User:Metaknowledge/Types of vandal

The following essay is by Equinox (talk • contribs). Thank you for letting me keep this great content.

I think there are four basic types of vandal on Wiktionary.

Spammer

• Doesn't actually know what Wiktionary is, or what wikis are, and cannot distinguish information from marketing, but has fallen for some SEO scum trick and thinks that spamming will actually make money. Just wants to edit entries at random and fill them with links to CHEAP VIAGRA or BEST KITCHEN WORKTOP SURFACE. Untalkable-to. The worst kind of vandal in the long term, because they have a commercial basis and if Wiktionary ever becomes popular then they will start to be funded by powerful corporations.

Bored

• Just vandalising for fun. Might deliberately exploit rules and customs in order to make the vandalism seem semi-acceptable, or to mire it in a load of arguments that will make everybody want to avoid it and allow it to hang around unchallenged for years. Worst kind of vandal after spammers, because some of them are amazingly persistent.

Single-issue

• Comes to Wiktionary in order to promote a single issue. Might have "invented a word" (in order to promote its Weblog, or some left- or right-wing political stance) and is keen that the new word, which nobody will ever use, gets published as widely as possible. Semi-literate. Likely to initiate long, droning arguments about wordiness of a word (without bothering to look at WT:CFI or consider whether a dictionary might have other issues than promoting one person's ideas), and will repeat these arguments on as many pages as possible. Quantity over quality.

Puerile

• Edits an entry in order to write "poop" or "niggers" or "Ben is gay". Probably a schoolchild in a computing class. Won't usually be back once blocked or reverted. Pretty harmless, but an annoying side-effect of allowing people to edit entries without signing up for accounts. Very numerous, especially at certain times of day.