Wikipedia talk:Vandalism

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

>:(

See also: Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Removing warnings.

Freedom of Speech

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fixing Wikipedia

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

How to fix it:

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

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

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

Job done?

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

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

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

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

Vandalism is Important

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

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

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

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

Overlinking to this page.

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

Where are vandalism-only accounts defined?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How long?

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

Peeping

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

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

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

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

Adding whois templates

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

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

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

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

That weird guy

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

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

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

remove

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

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

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

Inappropriate edits in the sandbox

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