What counts as vandalism on Wikipedia?
Vandalism is editing that is deliberately intended to damage the encyclopedia, as defined on Wikipedia:Vandalism. Blanking sections, profanity, gibberish and knowingly false facts qualify. Content you dislike, a mistaken edit or a disagreement over wording does not.
On corporate pages true vandalism is rare, because the defences are quick. The counter-vandalism bot ClueBot NG and volunteer patrols revert obvious cases, often within minutes. If the change is still there, ask first whether it is really vandalism.
How do you diagnose what actually happened?
Three situations look identical at the moment of discovery, and the diagnosis decides the venue.
True vandalism.
Deliberate damage, as above. Fix it on the lowest rung that fits.
A good-faith edit that happens to be wrong.
An editor misread a source, used an outdated revenue figure or confused two similarly named companies. This is the easiest problem to fix and the easiest relationship to damage by opening with an accusation. Our post on who edits corporate articles explains why these community editors are usually an asset.
Sourced negative content you dislike.
A lawsuit with a real citation, or a critical paragraph from a trade publication. Under Wikipedia policy this is not vandalism. Filing it as such gets the report declined within minutes and marks you as a partisan in the page history. The correct levers are content arguments, undue weight (WP:UNDUE) and balance, made on the talk page; see Wikipedia reputation management.
What are the escalation steps for Wikipedia vandalism?
Start at the lowest rung that fits. Each rung up costs time, invites scrutiny and burns goodwill if misused.
- Revert obvious vandalism yourself. Anyone may, including the article's subject; conflict-of-interest rules do not require you to leave profanity in place. Open "View history", find the revision and click undo. If you need a paragraph to explain why it is vandalism, it is not obvious: use rung 2.
- Post on the article talk page, with sources. Declare your connection, propose a specific change and attach the source. Short, neutral requests get answered; long emotional essays get archived.
- Warn the editor on their user talk page. For a repeat offender use the standard escalating warning templates, level 1 through 4. Administrators at the next rung act on vandals who continued after warnings.
- Report to WP:AIV. The fast lane for active, unambiguous vandalism that continued past warnings. Clear reports are typically handled within hours, usually with a block. Content disputes are declined on sight.
- Use WP:ANI. The incidents board covers edit warring, harassment, long-term agenda accounts and suspected undisclosed paid editing. It is slower, public and examines everyone involved, including you. Bring diffs, not adjectives.
- Use WP:BLPN. If the material concerns a living person, such as a founder or CEO, this noticeboard is stronger and faster. Contentious claims about living people without reliable sources may be removed immediately under WP:BLP.
- Request page protection at WP:RFPP. For sustained waves from changing IP addresses, ask for semi-protection, which blocks anonymous and brand-new accounts for a period. Only Wikipedia administrators set protection, and it is not granted preventively.
Where should each problem be reported?
| Situation | Right venue | Typical response |
|---|---|---|
| Blanked section, profanity, gibberish | Revert it yourself | Minutes; bots often act first |
| Same vandal returns after warnings | WP:AIV | Often within hours |
| False or unsourced claim about a living person | WP:BLPN, plus removal | Hours to a day or two |
| Sourced negative content, arguably excessive | Talk page, citing WP:UNDUE | Days; depends on who watches the page |
| Edit warring, harassment, agenda campaign | WP:ANI | Days; expect scrutiny both ways |
| Ongoing wave of IP vandalism | WP:RFPP | Typically within a day or so |
| Good-faith factual error | Talk page, with the correct source | Days |
Response times are working estimates from our experience of the venues, not published service levels. Volunteer availability varies.
What mistakes make vandalism worse?
Revert wars.
Under the three-revert rule, more than three reverts on one page within 24 hours can earn a block, even if you are right. Obvious vandalism is exempt, but administrators decide what is obvious. Pages caught in revert wars are often protected in whichever version they happen to be in, frequently the wrong one.
Legal threats.
Writing anything that reads like "our lawyers will be in touch" on a talk page or in an edit summary triggers WP:NLT, and the account is blocked until the threat is withdrawn. Real legal remedies exist off-wiki against coordinated defamation, but they are slow and must never be announced on Wikipedia.
Extra accounts.
A second account, or employees posing as independent voices, is sock puppetry. Investigations have technical means to connect accounts, and the block record is public and permanent. The history of such cases is in our post on paid editing scandals. A sockpuppetry record can do more lasting damage than the vandalism it was meant to fight.
How do you document vandalism so administrators act?
Wikipedia records every edit permanently, so use that.
- Collect diffs first. Each revision comparison has a permanent URL. A diff link is proof; a description from memory is not.
- Note timestamps. Logs run on UTC, and patterns matter: ten edits in eight minutes reads differently from ten across three months.
- Pull the editor's contribution history. An account whose only edits are to your article tells its own story.
- Keep the report short. Three to five strongest diffs, one neutral sentence each.
When should you stop handling it yourself?
When the problem is a campaign rather than an incident: the vandal who returns under a new IP address each week, an agenda account relitigating the same paragraph, or protection that expires while the attacker's patience does not. It also applies in sensitive conflict-of-interest situations, where every word a company posts is parsed for spin.
Speed is the other structural factor. Wikipedia does not notify a subject when its article changes, so without monitoring you discover a bad edit when someone mentions it, often after it has reached search snippets and AI answers. Acting in the first hours works far better than in the second week; our post on page maintenance and monitoring covers what to watch.
How WikiBusines helps
Disclosure up front: we sell the services below. The ladder works whether you hire anyone or not. Paid editing is always disclosed on Wikipedia in WikiBusines' name, and only Wikipedia administrators decide on blocks and protection; we do not control outcomes.
- Wikipedia editing, €700 to €1,900: disclosed talk-page requests and corrections for an existing article.
- Annual support, from €720/year for up to 4 updates, with a 12-month guarantee. Near real-time monitoring and alerts belong to Managed Protection, €1,500/year, via Wikimonitoring.
- Page recovery, quoted per case, if content or the page was lost.
To talk through an incident, contact us.
Frequently asked questions
Revert obvious vandalism, warn the editor on their user talk page, and report persistent cases to WP:AIV. Content disputes go to the article talk page, not to AIV.
Not if it is sourced and written neutrally. You can request changes on the talk page, citing undue weight or inaccuracies, and supply better sources. Removing it yourself usually backfires.
It may be, and either way it can be removed quickly under the biographies of living persons policy if it lacks reliable sources. Use WP:BLPN for help from experienced editors.
Clear AIV reports are often handled within hours; ANI and talk-page requests can take days. These are estimates and depend on volunteer availability.
You can request it at WP:RFPP when there is sustained vandalism, but only administrators decide. Protection is not granted preventively.
No. Subjects are not notified, so you need your own monitoring, either a watchlist on a Wikipedia account or an alert service.
Legal remedies exist off-wiki, but they are slow, and a legal threat made on Wikipedia gets the account blocked under WP:NLT. Talk to a lawyer, not the talk page.
Vandalism is deliberate damage; an edit war is a content disagreement where editors keep reverting each other. The latter belongs on the talk page, and if it continues, at ANI.
Authors and editorial policy
Bohdan DubylovskyiCo-founder and CBO, WikiBusines→
Roman MelnykCo-founder & Chief Editor, WikiBusines→The article was prepared by the WikiBusines co-founders. We sell paid Wikipedia services, so we disclose this interest: paid editing is always declared on Wikipedia in WikiBusines' name, and claims about the rules are backed by links to primary sources.
Editorial policy: payment disclosure, conflicts of interest, sources