User:Lynx7725/Vandalism

This page is created to assist in the organization of the Vandalism page. It contains information previously posted on the Specials page that is collated to give a better overview of multi-session vandalism.

= Vandalism =

The ideal behind Wikibooks (and in general Wikiprojects) is really the sharing and consolidation of human knowledge. If you look back in history, you would realise how much knowledge we take for granted.

Take for example the PC you are using. Each PC is a cummulation of human knowledge in:
 * material sciences (to know that it is possible to construct a PC from base material)
 * geology (locating the oil and silicon, plus other material such as gold)
 * mining/ drilling (to extract said material)
 * chemistry and metallurgy (to refine the material)
 * construction, electronics and robotics (to create the production facilities needed to produce the PC)
 * power generation (to power the PC)
 * mathematics, logic and computer sciences (to create OS and applications to run the PC)

I can just go on and on, but the point is, it is impossible for any ONE person on this planet to create a PC from, say, a pool of crude oil and a lump of ore. The knowledge needed to turn black gold and raw ore into the PC you are using now has way too many specialist areas that requires dedication to master.

Thus, a critical loss of knowledge in even ONE area will mean the total loss of ability by humanity to create more PCs; without the computational muscles computing brings us, humanity cannot progress beyond where we are now.

Wikibooks, in its own way, tries to preserve some parts of the knowledge. The motivation, effort and dedication of true contributors here are all diverse, but we need not question them; that they bothered to set aside time to key in such information is already something I personally am thankful for.

So, I view vandalism with a very dim light. In many ways, vandals are not showing respect for the efforts of others -- they deserve no respect from me then. They are threatening what we as a collective whole tries to build, all for the cheap thrill of destroying the works of others. That is something unforgivable, at least in my opinion.

Wikibooks is getting more and more popular as time goes by. Now, in about half a day, we have about 500 edits; approximately 1% is vandalism, plus another 1% in newcomer mistakes. Unfortunately, it is not possible to quickly narrow down the vandals as they often hide behind the anonymity that is at the core of the Wiki ideal. It makes it necessary for other contributors to dedicate time to check the entries to make sure that no vandalism undo the works of others.

Not only that, these contributors need to maintain an objectivity to leave coherent subjective books alone, while rooting out the true vandals; some Wikibooks are truly offensive or subjective, yet in the sum of human knowledge, these books are a necessary evil. It is however not the place of these contributors -- let's call them Patrollers to pass judgement on the appropriateness of a well-developed Wikibook.

Wikibooks badly need more Patrollers. As more users come to utilize Wikibooks more than Wikipedia (which, by definition, is more restrictive), the percentage of vandalism is likely to increase (but thankfully, self-patrols will also go up). As it is, we are hard pressed to catch vandals and react swiftly enough to minimize the damage they cause. We need to breed a group of contributors who are sufficiently civic-conscious to do what is needed, without the benefits of material rewards or acknowledgement.

Ass Pus Attacks
The Ass Pus Attacks are a series of attacks that has the same MO:


 * 1) A named user attacks Image:WikiThanks.png by changing the image (a sunflower) into that of the words "Ass Pus" (hence the name of this section). As this image is used by several official pages, it is a quick way to vandalize mulitple files.
 * 2) The user uploads various crude images and link them to editable official pages like this page.
 * 3) The user can also start moving official pages to pages that has the name "Ass Pus" in them.

To date, the following users are known to use this attack. These users have been blocked.


 * Duke of Puke (First known instance.)
 * Greeno (Partial; blocked by Waerth before full damage is done but uploaded signature "Ass Pus" image. Reconstructed from audit trail.)
 * Henry the 88th (Observed in full by me (Lynx7725).)
 * Ting Tong (Not observed by me (Lynx7725) but has signature style.)

The following is a record of the various information posted by various admins/ contributors at the time of the attack. These are copied from the Vandalism page.

Duke of Puke
He's vandalizing pages and templates. He needs to be banned. Homepage is a redirect. Snargle 06:09, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * I had to move it back. He moved User:TUF-KAT to his own page, and also moving key policy pages around (including this page) and giving them offensive names.  User's userpage is currently a redirect to User:TUF-KAT as a result. KelvSYC 06:11, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * He's been blocked. Gentgeen 06:58, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Henry the 88th
Vandal. U/led inappropriate image here, vandalized 4 pages including 1 Template page. The other template he inserted a standard wiki img so I'm going to leave it alone. Suspected alias of Duke of Puke et. al., please block ASAP.


 * Okay, I'm officially very confused by all the edits I had to get this guy off our backs. Can someone please go through his "Contributions" to make sure I got them all? Lynx7725 07:45, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I was going to help you fix it, but it's beyond my mere mortal powers. Could an admin please roll back all changes by everyone involved, if that's possible. Congratulations on detecting Henry the 88th first Lynx7725, I was distracted by looking at only the anonymous edits. (Donovan|Geocachernemesis|Interact) 07:59, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * No probs. Hopefully he doesn't resurface or an admin blocks him for good. This guy (assuming all are aliases of one guy) sure has (a) a grudge against wikibooks and (b) a fascination on anal biological processes... Lynx7725 08:06, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Just ignore him, and he will go away. He thrives on attention. We can easily fix up his mess after he has gone. (Donovan|Geocachernemesis|Interact) 08:12, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

As a precaution, can I request that Image:WikiThanks.png be protected? The attacks from Henry the 88th, Ting Tong, Duke of Puke (and suspect Gumba Gumba) all had similar styles, and of late (since Ting Tong) they have kept attacking this image as it is a commonly used image in Wikibooks. I'll willing to bet money the next wave from this person/ persons will also target this image. Lynx7725 08:37, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Update: Seems like I missed the last Duke of Puke sockpuppet attack, this time under the name Greeno. Same MO (i.e. attacked the WikiThanks.png with the same image as previous attacks. Waerth blocked him before too much damage is done.


 * Can we protect this image to stop these attacks? Granted, he can still u/l the image under another name, but at least he would not be able to affect so many pages with one edit. Lynx7725 10:29, 28 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ting Tong
He moved this page to Wikibooks:Ass pus in progress. And vadalized a few other pages with the same text. -- Bobdoe (Silence) 18:25, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I've just undone their page move, please block them ASAP. (Donovan|Geocachernemesis|Interact) 02:51, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)