with links to WP:RFPP provided). If there is no objection, I will add something. --Blainster 07:41, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Added a quick link at the bottom. --Sigma 7 02:00, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Stubbornness" and 3RR

In the entry on "stubbornness" I added a pointer to 3RR. This change is meant to be useful and non-controversial, but am posting here in case anyone disagrees. Raymond Arritt 16:35, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism History

A page should be created to analyze the history of wikipedia vandalism, and more specifically, hoaxes. Notably, the Satchel Cohen hoaxer from about a year ago. This a real subculture and deserves attention in this encyclopedia.

Oppose per WP:DENY. --Ginkgo100^talk 19:12, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

There already is one anyway – Qxz 17:00, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Handling Returning IP Vandals

I've seen cases of IP users who have a history of vandalism, including multiple warnings and possibly one or more blocks, returning to commit more vandalism. Of course, an IP user may be a different person, so going straight to block at the first offense after a period of inactivity doesn't make sense. But do warnings need to reset all the way back to {{uw-vandalism1}} before escalating if the user continues to vandalize? I wonder about this especially in cases where an IP user stopped vandalizing after a {{uw-vandalism4}} and returns after taking a break for a few weeks. I tend to give them a {{uw-vandalism2}} or {{uw-vandalism3}} in these cases, especially if I see several cases of blatant vandalism in the past hour and I'm the first to issue a warning -- a {{uw-vandalism1}} in these cases just seems pointless. Rickterp 21:56, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

In cases like this, I simply decide how bad the vandalism was and then go off that. If it's minor, I'll issue a vandalism2. If it's slightly worse, I'll go with vandalism3. If it's bad, I'll go with vandalism4. And if it's very bad, I'll go with vandalism4im. That's just my personal policy for return vandals. - Century0 00:21, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I've been wondering the same thing. I usually go to level 3 when the vandal comes back from blocking and hits the road with another vandalization. I figure, it's not like the vandal doesn't realize our policy and needs to be educated, as with a new vandal. On the other hand, I've not gone straight to level 4, and my previous reasoning suggests that sometimes it would be logical, so I came here to see what the consensus was and found this discussion. I think I will start using level 4 when it's warranted. As you said, severity is one factor; another one, though, is whether the IP has an unbroken history of vandalization, or whether it's interspersed with good edits. That, to me, indicates more likely actual multiple users so that a more "educational" approach might be warranted. Gzuckier 15:41, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

All of these seem to be good policies. It's seems to be all about what you prefer, but generally 3-4 warnings is good, depending on level of vandalism. If they've already vandalized about 5 times, that's when I give them an -im warning. Alex43223 ^{T | C | E} 22:34, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I find that I rarely issue {{uw-vandalism1}} even on first time editors, as choosing that template usually implies that you aren't assuming good faith to begin with (in the same way there isn't really a uw-test4 or uw-test4im.) Basically, you can treat it as a new user if there wasn't vandalism for a while as long as there isn't a long-term pattern of abuse. A good check list involves the following questions to help your decision:

• Is it an isolated incident, or is it spread across multiple pages from that user?
• Is it a single event on a page, or part of a series of edits from that user?
• Was the page recently vandalised by other users?
• Can you assume the edit was made in good faith? (e.g. random text or generic nonsense instead of cuss words)

This is a simple checklist, but it does help me gague which warning level to choose, whether it's a new or returning user. While this is meant for first-time editors, it applies equally well for those that return after a hiatus. --Sigma 7 01:56, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Retalitory Vandalism

Should we add retalitory vandalism to the types of possible vandalism, or is this assumed under User page vandalism? --Sigma 7 18:18, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism policy & editing permissions

Perhaps this topic has been taken up before, I don't know. But I have come to wonder why it is that anonymous edits without registration is allowed at all on Wikipedia. One of the pages on my watch list is Alaska. Over that last two days (so far!), between several of us who have this page on our watch list, we've reverted or otherwise undid edits by eight separate vandals, all but one of whom were unregistered anonymous editors working from different IP addresses. This has been going on for a really really long time -- just see that article's history.

Although of course registered users have the ability to vandalize, it takes more effort for a casual vandal to register before vandalizing; and a registered vandal can at least be tracked. Is there some overriding policy concern that leads Wikipedia to retain a policy that makes it so easy for people to vandalize anonymously? I'm honestly asking. And if there is -- is there still some way that articles that are chronically vandalized -- & I'm sure Alaska isn't the only one -- can be given some kind of additional protection so that we can spend more time doing constructive editing in Wikipedia, instead of so much time correcting the destructive editing of the various disaffected souls who so badly a life? --Yksin 22:40, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Unregistered/anonymous editing has the advantage where anyone can fix issues without having to register for yet another website. If such a feature is abused, you could post a message on WP:RFPP to semi-protect the page. --Sigma 7 23:49, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! I see you've already made a request for semiprotection on that article, & an admin has already acted on it. Thanks again. --Yksin 01:36, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contributions page as tool to find vandalism

I propose adding the following tool to the See also / Tools section. Comments? --Jdlh | Talk 19:26, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

• [[Special:Contributions/IP address or Username]] lists all the edits made by a particular anonymous editor at an IP address, or by a logged-in user if a Username is supplied. You can use this to find out other articles a vandal may have attacked. For instance, [[Special:Contributions/71.231.38.152]] lists all the contributions of the anonymous editor with IP address 71.231.38.152.

I usually check their contributions before issuing a warning. This gives me an idea how much experience they have, whether they have had a past history of vandalism, etc. After I have left a uw message, then I check their contributions again, looking for any that are still on the top, to determine if some of their past vandalism is still around. Sometimes you can catch them making new changes since you left the warning. wrp103 (Bill Pringle) ^(Talk) 04:48, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Talk page warning removal

This page should be changed from saying removing warnings from your page is frowned upon to it's not allowed. Admins shouldn't have to dig through talk history to find this stuff on someone. Rlevse 23:41, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

It should say that it's not allowed, that other users are not only allowed but encouraged to revert such removal, and quite possibly it should give a warning that can be put on such users' pages. Goldfritha 23:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

But what if the warning itself is vandalism or the edit in question was really in good faith? Asmeurer (talk ♬ contribs) 00:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

What if it wasn't?Rlevse 02:04, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

So someone gets a valid vandism notice, removes it, gets reported to AIV and the admin checks to see if they have been warned and has to dig through history pages to find it? Ha, I'll stop fighting vandals if I have to do that.Rlevse 02:34, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that part of the policy needs to be re-worded. It's still de facto for admins to revert vandals who have removed warning or block notices on their user talk pages. It's just bizzare how it's in poor faith to be editing talk page comments, yet the policy allows a vandal to hide/delete unfavorable warnings or page blank his talk page with no recourse. That's a double standard that devalues the usefulness of a user talk page. --Madchester 03:19, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Making bold edits

Large scale deletions may not be vandalism, if they are intended to improve.

