Battlestar Wiki:Vandalism

This page is an official policy of Battlestar Wiki. This policy is considered by the community and its leadership to be the status quo of Battlestar Wiki and is not to be countermanded or ignored, though changes to it can be discussed on the appropriate talk page. This policy was implemented on 16 October 2005.

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What is vandalism?

Vandalism is the willful destruction of a page, which can occur in the following ways:

• Spam linking: The act of adding inappropriate links to websites containing content completely unrelated to an article in question.
• Blanking: Deliberately "erasing" a page, so that the common viewer will see nothing. This is a form of "whitewash" vandalism. This including adding this type of information on your own user and user talk pages.
• Creating Worthless Articles: The act of creating pages with content that is not germane on Battlestar Wiki.
• Uploading Obscene Content: While Battlestar Galactica covers topics of a controversial nature, the uploading of pornographic or vulgar media is not permitted. While this act is, in itself, not vandalism by any means, inserting these images or files into other pages indiscriminately or randomly for adverse effect is vandalism.
• Hack-and-Slash Editing: Basically, this is an act of randomly removing sentences or words, and inserting obscenities and nonsense to affect the quality of an article.

There are also lesser attempts at vandalism, which are a bit more controversial:

• Consistent Reverting of Content: While Battlestar Wiki has not instituted a "three revert rule", reverting content ad absurdum is highly frowned upon. Someone who consistently reverts content may be attempting to disrupt the Wiki by reverting a page to a previous edit, which may or may not have housed vandalized content.
• Moving Articles: Moving articles to another place is not considered vandalism by itself. However, moving an article to a namespace which has little or no encyclopedic value may be considered vandalism. (For instance, moving Ronald D. Moore to "shaggy-haired Caucasian toasterfrakker" would be obscene, unencyclopedic and inappropriate -- thus an act of vandalism.) As page move privileges are restricted on Battlestar Wiki, such vandalism is not possible thorugh a new user account.

What isn't vandalism?

Most edits made in good faith are not considered vandalism. These include:

• Rewrites: This is the act of rephrasing a paragraph, portion or entire work. As mentioned on the edit page, while you are free to add content, please remember that it may be edited mercilessly and reworked as your fellow Galacticipedians and readers see fit.
• Silly Pages: Some pages are made for fun. At present, Numerology and Toaster both have a serious and humorous intent. (Extremely irrelevant and/or irreverent articles should be posted on the "anti-Battlestar Wiki", called Wiki Frakr.)
• Most "Newbie" Edits: Edits from newcomers to the wiki may affect the content of the page; however, mostly they are made in good faith and thus demonstrate that the user needs both guidance and assistance. Commonly, such posts involve fan fiction or an article that already exists on the wiki.

Dealing with Vandalism

• For established articles:
  1. Revert the article to a previous, encyclopedic version.
• For new articles created by a vandal:
  1. Blank the contents of the page, then add {{deletebecause}}.
• For new images uploaded as an act of vandalism:
  1. Ensure that the image is an orphan -- that it is not linked to any page.
  2. Edit the image description page and add {{deletebecause}}.
• For existing images overwritten by a vandal:
  1. Revert the image to a previous, encyclopedic version.
  2. Notify an administrator. The picture will have to be deleted, but do not add a tag to the image description page.

Dealing with a Vandal

Remember, treat every case of suspected vandalism on a case-by-case basis: a "vandal" may be nothing more than a new user trying to see how a wiki works (And, in the process, learning how one shouldn't work on a wiki). Always assume good faith unless proven guilty of bad faith.

Deal with the vandal in the following order:

1. Notify an admin of the suspected vandal. Provide evidence to support your claim.
2. Notify the vandal that their edit has been identified and will be dealt with accordingly.
   • Do not be combative; assume good faith.
   • Kindly, but firmly notify them that their test worked and direct them to the sandbox.
   • Let them know that further acts of vandalism will be dealt with at the administrator's discretion.

Should the suspected vandal be an actual, bona-fide vandal, the administrator then shall take action.

How big is the problem?

On Wikipedia, vandalism rears its head on a daily basis, where both numerous admins and bots attend to the issue. Battlestar Wiki has the good fortune where vandalism is infrequent, and is usually corrected and dealt with efficiently and quickly.

The reason that this page exists is to prevent vandalism becoming a problem by letting the "honest contributor" know how to identify it and what to do in the event that vandalism does occur.