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Revision as of 18:41, 12 December 2007 view sourceGscshoyru (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Rollbackers24,512 editsm Reverted 1 edit by Chronos93 identified as vandalism to last revision by Slakr. using TW← Previous edit Revision as of 21:41, 16 December 2007 view source Gazpacho (talk | contribs)14,585 edits ←Replaced page with 'WIKIPEDIANS: YOU ARE NOT CHANGING THE WORLD. WIKIPEDIA IS SHIT. YOU CAN EDIT IT FOR A HUNDRED YEARS AND IT WILL STILL BE SHIT. FIND SOME OTHER USE FOR YOUR LIMIT...'Next edit →
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WIKIPEDIANS:
{| class="messagebox standard-talk" style="text-align:center;"
|style="font-size:130%;"|This is '''''not''''' the place to post notices of vandalism.
|-
|Please go to ], and write a report there.
|}
{{policy|WP:VAN|WP:VAND|WP:VANDAL}}
{{nutshell|Repetitively and intentionally making unconstructive edits to Misplaced Pages will result in a block or permanent ban.}}
{{editabuselinks}}
{| class="infobox" style="background-color: transparent; border: none"
|align="center"|{{WikipediaVandalism}}
|-
|{{policylist}}
|}


YOU ARE NOT CHANGING THE WORLD. WIKIPEDIA IS SHIT. YOU CAN EDIT IT FOR A HUNDRED YEARS AND IT WILL STILL BE SHIT.
'''Vandalism''' is any addition, removal, or change of content made in a ''deliberate'' attempt to compromise the integrity of Misplaced Pages. The most common types of vandalism include the addition of obscenities or crude humor, page blanking, or the insertion of nonsense into articles.


FIND SOME OTHER USE FOR YOUR LIMITED TIME ON EARTH.
Any ] effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is ''not'' vandalism. Even harmful edits that are not explicitly made in bad faith are not considered vandalism. For example, adding a personal opinion to an article once is not vandalism — it's just not helpful, and should be removed or restated. Not all vandalism is obvious, nor are all massive or controversial changes vandalism; careful attention needs to be given to whether changes made are beneficial, detrimental but well intended, or outright vandalism.

Committing blatant vandalism violates Misplaced Pages policy. If you find that another user has vandalized Misplaced Pages, you should revert the changes and warn the user (see below for specific instructions). Users who vandalize Misplaced Pages repeatedly, despite warnings to stop, should be reported to ], and administrators may block them.

==How to respond to vandalism==

If you see vandalism, please do the following:

# Check the article's ] to identify all vandalism edits. Usually, if the most recent edit by a particular user is vandalism, then all recent edits by that user are also vandalism. It is then necessary to revert to the last version before that user started editing.
## For a new article, if all versions of the article are pure vandalism, mark it for ''']''' by tagging it with {{tlx| db-nonsense}}.
## Otherwise, ] the edits. If you are viewing the ] between the current version and the preceding version, you can click "undo" to ] the edit automatically. Otherwise, please explain in the ] that you have reverted vandalism.
# Leave a ] on the user's ''']'''
# Check the vandal's other contributions (click "User contributions" on the left sidebar of the screen).
# If the vandal continues to cause disruption after being warned, please report him or her at ]. An ] will decide whether to ] the vandal.

For repeated vandalism by an anonymous ], it is helpful to take the following additional steps:
# Trace the IP address and add {{tlx|SharedIP|Name of owner}} or {{tlx|SharedIPEDU|Name of owner}} to the user talk page of the address.
# For repetitive anonymous vandalism, particularly where registered to a school or other kind of responsive ], consider listing it on ].

==How not to respond to vandalism==

# ]
# Do not nominate an ] because it is being vandalized. That's like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and simply empowers vandals further.

==Warnings==
{{WarningsSmall|align=right}}

''Note: Do '''not''' use these templates in content disputes; instead, write a clear message explaining your disagreement.''

