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Wikivoyage:Vandalism in progress/Archive

< Wikivoyage:Vandalism in progress

These are archived threads from Wikivoyage:Vandalism in progress. See that page for current and recent discussions.

See revision history of the Szentendre article. This is not a high-volume vandal, but I note the vandalism here, which so far consists of repeatedly deleting thumbnails without explanation. These IPs are currently blocked for 24 hours, but as this seems to be a dynamic-IP user, expect a move to another IP. We should suspend the user for increasingly long periods without notice to its user talk pages, so as not to give it whatever weird satisfaction such attention might draw. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:38, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

See also User contributions for -Sombrero19. Currently up to 1 week's suspension, along with User:178.48.229.120. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:37, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect this one too User:95.215.52.150 --Traveler100 (talk) 14:45, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Another east European IP address changing destinations User:212.87.238.34. Although not knowing if this is a real correction or not have left the edit, not sure if should undo change --Traveler100 (talk) 16:30, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. The hallmark of this vandal seems to be removing links to Budapest, in addition to removing images from Hungarian articles. Somebody probably had an awful experience in Hungary... ϒpsilon (talk) 16:40, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
78.92.10.167 ϒpsilon (talk) 14:57, 13 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Massive spam account creation attempt

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I just took a look at the abuse filter that catches the annoying Telstra vandal, and I was shock to see that since yesterday more than 500 attempts to create (presumably spam) accounts were made.

I don't think this has anything to do with the Telstra user, but just lucky that the filter blocked this automated account creation process as coming from one of their IP's.

This looks like a serious attack. What can we do to prevent this happening from an IP range that is not blocked? --Andrewssi2 (talk) 10:11, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

They are still going strong, attempting 4 account creations every minute. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 11:25, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, looks like I made a mistake in the ip range detection, and a quick fix has stopped this. Please ignore for now. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 11:51, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Someone is deleting stuff from Mexico city articles

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Please have a look at this Hobbitschuster (talk) 03:25, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. I'm especially concerned about this edit, which reminds me very much of Internet Brands' M.O. immediately post-fork. I'd love for someone to help suss out what needs to be done here; whether this user seems like an ordinary vandal or something more. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 03:45, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I only see this on one page with the User:Lucianaviott, have posted a warning. Are there similar edits with other user IDs or IPs? --Traveler100 (talk) 06:24, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User:Turbo8000 is unilaterally changing the spelling of Nazca and Cuzco again

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According to this diff, he's back again and his M.O. seems to not have changed much. Quite frankly I fear that words won't help, but it is worth a try... Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:04, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And I'll still do it. NaSca and CuSco is the one correct spelling which the government uses. Turbo8000 17:17, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I've rolled back all edits to Peru, because frankly, I don't think it's our job to sort through the edits of users who are clearly unwilling to work within our practices of discussion and consensus. I'm in favour of a 2 week ban; this is simply the same game, and there's no point in assuming good faith here. Any other opinions? JuliasTravels (talk) 18:58, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I always assume good faith. I can do something: if you ban me for 2 weeks, you'll loose me as an editor here FOREVER. It's unfair to put a bad image for a country, and I don't agree with many many of your personal policies. Let me correct all the articles as I know, gringos ignorantes. Turbo8000 19:02, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Not really, go for it, I say. Ibaman (talk) 19:00, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There is support for Turbo8000's position, though it's not as clear-cut as he thinks. (w:talk:Cusco, es:w:Discusión:Cuzco, w:talk:Nazca, es:w:Discusión:Nasca). Apart from his assertions of official Peruvian spellings (irrelevant in an English travel guide, unless we want to change Warsaw to Warszawa, etc.) nobody here has addressed the substance of the arguments. Turbo8000, you have made good contributions to en-Wikivoyage, and I would hate to see you leave, but consensus-building through reasoned, civil discussion is the Wikimedia way. Peter Chastain (talk) 20:07, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Please see Wikivoyage:User ban nominations#2016-03-04 incident. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 20:09, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Edits to the country article template

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Have a look at these edits - I thought, I'd raise it here, please move it to another place if that is more appropriate. What should we do? Edited to add: I have rolled back the edits in question for now. I fear the user may be under some kind of misapprehension due to talk page messages and have written on his talk page. What else should be done at this point? Hobbitschuster (talk) 23:52, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, nothing. Thanks for taking the correct action. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:50, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Edit warring by dynamic IP user in Hajar Mountains article

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Please see Revision History. I am blocking every IP that continues to edit war for 3 months for block evasion after an initial block of 2 hours, then 1 day. There are so many IPs that it's a waste of time to post to each new one's user talk page, and no user talk page or edit messages are read, anyway. I'd suggest a filter is urgently needed for this authoritarian user who insists on his/her own way and refuses to engage in any discussion about his/her edits. The point isn't the relative triviality of the edits themselves, but that this user is irritating people and engaging in intolerable edit warring. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:19, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Realizing that blocking dynamic IP addresses over and over again is a total waste of time, I've protected the article, allowing only autoconfirmed users to edit it for a day. I think the protection should be extended, as this authoritarian user will undoubtedly revert again tomorrow. Please comment. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:30, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And now, look at the user creation log. A whole bunch of names that obviously have to be blocked... Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:47, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think so, but the better solution would be to create an effective filter and lift the protection. If the filter won't be ready by tomorrow, though, we should probably protect the article for a few days or a week. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:47, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Under the circumstances, I think we'd better extend the protection for at least another day, to give time for a filter to be created. We need to filter out these dynamic IPs, which should also take care of the troll new usernames containing my screen name. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:16, 12 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I also reverted the IP user's edit in Central Coastal Oman applied protection for 2 days. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:28, 12 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
These are awfully draconian measures for a relatively minor issue of wording choice. Powers (talk) 23:31, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's not about wording choice, and I'm pretty shocked that you're reacting this way. It's about a single person attempting to dictate the precise language s/he wants, through edit warring, block evasion, and finally, making up a series of abusive usernames. This IP user's actions, as you can see in the talk threads I linked, were upsetting one of the better content-creators on this site. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:45, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I see I didn't link the talk pages: Talk:Central Coastal Oman, Talk:Hajar Mountains#Syntax. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:47, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that edit warring is bad, but sometimes our actions contribute. In cases like these, where the editor's change is not plainly unacceptable, I prefer to switch to a slow revert mode before breaking out the block function and the protection tools. Powers (talk) 01:21, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Did you see how many times this editor had warred before further action was taken? Would you have wasted weeks reverting? Days? This IP user was obviously willing to edit war forever. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:57, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's precisely my point. The reason he/she was able to do it so often is because his/her edits were so quickly reverted. A more patient reversion process would have been less antagonistic and increased the chances of the user losing interest before an edit war developed. Powers (talk) 01:23, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You're suggesting that the reverts should have stood for a day or so each time? I really don't think that would have worked, nor that people should be able to successfully edit war, instead of achieving a consensus behind edits that are controversial, no matter how relatively unimportant they may be. It's the principle of collaboration, not dictating things unilaterally, that's central to Wikis. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:26, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's not the importance, it's the harmfulness. These were not blatantly harmful edits, merely ones that you disagreed with (legitimately). From a neutral perspective, the natural response to having one's edits repeatedly reverted is to repeatedly revert them back. That's an edit war, yes, but it takes two to have an edit war. It's more productive, in situations where the edit is not plainly harmful, to take a step back and let the user's edit stand for a bit rather than antagonizing the user by repeatedly and immediately reverting what seems like a legitimate change to that user. Powers (talk) 21:15, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent)Let me recap here. In these two edits, User:159.122.86.41 removed a gloss of the word wadi and the phrase "although technically". These are minor edits at best, which I agree did not improve the article, but neither were they actively harmful. User:StellarD then re-added the "although technically" wording with an explanation. A different IP user, User:209.172.52.136 then changed "technically" to "correctly" -- a perfectly valid edit. This was immediately met by User:Ikan Kekek reverting the change, accusing the IP user of "edit warring", sarcastically referring to "overcorrecting", and suggesting that the user "argue with OED on the talk page". Unless I'm missing a fine point in the chronology here, or if you had prior dealings with one or both IP addresses, this is a stunningly hostile reaction to what seem to me be to be perfectly normal edits. Note that this all occurs before the edit warring actually begins. I really hope you can help me understand what I'm missing here. Powers (talk) 21:24, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If I may, it seems like Ikan's accusation of edit warring hinged on the assumption that User:159.122.86.41 and User:209.172.52.136 were the same user using different IP addresses. Given the fact that both of those edits were to the same word in the same article, occurred less than a day apart, and came with similarly snippy edit summaries - and especially given how the situation developed afterward - it's hard if not impossible to argue against the accuracy of that assumption. That being the case, the IP user was indeed edit warring. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 21:40, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for explaining. And Powers, you're actually defending edit warring as a "natural response"? This is a Wiki. The natural response should be to discuss the desired edit and come to a consensus before redoing that edit, not to restore it over and over and then create a bunch of abusive screen names after the article is protected. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:03, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And by the way, yes, I do strongly believe I've dealt with this IP user before, as I've dealt with a dynamic IP user that uses identical edit summaries, edit wars, seldom posts to talk pages and then always refuses to sign their posts, and is always changing anything vaguely reminiscent of American English to a quasi-British English with typos, while also eliminating nice points of style. I usually grudgingly tolerate their edits, but whenever I push back, this user tends to immediately revert my edits. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:38, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As I was tagged here, I would like to add a couple of point to the discussion. I believe the anonymous editor on Hajar Mountains and Central Coastal Oman likely earlier edited Dhofar; please see Talk:Dhofar#October_to_May. It may also be this same individual who has been changing times in other Oman articles from 12-hour to 24-hour, albeit in a random fashion so that for example Muscat is now a mess with both formats in use. And now s/he is rewriting Omani history. –StellarD (talk) 10:06, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
My point is that there was no edit warring until after Ikan already accused the user of such. Unless, as I said, I've erred in my chronology somewhere, in which case I'd gladly accept correction. I would much prefer to be wrong about this. Powers (talk) 18:57, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's already been explained to you why you're wrong. Please reread this thread. I feel like you have a strong tendency to support problem users instead of fellow admins and constructive users, even to the extent of favoring them and making contortions like this in order to claim that a dynamic IP user wasn't edit warring until s/he happened to use the same IP a couple of times to edit war. There, I made it explicit. And I don't appreciate feeling undercut on that basis. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:08, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm trying to identify why you felt these users were a problem, but you're not cooperating. I laid out the timeline above; where did I go wrong? Powers (talk) 18:35, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry to jump in, but I think this thread is suggesting accusations of bad faith that are not helpful. Can we agree that: 1) this particular edit was a minor issue, and on its own not enough to justify an escalation, but 2) if Ikan or another trusted user says that there is a history that justifies escalation we should take them at their word unless there is specific reason for concern? We don't want to bite the newbies, but we also shouldn't be making life more difficult for respected users for exercising their best judgement when they say they've identified a problem. Assuming those two points are agreeable, can we let this thread rest and move on? -- Ryan • (talk) • 19:56, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid I don't agree with #2. There's no need to simply take anyone at their word when we have full edit histories available that can clearly document a pattern of abuse. At the moment, though, I'm not seeing it, and I've asked for help understanding what I'm missing. I am very concerned because since losing several contributors a couple of years ago we now seem to have taken the opposite stance, of complete intolerance for anything resembling contentious behavior. We have lost the patience that was once this community's hallmark. If Ikan had good reason to accuse the IPs of edit warring, I think he should be able to explain what that reason was. If there was no good reason, then we need to address how a baseless accusation can escalate a situation and lead to a block such as the one imposed here. Powers (talk) 18:24, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I say good riddance to the "patience" you describe. Perhaps that type of naïveté was a luxury we could afford when we were a smaller community with a proportionately lower rate of vandalism. But things are different now that we've grown, and Peter and Jan's departure was in that sense an awakening to reality. The fact is that most people who come on to a wiki like ours and behave uncivilly are perfectly cognizant of what they are doing, and we admins are tasked with responding accordingly. The idea that incivility is a product of inexperience as an editor, and that we can train up vandals and trolls to be constructive contributors if only we are patient with them and keep appealing to their good sides, has proven itself time and again to be a lot of naïve piffle. Frankly, I think it's rather insulting to the majority of new editors who come to the site and contribute constructively, to categorize the good-faith newbie mistakes they might make in the beginning as even potentially equivalent to vandalism or trolling. Vandals and trolls, in the vast majority of cases, arrive at Wikivoyage with very different intentions than they do. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 18:57, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Powers, the nature of the edit warring has been explained to you; you just aren't willing to understand the nature of a dynamic IP, it would seem. I don't feel like wasting time in further discussion about this because I can't explain it any better than it's already been explained. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:39, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
No, I understand the dynamic IP. You identified the two IP addresses as the same person. I understand that. What I am asking for is to see where the edit war was at the time you made the edit comment that mentioned "edit warring". I do not see it.
As for naive piffle, the very issue we're discussing is how to distinguish vandals and trolls from good-faith newbies. It is dangerous and detrimental to jump to the conclusion of the former. It has nothing to do with reforming bad-faith editors and everything to do with avoiding false positives.
Powers (talk) 00:52, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's obvious that our tolerance levels have shifted, and I agree with AndreCarrotflower. I've seen the amount of contributors and time wasted over a handful of non-contributors who tie us in knots. Also, I've seen the work that Ikan Kekek has done patrolling this site over many years, with patience, advice and good nature - that he's earned the respect of the community to have a few calls made on instinct (I don't know if this was one of those cases or not). I agree Powers and [[Ryan respectively, that we need a discussion of how we now make our guidelines hit people who aren't here to make a travel guide quickly, but balance that against the false positives. And that we need to let this instance go, and work on clear policy going forward on the appropriate pages. --Inas (talk) 02:03, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Basically agree with Inas here and support the really good work Ikan has done here over the years. It is fine to have a discussion around how we deal with scenarios such as this, but I really don't see why this particular example has to be labored so much. Andrewssi2 (talk) 02:56, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
For clarification, here are all the edits in question, by various anonymous IPs as well as by myself and administrators. I fail to see why this is not an edit war.
#1 (scroll down to line 130 to see the change), #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17, #18, #19, #20. Yes, the difference in wording is minor, but attempts to come to an agreement in a civil, rational manner failed.
There was a similar pattern with Central Coastal Oman, and with Dhofar. The edit style and tone of the anonymous IP on the talk page are I think suspiciously similar to those by a rather unpleasant character who has edited here in the past.
I do not understand why anyone here would tolerate this behavior, or question Ikan Kekek's judgement in handling this. –StellarD (talk) 09:19, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for taking the time to thoroughly document this. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:34, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I am sorry, StellarD, but I think this reinforces my point. Ikan called accused the user of edit warring in your link #6. Links #1-5, though, do not constitute an edit war (even if we assume the IPs are the same user) because edits #3 and #5 involved apparently good-faith attempts to adjust the wording to be acceptable, rather than simply re-instating the same wording as in #1. The edit war that ensued *after* Ikan's accusation was of course unacceptable, but it's not edit warring to attempt to alter prose to find consensus wording. Powers (talk) 14:51, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Does anyone agree with Powers' interpretation of the events? Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:40, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
All due respect, I'm trying and failing to follow his logic, let alone agree with him. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 02:36, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Could you explain where I've been unclear? The editor in question made three different edits to the article in question before being accused of edit warring. Making different edits is not edit warring. Powers (talk) 00:30, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Our old friend User:Turbo8000

