Wikipedia talk:Administrator intervention against vandalism

The HBC AIV helperbots assist with the management of vandalism reports. Edit the following parameters in the page header to control the bot's behavior: RemoveBlocked: On to enable automatic removal of blocked users from the list. Any other value will disable this functionality (only in cases of bot malfunctions, please). MergeDuplicates: On to enable automatic merging of multiple reports of the same person. Any other value will disable this functionality. AutoMark: On to enable automatic marking of special IPs as defined at User:HBC AIV helperbot/Special IPs. Any other value will disable this functionality. FixInstructions: On to enable automatic repair of the reporting instruction HTML comments in the User-reported section of the page, as defined at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism/instructions. Any other value will disable this functionality. AutoBacklog: On to enable the automatic switching on or off of the {{adminbacklog}} message. Any other value will disable this functionality. Associated parameters are: AddLimit: The number of vandalism reports at which the {{adminbacklog}} message will be made visible. RemoveLimit: The number of vandalism reports at which the backlog message will be disabled ({{noadminbacklog}}).

This talk page is automatically archived by Werdnabot. Any sections older than 7 days are automatically archived to Wikipedia talk:Administrator intervention against vandalism/Archive 4. Sections without timestamps are not archived.

What does it take to get blocked?

Have a look at User talk:87.38.42.34. This user has a 99% edit record of vandalism going back 3 months. He has 4 AGF warnings, two 'this is your last warning' messages and finally another AGF warning.

So why has this user never been blocked despite my asking for this on AIV after his first 'last warning'?

Why can he continue to operate for three months?

How far does AGF stretch? Why is he being issued with multiple 'this is your last warning' messages, when this can only weaken the credibility of the message?

Does anyone believe here that Wikipedia is working better as a result of this kind of leniency? Curtains99 15:08, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The owner of an IP changes, so the last warning must be recent or you could be talking to a new person who has not read the warnings. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 15:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

This is a fixed IP linked used by an Irish school. IP numbers are assigned to Irish schools by HEAnet. If a school or other owner of a fixed IP solely produces vandal edits, can it not be blocked? Curtains99 10:44, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Generally we soft-block schools that regularly vandalise, so signed in users can still edit from school (but they have to create new accounts at home). I'll take a look at this one and see if it should be soft-blocked. --Tango 12:17, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

It was softblocked yesterday afternoon for 6 months. That should do the trick. --Tango 12:18, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I presume that softblocking means that registered users can still edit which makes sense. Curtains99 22:15, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I suspect that many of people who vandalize Wikipedia do so because they are playing a game with two objectives: (1) to see if they can vandalize articles without being detected and (2) to see what it take to get blocked. I imagine that this game offers special "bragging rights" for the vandal who can accumulate the most final warnings without being blocked.--orlady 00:49, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Editors have less time to contribute to Wikipedia when so much effort is consumed with deleting 'Jimmy Jones is GAY!!!' messages and the like. It shouldn't take twenty such edits to receive a short block which is itself a very limited sanction. The work involved in adding the correct template is significant for most editors who are not using anti-vandal tools so most reverts are carried out without the appropriate warning messages being added. It would be nice if the edit screen had a tick box to indicate that an edit was a vandalism reversion. In that way, the system could add appropriate messages and autoblock users following an agreed number of vandalism edits. Unfair blocks could be challenged and inappropriate use of the vandalism flag would result in the reporting editor being blocked. Comments? Curtains99 12:38, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

There's a pretty evident message here in the way that the system is heavily weighted towards the vandal. Because we contribute, our goodwill can be taken for granted. Our interests count for little. We are supposed to give freely of our time, tolerate the witless, the crass and the puerile, and even to clean up after them on the remote chance that someday one of them just might have something of value to contribute - which has a probability of the same order as that of seeing a flying pig. Every now and again, I make two mistakes: firstly that of caring about it, and secondly that of thinking that someone who might be able to do something might actually give a damn. I'm beginning to learn, though. After all: if Jimbo Wales doesn't care that Wikipedia has become a cretin's playground, why should anyone else? --Stephen Burnett 13:57, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

The key piece of data that is missing here is whether a given IP address is dynamic or static. Static IP addresses (those that are permanently assigned to a given individual or organization) ought to be blocked much faster than they are today; we give them a lot of leeway because unless someone is willing to actually look up who the address belongs to (do a reverse DNS), we can't be certain they're not a dynamic IP address that do deserve a certain amount of leeway.

