User:Psl85/Vandalism

Vandalism is the act of editing or creating pages deliberately to obstruct the wiki. There are various methods used to prevent vandalism, and there are multiple ways to deal with it.

Meaning
The specific definition is vandalism is deliberately performing an action that harms, obstructs, or is misleading in some way. There are several other forms of editing or other actions that are harmful to the encyclopedia - however, unless they're made deliberately to harm, these would not be considered to be vandalism, although they may be disruptive editing. Some examples including:
 * replacing a whole section of content with insult such as "Dick", "Fuck", "Asshole", and related words
 * uploading bad images, such as two girls kissing, a modded Minecraft world, or image of buttocks.
 * Creating attack pages with content such as "FUCKING BITCH", "YOU SUCK", or "Zombies are ugly".
 * Adding long words or uppercase-only words that disrupt only readers.

What is not vandalism
This section is very important.

This meanings below display examples that is not vandalism.


 * Doing something controversial without discussion - splitting pages, merging pages, etc. without discussion first is not vandalism.
 * Asking a question within an article, such as "Could somebody test this to make sure it's true?".
 * Test edits. If you see somebody add random wiki markup to an article, this would not be vandalism, but instead a test edit. This is disruptive editing, but it is usually not done deliberately.
 * Creating an article in the wrong namespace. For example, if a user created a page named "IGamer1556" saying "Hello, I'm IGamer1556! I love playing Minecraft, and I think the Minecraft Wiki is awesome," assume good faith, and simply move the page to their userspace. Do not accuse them of vandalizing - just kindly leave them a message explaining what you did and why you did it.
 * Making a mistake and messing something up. This is something that commonly occurs with new users, and is not vandalism. It can include stuff like misreading wiki-text thinking that it's messed up, when really it's just how it works, or adding wiki-text not really knowing how it works.
 * Advertising. Promotional content, links to web shops and travel sites that gives promotional look should be removed, pages should be deleted or tagged for deletion and add a warning on the page creator and alert an admin immediately.

Assume good faith
Don't accuse an editor of vandalism if they didn't disrupt the wiki purposely or if you're not sure whether they did or not. When in doubt, assume good faith, and kindly reach out to them asking about their edit. When in doubt, always assume that others don't know what they're doing or made a mistake, rather than accuse them of vandalizing.

Dealing with vandalism
Dealing with vandalism is easy. Follow those steps:

1: Revert it using the undo feature or rollback if you are an administrator. If the vandal created a new page tagging you it simply with reason that will produce the following text:

and adds the page to Category:Pending deletion. The template reason can also be used, and will produce the following text instead:

and adds the page to Category:Pending speedy deletion instead. This template is preferred to use on pure vandalism pages rather than the normal delete template.

Be sure to replace "reason" on both templates with the reason why the page should be deleted. There is also shortcut, d on the normal delete template and sd on the speedy delete template that also can be used. 2: Warn the vandal (s) using the templates described below.

3: Report the vandal (s) to the administrators or on the admin noticeboard if they vandalize after final warning to get them blocked, and if there is major vandalism, report without warning the user on the admin noticeboard or to the administrators to block them.

4: Block the vandals (only available to administrators) for a time or indefinite time and remove all vandalism, and optionally place block length on the vandal (s) talk page (s).

Reverting
There are 3 main ways of reverting vandalism: reverting to an earlier revision, undoing, and rollbacking. Rollbacking is only available to administrators.

Reverting to an earlier version
Reverting to an earlier version is the act of going to an earlier version, clicking "edit" and saving the page. This is most useful when multiple editors vandalizing a page and undoing and rollbacking cannot be used to remove all vandalism. You can also use this if you are not an administrator and have not the "rollback" tool to quickly revert all edits by one user if the same user have made more than one edit to the same page.

Undoing
Undoing is the act of undoing one's edit and reverting all the changes that were in that edit. To undo an edit go to the page's history and click the "undo" button. You will see the diff show up as well as the normal edit box below. An edit summary will automatically generate. Undoing is rather flexible - e.g., you can use it to partially revert an edit by changing something in the edit box before saving, or you can add to or completely replace the automatic edit summary.

