Wikipedia talk:Vandalism does not matter

=Reactions=
 * Please place critical reactions, support and minor corrections here. Thanks,  Skomorokh ''13:40, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with this essay. The chances of reading a high-profile article and encountering vandalism (particularly blatant vandalism) are small, and there are plenty of other problems that are more deserving of lots of attention. However, template vandalism has the potential to reverse this. It is very easy to vandalise thousands of pages (including high profile ones) simultaneously, and such vandalism will typically survive for several minutes as it requires detailed knowledge to revert. Plenty of people therefore see the vandalism. Long term vandals have started to notice this and Wikipedia is a sitting duck for these tactics (there are about 3000 unprotected templates with more than 500 transclusions, and more than 20000 with more than 50). One other minor point: you don't need to be autoconfirmed to create new pages - you just need an account. Hut 8.5 14:33, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your thoughts, Hut 8.5; I hadn't considered the breath of impact of template vandalism, despite the footnote. I couldn't find a link for the policy on autoconfirmation, do you have a link for the requirements for page creators? Thanks, Skomorokh  15:19, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes: User access levels. Hut 8.5 17:56, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Danke, Skomorokh  18:35, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Complete Disagreement
I totally disagree with the essay. I have dealt with blatant vandalism recently, and it nearly cost me my life to try to get the admins to block them. Deleting the page was easy, but the vandal eventually created over 40 accounts to try to test Wikipedia. I bet I knocked a few years off my life expectancy just to stop the vandal. What's worse, no one offered help. They simply said "I'm not familiar, leave it to someone". Isn't that exactly the line of thought that can destroy us? That is why I totally disagree with the essay. Arbiteroftruth (talk) 06:30, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I think the fact that scripts exist and programs to aid in removing vandalism has progressed fighting it, whereas the typical person who vandals now has not advanced in their methods. Vandalsim matters so long as the tools existing stay ahaead of the current practice. The sad part is as this individual pointed out above alot of time is invested in counter vandalism, not so much time is invested by the casual vandal person. One might argue that fighting vandalism is a hobby and the tools developed simply are a product of this. The concern should be is what happens if vandals make this their hobby like a vandal fighter does, and devote as much time to the effort in vandalizing as an individual does in fighting it?(I wont get into this aspect for now) Anyway in a layman perspective vandalism doesnt matter, but the threat of it is serious and shouldnt be cast aside, we need to continue to stay ahead of them. Ottawa4ever (talk) 23:50, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

=Ideas for development=
 * If you are sympathetic to the perspective voiced in the essay, please add your ideas for developing it here. Thanks,  Skomorokh ''13:40, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Title suggestion
Wikipedia:Ignore all vandalism or WP:IAV. It's, um, cuter. Mike R (talk) 15:35, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Hah. I'm not sure "ignore all vandalism" reflects the sentiment of the essay, but pejorative acronyms are no big deal, personally. Someone might want to write Ignore all vandalism as a parody of this essay; I'd be happy to link to it. Skomorokh  15:47, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Frustration
Overall, I can appreciate the drift of this essay and the concerns it raises (specifically the problems faced by a project run in many respects by people who may become jaded by gazing too long into an abyss). One problem which may need focus: frustration amongst exopedians who find and are not accustomed to dealing with vandalism, and/or the difficulty of maintaining pages while they are subject to heavy amounts of disruptive editing (take the latest sweep of celebrity obituaries or military clashes as examples -- they often wind up semi-protected if editors have trouble dealing with the scale of the problem). Are there better ways to mitigate this? – Luna Santin  (talk) 18:56, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Title could be better
"Vandalism does not matter" is, of course, an attempt to be provocative - to have the essay be noticed, and remembered. But it's not an accurate summary of the essay, which acknowledges the importance of vandal-fighting. Something like "Don't obsess about vandalism" or "Vandalism matters less" or "Preventing vandalism can be wrong" would, I think, be a much better title.

Which isn't to say that I disagree with the thrust of the essay, because I don't. I opposed a recent proposal to increase the auto-confirm requirements to 10 days and 20 edits (up from 4 days and 10 edits) precisely because I thought the benefits (reduced vandalism) were far exceeded by confusion by and hindrance of new editors, particularly the requirement that capthas be responded to for another 6 days, regardless of the number of edits an editor had, whenever adding an external link. (We want information to be footnoted with links; we want editors to cite their sources starting with their very first edit; when we require a captha for good external links, we seriously discourage new editors from adding them.) -- John Broughton  (♫♫) 16:38, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yup, the title is not strictly representative, but drawing attention is more important than strictly representing the argument, particularly as I am misrepresenting myself. An accurate title would be I'm not sure but we seem to be getting better at tackling obvious vandalism, maybe we should start being less worried about it would be an accurate title. The claim that the "title could be better" is only true if there is a better version of the title; I couldn't think of one, and I don't think John's suggestions (with all due respect) are better either. It was inspired by the rhetorical weight of titles like Don't worry about performance and Process is important, which make their points in punchy, direct, memorable phrases. Further suggestions definitely welcome, Skomorokh  17:32, 28 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah, then you mean Don't worry about vandalism, where "worry" means something like "lay awake at night, tossing and turning". -- John Broughton  (♫♫) 19:56, 29 July 2008 (UTC)


 * A little stronger than that. Imagine we are one ethnic community, with a prevailing culture of "we must protect the homeland against the Outlanders at all costs; save our jobs! Save our women! Protect our children!" I would be saying "Outlanders contribute positively by making our homeland more culturally diverse and interesting, by taking low-paying jobs we don't want, and by trading with us for things we need. We have better and better fences for keeping bad Outlanders out, and better guestworker schemes for letting good ones in. Blanket bans on Outlanders getting driver's licenses and citizenship is far more destructive to our homeland than it is beneficial." The spirit here is not "Don't worry about Outlanders", it's "we must urgently rethink the way we treat Outlanders and guard vigilantly against self-destructive outsider-paranoia." If you dig. Vandalism paranoia is destructive could do it, but it ignores the "as vandal-fighting gets easier, it gets less important" subtlety. Perhaps I should split it into two essays: the empirical observation (WP:PARADOX), and the normative implications (WP:TRADEOFF). Skomorokh  20:04, 29 July 2008 (UTC)