It may be wise to add to this section that putting into the edit summary that the deletions were intentional may clarify it for other users. Goldfritha 00:38, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletions

What can I do if a vandal has deleted a page I've created? In some cases I can't even know who had done it, for example, who deleted Shumil. My previous deleted article was Mr Gluk Reset Service (acticle about BIOS for ZX Spectrum), deleted by User:NawlinWiki. He thought it was an article about person. He did not answer to my complain on his discussion page. His discussion page contains a lot of complains about deletions, from many people. Alone Coder 14:11, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Shumil was an uncontested prod. Mr Gluk Reset Service was deleted because it failed to assert notability. In both cases, the people who deleted the page are admins - if you disagree about the page being deleted, post your case on WP:DRV to have the content restored. Recreating the page as you did only obscures the revision history. --Sigma 7 19:45, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Willy on Wheels and others

Where can I find information about Willy on Wheels and other famous Wikipedia vandals? There is no longer a page about WoW, and I don't know where to look for information about others.

Also, are there vandals of similar renown in other languages? --Śiva 20:35, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Willy on wheels' "contributions"--$UIT 18:25, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

You can also see this. Hut 8.5 18:51, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

And this. YechielMan 14:19, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] When am i meant to go to WP:AIV?

Am i meant to go there every time i revert a vandal and report it? Or do i only go there when the vandals are persistant or it looks like they have vandalised numerous other pages through heir talk page? Simply south 09:54, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

• When admin intervention is required (which generally implies blocking the vandal in question). If it's localized and best solved through page protection, visit WP:RFPP. If it's a first instance, just warn the vandal and leave it at that. >Radiant< 10:27, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
  • OK, Thanks for the reply. Simply south 10:36, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Editing stuff on your user talk is vandalism?

Meh, I don't think so. Either you're doing stuff like archiving or removing, which is fine by me. (and if you remove warnings, I count them as having been seen and read... caveat remover ;-) ). Editing other peoples comments to misrepresent what they said is *lying* which is possibly rather worse than mere vandalism ;-)

So listing (user) talk editing under vandalism is either too strong or too weak, respectively. --Kim Bruning 12:22, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

• Archiving and moving is fine. However, the section refers to "Modifying users' comments - Editing other users' comments to substantially change their meaning" which is definitely not ok. Not on your own talk page, either. Lying implies bad faith, bad faith implies vandalism. >Radiant< 12:24, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Bad faith != vandalism. Vandalism is making a mess of things. A straws breadth, but else there's a number of folks I could block for vandalism every day. :-P That and there are other reasons to want to edit talk pages, including refactoring, removing of insults, etc. --Kim Bruning 00:23, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Deleting recent user warning messages is a form of vandalism, since when somebody goes to issue a warning, it appears this is a first offense. As I point out to people who complain when I revert such actions, the page might be yours, but Wikipedia provides the resources, and they have set a policy for conditions of use. wrp103 (Bill Pringle) ^(Talk) 04:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Nope, that's definitely ok. You can view the page history. (This is old news, and gets repeated every couple of days :-) ) --Kim Bruning 00:23, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Constantly editting UK English "-our" to US English "-or"

A user goes onto Games Workshop articles and converts UK English "-our" spellings (eg "armour") to US "-or" spellings (eg "armor"), despite being asked more than once to discontinue this practise as the articles use UK English as they are about a UK product. The user than deletes the remarks from his/her talk page. I also noticed a prior message about similar type of revert about the difference in Canadian/US English. Is this vadalism, and if so, which is the approiate template to use? Darkson - BANG! 09:03, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

• You can point him to Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#National_varieties_of_English. >Radiant< 09:05, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think he's that bothered - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Kiminatheguardian Darkson - BANG! 19:48, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

How about Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Request comment on users? - X201 21:44, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oh yes, or take it to WP:CN to get him to stop. >Radiant< 08:40, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "hello" on top of article

The "hello" at the top of the article is not documented in the article's history, does anybody know how to get rid of it? See: Josemaria Escriva. -- AJ24 16:14, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

The word wasn't actually in the article, it was in Template:Infobox Saint and was introduced in this edit, which is why it isn't in the history. I've got rid of it and warned the user who put it there. Hut 8.5 16:27, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

"Indeed, we are all affected by our beliefs to a greater or lesser extent."

POV in the NPOV summary? Ah, the irony.Groveller 09:34, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Warnings policy

I think that an IP vandal that has been blocked for vandalism before should not have to recieve three new warnings in order for a new block to be placed. An obvious vandal who has been blocked before knows what will happen if they continue to make such edits, and I think one new warning is more than generous. VanTucky 18:44, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

The obvious problem with that is that many IPs are shared, and it is often hard to tell if it is the same person vandalising. Some IPs with a long history of vandalism (often those registered to schools) a policy similar to this is already followed. Hut 8.5 19:46, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh okay. Thanks for the info. VanTucky 16:55, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Curious...

Is there some tool that could be used like a watchlist to monitor repeated vandals? Blocks do expire, and vandals normally go back to their old ways. I have reverted many, and have found many repeat vandals often months after the first violation. --.ιΙ Inhuman14 Ιι.^{( talk | contrib)} 21:46, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Try using the following urls (replacing Vandal with the user account or IP Address):

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Vandal&action=history&feed=rss
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Vandal&action=history&feed=atom

It's still reactionary (e.g. you'll only get information if someone leaves a message on the talk page), but since most people do, you'll be able to tell what they do. Alternativly, you can add the users in question to your watch list, and can then review their contributions in the "Edit my watchlist" page. --Sigma 7 03:17, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question

Is it okay to edit my own comments? 75.7.10.206 16:23, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Depends - it's generally okay if you've just placed the comments, but is discouraged if it's been around for a while. In any case, you probably should use WP:HD for questionsa about using Wikipedia. --Sigma 7 03:16, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism Study

Please see user:Colonel Chaos/study for information on how long it takes to revert vandalism to Wikipedia. Colonel Chaos 20:14, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism from dynamic IP addresses

A vital question regarding vandalism is what proportion of editors have a dynamic as opposed to static IP address? Does any one have any idea? This is incredibly important because warning someone whose IP address changes before they read it is a somewhat pointless exercise - it would be nice to know how many of the warnings and blocks actually stuck. Richard001 04:06, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Increasing strictness

