How does a sysop determine the IP of a registered user for IP-blocking of vandalism? --Zippy 05:53, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

He/she doesn't. Only a developer can do that. -- Someone else 05:54, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

From the Village pump

move to wikipedia:dealing with vandalism

Folks, what's our policy on "telling tales" (I can't think of a better term) on our misguided schoolkid vandals? Just as an example, I was looking at (porn-link) vandalism done my someone at IP [http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=205.174.111.220 205.174.111.220 ], which resolves to a Pennsylvanian school district, and already reverted by the dedicated User:Ahoerstemeier :). Do we have a policy of sending the net admin for such an address a (hopefully mild) nastygram, or do we just let it lie? If we do, can someone point me to the policy page, and if we don't - should we? (In the latter case, I'd gladly draft a gentle nastygram for communal approval). Finlay McWalter 21:33, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I just ignore such things the first time or two in my own place, elsewhere, and advise other community managers to do the same. It's not worth the time. Just a distraction from building an encyclopedia until there is a pattern of abuse from a place. JamesDay 22:43, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

If you desire to notify an ISP that one of their users has breached the ISP's terms of service, then you are welcome to do so. wikipedia:dealing with vandalism neither encourages nor discourages such actions. Martin 22:44, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I doubt that it would be necessary in this case - after the user got his warning on the talk page and continued his vandalism I simple blocked his IP, so he could not do any more harm. Most vandals will not come back once they see that their graffiti get reverted or their IP being blocked, there are only very few who do it again and again - like our infamous User:Michael. For those the nastygram would be necessary. andy 08:15, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)

"These blocks should last for a maximum of one month" -- Isn't it one day only? (See Wikipedia:Bans_and_blocks#Effects of being blocked) --Menchi (Talk)â 11:00, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

"block the IPs of persistent vandals." -- How persistent? I may be mistaken, but it seems like sometimes vandals are blocked after 5 attempts. Which is admittedly very annoying already, and potentially damaging. --Menchi (Talk)â 11:00, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

What do you mean? 5 attempts at vandalism or returns five times? Dysprosia 11:02, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I guess 5 attempts. Is there a difference (in result)? --Menchi (Talk)â 11:05, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

5 attempts is no good, but I have a systematic warning "system" that I use in dealing with vandalism. In the end, if they make 5 reverted vandal edits but are warned and convinced to stop then that is a better thing that them being blocked after two or three, in my mind. Dysprosia 11:07, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

1. "No good"? That we blocked them only after 5 times, or that they vandalized already 5 times?
2. I'm not sure what you mean by "returns five times".

--Menchi (Talk)â 11:12, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

5 attempts at vandalism is no good! :) The difference, I mean, that a vandal say, (speaking no names, of course) vandalizes 5 user pages - as opposed to a vandal doing some vandalism, is blocked, returns, is blocked... five times. Dysprosia 11:14, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I see, so the latter are the obssessive MIC-type vandals. --Menchi (Talk)â 11:22, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I don't understand why we don't all need to register before making edits. I'm sure this possibility has been discussed. Can someone direct me? (I've inadvertently edited while unregistered myself.) Is this a 'freedom' issue? Wetman 11:18, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

This has already undergone lots of discussion. I don't like the idea, myself, because of the freedom issue. I remember someone saying something along the lines of..then the vandals just sign up and vandalize while signed in... Dysprosia 11:20, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

See Village Pump#Anonymous edits & also the List (if you can find in the morass). We need a meta-page for this. --Menchi (Talk)â 11:22, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

(from the village pump)

If a vandal disrupts a page and you revert it, and the vandal reverts your revert, have restraint and do not revert immediately. The vandal is trying to start a revert war. Do not take the bait. Leave the vandal hanging. Go back in an few hours and THEN revert. It is unlikely that the vandal will still be around.

More times than not, this strategy works. And you can spend your time editing things you want, rather than having your time sucked into a revert war. Kingturtle 06:15, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Of course this leaves inaccurate or obscene information in the Wikipedia for a few hours. You could also try listing the vandal on Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress and having an administrator ban them. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 07:50, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

How should one deal with bully editing that involves moving articles? The moving of an article can certainly be achieved by bold editing, but in the case where there is a discussion on the subject one ought to await taking action until consensus has been achieved. Moving ahead of consensus or even being unwilling to take part in a discussion would be considered bully editing, and as such a form of vandalism. Ordinarily, vandalism of an article can simply be reverted. Cut and paste moves are simply a variant of this, but the "Move this page" function may not allow such a move to be reverted if the originating page has been edited. I have recently been made an administrator and I'm looking for some advice on being able to use these powers for resolution without inadvertly setting a move war in motion. -- Mic 11:38, Mar 25, 2004 (UTC)

A study by IBM found that most Wikipedia vandalism is reverted within five minutes.

