Wikipedia talk:Counter-Vandalism Unit/Archive 8

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New method of vandalism?

I recently took a look at the Honda article, only to find that all instances of "honda" had been replaced with the word "toyota". One quick reversion and it was fixed, but I'd never seen that before. I put a "vandalism3" on his talk page, and traced his IP to Hong Kong. Any suggestions on what to do next?

--Johnnydc 08:00, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

It was probably a search-and-change. I believe there are programs that allow you to search for words, and change all of them at once. Probably just a Firefox extension. If he keeps vandalising, keep warning him, and if he vandalizes after the final warning, report him to WP:AIV. Otherwise, not much else you can do. J-stan Talk 00:14, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I want to join

Can someone please tell me how to join? -yomom0852

No, you're a vandal. --Triadian 14:16, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
If you seriously want to join our WikiProject against vandalism, then you need to first demonstrate your willingness to not vandalize yourself; our members can't fight vandals and be vandals at the same time. Come back in a month or so after you've proven yourself to have "changed your ways." -- P.B. Pilhet 00:37, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

found vandal

Sparrow1332 is a vandal reverted it also can there be a site map somewhere. im getting lost wikipedia is harder to navigate than a 4dmaze. Agentheartlesspain 21:45, 23 April 2007 (UTC)agentheartlesspain

IRC

See User_talk:AzaToth#Unmaintained. Is anyone else in-the-know when it comes to IRC? Thanks, Dar-Ape 03:08, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Not sure where to report this but:

Both User:58.169.2.254 and User:58.169.35.253 have been on recent vandal sprees, both now blocked 31 hours. I'm not sure how it works, but the 58.169.xxx.xxx range needs watching. - Dan D. Ric 13:11, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

word-change vandalism at Infection

Something to look out for:

67.14.216.127 (talk · contribs) vandalized Infection by changing "microorganisms" to "microorgasms".

I warned the editor using the {{uw-error2}} template.

--Kevinkor2 21:07, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Uruguay article vandalised

The article about Uruguay is being vandalised on a daily basis. I requested semi-protection for it and it was denied. Could someone keep an eye on it? Thank you. --~ ~ James Hetfield (previously Wesborland) ~ ~ 16:23, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Sneaky vandalism, missed by the usual bots

Usually, something this obvious gets caught by the anti-vandal bots and I never even see it. But the vandal copied some of the templates at the top of the article, added their stupidness, and pasted it at the bottom. I guess the bots got thrown off, somehow. Obviously, I've reverted the change... just wanted to let someone (anyone?) know about this new(?) vandalism strategy. --Robertb-dc 17:25, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

AntiVandalBot hasn't made any edits since mid-February, or any reverts since mid-January, or it might well have caught that. What's wrong? CaptainVindaloo t c e 17:47, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
The talk page comments for AntiVandalBot imply that there was some sort of problem that just got corrected yesterday. That 'splains a lot, Lucy. --Robertb-dc 20:27, 14 March 2007 (UTC)


Can someone please take a look at 'Rostrevor College' - I just don't know how to fix a whole page worth of vandalism (please check the history thoroughly, it hasn't been reverted properly) thankyou 121.45.176.106 13:38, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism organization beyond Wikipedia

I came across an interesting facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2205217096 Mkdwtalk 07:12, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

School admin contacts and web links

With User:SelketBot now adding {{SharedIPEDU}} templates to school IPs, I think the templates would be improved if they linked the name of the school to the school's webpage. Iif possible, to their computer use policy which is sometimes online, along with linking to a school contact where if vandalism is really bad, someone might be inclined to contact and report abuse. In order for the bot to add links, Selket says he/she needs a list compiled of schools and websites. (and contacts) Is that something people are interested in? Would it be worth the effort of us putting a list together, or is there some better way. Alternatively, SelketBot need not add the links to school webpages; when we add subsequent warnings, we could manually put the links in. Thoughts? I left a message on the SharedIPEDU talk page, but it appears infrequently visited. This seems like the place to coodinate efforts. --Aude (talk) 20:34, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

