User blog:EarthlingnAkumi/What is the Best Way to Handle Vandals and Trolls?

Recently, there was a blog post made by a user detailing their list of steps that they would personally use to stop vandalism. While their method works, in my opinion, better steps can be taken in order to stop vandalism on your wiki. Here are some methods that I compiled, and which ones I think are best.

If vandalism on your wiki is urgent and needs to be taken care of immediately, contact a member of the VSTF.

Revert→Block→Ignore
A classic, and the one that most fandom staff advise you to use. This is one of the best methods for vandalism that you could use. It's simplistic, yet at the same time works well. While not what I personally would do, it works, and is a backup method for something if my other method fails. Here's a scenario where this would work well:

''A random user by the name of xX_ROBLOXFAN_Xx comes onto your wiki. They change the content of 5 pages to "butts butts butts". You revert all their edits, block them from your wiki, and ignore them, not leaving a singular message on their wall.''

Wait→Ignore→Block
This was the method detailed by the user in the blog post I talked about in the beginning. It may work in some scenarios, however, this is dangerous to do for vandals who intend to vandalism your entire wiki and come back. In this method, you wait for the user to finish vandalizing before reverting their edits. You ignore them whilst they are vandalizing the wiki, and when they are done, then you revert their edits. Here's an example:

''A random user by the name of EarthlingnAkoomi_Sock comes onto your wiki. They vandalize the main page and a few other pages with random text. You wait until they are finished, and let everyone know to ignore them. Then once they have finally finished, you block them.''

Message→Block→Revert→Ignore
Lastly, the method that I would use. This one, has 4 steps, and they are interchangeable. If the vandalism is clearly on purpose (like they blanked a pages and put inappropriate language on there) I would skip the first step. However, if they say, blanked 1 or 2 pages, I would ask why they did so via a message on their wall or talk page. If it was a clear accident and they didn't know the rules, I would let them off with a warning, and revert the pages. However, if they continuously do it, I go straight to blocking them. Then, I revert all the vandalism that the user put on the pages, and ignore them. There are several different scenarios this could work in, however I'll name one:

''A random user by the name of YouRMOM1212 comes onto your wiki. They blank a couple of pages on the wiki, with their edit summaries saying "These pages aren't good enough! >:(". You ask them nicely on their message wall to stop doing it, and they say "You aren't my mom?!" and continue to do it. You then proceed to block them, revert all the vandalism, and ignore them.''

Conclusion
Everyone has different methods to doing things. Some people enjoy doing things a specific way, as it's easiest for them. While I prefer the 3rd method, any of the methods are valid, and you can use them! As long as the job gets done, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. The next blog post I write will probably be about moderation, so stay tuned :).