But the tide of vandalism is definitely getting worse and you're right; the people that run Wikipedia seem to think we all have an endless stomach for cleaning up puke. But it's not true.

Atlant 14:07, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

But some of the worst are those IP's which are static, which have been traced and which belong to schools. The kids know the "rules" as well as we do. They take it to the edge so they get a final warning and then back off, knowing that editors have to go through the whole cycle again. Nobody here is stupid, and it should be obvious to anyone with the most casual experience of child-rearing or education what the result is when they get a long string of "final warnings", none of which are acted upon. Unfortunately what we seem to have is a victory for dogma and ideology over basic common sense. --Stephen Burnett 14:23, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

For schools that are marked on the talk pages as schools, I try to apply a simple heuristic: If it's a sudden spate of vandalism from a school that has made some worthwhile contributions in the past, I issue a short block, often for as few as three hours, usually with the block reason of "Go back to class". But if the school has produced constant vandalism far out of proportion to their useful edits, or if the first few edits coming back from a block are obvious vandalism, I issue ever-longer blocks. Occasionally, at this point in the year, I'm even willing to block them until the end of the current term.

Atlant 17:33, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Not true. Vandalism is not getting worse at all in my experience. In fact it is now easier to deal with vandalism than it ever was. People generally choose to spend thier time dealing with vandalism. If you choose to do this then obviously you see a lot of vandalism. If you feel that dealing with vandalism is a waste of your time then the answer is obvious - simply stop. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 14:14, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Works for me. Taking that to its logical extent however, its a waste of time contributing too. I'm starting to get the message. --Stephen Burnett 14:23, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Contributing is much more fun than vandal fighting and much more satisfying. I would never say someone shouldn't contribute. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 14:45, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I must confess that I kind of got sucked into it. At first it was because they crapped on stuff I actually contributed. Then it was "hmmm, I wonder what else they've done"? But by definition, there is never any end to fighting vandals - partly because there are so many, but largely due to the way they are tolerated and even encouraged here. I definitely agree that contributing is more satisfying, and its high time I went back to it - but the very strong message from all this is that Wikipedia doesn't think enough of my efforts and those of people like me to put in place some basic protection on what we do. That is, to say the least, discouraging. --Stephen Burnett 15:04, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I would add that if someone is the type of lenient admin that likes to give people a break and a 3rd, 4th, 5th chance. Then please stay away from AIV and let the more proactive admins handle the work. cheers. L0b0t 14:25, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Such admins do not exist. Admins are trying to do what is best for wikipedia, sometimes that means blocking an IP and sometimes that means not blocking one. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 14:45, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

It's really not that hard to get someone blocked. It seems to me that the biggest problem, at least as far as AIV, is that vandal fighters aren't doing their job. Don't waste our time by reporting an IP that hasn't edited since the last warning, or that hasn't been warned in days. Stop posting "final warning" templates the first time a user makes a mistake. Abuse of the bv template and improper AIV reporting just leads to frustration for everybody. Do what you're supposed to do, issue the appropriate warnings (every time you revert vandalism), go through the proper steps, and vandals will get blocked. It's no more difficult now than it was when I started here. Kafziel ^Talk 14:36, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, fine - so the problem is that responsible editors aren't jumping through the right hoops, rather than the behaviour of the vandals themselves. Nice to see where the priorities lie. --Stephen Burnett 14:52, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

It's not that hard. We all have to do it. All too often I come across a vandal only to see that he's been vandalizing pages for months and not one single person ever bothered to slap a warning on his page. If you're not willing to do what you need to do, you shouldn't expect immediate results. Kafziel ^Talk 15:03, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, no. We don't. Or at least, I don't. Not any more. --Stephen Burnett 15:07, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

In my prolific experiences as a vandal fighter. Many vandals think that they are getting away with it. When that yellow box pops up, a majority of all vandals i have warned stop. It is the ones that continue after the warning that are the danger to wikipedia. Many of these are school kids, afraid they will get in trouble. That is why a {{Test}} warning actually works in my experience. It is the ones that push the limits, who vandalize after the warnings that need to be reported. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 15:07, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Chris is right. Take this edit for example, which just happened a few minutes ago. The IP vandalized one article in a relatively minor way. Immediately, an editor issued a "blatant vandal" warning - the only warning issued in almost a week - and, if that wasn't enough of an overreaction, didn't even wait for another edit from the IP before reporting it at AIV. So one kid made one edit to one article, and we're supposed to block the school for that? No. Reporting like that just wastes everyone's time, because the responding admin has to double check all these reports intead of just trusting that they were done properly. Kafziel ^Talk 15:29, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

