Hi everyone, Since there were a few instances in a recent time it made me think of this: the users who deliberately wipe off an entire article’s content and replaced it with an F** word (just came it across a few min ago) in my opinion should receive a not-so-polite warning when we press that “bad edit” button (for quick note). They should get a serious warning about their committing vandalism. They know exactly what they are doing. I just thought if it’s possible to add a “special” button for the special situations like this for posting a message that they will be blocked if they continue. What do you think?
Hinni
2
I agree, a lot of those people who do that sort of edit seem to be anonymous but I don’t think they need a warning before been blocked. When they make an silly edit like that just asking them not to do it again may not stop them from doing it again.
I tend to agree with you, @Hinni
. They came to wiki with not good intentions. That’s clear to me.
The core element of all wikis is to assume good faith. Profanity doesn’t always mean bad faith. It could simply be a person curious about how we would react when he/she blanks an article and replaces it with profanity. It’s always best to respond with friendliness even if we know straight up they’re vandals. Who knows… it could be a single coaching message that reforms their behaviour and they become a good faith editor. We have templates that give a warning while still assuming good faith for these situations: {{warning}} {{kind}} {{mean}}. I don’t think an additional quick note button is needed since we can also manually type a personalized message (which is better than a temp, too).
@Illneedasaviour
, I disagree with “Profanity doesn’t always mean bad faith”. These editors I witnessed what they did to the article did not act in good faith at all. All they do is to vandal the articles. Excuse me but to replace the entire content by one F*** word is in good faith in your opinion?? It’s a DELIBERATE vandalism. No good faith here.
system
6
Not all types of edits with profanity in them are considered bad faith. Some editors might just replace on words with the F-Bomb or write a comment like ‘This s**t does not work’ . I have encountered plenty of those kind of edits. Curious as to how we get rid of them, they act such. Some editors are converted after a coaching message. If I remember correctly after reading forum archives(to be more specific, a comment by @Loiswade42
), wikiHow used to have a plethora of sternly worded warnings to deal with vandals and spammers, but the system was scrapped for three reasons: 1.Stern warning were no more fun to enforce than to receive, and this resulted in a toxic atmosphere for newcomers, and other editors, who might not have been acting in bad faith. Since admins are volunteers too, most of their time was spent being harsh via stern warnings, and this is not quite as fulfilling as making a good edit. 2. Some Good faith editors were turned off. If the first thing you receive when you make an edit is a strongly worded warning, you might not be so eager to edit anymore. low conversion rates plagued this system, since vandals wouldn’t get converted. 3. IT DID NOT WORK. Vandals, instead of learning, continues acting in bad faith. What is the first rule of interacting with such people on the internet? Don’t Feed The Trolls. As admins kept sending warnings, vandals persisted, since they derived attention from it, albeit in a bad way. So wikiHow adopted a new system of friendliness and kindness. Vandals, expecting a stern warning, were greeted with a kind welcome message and friendly criticism templates. Such kindness blew them away, and some may have even been ashamed of themselves. Conversion rates peaked, and this new system was better to implement. Good faith editors stayed on the site to interact with the friendly community, and good edits thrived. In short, all was well. Regards, Abhishek.
Agree. No one can change their mind except themselves. Of course we can help them, steer them into “contributing way”, but it depends. Vandals are vary, too. Some are persisted, some are eager to learn, some are just bored… Good faith seems to be aimed to those who with potential ability and constructive mind. But those who don’t care, or those who stop to vandal for fun then leave, good faith becomes the thing for them to laugh at. Since we can’t stop vandals so if we set forgiving and good faith as the highest priority, then my advice will be “Keep a cool head, fix it then be proud of something good you’ve done.” About the button, yeah. It maybe useful in some situations. We’re not all saints, we can’t smile or pretend to smile forever when vandals keep throwing eggs and rotten tomatoes at us. And by the way, that button should be use with caution, as well as keeping track on the editing history of those users/IP addresses.
system
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We can NEVER completely eliminate vandalism. The wiki model relies on everybody being able to edit a page, and we can no more completely stop vandalism than we can hold back the tide. We can reduce it, yes. But we can NEVER stop it completely. As @Illneedasaviour
has already emphasized, the core element of all wikis is to assume good faith. As I have already stated in my post above, harsh warnings are NOT the be all-end all of stopping vandalism. It was tried, but it did not work. How many internet trolls have stopped because you yelled at them? None. How many have stopped because you ignored them? Most. Being polite and forgiving works better, since it converts good faith anons and shocks bad faith editors, who might become good contributors.
