User:Flameviper/Types of Vandalism

Flameviper's Userspace

user | talk | email | contribs | offline | index (talk)

There are generally 8 orders of vandalism in which any vandal can be grouped. Orders 1-6 are about article vandalism, ranging from 1, most destructive, to 6, the most refined and even enjoyable as satire. Orders 7&8 are not on the same par as the other classes; they are non-article vandalism. Order 7 refers to talk pages and things beside the article itself, and also deals with internal Wikific things such as guidelines, images and things of that sort. Order 8 is not an actual order; it is merely a more professional and hierarchical way of saying "uncategorized".

Orders

Order 1

Order 1 vandalism is the most childish and pointless of all vandalism. It consists of randomly pressed keys or complete page blanks.

Example

djjc4edknvceorfng[] vfrfknvegovinrgfvj ERT+ jwnfcejeksnrugfnjkcnejfnbeufnbjucbe

As you can see, this conveys no meaning whatsoever. A complete page blank is unlike a regular page blank in that it means nothing; the page is completely empty for no particular reason.

Order 2

Order 2 vandalism consists of coherent words, but randomly strung together or in a nonsense fashion.

Example

YES MAM SAM GEYSER CHEESE! CHEESE!

This text, although consisting of words, makes no sense. Order 2 vadalism can also have nonsensical sentences, sometimes copied and pasted together to last several pages, sometimes even hundreds (this is accomplished by copy+pasting the sentence a lot, then copying the whole thing (all the copied sentences) and pasting it repeatedly).

Example

HARRY POTTER RULES ALL!!!!HARRY POTTER RULES ALL!!!!HARRY POTTER RULES ALL!!!! ad infinitum.

Order 3

Order 3 vandalism is less than childish; it usually conveys meaning, but is sometimes profane. Sometimes Order 3 is inserting pointless jokes or phrases into an article.

Example

Order 3 vandalism is HEY, YOU KNOW WHO'S A PEACH??? AND WHO'S A SWEETUMS??? YEAH! MY DOG!!!less than childish;...

This conveys no actual meaning to the casual reader, however, and is certainly not pertinent to the article. Order 3 can also be simple profanity inserted, as in the other form page blanking may take (seen below).

Order 4

Order 4 vandalism conveys meaning, vulgar and inappropriate it may be.

Example

George W. Bush is a demented poopy-saturated llama!

Order 5

Order 5 vandalism is usually hidden well, in the nooks and crannies of a page. It may be simply altering a fact on a page, changing 1920 to 1424, or it could be adding commentary (1969 to 1969...heheheh...69) that is meaningless.

Order 6

Order 6 is the subtlest kind, or the best, depending. It is skilled satire and usually is enjoyable for reading, as opposed to annoying. See some of the finer atricles on Uncyclopedia or The Onion, or Mad Magazine, for this material.

Order 6 can also be adding non-factual material in a very subtle way, as not to be noticed for days, or even months. There's a page on BJAODN like this, I can't remember which though.

Order 7

Order 7 can be understood to mean all vandalism on pages separate from the actual Wikific page (yes, Wikific) and/or tags, templates, etc. This can be altering or deleting others' comments, deleting tags, editing Wikific internals (guidelines, templates, etc.) It is also creating a vulgar account name against Wikific rules as to stir scandal.

Order 8

Order 8 is not an actual class; it instead refers to any vandalism not grouped into any of the other categories.

Subtypes

Order 1

Total Blanking

Blanking an entire article and leaving nothing; not conveying any meaning or message, but just being annoying.

Random character vandalism

Replacing topical information with random characters, or just adding random characters to a page. "aslkdjnsdagkljhasdlkh," for example.

Order 2

VandalBot

A script or "robot" that attempts to vandalize or spam massive numbers of articles (hundreds or thousands), blanking, or adding commercial links. Another type of VandalBot appears to log on repeatedly with multiple random names to vandalize an article.

Silly vandalism

Users will sometimes create Baa-d jokes and other oh-so-Deletable Non-scents or replace existing articles with plausible-sounding nonsense, or add silly jokes to existing articles (this includes Mr. Pelican Shit.) A better place for content that is intentionally of a joking or nonsensical nature is the Uncyclopedia or WP:BJAODN.

Order 3

Childish vandalism

Adding graffiti or blanking pages. (The female cyclist vandal is an example of this type.) Note that this page, itself, has been repeatedly blank page vandalized since June 11, 2005.