That's a good illustration of the point I made earlier - one which you are apparently determined to ignore. After the so-called "final warning", which of course was not final at all, nothing happened for a week. The kids know the game - because they're dealing with an entity which has a limited memory, all they have to do is wait a few days for the slate to be wiped clean. Then the whole cycle starts again, until it goes right up to another "final warning". Is it so inexplicable, or even surprising, that an editor gets frustrated at having *his* time wasted, and over-reacts? --Stephen Burnett 17:52, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

How do you know it's the same kid? Or that they even saw the warning? When someone posts a message to you, it only says "you have new messages" until you look at your talk page. So if someone other than the vandal looked at the warning, the vandal might never even notice it.

What you seem to misunderstand is that blocking is not supposed to be used as a punishment; it's supposed to be used to stop active disruption. If the vandals aren't active, they don't need to be stopped.

Admins aren't robots; we can use common sense just as well as you can. If I see that edits appear to be from the same person, I won't require the full set of blocks every time. I spent a long time in your position, so I know how frustrating it can be. But I also found that following the rules gets much better results than complaining about them or trying to get around them. I don't let vandals game the system, but I don't let vandal fighters game the system, either. The rules are there for a reason. Kafziel ^Talk 17:59, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't have to be the same kid. One game that seems pretty popular, for instance, is for several kids to use a page to pass messages / insults / whatever to each other. When the "final warning" goes up, they all know the fun's over for a while; then it starts again. As for the rules - the reason they are there is to support someone's conviction that the world works in a certain way, because he thinks it ought to. As I said: a victory of ideology over common sense. Frustrating? Damn right - but not any more. Someone else can do my share. Or not. I really don't care any more. Theresa Knott gave me some good advice earlier, which I fully intend to follow. --Stephen Burnett 18:14, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

While that may not be what wikipedia is for (passing messages and such), that could be the gateway for just one of those kids to get interested in contributing. I always look at vandalism as something that can be removed. Losing a possible contributor because of a block cant be, "reverted". We can argue about this all day, but I think the blocking policy was fairly well desgined to protect this. What is wikipedia? the enclylopedia that anybody can edit. By blocking anons punitivly, we take that right away from the next person who may be here for good. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 18:18, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

←I think in the end, as stated by Theresa below, just not getting emotionally involved is the best way to do it. I dont profile specific ip address, i profile vandalism. When I find vandalism, i go to warn. I check, has there been a recent warning? if not, i give one. if so, i either escalate or report. After that, i forget that vandal and move on to the next. As stated by kafziel above, how do i know the same kid is vandalizing? chances are its not in many cases, especially the school. Sure, a block of an entire school will fix the vandalism problem (which can generally be fixed with a quick revert from the large rc patrol team we have) but may block a truly interested editor. One student, sees a problem with a page and goes to fix it just to find that they are blocked. the frustrated student gives up and we lost a potential long term contributor. We cant fix that with a quick revert from the army of rc patrollers.-- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 18:06, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the thing to do is not get emotionally involved in it. Vandals are usually just kids mucking about and not anything to get upset about.Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 15:07, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm relatively new here, and have been trying to fight off the vandals. I can't believe Wikipedia has such a cumbersome vandal warning system that is heavily tilted in favor of those who only want to disrupt, and the jumping through hoops that have to be done by responsible people to report vandalism. What a colossal waste of time for people who would rather do some worthwhile editing. The vandals know how to game this broken system, and Wikipedia is the worse for it. - Pod Bay Door 17:24, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

You are welcome to go write as many articles as you want! I will handle the vandals for you! No worrys. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 17:25, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

The vandalism patrol is not as effective as it gives itself credit for. Example: Museum of Appalachia was the victim of four separate vandalism incidents during the period November 6 to December 7. The second of the four bogus changes was quickly reverted, but the other three bogus changes remained until I found them earlier today. All of the vandals appear to be vandalism-only accounts (one of which has been blocked repeatedly). Yes, high-profile articles are regularly patrolled and the most blatant types of vandalism are detected effectively, but bored 12-year-olds sitting in their middle-school study halls can do a lot of damage to contents of lower-profile articles without being noticed. It seems to me that there are many IPs on which permanent blocks would do far more good than harm.--orlady 20:20, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I get frustrated as hell too, but we just have to learn to live with it. Community policy is not going to change. The view of the powers-that-be is that the principle of open participation outweighs almost all else. That's true even if the resulting tolerance of vandalism makes constructive contributors give up in despair -- one wonders about the implications of WP:POINT here. It's the price one pays for the privilege of contributing their time and expertise. Raymond Arritt 20:44, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