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Hello, Wikivoyagers. Not sure if the community is aware of this, or if you even need to be, but it seems that (the now globally-locked) Turbo8000 has been identified by Dutch Wikipedia as one of hundreds of sockpuppets used by the same vandal to cause trouble across various Wikis since 2012. I don't suppose this changes anything really, the guy is still indefblocked here, just that it may help everyone to know how extremely persistent this individual is in their disruptive and malicious behaviour, and that it's fairly likely they will resurface on Wikivoyage under a different name at some point in the future. Apologies if this information is either in the wrong place or not useful / appropriate. Thanks, good evening --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 00:12, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the heads-up, TT. I'll be sure to keep an eye out, and I'm sure others will too. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 01:14, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
He has indeed been busy, and the reaction from each WV community has been the same. We were right to try and help him down the collaborative path, and even take every effort to do so. Wikis are not for everyone I guess. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 21:47, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Based on what we knew (or rather didn't know) at the time, I agree completely. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 23:34, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Over the last couple of days different IPs have vandalized the Baghdad article. Should the article be protected? ϒpsilon (talk) 11:05, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Various commercial spambots

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See block log. But they keep creating more; see user creation log. In all likelihood, all the users created on Sept. 21 are spambots, and User:Toplistproductcom clearly is because User:Toplistpro was, and I'd like to block it preemptively. Any ideas on how to filter them out before they have to all be blocked manually, with their edits rolled back? Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:23, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at Recent changes, I think anything containing "Top list", "top 10" and what have you, ought to be blacklisted for some time. And sooner rather than later. ϒpsilon (talk) 08:35, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This problem seems to have died down at the moment, I think, but let's keep on the lookout for it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:11, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dubai edits

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Two accounts have today added listings in Dubai articles that look like normal touting, except for the fact that the listing "content" field is the typical "what a well-written blog" text that spambots generally add. It seems highly unlikely that any real world user would add that sort of content, but until it's clear what's going on then it's worthwhile keeping an eye on any edits to Dubai, or any other article where the listing content field appears to be spambot generated. See Special:Contributions/Radissonblu123 and Special:Contributions/Jadisinteriors for the accounts I've reverted so far. -- Ryan • (talk) • 19:14, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See revision history for the edit warring over an unexplained deletion of a listing. Also see the thread at Wikivoyage talk:How to handle unwanted edits#Edit warring in the Debrecen article. I will block the one non-IP address, but we need a range block to deal with vandalistic edit warring by dynamic IPs. Please help. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:15, 13 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Since User:-Sombrero19- was previously blocked for 1 week for vandalism, I have blocked that account and the IP addresses for 2 weeks, but I fully expect another dynamic IP to continue the edit warring. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:20, 13 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Because of the way IPv6 works, it is common for providers to issue a huge /64 - sized block to individual end users, which then use it to assign individual addresses to every machine on a LAN - maybe even using the lower 64 bits to hold the entire serial number of each PC's network card. Yes, a /64 is sixteen billion billion addresses; such is the absurdity of IPv6 and 128-bits of address. Most blocks therefore will be range blocks, so 2a02:ab88:33c2:bf00::0/64 is likely to be one end user's local area network and a valid range for a range block. K7L (talk) 02:21, 14 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ultimately we are blocking that whole (Hungarian) ISP in question. About as targeted as it can get.. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 03:43, 14 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
After another instance of the vandalism, I semi-protected the article for a month. Hopefully this clears things up. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 17:38, 15 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Strange, the filter should have caught that. Adjusted and hopefully catch next time. Andrewssi2 (talk) 22:48, 15 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The new vandalism was done by an ordinary IPv4 address, but with the same pattern of unexplained deletion. The more IP addresses the user reveals himself to have at his disposal, the more it becomes the simpler solution to protect the article rather than block the user, especially if the user is only targeting the one article. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 00:35, 16 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Another head of the Telstra?

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IP 41

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Some "funny" person apparently in Gaborone has been writing weird stuff in our policy articles for three days in a row now, see Special:Contributions/41.77.91.200, Special:Contributions/41.138.78.51 and Special:Contributions/41.223.143.173. ϒpsilon (talk) 16:46, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This user has twice written what appear to be genuine answers to questions posed at the tourist office, but which contain links to spam websites unrelated to the topic. I'm not entirely sure what to make of this user, but have reverted their contributions for safe measure. Would others mind taking a quick look at the edits to make sure they are what I suspect? Thanks, --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:42, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes Done. We block spambots indefinitely, and while this account clearly represents a real live person rather than a bot, given the nature of the contribution history I see no reason to treat him or her differently. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 17:18, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Can I get a speedy delete for User:(WT-en) Budget tours please? This ten-year old userspace spam page was imported from Wikitravel; I can't tag it as the page is protected. MER-C (talk) 12:41, 22 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

IP vandalism: 69.178.195.4

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69.178.195.4 is replacing article text with offensive language. Please block as soon as possible. —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:14, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@AndreCarrotflower: Thank you. Could you also revision-delete the edit at Lakes and Gardens please? —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:45, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes Done -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 01:49, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Advertising spam

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Whiteleaf30 – please block and delete the pages they've created. —Granger (talk · contribs) 14:21, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ongoing vandalism-only account. Suggest indef block. OhanaUnitedTalk page 17:39, 4 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Have blocked indef --Traveler100 (talk) 17:47, 4 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Back with user:173.76.255.83, have block a month as is IP address. --Traveler100 (talk) 18:22, 4 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Blocked 107.242.113.7 for similar vandalism, as well as 2605:6000:8D47:5800:FD73:E71:9357:77FB, an anonymous concern troll with no previous edits who popped up seconds later on the article's talk page to report the previous user's vandalism. Please be on the lookout for more sophisticated tactics than usual. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 19:06, 4 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

User page "experimentation" by IP editor(s)

