User:NuclearWarfare/Vandal Warnings

My personal opinion is that our warning system is too kind to vandals. Behind the computer of the vast majority of IPs and accounts whose first edit is vandalism is a human being who deliberately intended to have a laugh by disrupting Wikipedia. There is also a good number of new editors who make test edits because they aren't sure about this whole "anyone can edit" model. For this page, I am referring only the former group.

I have never been convinced about any rationale that we give for warning editors up to four times before we block them. WP:BLOCK says "Everyone was new once, and most of us made mistakes. That's why when we welcome newcomers, we are patient with them, and assume that most people who work on the project are trying to help it, not hurt it." I don't know about you, but if someone replaces a page with "asshole" or, even worse, adds "Person A with an article has a two inch penis" or "Person B with an article cheated on his wife with Other famous person" to an article, I assume that they are trying to hurt the project, not help it. Why should we bother warning these people? They should simply be blocked immediately. I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this. NW (Talk) 00:49, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree, four warnings is too many especially with registered users. What do you have in mind? Eagles 24/7 (C) 01:04, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I also agree, however severe vandals should probably be given 1 warning, and if they do it again, then block immediately, rather than just blocking on sight. A lot of vandalism is merely adding things like "I love so and so", and stuff like that. These vandals should be warned normally. The blatant vandals, i.e. ones that replace pages with "PENIS PENIS PENIS PENIS", or vandals that add "is gay" to BLP's should be dealt with more sternly than normal vandals. However it might be difficult to change the status-quo for this. Certainly programs like Huggle always go along with the status-quo when you use the default way of reverting and warning. It might take quite a bit of nudging to change if something like this were to go into effect. The Thing // Talk // Contribs 01:07, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I was thinking one warning, or more preferably zero, for very obvious vandalism. That's a pretty radical change from current behavior though (although it is basically what I have been doing for the past three or four months). What would you think? NW (Talk) 01:09, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I am going to assume that this would only be for registered users, right? Eagles 24/7 (C) 01:11, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Why would you assume that? IPs are people too. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 01:12, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Right, nevermind. But they would be blocked for the usual 24 hours, though, right? Eagles 24/7 (C) 01:16, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Right. I know little about the dynamicness and sharedness of IPs, so I wouldn't presume to change a policy on how long we block. NW (Talk) 01:24, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 2) Theoretically there's nothing stopping people from issuing a "4im" warning on one of these blatant vandalism attempts. Perhaps the idea, then, is not to change the policy but rather to change what triggers people to give out these 4im warnings (for me, right now, I only give them out in extremely serious violations, such as posting personal information or attacks, and I think I'm pretty much on the average side). If these warnings were given more frequently, the end result would be the same. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 01:11, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

That's a two-way street though. As a regular editor (i.e., not an admin) if I warn someone at "4im" and they vandalize again, the admin at wp:avi is likely to reject the block because of insufficient warning. That's fine, that's the process at work, however, and I don't want to sound too self-centered here, I do not want to build up a reputation of constantly handing out "4im"s. The point is that it's not enough to change the behavior of people doing the warning but it also means the behavior of admins. SQGibbon (talk) 02:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

• This is an example of what I meant. I blocked instantly here without giving any warning; the IP clearly was not editing in good faith. Good block or bad block? NW (Talk) 04:00, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

• GOOD BLOCK~! Per point number 27 of WP:OWB, most likely another bored-to-death-14 year-old up to their usual mischief again. It's a shame that they don't even give a hoot about how adults think of them and their actions. WP:RBI is the keyword here. *grin* --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦1185♪♫™} 17:23, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

• In an idea i conveyed to a user a year ago, i think that this encyclopedia should only be available (as far as edits are concerned) for registered users, period. People willing to contribute appropriately will no doubt open an account, the others, well, they (you) know what i think of them.

If an account engaged in vandalism (they unfortunately exist, in a very small percentage), well...Block/block/block, i think they would tend to give up much more quickly then anon IP. Cheers, VASCO - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 14:49, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with this whole idea. If anyone makes an obvious vandal edit, they should be blocked on-sight or maybe have one warning. I know about AGF: that gets us nowhere with people looking to poke some fun with us by making edits like diff above.  fetchcomms☛ 03:24, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

I think you're right on. Tommy2010 00:37, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I personally have no problem with leaving an L3 or L4 as a first warning for blatant vandals, but I'd rather see some actual evidence related to IP recidivism before I declare the idea of warning before blocking for vandalism to be unnecessary. Any way of gathering statistics on how often IPs vandalise after a warning? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:44, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

I only have anecdotal evidence, but it is certainly not an insignificant number. I personally am not willing to go through the a set of several hundred recent changes to try to find the correct percentage, but I'm sure someone could. But in the end, if only 20% of vandals vandalize a second time, wouldn't stopping just half of those before they vandalize again still be a great benefit for the encyclopedia? NW (Talk) 23:19, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Again, it's dependent on statistics. What percentage of IPs whose last edit was vandalism add productive content? Anecdotal evidence can't hope to answer that. I would love to see some actual data. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 23:26, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

• Agree w/the basic premise advanced by nom. We need to tighten up. Also would suggest that certain types of vandalism -- as in that of BLPs, and that which contains libel, should attract faster and more severe penalties.--Epeefleche (talk) 06:44, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

• I'm of the same opinion as a handful of others. I believe that 4im is an underutilised template. It seems as though too many sysops label people as "block friendly" if they dare not to hand out four warnings. I believe we should dole out a 3/4/4im and one repeat offence is a block. Paralympiakos (talk) 18:52, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
• I think a large part of the problem is that anyone who has made more than a couple reports to AIV quickly realizes that (unless it was extreme vandalism) if you have not given 4 warnings the report will be rejected. For obvious, blatant vandalism from user accounts or IP's with extensive and/or recent blocks (page blanking/removal of large amounts of sourced content, replacing with offensive words etc) I would recommend a 4IM warning then block. For IP's with no previous blocks (or recent? say last 6 months, depending on the block length) at least a level 3 and level 4 then block. However, if the edits are not major or particularly bad I would say we reduce the 4 warning system to a 3 warning one and use that. Mauler90 _talk 00:29, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
• Most experienced vandal patrollers won't hesitate to escalate warnings quickly if the vandalism is of the character you're describing. I usually like the first warning to be a L1 or 2, but if they continue past that then a L3/4 is perfectly fine. 31 hours is an excellent (if random) block for IP vandals because it covers 2 24 hour cycles (covering school/work days), while 24 hour blocks are better for editors that need a wake up message (edit warring, etc.). Shadowjams (talk) 06:57, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
• I routinely escalate warnings if I see a level one warning being given for libel, and other things like that. I also don't hesitate to report evident vandalism only accounts immediately to AIV - we don't need to waste time with them. Connormah^talk 03:14, 9 August 2010 (UTC)