We don't have to "learn to live with it"; we could always change our policies to make a different tradeoff on the accept-vandalism vs. suck in new contributors spectrum. I note that Citizendium has taken two steps we've been reluctant to take: They DON'T allow any anonymous editing and they have a one strike policy on vandals. It will be interesting to see how they evolve versus Wikipedia. People have waxed poetic above about how vandals might quickly convert themselves into being useful contributors; I think that's true in a few cases, but in the vast majority of cases, only age and maturity will have any chance of turning a vandal into a productive contributor. And in many cases, nothing will help; the vandal is already as mature as they're going to get and will always remain a vandal.

Atlant 13:54, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, there are several things you are not taking into account. Anon IP's can be used by hundreds or thousands of editors. I am ok with a 1 or 2 strike policy for named editors but anons i cant agree with that because the way it works with named editors is very very very different from anon ip's. Sure, the vandals may not mature but, but, if they are at school, the kdi next to them might feel bad and want to fix the mistake. An 1 strike block could prevent large nubmers of anon editors from contributing. I will be the first to argue that I dont think vandals are going to change there minds. And yes, those repetititve vandals, who push ths limits, vandalize after warnings, should be blocked to prevent current ongoing damage to wikipedia. However, a very very very large number of vandals stop (at least for me) after a friendly test1 warning. They have no idea that what they see is what everybody can see. They may think it is there own personal copy for them to do with what they please. It is only vandals who blatantly continue their vandalism after a final warning which should be temporarily blocked (i.1. less than 48 hours)-- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 14:01, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Clearly, I understand the difference between dynamic IPs and static IPs. We should make an effort, through software, to automatically identify and tag (reverse DNS) every static IP and we should then treat these static IPs exactly as we treat named users. We should also "rate limit" dynamic IPs so that they can't make more than, say, 10 edits per week, encouraging the dynamic IP user with every edit to register a username. And we should get a lot less tolerant of vandalism from all sources.

Atlant 14:14, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Not sure where to get help on this one

Hi all, there is something of an edit war going on in the Bloodless Bullfighting article between User:Pebs96 and User:Fethers. Fethers just blanked and redirected the entire page. Pebs96 wants help. I reverted to the last complete version prior to the last round of edit warring. The article itself has a lot of POV and style problems, but also a very dedicated and passionate editor working on it. I am not an admin, I do not want to be dragged into this. But I don't know who can go over there and knock heads together. So if this can direct an admin to look into it, or if you can suggest some appropriate things I can do to help, let me know. Montanabw 01:40, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:ANI would be appropriate here. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 01:59, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up that you were going to AIAV over this instead of just dropping me a line on my talk page. I don't see anywhere that Pebs96 (AKA Webmistress Dive) has asked for help; I'm pretty surprised, because that article started as an opportunity for her to promote her business. In addition, she started articles on a myriad of people whose promotion she is directly tied to. As an example, take a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vitor Ribeiro (bullfighter) and the linked AfDs. Her first edits to User Talk pages were pointed statements regarding removing her self-promotion. Helpfully, she has also archived her previous warnings regarding such things. The sole, somewhat referenced portion of Bloodless bullfighting was the history section, which I merged to the extant section in Bullfighting and redirected at the original source per the GFDL. This is less an edit war than it is just long-necessary cleanup of a self-promotional, unreferenced article. fethers 02:04, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Just a note to suggest Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard (WP:COI/N) as well. — Athænara ✉ 05:32, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Athaenara. Posted it there. fethers 14:44, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

