Wikipedia talk:Vandalism/Archive 2

message: I see frequent inquiries regading vandalism on talk pages. And I see general consensus that removing parts of talk pages is vandalism if the content removed was not personal attack. Do I see that right? If I do, lets add this to list: . I propose this paragraph to be added:
;Talk page vandalism: Deleting other user's comment or deleting the whole section of talk page. Exceptions are deleting the section to put it to archive and removing a personal attacks.
:User:talk should be excepted.  A user should be able to modify their own talk pages in any way they wish. Wjhonson 16:17, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 1) I replied to you with several options and an offer of help on my talk page. 2) Removing warnings is vandalism per current policy. Feel free to attempt to change policy if you wish: that is usually a long and winding road, especially for this. It is to prevent vandals from removing warnings with the subsequent result that other editors and Admins AGF looong after it is reasonable to do so. On the other hand, if the warnings are without merit, Admins generally ignore them and watch the warners rather than the warned, so either way it helps. KillerChihuahua?!? 16:38, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The warnings are without merit in the sense that people make mistakes.  I don't feel like I should carry around these warnings for the rest of my life.  And it doesn't appear that everyone is in agreement on the ability to blank user talk pages.  Those things you reposted are mostly due to attacks by Baha'is because I'm adding details to their propaganda articles to make them npov.  But at any rate, even arbitrators remove things from their own user talk pages. Wjhonson 16:43, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lets sort out talk page policy once and for all 

message: Discussion of possible interest to watchers of this page at Wikipedia talk:Forum for Encyclopedic Standards#Academic honesty. -- Jmabel | Talk 10:13, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Academic honesty 

message: Not sure if could apply to Wikipedia vandalism by Americans, but it says:
"Whoever...utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet... without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person...who receives the communications...shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both." 
From CNET: Create an e-annoyance, go to jail. 
Shawnc 18:29, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New US anti-annoyance internet law 

message: Perhaps there should be added a section discussing possible reasons for vandalism? I've read once that it is conjectured that vandalism is most commonly conducted as a test of Wikipedia's stabilty. I believe such information is interesting, and potentially useful. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 18:15, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am inclined to agree that such a section might be useful if it could be sourced.  I think that there are several types of vandalism, and that vandalism that is a test of Wikipedia's stability does happen, but is less disruptive than vandalism that is done for angry or hateful reasons.  I would suggest that the Wikipedia article on Internet trolling would be the place to start, since I consider vandalism to be a form of trolling.  Like other types of Internet trolling, some is almost harmless, and some is malicious.  Robert McClenon 20:12, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reasons for vandalism 

message: Transmitter Muehlacker was vandalised two weeks ago - I just reverted it. Not very impressive - what went wrong?
208.48.58.195 09:57, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unspotted vandalism 

message: Can I add myself to wikipedia?  Would that be considered vandalism?
:I believe it would be unless you happen to be a famous person.
::Actually, it depends whether it was done in good faith or not.  But I would suggest against adding yourself in any case; wait to be famous enough that someone else adds you. ;-)  -- SCZenz 23:38, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For more information, please read: Wikipedia:Autobiography and Wikipedia:Notability (people). Shawnc 09:19, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is an ArbCom case in voting in which a professor is in the process of being banned from editing his own biography and those of any of his students.  Robert McClenon 15:34, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Just wondering 

message: I sprotected the page a while back, but it was removed along with a lot of other pages during a routine cleaning of protected pages. It was mentioned that perhaps this page could do with a permanent or semi-permanent sprotecting; what do others think? Most of the edits to this page (recently) are vandalism by IPs/new users and reversions of the vandalism. Essjay Talk • Contact 14:46, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think a permanent sprotect is a good idea. It's plain to see that this page is a desirable target for vandals. PJM 14:51, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree; if you look at the edit history, a large percentage of the edits are reversions of vandalism. Except for long-term users who choose not to create accounts, it's hard to imagine what random anons would contribute to this policy page anyway (other than simple typo fixes). EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 23:50, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I've sprotected the page on a trial basis; let's leave it for a week, and look at the eidt pattern then to decide if leaving it sprotected is a good idea or not. Essjay Talk • Contact 00:11, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  sprotect 

message: If somebody claims that the link in External links is a link to a site that he maintains and that he doesn't want his site to be linked from Wikipedia, in which cases is that person allowed to remove the link? I mean, if somebody just pops out of the blue and claims that's his site, it's vandalism and I revert it. But, if it seems that the guy removing the link might be the webmaster, shoud I revert him until he proves he's the webmaster or what? --Dijxtra 12:17, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  When is removing of links allowed? 

