Wikipedia talk:Vandalism/Archive 1

message: A vandal is a person who deliberately damages property, information etc.  Vandalism is the act of damaging the property, information etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rage1750 (talk • contribs) 22:26, 20 September 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Initial comment

message: Does this read correctly?
If the vandal has been properly warned yet continues, do not report them at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism. Admins can't block vandals as per the blocking policy.
I would have just changed it but it seems to read that way even in much much older versions of the article.  What gives?
:That would be vandalism. I changed it. -Splashtalk 02:14, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Huh? 

message: Is this page official policy? Should it have the  template on it? the wub  "?/!" 09:46, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Policy

message: I see Hoaxes being described as vanadalism, and "Hoax from known vandal" as a reason for a speedy delete. But "Hoax" is not included in the list of types of vandalism. Should it be? DES 18:05, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I moved the "Hoax" section up, to say it was a type of vandalism.  This seems rather obvious, and I don't understand why it wasn't there from the beginning.  If intentional misinformation placed in article space isn't vandalism, then little else could be.  --Rob 20:53, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hoaxes 

message: There is an RfC currently in progress against a user who has, among other violations of Wikiquette, deleted other Wikipedians' comments from talk pages.  The allegations against the user include vandalism because of the deletion of comments from talk pages.  My question is:  Is this considered vandalism?  
In reading the definitions of vandalism, that appears to me to be a gray area of definition.  I see that the blanking of pages, whether talk pages or articles, is vandalism.  The blanking of sections from an article is not necessarily vandalism.  It may be a bold (or reckless) edit.  
It is clear enough that the deletion of posts by other users on talk pages is a serious breach of Wikiquette.  It interferes with the function of the talk page to be a cumulative archive of comments.  It has been my understanding that the only edits one could perform on material already in talk pages would be minor edits to one's own posts, e.g., to correct typos.
If it isn't vandalism, there should be another policy forbidding it.  If it is vandalism, I would suggest that this official policy be modified slightly to include improper alteration of talk pages as a form of vandalism.   Robert McClenon 00:07, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppsoe obvious typo cleanup and correction of forrmating errors (to avoid brakign a numberd or bulleted list, for example) to others words might be ok. but changing the sense or context of others postings, much less deleteing them entirely, is IMO beyond the pale whether we call it vandalism or not.  BTW I am even agaisnt WP:RPA when it involves changing the comments of others. that view does not have a clear consensus, however. DES 00:51, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that previous personal attacks should not be deleted.  If dispute resolution does not work, then the person posting the personal attacks can be a subject of an RfC, RfM, or even RfA.  Deleting the attack interferes with the dispute resolution process.  
I will not correct typos in the comment of others, by the way.  That is not up to me.  Robert McClenon 01:39, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

text: Deleteing talk pages, or sections, or individual comments should not apply to users' own talk pages. Wjhonson 16:30, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is Deleting Sections of Talk Pages Vandalism? 

message: I've added this to the page: "However, Wikipedia now only allows users with 25 edits or above to make page moves". I wonder if it's exactly 25 edits, or is it 20 edits? Those who have fewer than 20/25 edits should post at Wikipedia:Requested moves.  — Stevey7788 (talk) 00:53, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm quite a new user and my ninth and tenth edits was a page move. The page move in question did not work when I tried it before my sixth edit. -- GrafZahl 21:02, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page moves 

message: I have added "Official policy vandalism" to the list of types of vandalism.  It consists of deleting or altering portions of an official policy with which the vandal disagrees.  A recent example is Dot-Six.  Robert McClenon 15:22, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Official policy vandalism

message: I don't think adding articles in foreign language should count as vandalism. It's more likely to be a newbie not realizing the different wikipedias, or realizing that there are other langs but thinking en: is THE only wikipedia. These usually are tagged  and sent to WP:PNT. Usually a gentle warning and a point to the right place works better. On the other hand, 100% copy texts from other wikis, even after being asking not to would classify, but I  htink that could be included into some other vand type. <drini ☎> 19:04, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Foreign language

