User:Girth Summit/CVUA/AryanTheArticleArtist

Hello AryanTheArticleArtist, and welcome to your Counter Vandalism Unit Academy page! Every person I instruct will have their own page on which I will give them support and tasks for them to complete. Please make sure you have this page added to your watchlist. Your academy page has been specifically designed according to you and what you have requested instruction in - for that reason, please be as specific as possible in your answers, so that I know the best ways to help you (and do not be afraid to let me know if you think something isn't working). If you have any general queries about anti-vandalism (or anything else), you are more than welcome to raise them with me at my talk page.

Make sure you read through Wikipedia:Vandalism as that's the knowledge which most of the questions I ask you and tasks you do will revolve around.

How to use this page

This page will be built up over your time in the Academy, with new sections being added as you complete old ones. Each section will end with a task, written in bold type - this might just ask a question, or it might require you to go and do something. You can answer a question by typing the answer below the task; if you have to do something, you will need to provide diffs to demonstrate that you have completed the task. Some sections will have more than one task, sometimes additional tasks may be added to a section as you complete them. Please always sign your responses to tasks as you would on a talk page.

The CVUA curriculum

There are several sections of the training course. In some of them, will be asking you to do perform practical exercises; in others, I will ask you to read certain policies and guidelines, and then ask you some questions about their content. To be clear, it is not a problem if you give the wrong answer to any of the questions - making mistakes and discussing them is a crucial part of the learning process. For that reason, it is important that you do not attempt to find previous users' training pages in order to identify the 'right' answers to these questions: all your answers should be your own, so that we can identify and address any misconceptions that you might have. There is no time pressure to complete the course: we will go at whatever pace works for you, and you can take a pause or ask questions at any point along the way.

Communication

Counter-vandalism work can result in very large watchlists, which can make it more difficult to monitor pages using that alone. For this reason, I would also ask you to ping me when you have completed a task, so that I get a notification telling me that it's ready for review.

The start

Twinkle

Twinkle is a very useful tool when performing maintenance functions around Wikipedia. Please have a read through WP:TWINKLE.

Enable Twinkle (if haven't already) and leave a note here to let me know that you have enabled it.

Reply: Twinkle

Hello, I have read through all of the instructions and I think that this system of learning is awesome. I can't tell you how exciting it is, this will help me learn a lot.

Task 1: I completed the first task, I read through the Twinkle page like you asked me, I now know some useful stuff about it. I have also enabled twinkle in the settings via the link you sent. AryanTheArticleArtist (talk) 17:02, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Good faith and vandalism

​When patrolling for vandalism, you may often come across edits which are unhelpful, but not vandalism - these are good faith edits. It is important to recognise the difference between a vandalism edit and a good faith edit, especially because Twinkle gives you the option of labelling edits you revert as such. Please read WP:AGF and WP:NOT VANDALISM before completing the following tasks.

Please explain below the difference between a good faith edit and a vandalism edit, and how you would tell them apart.

Here is an original example that I made:

Original Text: Robert (born February 17th, 2019) was a former Hollywood actor, he has starred in 150 movies, including TheExampleMovie 2.

Good Faith: Robert (born February 17th, 2019) was a former Hollywood actor, he has starred in 150 movies, including TheExampleMovie 2. "He is famous".

Vandalism: Robert (born "as a rabbit" February 17th, 2019) was a former Hollywood "loser", he has starred in 150 movies, including TheExampleMovie 2.

Good faith: The editor has no intention on vandalising Wikipedia, the editor is trying to contribute, however the edit is not useful and is unhelpful.

Vandalism: Clear signs of destruction of the article. AryanTheArticleArtist (talk) 17:24, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Y OK, so you're right about the intention - that's the core of what we're trying to get at, the user's intention. The example you've given is correct - if someone inserted the word 'loser' into a sentence like that, I would assume vandalistic intent. It's not always the case, however, that clear signs of damage to the article equals vandalism. Remember that new editors often test out their ability to edit the article as well. If an IP, that has never edited before, deletes the entire content of an article, you should assume good faith - often, they don't actually realise that they are actually editing the live webpage, they may think they're just editing on their own computer and that other people can't see what they are doing. By all means we should revert them, but we only label it as vandalism when it is very obvious that it was done with the intention of damaging the content.

By the way, did you read WP:THREAD? I just want to make sure you're clear on that before we proceed. I'll post the next task later this evening. GirthSummit _(blether) 17:37, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Yes, sir, I did read it, I will be looking forward. AryanTheArticleArtist (talk) 17:41, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

​Good - time to start putting it into practice. You need to indent your comments, using colons, to make it clear whether you are starting a new conversation thread, or replying/commenting to one that has started. You can read more about this at WP:INDENT, but very basically if you are replying to a question, responding to a comment or whatever, then start your message with one more colon that the one you are responding to. GirthSummit _(blether) 19:48, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Please find five examples of good faith but unhelpful edits, and five examples of vandalism. Don't revert any of them until I've reviewed them please, just post the diffs below - see WP:DIFF if you're unfamiliar with how to do that. It's not a problem if someone else reverts them before I get chance to review them - I'll be able to review them in the history (unless they get revdelled, which would be unusual)

Van1- Vandalism (Possible vandalism)

Y This is an interesting one. It's clearly POV, and needs to be reverted - but is it someone genuinely (but misguidedly) trying to improve content (albeit in a way which does not agree with the sources or a NPOV perspective)? In this case, given the misleading edit summary and the complete replacing of content with their own (ungrammatical) views, I would agree with you that this is vandalism.

Van2 - Vandalism

Y Yes - no way that could be accidental, clear vandalism.

Van3 - Possible vandalism

Y Another interesting one. If that edit had been on its own, I would have treated it as a good-faith test edit. However, looking at the history, I see that the IP was making lots of similar nonsensical changes to the age in rapid succession, so that's what makes it vandalism. I see that the IP has now been blocked.

Van4 - Possible Vandalism

Y Similar to the above - it could be vandalism, but it could also be a test edit. I'd probably do a Twinkle blue rollback with a test edit warning the first time, but then treat it as vandalism if they reinstated the change after a warning.

Van5 - Possible Vandalism (Handle with good faith)

N The name is very similar to the name given in the title - this could easily be someone who thinks that's actually how you spell their name (or it could be an alternative spelling). I would have treated that as a good faith edit, and reverted it with an edit summary explaining that the spelling of the name in the infobox should match that of the article title and the first sentence of the lead. I see that Flooded reverted it on similar grounds (edit summary saying that no source was given for the change - also a valid reason to revert).

GF1- Good faith (Editor might not know that the edit is live)

Y Hmm. Tricky one. If it had been a standalone edit, then yes, I would have treated as a good faith test. However, if you look at the history, you'll see that it's a bit more than that - they are making lots of edits. This is a classic edit war - but it looks like a content dispute, rather than vandalism, so we don't treat it as vandalism.

GF2- Possible good faith (Editor might not have bad intentions)

This is the same IP/content dispute as the previous diff - same comments apply.

GF3 - Good faith

Y Yes - that could easily be someone making a mistake when trying to change to title of the section - good faith revert, with edit summary explaining about removal of content

GF4 - Editor might not have bad intentions

Y Borderline - had it been a profanity, I'd have said vandalism, but it's so innocuous I'd probably treat as test edit the first time, and give an edit summary of 'meaning unclear'. I noticed it was still live, so I reverted and gave an 'test edit' warning to the IP using Twinkle. I also checked the IP's contributions to make sure they weren't causing disruption elsewhere - that was their only contribution to date.

GF5 - Editor has good intentions (but the edit is not quality).

Y Based on that single edit alone, you would have been right - I would have checked the sourcing for that paragraph, to see whether Joe Hanson was indeed mentioned. However, sometimes you need to dig a little deeper! If you check the edit immediately before that one, you'll see an entirely nonsensical edit immediately prior to that one. That would have swung the balance to vandalism for me. I see that they were reverted, and have since gone on to make various other nonsensical claims in the article - I have reverted, and given them a vandalism warning.

AryanTheArticleArtist (talk) 13:50, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

OK, well done on these. Hopefully you can see that it isn't always simple - users removing text, even without an edit summary, aren't always vandals; simlarly, quite innocuous stuff can be vandalism if you spot the pattern. There doesn't have to be a rush to judgment - accuracy is more important than speed.

