Wikipedia talk:Vandalism

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Another type of vandalism: duplicating the article text?[edit]

In the few days of total time that I did recent changes patrolling for, another common way I see people vandalise articles now, is they copy-and-paste the article text, within the article, duplicating/repeating the information. At a first glance it looks constructive and good-faith, as the addition makes sense and sounds encyclopedic. You never realise it's unconstructive until you read through the entire article and find that the same paragraphs, sentences etc have been repeated twice or more.

Here is a good recent example of this. The vandal even copied the article text in the edit summaries to make it look less like vandalism.

So far I don't see anything on the "types of vandalism" section that goes over about this. Maybe it falls a little bit into subtle vandalism?

I feel like this is worth mentioning in the info page (the types section) as it is probably something people are less likely to notice due to the reasons mentioned in first sentence above. AP 499D25 (talk) 08:35, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with this definition[edit]

According to this page, vandalism is defined as "editing (or other behavior) deliberately intended to obstruct or defeat the project's purpose, which is to create a free encyclopedia, in a variety of languages, presenting the sum of all human knowledge.

However, many/most editors on Wikipedia do not intent to present the sum of all human knowledge. If they did, there would be no need for notability guidelines and most deletion processes. Under the current definition, most editors who nominate an article for deletion are vandals, because they don't think Wikipedia should encompass "all human knowledge". But these editors are clearly not vandals, so the definition of vandalism should be restated. Kk.urban (talk) 01:41, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This seems like trying to indirectly raise a point that would be better off raised on the pages for the notability and/or deletion-related policies you disagree with. It's tangential at best to the definition of vandalism. Gnomingstuff (talk) 11:05, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No, I'm not suggesting that notability policies should be changed. I don't think that Wikipedia SHOULD present the sum of all human knowledge. I'm suggesting that the definition of vandalism should be changed to reflect how it is actually used. Kk.urban (talk) 17:18, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Kk.urban in that the language is too encompassing. I think it suffices to say, "editing (or other behavior) deliberately intended to obstruct or defeat the project's purpose, which is to create a free encyclopedia". Because this is the English Wikipedia and adding articles or content in other languages is mostly not how things work.

In addition, not all human knowledge is contained in Wikipedia nor it is sought, just part of it. I mean saying we want all human knowledge sounds ideal and very lofty but it is not current practice. Per WP:NOTEVERYTHING, "Information should not be included in this encyclopedia solely because it is true or useful. A Wikipedia article should not be a complete exposition of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject." Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 03:10, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Semantics: Vandalism vs Harrassment distinction[edit]

Hi, why exactly does Wikipedia draw a line between vandalism and user harassment, considering both offences are treated the same (as far as I know)? Simple record-keeping? I‘m not an experienced user (as apparent by the IP address), but I‘m still curious. - Epsilon 2A09:80C0:192:0:7841:1E51:2CF6:E039 (talk) 11:20, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

description of image vandalism[edit]

Should Wikipedia:Vandalism#Image_vandalism perhaps be reworded so that it cannot be interpreted as claiming that it is okay to upload explicit images of minors? I can't imagine anyone would seriously read it that way, but I can't be the only one to have done a double-take when reading the description.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:02, 3 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Done. Dan Bloch (talk) 19:18, 3 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism? Promotion?[edit]

IP-addresses including

[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
likely many more in the same range

posted in late February many television series releases (like [7]) on pages like 2024 in the Netherlands like they are notable events. It don’t seems notable?. But is it also vandalism or promotion? Or should it all be moved to pages like 2024 in Dutch television 82.174.61.58 (talk) 13:19, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]