Wikipedia:Cleaning up vandalism/Tools

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Shortcut: WP:CUV/T

The following is a list of tools and resources available for those who want to clean up with a more systematic approach.

Contents 1 Monitoring 2 Rollback scripts 3 Special pages 4 Task Force 5 IRC channels 6 Other

[edit] Monitoring

The old school way is to load recent changes and check the (diff) links. If they contain harmful edits, you revert to the previous version. However, the high volume of edits that occur each second makes this difficult to accomplish most of the time, and several tools have been created to simplify the process:

• VandalProof is an anti-vandalism program for Windows.
• Vandal Fighter, the original anti-vandalism program, is a Java program that displays the Recent Changes feed from Wikipedia's IRC bots and allows filters to focus on certain types of changes (e.g. anonymous IPs). It also maintains a personal list of trusted users, watched articles, etc.
• Lupin's Anti-Vandal Tool monitors the RSS feed and flags edits with common vandalism terms. It also has a live spellcheck feature.
• WikiMonitor is a Windows program that enables users to monitor recent changes, their watchlist, users' contributions, and other feeds in real time as well as providing multiple tools to aid in semi-automated editing and reversion. It is compatible with all Wikimedia wikis.
• VandalSniper, a VandalProof-like application, is currently in beta. At the moment it has only been confirmed to run on Linux.
• WikiGuard is a Mac OS X program that monitors the IRC feed and attempts to approximate each edit's risk.
• RC birds is a Java program that emits different bird sounds for the RC feed depending on the user.
• The IRC Bot, pgkbot, by Pgk, runs on the IRC channels below.
• IRC Bots reporting at the #cvn-wp-en channel on the freenode network list suspected vandalism edits (for example: blankings, edits made by blacklisted users, etc.)
• Young Orphans is a tool made by Interiot to find newly uploaded orphaned images. This is useful for finding various copyright violations and people who are using Wikipedia merely as an image hosting service.
• ShadowTool is a lightweight RC patrol application for Linux.
• Mike's Wiki Tool - An RC patrol tool for Windows users.
• Wikipedia Vandalism Watch is a Windows program that monitors specified users' contributions pages for top edits.
• Huggle is a Windows program which parses edits from users not on its whitelist. You must be running Windows 2000 / XP / Vista and have .NET 2.0 installed for this program to function.
• WatchlistBot is an XMPP bot that sends messages in realtime when articles are modified. Users with a Jabber account (note that Google Talk is an XMPP service) can subscribe to the bot and watch both articles and users.

[edit] Rollback scripts

Administrators and users who have requested it get a rollback button when looking at diffs in order to revert articles to their previous versions. However, non-administrators and users without the permission can emulate such a button using several tools.

• RC patrol script gives non-administrators revert, filter, and popup tools while using the (default) monobook skin.
• Godmode-light is a Javascript program to give non-administrators a rollback button.
• Navigation popups are a set of utils that appear when hovering over wikilinks. Particularly, hovering over links of old versions provides a "revert" link.
• Twinkle gives non-administrators (and administrators, for that matter) three types of rollback functions. Other functions include a full library of speedy deletion functions, user warnings, pseudoautomagical reporting of vandals, and more.

[edit] Special pages

• See the list of Wikipedia's most vandalized pages. The related changes link will display recent changes to all pages listed on Wikipedia:Most vandalized pages, for those who wish to follow vandalism on Wikipedia but who are unable or do not desire to use IRC bot tools.
• User:Adam1213/warn is a page that simplifies the process of warning vandals by allowing warnings to be submitted to specific users directly from the page.

[edit] Task Force

• Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit/Task Force A voluntary Group who will provide assistance at times of high levels of vandalism and advice on counter vandalism methods.
• Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit/Task Force/Members lists the status of task force members.
• Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit/Task Force/Communication is a semi-automatic "pager" to alert members registered on the list to high levels of vandalism.

[edit] IRC channels

Note that these are not operated by or affiliated with Wikipedia.

• #cvn-wp-en Primary RC bot listing (NickServ registration required; voice invitations available on request from local operators or in #countervandalism)

[edit] Other

• Template:Vandalism information, a tool used as an indication of the current overall level of vandalism that is taking place on Wikipedia. On the page, click the edit button below the vandalism meter to change its level from 5 to 1 and/or add a short comment; 5 indicates very low levels of vandalism, and 1 indicates extremely high. You can add the vandalism information template to your userpage to stay up to date. See Template talk:Vandalism information for different styles.
• Counter-Vandalism Wiki (Not owned by, operated by, or affiliated with Wikipedia.)
• Wikilink scripts enable you to double click on [[wikilinks]] within IRC clients. Useful if doing patrol on the IRC channels.
• There are other scripts that may be handy while doing cleanup (not necessarily vandalism cleanup). Check them at WikiProject User scripts/Scripts (WP:JS)
• Arnon Chaffin has built a wonderful page made just for vandal fighting and warning.