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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Pathoschild (talk | contribs) at 21:48, 14 December 2005 (eliminated box, expanded intro). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This incomplete page is meant as an introduction to user warnings and should not be used as sole reference. If you would like more information on any particular subject, see the appropriate inline wikilinks. This page is part of the WikiProject on User Warnings. For a basic introduction to Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Introduction.

About UWTs

Any edit deliberately intended to damage Wikipedia's content, attack a person, or oppose the community is called vandalism (see Vandalism for a general list of such actions). Particularly, edits which go against Wikipedia's policies and guidelines would be considered such.

If you spot someone vandalising Wikipedia, you should revert their changes to a previous version. You can leave a message on their talk page to notify them that they've violated a policy or guideline, and that you've reverted their changes. There are various user warning templates available to simplify this by outputting automatic, standardised messages directly onto the talk page.

Using UWTs

To use a user warning template, choose a standardised template from the main page of the WikiProject on User Warnings or a legacy template from Category:User warning templates. On the talk page you'd like to place the message on, type the name of the template in curly brackets; for example, if you want to use Template:test1, you can type {{test1}}.

Note: By default, the template tag will remain on the page and load the template every time the page is viewed. Unfortunately, this has an important impact on Wikipedia's server resources and leaves hundreds of pages (ironically) open to vandalism, since any edit to the template will then show up on every page the tag is placed on. For these reasons, user warning templates should always be substituted for text. This is done automatically when you add the prefix "subst:" to a template tag. For example, if you wanted to use the same template as above, you would use {{subst:test1}}.

Every template has a family of about four levels, from a polite pointer to the sandbox to a stern demand that the user cease and desist or face the consequences. It's not necessary to start at the first level; rather, you should choose one based on how vicious the vandalism is. For example, {{test1}} is appropriate for someone who adds "Hi Joe!" to a page, whereas a rapid multiple-revert vandal should only be given one warning ({{test4}}).

After using UWTs

If the user doesn't stop vandalising after being warned a few times, you can report him to administrators for intervention. To do so, you can either add his name to Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism or notify an admin on the Freenode IRC channel #wikipedia-en-vandalism. Note that both usually get the attention of an admin within minutes, often within seconds.

See also

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