Wikipedia talk:Vandalism/Archive 4

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Vandalism via image naming

I noticed the this article, where following the History it appears to be an attempt to introduce obscenities into WP by bypassing normal checks, via image naming (rest mouse over images). In this particular case it appears to be a pre-meditated attempt by the article's creator, but in theory similar actions could be taken by anyone. Should this action be declared as vandalism? (I would think so - it is a clear attempt to reduce the quality of WP) and should 'vandalism via image naming' be added to the list of types of vandalism? I cannot find in the current WP:VAN article a description of this type of vandalism. Also, what would be the best way to deal with this type of vandalism? Remove the images pending name change? Thanks, Crum375 17:43, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

It is obvious vandalism/trolling, and should be dealt with accordingly. We don't need a special policy for this; listing it as a type of vandalism probably violates WP:BEANS. I suppose we should move the images through the standard procedure, whatever that is. -- SCZenz 18:27, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the WP:BEANS aspect. I guess the existing Sneaky/Silly types will do for now. Crum375 19:32, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Yep. Good catch finding this, by the way. -- SCZenz 19:36, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I assume you noticed he was shooting for FA. Crum375 19:46, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Although I may have ridden the WP:VAN, there was absolutely no justification for the deletion of those images. They should've been uploaded again, or the software changed to allow image renaming.

Vandal Clinic

I have set up a vandalism clinic where vandals can come for cures without being blocked! It is at user:GangstaEB/Vandal Clinic! GangstaEB (talk • contribs • count • ice slides) 19:16, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

How about this?

Please do not add nonsense to Wikipedia. It is considered vandalism. If you really want to add nonsense, try adding it to Uncyclopedia. Thank you.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by RocketMaster (talk • contribs) 10:07, July 2, 2006 (UTC).

No, that would deter users from trying to edit properly.--Andeh 15:52, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense Discussion

I made an edit for consistency. Sometimes nonsense is only an accident or a person had problems expressing themselves. They should NOT be treated as vandals immediately! but more importantly, One user was already confused by the difference in policy. You can read the problem on User talk:Pat8722. The policy WP:Nonsense says that Nonsense is not Vandalism. The Policy WP:Vandalism says that it is. The should be consistent. And I think my edit fixed the problem reasonably. My Edit was:

Nonsense: While nonsense can be a form of vandalism, sometimes honest editors may not have expressed themselves incorrectly or there may have been a connection error resulting in the appearance of nonsense. Assume good faith.

User:Gwernol Thinks that this opens up too much of a loophole. I disagree. I think an intelligent person can understand the difference between obnoxious, intentional repeated nonsense vandalism and errors. I also think that vandals do not care about the rules -- these rules are for the honest "law abiding" wikipedians. Vandals will have their way regardless of what is put here, so I do not think that this "Opens a loophole" as Gwernol thinks.

But, if you have a policy that says All Nonsense is Vandalism, it disagrees with your other policy that says that Nonsense is NOT vandalism. ONE of these two policies must change for consistency. The choice as I see it is this:

  1. You can make them both consistent in the direction of Assuming Good Faith and agree that good people sometimes make honest mistakes or that "stuff" happens or
  2. You can violate that tradition and Assume Bad Faith, making them both consistent by declaring that "All Nonsense is Vandalism", even if it is a random connection error (which has happened to me).

I think that we should go with #1, Gwernol thinks #2 is better. Either way, the two policy statements should be in agreement.

--Blue Tie 22:11, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Talking of assuming good faith please do not presume to tell others what I believe. I have never expressed the opinion you ascribe to me above. Indeed in my last comment on your talk page I told you that there is an inconsitency and that it should be fixed. I just disagreed with your particular change. I never argued that the status quo was preferable.
The problem with your suggested fix is that it introduces its own inconsistency. By adding a statement saying that "nonsense can sometimes not be vandalism" into a section that says "the following things are never vandalism" you end up in just as bad a situation as you were trying to fix.
In my opinion, the best way to fix this is to change WP:Nonsense so that it makes clear that nonsense is vandalism under some circumstances, so its consistent with the WP:Vandalism policy. Gwernol 22:24, 2 July 2006 (UTC)


Please accept my apologies. I did not intend to misrepresent. I do not see how I did so, but I fully accept that you do not ascribe to the views that I put forth. However, I am not entirely clear on how to interpret your words though. They do not make sense to me at this point. I thought I had read them correctly.
For example, you claim that the section says "the following things are never vandalism. I am unable to find that statement on the page. Can you locate it?
I now understand that you do not want to change this policy but the other policy. And by your comments, I believe (I do not want to misrepresent you) that you feel it is best to believe that "all Nonsense is by default, vandalism". I disagree. Again, I think it violates WP:AGF.
However, I can see that perhaps it should not say "Nonsense" as the first word, but rather "Unintended Nonsense". But this requires a bit of mind reading. Maybe though, it is a special category of "Mistake", which is listed. If so, I still think that it should be somewhat explicit: Nonsense may sometimes be mistakes!
I would like to hear how others feel about this. --Blue Tie 22:32, 2 July 2006 (UTC)


Maybe BOTH policy pages need a change. WP:Nonsense should be changed to say that "Inadvertant Nonsense" is not vandalism but intentional Nonsense IS Vandalism and WP:VAN should be changed to say the same thing. But I do not want to edit EITHER page and get into another conflict! --Blue Tie 22:54, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

more discussion

I agree, good faith accidental introduction of nonsense is already covered by mistakes. Also WP:Nonsense is a guideline and this is policy. Policy should not be altered like this to introduce a loophole without discussion. Kevin_b_er 04:40, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

There was previously a discussion between myself and another wikipedian administrator. See above. The administrator agreed with what I was trying to do (He told me) but felt that the wording was wrong and introduced other inconsistencies. I suggested different wording that met his concerns. I also requested comments. I waited a week. There was no response.
The problem is (and it is strange to see Pat make the change) is that the policies between WP:VAN and WP:Nonsense were in conflict. Pat, in particular, brought this up in a spirited argument regarding nonsense and vandalism which can be seen on Pat's page if it is still there. Pat argued that the logic of the two pages was in conflict and thus something (I am not sure what it was) was permitted or ok. Clearly, if Pat was confused on this matter, then others could be similarly confused -- even though one might suppose it is already covered by mistake. I am seeking a change that DOES NOT permit any loophole (What loophole do you see? -- if you believe that this is ALREADY covered by mistake then it cannot be a new loophole. Are you suggesting that "mistake" is a loophole?) but instead clarifies the contradiction between two different policies. This edit and one in WP:Nonsense harmonize both policies. Is that not a good thing?
Do you think that the policy on Nonsense should be adjusted to say "All Nonsense is Vandalism"? That is the alternative position and would pretty much negate that other policy. Do you think that policy should be deleted? That would also be a matter for discussion on that page I suppose.
Since I previously requested a discussion, and got no thoughts either way I did not think it was a problem. However, since you object, then please discuss it on this page before making a change again. That would be good manners, seeing that I have worked hard already to do the same. --Blue Tie 01:49, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

If you want to try to define "unintentional nonsense", you're going to have to do it in a way that it is not itself nonsense. "Unintentional nonsense" would be such as to "mis-key" something, such as to position your fingers one digit to the left while you type, and thus to enter nonsense into the article unintentionally. "Honest editors may not have expressed themselves correctly" is not talking about nonsense, it is talking about "error", unless the error was inserted by a diagnosable imbecile, in which case it would rightly be termed "unintentional nonsense", rather than error. "There may have been a connection error resulting in the appearance of nonsense" is also itself nonsense. "Connection error"? "appearance of nonsense"? Please don't edit the policy pages without a long-standing discussion and clear consensus.

If you want to clear up the discrepancy problem between the wikipedia vandalism and nonsense pages, I suggest you start with the nonsense page, as nonsense has the presumption of being vandalism, unless there exist clear reasons why it should not be so considered, such as suspecting an inadvertent mis-key. The vandalism page is CORRECT in its present form, as it has long identified the insertion of "nonsense" into an article as "vandalism". It is clear you do not have consensus for editing this policy page. pat8722 17:15, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I did not want to try to define "unintentional nonsense". However, there is already a definition on Patent Nonsense. Unintentional nonsense might not only be a mistyping of a single key but statement of words that combined are nonsense or meaningless, but the author had some meaning in mind. This would not be vandalism but it would be nonsense. I agree that this is error, but error may be confused for vandalism, particularly if it is nonsense. Another type of "nonsense" error happens in a connection situation. This has happened to me. I edited a page -- quite honestly -- and yet the connection failed in some way and nonsense appeared. I was warned for vandalism, though I had no such intent -- it was a connection error and had I been aware of it, I would have corrected it myself. So there are a number of ways that nonsense may appear that are not simply mistyping letters on a keyboard, none of them being vandalism. Thus the policy, right now is NOT CORRECT in its present form.
As far as clearing up the discrepancy on both pages, I have also put a similar entry on WP:Nonsense. My goal was to harmonize the two policies. Before I made my changes, I requested comments. I waited a week. I got no comments. There was no problem with the change. Since that change has been in place now for a few weeks and you have not solicited or obtained comment prior to making your changes as I did, you do not have concensus for the revert. Furthermore, concensus is not a democratic vote. Finally, I have responded to each of your points.
Basically, if the policy already covers "Error" then this is simply a clarification. A reasonable thing to clarify since some people -- like you -- have been confused in the past (and what reason would you have for wanting to continue that confusion?). Clarification does not change the policy and is no reason to object to what I have posted. But if the policy does NOT already cover error then I am making a really big change and resistance would be understandable. Both you and I seem to agree that it is already covered. So I do not understand the resistance to a change that would have originally helped you in your previous confusion over whether Nonsense was Vandalism, which confusion is evident on your user talk page.
I would also welcome a good strong discussion on this involving more than just two people. --Blue Tie 21:37, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[01] Policies cannot be changed by individual editors who happen to make a change that may have somehow survived for two weeks (I haven't checked to see if actually lasted two weeks, which isn't very long, in any event), the policy as previously stated is the policy, and to persist in changing a policy page without discussion and consensus is vandalism. It requires discussion and consensus to change a policy page, and you had neither. You encountered only objections to your proposed changes, you just kept making them anyway. See the above discussion and the edit summaries reverting you.

I am surprised you consider this a change in policy since you have said that it was already covered by mistake. If already covered, then it cannot be a change. I do not considere it a change in policy but as I said, a clarification. However, if you mean that an individual editor may not make changes to policy pages, you are wrong -- they can. I requested discussion PRIOR to the change. You, on the other hand, have not done that. While it is true that I only encountered objections, I did not encounter them AFTER I made changes to my proposed wording. You are ignoring the fact that the objections were to an OLD version and one of the key objections was to the wording, which I changed. --Blue Tie 12:48, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[02] "Not expressing yourself correctly" is never called vandalism, so to put it on this page as an example of "unintentional nonsense" is itself patent nonsense, and serves no purpose other than to give vandals a foothold/loophole, as has already been explained to you by others. "Connection error" is not a defined term, therefore to use it in a definition of "unintentional nonsense", as you have done, is nonsense, - most people probably have no clue what you are even trying to talk about.

No, you evidently do not understand the concept of patent nonsense (unless you are joking). There are places on Wikipedia where the edits have been nonsensical, even though the author was trying to be clear. He was simply unable (perhaps temporarily) to put his thoughts down into correct wording. The result was nonsense but it was not vandalism. It is appropriate for the policy to recognize this.
However, I take note of your concern that it gives vandals a foothold. You have previously said that "Mistake" was covered already. Are you now saying that it was not covered and that to allow mistakes to be excused it gives vandals a foothold?
Connection error is a standard term in telecommunications and a reality in the world of online communications, even if you are unfamiliar with it. It can result in garbled transmissions that result in nonsense or in changes to article pages that are unintended. This is true even if you (or others) do not have experience with it. --Blue Tie 12:48, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[03] The idea is to not to put ambiguity and confusion on this page, and not to create loopholes for vandals, such as by using undefined terms, or terms with multiple meanings, or terms which no one but a probable vandal would think to call an example of "unintentional nonsense", i.e. "not expressing yourself correctly".

No, the idea is not to put ambiguity and confusion on this page. The idea is to clarify that some nonsense can be mistakes rather than vandalism. You, yourself, had a problem with this issue. That you now understand it is no assurance that others in the future will also be clear. --Blue Tie 12:48, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[04] Nonsense is rightly called vandalism in wikipedia. Absent exculpiating factors, nonsense is always vandalism just as graffiti is assumed to be vandalism. If you want, you might be able to add a sentence to the effect that "nonsense excused by evident exculpiating factors is not vandalism", to this article under the title of "unintentional nonsense", but such a sentence is really not necessary as the concept of "exculpiating factors" is univerally understood and applied, across all concepts, on a case by case basis, and in any event doesn't come into play until AFTER the revert of the nonsense is made, and then is only relevant for apology purposes.

