Wikipedia talk:Vandalism/Archive 6

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Vandal warnings

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

Yes, vandalism warnings should be signed, just like all talk page posts. It provides accountability and makes it easier for other editors to know who was doing the warning - the information is there in the history for the vandal to find it if they really want to, anyway. —Krellis (Talk) 02:11, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Userpage vandalism is reverted rather quickly most of the time anyway (as I should know...) Hut 8.5 09:25, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Unclear language

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

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

Blanking vandalism in policy

The "blanking section" reads:

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

This strikes me as inconsistent with

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

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

Edit summaries

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

I have seen this myself and I agree. The summary "vandalism" suffices plenty. I might even go so far as t o suggest that a message to this efect be automatically placed on the edit page where editors will see it when they make reverts. Asmeurer (talk ♬ contribs) 02:00, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, if no one disagrees, I will put it in soon. Goldfritha 20:05, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
It's soon; it's in. Goldfritha 00:39, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Protection/Semi-protection

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

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

"Stubbornness" and 3RR

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

Vandalism History

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

Oppose per WP:DENY. --Ginkgo100talk 19:12, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
There already is one anyway – Qxz 17:00, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Handling Returning IP Vandals

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

In cases like this, I simply decide how bad the vandalism was and then go off that. If it's minor, I'll issue a vandalism2. If it's slightly worse, I'll go with vandalism3. If it's bad, I'll go with vandalism4. And if it's very bad, I'll go with vandalism4im. That's just my personal policy for return vandals. - Century0 00:21, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
I've been wondering the same thing. I usually go to level 3 when the vandal comes back from blocking and hits the road with another vandalization. I figure, it's not like the vandal doesn't realize our policy and needs to be educated, as with a new vandal. On the other hand, I've not gone straight to level 4, and my previous reasoning suggests that sometimes it would be logical, so I came here to see what the consensus was and found this discussion. I think I will start using level 4 when it's warranted. As you said, severity is one factor; another one, though, is whether the IP has an unbroken history of vandalization, or whether it's interspersed with good edits. That, to me, indicates more likely actual multiple users so that a more "educational" approach might be warranted. Gzuckier 15:41, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
All of these seem to be good policies. It's seems to be all about what you prefer, but generally 3-4 warnings is good, depending on level of vandalism. If they've already vandalized about 5 times, that's when I give them an -im warning. Alex43223 T | C | E 22:34, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

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

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

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

Retalitory Vandalism

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

Vandalism policy & editing permissions

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

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

Unregistered/anonymous editing has the advantage where anyone can fix issues without having to register for yet another website. If such a feature is abused, you could post a message on WP:RFPP to semi-protect the page. --Sigma 7 23:49, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Thank you! I see you've already made a request for semiprotection on that article, & an admin has already acted on it. Thanks again. --Yksin 01:36, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Contributions page as tool to find vandalism

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

  • [[Special:Contributions/IP address or Username]] lists all the edits made by a particular anonymous editor at an IP address, or by a logged-in user if a Username is supplied. You can use this to find out other articles a vandal may have attacked. For instance, [[Special:Contributions/71.231.38.152]] lists all the contributions of the anonymous editor with IP address 71.231.38.152.
I usually check their contributions before issuing a warning. This gives me an idea how much experience they have, whether they have had a past history of vandalism, etc. After I have left a uw message, then I check their contributions again, looking for any that are still on the top, to determine if some of their past vandalism is still around. Sometimes you can catch them making new changes since you left the warning. wrp103 (Bill Pringle) (Talk) 04:48, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Talk page warning removal

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

It should say that it's not allowed, that other users are not only allowed but encouraged to revert such removal, and quite possibly it should give a warning that can be put on such users' pages. Goldfritha 23:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
But what if the warning itself is vandalism or the edit in question was really in good faith? Asmeurer (talk ♬ contribs) 00:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
What if it wasn't?Rlevse 02:04, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
So someone gets a valid vandism notice, removes it, gets reported to AIV and the admin checks to see if they have been warned and has to dig through history pages to find it? Ha, I'll stop fighting vandals if I have to do that.Rlevse 02:34, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

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

Making bold edits

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

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


Deletions

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

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

Willy on Wheels and others

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

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

Willy on wheels' "contributions"--$UIT 18:25, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
You can also see this. Hut 8.5 18:51, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
And this. YechielMan 14:19, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

When am i meant to go to WP:AIV?

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

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

Editing stuff on your user talk is vandalism?

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

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

  • Archiving and moving is fine. However, the section refers to "Modifying users' comments - Editing other users' comments to substantially change their meaning" which is definitely not ok. Not on your own talk page, either. Lying implies bad faith, bad faith implies vandalism. >Radiant< 12:24, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Bad faith != vandalism. Vandalism is making a mess of things. A straws breadth, but else there's a number of folks I could block for vandalism every day. :-P That and there are other reasons to want to edit talk pages, including refactoring, removing of insults, etc. --Kim Bruning 00:23, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Deleting recent user warning messages is a form of vandalism, since when somebody goes to issue a warning, it appears this is a first offense. As I point out to people who complain when I revert such actions, the page might be yours, but Wikipedia provides the resources, and they have set a policy for conditions of use. wrp103 (Bill Pringle) (Talk) 04:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Nope, that's definitely ok. You can view the page history. (This is old news, and gets repeated every couple of days :-) ) --Kim Bruning 00:23, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Constantly editting UK English "-our" to US English "-or"

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

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

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

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

"hello" on top of article

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

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

NPOV

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

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

Warnings policy

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

The obvious problem with that is that many IPs are shared, and it is often hard to tell if it is the same person vandalising. Some IPs with a long history of vandalism (often those registered to schools) a policy similar to this is already followed. Hut 8.5 19:46, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Oh okay. Thanks for the info. VanTucky 16:55, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Curious...

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

Try using the following urls (replacing Vandal with the user account or IP Address):
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Vandal&action=history&feed=rss
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Vandal&action=history&feed=atom
It's still reactionary (e.g. you'll only get information if someone leaves a message on the talk page), but since most people do, you'll be able to tell what they do. Alternativly, you can add the users in question to your watch list, and can then review their contributions in the "Edit my watchlist" page. --Sigma 7 03:17, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Question

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

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

Vandalism Study

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

Vandalism from dynamic IP addresses

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

Increasing strictness

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

I think this is an ultra-paranoid proposal that goes against the entire principle of an open encyclopedia. How we can resolve this is by adding more editors who are capable of intercepting vandalism within hours even in low traffic pages. I like your comments near the end, but any solution that is punitive I am weary of. While there will always be exceptions, I do not think we have to go ballistic when they do. Its part of our job as editors. Which reminds me, another thing this proposal does is take pwoer away from the community of editors and give it to the admins, crats and others. And given the humoungous amounts of time spent wikilawyering and fighting over power issues (instead of reverting vandalism!!!) the worse I think we could do is that.--Cerejota 12:56, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
I also think this proposal has some serious problems. Blocks aren't intended to punish people, they're intended to stop people doing damage (i.e. vandalising pages). I doubt such a proposal would have much effect anyway, because I doubt many vandals know much about our internal processes and wouldn't know about the rule. It wouldn't stop the idiot who sees 'edit this page' and inserts 'poop' somewhere.
As for the watchlist idea, there is a page giving a list of unwatched pages, but it's only available to admins. If we gave it to everyone then we'd be handing every vandal a list of pages to vandalise. Hut 8.5 14:27, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
I think there is a flawed assumption in you last statement: if true, it means that the bulk of the people watching wikipedia are potential vandals, and that vandalism is the biggest concern of the community. 1) I think good faith constructive editors far outnumber vandals, 2) The amount newcomer biting and "vandal" paranoia is far more problematic than vandalism: it reduces our appeal and hinders adding new editors who could then further protect us from vandalism. The very existence of wikipedia contradicts your view: if vandalism were such a problem Wikipedia wouldn't exist. The unavailability of tools such as this to regular editors is a hinderance to WikiGnomes who either don't want to be admins or cannot win the popularity contest admin elections are because they are socially challenged.--Cerejota 16:13, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

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

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

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

In response to Cerejota I believe that though vandalism is a large problem many users are violating WP:BITE for little or no reason, not that any reason is justified. However vandalism is one of, if not the largest problem facing the encyclopedia today. The other one that I would consider is negative attention from the media due to vandals. Now I do not believe that Wikipedia is going to be overrun by vandals tomorrow... But they still cannot be ignored. I also believe that good faith edits outnumber vandals but vandals still make up probably 10% of edits. As such Vandals caution is justified although you are correct in saying that Vandal paranoia is not. As for the wide availability of the watchlist I believe the two effects would probably cancel themselves out. Between editors who watched them and vandals who attacked them we would probably have a neutral effect.
In response to Richard001 your 1st suggestion would, in my belief, punish vandals not for the actual edit, but for the amount of time it took editors to remove it. Doesn't seem to make a large amount of sense especially when you get into school IP's. I don't that it would get rid of vandals and would probably only people who would discover that they were blocked days after a vandal committed the edit.--St.daniel Talk 12:35, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Grammatical error

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

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

Suggestion to decrease vandalism

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

Some things that are not vandalism

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

Improper use of (dispute) tags.

Is covered by Wikipedia:Edit war

Discussion page "vandalism"

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

Deleted page recreation.

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

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

Deleting other people's comments on discussion pages--simply deleting what they say because you don't like it or agree with it--is vandalism all right. The case where you refactor or move stuff about for clarity is covered in the explanation. I've restored the paragraph (which, to help people recognize it, I should mention I had just modified before Kim removed it; it used to say "Talk page vandalism", and has been part of this policy for a long time and for good reasons.) Feel free to call me new folk. Bishonen | talk 14:10, 13 May 2007 (UTC).
Well, there are cases where people were using the clause against folks who were dealing with silly templates, or broken wikiproject stuff. In some cases this even led to a proposed ban of the person calling on that clause... so there's quite a number of caveats there, I think. --Kim Bruning 14:14, 13 May 2007 (UTC) New Folk! O:-)
I disagree. All actions performed in good faith, however misguided, are not vandalism. (Then again, I hopelessly like Wikipedia:Avoid the word "vandal" :-P) --Iamunknown 21:46, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

