OurMed:Vandalism

Vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of OurMed. Vandalism cannot and will not be tolerated. Common types of vandalism are the addition of obscenities or crude humor, page blanking, and the insertion of nonsense into articles.

Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism. Even harmful edits that are not explicitly made in bad faith are not vandalism. For example adding a controversial personal opinion to an article is not vandalism, although reinserting it despite multiple warnings can be disruptive (however, edits/reverts over a content dispute are never vandalism, see WP:EW). Not all vandalism is obvious, nor are all massive or controversial changes vandalism. Careful thought may be needed to decide whether changes made are beneficial, detrimental but well-intended, or outright vandalism.

Committing vandalism violates OurMed policy. If you find that another user has vandalized OurMed you should revert these changes; you may also warn the user (see below for specific instructions). Users who vandalize OurMed repeatedly, despite warnings to stop, should be reported to OurMed:Administrator intervention against vandalism, and administrators may block them. Note that warnings are not always required: accounts whose main or only use is obvious vandalism or other forbidden activity may be blocked without warning.

How to spot vandalism
The best way to detect vandalism is through recent changes patrolling, using the recent changes link to spot articles with edits that had come from IP addresses, or keeping an eye on your watchlist. The what links here pages for Insert text, Link title, Headline text, Bold text, Image:Example.jpg and Image:Example.ogg are also good places to find many test edits or vandalism. The auto-summary feature can also help users spot vandalism, as can viewing the abuse log. Edits tagged by the abuse filter may also contain vandalism. However, many tagged edits are legitimate, so they should not be blindly reverted. In addition, the edit history of an article may be checked for any recent suspicious edits, and compared with the version after any previous revert or cluster of non-suspicious edits. This method checks many suspicious edits at the same time.

How to respond to vandalism
If you see vandalism in an article the simplest thing to do is just to remove it. But take care! Sometimes vandalism takes place on top of older, undetected vandalism. With undetected vandalism, editors may make edits without realizing the vandalism occurred, and this can make it harder to detect and delete the vandalism, which is now hidden amongst other edits. Sometimes bots try to fix collateral damage and accidentally make things worse. Check the edit history to make sure you're reverting to a 'clean' version of the page, or if you can't tell where the best place is, take your best guess and leave a note on the article's talk page so that someone more familiar with the page can address the issue—or you can manually remove the vandalism without reverting the page back.

If you see vandalism on a list of changes (such as your watchlist) then revert it immediately. You may use the "undo" button (and the automatic edit summary it generates), and mark the change as minor. It may be helpful to check the page history to determine whether other recent edits by the same or other editors also represent vandalism. Repair all vandalism you can identify.

For a new article, if all versions of the article are pure vandalism, mark it for speedy deletion by tagging it with.

To make vandalism reverts easier you can ask for the rollback feature to be enabled for your registered OurMed account. This feature is only for reverting vandalism and other obvious disruption, and lets you revert several recent edits with a single click. See OurMed:Requests for permissions‎.

If you see that a user has added vandalism you may also check the user's other contributions (click "User contributions" on the left sidebar of the screen). If most or all of these are obvious vandalism you may report the user immediately at OurMed:Administrator intervention against vandalism, though even in this case you may consider issuing a warning first, unless there is an urgent need to block the user. Otherwise you can leave an appropriate warning message on the user's talk page. Remember that any editor may freely remove messages from their own talk page, so they might appear only in the talk history. If a user continues to cause disruption after being warned, report them at OurMed:Administrator intervention against vandalism. An administrator will then decide whether to block the user.

For repeated vandalism by an anonymous IP address it is helpful to take the following additional steps:
 * 1) Trace the IP address (e.g. http://www.domaintools.com/) and add  to the user talk page of the address. If it appears to be a shared IP address, add  or .  The OrgName on the IP trace result should be used as the Name of owner parameter in the above three templates.
 * 2) For repetitive anonymous vandalism, particularly where registered to a school or other kind of responsive ISP, consider listing it on OurMed:Abuse response.

Obstinate (Template and CSS) vandalism
If a particular act of vandalism is obstinate – no vandalism related edits appear in the page's edit history, or the vandalism obscures the page tabs so you can't easily access the history or edit the page – then it is probably a form of Template or CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) vandalism. These are not difficult to fix, but can be confusing.

To access the page history or edit the page when the 'history' or 'edit this page' tabs are inaccessible, use the Windows keyboard shortcut shift-alt-h to access the history, or shift-alt-e to edit the page (Macintosh computers use ctrl-h and ctrl-e – see OurMed:Keyboard_shortcuts). You can also access the history through a vandal patrolling tool if you're using one, or by going to another page and using the 'My Watchlist' or 'My Contributions' links if you've edited the page recently. Or, simply enter the URL manually into the address bar of your browser: it will take the form http:// en.OurMed.org/w/index.php?title=Name_of_article&action=foo where foo is edit or history.

