Editing Encyclopedia:Vandalism (section)

==How to spot vandalism==
{{Policy shortcut|WP:HTSV|WP:SPOTVAN}}
Useful ways to detect vandalism include:
* [[Wikipedia:Recent changes patrol|Recent changes patrolling]], using the [[Special:Recentchanges|recent changes]] link with filters to spot suspicious edits
* Keeping an eye on your [[Special:Watchlist|watchlist]]
* The [[Help:Page history|edit history]] of an article can be checked for recent suspicious edits. Article size, as given in bytes, usually increases slightly with time, so a sudden large decrease may indicate a [[wp:section blanking|section blanking]]. Similarly, if an article's size change is inappropriately large for the stated edit summary (e.g. "Fixing typo" while removing 100 bytes), the page may have been vandalized.
{{quote box|width=23em|Even in Rome itself, the City of the Popes, the vandalism of the ignorant wrought dreadful havoc.
|salign=right|source=Rev. [[James MacCaffrey]], ''History of the Catholic Church From the Renaissance to the {{nobr|French Revolution}}''}}
In all the three methods above, examples of suspicious edits are those performed by IP addresses, [[Wikipedia:Red link|red linked]], or obviously improvised usernames. A good way to start is to click on every edit in watchlists, histories etc. with the least suspicion of being vandalism. Increased experience will probably give a sense of which edit descriptions are worth to check further and which may likely be ignored. Some descriptions like "Fixed typo" may be vandalism as that is one of the default edit summaries. IP editors should not be approached with the assumption that they are vandals. Although many vandals do vandalize without registering an account, there are many IP editors who are [[WP:HUMAN|great contributors to Wikipedia]]. Always read the actual changes made and judge on that, rather than who made the changes or what was entered in the [[Help:Edit summary|edit summary]].
* See the [[Help:What links here|what links here]] pages for [[Special:Whatlinkshere/Insert text|Insert text]], [[Special:Whatlinkshere/Link title|Link title]], [[Special:Whatlinkshere/Headline text|Headline text]], [[Special:Whatlinkshere/Bold text|Bold text]] and [[Special:Whatlinkshere/File:Example.jpg|Example Image]] to detect test edits. (See also {{tl|toolbar experiments}}).
* The [[Wikipedia:automatic edit summaries|auto-summary feature]] can also help users spot vandalism.
* Viewing the [[Special:AbuseLog|abuse log]] or this version[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:RecentChanges?hidebots=1&hidepreviousrevisions=1&tagfilter=de-userfying%7Cadding+email+address%7Cremoval+of+articles+for+deletion+template%7CExtraneous+formatting%7Cmw-blank%7Cblanking%7Ccanned+edit+summary%7Ccategories+removed%7Cchanging+height+or+weight%7CCiting+predatory+open+access+journal%7Cremoval+of+COI+template%7Cmw-contentmodelchange%7Ccontenttranslation%7Cremoval+of+copyvio+templates%7Cextraneous+markup%7Cbad+external%7Cmobile+app+edit%7Cmobile+edit%7Cmobile+web+edit%7Cnew+blank+article%7Cmw-new-redirect%7CRapid+reverts%7Cnon-English+content%7Cnonsense+characters%7Cnowiki+added%7Cautobiography%7Cpossible+libel+or+vandalism%7Ccoi-spam%7CPossible+self+promotion+in+userspace%7Cuserspace+spam%7Cpossible+vandalism%7CPossible+vandalism%7Cmw-changed-redirect-target%7Creferences+removed%7Cremoval+of+Category%3ALiving+People%7Cmw-removed-redirect%7Cpossible+link+spam%7Crepeating+characters%7Cmw-replace%7Creverting+anti-vandal+bot%7CPossible+disruption%7CSection+blanking%7Cself-renaming+and+bad+user+talk+moves%7Cshouting%7Cremoval+of+speedy+deletion+templates%7Ctalk+page+blanking%7CEnd+of+page+text%7Cunusual+redirect&limit=50&days=7&damaging__maybebad_color=c3&damaging__likelybad_color=c4&damaging__verylikelybad_color=c5&goodfaith__likelygood_color=c1&goodfaith__maybebad_color=c3&goodfaith__likelybad_color=c4&goodfaith__verylikelybad_color=c5&urlversion=2&highlight=1] if the regular abuse log is cluttered by spambots.
* Watching for edits [[Special:tags|tagged]] by the abuse filter. However, many tagged edits are legitimate, so they should not be blindly reverted. That is, do not revert without at least reading the edit.
* Plausible, subtle changes not supported by sources or by text elsewhere in the article, particularly without an edit summary, may suggest vandalism. Changing numbers, sometimes by 1, is a common stealth tactic.