^ If you quote a person’s sentences, at least quote it in the way that sentence would show its owner-intended-meaning. Or let me do it for you:
system
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So sorry, misunderstood your sentence
Edited my post.
system
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This debate about how to respond to vandalism has happened before, and as mentioned, the consensus has always been that fighting fire with fire, sending a mean or angry toned message/warning isn’t going to scare anyone into stopping their activity, and probably, sending a friendly, encouraging one wouldn’t, either. In my observations, sending any message at all to most of the ‘‘f-bombing’’ vandals only encouraging them to keep doing it. That is what is known as ‘‘feeding the trolls’’, they want attention, and the more they can elicit a response, the better they like it. In general, the f-bombers make an edit, or sometimes two or three, then they go on to another website or place to have fun, and we forget them, so creating a certain tone of warning isn’t really helpful in our world or in theirs. If you see one of these guys, and you pick up his trail by checking his contributions, if he is a repeat offender, send an admin a message or post to the admin notice board.
system
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I agree. If more than two of the rc patrols click the bad edit, then the IP could be blocked.
OK, @BR
. Will do that. What exactly is the outcome of sending a message or posting? They will be blocked without further warning? I am curious. @Ruhanhabib39
, it would be nice if they are blocked wouldn’t it?
I will have to echo the above, especially @BR
. Our “motto” at wikiHow is to assume good faith, so we do not need a “special” template for situations such as an “F-bomber” replacing a page with a bad word. Sending a harsh message will not stopthe vandal; it will only encourage them to keep up the trolling/vandalism. For situations like this, placing a {{warning}} on the vandal’s talk page will work, or just rolling back the edit and leaving them alone would work too. If we leave them alone, they will probably not be a persistent
vandal or troll; they might take their trolling to another website, or go somewhere else to “have fun”. So the basic idea here is, even if the editor doesn’t assume good faith, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t assume good faith. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Just my thoughts. But thanks for the suggestion @Laura7491
!
I hadn’t thought of this, but I echo it wholeheartedly.
Elocina
15
Assuming good faith isn’t so much a wikiHow motto, but a core value throughout most wikis. I think a lot of the intentional vandalism is done by those who want to get a rise out of people, so by sending a stern warning, you’re sending the vandal the exact message they want. It can give them a platform to start trolling. Sadly, some people don’t care about what kind of attention they get, just that they get attention at all. At least by messaging them, showing that these are real people looking at the edits, we are giving them a chance to change their behavior. And some vandals have gone on to become productive contributors here on wikiHow and on other wikis. In addition some people are testing the wiki to see whether the edits actually go live or whether or not they actually do get reverted. It may not be the best way to test things, but that’s how people do it. Personally, I was always curious about how long it took to revert vandalism, but since I wanted to be a good faith contributor from the get go, I didn’t think adding bad content would be a good idea. In terms of blocking, personally, when I see vandalism in RC from the same IP, I will look at the history and the messages left on a talkpage. In many cases, people don’t vandalize more than once.
I thought I heard from @BR
that more than 2 Fbomb happenings COULD result in blocking this user which would be the best solution, in my opinion. I still don’t agree about those vandals acting in good faith. Sorry guys. I do not agree. I guess I am more conservative on this issue. If wikiHow is working toward banning these vandals vs. warning them this would be the best solution.
system
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Almost no one is blocked for one act of vandalism, an exception might be vandalizing a featured article while it is on the homepage, or an especially malicious or vulgar vandalisation. Personal attacks (trolling) or spam edits get blocked more quickly, as they are more egregious by nature, and often are the result of multiple edits in a short period of time. One must also be mindful of blocks being a short term event, from 2 hours to a few days unless a vandal is returning after previous blocks. I can understand Laura’s concern, but we have an established policy on blocking and block reasons, and it works. It isn’t a perfect world, but that is why recent changes are patrolled, and why patrolling is an important part of maintaining wikiHow’s quality.
Jamie
18
I believe the current warning system works great. However, a good idea may be to add various templates to the quick note feature. However, this would obviously discourage personalized messages… Generally, first time (vandals or not) editors may make such profane edits arithmetic in good faith or not and generally receive a warning or some sort of notice from patrollers straight away. Personally, I think that the system is great how it is. -Jamie
system
19
Elocina said it very well, and I agree with her. I’ll paraphrase an old saying that seems to fit here: Don’t wrestle with pigs (vandals). You both get dirty… and the pig (vandal) loves it.
That’s a funny paraphrase, and that is well-said, too. It can be compared to the stern warning message; dirtying a pig is like sending a mean message to a vandal. In other words, if you leave a mean message to a vandal, they will love it, just as pigs love wrestling.