Please note how I have formatted the diffs you presented above - using single square brackets, I can present them as links that don't take up a whole line - that makes talk pages much simpler to read. I'll post the next task shortly. GirthSummit _(blether) 14:52, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Warning and reporting

OK, so I think we're making progress on recognising the difference between clear-cut cases of vandalism, and other edits that might be vandalism, but which we are required to assume are good faith (though misguided). Just because we assume good faith doesn't mean we don't revert - we just to it differently, using different options in Twinkle, which will result in different edit summaries and user warnings.

The next section will explore how and why we revert and warn users, and will assume that you are using Twinkle. There are various other tools out there (I personally also use Huggle and Stiki, and there are others), but Twinkle is the classic, and it's probably still the one I spend most time using. When you use Twinkle to warn a user, you have a number of options to choose from: you can select the kind of warning (for different offences), and the level of warning (from 1 to 4, for increasing severity). Knowing which warning to issue and what level is very important. Please read WP:WARN and WP:UWUL, and then answer the following questions.

Please answer the following questions

Why do we warn users?

Why we warn users? Answer: It is a good idea to warn a user, we warn a user to let them know that their last edit was reverted for the following reason. It can also stop vandals from further vandalizing Wikipedia with the fear of being blocked. There are many warning templates and they should each be used for their purpose and reason.

Y This is essentially correct, although there is a bit more to it than that. Warnings are an important form of communication (to let people know exactly what it was they did wrong); they also help administrators see that a user has been informed multiple times about their problematic editing, in the case that we should report them to AIV. It's really important that you user warning templates when reverting edits, especially with new accounts; on the other hand, it's also very important that we don't WP:BITE new users, and so the 'level 1' warnings are quite polite and informative.

When would a 4im warning be appropriate?

When would a 4im warning be appropriate? a 4im warning template should only be used in the worst cases, for example, if a vandal keeps vandalizing despite being warned multiple times, it also depends on how bad the vandal has vandalized.

N You wouldn't use a 4im if the vandal had already been warned multiple times - that would be a regular level 4 warning. 4im is for one of two cases:

• The user has performed multiple vandalistic edits in quick succession, and you are the first to respond and warn them.
• The user has performed an outrageously offensive piece of vandalism.

I'd be careful not to issue 4im warnings unless you're certain - if in doubt, go for a lower warning level, and escalate through the stages.

Should you substitute a template when you place it on a user talk page, and how do you do it?

Should you substitute a template when you place it on a user talk page, and how do you do it? Yes, the templates must be substituted, I have tried this myself. The way you do it is by placing subst: behind the template. AryanTheArticleArtist (talk) 13:15, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Y Yes - if you use Twinkle, templates are substituted automatically; it's worth being aware of this though in case you have to add a more unusual template manually.GirthSummit _(blether) 18:12, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

OK, so we are making further progress. I'm about to send you out to find and revert some vandalism, but before I do that I want to make sure that we're clear on a few points. Please read, and ensure you understand, the following points. If you're not clear on anything, please ask.

• There is no rush. While you're getting more experienced, take your time to assess each edit. There are lots of other counter-vandalism editors out there, but it's not a race to be the first to revert - so long as the mess gets cleaned up, all is well.
• Removal of content isn't always vandalism If you see someone removing content, look to see what they've removed. Was it sourced? Was it reliably sourced? Did they leave an edit summary? Don't get me wrong - removing content is a 'red flag', and I would always investigate it - but oftentimes it's people removing unsourced nonsense. Especially on WP:BLP articles, removing unsourced content is actively encouraged, so don't be too quick to assume vandalism.
• Use an edit summary unless you are certain it is pure vandalism. If you are convinced that something is definitely vandalism, and are sure that nobody could possibly think otherwise, then you can use the Twinkle red 'vandalism' rollback feature. In all other circumstances, use a blue or a green rollback, and leave an edit summary. It doesn't have to be long, but say briefly why you removed it, e.g. 'Revert test edit' or 'Unexplained removal of sourced content', etc.
• IPs aren't all bad guys; they aren't even all newbies. As you've discovered, there are long-term, well-respected contributors out there who prefer to edit anonymously as an IP. That is permitted, it's their choice. If in any doubt, it's easy to check their contributions and see what they have been up to in the past.
• Communication is required. When working in counter vandalism, you may end up having vandals visit your user page or talk page - it's annoying, but it goes with the territory, and is easily cleaned up. You don't need to respond to them (indeed, you are actively encouraged not to - we'll do more on that later in the course). However, if someone comes to your talk page and asks you why you reverted them, or indeed tells you that you were wrong to do so, you are required to consider what they're saying, and apologise if necessary.

Please confirm that you are happy with all this, and I will set you the next task. Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 18:33, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

I am happy with all of this, thanks a bunch for all the information. AryanTheArticleArtist (talk) 19:23, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

OK - well then with all that in mind, I'm happy to say that you are ready to start looking for and reverting vandalism again. In the next task, I'll ask you to find vandalism, revert it, and appropriately warn the user. If they persist in vandalising, by all means continue reverting/warning, and report to AIV as necessary using Twinkle. Please, for now though, don't revert anything that you think might be good faith - we'll come onto that later.

Find and revert some vandalism. Warn each user appropriately, using the correct kind of warning and level. For each revert/warning please fill in a line on the table below.

#	Diff of your revert	Your comment. If you report to AIV please include the diff	Trainer's Comment
1	[1]	Edit is clearly bad faith	Y Definitely vandalism, but warning unsigned
2	[2]	Editor blocked after making multiple attempts of vandalism	I can't see the stuff you reverted because it's been revdelled (see WP:REVDEL), but that means that it must have been pretty egregious so I'm sure you were right about the vandalism. Warnings issued, but unsigned. Y
3	[3]	Bad faith, multiple attempts, see editors history	Y Definitely vandalism, but you didn't appear to warn them on their talk page.
4	[4]	Not appropriate on Wikipedia	Y Definitely vandalism, and warning issued, but in wrong section (see comments below)
5	[5]	Same user who is blocked	Y Definitely vandalism, but warning not escalated for second occasion (see comments below)
6	[6]	Might look like good faith, but the editor made multiple attempts again, see history	Y Definitely vandalism, and warning issued, but in wrong section (see comments below)
7	[7]	Multiple attempts of vandalism again by the editor	Y Definitely vandalism, warnings escalated, but unsigned.
8	[8]	Reverted this	Y Definitely vandalism, warnings escalated, but unsigned (and no section).
9	[9]	Not nice	Y Definitely vandalism, warnings escalated, but unsigned (and no section).
10	[10]	Vandalism again by the editor AryanTheArticleArtist (talk) 15:24, 8 February 2019 (UTC)	Y Definitely vandalism, warnings escalated, but unsigned.

Hello, I have a question. How&where do I open Twinkle?, I can't seem to find it anywhere. AryanTheArticleArtist (talk) 13:33, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Hi - you don't need to open Twinkle, if you enabled it in your preferences following the instructions at TWINKLE, you should automatically see a couple of changes in your browser:

The green and blue links allow you to write a manual edit summary; the red link is fastest, and leaves an automatic edit summary

• When you look at a diff in the revision history of an article, you will see some rollback options over the newer version - a green 'Rollback AGF', a blue 'Rollback' and a red 'Rollback Vandalism'. See the image.
• Near the top of the page, next to the 'Read', 'Edit' and 'View History' options, you will have a new drop-down menu, labelled 'TW' - those are your Twinkle options. When you roll someone back using one of the Twinkle options, you are automatically taken to their user page; once you're there, you just select 'Warn' from the Twinkle menu, and choose the warning you want to give them. It makes the process very easy - just a couple of clicks to revert and warn.