"Only" warning

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

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

Lessening the tolerance for vandalism

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

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

I've had good experience with warnings managing to avoid the need for a block, although I don't do much vandalfighting. I suppose that a proposal that 'obvious vandalism starts with a level-3 warning' would be reasonable, but for things that might just be testing or mistakes (blanking with the addition of non-vandalistic content or writing 'test' are almost certainly only worthy of a test1; I wonder how often addition of nonsense or simple blanking, even if it has a misleading edit summary?) It's also important to keep bugzilla:9213 in mind; anons may not be able to actually see the warnings. I'm not sure if this means more tolerance is good, or if a short block so they see the warnings is good. --ais523 10:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Here's an example of a troublemaker that would not have got away if the tolerance is lowered: User talk:88.66.40.156. He vandalized a page, then my user page after I warned him. So, you can consider modiying the template mentioned above to have a "last warning" nature. Then people can have the option to use it to immediately make the vandal eligible for WP:AIV.--Kylohk 11:34, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
{{bv}} ought to be sufficient for an AIV block (it's level-3) if the user continues vandalising in a blantant manner, at least under the AIV rules when I came to Wikipedia. Looking at AIV now, it seems thatit requires 'last warnings', rather than just 'warnings that threaten a block' (i.e. level 3 or 4). Maybe allowing blocking for obvious vandalism after a level-3 warning would be a good idea? --ais523 12:28, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree, perhaps we suggest that the guidelines of WP:AIV be changed so as to accommodate this.--Kylohk 13:25, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I also would like to see the WP:AIV guidelines changed. At the least we need to go to a 2-level warning system. "Level-1" for obvious tests. This still should be a somewhat stern warning, and even putting "test" into an article is a form of vandlism, but we can acknowledge the non-maliscious intent of it. After that, the second level should be "stop or else", and any such warning should be good for a block if there is vandalism from the IP again within the next two weeks. I also would treat vandalism from an IP that was blocked for a short time as being a returning vandal if it occurs within a month or two of the last block, and permit a block w/o further warning.
Many vandals stop after a single warning. Others are looking to see how far and often they can push us. The first group will not be hurt by only getting a single warning. The second group will be justly hurt. Overall, I would expect less vandalism if it is just not fun anymore. (Actually the best way to not have vandalism be any fun is to block it on sight. I understand about WP:BITE, but when we are getting bitten we should be able to fight back.) --EMS | Talk 14:29, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I would agree that warnings need to be simplified. In some cases when I use a {{uw-vandalism2}} tag, other wikipedians think that I placed a {{uw-vandalism1}} instead - which slows down the escalation process. To resolve the issue, I recommend removing {{uw-vandalism1}}, and instructing users to avoid {{uw-vandalism2}} if they have existing warnings. As much as we need to follow WP:AGF, there is no such thing as good-faithed vandalismm. Editing tests are another story as it's expected that the user doesn't know how Wikipedia works. --Sigma 7 22:00, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
All right, let's try putting things in perspective. Let the new level scheme be: Level 1 (Testers) - Level 2 (Obvious vandals, content deleters, spammers and so on) - Level 3 (Blocked). Then those newbies will not be bitten, and blatant troublemakers will be discouraged from doing it in the future.--Kylohk 22:10, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
May I suggest that the 4 level series are not obligatory made for you to use them in sequence? I mean that nothing prevents you from directly isuing {{uw-vand1}}, or issuing {{uw-vand3}} or {{uw-vand4}} after a lv 1 warning. We are not machines and the templates are a commodity, not a policy :). -- lucasbfr talk 14:20, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Of course, for people to change the practice, it's a good idea to rewrite the guidelines so they know about what's the newest good idea. Or the idea can be, if someone's been given a certain level warning, any subsequent warnings should be higher in level than the previous one. Otherwise, it may go against the spirit of "warnings".--Kylohk 16:43, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

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

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

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

Please Help

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

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

Mass Vandalism/Colbert Vandalism

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

Vandal Mumun 無文

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

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

Signature vandalism?

In the course of an AfD discussion [1] , one editor went back and stripped out the style coding out of my sig and that of another editor with an edit summary of "My eyes!" I'm sure this is a relatively minor (if nonetheless obnoxious) offense, but where does this fall in policy terms re: vandalism?  RGTraynor  12:43, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

He habitually does this. I don't think it is vandalism perse, I do think it is quite uncivil. DES (talk) 22:41, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
My opinion of Tony Sidaway's sig refactoring varies depending on the sig. RGTraynor's sig isn't that bad, (though it could use improved colour selection,) so it would be better if Tony just put up with it. But when you get things like this, well, I'd think the sig itself is probably so obnoxious as to be incivil. --tjstrf talk 22:50, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Baby-sitting vandals

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

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

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

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

Dealing with vandalism properly

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

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

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

As annoying as this might be (I am from the US and I understand first-hand our faults of isolationism and feelings of mistaken superiority) I don't believe it qualifies as vandalism. "Stubbornness" and "Unintentional NPOV violations" are listed as things that are not vandalism. —Noah 18:26, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
This previous statement is entirely disingenuous and stems from a single-account created to further a contentious and controversial claim that the Eurofighter Typhoon is a superior fighter platform. The editor in question appears to have an abiding interest in proving the Eurofighter Typhoon is better than the F-22 Raptor as all of his edits seem to revolve around introducting contentious or controversial data regarding the capabilities of the two aircraft types. Not only is this is a case of fandom but incivility issues are involved. The new editor submitted an edit that was initially challenged and resorted to starting an voluminous talk page debate providing an elaborate rationale. After providing reams of background details and not finding support, the editor repeatedly revised the Eurofighter Typhoon article to his/her version. Even though gentle prodding to go to the talk page was refused, editors did attempt to work with the new editor but found a refusal to abide by consensus was matched by outlandish claims of nationalism and jingoism and attacks on other editors. The 3R violations have been reported to the appropriate admin notice boards. FWIW Bzuk (talk) 06:08, 17 December 2007 (UTC).

User 'Mikey01' Constantly Vandalizing And Removing Valid Information From Page

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

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

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

Can someone please see to this matter?

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

Just WP:WARN him appropriately and go to WP:AIV if he persists. Please see the notice at the top of the page. Richard001 07:07, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't know how to use that warning. Can you please explain as it didn't make sense when I looked at the page. Thank you. Ellectrika 10:38, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Type in something like {{subst:uw-vandalism2|Name of page vandalized}}, {{subst:uw-only|Page name}} etc and add it to his talk page, followed by your signature. If a vandal hits multiple pages at once, just give them an only warning and ask to have them blocked if they continue. Richard001 22:28, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your help, Richard. Ellectrika 22:31, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Automation of vandal reversion and warning

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

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

IIRC, there's tools such as popups or twinkle that allow controlling vandalism more easily. However, the stock interface still has room for improvement - for example, it's not easy to navigate to a given user's contributions from either their user or talk page. --Sigma 7 07:23, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Another suggestion is adding the most commonly used user warnings to the toolbox with symbols below the text that is edited. Richard001 07:12, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

IP versus account

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

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

Dealing with vandalism

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

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

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

Warnings

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

See additional templates and examples of output

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

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

Tracing IP addresses

The owners of IP adresses can be founds using:

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

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

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

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

Disagreements over interpretation of policy is not vandalism

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

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

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

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

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

Data on vandalism

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

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

Redirecting UPV warnings

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

Don't have the time for your help's

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

.s

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

Page shortcuts

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

VAN and the :( would be the best two to keep, maybe VAND as well. It's probably better just to advertise the shortest ones anyway, though it's hardly a great concern if they are all shown. Richard001 00:17, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
The usual practice is to include one short abbreviation (usually two or three letters in length) and one logical word (because some users prefer this to brevity). In this case, I recommend WP:VAN (the most convenient abbreviation) and WP:VANDAL (the most intuitive word). All of the shortcuts, of course, will remain active. —David Levy 16:26, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
I didn't know there was a discussion going on here. WP:VAND and WP:VANDAL should stay. Those little sad faces should be deleted. Lord Sesshomaru 16:30, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
You prefer WP:VAND to WP:VAN? Okay, either is fine. —David Levy 16:35, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
WP:VAN is already included in the redirect template anyway (ie, WP:VAN redirects here. For ...) at the top of the page. Lord Sesshomaru 16:39, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
Good point! That didn't occur to me. —David Levy 16:44, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
How much longer do we have to wait David? For the proposed changes to be settled that is. Lord Sesshomaru 16:47, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
I'll go ahead and perform the edit. If there's any disagreement, someone can revert and discuss. —David Levy 16:50, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

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

No, that isn't important. I linked it at the top because it's no longer linked from the shortcut box. —David Levy 17:07, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
I delinked it. Seeing as many other redirects aren't linked, I don't see why that one needs it. Lord Sesshomaru

Different types of vandalism

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

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

blatant POV warriors who delete large portions of text

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

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

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

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

Message from village pump:

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

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

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

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

Blanking

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

74.58.2.90 09:48, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

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

An Idea to Reduce Vandalism

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

  • This has been proposed many, many times before - see [2] and [3]. The main problem is that while the majority of vandals are anon IPs, the majority of anon IPs are not vandals. Hut 8.5 17:00, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Warning IP addresses for vandalism is useless

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

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


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

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

Someone vandaiized the sandbox!

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

Uh, thanks, but please read the oversized notice at the top of this page :-)
People often asking others to revert something on talk pages, but it's really quite easy - just read help:reverting and you can fix it yourself. Richard001 23:43, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

April Fool's Day Jokes?

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

Vandalism isn't generally reported unless seeking to block somebody (see WP:AIV). For something like that you might get some form of warning from another user, as this is supposed to be an encyclopedia and not an April fool's day joke site, but you're not going to lose your editing rights or anything. Richard001 07:18, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
People have been blocked in the past for excessive April Fool's Day jokes. Hut 8.5 10:14, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

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

Operation: New Leaf Discussion

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

Why does WP:WHOIS redirect here?

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

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

Clarification of tag abuse

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

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

It's not desirable, but there's no way we're going to classify it as a form of vandalism. What if a newbie comes along and doesn't realize it should be discussed? Richard001 23:39, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
A tag without corresponding clarification on the talk page is absolutely useless. Without that additional information it is impossible to know how to fix the apparent OR or NPOV issue. Therefore the best course of action in my view is, if the tagger neglects to put the reason on the article talk page, remove the tag and notify the user that the tag was removed due to lack of information. Newbies will soon learn the requirement of placing additional clarifying information on the talk page. Continued placement of tags without the corresponding clarification, after notification of the requirements, could then be deemed vandalism. Martintg 00:54, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, yes, but continued anything can be considered vandalism once people have been given fair warning. Richard001 02:28, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I would not call that vandalism as well - my proposal was that removing tags that have not been discussed/explained on talk page within 30 minutes, would not count as s revert. I have repeatedly seen such tags ({{disputed}}, {{totallydisputed}} etc) being slapped without any discussion to articles about evolution, history and others. It seems to be a clear case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT, when the tags are applied to article without any explanation - other editors remove them, they get reinstated - and it continues as long as one party breaks WP:3RR and the other reports him. Sander Säde 05:40, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
There already is distinction for two classes of essentially the same process: vandalism and editing tests. If obvious good faith can be inferred (or assumed) and the user clearly is a newbie, his deeds that could otherwise be considered vandalism are already given considerable leeway.
That having been said, all of the important "disputed" templates *do* say explicitly that there's a dispute on the talk page. Why wouldn't the user that places them not notice that?
As for the vandalism moniker -- I believe such tag abuse should be treated as vandalism because it fits straight into the primary criterion of vandalism: it constitutes nonsensical changes without intent to improve the encyclopædia. The 30-minute grace period is there merely to tell the lambs from the rams. And I'm alone, as tag abuse is already listed as a type of vandalism, just in a more general way than I'm proposing. Digwuren 10:20, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Now that I would agree with. It makes it far too easy for people to discredit an article. Of course, if they provide a rationale it would certainly come under the 3RR. Richard001 07:22, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
If a rationale is provided, obviously a discussion should follow, and a (possibly new) consensus developed. Digwuren 10:20, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
You give people too much credit. Why do people upload so many free images here instead of at Commons? Should we treat that as vandalism? (It sure creates a lot of work to move them!) In fact, I notice you have uploaded several such yourself (e.g. Image:August Wilhelm Hupel.jpeg). Should I therefore infer that you are blind? I'm in favour of keeping it simple and judging it case by case rather than assuming bad faith of everyone. Richard001 22:47, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

User Warnings

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

If it's vandalism it's vandalism - it doesn't matter what sort. If people are clearly vandals I just give them a blatant vandalism template warning, and if they persist they are likely to be blocked immediately. If someone posts something clearly offensive, don't be afraid to give them an only warning. If it's page blanking, I would just treat it as ordinary vandalism unless it's the first instance, in which case I would give them a level one warning since page blanking is the sort of thing you can do by accident. There's no dogma that says you have to go 1-2-3-4 - use your judgment from case to case. Richard001 04:38, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Oh okay well thanks for explaining that. --Joelster 04:40, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Edit history vandalism

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

Please provide an example. I make loads of RDRs and mistakes are not uncommon. Richard001 05:37, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
I'll try to create a hypothetical example. A page is titled Lage Raho Munna Bhai and I want to move it to the outrageous new title of Rajkumar Hirani's insult of Gandhi. I proceed to move it to Rajkumar Hirani's insult of Gandhi and Lage Raho Munna Bhai is now automatically made a redirect with one entry in the edit history. To prevent another editor from returning the page to Lage Raho Munna Bhai, I then go to Lage Raho Munna Bhai and change it from #REDIRECT [[Rajkumar Hirani's insult of Gandhi]] to #redirect [[Rajkumar Hirani's insult of Gandhi]]. This creates a two-entry edit history preventing non-admin moves and forcing editors who want to return the article to Lage Raho Munna Bhai to post it at WP:RM and get wide "consensus" to move it back to its orginal title. — AjaxSmack 19:51, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
Do you have any real examples of this though? I'd just treat it on a case by case basis. The worst that can happen is having to ask an admin to move it. Richard001 21:13, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Template:Van to tip the cops inline

Please make and advertise a Template:Van so all one needs to do is place a {{van}} inside a suspected vandalized sentence, which will mark it as suspected vandalism, and also alert the authorities.

