NANOGWiki:Vandalism
From NANOG
Vandalism is considered by all users an unwanted part of this wiki. This document attempts to provide correct and accessible information regarding what is considered vandalism, and what is done to deal with it.
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What is Vandalism?
On this wiki, we define Vandalism as "an edit not made in a good-faith attempt to improve this wiki".
This, while quite broad and useful, does lead to interpretation. We make the following notes on what IS NOT vandalism:
- An unwanted edit to any page.
- An edit that adds information arising from a misunderstanding.
- An edit that improves the page from a user you don't like.
When assessing a situation, the important question is one of intent, not action. As such, vandalism is rarely considered definitive when it is only a single action.
A common example is users who edit a template directly with their information, instead of including the template on their page and adding the information there. On it's own, this doesn't seem to have any malicious intent behind it - it's just a mistaken edit. In this case, the user is not committing vandalism, as the edit was made in a good-faith attempt to improve the wiki.
Another example is the editing of a Person or Company page to claim they have moved or changed a job, when in fact they have't. On it's own, this may not have any malicious intent - if the person isn't active on the wiki or the company doesn't have any members activew on the wiki, the user may just be trying to provide updated information. If this is the case, then the user has not committed an act of vandalism, as the edit was made in a good-faith attempt to improve the wiki.
As a general rule, we expect users to assume good faith among editors - first assume that the edit they have made to the page has been made in a legitimate attempt to improve the page. If you're concerned about an edit another person has made, we recommend talking with the user in question (their User talk: page is a good place to do so).
It is considered extremely poor form to automatically assume that a person's edit was an act of vandalism. Moderators are expected to always look at an edit in the light of a good-faith edit, rather than assume guilt, and we expect that the user has attempted to contact the user regarding the edit.
If two users are diametrically opposed on an edit, we recommend that the two users find a third party to help them resolve their differences. Moderators do not take kindly to users using the wiki articles or talk pages as a personal battleground.
Some examples of Vandalism
Some acts, by their general nature, are almost always considered vandalism. There's almost no reason why a person would commit such acts in good faith. These are:
- Adding invisible commerical links to a page. This is commonly known as wikispamming, and it is commonly used as an attempt by outside sources to improve their page rankings. Since these links never actually contribute anything to the wiki, we consider these edits to be clear vandalism - they're certainly not an attempt to improve the wiki.
- Impersonating another user. It is possible to make a comment on the wiki that does not look like it is from yourself, but instead is from another user. Of course, the fact that you edited the page will always exist, so such acts rarely go unnoticed. We expect that, if you're commenting, you're commenting as yourself. If you're serious about improving the wiki, we feel that you should be more than willing to attach your comments to yourself, so if you're attaching them to someone else, we really have to assume that you're trying to do bad things to them. This doesn't improve the wiki, so we consider it clear vandalism.
- Blanking pages, or blanking sections. Wiping pages that other people have worked on is rarely required in improving the wiki. Thus, we consider it highly suspicious. Occaisionally, newbies do this on their own due to some sort of mistake, so it's not automatic, but a clear pattern often is.
Penalties for Vandalism
no current policies exist. ras needs to decide how much effort he'll want to put into it when something happens, or if he'll delegate any moderators, etc.