By the way, it would be really helpful if you can ping me when you update this page - that'll ensure I see your comments and get back to you as quickly as I can. CheersGirthSummit _(blether) 18:59, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Just to add - I am assuming that you are familiar with the 'Recent Changes' feed? You can access it from the blue links on the left of your browser - just in case you haven't used it before, that's a great way to monitor recent activities and find vandalism. You can set filters according to your own preferences, and save them for different types of work. When I'm looking for vandalism, I typically use the following filters:

• Likely bad faith
• Human (not bot)
• Latest revision
• Page edits
• Page creations
• Logged actions

You learn to get a sense of edits that are very likely to be vandalism - BLPs, articles on politics and the like are common targets, and I am always very suspicious of any edit summary along the lines of 'I made it better' or 'I fixed it'; also look out for 'Fixed typo' when there is a change of more than one or two bytes in the size of the article. Hope that helps! GirthSummit _(blether) 19:47, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Good work, AryanTheArticleArtist, I agree with your analysis above - all of these were definitely vandalism, and you were right to revert them all. I can see that you used Twinkle to perform the reverts, but it doesn't look like you were using it to issue the warnings. As I mentioned above, there were some issues with the warnings you were issuing...

• First, you weren't signing the warnings. If you use Twinkle to issue the warning, it will sign it for you automatically. Signing adds a timestamp, so others can see when the warning was issued, and who issued it.
• Second, in one instances you didn't escalate the warning for a second instance of vandalism. Remember to check the talk page to see what warnings are already there. Again - Twinkle will let you know if you are going to issue a 'level 1' warning to someone who has had one recently, and remind you to escalate.
• Also, you weren't creating relevant sections on the talk page for your warnings. Twinkle automatically creates a new section (if one isn't there already) along the lines of 'February 2019'. This means that other patrollers can see really whether warnings are old or new. (In one case, you added a new warning to a section called 'November 2018'.)

For all these reasons, it's best to use Twinkle to issue the warnings - so much is automated, it's much easier than doing it manually. GirthSummit _(blether) 13:04, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Find and revert a few more instances of vandalism. Warn each user appropriately, using Twinkle, and complete the table below.

#	Diff of your revert	Your comment. If you report to AIV please include the diff	Trainer's Comment
1	[11]	Attempt of vandalism by an IP	Y, but see comments below
2	[12]	Same IP again, warning 2 issued (used Twinkle this time, its great	Y
3	[13]	Reverted this one, clear sign of vandalism	Y
4	[14]	Another one reverted, user made multiple attempts on the same article, IP user	Y

NOTE: Something is wrong with the table, can't seem to fix it. Hope you can still read my edit.

No problem about the table, I might have set it up wrong - fixed now.

OK, this is better - you're using Twinkle, all of these have your signature and an appropriate section. The only other thing you need to look out for is whether the users already have a warning on their page. In each instance here, the IPs had already been given a level 1 warning by User:ClueBot NG - in these cases, you should proceed straight to level 2, since they are effectively just reinstating a vandalistic edit which has already been reverted once. Whenever you first arrive at a talk page to give a warning, check to see whether they have had one recently (in the last month or so). If so, escalate to the next level, rather than starting on level 1. GirthSummit _(blether) 16:49, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

Let's move onto Good Faith reverting and warning. Remember, you must not use a red Twinkle roolback for this - use Green most of the time, or Blue if you suspect vandalism but are not sure; always leave an edit summary explaining why you are reverting, and then go to the user's talkpage and give an appropriate (not vandalism) warning.

Find and revert some edits which you think are problematic, but which you assume are not intentional vandalism. Leave an appropriate edit summary, and an appropriate warning on the user's talk page.

#	Diff of your revert	Your comment. If you report to AIV please include the diff	Trainer's Comment
1	[15]	Blanking, removing text for no reason, no summary given by the editor. AGF	AGF was right for the first offense, and you escalated the removal of content warning appropriately; see comments below.
2	[16]	Edit is wrong AGF	AGF revert was correct, but I'd have used an 'unsourced content' warning for this one (since the cited sources assert that he was a Nigerian national, and there was nothing to suggest he was British; see comments below.
3	[17]	Blanking again AGF	Since this is the same editor repeating their blanking after a warning, you could have used a red vandal rollback here; appropriately warned.
4	[18]	Another blanking AGF	AGF revert correct, warned appropriately - see comments below.
5	[19]	100% not necessary AGF	Borderline AGF - the revert was fine, although I'd probably have used a 'blue' revert - sort of middle ground. However, the article had been vandalised a couple of minutes beforehand by a very similar IP (possibly two kids messing about it class) - I reverted to the last good version. (Update - actually, I screwed up there, and reverted to the wrong version! Fortunately another editor cleaned up my mess)
6	[20]	Not a good edit AGF	I'd probably have used a blue revert, or even a vandalism one here. The article is about a name, not a person, so the content is meaningless - some kids messing about, no doubt. Warning was appropriate, but see comments below.
7	[21]	New editor testing things out, AGF	This is vandalism. Look at the diff again, and replace the 99 with gg (these two characters are often swapped to avoid filters - similarly 5 for s, or 0 for o, 3 for E, etc) - the word becomes a (badly spelled) homophobic insult. I'd have done a red revert, and probably gone straight to a level 3 vandalism warning for this.
8	[22]	AGF, possibly vandalism but minor. AGF	This is vandalism - asserting that the subject of the article has a particular sexual fascination with feet would be irrelevant, even if it was sourced. Red vandalism revert; your warning was appropriate.
9	[23]	Not vandalism, this is likely good faith but problematic AGF	Your good faith was generous there - but better to assume good faith and be proved wrong, than the other way around.
10	[24]	Final Blanking AGF	The revert was reasonable - the user didn't use an edit summary, so it looked questionable; however, you should have used a 'removal of content' warning on their talk page. Also see comments below.

NOTE: Something is wrong with the table again, hehe.

OK - I don't agree with all your assessments, but that's OK, you're still 'getting your eye in', I'm sure you'll develop a sense for this with more experience. I've made one or two suggestions above where a different warning message might have been appropriate, but overall that all seems OK. I'm confused about the lack of edit summaries however - in the instructions above the table, I asked you to leave an edit summary explaining why you are reverting whenever you do a good faith revert - you haven't left an edit summary in any of the reverts you performed above. Yes, it says it's a 'Good faith' revert - but when you do that, you're expected to explain what you think is wrong with the edit. It doesn't have to be long and detailed - it can just be 'revert unexplained removal of content', or 'revert apparent test edit', but you should write something to explain why you reverted.

Let's try again - do another few and leave an edit summary. GirthSummit _(blether) 22:47, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

#	Diff of your revert	Your comment. If you report to AIV please include the diff	Trainer's Comment
1	[25]	Bad for a group of people, AGF	See comments below
2	[26]	Clear vandalism, multiple warnings are on editors page, V	Clear vandalism - you were right to revert and warn, although I think a level 4 was over the top - there hadn't been any warnings in about three months, probably a level 2 would have been sufficient.
3	[27]	Not neccessary for the topic, AGF	So, I agree that this wasn't necessary, and your revert and edit summary were fine; I probably wouldn't have used a warning template here though. I guess it was unsourced, so you could have used that, but it definitely wasn't disruptive or vandalisms - just bit more information than we needed. I'd probably just have AGF reverted and moved on.
4	[28]	Advertising on article, Rollback	Nice catch. Revert, edit summary and warning were all appropriate.
5	[29]	Page blanked, no reason given, editors first edit, AGF	Also good - revert, edit summary and warning all appropriate.

AryanTheArticleArtist - A good opportunity for you to practise editing tables - can you try to fix it this time? The double pipes (||) mark the cell borders - the number should be followed by a double pipe, then the diff, then another double pipe, then your comment. I insert my comment after the final double pipe on the line. I'll review the diffs after you've had a go at that. GirthSummit _(blether) 18:52, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

REPLY> Yes sir, I fixed it Y AryanTheArticleArtist (talk) 21:18, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing the table. I've looked through these diffs, and have provided comments on the later ones; I'd like to explore the first one a bit further. I'm not saying that you were wrong to make the revert, but I think we should explore the process for reverting in contentious areas. What investigation did you do prior to making the revert? GirthSummit _(blether) 14:19, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Reply: I didn't really investigate much, the edit didn't sound right to me. The edit feels like that it is trying to target a group of people in a negative way. Maybe I'm wrong, please correct me if so. Mistakes are good because then I can learn from them and avoid them.

