Help:Simple guide to vandalism cleanup#Alternative: Call attention to it

Vandalism is editing deliberately intended to obstruct the project's purpose of building a free encyclopedia. Examples include adding irrelevant obscenities or jokes, illegitimately blanking pages, and inserting obvious nonsense. Not all bad edits are vandalism. If an edit is misguided but plausibly made in good faith, you can try undoing it once, but you should use the dispute resolution process if it is restored. Most vandalism is obvious, so don't be afraid to fix it.

{{further|Help:Reverting}}

1. Go to the page's edit history. {{If mobile|On mobile devices, this is represented by the 16px icon at the top of the page.|File:Wiki history tab.pngOn desktop displays, this can be found at the top right of the page, next to the search bar.}}
2. Adjust the circular radio buttons at the left and click on {{Button|Compare selected revisions|{{If mobile|bgcolor2=#BBE}}}} until you identify the edit(s) that introduced the vandalism.
3. {{If mobile|Go back to the edit history and click {{Button|undo}}|Click the {{tooltip|1=({{color|#0645AD|undo}})|2=This is not a clickable link; it illustrates the link one should find.|dotted=no}} link at the top right, in the "revision as of" line}}.
4. Scroll to the edit summary box and add "reverting vandalism" or something similar to the automatic summary.
5. Click {{Button|{{int:Showpreview}}}} to make sure your edit removes the vandalism as intended.
6. Click {{Button|{{int:Publishchanges}}|bgcolor2=#BBE}}, and pat yourself on the back!

If you are unable to revert the vandalism because of subsequent edits, you can fix it manually. Here's how:

{{collapse top|bg=#F0F2F5|left=yes|Manual reverting:}}

1. Click on the page's edit tab. {{If mobile|On mobile devices, this is represented by the 16px icon at the top of the page.|File:WikiEditor-edit tab-en.pngOn desktop displays, this can be found at the top right of the page, next to the search bar.}}
2. Find the vandalism and correct it.
3. Scroll to the edit summary box and add "reverting vandalism" or something similar to the automatic summary.
4. Click {{Button|{{int:Showpreview}}}} to make sure your edit removes the vandalism as intended.
5. Click {{Button|{{int:Publishchanges}}|bgcolor2=#BBE}}, and pat yourself on the back!

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It is better to fix vandalism yourself, but if you're not comfortable editing an article directly, it's alright to just let others know about it:

{{collapse top|bg=#F0F2F5|left=yes|If the page is high-traffic:}}

1. Go to the page's associated talk page{{If mobile| by clicking on the tab just below the title.|. File:Wiki discussion tab.pngOn desktop displays, this can be found at the top left of the page.}}
2. {{If mobile|Click on {{Button|{{int:Skin-action-addsection}}|bgcolor2=#BBE}}.|Click on {{menu icon|{{int:Skin-action-addsection}}|non}}.}}
3. Enter a heading and concisely describe the vandalism you noticed.
4. Click {{Button|{{int:Publishchanges}}|bgcolor2=#BBE}}.

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{{collapse top|bg=#F0F2F5|left=yes|If the page is not high-traffic:}}

1. [{{fullurl:Wikipedia:Help desk|action=edit&preload={{urlencode:Help:Simple guide to vandalism cleanup/Preload}}&preloadtitle={{urlencode:Vandalism help request from {{subst:REVISIONUSER}}}}§ion=new}} Click here] to submit a request to the Help desk.
2. Replace PAGENAME with the page where you noticed the vandalism, keeping the double brackets ( ).
3. Replace BRIEFLY DESCRIBE THE VANDALISM HERE with a concise description of the vandalism.
4. Click {{Button|{{int:Publishchanges}}|bgcolor2=#BBE}}.

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• Warn the vandal: It is good practice (although not strictly necessary) to give the vandal a warning on their personal talk page after you revert them.
• Report chronic vandalism to administrators: If the vandal persists after receiving a level-4 warning on their talk page (which tells them that they may be blocked the next time they vandalize), you should report them to the administrator intervention against vandalism noticeboard.
• Find more vandalism to fix: If this was satisfying, you can help identify and revert vandalism with the [http://doublecheck.wikiloop.org WikiLoop DoubleCheck] tool, which presents a feed of edits flagged by an algorithm.

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Category:Wikipedia vandalism

Category:Wikipedia how-to