biologydaily.com:Dealing with vandalism

Wikipedia practices something along the lines of vigilante justice. Here's how it works:

First you spot some vandalism, for example someone replacing the entire page with profanity, or adding a page with useless or offensive content. So you revert the page to the last good version, or you mark the page as a candidate for speedy deletion. Congratulations, you have just successfully dealt with vandalism! In the overwhelming majority of cases, a vandal defaces only a single page.

If you're feeling energetic, you can go through any other recent edits made from the same IP address, and see whether those edits are also vandalism. If they are, revert them as well. Congratulations and Thank You, you have just successfully dealt with repeated vandalism!

For persistent vandals who vandalise many entries, consider adding them to the vandalism in progress page. In the vast majority of cases this is unnecessary, and the vandals may be dealt with in the normal course of Wikipedia events. In cases of flood vandalism, sysops may choose to hide the edits from recent changes using the &bot=1 feature.

Vandalism defined

See Wikipedia:Vandalism

Adding someone to "vandalism in progress"

When you notice what you believe to be an act of vandalism at work, take note of that person's IP address or username. Edit the vandalism in progress page, and add the person's IP number.

Please only use this page for genuine malicious vandalism and only for a sustained attack.

Blocking vandals

Sysops have the ability, and the authorization, to block the IPs of persistent vandals. These blocks should last for a maximum of one month, in the case of static non-proxy IPs. In the case of dynamic or proxy IPs, the blocks should be as shortlived as possible, to avoid inconveniencing genuine contributors, depending on the number of people potentially affected.

Tools for finding information on an IP address

• ARIN Whois
• Network Tools

If an ex-vandal evades an IP block by obtaining a new IP, and starts making genuine (non-vandalism) contributions to Wikipedia, then they will not be blocked or reverted simply because they used to be a vandal. We do not block vandals to punish them, but to preserve the integrity of Wikipedia. If an ex-vandal has reformed, then our aims are accomplished.

See also wikipedia:blocking policy

Templates

There are some templates for user talk pages who have tested or vandalized, in increasing order of severity. Some of them are:

• {{test}} or {{test1}}
• {{test2}}
• {{test2a}} (a variant suitable for blanking vandalism)
• {{test3}}
• {{test4}}
• {{test5}}

See also

• Trolls say controversial or unpleasant things (often on discussion pages or in their user space) in order to attract predictable responses or flames. See internet troll. See wikipedia:dealing with trolls.

• Favorite pages of banned users