Wikipedia talk:Dealing with vandalism

message: How does a sysop determine the IP of a registered user for IP-blocking of vandalism? --Zippy 05:53, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

message: move to wikipedia:dealing with vandalism
Folks, what's our policy on "telling tales" (I can't think of a better term) on our misguided schoolkid vandals?  Just as an example, I was looking at (porn-link) vandalism done my someone at IP [http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=205.174.111.220 205.174.111.220
], which resolves to a Pennsylvanian  school district, and already reverted by the dedicated User:Ahoerstemeier :).  Do we have a policy of sending the net admin for such an address a (hopefully mild) nastygram, or do we just let it lie?  If we do, can someone point me to the policy page, and if we don't - should we?  (In the latter case, I'd gladly draft a gentle nastygram for communal approval).
Finlay McWalter 21:33, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: I just ignore such things the first time or two in my own place, elsewhere, and advise other community managers to do the same. It's not worth the time. Just a distraction from building an encyclopedia until there is a pattern of abuse from a place. JamesDay 22:43, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)
replies: text:  If you desire to notify an ISP that one of their users has breached the ISP's terms of service, then you are welcome to do so. wikipedia:dealing with vandalism neither encourages nor discourages such actions. Martin 22:44, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

text: I doubt that it would be necessary in this case - after the user got his warning on the talk page and continued his vandalism I simple blocked his IP, so he could not do any more harm. Most vandals will not come back once they see that their graffiti get reverted or their IP being blocked, there are only very few who do it again and again - like our infamous User:Michael. For those the nastygram would be necessary. andy 08:15, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  telling-tales on vandals ? 

message: I don't understand why we don't all need to register before making edits. I'm sure this possibility has been discussed. Can someone direct me?  (I've inadvertently edited while unregistered myself.) Is this a 'freedom' issue? Wetman 11:18, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: This has already undergone lots of discussion. I don't like the idea, myself, because of the freedom issue. I remember someone saying something along the lines of..then the vandals just sign up and vandalize while signed in... Dysprosia 11:20, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

text: See Wikipedia:Village Pump#Anonymous edits & also the List (if you can find in the morass). We need a meta-page for this. --Menchi (Talk)â 11:22, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Logging in to deter casual vandalism

message: (from the village pump)
If a vandal disrupts a page and you revert it, and the vandal reverts your revert, have restraint and do not revert immediately. The vandal is trying to start a revert war. Do not take the bait. Leave the vandal hanging. Go back in an few hours and THEN revert. It is unlikely that the vandal will still be around. 
More times than not, this strategy works. And you can spend your time editing things you want, rather than having your time sucked into a revert war. Kingturtle 06:15, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course this leaves inaccurate or obscene information in the Wikipedia for a few hours. You could also try listing the vandal on Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress and having an administrator ban them. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 07:50, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  some helpful advice about vandals 

message: How should one deal with bully editing that involves moving articles? The moving of an article can certainly be achieved by bold editing, but in the case where there is a discussion on the subject one ought to await taking action until consensus has been achieved. Moving ahead of consensus or even being unwilling to take part in a discussion would be considered bully editing, and as such a form of vandalism. Ordinarily, vandalism of an article can simply be reverted. Cut and paste moves are simply a variant of this, but the "Move this page" function may not allow such a move to be reverted if the originating page has been edited. I have recently been made an administrator and I'm looking for some advice on being able to use these powers for resolution without inadvertly setting a move war in motion. -- Mic 11:38, Mar 25, 2004 (UTC)
----
A study by IBM found that most Wikipedia vandalism is reverted within five minutes.
:Is that a joke? Or was there an actual study (why by IBM?)? Please explain. Paranoid 19:33, 29 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The original reference seems to be  which is a 404. I could also find  and  which mention how quick it is, but do not say anything about five minutes. Maybe the references should be added to this and other places in Wikipedia where the study is mentioned (I've already seen at least two more) cesarb 17:56, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I've managed to find a link to this PDF: http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~fviegas/papers/history_flow.pdf which seems to be from IBM and talks about this sort of thing. I got it from the talk page in this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Counter-Vandalism_Unit/Vandalism_studies/Study1 I think that this is the paper that everyone's talking about. I couldn't find anything about 5 minutes, but there's still good stuff there. As someone who spent a lot of time looking for this report and only getting 404s, I hope this helps somebody.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.70.28.32 (talk) 22:53, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dealing with bully editing 

message: Does removing vandalism count as a minor edit?
- RealGrouchy 01:14, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Minor/major edits 

message: I removed Trolls from the vandalism section. Whatever one thinks about it, it is not useful to confuse the two things. Mark Richards 15:41, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it isn't Heph. Trying to cross define everything you don't like so that distinction cannot be made is not helpful. Vandals deliberately damage content, trolls try to provoke a reaction, the two are different. Mark Richards 15:45, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: That's simply not true. A user could troll without ever touching the content. Mark Richards 15:48, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: How? - Hephaestos|§ 15:49, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: That's all content. - Hephaestos|§ 15:54, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: Some folks may troll because they hope to indirectly benefit the content (eg trolling -> get rid of a troublesome and flameprone contributor -> improve the content). Also, trolling is often quite subtle and arguable - people debate whether someone is actually a troll, or just misunderstood - whereas vandalism is typically much more obvious. Martin 17:47, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Trolls