message: I enjoy wikipedia vandalism very much and have absolutely no intention of stopping whatsoever. However, I don't see why it should be only me taking pleasure from it, and thus I propose that you guys recommend articles that you would like me to vandalise, perhaps by sending me a message on my talk page. Perhaps there's a user you don't like? Don't worry, I'll sort them out...
Alternatively, I will have to continue random blanking, long, stupid articles, predjudiced statements, or (my personal favourite) page move vandalism. --Hardcoregaybuggery 21:22, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I have tried to reason with this potential vandal on his talk page, and hopefully he'll stop. Molotov  (talk)  21:30, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A compromise 

message: If I understand this, hoaxes, although they may be removed through Afd, are not considered to be vandalism. I would recommend rethinking that. -WCFrancis 01:32, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The manin reason is the danger of false positives. In a number of cases people have nominated articels for deletion as hoaxes in good faith, only to learn that they are accurate articles about unusual, improbable, or obscure topics. Had "Hoxes" been considered vandalism (and thus speedy deletable) many of these might well have been deleted before the info could be confirmed (and proper references added). Note that IMO admitted or confirmed hoaxes are vandalism, but one must be very careful in assesing the confirmation. Somtimes an article about a known hoax, clearly stating it to be a hoax, may be worth while. DES (talk) 17:08, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Hoaxes

message: Is there a process for dealing with an IP which is clearly being used by a range of people possibly sharing a PC resource somewhere. eg User:213.18.248.24 .  The range of different types of attack show this is not a single person so warning messages are pointless. Lumos3 13:54, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks as if it might be an open proxy of some sort.  I understand that it is policy that an admin can block the address in that situation.  A more helpful message to post might advise that anyone attempting to make good-faith edits from the address should create an account.  Robert McClenon 16:33, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Many of these kinds of address are from PCs which are a shared resource in schools. This is supported by the obviously juvenile nature of many of the edits. It would be wrong to block a school computer from Wikipedia because of the behaviour of a few users. I suggest a list of known educational institution computers is maintained and anyone accessing Wikipedia from these always gets a special greeting message informing them of the sandbox and encouraging them to set up an account. In addition a list will allow these IPs to be monitored and vandalism quickly removed.Lumos3 08:50, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to deal with vandalism from a shared PC eg in a school 

message: The following text was posted on the Wikipedia:Vandalism article page (in place of the now-reverted content).  It would have been a valid statement except that it was an example of what it condemned.  -+Robert McClenon 16:58, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: A Paradox

message: Originally read, "Despite being severely disabled by Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a form of Motor Neurone Disease, he is highly active in physics, writing, and public life."
I decided to settle a bet with my professor that wikipedia is not credible by creating an account and noting that he was also an avid bicyclist. Within 5 minutes a moderator came and corrected my error. Thank you for demonstrating that you are indeed credible
:You're.. welcome, I suppose. --Golbez 20:57, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That was obviously a breaching experiment.  Whether it was Vandalism is a matter that can be argued.  Robert McClenon 22:26, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll concede that it was both vandalism and a breaching experiment, accept punishment for it, and not do it again. --Rethgryn 17:05, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Stephen Hawking]] 

message: A change was just made to the definition of vandalism that seems overly expansive.  Vandalism has previously defined as any unquestionably bad-faith change to the encyclopedia.  The change made by {User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] now appears to redefine vandalism as any change that compromises the content of the encylopedia, whether intended or unintended.  I disagree.  That change would appear to include reckless edits.  I don't want to start an edit war, so I won't revert it immediately.  However, can someone justify this change?  It would appear to give admins the right to block anybody for any change with which they disagree.  Robert McClenon 17:07, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Questionable Change to Definition 

message: There are instructions at Repeat-pattern vandalism for detecting a vandal making multiple vandalisms.  I'd kind of like it to also be under Dealing with vandalism so people remember to check if the same person has made any other vandalisms, but that would be duplicated.  What is opinion on making a note under dealing with vandalism to remind people to check other edits? RJFJR 15:37, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  include Repeat-pattern vandalism under Dealing with vandalism? 

