This page is now inactive. Please consider reporting vandals to WP:AIV, and long cases at WP:LTA
Historic content
Team members, join the Abuse Response mailing list: here. Make sure you enter your Wikipedia username in the name field so we can verify your identity. Join the Abuse Response IRC chat: #wikipedia-en-abuseconnecton irc.freenode.net
To help centralize discussions and keep related topics together, all abuse response talk pages redirect here.
Hi. Over at WP:F1 we are having some problems with a persistent IP vandal. Unfortunately, their list of IP addresses used is longer than your arm, covers an extremely wide range, and never seems to be repeated twice. However, almost all of them trace back to Plusnet Technologies Ltd. in the UK (see most recent: User:46.208.151.111). Having had quite a few of the used addresses blocked it rapidly became clear that this was wasting our time, as they would be back within minutes using a different IP. Obviously, they had worked out that logging off and logging on again was enough to evade any block that we could impose. We were hoping that they would get bored, but this doesn't seem to be the case. I have a hunch that this may be the place to bring this issue, but I thought I'd check first. Any ideas on how to proceed from people with more experience than us, please? Many thanks. Pyrope13:05, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Semi-protection for articles is something we considered. The type of articles that the vandal is targeting include all F1 races since 1980, F1 season summary articles since 1980, F1 driver articles and the occasional race article. That's quite a lot of individual pages. A couple of months semi-protection would be a good idea, just to see if we can't break the back of this, but I have a strong suspicion (based on how they've responded in the past) that they may simply fish around and switch attention to unprotected articles. Worth trying though. Pyrope12:12, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It might be useful to build a timeline of edits from the different IPs. Are there tools to help with this? A quick examination shows that he uses one IP for up to 30 hours but usually much less. All IPs geolocate within GB. Some of the IPs have been used for constructive edits on other topics, but not within the time span of the F1 edits, so they are likely dynamically assigned. Most, but not all edits are to specific parts of YYYY PLACE Grand Prix articles. Most are within one hour of the previous edit. I would think any reverted edit matching this pattern should meet the duck test enough to justify a one-hour block. If we have to play whack-a-mole until he tires, we can at least stack the odds in our favour.LeadSongDogcome howl!14:06, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Just for the record: right now someone behind User:â221.91.30.126 is filling in (pre-) qualification tables for races between 1989 and 1991. If you are going to semi-protect these pages, we may lose a new (and enthusiastic) contributor. Contrary, if the pages don't become protected, then there already are 5 or 6 contributors (including me) reverting vandalism on these pages very soon after it is committed, and though I don't know about others, I myself is not going to stop watching these pages. Please keep this in mind. Ximaera (talk) 10:02, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That's definitely a factor. If there are many watchers on each page, alert to the pattern of vandalism, then it can be locally handled on each page.LeadSongDogcome howl!14:53, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Could we give semi-protection a try? We tried "handling it locally" for about 2 months before coming here, and there's no sign of the vandalism decreasing. It's pretty discouraging knowing that every day there are going to be a dozen or more vandalised articles to repair; often the same article over and over again, e.g. this one. In order to avoid scaring off the "qualification tables" editor, perhaps we could leave 1989-1992 articles unprotected? (they have finished 1991 now; presumably they'll move on to 1992) I have left a message on their talk page encouraging them to create an account. DH85868993 (talk) 00:52, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, I'll second that. Attracting new editors is all well and good, but if this vandalism continues we seriously risk pissing off established, highly-productive editors, and it may be sufficient that they leave. Pyrope13:28, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
{od}
I wasn't thinking of a graphic, so much as a table with sortable columns: IP, datetime (UTC), target page, difflink. Easy in a spreadsheet, not so easy in wiki syntax. Could include convenience links to whois, RDNS etc.LeadSongDogcome howl!18:59, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm attempting to keep it up to date, but the very nature of this vandal's editing pattern means that I'll likely miss one or two, and some of the earlier acts also likely are beyond my tracking down without going through the individual edit histories of 200-300 separate articles and cross referencing with the known list. Pyrope00:33, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Seeing as how I can characterize the vandal's edits with no false positives, it wouldn't be difficult to create a bot which detects the vandal's edit as he is making them, instantly reverts it, and auto-blocks the IP for an hour or two. However, I don't want to step on anyone's toes if there are other measures being put in place, and I'm also not positive if BAG would approve such a bot. Let me know if there is any interest in this. -Scottywong| squeal _20:59, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Call me crazy, I still think it's worth trying to get this guy to register an account. The problem with IPhoppers isn't that they're intransigent. It's that they're incommunicado. Our first response should be to invite them to register, per {{signup}}. Short of that they usually don't have a clue why their edits keep getting reverted. LeadSongDogcome howl!05:30, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I admire your assumption of good faith, but it's my belief they don't want to communicate. Consider this sequence of edits. After the 5th edit, I left a message on their talk page asking them not to continue changing F1 race results without reliable sources and/or edit summaries, asking them to discuss their proposed changes and offering my talk page if they had questions. Thirteen minutes later they resumed editing under the same IP address, exactly as before. Of course there's a chance they didn't see (or couldn't understand) my message, but I think