  What factors influence the decision to vandalize? Although the harm is clear,
the benefit to the vandal is less clear. In many cases, the thing being damaged
may itself be something the vandal uses or enjoys. Vandalism holds
communicative value: perhaps to the vandal themselves, to some audience at whom
the vandalism is aimed, and to the general public. Viewing vandals as rational
community participants despite their antinormative behavior offers the
possibility of engaging with or countering their choices in novel ways.
Rational choice theory (RCT) as applied in value expectancy theory (VET) offers
a strategy for characterizing behaviors in a framework of rational choices, and
begins with the supposition that subject to some weighting of personal
preferences and constraints, individuals maximize their own utility by
committing acts of vandalism. This study applies the framework of RCT and VET
to gain insight into vandals' preferences and constraints. Using a
mixed-methods analysis of Wikipedia, I combine social computing and
criminological perspectives on vandalism to propose an ontology of vandalism
for online content communities. I use this ontology to categorize 141 instances
of vandalism and find that the character of vandalistic acts varies by vandals'
relative identifiability, policy history with Wikipedia, and the effort
required to vandalize.