First of all, it's really exhausting reading Fethers go on and on about how this person seems to think that my purpose on Wikipedia is about "self-promotion". Just an FYI, my business is in graphics and web design.... which I don't see how it is related to Bloodless Bullfighting. I just happen to be "passionate" about the art of bloodless bullfighting. Secondly, this "myriad" of people Fethers talk about... who are they? Bullfighters? These are very well known Rejoneadores/Cavaleiros (mounted bullfighters) and they have fought in California, which is tied into the the art of bloodless bullfights in California. Thirdly, I am an "amateur" on Wikipedia and with that, I noticed that people have archived their long drawn out pages.... which is very legitimate to do. Archiving text does not equate to hiding stuff. Archiving is simply putting away old stuff and it also allows a person to read current updates. All I did was put aside the clutter and created a link to where anyone can read it easily. And why would Fethers be so concerned with me "archiving" my stuff, when Fethers has completely removed all dialogue from last year and noted to just view history. That in itself is hiding something...>>see this>>>(http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Fethers&diff=next&oldid=87629130) And yes, Fethers hid the part where he told me to "stuff it". Around December 20th, 2006, Fethers had all of my images removed without giving me the "PROPER" notification. The images were never flagged, because if they were, it would have given me ample time to remedy any problems it may have had. The following also had some vindictive issues towards me because they only attacked the articles (relating to bloodless bullfighting) that I had contributed to at the time.

• PKurFlax/ Special:Contributions/PKurFlax
• User 68.228.75.244
• User:Coudelariaagualva / Special:Contributions/Coudelariaagualva

If a "fair" admin took a closer look at each of the person's edit, they only removed my links or anything that I had edited. For example, they noted that they were removing a "business link", which was mine, but left the other external links that were "obviously" more of a business link than mine could ever be. This Fethers person could easily be any one of those listed above, but just happens to have a new user name OR can be a friend of theirs. From the list, users Coudelariaagualva and 68.228.75.244 are one in the same.

One must really have the time and energy to review all of this madness as I have.

I created the bloodless bullfighting article and separated it from the bullfighting article because it deserved it's own file. California "bloodless bullfighting" involves the bulls NOT getting killed in or outside of the arena. Bullfighting (Spanish style) involves the killing of the bull. Even though the bull is not killed in Portugal, blood is still drawn to slow the bull down. And those two are the simplest reasons why the "bloodless bullfighting" article was created. It should not be mixed up with either NOR should it be redirected.

Also, since when did Wikipedia put a "timeframe" of when an article has to be completed? I don't remember seeing a deadline anywhere. Like I said, I am an amateur at all this and getting a "reference" on this particular article will take a while to do. So again.... PLEASE get this Fethers person off my back once and for all because for me to have to write this is so unnecessary and is also creating undue stress to my current disability. Fethers' actions are deemed as harrassment and causing nothing more than harm.

It is now 3:20am, it has taken me more than an hour to just write this. Is it justifiable? No!!! I should be sleeping or doing something more constructive.... but instead, I am having to defend myself and an article I created, all because this Fethers' person feels the need to cause misery.

On that note, I am signing off! Good night (or good morning)....--Webmistress Diva 11:23, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Removing section header

El_C wants to remove the section headers Bot-reported and User-reported. I think they should stay because it provides a direct link to the two sections. Without it there is no fast link to the bot report page, and all the reports are lumped together. I don't see the advantage to this change. He has made the suggestion that all bots bold their report, and that a separate link be made. I don't see how this does anything but make it more complicated for people trying to serve these reports to recognize and reach them. The current system makes it clear which is a bot and which is not, and when you click the edit button on the section heading you don't end up editing the whole page which is nice. Also, with the new idea all the bots need to be changed to bold their entries. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 14:44, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I think it's better in the header. It's much more out of the way, edit-wise, while the instructions remain clear for this seldom-used page. El_C 14:51, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure what you mean by that, what about the edit buttons that take you straight to the page in question, the one's beside every section heading? HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 14:52, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I really don't understand how you have it now, you have 2 Alerts headings, both top level, and you can't tell which is which. Are you half done, or is that how you wanted it? HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 14:57, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I think this page worked fine as it was. -- Steel 14:58, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, either way, something needs to be fixed; now there are two "alerts" sections in a row, and when I click "edit" on the bottom one, it comes up blank even if there are reports in there. I'm a syntax idiot, so I don't want to screw anything up by messing with it. Kafziel ^Talk 14:59, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