message: Example 
#if it says with shift do it with shift
#goto Preferences 
#turn on raw signatures 
#Make your nickname ```` (with shift) 
#add to the template ``` (with shift) where you want the signature to be save it.
#add for future info to the template
 <--To edit this template without stuffing this up you need to:
 goto Preferences
 turn on raw signatures
 Make your nickname -- ```` (with shift)
 Made by adam1213
  -->
---- ☺Adam1213☺|talk 05:04, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This is out of context.  I don't understand what the purpose of this concept is.  Robert McClenon 14:53, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  How we can add auto signature to the templates 

message: Four warnings seems like a lot.  Does anyone continue vandalism after the third but stop after the fourth?  I propose that the second and third warnings be replaced by one intermediate in strength. — ciphergoth 07:36, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think four levels works well - you don't always start at the first level, especially when it's clearly malicious vandalism rather than a test.  Multiple levels allows for easy templates for several different users - more voices on the vandal's talk page will hopefully leave a stronger impression.  - Stillnotelf 23:12, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  It does not mean four warnings before blocking, but four levels of warnings depending on the nature of the misconduct.  I only use test1 if it appears to have been an experiment.  I start with test2 or test2a if it is obviously vandalism on its face.  Robert McClenon 14:37, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If admins are prepared to ban users who've had less than four warnings then I agree too - having the flexibility of up to four warnings when that granularity of escalation is needed can only be useful.  However, I might create a test2.5 template intermediate in strength between 2 and 3 for those (more common, IMHO) situations where three warnings would be sufficient. — ciphergoth 16:13, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

text: I was just thinking the same thing; three is really plenty. I definitely like the idea of starting with test2 for blatant vandals. Deltabeignet 19:36, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Four warnings 

message: For shared IPs, I think it might be a good idea to have an explanatory message to ensure that others using the IP don't get bitten. This could be an additional template to add at the top of the user talk page. I made a draft at Template talk:Test2. The idea is that this would be an extra template to add the top of a user talk page when adding the usual messages, ensuring that users sharing the IP with a vandal don't feel the messages are necessarily addressed to them. Rd232 21:25, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I completely agree with you, and encourage you to create the template (? ?) I liked your example, but would perhaps add something more explanatory, such as "Messages in this page might not be referred to you, as you might have been assigned for your current Internet connection an IP that has been previously used by another individual" or something like that. Mariano(t/c) 08:45, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Oh, never mind, I already saw it... I also added it to  Mariano(t/c) 08:52, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Why "IPs", people? Why not the way the world outside Wiki does it - with account name and password? If the user doesn't have one the only thing they can do is discuss the article, but not edit it. If they want to edit it then they'll get the "Plz, take your time to register" message. Boris 23:30, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shared IPs / not biting newbies 

message: I can understand what an offensive GIF might be, but malicious? What's that supposed to mean? --Zetawoof 21:55, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Generally something that would get you in trouble if you were looking at it with your parents looking over your shoulder or at work. Cowman 20:49, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This sounds more like malicious parents or co-workers. In this case one should apply the latest bug-fix to his parents or co-workers. -- John.constantine 15:28, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Not malicious, per say, but buggy. Zmich 01:13, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Malicious animated GIFs? 

message: Does anybody else think that WP:POINT should be added as another example of something which is not vandalism.  I've been in a conflict where one user has accused another of vandalism based on something which, imo, comes more close to being a WP:POINT violation.  I think the current gist of this page strongly suggests that WP:POINT violations wouldn't qualify as vandalism, but I think it might do us good to be more explicit on this front. john k 17:04, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  What vandalism is not 

message: How is vandalism defined with regard to talk pages?  For instance, Talk:P-block has comments similar to garden-variety article-namespace vandalism, but it's a talk page, so it should be subject to a different set of rules, no? --Smack (talk) 22:15, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism of talk pages? 

message: I have noticed that most of the vandals I have encountered are those with no user accounts, just IP addresses. Why doesn't Wikipedia just make editing open to those with user accounts? Sure it wouldn't completely wipe out the vandalism problem, but it would help it at the very least. It is also still open to anybody to edit, but it will discourage those vandals who just vandalize it because they are on the site and are fascinated about being able to change a webpage for an internet encyclopedia. Croat Canuck 03:31, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This has certainly been discussed many times...I'm still not sure where I stand on it. However, the best place to see arguments for and against this change is at the Village pump. EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 07:52, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If you mean closing the ability of IP addreses to edit, I think that you and I are in a minority in thinking that would be a good idea.  I think that the support for the concept of anonymous editing is too deep a tradition to dispose of easily.  Robert McClenon 20:02, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Regardless if its a tradition or not, I think if it improves Wikipedia it should definitely be considered. And it isn't very anonymous because we can always see the contributions of that IP address. Croat Canuck 03:56, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A thought 