OK, so with things like this you need to go carefully - it's vital to avoid being drawn into content disputes. If I had come across that edit, and was thinking about whether to revert, I would have looked at the source that was used to support the assertion in the first place - what do they call the group? Obvious vandalism, removal of sourced content and test edits are easy to identify, and nobody is going to question why you revert them; whether or not to call a particular terrorist group 'Islamic' or not is much more subtle, and you have to be prepared to justify your revert afterwards if called upon to do so. I haven't read through the sources carefully here, so I don't have a view on whether or not your revert was correct - however, the article is obviously a hotly contested subject, it's had more than 50 edits today alone! My advice to you would be to stay away from areas like this until you're more experienced. GirthSummit _(blether) 18:12, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

So, I hope that after this section you feel a bit more confident about identifying the difference between vandalism and good faith edits, and know how to deal with each using Twinkle. Let's move on to the next section...

@AryanTheArticleArtist: Just a quick note about this diff. You gave the user a vandalism warning; you'll notice that they self-reverted shortly after making the edit. I'd generally give a 'test edit' warning for that, unless the edit was really egregious - yes, they added silly stuff, but they removed it pretty much immediately so we normally treat that as a test. Just something for future reference. Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 10:49, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Protection and speedy deletion

Protecting and deleting pages are two additional measures that can be used to prevent and deal with vandalism. Only an administrator can protect or delete pages; however, anyone can nominate a page for deletion or request protection. If you have Twinkle installed, you can use the Twinkle menu to request page protection or speedy deletion (the RPP or CSD options).

Protection

Please read the protection policy.

In what circumstances should a page be semi-protected?

Semi-protection is used when an article needs to be protected for an X amount of time. It is helpful when an article is encountering massive amounts of vandalism in a very short time range. Important: This protection prevents only IP and non-autoconfirmed users from editing. Auto-confirmed users and of course administrators can still edit the article.

Y Specifically, this protection is used when a page is getting a lot of vandalism from various different IPs and/or new accounts. This is common with BLPs when the subject of the article is in the news - they get a lot of traffic for a short time, which then dies down when they are no longer so prominent. GirthSummit _(blether) 13:42, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

In what circumstances should a page be pending changes protected?

Pending changes is a bit similar to semi-protected, however, the article can still be edited when in pending changes mode, but it won't go public before it has been reviewed. It is used to stop rapid vandalism on an article, copyright violations or edits targeting articles of living persons. I think that this protection is "lighter" than a semi-protection lock.

Y You're right - this is considered 'lighter' than semi-protection. It's used for pages that attract a lower level of vandalism over long periods. It is more time-consuming to administer this level of protection (because edits need to be checked by users with the necessary permissions), so we don't use it on pages that are receiving a lot of vandalism - it's just for pages that receive long-term, low-level disruption. GirthSummit _(blether) 13:42, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

In what circumstances should a page be fully protected?

Articles under full-protection locks can only be edited by Wikipedia administrators, articles that have a high risk of vandalism tend to get protected, it could be important living individuals, or anything prone to a lot of vandalism. This lock isn't used too often, I haven't really seen one myself.

Y Yes, this is for prominent pages that would otherwise receive a lot of vandalism; it's also used for some templates, which, if vandalised, would cause huge disruption across the whole site.

In what circumstances should a page be creation protected ("salted")?

Articles that are deleted could be recreated again, and this lock prevents that. This lock is pretty simple, it is useful and has a great purpose.

Y Yes - normally this would happen if a page was recreated several times, after a decision at AfD that the subject was not notable. GirthSummit _(blether) 13:42, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

In what circumstances should a talk page be semi-protected?

User talk pages can be protected, however, this is very rare. A talk page must only be semi-protected in the absolute worst case of vandalism and destruction. Good reasons must be provided when requesting protection for a talk page.

Y

Correctly request the protection of one page (pending, semi or full); post the diff of your request (from WP:RPP) below.

Note: I have no luck finding an article that needs protection, can you tell me where to look for it. I looked around for a while.

This isn't something I can easily point you towards - it's something that will come up as you patrol recent changes. When you revert a vandal, always take a moment to check the article's history, as well as the user's contributions. If the user is repeatedly vandalising, we report to AIV naturally; if, on the other hand, the page is being repeatedly vandalised by different IPs/new accounts, use Twinkle to request page protection. There isn't a fixed threshold for the amount of disruption, but as a rule of thumb I'd say that if it has been vandalised by more than three IPs/accounts within the last two days, RPP is the way to go.

I suggest that you spend a few days patrolling new changes for vandalism. I'll do some spot checking of your work to ensure that you are on the right track; I expect that you'll come across a page that needs protection before too long. If you have any questions as you go along, please ask them here - remember to ping me though so I can respond quickly. GirthSummit _(blether) 13:42, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Here is my Protection request for semi-protection: [30] . For some reason, many articles related to Pakistan suddenly began being vandalised. When I went to see my addition on the protection request page, I saw many other articles related to the one I requested. AryanTheArticleArtist (talk) 18:12, 17 February 2019 (UTC) Quick update: Reported an IP on the Administrator intervention against vandalism page while I was patrolling and it successfully went through. The IP was banned. @Girth Summit: AryanTheArticleArtist (talk) 18:42, 17 February 2019 (UTC) Another UPDATE: The semi-protection request went through, it worked!

Perfect - well done! This is exactly the sort of situation that RPP is for, nice catch. I'll post the next task tomorrow. GirthSummit _(blether) 19:36, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Actually, I'll go ahead and add it now...

Speedy deletion

Please read WP:CSD.

​In what circumstances should a page be speedy deleted?

Speedy deletion can only be done by administrators, speedy deletion can save a lot of time because it can avoid a long deletion discussion of an article. However, there still must be good reasons for a page to get a speedy deletion. It could be because of a copyright issue that is ongoing or the article is in a bad shape (quality), or maybe there is a violation. @Girth Summit: AryanTheArticleArtist (talk) 08:32, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Please explain how you would request that a page be speedily deleted. GirthSummit _(blether) 10:44, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Yes sir, that is done by opening the Twinkle menu on the top and clicking CSD. WP:CSD AryanTheArticleArtist (talk) 11:33, 18 February 2019 (UTC) @Girth Summit: AryanTheArticleArtist (talk) 11:46, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Good - please review the following questions. GirthSummit _(blether) 16:06, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Speedy deletion examples

In past iterations of this course, students have been asked to go out and actually tag pages for deletion, but with the introduction of WP:ACPERM, the amount of straight vandalism that gets created directly in mainspace has reduced dramatically. As such, I'm going to ask you to say how you would act in a set of hypothetical scenarios. What would you do if you saw the page listed in each scenario? Note that not all scenarios may warrant speedy deletion.

Scenario 1

A user with the username "BobSucks" creates an article called "John Smith" that contains solely the following text:

John Smith is the worst elementary school teacher on the planet.

This one has bad intentions so I would request speedy deletion. It could just be a school student messing about and nothing too serious.

I would use a G3 here, it makes the most sense rather than the other ones.

Y G3 would work here, although a G10 (attack page) might be an even better choice - that automatically blanks the page as well. GirthSummit _(blether) 14:38, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Scenario 2

A user with the username "GoodTimesLLC" creates a user page with the following text:

'''Good Times LLC''' is an organization dedicated to helping your children get the highest quality education at an affordable price. Visit our website at goodtimes.info and contact us at 123-456-7890.

This one is clearly advertising/promotional. I would request a speedy deletion here too.

G11 here, the user also has a promotional user name.

Y GirthSummit _(blether) 14:38, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Scenario 3

A user creates an article titled "Edward Gordon" with the following text:

'''Edward Gordon''' (born July 1998) is an aspiring American actor and songwriter. So far, he has starred in many school plays and has published two albums on SoundCloud. He has over 5,000 subscribers on YouTube.

This one is a hard one, I would search and see if Edward Gordon really exists and is a person, but having 5.000 subscribers on Youtube isn't really what you would call famous. If this was up to me, I would request speedy deletion.

A7 is PERFECT here, just went over the criteria page and the no indication of importance fits nicely.

Y Correct - good idea to do a search first - if you came across any actual indications of significance or importance (such as mentions in reliable sources) then A7 wouldn't be appropriate - I agree with you though that 5,000 subscribers on YouTube, a few school plays, and a couple of self-published albums, is nowhere near enough to warrant an article. GirthSummit _(blether) 14:38, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Scenario 4

Lemmy is a badass. Editors who vandalize his article, or Motorhead's, are blocked immediately. Ritchie333 agrees, no doubt. Drmies (talk) 16:23, 12 March 2019 (UTC)}}

A user creates an article titled "Bazz Ward" with the following content:

Bazz Ward was a great roadie and I wish he was as well known as Lemmy. Cheers Bazz.

