GTA Wiki:Vandalism

Vandalism is any edit made in a deliberate attempt to disrupt GTA Wiki or harass its users, and deliberately damages content on GTA Wiki. Vandalism will not be tolerated.

Common types of vandalism are the addition of obscenities or crude humor, page blanking, and the insertion of nonsense into articles.

Types of Vandalism

 * Content removal: Removing a non-trivial part of a page's content without any reason. The difference between vandalism and a Bold edit is as little as an edit summary or a post to a talk page.
 * Bad content: This includes changing the language of a page (GTA Wiki is in English only), inserting stupid crudities or random text into articles.
 * Adding "offensive material" - including swearing, offensive comments, racism, homophobia and pornography. This covers any form of content (whether text, links, images, video or audio) that our Administrators deem to be offensive.
 * Removing large quantities of content from pages with no clear explanation.
 * False content: Adding deliberately misinformative information. GTA Wiki tolerates speculation, but speculation should be clearly stated to be speculation when it occurs.
 * Ignoring/Overwriting directions: In a few articles you will encounter in-text directions. Follow these directions. If you take issue with a direction, start a talk page discussion.

Vandalism does not cover: edit wars over legitimate content, advertising, or adding irrelevant content. For those offences, see the Deletion policy.

Vandalism is usually committed either by someone 'playing' with the edit functionality (with no regard for our content), or a user deliberately setting out to damage this wiki (perhaps after an argument or suspension).

Dealing with vandalism
Vandalism is dealt with in numerous ways, and the wiki has many steps in which it deals with vandalism.

One way a user can deal with vandalism is simply deleting the vandalism by editing the vandalised page.

Bureaucrats and administrators may block vandals on sight. Users without tools to block should revert the changes and report it to a bureaucrat or administrator.

Patrollers are staff members who are equipped with a rollback tool, and can revert vandalism in one click. Patrollers will usually report vandalism which they have reverted to a bureaucrat or administrator.

Please read the deletion policy for more information. The decision of a bureaucrat or administrator determines what happens to vandalised pages and users who commit vandalism. In any dispute, the decision of a bureaucrat is final. Users deemed to be vandalising may be blocked from the site temporarily or permanently.

Pages that are repeatedly vandalised may be protected temporarily to prevent further vandalism. If you feel a page needs to be protected because of vandalism, please contact a bureaucrat or administrator.

The NSfV policy (No Shrines for Vandals) states that vandals and spammers should not have monuments to their "success". This means that there should not be big warnings exclaiming about attacks, nor public outcries about how the Staff may not be coping. The main purpose of vandals is to cause disruption, so if the disruption they cause is dealt with quickly and quietly, that will discourage them from continuing.

Although it is generally encouraged to Assume Good Faith, most vandalism is extremely blatant and undeserving of such.

Do not feed the trolls
Everytime we respond to those trying to ruin the wiki, we are giving them what they want. The more we do that, the more they will be back for more. It's best to be calm, and limit contact with vandals. The less attention they get, the more likely they are to move on. Don't play games with the vandals as this makes it more fun for them. This applies to both Staff and users.