message: I have posted this idea on Anti-vandalism ideas in meta-wiki, but I thought I might post it here too...for your information.
Since I have started to grow weary of vandalism (haven't we all?) I have come up with an idea. I am a programmer myself, and it is possible that this idea has been discussed before, and/or has too serious disadvantages, but I thought I might aswell share it with you.
Many vandalisms I have encountered concerns the removal of an entire page, replacing it with obscene and/or funny words.
My idea is to re-program the edit-process (i.e when the user hits the "Save Page" button) so that (current page = presumed unvandalized page, new page = presumed vandalized page)
# (if current page size in bytes > a fixed value)
# AND (new page < another fixed value)
# then new page is deemed as vandalism and is refused to save
I know there is at least one problem with the idea; when a page needs to be deleted, removed, redirected...etc. One solution to deal with the redirection issue is to insert the following exception into the pseudo-code above:
# if (new page only contains a redirection link) then it is allowed to save
To solve this, the idea must be put forward to developers. As I said, I don't know if the idea is good or bad, but I thought it would be of interest anyway. If it is bad, it might nevertheless give rise to better ideas. I'd be thankful for feedback and all kinds of opinions. If you wish to contact me, please use my talk page in Wikipedia: my talk page
Regards, Dennis Nilsson. Dna-Dennis 18:16, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It wouldn't prevent deleting a page and replacing it with repetitive nonsense.  (I'm a programmer too.  Entering repetitive nonsense is a standard test to see how much cruft you can stuff in a web form.)  Robert McClenon 20:05, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: While I think this is a good idea from a programming standpoint, I'm not sure that it would decrease vandalism at all. Current "blankers" would simply change their modus operandi, and just revert to adding nonsense sentences, rather than blanking and adding nonsense. Someone who wants to vandalize likely wouldn't be too upset about this. Also, with the current reverting process, it's just as easy to revert a 3000-character edit as it is a 10-character edit, so the workload would be about the same. EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 21:09, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A smart policy in the edit process? 

message: Remember when Pope Benedict was getting all that vandalism is it still happening? --Maoririder 21:10, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Vandalism of [[Pope Benedict XVI]]

message: How can one tell vandalisim from a glitch, like what happened when the HTML Tidy program
malfunctioned, taking this site down and may have caused some Vandal reports, due to this
malfunction ? Can this be moved to User Talk:Martial Law ? Martial Law 07:26, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  ????s 

message: Like the Andy Milonakis article, this page itself is now prone to presistent vandalism.  Will somebody lock this page from editing? (unsigned comment from anon).
:Support locking this page, it's pretty complete and most edits right now are vandalism. Ashibaka tock 00:26, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Presistent vandalism 

message: If you are somebody who works on vandal on WP, please take a look at my userpage since I take time to look into every user creation log to be sure they are not vandal. The real vandalists have a vandal associated to their name and the ones that should be blocked have the mention soll block. Lincher 23:16, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism help 

message: Anyone got any ideas on implementing a "contributions" counter and putting that digit on the RC list?  Might be a bit of computing overhead, but hey, what are computers for?  Profiling based on the appearance of an IP address rather than a username is somewhat prejudicial, IMO, and having people looking at users of all kinds with very few edits would be more profitable.  More effective as a mentoring process as well.
Or maybe the fix should be that edits made by people with some small number of edits are noted in a "New User Edit" list separate from the RC list.
I think I'll go mention this idea on the feature request page.
--216.237.179.238 17:45, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Toward a better metric for Reasonable Suspicion in the RC list 

message: Honestly some of these vandalisms are funny.... the sound like they were written by a teenager cussing for the first time-Reid A. 11:06, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: often enough, they were!--Alhutch 11:08, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

text: You can find plenty of that kind of stuff at Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense (BJAODN). I always thoroughly enjoy perusing that page.  EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 21:17, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

text: If a joke is not vulgar or primitive, we could create a template  with link to uncyclopedia ;) Przykuta 22:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Funny