I've just been looking at days of vandalism lingering on the apparently unwatched hypothesis article. Vandalism that stays around for hours and even days is totally unacceptable, and from recent studies it seems to be a major concern. How about we punish people based on how long the vandalism remains - if nobody reverts it for days, they get blocked immediately. It will give vandals some incentive to very quickly remove their edits and behave if they don't want to instantly lose their editing privileges, and hopefully help improve the quality of the project. Not only does this lingering vandalism utterly destroy Wikipedia's credibility, it also makes it very hard to fix, especially when well meaning editors revert only the most recent vandalism and ignore all edits before it. Hopefully with some improvements to the system of dealing with and preventing vandalism and increased use of template:Maintained and watchlist information being clearer (e.g. allowing me to check whether hypothesis is indeed unwatched so I could add it to my watchlist) we can combat this sort of nonsense. Richard001 04:06, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I think this is an ultra-paranoid proposal that goes against the entire principle of an open encyclopedia. How we can resolve this is by adding more editors who are capable of intercepting vandalism within hours even in low traffic pages. I like your comments near the end, but any solution that is punitive I am weary of. While there will always be exceptions, I do not think we have to go ballistic when they do. Its part of our job as editors. Which reminds me, another thing this proposal does is take pwoer away from the community of editors and give it to the admins, crats and others. And given the humoungous amounts of time spent wikilawyering and fighting over power issues (instead of reverting vandalism!!!) the worse I think we could do is that.--Cerejota 12:56, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I also think this proposal has some serious problems. Blocks aren't intended to punish people, they're intended to stop people doing damage (i.e. vandalising pages). I doubt such a proposal would have much effect anyway, because I doubt many vandals know much about our internal processes and wouldn't know about the rule. It wouldn't stop the idiot who sees 'edit this page' and inserts 'poop' somewhere.

As for the watchlist idea, there is a page giving a list of unwatched pages, but it's only available to admins. If we gave it to everyone then we'd be handing every vandal a list of pages to vandalise. Hut 8.5 14:27, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I think there is a flawed assumption in you last statement: if true, it means that the bulk of the people watching wikipedia are potential vandals, and that vandalism is the biggest concern of the community. 1) I think good faith constructive editors far outnumber vandals, 2) The amount newcomer biting and "vandal" paranoia is far more problematic than vandalism: it reduces our appeal and hinders adding new editors who could then further protect us from vandalism. The very existence of wikipedia contradicts your view: if vandalism were such a problem Wikipedia wouldn't exist. The unavailability of tools such as this to regular editors is a hinderance to WikiGnomes who either don't want to be admins or cannot win the popularity contest admin elections are because they are socially challenged.--Cerejota 16:13, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

2Bdea 23:59, 8 May 2007 (UTC)Just a grammar correction under the section "How to Spot Vandalism" the statement should read "articles with edits that have [come]" not "have came."

How about the watchlist idea? I've been trying to present this anywhere I can. It would be great if we could actually see how many people were watching an article. It doesn't go into who is watching it, just whether or not it's watched. We could also look at letting users make their watchlists data available, which would then give a link to those who were watching it. It could easily be tucked away somewhere where vandals were unlikely to see it, and wouldn't be available to unregistered or brand new editors. Vandals aren't exactly the most intelligent of folk, and the utility to editors would far outweigh the costs.

If anyone has much experience with IP addresses I'd love to get an answer to my question above - it's a very important one that doesn't seem to have been addressed anywhere. Richard001 07:22, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

In response to Cerejota I believe that though vandalism is a large problem many users are violating WP:BITE for little or no reason, not that any reason is justified. However vandalism is one of, if not the largest problem facing the encyclopedia today. The other one that I would consider is negative attention from the media due to vandals. Now I do not believe that Wikipedia is going to be overrun by vandals tomorrow... But they still cannot be ignored. I also believe that good faith edits outnumber vandals but vandals still make up probably 10% of edits. As such Vandals caution is justified although you are correct in saying that Vandal paranoia is not. As for the wide availability of the watchlist I believe the two effects would probably cancel themselves out. Between editors who watched them and vandals who attacked them we would probably have a neutral effect.

In response to Richard001 your 1st suggestion would, in my belief, punish vandals not for the actual edit, but for the amount of time it took editors to remove it. Doesn't seem to make a large amount of sense especially when you get into school IP's. I don't that it would get rid of vandals and would probably only people who would discover that they were blocked days after a vandal committed the edit.--St.daniel ^Talk 12:35, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Grammatical error

Under the section "How to Spot Vandalism" the correct grammatical construction is had come rather than what is currently written: "to spot articles with edits that have came from IP adresses..." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 2Bdea (talk • contribs) 12:05, 9 May 2007 (UTC).

I've changed it. Hut 8.5 13:44, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion to decrease vandalism

I have made a suggestion on how to decrease vandalism at m:Anti-vandalism_ideas#Semi-protect_the_complete_database Alan Liefting 07:48, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some things that are not vandalism

Some things are often called vandalism by new folk, which is probably how they showed up here. This doesn't mean that they're actually vandalism.

Improper use of (dispute) tags.

Is covered by Wikipedia:Edit war

Discussion page "vandalism"

Isn't vandalism at all. There are many valid reasons to do this, including Wikipedia:Refactoring

Deleted page recreation.

Is possibly simply disruption, and/or is covered by *FD, *SD, *RV, which are byzantine enough as it is, thank you very much ;)

--Kim Bruning 13:51, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Deleting other people's comments on discussion pages--simply deleting what they say because you don't like it or agree with it--is vandalism all right. The case where you refactor or move stuff about for clarity is covered in the explanation. I've restored the paragraph (which, to help people recognize it, I should mention I had just modified before Kim removed it; it used to say "Talk page vandalism", and has been part of this policy for a long time and for good reasons.) Feel free to call me new folk. Bishonen | talk 14:10, 13 May 2007 (UTC).

Well, there are cases where people were using the clause against folks who were dealing with silly templates, or broken wikiproject stuff. In some cases this even led to a proposed ban of the person calling on that clause... so there's quite a number of caveats there, I think. --Kim Bruning 14:14, 13 May 2007 (UTC) New Folk! O:-)

I disagree. All actions performed in good faith, however misguided, are not vandalism. (Then again, I hopelessly like Wikipedia:Avoid the word "vandal" :-P) --Iamunknown 21:46, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Only" warning

I am seeing several warnings reading along the lines of "this will be your only warning before you are blocked." These are appearing after some first edits. What happened to requiring multiple warnings and not biting newbies? —Gaff ^ταλκ 19:21, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

The only warning should be cases of not only obvious but particularly bad vandalism. I start with a 2 where it seems to be vandalism but I can't be 100% sure and a level 3 for cases where it's clearly vandalism. I guess people are just fed up playing the repeated warnings game, but if it's not a case of fairly bad vandalism I would leave a note on their talk page not to be too harsh. Richard001 09:45, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lessening the tolerance for vandalism

A suggestion was made to lower the tolerance on vandalism by anons at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Lower_the_tolerance_on_vandalism_by_anons. Amongst those reposonding, it has unanimous approval, although I will not call the four of us an overwhelming consensus. The suggestion is to give IP vandals just one warning and then block them. The reason for this is to make Wikipedia alot less fun for vandals, and for those who go on a binge it means that they get stopped that much sooner.