Don't just say "revert the vandalism" as exactly when it occurred might be buried deep in the history, hard to find. And that might blow away latter changes too.

The Template:Van would be for the timid user, who thinks he might have spotted vandalism, but isn't sure, and just wants to go on his way after a quick toot of his wistle to alert those with more experience.

Jidanni 17:56, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

funna vandalism

is there any pages i can find that keep track of memorable vandalism/known famous vandals?? i wanna read some funny stuff! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.82.78.103 (talk) 05:11, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedia:Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense. We had a link to it on this page in fact, though someone removed it recently. Richard001 06:22, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Am I supposed to issue a vandalism warning myself?

I have what I strongly suspect is an unusual problem. On the articles The Green Hornet and The Lone Ranger, I and one or two other people--the last two re-reverts bear a different IP number from the previous ones, but the edit summaries suggest the same hand--have been going back and forth on a piece of misinformation, that the Lone Ranger's son is named Andy instead of the factually accurate Dan (along with some links redundant in one way or another). The Andy/Dan thing happened previously, on The Green Hornet only, starting on 13 February 2007, and ending on 23 February with the granting of semi-protected status. These people make a Wiki-link out of Andy Reid, which leads to a real world football player/coach who was born in 1958, when the original Ranger/Hornet era was virtually over (although that fact is just gilding the lily). I eventually started saying "Reverting vandalism" in my Edit summaries, but then they started counter-charging ME with being the vandal there. On 6 September, I found a message on my Talk page, a "last warning" for vandalism on the Hornet article, apparently signed by Betacommand. However, I eventually found that the History listings for that page attributed it to the more recent of those two IPs. I then tried filing a vandalism report against both IPs yesterday (Friday, Sept. 7). When I tried to check for some progress on it today, I could not find it at all, but I did find the "Dealing with vandalism" rules, which imply that *I* should put a warning on their talk pages myself (don't know why I didn't see this when I posted that report; sorry). Obviously, these people won't pay any attention to a warning from ME, so just what should I do? Ted Watson 22:58, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Replying on user's talk page. delldot talk 23:39, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Need new section

There should be a new section in the article: competition vandalism. I would add it but it's a protected page. RamHotBananasUp 15:09, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

What sort of thing would this section contain? Hut 8.5 15:19, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
It's the competition of vandalising Wikipedia and seeing whose edit stays there for the longest. People play it without telling their friends (competitors) what they wrote and then tell them what their vandalism was AFTER it was taken down.RamHotBananasUp 15:23, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure that's necessary. Any vandalism players did would surely fit into one of the other categories. And specifically telling people about how to play this game isn't a good idea. Hut 8.5 15:38, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
So if I were able to find a source showing that people play this game (and how), would I not be allowed to create a page for it?RamHotBananasUp 15:48, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Probably not. Hut 8.5 16:23, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
So wouldn't that make the 'sum of human knowldege' idea a bit limited in scope?RamHotBananasUp 16:30, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Alright, I'll clarify. If you can prove that it meets Wikipedia:Notability, then we can have an article on it. If you can't, then it would have to be a page in the Wikipedia namespace (like Wikipedia:Vandalism), but that would likely be deleted because of WP:BEANS. Remember that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Hut 8.5 16:35, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

stollen truck

75.53.221.232 12:03, 13 September 2007 (UTC)how to find out if traffic light at west rd. @45 caught the license plate of van. that stole my truck.camera at the store was unable to see the plate on the van. wondering if transtar cameras saw the van. coming from west rd. @45. HOW DO I FIND OUT IF TRANSTAR CAMERAS CAUGHT THE VAN PLATE NUMBER

Try posting this to WP:RD. delldot talk 16:02, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

A suggestion to reduce vandalism

A question posed by a vandal on his talk page suggests a way to reduce vandalism. He asked, "How can I be blocked if I don't even have an account???"

I suspect that most people who don't log on assume that they are anonymous, that nobody will know who they are, that nobody will be able to track the vandalism back to them, that they will not suffer any consequences from their vandalism.

What I suggest is on the first few contributions from an anonymous user, add an obvious warning that their identity is known (at least in terms of their IP address), that any vandalism can be tracked to the author, and that vandals can be blocked.

If we warn them BEFORE they vandalize (and if we point them to the Sandbox) we might save a lot of trouble later. Sbowers3 20:58, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Sounds kind of hostile though. And you must realize IPs shuffle all the time. The warning message won't show up for someone using an existing IP address, I don't think, so it will be unlikely for them to see it. Who would do this anyway - a bot or a person? I think if you're that way inclined it would be better just to support the movement for people having to create an account before they can edit. Richard001 06:28, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

What I am suggesting could actually be more friendly to first-time users but also caution them against vandalism. My target is specifically anonymous first-time contributors because most of the vandalism I see on recent changes is from first-time contributors. (And yes, IPs do shuffle so what appears to be a first-time contributor might have contributed previously under a different IP.)

(unindenting) Here is what IP users see when they edit a page:

You are not currently logged in. While you are free to edit without logging in, your IP address (which can be used to determine the associated network/corporation name) will be recorded publicly, along with the time and date, in this page's edit history. It is sometimes possible for others to identify you with this information. Creating an account will conceal your IP address and provide you with many other benefits. Messages sent to your IP can be viewed on your talk page. Please do not save test edits. If you want to experiment, please use the sandbox.

followed by the editing tool bar and the edit box

What I suggest is for the Wiki software to notice that the user has no previous contributions and put up something like this:

Welcome to Wikipedia. Because this is your first contribution we'd like to offer some advice. ...
Mention the current stuff about IP addresses and the benefits of creating an account.
We welcome constructive edits from all users even if you are not logged in, but please don't do disruptive edits. Continued disruptive edits can lead to your IP being blocked.
If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox.
If you would like help with editing ... etc.

followed not by the edit box but by some buttons:

(edit sandbox) (cancel) (proceed to edit)

Treating the anonymous first-time contributor differently from a repeat editor can let us give the user a gentle nudge in the right direction. Sbowers3 01:20, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

The message would end up being placed on millions of IP pages. Maybe it should just be built in somehow? I'm skeptical that any 'don't go down the wrong road' message would have any effect one those who do. Richard001 08:27, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
I must not be explaining clearly. I'm not talking about posting a message on each IP's talk page. I'm just talking about what the user sees on the screen after clicking the "edit this page" button and before seeing the editing tool bar and edit box. It would be part of the user interface and would be slightly different for anonymous first-time contributors vs. other contributors. And as for its effect, there is no way to know whether it might reduce vandalism, but if we let vandals know that they are not as anonymous as they think, that they can suffer consequences from vandalism, some may think twice. Sbowers3 11:33, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, didn't read the previous post carefully enough. It might be an idea, though it's I don't think we should assume that it's the user's first edit. Something like 'if you're new to editing' might be more appropriate. It could be worth a trial, perhaps? Richard001 09:20, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Automated warnings and intelligence gathering after Undo

It would be a big help if we tied some automation to the Undo button:

  • If the editor's talk page is empty, then automatically put a uw-test1 warning on the page.
  • Slightly harder: if the talk page already has a recent warning, then add a higher level warning.
  • Also hard: if the talk page has a last warning, then automatically submit a report to WP:AIV.

I don't know if a bot could do the above, or if it would require some developer intervention to tie into the Undo button.

There is something else that would be a big help in identifying vandals. Each edit that is undone could be marked in the user's contribution log as an undone edit. When we scan a user's contributions and see that almost all contributions are marked as having been undone, then it is easy to identify that user as a vandal.

We could also calculate for each user a percentage of "undoneness". Productive editors would have a very low percentage of undoneness, but editors with a 100% or even 50% or even 20% rating are disruptive. Users with a high percentage of undoneness could be listed in something like the recent changes list, so that vandal fighters could give them extra attention.

Maybe someone could do this with a bot but my guess is that it would require developer support. I think it would be worthwhile. This kind of automation would implicitly make every other editor a vandal fighter merely by clicking the Undo button. Sbowers3 01:39, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Interesting thought. Try floating it at WP:AN. DurovaCharge! 04:39, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
The problem is a lot of editors might not use undo, e.g. they may use Twinkle or do it manually. It's also unwise to warn people just because they had something undone. Undone edits often aren't vandalism. Users being identifiable as recently warned with a vandal type warning may help recent changes patrollers, but it's generally fairly easy to see if someone is a helpful or harmful editor by a quick glance at their contributions. Richard001 08:25, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
re Twinkle - so it wouldn't get all Undos but it would get a whole lot. Not all Undos are vandalism but the great majority are. If the warning is wrong, then the user can easily delete it. I'm sure I've been undone but probably less than 1% of the time. Anyone who has been Undone as much as 50% of the time is disruptive even if it isn't vandalism. It takes time to look through a user's contributions and most people (other than patrollers) aren't going to take the time. Heck, most editors who Undo, don't even look at the user's talk page to look for previous warnings or to post a warning. When they are in the middle of editing an article they don't want to take time to look through someone else's contribs. Sbowers3 11:25, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't think throwing automated warnings out at people simply because they've been 'undone' is appropriate. I undo myself sometimes. Should I be given a warning for that? If people can't be bothered warning people they needn't do so. The warning system could still be made a little faster, e.g. an option to warn the user as you undo or rollback, but this is too uncontrolled, and people would get wrongly warned all the time. Richard001 09:16, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I like the idea of putting a test warning on a user's talk page if it's currently blank. This would probably be the easiest aspect to implement, and the least controversial, as that warning is as much a welcome message as a warning. Perhaps instead of uw-test1, a custom test warning that includes the welcome template as well? Dansiman (talk|Contribs) 21:17, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Replacing established pages with one's own version

Among the types of vandalism (under "blanking") is "replacing entire established pages with one's own version without first gaining consensus". Well, if the "one's own version" of New York is "New York is a dirty polluted city ruled by Kim-Jong Il. Only losers live there." I'll agree, that is vandalism. But in many cases, replacing an established page with one's own version is simply being WP:BOLD. Perhaps the edit was ill-advised, but that doesn't mean it's vandalism. It is vandalism when one replaces a page with nonsense, it is not vandalism if you replace it with a version you think is better. (Repeatedly doing so after having been reverted is edit-warring, and may be POV pushing, which is still bad, but still not vandalism.) I propose rewording the introductory sentence under "blanking "to:

"Removing all or significant parts of pages without any reason, or replacing entire pages with nonsense."

Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:27, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I think I would agree here. Some established pages are still rubbish, and one who is bold enough to do a complete rewrite is hardly a vandal. Richard001 09:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Editors aren't warning vandals they revert

I did a mini-study of reverts, warnings, and vandals' contribution histories. Looking through Recent changes, I picked the first 10 reverts. Eight of those reverts were for vandalism (two reverted good faith edits). But of those eight reverts for vandalism, only two editors bothered to post a warning to the vandals' talk pages.

