A few things for current and aspiring vandal-fighters to keep in mind:
Good-faith efforts to improve the encyclopedia are not vandalism, even if they are misguided or ill-considered.
Content disputes are not vandalism. They should be dealt with by following thedispute resolution procedure.
Most edits by new or unregistered contributors are NOT vandalism. Check out the content added or removed. Don't revert blindly, and remembernot to bite the newcomers.
Edits that appear to be in bad faith should not be considered vandalism until they can be proven such at a later time.
Anyone can help! Whenever you spot a page that has been vandalised, you are encouraged to edit it and clean it up, and/or warn the vandal using an appropriate warning template. SeeWhat to do if you spot vandalism below.
If you find yourself cleaning up vandalism frequently, you might be interested inpatrolling recent changes. Note that participation is entirely voluntary. Also,you are not required to enlist anywhere.
There are various tools to help you. See theTools section below.
1.Revert the vandalism by viewing the page'shistory and selecting the most recent version of the page prior to the vandalism. Use an edit summary such as 'rvv' or 'reverted vandalism' and click on the button "Publish changes".
See also the section below for tools to help with reverting.
2. Warn the vandal. Access the vandal's talk page and warn them using an appropriate template.
Seethis overview of the most commonly used warning templates andthis table for a wider selection of warning templates.
3. Report vandals who continue to vandalise after having received a final warning. Most cases of vandalism should be reported toWP:AIV. Cases that are not simple vandalism can be reported toWP:AN/I.WP:LTA may be used for reporting particular vandals who persistently return (e.g. viasockpuppets).
Civility is one of the pillars of Wikipedia. Avoid being rude, no matter how aggressive or obnoxious the vandal is. Some of them may want you to become angry and lose your temper:Don't fall for that!
Don't bite the newcomers. Not all bad edits are necessarily intentional vandalism. Some of them may just be test edits by newer editors.
On manyISPs, IP addresses are shared by many users, so be extra-careful not to be rude in your messages, as people seeing them may not be the same ones who vandalised.
Content disputes are not vandalism: If a user is adding biased content or you disagree with the information added, that doesn't mean the editor is vandalising. This includes violations ofWikipedia's Neutral Point of View policy. Corollary:3RR rule still applies since it's not blatant vandalism. Instead of constantly reverting, discuss edits on talk pages and obtain community consensus. Seeresolving disputes.
Theold school way is to loadrecent changes and check the (diff) links. It can be filtered according tofeatured articles,good articles,living people, new accounts' contribs, IPs' contribs, mobile contribs (as these are more prone to vandalism, seeHelp:Recent changes), and even by likelihood of being damaging or bad-faith. Searching for pages by theirnamespace and specifictags (e.g. VisualEditor, possible BLP issue or vandalism, etc.) can also be done. If they contain harmful edits, you revert to the previous version. However, the high volume of edits that occur each second makes this difficult to accomplish most of the time, and several tools have been created to simplify the process:
DoubleCheck, akaWikiLoop DoubleCheck is a web app for monitoring and labeling revisions. When labeled as "Should Revert" and is revert-able, it provides a quick link for user to go to Wikipedia to revert that specific revision. Direct link to the app:doublecheck.wikiloop.org. Or build and run your self-hosted version via its open-sourced code repo ongithub.
Please be aware that this program is not hosted on Wikimedia Foundation servers
Huggle is a fast diff browser which parses edits from users and sorts them by predicted level of vandalism. Once identified, malicious edits can be reverted in the click of a button. Due to the fast-paced nature of the program, users on the English Wikipedia must have therollback permission to use it; however, this is not a requirement on other wikis.
IRC Bots report at the#cvn-wp-enconnect channel on theLibera Chat network list suspected vandalism edits (for example: blankings, edits made by blacklisted users, etc.).
Lupin's Anti-Vandal Tool monitors the RSS feed and flags edits with common vandalism terms. It also has a live spellcheck feature.
RCMap geolocates anonymous edits from the IRC live feed and displays them on a world map, with links to diffs. Supports multiple languages in a unified interface.
Please be aware that this program is not hosted on Wikimedia Foundation servers
RC Patrol is a lightweight script that makes it easier to patrol recent changes. After installing, visitthis page. The script uses ORES to automatically determine whether the edit needs review. You need rollback or admin permissions to use the script, just like withHuggle.
RedWarn patrol can be activated by any user of RedWarn on therecent changes page, quick reviewing and one-click rollback of disruptive edits.Ultraviolet is a new rewrite of RedWarn currently in beta.
SWViewer (direct link) is a user-friendlywebapp with simple and intuitive UI that enables you to monitor recent changes in real-time. It also provides features to monitor multiple wikis at the same time. In order to use the application, rollback permission is required.
AntiVandal is another web-based vandalism monitoring tool, similar to Huggle in User Interface. It can be used to quickly revert vandalism and warn the vandal using escalating or 4im only warning templates. Users can also directly report vandals toAdministrator Intervention against Vandalism after sufficient warning has been given. Rollback or admin permission is required to use the script.
WatchlistBot is anXMPP bot that sends messages in realtime when articles are modified. Users with a Jabber account can subscribe to the bot and watch both articles and users.
Rollback tools
These tools extend therollback feature by allowing you to specify a summary when using rollback. They may also offer additional features:
Please be aware that this program is not hosted on Wikimedia Foundation servers
Navigation popups are a set of utilities that appear when hovering over wikilinks. Particularly, hovering over links of old versions provides a "revert" link.
Twinkle gives both non-administrators and administrators three types of rollback functions. Other functions include a full library of speedy deletion functions, user warnings, pseudo-automatic reporting of vandals, and more.
RedWarn, likeTwinkle, gives both non-administrators and administratorsnearly twenty types of rollback functions, including a "rollback preview" and "quick rollback".
Ultraviolet also provides several different types of rollback functions for both non-administrators and administrators, like RedWarn.
mobileUndo (new version) a script which allows you to revert when using the mobile interface.
Special pages
User:Adam1213/warn is a page that simplifies the process of warning vandals by allowing warnings to be submitted to specific users directly from the page.
Task Forces
Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit A voluntary group who will provide assistance at times of high levels of vandalism and advice on counter vandalism methods.
LiftWing is a web service and API that providesmachine learningas a service for Wikimedia projects maintained by theScoring Platform team. The system is designed to help automate critical wiki-work – for example, vandalism detection and removal. Currently, LiftWing's revision scoring ("revscoring")models can predict article quality, good faith, and how damaging an edit is.[1]
Template:Vandalism information, a tool used as an indication of the current overall level of vandalism that is taking place on Wikipedia. On the page, click the edit button below the vandalism meter to change its level from5 to1 and/or add a short comment;5 indicates very low levels of vandalism, and1 indicates extremely high. You can add the vandalism information template to your userpage to stay up to date. SeeTemplate talk:Vandalism information for different styles.
Countervandalism Network, volunteer group that operates the "#cvn-" channels. This group is not owned by or affiliated with Wikimedia Foundation.
Wikilink scripts enable you to double click on [[wikilinks]] within IRC clients. Useful if doing patrol on the IRC channels.
There are other scripts that may be handy while doing cleanup (not necessarily vandalism cleanup). Check them atWikiProject User scripts/Scripts (WP:JS)
For a listing of current collaborations, tasks, and news, see theCommunity portal. For a listing of ongoing discussions and current requests, see theDashboard.
