User:Seb26/Archive/Vandalism

Intro

Why?
The reasons as to why people vandalise can generally be put into four categories, ranging from harmless to serious.


 * Test edits
 * Defaming topics or people
 * Deliberate intent to harm Wikipedia


 * Following is going off-topic and should be moved elsewhere


 * Simple test edits; edits like "hello world" or "1234" in the middle of a sentence are test edits and should not be classed as anything else. Sometimes edits may be something like "pokemon sux" or "john is gay and is a loser", and these are definitely vandalism, and should be reverted as such (see "Dealing with it" below).


 * Page blanking and other defamation; page blanking, replacing the page with offensive terms or, again, "[particular person or topic] is stupid" is no doubt vandalism. This sort of vandalism should be caught fast, and usually is by the automated edit summary seen in Recent changes.


 * Changing of facts without references;


 * More serious types; this includes moving pages to obscene titles, replacing images with other (offensive) irrelevant images, and similar vandalism. This sort of vandalism is not rare but does not occur every day like other types, but being more serious, should be dealt with carefully and quickly. (See "More extreme types" for more information).

Vandalism as it occurs

 * Perhaps merge from above?

Dealing with it
The way to deal with vandalism is simply to remove it, by reverting it. More...

Tools to help with the job

 * Twinkle
 * Popups
 * WP:RFR

Persistent vandals

 * WP:AIV

Long term vandalism

 * WP:LTA

Looking for vandalism

 * Special:Shortpages – often to find blanked content
 * Special:Longpages – to find pages replaced with the same content over and over
 * Recent changes
 * Highly vandalised pages

Anti-vandalism bots

 * ClueBot, VoABot

More extreme types

 * Page move vandalism


 * Template vandalism

Vandals are not celebrities


Vandals are not celebrities, nor should they be treated as such.