From a technical point of view, making this change in the bot would be easy provided there is a list somewhere (possibly on wiki) that the bot can lookup the URLs to link to. There was a discussion on template talk:sharedip about posting additional whois information (e-mail, phone, address) a little bit ago. This also would be easy for the organization that use the longform whois (some use a short form that doesn't have this information) from a technical standpoint. The consensus there, though, was that many school admins, don't want their emails or phone numbers on Wikipedia. --Selket Talk 20:51, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Just website links are good. From there, it's possible to find contacts should someone be interested in reporting abuse. What kind of list do you need? Something that can be copied and saved as a csv file? or what? I'm thinking there has to be a better way to do it though. I was able to get a csv list of all school districts in the U.S. from the National Center for Education Statistics, but I can't find if they also have urls for each. --Aude (talk) 21:06, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Here's a list for New Jersey. I just put "w" in the search box and got 536 results. (I think that's all of them?) Maybe we can piece together lists like this one? --Aude (talk) 21:13, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

How can we more quickly disover malevolent hoaxes, such as the Sinbad?

As you may already be aware, Wikipedia was recently the target of a malicious hoax where it was claimed in the Sinbad (actor) article that Sinbad had just died. Malicious individuals subsequently widely circulated a link to the particular edit in the version history, and Wikipedia then became object of ridicule in hundreds of news media all over the world [1]. The hoax was reverted by anonymous users within two hours (see Talk:Sinbad (actor)#Summary of events concerning the hoax), but had it been discovered immediately Wikipedia could maybe have avoided this media embarassment. We need to make sure when this happens next time, there is a lightning-fast response. Some suggestions for active CVU people to consider:

  • Focus countervandalism efforts on articles in Category:Living people, that are maybe most often the target of such hoaxes, big and small.
  • highligt all edits by anonymous users on pages in this category, also triggering on words such as 'died' or 'death'.

Any other suggestions, or any relevant comments on the current practise? Jens Nielsen 17:06, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject on Vandalism studies just finished Study 1

The WikiProject on Vandalism studies recently finished its first study and has published its conclusions (a full and detailed copy can be found here).

The first study analyzed a randomly sampled pool of 100 random articles. Within these 100 articles there were a total of 668 edits during the months of November 2004, 2005, and 2006. Of those 668 edits, 31 (or 4.64%) were a vandalism of some type. The study's salient findings suggest that in a given month approximately 5% of edits are vandalism and 97% of that vandalism is done by anonymous editors. Obvious vandalism is the vast majority of vandalism used. From the data gathered within this study it is also found that roughly 25% of vandalism reverting is done by anonymous editors and roughly 75% is done by wikipedians with user accounts. The mean average time vandalism reverting is 758.35 minutes (12.63 hours), a figure that may be skewed by outliers. The median time vandalism reverting is 14 minutes.

Anyways, I thought you guys would like to know given you're the CVU. If any are interested in further discussing Study 1 or any of the up and coming studies being planned, come 'round. Cheers. JoeSmack Talk 05:06, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Wiki Project Fighting Vandalizm

Hi. i am Pendo 4. I just wanted to start a Wiki Project of fighting Vandalizm on the pages that are mostly Vandalized and are not locked. Can you guiys please help me out? I want to see if I should do it.Pendo 4 11:52, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Please don't. The Counter-Vandalism Unit is a wikiproject. Setting up another one with the same (or a very very similar) purpose would only serve to divide the vandal-fighting community, making it harder for us to communicate and possibly stirring up a rivalry between the two project further down the line. I don't think that would be at all helpful. Waggers 11:58, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

No. Wait. First, I am not going to set up a rivalary. That was not even in my mind. Secon, I said that the project will fight vandalizim on "PAGES THAT HAVE BEEN VANDALIZED THE MOST." Those would the only pages we will have. The only difference of the project is that it will focus "ONLY" on the "PAGES THAT NEED HELP."Pendo 4 20:34, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Japan flag type vandalism