There are several templates used to warn vandals. They are listed at right according to the nature and severity of the vandalism. Though some people vandalizing are incorrigible returning vandals and may be blocked quickly, vandals can be stopped by a simple warning and go on to become productive contributors. If you are not certain that an edit is vandalism, always start with {{tls|uw-test1}}. Conversely, if you are confident that a user is aware of the disruption he is causing, you may start with a stronger warning such as {{tls|uw-test2}} or {{tls|uw-test3}}.

For a full list of user warning templates, see ].

==Tracing IP addresses==
The owners of IP addresses can be found using:

* (North America)
* (Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia)
* (Asia Pacific)
* (Latin American and Caribbean)
* (Africa)

If an address is not in one registry, it will probably be in another.

== Types of vandalism ==
Misplaced Pages vandalism may fall into one or more of the following categorizations:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Type
! Description
|-
|Blanking
|Removing all or significant parts of pages' content without any legitimate reason, or replacing entire pages with nonsense. Sometimes important verifiable references are deleted with no valid reason given in the summary. However, significant content removals are usually ''not'' considered to be vandalism where the reason for the removal of the content is readily apparent by examination of the content itself, or where a non-frivolous explanation for the removal of apparently legitimate content is provided, linked to, or referenced in an edit summary. An example of blanking edits that could be legitimate would be edits that blank all or part of a biography of a ]. Misplaced Pages is especially concerned about providing accurate and non-biased information on the living, and this may be an effort to remove inaccurate or biased material. Due to the possibility of unexplained good-faith content removal, {{tl|uw-test1}} or {{tl|uw-delete1}}, as appropriate, should normally be used as initial warnings for ordinary content removals not involving any circumstances that would merit stronger warnings.
|-
|Page lengthening
|Adding very large (measured by the number of ]s) amounts of content to a page so as to make the page's load time abnormally long or even make the page impossible to load on some computers
|-
|]
|Continuing to add external links to non-notable or irrelevant sites (e.g. to advertise one's website) to pages after having been warned is vandalism
|-
|Self-promotion
|Writing about yourself or your business or another ''clearly non-notable'' person or business within an article that you personally have an interest in promoting (see ] for more information). This may include adding your own name to a disambiguation page of people with the same or a similar name, writing about a minor business in the article about the city/town it is in, or writing your own positive review, essay, or quote in an existing article in support of the topic (such as a person, company, organization, or movement) constituting a blatant ] violation (see ], or ]).
|-
|Personal attack
|Writing your own negative review, essay, or quote in an existing article deliberately attacking or criticizing that person, company, organization, movement, etc.
|-
|]
|A ] that attempts to vandalize or spam ''massive'' numbers of articles (hundreds or thousands). This is a most serious offense because undoing the damage may be difficult and time-consuming.
|-
|Silly vandalism
|Adding profanity, graffiti, random characters, or other nonsense to pages; creating nonsensical and obviously non-encyclopedic pages, etc. Please note that the addition of random characters to pages is a common way that new users test edit and may not be intentionally malicious.
|-
|Sneaky vandalism
|Vandalism that is harder to spot. This can include:
*Hiding vandalism (e.g. by making two bad edits and only reverting one)
*Marking the vandalism edits as minor so they get less scrutiny
*Reverting legitimate edits with the intent of hindering the improvement of pages. Some vandals even use ] such as "rv vandalism" to mask their changes.
|-
|Adding known inaccuracies
|Adding information in bad faith that you clearly know is false (see ]). This may include:
*Adding plausible misinformation to existing articles hoping others will not question it and the falsehood will not be detected
*The addition of false information, supported by an external link to a site that knowingly does not contain that information, but may be too overwhelming for most to read, or using a non-web reference that does not exist as a reference, or using one that does not provide that information, but is difficult for most people to locate
*Including an untrue statement together in the same paragraph or sentence with a true statement, followed by an external link or footnote as a reference, hoping others will assume the reference covers both statements
*The self-creation of official-looking external web page(s), followed by their use to back up untrue statements