message: I entered this on the list a while ago - someone (can't remember who) simply deleted it without any justification or explanation. I suppose he/she figures that such stuff is an unnecessary formality. In any event, rather than reinstate it I'll explain it first, wait for a discussion, and then reinstate it.
The practice here is when an editor (for reasons that are irrelevant) reverts a whole set of edits because he/she disagrees with one point in it. To illustrate the point, let's imagine editor A rewrites an entire paragraph for purposes that are also irrelevant. In doing so, let's imagine that editor A confuses "its" and "it's." The vandal reverts the entire edit, blaming the single mistake. In all likelihood, the single mistake is just a pretext for other motivations that the vandal either doesn't want to, or can't be bothered to, explain. 
In my mind, this is vandalism - it destroys good faith edits by others, does nothing to further the quality of the articles, and only serves to discourage editors from trying to improve articles.  --Leifern 02:02, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: See Wikipedia:Revert; what you are referring to doesn't seem related to vandalism. Dan100 (Talk) 08:35, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: To the extent that vandalism is the act of sabotaging the editing process, it certainly is. Clearly, this sort of vandalism has to be carefully defined to distinguish between legitimate reversions and this type, but there are ways to prove that it is vandalism. Characteristics would be that the reverts aren't explained or are explained by wholly insufficient grounds; and that the same version appears over and over again, regardless of intervening edit efforts. Wikipedia:Revert makes it clear that the revert capability is primarily intended to fight vandalism, and there should be no question that there's a huge burden attendant on using it for any other purpose - reflected in the point made on the same page that reverts must always be carefully explained. --Leifern 18:36, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wholesale reverts vandalism 

message: Let's define an "edit" simply as a modification to a wikipedia page.  There are basically two kinds of edits - those that would enable someone to know more about the article subject, and those that would hinder someone from learning about the article subject.  Edits in the first class are constructive, so that will be called "good" edits, edits in the second class will be called "bad" edits.  I submit that bad edits (vandalism and good-faith mistakes) should not be applied in the first place, since they run counter to the fundamental purpose of wikipedia - to help people learn more about stuff.  
The classification of edits into "good" and "bad" is analagous to normal and spam email.  A "bad" edit hinders information and wastes time - similarly, a "bad" email hinders information (e.g. a phishing scheme) and wastes tons of time.  Letting vandalism into articles and applying a fix after the fact is analagous to leaving spam in your inbox, and rather than deleting it, inserting another message saying "that was spam".  Today, we have become conditioned to not even treating spam in the same category as legitimate e-mail - so it should be with "bad" edits, which includes all vandalism.
Fortuntately, there is a large band of people willing to root out vandalism.  Unfortunately, their effors are applied sub-optimally.    A simple scheme to allow users to classify edits and help identify vandals could be:
Changes should be given a vandalism score based on content (say from 1 to 10, with 10 being likely vandalism).  Users can have only one change in the queue at a time.  The vandalism score drops over time, perhaps scaled by the score (score = number of minutes before dropping).  People on patrol can either increase or decrease the vandalism score of a given change.  Once it goes above 10, the message is discarded and the user is blocked.  Once it hits 0, the change is applied.  Most legitimate changes (e.g. the change does contain the word PENIZZ or does not remove the entire article) will be scored low (1 or 2) and applied quickly (1 or 3 minutes).  Users on vandalism patrol can see all recent changes sorted by vandalism score in order to focus efforts.  Rather then spend time looking at changes that have already been reverted, all people need to do is validate the conclusions of the builtin vandalism detector and those of other users.  As part of this scheme, the system would develop a huge database of confirmed vandalism attempts.  This can be utilized by techniques such as bayesian filtering to further improve vandalism detection.
Tiki2099 19:06, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conceptualizing Edits 

message: I wanted to do some anti-vandalism after school, and Lupins tool only seemed to refresh only every minute(may be lag or something else), so I got the IRC server details, and put them onto CGIIRC on my website . If anyone likes the idea, say so Sceptre (Talk) 16:54, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a nice idea, but it doesn't appear to scroll, which is a bit of a PITA... Dan100 (Talk) 13:30, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: When I go to the page, it autoscrolls for me. Could be your browser. Works fine in FF1.5 Sceptre (Talk) 19:53, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

