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Wikiversity:Vandalism

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 You can help develop this proposal, share your thoughts, or discuss its adoption as a Wikiversity policy, guideline, or process. References or links should describe this page as a "proposal".

Bottomline: Vandalism is an inherently disruptive or destructive behavior. At Wikiversity and its sister projects, vandalism is considered a nuisance. It's something that needs to be dealt with but which is not a big deal.

No shrines for vandals

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Wikiversity does not erect shrines for vandals

Vandalism should be removed and Vandals publicly ignored. If you have doubts, a comment should be left on the user's talk page to offer the person an opportunity to respond. Users that vandalize repeatedly should be blocked. Users that are blocked for vandalism should have their user page deleted or if there is useful content there protected from editing.

If there is a need to document vandalism, it should avoid being a source for vandals to boast about their exploits. Wikiversity does not commemorate inappropriate behavior on other websites or projects. As a result, Wikiversity erects no shrines for vandals.

Wikiversity offers people that discontinue disruptive or destructive behavior an opportunity to make a fresh start.

Philosophy

The primary motive for many vandals is attention. If individuals move pages to inappropriate titles, blank articles, write obscene words, propose pages for speedy deletion without merit, deliberately add false information, or whatever else vandals do, it's to gain attention. It's "funny" to see people stop their work and take care of the damage. It's "entertaining" to show friends what one has done on pages that many other people visit. Disruption is "cool". By refusing to acknowledge individual vandals, we take away what they crave most.

Dealing with vandalism

 
Don't feed the trolls!

Wikiversity works when people are bold and assume others are acting in good faith. If you believe a page has been vandalized, take a moment to consider whether the material may have been added in good faith. If you believe material was not added in good faith, you can undo the changes.

Click the "history" tab and click the "undo" link alongside the questionable revision. Before saving please explain in your edit summary what the purpose of the edit was and why the edit was undone — commonly used summaries include "revert vandalism" or "rvv". If the changes were made in multiple edits then you'll need to instead select the radio buttons corresponding to the most recent questionable revision and the most recent unaffected revision before clicking "Compare selected revisions" and then "undo" under the most recent edit.

Custodians have access to the Rollback tool which reverts the last change or group of changes made to a page by the same user. Unlike the "undo" method, rollback doesn't prompt for an edit summary. Custodians may use rollback for obvious cases of vandalism which require no explanation. If you want an explanation for a rollback, you can ask a custodian why a change or group of changes were rolled back on their talk page, or bring it up for discussion at Wikiversity:Notices for custodians.

Additionally, you can use some of the programs listed below to assist you in dealing with vandalism:

  • Join the #cvn-sw IRC channel; this channel has a reporting bot which flags likely vandalistic edits.

If you find vandalism you can't deal with yourself or if the same user is repeatedly engaging in vandalism, you might want to leave a note at Wikiversity:Request custodian action. Custodians are users with special tools that enable them to block users and protect pages from editing. You can also find custodians in the Wikiversity chat room.

See also

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