Intentional and repeated nonsense is rightly called vandalism but not all nonsense is vandalism. This is the key point that you are ignoring. The clarification recognizes this reality and is in accordance with wikipedias guidance to assume good faith. Your comparison to grafitti is not appropriate for grafitti does not occur by accident whereas nonsense might. An exculpiating factor is a lack of bad intent. If this were universally understood, you would not have an objection this clarification of policy, for you would undestand it clearly. But you do not.
I note your comment about revert. I have no problem with reversion of nonsense, either intentional or unintentional. It should be reverted. The clarification does not change any reversion policies. However, the individual who created the nonsense may not have engaged in vandalism. Do you see the difference? --Blue Tie 12:48, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[05]Your proposed description of what you called "unintential nonsense" serves only to create confusion and a loophole for vandals. I would recommend you open at least a month-long discussion on any policy change you want to make, and obtain real discussion and consensus on the issue before making any more edits to a policy page that has been stabile for long time. pat8722 04:36, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok, you recommend that. However, I recommend one week. So, I request that you wait for a week before you make your changes. A week with no objections to your change. Note that I have already objected. --Blue Tie 12:48, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[07] Your specific change did not even survive THREE MINUTES {see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AVandalism&diff=61742545&oldid=61742194]. You had been reverted at least four times for making your change to this policy page, by at least two different wikipedians, you just persist in making it, contrary to wikipedia rules. (Here are three of the reversions of you http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AVandalism&diff=61745872&oldid=61743781 and http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AVandalism&diff=61742194&oldid=61740878 and http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AVandalism&diff=64232668&oldid=64174153. No one has reverted in favor of your edit.

[08]Your proposed change had also been resoundingly opposed on the discussion page by three different editors. [ See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Vandalism#Nonsense_Discussion at "Nonsense discussion".] NO ONE spoke in support of your proposed change. You clearly did not achieve consensus for your change - not a single person supported you. Therefore for you to have continued to make the edit was a violation of Wikipedia policy. I have reviewed the history of this article and am willing, for now, to let the original statement as present in the 2002 version stand, which, trying to assume good faith, I will assume is what you really meant to add. pat8722 18:22, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Mass category vandalism

As with template vandalism, this can affect a lot of pages. Here is a kind of vandalism that would be hard to clean up, even though I haven't seen it yet. Modus operandi would be something like this:

  1. Vandal creates sockpuppet.
  2. Vandal opens ten or more browser tabs (for editing key user warning templates and other substituted templates.)
  3. Vandal adds categories like <includeonly>[[Category:Candidates for speedy deletion]]</includeonly>, <includeonly>[[Category:Proposed deletion]]</includeonly>, and <includeonly>[[Category:Wikipedians looking for help]] (might flood an IRC channel)</includeonly>.
  4. Vandal adds innocent-sounding edit summaries: "sp", "fixed spelling", "clarified", etc.
  5. Vandal commits changes as close together as possible.

The end result: many pages are vandalized and this is hard to clean up, as the templates are substituted. These interfere with key Wikipedia processes.

There needs to be a special procedure against this kind of stuff.

Invitatious 22:38, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow. You are sort of clever. Are you sure you do not have a career in disruption somewhere? --Blue Tie 22:40, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
What I'm saying is that commonly used substituted templates, like {{3RR}} really need to be protected. Non-administrators are not supposed to edit these. Invitatious 22:49, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Test templates for inappropriate page creation added

I have created several user warning templates based on the standard test templates that are for use as warnings for inappropriate page creation. These templates included {{test2article-n}}, {{test3article}}, {{test3article-n}}, {{test4article}}, and {{test4article-n}}. Please note that I did not create test1 templates or a nonspecific test2 template of this nature because the standard cooresponding test templates are appropriate as warnings for inappropriate article creation.--Conrad Devonshire Talk 08:35, 4 July 2006 (UTC)


Improper use of dispute tags

The sub-section on improper use of dispute tags is rather unclear as to what behavior is actually considered vandalism. Given some of what it says, I'm almost tempted to move it into the "what vandalism is not" section. Could someone please clarify? Thanks. Arbitrary username 22:02, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Is the removal of a whole section of an article's discussion page, in this case, vandalism?

In Talk:Taco Bell, in the 15:24, 3 July edition [1] there is a section called Ryan Larsen's Taco Bell Adventures, which is an editor considering part of Taco Bell#Miscellaneous a vanity edit (WP:VANITY) and proposed to delete it.

I asked User:aguywearingacape to respond to the accusation on his talk page, and he did come to Taco Bell Talk page, only have that section removed.

It sounds like Talk Page Vandalism or Avoidant Vandalism, but is it?

Samuel Curtis 03:29, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

If there's any doubt, it's not vandalism. I don't think it's hard to imagine how someone would think of that removal as appropriate, so I'd avoid calling it vandalism. The content in question, I've removed from the article, as uncited nonsense. -GTBacchus(talk) 07:04, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Newly discovered, but months-old, type of vandalism

Please see my additions to the types of vandalism section, under "Bad faith reverts." The exemplar vandalism occurred on April 15 and I only just discovered it today! SeahenNeonMerlin 08:07, 6 July 2006 (UTC)


Talk Page

In Talk page vandalism it says "The above does not apply to the user's own Talk page, where users generally are permitted to remove and archive comments at their discretion..." Am i correct in saying is not against any policy to remove comments at their discretion? Feedyourfeet 12:52, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I suggest anyone who answers this question does it after reading User:Feedyourfeet's contributions so the answer can be put in context. Generally, the line quoted above DOES NOT apply to users who:

I want a simple plain answer with out any bias, that Chug is trying to put on it. I was not the dick in the first place.

  • I did not ignore anything on my talkpage.
  • That is true becouse they are not.
  • I dought that one talkpage would disrupt the whole of Wikipedia.

Feedyourfeet 12:52, 8 July 2006 (UTC)


Deleted Vandalism

I deleted the "suck a nut section". Looked like the "dialogue" was strictly on one IP addy anyways. Hope you don't miss it. --Coryma 21:10, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Bold Edits

In the Dimetrodon article, someone added:


"Creatures like Dimetrodon are our distant ancestors, because they had evolved the same meat-ripping teeth that we inherited today."


The edit of of that person was reverted by Zntrip under the reason: (Removed Vandalism) Does the edit constitute "vandalism"? Giant Blue Anteater 04:25, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

It's close enough for me. If there was a decision being made whether to punish the person who added that, I'd get a comment from the person first just in case he honestly believed that, but I see nothing wrong with calling it vandalism in an edit summary. -Barry- 04:52, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
It's very wrong to call it that, unless you know for a certain fact that the editor's intent was to reduce the quality of WP. If there is even a remote chance that in his/her own mind he/she felt this this edit would make the article better (i.e. actually believed that we are descended from those creatures, even without any proof), then it cannot be labeled as 'vandalism'. Improper labeling of vandalism then becomes un-civil behavior and a personal attack. Thanks, Crum375 12:52, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I see no signs of the editor trying to reduce the quality of WP. It is very possible that it could be the ancestor of mammals. If the edit was clearly vandalism, it will be like this:

"Dimetrodon is a stupid dinosaur that was so stupid that it died!!!!!!!!!!11"

By the way, Dimetrodon is not a dinosaur. Giant Blue Anteater 05:33, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify my edit, an anonymous user (81.111.110.5) went on a vandalizing binge on December 27, 2005 and added evolutionary information, which is under debate, about extinct creatures. – Zntrip 17:02, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

The edits the anonymous user made is not vandalism, although they deserved to be reverted. The user obviously got the info from Walking with Monsters, which is not a valid source. I doubt that the users intent was vandalism, the edits were most likely mistakes. Giant Blue Anteater 00:36, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

AfD blanking template needed

AfD templates are frequently blanked by new creators. Rather than thinking up a form of words each time to warn them, it would be helpful to have a template. This is my suggestion for discussion:

Blanking AfD template - new user

'Welcome to Wikipedia and thank you for your interest. If you read the AfD template carefully you will see that you are not permitted to remove it. I appreciate, being new, that you may not have realised this. However, if you happen to do it again a more serious view would be taken.'

BlueValour 03:16, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Sneaky vandalism

I've been noticing a fair amount of statistical data getting changed in articles about US States. Does this seem like sneaky vandalism? If so the example (from TIME ?) that was removed may have a replacement such as this: [2] and [3]. If sources cannot be found easily, how should edits like these be handled? I've seen some editors drop a note on the user's page and wait, but if the pages are subsequently edited before a decision is made to revert, reversion can be time-consuming. Would reverting any unsourced edit to statistical data be justified? If both the original and the change are unsourced, which is really preferable? Gimmetrow 21:42, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't think a new unsourced edit would trump an old unsourced edit. Nor vice versa. The best solution might be to tag with [citation needed] and add a note to the talk page on why. Mark the page to watch, and wait a few days. If no one has posted a cite, just remove the entire statement and move it to talk and post it there. Wjhonson 23:26, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
In this case the original data was the US 2000 census data but the link to verify was only given in the "external link" section at the end of the long article. I don't know how many editors would connect them, but I would hope an entire section would not be deleted just because an editor didn't notice the connection. The editor did highlight a weakness, that many articles do not have inline, easily verifiable references for statistical data. Gimmetrow 03:27, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

A related question, if a user removes vandal warnings from their talk pages, ought these be reverted? What if the suspected vandals stops making questionable edits after removing the warning? Gimmetrow 01:01, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Report removal of warnings to the admin notice board. Wjhonson 03:04, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

A request for Inputs on Nonsense

Hello everyone.

I have added a harmonizing clarification to the policy regarding nonsense. Previously WP:Nonsense said that Nonsense is not vandalism, where WP:Vandalism said that it is. The difference was really the matter of intent but neither document recognized this difference. So I have added a clarifying statement to each policy. The motivation for this clarification was an observed misunderstanding of the policy directly attributed to the different statements on these two pages.

It seems clear to me that in the interest of assuming good faith, some instances of errors are not reasonably considered vandalism. I believe that this is probably already implemented by the administrators anyway. It is "unwritten". My clarification makes it written.

Examples of nonsense that would not be vandalism would be connection errors and editors being unclear to the point of incomprehensibility but using real words to communicate. In both cases repetition of the error would show intent rather than accident, though in the latter case it may simply show incompetence as an editor, which may not be technically vandalism but is functionally no different.

Some criticisms of this clarification have been that it is "already covered under mistake". This may be true, but it is not clear.

Some criticisms of this clarification have been that this gives vandals a foothold. I observe that if this is so, then clearly mistakes are NOT covered and we need to revise WP:Nonsense to state that even if it is a mistake, nonsense is vandalism. I am not interested in giving vandals a foothold in wikipedia and since I view this as a clarification, not a change, I do not think it provides one. But others may disagree. However, if some mistakes ARE vandalism, then I think THAT would be a real change in policy.

In short, I do not see this as damaging but as clarifying. Some may see it as s damaging change to policy rather than a clarification. I would like to ask for inputs and discussion in the following areas:

  1. Is this a change of policy or is it a clarification of policy?
  2. Is this in harmony with how things are already done or is it a change of practice?
  3. Is this out of harmony with the intent of wikipedia?
  4. Does this give vandals a foothold (that they do not already have?)
  5. Are there any versions of this that would be acceptable or is it all wrong?
  6. What implications are there for WP:nonsense and Nonsense being or not being vandalism?