What should we do about this dude? He has been vandalising since October 2006 to today, each time by replacing articles with a big Japan flag. Is there a way to block his IP instead of accounts that he keeps creating? Or if he has no single IP, is there something we can do still? Kariteh 16:17, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Edit: Added his new account. Kariteh 15:41, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Updated. Kariteh 15:49, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Updated. I find it disturbing that this project seems not to care. Kariteh 11:45, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
... Kariteh 22:07, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Hm, reminds me of Squidward. Only thing we can do is revert and block as they appear. There's no need to go through the warnings though, obvious socks can be reported at AIV immediately. Eventually, he'll get bored and go away. CaptainVindaloo t c e 15:14, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
(Updated) Thanks for the advice. Kariteh 17:56, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow! Lots of accounts. I noticed you identified the following accounts just recently:

  • Battleship Yamato
  • Super zero fighter plane
  • A7M Reppu
  • Polnewsa
  • G7M
  • Zeke fighter
  • G8M Renzan bomber
  • Destroyer Hinomaru

Thank you!

When I have time, I plan to look through the file links to Image:Flag_of_Japan.svg. This may reveal lingering vandalism by Hinomaru. --Kevinkor2 19:06, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

If it continues, consider filing a checkuser request to get the underlying IP address blocked. CaptainVindaloo t c e 19:35, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah, thanks! I've made a request at Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser#Hinomaru. If I had known about that page, I would have made one much sooner; that guy's joke is getting really old already. 111 sockpuppets... Kariteh 14:51, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
I just opened a second case: Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Hinomaru (2nd) —Umofomia 08:06, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
You can add Super_Editor_1000 to the ever-growing list. As Kariteh has noted, this has been going on since October, isn't likely to go away soon, and IP blocks won't work on this guy. So I have a suggestion: Let's find a Wikipedian who's able to program a bot countering this. The pages Hinomaru vandalizes are themed around the Chinese language (I don't think he visits more than a dozen articles, two tops), and the damage he causes is always of the same pattern:
  • insert one of two Japanese Flags
  • remove the end tag of several in-text comments, thus making the text invisible
  • inserts "Chinese Language sucks".
Which could be easily detected and fixed by the right algorithm. Maybe it would even be enough to adapt one of the existing Bots against Vandalism. Teshik 13:52, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Tank engines

I already posted this on WP:ANI but I thought it might help to spread the word here.

We seem to have a new vandal. First he was Jerry the Tank Engine, then he was Roland the Tank Engine, and most recently he was Trevor the tank Engine‎.

Kenny the Tank Engine recently created Werner the Tank Engine, Craig the Tank Engine, Akira the Tank Enginew, Vandal with downs syndrome and Vandal with aspergers syndrome. The latter two were immediately blocked as username violations. Keep an eye out for those tank engines. :) IrishGuy talk 19:08, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

User:Norman the Tank Engine was blocked way back in February. Here. In some of his edit summaries he made allusions to Willy on Wheels. - Dan D. Ric 19:47, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
What's Willy on Wheels? J-stan Talk 00:45, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm not too sure but I think Willy on wheels must be some infamous Wikipedia vandal. He keps getting mentioned. His account User:Willy on Wheels is banned. --Hdt83 Chat 07:26, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
I thought I remember something about his RfA, but i'm not sure. J-stan Talk 16:11, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

VF/newbie guidance anyone?

Can anyone offer me some guidance on getting Vandal Fighter to work. I've installed the latest and greatest versions of JRE and of VF (I think ... I've got vf35b_17.jar, but I've also tried vf35b_3.jar). When I open the .jar file, it opens Vandal Fighter. The status bar at the bottom says "Ready to connect ....". I click Connect. The status bar says "joined channel". I assume that it's at this point that the window should start populating with possible cases of vandalism, but nothing comes up; even after letting it run for 20 or 30 minutes. Any suggestions?

