User talk:JephSullivan

Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~&#126;); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! --HappyCamper 23:30, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
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Wow, it's been a long time since that welcome message - thanks for visiting my talk page! There is a centralized page at WP:AIV which you can use to report vandalism that is happening in the now. Typically, you can apply a final warning if the vandal has previously received a number of warnings within a small time frame. Vandalism from an IP address tends to occur in clusters, which is why this rule of thumb is generally effective. There are lots of subtleties involved with fighting vandalism, but anyone can learn these heuristics with practice. In other words, the "authority" which decides whether a particular warning is appropriate is good judgment. You should be able to justify your actions at the time of taking responsibility for it. Some Wikipedians tend to deal with vandalism with a more minimalistic approach. They will just revert the page quietly and move on, deferring to other people to deal with it. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with either of these approaches - the entire phenomenon of vandalism is complex, and it is to Wikipedia's benefit that there are a diversity of methods for dealing with it. Since the vandalism from the IP address was a few days old, I would have inclined towards the latter approach. However, it is also true that the IP address be on the record for a history of chronic vandalism. This says implicitly that a group of Wikipedians have considered the IP address to be a persistent source of vandalism. I think you were spot on to hesitate with the final warning. Vandalism on Wikipedia tends to be seen as something which should be acted on immediately, and when the opportunity passes, it's good to be a bit more reserved with the warnings if you decide to issue them. I can speak from experience that from the administrative side of things, the degree of immediacy is often the deciding factor for actionability. This is true even for some page protects, blocks, and deletions in response to certain kinds of vandalism! Let me know if this is helpful - if you need anything else, you're always welcome on my talk page. Cheers! --HappyCamper 05:09, 7 June 2007 (UTC)