This issue with the anonymous IP users replacing pages with random text is getting out of hand. At least from my end anyway. I appear at the moment to be frequently seeing pages replaced with random text by the IPs. This is probably another one of the worst things wikiHow has suffered. Someone needs to do something about the IPs ASAP.
I take it you don’t edit wikis a lot?
wikiHow is a wiki, which means anyone can edit articles, whether they’re registered or not. The golden rule of all wikis is to assume good faith ( http://wikihow.com/wikiHow:Assume-Good-Faith
). These people could simply be testing to see how editing works, so we can just easily revert it. Others have a more malicious intent and attempt to vandalize the page; in that case, we leave them warning or, if it persists, block them temporarily. The entire purpose of RC patrol is to catch edits like these and revert them.
I know that, but the reason I posted this is because I started seeing it happen at a frequent rate. Based on the edit summaries by the IPs (Replacing page with (text goes here)), I believe they are doing this for vandalism purposes. Maybe wikiHow could have something called banning, where when an editor under a ban makes an edit, it is automatically reverted. Wikipedia uses this, apparently (or so I believe).
If vandalism is persistent, report the IP(s) to the admin notice board ( http://www.wikihow.com/wikiHow:Administrator-Notice-Board
) under Spammers and Vandals. Link to their contributions page and an admin will look over their edits and take the appropriate action. wikiHow is also experimenting with abuse filters to catch vandalism-type edits before they can actually become published live.
RCP exists for the purpose of reverting these edits. Sometimes, they’re reverted in seconds. While it is my personal experience that most anon edits are not good, they usually don’t have a lasting impact on wikiHow. Thanks for your concern!
Maybe semi-protecting the pages that are suffering these edits could be useful.
We can definitely do that. If you see any articles with a history of prolonged vandalism or edit wars, add it to the admin notice board and someone will consider it for temporary semi-protection.
Thanks for the concern @McDonalds1
– I see a lot of people do that. I agree with WE14 though! RCP is a wonderful system of quality control.
When I revert edits, my edit summaries go something like “Reverted edits by [[Special:Contributions/(username goes here)|(username goes here)]] to last revision by [[Special:Contributions/(username goes here)|(username goes here)]]”. The reason you see these edit summaries when I revert edits from me is because I think it is faster. You have your own opinions, though.