El_C I think these changes should be reversed until there is a consensus to change it. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 15:01, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Forget it. Just undo everything I did. That page is structured inefficiently, but I'm unable to fix it. El_C 15:02, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea of structurally improving it. May I suggest testing it in a sandbox then asking what people think? Sorry to step on your idea, it just seemed to be more trouble than it was worth. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 15:05, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Reviewing the discussion here and on User talk:HighInBC and User talk:El C, as well as this edit to the header, I think I see the problem - it looks to me like a misunderstanding about what the sections mean. The edit to the header indicates to me that El_C thought/thinks that the "Bot-reported" section (/TB2) is for reporting bots that are vandalizing/misbehaving. In fact, /TB2 is for bots, which monitor for and detect vandalism (such as AntiVandalBot, when it's running, Shadowbot, and VoABot II), to report persistent vandals that they have detected, just as humans report on the main WP:AIV page. Or, I could be entirely wrong, and there's something else that El_C thinks is inefficient about the page's structure, in which case, I'd agree with HighInBC, I'm all for improving it, if we can get a clear idea about what's inefficient. —Krellis 17:30, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I never really understood why we need a separate section for bot-reported vandalism anyway. What difference does it make where the report comes from? I'm an idiot when it comes to technical stuff, so maybe I'm missing something, but why can't bots just put their reports in the same place as everyone else? Why do we need two sections? Kafziel ^Talk 17:35, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Bot reports need to be handled slightly differently, as the warnings the bots give don't follow quite the same structure as the warnings humans give. The basic idea is exactly the same, but it's useful to know what kind of warnings to look for. The bots could add the warnings to the main page with a distinctive message, of course.--Tango 22:15, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Multiple IP Addresses

What is the policy for dealing with a page that is persistently vandalized from what appears to be a single user coming from a range of IP addresses? Leaving a warning on the talk page for the IP address would appear fruitless and even misleading, since that IP address may have been shared by any number of users who have done nothing wrong. Should I list every offending IP address (3 so far) on Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism? I've been reverting the changes but I don't see an end to this edit war. What should my next step be? Duncow 19:23, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

It may be appropriate to request semi-protection for the article. You can do that at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. In general, it never hurts to leave appropriate warnings on the user talk pages - you might just get through to the real user, and at least that way you can say you've tried to warn them. —Krellis 22:41, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Clear page

I just wanted to drop by and say thanks. The last few times I've posted vandals on this page, the list has been empty or nearly empty. Thanks for helping us vandal-fighters do our job. --Dweller 14:06, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Ditto. This time of day is usually very busy (I guess because school is in session or something) Dan D. Ric 14:16, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I think we're coming into the peak "poop" time of day. Football (soccer) usually gets some good hits around now from American kids who think it's naff. There's also a sprinkling of "butt" and "gay" comments on school articles. --Dweller 14:43, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Anon spammer

Just wanted to check whether or not it's appropiate for me to list 82.40.60.100. He / she keeps adding autograph sites, mostly to the Brandon Lee article, about 8 edits since January. I've given the full spam warnings and they've added another one. Just wanted to check if it's ok to list them because of the frequency and the fact it's an anon ip. Definitely think it's the same person though. Thanks Belovedfreak 13:08, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Blocked for 31 hours for spamming. Seeing as it appears to have been the same person over the past few days, they might be back, so I'll keep an eye on them. riana_dzasta 13:12, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much! Belovedfreak 13:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Schools and WHOIS

Especially when dealing with IPs who seem to talk to themselves, put "___ WAS HERE", and do other similar edits, a WHOIS check never hurts. The {{ipvandal}} template has a link for it, or you can just use [1]. Mark shared IPs with {{SharedIP}}, {{SharedIPPublic}} or {{SharedIPEDU}}, and if blocking an educational institute you may want to use {{schoolblock}} as a block message.

Just saying. I've caught a few unmarked schools today who were previously blocked by other admins. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 19:07, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I eventually plan to make my bot put a note by reports that are in the sharedip or schoolip categories. ^HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 12:32, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Just a quick note: the arin.net whois does not always refer to the other RIRs when needed, especially for APNIC. It's good to have apnic.net bookmarked for such cases. (I personally use http://tools.wikimedia.de/~essjay/nqt.php for my WHOIS searching. ;)) Essjay (Talk) 13:45, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I try to check any IP address that looks shared, before or after blocking -- frequently schools or companies, sometimes seems more dialup proxies and such. The school ones especially usually have a certain class of contribs -- I'd bet money you know what I mean, if you've looked a few times. – Luna Santin (talk) 19:32, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Reporting Instructions