I am asking for this input to put to rest revisions and edit warring on this topic. I thank you in advance for your input. --Blue Tie 13:18, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Wrong syntax

With this edit I'm saying that If you get wrong with syntax code although it can mess the article, this isn't vandalism if you explain it in the discussion page and try to revert it. -- User:Atenea26 13:00, 17 july 2006 (UTC)

Please help this get phrased best

This was on another person's talk page. I hope I can make sense of it to you Hardvice 13:48, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Vandalism&curid=140524&diff=64451051&oldid=64448887

You removed my edit. I am not sure how to phrase it an so I gave an example: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Dramatica&diff=prev&oldid=64437570

Can you help find a phrasing you would accept? This website claims to make bold edits so I just made it. Hardvice 11:49, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Bold edits are more strongly indicated in articles, especially articles on non-controversial topics. Policies usually require consensus prior to making an edit. I personally would support simply adding "and talk pages" after the word "articles" in the sentence, as I indicated in my summary. This would be changing Blanking: Removing all or significant parts of articles (sometimes replacing the removed content with profanities) is a common vandal edit. to Blanking: Removing all or significant parts of articles or talk pages (sometimes replacing the removed content with profanities) is a common vandal edit. There has been heated debate about that, and I suggest you bring this up on talk to gain consensus if possible. KillerChihuahua?!? 12:07, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, I'm not sure how to phrase my question on that talk. Basically, it's blanking a talk and then archiving to wipe out the entire talk page. It's a sort of combination between blanking and sneaky vandalism. Maybe something other than sneaky? Hardvice 12:57, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
I think that blanking the talk page is not necessarily vandalism, but it seems that there should be some balance regarding the age of the most recent and oldest discussions and the overall size of the page. It is a good thing to keep talk pages under control, but getting rid of recent or on-going talk when there is enough room to keep it is probably a type of sneaky vandalism. This is a good question and I would think that the comments by some administrators would be helpful.--Blue Tie 13:59, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I end the quote. Hardvice 13:49, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Hardvice, many thanks for bringing this to the talk page. I don't think we should add archiving as part of the definition of blanking vandalism, since archiving is explicitly encouraged for talk pages - Wikipedia:How_to_archive_a_talk_page. I agree with KillerChihuahua that adding "or talk pages" to the definition is a good idea, but archiving cannot be considered a form of vandalism. Gwernol 13:57, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
What about when people archive a page that has an active, ongoing conversation? That seems somehow different to me. --Blue Tie 14:04, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Maybe, but changing the policy to say that all talk page archiving is vandalism is not the way to address this. There may be edge cases where archiving a page is a form os sneaky vandalism, but even then its a thin case and something better handled at the discretionary level, not the policy level. Gwernol 15:18, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I am talking about if there are current discussions minutes old and sometime doesn't archive really, but blanks an entire talk page so nothing is left then hides all discussion in an archive but really is blanking it. example. Hardvice 14:01, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

How can that possibly be vandalism? Its simply archiving; easy to view and completely accessible. KillerChihuahua?!? 14:37, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
And yet disrupting ongoing covnersations is a problem, yes? I'm not saying it rises to the level of "clearcut vanadlism", but it's not kosher, either, is it? -- nae'blis (talk) 15:12, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
It depends, it could be a minor issue, or it might be perfectly valid. Its a judgement call about whether the conversation is ongoing and appropriate or has just finished. The best way to handle this is to ask another admin to review the specific change and take appropriate action. Changing policy to make all archiving vandalism is not the right way to deal with this. Gwernol 15:18, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Nothing was blanked. It was archived. There are two ways to archive, move and paste. This was a paste archive. I repeat, no blanking occured. As Gwernol points out, changing policy so that it is vandalism to archive is not a workable approach. KillerChihuahua?!? 15:19, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
The entire page was archived 6 minutes after MONGO's last comment, and less than 20 minutes after the previous person's http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Dramatica&diff=prev&oldid=64436043 last comment]. It was clearly an ongoing discussion, and to archive it himself was a conflict of interest. But instead we're here switching the focus to rootology. -- nae'blis (talk) 21:23, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't think I've done anything wrong here. I found this article, found this debate, piped up a bit, asked honest and legitimate questions, and was apparently labeled a troll and told by MONGO I should be permabanned for promoting filth. Huh? As I said on the complaint I lodged here after a couple of days: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:AN/I#How_to_report_abusive_admin_editing.3F_.2F_updated_with_details, it seemed like this whole thing was getting out of hand in part due to one admin's conflict of interest and possible bias. Assumptions that every person contributing to the article are part of some sinister ED troll cabal out to destroy wikipedia and "must be stopped", as are being bandied about here, the ED article, and in my complaint (which I submitted in what I perceive to be good faith) are just silly... I have *nothing* to do with ED. rootology 21:35, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

The person did it to avoid losing an argument. OK, let's say someone did that to Jimbo Wales's talk page, or THIS talk page, would that be vandalism? Hardvice 16:33, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I would say it is not vandalism. It might be in violation of the policy against disrupting Wikipedia to make a point however. Again it seems like it would have to be judged on a case-by-case basis. Gwernol 16:37, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I was archiving to rid the trolling...nothing wrong here...get a life.--MONGO 19:19, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

The vast bulk of what was archived was legitimate discussion of the ongoing block itself, hence it being immediately reverted back after it happened.... rootology 19:25, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Hardvice: Please tell me it wasn't MONGO you had in mind when you tried to rewrite WP:NPA so that any use of the word "troll" was a personal attack?[4][5] KillerChihuahua?!? 19:44, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Oh, I promise you I mean it for every single person online! I see the troll insult thrown around by everyone on the internet not just wikipedia, but for here I see it thrown around by so many wikipedians, including tons and tons of admins. I'd like everyone not to use that personal attack. I really don't like that insult. Hardvice 19:48, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Then my best advice to you is: don't troll. KillerChihuahua?!? 19:53, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, good advice...bascially, anyone trying to defend encyclopedia dramatica fits the definition of troll. I've been there and nary a person there that is defending that article and that website have many worthwhile contributions to wikipedia...that is the bottom line.--MONGO 20:02, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Isn't this a violation of the no personal attacks rule? You are calling myself and other longer time editors like SchmuckyTheCat a troll here. That is a personal attack. Perhaps you need to rein it in a bit? This is getting a bit tiring. rootology 20:08, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
To KillerChihuahua, the thing is I hate seeing it used anywhere. It's labelling people instead of talking about their actions. That's what personal attacks is. Calling someone a "liar" vs. saying they were untruthful/incorrect. Calling someone "stupid" instead of saying they made a mistake. How hard would it be to say "they were being X...X...X" instead of they are "(stereotype)"? To MONGO, the troll as an insult problem is a problem that spans the entire internet -- it's caught on like saying "NE1", "U R" and "TYPING IN ALL CAPS" or "aLtErNaTinG CaPs". It does not matter if MONGO uses it or 1000 people do, but just millions use it. Hardvice 20:13, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
What part of, "that's already covered" did you miss? If someone is trolling, there is a strong chance someone will say "you're trolling" or if they do it repeatedly "you're a troll." Sometimes it is "This post (link to diff) was trolling." Now you can be unhappy about it until the cows come home, but the word "troll" is not automatically an inexcusable personal attack, or even a personal attack at all. As far as the "millions" who are using the word, I imagine millions also use the word "felon" to describe someone who has been convicted of a felony, but hey, I'm not getting on a soapbox about it. KillerChihuahua?!? 20:29, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Continuing the trolling at a policy page is less than wise. FeloniousMonk 21:39, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
It is my opinion that WP:NPA is surprisingly widely misunderstood. My view is this: when you say (ie) "You are trolling" or "You are a troll", obviously you have used the word "you", directing it thus at a person, and unavoidably making it personal. Obviously, "trolling" is always a malignment, hence those two phrases are inherently personal attacks. If no one ever discussed the personalities or motives of other editors, what would talk pages look like? Why, all we'd have to talk about would be <gasp> the actual edits themselves, and the content of the articles!
Well, one can dream. Eaglizard 06:28, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
I must agree with Eaglizard that the word "troll" should not be used and replaced with are more specific description. I think that anything called "trolling" can be found against other wikipedia rules and those can be used instead because calling someone a "troll" is just saying "everything you say does not matter." Hardvice 07:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)


I want to add that calling someone a troll is a way of saying, "your opinion does not matter, I am calling it trolling when it is not to claim that no matter how passionately you feel, your opinions and feelings make no difference to me." It's a way of saying, "you suck." It is used all over the internet and I've found it used by people who even fit the definition of a troll-oddly hypocritical. Hardvice 23:00, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Protecting article pages

It is a good idea that we must protect these articles at all cost. Some guy —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 38.117.208.24 (talk • contribs) .

Which articles? Why should they be protected "at all costs"? Why did you add a .sig that wasn't yours (did you forget to sign in before leaving this comment?) Thanks, Gwernol 16:10, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Don't misuse warnings.

Warnings should not be used to be funny or to harass someone or to own a page or to prevent editing. Since a vandal might use the warnings first, the desire to have warnings and blocking seems snobbish and unrealistic. An edit you disagree with is not vandalism. --Chuck Marean 04:59, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Strange New Spam?

I posted this on Project:Spam, but I wanted to cc: it here. (Not exactly vandalism, but close.) I just want to point out a new thing I came across tonite[6]. Here, you can see this user adding 15 or 20 commercial links into articles, but doing so within a DIV STYLE="Display:None" element, so they don't actually show up when you view the page. There's even a sad little note included in comments: [We are delicate. We do not delete your content.] An apology, of sorts, I suppose.

It's not clear to me what end they hope to acheive, but it is clear that this can't be any better for us than any other spam or vandalism. I brought this to User:JesseW who suggested I mention it here, as well as over at Vandalism, to Tawker, CVU and Lupin, all of which I'm doing now. Anyone else? Pls let me know, but I think that should be enough ppl who care about this sort of thing. Hope this helps :) Eaglizard 06:32, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Well it looks like spam, until their edits begin to say, "Hi im a Spambot from 193.243.156.10. Please ban This IP." Hardvice 07:44, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
  • That's a commercial linkspammer, probably from a zombie open proxy. I've seen their "contributions" on numerous other Wikis. It should be deleted on sight and the author IPs blocked. NawlinWiki 12:23, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Libelous warnings

Libelous warnings should not be done; no one would disagree with that.--Chuck Marean 16:22, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

  1. There is no Wikipedic concept of a libellous warning;
  2. Giving out false (or mistaken) warnings is not vandalism. It's just not nice, and would be likely to earn the editor a block if they persisted.
-Splash - tk 16:50, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Let's assume that libelous warnings are undesireable. The example you gave is clearly not libelous: "There you go again" is only marginally incivil at most. I can't believe there's a court of law in any land that would even accept a case based on that comment. By providing a clearly untennable example, your proposed change becomes one gigantic loophole where anything perceived as libelous by any low standard is barred.
Even assuming we wanted to add this, there are serious problems of jurisdiction. Wikipedia also has a policy against legal threats which appears to contradict your addition to this policy. For these reasons, I have reverted the change to the policy until a consensus of editors here agree it should be added, and its wording. Gwernol 18:34, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism to talk pages

I've found that there are vandals who sneak into the talk discussions as well. Are there bots who patrol the talk pages as well?Wikichange 22:07, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Watching a page automatically also watches its talk page. While talk pages are not as well patrolled, I certainly revert vandalism on talk pages. --TeaDrinker 22:11, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the helpful information! Wikichange 22:16, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Is changing others "votes" on AfD vandalism?

I am not sure if the following issue would be considered vandalism. I have reverted the change and added the below to the appropriate AfD discussion.

  • Changing a users "vote" from Speedy Delete to Keep is EXTREAMLY poor form! Especially when the change is by the article's author! [7] Reverted the page.--Gay Cdn (talk) (email) (Contr.) 23:10, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

People's thoughts on this. Thanks.--Gay Cdn (talk) (email) (Contr.) 23:16, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Clear-cut vandalism, in my eyes. --TeaDrinker 23:20, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually in my opinion this is worse than simple vandalism. Its an attempt to undermine the process without which vandalism would run rampant. Sort of meta-vandalism. Gwernol 23:26, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I think changing another user's comments on a discussion page of any sort in a way that changes the meaning/tone of the message is vandalism. Doing anything to another user's comments (including spelling fixes) is generally frowned upon, but I wouldn't lump those good faith efforts into the vandalism category. However, trying to make it look like a user said something that they did not is a very bad thing. EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 23:51, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Wrong date for IBM study

The IBM study was done in 2003, not 2002. (It used data up to summer of 2003.) You might also link to the academic paper: http://web.media.mit.edu/~fviegas/papers/history_flow.pdf Given the methods of the paper, instead of saying "most" vandalism being reverted quickly, it would be more accurate to say the majority of some types of vandalism were reverted within 5 minutes.

Another form of vandalism?

I hate to give people ideas, but this seemed different: category silliness. Gimmetrow 14:37, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd say that was covered as "Sneaky vandalism" under the "adding minsinformation" clause. Gwernol 14:44, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

removing spam

I have made the policy reflect reality by noting that removing internal spam is not considered vandalism. Hipocrite - «Talk» 12:55, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

umm i dont see how 'dun, dun, dun' was vandalism it was an attempt on recreating a child hood story that is told in norweigen i am apalled by your intolerance good day—Preceding unsigned comment added by Joodymoody (talk • contribs) 06:54, 25 July 2006


Editor problem?

There is someone going around deleting content from articles that mentions a ranking on a list (linked to another article about the ranking), because they feel the list is biased. I'm of the opinion, that if they think that, they should bring it up and discuss it on the list's talk page. The fact that these things were ranked by this list (which is clearly stated in each article - this isn't the definative list, it's just one ranking) is a fact, not opinion. The articles don't purport to say that the one ranking is the true ranking, it's merely a note of interest. Anyhoo, this person is going around deleting any mention of this ranking in every article. I mentioned it on their talk page, and they went about reverting the one re-add I did (at the time I only knew of one article they were doing it to). I then posted again in their talk page, and they again reverted the article. I've posted a 'please do not delete' vandalism warning tag, but I fear that this person is going to continue to ignore it.