(Attribution: Ritchie333 came up with this scenario as a question to an old RfA candidate. I've borrowed his example here. Hint: Try Google searching a few key terms from this short article.)

This style of writing is an opinion of an editor and that is not how the articles are or should be on Wikipedia. It is written in poor quality too so I would request a speedy deletion here.

I took a good look at this case and I think the closest appropriate criteria is A7. Since this page is not important, and it isn't pure vandalism either.

Y OK, so this was a bit of a tricky one. A CSD A7 is fine, I expect most admins would agree with you, but if you'd searched a bit you would have found our article on The Nice, which mentions someone called Baz Ward, who used to work as a roadie for the band with Lemmy. The ideal thing to do in a situation like this, where the title of the article might be something that someone might search for, is to replace all the content with a WP:REDIRECT. GirthSummit _(blether) 14:38, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Scenario 5

A user creates an article that was clearly copied and pasted directly from another website, which states "All Rights Reserved" at the bottom of it. Would your answer be the same if it didn't state "All Rights Reserved" at the bottom?

This would be a copyright problem so I would request a speedy deletion right away.

I would use G12 here since it is a copyright problem, if there wasn't "All Rights Reserved" at the bottom, then this wouldn't be an issue.

I would use G12 here since it is a copyright problem Y

if there wasn't "All Rights Reserved" at the bottom, then this wouldn't be an issue N

G12 is the correct CSD to use, but please be clear that we assume any material published online or offline is copyright protected unless it is explicitly licensed for free use - just because it doesn't say 'all rights reserved' does not mean that we can use it. See WP:COPYVIO for more on this if you are interested.GirthSummit _(blether) 14:38, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Scenario 6

A user creates an article, but you can't understand any of it because it's in a foreign language.

This article needs to be removed since it was posted on the English Wikipedia, I would request a speedy deletion and write a note about it being in a foreign language.

I would use A2 here, respectively. And that is Foreign language articles that exist on another Wikimedia project.

Before nominating under A2, you would need to check that the article exists on another Wikipedia - if that is the case, then A2 works. If not, however, A2 would be declined. What you need to do is put some of the text into Google Translate and try to work out what it's saying. You may find that it's been copied and pasted from a website (so it's COPYVIO), or it might be promotional, or vandalism, or an attack page... if it's any of that, nominate with the appropriate CSD criterion. If you can't find anything wrong with it however, apart from being in a different language, then we don't actually delete it - we just flag it for translation, and hopefully a person fluent in the relevant langauge will come along and turn it into a good article for us. GirthSummit _(blether) 14:38, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Scenario 7

A user creates an article, but shortly after creating it, the same user blanks the article by removing all of its content.

The editor was probably just testing something out, or maybe he knew that his edit was not constructive, or just wanted to get rid of it. Not a big problem, if the article is left empty, I would request a speedy deletion.

G8 doesn't really fit in here so I would bet on G7. Because the author blanked the page.

Y GirthSummit _(blether) 14:38, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Scenario 8

A new user creates a user page with nothing but the following content:

Jlakjrelekajroi3j192809jowejfldjoifu328ur3pieisgreat

How would this scenario be different if the page was created in a different namespace?

Since it's on a user page and it doesn't contain any harmful or inappropriate content, it's okay. No deletion here. If this was made on other places then it would be spam, so I would then remove it.

Y Yes - on a user page this is fine; an article with this text with be a G1 CSD (patent nonsense).

Sorry I was very busy the last couple of days, the rest of this training will go smoothly again, no worries. AryanTheArticleArtist (talk) 17:33, 23 February 2019 (UTC) @Girth Summit:

Hi AryanTheArticleArtist, it's no problem to have short gaps when you need to - there's no rush with this, I understand that real life gets in the way sometimes!

With regard to your answers, in broad terms they are good, but I'd like you to be specific about which of the CSD criteria you would use for each instance. There are also a couple of sections of some of the questions that you haven't responded to - please read Scenarios 5 and 8 again closely and respond to both parts of the questions, and add in the criteria you would use to request each deletion. Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 18:21, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Updated AryanTheArticleArtist (talk) 13:55, 26 February 2019 (UTC) @Girth Summit:

Well done on these - a couple of notes you should read above, but generally good work. I'll put the next section on shortly. GirthSummit _(blether) 14:38, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Revision Deletion and Oversight

Please read WP:Revdel and WP:Oversight carefully.

Occasionally, vandalism will be so extreme that it needs to be removed from publicly accessible revision histories - the criteria for these are described in the guidelines noted above. Revision deletion hides the edit from anyone except admins; oversight hides it even from most admins.

If you believe an edit needs to be revision deleted, how would you request that?

To request an edit to be revision deleted, you must send an entry, so that an available administrator can review the case. The list of administrators that are willing to handle these requests is found here: [31]

If you believe that it's so serious it needs oversight, how would you request that?

The best way to request that is via sending an email to the oversight team, that can be done via this link: [32]

Important: The request details should not be posted publicly, therefore there is an email to contact.

@Girth Summit: AryanTheArticleArtist (talk) 13:39, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Y Yes - e-mailing an admin, or the oversight team, works. It's also possible to request via the admin IRC channel - here - that usually gets a faster response. I'll upload the next section shortly. GirthSummit _(blether) 13:43, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Emergencies

I hope this never happens, but as you participate in counter-vandalism on Wikipedia, it is possible that you may come across a threat of physical harm. In the past, we have had vandals submit death threats in Wikipedia articles, as well as possible suicide notes. The problem is, Wikipedia editors don't have the proper training to evaluate whether these threats are credible in most cases.

Fortunately, there's a guideline for cases like this. Please read Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm carefully and respond to the questions below.

Who should you contact when you encounter a threat of harm on Wikipedia? What details should you include in your message?

If I see a threat of harm, I should contact emergency@wikimedia.org. I have to include the name of the page/diff etc.

YGirthSummit _(blether) 14:58, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

What should you do if an edit looks like a threat of harm, but you suspect it may just be an empty threat (i.e. someone joking around)?

Important: No matter how it looks like, I have to contact the email.

YGirthSummit _(blether) 14:58, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

AryanTheArticleArtist (talk) 07:04, 2 March 2019 (UTC) @Girth Summit:

Just a note about pings - they don't work if you add them without adding your signature in the same edit. In a situation like this, the best thing is to delete the signature from your previous edit, add the ping, then resign - that way I'll receive it! GirthSummit _(blether) 14:48, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Experience building

@AryanTheArticleArtist: I've put the next section of this course below. In addition to working on that, I'd like you to do a bit more general work finding and reverting vandalism, and warning users appropriately - from your contributions, you don't seem to have done any of that since the 18th of Feb, and building up experience with it is a key part of this course. You don't need to post the diffs here, but I'll spot check your contributions and will let you know how I think you're getting on. Feel free to do the usernames task below first, or to come back to it after a few days. Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 14:58, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Usernames

Wikipedia has a policy which details the types of usernames which users are permitted to have. Some users (including me) patrol the User creation log to check for new users with inappropriate usernames (note that you can set this to view 500 users rather than the default 50 - I find that easier). There are four kinds of usernames that are specifically disallowed:

• Misleading usernames imply relevant, misleading things about the contributor. The types of names which can be misleading are too numerous to list, but definitely include usernames that imply you are in a position of authority over Wikipedia, usernames that impersonate other people, or usernames which can be confusing within the Wikipedia signature format, such as usernames which resemble IP addresses or timestamps.
• Promotional usernames are used to promote an existing company, organization, group (including non-profit organizations), website, or product on Wikipedia.
• Offensive usernames are those that offend other contributors, making harmonious editing difficult or impossible.
• Disruptive usernames include outright trolling or personal attacks, include profanities or otherwise show a clear intent to disrupt Wikipedia.

Please read WP:USERNAME, and pay particluar attention to dealing with inappropriate usernames.

Describe the what you would about the following usernames of logged in users (including which of the above it breaches and why). If you need more information before deciding what to do, explain what more you need.