Is that a joke? Or was there an actual study (why by IBM?)? Please explain. Paranoid 19:33, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

The original reference seems to be [1] which is a 404. I could also find [2] and [3] which mention how quick it is, but do not say anything about five minutes. Maybe the references should be added to this and other places in Wikipedia where the study is mentioned (I've already seen at least two more) cesarb 17:56, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Is there a way to remove Vandalism from the edit history. My impression is that the general response to Vandalism is to just revert the edit, but I recently noticed a problem where the vandal also included the offensive text in the Edit Summary so that it continues to show up in the edit history. You can see an example on the page history for Ridley Scott or [4] --- Solipsist 06:52, 22 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

there should be some way to effectively delete a change -- rolling back to the previous version, and replacing the preceding edit-version with a note "<timestamp> edit by <user1> deleted by <user2>"; the deleted edits could be stored in a deleted-edits table for 90 days (or forever), but not shown to the average reader. +sj+ 08:52, 2004 May 22 (UTC)

Wouldn't this allow people to vandalize by completely eliminating content by removing it and making it unrevertable? - RealGrouchy 01:17, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This will be possible to remove with the new software to be uploaded this weekend (that is, Real[ly] Soon Now) - sysops can import an entire article history using Special:Import (or something) which takes the same output as Special:Export (the XML output that Yahoo wanted from us, IIRC). Obviously this system will be ripe for abuse (but we trust our sysops, don't we? ;-))...

HTH.

James F. (talk) 10:50, 22 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

A minor correction: Special:Export has been around longer than the Yahoo-related thing - unless they're going to change the format, that is, and annoy the Wikinfo folks, who've had an importer for some time (come to think, maybe that's not such a bad idea ;-)) - IMSoP 20:39, 22 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Special:Import is not ready yet. Angela. 20:16, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

There is another type of vandalism that isn't covered in this article, namely self-promotional vandalism. This would include unnecessary links to sites to try to increase traffic to them, or to influence Page rank. I think that the nigritude ultramarine contest guys would fall under that category as well. - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 21:40, Jun 4, 2004 (UTC)

Does removing vandalism count as a minor edit?

- RealGrouchy 01:14, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I removed Trolls from the vandalism section. Whatever one thinks about it, it is not useful to confuse the two things. Mark Richards 15:41, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

There is no confusion. Trolling is vandalism. - Hephaestos|§ 15:43, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

No, it isn't Heph. Trying to cross define everything you don't like so that distinction cannot be made is not helpful. Vandals deliberately damage content, trolls try to provoke a reaction, the two are different. Mark Richards 15:45, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Trolls try to provoke a reaction by deliberately damaging content. The ends are inconsequential. - Hephaestos|§ 15:46, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

That's simply not true. A user could troll without ever touching the content. Mark Richards 15:48, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

How? - Hephaestos|§ 15:49, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Well, for example, by blanking other people's user pages, or taunting them on their talk page. Mark Richards 15:52, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

That's all content. - Hephaestos|§ 15:54, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Not in any meaningful sense. You userpage is not part of the encyclopedia content. Look, the bottom line is that there is a useful distinction between someone who replaces a page with "YOU ARE GAY" and a user who makes a controversial edit that could be reasonable, but is designed to produce heated debate (like listing George Bush on the list of alcoholics). The two are not the same, and we need to keep the two terms meaningful. Mark Richards 15:56, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The end result is the same, which is to say the degradation of the quality of the material. There is no reason a distinction should be made. - Hephaestos|§ 16:02, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

No, the end result is not the same, there is no debate over the first, and considerable over the second. As you know, the poll on this issue has not reached concensus, whereas there is concnesus on vandals. The two are not the same and you are trying to push trolling into the category of vandalism because you can't get people to agree on allowing you to ban people you call trolls. It's not a good idea, because you confuse the terminology. Mark Richards 16:04, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

"Vandalism is indisputable bad-faith addition, deletion, or change to content, made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia." That's not terribly ambiguous, and I didn't write it. - Hephaestos|§ 16:10, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Well, if someone makes a good edit, in bad faith, is that vandalism? Compromise the encyclopedia? In whose opinion? Vandals are clear, and trolls are not vandals (at least, not always, some trolls vandalise as well as troll, of course). Mark Richards 16:12, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)