Of those two warnings, one was an additional warning after an "only" warning but the editor did not notify WP:AIV. A warning that "you will be blocked" is toothless if following editors don't post to AIV for vandalism after a "last" or "only" warning.

I looked at the eight vandals contributions. Among them were an additional 38 reverts of vandalism without any warnings. The first vandal I looked at had seven contributions this month, all were vandalism, all had been reverted, but none had been warned.

I looked at one article that had been vandalized. Its recent history was almost only vandalism and reverts for vandalism. One reverter tried to revert multiple edits to a clean version but could not find a clean version. The last entries in the history were for protection. Now that it is protected, perhaps somebody will be able to figure out how to clean up the vandalism. A good part of the vandalism was from one of the vandals that I tracked. If that vandal had been warned with escalations and been blocked, he would not have been around to vandalize that article.

Summary:

  • 80% of reverts were for vandalism
  • 75% of vandalism reverters did not post a warning to the vandal's talk page
  • 50% of warners didn't post to AIV for vandalism after a "final" warning
  • most vandalism does get reverted but most does not get a warning
  • some vandals never get any warnings even though their vandalism does get reverted
  • some vandals assume that they are anonymous and they won't suffer any consequences
  • the evidence is that some warnings are toothless - there are no consequences for vandalism after a warning

Examining just a few minutes of recent changes, I found 44 reverted vandalisms that were not warned. Extrapolating to a full day leads to tens of thousands of vandalism that are reverted but are not warned, and perhaps hundreds of vandals who could be blocked.

The simple fact is that most editors busy with improving articles don't take the time and/or don't know the proper procedures to post a warning, to raise the level of warning, to post to AIV.

I strongly recommend that we provide a very easy semi-automated way for an editor who reverts vandalism to post appropriate warnings and notices. It would take developer assistance but there should be a button that would let the reverting editor choose a standard warning message or compose a custom message, and have the name of the reverted article inserted into the message, and have it added to the vandal's talk page. If the talk page already has a final warning, the system should automatically post a notice to AIV.

If we make it easy for an editor to fight vandalism, more of them will do it, and we will block more vandals.

Actually, we might block fewer vandals if we warned them more often. If every single instance of vandalism were warned, with quick escalations to level 4, and a block if warranted, then vandals will learn that there are consequences and that it is sure and swift. If vandals learn that they won't get away with it, there will be much less vandalism and less need for blocking. Sbowers3 18:51, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

What is the point of wasting time, effort, bandwidth and database load leaving messages that will never be read. Anonymous users are not notified that they have messages until several hours after the message is actually sent – and once notified, the orange "new messages" bar does not disappear even if the message is read – 86.140.177.115 18:58, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Is that true? That's a serious bug... Jemmy Button 04:57, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
And here's a hint – it's not the warnings that matter, it's the blocks. Blocked users can't vandalise. So stop whining when people post "invalid" AIV reports because they haven't been warned in accordance with your wishes, and just block them – 86.140.177.115 19:00, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Sbowers3. Warning vandals takes too much time and effort, so it is not done often enough. I have warned many vandals, but I would warn vandals more often if warnings were easier. As it is, I seldom warn users whose "vandalism" appears to be have been done in good faith (I hope they will read the edit summary to find out why they were reverted), and I seldom warn IPvandals who have made just that one edit (many one-edit IP users never come back, so there's low return on the time spent warning them, and anyway I figure that the fact that their edit was reverted probably completes their "testing" of Wikipedia).
The advice from 86.140.177.115 (an experienced vandal) is informative. --Orlady 19:21, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
"Experienced vandal?" Uh... come again? – 217.44.23.69 18:17, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Apparently I was looking at some other user's block log by mistake. Template:RED FACE --Orlady 18:29, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, tools like Twinkle do make it fairly easy to warn people. You just click warn, pick a warning, and hit enter. However, it does take time, and I often avoid warning one timers as well. Every second spent warning is a second that isn't spent reverting. It's also easier to spot vandals when their talk pages are red than blue. However, letting them get away with 7 cases of vandalism is a pretty bad situation to be in. Anything more than 1 vandal edit should really be resulting in warnings. I suggest you take this to vandalism studies; analysis of warnings is one of the unanswered questions there. Richard001 01:04, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
People shouldn't have to install local software to edit WP--that's just a failure in the site design. I definitely agree with Sbowers; it's a real hassle to warn+AIV, and automating it would be a great improvement... Of course someone has to write the code. —Jemmy Button 04:57, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
But Twinkle isn't local software - you just type something into your .js and you can use it anywhere (well, I don't seem to be able to use it with IE, but then I've never been able to do anything with IE). Richard001 10:10, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion To Track Vandalism/Changes

As the scope of wikipedia is growing and as every user can not watch 'watchlist' all the day, it is suggested that if there is some change in contents of topic on user watchlist, then wikipedia should email 'user watchlist' immediatly to the user to keep track of vandalism and changes. If user does not want immediate email, User should be given choice how often he/she receive email in one day.

This way almost all users will be involved to track vandalism if change is negative and improve quality of article if the change is positive.

Some articles does not change everyday and gradually creators of that articles stop watching watchlist, visiting wikipedia site. If after their departure some change occurs, then the creators of that article have no way to know it.

For administrators, some changes may seem like contribution because of lack of knowledge on that specific subject. But for experts it may be irrelevent or that of poor quality.

viran 11:52, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I get many changes on my watchlist each day, so it would be useless for me, but it might be something that could be added under 'preferences' as long as it didn't put too much strain on the system. Richard001 23:22, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

'Vandelism' term being banded around - by non-domain experts - could be construed as Libel

It is funny that as an Internationally rated chess player, annotating the four key decisive wins of Anand in the Mexico City tournament (where he recently became Chess world champion) is described as "Vandalism" by Ryan Delaney, and then stamped in the history of edits of the Anand page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viswanathan_Anand

Is Wiki so full of itself now, that it does not recognise the International chess rating system, and basically *Anonymous* people in the Chess world can report "Vandalism" which is actually the work of Internationally rated chess players? What is Ryan Delaney's chess rating?! Why is he a self-declared judge on chess content - or mutlimedia game annotations?!

Perhaps in the definition of "Vandalism" it is important to recognise the subject domain - and seek to find authorities within that domain. The current emphasis seems to be on people such as Ryan Delaney as a self-declared authority in Chess labelling things as "Vandalism" when in fact it is he who is purpetrating Vandalism by the content link removals.

Again, I am left disappointed for where Wiki is going, and I think it is almost libellous how the term "Vandalism" is being implied to the history section of certain documents. Vandalism applied to the content of domain experts - this is where I question whether Wiki is heading for disaster - because this my frends is starting to become libellous - make no mistake about it. When you start abusing domain experts and calling them vandals, I would suggest is not a very good path to tread on.

In the case in question, I uploaded multimedia game annnotations of the four decisive wins of Anand on youtube. Does Wiki have a place for multimedia videos? If so, where is it? If not, what is the harm of using the External links section of the Anand page to have links to those multimedia annotations? One of my vidoes is featured on chessgames.com - their consultation rest of world game. Most of my videos get 5 star ratings on youtube. I am a qualified chess player, and my videos are enjoyed by many. And yet I am accused of vandalism, by putting links to my multimedia game annotations. Is this fair?

Check my Youtube videos for yourselves:-

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=kingscrusher


Kingscrusher 12:39, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

This page is for discussion of Wikipedia's policy on vandalism. What you have here is a content dispute. Please follow Wikipedia:Dispute resolution and discuss the links at Talk:Viswanathan Anand#Removal of YouTube video links, not here. Hut 8.5 14:47, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Question About Removing Item from Talk page

Question in reference to this page:

Talk: Stoughton Massachusetts

The original Editor that posted this comment did so with good intentions, as they removed what appeared to be an Unverifiable Personal Statement from the related article. It is likely the original edit they removed was actually just vandalism. There was no real dispute to this removal, and the removal happened a while back. So the question is, how long should the comment remain on the discussion page? There have been a copule of editors that have tried to remove this comment, as its existence in the talk page itself could be construed as kind of a form of vandalism because the original vandalism now lives on...

So my question is, should the comment on the talk page be left as is, pruned, or archived? Does the original poster of the comment need to be involved in the decision?

--Ratboy37 23:25, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't have to be, but I don't think it would hurt to just delete it. I often remove superfluous material myself. It's unlikely anyone will try to add that back, so there seems little reason to keep it. Richard001 00:04, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Statistics on vandalism

Has there been any statistical analysis of pages vandalised by category? I "would guess" that experimentation/mistyping/misinterpretation of information would be random across articles, but differ for "general" and "specialist knowledge" pages. "Vandalism and creative rewriting" would be confined to a much smaller percentage, while "present office holders" will attract more vandalism than their predecessors (being non-controversial). Jackiespeel 17:20, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. I know there's the list of most vandalized pages. And there's the Vandalism Studies. I'd go from there and see what kind of info you can find. Useight 05:53, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

The name of this policy is an ethnic slur

A very common ethnic slur, particularly on Wikipedia, but that doesn't make it any better. Jacob Haller 21:31, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Not at all, Jacob; The word entered the language, obviously, because of common Vandal practice to destroy everything pertaining to the enemy, on sight. Yes, yes, I know that that is a gross simplification; still, that was the motive behind the inclusion of 'vandal' as one who damages or destroys. Consider the cases of 'sadism' and 'sadist' - I am quite certain that the Marquis would be outraged by the definition of these terms(or perhaps not?), but this sort of thing happens all of the time. How would a Goth feel about being connected to 'goth' behaviour and accoutremént? I also rather doubt that there are any Vandals left to take exception, so your argument seems rather moot to me. Kindest regards, --Lyricmac 04:19, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
I tried warning one trasher, however, the template automatically inserted the ethnic slur into the warning. I therefore removed my warning. Jacob Haller 16:26, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps you could make up your own special set of templates, replacing the word 'vandalism' with 'defacement' or 'sabotage', though you may want to thoroughly research the etymology of these words as well. Richard001 04:21, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Pages Vandalised for no reason

The Burger King article has been vandalised and was vandelised for no reason,you think its been enough that the article has been vandilesd?Sometimes pepole vandalis them for no reason,they got to know Wikipedia is not a crystal ball.Sorry for my spelling.--Someguyudontknow 01:20, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Very little vandalism is done for any reason. If you have an issue with that article, you'll have to discuss it on the talk page or ask for protection if needed. Complaining about vandalism just wastes time and gives the vandals reward for their work. Richard001 02:08, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Category:IP addresses used for vandalism