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This is a bit pecular: an IP editor is editing user pages/talk pages with nonsense. My initial assumption is that they are experimenting and don't know any better. These are the edits in question: by 106.192.58.166 and by 106.192.66.250 . Since they are creating a new page, I don't have a handy revert button to remove these / not sure how to handle it. It's two different IPs doing this, but maybe it's the same person? I'm new to this, excuse my lack of expertise. DethDestroyerOfWords (talk) 16:24, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The first edit was made to the IP's own talk page, so I wouldn't worry too much about that. The second was an act of vandalism of another user's page which I have deleted. Since this has as far as I can see only happened twice, and there's no evidence to suggest the same person was behind both edits, there's not really any harm done. But we can all look out for similar edits in the future, so thanks for bringing it to light. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 17:11, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Page deletion/redirect

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Two new pages were created, one is filled with garbage for a place I don't think exists Broome,_WA. The other is a misspelling/alternate spelling of an article that already exists Ulanbaatar (should be Ulaanbaatar). The Broom, WA one is vandalism. I put a speedy deletion tag on both of them, but is that the proper protocol? DethDestroyerOfWords (talk) 22:23, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

w:Broome, Western Australia exists. Both pages could be redirected. Pashley (talk) 20:40, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
At the time, the page's content said Broome, Washington. I searched for that and couldn't find it, hence my mistake at thinking it didn't exist. DethDestroyerOfWords (talk) 21:45, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked as adding large number of hotels with links to websites that are not the official websites of the respective hotels. --Traveler100 (talk) 19:07, 13 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Massive IP vandalism in the Khon Kaen article

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Some disturbed individual has been running amok on the Khon Kaen for quite a while now, see Special:Contributions/128.227.146.146 and ‎Special:Contributions/128.227.14.241. ϒpsilon (talk) 18:36, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Possible sock puppet

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Not sure about the content of Crespina. Suspect Előszállás and Sherwood Content same author when look at users KittyHawk5885 Freeman1973 Larko3424 Lorrikot354, although content appears to be correct is not of much use. --Traveler100 (talk) 21:51, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like Telstra's back at it. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 23:48, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If it is Telstra (any way of verifying that?), the modus operandi is slightly more sophisticated, as before they always seemed to use similar usernames, 'The Great Traveller', or something along those lines. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 08:17, 8 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe also Shipka: users Avidster11 , Tettar242
Brisbane IP
I posted messages to those 2 usernames' user talk pages. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:04, 8 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Gladenbach user AmirsDraw040 --Traveler100 (talk) 16:20, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not so sure about that one. The user could have added more, but there is at least a proper template, including the bottom of the page stuff, and one see, eat and sleep listing with contact info; if that user or anyone else adds 'Get in', then you've got a usable article. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 17:03, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Wheels" vandal

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Over the last few weeks a vandal keeps coming on with different accounts, but they're all the same person because they always use the same wording. His edits keep getting reverted, of course, and he keeps getting blocked, but then he comes back with a different account. What can we do to stop this? Also, he'll always replace a piece of text with "North Korea is good" or "Taiwan should be in China" or "Putin is good", or something with "wheels" in it, so if you see these things, you'll know who the vandal is. I know he's been using the usernames "Taiwan belongs to the People's Republic of China (on WheeIs)", "Russia War Alliance", and probably "North Korea is best Korea on tyres". A little while ago, he even messed up my talk page.

Sorry, I did a faux pas on the last one by commenting in the edit summary. I won't do this in future. Selfie City (talk) 20:44, 8 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The same sort of vandalism has popped up every now and then over the last years, it may or may not be by the same user. "(Willy) on wheels" is a form of vandalism that has existed on Wikipedia for more than a decade. Here and here are news articles from 2007 (yes) about wikis getting vandalized mentioning this particular vandal(ism) and if you're bored you can google "willy on wheels vandal".
In short; some kind of filter could be useful. ϒpsilon (talk) 21:09, 8 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, what we perhaps need to do is reject any username that signs up with the words "on wheels" in it and perhaps we should lock the articles North Korea, China, Taiwan, and the United States - things he's likely to edit and he has done so in the past. Selfie City (talk) 21:23, 8 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
fuerdai could also be autoblocked, I suppose. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:12, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Also, what if there was a system on Wikivoyage that automatically reverted all of someone's edits if they were blocked? This would help when it comes to reverting edits. Selfie City (talk) 04:42, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There is no such function, though there are some useful, though much less all-encompassing tools admins can use. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:19, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Possible sockpuppets

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I didn't really notice this until after I sent a "Welcome to Wikivoyage" letter to one of the possible sockpuppets, but here they are: around 12:00 on June 9th, four users signed up, all with doubled letters in their name and numbers (usually two) at the end. This seems rather suspicious - check out the users Tennock580, JimTurrell48, JohnRyllock48, and Tyrrock58. Selfie City (talk) 14:11, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That's the Telstra vandal, who we've been following for some time. See Wikivoyage:User ban nominations/Archive#Telstra vandal, Wikivoyage:User ban nominations/Archive#BrendanJohnWilliams2004, Wikivoyage:User ban nominations/Archive#Brendan John Williams, and probably other threads for a detailed chronology of his activities. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 14:41, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There are spambots which bulk-create accounts with that pattern; any MediaWiki installation without a strong CAPTCHA tends to be infested with them. Without looking at the contributions, I'd be hard-pressed to say whether they match the Telstra pattern. K7L (talk) 23:29, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
What I don't understand, though, is why adding a few words (like this) is vandalism. Selfie City (talk) 14:37, 17 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Because it's a typical Telstra edit, copied without real understanding from some unacknowledged source. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:07, 17 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I can see now how those kinds of actions, when continued over a period of time without actually communicating with anyone else on WV, is like vandalism. I'm watching for Telstra now. Selfie City (talk) 19:50, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Telstra vandalism?

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Yea or nay? The editing pattern is suspicious, as is the page - Raqqa, yes that Raqqa - they have created. If "yea", are they all Telstra? What about 'Libertarianmoderate', who has a proper user page and even engages in discussions? I'm not sure about this one, so would appreciate second and third opinions. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 12:34, 17 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As you can see in the comment above, I don't really understand the Telstra vandal thing, but the Libertarianmoderate seems to be okaysee discussion below: except for that user's political reference, that is, which it's best to stay out of.Selfie City (talk) 14:40, 17 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Having received messages from Libertarianmoderate, I don't think s/he is a vandal, just a new user who's not very familiar with our site, but who seems willing and ready to work collaboratively.
I am still suspicious about the other users who edited Raqqa soon after Libertarianmoderate was done.
@SelfieCity: As far as I know, we have no prohibitions on sharing one's political views on Wikivoyage, as long as said views don't hinder the creation of good content. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 17:30, 17 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I thinking more of articles. Selfie City (talk) 23:04, 17 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

WT "Satan" vandalism

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User:Libertarianmoderate created a page called The Great Satan and redirected it to WT. I blanked the redirect text, but I can't delete the page and need an admin for this. Considering the discussion in the pub a little while ago, this is really serious. This guy needs to be blocked, really. Selfie City (talk) 20:39, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Anything you can do, Ibaman? Selfie City (talk) 20:41, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
User:Ibaman I'm deeply concerned by your decision to unilaterally indefban this user. Why didn't you impose a short ban to prevent any further vandalism, then go to WV:User ban nominations and put this issue to the community? I understand he has vandalised the project, but he has also contributed positively, shown willing to understand our policies and work with others. Furthermore, he has written an apology on his user talk page for his actions. It is my view that an indefinite ban is a disproportionate response to what I understand is a single act of vandalism from a user who has showed promise. At the very least this should be discussed further at WV:User ban nominations. ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 23:58, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
First, ThunderingTyphoons!, thanks for your response, but this is not a one-time thing he's done. He also created some issues on the extremely important and carefully-written page Wikivoyage:Wikivoyage and Wikitravel and has been doing many reorganizations and region article creations without asking the community first. So far, he's been more of a problem for the community than a help, and has before gotten angry at people, including you; also, he made the apology after he was blocked. I think it's sometimes better to block these people, although I think indefinite limit to the time block was quite strong.
Also, I believe the way Ibaman operates on bans is that he bans indefinitely and sees if the user will come back and apologize. I don't think this is a great solution and I think it might discourage more people than encourage them to contribute more wisely, but that's the way he does it. Selfie City (talk) 00:11, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
But whether that is the way Ibaman does it or not is not the point. We have policies that set out how to approach these issues in a methodical, consistent and fair way and "permabanning in a bid to force an apology" is not one of them!
This, which I was not aware of before, looks like a joke, albeit one in poor taste.
I am not aware of any anger towards me; in our few discussions, he has been polite. If there are instances of anger directed at others, then these should be brought to light at, and I'll repeat myself again, WV:User ban nominations. ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 00:23, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
No problem. I need to go to bed anyhow :-) ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 00:44, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I must say "indefban and hope they apologize" doesn't seem like the right way to me. At least in this case the user does know what they are being punished for (any punishment should be dealt out with a clear reason given). I think we can afford to give this user enough rope to hang himself with. Hobbitschuster (talk) 01:33, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think that for someone who has shown intent to be a constructive contributor, an indefinite ban on a first offence is extreme, even for vandalism. Escalating blocks are more appropriate. For vandalism-only accounts, a permanent ban is a reasonable use of our limited resources, and I'm quite sure that I've never seen someone who starts off as a vandal be turned into a constructive contributor through patience and forgiveness. Ground Zero (talk) 03:56, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Copied from User talk:Ibaman: On the face of it, if he's apologized, he shouldn't be permanently banned, but we need to watch him very closely, and if he ever does something like this again, he should face a long ban of at least a month, as this is a more serious offense than touting/edit warring on a single page. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:25, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Added here: Thank you, Ibaman, for dealing with this. We can shorten a block, but it was important for someone to act. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:28, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I agree: action was necessary, and thanks to Ibaman for taking care of this. I propose that we reduce this to a three-day block, and escalate if the problem recurs. Ground Zero (talk) 04:31, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Even though I deleted some of Libertarianmoderate entries and suggest merging of others I am tempted to assume good intent here and unblock the user. However does my memory serve me right that we have had Chicago contributors in the past discussing anger issues? Also generally I think we need to think how to differentiate between vandalism and disruptive editing. --Traveler100 (talk) 06:05, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A three-day block seems appropriate, with escalation to at least two weeks if there are any further problems. We also need to make it clear that having anger issues is no excuse for behaving inappropriately. We can and should forgive mistakes, but we must have no tolerance towards intentional abuse directed at other users.
For the sake of transparency, I will just add that I found out about this because the user emailed me last night, clearly upset and surprised. I know what he's done is serious, but I also think he knows that too, and is remorseful. I am hopeful that this will mean good conduct from now on. ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 07:16, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Looks like we might have an attempt at block evasion here: according to the user creation log, a new account for User:LibMod was created at 17:30 UST, 23 June 2018, only a day and a half into what's supposed to be a three-day block for User:Libertarianmoderate. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 18:20, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Could be a coincidence, but I have a bad feeling it's not. I wonder if this guy is a real vandal pretending to be someone else. Plus, the fact he personally emailed an administrator is odd and almost seems like a threat. Selfie City (talk) 19:13, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Telstra