Greetings! I've been working on a new function for the HBC AIV helperbots, which will allow them to automatically fix the instructions block that sits in an HTML comment at the start of the User-reported section of AIV. I understand that this feature has been requested a number of times, and I have seen plenty of cases where the instructions have been messed up by improper reporting while I've been working on the bots, so I know it is needed. What I'm looking for is feedback on a slightly modified version of the instructions that I have come up with to use when this function is approved and goes live. They can be seen and tweaked until everyone is happy at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism/instructions. To prevent vandals from being able to force the bots to place arbitrary text on the page, these instructions will need to be protected before we go live, so I felt it best to get consensus on them before that time. The instructions are a bit more strongly worded than what is currently on the page, but I've attempted to strike an appropriate balance between getting correctly formatted results and not biting too hard. All feedback and tweaks to the instructions are welcome, on the instructions, or on this feature itself. —Krellis (Talk) 19:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

This function has been approved for testing and is currently in operation on HBC AIV helperbot3. Please feel free to comment on the bot request for approval page, as well as here. If the feature is causing problems, you can disable it by changing FixInstructions=On to FixInstructions=Off in the bot's parameter string at the top of WP:AIV. —Krellis (Talk) 22:18, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Removing a report without acting on it

I reported 69.177.239.61 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) for vandalism and the report was removed without anyone acting on it because they are not, currently, at this very second, vandalizing. But they were vandalizing earlier today, have been vandalizing for several days, have been blocked once for the exact same behavior. Why not block them so they won't come back when nobody is watching them and do it again? Corvus cornix 22:59, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to add a similar situation: 71.230.69.79 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). This IP address has been blocked three times, the last Feb. 16. The address was responsible for three clear vandal edits last night. I just noticed them this morning, but my report was dismissed because there was no "recent notice." The reason that I feel this incident should trigger a review of policy is one of the acts of vandalism I fixed today from this IP had gone undetected since Feb. 13. It involved changing dates and numbers in an article Vega program and could easily mislead a reader. I came upon it reading the article, not by following a vandalism trail. Other readers might not have picked up on the minor inconsistency I noticed. If we keep giving someone with a clear pattern of vandalism the benefit of the doubt, sooner or later they will cause undetected damage. Vandalizing after blocks should result in a longer block without the need for additional warning, in my opinion. --agr 02:58, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

We don't block IP addresses without warning because the person using any specific IP address can change. If there's a similar pattern that makes it clear the IP is static rather than dynamic, then we usually block for steadily increasing periods of time, but still only after warning unless the abuse coming from the IP is long-term and then there's usually a talk page message indicating that the IP may be blocked without warning.--Kchase T 10:33, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

What's the definition of "active now"?

I'd like some clarification of this sentence: "The vandal is active now." Does "now" mean today? This week? This moment? Please add the clarification to the project page. DBlomgren 02:23, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I tend to interpret it as something like "within the previous 10 minutes", but different people probably have different views. --Delirium 03:41, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

In that case, what's the point of giving a "final warning"? Earlier today I reported a vandal who'd vandalised past the final warning, and you deleted it with the note "remove IPs that haven't edited in the past hour". Doesn't that make a mockery of the "final warning"? Perhaps the warning should be changed to: "If you continue to vandalise Wikipedia you will be blocked (but only if you do it nonstop forever; if you take a break every so often then you're free to continue vandalising)."

Another thing: admins here seem to insist that warnings be given in strict order. But WP:Vandalism clearly says "There are several templates used to warn vandals. They are listed at right in order of severity, but need not be used in succession". So what's the deal? -- Zsero 08:36, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I am also feeling very frustrated by the lack of enforcement of what on the surface seem like clear warnings. Does final warning mean that, or not? Failure to enforce these rules wastes tremendous amounts of time by those who are disrupted. Is it more important to retain a vandal in hopes they will shape up, or retain a person who has made an effort to fight vandalism? Buddhipriya 08:42, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Do you have any, you know, specific examples? You have to understand that a lot of the time IPs are not being operated the same person who was previously warned. Every blocking is judged on a case-by-case basis. If you really think it's the same person, point out similarities in your AIV report and it might be looked at more closely. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 08:50, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Effectively, what that means is that the vandal has already stopped on their own. A lot of IP addresses are shared (amazing how many vandal IP addresses trace back to schools...), and also may be dynamic. Generally, though, if I see an IP with a long page of warnings and blocks, they'll receive a BV or 4im warning rather than the usual 1 or 2 for the first go-round. If they stop after that, well, they only vandalized once, not much harm done. Blocks are intended to prevent harm, not punish an offender. If the harm's stopped on its own, a block would be punitive. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 08:54, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, but what if they don't stop? What if they continue vandalising, but they're not bots, they do have other things to do, so they only vandalise a few times a day? It's a hobby, not a profession. If the standard is that nothing will be done unless they've vandalised within the past hour, then why would they ever stop? You give them one warning, and then the next, and then the next, and finally you report them on AIV, and next thing you know the report is removed without action because they haven't vandalised for a whole hour! If that's going to happen, why should I bother warning them in the first place? Why bother reporting them, if nothing is going to happen, and why make a fool of myself by issuing a "final warning" when it's a paper tiger?