Hey all,
After a discussion with User:Jc37, I've changed the desciption for Category:IP addresses used for vandalism to read that all IPs being used for blatant vandalism should be added to the category, for referencing when dealing with future edits by these IPs. I am currently defining "blatant vandal" as an IP that has received at least a level 2 vandalism warning. However, the description also stipulates that shared IP addresses, because of their inconsistent nature being controlled by multiple people, should not be added, as it might cause bias against them and the loss of good faith, constructive edits. Now, I know that not many people check this page that often, so I will be spamming this notice in multiple vandalism-related areas; however, I will redirect discussion here. I would like to get some community input into making this an official policy to keep better track of our unregistered voters. Thanks! GlassCobra 03:48, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with this change. As far as I know, the only thing that feeds into this category now (besides manually adding it) is {{repeatvandal}} - which is only used for IPs that have been blocked repeatedly which includes many shared IPs. Right now, the AIV bots will indicate if an IP reported there is in this category. If this change is made, that would be reported for almost every IP address reported there, which would defeat the purpose. Why do we need a category for every IP address given a level 2 warning? Besides the AIV bots, what uses this category? What about dynamic IPs? What happens when they change owner and the new owner automatically gets the bad reputation? I'm afraid I just don't see the reason behind this. As it stands, it is an indication that an IP is most likely static and its owner is a vandal or it is a shared IP with plenty of people who like to vandalize using it. If this change is made, it would literally put every IP address who vandalizes in the future into it. Why do we want that? Mr.Z-man 01:18, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
I disagree also. It would, over time, make the category meaningless. Almost every dynamic IP will eventually end up here. Vandalism form an IP is not particularly surprising. Only those semi-static IPs that are recurrent vandals are useful in the category. GRBerry 14:42, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Also, I don't see how this would work. The easiest way would be to put the category in all the warnings (level 2 and above) but that would have the effect of categorizing shared IPs and registered users too. The only way I can see is to put the category on the page manually (which would require an extra step for warning vandals) or to create separate warning templates for non-shared IPs. Either way we would have to change the way everyone warns vandals, not an easy task. Mr.Z-man 17:47, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
How about a cat that only included recent vandals from the last day or two? That could be effective against moderately dynamic IPs. Having them appear a different colour in page histories etc during this time could make them easier to spot. Richard001 22:06, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
I could (and did) create a possible addition to the templates that would put a page into a category for only 2 days after the template is added (using ParserFunctions). I tested it with 2 minutes, it should work for 2 days as well.(I'll know in 2 days) There does seem to be a bit of a bug though; I think its just a caching issue. It might not be as much of a problem over 2 days. Mr.Z-man 03:17, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Never mind, the cached version won't expire for a month unless someone manually purges it. This won't work unless someone gets a bot to do it by removing the category after it has been on a page for 2 days (it could still be added by the templates). You can make a request at WP:BOTREQ. Mr.Z-man 04:07, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I see your point about the category becoming useless; I admit, I hadn't taken everything into consideration. I do like the idea of having a bot that would patrol the category, though. Would this be possible? GlassCobra 18:52, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Personally, it doesn't matter to me what the criteria is, as long as there is criteria, else, as someone else mentioned, this will become a voluminous, nearly useless category. - jc37 18:26, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I think the traditional standard for using the {{repeatvandal}} template is that the IP has been blocked multiple times. This seems the most useful. I don't think that it will bite newbies who happen to share the IP, as they have probably already experienced a block due to other vandals, and their talk page will be full of warnings anyway. If it is a shared IP there should also be the appropriate sharedIP talk page header, such as {{ISP}}, which explains that editors shouldn't take it personally. -- zzuuzz (talk) 18:37, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
The bot suggestion was if you wanted a list of all vandals who were active in the past couple days. It should be possible (though I couldn't do it); a category would have to be added to all of the warning templates so that the category is added to a page when a warning is given. The bot would check the timestamps added with the templates and if the most recent timestamp was >48 hours ago or the user is blocked, it removes the category from the page. The bot would have to run daily at the least, using the pages in the category as the list of pages to check. I still don't see how helpful it will be though. I've reverted the change to Category:IP addresses used for vandalism. If we do use a category to categorize recent vandals, it should be a different one. Mr.Z-man 20:28, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
L2 is far too low. If one person makes on edit from an IP along the lines of "This page is crap, someone fix it!", an over-zealous warn-er may hit them with an L2 tag... and get them listed as an "IP address[] used for vandalism" ? I agree with the person suggesting that repetitious blocks be the best criteria. 68.39.174.238 19:15, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't have any problem listing such a person as a vandal. Such edits only degrade the whole project. In fact, I'd give them a blatant vandalism warning myself. Richard001 23:03, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Can vandalism be remedied by protection?

Is protecting articles for weeks (2,3,...) a right remedy against vandalism - especially the unpredictable random one, and not wars - or should blocking individual vandals be used instead, because protecting is detrimental to editing up to grinding it to stop, where anonymous editors are the edit driving force, please? Additionally, vandalism can be provoked or made up from IP addresses by editors violating WP:OWN just to instigate protection in order to restrict anonymous editors. For an example click here, and for clarifying the vandalism definition to easier identify vandals see Wikipedia talk:Vandalism#Make it less vague, define "deliberate" & "good-faith effort". -70.18.5.219 04:53, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Copied from Wikipedia talk:Protection policy#Can vandalism be remedied by protection? by -70.18.5.219 (talk) 17:31, 18 November 2007 (UTC):

Blocking takes precedence over protection. But in many cases, the IPs are dynamic or there are just too many different IPs to block without creating more collateral damage (for example, a while ago we blocked an IP that was used by every person in a country, I think it was Qatar). Sometimes a user is making a bunch of new accounts or they did, so the best way to stop them all is to semiprotect. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 20:49, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
So, it seems that: Yes, as the last resort, when other remedies were exhausted or could not have been applied. That policy is reasonable in theory, but how it has been followed? I can give you two examples of articles being often (over)protected: Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Not a single vandal has been blocked, and I found just one warned and not even blocked (User:24.8.104.191)! Both the articles were overprotected and the protection was subsequently lowered after a tedious process that nobody would pursue; I did it, but only twice, just to exemplify the abuse of protection policy, as a rule rather than exception (see Talk:Diego Rivera#Protecting Diego Rivera for 20 days... excessive and abusive??? and Talk:Frida Kahlo#"Protecting" the article for 2 weeks - too much!!!) caused - I think - by "taking shortcuts" by sysops not careful enough. My point is that the protection policy was (and still is) systematically abused, and - so - I have proposed improvement to the vandalism definition (Wikipedia talk:Vandalism#Make it less vague, define "deliberate" & "good-faith effort") to clarify subject of blocking to make it reality rather than theory. -70.18.5.219 (talk) 03:38, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Make it less vague, define "deliberate" & "good-faith effort"

Wp:vandalism#Warnings suggests several warnings for unintentional vandalism, as: unintentional vandalism/test, unintentional removal of content, writing nonsense, etc., but there is no clear standard - neither in the intro (lead) nor in the somehow vague Types of vandalism - allowing to distinguish them from similar, but non-vandalism mistakes. So, based on the definition of vandalism in "Black's Law Dictionary", I propose to add such a standard to WP:VANDALISM, as the following changes:

Sec. I. Add the following definition of "deliberate" at the end of the first paragraph of the lead (intro):

"Deliberate" means not only intentional, but also with reckless and senseless ignorance (of what appropriate content is) to a degree comparable with intent.[1] Comparability with intent derives from conscious disregarding of what is right in content in the attitude like "what do I care... to think, look, check, read, etc.", e.g. changing without explanation a correct sentence into incoherent text, i.e. changing on a whim and neglecting reading the change made. Such ignorant damage or destruction (of content) is equivalent to intentional one, hence considered as vandalism (though possibly unintentional - assuming good-faith - similarly to writing nonsense without explanation).

Sec. II. Change the last word ("vandalism") of the second paragraph of the lead (intro) to "damage or destruction of content", because you cannot define vandalism using the word "vandalism", or - in other words - you cannot define a term by itself, e.g. water is... water. -70.18.5.219 17:35, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Sec. III. Expand the "good-faith effort" description by adding the following explanation at the end of the second paragraph of the lead (intro) as the third paragraph instead of the existing one, which will become the fouth paragraph insted:

But, good-faith effort means good-faith and effort. Reckless and senseless ignorance (equivalent to: "what do I care... to think, look, check, read, etc.") cannot be qualified as effort, but its lack only. Such ignorance also is synonymous with bad-faith, since there is no disregard of what is right (such ignorance is) in good-faith or neutral. So, changing without explanation a correct sentence into incoherent text, i.e. changing on a whim and neglecting reading the change made, is an example of such a lack of effort qualified as vandalism. Reckless and senseless ignorance cannot be excused by good-faith assumption, because such a loophole would allow for abusive writing nonsense, damaging text, etc. under the pretext of ignorance, whereas ignorance is not defense (excuse) since the ancient Romans times. Hence, the importance of giving a valid reason by writing explanation in Edit summary qualifying as good-faith effort (because having it proves good-faith, and giving it proves effort). First of all though, writing explanation in Edit summary forces the editor not only to have a valid reason, but also to spell it out for others for not to be accused of vandalism, when the edit's good-faith intention is not obvious, since it is the obligation of editor to demonstrate good-faith effort, rather than of others - puzzled by his edit - to prove its lack. -70.18.5.219 03:54, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Examples: For examples click here (diffs are in the middle). -70.18.5.219 04:03, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I can't really see the point in this. Policy pages are not legal documents, and don't need to be - editors are expected to exercise some measure of common sense in interpreting them. Hut 8.5 19:45, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
How clarifying a murky and difficult aspect of a policy (stated as, e.g. "Not all vandalism is obvious") will not make easier following or interpreting the policy or will be anything else than beneficial to it, please? In other words, how making more clear "a standard that all users should follow" (in the header of, e.g. WP:VANDALISM), which has an undeveloped part per its own statement (e.g. "Not all vandalism is obvious"; seemingly asking for improvement), will not benefit that standard by making it easier to follow and interpret, please? Will not such clarifications reduce misunderstanding, mistakes, bad judgment, or even abuses in following or interpreting the policies, please?
Moreover Hut 8.5, if you "can't really see the point in this" (as you said), does it prove that such point does not exist except that only you can't see it, please? In other words, your personal opinion is against formal logic (not seeing something doesn't disprove it) and so... common sense. Hence, a funny coincident is that, despite the WP:VANDALISM advice (that "For example, adding a personal opinion to an article once is not vandalism — it's just not helpful, and should be removed or restated.") you just stated such a personal opinion (not helpful ever!). Since perception of common sense is personal, and only that can be used, where there is no clarity in policies, therefore relying just on "common sense in interpreting them" is highly unreliable even from seasoned administrators, as your above private opinion proved contradicting itself. In other words, clarifications to the policies are very beneficial, because many (including administrators) may not understand policies (which - so - should be as clear as possible), and relying just on "common sense in interpreting them" (as you said) may not be enough... by a wide margin, which your not helpful personal opinion (i.e your perception of common sense) proves.
So, thanks for your very important input-example actually supporting the proposal even against your intention. -70.18.5.219 21:23, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
So, Wikipedia is happy with the number of disputes, which part may be a result of the somehow vague description of the WP:VANDALISM standard expressed even within it by the words "Not all vandalism is obvious", please? -70.18.5.219 04:24, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
This seems pretty uncontroversial. "Not all vandalism is obvious" means just that: some vandalism is obvious (e.g. replacing a page with obscenities). Some is not (e.g. changing the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide from 375 ppm to 3 ppm). Both can represent a deliberate attempt to damage the encyclopedia. Disputes surrounding the meaning of vandalism generally occur when editors mislabel stubborness, content disputes, or differing concepts on how to improve the encyclopedia as vandalism. This issue is well-covered in the policy. Do you have any examples of disputes "which part may be a result of the somehow vague description" of vandalism? MastCell Talk 23:09, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
"Not all vandalism is obvious" in the intro just invites abuse, because it also informs (and - so - suggests and instructs) that, if editor wants to vandalize with impunity, then the editor needs only to make it not obvious to get away with it! Replacing 375 ppm with 3 ppm is obvious and out of question, but when editor maliciously deletes, e.g. the reference [1] from the Sec. I above, but also writes in the edit summary a fake (WITHOUT VALID REASON) excuse (e.g. "I haven't heart about it" or "it is not needed or important" or "it is better this way " or "I see it for the first time", "let's discuss it first", etc.) than - despite that it was just malicious - it is not vandalism per the intro's sentence "Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is NOT vandalism.", because good-faith is not defined, so there is no distinction between faked and genuine good-faith and - so - fakes are excused too, if the editor was smart enough to put it in. Do you want me to vandalize something per the above prescription to show it, or you can imagine such vandalism from the description alone, or you do not believe that it will be unnoticed, or you believe that it can be unnoticed, but such vandalism is acceptable, please?
-70.18.5.219 21:46, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
I concur with Josh. Not a useful change.
James F. (talk) 18:53, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree with 70.18.*, people can (and often do) too easily use WP:VANDALISM as an excuse to call each other's good faith edits as vandalism. A good clarification might be in order. In fact, I would agree that the sentence is not really helpful, as the existence non-obvious vandalism is, unfortunately, obvious. Perhaps we can state something like "good faith edits are not vandalism" or use MastCell's very example. I dunno. 128.118.226.88 03:13, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
I meant the opposite, namely that, if editor wants to commit even primitive vandalism, it is enough to write a fake (WITHOUT VALID REASON) excuse in the edit summary, and editor is excused by the intro's sentence "Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is NOT vandalism.", because good-faith is not defined, so there is no distinction between faked and genuine good-faith and - so - fakes are excused too. In other words, a lack of definition of good-faith allows to use a good-faith sounding excuse to cover up vandalism. Such fake excuses may include: "I haven't heart about it" or "it is not needed or important" or "it is better this way " or "I see it for the first time", "let's discuss it first", etc. - all possibly in good-faith, but also not. They may suggest good-faith, but - in fact - can be cover-ups for a smart, but abusive, editor just looking for attention or to tease, or jealous of or not understand someone's edit, but not wanting to find out on his own (why trouble myself, when I can trouble somebody else), etc.
My point is, wouldn't be just better to add the above definitions of "deliberate" & "good-faith effort" to protect especially a weak minority of editors, who cannot defend their edits against such (sneaky) vandalism without such clear definitions (because they don't have time, or don't know how, or don't know Wikipedia well, etc.), please? It is like abolishing the slavery, which benefited the majority, but was utterly unfair for the minority.
-70.18.5.219 21:46, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Just one little chime-in: I agree that the definition of vandalism should never include the word 'vandalism' as a material part. Epthorn 07:20, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
I included that obvious vandalism definition error (Sec. II above) to test editors' (including sysops' and arbitrators' ) ability to reason and their good-faith will; if they did not see that obvious error, then they - most likely - would have problems to see the other more important issues - less obvious and moral, like abolishing the slavery (see above). The arbitrators and sysops do not seem to be sensitive to that issue of injustice for a minority of editors, but benefiting a majority. It is a moral issue, and not only a matter of convenience.
-70.18.5.219 21:46, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Black, Henry (1990). Black's Law Dictionary, 6th ed., St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing Co., p. 1553. ISBN-10: 0-314-76271-X or 0-314-77165-4 deluxe. 