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What do you think of this user? How would a new user know about formatting on their first edit, anyway? And username (numbers are warning sign) is suspicious. Selfie City (talk) 21:47, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's a warning sign, indeed. But the user hasn't done anything wrong, and if it is Telstra, that account will never be used again. Good spot, ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 20:51, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Editing articles from Illinois (like many edits of our new friend LM discussed above), Afghanistan (also LM) and Australia (at one point, incarnations of Telstra concentrated on Australian articles, where they come from). Just saying. ϒpsilon (talk) 19:18, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Australia. Interesting. Selfie City (talk) 19:21, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
And Illinois and Afghanistan. Could this be the bridge between LM and Telstra? Or are we looking at this too closely? Selfie City (talk) 19:36, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't seem like Telstra because LM responds to comments and says things, unlike Telstra. I don't want to condemn anyone, but it is suspicious. Selfie City (talk) 19:38, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've now been looking at some edit history. The article in Afghanistan that Jendick447 edited (Helmand Province) had also been edited by LM a couple hours earlier. Jendick447's edit to the Helmand Province article was changing the ispartof from Afghanistan to South Afghanistan. Just an hour or two before Jendick447 linked Helmand Province to South Afghanistan, LM made this edit, which mentioned Helmand Province. So it seems that LM mentioned Helmand Province in South Afghanistan, and only a couple hours later Jendick447 was mentioning South Afghanistan in the Helmand Province article. That's starting to convince me that these two might really be the same person. Has Telstra struck again? Selfie City (talk) 19:45, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

And more evidence. JenDick447 make some fairly substantial contributions to Lashkargah (and JenDick447's contributions by the way mentioned Helmand Province). Lashkargah was created by — guess who? LM. Selfie City (talk) 19:56, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Also, WikiWrecker321 edited Raqqa and LM's userpage. Could LM and WikiWrecker be the same person pretending to be different people? This could be much bigger than we imagined. Selfie City (talk) 20:00, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Could also be good old pcv who is back, haven't seen that one in a while. They also sometimes use numbers in their user names, and their last incarnation said stuff about reporting administrators to the authorities and believed one admin wanted them to commit suicide. ϒpsilon (talk) 20:03, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Devoting attention to idle speculation about grand conspiracies, and wondering whether vandalistic accounts are connected or in cahoots with each other, only encourages more vandalism. Vandals want recognition. We can deny them that recognition, assume the accounts are unrelated, and act accordingly on problematic behavior and achieve the same result. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 20:09, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but I think we can take action now—we've discovered that both LM and Jendick447 have both edited Helmand Province (Afghanistan) and Midlothian (Illinois). I'd say we should consider some action which would deal with LM. No more need to speculate now; I've looked through and the connections are obvious. And the connections are important—sockpuppeting is an offense, and these are clearly sockpuppets. Selfie City (talk) 20:15, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
So the Telstra just picked up on an ongoing edit issue, do not read to much into this. If Telstra make a good edit just ignore it. If vandalism simple undo. Do not go to deep into this unless you are willing to spend and possible waist a lot of time.--Traveler100 (talk) 20:25, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Traveler100, AndreCarrotflower: your suggestions would be fine, except that LM, one of the sockpuppets, has been making a lot of contributions to the site, interacted with others, etc. Ibaman, as you know, was quickly reprimanded for indefintely blocking LM and LM's block was reduced. But if he's a sockpuppet and possibly a vandal, let's go for indefban. Selfie City (talk) 20:29, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
it is not the same person. Do not let these minor things get to you. An undo is only a click away. --Traveler100 (talk) 20:36, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Really? So 2/30,000 odds occurred? Both editing the same pages? Not the same person? I find that hard to believe. Selfie City (talk) 20:39, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@SelfieCity: Please do not start assuming other new users are the same person. Do not jump to conclusions. Recommend you back off before you end up being collateral damage.. --Traveler100 (talk) 20:42, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
All right. Selfie City (talk) 20:44, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm looking through it again, and I think you're right actually. Jendick447 were quite possibly just looking through recent changes and happened to make edits to pages related to LM. Selfie City (talk) 20:51, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for assuming without thinking over enough. Selfie City (talk) 20:58, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
No problem, just do not want you wasting your time. --Traveler100 (talk) 21:05, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Selfie City (talk) 22:42, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The "Grand Conspiracy"

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You know, I expected far better from the managers of the largest travel site on the internet. I make a mistake, and suddenly, I'm part of a grand conspiracy? I know the fact that I create pages about dangerous places (like Raqqa, for instance) is unusual, but I am doing it for a very good reason: It's an area of study that I'm very familiar with, as I closely follow the situation in the middle east. For proof, I do articles on Illinois because I'm from there, and I know the area well. If creating articles about dangerous places is grounds for conspiracy charges, then the guy who created the Ramadi article should also be banned, charged with conspiracy, and permanently labeled a Telstra vandal.

Also, yes, I do believe Rojava should be an independent state. But I created an article for it mostly for practical reasons, as the situation there is very different from that of Palmyra, even though they were originally part of the same Wikivoyage-defined region. That's why we treat Abkhazia, for example, as a separate country from Georgia, because the situation in Abkhazia is very different from that of Georgia. I discussed this with K7L and ThunderingTyphoons! recently. Libertarianmoderate (talk) 15:57, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If Abkhazia, Illinois and Afghanistan are dangerous war zones to be avoided at all costs, so be it. Warn the user not to go to these awful places and move along. If you need to make more far-reaching changes, such as moving the boundaries of entire regions, it may best to open a discussion on the article's talk page and link to it from Wikivoyage:Requests for comment to gather feedback before making the change. Yes, the boundaries of an entity like "Iraqi Kurdistan" may well be a moving target (in the literal sense of 'target') so it's not always clear how to handle these. K7L (talk) 18:10, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Temper your indignance a little, because you know what is a ground for a permanent block? Block evasion, which you engaged in. It looks like we're willing to let this slide once, but if there's ever a reason to temporarily block your account again, make sure you don't try to evade the block by creating or using any more accounts or IPs. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:26, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Can we block certain words?

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A certain vandal / group of vandals seems to have an odd fascination with the word "fuerdai", whatever it is supposed to mean. As there is no conceivable legitimate use for it, is it technologically possible to block it from being inserted? Or at least a flag that alerts us to that "word" being used? Or is that a can of worms we rather not open? Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:54, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Such a thing ought to be possible with mediawiki software. Wikipedia automatically recognises and flags (though doesn't screen out) repeating characters and profanities, while Wikit****l prevents anyone from saving a revision with the word "Wikivoyage" in it. I'm not an expert on these things, however. ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 23:07, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I would expect the vandal then to switch to "feurdai", "fooerdy", "fuerdye", or "cucumber". I don't think there is much to be gained from banning individual words. Although if we could ban "bigly", I'd be in favour. Ground Zero (talk) 23:13, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Special:AbuseFilter should be capable of this, but it tends to be used sparingly as scanning every edit takes server time. K7L (talk) 23:30, 25 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Account created

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An account called Hong kONg WHEELS was created recently. Hasn't done anything bad yet, so not at the moment urgently important, but you can see what the username means. Selfie City (talk) 17:14, 27 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's globally locked. ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 17:20, 27 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Selfie City (talk) 17:22, 27 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Block needed

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Please block User:Nine hundred and eighteen. Thank you. —Granger (talk · contribs) 12:39, 4 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

And here's another sock of the same vandal: User:Kish-ben. I wonder if we could set up an abuse filter to stop some of these edits. —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:18, 6 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
This was suggested already by User:Hobbitschuster somewhere - not sure where, but people rejected the idea for some reason. I see no harm in filtering the nonsense words this idiot is obsessed with. ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:21, 7 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, the suggestion is just a few topics above this. And it wasn't really rejected, just ran out of steam as these threads often do. ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:26, 7 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I support setting up an abuse filter. There's no harm in trying it out. Gizza (roam) 10:50, 7 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Fishyness surrounding Preetz

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So a single edit user added a redlink to Preetz onto the Schleswig Holstein page and after being reverted by me on account of the redlink being hard to justify an "unrelated" single edit user created the "article" in a pretty sorry state which may or may not be part machine translation. I admit I should have gotten suspicious earlier, instead I humored the whole thing and turned it into an article with listings, but really I don't think there's any there there and I also don't think we should humor such shenanigans. Is there something fishy in the state of Schleswig and Holstein or should we let it be water down the Schlei? Hobbitschuster (talk) 01:51, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This is probably the Telstra users. I have limited internet at the moment so maybe someone else can get a Steward to check. Not possible to block as he will have already moved on to a number user account. You have two options, undo/delete the entry or if it is a useful entry, just ignore it. --Traveler100 (talk) 06:56, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Read the article, and nothing unusual here. Seems like the start of a city article to me, so don't think it should be classified as vandalism. ArticCynda (talk) 10:35, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
the latest edit came from yet another single edit user... Hobbitschuster (talk) 11:13, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
So this person has created about 7 pages in the last week with basic information and has also created about 30 new user accounts and made minor edits on a number of pagers. More disruption than vandalism. I assume just to distract other contributors. This is nothing new, the person has been doing this for years. We can either just ignore and let them carry on or we block all people using the internet provider being used from editing this site. I suspect the person has a personal problem, but is not willing to enter into any conversations on any topics when editing in this persona. --Traveler100 (talk) 14:55, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A new theory

