DJBWiki:Vandalism

Vandalism is any addition, deletion, or change to content made in a deliberate attempt to reduce the quality of the encyclopedia. The most common type of vandalism is the replacement of existing text with obscenities, page blanking, or the insertion of bad jokes or other nonsense. Fortunately, this kind of vandalism is usually easy to spot.

Any effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism. Apparent bad-faith edits that do not make their bad-faith nature inarguably explicit are not considered vandalism at Wikipedia. For example, adding an opinion once is not vandalism — it's just not helpful, and should be removed or restated.

Committing vandalism is a violation of the Wikipedia policy; it needs to be spotted, and then dealt with — if you cannot deal with it yourself, you can seek help from others.

Not all vandalism is blatant, nor are all massive or controversial changes vandalism: Careful attention needs to be given to whether the new data or information is right or whether it is vandalism.

Dealing with vandalism

If you see vandalism (as defined below), revert it and leave a warning message on the vandal's talk page using the system below. Check the page history after reverting to make sure you have removed all the vandalism; there may be multiple vandal edits, sometimes from several different IPs. Also, check the vandal's other contributions — you will often find more malicious edits.

Types of vandalism

These are the most common forms of vandalism on Wikipedia:

Blanking: Removing all or significant parts of articles (sometimes replacing the removed content with profanities) is a common vandal edit.
Spam: Adding inappropriate external links for advertisement and/or self-promotion.
VandalBot: A script or "robot" that attempts to vandalize or spam massive numbers of articles (hundreds or thousands), blanking, or adding commercial links. Another type of VandalBot appears to log on repeatedly with multiple random names to vandalize an article.
Childish vandalism: Adding graffiti or blanking pages. (The female cyclist vandal is an example of this type.) Note that this page, itself, has been repeatedly blank page vandalized since June 11, 2005.
Silly vandalism: Users will sometimes create joke articles or replace existing articles with plausible-sounding nonsense, or add silly jokes to existing articles (this includes Mr. Pelican Shit.) A better place for content that is intentionally of a joking or nonsensical nature is the Uncyclopedia or WP:BJAODN.
Sneaky vandalism: Vandalism which is harder to spot. Adding misinformation, changing dates or making other sensible-appearing substitutions and typos (e.g. [1] which was reverted because the source material is easily available).
Attention-seeking vandalism: Adding insults, using offensive usernames, replacing articles with jokes etc. (see also Wikipedia:No personal attacks)
User page vandalism: Replacing User pages with insults, profanity, etc. Wikipedia:Protected Userpage is a proposed policy set to resolve this.(see also Wikipedia:No personal attacks)
Image vandalism: Uploading provocative images, inserting political messages, making malicious animated GIFs, etc. Repeatedly uploading images with no source and/or license information after notification that such information is required may also constitute vandalism.
Abuse of tags: Bad-faith placing of {{afd}} or speedy-deletion tags on articles that do not meet such criteria, or deceptively placing protected-page tags on articles.
Template vandalism: Any vandalism to templates.
Page move vandalism: Moving pages to offensive or nonsense names. Most infamous example was Willy on Wheels. However, Wikipedia now only allows users with 25 edits or above to make page moves, and the reason must be stated.
Redirect vandalism: Redirecting articles or talk pages to offensive articles or images. One example is the Autofellatio redirect vandal. Some vandals will try to redirect pages to nonsense titles they create this way. This variation is usually performed by vandals whose accounts are too new to move pages. It is also often done on pages that are protected from moves.
Link vandalism: Rewriting links within an article so that they appear the same, but point to something irrelevant or ridiculous (e.g. France).
Avoidant vandalism: Removing {{afd}}, {{copyvio}} and other related tags in order to conceal or avoid entries to risk deletion.
Removing warnings: Removing warnings for vandalism, personal attacks, or disruption from one's talk page is also considered vandalism.
Random character vandalism: Replacing topical information with random characters, or just adding random characters to a page. "aslkdjnsdagkljhasdlkh," for example. Be careful: only in extended cases is this vandalism; it could also potentially be a new user test.
Changing people's comments: Editing signed comments by another user to substantially change their meaning (e.g. turning someone's vote around), except when removing a personal attack (which is somewhat controversial in and of itself). Signifying that a comment is unsigned is an exception. e.g. (unsigned comment from user)

Improper use of dispute tags: Dispute tags are important way for people to show that there are problems with the article. Do not remove them unless you are sure that the dispute is settled. As a general rule, do not remove other people's dispute tags twice during a 24 hour period. Do not place dispute tags improperly, as in when there is no dispute, and the reason for placing the dispute tag is because a suggested edit has failed to meet consensus. Instead, follow WP:CON and accept that some edits will not meet consensus.
Talk page vandalism: Deleting the comments of other users from article Talk pages, or deleting entire sections thereof, is generally considered vandalism. Removing personal attacks is often considered legitimate, and it is considered acceptable to archive an overly long Talk page to a separate file and then remove the text from the main Talk page. The above does not apply to the user's own Talk page, where users generally are permitted to remove and archive comments at their discretion, except in cases of warnings, which they are generally prohibited from removing, especially where the intention of the removal is to mislead other editors.
Official policy vandalism: Deleting or altering part of a Wikipedia official policy with which the vandal disagrees, without any attempt to seek consensus or recognize an existing consensus. Improving or clarifying policy wording in line with the clear existing consensus is not vandalism.
Copyrighted material vandalism: Knowingly using copyrighted material on Wikipedia in ways which violate Wikipedia's copyright policies is vandalism. Because users may be unaware that the information is copyrighted, or of Wikipedia policies on how such material may and may not be used, such action only becomes vandalism if it continues after the copyrighted nature of the material and relevant policy restricting its use have been communicated to the user.
Account creation vandalism: Creating accounts with deliberately offensive terms in the username is considered vandalism, whether the account is used or not. This also includes making accounts with nomenclature similar to usernames of known vandals; Willy on Wheels is the most infamous example.

What vandalism is not

Although sometimes referred to as such, the following things are not vandalism and are therefore treated differently:

New User Test: New users who discover the "Edit this page" button sometimes 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 (e.g. using the test template message) where they can keep making their tests. (Sometimes they will even revert their own changes; in that case, place the message {{selftest}} on their talk page.)
Learning Wiki Markup and Manual of Style: Some users require some time to learn the wiki-based markup, and will spend a little time experimenting with the different ways to make external links, internal links, and other special characters. 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 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.
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've written deleted, moved to the talk page, or substantially rewritten can sometimes feel like vandalism, it should not be confused with vandalism.
Mistakes: Sometimes, users will insert content into an article that is not necessarily accurate, in the belief that it is. By doing so in good faith, they are trying to contribute to the encyclopedia and improve it. If you believe that there is inaccurate information in an article, ensure that it is, and/or discuss its factuality with the user who has submitted it.
Bullying or Stubbornness: 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.
Harassing or Making Personal Attacks: We have a clear policy on Wikipedia of no personal attacks, and harassing other contributors is not allowed. Some forms of harassment are also clear cases of vandalism, such as home page vandalism. However, harassment is not in general vandalism.

How to spot vandalism

The best way to detect vandalism is through recent changes patrolling. Once you've found it, revert the page to an earlier version.