This probably should be reserved for the most obvious forms of vandalism: Page blanking, inappropriate content/digital grafitti, etc. However, there is no lack of that. The thoughts of those of you who deal with this stuff regularly would very much be appreciated. --EMS | Talk 02:35, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I've had good experience with warnings managing to avoid the need for a block, although I don't do much vandalfighting. I suppose that a proposal that 'obvious vandalism starts with a level-3 warning' would be reasonable, but for things that might just be testing or mistakes (blanking with the addition of non-vandalistic content or writing 'test' are almost certainly only worthy of a test1; I wonder how often addition of nonsense or simple blanking, even if it has a misleading edit summary?) It's also important to keep bugzilla:9213 in mind; anons may not be able to actually see the warnings. I'm not sure if this means more tolerance is good, or if a short block so they see the warnings is good. --ais523 10:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Here's an example of a troublemaker that would not have got away if the tolerance is lowered: User talk:88.66.40.156. He vandalized a page, then my user page after I warned him. So, you can consider modiying the template mentioned above to have a "last warning" nature. Then people can have the option to use it to immediately make the vandal eligible for WP:AIV.--Kylohk 11:34, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

{{bv}} ought to be sufficient for an AIV block (it's level-3) if the user continues vandalising in a blantant manner, at least under the AIV rules when I came to Wikipedia. Looking at AIV now, it seems thatit requires 'last warnings', rather than just 'warnings that threaten a block' (i.e. level 3 or 4). Maybe allowing blocking for obvious vandalism after a level-3 warning would be a good idea? --ais523 12:28, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree, perhaps we suggest that the guidelines of WP:AIV be changed so as to accommodate this.--Kylohk 13:25, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I also would like to see the WP:AIV guidelines changed. At the least we need to go to a 2-level warning system. "Level-1" for obvious tests. This still should be a somewhat stern warning, and even putting "test" into an article is a form of vandlism, but we can acknowledge the non-maliscious intent of it. After that, the second level should be "stop or else", and any such warning should be good for a block if there is vandalism from the IP again within the next two weeks. I also would treat vandalism from an IP that was blocked for a short time as being a returning vandal if it occurs within a month or two of the last block, and permit a block w/o further warning.

Many vandals stop after a single warning. Others are looking to see how far and often they can push us. The first group will not be hurt by only getting a single warning. The second group will be justly hurt. Overall, I would expect less vandalism if it is just not fun anymore. (Actually the best way to not have vandalism be any fun is to block it on sight. I understand about WP:BITE, but when we are getting bitten we should be able to fight back.) --EMS | Talk 14:29, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I would agree that warnings need to be simplified. In some cases when I use a {{uw-vandalism2}} tag, other wikipedians think that I placed a {{uw-vandalism1}} instead - which slows down the escalation process. To resolve the issue, I recommend removing {{uw-vandalism1}}, and instructing users to avoid {{uw-vandalism2}} if they have existing warnings. As much as we need to follow WP:AGF, there is no such thing as good-faithed vandalismm. Editing tests are another story as it's expected that the user doesn't know how Wikipedia works. --Sigma 7 22:00, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

All right, let's try putting things in perspective. Let the new level scheme be: Level 1 (Testers) - Level 2 (Obvious vandals, content deleters, spammers and so on) - Level 3 (Blocked). Then those newbies will not be bitten, and blatant troublemakers will be discouraged from doing it in the future.--Kylohk 22:10, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

May I suggest that the 4 level series are not obligatory made for you to use them in sequence? I mean that nothing prevents you from directly isuing {{uw-vand1}}, or issuing {{uw-vand3}} or {{uw-vand4}} after a lv 1 warning. We are not machines and the templates are a commodity, not a policy :). -- lucasbfr ^talk 14:20, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Of course, for people to change the practice, it's a good idea to rewrite the guidelines so they know about what's the newest good idea. Or the idea can be, if someone's been given a certain level warning, any subsequent warnings should be higher in level than the previous one. Otherwise, it may go against the spirit of "warnings".--Kylohk 16:43, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

What about vandals who repeat after blocking? Myself, I take a dim view of such practices, but I got overruled a while back and haven't been doing vandal patrol since. I make a distinction between anons with a mixed record, which could well be schools with multiple editors and we don't want to discourage the innocent, and ID where there is nothing but vandalism (sometimes going back for months with a dozen temporary blocks) where I don't see how it improves Wikipedia to give them yet another chance to reform. Gzuckier 17:30, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

When it comes to that, we can consider immediately block a repeating vandal if he has been blocked within the past three months. Any more than that and he starts at a clean slate. This intermittent interference will take a lot of fun out of it, I believe.--Kylohk 16:37, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Already do this. If the IP has vandalised in the past, they get {{bv}} and then a block. If it's blatant enough or obvious it's the same vandal as in past days/weeks, I don't waste my time and just issue a block. If the IP talk page is blank, then they get {{test2}} then {{test3}} then a block. Sometimes it's clear that they really are testing, and I just let that go, sometimes just revert and no warnings are needed. --Aude (talk) 19:05, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please Help

I am new here and don't know what I could have done wrong to get marked as having committed vandalism. I am a writer by trade and I always make a point to maintain a very professional attitude and behavior. I detest those who commit copyright infringement and I have no idea why I was flagged. When I logged in to check something, I saw a message that Mel someone or other blocked me from editing, but I received no message or note as to what I had done wrong. I have only tried to improve the article I added since the time I got here. And while learning is slow, I have to express, there are a ton of guidelines and rules here that I am struggling to absorb. I did not do anything intentionally to compromise the quality of my contributions. Someone please help me to understand this! Thank you so much for your time. Danceswithwords 20:23, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I checked your block log and there is no trace of a block. I assume someone with your IP address vandalized Wikipedia and you got caught in crossfire (It's called an auto-block). Don't worry about it, as far as I can tell you haven't done anything wrong :) -- lucasbfr ^talk 20:27, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mass Vandalism/Colbert Vandalism

I have started a discussion on this topic at Village Pump. —Gaff ^ταλκ 19:41, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandal Mumun 無文

This user has vandalised my comments on Talk: Regina Neighbourhoods and Mumun 無文. Could you please stop this petty vandal.--207.81.56.49 22:37, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

If it is obvious vandalism (which it isn't), it needs to be reported to WP:AIV. However, content disputes are not vandalism. --Sigma 7 07:02, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Signature vandalism?