Clearing storage

Is it possible to save space by removing bad versions of an article (due to vandalism, of course) from your (Wikipedia's) drives, while keeping track of the IP address of the vandal? 4.243.215.253 00:18, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I do not think so, as the editor information is stored with the edit information, though deleted versions can be removed at any time (though the editor/IP information does disappear with it). SmileToday☺(talk to me , My edits) 03:00, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

are bots considered vandalism?

they prevent people from editing pages even though they are not officially locked Megapaw (talk) 22:16, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

They don't prevent editing of pages in general. It's just that if some IP or new user vandalises a page and a bot recognises unusual patterns typical of vandalism (insults, vast deletions etc), it can undo the vandalism efficiently. Sciurinæ (talk) 22:21, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Please unlock

I would like to add some cleverly hidden vandalism as a meta-joke in the "types of vandalism" list. Please unlock the article so that I may do so. --130.15.161.188 (talk) 00:05, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Declined. Not a place for jokery. bibliomaniac15 00:17, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Long lasting vandalism

In the past couple of days I've noticed a number of instances of vandalism that have survived for quite some time. Here are some examples. [4] [5] [6] In the first two cases there were two acts of vandalism in a row, followed by a revert of the second act only. In the second case ClueBot performed the incomplete revert. In the third case, the sentence "christianity is better than jewish" was deleted by a well-meaning IP, who , unfortunately, didn't restore the large block of deleted text. The first two acts of vandalism survived for days and the third for a month and a half. See my edits on the edit history for the reversions. Is there any way that policies or procedures might be amended to help deal with this sort of thing? --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 09:07, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Not all vandalism is overt. Read about "sneaky vandalism" on the page WP:Vandalism. That's probably what it is.Hellno2 (talk) 16:10, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


Anonymous users = vandalism. Force registration for all updates

My experience of monitoring military-related articles is that vandalism is done by unregistered users, apparently bored kids making "silly" rather than "malicious" changes. I feel that only allowing registered users to make changes would go a long way to eliminating this class of vandalism. I see no value in allowing unregistered users to update Wikipedia - if they can't be bothered registering and signing in they can have little commitment or carefully considered content to contribute. Registration will filter out these spur-of-the moment silly updates. I think that this class of vandal is not committed enough to bother to sign in or register.

Recommendation - allow only registered users who have provided a valid email address, and confirmed it, to update Wikipedia. Also - important articles (i.e. on major events or people who have affected history) should only be updateable by users with a reputation for quality - gained by making a number (e.g. 10) updates to minor articles. Otherwise Wikipedia will be swamped by vandalism, vanity articles and plain hot air. Rcbutcher (talk) 01:59, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

This has been suggested many times before. You may be interested in m:Anonymous users should not be allowed to edit articles and some of the graphs here. While most vandalism is done by anonymous users, most anonymous edits are not vandalism. Mr.Z-man 02:11, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
The fact that anons can edit is a firm stand Wikipedia takes established by the J-man himself. Besides, there are plenty of positively contributing IPs around. bibliomaniac15 02:15, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
The fact that most anonymous users are not vandals does not refute or negate the reality that most vandalism is done by anonymous users. It is a separate unrelated assertion, a fallacy of the type "most people who die of lung cancer are smokers, but most smokers do not get lung cancer, therefor smoking does not cause lung cancer". Further, I don't see how the fact that Jimmy Wales supports uncontrolled anonymous edits somehow overrides the damage anonymous bombing of pages is doing to Wikipedia. Likewise, I don't see how the fact that there are many good anonymous contributions overrides the anonymous bombing damage. The number of pages I have had to revert recently, and presumably the number left undetected and unreverted, can only make this a somewhat unreliable "encyclopedia" - the danger is with the more intelligent bomber, who changes the odd number or date here and there, this is extremely difficult to filter. Across the range of military and political articles I keep my eye on, there are a number of userids which I trust based on the quality of their previous contributions, mostly serious and worthwhile input. I couldn't have any such confidence with IP numbers. The anonymous edits, even when not obvious vandalism, tend to be superfluous stuff that adds nothing to the article. The evidence indicates that committed people with real research behind their input will take the time (2 minutes ?) to create an account, and will do so if asked to. In fact, I think people will be more ready to devote their time and knowledge to Wikipedia if they have evidence of a quality-control system that means they are not wasting their time contributing something that will eventually be corrupted.Rcbutcher (talk) 12:06, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
If we are assessing the value of unregistered contributions, then we should study what unregistered users do, and for every unregistered vandalism edit there are two or three constructive ones. I just went to Special:Recentchanges and opened up the top five anonymous edits. Two were vandalism (and one of those was reverted in under a minute, the other I reverted). The others consisted of adding a wikilink, adding a minor point that was not already in the article, and a legitimate comment on a discussion page. These are not the sort of edits where you can easily see the user creating an account - if you read an article and see a typo, it's unlikely that you're going to register an account just to fix it, but it is possible that you will click on the edit button and fix it anonymously. This is very encouraging to newcomers - I made my first edit as an unregistered user, and many (perhaps even most) Wikipedians will have done the same. Jimmy Wales' opinions on the subject are relevant because he has decreed (at m:Foundation issues) that unregistered users should be allowed to edit, and consensus at the English Wikipedia cannot change that. You are also assuming that unregistered vandals won't simply register an account. Whilst I can't see newcomers registering in order to fix a typo, I have seen many, many accounts used solely for vandalism, even when the vandal could have operated anonymously and I strongly suspect that vandals will start registering if we disable unregistered editing. Besides, if they are unregistered we can find out a surprising amount about them - where they are, what their ISP is etc (see Wikiscanner) and organisations with high levels of vandalism (mainly schools) can have the ability to edit restricted. Wikipedia is not being overwhelmed by vandalism (only about 20% of all edits are vandalism or reversion of vandalism), and at present the benefits of unregistered editing outweigh the drawbacks. Hut 8.5 14:16, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
If a registered account vandalized two out of five of its edits, how long would it last before being indefinitely blocked? Torc2 (talk) 23:48, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Note that the foundation issues are not decreed by Jimbo, but rather represent a long-standing consensus within the community itself. --Kim Bruning (talk) 14:29, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

A better way to deal with anonymous users is not to ban them, but to better police them. I have made observations of anonymous users myself, and found that while they do commit a lot of vandalism, they make quite a lot of useful contributions, too. If a human can analyze all such changes soon after they are made and weed the bad ones from the good, the value of anonymous edits can be seen.
Just be aware that no edits are truly anonymous. When such an edit is made, the IP address used is recorded, and by clicking on it, it is possible to view other edits made by the same IP address. The only real difference is therefore a name versus a number. The only way to truly conceal one's identity is to use a public computer, such as one at a library. The system currently in use is quite secure, but not perfect.
There seems to be confusion about what an IP address is and what it tells us. An IP address is a number that gets dynamically assigned to a computer when it connects to a network. The computer will probably be assigned a different number each time it connects. Internet Service providers (such as Cox or AOL) have many, even thousands, of these numbers, but it is possible for the service provider to trace back which of their customers was connected using a particular IP number at a particular time, if grounds exist for doing so. Evidence must be given to support the request, as it is an invasion of privacy for an Internet provider to disclose personal information. The process of disclosure is not "automatic" or instant. Large public and semi-public institutions such as internet cafes, libraries, schools, universities etc. etc. likewise assign IP numbers dynamically and most users do not have to "sign in" or personally identify themselves to use the computers, hence users are truly anonymous. All we know is that an unknown person at a certain PC committed the vandalism. Hence, there is absolutely no way for Wikipedia to "track" an anonymous user's edits as the IP number is not unique to an individual or computer. An IP number may be used by somebody in Manhattan now and by somebody in Queens 5 minutes later. There is no way to judge whether the user identified by an IP address is malicious or trustable like we can with a userid. I would suggest that to say that an IP number identifies an individual is naive and illogical.Rcbutcher (talk) 00:09, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
A userid is just as anonymous, people don't need to provide any personal info when registering and there is nothing to stop them from creating as many accounts as they wish so the only thing that can be used to trace them is the IP that they do their editing from, except with registered users we would have to make a case for checkuser to be used to block their IP or IP range. Mr.Z-man 07:23, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
When we say "anonymous" in this context we mean that we have no means of tracking a malicious user if all we know is the IP addresses that user has had - we have no way of tracking, relating or analysing all the edits that user has made, as a whole - so we can't ban the user. ALL Wikipedia users are LEGALLY anonymous, even those who create userids - we don't know their real names, all we know about them is what they care to divulge on their user page. If they provide an email address all we have is just that, an email address, we don't know who owns it or reads the mailbox. What we need clarity on here is an understanding of the advantages of forcing users to create a userid and provide an email address before they are allowed to make edits. 1. It filters out lazy idiots. 2. It filters out spur-of-the-moment edits. 3. In general it locks users in to a single id, i.e. 1 email address, 1 userid. That allows tracking of malicious users by their user Id. 4. Banning a userid effectively bans the individual, as they are unlikely to have multiple email addresses. You can't ban an IP address. 5. Improves confidence of legitimate Wikipedia contributors, who will then be able to concentrate on providing content rather than cleaning up malicious anonymous edits as at present. 6.Allows collaboration and mutual trust to be built up by contributors within the same field, as they get to know and value the contributions made by other userids. That can't happen with IP addresses. Rcbutcher (talk) 08:21, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
"It filters out spur-of-the-moment edits" - That's an advantage? Most users don't come in thinking "I'm going to do some research and write an FA," they fix a typo, add a bit of content, or write a stub. Wikipedia thrives on spur-of-the-moment editing. You can register more than one account with the same email address and we currently don't require people to provide or confirm an email address to register either. Free email services like Gmail and Hotmail make it easy to get multiple email addresses. "In general it locks users in to a single id" - The users who are going to be the exception to this are going to be the malicious ones. We can rangeblock a range of IPs for an extended time if there is too much vandalism, an autoblock on an IP applied when a registered user is blocked only lasts 24 hours. Mr.Z-man 08:42, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
I am suggesting that Wikipedia should force all users to provide and confirm an email address, and not accept Hotmail, Gmail and suchlike spamhaven addresses. Many bulletin boards now enforce this kind of thing, precisely to get rid of trolls and troublemakers. In fact a sports fan bulletin board I subscribe to only allows newcomers to post to a probation board until the moderators are satisfied the newcomer is legitimate. And that's on a nobrainer sportsfan site ! Surely we need at least that much quality control for an encyclopedia ? I suggest Wikipedia only accept the kind of email address that people can only have 1 of, such as their college email, business address, Internet service provider etc. Regarding spontaneous updates - this is an encyclopedia. Based on research and collation of published sources. Nothing spontaneous about that. Typo and grammar corrections are obviously important and welcome, but secondary to the integrity of the information itself. Regarding rangeblocking IP addresses - you can't kick out an entire school or college or public library because some jerk used one of their computers.Rcbutcher (talk) 12:14, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Many anonymous editors may simply be unfamiliar with the registration process, or may have a user ID, but forgot to sign in. At the same time, there is quite a lot of vandalism from registered users, either who are new, have sockpuppet accounts for that purpose, or who have been long registered and have a history of useful contributions, but suddenly gone mad (the other day, I found an example of just that). Either way, you can never completely eliminate vandalism; you can only revert it when it happens.Hellno2 (talk) 15:51, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Nobody's suggesting that it would totally eliminate vandalism. The point is that registration is really a trivial effort, but it's still enough to deter much (if not most) of the vandalism we see. A vandalism-only registered account is pretty easy to spot, track, and block. Shared IPs aren't. Anonymous users still get all the benefits of being able to use Wikipedia, so I don't see how this is all that unreasonable a requirement. Torc2 (talk) 21:43, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Mandatory registration deters all editing, both vandalism and content creation. How many people are still unaware that their registration holds real value? I am reluctant to register on any website, and you should be too.