message: Another issue is the age of warnings.  If a warning must stay, then there must be a clear policy on how *long* it must stay.  Forever, is not acceptable in my opinion. Wjhonson 01:26, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Concur. This is not even vague, its just not addressed. Of course one can always archive, but how long should it stay prior to archiving? KillerChihuahua?!? 01:28, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Suggest a time frame.  Since you just complained that I deleted an archived warning from um... 16 months ago. Wjhonson 03:01, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

text: How about a week.  I would think a week of looking at some warning would be a sufficient spanking.  I don't any need to archive warnings, but if you do, I don't think you really want them to live forever in the archive do you? Wjhonson 03:03, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Who complained? It was not I. KillerChihuahua?!? 12:36, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Let me retract "complained" in favor of "reverted".  I'm going to go ahead and post "week" as a policy inless there is a "guideline but not policy" page for warning-archiving or whatever.  Since no one else seems to want to talk about this here, I suppose they are agnostic about the issue. Wjhonson 00:27, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Hmmm you got strong support *before* you made your change?  I don't seem to recall that happening. (See discussion above.) Wjhonson 01:32, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't make a change. KillerChihuahua?!? 15:28, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Warnings - how long to leave on user talk page? 

message: Recently I was using my fire fox browser to go to the "Math" page of wikipedia, and 3 grapic images appeared on the screen, they appeared there for 5 of the past entries. They were pretty big pictures at the very beggining of the article.  I reverted to a version that was 6 edits ago. I would have just deleted the pictures, but when I went to edit the article there was no code for the pictures there!!! Has anyone else had this problem? Do you know what is going on?   Any advice on this would help so we can maybe stop this problem from occuring again. Thanks. Masparasol 19:00, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have not had this problem, nor was I able to find any reason for it happening to you. Sorry - KillerChihuahua?!? 15:30, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vadalism using graphic pics, no apparent code seen 

message: I wanted to report vandalism, went to the vandalism article, clicked 'revert it or report it' and saw only simple instructions on how to revert it, but no means to report it. There's even a 'contact us' image, but that's no link for any sort of contact. Of course I realised there was another link to this page at the top of the 'vandalism' article, but beginners, who that other page is meant for will be very confused and might give up (even give up on Wikipedia alltogether - I remember when I was an internet novice). DirkvdM 08:35, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  vandalism report link 

message: Hi All - I request your attention to Wikipedia:Defense of content - proposing some new ways to fight vandalism. Rama's Arrow 17:54, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Defense of content]] 

message: Can I get a clarification if there are to be three warnings
before a block can take place?
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Masssiveego (talk • contribs) 05:05, 1 March 2006.
:Please sign your messages. Thank You! --Siva1979Talk to me 19:22, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If somebody forgets to sign a comment just sign it for them using Template:Unsigned --E-Bod 21:55, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A three warnings rules 

message: The "how to spot vandalism section at present is quite short - patrolling RC and reverting.  I suggest that encouraging users to 
#Watch pages
#Search for common vandalism terms (stuff like "penis" or "dumbass")
are also good things to do as a second and third tiers to fighting vandalism.  The latter seems to be rarely done, but I have had some sucess with it (although it often means wading through a lot of ordinary, unvandalized pages).  Any thoughts on adding it to the page? --Hansnesse 17:19, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to spot vandalism section 

message: 62.116.76.117 has invented a new type of vandalism, not exactly covered by this policy. Despite asking him not to do this, he keeps on writing his text in the talk page of articles, often without his IP, into my text so that what one reads changes meaning.
I suggest we add this type of vandalism to the policy.
I am not going to say that he does this is obviously purposeful vandalism, just as the prior obvious vandalisms of different articles are not obviously purposeful vandalism. I think he simply feels all the articles would be better if he could delete anything he does not like, and add anything he likes.  
DanielDemaret 08:39, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, we just correct the spelling. Your suggestion is inherently subjective - perhaps a typo, perhaps a spelling error, could be mis-labeled vandalism. One puppy's opinion. KillerChihuahua?!? 18:02, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New type of vandalism to be added to the policy? 

