These principles are general guidelines that usually hold true. Yes, there are anectdotal examples that violate these prinples, but in the general sense, they always hold.
Principles of Vandal Fighting
- The zeroth principle: Vandal fighting is about helping the encyclopedia, not punishing vandals.
- Principle 1) For every view of the Recent Changes page, IP's only view, there will be at least one vandalous edit.
- Principle 2) Any IP with more than 2 edits on the same RC view is a vandal.
- Principle 3) Any IP with a blue-linked talk page is a vandal.
- Principle 4) Any IP edit with +/- 1000 characters or greater is vandalism.
- Principle 5) Any edits by an IP to an article about the following groups of topics is at best unreferenced, POV, and OR and more often than not outright vandalism:
- Towns, cities, and other locations
- Educational institutions
- People
- Dates, years, months, days of the week, etc.
- (name) articles
- Sports teams
- Ideologically based entities (CSA, Naziism, all religions...)
- Principle 6) Page blankings are gotten so fast, that by the time you see it, someone else has reverted it, and a third party has already left a UWT at the users talk page.
- Principle 7) Most IP vandals quit after 1-2 edits
- Principle 7a) Those that don't will reach AIV in 15 minutes, and get blocked
- Principle 8) Most blocked IP's never return to vandalise again
- Principle 8a) Those that do will take 6 months to achieve a long-term block (1 month or more)
- Principle 9) All vandals properly warned and currently vandalising get blocked if listed at AIV.
- Principle 9a) If you list a vandal at AIV and they are not blocked, they either were not properly warned or are not active
- Principle 10) Admins are reasonable people and will block IPs that deserve it even in contravention to policy, if they are made aware of the situation. These situations usually include:
- Long term, slow moving sneaky vandals that only make 1-2 hits a day. These get blocked with long histories of abuse (say 1-2 months).
- Outrageous, rapid, and damaging behaviour can be blocked quickly. Drop a 4im warning and head to AIV to leave a report. Chances are, rapid page blankers and the like can be blocked in 5 minutes, again if admins are fully aware of the problem.
- Principle 11) Never go to AIV seeking a specific result. You will always be disappointed. Report and move on.
Vandal Fighting Commandments
- Thou shalt always assume good faith.
- Thou shalt never fight vandals to punish them. Thou should only have the safety of the encyclopedia at heart.
- Thou shalt always repair vandalism first, and warn second.
- Thou shalt always warn first, and report second.
- Thou shalt only report once, and never seek a result. The report is all thou shouldst seek.
- Thou shalt always check the page history to find the last stable version.
- Thou shalt always subst warnings, sign comments, and leave edit summaries explaining what thou hast done.
- Thou shalt always check contribs list, and repair all damage once a vandal has been identified.
- Thou shalt never be envious of other vandal fighters. It is not a race.
- Thou shalt always treat admins with respect and honor.