I want to consider a classification of vandalism.

Orthodox vandalism (ortho-vandalism) is the simple insertion of meaningless or false information, and/or deletion of correct information. I pass over mere damage and on to the insertion of false data. This can range from simple alteration of dates, names, links and so on. More interesting is the construction of material which is plausible but can be seen to be false, especially to those who think about the material: for example, donating several square miles of land in the City of London for public parks (hint: the City is often called "The Square Mile"). Special commendation for the construction of networks of articles, for example on bogus noble families, as works of art. I quite like the "Zelig" school of fiction: bogus characters who were also present at famous events. Since almost all editors never acquired the habit of reading books, alleged sources not in Google books are used to cover a multitude of sins.

Under ortho-vandalism I include crypto-vandalism. Acrostics (initial letters of words or lines), anagrams etc are vulnerable to normal edits. Since the edit record is harder to change, it is possible to leave concealed or cryptic messages in an article history or editors contribution histories. Anagrammatic user names are also seen.

Meta-vandalism is the manipulation of the community into the destruction of true information. There are articles which are so surprising that it is easy for the casual observer to believe that they must be hoaxes. For example, there is a real Lord Melchett, in spite of being better known as a character in Blackadder II. Creative use of the wrong link is also seen as helpful here.

Under meta-vandalism I place the contributions of sock-puppets (at least, those intended to be discovered). All of their contributions will have to be checked, and the task is made harder if they look like vandalism but aren't.

Para-vandalism is the manipulation of the community into the destruction of itself by falsely labelling true contributors as vandals and vice versa. The first stage is "intoxication" to confuse the distinction between the good and bad guys. Hoax articles are defended, true articles are decried by an army of sock-puppet, stooges and "useful idiots". Other hoaxers can usually be relied on to pick up what's going on and pile in on the right - or rather, wrong - side. The second stage is to turn the community in on itself by use of off-wiki sites to promote false claims and memes: claims that honest admins are corrupt; claims that useful editors are vandals and hoaxers; and vice versa. In the final stage the community completes its own self-destruction without further assistance, banning useful editors and blindly deleting their content, unthinking reversions, and an utter absorption in process and drama to the complete exclusion of content.

Wonderful. These new features will add texture and complexity for advanced players who might otherwise move onto other games. Kudos to the game developers. BTW when we getting 3-D?

That's more like "standard operating procedure," isn't it?

I used to write stuff like this for Uncyclopedia, thinking it was funny, only to have much of it turn out to be sadly true...

However, I didn't write (or have anything to do with) the Uncyclopedia article on Vandalism, which is actually a serious treatment of the subject with a few "graphic touches." The more "traditional" Uncyc-like version is actually entitled Wikipedia vandals, which was probably written by someone from Wikipedia and includes a somewhat less sophisticated classification system than Mr. Grep proposes.

Anyone curious about the formulation of ortho-, meta- and para-vandalism should learn that these same prefixes are used for benzene substituents in chemistry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ortho-

The three-level characterisation of vandalism which I expounded recently applies also to the practice of puppetry, which is vandalisation of the namespace rather than the article space.

Orthodox puppetry divides as usual into sock-, meat- and team-puppetry. I don't propose to go into detail here: let's just record that sock-puppetry is one person operating multiple accounts, meat-puppetry is several people operating one account with a common purpose, and team-puppetry is several people operating one account. Incidentally I add in here cash-puppetry, which is developing an account and then selling it on to another person, a sort of serial team-puppeting.

Meta-puppetry is the removal of real users: thus raising the overall sock-quotient: ortho-socking is of course a key prerequisite. Meta-puppetry is accomplished in several ways, by attacking the operator or the account. Attacking the operator is the low-level technique. Scientists, historians and other academics who are actually concerned about The Truth are the usual victims. Verifiability-not-truth, combined with the "moon-is-made-of-green-cheese" argument (do you have a source to say it isn't?) quickly drives them away, sometimes to write bitter and cycnical essays on vandalism on attack sites. Attacking the operation of the account by provoking the tougher academics traps them into an outburst of "incivility" and hilarious drama followed by blocks. Attacking the account itself is sometimes seen. Carefully-placed ortho-socks make it appear that the true account is actually a sock or even a puppet-master, followed by a well-timed SPI and a community ban.

Para-puppetry is the disruption of the connexion between reality and appearance in the name space. Carefully planted clues from the preceding top-level meta-puppetry, involving at least one admin account, and a well-constructed back story, backed up by off-wiki manipulation, generate sufficient intoxication to lead to wild blocking and banning within the power structure. No effort is needed at this stage.

Para-puppetry:



{Mod note: merged this thread with previous on vandalism, GBG}

An interaction between puppetry and vandalism that reveals an interesting point about WP. Sock-puppetry is defined as disruptive use of multiple accounts. Of course the cynic claims that the disruptive aspect is usually either disagreeing with an admin or a "made" editor, or even seeming knowledgeable about WP processes. We can test this argument. Now suppose, per contra, that sock-puppet accusations and blocks meant what they said. In other words, the process has truly identified a disruptive user. They why assume that the disruption has only just started? If someone is spending time building up the backstory for a puppet, they have been planning disruption for a long time. So every single one of those edits is suspect. So all the article-space edits need to be checked.

But strangely this doesn't happen. What do we conclude from this reductio ad absurdum? The "disruption" for which the loser is blocked is not in the article-space at all, but within the game-space. Further proof, if it were needed of the true dynamic round sock-blocking.