Vandalbot
In Internet terminology, a vandalbot is a malicious type of bot, an automated script that performs programmed types of vandalism edits or similar operations to a wiki at high rate. As noted by OrthodoxWiki in its article on vandalism:
| “ | Because of the speed with which they work, (vandalbots) can do a lot of damage, and this damage can take time to fix. It is a sad fact that as our traffic and popularity has increased so have the automated attacks.[1] | ” |
Because of the damage these particular bots can cause when created and used by ill-intentioned vandals bent on mischief and sabotage of wikis, editors and wiki administrators/sysops with block function are advised on their sites to immediately block the vandalbots on sight; OrthodoxWiki, in its Vandalism article, recommends indefinite bans in the event of automated attacks by vandalbots (to prevent the vandalbots from resuming their attacks the moment time-limited blocks expire), followed by cleanup and reversion of the targeted pages to the last legitimate edits. Also recommended is blocking of the IP addresses the vandalbots originated from and hiding of the bot edits and rollbacks thereof from the wiki's recent changes page.[2]
