Wikipedia:Vandalism
Vandalism |
Dealing with vandalism |
Obvious vandalism (WP:AIV) |
Tools |
#vandalism-en-wp IRC channel |
Resources and assistance |
Further information |
Most vandalized pages |
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This page is about vandalism to Wikipedia. For vandalism outside Wikipedia, see vandalism.
Vandalism is any addition, deletion, or change to content made in a deliberate attempt to reduce the quality of the encyclopedia. The most common type of vandalism is the replacement of existing text with obscenities, page blanking, or the insertion of bad jokes or other nonsense. Fortunately, this kind of vandalism is usually easy to spot.
Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism. Apparent bad-faith edits that do not make their bad-faith nature inarguably explicit are not considered vandalism at Wikipedia. For example, adding an opinion once is not vandalism — it's just not helpful, and should be removed or restated.
Committing vandalism is a violation of Wikipedia policy; it needs to be spotted, and then dealt with — if you cannot deal with it yourself, you can seek help from others.
A 2002 study by IBM found that most vandalism on the English Wikipedia is reverted within five minutes (see official results); however, vandals persist as a problem for all users, and it is a good idea when editing an article to check its recent history to see if recent vandalism has gone unnoticed — even if the last update was more than five minutes prior.
Not all vandalism is blatant, nor are all massive or controversial changes vandalism: Careful attention needs to be given to whether the new data or information is right or whether it is vandalism.
Contents |
Dealing with vandalism
Edits that blank all or part of a biography of a living person are usually not vandalism but are instead an effort by the subject of the article to remove inaccurate or biased material. Even when such edits are inappropriate, they should be treated as content disputes, not vandalism. In particular, vandalism warning messages should not be left on the talk page of the editor.
If you see vandalism (as defined below), revert it and leave a warning message on the vandal's talk page using the system below. Check the page history after reverting to make sure you have removed all the vandalism; there may be multiple vandal edits, sometimes from several different IPs. Also, check the vandal's other contributions — you will often find more malicious edits.
Warning templates
Note that these templates need not be used sequentially. If the edit is clearly vandalism, consider using {{blatantvandal}} or starting with {{test2}}. For continuing severe vandalism, {{test3}} may be skipped and a {{test4}} given straight after a test2. If, however, you are not sure that the edit is vandalism, always start with {{test}}. For extreme or extensive cases of vandalism committed by users with who have received no prior warnings, {{test4im}} may be used. The ~~~~ in the templates below cause the time and your signature to be added to the warning.
- {{subst:test}} ~~~~ (use if an edit appears to have possibly not been an intentional act of vandalism)
- Thank you for experimenting with Wikipedia. Your test worked, and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia.
- {{subst:blatantvandal}} or {{subst:testblatant}} or {{subst:bv}}~~~~ (use if an edit is clearly vandalism)
- Welcome to Wikipedia. We invite everyone to contribute constructively to our encyclopedia. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing. However, unconstructive edits are considered vandalism, and if you continue in this manner you may be blocked from editing without further warning. Please stop, and consider improving rather than damaging the hard work of others. Thank you.
- {{subst:test2}} ~~~~
- Please do not add nonsense to Wikipedia. It is considered vandalism. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. Thank you.
- {{subst:test2a}} ~~~~ (a variant suitable for vandalism that consists of blanking text)
- Please do not remove content from Wikipedia; it is considered vandalism. If you want to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you.
- {{subst:test3}} ~~~~
- Please stop. If you continue to vandalize pages, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia.
- {{subst:test4}} ~~~~
- This is your last warning. The next time you vandalize a page, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia.
- {{subst:test4im}} ~~~~ (used as a first warning for extreme cases of vandalism)
- This is your only warning. Your recent vandalism has shown you to be intent on doing harm to Wikipedia. The next time you vandalize a page, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia.
Alternatively, you can use:
- {{subst:test-n|PageName}} ~~~~
- {{subst:blatantvandal-n|PageName}} ~~~~
- {{subst:test2-n|PageName}} ~~~~
- {{subst:test2a-n|PageName}} ~~~~
- {{subst:test3-n|PageName}} ~~~~
- {{subst:test4-n|PageName}} ~~~~
- {{subst:test4im-n|PageName}} ~~~~
to explicitly state which articles were vandalized (suffix -n stands for named) and to add your signature. For example:
- {{subst:test-n|France}}
- Thanks for experimenting with the page France on Wikipedia. Your test worked, and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Thanks.