Which of the tools are the faves among this group? Thanks! Sanfranman59 01:34, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if this is proper WP protocol, but I'm bumping this topic to the bottom of the talk page since I didn't get a response. Do people here generally use Vandal Fighter? If not, what do you use? --Sanfranman59 17:48, 28 March 2007 (UTC)


type of spam to whatch for

<div style="position:absolute;top:-50px;left:-50px;widthttp://www.yourlink.com/ ]</div>

Geni 12:58, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Watch for vandalism relating to Kappa Mikey

Not knowing who to turn to, perhaps the CVU can take a look at the rash of vandalism attacks by a number of users on articles relating to the TV series Kappa Mikey in the recent days. I've cleaned it up as best as I can, but it's a lot of work. kelvSYC 08:49, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Its on my radar thanks. Lakers 02:04, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Where to report inappropriate user page

I came across a user page today that I think is in clear violation of WP policy (User:Carirach). Do I report this to WP:AIV? --Sanfranman59 23:05, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Twinkle-like script that works on Internet Explorer

Is there one? Sancho (talk) 05:26, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Ttbomk. No. Twinkle is the only one I know of, and that only runs in Firefox and something else... Thor Malmjursson 05:43, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism study results

Apparently the "Vandalism studies" wikiproject has just finished their first study. They found a couple of things that jumped out at me

  • About 5% of the edits on an average article are vandalism
  • About 97% of all vandalism is done by anonymous users.

Nathanww 21:22, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Some more numbers:
  • The study analyzed 668 edits.
  • 31 edits were vandalism.
  • 187 edits were done by anonymous users.
  • 30 edits were vandalism by anonymous users.
  • 16% of edits by anonymous users were vandalism.
--Kevinkor2 05:52, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

The power of anonymous users indeed. It's unfortunate that the trash these people produce is what has tarnished wikipedia's name in the mass media. It will be quite a sad day should the majority of good writers and CVU people leave wikipedia. This place would become filled with garbage in less than a week I'd imagine. --LifeStar 13:55, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Encourage Vandal Fighter lurking

I mentioned this on the Admin board; but I'll do it again here.

Our CVU unit is doing a great job and is overworked, but I've noticed, and the recent vandalism study highlights this... blatant vandalism is getting through tools that are predominantly being used by RC patrollers, but it is easier to spot older stuff like this with VF, which you can have running in the background while you do other things and only have to scroll through old edits occasionally.

Here is my original post giving tips to VF newbies. I use VF 3.3 as newer versions don't work for me. Happy hunting, and don't be afraid to escalate warnings quickly for blatant vandals. - RoyBoy 800 01:53, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Warning for removing vandalism warning tags?

Is there some kind of tag we should add to user talk pages when they remove a vandalism (or other) warning from their talk page? I must say that the number of templates is pretty overwhelming and I find myself spending a great deal of time searching for the right one to use for different situations. --Sanfranman59 03:05, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Through much discussion there has been no consensus that removing talk page warnings is itself something which can earn warnings/blocks. You can revert them and leave a {{Blankown}} message, but don't try to take them to WP:AIV over the warnings themselves. —dgiestc 06:12, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
If people can simply remove these tags from their talk pages without consequence, why do we even bother putting them there? I've only recently gotten into the WP anti-vandalism business and have been deciding what level of tag to use based on the levels of other warnings a user has received. Is this what others do? --Sanfranman59 00:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
The warnings are always in the history. Also, the user has certainly read the message if they have removed it. You can escalate the vandalism warning levels as per normal even if the previous ones have been deleted. Vandalism after a final warning will be treated just the same at WP:AIV I suspect. Sancho 06:02, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Oh, I didn't see the last part of your question... Yeah, I do base my warning level on the previous warnings of other editors. For anonymous IPs, I only consider previous warnings within the past 24 hours. So, this could be a cause of delayed reporting to WP:AIV if the user keeps deleting the previous warning messages. Often, however, I will look at the warned user's contribution history to see if there were any other recent instances of vandalism that should be reverted. I guess at this point, I would notice that they had removed previous warnings from their own user talk page and I could change my warning level appropriately. Sancho 06:06, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Case in point, anon IP 70.109.193.53 has continuely blanked out the talk page and claiming that he owns this page. What I noticed as I restored the content that he blanked out was that there were several occasions in which his blanking of warning tags and other data allowed him to get away with it much longer than should have been tolerated. A system admin would look at the talk page, assume it was a first time offense and the anon IP would get away with a warning. Eventually people began to pick up on this and now the talk page is block from anonIP edits till may. The user asked me why I went through the trouble in restoring his blanked content and wanted to tell me how its still stored in the history section. I left my answer for keeping talk pages and not blanking them.--LifeStar 20:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Trouble at Wind