BGates

This username impersonates another person, I will start talking to the person at first, you know, with some templates like this one: uw-username,. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Usernames_for_administrator_attention]

Y It potentially impersonates a famous person; on the other hand, it could just be the person's real name. Talking to them is a good idea, but I'd start by checking their contributions. If they were trolling on Microsoft-related articles, I'd report to UAA as misleading, or to AIV for vandalism; if, on the other hand, they were editing normally in unrelated areas, I'd probably just let it go - someone can't help it if their name is Brian Gates or Barbara Gates, and real names are allowed. GirthSummit _(blether) 12:40, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

LMedicalCentre

This username is promotional. This one needs to be reported here: [33]

Y - if they are editing in areas likely related to their company, or if you can find that there is a real place called 'L Medical Centre'. GirthSummit _(blether) 12:40, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

G1rth Summ1t

This username is very similar to another one, these types must be requested at [34], to be approved. In this case, I would start talking to the user by using this template: uw-username and ofcourse, substituting.

Y You've recognised that it's similar to my username, but a user name that similar to someone else's wouldn't be allowed even if it wasn't going to be used for trolling (which it almost certainly would be) because it is misleading. Report directly to UAA, noting the user they are trying to impersonate. (See User:Girth Summits for a recent example.)GirthSummit _(blether) 12:40, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

JoeAtBurgerKing

At first it didn't seem that bad, but it does use the company Burger King, I would use a template here at the start. uw-username.

N Actually, this one is fine - usernames are allowed to mention companies, provided they identify an individual - in this case, someone called Joe who presumably works for Burger King. What I would do would be to check the contributions - if they were editing articles about Burger King, there could be WP:COI or WP:PAID issues, which would need to be resolved, but the username itself is fine. GirthSummit _(blether) 12:40, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

JoeTheSysop

This one needs to be reported right away, he isn't allowed to have "sysop" in his name when he isn't one. I would report this one. [35]

Y Yes, report directly. GirthSummit _(blether) 12:40, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

H0rst Hof

This one has no problems that I see, its a good one too.

Apologies for this one - my fault, I copy/pasted these questions from a previous student's course page, and forgot to change the name. In this case, it is another attempt at impersonation, but if you don't recognise the username there's no reason you'd pick up on this.

Mz7isaloser

This one hates on a person so I would report this one too. [36]

Y GirthSummit _(blether) 12:40, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

😜

Emojis aren't allowed to be used in usernames, this one is a goner too.

N Emojis aren't allowed, but if you read dealing with inappropriate usernames carefully you'll see that a discussion needs to be had a WP:RFCN about emojis - to be honest, I'd probably check the user's contributions, and if they weren't causing any problems I'd just leave this one alone - if it was causing disruption, then a username warning on the talkpage would be a good please to start. GirthSummit _(blether) 12:40, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Note: I will now start patrolling then, the reason why I didn't do it was because I thought that I had to wait for your permission each time. Just thought to let you know. @Girth Summit: AryanTheArticleArtist (talk) 07:36, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

OK, sorry about that, I should have been clearer. Do please do some patrolling now, and I'll check your contributions periodically and see how you're doing before we proceed. Go at your own pace, I don't need you to do hundreds of reverts, I'd just like you to build up some experience. Let me know if you're not sure about an edit or if you have any questions. Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 12:40, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Small Update: By the way, I changed my signature, what do you think? ★AɾყαɳTԋҽAɾƚιƈʅҽAɾƚιʂƚ★ ✉ 17:17, 4 March 2019 (UTC) @Girth Summit:

​ Visually, I think it's rather appealing; however, it's broken the link to your user page, so it will need a bit of work. Look at how mine works - there is a pipe (|) between the username itself, and the text that appears - you should be able to do something like that. GirthSummit _(blether) 17:20, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks alot, I just fixed it, everything works now :D. ★AɾყαɳTԋҽAɾƚιƈʅҽAɾƚιʂƚ★ ✉ 17:35, 4 March 2019 (UTC) @Girth Summit:

I just came across a threat of harm, it does seem really fake, but I reported it anyway via the Responding to threats page. Here it is: [37] @Girth Summit: ★AɾყαɳTԋҽAɾƚιƈʅҽAɾƚιʂƚ★ ✉ 15:38, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree with you that this probably looks non-credible; however, you did the right thing by reporting it, as you are I are not trained to make that determination. If in any doubt at all, always report. Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 16:08, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

New Message: Hi, I have been researching some tools and I think that Huggle is an interesting one, though it requires rollback rights. I have been thinking about requesting rollback rights so I can speed up my process with Huggle. I have gained alot of knowledge from Twinkle and I think its time to step it up. Do you think that I'm ready and do you have any tips? @Girth Summit: ★AɾყαɳTԋҽAɾƚιƈʅҽAɾƚιʂƚ★ ✉ 19:16, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi AryanTheArticleArtist, I haven't had time to look carefully through your contributions over the last couple of days - an admin will definitely do that if you request rollback rights. I'd advise you to give me a day or two to have a proper look at your work so far - I hope to get some time tomorrow when I can do this. As an aside, have you read up about Stiki? That might be a better app to start with. GirthSummit _(blether) 19:47, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Just read the article about it and it sounds great! Take as much time as you need, there is no hurry. Thanks for the suggestion. @Girth Summit: ★AɾყαɳTԋҽAɾƚιƈʅҽAɾƚιʂƚ★ ✉ 20:11, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi AryanTheArticleArtist, I've been looking through your recent contribs. In general, I'd say it's a big improvement over where you were a couple of weeks ago - there are a couple of things I'd mention though...

• There were a few reverts, {https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Crown_of_Aragon&diff=prev&oldid=886319835 such] as these, that you labelled as spam in your edit summary. I have no problem with the reverts, but SPAM they weren't spam - spam is advertising, usually attempting to look like a valid source or external link. These examples were just silly vandalism. A simple 'not an improvement' or similar comment would have been better in these instances.
• This was vandalism, but you forgot to give the user a warning.
• This was another instance when you needed to check a bit more deeply - you reverted to the version of another vandal (who you had recently reverted!). If you notice the same page coming up in 'Recent changes' a couple of times, it's always worth taking a closer look.

These edits notwithstanding, I think you should be OK to try using Stiki. You can apply for permission to use it at Wikipedia talk:STiki - mention that you are going through the CVUA training with me, and ping me in your application - I will endorse it. Once you've done that, you'll need to install it - unlike Twinkle, it's not an add-on for your regular browser, but a separate Java application which allows you to look at queued diffs that ClueBot thinks are suspect, but has not reverted. Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 14:56, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, I will definitely improve myself, and I agree with everything you wrote. I just made a rollback request and pinged you in it. @Girth Summit: ★AɾყαɳTԋҽAɾƚιƈʅҽAɾƚιʂƚ★ ✉ 15:57, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi AryanTheArticleArtist - if you look at the advice I gave you above, I actually suggested that you apply for Stiki access at the Stiki talkpage. You and I have not gone through the rollback part of the course together, so I was not advising you to apply for rollback rights. You've maade the application now, so I'll leave a note on your application saying that we're working together, but I'd like you to undertake not to use rollback (or install Huggle) until we've been through the rollback assignments, and we've got you using Stiki - deal? Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 16:09, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Oh no! I'm deeply sorry, this is all my fault. I misunderstood it and I'm sorry if it caused trouble in any way. It's a deal. And sorry again. @Girth Summit: ★AɾყαɳTԋҽAɾƚιƈʅҽAɾƚιʂƚ★ ✉ 16:14, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Rollback

In light of your recent application for the permission, we'd better go through the necessary part of the course so you understand what rollback is for, and how you are expected to use it.

The rollback user right allows trusted and experienced vandalism fighters to revert vandalism with the click of one button, not unlike the "rollback" button that you've already been using in Twinkle. This would give you a new rollback button in addition to the three you've been seeing in Twinkle. The new rollback button is faster than the Twinkle rollback button, but more importantly, having rollback gives you access to downloadable counter-vandalism software like WP:Stiki and Huggle.

Please read our rollback guideline at WP:Rollback very carefully, and then, bearing in mind the difference between outright vandalism and good faith (but problematic) edits, answer questions below.

Describe when the rollback button may be used and when it may not be used.

