Wikipedia talk:Vandalism

I propose adding images as examples of vandalism, such as this

InsertCoolNameHere78 (talk) 06:45, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I have to look at too much of this already. I'll quit if any of you make me start looking at it in my free time. Remsense ‥ 论 06:48, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

No, we don't draw attention to trolls here, see WP:DENY. Please find something constructive to do. Johnuniq (talk) 07:12, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Generally we try not to give more attention to vandals than necessary. (per WP:DENY). Unfortunately, giving an example image of a vandal, using an actual case of vandalism, would give the actual vandal attention.

This is especially bad in the case of hoaxers, whose acts are often more elaborate and damaging than the typical vandal, such as creating a lengthy, convincing-looking, yet entirely fake biography.

There is an example image of vandalism in the "Criticism of Wikipedia" article, but it's a much more minor/typical case of vandalism, compared to this example you gave. And it was an ancient case of vandalism from 2008 by an IP address. The person who made that edit is probably long gone now. ApexParagon (talk) 04:53, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

just to clarify, does image vandalism mean putting a irrelevant image on bad faith (eg. putting a picture of a banana on an elephant page or replacing the elephant with a banana)? Also the link File:Wikipedia vandalism.svg is also sending a file of an image of text vandalism. ~2025-41856-78 (talk) 03:17, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

I don't know but why they decided to do with a Filipino. Thsharkeslayor8058 (talk) 14:07, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

Yes, but seriously to be fair, would you edit a user's own draft page without getting a permission to ask to edit their page? Thsharkeslayor8058 (talk) 14:09, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

For a page in Draft: space (for example, Draft:Gurdensey), anyone is welcome to edit it. However, a polite editor would not edit a page in user space (for example, User:MichaelQSchmidt/Deepak Nayar) unless to correct a serious problem. The place for questions like this is WP:Teahouse. Johnuniq (talk) 03:25, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: In the typical case I would agree with you, but as it happens, User:MichaelQSchmidt has recently died, and therefore User:MichaelQSchmidt/Deepak Nayar will remain a fossil in place forever unless other editors take it up. I don't know about you, by my intention is that all of my drafts will eventually be finished and moved to mainspace, and I gather that was the intent of this deceased editor as well. BD2412 T 03:32, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, yes, I used the list you posted as a quick way to explain what I meant by "user space". I was going to explain the background but when I started I thought it would be too much detail. Johnuniq (talk) 04:39, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

Yes that's the right choice, i could finally understand why. Thsharkeslayor8058 (talk) 08:19, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

Why did some vandalizers keeps vandalizing my own question? Thsharkeslayor8058 (talk) 12:09, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

What it says on the tin:

paragraphs such as

For repeated vandalism by an IP user it is helpful to trace the IP address (e.g. http://whois.domaintools.com/) and add {{whois|Name of owner}} to the user talk page of the address. If it appears to be a shared IP address, add {{SharedIP|Name of owner}} or {{Shared IP edu|Name of owner}}. The OrgName on the IP trace result should be used as the Name of owner parameter in the above three templates.

Make no sense now that IP addresses are being replaced with temporary accounts. It should either be removed entirely as redundant, or replaced with a new analogous procedure to follow for the new situation. Slomo666 (talk) 01:36, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

I saw the same thing. Repeated use of the term "IP editors" when that term may be outdated. Guz13 (talk) 02:28, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

I now see that the specific paragraph has been changed by replacing IP user to anonymous, but this fixes very little because the rest of the paragraph continues talking about checking someone’s IP, which is no longer possible unless you have the specific permission for that. Slomo666 (talk) 17:31, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Yeah they made a big change and the documentation needs to be updated. Guz13 (talk) 17:37, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

I rewrote the section to the following:

For repeated vandalism by one or more temporary accounts, it is helpful to have the temporary account IP viewer permission, which allows you to see the IP addresses of temporary accounts and determine if multiple temporary accounts share an IP address. Usage of this tool is governed by the Access to Temporary Account IP Addresses Policy.

What do you think? SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 18:56, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Definitely an improvement, it would be helpful to have information on qualifications for receiving the viewer. Guz13 (talk) 19:42, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

I agree, although my concerns were broader than this specific paragraph. I listed this discussion at the Village Pump, and people there (as of one minute ago) endorsed this proposal(s?) as far as I can tell, and suggested to boldly edit the article. (And to seek broader consensus if some reverts it and it goes to an RfC.