Roughly half of all useful edits are done by anons, and obviously most or all our regular editors are recruited from the anon pool; weren't you?

Wikipedia currently has "patrolled" flags activated, so we can systematically check every new edit with little chance of duplication of effort. (a "show random unpatrolled article" button would still be nice though).

Finally, not all IP addresses are dynamic. More wealthy or better connected internet users use static IP addresses, and are therefore potentially actually less anonymous. People who really want to go wild can even associate their IP address with a DNS entry (dns is something akin to "the internet phone book"), where you can sometimes find their home address, phone number, or even GPS coordinates (LOC_record)! This is done by reverse lookup --Kim Bruning (talk) 13:53, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

ps: Dynamic IP addresses are not assigned for 5 minutes, or all the user's connections would drop every 5 minutes, which would be a fairly bad quality of service :-P. Typical periods might be several hours to once per 24 hours, or even longer. On some ISPs you can get a new IP address every time you reconnect to the service. This is a feature that is occasionally abused by certain dedicated vandals. --Kim Bruning (talk) 14:27, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

pps: Note that professionals and college professors and similar are more likely to post anonymously, to protect their reputations. --Kim Bruning (talk) 14:30, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

  • Results on constructive IP edits are skewed by long-standing editors & administrators who purposely or forgetfully do not sign in & create new pages, do housecleaning, etc. Why might they purposefully use IPs? maybe to catch a break from their "official" role? (can they still use admin tools?) Would they be worse off if they had to sign in? should they be permitted ONE second account to "go incognito"? perhaps --JimWae (talk) 20:33, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
That is very rare. Most experienced editors will only edit from an IP when they forget to log in, which will be once in a blue moon. The vast, vast majority of unregistered editors do not have an account to sign in to. Hut 8.5 20:39, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I just did a check of recent changes & the IP changes I saw could only be made by people quite familiar with editing here --JimWae (talk) 20:42, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
    • And some anons are familiar; almost 80% of anon edits are normal, non-reverted edits. I've seen cases of people who edit regularly but just don't want to register for one reason or another or they edit on such an infrequent basis that they don't bother. MediaWiki is also a popular software for wiki websistes so they may have used it elsewhere. And we try to make it as easy as possible, you can pick up the basics without reading any rules or help pages and just looking at the raw page text. As far as opening a second account, users can have as many helpful accounts as they wish. WP:SOCK only prohibits multiple accounts for malicious purposes or having multiple admin accounts. Mr.Z-man 00:27, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
      • What is your source for the 80% figure? Would you allow a registered user to continue editing if 1 out of 5 of his edits was vandalism? Torc2 (talk) 05:31, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
        • My source is this analysis of Wikipedia edits and log actions. The detection method used isn't perfect, but it should be fairly accurate. No I would not allow a registered editor to continue editing if 1 in 5 of his edits was vandalism. Luckily for us, we can block the bad IPs and leave the good ones unblocked. You can't treat a body of thousands of people as one unit. Mr.Z-man 08:01, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
          • With the basically unlimited number of IPs available to most vandals and the current reluctance to ban IPs because they might be shared, the idea that we can simply ban "bad IPs" is essentially meaningless. Far from being a defense of anonymous users, saying that 20% of all IP edits are reverted, and that an anonymous IP is four times more likely to be reverted than a registered user is a really strong argument for banning anonymous IPs. For that matter, how diligent are editors going to be about finding and including sources for their edits if they're too lazy to register a name? Torc2 (talk) 09:10, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Would it make any difference if 4 out of 5 were vandalism? On the pages on my watchlist (over 1100) very few IP edits improve the article - most are vandalism. A significant number are completely housekeeping - like removing extra spaces, putting in optional hyphens (which nobody bothers to revert), some wikilinking - and other stuff that bots could do --JimWae (talk) 21:13, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
It would certainly make a difference if 4 out of 5 anon edits were vandalism. The fact remains that no statistical study has ever returned a level of anything like that. Just because an edit is housekeeping isn't a reason to block people from doing it (and I don't know of any bot that could do wikilinking or adding hyphens). This is exactly the sort of edit we would lose if we forced people to register - who's going to register an account just to fix one typo/hyphen?
If you look at this article, chances are it's not going to be written in large chunks by one or two experienced editors. It's going to be written by people making minor changes, adding something here, fixing something there. These are exactly the sort of edits we would lose with more restrictive editing requirements. Hut 8.5 21:30, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Cute. Of course, that directed me to this article, which had one constructive anon edit in 2005, and two vandal anon edits since. And it appears none of the reg'd edits have been reverted. Torc2 (talk) 21:36, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
That "one constructive edit" wrote most of the article. One of those vandals was reverted within seconds, and the other one didn't last very long. Hut 8.5 07:30, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
OK, let's look at that "one constructive edit" that wrote "most of the article." Well, in 2005, "most of the article" was two unsourced sentences long and an external link. I suspect the article would have been written within days anyway by somebody willing to do a modecum of legwork. But let's give the anon user who contributed so well the benefit of the doubt. What was his or her overall impact on Wikipedia? They created the articlette on Exposed (MuchMusic TV series - that's a plus. Since then their body of work has earned seven warnings, and they've been blocked...not once, not twice!, not five times!!, not ten...!!! How many?!? The've been blocked for vandalism SIXTEEN times!!! That's probably a minus. And, for extra irony, the last block placed on this account was by you personally, Hut 8.5, for a full year. Torc2 (talk) 10:42, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
We have no idea that it was the same person. In fact, given that it's a school IP address (which is why I was able to block it for so long) it almost certainly wasn't. There could easily be several thousand people who could have edited from that IP in the past three years. Hut 8.5 17:39, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
For all intents and purposes, it is the same person. In fact, "anonymous users" have to be analyzed as a single person, because there's no way we're going to be able to separate good anonymous users from bad unless we do something revolutionary, like as them to register a user name. There's no choice except to look at the contributions of anon IPs as a single body. Torc2 (talk) 19:26, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
There is pretty much an unlimited number of possible usernames and people can create as many user accounts as they want. Plenty of registered users are vandals, should we treat all registered users as one person? Mr.Z-man 20:34, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes and no. Vandalism-only usernames are easy to spot and block. Vandalism-only IPs? Not so much, and rarely are they blocked permanently. Still, we certainly can analyze "registered users" as a whole and compare their activities to unregistered users, in which case we'd clearly see the ratio of constructive vs. destructive edits would clearly show that registered users benefit the site and unregistered editors don't. For that matter, we could easily establish limits for registered editors, such as a trial period, where a new username would only get one or two edits per hour until they establish themselves as trustworthy. Torc2 (talk) 21:05, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Let me put some facts on the table for those who still believe anonymous users need to be allowed. The 10 most recent updates to Western Front (World War I) - the most important part of the war - this is an A++ article in terms of world importance :

  • User:Rcbutcher : revert vandalism by 74.220.239.166
  • 74.220.239.166 : "France march in to Germany in the year 1991"
  • User:Mentifisto : revert vandalism by 65.112.79.25
  • 65.112.79.25 : "HAHAHA!!!"
  • 210.1.193.200 : revert vandalism by 86.13.86.242
  • 86.13.86.242 : "yoyo sofi u iz a SKET!! u got summin 2 say u a say it 2 ma face!!"
  • Rcbutcher : undo vandalism by 86.13.86.242
  • 86.13.86.242 : "sofie is a prat"
  • User:Filipeh : "two forts, including Fort Douaumont and Fort Vaux"
  • User:Filipeh : "The French lost control of two forts, including Fort Douaumont and Fort Vaux."

Any questions ?Rcbutcher (talk) 03:38, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes - why are you proposing such a massive shift in practice based on one example? Hut 8.5 10:13, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Can I remind people here that this is not the page for getting consensus for disabling anonymous editing. That would be a very long process, but WP:VPR is a more appropriate place for this discussion. Hut 8.5 17:39, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

FYI

Just for Info, cause this user Benutzer:Mms in the german wikipedia, is also activ in your wiki User:Mms. we kicked him for one year cause he is probagating fascism. so have a look. greets --87.160.223.143 (talk) 16:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

See poisoning the well and straw man argument. DurovaCharge! 17:01, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Is sarcasm vandalism?

I made the following edit [7] calling what I removed vandalism. I have since been contacted suggesting that I was mistaken. What I removed was a sarcastic parody of another editor's view point praising the insight of the article subject's anti-Semitism. I still think I was right in treating it as vandalism. I've tried looking at the policy page and I don't think it clearly describes this sort of case either as vandalism or not. Could other people consider whether this type of case should be incluided in the is/is not lists on the vandalism page? --Peter cohen (talk) 13:04, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Accused of vandalism

I have been accused of vandalism for adding relevant links under "seel also." Should I fight this out? I am insulted at being called a "vandal." Does this need to be reported? Thanks.Adriansrfr (talk) 06:38, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Adriansrfr, I think you did the right thing by going to their talk page to discuss it with them. It looks from their messages to you that they feel you violated the NPOV policy. I went ahead and left them a note asking them to explain it to you, so hopefully they'll leave you a note soon. If you need further explanation or help or anything, please let me know on my talk page. Peace, delldot talk 16:33, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The table format

I think the table format is ugly and more difficult to read. Is it possible this can be undone? ~ UBeR (talk) 04:26, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Removing {{unreferenced}} tags?