Rollback should only be used for obvious vandalism as it reverts all edits of the user back to the previous version. It should not be used for good faith edits.

For personal use, it is acceptable to use it in your user page as well.

Y Correct - it's important not to use rollback on anything that you are not 100% sure is vandalism. GirthSummit _(blether) 17:16, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Hopefully this will never happen, but it does occasionally.

If you accidentally use rollback, what should you do? If that happens, you simply just revert your edit manually. You can add an edit summary saying "accidental rollback" for example.

Y You could indeed self-revert; alternatively, if you wanted to revert, but meant to do a regular revert instead of a rollback, you can follow up with a 'dummy edit', and leave an edit summary explaining the revert there. GirthSummit _(blether) 17:16, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Should you use rollback if you want to leave an edit summary?

No, rollback only leaves a generic edit summary. When dealing with vandalism, that generic edit summary that it generates is fine, but if it's good faith, then you must write an edit summary for it and that is something rollback can't do, rollback should only be used for clear vandalism.

Y Note: I will be very busy for the next 48 hours, it could cause me to not be online in that period, but everything will return to normal again after that. @Girth Summit: ★AɾყαɳTԋҽAɾƚιƈʅҽAɾƚιʂƚ★ ✉ 07:10, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

OK, these answers are correct. Hopefully you'll get the permission shortly, and we can start looking at Twinkle (STiki). GirthSummit _(blether) 17:16, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Hey Girth, any reason why it's taking a while, I am patient and all, just wondering. @Girth Summit: ★AɾყαɳTԋҽAɾƚιƈʅҽAɾƚιʂƚ★ ✉ 07:02, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

The page has been backlogged for a while - we just have to wait for an admin to have time to assess your contributions to date. It would probably help their decision if you were to continue patrolling recent changes and demonstrate active patrolling with Twinkle.

By the way, regarding this and this - you gave Level 3 warnings, but these were the first offences for a while - I would have started again with Level 1 warnings in these cases. If they have warnings from within the last month or so it's normal to escalate, but if it's been longer than that we would normally start again from the beginning. This is because we can't be sure whether it's the same user on the IP address - it could have been reassigned, or a different person using a public computer, so warnings from months ago wouldn't be relevant. Something remember when you carry on patrolling with Twinkle. Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 12:19, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Update: Hello, it looks like that the rollback request was accepted, thank you for your help. I have downloaded STiki and started using it for a couple of hours. I have an understanding of how it works. I think its time that we proceed with the course, shall we? - Thanks again for the help. @Girth Summit: ★AɾყαɳTԋҽAɾƚιƈʅҽAɾƚιʂƚ★ ✉ 19:12, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi AryanTheArticleArtist - yes, congratulations, your application was accepted. I just took a look at your contributions - you certainly got stuck straight into Stiki, looks like you figured it out pretty quickly, well done. I can see straight off that you are doing a mixture of good faith reverts and vandalism reverts, which is as it should be. Take time to investigate the leaderboard - as well as showing you the number of assessments you've made, it also shows the proportions of innocent, good faith revert and vandalism. If you look at the statistics for other users, you'll get a feel for whether your figures are broadly in line with theirs or not.

Give me a bit of time to review what you've done so far on Stiki, then I'll look through my notes and see where we need to go next in the training course. Congratulations again. GirthSummit _(blether) 19:20, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi - I've spot checked quite a few of the diffs of your Stiki reversion - good job! I didn't find any that I disagreed with, excellent work. One thing that I did notice though was that while all of your good faith reverts seemed to issue a warning, you had quite a few vandalism reverts where the user wasn't warned (eg: here, here, here and here). That might be a problem with Stiki, rather than with anything you were doing, but can I just check that you have the 'Warn Offending Editor' box ticked in the bottom left of your screen? If so, I might get in touch with the developer to see whether this is a known issue. Please confirm that the box is ticked, then try to find a few more vandalism reverts to do, and we'll check to see whether it's issuing warnings for you. Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 20:11, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the good news, The box you are talking about is checked, It does issue a warning most of the time, so I'm unsure of what could have happened. I will continue reverting using STiki. ★AɾყαɳTԋҽAɾƚιƈʅҽAɾƚιʂƚ★ ✉ 12:01, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

OK - you keep doing reverts, make sure that box is ticked when you do vandalism reverts, and I'll get in touch with the developer if the problem persists. GirthSummit _(blether) 12:10, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Good news - I can't see any more instances of vandalism reverts not accompanied by a warning - in fact, I noticed that you automatically reported a couple of vandals to AIV during your Stiki session, their accounts have now been blocked. Good job all round! Seems like Stiki is working well - I've got to go out now, but I'll check the notes and see where we need to go next in the training course soon. Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 16:58, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

​ Next section below... GirthSummit _(blether) 10:58, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Dealing with difficult users

Occasionally, some vandals will not appreciate your good work and try to harass or troll you. In these situations, you must remain calm and ignore them. If they engage in harassment or personal attacks, you should not engage with them and leave a note at WP:ANI. If they vandalise your user page or user talk page, simply remove the vandalism without interacting with them. Please read WP:DENY.

On the other hand - good faith users who disagree with your reverts may come to your talk page and ask you to explain why you reverted their edits. This is a collaborative project, and it is important for us to communicate with other editors who are here to improve the encyclopedia, even when they are misguided.

Why do we deny recognition to trolls and vandals?

It's quite simple, trolls and vandals seek attention and recognition, it is what fuels them. By simply reverting their edits without interacting with them is key. When they can see that they have offended you in any way or caused trouble, then they will keep on going. You must cut the fuel-source.

Y Absolutely - they're here to make a fuss and cause drama, if you give them what they want they are likely to keep doing it. IF we simply clean up the mess without giving them any recognition whatsoever, they're more likely to get bored and go away. GirthSummit _(blether) 12:58, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

How can you tell between a good faith user asking why you reverted their edit, and a troll trying to harass you?

A good faith user writes in a nice and polite tone, and addresses the issue/revert that you made and comes forward with his reasons. A comment from a troll or a vandal will most likely include profanity or "harassment" as you stated above. The edit can also be a key factor if you reverted obvious vandalism and the user writes to you about it (even with a nice tone) can still be a troll.

Y Hmm. I agree with the second part of your answer - look at the edits again, and think again about whether it's possible that they were acting in good faith. Civility is actually not a very good indicator - trolls sometimes pretend to be reasonable in order to get your attention and waste your time; good faith editors can get frustrated when they are reverted, and blow off some steam on your talk page - they might be rude, but it doesn't make them a troll or a vandal. The best thing is to look again at the diff, ignore any rudeness, and decide whether or not they are trolling you. If you think they're not, then you should engage civilly, and either apologise for the unnecessary revert or, if you think you were right, explain why you reverted them. Stay calm yourself, if they are good faith they will probably calm down and start acting reasonably. If they continue to harass you and make personal attacks then of course you can report them to ANI. GirthSummit _(blether) 12:58, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

@Girth Summit: ★AɾყαɳTԋҽAɾƚιƈʅҽAɾƚιʂƚ★ ✉ 12:24, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Looking at your talk page just now, I can see that there are two sections that probably require a response.

• This message is extremely rude - however, I don't think it's a vandal, rather it's a good faith editor blowing off steam. I think you ought to respond to this. Looking through the IP's contributions, I see that it was a change to Liquorice that you reverted, and having read the cited source I agree that the IP's contribution was valid. Their comment on your talk page was out of line, you should still respond. If this was on my talk page, I'd say something along the lines of 'Hi, thanks for reaching out. I've checked your contribution again, and agree that I was wrong to revert, so apologies for that. As an aside, I'd draw your attention to our guidelines on civility, and especially to WP:NPA. Even if someone reverts you incorrectly, there's really no need to be abusive on another editor's talk page.'
• This was left by someone who you reverted when they added unsourced content. You were right to revert them, although I noticed you used the generic 'better before' message rather than the 'Unsourced content' message, which would have been a better choice. They've reinstated their edit now with a source - I think you should reply saying something along the lines of 'Hi, thanks for letting me know. As I'm sure you're aware, information needs to be verifiable, and I reverted your original edit because you didn't provide a source; I can see that you've added a source this time, thanks.'

