I created this proposal because on WP:AIV I've had to deal with more than one case where an editor was reported for 'blanking vandalism' when the blanking wasn't vandalism, but the reporter obviously thought it was. Problems arise when an inexperienced but well-meaning editor who has never heard of Articles for Deletion, edit summaries and talk pages runs into a Recent Changes patroller prepared to revert what he sees as 'vandalism' automatically, and armed with all sorts of anti-vandal tools that make it easier to do just that (and leave a misfired, impersonal vandalism 'warning' while they're at it). I hope that this will gain consensus to be tagged as a {{ guideline}} and linked from the relevant section of Wikipedia:Vandalism. Opinions and merciless editing are welcome etc etc. -- Sam Blanning (talk) 19:30, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
"If a user believes he has a legitimate reason when removing large amounts of material, he is not committing vandalism." So, um, how are we supposed to determine what J. Random Anon believes when he blanks the day's featured article (without an edit summary, of course—they never leave edit summaries)? Kirill Lokshin 02:55, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
This proposal says at the same time that blanking isn't always bad but also that editors should never blank articles. It also makes no mention of blanking for copyright concerns. So what is it trying to say, exactly? And what here is new that's not already in Wikipedia:Vandalism? Fagstein 04:43, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
The set of blanking edits defined as "almost certainly vandalism or testing" and the set of blanking edits defined as "almost certainly not vandalism/testing" are not disjoint. Thus, if "an editor who has a history of good contributions" were to "[blank] numerous unrelated articles", the edits would "almost certainly [be] vandalism or testing" and "almost certainly not [be] vandalism/testing", simultaneously. Of course, this problem could be avoided by replacing the section headings with "Factors that weigh in favor of a finding that blanking is vandalism or testing" and "Factors that weigh against a finding that blanking is vandalism or testing"; however, this would convert the guideline into a difficult to apply, multi-part balancing test. My description above of the cases in which significant content removals are considered to be legitimate edits is far simpler in its application. John254 00:42, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Is it just me, or does this read like it gives people carte blanche to blank whatever they want if their edit summary says it was to correct bias or delete false information? I've encountered too many situations where egregiously biased or falsehood-bearing edits were justified as correcting some (imaginary) pre-existing fault in the article to feel comfortable with that. Am I wrong in reading the proposal that way or in anticipating that people will attempt to use it that way? The Literate Engineer 04:10, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
This is either too broad or too narrow; maybe both. It opens the gates of hell for all kinds of trolls to issue forth under the banner of "good blanking". It doesn't sufficiently address the entire issue of knee-jerk, automated reverts of good-faith edits. Let's take this a side at a time.
On the one hand: Generally, deleting large amounts of markup -- text, structural markup, or images -- is a dumb thing to do. The larger the amount taken, the longer the removed material has been on the page, the more likely it is unwise. At some point, it is pretty much mandatory that you simply <!-- comment out --> the portion you wish to remove and speak to the issue on talk. No matter how sure you are that it must all go, it is likely that one or more people put time and trouble into writing the bit and even if most of it is "bad", something can be salvaged.
On the other hand: There has been an explosion of bots and deskbots editing with great speed and little care; in their wake follow editors who see obtuse edit sums and think it's okay to rip through the project with a chainsaw. These "editors" and deskbot drivers confuse quantity with quality and suffer from Editcountitis. There's no difference between a deskbot revert of a sensible deletion and a deskbot revert of a sensible addition; both actions are destructive to whatever congenial community atmosphere we have left, as well as destructive to the project itself.
On the gripping hand: We do not want to create or amplify a category of deletion-as-blanking. This opens the door to wikilawyers who argue this edit or that is not really deletion; it's blanking -- or vise-versa. Remember that the effect of rules is generally to create two new loopholes for every one closed up. There are far too many words on this page: enormous opportunity to process-wank.
I smell here a wide-gauge response to a very narrow situation -- perhaps some one or two incidents that fall within the strained language of When to be especially careful. In my experience, poorly-formed policy proposals with broad scope often spring from small cause. This cause does not look small to the creator; he goes all the way back to first principles, elaborates a new global theorem, and at the end, tweaks and fiddles with it until it finally backs him, retroactively, in a minor matter.
It is wise to exercise good judgement in all we do, to use common sense, to judge, often subjectively, the intent behind others' actions. It is dangerous to allow our judgement to mislead us into hasty action or invite us to bend or rewrite the rules. It is foolish to write policy that requires us to make these judgement calls; somebody will always make an opposing call and then we have a fight.
