No shrines to vandals

(English) This is an essay. It expresses the opinions and ideas of some Wikimedians but may not have wide support. This is not policy on Meta, but it may be a policy or guideline on other Wikimedia projects. Feel free to update this page as needed, or use the discussion page to propose major changes.

The concept of "no shrines to vandals" is that pages noting all of a particular user's sockpuppets, along with extensive documentation of his activities, should be deleted to avoid giving him a sense of accomplishment at having attracted so much attention. This assumes that we know what motivates vandals, and that we can help deter them merely by deleting such pages. It could just as easily be the case that public shaming could be a deterrent. There does not seem to be any evidence to suggest that vandals care one way or the other about whether we keep such content around; and if getting rid of the content makes it harder to catch vandals (e.g. by making it harder to examine all his past behavior, and thereby compare it to a suspected sockpuppet's behavior), then such deletions could be counterproductive.