In the course of an AfD discussion [4] , one editor went back and stripped out the style coding out of my sig and that of another editor with an edit summary of "My eyes!" I'm sure this is a relatively minor (if nonetheless obnoxious) offense, but where does this fall in policy terms re: vandalism?  RGTraynor  12:43, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

He habitually does this. I don't think it is vandalism perse, I do think it is quite uncivil. DES ^(talk) 22:41, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

My opinion of Tony Sidaway's sig refactoring varies depending on the sig. RGTraynor's sig isn't that bad, (though it could use improved colour selection,) so it would be better if Tony just put up with it. But when you get things like this, well, I'd think the sig itself is probably so obnoxious as to be incivil. --tjstrf talk 22:50, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Baby-sitting vandals

Would it be possible/practical to create a system where users warned for vandalizing an article (any vandalism at all, assuming a little good faith in the case of test edits etc) are placed in a mode where their additions to articles are rigourously watched and checked for further vandalism, such that they do not even appear on a page until they have been approved by a registered user? This would limit a vandal to one edit, and would see them immediately banned for vandalizing while in 'watched' mode. If they were unblocked they would go back to being watched, such that further vandalism wouldn't appear either and would see them booted indefinitely. In this system vandals would need to show a significant improvement in their editing over time and number of edits (say a day or two and a minimum number of constructive edits) before they could be 'free' again. Editors would be made aware there were unapproved edits when editing a page and would be asked to approve them before proceeding. As for anon edits, I guess they would have to be hidden as well otherwise anons could approve edits. Approving an edit would approve all non-watched anon edits after it, but until then they would not be visible. Registered users could not of course approve their own edits, and approving a vandal edit would be likely to get that user watched as well.

Potential problems include policing the policy and programming it. Dynamic IP addresses are also a problem.

In my opinion vandals deserve to be treated how they act - like infants (I guess that is a little insulting to infants, actually). I realize this is unlikely to work out for one reason or other, but I would like to hear some feedback. Richard001 02:04, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

In addition, or alternatively, vandals could be 'flagged' and appear different in article histories, watchlists etc. while in this mode - this would make identifying vandalism much easier. Richard001 07:13, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dealing with vandalism properly

Perhaps this page should also advise users to deal with other users who don't revert or warn properly. By that I mean the page should advise editors to ensure fellow editors revert vandalism correctly, revert all vandalism and not just the latest instance, and warn the vandal properly. This wouldn't of course be a 'warning' of any sort, but just a system whereby editors could quickly learn how to efficiently deal with vandals rather than playing into their hands by say removing a whole block of text that the vandal simply messed around with. Richard001 02:04, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I've been bold and added it myself. Please leave comments on the addition (or revert it, if you must). Richard001 02:27, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

In the Eurofighter article, you cant add any new sources if it include stories about it performing well vs. American fighter as F-15 and F-22. Such sources will simply be deleted in few seconds by Americans that will claim, national European newspapers are simply not good enough as sources. I see this deletion as vandalism by registred wiki users, its impossibe to report on, since it will be deleted and then you have to defend your case on the talkpage, after which it is put up to vote, where it then turns in to a popularity contest about whether 2+2=4 or 2+2=5. How do you deal with this kind of vandalism? You cant say it as it is, that its Americans patriots, even from US aerospace companys, deleting valid sources, just because it report eurofighter have performed well against their fighters. If you say it as it is they will just say its personal attacks, and you shouldnt even comment on this. It's soo much easier to just delete and censor material than to add. How does wiki deal with this kind of patriotic vandalism by registred wiki users?--Financialmodel (talk) 18:16, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

As annoying as this might be (I am from the US and I understand first-hand our faults of isolationism and feelings of mistaken superiority) I don't believe it qualifies as vandalism. "Stubbornness" and "Unintentional NPOV violations" are listed as things that are not vandalism. —Noah 18:26, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

This previous statement is entirely disingenuous and stems from a single-account created to further a contentious and controversial claim that the Eurofighter Typhoon is a superior fighter platform. The editor in question appears to have an abiding interest in proving the Eurofighter Typhoon is better than the F-22 Raptor as all of his edits seem to revolve around introducting contentious or controversial data regarding the capabilities of the two aircraft types. Not only is this is a case of fandom but incivility issues are involved. The new editor submitted an edit that was initially challenged and resorted to starting an voluminous talk page debate providing an elaborate rationale. After providing reams of background details and not finding support, the editor repeatedly revised the Eurofighter Typhoon article to his/her version. Even though gentle prodding to go to the talk page was refused, editors did attempt to work with the new editor but found a refusal to abide by consensus was matched by outlandish claims of nationalism and jingoism and attacks on other editors. The 3R violations have been reported to the appropriate admin notice boards. FWIW Bzuk (talk) 06:08, 17 December 2007 (UTC).

[edit] User 'Mikey01' Constantly Vandalizing And Removing Valid Information From Page

The user Mikey01 is persistently editing and removing valid information on the List of unreleased songs by Kylie Minogue page and however many times it is rectified he comes back to remove and edit stuff out again - for no apparently reasonable reason.

The information he is removing is almost like he randomly chooses bits to remove from his own preferences and it messes the page up as all the info on the page is gathered from reliable sources and the information included is of great use to people wanting to know more about Kylie's unreleased material and mixes.

This user Mikey01, however will not refrain from doing this and it's becoming increasingly frustrating trying to maintain this page with him randomly editing out whatever he choose.

Can someone please see to this matter?

Very much appreciated!! Ellectrika 02:28, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Just WP:WARN him appropriately and go to WP:AIV if he persists. Please see the notice at the top of the page. Richard001 07:07, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know how to use that warning. Can you please explain as it didn't make sense when I looked at the page. Thank you. Ellectrika 10:38, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Type in something like {{subst:uw-vandalism2|Name of page vandalized}}, {{subst:uw-only|Page name}} etc and add it to his talk page, followed by your signature. If a vandal hits multiple pages at once, just give them an only warning and ask to have them blocked if they continue. Richard001 22:28, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your help, Richard. Ellectrika 22:31, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Automation of vandal reversion and warning

We have a handy feature in the 'undo' button, and it's not hard to revert if needed, but couldn't make it still simpler and less time consuming to revert? Would it be technically possible to have a single 'revert to last edit (vandalism)' sort of button users could hit for obvious vandalism straight from their watchlist, recent changes or history? This would allow vandal fighters to check far more edits. Secondly, warning users can also be a pain; could we allow a user to have a bot do the warning on their behalf, explaining that it is a real warning and perhaps allowing the user to select the level of warning themselves (and/or let the bot base it on previous warnings on the talk page)?

