While browsing this Wikipedia article I noticed that the phrase “penis lover” appears at the top. Obviously this is incongruent with and inappropriate for this article and it seems to be the work of someone with nothing better to do. I didn’t see any links for reporting vandalism or abuse on Wiki’s page. Can anyone help me out here?
I do not have an account for editing Wiki articles, so can this be done by the average Joe Lurker?
Not so quick there! Let a few high school students copy and paste the article into their science report first!
Then go here
But I think the short answer is that you are expected to edit it out yourself.
Damn, I missed it. I guess it’s for the greater good. Stupid greater good.
Yes, you can edit articles without an account (hence the unwavering proliferation of penis-related edits!). Just click “edit this page” at the top. Your IP address will be publicly listed as having edited the article under “history”, though. Just a heads-up. Getting an account is very quick and easy,* mind you; you don’t even need a valid e-mail address. Just pick a random user name and password and you can sign up, no confirmation or anything.
In general, though, you don’t need to worry about reporting or reverting vandalism. Many users and “bots” (automated programs and scripts) watch all of Wikipedia’s edits, and they are quite good at catching vandalism. It is extremely rare for extreme vandalism (the “penis” variety) to last more than a few minutes, and fairly rare for even more subtle vandalism (the incorrect-information-on-obscure-topics variety) to last more than a few hours or days.
Thanks Otto, the days are long and slow here in the office. It often doesn’t take much to keep control of my AK-47.
At the other end of the scale, does anyone but me feel that Zepto- and Yocto- would have been appropriate names for replacement Marx Brothers?