These principles are general guidelines that usually hold true. Yes, there are anectdotal examples that violate these prinples, but in the general sense, they always hold.
Principles of Vandal Fighting
edit- The zeroth principle: Vandal fighting is about helping the encyclopedia, not punishing vandals.
- Principle 1) For every view of the Recent Changes page, IP's only view, there will be at least one vandalous edit.
- Principle 2) Any IP with more than 2 edits on the same RC view is a vandal.
- Principle 3) Any IP with a blue-linked talk page is a vandal.
- Principle 4) Any IP edit with +/- 1000 characters or greater is vandalism.
- Principle 5) Any edits by an IP to an article about the following groups of topics is at best unreferenced, POV, and OR and more often than not outright vandalism:
- Towns, cities, and other locations
- Educational institutions
- People
- Dates, years, months, days of the week, etc.
- (name) articles
- Sports teams
- Ideologically based entities (CSA, Naziism, all religions...)
- Principle 6) Page blankings are gotten so fast, that by the time you see it, someone else has reverted it, and a third party has already left a UWT at the users talk page.
- Principle 7) Most IP vandals quit after 1-2 edits
- Principle 7a) Those that don't will reach AIV in 15 minutes, and get blocked
- Principle 8) Most blocked IP's never return to vandalise again
- Principle 8a) Those that do will take 6 months to achieve a long-term block (1 month or more)
- Principle 9) All vandals properly warned and currently vandalising get blocked if listed at AIV.
- Principle 9a) If you list a vandal at AIV and they are not blocked, they either were not properly warned or are not active
- Principle 10) Admins are reasonable people and will block IPs that deserve it even in contravention to policy, if they are made aware of the situation. These situations usually include:
- Long term, slow moving sneaky vandals that only make 1-2 hits a day. These get blocked with long histories of abuse (say 1-2 months).
- Outrageous, rapid, and damaging behaviour can be blocked quickly. Drop a 4im warning and head to AIV to leave a report. Chances are, rapid page blankers and the like can be blocked in 5 minutes, again if admins are fully aware of the problem.
- Principle 11) Never go to AIV seeking a specific result. You will always be disappointed. Report and move on.
Vandal Fighting Commandments
edit- Thou shalt always assume good faith.
- Thou shalt never fight vandals to punish them. Thou should only have the safety of the encyclopedia at heart.
- Thou shalt always repair vandalism first, and warn second.
- Thou shalt always warn first, and report second.
- Thou shalt only report once, and never seek a result. The report is all thou shouldst seek.
- Thou shalt always check the page history to find the last stable version.
- Thou shalt always subst warnings, sign comments, and leave edit summaries explaining what thou hast done.
- Thou shalt always check contribs list, and repair all damage once a vandal has been identified.
- Thou shalt never be envious of other vandal fighters. It is not a race.
- Thou shalt always treat admins with respect and honor.