And don't tell me that "every blocking is judged on a case-by-case basis", when admins "remove IPs that haven't edited in the past hour". That's not judging on a case by case basis. -- Zsero 09:17, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I am not just talking about IP cases. Take a look at this case involving User:Nasz that has at this point gotten three different threads going on on the incident noticeboard. Here is a link to one of the incident sections where I have posted crosslinks to two other incident reports on the same page: [Nasz sightings] Buddhipriya 08:58, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

What about the harm that is done to the solid users who are victimized by these vandals? In your calculus you must factor in the amount of time lost by many people. A vandal may make many edits on many pages before becoming bored. Then it may take much more time to unscramble it than it took to break it, particularly if the edits are not obvious. The total time lost to the community is harm. Buddhipriya 09:09, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Bottom line: I think "active now" should mean that the account has been used to vandalise within the past week. It should only exclude ancient history, not vandalism that happened an hour ago. -- Zsero 09:19, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the past week would be very reasonable. As a non-admin I am trying to understand how a user with an account (not an IP user) could wind up with three active incident reports going simultaneously, making dozens of disruptive edits after final warnings within the past few days, and still be active "now" defined as within the past few hours? Buddhipriya 09:22, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Registered users than do nothing but vandalise can be blocked at any time as a "vandalism only account", the "active now" thing doesn't really apply. --Tango 13:30, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree with those who are frustrated at the ease at which repeat-offender vandals can do their dirty work here Wikipedia. Bending over backwards in their favor is doing harm to those who want Wikipedia to be a reliable source, and too many times I've seen this 'not recent enough activity' excuse come up for not doing a block. The vandals know exactly how to game this broken system. - Itsfullofstars 09:29, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

The statement "Blocks are intended to prevent harm, not punish an offender." makes a ridiculous distinction. Punishment IS intended to prevent harm by deterring bad behavior or disabling the perpetrator from repeating it. JRSpriggs 09:43, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Punishment does prevent harm, but it isn't the only way of preventing harm. Blocks prevent harm directly, they prevent harm by acting as a deterrent as well, but that's just a side effect, that's not the reason we block vandals. --Tango 13:30, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Removing stale reports

Where an IP is reported and it has clearly become stale e.g. over an hour has ellapsed without further vandalism, is it acceptable for non-admins to remove to remove such reports. I just did so a minute ago, but it occurs to me that maybe I shouldn't have. What do people think? WjBscribe 11:14, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

See the discussion above. I think the idea that a report becomes stale in an hour is ridiculous. If you really believed that, then you'd never block for more than an hour. If it's acceptable to block an IP for a day, then a report can't become stale in less than a day. By refusing to act on a report, after editors have gone through the trouble of issuing repeated warnings, and have issued a final warning which has been ignored, you're telling those editors not to bother any more. And you're telling the vandals that a "final warning" just means "take an hour's break and you'll be fine". -- Zsero 14:36, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

It's fine, I just edit conflicted with you trying to clear the place out :) Well, I think it's fine... – riana_dzasta 11:16, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I can't see any reason why non-admins shouldn't remove stale reports. Obviously they shouldn't remove current reports, but I see nothing that suggests that old reports can't be removed. James086^Talk 11:22, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd say it's fine. It might be a good job for the helperbot, actually. It might be best to stick to removing IP addresses - registered users can be blocked even after they've stopped vandalising. --Tango 13:42, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely, no suggestion named accounts should be removed. We know accounts are the same person and there's no collateral damage to other users in issue. WjBscribe 14:03, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion,reports become definitivelystale after maybe 24 to 48 hours.I cannot see the reason to remove one report only 1 hour old.Also,if a report is 6 hours old,and you think (Please think carefully) that he has stopped,remove it BUT once he vandalises again,report immediately to catch him off guard 121.7.56.203 15:09, 23 February 2007 (UTC)