*Minor alteration of small facts (such as dates, statistics)
|-
|Userspace vandalism
|Adding insults, profanity, etc. to ] or user talk pages (see also ])
|-
|] vandalism
|Any type of abuse pertaining to images on Misplaced Pages, including the intentional placement of images that bear no relationship to the topic, replacement of existing images with unrelated, silly, or shock images, inappropriately placing explicit images on pages, the use of images that do relate to the article, but also constitute ] (e.g. a picture of yourself standing in front of the landmark described in the article), or simply using any image in a disruptive manner. Please note though that ] and that explicit images may be uploaded and/or placed on pages for legitimate reasons.
|-
|Abuse of tags
|Bad-faith placing of {{tl|afd}}, {{tl|delete}}, {{tl|sprotected}}, or other tags on pages that do not meet such criteria. This includes removal of long-standing {{tl|policy}} and related tags without forming consensus on such a change first.
|-
|Page-move vandalism
|Changing the names of pages (referred to as "page-moving") to disruptive or otherwise inappropriate terms. Misplaced Pages now only allows registered users active for at least four days to move pages.
|-
|Redirect vandalism
|Changing the article to which a term already redirects, or making an existing article redirect to another article that may have no connection, or that may offend some (e.g. changing "Idiot" to redirect to "George W. Bush"). Or creating a new redirect that promotes, attacks, or is otherwise silly or clearly irrelevant. See ] for more information.
|-
|Link vandalism
|Modifying internal or external links within a page so that they appear the same but link to a page/site that they are not intended to (e.g an explicit image; a shock site).
|-
|Avoidant vandalism
|The use of a tag like {{tl|Underconstruction}}, followed by frequent minor edits in order to keep a page that you know would otherwise be deleted alive for a long time. Or removing tags such as {{tl|afd}}, {{tl|copyvio}} and other related tags in order to conceal deletion candidates or avert deletion of such content. Note that this is often mistakenly done by new users who are unfamiliar with AfD procedures and such users should be given the benefit of the doubt and pointed to the proper page to discuss the issue. Removing such a tag does not circumvent the deletion process. It does make it so other visitors to the page may be unaware of its proposed deletion and therefore may not comment.|-
|-
|Modifying users' comments
|Editing other users' comments to substantially change their meaning (e.g. turning someone's vote around), except when ] (which is somewhat controversial in and of itself). Signifying that a comment is unsigned is an exception. Please also note that correcting other users' typos is discouraged.
|-
|Discussion page vandalism
|Blanking the posts of other users from talk pages other than your own, Misplaced Pages space, and other discussions, aside from removing ], vandalism, etc., is generally considered vandalism. An obvious exception is moving posts to a proper place (e.g. protection requests to ]). ] is often considered legitimate, and it is considered acceptable to archive an overly long talk page by creating an archive page and moving the text from the main talk page there. '''Note:''' The above rules ''do not'' apply to a user's own talk page. Editors are granted considerable latitude over editing their own userspace pages (including talk pages), and blanking one's own user talk page is specifically not prohibited. A policy of prohibiting users from removing warnings from their own talk pages was ] on the grounds that it would create more issues than it would solve.
|-
|Repeated uploading of copyrighted material
|Uploading or using material on Misplaced Pages in ways which violate ] after having been warned is vandalism. Because users may be unaware that the information is copyrighted, or of Misplaced Pages policies on how such material may and may not be used, such action ''only'' becomes vandalism if it continues after the copyrighted nature of the material and relevant policy restricting its use have been communicated to the user.
|-
|Malicious account creation
|Creating accounts with usernames that contain deliberately offensive or disruptive terms is considered vandalism, whether the account is used or not. For Misplaced Pages's policy on what is considered inappropriate for a username, see ]. Or the creation of additional account(s) in order to use for vandalism (see ]).
|-
|Edit summary vandalism
|Making offensive edit summaries in an attempt to leave a mark that cannot be easily expunged from the record (edit summaries cannot simply be "reverted" and remain visible when viewing a page's history). Often combined with malicious account creation.
|-
|Hidden vandalism
|Any form of vandalism that makes use of embedded text, which is not visible to the final rendering of the article but visible during editing.
|}

