Wikipedia:Dealing with vandalism

Here's how it works:

First you detect that someone has vandalised a page, for example replacing the entire page with a reference to homosexuality. So you revert the page to the last good version. Congratulations, you have just successfully dealt with vandalism!

If you're feeling energetic, you can go through other edits made under the same IP address, and check whether those edits are also vandalous. If they are, revert them as well. Congratulations, you have just successfully dealt with repeated vandalism!

For persistent vandals who vandalise many entries, consider adding them to the vandalism in progress page. In the vast majority of cases this is unnecessary, and the vandals may be dealt with in the normal course of Wikipedia events. In cases of flood vandalism, sysops may choose to hide the edits from recent changes using the &bot=1 feature.

Adding someone to "vandalism in progress"

When you notice what you believe to be an act of vandalism at work, take note of that person's IP number or username. Edit the vandalism in progress page, and add the person's IP number.

Please only use this page for genuine malicious vandalism, and only for a sustained attack.

Blocking vandals

Sysops have the ability, and the authorisation, to block the IPs of persistent vandals. These blocks should last for a maximum of one month, in the case of static IPs. In the case of dynamic IPs, the blocks should be as shortlived as possible, to avoid inconveniencing genuine contributors.

Tools for finding information on an IP number:

• Google Watch (scroll down to "Who owns that IP number?")
• Network Tools

If an ex-vandal evades an IP block by obtaining a new IP, and starts making genuine (non-vandalism) contributions to Wikipedia, then they will not be blocked or reverted simply because they used to be a vandal. We do not block vandals to punish them, but to preserve the integrity of Wikipedia. If an ex-vandal has reformed, then our aims are accomplished.

See also wikipedia:blocking policy

Vandalism should not be confused with:

Vandalism is vandalism: these things are not, though they are sometimes called vandalism. They are therefore treated differently:

• Newbie test: New users who discover the "Edit this page" button want to know if they can really edit any page, so they write something inside just to test it. This is not vandalism! On the contrary, these users should be warmly greeted, and given a reference to the Sandbox where they can keep making their tests (sometimes they will even revert their own changes).

• Extended newbie test: Some users (especially the young ones) want to check out if they can make an article look really stupid, or radically change it to become unreadable. They simply want to test the limits of the wiki, they will stop when you revert their changes, and will feel embarrassed when you write them a message. Continuing such "testing" after this point is vandalism.

• Getting to grips with markup and manual of style: Some users take a while to get to grips with wiki-based markup, and spend a little while experimenting with different ways to make external links, for example. Rather than condemning them as vandals, just explain to them what our standard style is on the issue in hand - perhaps pointing them towards our deeply inadequate documentation at Wikipedia:how to edit a page and the like.

• NPOV violations: The neutral point of view is a difficult policy for many of us to understand, and even Wikipedia veterans occasionally accidentally introduce material which is non-ideal from an NPOV perspective. Indeed, we are all blinded by our beliefs to a greater or lesser extent. While regrettable, this is not vandalism. See also: NPOV dispute.

• Bold edits: Wikipedians often make sweeping changes to articles in order to improve them - most of us aim to be bold when updating articles. While having large chunks of text you wrote removed, moved to talk, or substantially rewritten can sometimes feel like vandalism, it should not be confused with vandalism. That said, the wise Wikipedian tempers boldness with WikiLove.

• Bullying: Some users cannot come to agreement with others who are willing to talk to them on an article's talk page, and repeatedly make changes opposed by everyone else. This is a matter of regret - you may wish to see our dispute resolution pages to get help. However, it is not vandalism.

Types of vandalism

• Childish vandalism: Some vandals spread the textual equivalent of graffiti over pages. They're extremely easy to detect, and are generally reverted in less than a minute. Blanking pages is one such type of vandalism.

• Sneaky vandalism: These are the users that think they can outsmart the wiki and put their little comments, misinformation and typos on articles, without anyone noticing. Switching one number (often a date) for another and deliberately introducing typographical errors are their favorite tactics. Often this vandalism can be detected by looking at other edits by the same user, but we must be careful to avoid confusing sneaky vandalism with genuine corrections to an article.

• Userpage vandalism: Sometimes vandals and other problem users react to reversions and similar activities by vandalising userpages with insults, profanity, etc, just as childish vandals vandalise encyclopedia articles. Userpage vandalism is often, but not exclusively, performed by attention-seeking vandals. See meta:targets of trolls, for example.

• Attention-seeking vandalism: (a type of internet troll). The opposite of sneaky vandalism, they want attention, and will do anything to get it, they will write insults, use offensive usernames, replace articles with jokes etc. just to make you resentfully message them, and when you do that, they will use that as an excuse to replace your personal page with a story about your mother. So when you recognize this type of attack, try not to feed the troll by flaming him or her - just deal with it calmly and unemotionally - or leave it to someone else to do so if it's making you too angry.

• VandalBot: (or an AdVandal who puts advertising) a bot that attempts to vandalize massive amounts of articles, blanking, or adding commercial links. In this situation, administrator intervention is needed and the IP address or complete IP range used by the vandal should be blocked, and all changes reverted systematically. See m:Vandalbot for guidance.

• Silly vandalism: Users will sometimes create joke articles or replace existing articles with plausible-sounding nonsense (example). This is usually easy to spot and is not always intended to harm -- sometimes the vandal will even announce the vandalism in the edit summary, ensuring that it will be spotted quickly.

Feel free to revise this as you wish

A study by IBM found that most Wikipedia vandalism is reverted within five minutes.

The Irony

See also

• meta:Wikipedia vandalism
• meta:Anti-vandalism ideas
• Favorite pages of banned users