You can undo edits that are not the last edit made to the page, but this is only possible if there are no later edits that conflict with them. Otherwise, an error message will pop up saying "The edit could not be undone due to conflicting intermediate edits." Additionally, if you try to undo an edit that has already been undone, another message will say "This edit appears to already have been undone."

When undoing an edit, a clear additional edit summary should almost always be left, unless it's obvious spam or vandalism. However, it can never hurt to leave an additional edit summary even if it is clearly disruptive - so it's better to leave one when in doubt. It is also a good idea to mark edits that revert vandalism as "minor" by clicking a checkbox that says "This is a minor edit", but it is only available to registered users.

Rollbacking
Administrators will see a "rollback" link on a diff page, page history, recent changes and a user's contributions page. Clicking it will revert all the user's edits on one page, but it should only be used while there is pure vandalism, and no summary can be given while using this tool.

Warning
We have many warning templates to issue to vandals, uw-vandalism, uw-test, uw-delete and uw-wrong. All templates can be placed on a vandal's talk page, by using this syntax:  and most templates add also ~ to the post, so you don't need to sign the post, and while using, replace "Template Name" with te template name, "Name of page vandalized" with the title of the page vandalized, and optionally use "Optional comment". If you not want to include your signature on the template, simply set  at the end before the ending template brackets.

We have also a template warning series that can be used as multi-level warnings:
 * Level 1: user warning1 - notice for making unconsecutive edits
 * Level 2: user warning2 - notice, but says "please do not make unconsecutive edits" also
 * Level 3: user warning3 - warning, please stop vandalizing
 * Level 4: user warning4 - final warning, stop now

This templates need to be substituted and have the first parameter as page vandalized, second as additional text, and you need to manually add ~ after the template to add your signature and timestamp.

Blocking
Administrators can block vandals and other problematic users and IP addresses that make too much damage and disruption to the Minecraft Wiki from editing. While they are blocked, they can only read the wiki, not edit, create, and move pages. While they try to edit or create a page, they will see this text:

Your username or IP address has been blocked.

The block was made by Example.

. The reason given is reason.


 * Start of block: Start date
 * Expiration of block: Expiry date
 * Intended blockee: User/IP address affected.

You can contact Example or another |administrator to discuss the block. You cannot use the "email this user" feature unless a valid email address is specified in your account preferences and you have not been blocked from using it. Your current IP address is IP address, and the block ID is #ID. Please include all above details in any queries you make.

The text above gives details of the block by:
 * admin blocked the user
 * reason given
 * start date of block
 * expiry date of block
 * intended blockee
 * block id

and the user will be able to view a page's source code, and see information of the page, but not edit it. No changes can be made in the edit window.

After the admin has blocked the user, the admin can also optionally leave blocked on the vandal's talk page by using this scheme:

Blocking lengths
Below lists all block lengths of any blocks. Remove talk page access only if the talk page is abused by the user or if the user is vandal only to let the user request unblock.

Anonymous user
Remember to not block IP addresses indefinitely unless the IP is only total wiki disruptive editor.

Protecting
Admins can also protect pages from getting vandalized, usually when multiple editors vandalizing one article or pages that are very likely to be vandalized, such as the Main Page and templates transcluded on many pages, such as Template:Message box. While they are protected, certain users cannot edit them, but they can still view the source code of them. There are three protection levels, semi protection, director protection, and full protection. You can request protection to one article by adding a new section on the admin noticeboard including page title, protection level requested, and reason.

Full protection
Prevents non-admins from editing those pages. Used on pages likely to be vandalized, such as the Main Page and heavily used templates, and sometimes temporarily to prevent edit warring or on a blocked user's talk page from getting abused by the user. Personal user's CSS and JS pages and the MediaWiki namespace are automatically protected from editing and they can be edited by the user or administrators.

Director protection
Prevents users without the user right "director" from editing those pages, and are similar to full protection.

Semi-protection
Prevents IP editors (users who not are logged in) from editing those pages. Used on pages that are likely to be vandalized by IP editors or many IPs vandalizing one article (such as new functions or common things).