text: OK, do so 83.100.146.147 17:50, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Checking my stats, I've seen I've encountered a weak Slashdot effect on my site since this was linked (as of Tuesdays addition, I've had more-than-average visits) Sceptre (Talk) 18:47, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  HTTP versions of the IRC servers 

message: Guys, you should probably have Sean Black re-read the vandalism policies, or stop going by his own personal policy. I just presented a case involving user page vandalism, link vandalism, and abuse of tags (a trifecta), and he dismissed the entire thing as a content dispute. Alternatively, this might be a good reason to stop giving pubescent 15-year olds administrative powers over encyclopedias involving hundreds of thousands of people.Tommstein 10:09, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please have [[User:Sean Black|Sean Black]] read the vandalism policies again 

message: This policy page works great for articles, but it doesn't say anything about talk pages.  What constitutes vandalism of a talk page, and how should we respond to it? --Smack (talk) 19:26, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you asking about user talk pages, or article talk pages?  The most common form of vandalism of both is blanking them, which is usually rather obviously vandalism.  I have also occasionally seen what were almost certainly deliberate attempts to alter the record of a discussion.  That is a form of vandalism that only happens on talk pages.  It is generally recognized that the user of a talk page has the right to blank it.  (Deliberate repeated deletion of requests, such as of requests to be civil, is not vandalism.  It is only WP:DICK.)  The posting of hateful or offensive comments on talk pages is not vandalism, but it is a personal attack, which is a different form of unacceptable behavior.  Archiving and refactoring of talk pages are not vandalism.  However, inaccurate refactoring of talk pages can be a controversial practice.  Robert McClenon 22:48, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm thinking about this old version of a talk page, which has since been blanked.  The text you see is the product of three postings by (apparently) three different people.  --Smack (talk) 17:16, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: One could argue that that was only three stupid personal attacks, but one could alternatively argue that the three personal attacks were of such a crude nature as to be vandalism.  If I had seen that in a timely manner, and had been an admin, I would have blocked the two anons and warned the logged-in.  Robert McClenon 23:33, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, indeed, but what to do about the text itself? --Smack (talk) 00:25, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A user should be able to blank their own talk pages, period.  Their own talk pages, should be their own property, not community property. Wjhonson 16:39, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism of talk pages 

message: I came across what looked like vandalism to me, and I was wondering if I should notify the admins about it. Having read this article made me want to ask you guys first, because I'm still not sure, and I don't want to take up precious admins' time, lest more serious cases are longer left unhandled. The thing is, user User:82.230.109.93 has repeatedly been editing the November 30 and December 28 articles, and changing the short description of mr. Guy Debord to "human being, enemy". What made me question whether or not to alarm the admins are the facts that:
* their contribs page doesn't include any bad edits on the article Guy Debord itself,
* they seem not to do it very often.
On the minus side, all of this user's edits (except for the two they made to the Guy Debord article) are vandalous! What do you think I should do? Should I report it? Toon 23:27, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Definitely! I'd say that's vandalism. My suggestion would be to leave  templates, as per this page, for every suspect edit and actually telling him which page you think he's vandalising. If the vandal gets to a "last warning" but still vandalising, report to WP:AIV. Dan100 (Talk) 16:45, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. They have so far only been given a level 1 warning, so I've issued them a level 2 warning. I'm keeping an eye on this person and if they do it again I will issue a level 4 warning and if they do it again then I'll report it to WP:AIV. Toon 16:59, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  innocent NPOV vio or vandalism? 

message: I am trying to nominate this page for deletion for obvious reasons. how am i suppose to tag it?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Parys (talk • contribs) 
:What???  Why? Dyslexic agnostic 04:14, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: what might those obvious reasons be?  i beleive the afd process has been outlined on your talk page; anyways, i'd suggest you don't nominate this page for deletion, as the admins probably won't even wait for a vote and it will annoy the heck out of people.  --Heah talk 04:18, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Huh? The page is for the Wikipedia vandalism policies, not a holder of vandalism itself. Did you mean to post that on a different page?Tommstein 15:09, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not trying to be rude but... 

message: What is it in Wikipedia, and who decides if a external link is inappropriate ? Can the answer be moved to my Talk page ? Martial Law 05:55, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Spam