Not only would this make vandal fighting more efficient and less of a displeasure for users, it would also be a hit to the vandal's motivation. Getting warned by a bot on behalf of someone who simply hit a button to revert your edit and warn you in one step is pretty dissatisfying. Again, it's highly likely there are practical and technical issues with this, but I believe we can still do a lot more to tighten the screws on vandals, and improving our existing arsenal will no doubt be of use to almost everyone. Richard001 07:17, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

IIRC, there's tools such as popups or twinkle that allow controlling vandalism more easily. However, the stock interface still has room for improvement - for example, it's not easy to navigate to a given user's contributions from either their user or talk page. --Sigma 7 07:23, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Another suggestion is adding the most commonly used user warnings to the toolbox with symbols below the text that is edited. Richard001 07:12, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] IP versus account

I'm not sure the section on Dealing with vandalism is very helpful to users in its organisation. Can I propose the following changes: AndrewRT(Talk) 14:14, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me - feel free to add it and see how it goes. Richard001 22:38, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dealing with vandalism

If you see vandalism (as defined below), please do the following:

1. Check the article's page history to identify all vandalism edits
   1. If all versions of the article are pure vandalism, mark it for speedy deletion by tagging it with {{ db-nonsense}}.
   2. Otherwise, revert the edits, mentioning in the edit summary that you have reverted vandalism
2. Leave a warning message on the user's talk page
3. Check the vandal's other contributions and repeat above
4. If the vandal is obvious and persistent, list them at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism so that an admin can consider whether to block the vandal.
   1. IP addresses should generally be notified to AIV quicker than edits from registered users.
5. For anonymous vandalism, trace the IP address and add {{SharedIP|Name of owner}} or {{SharedIPEDU|Name of owner}} to the talk pages.
6. For repetitive anonymous vandalism, particularly where registered to a school or other kind of responsive ISP, consider listing it on Wikipedia:Abuse reports.

If you see another user handling vandalism poorly please leave a constructive message on their talk page. An examples of these messages is {{uw-aiv}}.

[edit] Warnings

Warning templates PageName is optional {{subst:uw-vandalism1|PageName}} ~~~~ (unintentional vandalism/test) {{subst:uw-delete1|PageName}} ~~~~ (unintentional removal of content) {{subst:uw-vandalism2|PageName}} ~~~~ (suitable for nonsense) {{subst:uw-delete2|PageName}} ~~~~ (variant for removal of content) {{subst:uw-vandalism3|PageName}} ~~~~ (please stop) {{subst:uw-delete3|PageName}} ~~~~ (please stop removing content) {{subst:uw-vandalism4|PageName}} ~~~~ (last warning) {{subst:uw-delete4|PageName}} ~~~~ (last warning for removing content) See additional templates and examples of output

Note: Do not use these templates in content disputes; instead, write a clear message explaining your disagreement.

There are several templates used to warn vandals. They are listed at right in order of severity, but need not be used in succession. Though some people vandalizing are incorrigible returning vandals and may be blocked quickly, vandals can be stopped by a simple warning and go on to become productive contributors. If you are not certain that an edit is vandalism, always start with {{uw-test1}}.

[edit] Tracing IP addresses

The owners of IP adresses can be founds using:

• ARIN (North America)
• RIPE (Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia)
• APNIC (Asia Pacific)
• LACNIC (Latin American and Caribbean)
• AfriNIC (Africa)

If an address is not in one registry, it will probably be in another.

Why not include an all in one IP address search like:

• DNS STUFF

Thanks --Sechzehn (talk · contribs) 02:30, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but "The owners of IP addresses can be found using:" is both misleading, and untrue. Is owner supposed to mean the user who partook in the act of vandalism? Their ISP? The ISP's pipe provider? Only one of those is really an owner, and only one of them is who this rubbish is supposed to scare. I don't think I need to go to lengths explaining why, despite the superfluous links - tracing a vandals IP address is likely to only discourage someone whose knowledge of Wikipedia is so sparse, they can barely search... what a ridiculous addition to the Vandalism page. Ourben (talk) 11:36, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Disagreements over interpretation of policy is not vandalism

I know this is already partially covered in the Stubbornness section, but it may not be clear to people that a disagreement over policy interpretation is not vandalism. I propose the addition of the following to "What vandalism is not":

Different interpretation of policy

Often two users will interpret policy differently, this may result in edits that while not in bad faith, others may disagree with. Another user making an edit based on their interpretation of policy is not vandalism.

This is in response to a recent situation where 2 people were reverting back and forth, both claiming to have the fair use criteria policy on their side. It needs to be clear to parties of such behaviour that they are not reverting vandalism, and that their reverts are not exempt from WP:3RR.

What do people think? ^(H) 17:07, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

It can't hurt to point that out, if you feel the current wording is inadequate. Richard001 22:38, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Data on vandalism

This page currently states what vandalism is and isn't, and how to spot and deal with it. Should it also summarize the some of the key statistics relating to vandalism in terms of research done on the subject? For example, should the page mention facts like what percentage of edits are vandalism, or what fraction of anon edits are? Is this the right page for that sort of information, in any level of detail, or should it be kept entirely within WP:WPVS? Richard001 10:13, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not too sure data could even be figured out because, in general, vandalism is pretty subjective. There's obvious vandalism, yes, but then there's the gray area where people add something they think was a good addition, but that others would consider vandalism. Would you count that in the data? What about blankings? Do you just count it when they blank the entire article or do you count it even if they only remove a small section? Or do you only count vandalism where the editor was warned four times? Even if they were warned by a less-than-stellar editor? It's easy to figure out the number of anon edits versus registered edits, but figuring out data for vandalism would be near impossible. --13² 12:42, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Redirecting UPV warnings

There is a discussion about the redirection the uw-upv warning series to the {{uw-vandalism}} series. Please join the conversation if you have a view.--Kubigula (talk) 02:29, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Don't have the time for your help's

66.123.166.42. Look into it. I already spent the time reverting his/her non-constructive edits. I don't have the time to read hundreds of k's of "help" (worst wiki-word ever) files to follow up (worthless, worthless, worthless). Your job now (or help me!).

.s

X ile 06:56, 21 June 2007 (UTC) - Talk

[edit] Page shortcuts

I find the amount of WP: shortcuts listed at the top of the article ridiculous. Could we possibly agree on 2 or 3 shortcuts, and leave the rest out? –Sebi ~ 22:22, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

VAN and the :( would be the best two to keep, maybe VAND as well. It's probably better just to advertise the shortest ones anyway, though it's hardly a great concern if they are all shown. Richard001 00:17, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

The usual practice is to include one short abbreviation (usually two or three letters in length) and one logical word (because some users prefer this to brevity). In this case, I recommend WP:VAN (the most convenient abbreviation) and WP:VANDAL (the most intuitive word). All of the shortcuts, of course, will remain active. —David Levy 16:26, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I didn't know there was a discussion going on here. WP:VAND and WP:VANDAL should stay. Those little sad faces should be deleted. Lord Sesshomaru 16:30, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

You prefer WP:VAND to WP:VAN? Okay, either is fine. —David Levy 16:35, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:VAN is already included in the redirect template anyway (ie, WP:VAN redirects here. For ...) at the top of the page. Lord Sesshomaru 16:39, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Good point! That didn't occur to me. —David Levy 16:44, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

How much longer do we have to wait David? For the proposed changes to be settled that is. Lord Sesshomaru 16:47, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll go ahead and perform the edit. If there's any disagreement, someone can revert and discuss. —David Levy 16:50, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Does WP:VAN have to be linked? Just wondering. Lord Sesshomaru 17:03, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

