User talk:Bgpaulus/ICV

Introduction
I've found what I currently believe is an anonymous IP editor who has persistently and subtly vandalized over 20 articles, all regarding cities or counties in Iowa. The pattern that is emerging is that this editor changes demographic information, subtly adjusting various percentages of White, Black, Asian, and other ethnic groups.

Cedar Falls, Iowa, example
The edits are usually limited to the integer (or "left-of-the-decimal") portion of the percentage. For example, in this 17 June edit to the Cedar Falls, Iowa article, the percentage of Whites was changed from 90.14% to 87.14%, the percentage of Blacks from 3.57% to 4.57%, and so on. In this 18 May edit, this same editor changed the percentages of Whites from 90.14% to 84.14% and Blacks from 3.57% to 6.57% (that earlier edit was reverted by another editor seven minutes later).

Similar vandalizing by
Please note that, according to the |04000US19|16000US1911755&_street=&_county=cedar+falls&_cityTown=cedar+falls&_state=04000US19&_zip=&_lang=en&_sse=on&ActiveGeoDiv=&_useEV=&pctxt=fph&pgsl=160&_submenuId=factsheet_1&ds_name=ACS_2008_3YR_SAFF&_ci_nbr=null&qr_name=null&reg=null:null&_keyword=&_industry= US Census Bureau's web site, the correct figures are 95.1% for Whites and 1.6% for Blacks. A search for "90.14" using the WikiBlame tool reveals that the correct figures were modified in an extremely similar manner four months earlier by. In that 20 January edit, the figures for Whites were changed from 95.14% to 90.14% and Blacks from 1.57% to 4.57%. Waterloomattw has only edited five articles, all about Iowa cities, all on 20 January, and all following the same editing pattern I've described for. I am unable to determine if the two editors are actually the same person, but for practical purposes, I have decided to assume they are and, therefore, have included these edits in my analysis.

List of vandalized articles
The articles which have been vandalized are, in alphabetical order:

Plan of action
Based on what I've seen, I see no reason to assume good faith on any of these edits. I will immediately revert each of the seven articles which have the (top) flag next them. Following that, I'll review the edit history from the last six months for each of the 22 articles and, where necessary, cross-check the vandalized information against the 2000 Census data available on the US Census Bureau's web site.

Request for feedback
I also need advice on what to do about the vandal. Should I report this to WP:AIV, to WP:AN, post warnings to the vandal's talk page, or do something else? I'd like to think that a "uw-error3" or "uw-vandalism4im" or some other appropriately-worded warning would be sufficient to get their attention enough to mend their ways, but I somehow doubt it.

If anyone has any suggestions, as well as comments or questions, please post them here for discussion. Cheers!

Bgpaulus (talk) 21:32, 23 June 2010 (UTC)