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Also use these templates if the vandal is still vandalizing articles. You can place them in a vandal user's userpage or a vandal ip's user talk page. The vandals will then realize that other people will think that the vandal is a bad vandal that doesn't care about the hard work people put into making good articles. These userboxes might make vandals realize that vandalizing is not the right thing to do.
Note: These userboxes may not make the vandal realize it, but it's worth a try.
<nowiki>{{Userboxtop|Vandal Information}}</nowiki> (Use this at the top)
{{]}} (Use this if the vandal has been blocked numerous times from editing)
Recent changes patrol or RC patrol refers to the process of checking the recent changes to the wiki for harmful edits.
The patrol is entirely voluntary and carries no obligation. At its heart, it's really just a way to see that every edit gets checked in a timely manner and is given a boost on its way to becoming a "featured article", while simultaneously ensuring that the rest of Misplaced Pages is not harmed.
Regular RC patrollers may wish to put the RC patrol userbox on their user page by adding {{User wikipedia/RC Patrol}}:
RC Patrolling primarily consists of a four step process:
Identifying "bad" or "needy" edits
RC patrollers efficiently identify problematic edits. A bad edit is an edit that for one reason or another needs to be entirely removed. A needy edit requires maintenance in some manner.
Removing or improving the edit
Needy edits should be tagged according to their need (ie {{wikify}}), or boldly changed immediately. Bad edits should likewise be tagged or deleted. Because no wikipedians like their edits to be deleted, it is important to leave concise but clear justifications on the talk page or in the edit summary. When adding tags, please consider placing them on the article's talk page rather than in the article itself.
Warn the editor
In the cases of deliberate vandalism or an evident lack of knowledge on Misplaced Pages procedure, offending editors should be warned on their talk pages. While this is an optional step, it should be a regular part of a patroller's duties, as it minimizes conflict, educates new editors and alerts admins of repeat offenders. For efficiency and consistency, standard warning templates can be found here. However do feel free to simply write a warning if the available templates are not appropriate.
Check the user's other contributions
You'll often find more edits with similar problems. Fix those as well.
Being nice
Throughout the entire process of RC patrol, it is important to remember not to bite the newbies. Far from being a monolithic horde of vandals, trolls, and spammers, the available evidence seems to indicate that newcomers write most of Misplaced Pages's content.
If you see a new user or IP address contributing, {{subst:welcome}} them if you're so inclined, and include a pointer or two of feedback about how they can make their contributions even better. Most will gladly welcome the support.
It is also important to assume good faith as much as possible, or, minimally to assume incompetence instead of malice. For example, remember not everyone is as computer literate as you; some people will accidentally blank or damage pages when attempting to cut and paste material from Misplaced Pages. Others may not understand that, yes, their changes really are visible to the entire world.
Patrolling edits to existing pages
In general, one thing to keep in mind is not to focus only on patrolling articles in the main namespace. Image pages, for example, are freqently victims of nonsensical edits and vandalism. Such uncaught edits may be harmful due to malicious modification or collateral removal of copyright tags.
Newbie tests
Look for newbie tests (odd edits which are not vandalism), but don't bite the newcomers. Revert their experiments and leave one of the following messages on their user talk page. Be sure to timestamp (~~~~) the warning.
{{subst:test}} ~~~~
Thanks for experimenting with Misplaced Pages. Your test worked, and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Thanks.
{{subst:test1a}} ~~~~ (a variant suitable for blanking)
Please be careful not to remove content from Misplaced Pages without a valid reason, which you should specify in the edit summary or on the article's talk page. Thank you.
{{subst:test2}} ~~~~
Please stop adding nonsense to Misplaced Pages. It is considered vandalism. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. Thank you.
{{subst:test2a}} ~~~~ (a variant suitable for blanking)
Please do not remove content from Misplaced Pages; it is considered vandalism. If you want to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you.
Further non-constructive edits can be viewed as vandalism, and dealt with as below.
Spam
Look for spam. If it comes in the form of articles, nominate them for deletion with {{db-spam}}, place a Proposed Deletion tag on them with {{subst:prod|Your Reasons Here}}, or nominate them at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion. If a user is posting multiple links to a particular website in several articles, revert the edits. In either case, again use warning templates.