it's more likely they saw it and ignored it. DH85868993 (talk) 08:40, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have had very similar experiences. Even when approached, perfectly reasonably, with a tailored message (not a boilerplate vandalism template) right in the middle of an editing spree I get no response. Pyrope11:51, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I still think that leaving a way out that isn't deleterious to the encyclopedia is a better choice in the long run. Otherwise he's likely to get more creative and harder to shut down.LeadSongDogcome howl!15:30, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If you can get any sort of response out of them, anything at all, even an edit summary, then be my guest. I don't predict that you'll have much joy though. Pyrope15:48, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Is there still value in us continuing to update the list of IPs at User:Ebe123/F1 Vandal? I don't mind continuing if it's adding value, but I'm happy to stop if it's not (there are about half a dozen new addresses each day). DH85868993 (talk) 02:37, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've added an entry to the edit filter to prevent future vandalism. It's not currently enabled because I'd like to test it for a few days first, to make sure it catches all of the edits with no false positives. It is dependent on the IP address that is used to make the edit, so please let me know if you find any future edits from IP ranges that don't already appear in User:Ebe123/F1 Vandal, and I will add them to the filter. -Scottywong| prattle _23:34, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, edit filter seems to be working perfectly so I've enabled it. Be sure to let me know if he changes up his IP range or his editing pattern to get around the filter. -Scottywong| confer _13:31, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Odd. It almost seems as if the guy is running some sort of automated program to make these edits. I don't know if you guys can see the edit filter log, but he's just plugging away as if the edit filter isn't preventing his edits. He's making the same number of edits (or at least, he's trying to) as if he's not aware of the giant edit filter notice that pops up each time he tries to commit an edit. Bizarre. -Scottywong| express _15:37, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please let me know when you see edits that slip through, and I can tweak the edit filter to catch them. You can let me know here or on my talk page. The one linked above slipped through because he left the edit summary completely blank that time. He may be evolving his strategy, or it might have just been an unintended deviation in behavior. -Scottywong| confess _20:26, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies if I have not done this right, this is my first time using this section of Wikipedia.
I need clarification on what way I should go about a user abuse, or whether that even needs to be handled that way.
A user is frequently editing a page and deleting all content except for barebones claiming the original page is not allowed, however the Wikipedia rules clearly state the innoculous page is not in violation and linking to the section of the rules in the page edit comments section, doesn't stop the user from doing the same thing again & again.
A standard Wikipedia person such as myself would find a violation ,fix it and go about their business, but this user keeps coming back repeatedly, every day; there's some kind of grudge going on here.
The Abuse page of Wikipedia suggested it was not hte appropriate place for reporting a user in this regard, and it directed me to the "Long-term abuse" page, but on that page the criteria suggests this isn't Long-term abuse report material. How should I handle this?
â Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.96.223.38 (talk)
A person reverting your edits is not abuse, it's fairly common and usual; not everybody will agree to your interpretation of policy, and are free to have their own. There's a limit on how many times any one can undo the other ones' changes, the three revert rule, that neither you nor the other guy should trespass. The appropriate way to handle the situation is discussing the problem at the article's talk page, as described at WP:Consensus. Diego (talk) 23:06, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the prompt reply. I would liek to note that I must not have clarified: user is not reverting my edits, user is reverting an entire page edited by multiple people over time, back to their preference. Is it common for a user to taget a certain page in claims unfounded, meanwhile multiple pages linked on the page do the exact same thing, yet user ignores all those? Something smells fishy. â Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.96.223.38 (talk) 23:19, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, folks. When the criteria instruct that the IP must have been blocked for 'over a period of a year', is it referring to a one year sum time of all of its blocks, or a one year restriction through a single block? (And it's 'one year or more', as opposed to 'over a year', right?) Best, NTox · talk06:54, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, a year or more, not over a year. The IP will have to be blocked 4 more times and not nessesarily 1 year (execpt for IAR cases). ~~Ebe123~~ â report10:01, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Okay. So, to be certain: one of the IP's five+ blocks must have been imposed for a year or more to qualify? Strictly speaking (non-IAR), you wouldn't allow someone to add two six month blocks together and count that as a year, correct? NTox · talk14:57, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
One more question: the instructions template requires the most recent block to have been imposed in the last three months. Yet, the editnotice when actually filing a report requires 'abusive edits in the last 2 weeks'. I assume the rule of reason here is 'recent', but seeing as those are very different, can this be clarified? NTox · talk22:23, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Should the proposed change, "A third party may request the review of a block at the Administrators' noticeboard," or some variation of that change, be added to the unblocking policy. Penyulap â 23:11, 27 Jun 2012 (UTC)
An IP-hopping vandal from ISP Bezeq International in Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel decided to repeatedly vandalize Jimbo's talk page, along with many other targets. There is a list of the known IPs the vandal has used at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Nenpog/Archive#21_July_2012.