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How does Telstra even make all these accounts? How does he not run out of devices to use if you ban his IP along with the account? Let's say I wanted to pull something like this off. I have a computer, a phone, two tablets, and my school Chromebook. Let's say I created one vandalism account per device before the IP was successfully blocked, and did five edits per device before being caught. That's 25 edits. Still nowhere near the amount of edits made by Telstra accounts, at least to my own knowledge. I would quickly run out of devices. Even if I went to my local library and set up one account for all ~8 public computers there, that's still only 65 edits. Let's say that I then bought one phone per year for ten years. That's STILL only 115 edits. I'm starting to believe that maybe Telstra is not one person. My theory is that this is either a massive concerted effort by maybe a dozen or so people, or Telstra doesn't really exist and we're just mistaking a bunch of unrelated vandals for one person or hacker syndicate. Or maybe Telstra was once a major vandal, and even created sockpuppet accounts, but in reality, many of the edits we think are Telstra are in fact copycats of the real Telstra. Maybe by talking about Telstra on every other article, we're encouraging copycats to misbehave, and we mistakenly think that the copycats are THE Telstra. I should know, even User:ThunderingTyphoons was suspicious that I was Telstra! So it's not out of the realm of possibility that we could be overexaggerating the Telstra threat, or even looking at all this the wrong way. What do you guys think? Libertarianmoderate (talk) 21:21, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it is the same person, there are ways of telling. However IP address is not connected to the hardware you are using but the internet connection you are using. It is easy to get a new IP address, simply reboot your router, when it comes up again it will be given a new number by the internet provider, within a particular range. In this case the person is using a mobile network connection from one of the main providers in South West Australia so even easy to keep changing. Also without special authority, or illegal hacking, you cannot get the IP address of a Wiki account name. So we would have to stop everyone using this network from creating an account on the site. This could be considered, would not be that many people for Wikivoyage I think (although would be for Wikipedia). And if only block new account creation would not effect established users. However not sure if that would work, he would probably just change network provider. --Traveler100 (talk) 06:11, 6 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Telstra the internet provider is rather notorious with having all kinds of problems; including spambots... Hobbitschuster (talk) 08:18, 6 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I can tell it is a very obsessive individual who lives somewhere in Queensland Australia (they sometime try and make edits from local libraries and cafes).
They reached out to us a couple of times claiming to be one person called 'Brendan John Williams', and on the basis of those communications it was apparent they were not adept or conversant in the English language.
They know that the community doesn't want their edits. I hope that one day they actually learn sufficient English language skills to discuss the edits rather than ignore us because it is too difficult to do so. Andrewssi2 (talk) 23:22, 24 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I’ve been through the talk page archives of Brendan John Williams and I absolutely agree with what Andrewssi2. Perhaps, though, if they don’t understand English well maybe they’ve showed up at other language wikis. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 03:53, 26 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not understanding

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I'm not understanding this. It doesn't seem like normal procedure when it comes to vandals. Maybe I'm missing something. Selfie City (talk) 23:11, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

User:FUERDAl on Ferris Wheels

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Here we go again: @Firedai:

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I found another Fuerd-ai sockpuppet. Here's his contribution list. Libertarianmoderate (talk) 17:58, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The vandal was blocked the day before you posted this notice -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 18:04, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

BTCentralPlus

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In addition to vandalizing his own talk page(s), BTCentralPlus has begun sending harassing emails to admins using Special:EmailUser (see image at right). Until we can get the abuse filter updated (and let's pray that someone comes through soon), please remember when blocking this user to not only prevent him from editing his own talk page, but also from sending email. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 23:01, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I received a Wikivoyage-generated email from User:Libertarianmoderate that reads:
"SmokinTourist909 is not Telstra. It's me. I made two attempts to start a new account with a clean slate, and both of them were blocked. Now my IP address is blocked."
-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 16:12, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's correct. I think he said that on his talk page as well. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 16:17, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Also, see this talk page message of his. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 16:18, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi AndreCarrotflower . I can edit the filter, but what criteria are we looking for? Andrewssi2 (talk) 23:11, 24 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

User:SoftAngelFromHell

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This user is adding odd, out-of place statements on talk pages and did so on the Iowa article. I'm not quite sure what we should do about this user. ---Selfie City (talk | contributions) 02:14, 28 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@SoftAngelFromHell: Never mind. I wrote this in error, since the user brought this up in a very civilized way on Wikivoyage talk:Vandalism in progress. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 02:23, 28 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

User:Howoddthatwas

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Ban them from their own talk page and from using email, please. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 19:28, 28 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Also, their talk page needs to be deleted, user page needs to be deleted, and their "comments" need to be deleted — no reason to preserve commentary made by a vandal, especially considering the "quality" of the language. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 19:35, 28 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Not officially a vandal yet, but look at his user page. Let's keep an eye on this one. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 15:47, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I saw that; I think we ought to pay attention to any edits they make to mainspace pages. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 15:59, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't be surprised if "good old" pcv is back. Sometimes I wish I wouldn't have such a good memory for details, but I remember nature of the comments by one of their last incarnations, and they also stated they had mental issues. By the way, certain other new accounts have also showed a similar pattern of behavior, sockpuppets and all. --ϒpsilon (talk) 17:24, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

94.197.120.89

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Their "contributions" speak for themselves. ϒpsilon (talk) 17:35, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

User:Tegel, I think the clown who keeps vandalizing your discussion page is here again. Would you have the honor of blocking this vandal, before any other admin does it? :) ϒpsilon (talk) 17:40, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like Meta took care of it for us; the IP is now globally locked. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 23:56, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

User:Agrosswilkinson

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I'm a little suspicious about this being Telstra. While the edits they made to the St. Helena article on the surface appear quite constructive, the punctuation and the spacing in the listing they added is a little odd, almost like little bits and pieces were copied from other sources in an attempt to make a coherent whole.

No one's added the Telstra message to their talk page, although when I added the welcome message to their talk page, they did not respond. I'm really not too sure about this one. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 17:20, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The spacing and capitalization issues are odd, but this isn't Telstra's M.O., nor does any of the content they added seem to be copyvio. I'd say copyedit the listing and maybe keep an eye on him, but I doubt this is anything to worry about. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 17:29, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I used the search engine to look for any copy violation issues, and in the meta descriptions for some websites I did see similarities (but nothing really obvious, just things like "pristine waters" that matched, etc). However, when I went to the websites with the meta descriptions that were similar, I couldn't find those similarities. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 17:32, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

BTCentralPlus vandalism, but is it the BTCentralPlus vandal?

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The odd bit of pcv that I screenshotted at right was perpetrated by User:86.159.7.192. This is a BTCentralPlus IP, but it traces to Steeple Claydon, Buckinghamshire, whereas the usual page-blanking, admin-insulting vandal on that mobile network geolocates to Chorley, Lancashire. I realize this is probably a coincidence, but then again the bona fide BTCentralPlus vandal popped up again recently using an IP address not covered by the abuse filter, so maybe not. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 20:29, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I encountered something of that nature fairly recently as well, and I'm not sure if it is BTCentralPlus. The content which you took the screenshot of is not the obvious vandalism you get from Chorley but at the same time PCV vandalism doesn't help anyone. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 20:32, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well, vandals have been known to switch tactics. I think it might be good to stay on the lookout for more incidents like this, especially from IP addresses in BTCentralPlus ranges. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 20:35, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
From what we've seen so far the BTCentralPlus vandal isn't very smart, just determined to vandalize. But those kinds of vandals could still change tactics if they thought they could get away with it (and maybe even leave us all wondering). And I wouldn't be very surprised, although maybe a little, if BTCentralPlus started using accounts instead of IP addresses. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 21:06, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

WVOnline is LibMod

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Their user page, as of Sept. 11 UTC, uses an Australian accent to put admins off the track, they use ping, they openly show an interest in the US and the Middle East, and they deleted some discussion where I showed suspicion of them being LM. Plus the timing. Really suspicious. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 14:34, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'd had my suspicions, but they weren't strong enough to take action. Now they are. Thank you, User:SelfieCity. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 14:41, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for taking action. I think LM was trying to get around the message you put up in relation to American Ride, but at the same time the hints were there — all that about I'm finally working out ping was nonsense. But I must say, LM is determined. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 14:44, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Can confirm WVOnline is LibMod, using same internet access point. --Traveler100 (talk) 17:43, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Traveler100, how does one determine that in the case of a user who's not an anonymous IP? This might be a big help. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 17:59, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, if there was a way in which we could identify doppelgangers this easily, it would be a huge help when it comes to all kinds of vandals, with the exception of ones like Telstra that travel from place to place. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 18:07, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Currently you would have to make a request to a Wikimedia steward to do a checkuser. Some people have authority to look up the IP address used by a named account. Currently non of the Wikivoyage admins or bureaucrats have this right. --Traveler100 (talk) 19:11, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I see. By the way, I just noticed that you deleted some redirects to Saharan Chad, created by guess whom? --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 20:52, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well done, Traveler100. For the record, these are the aliases confirmed by checkuser for this editor: Libertarianmoderate, SmokinTourist909, Zayn Hussein, WVOnline, Iraqistan, LibMod, American Ride. Nurg (talk) 22:30, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Yep, sounds right, with the exception of SoftAngelFromHell, who we thought might have been LM. I’m now expecting more LMs to come along in the future. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 22:35, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Is User:Alphaomegaone, you know who? --Traveler100 (talk) 15:23, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I got your notification. I'm not a vandal. Alphaomegaone (talk) 15:28, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Creating a bunch of articles with almost no content about specks on the US map, and an interest in Talk:Rojava. The pattern does sound familiar, as does the tone. Ground Zero (talk) 15:34, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Fine. Keep an eye on me. And you'll see, NO VANDALISM!! Alphaomegaone (talk) 16:03, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Come on, folks. Walks like a duck and quacks very loudly like a duck. Time to block. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:45, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

How to handle our friends, the "vandels"

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We have a general principle, Deny recognition. Overall, I think it's a good idea, especially for individuals who are trying to get our attention all the time (notice how I avoided naming the vandals here to deny recognition). But when it comes to the Pub takeover vandalism (that's BTCentralPlus, right) who keeps making comments on talk pages, maybe a different approach. This user seems to only be interested in leaving comments. The comments are not usually inappropriate, they don't do any harm, and they're quite entertaining. Why do we continually revert them? It'll only make the vandal angrier to do it again. But if we leave the comments up, ban the user but not take his comments too seriously, and "laugh with the vandal" if you will, it would put less burden on the administrators to revert the comments and we could get on with other things on the website. While BTCentralPlus will never become one of our friends, we could make him much less of a problem and less of an enemy by not blindly reverting everything he does.

