Wikipedia:Guide to administrator intervention against vandalism

This is a guide to reporting users to (shortcuts: WP:AIAV, WP:AIV and WP:RVAN). This guide is intended to prevent invalid reports that needlessly take up administrators' time, thereby allowing vandals more time to cause havoc before being blocked.

First, read the policy at and . Administrator intervention against vandalism is for reporting users currently engaging in persistent, clear vandalism or spamming. See the section "When reporting at AIV is not appropriate" for handling common incidents that should not be reported here.

Report only clear violations that do not require discussion or detailed explanations. If there is a reasonable chance that something may not be vandalism, it probably should be reported elsewhere, or not at all.

Vandals should always receive enough warnings before being reported unless they are vandalism-only accounts. What constitutes "enough" is left to your best judgment. Consider the user's past edits, warnings and blocks, the severity of their offense, the likelihood that their edit(s) could have been made in error or otherwise in good faith, and the type of user in question (IP addresses may be shared or dynamic, and old warnings could be irrelevant to the current situation).

Blocking is meant to be preventive, not punitive. Therefore, the user must show a strong likelihood of making further disruptive edits despite warnings and being informed of the blocking policy. Always give a final warning, and report only if the vandal has vandalized at least once after that. (A final warning is a "level 4" warning, usually {{}} or, in more extreme cases, {{}}.) Administrators are likely to remove your report if they feel that the vandal has been insufficiently warned or has stopped after the final warning.

All reports should be placed at the bottom of the "User-reported" section of , using one of the formats described below. One easy way to do this and to avoid edit conflicts is to use the "+" link, which appears to the right of "edit this page" in the tabs across the top of the page (in the default skin). Just leave the "Subject/headline" field blank, and place your report in the big empty text box; it will automatically be appended to the end of the page.

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