Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit
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Wikipedia vandalism information  Moderate to high level of vandalism
5.62 RPM according to EnterpriseyBot 16:10, 7 November 2024 (UTC) |
Counter Vandalism Unit
The Counter Vandalism Unit exists to search for and destroy vandalism throughout Wikipedia. Anyone is qualified to be a member — unless of course they are vandalizing. The talk page is a meeting place for RC patrollers who choose to be a part of this joint effort. Additionally, the following IRC channel is a gathering place: #wikipedia-en-vandalism
What Counter Vandalism Unit is not
Counter Vandalism Unit is not the place to bring your disputes with other users unless they are vandalising wikipedia pages. We are not a part of the dispute resolution process. CVU is simply a body to combat vandalism on wikipedia.
Current issues
Announcements
Counter Vandalism Unit 2005 Elections! Vote!
Persistent vandals
- Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress/Long term alerts
- User:SuperTroll sockpuppets
- the Communism vandal sockpuppets
- User:Willy on Wheels sockpuppets
- User:MARMOT (User:Love Virus) sockpuppets
- JarlaxleArtemis sockpuppets
Guidelines
Determining what is vandalism
By dictionary definition vandalism is willful or malicious destruction of public or private property ([1]).
On Wikipedia, vandalism is accepted and is explained in: Wikipedia:Vandalism. It is imperative to understand that not every destructive looking edit is classified as vandalism. There is a procedure to be followed in dealing with edits classifiable as vandalism. It should be noted that every wikipedia language has their own rules but they should not be too dfferent.
The key is to assume good faith. First time offenses at worst should warrant a warning via the posting of {{subst:test}} --~~~~ on the users user talk page. Followed by additonal test template messages.
Please do not bite the newcomers. Generaly most of the activity classifiable as vandalism is just newbie mistakes. Proper procedure is a simple {{subst:test}} on their talk page and/or explaining why what they are doing is inaproporate. Another way to think of this is that if you "bark" at someone never to do something, they are more than likely to at least try it or to do it just to annoy you, a simple rule of crowd management.
Vandalism severity
| Severity | Recomended Action | |
|---|---|---|
| Red: | High: | If you are an admin: block on sight indefinitely. If you are not an admin: post incident on WP:ANB |
| Orange: | Low: | template:Test warnings should be observed. If user is persistently refusing to stop, a 24 hour or longer block depending on admin discretion. |
| Green: | Not: | Not covered as vandalism. A separate procedure applies. |
| Type | Explanation | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Vandalism bots | Edits of identical nature intended to disrupt wikipedia | Willy on Wheels, MARMOT |
| Page overload | This is basically an abuse of a known exploit. Adding megs of material to a page (generally by repeating a pasted section) and making it impossible to access; generally the product of returning vandals. | |
| Image/redirect abuse |
Posting of Images/Creating redirects with the intend of insulting others commited genrally by returning vandals such as the infamous vandal codenamed: Penis. | Penis Vandal diff, Penis Vandal diff |
| Imposter/insult usernames | 'New' users that are intended to imposter/insult other users (generally RC patrollers). Apply {{usernameblock}}, {{sockpuppet}}, {{MARMOT}}, {{impostor}} | MARMOT sockpuppets, JarlaxleArtemis sockpuppets |
| Page blanking | Edits removing large text if not all from articles. Majority of such edits are vandalism, however there are legitimate "page blankings", such as for copyvios. | Blanking diff, Blanking diff |
| Page gibberish | Edits adding large text, generally repetitive sentences. Majority of such edits are vandalism, however there are legitimate "page gibberish" such as reverting vandalism. | gibberish diff, revert of vandalism |
| Minor/sneaky vandalism | Generally new users experimenting. Adding of material such as "Hi, mom!". | Newbie test, sneaky vandal diff, sneaky vandal diff |
| NPOV violations | This is NOT vandalism, this is not OK either and there is a separate procedure for them beyond this guideline. | NPOV violation |
| Revert wars | This is NOT vandalism, this is not OK either and there is a separate procedure for them beyond this guideline. | |
| Copyright violations |
This is NOT vandalism, this is not OK either and there is a separate procedure for them beyond this guideline. |
Combatting Vandalism
Firstly everyone has their own method in combatting vandalism that they are comfortable with, however a fatal flaw in combating vandalism is forgetting Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers. Below lists a few of the many methods in combatting vandalism here on wikipedia.
One method is manually analyzing the Special:Recentchanges feed. There are however on average 20-50 edits per second on wikipedia and this method is not a cost effective one.
One method is the use of bots to detect vandalism as listed below. The bots process the Special:Recentchanges feed and determine what may be vandalism or is classifiable as such. Note that the bots are not 100% accurate in detecting vandalism.
- CryptoDerk's Vandal Fighter (CDVF) is an open-source program that displays a live feed of recent changes (RC) but contains extra functionality to assist in vandal fighting.
- It works on all Wiki-projects (some features only work on English projects for now, see changelog).
- Both admins and non-admins can use this program to view RC.
- The IRC bot, computer2 is an open-source mIRC script that processes the live recent changes (RC) feed and flags suspicious edits. Full command list is avalible on any channel the bot is on, just say "computer help" in channel.
- Designed for admin and non-admin usage.
- Also detects possible copy vios (an unintended feature)
- Coded by User:Cool Cat, however majority of the ideas came from people that make up an important portion of CVU
- An IRC-aware program which auralizes' recent changes, using the metadata about changes, and regular expressions. It both shows color-coded output from the IRC bot, and maps each RC diff onto a bird-call or other nature sound.
- Both admins and non-admins can use this to view RC.
- Reporting vandals
- IRC channels mentioned earlier will likely get you the fastest results as there generally are admins avalible to block vandals, however you may be disappointed to learn the vandals might have been already blocked as people on the IRC channels monitor wikipedia closely. Additionally you can post vandals in Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress to request a prompt admin review.
- Admin lists:#
- The related changes link will display recent changes to all pages listed on Wikipedia:Most vandalized pages, for those who wish to follow vandalism on Wikipedia but who are unable to use IRC bot tools.
- Director: To be decided
- Assistant Director: To be decided
- Assistant Director: To be decided