I'm sure at least one individual will agree with me, and he will probably say so in the lines below, but IMO there's no need to revert his statement unless it is inappropriate. What do others think of this proposal? --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 00:31, 17 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This IP insists that Ibaman's talk page should contain some garbled text and dysfunctional links and is edit warring. User:Mx. Granger or User:Ground Zero, you seem to be here right now, could either of you block them? ϒpsilon (talk) 15:05, 17 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Yps, are you not an admin? Maybe you should be. Ground Zero (talk) 15:12, 17 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not really interested. ϒpsilon (talk) 15:23, 17 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You would make a really good Admin, should you change your mind, it must be said. Thanks for fixing my page, and for all the good edits you habitually make. Ibaman (talk) 15:29, 17 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ypsilon, I also encourage you to reconsider. Bring an admin would have enabled you to block the vandal instead of asking Granger and me to do it. Ground Zero (talk) 15:34, 17 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, and I’m not an administrator. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 00:43, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Ypsilon: Just so you know, the ping didn't work – I just happened to see this discussion now. When pinging someone, it doesn't work to just add their username to an existing comment - you have to have a new signature. —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:57, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Good to know for me, too. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 01:15, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If the ping didn't work, then someone, somewhere must have changed something recently. Good to know. --ϒpsilon (talk) 11:22, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]


The "Steward hater"

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Haven't seen this type of vandalism in a couple of weeks, though it was pretty common a few months back. Yup, the one who creates new accounts to write obscenities on Meta stewards' and Wikipedia admins' talk pages here on Wikivoyage. As I was typing this, they were vandalizing this very page. ϒpsilon (talk) 16:12, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like the same vandal, or kind of vandal, as one I reverted on the Destinations page some time ago. They too referred to stewards and other similar users and used offensive language. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 01:17, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
User talk:Zzuuzz ϒpsilon (talk) 16:43, 1 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, and good teamwork guys. We're stronger as a unit than a nasty individual. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 20:04, 21 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yeah. These situations have very high learning value for us, about readiness and situation awareness and crisis-management skills. Let's stay sharp and get sharper. Thumbs up Ibaman (talk) 20:24, 21 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Going on about "Fortnite" and "John Wick". Can some online admin block and reverse? @Ground Zero:? So far they have target Toronto, Tilted towers, Apple Valley (California) and Akershus. MartinJacobson (talk) 18:48, 5 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like someone familiar trying to vandalize across the aisle. @Ikan Kekek: you seem to be online. ARR8 (talk) 21:44, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I don't get it. How are they vandalizing? I'm positive you're not asking to ban this user because you're a racist, don't worry. I'm sure you have a reason for saying what you are saying, but I'm interested to know what it is. Thanks. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 22:07, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)I think we should keep an eye on this user and what they do, but I am not yet 100% convinced of them being a sockpuppet. If anything, a clumsy attempt by "LibMod" to not look like his usual politics... Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:23, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Standard block evasion by a banned user. ARR8 (talk) 22:15, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Who even knows what his politics really are. But who cares, as long as we know he's a vandal. Perhaps we should watch and wait for 24 hours and see what happens, just to be sure this is LibMod. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 22:30, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we should wait beyond the time needed for an admin to come online, for reasons I'm hesitant to explain. He is LibMod. I'd hate to be evasive, but: please take a closer look at his edits. ARR8 (talk) 22:34, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think I know what you mean about why he's LibMod, and my keyboard is sealed. It's just that so far, he has not done any real harm, so no need to rush. If he started truly vandalizing, it would be different. Anyway, he has stopped editing for now. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 22:49, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I was on a call for the last hour+. I saw some edits before that, but nothing had been an obvious red flag to me yet. I'll have a look. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:31, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please delete this imported spam page from Wikitravel. I cannot tag it. Thanks. MER-C (talk) 17:12, 4 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes Done. For future reference, requests like these should go to Wikivoyage:Votes for deletion. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 17:35, 4 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Special:Contributions/125.212.184.150. Sorry, folks. This is a repeat vandal who followed me here from Commons. Their IP constantly changes. I predict a range block here in the future. ARR8 (talk) 03:34, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked for a few days. Andrewssi2 (talk) 03:42, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Good day. I am not sure if there's a better page to post this. Due to continued nasty vandalism after several blocks and a rangeblock, I have semiprotected for three days the articles mentioned in the header of this section. I have done so as an emergency measure as I couldn't see any administrator around at this moment. Apologies for the interference & please feel free to amend or remove the protection at your discrection. Best regards, --MarcoAurelio (talk) 19:27, 7 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly the right thing to do. TT, you seem to be online. Have a look at Recent changes; there's an anonymous user who is obsessed with offending a certain Australian contributor who is active both here and on other wikiprojects. Stewards have been dealing with them for an hour or so. ϒψιλον (talk) 19:49, 7 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for helping, MarcoAurelio. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:17, 7 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Didn't see this, sorry.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 21:12, 7 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
MarcoAurelio - Thank you for helping, and for future reference: yes, this page is exactly where such notices should be posted. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 22:22, 7 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your kind words, all. Best regards, MarcoAurelio (talk) 12:56, 8 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'll add my thanks for the action you took.
By the way, should we create an archive for the vandalism in progress page? The "current" alerts begin in 2015. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 14:49, 8 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Special:Contributions/64.83.131.28

Can someone block? This is a shared school IP, no harm done. ARR8 (talk) 17:44, 11 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Have blocked for a week (as is an IP address). I see you have already undone the edits. --Traveler100 (talk) 17:50, 11 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No vandalism as such but just the entries being made. Just a little too knowledgeable about format for a new user. --Traveler100 (talk) 17:06, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm reasonably confident he is. ARR8 (talk) 17:08, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Could not be more obvious. Without getting into specifics, LibMod is terrible at covering his tracks, if indeed he even tries. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 17:12, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Is there any we could apply this knowledge... if you see what I mean? --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 23:42, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Vietnamese country vandal

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I had a deja vu experience when I took a look at the edit TT reverted in the Iberia article, and started looking at contribution and article histories and came to the conclusion we have one more vandal onboard.

Over the last few weeks an IP user apparently from Hanoi has been making Telstra-like edits including adding and removing countries and islands listed in continents or continental regions. See:

(there might be more IPs, these are the one I found) ϒψιλον (talk) 13:46, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

#User:125.212.184.150, too. Many IPs. ARR8 (talk | contribs) 15:25, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@SelfieCity: the IP you just blocked is one of the IPs above, per ARR8's comment we're talking about a long-term abuser from Commons who has now found a new Wiki to garble up. -- ϒψιλον (talk) 08:58, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ikan, you've reverted ARR8's edits in this discussion twice. But ARR8 is trying to link to a discussion on this page about this same user. They are not trying to link the userpage of this IP (which wouldn't make any sense because it doesn't exist). ϒψιλον (talk) 13:35, 14 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The user page doesn't exist, but you can access the IPs contributions that way. The other way, you have to copy, paste and search. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:11, 15 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Wait, I understand, but I don't think the link was actually working that way, as such links often don't actually go to the part of the page they're supposed to point to. However, I'll reinstate that edit, anyway. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:12, 15 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Nevermind, it does work. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:14, 15 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Added one more IP, which was blocked for three months now. Also, a ping to Andre — if you run across someone editing from IPs beginning with 125.212, do check out the diffs. ϒψιλον (talk) 09:27, 20 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Special:Contributions/Sprintdigital

Tout; has ignored multiple warnings, both on talk page and in undo edit summaries. Engaging in edit war. Seems to me an initial block or other appropriate measure is in order. Thanks, ARR8 (talk | contribs) 16:33, 15 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked for one day, and warned. Thank you for bringing this up. Ground Zero (talk) 17:46, 15 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Look at user contributions, deleted user contributions, user talk page. Is this all vandalism, and is this a vandalism-only account (or nearly so) that should be blocked, with all edits reverted or deleted? Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:11, 10 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Rocky vandal is back

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Special:Contributions/Deputydawgg look very much like a crosswiki vandal from a few years back — see https://en.wikivoyage.org/w/index.php?title=Wikivoyage:Vandalism_in_progress&diff=2735285&oldid=2731674 and the following edits for discussion, and also page history for Brockton, Special:CentralAuth/Boxingdude. If I remember correctly stuff got so serious in 2015 that a filter was created. ϒψιλον (talk) 21:25, 16 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

and --Ypsilon (talk) 17:25, 26 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note when blocking IP addresses

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Admins, if you are blocking one of the block-evading IP addresses that has been editing around various places in Austria lately, block them for a few months but also make sure that talk page use is banned. This is to line up with the block on the original account. I'm sure many of you didn't realize this, but just so it's clear in future, I'm stating it now. Since this is not an ordinary vandal, I am not attempting to hide this content. However, if anyone believes it should instead be posted in the abuse filters, I will go along with that. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 03:37, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about this. For IP blocks, I think it's best not to block user talk page use unless absolutely necessary, because it's easy for an innocent user to get caught up in the block when the vandal moves to a new IP address. —Granger (talk · contribs) 03:56, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The talk page block could be lifted after a shorter period than the user block itself? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:06, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it's possible to set different expiration times for different parts of the block, but I may be wrong. —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:09, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That's true, but you can manually reblock the user under different conditions (i.e. by unticking "Editing their own talk page"). It'll just require the blocking admin to be on the ball about timing :-) --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 16:39, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it's realistic or a good policy to require admins to remember to unblock an IP address at a particular time. Why not just apply a regular block without restricting user talk page access? —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:25, 10 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Because we shouldn't be letting someone like AC edit talk pages. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 01:37, 10 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Dealing with vandals is not just about blocking. There is the undo button. IP address should have a short block, if the same vandal comes back on the same address do another short block. This is a wiki site, access to new contributors should be priority, and any other problems can be edited. --Traveler100 (talk) 03:29, 10 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Define "short block". Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:54, 10 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If it looks like some kid using the class internet connection (can usually see the ip is registered to education establishment) then 1 hour. If looks like hobby vandal than up to a month (most providers will reassign automatically in this period). Serious vandal knows how to change to another IP. --Traveler100 (talk) 05:02, 10 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say only restrict talk page access if the vandal is causing serious disruption on the talk page. If not, leave it open in case the IP address changes – otherwise an innocent IP user caught up in the block has no obvious recourse. —Granger (talk · contribs) 05:27, 10 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘However, that makes it very easy for the user to make comments on the talk page when no-one's looking. I thought we decided last year that we wouldn't give AC a voice. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 16:47, 10 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously there's a trade-off here, between allowing new users to edit and making it more difficult for long-term abusers to cause disruption. In this case, the abuser in question hasn't been using IP user talk pages as far as I know, so restricting user talk page access is a medium to large cost (making it impossible for new users on these IP addresses to tell us about their predicament) with little benefit (because the abuser isn't using the IP user talk pages anyway, and if they started, the disruption would be minor and very easy to deal with). —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:43, 11 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism on my talk page

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Just to alert you, there is some anonymous vandal that keeps trying to delete sentences from my talk page. Look at its edit history if you want to know which IP addresses are involved. Is anyone else having the same issue? The dog2 (talk) 17:20, 20 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If you want, I can semi-protect your user talk page. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 18:24, 20 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I have reason to believe that it is the same person doing it since the exact same thing is done every time. I wander if someone can check if there are any other ways to deal with this guy. I want to leave my talk page open for new editors who wish to ask for help from someone more senior like myself, so I want to resort to protection only as a last resort. The dog2 (talk) 19:22, 20 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, that's fine. I don't know what to say about your second question, though. Maybe a range block would be possible. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 19:36, 20 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I think we should start looking into a range block if possible given how persistent this vandal is. The dog2 (talk) 21:05, 20 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Realistically, a rangeblock isn't going to happen. I don't believe there are any Wikivoyage editors with the technical expertise required to know how to institute one. Your choice, effectively, is either to have your user page temporarily semiprotected (the logical way to go about this) or to continue with the current game of whack-a-mole and hope the vandal gives up before you do. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 01:08, 21 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I guess we will have to go with a temporary semi-protection then. It's a pity that I won't be available for new users to ask for help, but I guess there are plenty of other senior editors here who they can turn to. The dog2 (talk) 01:14, 21 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I can do a rangeblock. I don't think it's advisable - IPv6 rangeblocks affect too many addresses. I don't think semi-protection is necessary, either - one of the distinguishing features of IPv6 is that each IP corresponds to a device, rather than a network. Eventually, this vandal wil run out of devices. This also means, effectively, indefinite blocks of IPv6 addresses are viable. ARR8 (talk | contribs) 01:41, 21 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
AndreCarrotflower has already temporarily semi-protected my talk page but ARR8, if you can, could you please check if the vandal has been using the same devices. If so, perhaps we can implement the IPv6 block so he/she can't target anybody else. The dog2 (talk) 01:53, 21 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Well, each IP has been blocked for as long as our policy allows, as it hasn't quite caught up with technology. As each one corresponds to a device, and logged-in users are covered under the block it should be fine. ARR8 (talk | contribs) 02:27, 21 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The semi-protection of my talk page has expired, and it looks like the vandal is now back. This guy is really persistent. I'm wondering if we could do an indefinite IPv6 block on this guy everytime he strikes. The dog2 (talk) 21:32, 8 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Macau

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EXtensive repeated edits, some anon & some from new accounts, to both the main Macau article & districts. Several patrollers have been reverting & at least two accounts have been blocked.

