Wikipedia talk:Vandalism/68.39.174.238 comments

Further ideas against, and with, vandalisms, AKA Sabotage

Total blanking
To the best of my knowledge, there is no legitimate reason to reduce a page to no text (0 bytes). The smallest legitimate page size seems to be 5 (d, or any other one character link), hence a bot could be made that whould check page edits, and if the new revision was less then 5 printing characters it whould automatically revert with a summary like "Highly suspiscious possible blanking". This whould stop vandalisms like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_States_Constitution&diff=prev&oldid=30541188

Comments
For what its worth, I think this in an excellent idea. &mdash; F REAK OF N URxTURE  ( TALK )  14:53, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
 * And replacing an entire article or section with the word "fuck", for example, would also be automatically rejected, being only 4 letters. &mdash; F REAK OF N URxTURE  ( TALK )  11:28, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
 * One exception that comes to mind is mainspace talk pages. Vandals start these pages with text such as "ZOMG FOOBAR IS SO HOT" and the pages are often blanked rather than speedied due to the fact that it's just minor vandalism. ~ PseudoSudo 09:31, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Disproportionate image use
It should be possible to detect the occurence of in a page change. If a reasonable ratio can be worked out by testing with reverting disabled and observing the diffs, this may be able to block wide accredation of vandals like the infamous penis-tile vandal: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_W._Bush&diff=30559412&oldid=30559384

Comments
Well, first of all, we already have a mechanism for certain "bad images" such as Image:Autofellatio_2.jpg. See MediaWiki:Bad image list. If we can make a "kinda-bad images" list, perhaps we can detect that a penis pic is being added two or more times to the same page, and automatically reject the edit? &mdash; F REAK OF N URxTURE  ( TALK )  11:27, 11 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm thinking of a bot just for excessive overuse of images, however again, it may not be worth it and it would require some fairly extensive calibration 68.39.174.238 19:18, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Initial usrname rejection/screening
Looking @ Username and some of the bad usrnames shows that if there was a MediaWiki:Bad usrnamecontents, some potentially disastrous usrnames could be rejected before creation, saving everyone trouble. This could be done by having a small (RegExp?) list of banned terms (Like "fuck[er(s)/ing(s)//(ed)up]", etc). And a list of suspiscious terms that could be edited more often (Such as "DNA" or "Communis[t/ism])") that would generate a warning similar to the blocked page, but just saying "WARNING! This usraccount name could be suspiscious and may be blocked without warning! The Administrator who set this message explains this as follows: "''A vandal has been attacking with numerious names that all have "DNA" in them.". You may create this usrname if you wish, but be prepaired to explain it to people, and have patience with possible blocks." And an option to "Change usrname" or "Continue anyway".

Suggestions for the lists:

Outright block:


 * "User:"

Warning:


 * "Willy"
 * "Wheel(s)"
 * "Communis[t/ism]"
 * "Wiki[m/p]edia"

Aid to vandal fighting
Due to the recent vandalisms from the United States Federal Legislature, it may be wise for all people who can visit their State Houses to see what IPs they have (If they have public machines), or ask their (more with-it) elected represenatants to do so. And then mark them with sharedip or a more specific template.