Drop this proposal with thanks to the creator for raising the issues. Some other action is called for. What? John Reid 14:46, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm moving this to my userspace and tagging it as an essay; while I think it will be useful to correct someone making obviously mistaken accusations of vandalism, perhaps with some further editing, it's obvious it's never going to be clearly-defined enough to be a guideline. Thanks for your feedback, everyone. -- Sam Blanning (talk) 18:53, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
In order to distinguish clearly between content removal and page deletion ( WP:Deletion policy), I propose replacing "delete" with "remove" when it refers to content removal. This will cause a bit of repetition in item 2 of the User:Samuel Blanning/Blanking#When blanking is almost certainly not vandalism/testing section. I have not found an appropriate synonym to add variety. Also see WT:Content removal#Content removal versus page deletion. Flatscan ( talk) 04:22, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Page blanking § Remove See also: User:Samuel Blanning/Blanking. Flatscan ( talk) 04:26, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
I created this proposal because on WP:AIV I've had to deal with more than one case where an editor was reported for 'blanking vandalism' when the blanking wasn't vandalism, but the reporter obviously thought it was. Problems arise when an inexperienced but well-meaning editor who has never heard of Articles for Deletion, edit summaries and talk pages runs into a Recent Changes patroller prepared to revert what he sees as 'vandalism' automatically, and armed with all sorts of anti-vandal tools that make it easier to do just that (and leave a misfired, impersonal vandalism 'warning' while they're at it). I hope that this will gain consensus to be tagged as a {{ guideline}} and linked from the relevant section of Wikipedia:Vandalism. Opinions and merciless editing are welcome etc etc. -- Sam Blanning (talk) 19:30, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
"If a user believes he has a legitimate reason when removing large amounts of material, he is not committing vandalism." So, um, how are we supposed to determine what J. Random Anon believes when he blanks the day's featured article (without an edit summary, of course—they never leave edit summaries)? Kirill Lokshin 02:55, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
This proposal says at the same time that blanking isn't always bad but also that editors should never blank articles. It also makes no mention of blanking for copyright concerns. So what is it trying to say, exactly? And what here is new that's not already in Wikipedia:Vandalism? Fagstein 04:43, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
The set of blanking edits defined as "almost certainly vandalism or testing" and the set of blanking edits defined as "almost certainly not vandalism/testing" are not disjoint. Thus, if "an editor who has a history of good contributions" were to "[blank] numerous unrelated articles", the edits would "almost certainly [be] vandalism or testing" and "almost certainly not [be] vandalism/testing", simultaneously. Of course, this problem could be avoided by replacing the section headings with "Factors that weigh in favor of a finding that blanking is vandalism or testing" and "Factors that weigh against a finding that blanking is vandalism or testing"; however, this would convert the guideline into a difficult to apply, multi-part balancing test. My description above of the cases in which significant content removals are considered to be legitimate edits is far simpler in its application. John254 00:42, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Is it just me, or does this read like it gives people carte blanche to blank whatever they want if their edit summary says it was to correct bias or delete false information? I've encountered too many situations where egregiously biased or falsehood-bearing edits were justified as correcting some (imaginary) pre-existing fault in the article to feel comfortable with that. Am I wrong in reading the proposal that way or in anticipating that people will attempt to use it that way? The Literate Engineer 04:10, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
This is either too broad or too narrow; maybe both. It opens the gates of hell for all kinds of trolls to issue forth under the banner of "good blanking". It doesn't sufficiently address the entire issue of knee-jerk, automated reverts of good-faith edits. Let's take this a side at a time.
On the one hand: Generally, deleting large amounts of markup -- text, structural markup, or images -- is a dumb thing to do. The larger the amount taken, the longer the removed material has been on the page, the more likely it is unwise. At some point, it is pretty much mandatory that you simply <!-- comment out --> the portion you wish to remove and speak to the issue on talk. No matter how sure you are that it must all go, it is likely that one or more people put time and trouble into writing the bit and even if most of it is "bad", something can be salvaged.
On the other hand: There has been an explosion of bots and deskbots editing with great speed and little care; in their wake follow editors who see obtuse edit sums and think it's okay to rip through the project with a chainsaw. These "editors" and deskbot drivers confuse quantity with quality and suffer from Editcountitis. There's no difference between a deskbot revert of a sensible deletion and a deskbot revert of a sensible addition; both actions are destructive to whatever congenial community atmosphere we have left, as well as destructive to the project itself.
On the gripping hand: We do not want to create or amplify a category of deletion-as-blanking. This opens the door to wikilawyers who argue this edit or that is not really deletion; it's blanking -- or vise-versa. Remember that the effect of rules is generally to create two new loopholes for every one closed up. There are far too many words on this page: enormous opportunity to process-wank.
I smell here a wide-gauge response to a very narrow situation -- perhaps some one or two incidents that fall within the strained language of When to be especially careful. In my experience, poorly-formed policy proposals with broad scope often spring from small cause. This cause does not look small to the creator; he goes all the way back to first principles, elaborates a new global theorem, and at the end, tweaks and fiddles with it until it finally backs him, retroactively, in a minor matter.
It is wise to exercise good judgement in all we do, to use common sense, to judge, often subjectively, the intent behind others' actions. It is dangerous to allow our judgement to mislead us into hasty action or invite us to bend or rewrite the rules. It is foolish to write policy that requires us to make these judgement calls; somebody will always make an opposing call and then we have a fight.
Drop this proposal with thanks to the creator for raising the issues. Some other action is called for. What? John Reid 14:46, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm moving this to my userspace and tagging it as an essay; while I think it will be useful to correct someone making obviously mistaken accusations of vandalism, perhaps with some further editing, it's obvious it's never going to be clearly-defined enough to be a guideline. Thanks for your feedback, everyone. -- Sam Blanning (talk) 18:53, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
In order to distinguish clearly between content removal and page deletion ( WP:Deletion policy), I propose replacing "delete" with "remove" when it refers to content removal. This will cause a bit of repetition in item 2 of the User:Samuel Blanning/Blanking#When blanking is almost certainly not vandalism/testing section. I have not found an appropriate synonym to add variety. Also see WT:Content removal#Content removal versus page deletion. Flatscan ( talk) 04:22, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Page blanking § Remove See also: User:Samuel Blanning/Blanking. Flatscan ( talk) 04:26, 13 June 2022 (UTC)