Halopedia:Vandalism

Welcome to Halopedia's education center for vandalism!

What is vandalism?
Vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Halopedia. Anyone who commits such an act is a vandal. Vandalism is prohibited on Halopedia.

There are four mechanisms by which vandals can vandalize:


 * Plain-text edits (includes "hidden" vandalism embedded within an article)
 * Image uploads/inclusions
 * Addition of external links
 * Page moves/redirects

Examples of vandalism
The following list of examples is non-exhaustive:
 * Sexual mentions
 * Racist mentions
 * Making article(s) with offensive name(s)
 * User page blanking/replacement
 * Talk page blanking/replacement
 * Creation of account(s) with offensive name(s)
 * Article blanking - If a user does not understand Halopedia policy and means to delete a page to recreate it, make space for a redirect, etc...
 * Spam - Examples could be advertisement or self-promotion on article namespace pages, etc...
 * Example: "Come visit my Freewebs site!" on an article


 * Nonsense additions - Adding irrelevant information to an article that in no way pertains to the article. This does not, however, include adding information to a wrong section of an article. Mentioning that SPARTAN-117 was a male in the "references" section would not be construed as vandalism...the sentence should be moved to the appropriate section. This is, however, NOT nonsense. Nonsense is graffiti, etc...
 * Example: "hax0r 133t pwnz0r ter8t3btqy948y" on an article or "I LOVE YOUUUUUU!" on the Cortana article


 * Abuse of tags - Adding/removing " ", etc...when inappropriate.
 * Example: adding " " to the SPARTAN-117 article


 * Modifying user comments
 * Deleted page re-creation
 * Example: remaking  to taunt the vandal

What can I do?

 * 1) Leave a message on the vandal's talk page telling them to stop immediately. However, do not provoke the vandal in any way or form, and state it perfunctorily and business-like.
 * 2) Inform administrators immediately
 * 3) Administrators should administer a username/IP ban immediately without remonstration with the vandal
 * 4) Be extremely careful not to mistake inexperience for vandalism! Accusing a user merely unfamiliar with the wiki's functions of deliberate vandalism could be very offensive!