User:The Utahraptor/Vandalism research

Note: This research is incomplete. Answers may contain holes or errors.

I am an active vandal fighter, and as such, I have decided to research vandals and their ways of vandalizing Wikipedia. You can find my research below:

Analysis of vandalism

• Who is responsible for vandalism? What are the demographics of the vandal population?

Result 1: Anonymous editors and non-autoconfirmed editors are most responsible for vandalism. Out of 100 vandalism edits I reviewed, 89 were made by anonymous editors (IP addresses) and 11 were made by non-autoconfirmed editors.

• What proportion of vandals are on dynamic IP addresses, and hence very hard to block?

Result 1: Out of 100 reports from WP:AIV, 61 were of dynamic IP addresses.

• Are IP edits ever responsible to improving a featured article while on the Main Page?

Result 1: In this instance, an IP editor removed vandalism by another IP editor.

• What motivates people to vandalize articles? How can we minimize the satisfaction they get from doing it? (See: The motivation of a vandal)

Answer: People vandalize articles for several reasons:

1. Because they're bored and feel that "warring" against anti-vandals will satisfy their boredom.
2. To attack a certain person or a certain group of people.
3. They're experimenting on articles instead of the sandbox.
4. They feel satisfied because they think they are angering or upsetting anti-vandals.

Since warnings can motivate vandals to continue to vandalize, but since warning them is important, anti-vandals should probably use {{Welcomevandal}} before moving on to a level 1 warning and beyond.

• Do vandals just choose another article to edit instead if an article is semi-protected? How can we test this?

Result 1: On June 23, 2010, approximately 15 vandals vandalized the article Misc. After it was semi-protected, only two of the 15 vandals chose another article.

• Why do certain articles attract more vandalism than others?

Answer: I think it depends on notability. For example, the article Barack Obama will receive more vandalism than the article Stansbury Island because Barack Obama is much more notable than Stansbury Island.

• What types of vandalism are there? What message are they trying to get across? Why do vandals not fully realise that their actions are futile?

Answer: There are several types of vandalism, including:

1. Addition of random characters. For instance, adding something like dasjfpaf anywhere in an article.
2. Blanking. For instance, if somebody removes mass amounts of content, or the whole page altogether. Blanking is also one of the more common mistakes that newbies make.
3. Addition of obscenities. For instance, if somebody adds, or replaces content with, "My dick is HUGE!!" anywhere in an article.
4. Editing tests. For instance, adding "Can I really change this page?" If warnings are issued and the person continues, then it is disruptive editing (see below).
5. Disruptive editing. For instance, if somebody persistently writes the same thing over and over again, despite being reverted (foranexampleofdisruptiveeditingpleaseseeall13oftheselinks)
6. Personal attacks. For instance, when a person adds "I hate you!" or writes on a user page "I enjoy ****ing dogs."
7. Move vandalism. For instance, when a vandal moves the page Earth to Earth doesn't exist.

Vandals are not trying to relay a message most of the time; instead, they're simply satisfying their boredom. However, if a vandal turns to personal attacks, then they're trying to relay a message. They're trying to say that they won't take what they think to be a living Hell from vandal fighters.

I'm sure vandals realize their efforts are futile. So why do they keep doing it? For kicks, mostly. Vandals enjoy vandalizing because they think they are angering Wikipedia's vandal fighters. Just like a school bully, vandals on Wikipedia enjoy causing what they think is misery to vandal fighters.

• What sort of financial gains can be made from using Wikipedia to advertise - are spammers just wasting their time, or can it actually be profitable? Are our anti-spam measures adequate?
• What is the overall contribution from schools and universities? Are they worth having? Do universities contribute less vandalism than schools, or are all ages equally immature?
• How does the rate of vandalism vary throughout the day?

Answer: Since there are many English speaking countries that use the English Wikipedia, I don't think the time of day matters. When it is nighttime in the U.S., it is daytime in India, for example, or morning in England, where English Wikipedia vandalism may come from.

• Angela suggests there would still be problems with vandalism if anonymous editing were blocked. How can we test this hypothesis? Certain categories could be experimentally altered to block anonymous editors, but then vandals could just choose an article that wasn't protected. We would have to block all IP editing, which would certainly be controversial, even just to gather a small sample of data. The blocks would also have to allow newly registered users to edit, otherwise there wouldn't be time to create an account and then wait 4 days. Perhaps we could use a comparative method by doing the experiments on another wiki instead?
• Quantitatively, how are levels of vandalism affected (both in terms of percentage of edits and number of edits) when there is external attention draw to an article (e.g. Slashdot or The Colbert Report). Do levels of vandalism return to normal (e.g. in elephant) in all cases? How quickly?
• How much of vandalism is self-reverted?
• How do the levels of reverted edits compare between articles of different quality (e.g. GA vs. start class)
• How often are good faith edits labeled as vandalism, either a) mistakenly and through misinterpretation of policy or b) maliciously?

Impact

• How long does vandalism typically remain visible?
• What level of vandalism is considered acceptable before semi-protection or some other measure is needed? How should the 'level of vandalism' be measured? (See: A more explicit semi-protection policy for articles subject to vandalism)
• What impact does vandalism have on the reputation of Wikipedia?
• How often are good faith editors driven away after getting mislabeled as vandals?
• How often are good faith editors driven away because an article is vandalized?
• How much time do editors waste cleaning up vandalism?

Counter measures

• How effective are bots in curtailing vandalism?
• Warnings:
  • Are editors any more likely to continue or desist vandalizing if warned by a bot instead of a person?
  • How often are vandals warned on their talk page after committing an offense?
  • What are the costs and benefits, and hence overall utility, of warning users? How do users respond to warnings?
• Who is responsible for reverting vandalism?
• What effects does semi-protection have on the level of vandalism of protected articles?
• What strategies can we employ to catch vandalism quickly?
  • How can we catch most of it at recent changes?
  • How can we establish a situation where almost every article has someone responsible for maintaining it? Is this even a good idea? (See: Ownership of articles)
• How good are editors at reverting vandalism? That is, is it reverted properly, or is it often dealt with poorly, e.g. removing a whole paragraph that the vandal has simply altered in meaning.
• What happens to vandalism levels when edits won't show up in the current version of the article - a trial of something like stable versions, where the vandal cannot vandalize the actual article people see, or something functionally similar, is needed. Perhaps a small section (e.g. all articles in a certain category) could be tested out.
• How well do flagged revisions work in practice?

(Queries from Wikipedia:WikiProject Vandalism studies)