Nearly all the recent edits to Wind are either vandalism, or incomplete cleanup of vandalism, making it a substantial task to clean it all up. Help would be most welcome. --Krubo 13:40, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I've taken a look. I was able to get rid of a lot of it by just one big revert. 'Tis confusing when the vandals swarm like that. CaptainVindaloo t c e 16:03, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Ranjit Fernando Vandal/Stalker

A guy named 12345ak has for the last 24 to 48 hrs been vandalising this page non stop, adding rubbish in and providing a link to his Ranjit Fernando hate site. Due to his frustration at me constantly getting rid of his vandalism he has sent me numerous threatening messages on my talk page. This morning I woke up to find that my last 30 odd contributions in this place has been reverted by this user and was greeted with another message implying that he would keep doing so until I stopped reverting his Ranjit Fernando vandalism. What is the best way of dealing with this? I think for a start the page in question should be protected but due to this guy reverting so many of my posts he may have enough to qualify past semi protection. All the evidence is in this users history so if a mod could block this guy he or she would be doing me a big favour because I am not too keen on waking up every morning and seeing that 30 of my fair and genuine contributions have been tampered with. —Crickettragic

Ongoing Stalled? discussion is at WP:ANI. --Iamunknown 00:45, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism of Dr. Seuss page

Writing to report what appears to be repeated vandalism of the Dr. Seuss site. Mikepurves 14:02, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting it to us. It seems that the vandalism has been removed. Next time you can revert the edits yourself. Here is a guide to reverting and removing vandalism: WP:REVERT. -- Hdt83 Chat 23:05, 23 April 2007 (UTC)


Dr. Seuss History page: [2]

Cyber-bullying

FYI,

I consider some instances of vandalism I've seen as being cyber-bullying.

This is especially true with vandalism to school articles, and user and user talk pages.

--Kevinkor2 09:47, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Study on Vandalism Revert Times

Please see user:Colonel Chaos/study.

Motto?

Is there the possibility that we have a motto for CVU?

I have a few ideas...

  • Vicipaedia semper vigilo (Wikipedia is Always Vigilant)
  • Salus Vicipaedia suprema lex esto (The Welfare of Wikipedia is the highest law)


Any others?

Booksworm Talk to me! Sapere Aude! 16:02, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

  • who washes the watchlists?
  • anti-insanitation
  • I came, I saw, I cleaned
  • cleanliness is next to Jimboness
  • dirt revert
  • We're there when the shit hits the can.
--Kevinkor2 04:09, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Anti-vandal tools on a mac

What is the best program to fight vandals with a mac? Leave comments here or preferably on my talk pagwe. Thanks!—Gaff ταλκ 02:43, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Replied on his talk page: here. -- Hdt83 Chat 03:08, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

How can we more quickly find non-obvious vandalism?

Like the stuff in the revert times study, which automated tools wouldn't neccesarily pick up. Nathanww 01:38, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately its going to be hard to find out stuff like this. You will just have to check all the edits between reverts to make sure nothing bad gets in. -- Hdt83 Chat 23:23, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Picture?

Why is your logo an anime character with a mop? That seems odd. --AW 17:41, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

That's no ordinary anime character, that's Wikipe-tan! She's sort of the unofficial Wikipedia anime mascot (since we already have at least two other semi-official mascots that are rarely used), and she's used because the old CVU mascot had some copyright issues. The mop is to symbolise the fact that the CVU are here to "clean up" the mess made by vandals (there is, or was, another picture of her with sword and shield to represent vandal fighting). Confusing Manifestation 05:20, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Ah, the sword-and-shield version is used in {{User CVU3-en}}. It's probably not being used as the main picture to try and avoid making things look too militaristic. Confusing Manifestation 05:22, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Oh, ok. Well, still seems like an odd mascot, mop or not. --AW 13:59, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I found a vandal but don't know what to do

