Wikipedia:Just report the vandal and move on
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Often, many inexperienced recent changes patrollers and vandal fighters will continue to engage with vandals after they've been reported to AIV (the noticeboard for reporting vandalism). This may include:
- Giving the vandal a Level 4im (only) warning, even after they've already received a Level 4 (final) warning.
- Admonishing the vandal.
- Asking the vandal to stop ("or else").
- Advising the vandal that they had been reported to AIV.
These additional engagements are not helpful and may in fact be counterproductive. Most vandals relish in negative attention, and will enjoy receiving threats and warnings for their actions. By continuing to engage with them—even to try to get them to correct course or stop vandalizing—you are giving them what they want. Remember that the four standard warnings given to them before the AIV report are all the notifications needed to get most innocent, curious vandals to stop, and that anyone who keeps vandalizing after receiving four warnings (four!) has received enough warning. The best course of action is to block them and move on.
There is consensus that notifying vandals about their AIV report is contrary to the principle of denying recognition. Templates meant to emulate {{ANI-notice}} for AIV have been deleted (see this December 2023 TfD and April 2024 TfD). Additionally, the {{Vandal}} template, used to format AIV reports, intentionally does not ping reported users (see this AIV talk page thread). The main differentiator is that ANI is not for obvious vandalism, but for resolving a plethora of other issues that must be resolved through discussion—hence why participants must be notified of ANI threads about them. Vandalism, on the other hand, requires no discussion to resolve: blatant vandalism is reverted and the vandals blocked without further question. For this reason, AIV does not accept reports of anything that isn't obvious vandalism; reports are not archived in searchable form like with other noticeboards, and lengthy discussions are discouraged. AIV is designed to be as in-and-out as possible, leaving little trace of evidence that vandals can use for self glory.
There is no need to keep pestering vandals after their final warning. Just report the vandal and move on.