Autism Wiki:Vandalism

Vandalism is an addition, deletion, or change to content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise Autism Wiki's integrity. The most common types of vandalism are replacing text with obscenities, blanking pages, or adding nonsense.

Any good faith effort to improve the wiki, even if it's misguided or incorrect, is not vandalism. Persisting with said edits however in spite of advice against them is vandalism. Vandalizing pages is a violation of Autism Wiki policy.

Fix vandalism
When you see that a page has been vandalized, please revert the page to the previous version. Reverting the vandalism quickly helps to protect the wiki, and it sends a message to the vandal that his or her efforts have been wasted.


 * Click the "history" tag on the page, and you'll see a list of all of the previous versions of the page.


 * You can see any version by clicking on the date. Click on the most recent version before the vandalism.


 * Click on "edit", and you'll see a regular edit page, plus a warning that says that you're editing an out-of-date revision of the page.


 * Hit save, and the unvandalized version will become the current version of the page again.

Check the vandal's contribution history
It can also be helpful to click on the vandal's IP address or username to see their contribution history. They may have vandalized other pages, too, and you can revert those.

Don't tease the vandals
Vandalism is irritating, especially when you can tell that it's the same vandal who's come back more than once. Please resist the urge to let the vandal know how annoyed you are. Don't write anything in the edit summary except "vandalism" or "last clean", and don't post anything on the contributor's talk page.

Vandals are looking for two different kinds of satisfaction: the pleasure of defacing our work, and the pleasure of watching us get angry about it. When you revert the vandalism and ignore the vandal, you take all the pleasure away; the vandal will get bored and move on to pulling the legs off of spiders or whatever else they enjoy.

Report the vandals
Persistent vandalism by the same contributor is subject to a block. This can only be done by an administrator. Usually an administrator will see the vandalism and act accordingly, but sometimes it may be missed. You can go to the talk page of an administrator and let them know what has been missed and that the vandal has not been blocked. Users who have been blocked will have the word "Blocked" alongside their user name on their user page. Per the previous rule, don't be rude or act in a manner that makes the vandals feel good about their work. Just be neutral in your report and stick to the facts.