Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit

Counter-Vandalism Unit

Wikipedia vandalism information
(abuse log)

Level 3

Moderate to high level of vandalism

[view • purge • update]

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4.25 RPM according to EnterpriseyBot 21:10, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

The Counter Vandalism Unit is a growing community that solely seeks to find and remove vandalism throughout Wikipedia. We offer tools and assistance to help analyze and fix vandalism and save system resources. Anyone is qualified to be a member — unless, of course, they are vandalizing! The talk page is a meeting place for RC patrollers who choose to be a part of this joint effort. Additionally, the following IRC channel is a gathering place: #wikipedia-en-vandalism

What Counter Vandalism Unit is not

Counter Vandalism Unit is simply a body to combat vandalism on Wikipedia.

1. Counter Vandalism Unit is not a part of the dispute resolution process. This is not a place to bring your disputes with other users unless they are vandalising wikipedia pages.
2. Counter Vandalism Unit is not a "military body". No one here, including directors, "rank" above or below one another.

What Counter Vandalism Unit is

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A giant penis! Arcon you suck at life, go fist your gay lover! Merry Christmas you fucking loser!

Current issues

Persistent vandals

1. Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress/Long term alerts
2. User:SuperTroll sockpuppets
3. The Communism vandal sockpuppets
4. User:Willy on Wheels sockpuppets
5. User:DickyRobert sockpuppets

Guidelines

Determining what is vandalism

The Wiktionary definition of vandalism is "needless damage or destruction of property, usually someone else's property or common or shared property."

On Wikipedia, vandalism is further explained in Wikipedia:Vandalism. It is imperative to understand that not every destructive-looking edit is classified as vandalism. There is a procedure to be followed in dealing with edits classifiable as vandalism. Note that every Wikipedia language has its own rules, but they should not be too different.

The key is to assume good faith. First time offenses at worst should warrant a warning via the posting of {{subst:test}} --~~~~ on the user's talk page, followed by additional test template messages.

Please do not bite the newcomers. Most of the activities classifiable as vandalism are just newbie mistakes. Proper procedure is a simple {{subst:test}} on their talk page and/or explaining why what they are doing is inappropriate. Another way to think of this is that if you "bark" at someone never to do something, they are more than likely to at least try it or to do it just to annoy you — a simple rule of crowd management.

Vandalism severity

Severity		Recommended Action
Red:	High:	If you are an admin: block on sight. If you are not an admin: post incident on WP:ANB or WP:AIV
Orange:	Low:	User warnings should be used. If user persistently refuses to stop, up to a 24 hour block depending on admin discretion.
Green:	Not:	Not covered as vandalism. A separate procedure applies.

Type	Explanation	Examples
High
Vandalism bots	A rapid submission of edits from the same user(s) or IP(s) intended to disrupt Wikipedia.	Willy on Wheels
Page overload/ Page widening	This is basically an abuse of a known exploit. Adding megs of material to a page (generally by repeating a pasted section) and making it impossible to access; generally the product of returning vandals.
Image/redirect abuse	Posting images, creating pages, or creating redirects to potentially offensive images or pages with the intent of insulting others. Generally committed by returning vandals or experienced users.	Penis Vandal diff, Penis Vandal diff
Imposter/insult usernames	'New' users that are intended to be mistaken for or to insult other users (generally RC patrollers). Apply {{usernameblock}}, {{sockpuppet}}, {{impostor}}	JarlaxleArtemis sockpuppets, Communism vandal sockpuppets
Low
Page blanking	Edits removing much or all text from articles. The majority of such edits are vandalism; however, there are legitimate "page blankings", such as for copyright violation articles	The Communism vandal, Blanking diff
Page gibberish	Edits adding a large quantity of text, generally repetitive sentences. The majority of such edits are vandalism, however there is legitimate "page gibberish" such as reverting vandalism.	gibberish diff, revert of vandalism
Minor vandalism	Can be new users experimenting (Such users usually say something like "Hi, mom!" or "Can I really edit this?"), or more malicious edits, such as changing dates or other numbers.	Newbie test, vandal diff, vandal diff
Not vandalism
NPOV violations	While these are not vandalism, they are not OK either: there is a separate procedure for them beyond this guideline.	NPOV violation
Revert wars	While these are not vandalism, they are not OK either: there is a separate procedure for them beyond this guideline.
Copyright violations	While these are not vandalism, they are not OK either: there is a separate procedure for them beyond this guideline.

