[WikiEN-l] Before reverting blanking, please read the text

Thu Oct 19 11:27:58 UTC 2006

---- Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote: 

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--- "Alphax (Wikipedia email)" <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:

> And the other /other/ take-home message is that if you're going to
> revert someone, and they revert back, discuss it with them! I'm sick and
> tired of finding user accounts with many many contributions which were
> all reverted as "vandalism", and yet there is nothing on their talk page.

Discussing is good practice in most situations, but I think in this type of
instance the onus is on the blanker to provide some reason. If a new user
blanks an article without explanation, the odds are overwhelming that it's
vandalism (or a test, or whatever). Just revert; it's simply not worth the time
to drop a note with such odds. Moreover, it's very likely is that someone with
a genuine reason to blank the article will communicate his reason very shortly
thereafter (did that happen in this case?)

-- Matt
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As WP:BLP points out, blanking content is often the first method that the subject of an article  will use to fix an inaccurate entry. This is really an newbie issue as much as anything else. It is perfectly reasonable for them to remove information that they know to be false.

For an experienced user to simply revert the blanking without any attempt to communicate with the user is more problematic to my mind than the blanking.

We need to determine if it is vandalism or an attempt to correct incorrect information and act accordingly.

Take care,
Sydney aka FloNight aka Poore5  