If a user removes {{unreferenced}} or {{fact}} tags without adding information (assuming there really aren't any sources or citations already), that's vandalism, correct? Is there any place that actually says this? This article kind of hints at it, but doesn't specifically address these tags. I'm just trying to find the right place to point the user who is doing this. Torc2 (talk) 21:27, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it vandalism exactly, since it might be an honest attempt to improve the article. I'd probably call it 'disruption' if they've been asked to cut it out and haven't stopped. You can use the {{uw-b1}} (and so on) templates for contacting them. Or {{drmmt}}. Both sort of address what you're talking about, but I can't think of a place where that exact thing is written about. Anyway, if they persist, they can be blocked whether or not it's vandalism per se. delldot talk 02:51, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

They will not persist unless the template is re-added - which makes the re-adder a reverter too, and risking a block himself - unless a policy protecting cn (and such) templates is instituted --JimWae (talk) 20:37, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Deleting templates requesting citation, 3rd party opinion

I have a problem with a user who keeps deleting { fact } { 3O-section } and {dubious } templates I have put in the Queens article. I am having difficulty finding either a policy or an appropriate warning template. The user is also violating 3RR, not using the article talk page, and uses user-talk pages primarily to discuss what he thinks are my personal deficiencies. ANY help? I found templates for the other things - but not for template deletion --JimWae (talk) 19:33, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Does the 3RR rule apply to re-inserting requests for citation & 3rd opinion? --JimWae (talk) 21:13, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Legality

Is it in some jurisdictions illegal to vandalize Wikipedia? --212.247.27.80 (talk) 15:24, 1 January 2008 (UTC)--212.247.27.80 (talk) 15:24, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism constitutes the unauthorised amendment of data and hence I would say in most jurisdictions it is a criminal offense - see Computer Misuse Act for example. HOwever please note WP:LEGAL if you have cause to mention this. AndrewRT(Talk) 11:05, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Finding vndalisam

Can't you find some vandalism by hitting command-f and then a curse word? Curses are often use for vandalism, right?

Sometimes, but the curse world might have a notable role with the subject. Martarius (talk) 17:52, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Should I take it up a notch for cruder vandalism?

As a non-admin, I don't want to get out of line by using {{uw-vandalism3}} when it's not appropriate. I have read this article page and talk page, and I haven't seen an answer for this. I only see 4 reports of vandalism on User talk:203.2.125.128, including the 2 I reported, and one of those was in November. That's not so bad. On the other hand, their vandalism was to refer to specific people (presumbly people they're trying to embarrass) and use the words (I apologize, but your advice might depend on the words and spelling used) "nigga", "cunt", and "penis". I put a uw-vandalism3 on the page, but I really don't know if the vandalism called for either less or more of a response than I gave. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 15:20, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

If the vandal is quite obviously trying to damage our content and is not an experimenting user (which they might be if they inserted gibberish into pages) then I think starting on level 3 is fine. Hut 8.5 16:06, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
WP:AGF only requires you to be reasonable in your assumption. If an editor is repeatedly vulgar, it's kind of unreasonable to assume he's just doing 'tests'. I would have no problem starting at {{uw-vandalism2}} and going directly to {{uw-vandalism4}} in a case like that. The warning levels shouldn't be seen as four get-out-of-jail-free cards for vandals. Torc2 (talk) 22:41, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Elevating bot warnings

Is there anything in the guideline about increasing the warning level given by bots? For example, several times I've seen a user already at {{uw-vandalism2}} have a bot post a standard low-grade warning. I have no problem posting a higher warning for the same offense; I'm just wondering if I should delete the bot warning when I add the harsher level warning? Torc2 (talk) 09:52, 6 January 2008 (UTC)


Report Vandalism

SOmeone is vandalising my user talk and user page, where can I report this? Can someone delete my user talk page to remove all history from it?

My bad I didnt see the thing at the top, but can someone still delete my user talk page?

People don't usually have the right to get their own user talk page deleted. The edits you are referring to as "vandalism" (i.e. this and this) are perfectly legitimate. You were indefinitely blocked, so it is fine to display an indef block notice on your userpage, and editing other people's comments is not allowed either. Hut 8.5 07:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
but he lied. The comment was deleted, anyways I have the current version backed up, to respect my privacy **I** want **my** page deleted... The user deleted my page without permission, that's vandalism.
You were indefinitely blocked for a period of time (and then the blocking administrator shortened the block). If you don't want your userpage replaced with a message saying you have been indefinitely blocked, then don't behave in a way that gets you an indefinite block. Your userpage is not yours - it is merely assigned to you and other Wikipedians have the right to edit it provided they behave legitimately. The same applies to your talk page. Hut 8.5 15:48, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
I was blocked because someone had something against me and was just discriminating... The comment and blocking was blasphomy, no one has the right to vandalize my page and harass me about it... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Realg187 (talk • contribs) 02:40, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

When to use {{SharedIP}}?

This article currently states, as introductory help:

For repeated vandalism by an anonymous IP address, it is helpful to take the following additional steps:

  1. Trace the IP address and add {{SharedIP|Name of owner}} or {{SharedIPEDU|Name of owner}} to the user talk page of the address.

Isn't this instruction a bit too simple? There's no discussion of when to use the other alternatives:

nor what to do if the IP isn't a shared or dynamic IP.

As a relatively new editor, I took this instruction at its face value, and marked a couple of user pages as {{SharedIP}}, when {{DynamicIP}} would have been more appropriate. Wdfarmer (talk) 14:46, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

is it vandalism?

User David Eppstein deleted a link and wrote that big article printed in well-known scientific journal by Springer is "non-notable paper" - is it vandalism? See: Talk:Graph isomorphism#The_absurd_reason_that_looks_like_vandalism_against_NPOV--Tim32 (talk) 17:42, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Any good faith concern is not vandalism. Hut 8.5 18:07, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Hut's right. You're better off taking this to WP:3PO or WP:RFC. I will say that if the only concern over the link is notability, you should read WP:NNC. Torc2 (talk) 18:21, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
And what about the bad faith? If any person without the appropriate knowledge going on writing absurdities - is it vandalism? And would you be so kind as NOT to confuse any faith with the science!!!--Mart071 (talk) 18:34, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Are they doing it to be disruptive? Or do they just honestly believe something you find absurd? Torc2 (talk) 18:37, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Please note that the word "absurd" in the section heading of the talk page Tim32 links to was added by Tim32 himself. Apparently, he finds it absurd that I and others have been reverting his attempts to add a reference to his own paper. The paper in question is one of at least 6000 published papers on the subject of graph isomorphism, has only one citation in Google scholar (several papers on the subject have hundreds), and seemingly adds nothing to the content of the Wikipedia article because he has been adding the reference without adding anything else to the text of the article. I think, rather than here or WP:3PO or WP:RFC, the better venue to discuss this would be WP:COI/N. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:33, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Either way is fine, as long as it's not hashed out on the talk page for the Vandalism policy. Torc2 (talk) 19:38, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

To Hut 8.5: Every vandalism in history was excused by good faith concern. Hell is paved with good intentions. This is too abstract concept to be used in practice. So, you said nothing worth to consider this incedent.

To David Eppstein: Where did you find 6000 published papers on the subject of graph isomorphism? In google? Every graph theory textbook has a few words about graph isomorphism. The number of original papers may be less. But this is not reference to graph isomorphism problem!!! This is reference to its chemical application! Only this application is noted and only one another reference is used in Graph isomorphism:

“The graph isomorphism problem arises in a variety of practical applications. For example, in cheminformatics and in mathematical chemistry, graph isomorphism and other graph matching techniques are used to identify a chemical compound within a chemical database.” [1] [2] [1] Christophe-André Mario Irniger (2005) "Graph Matching: Filtering Databases of Graphs Using Machine Learning", ISBN 1586035576 [2] M.I.Trofimov, E.A.Smolenskii, Russian Chemical Bulletin, 2005, Vol. 54, 9, 2235. (http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11172-006-0105-6)

And I have already written in Talk:Graph isomorphism “It is well known, that every similar book is based on articles, which articles had been printed before book writing process. Also, it is well known that book writing and printing are very long processes, so it is not surprising that no book is capable to include the newest info. The book you mention is quite suitable as a link to some classical approaches, also it describes some new ideas about the subject. I am do not agree with all comments from this book and my results prove it. The article, I added as second reference, adds significant info, which could not be inserted into the book, because this book was printed in 2005 and the article was printed in 2005.”

I can add that there are differences ([1] vs [2]) for following significant problems: planar graphs in organic chemistry and regular graphs in organic chemistry.

About claim “his own paper” – I have already written in Talk:Graph isomorphism: “I have written a lot for Wiki, and I write only items about I have professional knowleges. So, I use references to my papers (I have written more than 100) as well as to other papers. There is no rule in Wiki against, hence "self-promotion" is absurd reason. There are a lot of references to my papers in Wiki and nowhere else I heard about "self-promotion"!”

But David Eppstein did not read it – he did not write some counter-arguments for these words in Talk:Graph isomorphism – he prefers edit war, he repeates and repeates the same absurd reasons and he does not want to hear something against. And I do not see any “good faith concern” from him. I do not see any attempt to understand my point of view from him. He does not want to find any compromise! So I am forced to repeat my question: Is it vandalism?--Tim32 (talk) 21:20, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Let me clarify - if a user replaces a page with "POOP", then that is clearly intended to compromise the integrity of the article and therefore is vandalism. So long as the user thought that they were improving the article, no matter how misguided or mistaken they were, they were not vandalising. You will find this if you read Wikipedia:Vandalism. (I am not offering any opinion on the legitimacy of David Eppstein's edits, I am just showing that it is incorrect to label them as vandalism.) Hut 8.5 15:53, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

"Stale" vandalism reports being rejected at AIV

What exactly does the term "persistent" mean? Periodically (and twice today) I've had AIV reports for vandalism-only IPs (with previous blocks from within the week) rejected because the vandal last edited 5 hours ago. The template for the AIV was recently changed to state: "The vandal is active now", but there's no real indication of what that means or what to do if it's been a couple hours since the vandalism occured. Where else do we submit AIV-type reports if not to AIV? There doesn't seem to me to be much benefit in assuming the same vandal won't try to use the same IP in the future that they used a few hours or days ago, and no benefit in not blocking an IP that has only been used to vandalize. Torc2 (talk) 21:45, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I've seen "now" as having the meaning of "editing within the past hour". But that ignores someone who vandalizes at the end of 3rd period, once a day, every day. What is the intended meaning of "now"? -- SEWilco (talk) 19:14, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I really think it should be more like within the past day or so. If AIV is intended only for vandalism happening like-right-this-instance-now, there needs to be some place to report vandalism that ended a couple hours ago, but is still recent. Not every article is checked every hour, and this kind of sends a message that the way to vandalize without being caught is simply to go to articles that aren't checked very often. Torc2 (talk) 20:41, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
WP:ANI? Sam Korn (smoddy) 21:54, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
ANI says at the top: "To report persistent vandalism or spamming, see administrator intervention against vandalism." The word "persistent" doesn't really imply a short time frame, only continual action. (Like, Los Angeles is persistently sliding up the west coast, even if there have been no recent earthquakes.) For example, this IP is persistently vandalizing, but when I submitted it to AIV, it got rejected since there had been no edits in two days. If ANI is the place to throw this, both AIV and ANI need to acknowledge this, specify the time frame for using one vs. the other, and the {{IPvandal|user}} tag needs to be available on that ANI. Torc2 (talk) 19:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

vandalism only account?

As a relatively new admin, I was wondering when it is appropriate to block someone indefinitely as a vandalism only account. Would it be after the first few edits, or would it be after a temporary block? What if they had reverted their own vandalism previously? JustinContribsUser page 20:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

As a general rule, if an account has no constructive edits and ignores all warnings it can be blocked indefinitely as a vandalism only account. Hut 8.5 21:52, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Ok. Thanks! Justin(c)(u) 18:10, 31 January 2008 (UTC)