As a result of this abuse, Jimbo's talk page was semi-protected and 109.65.192.0/18 and 79.182.192.0/18 were rangeblocked for two weeks. The semiprotection of Jimbo's talk page is especially significant -- a lot of newbie IP editors end up asking questions there.
I am thinking that perhaps someone should contact them (abuse@bezeqint.net) and tell them that abuse by one of their users just got 32,768 of their IP addresses blocked from editing Wikipedia. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:48, 23 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A registered user is reverting to the old version with distorted citation in an article. I think this is an abuse of the article. What should I do? ĶĆĶ-ĆŽÄĆ (talk) 19:10, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Special:Contributions/79.106.109.221 this IP-adress, and tens of other adresses in this range have around 10 edits. So that's like a thousand edits. A lot of edits I've checked are data vandalism. The user changes charts on songs to position 1 (when this is not the case). The user is active on soccer topics and on music topics. It's quite a lot and I'm not a regular here on Wikipedia so I'm not planning on reverting or checking all these edits. There's still a lot of vandalism not reverted yet. There are also edits which seem to be correct. But if there's vandalism it's pretty sneaky so it's hard to differ between the correct and incorrect edits. The edits from this user will need quite some attention, much more then I can give them with my bad knowledge of how the English wiki works. I know this is not the exact perfect place for this. But I couldn't find the place where I can ask help with a very big vandalist with more edits than I can deal with myself. Please make sure these hunderds of vandalism edits will get reverted. It would be a shame if my lack of understanding from the English wiki will keep all this vandalism alive in the articles. Mvg, Basvb (talk) 22:35, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
edits like this are the most clear examples. These kind of edits are spread over all IP-adresses in this range. The hole range has like 5000 edits, so this is quite heavy. Mvg, Basvb (talk) 22:43, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Should new nominations go at the top or the bottom of the list? Scrolling through the existing ones, I don't see any particular order, nor do I see any explicit instructions at the top of the page or in the editnotice. â Hello7102:54, 31 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know anything about editing Wiki, which I use all the time for quick research into a lot of topics ranging from history, science (biology & botony), etc. Right after looking something up this morning, the next access showed a warning that an EDIT of mine was reversed by something called Cluebot (whatever), and referred to "Anonymou" as my Username & an IP# 70.#.#.# as my IP address, which was dated last Sept. 2012.
The edit referred to was NOT done by me! I don't even know how to edit & would not be editing something about South American, which I know nothing about! Has my IP address been "grabbed" for vandalism or what?
I did purchase a "refurbished" MiFi (JetPac) from Verizon in Jan. 2013, which is my IP address, but perhaps it belonged to a previous owner.
In any event, how can I get rid of that editing message & how can my IP address be removed from whatever database is doing this?
That's unfortunately a problem you're going to have with most wireless ISPs because their IP addresses are highly dynamic (I've been caught up in hardblocks myself when trying to edit from my smartphone). If you get caught up in a block, you can use the {{unblock}} template to requeset unblocking, but otherwise, I would just ignore such messages. Additionally, this isn't really the place for questions like this; WP:Help Desk is. PCHS-NJROTC(Messages)23:33, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There is a complete disastrous damages to "Trikomo, Cyprus" article. User Trikomitis deletes almost all the data about the town: "Population", "Mayor's name", "municipality's website", "Sister cities", "Skyline image of town", other specific info relevant to town ("Bafra Tourism Region", "Karpas peninsula" etc.).
There is a complete disastrous damages to "Trikomo, Cyprus" article. User Alexyflemming deletes all data relating to the true history of the town. You cannot possibly delete a people from the history books or indeed Wikipedia. I would ask that you respect the legal owners and occupiers of the town and stop posting regarding an internationally recognised illegal occupation.
I henceforth request from the wiki authorities or any user willing to assist in rectifying this page to accurately reflect history TrikomitisâPreceding undated comment added 18:28, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
AR didn't fail because ISPs wouldn't work with us, AR failed because it seems the vast majority of Wikipedians are clueless as to how the internet works. For example, if I call a school district with 50,000 and tell them someone wrote "hi my name is amber" on an article, the fact that someone wrote "penis" on a different article a week later doesn't mean they didn't discipline the girl, it just means a boy at an entirely different school using the same IP address messed with Wikipedia. The same thing applies to companies like Hospital Corporation of America and AutoZone that have thousands of employees at multiple locations piped through one IP. PCHS-NJROTC(Messages)Have a blessed day.23:46, 12 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