Slomo666 (talk) 09:45, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

We need a new bot that quickly blocks a vandal as they were about to publish a damaging edit. ~2025-31416-78 (talk) 09:11, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

I don’t see how that would work? This sounds like this would require pre-publication screening of an edit, which would either mean the edit is held in some sort of pre-publication waiting area while it is checked, or that users would essentially be constantly surveilled/monitored while they are editing.

Besides that technical issue, I also don’t see how a bot would know that an edit is vandalism. There are already bots that try to identify vandalism to help editors, but these always work after the fact.

We do have a kind of page protection called Wikipedia:Pending changes that temporarily hides edits by unregistered users until they have been reviewed by pending changes reviewers, but this is only used on some pages. Slomo666 (talk) 10:01, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Please change "a right-wing Hindutva paramilitary volunteer organisation", it might be a right wing ideological group/organisation but not a paramilitary organisation. SSProcks20 (talk) 12:32, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

 Not done: That text is not found on the page; I believe you have posted this on the wrong talk page. Day Creature (talk) 14:17, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

From which reliable sources did you wrote that RSS is paramilitary organisations,kindly provide the sources, if the sources are articles only then please refer this article:-https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/sangh-not-a-military-organisation-but-says-rss-chief-mohan-bhagwat-2628290, which was said by mohan bhagwat himself. SSProcks20 (talk) 17:13, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

Again, you have the wrong talk page. This is the talk page for discussing Wikipedia's policy on vandalism. Day Creature (talk) 21:54, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

Is there a reason that the lead sentence needs to use a template for the boldface and italics? I'm not super familiar if there's some technical reason it needs to be a template rather than using wikimarkup, but the template has the effect of hiding the definition of vandalism from hover-over previews of the page (because the words "deliberately intended to obstruct or defeat the project's purpose," are encapsulated in the template, and I guess those get stripped out wholesale). So if you hover over Wikipedia:Vandalism, the preview incorrectly shows as On Wikipedia, vandalism has a very specific meaning: editing (or other behavior) , which is to create a free encyclopedia, in a variety of languages, presenting the sum of all human knowledge (but of course appears correctly when you actually load the page).⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 07:08, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

Hi Admin, The given user whose account is Open 2 weeks before, has history of multiple disruptive, FOV and unconstructive edits. Without understanding encyclopedia, Wikipedia policy, MOS: NPOV; the user is removing edits of other users in the article (Noted in Aditya Dhar & Dhurandhar). Editors left remarks & notifications but the user is not replying or following the rules. I request to look into this user & block the account for short period as warning, so that the user learn the policies before making disruptive edits/ potential Vandalism. Regards SakuraSmart (talk) 16:44, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

Outside of extreme circumstances (blatant vandalism, attacking other users), users are blocked is by receiving four warnings on their talk page and then being reported at WP:AIV. Lucasattitude has only gotten two warnings so far. Danbloch (talk) 17:13, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

Understood. Thanks for explaining. SakuraSmart (talk) 17:38, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

I know admins are supposed to assume good faith and I tend to assume most will but in the page one suggested method of undoing vandalism is using the undo tool and the automatic edit summary it generates and mark the edit as minor. I have never used this tool so I don't know what that edit summary is but, based on what I just mentioned, I'm assuming it is something along the lines of "reverting vandalism". However, the page also mentions that one form of gaming the system is making bad faith edits as minor and also that one form of subtle vandalism is following the vandalism is with an edit summary that says "reverting vandalism". So I would like to ask: is it possible admins who have seen a lot of vandalism, particularly of the varieties I mentioned, might mistake me for a vandal if I use the undo summary and the automatic edit summary it generates and mark the edit as minor and I do not have time to do anything else in relation to the vandalism? John Kryten (talk) 12:12, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

If you use edit summaries, regardless of if you mark your edit as minor, it is much easier for people to understand what your edit is, so I don’t see how an admin could mistakenly identify that as vandalism just because you added a minor edit tag. Slomo666 (talk) 17:34, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you John Kryten (talk) 19:15, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

I do want to note you should not mark edits as minor edits if they aren’t. See Help:Minor edit. Slomo666 (talk) 09:47, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for the link. I will have a look John Kryten (talk) 10:02, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

I've compiled User:ClaudineChionh/Notes/Genealogy of anti-vandalism tools as a prelude to updating Wikipedia:Vandalism#Tools and Wikipedia:Cleaning up vandalism/Tools. Have I missed anything? ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email · global) 08:50, 13 March 2026 (UTC)