Their other edits on wikipedia seem to be fine and even constructive, but they are ignoring their talk page and continue to revert these edits (also demanding 'do not readd' in the comment for these edits, even before anyone has attempted to). I don't think that someone who's doing good editing on other articles deserves to be treated like someone who just goes around vandalizing every article they can find, but this person is ignoring attempts to communicate with them. I'm not sure what to do about it. I wouldn't have called this vandalism initially, but after ignoring two talk page attempts to contact them and ignoring the points I made in comment of re-adding the material, (and basically insulting me in the latest), I posted the mild vandalism warning. I'm guessing they will continue to ignore it, and may likely repeat deleting the comments. Thoughts? TheHYPO 11:16, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Sneaky vandalism

It seems like there are allot of page rewriting by some users here, who wanna claim things to a pro-Norwegian point of view with no sources. I'm pretty new here and don't know how things work like yet and deal with this kind of vandalism here on wikipedia. But on the article Normans the two Norwegian users Barend and Inge keep putting Norway in from no where. I have asked like 5 times in the discussion, what the sources are. I haven't got any answer, since there is no sources for it. Here the fake claiming started. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Normans&diff=27008966&oldid=26282705 Thanks --Comanche cph 13:41, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

This is slander at best. I view this entry as a personal attack as it is not based on facts and is made in order to discredit two editors trying to resolve the problems caused by User:Comanche cph. This user has been causing problems in articles which might not be considered main stream so a small number of wikipedians have been forced to face this users malicious behaviour. Any long term involvement by anyone is welcome (short peeps and comments have proven not to be effective)Inge 02:17, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

This is not slander. Please stop talking about anything else than the subject. What is it you don't understand with this wikipedia. YOU NEED sources if you make edit's. And it seems like you don't have any. Since i have asked you two about them 10 times now. And that is called vandalism. --Comanche cph 07:25, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Removed section

I removed the following from the list of types of vandalism;

Bad faith reverts
Reverting most or all of a legitimate edit to an older version without explanation in the edit summary or anywhere else. An example is [8] reverted by [9]. This has a similar effect to partial blanking, but is much harder to detect on a diff to previous revision. It can go undetected for months, and there can be many intervening edits when it is detected, making it more time-consuming to reintegrate the affected edit. Editors are expected to explain reverts, and reverts with no edit summary, especially by new or anonymous users, are suspicious. (Even automated reverting tools, such as popups and the admins' rollback links, produce a default edit summary.)

This section was added by NeonMerlin and announced on this talk page about a month ago, but it seems to me to be in direct contradiction of the 'What vandalism is NOT' section. For instance, the example does not look like vandalism to me at all... it looks like a content dispute. Yes, people should use edit summaries... but not doing so isn't vandalism. Are we ready to say that any revert without an edit summary/explanation is vandalism and may be freely reverted in turn? Look for a vast increase in edit warring if we do. If we are going to say that edits without summaries are vandalism then we should just change the software to require edit summaries. --CBD 10:02, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I mostly agree with your edit, with the caveat that I think it waffles a bit too much about spam. We do need to be careful about what we call "vandalism", not just to avoid WP:BITE, but also because this page defines what WP:3RR exemptions are. Jkelly 17:34, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I wasn't sure how to word the spam one. As an example of what I was trying to avoid; suppose a user adds an external link to their 'Foobar Wiki' on the Wikipedia 'Foobar' article. As the policy was written, if someone felt such a link was "inappropriate" they could claim that it was vandalism and they should be able to revert at will. Yet the person adding it could very well legitimitely think that their Wiki's more extensive coverage of Foobar is something which should be mentioned... they might even be right. I guess it is the ambiguity of 'inappropriate' that bothers me. I've seen similar problems with interpretations of "provocative" on the 'image vandalism' section... users who don't like a particular picture of Ann Coulter (cover of Time as I recall) label it 'provocative' and thus claim reverting it is immune to 3RR limits. I was trying to get more precisely to the intent of the policy to avoid these 'interpretations'. What kind of things are "inappropriate" or "provocative" in reference to this policy. --CBD 11:16, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Unsure vandalism to Teresa Palmer

Looking at this page I am reasonable sure that there is some vandalism but I really am not certain what point the page should be reverted to. At the very least the External Link to "Wikipedia" site has been tampered with - I would do it bu I might merely complicate reverts of a more experienced editor. Cheers -- Nigel (Talk) 11:31, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Besides the unfortunately typical lack of reliable sources for much of the article, I see no vandalism. I did see a bad IMDB link, which I fixed. Crum375 14:17, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

OK - I guess I looked at the pattern of editing from the IP address. First "afraid of moths" went in then "afraid of cats" in place of moths, that sort of thing combined with a number of changes to the "Quotes" bit made me suspicious. Thanks and regards -- Nigel (Talk) 14:27, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Unvicil: minor edit

Spelling error on this page. "unvicil" should be changed to "uncivil". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wlmh65 (talk • contribs) .

Good eye, thanks for fixing it! --TeaDrinker 19:20, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, that was me. Thanks. --CBD 18:15, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Repeated NPOV violation as vandalism

According to test5 template[10]: "...and repeated and blatant violation of WP:NPOV are considered vandalism". I cannot find such a criterion for vandalism under WP:VAN#Types_of_vandalism. If we consider repeated NPOV violation as vandalism it should be added to the list, otherwise the template should be fixed, or the discrepancy explained. Thanks, Crum375 18:18, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the established policy that NPOV edits are not vandalism takes precedence and thus have edited the template. --CBD 18:51, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Removal of language stating that removing legitimate warnings from talk pages is prohibited and proposed reintroduction of such language

As I stated on Wikipedia talk:Removing warnings

There is supermajority support on this page for the belief that removing legitimate vandalism warnings either constitutes vandalism or a non-vandalism policy violation. With 6 established users supporting "Removing warnings is Vandalism", 13 established users supporting "Removing warnings is against policy but not Vandalism", 7 established users supporting "Removing warnings is discouraged but not against policy", and 1 established user supporting "Removing warnings is Great" we have 19 comments in favor of the removal of legitimate warnings being characterized as some type of policy violation, but only 8 comments opposed to characterizing such removals as policy violations.

I believe that 19 comments in favor of prohibiting the removal of legitimate warnings, but only 8 comments in favor of allow such removals indicates supermajority support for characterizing such removals as against policy, whether they are actually vandalism or not. Note that my edit did not actually characterize such removals as vandalism:

The above does not apply to the user's own Talk page, where users generally are permitted to remove and archive comments at their discretion, except in cases of legitimate warnings, which they are generally prohibited from removing, especially where the intention of the removal is to mislead other editors.

It is necessary to indicate that the removal of legitimate warnings is against policy since the preceding language "The above does not apply to the user's own Talk page, where users generally are permitted to remove and archive comments at their discretion" would otherwise provide express permission for such removals. John254 18:47, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

The 'poll' you cite was closed / superceded by Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll and does not include the opinions of many others who have stated opposition on that page. In any case, a 21 to 6 majority (by your own numbers) saying that removing warnings is not vandalism seems to me an ironclad reason for not listing it on this page in the 'types of vandalism' section. Addendum: Also, please note that MANY things are 'against policy' without being vandalism or blockable. Policy requires NPOV and civility, but we don't block users for any infraction of those issues... and repeatedly reverting them is considered edit warring. Thus, the fact that a large number of people felt 'removing warnings' should be 'against policy' does not mean that such should be blockable... or infinitely revertable as per vandalism. --CBD 18:56, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Removing_warnings is the talk page for an active proposal. Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll is a poll that was never opened for comments. Since Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll contains only headers under which users would have submitted comments, but no actual comments, the statement that "The 'poll' you cite was closed / superceded by Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll and does not include the opinions of many others who have stated opposition on that page." is false. In marking Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll as rejected, Kim Bruning states that the proposal itself was not actually rejected (as the poll was never opened) in this edit summary. I do not believe that it is appropriate to cite literal falsehoods in defense of changes made to policy pages. Furthermore, Wikipedia:Vandalism#Types_of_vandalism presently contains language that characterizes certain non-vandalism misconduct as against policy:

However, note that removing comments without responding may be considered uncivil or become an issue for arbitration, especially where the intention of the removal is to conceal information (e.g. previous warnings) or mislead other editors.

Consequently, the argument that "a 21 to 6 majority (by your own numbers) saying that removing warnings is not vandalism seems to me an ironclad reason for not listing it on this page in the 'types of vandalism' section." is specious. John254 19:27, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

The users who started the 'poll' you cite agreed to close it in favor of the other and said so... among other places in the box with the big 'i' at the top of THIS page. To me "closed / superceded" seems like an entirely accurate description of those facts rather than the 'literal falsehood' you call it. As to the, equally charming, "specious" comment... the 21 to 6 split on whether or not removing warnings is vandalism is simply a fact. Nothing specious about it. Further, 'against policy' is not the same as 'vandalism'. Vandalism is a blockable offense which may be reverted at whim. Making NPOV edits is "against policy" but is not blockable and reverting such will eventually result in a block on the person repeatedly removing the NPOV text. It is inappropriate to include removing warnings in the "Types of vandalism" given the absence of any consensus for that position. --CBD 19:39, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually the claim that "Making NPOV edits is 'against policy'" [11] is quite literally false, as well. "Making POV edits is 'against policy'" would, in my opinion, be a far more accurate summary of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Indeed, the claim that "Making NPOV edits is 'against policy'" is a complete inversion of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, which in fact requires adherence to a neutral point of view, rather than prohibiting it. Furthermore, the statement "the 21 to 6 split on whether or not removing warnings is vandalism is simply a fact. Nothing specious about it." misrepresents my comments, in which I have argued that the claim that if removing legitimate warnings isn't actually vandalism, this would be an "ironclad reason for not listing it on this page in the 'types of vandalism' section" is specious since Wikipedia:Vandalism#Types_of_vandalism includes language concerning other non-vandalism policy violations for clarification purposes. Finally, the relevant portion of the information box

The Talk about removing warnings is spread out over this page and getting hard to follow. It has been suggested to move the conversation about this issue to Wikipedia:Removing warnings and to eventually vote on Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll.

provides little, if any, support for the statement that "The users who started the 'poll' you cite agreed to close it in favor of the other and said so.", especially since Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll has yet to be opened for comments. John254 20:21, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Proposed reintroduction of language stating that the removal of legitimate warnings from talk pages is prohibited

In light of the fact that no tenable arguments were made above against reintroduction of language stating that the removal of legitimate warnings from talk pages is prohibited, I am once again proposing that such language be reintroduced into the policy. John254 21:17, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

It is reasonable that this be something that is wrong to do and opposed to at least SOME policy. I would prefer a separate policy on removing warnings, but since that policy does not exist, this policy is "ok". I am absolutely opposed to the idea that removing warnings quickly by the user is right. --Blue Tie 21:50, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with BlueTie, a separate policy would clarify this. The strongest argument against splitting it out is probably that it would be instruction creep. However in this case the overall amount of instruction would probably stay about the same? Until we agree to do that, I don't see any justification for anyone unilaterally changing the Vandalism policy that has been serving us well for a while. Gwernol 21:57, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Aside from the fact that it was originally added without discussion or consensus and has been disputed back and forth for 8 months? At the very least the issue of whether removing warnings is vandalism is controversial. Dragons flight 22:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
PS. There are people who dispute that it has served us well. Edit wars over warnings can itself be very disruptive. Dragons flight 22:15, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Well it appears that the one data point we do have towards a consensus is 21:6 in favor of retaining it, so I'd argue that removing it requires some significant evidence of strong opposition, not just one editor deciding it should go. That said, I would welcome a proper debate on this to clarify it once and for all. Until we get that we're going to keep having this problem. Does anyone know why Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll stalled? Can it be restarted? The poll and (most importantly) its associated debate seems like what we need. Gwernol 22:20, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
The poll, which I started by the way, stalled because I had to travel for work and was unavailable to do anything for about a month, and no one else took it up. When I got back, I was busy enough that I wasn't prepared to put time into what had largely become a defunct poll. I agree though that a definitive resolution to this issue is needed. Dragons flight 22:27, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Note that the 21:6 figure is in favour of not labelling it vandalism, so it doesn't belong here. It may belong elsewhere. JYolkowski // talk 22:51, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Ah, sorry, I misread the discussion. My apologies. In that case I agree it should not be included in the definition of vandalism until a consensus of editors here agree that it should. In this case I suggest there's an urgent need to start debating a new policy that prohibits the removal of legitimate talk page warnings. Gwernol 23:36, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I'd argue instead that adding something to the policy in the face of strong opposition requires some sort of consensus... which does not exist for this change. Personally, I consider the repeated re-instatement of warnings a rather nasty form of edit-warring and harassment. It has certainly been used that way in several cases. The only 'benefit' to the practice is 'making it easier to see that the user has been warned before'... is the extra click required to check the talk page history really such a burden? If you want this then get the change proposal up and running again. I don't think it will pass consensus, and it shouldn't be part of the policy until it does. --CBD 23:41, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
I would argue that since at least some version of this has been policy for 8 months it should not be just deleted immediately. I also think that this is important. The record of warnings needs to sit so that repeat offenders may be appropriately identified. --Blue Tie 00:04, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I think this concept was first introduced in February, and it has been removed repeatedly since then. And again, why can't you identify repeat offenders by clicking 'page history' to see if they have blanked out warnings? Especially if the edit summary says 'Warning - <whatever>'. We shouldn't be aggravating/harassing users to save ourselves a little effort. --CBD 00:36, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
As a user, I must say wouldn't feel 'aggravated/harassed' if I read that warnings must remain on the Talk page. And while looking at potential vandals and/or disruptive users' Talk pages, which unfortunately I am forced to do all too often, having the warnings displayed intact on their Talk page is an immense help. Yes, I could research their history, and often I do, but it would increase the workload. I prefer to spend that saved time and energy working on content or fighting more vandals. Thanks, Crum375 00:50, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
The issue at stake on this page is whether the behaviour is vandalism. The definition of vandalism is something done in bad faith that harms the encyclopedia. Removing warnings, while it could be discouraged in some other policy, is neither. When people remove warnings, they are not trying to do something bad, nor do their actions actually harm the encyclopedia in any substantive way. As mentioned below, this probably should be taken to some other policy discussion page. JYolkowski // talk 02:38, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree that 'vandalism' is not the best description. Maybe 'disruption' is better, and disruption is grounds for a block. But the bottom line is that it should not be acceptable for a user to remove a warning from his/her Talk page, as it would be misleading. Crum375 02:46, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Ever? Whatever happened to forgive and forget? And do we treat newbie errors the same as intentional vandalism? What if the warning is itself given in error (or even maliciously)? It is not exactly a simple issue. Dragons flight 02:54, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Agreed - 'ever' is too long. Erroneous or malicious warnings can be easily reverted by any admin, maybe even any other neutral editor, so that should not be an issue. I would agree to a clemency rule that old warnings can be removed - open to suggestions - 1 year comes to mind. Crum375 03:06, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Undent. I am strongly opposed to the proposal. But whether or not this discussion moves on, it should be taken to the appropriate talk board. It doesn't belong on vandalism. Wjhonson 01:00, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Agree that it doesn't belong here. Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines (a guideline, not policy) is probably a better place. -- nae'blis 02:58, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

There are two reason why it DOES belong here on this POLICY page:

  1. It should be a policy not a guideline.
  2. Warnings are given chiefly for vandalism and this pages talks about these warnings.