Hi guys, I found a vandal Blairshulman, I checked their contributions and they've vandalised other articles recently. So I'm handing him over to you guys, cheers Ryan4314 01:43, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Also could anyone who takes action with this, please give me an update here, cheers Ryan4314 04:41, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. Interesting case. Seems to be just experimenting and self-reverting, so so I've left {{selftest}} for now. See Wikipedia:Vandalism. CaptainVindaloo t c e 14:04, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
I dunno, his gone to a specific article (A school I think) and changed some of the last names to Tampon etc. Ryan4314 19:13, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Mass Vandalism/Colbert Vandalism

I have started a discussion on this topic at Village Pump. —Gaff ταλκ 19:42, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations. J-stan Talk 02:03, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Apparent personal vandalism

Not sure where to report this so I mention this here: User:Swirlex made apparently edits to my talk page, among other things. Based on other comments in my page, they may be connected to User:Zapsteel & User:Supernerd 10. Could anyone check if this a case of sockpuppetry or something else? - Skysmith 17:18, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

How do I join the CVU?

hey y'all, how do I join the CVU? Is there a application/review process? Or it is as simple as adding userbox to my userpage or adding my signature to some list? Could some either leave message here or on my talk page? Thanks --Nat Tang talk to me! | Check on me! | Email Me! 20:15, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Anybody (except vandals of course!) may join the CVU. To join, simply put one of the userboxes on the project page to your user page and it will automatically add you in the Category:Wikipedians_in_the_Counter_Vandalism_Unit. -- Hdt83 Chat 22:33, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Could I join?

Could I join this Wikiproject? Currently, I have over 500 anti-vandal edits and have never vandalized. Thanks! -Billy227 15:28, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

See the reply to the previous question. Happy editing. -- No Guru 16:21, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

can i join?

How do I go about joining this wikiproject? -007bond aka Matthew G aka codingmasters 00:33, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Just start helping out, that's all! You can also put one of our userboxes on your user page if you want. -- P.B. Pilhet 01:04, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Color Coded Vandalism Threat Level

I don't even know what to say about this. I mean, how is that useful. Its almost like this whole project is a bunch of kids playing cops.RogueTrick 05:01, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

It's useful in that it alerts those who want to use it that vandalism is increasing/decreasing at the moment. And some of us want to keep Wikipedia running smoothly by reverting vandalism. -- Kesh 05:36, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
I have to agree with Kesh. It informs us wheather vandalism is picking up or slowing down. I use it to see if I need to patrol recent changes or do something else like Afd's or Rfa's. Oysterguitarist~Talk 21:28, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
If you say so, I'll concede the point. Just seems like arbitrary fluff to an outsider. --RogueTrick 01:41, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Tips for a newbie

Hey all. I just signed up and I was wondering you guys had any tips on how to find vandals and vandalism. Thanks. --MKnight9989 13:08, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

In my experience, the in-browser tools like Twinkle and Lupin's tool work much better than the stand-alone applications like VandalProof - but that's just my opinion. There's plenty of advice on the main project page. Waggers 13:53, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I just installed Lupin's tool. It seems to work well thus far. Thanks for the tips mate. --MKnight9989 13:54, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Partner Up?

It may not mean much when the threat level is '1', but when the threat level get up to '4' or '5', it may not be a bad idea for CVU members to have partners. One person could revert the vandalism while the other tags or warns the vandal. All opinions are welcome. --MKnight9989 13:40, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good in principle but can't really work in practice, since you'd have to track all of your partner's edits along with RC patrolling and all the rest of it. A lot of the anti-vandalism tools available now let you revert and warn in a single click, making any such partner redundant anyway. Waggers 13:51, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

User watchlist MfD

The debate at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Psychonaut/User watchlist (2nd nomination) may interest those who monitor vandalism and other policy violations. At issue is a page which purports to exist to track vandals and other problematic users, but which some believe contravenes WP:ATTACK or WP:STALK. (I should disclose that I am the creator of the page up for deletion, though I have discovered over 110 similar pages in userspace.) —Psychonaut 20:40, 30 June 2007 (UTC)