Wiki Wisdom: Reacting to Trolls and Vandalism
November 10, 2011
Added by MeighanLast month we kicked off a series called Wiki Wisdom. It's a series where we share and highlight great user blog posts we read on Wikia. As a community, Wikia collects so much knowledge — our goal is to give shout-outs to well written, informative, and thoughtful blog posts.
In today's post, we're highlighting RRabbit42's help page Dealing with Vandalism and Spam. It was written on the Phineas and Ferb Wiki, but has a boatload of helpful and valuable tips for dealing with trolls or vandals.
At one point or another in our Internet lives, we all come into contact with a troll or a vandal. RRabbit42 offers calm and helpful advice. The post gives a few definitions, explains why people troll and vandalize, and then details how to handle yourself and what to do. Have you had experience with trolls or vandals? What did you do? Do you have other helpful advice? Check out Sannse's recent blog post Converting Conflict to Calm, and leave a comment below sharing your experience with us.
|
When someone comes by that wants to cause problems, it's easy to get caught up in fixing those problems and taking things personally. However, sometimes that's exactly what the vandal or troll wants. Quick Definitions
|
| The only winning move is not to play.
| 
|
The simplest answer is don't react.
When you get upset by what they do, they win. Fixing problems should never be a competition, but for some vandals and trolls, it actually is a game to them to cause problems.
The best way to handle the problems is to deal with it in a impartial or matter-of-fact manner. Leave your personal feelings and personal comments out of the situation. This can be hard to do, especially if you're on the receiving end of an attack, but the less you give them in the way of a reaction, the less they get out of it.
Additionally, if you make a big deal out of what is happening, such as leaving personal comments in the summary, other people may get curious about what is going on and fall into the trap of reacting to the vandalism/troll comments.
For some, if they don't see that they're getting much of a reaction to what they're doing, they don't get any satisfaction out of it, they get bored, or it stops being fun for them. In these cases, they may give up what they're doing or will go to some other wiki to see if they can get a new audience there.
Steps To Take 
Edit
|
| Don't panic.
|
|
Steps you should take when fixing vandalism or trollish edits:
- Don't react. Be objective/matter-of-fact.
- Reference policies when appropriate.
- Save yourself the trouble. Don't bother with "Why are you doing this?" messages.
- Some wouldn't bother reading the message anyway.
- Vandals and trolls want this reaction.
- A lot of spam is automated, so no person would be around to read the message.
- Leave a message for an admin if you need some assistance cleaning things up, such as deleting pages or alerting them to a user that should be blocked.
- Don't leave Chicken Little messages ("The vandal is back and they're going to ruin the wiki," etc.)
An easy way to think of this is "If I was talking to them in person, would I be talking coolly and calmly? Or would I be panicking, getting angry, getting frustated?" If you're not calm and collected, you're letting the vandal or troll get to you. Take a step back, wait a bit and realize that's what a lot of them want. Then take another look to see if there's a more objective way of dealing with them.
Actually Talking to the Vandal/Troll Edit
In general, only leave official notices on their Talk page, in the same manner listed in the "Steps to take" section above. Trying to help them understand what they did was wrong oftentimes backfire because it shows them you are reacting to what they did. Remember, vandals and trolls want attention and will take whatever you give them in any form you give them, so the less you interact with them, the better.
Impact of Vandalism/Edits by Trolls Edit
The way a wiki is set up, there is basically nothing that can't be fixed. We can undo edits, we can go back to an earlier version of the page, we can delete and undelete pages, and we can delete and undelete files. If there happens to be something an administrator on the wiki can't fix, we can ask for help from Wikia. Their staff members can dig deeper into the workings of a wiki and fix/prevent problems more thoroughly.
So what it comes down to is, no matter what the problem is, it's only going to be a problem for a short while. Sometimes it's spotted immediately and other times it's a few hours — it just depends on how busy the wiki is, and when the next time an admin logs in.
The problem may not be pleasant or nice to look at until it is fixed, but it will be fixed. While it's being fixed, don't panic and don't react to what is going on.
ResourcesEdit
Are you a Founder or Admin? Want to receive tips, tricks and updates on the latest Founder & Admin blog posts? Then click here to follow this blog.
Anonymous User