I am at a loss as to why anyone would object to this. Why give vandals such an advantage? However, I think 1 year is too long. I think 4 months or 6 months is enough, unless directed by an admin to preserve it for a longer time, up to a year, due to extenuating circumstances. --Blue Tie 07:04, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I object because vandals are the least of it. Seriously... most vandals don't bother to remove warnings from their page at all because they are just trying to do as much damage as they can before being blocked or casually messing things up. Many of them are actually seeking attention... they get a reaction and display it proudly. Those who do remove warnings inevitably get caught at it. What's the worst that can happen? They get away with one or two 'extra' incidents of vandalism because someone didn't check the talk page history?
On the other hand, contributing users are very likely to remove warnings because they are inherently embarassing/annoying to people who care about their positive image... especially in the case of biased and/or false warnings, which are entirely too common - the moreso since this new philosophy was introduced. I've seen too many cases of people placing false 'vandalism' warnings for things which are clearly content disputes, edit warring when the user tries to remove them, and then seeking (or personally enacting) a block for 'removing warnings'. It is harassment of the worst kind and ought to be a bannable offense rather than something endorsed by policy.
A minor convenience for vandal-fighters... which is also a major avenue for harassment of contributing users. Which makes it a huge net negative in my opinion. A possible compromise might be to make removal of warnings a blockable offense only for warnings about blatant vandalism... and making the placement of such for things which aren't blatant vandalism an equally blockable offense. Any way the impact could be restricted to true vandals would be fine with me, but to date it has been consistently used against contributors that various people disagreed with as an 'allowed' means of harassing them. --CBD 17:10, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
While I agree with much of what you say, I feel that that having users remove warnings at will would vastly reduce our ability to keep poor behavior at bay. I include in 'poor behavior' anything from blatant vandalism to just plain rudeness. I see no major problem with getting an admin to remove an improperly issued warning from a user's talk page (with a corresponding warning to the originator of that improper warning). Perhaps we should specifically allow (or maybe we already do?) any neutral established editor to remove clear-cut inappropriate warnings, with an appropriate entry in the user's Talk page explaining the rationale for the removal. I fully agree that warnings in general will probably only tickle rather than impede real hardcore vandals, but there are a lot of editors for whom leaving the warnings in, at least for a defined period, will act as a useful deterrent, for the exact reasons you cite above. Crum375 17:36, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree that it can be a source of annoyance. Nevertheless, I think it is a good tool. I think that a petition to an admin should be appropriate to remove a warning before 4 or 6 months. I also think that spurious warnings should, in themselves, be considered disruption and if an admin finds that such a warning was used for that purpose, should take action against that perpetrator. On net, I do not think that it is a good idea to clear warnings off of user pages too quickbly by the user.--Blue Tie 18:12, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
In regards to the CBDunkerson's statements that

I've seen too many cases of people placing false 'vandalism' warnings for things which are clearly content disputes, edit warring when the user tries to remove them, and then seeking (or personally enacting) a block for 'removing warnings'.

the policy as it is currently written clearly states that

removing legitimate warnings, especially with the intention of misleading other editors, can be disruptive and inappropriate behavior...

The removal of illegitimate warnings from talk pages, even by users from their own talk pages, does not violate the policy. Necessarily, users should exercise caution as to when they take it upon themselves to remove warnings from their own talk pages, as they must assume the risk that the warnings will later be found to be legitimate. In any case, "placing false 'vandalism' warnings for things which are clearly content disputes" is disruptive behavior, as is reapplying such warnings after a user removes them -- and the policy as currently written clearly does not endorse such disruption. I highly doubt that Wikipedia administrators actually "personally enact... block[s] for removing [illegitimate] vandalism warnings" to any significant extent. The fact that countervandalism tools, such as vandalism warnings, the policy against removing legitimate warnings, etc. can and have been misused for the purpose of disruption does not justify eliminating these tools, and thereby obstructing countervandalism efforts. John254 19:28, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Problem is that there'll often be disagreement as to whether a warning is legitimate or not. I have done quite a lot of vandal fighting in the past, and I have found that very few users will actually remove warning messages. I assume this is because most hardcore vandals are just trying to cause as much damage before they're blocked, and it doesn't usually occur to people who are just playing around to remove them. In the few cases in which people do, I think it makes sense to assume good faith that they're just trying to remove that record before moving on to more productive ventures. The few times in which I have attempted to enforce leaving such warnings on, it has just exacerbated the problem and has likely "actually damag[ed] the encyclopedia by driving away potential editors." (from this page). I think that checking talk page history is a small price to pay compared with turning off potential contributors. Realistically, vandalism is not such a huge problem that we need to emphasise countervandalism efforts at the expense of turning off new contributors. JYolkowski // talk 00:00, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Precisely. People insist all the time that things they perceive as NPOV and/or simple edit warring over phrasing are 'vandalism'. Saying, 'they are illegitimate so they can be removed' doesn't help the new user being harassed based on this policy who doesn't know that. In most cases they are just going to leave... or be so insulted that they become vandals. And even when attempts to keep warnings on talk pages are done in legitimate cases with the best of intentions it is inherently going to be insulting / aggravating for anyone who really wants to improve the encyclopedia. The benefits of it being easier to see past warnings are vastly outweighed by the drawbacks. --CBD 11:31, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Four Strikes?

Why does it take at least four warnings to ban someone? If the first two don't work, much less three, there usually are no constructive posts, and no reason to ask the person to stop a fourth time. Why not have three warnings, then a 24-hour ban, and then a permanent ban? Axeman89 18:17, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I've seen plenty of cases where vandalism has continued past two warnings but stopped later. Can I prove this is because of the third and fourth warnings? No I can't, any more than you can prove that "if the first two don't work...there is no reason to ask a person to stop a fourth time". The basis of the four warnings is assume good faith. For all the pain of vandal hunting, I'd rather be in an environment where we err on the side of AGF. Many users start out by testing out their ability to edit - we encourage them to do this. After a few warnings they realize that's not productive and settle down to be good solid editors. Gwernol 18:26, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Exactly, it's very important to assume good faith in dealing with new contributors. Another reason why we typically give four warnings is that we (generally) don't block people punitively; we only block to prevent further problems. Based on my experiences, it's fairly common for someone to vandalize three or four pages and then give up. So, if someone's only vandalized three or four pages, it's certainly not clear whether they are going to cause further damage and hence warrant blocking. For the typical run-of-the-mill vandal, only after vandalizing five or six pages or so is it clear that they are both acting in bad faith and are likely going to continue vandalizing, thus warranting a block at that point. JYolkowski // talk 21:57, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

User talk pages

User:Paul Cyr has just used the following section to "warn" me not to remove material from my own talk page. The material I archived was a "warning" from User:Gnetwerker, posting as an anon IP, who is harassing me because I blocked some of his sockpuppet accounts. The section says:

"However, removing legitimate warnings [from one's own talk page] especially with the intention of misleading other editors, can be disruptive and inappropriate behavior even though it is not specifically a form of vandalism. Removing comments without responding may be considered uncivil or become an issue for arbitration."

I think this section opens up opportunities for trolls to post "warnings," and then try to make trouble when the user removes them, and so I have moved it here, with a view to removing it entirely. Users are given a lot of leeway regarding what they have on their talk pages. Rare exceptions are when admins leave warnings that others admins need to see e.g. during a block, or because of abusive sockpuppetry. But these are the exceptions, not the rule. By and large, users are allowed to control the contents of their talk pages. SlimVirgin (talk) 04:51, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

See the sections three above and two above this one where this issue was recently discussed at length. The text you removed was actually a 'watered down' version of this 'do not remove warnings' philosophy. Removing it entirely works for me though. --CBD 00:02, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


Reinsertion of removing legitimate warnings prohibition

The language removed from the policy by SlimVirgin, by its own terms, only prohibits "removing legitimate warnings". The removal of frivolous, disruptive warnings, is not prohibited by this language. The relevant edit by User:Paul Cyr appears to be based on an old version of Wikipedia:Vandalism which, at least when read literally, prohibited the removal of all warnings, whether legitimate, or not -- though I don't believe the removal of frivolous warnings was ever really vandalism, even under the old policy. Since User:Paul Cyr's actions are clearly not supported by the language removed from the policy by SlimVirgin, I fail to see how the removal of this language from the policy will dissuade either User:Paul Cyr or anyone else from engaging in the disruptive practice of issuing frivolous warnings.

Additionally, I note that Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2006_August_9#Template:wr.2C_wr2.2C_wr3.2C_wr4 indicates a clear consensus to keep the warning removal templates, and, by implication, the policy language that authorizes their use. John254 05:01, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Clearly, most of the people who oppose this process did not comment on that TfD. I didn't even know those templates existed... while the people who support them obviously do. If you had mentioned that TfD while it was still running (concurrent with our discussions above) I, and likely others, certainly would have opposed. There obviously is not a consensus for the philosophy behind the templates, so no... there is not "a clear consensus" for the templates - just a previous lack of knowledge that they existed. As to 'legitimate warnings'... User:Paul Cyr doubtless felt the warnings were 'legitimate'. It's a 'weasel word' which can be interpreted any way someone wants to. --CBD 11:19, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

TYPO

There's a grammatical error:

careful attention needs to be given to whether the new data or information is right or whether it is vandalism.

THE new data or information? I think the article is unnecessary here. Thanks! 202.156.6.54 08:39, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I checked the article again and it is actually correct. Sorry for the inconvenience... 202.156.6.54 09:59, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Data is plural, datum is singular "Information" is redundant here anyway. The version(s) I'd prefer would be:

careful attention needs to be given to whether new information is correct or if the edit is vandalism. or careful attention needs to be given to whether new data are correct or if the edit is vandalism. TimVickers 23:28, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Example of misuse of 'removing warnings'

User:Dwain has for a long time routinely blanked his talk page rather than archiving it. Recently someone noticed this and declared it vandalism... which, of course, wasn't true. While blanking one's user talk page is not the 'preferred' method of cleaning up, it also is not vandalism or in and of itself a blockable offense. Note, there weren't even any 'warnings' on the page, just standard discussion. However, Dwain then also removed the 'warning' about the 'vandalism' of blanking his page... which led to a revert and a new warning about how 'removing warnings is vandalism' (which... also isn't true)... followed by a full scale edit war until Dwain got pissed off at this blatant harassment and became uncivil. This was not a vandal. This was a regular user who has never committed any vandalism, never been blocked, et cetera. Yet someone repeatedly made false accusations of vandalism against him and tried to enforce the display of those insults on his user talk page. That's harassment and abuse. and if people keep using this 'removing warnings' schtick in this way I'm gonna start handing down blocks. --CBD 11:59, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Another example... a user who had previously been welcomed removes a {{welcomenpov}} template from their page and gets hit with removing warnings. So now 'welcome' messages are warnings which have to be displayed (for at least a year according to some)... even if you have two of them. Again, this practice has minimal impact on vandals and hugely detrimental impact on contributors. Heck, I'd go so far as to say it probably increases vandalism. --CBD 12:12, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks CBD for pointing this out. I'm not proud that I got angry over this fiasco, but I couldn't believe things got so crazy at Wikipedia to make that policy as it was being suggested. I hope that yours is the official opinion on this subject. People can check my previous talk messages I'm not trying to hide anything but I don't care to archive every single message on the page either. Thanks for you opinion. Dwain 14:51, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't know about official, but there's a lot of discussion up-page about the inappropriateness of a blanket "you may not remove warnings" codicil to the vandalism policy. Consensus seems to be that it's not vandalism, isn't always a bad thing, and can be handled pretty much as in the past, on a case-by-case basis. -- nae'blis 14:55, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
See also Wikipedia:Removing warnings, which appears to have been rejected. -- nae'blis 17:11, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

