User:Ritchie333/Plain and simple guide to vandalism

This is an essay on the vandalism policy and the assume good faith guideline.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

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This page in a nutshell: Vandalism is deliberately making Wikipedia worse. Everything else isn't. That's it.

When I hit writer's block and can't think of an article to create or improve, I get out my mop and bucket and do a bit of maintenance at the Anti-vandalism noticeboard or Requests for page protection. I'm continually surprised by how much confusion and misunderstanding arises over what vandalism actually is.

Sometimes, I think people believe all disruptive editing (that can be met with sanctions, including being blocked from Wikipedia indefinitely) is vandalism. It isn't.

Why is this a problem? edit

Well, when somebody is editing in good faith, even if they are disruptive, we want them to stay and carry on contributing to the project, they just need to change their behaviour or methods, or perhaps grow up a bit. If somebody is trying to help the project, calling them a vandal (especially via a scary template) can be quite upsetting and lose an editor. That's not good.

Even accounts that start off vandalising can be reformed, though it's rarer. We should always strive towards reforming people and getting them back to doing good work, as the encyclopedia won't write itself.

Examples edit

How could you? This new editor spent fifteen minutes writing that prose in good faith, but just because she forgot to cite a reliable source, she was called a "vandal". Fortunately, a nice experienced editor is nearby to placate them.

Some things I've seen labelled as "vandalism" but aren't include:

Wholesale removal of a paragraph from a biography edit

Not every portion of text added to an article needs to be retained, and sometimes removal is necessary to adhere to our neutral point of view and biographies of living persons policies. Section blanking may happen because somebody close to the article's subject has got upset by the information there, and genuinely thinks that removing it will make Wikipedia a more friendly and compassionate place.

Stop and think, don't be a dolt. Calling this type of user a "vandal" is particularly disruptive.

Repeatedly Edit-warring "is" to "are" on an article (and variations thereof) edit

There's more than one way to speak English, and somebody may not know that a "different" way of saying something is not actually the "wrong" way. It doesn't matter how many times they revert it, if they sincerely believe they are doing the right thing, it's not vandalism.

(Yes, even after 4 declined unblock requests!)

Note that there can be rare exceptions to this; for example, a number of editors were repeatedly told to stop moving Sega Genesis to Sega Megadrive and eventually they declared they'd do it anyway even though they knew it was disruptive; at that point it could be considered de-facto vandalism. But you're better off assuming otherwise.

Creating an unsourced autobiography full of puffery and weasel words edit

Creating an article about yourself is a rookie error on Wikipedia, which will almost always result in it being speedy deleted per WP:CSD#A7. While some autobiographies are obviously made up gibberish and can be deleted per WP:CSD#G3, anyone that claims to be the best musician / actor / author / Youtuber in the world is probably writing something based on a sincerely held point of view. Even if they get blocked after re-creating the puff-piece repeatedly, it's still best not to refer to it as vandalism.

Reverting your edit with an edit summary of "**** off, I'm right and you're wrong" edit

This guy thinks he's always right and you are always wrong - but he isn't deliberately trying to screw the place up.

(what goes in **** is left as an exercise to the reader)

Sure, we don't like personal attacks in edit summaries, but perhaps they are right and you are wrong?

Adding a link to a blog again and again and again edit

Editors sometimes add a reference or a link to a blog that is promotional, controversial, or otherwise violates the biographies of living persons policy. And sometimes they revert and again and again, fighting tooth and nail to keep the blog in, maybe even saying "this information is 100% true pls stop removing kthxbai". None of that is vandalism if you can picture the editor in question sincerely believes they are doing the right thing, even if they get blocked regardless.

There are exceptions; somebody deliberately spamming links to Britain First's website on articles about notable British Muslims probably isn't doing it to make the encyclopedia a better place for everyone. But you're still better off to AGF if you can possibly do so.

Adding unsourced gossip that they read in The Sun this morning edit

This shop is proud to sell The Sun and does not appear to have been vandalised.

While it's not a good idea to do this, especially on a biography of a living person, over a million people buy The Sun every day, and a proportion of them probably believe at least some things in it are true and worthy of mention in an encyclopedia.

(I'm cynical myself, but there you go...)

Adding / removing an infobox edit

Sometimes, there are things you are better off not knowing. Suffice to say, this seemingly innocent dispute has seen edit warring, name calling, and all-out nuclear warfare between editors, wasting huge amounts of time not spent improving the encyclopedia .... but it's still not vandalism.