Vandalism is an addition, deletion, or change to content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise Disney Wiki's integrity. The most common types of vandalism are creating article titles with obscenities, replacing text with obscenities, blanking pages, or adding nonsense characters / gibberish.
Any good faith effort to improve the wiki, even if it's misguided or incorrect, is not vandalism.
Vandalizing pages is a violation of Disney Wiki policy. Wikipedia's policy is to give vandals three warnings, and then block them for a short period of time. We do things differently here, because Wikipedia has 26,000 active contributors, and they can afford to spend time chasing after vandals. We're a niche wiki, with a dedicated but small team of contributors, and we don't have the time or the patience to play whack-a-mole with the vandals.
What is Not Vandalism
It is important we know what vandalism is not. We will get many teens and preteens who may not be familiar with the idea of editing a wiki. These users may not know they are doing anything wrong or just see it as a bit of a joke and we should not jump to the conclusion that they are malicious. Most of these are simply kids being kids and won't ever repeat this kind of pseudo-vandalism.
Attacking newcomers is not an appropriate response for one or two edits that were not done in good-faith. Doing so is called "biting" a newcomer in Wiki-speak. We must treat newcomers with kindness and patience — nothing scares potentially valuable contributors away faster than hostility. It is impossible for a newcomer to be completely familiar with all of the policies, guidelines and community standards of Disney Wiki (or of a certain topic) before they start editing.
How to avoid being a "biter"
Newcomers' perspectives of how things should be handled inside Disney Wiki largely will be from outside of the community. It's a jungle out there and it may take some time before a newcomer becomes accustomed to "how things work" here. Keeping that in mind may help you avoid becoming a biter. In addition, you may avoid being accused of being a "biter" by:
- Avoid the word "vandal". In particular, the word should not be used in reference to any contributor in good standing or to any edits that can arguably be construed as good-faithed. If the edits in question are made in good faith, they are not vandalism. Instead of calling a person making such edits a "vandal", discuss his or her specific edits with him or her. Comment on the content and substance of his or her edits or arguments, not his or her person.
- Avoiding intensifiers in commentary (such words as terrible, dumb, stupid, bad, good, and so forth, and exclamation marks).
- Moderating one's approach and wording.
- Avoiding sarcasm in edit summaries and on talk pages, especially when reverting.
- Striving to respond in a measured manner.
- Accepting graciously another person's actions or inactions in a given situation or context.
- Acknowledging differing principles and a willingness to reach consensus.
- Opening oneself towards taking responsibility for resolution of conflicts.
- Reciprocating where necessary.
- Listening actively.
- Avoid Wiki jargon. When linking to policies or guidelines, do so in whole phrases, not wiki shorthand.
- Avoid using blocks as a first resort. Consider talking to a user before you block him or her.
Consciously choose the steadfast ground. Strive to be a responsible editor. By fostering goodwill, one will not provoke or be provoked easily, and will allow new editors to devote their time and resources towards building an encyclopedia that everyone is encouraged to improve.
Note: Consistently biting new users is equally disruptive as vandalism to the aims of this community.
How to fix vandalized pages
Revert the edits
When you see that a page has been vandalized, please revert the page to the previous version. Reverting the vandalism quickly helps to protect the wiki, and it sends a message to the vandal that his or her efforts have been wasted.
- Click the "history" tag on the page, and you'll see a list of all of the previous versions of the page.
- You can see any version by clicking on the date. Click on the most recent version before the vandalism.
- Click on "edit", and you'll see a regular edit page, plus a warning that says that you're editing an out-of-date revision of the page.
- Hit save, and the unvandalized version will become the current version of the page again.
- Check the vandal's contribution history. It can also be helpful to click on the vandal's IP address or username to see their contribution history. They may have vandalized other pages, too, and you can revert those.
Communicate with the vandal
Place the bad faith template by inserting {{subst:badfaith|PageName|YourUserName|—~~~~}} onto the user's talk page. This template politely informs the user that they have been identified as a possible vandal and will be blocked if they continue to vandalize. It also points out other policies that may be useful in instructing them on how to edit constructively. If you insert {{Badfaith|[[Phineas Flynn]]|xxxx|xxxxx}}, then the message will look like this:
Template:Badfaith
Normally, the message would also include a link to this page, instead of "not in good faith" in bold.
Alert an administrator
After you have warned the user, notify an administrator on their talk page. Be constructive with any criticism you have about the user. The current list of administrators are:
Usage
{{Administrators}}
Purpose
Template to show the current list of Administrators for this wiki. See Disney Wiki:Staff for a list of Administrator duties and the nomination process.
See Also
- Vandalism Policy at Wikia Central
- Wikia:Assume Good Faith at Wikia Central