Dealing with vandalism

Here is a basic guide to dealing with a vandalism should one find it.

Vandalism: An edit, or series of edits that purposefully makes an article useless and/or erroneous.

''Always first assume good faith if the vandalism is not obviously offensive. If in doubt, leave a message about it for a staff member or try helping the user become a better editor by giving them tips on things to work on.''

Finding a Vandalised Page
These are usually fairly easy to find by going to "Wiki Activity" in the upper navigational bar and scrolling down to see if there is a large string of edited pages by an unregistered contributor or a suspicious username.

Reverting
Vandalisms can be easily reverted by going to "History" from the drop-down menu next to the "Edit" button, and hitting undo next to the vandalised edit. If there have been more than one vandalising edits, find the last unvandalised version via the History and "Compare selected revisions" button- once this is found, select to edit that previous version. The Wiki will warn you that because it is a previous edit, all edits after this one will be lost- select to "Publish" this previous edit and this will override any malicious edits done after this version you selected.

If in doubt, simply report the article and user in question to an admin and allow them to handle the situation.

Reporting
Usually an administrator will be able to find a vandal quickly, but it saves a lot of time if you report the vandal's username to a currently active administrator (active admins have green usernames).

Note: Don't report anyone until you are sure they have vandalized a page, and were not just mistaken. Again, assume good faith from fellow editors.