message: is there a template for vandals, like the one for tests?  place the code prominently please. -  Omegatron 19:44, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)
:The test templates are vandalism templates.  The only way we can tell the difference between tests and vandalism is persistence.  Thus the first two assume tests, and then they start to discuss and define the idea of vandalism, and that vandalism is considered a problem. moink 04:35, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  template 

message: The link to Google Watch brings you to some irrelevant rant about how evil Google is, and has nothing at all to do with IP addresses. Since I couldn't find evidence that a vandal had put it there, though, I figure it was merely out-of-date. I replaced it with a link to ARIN's Whois.  — Asbestos | Talk 15:13, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Google Watch

message: I think we should suggest that whenever you revert vandalism, you add something to the user's talk page. This makes it easy to identify repeat offenders at a glance by providing a record past vandalism on the talk page. – flamurai (t) 11:47, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)
:And it also explains to the user what's going on.  Isn't this already a guideline?  moink 04:24, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Warnings on talk pages 

message: I'm sure it has been discussed before, but after going through the Recent Changes page, I'm beginning to see that the 'majority' (probably close to 95%) of vandalism occurs with non-registered users. While it 'may' reduce the amount of legitimate edits done to articles, it certainly will have a deterrent effect for a lot of vandals. Also, those who edit anonymously will most likely register if they feel they really do have something meaningful to add to an article. -- MacAddct1984 15:39, May 21, 2005 (UTC)
:Yes it has been discussed before, but I don't think it really has been for quite a while. I think when Wikipedia was young and unproven we needed the open editing policy to attract people to the project. Now we get so much attention that is not as important. If the edit this page redirected to a create a login, I don't think it would be a significant impediment to anyone. It's not like creating a user name is giving up any private information. All it does is collect the edits of a given person in a way that makes it easier to assess their trustworthiness. I believe Jimbo is very attached to the open editing policy, and that it probably won't change anytime soon. But I don't think it makes a lot of sense anymore. Vandalism would be nearly eliminated if there was no anonymous editing. The vandal fighting procedures we have would make it so easy to block those that did decide to create a username and vandalize. - Taxman 16:39, May 21, 2005 (UTC)
::Why wouldn't it just drive up the number of sock puppets?  Blocks really aren't really effective against a registered user who is willing to re-register. At best, you might eliminate the laziest vandals, but they're not the real problem. Mwanner 17:43, May 21, 2005 (UTC)
:::I don't know the numbers, but just from experience over 50% of vandalism is people doing it just because it is easy. "Really? I can edit this page? Cool, let me put some naughty words or other idiocy in there then." I'll bet it's even higher than 50%--I really think most vandalism isn't from truly persistent vandals. The persistent we can't entirely prevent, just mitigate, but we'd cut down on a lot of the rest if people had to register. - Taxman 14:57, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
::::That first type of edits you describe isn't vandalism. They are test-edits and are now a large percentage of later good wikipedians make their first baby steps here. It really is surprising to many that everyone can edit here, and some don't believe it before they see it. Calling all those edits vandalism (especially on their talk page as their first-ever contact witrh the community (not saying that you do)) is rude. I've come across newbies who didn't even belive that the edits they made were visible for others than them selves and were surprised by someone else noticing them. Later many of these people become good wikipedians. If it weren't for the easy access to their virgin edit, many of them wouldn't have. And so I am strongly against making it harder for people to edit here, having to clean up after a few of them is a small price to pay for geting more people to join the project. Shanes 15:42, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Only Allow Registered Users to Edit? 

message: I've protected this page since it's linked from some of the vandal warning templates and gets a lot of vandalism without many legitimate edits. Since I imagine this protection will be a fairly long-term affair, and I don't think the protection notice should be on the page itself:

— Dan | Talk 23:18, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)
:I count 9 cases of vandalism the last month. Is that "a lot" now? I don't have any strong objections to this particular page being protected, but I've noticed a trend of us having more and more pages vprotected. Maybe that's just the way a wiki goes, but it's not a good trend. Shanes 23:47, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protected 

message: I recently blocked User:62.253.96.42 for 48 hours due to vandalism (they had been blocked before), and the next day received two emails from other people using this IP wanting the IP to be unblocked. A few days later this IP was blocked again, but later unblocked b/c a registered user was accidentally blocked b/c he was on that IP. Today, I saw that this anon had another vandal-warning. A few of their edits are vandlism, but many are not. This is an NTL IP. Is there a way to deal with the (probably) one person doing the vandalism, without disrupting the other people that may use the IP? Lachatdelarue (talk) 13:19, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dynamic IPs 

message: I think this page should not be a redirect. It is a good guide to those who want to stop vandalism, and if it were not for the fact that this page is one of the rare fully protected pages, I would revert it back to a separate page immediately.
Mathmagic 18:34, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why is This a Redirect?