Encyclopedia Dramatica:Vandalism is Pointless

Policy This article defines official ED Policy. Shortcut: ED:VIP

If someone directed you to this page, it's probably because you've been vandalizing or blanking articles. Basically, vandalizing a wiki with as many users as this one is completely pointless. This isn't so much a rule or anything as it is a statement of fact.

What is Vandalism?

Vandalism on ED is not necessarily the same as vandalism on lesser wikis, like Wikipedia. Wikipedia exists to catalogue knowledge and history. We exist to catalogue lulz (humor), so our standards for vandalism are a little different. Generally, anything purposely done to take away from the humor is vandalism. One of the biggest problems wannabe-vandals have in ED is their attempts at vandalism usually end up increasing the lulz of the situation.

Why is is it pointless?

Vandalism is pointless for the same reason it's possible: because ED is a wiki.

• ALL PRIOR VERSIONS OF PAGES ARE SAVED, so it takes about a second to change back to the version that was up before you vandalized. You spend 10 minutes wanking off writing about how wonderful so-and-so is and how mean we are, and it takes an instant to change back, so it's a waste of time.

This means that your changes to the article or whatever will be visible for about 2.72 seconds, depending on how baked the sysop is, and will only earn you a swift ban... It's really not worth the effort.

• People can track edits - Experienced editors and administrators have the unnatural ability to track edits to articles without actually having to visit the articles. They can track all incoming changes, so it takes about a second to spot vandalism. Then another second to revert to a previous version, and all your hard work is lost. Very experienced editors also know when you are sleeping and know when you're awake. They know when your contributions have been bad or good so make them good, for goodness' sake!

• Vandals are easy to spot - It's easy for said edit-trackers to spot vandals by certain qualities, so finding vandalism is even easier, especially on a relatively small wiki like this.

• You're just gonna get banned anyway - 30 seconds of vandalism-fun, and you're banned forever. Then, the autoblock kicks in, so you can't make another edit even with another account for 24 hours. Is that really worth the outburst?

• We have a bot to revert blatant vandalism - so you're not even wasting any human effort by vandalizing.

So in short, you are completely wasting your time. In the end, nothing you do will be permanent, and will take seconds to undo. So don't bother wasting your time and making a lol-cow out of yourself.

Alternatives

The best way to get over yourself and whatever article you don't like is to just make real edits. Get into the fun of ED, and soon enough you won't care about that article about you, or your friend, or your favorite politician or band or whatever. If you continue to make an ass of yourself, you're just gonna get laughed at, so you might as well give up. If you don't want to, there's always Plan B.

It is also recommended you learn to vandalize properly, this can be done be reading our handy guide.