User:Jade Harley/Training/Das Ansehnlisch/Lesson01

Fighting Vandalism

See also: Wikipedia:Vandalism

What is Vandalism?

Vandalism is the malicious removal, insertion, and/or replacement of content in an article. Vandals are typically people with no life, hate the topic, trying to (very misguidedly) point out the flaws in Wikipedia, or are simply being trolls. Examples include, but are not limited to, this, this, this, this, and this

How to Fight Vandalism

There are many ways to fight vandalism. The following lists a few useful tools.

• WP:UNDO - The "Undo" button is the most basic form of fighting vandalism. It can take a few moments to load, and is the slowest form of reverting vandalism. The advantage in using the undo button is that you are able to 100% use your own edit summary (just get rid of the code if you need more space or just don't want the summary to say "Undid revision by X".
• WP:TW - Twinkle is a much more efficient method of fighting vandalism. There are three main settings for reverting content using Twinkle:
  • Rollback (AGF) marks the edit being reverted as made in good faith. This allows you to set a custom edit summary.
  • Rollback is the regular version of Twinkle's reversion feature. It allows you to set a custom edit summary.
  • Rollback (VANDAL) marks the edit being reverted as deliberate vandalism. Unlike the other two Twinkle reversion settings, this version does not allow you to set a custom edit summary.
• You can enable Twinkle by either 1) going to your preferences and checking the box for Twinkle in the Gadget menu or 2) copying

importScript('User:AzaToth/twinkle.js');

into your monobook.js. For more information, see WP:TWINKLE.

• WP:RBK - Rollback is a tool that allows you to revert vandalism with a single click of the mouse. However, it is a powerful tool, and must be used with discretion. You don't want to end up reverting good edits. It can be tested by new users to the tool at WP:NAS/R. You can request to be granted the rollback tool at Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Rollback, but be aware that without sufficient vandal-fighting experience, you will likely not be granted the tool. Also, don't ask for it more than once in the same day (or week). I made that mistake the second on my second try and suffered severe humiliation (and mutilation) from a couple admins.
• WP:HG - Huggle is one of the most efficient methods of fighting vandalism on all of Wikipedia. An interface individual from that of Wikipedia, Huggle reverts and warns in a single click of the mouse. You will need the rollback user right if you are to be able to download Huggle. Huggle is a very powerful tool, so use it with great caution.

Vandal Hunting

If you intend to actively revert vandalism, the best way is to go to the recent changes page and check the diffs. As for "passive" hunting, it would simply be checking the diffs on your watchlist.

Warning Vandals

There are four different stages of warnings:

• General Note (or Level 1) - Assumes good faith. Generally includes "Welcome to Wikipedia" or some variant.
• Caution (or Level 2) – No faith assumption; just a warning
• Warning (or Level 3) – Assumes bad faith; cease and desist
• Final Warning (or Level 4) – Assumes bad faith; strong cease and desist, last warning
• Only Warning (or Level 4im) – Assumes bad faith; very strong cease and desist, first and only warning; I would not recommend using this unless it is for an IP repeat offender. For registered vandals, I would just report them to WP:AIV (which you can do on the spot if you're using Twinkle).

For a list of the various warning templates, see WP:WARN.

If you have Twinkle switched on, you won't really need to jump to that page every time you need to warn someone; just go to the user's talk page and click on the "warn" tab on the top of the page.

When Not to Warn

See also: Wikipedia:Deny recognition

Sometimes, for certain repeat offenders, it is best to simply revert and act like it never happened. This is especially true for sock puppeteers and IP hoppers. This is what was done for a certain IP hopping vandal. In accordance with WP:DENY, I will not specify the incident. What this vandal did was to stick the same nonsensical info (sometimes by altering an entire section) in the same group of articles as well as in non-related articles. After being warned and blocked countless times, this guy started jumping from one IP to another, never using the same one twice. After a while, everyone silently decided to just revert the edits and forget the user even exists. After seeing that no one's paying attention anymore, the guy finally stopped vandalizing altogether.

However, I would recommend that you warn every vandal you catch and only use this method when dealing with people who vandalize for attention. This is because there's no way to tell what kind of vandal people are (unless they brazenly say it, though this is a very rare occurence) and most vandals are simply people who don't understand Wikipedia policy and need the warnings to set them straight.

Good Faith Edits

While hunting vandals, take care that you differentiate between true vandalism and good faith edits. Good faith edits may appear to be vandalism at first glance, whether it's because of very inappropriate tone or simply very sloppy editing. One such example is this one. Good faith edits do not usually warrant a warning so don't drop any unless it is absolutely necessary. If you have rollback rights, do not use the rollback button unless you are positive it is true vandalism. If it's a good faith edit or if you're simply not sure, use Twinkle or the Undo button instead.

Conclusion

So there you have it, everything you need to know about fighting vandals. If you really want to get serious, I would recommend that you request for rollback rights after at least a week (though you could request earlier if you wish) of devout (and prudent) vandal-fighting. Of course, you don't have to spend 100% of your time fighting vandalism (even if you are trying to get rollback rights); you could spend part of your time patrolling recent changes and another part doing regular edits to articles. You can also watchlist Wikipedia's most vandalized pages and check on them every so often from there. Happy hunting. =)

P.S. As soon as you're done reading this page, please drop me a line on my talk page and let me know whether understand everything or still have some questions. Once everything's cleared up, I will send out you on your first assignment.