Copyright violations
Look for copyright violations and revert them. As per the instructions at Misplaced Pages:Copyright problems, just revert pages to remove copyright violations. However, take care to indicate in the edit summary that this is what you are doing. If an entire article is a copyvio see the section on copyvios in the new pages section below.
Vandalism
Look out for vandalism, and revert it. It is often worthwhile to check the page history after reverting to make sure you have removed all the vandalism. Also, check the user contributions of the vandal - you will often find more malicious edits.
Additionally, leave warning messages on the vandal's talk pages using the following system.
Warning templates
Note that these templates need not be used sequentially. If the edit is clearly vandalism, consider using {{blatantvandal}} or starting with {{test2}}. For continuing severe vandalism, {{test3}} may be skipped and a {{test4}} given straight after a test2. If, however, you are not sure that the edit is vandalism, always start with {{test}} If a user made such an edit and reverted it himself, use a {{selftest}}. For extreme or extensive cases of vandalism committed by users who have received no prior warnings, {{test4im}} may be used. The ~~~~ in the templates below cause the time and your signature to be added to the warning.
{{subst:selftest}} ~~~~ (use if an edit appears to be a reversion of a newbie test)
Welcome, and thank you for experimenting with Misplaced Pages! Your test worked, and thank you for reverting or removing it yourself. The best way to do tests in the future would be to use the sandbox. You can look at these pages as well: how to edit a page, the tutorial, and how to write a great article. All of these pages are good places to start. Again, welcome, and I hope that you will like Misplaced Pages.
{{subst:test}} ~~~~ (use if an edit appears to have possibly not been an intentional act of vandalism)
Thank you for experimenting with Misplaced Pages. Your test worked, and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia.
{{subst:blatantvandal}} ~~~~ (use if an edit is clearly vandalism)
Welcome to Misplaced Pages. We invite everyone to contribute constructively to our encyclopedia. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing. However, unconstructive edits are considered vandalism, and if you continue in this manner you may be blocked from editing without further warning. Please stop, and consider improving rather than damaging the hard work of others. Thank you.
This is your last warning. The next time you vandalize a page, you will be blocked from editing Misplaced Pages.
{{subst:test4im}} ~~~~ (used as a first warning for extreme cases of vandalism)
This is your only warning. Your recent vandalism has shown you to be intent on doing harm to Misplaced Pages. The next time you vandalize a page, you will be blocked from editing Misplaced Pages.
to explicitly state which articles were vandalized (suffix -n stands for named) and to add your signature. For example:
{{subst:test-n|France}}
Thanks for experimenting with the page France on Misplaced Pages. Your test worked, and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Thanks.
The "subst" causes the template text to be pasted into the talk page as if you had typed it out, instead of leaving {{subst:test}} visible when editing the page. This makes the messages more personal to the user, and thus, more friendly. Also, if someone vandalizes the template, then the vandalism will not affect every page that uses the text from the template.
You have been temporarily blocked from editing for vandalism of Misplaced Pages. If you wish to make useful contributions, you may do so after the block expires.
Remember to sign and timestamp your warnings by leaving four tildes (like this: ~~~~).
Trace IP
Also, consider tracing the IP. Find owners by using:
If an address is not in one, it will probably be in another. Then add {{vandalip|Name of owner}} to the talk pages of users who vandalise - the realisation that they can be traced is often sufficient to make them stop.
Tools
The following is a list of tools and resources available for those who want to clean up with a more systematic approach.
Screenshot of Misplaced Pages recent changes IRC feed
The old school way is to load recent changes and check the (diff) links. It can be filtered according to featured articles, good articles, living people, new accounts' contribs, IPs' contribs, mobile contribs (as these are more prone to vandalism, see Help:Recent changes), and even by likelihood of being damaging or bad-faith. Searching for pages by their namespace and specific tags (e.g. VisualEditor, possible BLP issue or vandalism, etc.) can also be done. If they contain harmful edits, you revert to the previous version. However, the high volume of edits that occur each second makes this difficult to accomplish most of the time, and several tools have been created to simplify the process:
Huggle is a fast diff browser which parses edits from users and sorts them by predicted level of vandalism. Once identified, malicious edits can be reverted in the click of a button. Due to the fast-paced nature of the program, users on the English Misplaced Pages must have the rollback permission to use it; however, this is not a requirement on other wikis.