If no vandalism-related edits appear in the page history, the vandal likely targeted a template instead of the page itself. Templates are small OurMed pages that are intended to be included as parts of other pages. When the page is accessed, any template codes are replaced by the content of the template page, including any vandalism that might be there. To find the template page, edit the article (using shift-alt-e if necessary) and scroll down towards the bottom of the page, where there is a list of all templates transcluded into the article. Check through the templates that are not marked as protected and look for vandalism there. Alternately, look for   or    in the text, then go to the page Template:template name and revert any vandalism you find. When you return to the original page, the vandalism should be gone, though you may need to purge the page to see the result.

How not to respond to vandalism

 * Do not nominate an article for deletion because it is being vandalized. That's like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and simply encourages vandalism.


 * Do not feed the trolls. Fanning the fire will make the situation worse. Similarly, do not insult the vandals. If someone is doing something they know is wrong, insulting them over it is likely to make them vandalize more, just to get that reaction. Furthermore, OurMed is not the place for personal attacks, it is not a battleground, and two wrongs don't make a right. Instead, report them to the administrators if they continue.


 * Avoid the word "vandal". In particular, this word should not be used to refer to any contributor in good standing, or to any edits that might have been made in good faith. This is because if the edits were made in good faith, they are not vandalism. Instead of calling the person who made the edits a "vandal", discuss your concerns with them. Comment on the content and substance of the edits, instead of making personal comments.

Warnings

 * Note: Do not use these templates in content disputes; instead, write a clear message explaining your disagreement.

There are several templates used to warn vandals. They are listed at right according to the nature and severity of the vandalism. Though some people vandalizing are incorrigible returning vandals and may be blocked quickly, others can be stopped by a simple warning and go on to become productive contributors. If you are not certain that an edit is vandalism, always start with {{subst:uw-test1}}. Conversely, if you are confident that a user is aware of the disruption they are causing, you may start with a stronger warning such as {{subst:uw-vandalism2}} or {{subst:uw-vandalism3}}.

For a full list of user warning templates see OurMed:Template messages/User talk namespace.

Tracing IP addresses
The owners of IP addresses can be found using:

If an address is not in one registry, it will probably be in another.
 * ARIN (North America)
 * RIPE NCC (Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia)
 * APNIC (Asia Pacific)
 * LACNIC (Latin American and Caribbean)
 * AfriNIC (Africa)
 * IPLigence
 * IP-adress.com (sic)

Types of vandalism
OurMed vandalism may fall into one or more of the following categorizations:

What is not vandalism
Although at times the following situations may be referred to as vandalism, usually, they are not considered vandalism, as such. However, each case should be treated independently, taking into consideration whether or not the actions violate OurMed policies and guidelines. In addition, if an editor treats situations which are not clearly vandalism as such, then that editor may harm the encyclopedia by alienating or driving away potential editors.

Tools and guidelines

 * Abuse response – centralized forum for the reporting and investigation of abuse complaints, related to IP Address-specific vandalism
 * Administrator intervention against vandalism – intended to get administrator attention for obvious and persistent vandals and spammers
 * Cleaning up vandalism– introduction to cleaning up vandalism
 * Criteria for speedy deletion– official English OurMed policy
 * Do not create hoaxes – content guideline
 * Edit war– official English OurMed policy
 * Most vandalized pages– articles that have undergone repeated vandalism
 * Recent changes patrol– OurMed communal patrol
 * Requests for page protection – for protection against long-term attacks
 * Template messages/User talk namespace – grid of templates for user talk page warnings and notices
 * WikiProject user warnings– internal project for creating a complete, standardised set of user warning templates
 * WikiProject Vandalism studies – internal project for conducting research related to unconstructive edits on OurMed (currently semi-active)

Essays

 * Anti-Vandal initiative– beta community interaction initiative page
 * Avoid the word "vandal"– essay on the differences between vandals and those who make adverse edits
 * Block all anonymous edits– retained for historical reference
 * Checked edits brainstorming– retained for historical reference
 * Contact school systems responsible for mass vandalism– retained for historical reference
 * Deny recognition– essay on not feeding the trolls
 * Do not insult the vandals– essay on vandals and civility
 * Don't call a spade a spade– essay on civility and difficult editors
 * Don't template the regulars– essay on how to use warning templates carefully
 * Make protection requests sparingly– essay recommending not overusing page protection
 * Not every IP is a vandal – essay on the common assumption that IPs are vandals
 * On assuming good faith – essay on the relationship between the Vandalism policy and the Assume good faith behavioral guideline
 * The motivation of a vandal – essay on "Why would anyone wish to vandalize a source of information that benefits people?"
 * Vandals versus Trolls– essay on the distinction between vandals and trolls

Meta

 * Anti-vandalism ideas
 * Vandalbot
 * What is a troll?
 * Small Wiki Monitoring Team– cross-wiki anti-vandalism

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