message: Does anyone think that people with only IP-numbers look at their talk pages to look at warnings?DanielDemaret 08:39, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If they ignore the large yellow "You have new messages" box at the top of their screen, well that's their problem. I also wonder how many of them read the warnings, but I still feel we need to. Raven4x4x 06:48, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Some do, and some reply. As Raven states, if they ignore it, that's their decision. KillerChihuahua?!? 18:03, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Enough of them do read the warnings to make leaving them worthwhile, although with dynamic IP addresses the warning may never be seen. (Look at the user contribution list, if there are more than a couple items on it it probably will be seen; if there are only one or two it might or might not.) ProhibitOnions 12:08, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  IP numbers 

message: On March 15, 2006, the User:Terminatorius bot created by User:Audriusa blanked warnings from several user talk pages, specifically IP talk pages with a vandal warning template where no edit had been made within the last 48 hours. The bot was later stopped and the changes were reverted by the bot owner. Do you think this type of bot is a good idea? Please see discussion at WP:BRFA#User:Terminatorius - automated blanking of the vandal anonymous IP talk pages Wuzzy 00:58, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Terminatorius bot blanks warnings

message: i can solve all your vandalism problems immediately.
it's called "don't immediately make enemies out of people."
people vandalize (tear down) what you are trying to build up because you have angered them.
their contributions, at first made in the best of faith, are very uncourteously flushed.
if you could be just a little friendly, you wouldn't make so many enemies.
before i ever got here, the fact that vandalism is such a huge and ongoing problem, means that you have pissed off a lot of people.
when their contributions are rudely flushed, since they can't contribute to wikipedia, the only other option is to uncontribute.
realize an old defense department adage - "friends are much cheaper than enemies."
if wikipedia did not have to spend all the time and energy and resources to combat vandalism, think of what glorious valuable creation could take its place.
"orderized" used below is not a word. it is wikipedia's policy to only use words. —This unsigned comment is by Eelevy (talk • contribs) .
:Troll alert JtkieferT | C | @  ---- 03:05, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Comment

message: I just fixed vandalism that was done on several articles in October of 2005 - the vandal removed all categories from three articles; one was reverted right away, the other two I just restored a few minutes ago. Can we set up the system that automatically reverts page blankings so that it automatically reverts removal of all categories from an article (or at least flags that article to be checked)? bd2412 T 19:42, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  De-cat vandalism 

message: I noticed that vandals may create numerous new accounts continuously while attacking a page.  For example, Electrical engineering, the Featured Article for March 25, 2006, was vandalized in a consistent fashion by at least the following user names, which seem be sockpuppets:
User:One-minus-ten
User:MYCOAL
User:*s IX s IX s IX*
User:=LUKE=
User:B.d. cane
User:Braces anonymous
User:Cant be prong
User:Cats have this many lives (
User:Chaosguru
User:Clear blue style
User:Freepme
User:Higher intellek
User:Hittykitty
User:Kokonuts
User:Kslasher
User:Mambo No. 9
User:Marsbound
User:Mellow Dramamine
User:MYCOAL
User:Newformat
User:No studying for you!
User:No way nueve
User:One-minus-ten
User:Primedieval
User:Pynisbird
User:Raul654 is a good little lapdog
User:Red-E 2 Roll
User:RRRR
User:Times9
User:Ugotsrvd
User:Volupteer
If an account is both 1) created solely for the purpose of vandalism (all posts are acts of vandalism), and 2) a sockpuppet of a vandal (same IP), should the account be deleted from the userspace, like deleted articles? Shawnc 02:09, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think so; see WP:DENY. // Pathoschild (admin / talk) 14:18, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sockpuppet accounts of a vandal