No, that isn't important. I linked it at the top because it's no longer linked from the shortcut box. —David Levy 17:07, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I delinked it. Seeing as many other redirects aren't linked, I don't see why that one needs it. Lord Sesshomaru

[edit] Different types of vandalism

Vandalism is clearly a generic term for all the different 'in the way' edits but in many cases, the label 'graffiti' may be better. '...was here'; '...is gay' and the various references to bodily functions are more reminiscent of people with spray cans and marker pens than smashed bus stops and buildings. Perhaps a redefinition could be used - with random comments that are just trying to show off or leave a mark as 'graffiti' and more serious disruption as 'vandalism'? ck lostsword • T • C 23:43, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it's far more useful to use the word 'vandalism' in the broad sense of intentional damaging edits than splitting it into different words, though the term 'graffiti' is quite a good term for certain types of vandalism. Richard001 00:18, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] blatant POV warriors who delete large portions of text

What remedies are available for blatant POV warriors who delete large portions of text which does not meet their own POV? Is this vandalism? I have seen a small group of editors delete huge portions of referenced text on dozens of pages that they personally don't agree with. They cite policy for these deletions, but their policy reasons don't stand up to any scrutinty. It simply is a way to delete large portions of referenced text. What remedies are available, other than RfC and Arbcom?

I accept other peoples view points but destructive uncompromising deletions of large portions of text are terrible. One editor in particular, has been an editor for over a year and a half, and never actually adds anything to wikipedia, his only purpose is to actively get articles he doesnt like AfD'ed.

Any suggestions? User:travb 23:26, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

If it's disruptive POV pushing, you can use WP:ANI to post reports of the user. Removing referenced material could be considered "Blanking" if done in bad faith. --Sigma 7 21:07, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Message from village pump:

In the past two years I have seen groups of editors delete well referenced material from wikipedia.

These editors are not simply deleting one or two references, sometimes they are dozens. I saw one of these editors delete 8 cited paragraphs that he personally disagreed with, making the article a stub. These deleted references are not to web sites but scholarly books and magazine articles.

Is there any policy or any guidelines in place to stop this? Is any group policing this behavior? There are the toothless WP:Edit war guidelines, which only apply to one article and one person. Travb (talk) 09:12, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

It's just content removal vandalism unless they can provide a good reason for doing so. Richard001 00:07, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Blanking

Blanking is not always a vandalism FYI i blank some talk page when they are spam into it (and nothing has been discuted before the spam on the talk page) but stupid bot keep reverting wtf ???

74.58.2.90 09:48, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, the bot obviously is coded to recognise blanking, but is not perceptive enough to see the difference here. I've done this too sometimes, though the best method is probably to delete the page by adding a {{speedy|reason}} tag, or better still, assess it, replacing the nonsense with something constructive. Richard001 11:13, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] An Idea to Reduce Vandalism

Hi, forgive me if this was already proposed, but I have a possible solution as to stop vandalism. Why not only allow registered users the ability to edit? That already is the policy in page creation, why not just extend it to all editing? Most of the vandalism seems to becoming from annonymous IP addresses of people whom are not registered. By forcing them to register, wikipedia would be able to track exactly who was the guilty vandal involved and take appropriate action against him or her.Arnabdas 16:44, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

• This has been proposed many, many times before - see [5] and [6]. The main problem is that while the majority of vandals are anon IPs, the majority of anon IPs are not vandals. Hut 8.5 17:00, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Warning IP addresses for vandalism is useless

This may be a shocker to most editors but there is something really borked up with the "You have new messages" for IP addresses on Wikipedia. Most of the time, the warnings are never seen by the IP user because that orange bar does not show up. I run my own Wiki and I am using a older version of MediaWiki and the messaging system works there but not on Wikipedia. I "discovered" this as I was testing the messaging system. In fact you can see for yourself that many IP addresses have been unfairly blocked because of this. Post a message on your IP address and log out. Guess what? The orange bar doesn't show up. Unless this is fixed, the "this is your last warning" = nothing. They don't get no warning. Thank you for reading over this issue and have a nice day. 71.112.229.5 07:39, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I often edit from my university and I've seen the warning message numerous times before logging in (they should probably ban my university I think, but that's a different matter). But you make an interesting point and it has been made before - the utility of warning messages should be investigated. Richard001 09:16, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

It's odd, but I've recieved orange bars for new messages(on my IP). I click on it..

No new messages... Megan :) 02:40, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Someone vandaiized the sandbox!

an editor has vandalised the sandbox, please Wikipedia, tell them to stop this nonsense. 71.176.48.233 14:05, 5 August 2007 (UTC)Jalil, a starting editor.

Uh, thanks, but please read the oversized notice at the top of this page :-)

People often asking others to revert something on talk pages, but it's really quite easy - just read help:reverting and you can fix it yourself. Richard001 23:43, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] April Fool's Day Jokes?

If you do a little joke on April Fool's Day, does that count as vandalism? I mean, maybe your messing around on your friend's page(which can be reverted back), or messing around on any day.. But do you get in trouble if your friend's mad, or (s)he, reports vandalism, if they don't know who did it? It's not important.. but.. Megan :) 05:45, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism isn't generally reported unless seeking to block somebody (see WP:AIV). For something like that you might get some form of warning from another user, as this is supposed to be an encyclopedia and not an April fool's day joke site, but you're not going to lose your editing rights or anything. Richard001 07:18, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

People have been blocked in the past for excessive April Fool's Day jokes. Hut 8.5 10:14, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I just wanted to know. I wouldn't think a friend would be mad... Megan :) 02:38, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Operation: New Leaf Discussion

Per a suggestion by Hdt83, I am requesting wider attention from the community on this talk page for a new taskforce of CVU, Operation: New Leaf. It is a proposed task force that will convert once vandals into valued contributors for the encyclopedia, through kindness, patience, and, ultimately, love. To discuss this idea further, go here. Cheers, Arky^¡Hablar! 01:43, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why does WP:WHOIS redirect here?

I don't get it.... TheBlazikenMaster 11:57, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

There is some reasoning on Talk:WP:WHOIS, though there may be a more appropriate target. Hut 8.5 12:23, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clarification of tag abuse

This policy document should be expanded, to explicitly classify baseless slapping of OR, NPOV, TotallyDisputed and other similar tags onto articles without even attempting to discuss the asserted problems. A reasonable criterion has been offered by User:Sander Säde in User talk:Alexia Death/Accusations of collaboration: 3RR hurts Wikipedia#Hi_Alexia: adding such tags is considered baseless if there's no attempt to discuss on an article's talkpage within 30 minutes of the initial adding.

