This page is an archive which is kept for reference and historical purposes. Its contents should be preserved in their current form. Please go to User:Henna/VF for current information and discussion about this software.

CryptoDerk's Vandal Fighter (CDVF) is an open-source software that displays a live feed of recent changes (RC) and contains functionality to assist both admins and non-admins in fighting vandalism.

The last version of the CDVF is 2.2, released on May 31, 2005 works on all Wiki-projects but some features only work on English projects for now (see changelog).

How it works

CDVF connects to an Internet Relay Chat server where it reads the RC from Wikimedia's bots (which means it doesn't have to query the database at all). Relevant information is then added to a table (see screenshot).

Note: Though you can use any browser, it's probably easiest if you use a browser that supports tabbed browsing (e.g. Firefox with Tabbrowser Extension) and set it to open links from an external program in a new tab.

Extra functionality

To assist in sorting the good from the bad, the following features are present

• User whitelist and blacklist - whitelisted user edits do not show up in the table, blacklisted user edits are highlighted. Users can be autoadded to the blacklist if they are reverted by someone in the whitelist or if they created a page that is speedied.
• Article watchlist - edits to pages on the watchlist are highlighted. You can auto-watchlist speedied pages, making it easy to see recreations, and you can also import your Wikipedia watchlist (go here to view your full watchlist). Save that page as an html file and then import it into CDVF.
• Regular expressions - allows you to watchlist, blacklist, or whitelist pages, summaries, or user names/IPs matching any regular expression. See the Java class Pattern for help on making regular expressions. If you are having problems coming up with a proper regular expression, just ask on the talk page.
  • Basic examples:
    • Whitelisting the sandbox - Make sure the "Apply regexp whitelist to page names" option is checked and enter this regexp in the whitelist: ^Wikipedia:Sandbox
    • Whitelisting user talk pages - Make sure the "Apply regexp whitelist to page names" option is checked and enter this regexp in the whitelist: ^User talk:.*
    • Blacklisting edit summaries with the word "shit" - Make sure the "Apply regexp blacklist to edit summaries" option is checked and enter this regexp in the blacklist: .*shit.*
• Easy access to edit data and user data
  • Clicking on the article name or the edit summary causes a browser window to open with the most recent edit. This works in both the table and the Watchlist.
  • Clicking on the user name causes a browser window to open with a list of the user's contributions. This works in both the table and the Whitelist/blacklist.
  • Clicking on the T causes a browser window to open to that user's talk page.
  • Clicking on the B causes a browser window to open to the block page to block the user. Or, if the option is set, will open up WP:VIP on en to report a vandal, if you're not an admin
• Clicking on the X causes that row to be removed from the table.
• Clicking on the Clear list button causes the entire table to be cleared, though the whitelist, blacklist, and watchlist entries will remain.
• Clicking on the Pause button (or hitting Alt-A) pauses the feed. It can be unpaused later and resumed. Edits can either be queued up or discarded.
• Columns can be moved, sorted and resized so that you can easily view the information you want to see.

Additional behind-the-scenes functionality includes:

• Special pages (Log/block, Log/delete) do not show up in the table. However, if a page that is in the table is deleted, it will be removed from the table. This can be turned off.
• Multiple edits on an article will only show up once in the table. That means if a vandal vandalizes an article, then someone on your whitelist reverts it, the row will disappear from the table. This can be turned off.
• All lists and options are saved, so they will appear next time without having to reenter them.

Features not yet present:

• If single click option is not set in the configuration, allow highlighting of many edits in the table such that a right click will open them all.
• In depth, collaboration with other users to make viewing edits more efficient.
• Add in a list such that users can add Special:Log/delete for their language and have it process the deleted pages just like it does in en.
• Saveable list of channels to join on connecting, rather than having to do it once at a time.

Usage

You will need either the Java 2 Runtime Environment (J2RE) version 1.4 or 1.5. If you do not know if you have either of these installed, you can attempt to run the program, but if it does not work, you will need to download the Java_Runtime_Environment.

The CDVF program can be downloaded at the following locations:

• Main location - Contains the most up to date version as well as older versions.
• Secondary location - Use if the main location is down. This will only contain the most recent version.

All you need to do is download vf.jar, run it, and click the connect button. If you're using command line, run java -jar vf.jar.

Known issues

Autoscroll may be a bit "jumpy" and may not always display the last row in the table immediately.

When importing a list of admins to the whitelist, the list may look blank. The status will still indicate that the import was successful.

Comments? Discussion? Problems? Suggestions?

Put them on the talk page.