BIONICLEsector01:Help/Vandalism

From BIONICLEsector01

What is vandalism?

Vandalism is the intentional sabotage of the wiki's content. For example, an editor might erase a page's content (blank the page), deliberately add misinformation to a page, or replace a page's content with an advertisement. An account performing vandalism might be run by a real person known as a vandal, or it might be an automated account known as a bot.

How can users fight vandalism?

The best way to fight vandalism is to alert others to help you. You can often find other editors to help you in real time on BS01's Discord server; check the sidebar for an invite link. If you would prefer to seek help on the wiki itself, you might leave a message on one of the staff members' talk pages, or on the talk page of some editor who recently made a legitimate edit. See Special:RecentChanges to find a list of recent edits and who made them.

To undo vandalism edits, follow the steps below.

  • Click the "History" link at the top of the vandalized page.
  • Identify the earliest edit that you want to undo. (That is, find the version of the page that you want to restore, and identify the edit that came just afterward.)
  • Click the "Undo" link next to that edit.
  • Click the "Save changes" button.

If a vandal has created a new page, you can blank that page by making an edit where you erase all its contents. Note that all editors can blank pages, but only staff members can completely delete pages.

How can staff members fight vandalism?

Staff members' accounts have special rights that they can use to fight vandalism. They can delete spam pages, block accounts that performed vandalism, and hide edits.

After the staff has cleaned up vandalism, they might choose to suppress records of the vandalism for various reasons. For example, they might strike out a vandalism edit from an article's edit history if the edit contained inappropriate content, or they might hide the usernames of vandal accounts so that perpetrators are not memorialized.