The vandal is making threats to shoot people or bomb the place. Should we report this somewhere? How? Pashley (talk) 23:51, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Probably wise to do so, we don't want another Sri Lanka. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 00:01, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I've reported the threats to the WMF. For future reference, see w:Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm for instructions on what to do in this kind of situation. —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:57, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I doubt the threats are serious, but it's extremely important that we act in the right way in a situation like this, in case something happens in Macau. Even if there was a terrorist attack that was completely unrelated, if we didn't report the situation, we would immediately be the blame for having not reported it. Thanks, Granger, for reporting the incident. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 01:22, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, given that this is the Fuerdai moron at work, I doubt we have to worry about any actual bombs going off in Macau. But hopefully this latest development will serve as the kick in the pants the WMF evidently needs to finally get serious about solving the problem of this user. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 01:26, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
While semi-protecting pages helps on some pages, I don't really like it as an option, and I think it's highly important that some new technology is devised to stop recurring vandals of this nature. What we have works well, but what we really need: more, useful tools so these kinds of vandals don't make a wreck of this travel guide. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 01:32, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

94.128.

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Have delete a number of pages in the last couple of days, contain only Arabic text. Originate from Kuwait mobile connects. At moment I temporary block the specific IP address but vandal just reconnects somewhere else. What are guidelines on blocking a range of IP connections? --Traveler100 (talk) 06:41, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Many of you may remember the problems we were having earlier this year with a user who was adding excessive and non-travel-relevant information to this article and was completely unresponsive to our attempts to communicate with him about the scope of Wikivoyage phrasebooks. We eventually had no choice but to "indefinitely block the account" while "let[ting] him retain access to his own user talk page so he can answer us there", in which case "we can remove the block".

Well, that user never did respond to us on his talk page, but now we have a new account once again busily editing the article. I suspect, but am not completely sure, this is a case of block evasion, but even if it isn't, these edits are in many cases problematic (changing standard section headers, for instance) and need to be addressed. I'd be inclined to roll them back en masse to status quo ante, but I wonder if anyone with more time on their hands than I have would like to sift through them to see if there's any quality information that should be retained, and I also think we need a second opinion before we decide whether or not this new user should be indefbanned as a block evader.

-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 16:18, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

What do you consider to be the "status quo ante" in this case? This phrasebook has been somewhat controversial for a few years at least. Anyway, I'll try to go through the article and clean it up a bit. —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:45, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Special:Contributions/86.179.176.67 and User:Vote to get rid of Ikan Kekek

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See Recent changes. Ypsilon (talk) 18:58, 11 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@LPfi, Ground Zero, Ibaman, Mx. Granger, Pashley:, other daily active admins have already been "pinged" when the vandal has vandalized their talk pages. --Ypsilon (talk) 19:06, 11 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Special:Contributions/Pubotnopub

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Tim Shelsea looks like a tout, but I'm not entirely sure. In the past 2 days they've added lots of listings for "RNO PDX Bus Lines". On 10 of those pages, 97.120.5.16 has gone back and deleted those with the message "Deleted listing for RNO PDX Bus Lines - This company is fake."

When I first checked, there certainly seemed to be a [https://www.rnopdx.com/ website for the company]. However, I couldn't find any contact info such as a phone number, and after clicking around a few pages I now get a 503 error from Wordfence on the whole site. It's probably a credit card scam, but I'm not 100% sure. --Bigpeteb (talk) 23:03, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note - nowiki comments added to the link to work around spam blacklisting and allow archiving --DannyS712 (talk) 19:43, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

LTA ongoing vandalism, suggest also protecting Talk:East Asia. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 22:55, 22 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes Done blocked by Ibaman --DannyS712 (talk) 03:02, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ongoing vandalism (not an lta though) --DannyS712 (talk) 03:02, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes Done blocked by Ikan Kekek --DannyS712 (talk) 06:15, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

User who created account today, and rolls back recent edits. Seems unusually experienced for a rookie. /Yvwv (talk) 20:25, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I blocked the user for a little while, for vandal warnings to experienced users. I think there is no reason a legitimate user (new or under new name) would post on user pages like this user. There are also other signs to mistrust them. I suppose the block should be made indefinite. –LPfi (talk) 20:52, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Based on the user's contributions, I would not support an indefinite block at this stage, although understand the caution. Worst case scenario, there is nothing this user can do that can't be undone with a few clicks, so let's give them the benefit of the doubt when their two-hour block expires. Perhaps it's naivety on my part, but I worry we're getting too eager to impose long blocks for little or no reason.
I also think it would be a good idea for you to leave a short message on the user's talk page, explaining why you blocked them and that they shouldn't worry about policing other users' edits when they're so new themselves.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 21:07, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
OK. I'll do that and leave this case. –LPfi (talk) 21:21, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Done. I appreciate your worries. –LPfi (talk) 21:33, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, mate. I appreciate your dedication to this website.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 21:41, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've just blocked this user for a day while we try to ascertain what's going on, somehow (s)he has managed to wipe the edit histories of many of our pages. I don't know if this counts as vandalism since the content of the pages don't seem to be affected, but my hunch is that it should be an indefinite ban. The dog2 (talk) 04:57, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just seeing this now, already switched to indef and has been globally locked - if you navigate to those pages manually (though I've nuked them) you'll see that the title is slightly different, usually a letter that looks like a lowercase i but wasn't actually (ı̇ instead of the real i) --DannyS712 (talk) 06:12, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This user has an inappropriate name and is only using account for vandalism. May the Force Be with you. CatDog1234539 (talk) 16:00, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

at following topic Sylheti phrasebook.—The preceding comment was added by Slake000 (talk • contribs)

Not done. To Slake000, while they seem to think this is an encyclopedia, in which I have reverted, it isn't vandalism, however if they continue their disruptive editing, they'll be blocked progressively. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 04:28, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Banned user asking for unban, based on the users (artic cynthia) history the ban seems not over. I roll backed edits but can’t ban IP address. Tai123.123 (talk) 16:22, 28 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes Done Thank you, ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 16:41, 28 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Have requested on their meta talk page whether it's actually them or an impersonator. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:01, 29 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Why? The more we engage with AC about English Wikivoyage, the more likely he is to persist in trying to return here.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:05, 29 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This IP is not usually in the IP range he uses. And it's quite clear that there's no chance he'll come back. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:08, 29 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
But it's not clear to him, and every interaction from us seems to be taken by him as encouragement to persist. Deny recognition.
The IP is almost certainly him (why wouldn't it be? what's the motivation for someone else to petition inactive users for his return?) and even if he replies to you with a denial, will that really change anything? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:15, 29 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Special:Contributions/98.254.249.41 Been deleting sections of an article Tai123.123 (talk) 23:18, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:43, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Touted despite warning on his talkpage Tai123.123 (talk) 23:52, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalised two Midwest articles Tai123.123 (talk) 14:30, 4 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked for a while. –LPfi (talk) 14:34, 4 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! He kept doing it so I was afraid I would be here for a while just roll backing his edits. Tai123.123 (talk) 14:36, 4 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Touted despite warningsTai123.123 (talk) 06:09, 7 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Not done Gave them a final warning though as we don't immediately block after a placing {{tout}}. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 06:23, 7 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Touting is not vandalism, and I don't think we should discuss it on this board. It's also rarely an urgent enough issue not to just patrol the edits and leave it to any patrolling admin to block when necessary. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:30, 7 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ok sorry Tai123.123 (talk) 21:36, 8 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ban evasion, same person copy and pasting the blocked text Tai123.123 (talk) 05:35, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@SHB2000, I see you're online, they're adding more articles Tai123.123 (talk) 05:43, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes Done Was doing some things on Commons, and so wasn't checking RC. Thanks for notifying :) SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 05:48, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for doing the admin actions I can't do. Tai123.123 (talk) 05:51, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep in mind that if an admin is not around, you can always ask a global sysop to do it at m:GSR. They'll usually do any non-controversial admin actions. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 05:56, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@SHB2000 Thanks for the tip, I hope to one day become admin so I can do these actions myself Tai123.123 (talk) 06:04, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalized various talk pages including mine Tai123.123 (talk) 22:11, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

globally blocked by Operator873 SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 02:02, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalised many pages Tai123.123 (talk) 02:53, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Various of his created pages include explict images so be warend Tai123.123 (talk) 02:55, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Blocked by Ikan Kekek. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 06:26, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Rebecca577

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Telstra? I can’t tell. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 00:23, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No. This is not his type of edit. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:01, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
He never does copyediting and the only time where I've seen him do that is in Special:Diff/4403623. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:14, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
OK, that’s what I figured. Thanks guys for confirming. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 10:47, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Spambot

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Thank you, RC. It's been globally locked.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 19:31, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No worries ThunderingTyphoons!. Rubbish computer (Ping me or leave a message on my talk page) 19:39, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nonsense page creator

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Blocked and deleted his articles. Thanks for bringing this to our attention before he did more damage. Ground Zero (talk) 04:06, 15 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You're welcome! Roovinn (talk) 05:56, 15 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Vandal

