The other day I was looking for interesting stuff on wikipedia. I typed in a word, then followed the disambiguation link into the realm of pure word play and fun. I clicked on something that interested me and to my complete shock found a page that had been defaced with spam. I clicked the history tab and found that there were 2 edits within just the last minute. One from some IP address 192.232.155.215 and another from someone called Cluebot. I don't spend a lot of time browsing wiki history pages so I was a bit confused at first. It turns out that Cluebot is a robot that runs automatically on the wiki servers to detect and revert vandalism.

Follow up:

It's pretty obvious that vandals are out there, and it's certainly clear from human nature that people are going to try to vandalize wikipedia. But catching and reverting blatant vandalism within 60 seconds on every page is far more secure than I would have imagined. It won't catch sneaky vandalism but it clearly can catch simple vandalism easily.

I never did get a chance to read the page I had intended to, because I was caught up in discovering how wikipedia tracks and fixes all sorts of abusive behavior. They even have a list which is generally not considered abuse, and "unintentional nonsense" is there, so at least I know my content here is safe if it ever makes it onto wikipedia.

If you've got a spare minute, check out the links. Be sure to take a look at the bottom of the Cluebot page where people posted praise.

Cluebot

Wiki Vandalism

By the way, it's the internet, so very little is private. The vandal, by a quick whois lookup on his IP address is:

Asia Pacific Network Information Centre
PO Box 2131 Milton QLD 4064 Australia
Phone: +61 7 3858 3188

If anyone is nearby, feel free to throw an egg at them. But not more than an egg, because "...it could be argued that every misguided editor, every vandal, and every troll has the seed of Wiki-nature hidden within their mind, and all that is required for them to change is their own personal awakening to the "full radiance" of online collaboration." -wiki:vandals_vs_trolls