There is supermajority support on Wikipedia talk:Removing warnings for the belief that removing legitimate vandalism warnings either constitutes vandalism or a non-vandalism policy violation. With 7 established users supporting "Removing warnings is Vandalism", 14 established users supporting "Removing warnings is against policy but not Vandalism", 7 established users supporting "Removing warnings is discouraged but not against policy", and 1 established user supporting "Removing warnings is Great" we have 21 comments in favor of the removal of legitimate warnings being characterized as some type of policy violation, but only 8 comments opposed to characterizing such removals as policy violations. In light of these circumstances, it doesn't appear that Wikipedia:Removing warnings was actually rejected. John254 22:25, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

It certainly does not have consensus yet, either. -- nae'blis 04:28, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Again, there is absolute consensus that incivility is against policy... but that doesn't mean you can revert it at will or harass people who do it. You keep trying to say that people who felt it was 'against policy' to remove warnings should be counted with those who think that it should be treated as vandalism. That's not the case. More people were against treating removal of warnings as vandalism than were for it. The large group in the middle didn't really say one way or the other. And the proposal wasn't so much rejected as abandoned. Again... if you want this to be policy I'd suggest restarting the proposal or making a new one... because it isn't policy currently. --CBD 14:07, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Isn't it true that though most were against calling it vandalism, most were also against allowing them to be removed? If the vandalism policy is not the place for this restriction, what policy is the right policy? I would argue that removing them is NOT vandalism, but it is part of the vandalism policy that vandalism warnings should not be quickly removed. --Blue Tie 16:53, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Restoration of language prohibiting the removal of legitimate warnings

Every time this issue has been considered, there has been a consensus to prohibit the removal of legitimate warnings. Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2006_August_9#Template:wr.2C_wr2.2C_wr3.2C_wr4 shows such a consensus, as does Wikipedia talk:Removing warnings, as explained above. If Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2006_August_9#Template:wr.2C_wr2.2C_wr3.2C_wr4 was sufficiently publicized to retain the templates, then it was sufficiently publicized to retain the policy language that authorizes their use. Unless the closure of the TFD nomination of the warning removal templates is going to be reverted, it seems inconsistent to, on the one hand, retain the warning removal templates, but then to rewrite Wikipedia:Vandalism to prohibit the use of these very templates. Furthermore, since some comments in the poll contained in Wikipedia talk:Removing warnings are quite recent, it doesn't appear to be the case that "the proposal wasn't so much rejected as abandoned." Additionally, the current language prohibiting the removal of legitimate warnings specifically states that such removals are considered to be disruption, not vandalism. While I have opened Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll to provide more information about this issue, the best evidence currently available indicates that there is a consensus to prohibit the removal of legitimate warnings. John254 17:32, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Based on the discussion above, it doesn't sound like there's consensus for the discussion of removing warnings on this specific page. As for the templates, they can be rewritten too. Furthermore, Wikipedia:Removing warnings still seems to be in development stages, so it doesn't make sense to have something firm on a policy page such as this one. Finally, the word "legitimate" in the last sentence of your post is very problematic, as explained above. JYolkowski // talk 19:06, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Per your statement that "it doesn't sound like there's consensus for the discussion of removing warnings on this specific page." I am inserting the following clarifying language to avoid the implication that this policy grants express permission for the removal of legitimate warnings:

This policy does not discuss the question of whether users are permitted to remove legitimate warnings from their talk pages.

John254 19:52, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

You made national press

Wikipedia:Vandalism is reported in this Norwegian article in Dagbladet. Apparently "vandals have struck Wikipedia again", and the Wikipedia administration have decided to put a little lock icon on it so vandals cannot edit it. Or something. That's what you get from bored journalists who read The Inquirer on slow newsdays. Haakon 10:18, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

The article tries to point out the irony of semiprotecting WP:VANDAL. -- Ec5618 10:33, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps we should point out the irony of journalists who try to create news, instead of just reporting it? - Ta bu shi da yu 12:24, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Sprotected

This has been protected since July 2nd. Is this page to be permanently sprotected? If not, then perhaps it is time to unprotect it. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:23, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Keep semi-protected -- the danger of vandalism to the vandalism policy is high, and the value of allowing unregistered users to directly edit policy pages is minimal. John254 23:24, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
    • This is not a poll, but my question stands: is this to be a permanently semiprotected page? If so, then having a notice at the top that this is temporarily protected is not accurate. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:02, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I think it should be unprotected (maybe not right now though as I think it's attracted outside attention of late). If someone vandalizes it, just roll it back, no big deal. JYolkowski // talk 02:02, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

The problem with unprotection is that an unprotected vandalism policy would attract large quantities of vandalism, which would flood the page history with vandalism and reversions, thereby seriously reducing the value of the page history for other purposes. Additionally, high levels of vandalism would lead to numerous edit conflicts, the destruction of many legitimate edits in the course of reverting vandalism, and the display of the policy in vandalized states for significant portions of time. Furthermore, JYolkowski has offered no explanation whatsoever as to why unregistered users are likely to make legitimate contributions to this policy page. Indeed, a strong argument could be made that only established users who have achieved a certain level of familiarity with Wikipedia should directly edit policy pages. John254 14:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, this argument against IPs editing policy gets made quite a bit. It gets rejected. I think you can find it under perennial proposals on the village pump. 192.75.48.150 19:36, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
It isn't under perennial proposals. I'm sure I've heard this before though, but I might be on drugs. 192.75.48.150 19:57, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
You might be thinking of User:Kaiwen1/Vote to prohibit anonymous edits? -- nae'blis 20:23, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
That vote concerned whether all unregistered editing should be prohibited, not whether unregistered users should be permitted to edit the vandalism policy. John254 20:28, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I've unsprotected the page (but turned move protect on). Personally, I don't see vandalism on this page as a problem, because (1) it means that people aren't messing up the article space and (2) it makes it pretty obvious that they're acting in bad faith, so they can be blocked. Of course, if vandalism levels become huge, feel free to re-evaluate whether protection is needed. JYolkowski // talk 01:34, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I do "see vandalism on this page as a problem" because official policy pages are intended to provide guidance to users on the current consensus as to acceptable standards of conduct, not to serve as decoy pages that we can let vandals attack so "that people aren't messing up the article space... [and to make] it pretty obvious that they're acting in bad faith, so they can be blocked". Should I create Wikipedia:Vandalism policy permanent semi-protection poll in order to show the consensus for re-semi-protecting this page? John254 05:32, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
We don't create policy by polling. JYolkowski // talk 01:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Reinsertion of language concerning the removal of legitimate vandalism warnings

The results of Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll so far show a consensus for this language, as does Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2006_August_9#Template:wr.2C_wr2.2C_wr3.2C_wr4, as a result of which there was a strong consensus to retain the warning removal templates. A difficulty associated with waiting until Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll is closed to modify the policy is that there is no clear standard for determining when closure of the poll is permissible, and by whom it may be closed. Consequently, delaying the policy changes until the poll is closed could allow the language concerning the removal of legitimate vandalism warnings to be filibustered indefinitely, despite the existence of a clear consensus for its adoption. Note that Wikipedia:Voting is evil, which has been relied upon extensively in support of the claim that polls are a deficient means by which to determine consensus, is an essay, not a policy, and thus provides no policy support for the claim that a consensus cannot be recognized from a poll, and has Wikipedia:Voting is not evil as a counterpoint. Furthermore, there is no policy support for the claim that a currently existing consensus cannot be recognized from an open poll. In the event that the outcome of Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll shifts to undermine the current consensus, the policy can be updated in an appropriate manner. Finally, writing the current consensus on the removal of legitimate vandalism warnings into policy provides a clear statement of the current consensus, rather than entirely avoiding the question, thereby making the policy more informative. John254 15:36, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

You are modifying existing policy based on an unfinished straw poll that shows no such consensus as yet. I do not support that, as the notice on the page clearly says that consensus must be reached before policy is changed. -- nae'blis 16:31, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

To characterize Wikipedia:Vandalism's current lack of language relating to the removal of legitimate vandalism warnings as "existing policy" stretches the term. To quote from Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll:

In January, a user added

Removing warnings: Removing vandalism warnings from one's talk page is also considered vandalism.
to WP:VAND. This statement and ones like it have subsequently been added, removed, and modified many times in the last several months to both WP:VAND and WP:TALK.

Explanation of removing warnings language

Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll does show a consensus for the inclusion of the following language in Wikipedia:Vandalism:

The removal of legitimate vandalism warnings given within the last month is prohibited. If users remove legitimate vandalism warnings given within the last month from their talk pages, the warnings may be restored and additional warnings about removing warnings added. Such restorations are an exception to the three revert rule. Users who repeatedly remove legitimate vandalism warnings given within the last month from their talk pages may be blocked and may have their talk pages protected.

Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll currently contains 25 comments in favor of "Deleting valid vandalism warnings is always wrong", and 19 comments in favor of "Deleting valid, recently given vandalism warnings is wrong", which gives us 44 comments in favor of at least prohibiting the prohibiting the removal of valid, recently given vandalism warnings. By contrast "Deleting valid vandalism warnings related to ongoing disputes is wrong" currently only has two comments, "Deleting valid vandalism warnings is discouraged but should be tolerated" only has 4 comments, and "Deleting valid vandalism warnings is acceptable after reading said warning" has only 1 comment, which gives us only 7 comments in favor of allowing the removal of valid, recently given vandalism warnings under at least some circumstances. Thus, at least prohibiting the prohibiting the removal of valid, recently given vandalism warnings has the support of 86.3...% of the established users who have commented at Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll, which results in a consensus for this prohibition. Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll currently contains 28 comments in favor of "The warning should always be restored and an additional warning about removing warnings added" (in the case of inappropriate warning removal), and only 6 comments in favor of "Issue additional warnings when and if appropriate, but do not try to restore warnings that a user has deleted" with respect to vandalism warnings (there is one comment in this category that only applies to non-vandalism warnings.) Thus, "The warning should always be restored and an additional warning about removing warnings added" (in the case of inappropriate vandalism warning removal) has the support of 82.4...% of the established users who have commented at Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll, which results in a consensus for this language. With respect to the removal of vandalism warnings, Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll currently contains 20 comments in favor of "Repeatedly removing warnings should lead to blocks and/or talk page protection, even in the absence of other ongoing disputes". By contrast, with respect to vandalism warnings, the other categories on this topic only contain 6 comments. Thus, "Repeatedly removing warnings should lead to blocks and/or talk page protection, even in the absence of other ongoing disputes" (in the case of vandalism warnings) has the supoort of 76.9...% of the established users who have commented at Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll, which results in a consensus for this language. There is currently a clear consensus for including the above quoted language in Wikipedia:Vandalism, and the current removal of such language is against consensus. John254 20:03, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I also object to using a straw poll like this. Incidentally, the poll also shows an opinion that the poll itself is either evil or confusing. 192.75.48.150 19:35, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

The statement "I also object to using a straw poll like this" does not show policy support for refusing to recognize the existence of any consensus in Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll. Moreover, most of the users who commented in the main sections of the poll did not comment in the "m:Polls are evil or Wikipedia:Voting is not evil?" section, so the outcome of this last section should not be construed to invalidate the consensus demonstrated in the previous sections. John254 05:58, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

You can consider "poll evil" and "poll confusing" to be a global option applied to all setions, if you like. Or did you mean you are just going to discount me completely unless I can quote something at you telling you that this not the way to use a straw poll? 192.75.48.150 15:09, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Every time this issue has been considered, the result has been a consensus to prohibit the removal of legitimate warnings. The poll on Wikipedia_talk:Removing_warnings shows such a consensus, as does Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2006_August_9#Template:wr.2C_wr2.2C_wr3.2C_wr4, in which a strong consensus was reached to retain the warning removal templates (note that the templates for deletion discussion was not organized as a "poll"). Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll merely confirms this consensus, and refines the details. Of course, one could characterize all of the polls as "straw", and the templates for deletion discussion as irrelevant to the policy that authorizes the use of the warning removal templates -- but there would be no policy support for any of this. Creating specious reasons to reject every single piece of evidence that exists with respect to the consensus, and continuing to remove the language prohibiting the removal of legitimate, recently given vandalism warnings from Wikipedia:Vandalism would be editing a policy page against consensus. John254 15:52, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Restoration of consensus version of warning removal language

I have explained in great detail in the above section why the insertion of this warning removal language is supported by the clear consensus found in the poll conducted on Wikipedia_talk:Removing_warnings, the templates for deletion discussion for the warning removal templates, and Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll. Now, consider the following rewriting of the warning removal language

However, the removal from talk pages of legitimate warnings given within a recent time frame is discouraged. Users who remove such messages disruptively may be blocked and have their talk pages protected.