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  • Special:Contributions/Camp Lejeune doesn't appear to be here for positive reasons. Roovinn (talk)
    • No. They could be blocked, but I assume it is a throw-away account, whose owner never memorised the password. I don't know whether it is better to block it for the record or not to block it to keep blocking less frequent. Blocking it could block their IP address, which might be useful (if it is their own), useless (if they'll get a new one for their next edits) or harmful (if it is one of a public computer). –LPfi (talk) 10:21, 15 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Vandal running loose on different articles, Ikan blocked the IP they used an hour ago. --Ypsilon (talk) 16:34, 9 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, LP. :) --Ypsilon (talk) 16:35, 9 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Cross-wiki image vandal. Thanks, Leonidlednev (talk) 15:38, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Creating pages with personal insults. Revdel may be needed. - Klein Muçi (talk) 00:44, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Added penis images to articles and their own user page, and abused rfc. Revdel should be done on the affected articles ASAP. We may need to implement MediaWiki:Bad image list to prevent this from happening again. JsfasdF252 (talk) 05:38, 24 February 2023 (UTC); edited 05:39, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also, many accounts and an ip have added the same exact offending image to Travellers' pub dozens of times. JsfasdF252 (talk) 05:45, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@JsfasdF252: Yes Done, global locks requested. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 06:29, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]


This individual created a nonsense page. Please see this: Roovinn (talk) 01:12, 24 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Created a bunch of random articles with content from some weather reports or something, WTF? Ypsilon (talk) 14:34, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

87.43.37.135

Persistent unexplained removal of safety-related content. Unresponsive to warnings. ~~~~ Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 11:09, 31 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]


Posted a lot of images containing number 643 in Travelers Pub, Destinations, etc. Mrkstvns (talk) 00:03, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes Done by Ibaman. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 01:38, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Created a nonsensical page. Please see this. Roovinn (talk) 15:06, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Appears to be a new handle and has vandalized/spammed multiple articles in the last hour, see Special:Contributions/Taiwan_Pro-Anorexia_Network. JRHorse (talk) 00:22, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to be impersonating WoW. Leonidlednev (talk) 00:39, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I gave a warning message on the talk page, probably way too late for a warning but just my old Wikipedia instincts kicking in I guess. JRHorse (talk) 00:43, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is actually w:WP:LTA/CRZ due to the inclusion of "Fuerdai" in one of their edit summaries. Leonidlednev (talk) 00:44, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Might want to revoke TPA and indef the account since it is an LTA per talk page. Leonidlednev (talk) 00:48, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
At the very least all the articles should be reverted by now... JRHorse (talk) 00:49, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes Done. Thank you both for the reverts. Vidimian (talk) 01:02, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Touter/someone here to promote their business. Roovinn (talk) 07:17, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Possible LTA or xwiki abuser. MathXplore (talk) 08:06, 22 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Repeating test edits etc., possible xwiki abuser. MathXplore (talk) 08:48, 22 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Vielen danke.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 16:31, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Cross-wiki abuse and LTA, blocked in zh.wiki, meta, en.wiki, zh-yue and commons, very active, last year have been blocked one month.--MCC214 (talk) 11:16, 22 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Long-term abuse (w:WP:LTA/FUERDAI), revdel contribs per WV:DENY. --Leonidlednev (talk) 20:36, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted all edits & gave a one-month ban. Is more needed? Pashley (talk) 21:04, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Changed to indefinite ban. Pashley (talk) 21:08, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism on the Quezon City page. -TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 03:22, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not done. IP activity seems to be stale for now; if their activity resumes, give me a ping. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 03:30, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

User is here to promote a service/attraction. Requesting admin support. Roovinn (talk) 06:10, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Super Mario vandal

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Just so you know, there is someone vandalising the United Kingdom page with random Super Mario stuff. The person keeps switching IP addresses whenever he is blocked, so this guy is a really committed vandal. The dog2 (talk) 20:56, 1 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Imposter, LTA. --Leonidlednev (talk) 02:32, 2 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

124.217.188.0/23, ru.wiki, ru wikiquote and zh.wiki blocked, ban in en.wiki, commons blocked /16.--MCC214 (talk) 13:11, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not done – too large of an IP range. There have been some good edits from this range (back in 2016), so blocking the entire /17 is not the best solution. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 21:48, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
SHB2000, please re check this case, this LTA continued used this IP range harass admin and steward, such as 14.0.156.230, 14.0.169.27, 14.0.230.38, 14.0.159.119, only this LTA used after 28 July, also, this LTA self-edited and directed in steward talk page.--MCC214 (talk) 07:25, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I request protect User talk:Ikan Kekek, LTA continued cross-wiki troll after this.--MCC214 (talk) 07:40, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What kind of protection? Should I protect my user talk page against edits of non-autoconfirmed users, and if so, for how long? As an admin, I should be available to new users who are not vandals. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:18, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@MCC214: That's an issue for other wikis, but I'm not blocking >32k IPv4 addresses for a few vandalistic edits – if someone else wants to, they can (and it has been blocked by Johannes89). Likewise, Ikan Kekek can decide for themselves if they want their talk page protected or not. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 10:06, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

w:WP:LTA/GRP is back on Wikivoyage again

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Special:Contributions/197.135.43.114. We can expect them to be ranting on talk pages over the following days and weeks, and sending offensive e-mails to users who have e-mail enabled. Ypsilon (talk) 19:53, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes Done – eh, he does this a lot on the other wiki where I have a mop; he'll usually leave after a day or two, FWIW. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 21:49, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone who is an admin block IP 207.166.54.96 ? They vandalised the Pantanal page, deleting real content and replacing with B.S. I undid their changes to the page, but I don't have the tools to block a vandal. Mrkstvns (talk) 22:10, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked for two hours, I hope that's enough. –LPfi (talk) 22:15, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Geolocated this IP and I have a feeling it might be Brendan. FYI, I know nothing about this Brendan guy and what he/she has done. Roovinn (talk) 01:17, 12 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've done a temporary block. Looks like Brendan. I'll increase the timespan of the block. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 01:25, 12 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

马尔柳丝特1883号

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211.30.23.199

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Special:Contributions/211.30.23.199 geolocates to Australia and I have a feeling it is the infamous Mr. Brendan. Roovinn (talk) 01:13, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For just a few edits, there is no need to report here. On the other hand, it might be worthwhile checking Special:Contributions/211.30.23.199/20 or somesuch (the "20" tells how many bits of the IP address to use). Most of those are reverted and those not reverted seem fine (I didn't check all of them though). –LPfi (talk) 10:51, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

124.149.143.240

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Special:Contributions/211.30.23.199 geolocates to Australia and it might be Brendan. The tags say so. Roovinn (talk) 02:30, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You mean Special:Contributions/124.149.143.240, I assume (see the previous section for the one you linked). As they are tagged, for any patroller to notice, and they are few, I don't see a reason to take any special measures. Just check them and revert if appropriate (see the advice in the lead). –LPfi (talk) 07:41, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Will do. Thanks for the tips. Cheers. Roovinn (talk) 09:35, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Brendan

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Brendan is our most persistent vandal, though not a vandalism-as-sport type like Fuerdai, or one of the agenda-obsessed loonies who wants to delete all references to "Great Britain" or some such. He just blithely ignores various WV policies: against copy-and-paste copyright violations, encyclopedic content not relevant in a travel guide, & advice from Captain Obvious.

He was permanently blocked back in 2017. Since then he has been repeatedly turning up on various IP addresses & admins have been playing whack-a-mole reverting edits & blocking those addresses. Neither long-term blocks nor blocks on large IP ranges work well, since they are likely to damage innocent users, so there are many small short-term blocks. I appreciate the effort, but this seems a waste of admin time. Could we make it easier? Three sections above are for possibly-Brendan IPs, & all mention "geolocates to" so people are spending time looking that up. Could we have a bot that tags all edits from certain IP ranges as possibly Brendan, saving people that step & perhaps catching him more often?

Many of his recent edits appear constructive; e.g. see Special:Contributions/2001:8003:E031:9501:19F4:67EE:DD1A:1EE5 where @SHB2000: reverted two apparently-Brendan edits. That was in accord with our policy against block evasion, but both edits were properly-formatted listings with information that looked useful, though likely not essential. If I'd seen them without knowing they were Brendan, I'd have hit "mark as patrolled" without hesitation.

Talking to him & trying to get him to follow policies was of course tried before he was blocked; see User talk:Brendan John Williams. That did not work, but I wonder if it might be tried again. Pashley (talk) 02:11, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

They are a strange contributor in that they seem intent on adding short and pointless (and sometimes just incorrect) edits, and seemingly just don't care that those edits are then immediately removed. If they were willing to discuss then it would be really beneficial to them and us. Andrewssi2 (talk) 04:18, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Pashley, the problem is that he's repeatedly copied and pasted from other sites, so there's no way to have confidence that any substantive edit he makes is not copyright violation. When I like any of his substantive edits, I reword them to guard against copyright violation. In terms of your suggestion of a bot, there is already often a tag that appears on presumptive Brendan edits, stating that they are possibly by him (I forget the exact wording, but I feel sure you've seen it). Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:44, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
+1. The issue isn't really the text he adds, nor is it the lack of communication, but rather the copyright violations. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 07:10, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also, an edit filter won't really work as they routinely change their IP ranges and such a tag would almost tag every edit made in SEQ as a Brendan edit. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 07:12, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is a good example of why Brendan's edits are bad. He just put in that the Blue Mountains have an altitude of 3,900 meters (they are in fact less than 2,000 meters) - they appear to have really no clue of what they are doing Andrewssi2 (talk) 01:24, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If you measure the altitude of the Blue Mountains in feet, 3,900 would be close to accurate, not that feet are formally used in measuring altitude in Australia any more. It's not clear if Brendan intentionally gets things wrong or not but I think the current approach is the best course of action. Revert most of his edits and reword the ones which are actually constructive and run the risk of being copyright violations. Gizza (roam) 01:51, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And not altitude – which is not interchangeable with elevation or height. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 08:26, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Module vandal

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A sophisticated vandal has vandalized modules to display obscene content on the marker templates in the articles Catalonia, Andino, Colombia, and Eastern Spain. I tried to search through the modules, but was unsuccessful in finding the page where the vandalism originates. Unbinilium-322 Dibromide (talk) 04:42, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes Done Seems to be fixed. Unbinilium-322 Dibromide (talk) 03:08, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Swept in from the pub

I'm tired of reverting. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:39, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I gave him or her a warning. User_talk:70.68.168.129 Pashley (talk) 03:14, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Mongolia

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Not exactly vandalism -- I'm almost certain the edits are well-intentioned -- but there have been a lot of problematic edits for places in Mongolia recently. See discussion at Talk:Buir nuur, list at User:A09/LTA/MON & recent changes for several more. Pashley (talk) 16:44, 3 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See also Wikivoyage:User ban nominations#MON. Pashley (talk) 15:17, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

IP user is replacing article text with 600K of Understand header

Can an admin please block? —The preceding comment was added by Mrkstvns (talk • contribs) 14:30, September 23, 2024

I blocked them for a week, am reluctant to use longer blocks against an IP address. Pashley (talk) 14:33, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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