== <span id="NOT" />What vandalism is not ==
{{policy shortcut|WP:VAND#NOT}}

Although at times incorrectly referred to as such, the following things are not considered "vandalism" and are therefore treated differently:



{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Type
! Description
|-
|Tests by experimenting users
|New users who discover the "edit this page" button sometimes want to experience editing a page and may add something unhelpful to a page (e.g., a few random characters) as a test. Such edits are not done in bad faith and are therefore NOT "vandalism." Rather than be warned for vandalism, these users should be warmly greeted, and given a reference to the ] (e.g., using the ]) where they can continue to make test edits without being unintentionally disruptive. If a user has made a test edit and then reverted it, consider placing the message {{tl|uw-selfrevert}} on their talk page.
|-
|Making numerous minor edits
|The construction of a new article or a major change made to an existing article may require multiple edits. This is well understood. Rome was not built in one day. Neither is Misplaced Pages. However, each time an edit is made, it is best if you can make as many changes as you are possibly prepared for on a single edit, unless it is very long, and you wish to save portions of the edit as you are working on it to avoid losing information. The more versions there are in a page's history, the harder it is for others to determine the difference between changes. It is also understood that after making an edit, even a veteran Wikipedian may realize one or more mistakes after saving the page, thereby requiring one or more edits to fix. Still, "junk" edits should be kept to a minimum if possible.

If you are constructing or reconstructing a page, and not all the information you plan to include can be posted in a single edit, please consider using the template {{tl|Underconstruction}} to let others know the page is incomplete. This will prevent the page from being deleted on the grounds of being non-notable or nonsensical if validity by Misplaced Pages standards has not yet been included. Please do not confuse it with the template {{tl|construction}}, since you want to invite others to help with the page.
|-
|Using incorrect ]
and ]
|Inexperienced users often are unfamiliar with Misplaced Pages's formatting and grammatical standards (e.g. how to create internal and/or external links, when certain words should be bolded or italicized, etc.) Rather than label such users as vandals, just explain to them what our standard style is on the issue at hand - perhaps pointing them towards our documentation at ], and the like.
|-
|]
|The neutral point of view is a difficult policy for many of us to understand, and even Misplaced Pages veterans occasionally accidentally introduce material which is non-ideal from an NPOV perspective. Indeed, we are all affected by our beliefs to a greater or lesser extent. Though inappropriate, this is not vandalism in itself.
|-
|]
|Wikipedians often make sweeping changes to pages in order to improve them - most of us aim to be bold when updating articles. While having large chunks of text you've written removed or substantially rewritten can be frustrating, simply making edits that noticeably alter the text or content of a pages should not be immediately labeled vandalism.
|-
|Unintentional misinformation
|Sometimes a user will add content to an article that is factually inaccurate, but in the belief that it is accurate, or even the doubt it may be while leaning toward its accuracy. By doing so in good faith, they are trying to contribute to the encyclopedia and improve it rather than vandalize. If you believe inaccurate information has been added to an article in good faith, ensure that it is, and/or discuss its factuality with the user who has submitted it.
|-
|] information
|One of Misplaced Pages's main guidelines is that all information must be externally referenced. But for various reasons, a lot of information on Misplaced Pages lacks references. This does not automatically mean that the information is incorrect or otherwise does not belong, as most such information was added on good faith, and the user who added it was either unfamiliar with Misplaced Pages's guidelines for citing or forgot to provide a reference. Therefore, it is a good idea if you believe the information was added on good faith to let users know first rather than immediately deleting the information.