The use of the term "discouraged" instead of "prohibited" eviscerates the force and effect of the policy, by implying that we may not appreciate the removal of legitimate warnings, but that such removals don't actually violate the policy. The use of the term "within a recent time frame" instead of "within the last month" further divests the policy of ascertainable meaning and enforceable effect. Deleting the sentences "If users remove legitimate vandalism warnings given within the last month from their talk pages, the warnings may be restored and additional warnings about removing warnings added. Such restorations are an exception to the three revert rule." ignores the fact that Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll found a consensus for allowing the restoration of legitimate vandalism warnings. Finally, the use of "disruptively" in "Users who remove such messages disruptively may be blocked..." renders the sentence meaningless -- disruptive actions are, by definition, already blockable offenses. In essence, the rewritten warning removal language has been rendered almost completely meaningless, ineffective, and unenforceable. Modifying the consensus version of the warning removal language so as to render it meaningless and ineffective has the same practical effect as removing the consensus version. Now, considering that some of this rewriting of the language occurred in edits whose summaries did not refer to consensus at all, but merely advanced a position as to the claimed merits of the policy change [12], this rewriting of the policy veers perilously close to official policy vandalism, which the current policy still describes as follows:

Deleting or altering part of a Wikipedia official policy with which the vandal disagrees, without any attempt to seek consensus or recognize an existing consensus. Improving or clarifying policy wording in line with the clear existing consensus is not vandalism...

Please stop. John254 22:57, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Given that multiple people are removing the language and you're the only one restoring it, it certainly doesn't seem like there's a consensus. JYolkowski // talk 01:32, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not the only contributor restoring the consensus language [13]. John254 19:24, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

John, would that have anything to do with your appeal at CVU for backup, less than an hour earlier? I'm trying to assume good faith here but you're really railroading the issue... -- nae'blis 20:06, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure that members of the Counter-Vandalism Unit want to see this policy reflect consensus just as much as I do. Please stop changing the policy language against consensus. John254 21:20, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Regardless of the issue of whether your poll demonstrated a consensus, which I don't believe it did, the wording that you added also includes several things that were not mentioned in the poll at all, such as an exemption from the 3RR for editwarring on other users' talk pages. JYolkowski // talk 01:40, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I'll get all my thoughts together one day (-: but looking at Wikipedia talk:Removing warnings poll, it would seem that most of the people commenting there are against considering removing warnings to be generally wrong. Discussion is how we create policy, not by polling, so based on that I believe that the consensus is that removing warnings is acceptable. JYolkowski // talk 01:48, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

There's no policy basis for the claim that a poll cannot indicate consensus or be used to make policy. John254 19:24, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Template:Similar

I created this template to serve as an alternative to Template:Imposter. It is more appropriate for use in cases when a username is created that is too similar to one of an existing user, but is not a blatant imposter or attack, as it is not accusatory.--Lorrainier 17:15, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Not sure I'm understanding your intent, but you might want to start off with "This username was blocked..." instead, if the intention is not to taint the user/editor/person behind the screen for a username they didn't know was going to be a problem. -- nae'blis 18:28, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

A suggestion

I feel that two more vandal messages should be explicitly stated on the project page. For example, templates test 3a and test 4a do exist, but it is not being stated there. Only template test 2a is being stated. However, I acknowledge that some editors would find this a bit redundent as well. Any comments about this would be appreciated. --Siva1979Talk to me 03:45, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Removing warnings

Given that there's a dispute as to whether the previous poll represents consensus, I think that we need to discuss this issue some more, since policy is created through discussion, not voting. Please discuss at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Removing warnings ... not here, the page is full enough already. JYolkowski // talk 22:04, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

spam-induced vandalism? how to deal with it?

I've stumbled on an IP address ( Special:Contributions/221.146.173.143 ) which tries to remove content from articles and paste some spam HTML. To me that seems to be vandalism but I couldn't find anything special in the vandalism article on how to deal with those characters. The talk page of that IP already lists a warning but that IP was responsible for subsequent edits.

What should be done in this case? Is there any policy which us, wikipedians, could use as a template? --Mecanismo | Talk 15:11, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Most of the time edits like these are from open proxies and warnings are futile. See [14]. List it at WP:OP (I have added this one). -- zzuuzz (talk) 15:21, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Agree with the above but use the "warn" templates in sequence (either spam or vandal) and report if they keep on. It solves the problem short term tho not long term. If warnings aren't left any following editor can only issue a first warning I guess (tho if I see a recent history I may go to second level or blatant vandal). Regards --Nigel (Talk) 15:28, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
template:Spam4im might work. John254 18:14, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Not noticed that one (yes I know I should read it all!) - thanks John - --Nigel (Talk) 18:38, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Removing "infamous examples"

This page lists "infamous examples" of vandals such as Willy on Wheels, Pelican shit etc. They should be removed per WP:DENY. If somebody moves pages to nonsense names it should be obvious and we don't need to glorify their names. That just encourages other vandals to become "infamous". Considering that many vandal pages have been deleted, this should be the next step. 195.188.152.12 10:30, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Making Mistakes

I think a section that would be of value, but I couldn't find, would be one containing the approach to handling mistakes. We all make them. A few "I'm sorry" templates, and a suggested method of retracting your "warnings" would be helpful.

For me personally, I just wrap my original warning in 'strikeout' tags and beg forgiveness.

Typically the best thing to do in these circumstances is to write something personalized, so IMHO I don't think a template would be of much help here. JYolkowski // talk 01:15, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Good point... good enough for inclusion in the article, no? I just would have found an paragraph along the lines of "If you make a mistake, that happens. Leave a personal appology on the users talk page. Everyone makes mistakes.
It's not that I'm in grade 3 and need a hug, it just would have saved me looking for the policy/templates myself. FractureTalk   01:18, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Not sure, seems kind of like m:Instruction creep to me. JYolkowski // talk 01:38, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Proposed policy changes

I Inappropriate content vandalism: placing irrelevant or barely-relevant images or templates on a page is vandalism. For instance, placing photos of elephants or dogs on a cat page is vandalism. Elephants are irrelevant to cats. Dogs are relevant only in a section about dog-cat relations. (these are not described in the current policy examples)

II Corrolary: Series Templates with language saying "part of the series on X" with a list of articles should only be applied to articles in said list. Other application is vandalism.

This will clarify a few cases that are currently not well covered. Thoughts?

Justforasecond 23:53, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Justfor, you can't just modify policies you don't like. We know you don't want the Christianity template on the J4J article and you want its placement to be declared vandalism. However, multiple editors have already tried to explain to you that the template is used on many Christianity articles not just those explicitly on the template and that even the word "series" on the template linked to the general Christianity category. Now please cut it out. JoshuaZ 01:02, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Agree Your attitude should change to conform to policies, not the other way around. drseudo (t) 01:07, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Please don't personalize this. Wikipedia is a great project, but from time to time the policies need to evolve. After all, that's the point of a wiki vs a static website. I doubt many users would deny that placing photographs of elephants on pages about cats is vandalism. Justforasecond 02:50, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
It's not "personalizing", it's pointing out to any new readers your utterly transparent motivation for your sudden concern, with enough of a hint so anyone unacquainted with your track record can look it up and be enlightened. --Calton | Talk 16:36, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Oppose "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." These issues sound more like content disputes than inarguably explicit bad-faith edits. There may be many situations where an image's relevance is disputable. Any argument, no matter how poor, that could be made that the image improves the article makes it non-vandalism. The second issue is even more contentious - for example, the list on the template may only list the most notable items. Many would argue, in full belief that they are improving the encyclopedia, that articles that were not considered notable enough to be on the list should still include the template. Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 00:16, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
THIS IS AN ELEPHANT
THIS IS AN ELEPHANT
Hmmm, well certainly some images don't belong. Shouldn't this be noted as vandalism? If I include a template saying "Part of the series on Elephants" on the tiger page, shouldn't that be vandalism as well? Justforasecond 00:28, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Vandalism isn't so much about what edit you make, as is has to do with your intentions. Are you trying, in good faith, to improve the encyclopedia? Making absurd edits, like calling elephants tigers, probably not, but you may just be confused, which is why you get a {{test1}} warning instead of being labelled a vandal immediately, unless you get caught by someone with too much of a hair trigger. Adding a page that isn't on some specific list to a template? That doesn't seem to me to make its bad-faith nature inarguably explicit, at all, even if it's done repeatedly against opposition. -GTBacchus(talk) 00:36, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
There are other explanations. Some contributors do not have English as their first language. Some may actually be contributing using a machine translator, which often deliver poor results. I remember seeing one online translator that allowed users to add to its dictionary database, making the online translator itself susceptible to vandalism. (This is not the fault of those using the translator and getting bad results.) Perhaps their brain glitched, and they forgot the difference between elephants and tigers. Or perhaps they were thinking of the predator-prey relationship between tigers and elephants. Unintentional nonsense is not vandalism. If they labelled a piece of porn as a tiger, that would probably be vandalism. (However, there is still a small chance of this confusion being based on some machine translation error. In that case, the true vandal might be someone who added a false entry to a user-contributed translation database, and never contributed to Wikipedia.) Or perhaps all they wanted to do was find out if they could really edit Wikipedia. Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 02:14, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose Widening the scope of what is considered vandalism is a Bad Idea. We don't need more editors accusing one another of vandalism for good faith attempts to make the encyclopedia better, no matter how wrong or misguided those attempts may be. Please see Wikipedia:On assuming good faith. -GTBacchus(talk) 00:20, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Compulsory registration proposal

I have come to the conclusion that only registered users should be able to edit Wikipedia, I'm sure this will help to reduce this irritating problem as most vandals are unregistered users. Does anyone agree? --Dovea 18:08, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Currently, that is absolutely not going to happen. Also, IPs do make substantial contributions to articles, and vandals can and do create accounts, which are more problematic than the easily identified and easily reverted IP vandalism that is mostly "I rule, gay" pranks. —Centrx→talk • 23:29, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
That has been proposed many times, however, like Centrx says, its much easier to deal with vandals that are unregistered. Fresheneesz 00:58, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Most edits made by unregistered users are good edits; some even revert vandalism. I estimate that only around 20% of anonymous edits are vandalism, and those are easy enough to correct that there's no need to shut out the other 80%. -GTBacchus(talk) 01:00, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Add Template:policylist

I'd like to add Template:policylist to this page. I played with it, and it goes best if it is put in place of the vandalism template, and if that template is moved to right above the first header. Comments? Fresheneesz 22:50, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that I have a problem with it, but why does it need to go here at all? --Blue Tie 23:00, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
It shouldn't go here or on any of the pages you are adding it to, except where there is a specific reason explained for certain few pages. —Centrx→talk • 00:37, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Why shouldn't it? -GTBacchus(talk) 00:48, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Users come here to find out what vandalism is and what to do about it. Verifiability and the other policies listed in the Article standards section of that template are useless for that purpose. The civility ones on first thought could be helpful, but on second thought they may actually make it appear that civility violations, or even POV pushing and the others in the content policies, is the same thing as vandalism and warrants dealing in the same way. Regardless, the proper place to inform users about how to distinguish vandalism is how it is currently done: In the text of this page with specific application to its distinction from vandalism. Users looking up policy do not need to be uselessly redirected everywhere else. We could put the dispute resolution template on here on WP:VAND, on WP:NPOV, WP:CIVIL, and on all the other pages currently in {{policylist}}, but it just complicates it for no purpose. If you look at where {{policylist}} is used, it is mostly used in user pages, for them to have a quick navigation to refer to important policies. It is also useful on Wikipedia:Requests for comment for example, where the content and civility policies are highly relevant to the users going there. It is not useful to have here on Wikipedia:Vandalism or on every policy page. —Centrx→talk • 01:34, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
The policy list template should, ideally, be a good way of navigating all policy. I had absolutely no idea that there were anywhere near 42 different policies on wikipedia - and i've been editing for a year and a half. Policy and guideline organization have been a problem, as it is difficult for newer users to find the list of all the policies. Fresheneesz 00:56, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
You might be interested in the proposal: Wikipedia:Policy council. -GTBacchus(talk) 01:02, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Users don't need to find all the policies. They need to edit encyclopedia articles. If they rub against policies, they will be told about them. If they want to find the policies, they are easy to find. If there are too many policies to navigate easily, it means they need to be reduced and merged; creating an indiscriminate, convoluted map for them does not actually help navigation at all. —Centrx→talk • 01:34, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I think it's nice to group related policies together (e.g. WP:PROT and WP:SEMP and WP:RPP although the latter is a process). For the remainder, it's easiest to find the lot via CAT:P. I have no opinion either way on the template. >Radiant< 16:54, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

What if you're a moron.

Hi, I think I'm smarter than most people but got left out of this wikipeida meme. Is it still vandalisim if you're just an idiot when you edit a page and can't spell or format things or figure out what to put in an article. I think all of this is very confusing. Template:Fasdl

No, mistakes aren't vandalism. In fact, they're the best way to learn. -GTBacchus(talk) 06:16, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

FlatOut aticle problem

I did found an article that the Vehicle List was removed and that is not all. I recently found that they replaced from "T" rated to "M" rated. That is not true. The game is never been rated "M". Someone is messing up the FlatOut article. Luckily, I managed to repair it. I don't know why would anyone edit so illegal. It is not right. Someone tell me what is going on. Best Gamer 13 September 2006

Talk Pages and Removal of Warnings

I agree with people who are concerned about this... in both directions. Many discussions taking place have not produced an agreed upon change. Until then, this should not be changed. I personally believe that warnings should be removable...after some period of time, but not right away. However, that perspective does not have concensus sufficient to change the policy.