Order 4

Spam

Adding inappropriate external links for advertisement and/or self-promotion.

Page move vandalism

Moving pages to offensive or nonsense names. Most infamous example was Willy on Wheels. However, Wikipedia now only allows users with 25 edits or above to make page moves, and the reason must be stated.

Caps Vandalism

Changing a page's content so that (Although the content itself is not changed) the text is in FuNkY cApS or in ALL CAPS! FuNkY cApS are very hard to read and ALL CAPS make the article look Un-Wikific, the funky caps even more so. This vandalism may also replace all periods with exclamation points.

Blanking

Removing all or significant parts of articles (sometimes replacing the removed content with profanities) is a common vandal edit.

Order 5

Redirect vandalism

Redirecting articles or talk pages to offensive articles or images. One example is the Autofellatio redirect vandal. Some vandals will try to redirect pages to nonsense titles they create this way. This variation is usually performed by vandals whose accounts are too new to move pages. It is also often done on pages that are protected from moves.

Link vandalism

Rewriting links within an article so that they appear the same, but point to something irrelevant or ridiculous (e.g. France).

Order 6

Sneaky vandalism

Vandalism which is harder to spot. Adding misinformation, changing dates or making other sensible-appearing substitutions and typos.

Rewrite vandalism

Vandalism that is performed by not changing the text of an article at all, but doing something to it, making every word a misleading link, for example, or translating itinto something elso, like Old English or Leet. Example: Vandalism that is performed by... Example: \/@^1)@l1$^^ +#@+ 1$ |)312|)#012^^21) |3'/...

Order 7

Avoidant vandalism

Removing {{afd}}, {{copyvio}} and other related tags in order to conceal or avoid entries to risk deletion.

User page vandalism

Replacing User pages with insults, profanity, etc. (see also Wikipedia:No personal attacks)

Abuse of tags

Bad-faith placing of {{afd}} or speedy-deletion tags on articles that do not meet such criteria, or deceptively placing protected-page tags on articles.

Template vandalism

Adding any of the above to templates.

Removing warnings

Removing warnings, whether for vandalism or other forms of prohibited/discouraged behavior, from one's talk page is also considered vandalism.

Changing people's comments

Editing signed comments by another user to substantially change their meaning (e.g. turning someone's vote around), except when removing a personal attack (which is somewhat controversial in and of itself). Signifying that a comment is unsigned is an exception. e.g. (unsigned comment from user)

Improper use of dispute tags

Dispute tags are important way for people to show that there are problems with the article. Do not remove them unless you are sure that the dispute is settled. As a general rule, do not remove other people's dispute tags twice during a 24 hour period. Do not place dispute tags improperly, as in when there is no dispute, and the reason for placing the dispute tag is because a suggested edit has failed to meet consensus. Instead, follow WP:CON and accept that some edits will not meet consensus.

Talk page vandalism

Deleting the comments of other users from article Talk pages, or deleting entire sections thereof, is generally considered vandalism. Removing personal attacks is often considered legitimate, and it is considered acceptable to archive an overly long Talk page to a separate file and then remove the text from the main Talk page. The above does not apply to the user's own Talk page, where users generally are permitted to remove outside comments at their discretion, except in cases of warnings, which they are prohibited from removing.

Official policy vandalism

Deleting or altering part of a Wikipedia official policy with which the vandal disagrees, without any attempt to seek consensus or recognize an existing consensus. Improving or clarifying policy wording in line with the clear existing consensus is not vandalism.

Account creation vandalism

Creating accounts with deliberately offensive terms in the username is considered vandalism, whether the account is used or not.

Image vandalism

Uploading provocative images, inserting political messages, making malicious animated GIFs, etc. Repeatedly uploading images with no source and/or license information after notification that such information is required may also constitute vandalism.

Order 8

Attention-seeking vandalism

Adding insults, using offensive usernames, replacing articles with jokes etc. (see also Wikipedia:No personal attacks)

Copyrighted material vandalism

Knowingly using copyrighted material on Wikipedia in ways which violate Wikipedia's copyright policies is vandalism. Because users may be unaware that the information is copyrighted, or of Wikipedia policies on how such material may and may not be used, such action only becomes vandalism if it continues after the copyrighted nature of the material and relevant policy restricting its use have been communicated to the user.