The "subst" causes the template text to be pasted into the talk page as if you had typed it out, instead of leaving {{subst:test}} visible when editing the page. This makes the messages more personal to the user, and thus, more friendly. Also, if someone vandalizes the template, then the vandalism will not affect every page that uses the text from the template.
If the vandal strikes again, list them at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism. The blocking admin leaves this on the vandal's talk page:
- {{subst:blocked}} ~~~~
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You have been temporarily blocked from editing for vandalism of Wikipedia. If you wish to make useful contributions, you may do so after the block expires.
Remember to sign and timestamp your warnings by leaving four tildes (like this: ~~~~).
Trace IP Address
Also, consider tracing the IP address. Find owners by using:
- ARIN (North America)
- RIPE (Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia)
- APNIC (Asia Pacific)
- LACNIC (Latin American and Caribbean)
- AfriNIC (Africa)
(If an address is not in one, it will probably be in another registry.) Then add {{vandalip|Name of owner}} to the talk pages of users who vandalize.
If the IP address continues to vandalise and is registered to a school or other kind of responsive ISP, consider listing it on Wikipedia:Abuse reports. Follow the instructions there and read the guide to see if it applies. If it does, list it.
Types of vandalism
These are the most common forms of vandalism on Wikipedia:
- Blanking
- Removing all or significant parts of articles (sometimes replacing the removed content with profanities) is a common vandal edit.
- Spam
- Adding inappropriate external links for advertisement and/or self-promotion.
- VandalBot
- A script or "robot" that attempts to vandalize or spam massive numbers of articles (hundreds or thousands), blanking, or adding commercial links. Another type of VandalBot appears to log on repeatedly with multiple random names to vandalize an article.
- Childish vandalism
- Adding graffiti or blanking pages. (The female cyclist vandal is an example of this type.) Note that this page, itself, has been repeatedly blank page vandalized since June 11, 2005.
- Silly vandalism
- Users will sometimes create joke articles or replace existing articles with plausible-sounding nonsense, or add silly jokes to existing articles (this includes Mr Pelican Shit. A better place for content that is intentionally of a joking or nonsensical nature is the Uncyclopedia or WP:BJAODN.
- Sneaky vandalism
- Vandalism which is harder to spot. Adding misinformation, changing dates or making other sensible-appearing substitutions and typos (e.g. [1] which was reverted because the source material is easily available).
- Attention-seeking vandalism
- Adding insults, using offensive usernames, replacing articles with jokes etc. (see also Wikipedia:No personal attacks)
- User page vandalism
- Replacing User pages with insults, profanity, etc. Wikipedia:Protected Userpage is a proposed policy set to resolve this.(see also Wikipedia:No personal attacks)
- Image vandalism
- Uploading provocative images, inserting political messages, making malicious animated GIFs, etc. Repeatedly uploading images with no source and/or license information after notification that such information is required may also constitute vandalism.
- Abuse of tags
- Bad-faith placing of {{afd}} or speedy-deletion tags on articles that do not meet such criteria, or deceptively placing protected-page tags on articles.
- Template vandalism
- Any vandalism to templates.
- Page move vandalism
- Moving pages to offensive or nonsense names. The most infamous example was Willy on Wheels. However, Wikipedia now only allows users with 25 edits or above to make page moves, and the reason must be stated.
- Redirect vandalism
- Redirecting articles or talk pages to offensive articles or images. One example is the Autofellatio redirect vandal. Some vandals will try to redirect pages to nonsense titles they create this way. This variation is usually performed by vandals whose accounts are too new to move pages. It is also often done on pages that are protected from moves.
- Link vandalism
- Rewriting links within an article so that they appear the same, but point to something irrelevant or ridiculous (e.g. France).
- Avoidant vandalism
- Removing {{afd}}, {{copyvio}} and other related tags in order to conceal or avoid entries to risk deletion.
- Removing warnings
- Removing warnings for vandalism or other issues from one's talk page may also be considered vandalism.
- Random character vandalism
- Replacing topical information with random characters, or just adding random characters to a page. "aslkdjnsdagkljhasdlkh," for example. Be careful: only in extended cases is this vandalism; it could also potentially be a new user test.
- Changing people's comments
- Editing signed comments by another user to substantially change their meaning (e.g. turning someone's vote around), except when removing a personal attack (which is somewhat controversial in and of itself). Signifying that a comment is unsigned is an exception. e.g. (unsigned comment from user)