There needs to be a better way to make policies. --Blue Tie 04:15, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

We have an excellent way to make policies... first you get consensus that something is the right way to do things then you update the policy to say that. Not vice versa. As has been done here. There has never been consensus in favor of this 'harassment is ok if you can come up with some pretext to 'warn' the person about' concept. It was inserted into the policy without consensus and has been maintained there solely by edit warring. It isn't policy no matter how many times people keep re-adding it without consensus. And removing the facts that edit warring and harassment can get you blocked doesn't change them... those are long standing principles which do have consensus. --CBD 10:28, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, it seems that there are some problems:
  1. What is concensus? Does everyone agree? Everyone but one person? Everyone but two? Who is "everyone"?
  2. Who decides when a concensus has been achieved?
  3. How many people need to participate for a concensus to be achieved?
  4. Are things grandfathered in and if later "generations" of wikipedians disagree it is really hard to change?
I also see that many elements of policy are added without discussion. And I have now read multiple methods for creating and updating policies - and it was admins who gave these descriptions. Some of them contradict each other. Some contradict the history of how things are on wikipedia:
  1. If you do something and see others generally doing it, then write it up and record it.
  2. Boldly edit and if no one disagrees, it becomes policy
  3. The longer things have been established as policy, the less they should be altered
  4. Hold a discussion on the talk page for the policy and get concensus
  5. Hold a discussion on a separate page and get concensus
  6. Take the discussion through the major public arenas for discussion
  7. Do not vote
With regard to the history of this policy and concensus:
  1. I do not see any discussion that led to concensus regarding the adoption of this document as a policy. Maybe its there, but I have looked and do not see it. Yet here it is, a policy.
  2. I have looked for a discussion regarding a concensus on the existance and use of warnings or the inclusions of warnings in this policy. Maybe it is there, but I do not see it. Yet they are here, included and policy.
  3. I observe most changes to this policy being simply added by one editor without discussion. This policy does not seem to be different from others in that regard. Yet one part of the policy added that way is invalid to you while the others are valid.
  4. There is an on-going discussion regarding changing this element of the policy. It may have run out of steam without concensus but that has not been declared. (I am not sure it can ever declare concensus, as I have said previously).
So I think that the methods ... both described and historical, are not so clear.
In addition with these problems about making and changing policy, I feel you make wrong claims about this one:
  1. You clalim that there was never concensus. I accept that you feel that way, but it depends upon how you define concensus. By my view, there has been a concensus. Not that it is exactly the same thing, but several polls taken showed support for prohibition from between 67% and 82% of the respondants.
  2. You claim this policy is harrassment. I do not think so. I do believe that harassment may occur, and that would include harrassment through the misuse of this and other policies.
  3. You claim it was maintained here solely by edit warring. I am convinced it was maintained here a long time without any edit warring. We have discussed this elsewhere.
  4. You claim that things are not policy even though they are in the "official policy". To me, that is a nonsensical statement.
  5. Yes, there are long standing principles that edit warring will get you banned, BUT reverts -- even multiple reverts -- are not always edit warring. You are trying to connect two things for which, in this context, there is no concensus for connection.
As an aside, isn't part of the problem, that warnings have been developed but no policy on their use and application has been developed? --Blue Tie 15:07, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
One way not to get consensus is to post a long-winded, vague comment. What is wrong with the way warnings are done now? —Centrx→talk • 21:24, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I'll note that policy about user behaviour really should be purely descriptive. It needs to describe what community consensus about behaviour is. In fact, people simply aren't blocked for removing warnings from their talk pages. Administrators clearly don't think it is a reasonable thing to block someone over. We therefore shouldn't have it listed here, because it will just frustrate people who think that there is something special about a warning template when they discover that there really isn't. Jkelly 17:24, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Getting pages locked

How do you go about getting a page locked due to persistant vandalism? Sam Hayes 23:25, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. --- Deville (Talk) 18:32, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Redirects

Why the hell does WP:DWV Redirect here? And furthermore, what's with the WP:-( ?--KojiDude (viva la BAM!) 00:06, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:DWV probably stands for "Dealing with vandalism". No comment on the sadface... -GTBacchus(talk) 00:10, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
Ah, okay. I guess that explains why Wikipedia:Dealing with vandalism also redirects here.--KojiDude (viva la BAM!) 00:36, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
WP:-( is a sad Wikipedia. Just as WP:-) is a happy one. Personally, I like 'em. Luna Santin 19:05, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia-bombing suggested

Someone in Deffective By Design suggested a "wikipedia-bombing" on October 3rd, to change all occurrences from "Digital rights Management" to "Digital RESTRICTIONS Management". Although I am completely against DRM, and think that DbD has some interesting ideas, this one in particular would cause more harm than good. I think the DRM article should be watched to avoid edit wars and vandalism.

here is the link to the Deffective By Design site.


00:33, 18 September 2006 (UTC) An Anonymous reader

Thanks for the heads-up. -GTBacchus(talk) 01:23, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Removing warnings, once more

I'm sure people are aware that there's been a lot of reverting back and forth on this page, about whether removing warnings from one's own talk page is or is not vandalism. All the arguments for and against that have been discussed several times, and it is obvious that the clause has a number of strong supporters and strong opposers. Some people argue the clause should not be placed without consensual support, others argue the clause is already there and should not be removed without consensual support.

To resolve the issue, it helps to look at it from a different angle. Wikipedia policies are descriptive. For more detail, see this explanation. So the question is whether people that do remove such warnings presently get blocked (or otherwise sanctioned) for that act.

If the status quo is that people are usually blocked for removing warnings, then yes, it can be considered a form of vandalism, and the policy should reflect that. Conversely, if people aren't usually sanctioned for removing warnings, then it would be misleading for policy to state that it's not allowed. Wikipedia policy reflects actuality, not the other way around.

>Radiant< 10:04, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't know that any specific statistics are available. I can point to numerous cases where people have been told that they cannot remove warnings, but not been blocked for doing so... generally because the warnings themselves were invalid to begin with. However, I can't say that there are no cases where users were blocked for removing warnings (as opposed to whatever led to the warnings in the first place). While I think there is far less support for this idea amongst 'admins' than there is amongst 'RC patrollers' there are certainly exceptions and thus I'd expect there have probably been some cases where an admin has blocked for this. However, it is certainly not common practice. In most cases a user is blocked for actual disruptive behaviour or, if they aren't performing any ongoing disruption, the person asking for a block on 'removing warnings' is told that they should not be hounding people by restoring warnings. --CBD 11:18, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Simply, users should not remove legitimate, recently given warnings from his talk page. Still, established users should not be given form template warnings. —Centrx→talk • 19:45, 23 September 2006 (UTC)


Really common sense should apply. But recognizing that common sense is less common and more rare, a policy is appropriate. I agree that legitimate warnings should not be removed. I do not agree that they should remain forever. I believe that they should serve some useful purposes and the utility (usefulness) curve declines over time.
Apparently, if descriptiveness is a key (I have been given so many different and sometimes conflicting keys on how policies are made on wikipedia that it went from not being funny back to funny again) then it appears that it has been a practice to revert deleted warnings and tell users not to remove them. I personally find this approach objectionable. But sometimes objectionable things are necessary. --Blue Tie 04:09, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, for instance, some people keep their talk page empty as much as possible, so I can see why they might find this objectionable. So the question then is, how common is this practice and how many people find it objectionable - and based on that, should what basically boils down to revert warring over a user talk page be backed up by our official policy? >Radiant< 09:30, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
In response, I would say: I do not know how common it is. Does wikipedia keep statistics on such things or are we doomed to rely upon anecdotal tales? As far as how many people find it objectionable, I am also not sure, but polls on this matter have indicated that between 67% and 82% of people think that there should be some degree of retention of warnings. Interestingly enough, I find it objectionable but yet I also think that there should be some degree of retention of warnings so objectionableness and a policy of retaining warnings may not have, generally a good correlation. The question may not be: Is it objectionable? but rather: "Is it a bad idea?". Of course people differ on both matters. Finally whether there should be a policy on what bascially boils down to a revert war over a use page being backed up by policy: I try not to give creedance to leading questions like that during a debate, but in this case I would say: Maybe. --Blue Tie 14:53, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Warning levels

What is the reason for having 4 different warning levels? Why is it not sufficient to have {{test}} to advise them about experimenting, and then if they continue, in most cases to go to the "if you continue, you will be blocked"? Simply, there is no reason to waste time and effort tolerating bogus edits. Any fool can recognize that their vandalism is disruptive and wrong, a string of warnings like "don't do it again", "don't do it again, again", "don't do it again or we might block you", "watch out we are going to block you soon"... is ridiculous. —Centrx→talk • 19:48, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

And then half the time they just come back on a different IP and get that same 4 warnings! —Centrx→talk • 19:56, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Warning removal language: A possible compromise

If Wikipedia policies are descriptive, then the following might best describe the current practice with respect to warning removal:

The removal of legitimate warnings may or may not be prohibited depending on a balancing of many factors, including but not limited to whether the editor who received the warning is an unregistered user, a new user, or an established user, the seriousness of the misconduct for which the warning was issued, how recently the warning was issued, whether the editor was blocked at the time of the warning removal, and the preferences of the administrator responding to the report. Unregistered users who remove legitimate warnings may or may not have their talk pages semi-protected depending on whether their warning removal is or is not prohibited as described above.

John254 22:06, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

This is too unnecessarily detailed, just need to use common sense. —Centrx→talk • 22:26, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
The problem I have with this practice is that it is just not realistic. The theory is that it will only get used to stop people from doing deliberate harm to the encyclopedia by making it easy to see that they have done so... fine concept, but that's just not how the world works. In actuality it gets used all the time to harass users just because someone disagrees with them. A user recently cited this practice as grounds to replace warnings related to this reversion. There was absolutely nothing wrong with that edit. No 'vandalism' warning should ever have been issued for it and it certainly shouldn't have been edit warred to enforce display of such a warning. And we can say the practice only applies to "valid" warnings until we are blue in the face, but in reality that clearly isn't going to happen. People are going to convince themselves that warnings they hand out are valid... and sometimes we'll notice and they'll be told to knock it off, but sometimes we won't and perfectly innocent users will get harassed. Yet in either of those cases this practice will sit there churning away as a self-automated conflict generator. This is why 'compromise on the wording' strikes me as not very useful... it will always come down to a subjective evaluation of 'valid' or 'factors', and appeals to 'common sense' assume that all people have such and agree on what it is... which just isn't the case. We need to talk about ways to eliminate or at least minimize the damage done by this. Wording changes which have no impact on that aren't 'compromise' because they do nothing to address the actual concern. I've never seen a strong explanation why past warnings can't be tracked just as easily through the talk page history by standardizing edit-summaries the same way the templates standardized warning text. Or why the practice can't be restricted only to minimally subjective things like clear cases of true vandalism... and draconian penalties for misuse on things which aren't really vandalism. Right now we have people edit warring to enforce display of 'NPOV' warnings, when as often as not they aren't using neutral wording. It's too subjective and far too easy to abuse... and thus it is abused on a regular basis. Compromise means finding some way to maintain the 'easy to see past warnings' benefit while removing the avenue for harassment... and no wording about subjective standards of evaluation is going to accomplish that. --CBD 19:43, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Interestingly enough, while I may not agree with your answer to the problem, I agree with your analysis of the problem. Incidentally, could you please go review the RfP page and help out with Homosexuality in Ancient Greece. Thanks--Blue Tie 19:49, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
The situation there seems to be resolved, but I'll just say that the best course in such circumstances is to yell "Danny!" very loudly and let Wikimedia handle it. --CBD 11:35, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I think CBD's analysis of the situation makes a lot of sense. We should not base policy on wishful thinking, but take human nature into account. >Radiant< 16:16, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Apparently Concensus means some people get ignored

Changes have been made to this policy without concensus and perhaps contrary to the supermajority view. I wonder, then, what concensus really means here? I have asked this before and no one has been able to tell me. --Blue Tie 04:38, 29 September 2006 (UTC)


Oh.. because the history of such things is important, I want to go on record that I believe the policy about removing warnings has been removed contrary to concensus because a few active users want it that way. I do not personally have a problem with the policy the way it is with these edits... I do not do vandalism patrols and I don't block people or anything like that. However, I believe the change is not necessarily the best solution to the problem and I also do not believe that the change was made correctly -- with a concensus approach. I want to register this now, so that later it cannot be said that this change was not immediately objected to. And the grounds: that it reflects the view of a minority not the majority. --Blue Tie 04:42, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

  • "You want to go on record that"... wow, you really need to grok that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, nor a court of law, nor a body of politicians. >Radiant< 08:16, 29 September 2006 (UTC)