This clarification would discourage source-lacking POV-pushers from attempts to induce cheap unreasonable doubt regarding article content on WP:IDONTLIKEIT basis. Digwuren 23:03, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

It's not desirable, but there's no way we're going to classify it as a form of vandalism. What if a newbie comes along and doesn't realize it should be discussed? Richard001 23:39, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

A tag without corresponding clarification on the talk page is absolutely useless. Without that additional information it is impossible to know how to fix the apparent OR or NPOV issue. Therefore the best course of action in my view is, if the tagger neglects to put the reason on the article talk page, remove the tag and notify the user that the tag was removed due to lack of information. Newbies will soon learn the requirement of placing additional clarifying information on the talk page. Continued placement of tags without the corresponding clarification, after notification of the requirements, could then be deemed vandalism. Martintg 00:54, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, yes, but continued anything can be considered vandalism once people have been given fair warning. Richard001 02:28, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I would not call that vandalism as well - my proposal was that removing tags that have not been discussed/explained on talk page within 30 minutes, would not count as s revert. I have repeatedly seen such tags ({{disputed}}, {{totallydisputed}} etc) being slapped without any discussion to articles about evolution, history and others. It seems to be a clear case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT, when the tags are applied to article without any explanation - other editors remove them, they get reinstated - and it continues as long as one party breaks WP:3RR and the other reports him. Sander Säde 05:40, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

There already is distinction for two classes of essentially the same process: vandalism and editing tests. If obvious good faith can be inferred (or assumed) and the user clearly is a newbie, his deeds that could otherwise be considered vandalism are already given considerable leeway.

That having been said, all of the important "disputed" templates *do* say explicitly that there's a dispute on the talk page. Why wouldn't the user that places them not notice that?

As for the vandalism moniker -- I believe such tag abuse should be treated as vandalism because it fits straight into the primary criterion of vandalism: it constitutes nonsensical changes without intent to improve the encyclopædia. The 30-minute grace period is there merely to tell the lambs from the rams. And I'm alone, as tag abuse is already listed as a type of vandalism, just in a more general way than I'm proposing. Digwuren 10:20, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Now that I would agree with. It makes it far too easy for people to discredit an article. Of course, if they provide a rationale it would certainly come under the 3RR. Richard001 07:22, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

If a rationale is provided, obviously a discussion should follow, and a (possibly new) consensus developed. Digwuren 10:20, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

You give people too much credit. Why do people upload so many free images here instead of at Commons? Should we treat that as vandalism? (It sure creates a lot of work to move them!) In fact, I notice you have uploaded several such yourself (e.g. Image:August Wilhelm Hupel.jpeg). Should I therefore infer that you are blind? I'm in favour of keeping it simple and judging it case by case rather than assuming bad faith of everyone. Richard001 22:47, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User Warnings

I have a question: I'm an RCP, and I regularly post User Warnings. Say for instance that on a vandal's talk page, there is already 3 warnings for vandalism. But if he has just recently blanked a page, do I post a level 1 deletion warning, or a level 4 deletion warning, based on the reasoning that he has already been cautioned, albeit for seperate infringements? Does that make sense? I'd appreciate it if somebody could reply anyway. Cheers, Joelster 03:26, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

If it's vandalism it's vandalism - it doesn't matter what sort. If people are clearly vandals I just give them a blatant vandalism template warning, and if they persist they are likely to be blocked immediately. If someone posts something clearly offensive, don't be afraid to give them an only warning. If it's page blanking, I would just treat it as ordinary vandalism unless it's the first instance, in which case I would give them a level one warning since page blanking is the sort of thing you can do by accident. There's no dogma that says you have to go 1-2-3-4 - use your judgment from case to case. Richard001 04:38, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh okay well thanks for explaining that. --Joelster 04:40, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edit history vandalism

Copied from WT:VAN/Archive 6:

Is the creation of edit histories on redirect pages (via multiple edits with the effect of preventing future non-admin assisted page moves to the redirect) vandalism? — AjaxSmack 04:19, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Please provide an example. I make loads of RDRs and mistakes are not uncommon. Richard001 05:37, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I'll try to create a hypothetical example. A page is titled Lage Raho Munna Bhai and I want to move it to the outrageous new title of Rajkumar Hirani's insult of Gandhi. I proceed to move it to Rajkumar Hirani's insult of Gandhi and Lage Raho Munna Bhai is now automatically made a redirect with one entry in the edit history. To prevent another editor from returning the page to Lage Raho Munna Bhai, I then go to Lage Raho Munna Bhai and change it from #REDIRECT [[Rajkumar Hirani's insult of Gandhi]] to #redirect [[Rajkumar Hirani's insult of Gandhi]]. This creates a two-entry edit history preventing non-admin moves and forcing editors who want to return the article to Lage Raho Munna Bhai to post it at WP:RM and get wide "consensus" to move it back to its orginal title. — AjaxSmack 19:51, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Do you have any real examples of this though? I'd just treat it on a case by case basis. The worst that can happen is having to ask an admin to move it. Richard001 21:13, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

An example is here where the edit summary reads "Null edit to pre-empt move war." This user was straightforward about it but others aren't. So, I repeat my question: Is the creation of edit histories on redirect pages (via multiple edits with the effect of preventing future non-admin assisted page moves to the redirect) vandalism? — AjaxSmack 01:06, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Don't know if it counts as vandalism, but it certainly seems dubious behaviour.--Kotniski (talk) 05:24, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, given that vandalism is defined here as "any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia", I don't think the case you have cited would qualify. Talking to the Wikipedian in question would be the best idea. Richard001 (talk) 05:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

There is an Arbcom ruling on the subject here, which will apply to the "having to post it to WP:RM" issue. I don't feel that it's even approaching vandalism. It's closer to WP:DE going on, if the user is doing so with ill intent. As Richard states, it's probably best to just talk to the user in question. Parsecboy (talk) 13:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the input and for pointing me to WP:DE. I was just curious about the issue in general and, in this particular case, I assume good faith since the user announced his purpose. It will work itself out through the RM process that has already started. — AjaxSmack 00:37, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Table of types of vandalism

Given our dislike of spilling WP:BEANS, is there really any need for the policy page to include this detailed table of ways of vandalising Wikipedia? Wouldn't a general definition be enough?--Kotniski (talk) 05:24, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

If vandals can't think this stuff up for themselves, they're unlikely to spend much time reading anything, let alone Wikipedia's guidelines. Richard001 (talk) 05:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

So who is it for then, if it's all so obvious?--Kotniski (talk) 06:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

These categories can sometimes be useful - I once got a complaint from a vandal who thought that because his vandalism was hidden inside comments it was acceptable - but it could be trimmed down a bit. Hut 8.5 08:34, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reality check

Hi, I'm wondering if anyone here could comment on this edit [7]. Someone keeps adding the word "terrorist" to the Hamas article, and others keep taking it out, characterizing it as vandalism. I think that's clearly not the case (it may be POV, or violate other policies), but I'd appreciate some neutral input: is this vandalism? IronDuke 00:23, 12 June 2008 (UTC)