Combatting Vandalism

Note that everyone has their own method in combatting vandalism that they are comfortable with. However, a major risk in combating vandalism is forgetting not to bite newcomers. You should always warn the "vandals" with appropriate warning templates. Basically, "talk softly and carry a big stick" applies: the last thing we want as the Counter Vandalism Unit is to alienate newbies who are merely discovering the edit button. See the complete list of warning templates. You can transclude an abbreviated version of this to a personal user page with {{TestTemplates}}. User:Adam1213/warn is a tool to automatically warn users.

Below are a few of the many methods in combatting vandalism here on wikipedia.

Detection

• RC Patrol is the manual analysis of recent changes for suspicious edits.
• There are several bots that automatically process the Special:Recentchanges feed and determine what may be vandalism. Note that the bots are not 100% accurate in detecting vandalism.
  • CryptoDerk's Vandal Fighter (CDVF) is an open-source program that displays a live feed of recent changes (RC) but contains extra functionality to assist in vandal fighting. The bot works on all language Wikipedias, though some features currently only work on the English Wikipedia (see changelog). This tool is available to both administrators and users.
  • The IRC Bot, computer2, is an open-source mIRC script that processes the live recent changes (RC) feed and flags suspicious edits. The full command list is available on any channel the bot is on; just say "computer help" in channel. The bot also detects possible copyright violations (an unintended feature). It's designed for both admin and user use. Coded by User:Cool Cat, though the majority of the ideas came from people that make up an important portion of CVU.
  • Lupin's Anti-Vandal Tool catches what CDVF and Cool Cat's bot miss. It monitors the RSS feed for recent changes, checks those edit diffs for common vandalism terms, and lists them for reversion if they contain flagged terms. This tool is available for both admins and users. Note that it no longer hogs resources like the original version.
  • RC birds is an IRC-aware program which auralizes' recent changes, using the metadata about changes, and regular expressions. It both shows color-coded output from the IRC bot, and maps each RC diff onto a bird-call or other nature sound. Both admins and non-admins can use this to view RC.
• See the list of Wikipedia's most vandalized pages.
  • The related changes link will display recent changes to all pages listed on Wikipedia:Most vandalized pages, for those who wish to follow vandalism on Wikipedia but who are unable to use IRC bot tools.
• Check the vandal's contributions when you revert vandalism. There may be other recent edits by the same user that has not yet been repaired.
• List of suspected vandalised articles made by Vilerage - Still being worked on.

Combatting

• Reporting vandals directly to administrators, especially on the IRC channels mentioned earlier. This will likely get you the fastest results, as there are generally admins available to block vandals. However, you might be disappointed to learn that the vandals have been already blocked as people on the IRC channels monitor wikipedia closely. Additionally you can post vandals in Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress to request a prompt admin review.
• See the Wikipedia list of admins.

Counter Vandalism Unit Participants

The full membership list was getting too long for this page, and is visible under the category. For directions to join, or display the list go here: Category:Counter Vandalism Unit Member. Current number of participants for en.wikipedia is 325.

To join the CVU, you only need to add one of the following templates to your user page to display your membership status:

File:CVU2.PNG

This user is a member of the Counter Vandalism Unit.

By adding {{user CVU1-en}} to your user page, or

This user is a member of the Counter Vandalism Unit.

By adding {{user CVU2-en}} to your user page.

Optionally you can also add the defcon (see top-right of this page), by adding {{wdefcon}} .