IRC Bots report at the #cvn-wp-en channel on the Libera Chat network list suspected vandalism edits (for example: blankings, edits made by blacklisted users, etc.).
Lupin's Anti-Vandal Tool monitors the RSS feed and flags edits with common vandalism terms. It also has a live spellcheck feature.
RCMap geolocates anonymous edits from the IRC live feed and displays them on a world map, with links to diffs. Supports multiple languages in a unified interface.
Please be aware that this program is not hosted on Wikimedia Foundation servers
RC Patrol is a lightweight script that makes it easier to patrol recent changes. After installing, visit this page. The script uses ORES to automatically determine whether the edit needs review. You need rollback or admin permissions to use the script, just like with Huggle.
RedWarn patrol can be activated by any user of RedWarn on the recent changes page, quick reviewing and one-click rollback of disruptive edits.
SWViewer (direct link) is a user-friendly webapp with simple and intuitive UI that enables you to monitor recent changes in real-time. It also provides features to monitor multiple wikis at the same time. In order to use the application, rollback permission is required.
AntiVandal is another web-based vandalism monitoring tool, similar to Huggle in User Interface. It can be used to quickly revert vandalism and warn the vandal using escalating or 4im only warning templates. Users can also directly report vandals to Administrator Intervention against Vandalism after sufficient warning has been given. Rollback or admin permission is required to use the script.
WatchlistBot is an XMPP bot that sends messages in realtime when articles are modified. Users with a Jabber account can subscribe to the bot and watch both articles and users.
Rollback tools
These tools extend the rollback feature by allowing you to specify a summary when using rollback. They may also offer additional features:
Please be aware that this program is not hosted on Wikimedia Foundation servers
Navigation popups are a set of utilities that appear when hovering over wikilinks. Particularly, hovering over links of old versions provides a "revert" link.
Twinkle gives both non-administrators and administrators three types of rollback functions. Other functions include a full library of speedy deletion functions, user warnings, pseudo-automatic reporting of vandals, and more.
RedWarn, like Twinkle, gives both non-administrators and administrators nearly twenty types of rollback functions, including a "rollback preview" and "quick rollback".
Ultraviolet also provides several different types of rollback functions for both non-administrators and administrators, like RedWarn.
mobileUndo (new version) a script which allows you to revert when using the mobile interface.
Special pages
User:Adam1213/warn is a page that simplifies the process of warning vandals by allowing warnings to be submitted to specific users directly from the page.
Task Forces
Misplaced Pages:Counter-Vandalism Unit A voluntary group who will provide assistance at times of high levels of vandalism and advice on counter vandalism methods.
Note that these are not operated by or affiliated with Misplaced Pages.
#cvn-wp-en Primary RC bot listing (Activity feed only, discussion takes place in #wikipedia-en )
For a list of bot commands, see CVNBot Documentation. To use these commands, you must have a NickServ registration, and be voiced by a channel operator.
#wikimedia-unifications Account creations
#cvn-commons-uploads File uploads
#cvn-wp-en-cluenet Channel that reroutes information from ClueNet. (Read-only, only staff and bots can speak)
WMF ORES is a web service and API that provides machine learningas a service for Wikimedia projects maintained by the Scoring Platform team. The system is designed to help automate critical wiki-work – for example, vandalism detection and removal. Currently, the two general types of scores that ORES generates are in the context of “edit quality” and “article quality.”
Template:Vandalism information, a tool used as an indication of the current overall level of vandalism that is taking place on Misplaced Pages. On the page, click the edit button below the vandalism meter to change its level from 5 to 1 and/or add a short comment; 5 indicates very low levels of vandalism, and 1 indicates extremely high. You can add the vandalism information template to your userpage to stay up to date. See Template talk:Vandalism information for different styles.
Countervandalism Network, volunteer group that operates the "#cvn-" channels. This group is not owned by or affiliated with Wikimedia Foundation.
Wikilink scripts enable you to double click on ] within IRC clients. Useful if doing patrol on the IRC channels.
There are other scripts that may be handy while doing cleanup (not necessarily vandalism cleanup). Check them at WikiProject User scripts/Scripts (WP:JS)
