Muppet Wiki:Behavior

The administrators of Muppet Wiki are not babysitters. Over the years, we've been contacted by blocked editors and their parents asking why their editing privileges had been revoked. We run this wiki in our spare time as a hobby. We take our work seriously, and we'll protect the integrity of our content with a firm hand. We're also here to enjoy ourselves and work harmoniously with a community who's willing to follow the established rules and help make the wiki a better resource for everyone. We're happy to assist helpful editors in becoming better contributors, but we're not in the business of allowing unhelpful editors to run rampant; we have better things to do. We've been doing this for over 18 years and we've gotten very good at identifying signs of an individual who's not willing to be a part of the team. These cases often lead to being uninvited to the party to make room for those who are productive members. We encourage folks to divert their energy to other avenues of interest such as social media groups, blogs, and discussion forums elsewhere.

Blocking

Guidelines for how to deal with newbies. This is meant to deal with situations where we might block someone for a first edit, or revert a first edit. These guidelines should apply to every active contributor on the wiki, whether you're an admin or not.

Basic principles

Nobody said collaborative writing was easy. More people = more problems, but opening up the wiki for anyone to edit is how you write 20,000+ pages about the Muppets in four years. More people = exponentially more information.

Every new contributor is a potential new friend, and we should treat them that way as much as possible. With some exceptions, we should assume that everyone who edits the wiki is trying to help.

We're frustrated by the returning vandals, and want to get rid of them as efficiently as possible. We don't want to "give people chances" when we know who they are, and they're just wasting our time and energy.

The biggest reason that people don't contribute to wikis is that they're afraid they'll mess something up or make a mistake. Everyone who actually clicks the edit button for the first time is taking a leap of faith.

Having your first edit reverted is a disappointment. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth and makes you not want to make a second edit.

People who contribute for the first time don't know our rules and formats, and we shouldn't expect them to. If they stick around, we can teach them how things work.

Situations

Returning vandal -- Someone we've seen before, an obsessive kid who keeps doing the same dumb things over and over.

Immediate block, and revert all edits. If you have check user, check their IP address. If someone's used the same IP address for multiple accounts, we can block the IP address. (If you're not an admin: revert all edits, and let an admin know.)

New vandal -- Someone we haven't seen before. Does something obviously terrible, like fill the page with curses.

Immediate block, and revert all edits.

New helpless mistake -- Does something pretty bad, like blank a page or screw up headings, which could be vandalism or could be a helpless newbie mistake.

Revert. Leave a message on their talk page telling them that you reverted the edit, and asking if you can help them figure out how to edit the wiki. If they don't respond and do it again: block.

New bad fact -- Adds a sentence that isn't true, or unsourced. This might be an honest mistake, or it might be testing the boundaries of what happens when you add the wrong thing. (Unfortunately, it's often hard to tell the difference.)

Revert. Act as if they meant well, even if you're not sure whether they did or not. Leave a message telling them that you reverted their edit, and explaining that we need to source facts so that we have the most accurate information. Invite them to ask you if they have questions. If they don't respond and do it again: block.

New guidelines mistake -- Makes an edit that violates one of our guidelines or formats.

Ditto as above.

Vandalism

Vandalism is an addition, deletion, or change to content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise Muppet Wiki's integrity. The most common types of vandalism are replacing text with obscenities, blanking pages, or adding nonsense.

Any good faith effort to improve the wiki, even if it's misguided or incorrect, is not vandalism.

Vandalizing pages is a violation of Muppet Wiki policy. Wikipedia's policy is to give vandals three warnings, and then block them for a short period of time. We do things differently here, because Wikipedia has 26,000 active contributors, and they can afford to spend time chasing after vandals. We're a niche wiki, with a dedicated but small team of contributors, and we don't have the time or the patience to play whack-a-mole with the vandals.

Fix vandalism

When you see that a page has been vandalised, please revert the page to the previous version. Reverting the vandalism quickly helps to protect the wiki, and it sends a message to the vandal that his or her efforts have been wasted.

Click the "history" tag on the page, and you'll see a list of all of the previous versions of the page.

You can see any version by clicking on the date. Click on the most recent version before the vandalism.

Click on "edit", and you'll see a regular edit page, plus a warning that says that you're editing an out-of-date revision of the page.

Hit save, and the unvandalized version will become the current version of the page again.

Check the vandal's contribution history

It can also be helpful to click on the vandal's IP address or username to see their contribution history. They may have vandalised other pages, too, and you can revert those.

Don't tease the vandals

Vandalism is irritating, especially when you can tell that it's the same vandal who's come back more than once. Please resist the urge to let the vandal know how annoyed you are. Don't write anything in the edit summary except "vandalism", and don't post anything on the contributor's talk page.

Vandals are looking for two different kinds of satisfaction: the pleasure of defacing our work, and the pleasure of watching us get angry about it. When you revert the vandalism and ignore the vandal, you take all the pleasure away; the vandal will get bored and move on to pulling the legs off of spiders or whatever else they enjoy.