If you find information that you believe is unsourced, you can add the tag {{tl|cn}} following the sentence in question. For an entire article lacking references, you can use the tag {{tl|unref}}, and for a section, you can add {{tl|Unreferencedsection}}. This will inform readers, including the user who placed it there, of this discrepency.
|-
|]
|While ''original research'' (writing your own thoughts, interpretations, or unpublished findings) is not permitted under Misplaced Pages guidelines, many editors, either forgetting or not knowing this policy, add such information. See ] for more information.
|-
|]
|While intentionally adding nonsense to pages is a form of vandalism, sometimes honest editors may not have expressed themselves correctly (there may be an error in the ], particularly for Wikipedians who use English as a ]). Also, sometimes connection errors, accidental key presses, or ] unintentionally produce the appearance of nonsense or malicious edits. In either case, ].
|-
|Poor quality ]
|Editors, being anyone, are not professional writers, or photographers. While Misplaced Pages's goal is to best endeavor to obtain good-looking photos to give the best possible impression to the reader, not all photos are taken well. The best remedy to a poor quality image is replacement with a better one. So if you have a better-looking photo that you are willing to contribute, please do so.
|-
|Legitimate use of ]
|In general, profanity should be avoided in articles, and substituted with respectable vocabulary. But there are legitimate uses for profanity, such as articles about the profane words themselves, or exact, referenced quotes. See ] and ] for more information.
|-
|Stubbornness
|Some users cannot come to agreement with others who are willing to talk to them about an editing issue, and repeatedly make changes opposed by everyone else. This is regrettable—you may wish to see our ] to get help. Repeated deletion or addition of material may violate the ], but this is not "vandalism" and should not be dealt with as such.
|-
|Harassment or personal attacks
|We have a clear policy on Misplaced Pages of ], and harassing other contributors is not allowed. While some forms of harassment are also clear cases of vandalism, such as user page vandalism, or inserting a personal attack into an article, harassment in itself is not considered "vandalism" and should be handled differently.
|-
|Policy/guideline/essay/other project
namespace page alteration
|Editors are encouraged to ]. Making edits to ] pages (such as this one), ] pages, etc. does require some knowledge of the consensus on that issue or prior approval from other Wikipedians. If people misjudge consensus, this is not vandalism. Rather, it's an opportunity to discuss with those people, and get them to understand the consensus.
|}

If a user treats situations which are not clear vandalism as such, then it is he or she who is actually harming the encyclopedia by alienating or driving away potential editors.

==How to spot vandalism==
The best way to detect vandalism is through ], using the ] link to spot articles with edits that had come from IP addresses, or keeping an eye on your ]. The ] pages for ], ], ], ], ] and are also good places to find many test edits and/or vandalism. Any vandalism found should be ]; remember to include any good edits that have happened since then! The ] can help users detect vandalism.

== See also ==

;Tools:
* ] – for quick action in clear cases
* ] – for reporting abusive IP addresses to ISPs
* ]
* ]
* ] – a grid of templates that may be used on user talk pages
* ]
* ] – for protection against long-term attacks
* ] – internal research project for studying and finding ways to reduce vandalism

;Essays and guidelines:
* ]
* ], an essay on vandals and civility
* ], another essay on civility and difficult editors
* ]
* ] – essay on the motivation of a vandal
* ] – essay on the relationship between this policy and the ] policy
* ]
* ] - essay on hoaxes
* ]

;Other:
* ]
* ]
* ]

]
]

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<noinclude>{{pp-semi|small=yes}}</noinclude>

Revision as of 21:41, 16 December 2007

WIKIPEDIANS:

YOU ARE NOT CHANGING THE WORLD. WIKIPEDIA IS SHIT. YOU CAN EDIT IT FOR A HUNDRED YEARS AND IT WILL STILL BE SHIT.

FIND SOME OTHER USE FOR YOUR LIMITED TIME ON EARTH.