I hope that all makes sense - please respond to these two users appropriately. Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 12:58, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

I just responded to them both, I agree with the responses that you mentioned above. One of the reasons of the second revert had to do with the tone of the edit summary. It isn't really that friendly in my opinion. ★AɾყαɳTԋҽAɾƚιƈʅҽAɾƚιʂƚ★ ✉ 16:12, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree with you on the tone; however, we have to rise above that sort of thing. Unfortunately, some people can be rude, bossy, needlessly argumentative - but if they're adding useful content, then it's a net benefit to the project. Try to ignore people's tone and just look at the content when judging whether or not to revert, or indeed whether or not to response to talk page messages.

Right, I'll upload the next section shortly. Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 17:08, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Hey Girth, haven't heard from you in a while, so I thought to write you a message. @Girth Summit: ★AɾყαɳTԋҽAɾƚιƈʅҽAɾƚιʂƚ★ ✉ 14:51, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi Aryan, sorry it's been a while, I've been a bit distracted with other stuff. I've done a quick spot check through your recent work, it's mostly looking good, although watch out for things like this - the user changed a hyphen to an en dash, I wouldn't have reverted that. If you look in MOS:HYPHEN, you'll see all sorts of complicated rules about which type of hyphen/dash to use in which situation - I don't claim to understand them myself, but there are people who are sticklers for this - it's est just to let them get on with it, you really don't want to end up in an argument with them!

I think we've covered everything in the course now - the next step is the final exam. I'll upload the questions later on tonight when I get a moment. cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 15:10, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

​ OK Aryan - the final exam is below. Take your time, you don't need to complete it all in one go - just ping me when you've finished. I don't think you'll need it, but good luck anyway! GirthSummit _(blether) 19:43, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Final Exam

When responding to numbered questions please start your response with "#:" (except where shown otherwise - with **). You don't need to worry about signing your answers.

Part 1

For each of these examples, please state whether you would call the edit(s) described as vandalism or good faith edit, a reason for that, and how you would deal with the situation (ensuring you answer the questions where applicable).

1. A user inserts 'ektgbi0hjndf98' into an article. What would you do if it was their first warning? What about after that.

   If they don't have any warnings on their talk page, I would issue a test edit AGF. If I see that they already have a warning(s), I would issue a vandalism revert.

   Y Definitely revert; I'd probably continue with escalating the good faith test edit reverts until you get to past level 3. (There isn't a level 4 test warning - after three test warnings, then you switch to a level 4 vandalism, then finally report).

2. A user adds their signature to an article after one being given a {{Uw-articlesig}} warning. What would you the next time they did it? What about if they kept doing it after that?

   I would issue the next warning level, if this action continues past the final warning, I would report the user here: [[38]]

   Y Uw-articlesig is a single level warning - it doesn't have any more levels to go up to. The correct approach would be to treat them as test edits, escalating the test warnings until you get to past level 3.

3. A user adds 'John Smith is the best!' into an article. What would you do the first time? What about if they kept doing it after that?

   I would use a test edit AGF warning the first time. Multiple attempts will result in me giving them vandalism reverts.

   Y

4. A user adds 'I can edit this' into an article. The first time, and times after that?

   I would use a test edit again for the first time. I would use a vandalism revert if it keeps on going. Even if that doesn't stop the user, this would be necessary [[39]].

   Y As above - better to escalate the test edit warnings until you get past level 3.

5. A user removes sourced information from an article, with the summary 'this is wrong'. First time, and after that? What would be different if the user has a history of positive contributions compared with a history of disruptive contributions?

   "This is wrong" is not acceptable, the user must provide evidence if it is in fact wrong. I would revert it with AGF. If the user has a history of disruptive contributions, I would do a vandalism revert. I know that the user has a troll mentality.

   N You need to be more careful than that - remember we discussed this earlier in the course? They might have good reasons for removing it, but not understand the importance of explaining themselves properly. I've known recent counter vandalism editors get their accounts blocked for reinstating content that was actually a BLP violation, because they didn't investigate properly. If someone removes content, don't just check to see whether there is a reference - check that the reference supports the assertion, and that it's reliable, before reinstating the content. Nine times out of ten you'll find that the content was fine, so then go ahead and revert/warn - but one time in ten, you'll find that it was improperly sourced, in which case you're better off leaving it alone, or even making a dummy edit in order to leave a more descriptive edit summary so that other patrollers know that it was a valid removal. Please be careful about this sort of thing. GirthSummit _(blether) 13:28, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Part 2

Which templates warning would give an editor in the following scenarios. If you don't believe a template warning is appropriate outline the steps (for example what you would say) you would take instead.

1. A user blanks Cheesecake.

   This would be appropriate: subst:uw-blank1, The user clearly blanked the entire page, and I'm assuming without an edit summary as well.

   Y

2. A user trips edit filter for trying to put curse words on Derek Jeter.

   Depending on the warning history of this user, I would issue the correct level of the vandalism warning.

   Y See subst:uw-attempt1 - that's a better warning to use. You can escalate that as required. However, the vandalism one would do the job too.

3. A user trips edit summary filter for repeating characters on Denis Menchov.

   Edit test here, subst:uw-test1.

   Y Again, that warning would do the job, but subst:uw-efsummary would be better.

4. A user puts "CHRIS IS GAY!" on Atlanta Airport.

   I would issue a vandalism warning depending on the users warning history.

   Y

5. A user section blanks without a reason on David Newhan.

   I would give the user a blanking message via the AGF tab.

   Y

6. A user adds random characters to Megan Fox.

   I would issue a test edit here subst:uw-test1, depending on the user history.

   Y, but remember to keep escalating as good faith tests until you pass level 3.

7. A user adds 'Tim is really great' to Great Britain.

   This would be an opinion and I would revert it via the AGF tab.

   Y You didn't say which warning you'd issue; either test edit or vandalism would be OK.

8. A user adds 'and he has been arrested' to Tim Henman.

   I would revert this edit with subst:welcome-unconstructive, even if the tennis player had been arrested. This information is unhelpful in this case. If the person was a wanted fugitive, this would make sense, but not a tennis player unfortunately.

   Y subst:uw-biog1 is the correct warning here - it gives information about our BLP policies. Even if the information is true, it needs a source before it can be put onto a BLP.

9. A user blanks Personal computer, for the fifth time, they have had no warnings or messages from other users.

   This is why it is always important to issue warnings, I will begin from scratch issuing the level 1 warning.

   N This is why we have the 4im warnings - an administrator can check their contributions, and see that they have been doing it multiple times, so you can go straight to 4im.

10. A user blanks Personal computer, for the fifth time, they have had four warnings including a level 4 warning.

    I would report this right away here: [40]

    Y

11. A user blanks your userpage and replaced it with 'I hate this user' (you have had a number of problems with this user in the past).

    I would revert the user's edit, and attempt to get in contact with the user knowing what the problems are. It could have been something I reverted.

    Y It's your call, but you would be within your rights to ask for intervention to stop the harassment. You could use a warning such as subst:uw-harass4im, or you could take it to AIV (if the account has done vandalism elsewhere) or to ANI if they also do constructive edits. I think an admin would block any account for putting something like that on your user page.

12. A user adds File:Example.jpg to Taoism.

    I would revert this issuing a test edit subst:uw-test1, since the picture has nothing to do with the article, the article already has a picture too.

    YGirthSummit _(blether) 13:42, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Part 3

What CSD tag you would put on the following articles? (The content below is the article's content).

1. Check out my Twitter page (link to Twitter page)!

   G11 here, it is promotional.

   Y

2. Josh Marcus is the coolest kid in London.

   A1. No context would be appropriate.

   Y Note that A7 is probably a better choice - no claim of significance or importance.

3. Joe goes to [[England]] and comes home !

   A1 here again.

   Y

4. A Smadoodle is an animal that changes colors with its temper.

   A11, this is obviously invented by someone.

   Y

5. Fuck Wiki!

   G3 here, it is vandalism.

   Y GirthSummit _(blether) 13:45, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Part 4

Are the following new (logged in) usernames violations of the username policy? Describe why or why not and what you would do about it (if they are a breach).

1. TheMainStreetBand

   If there is a band called TheMainStreetBand, this would be promotional. It is also a big factor if they start editing the article "TheMainStreetBand" if it exists of course. I would report it here: [41]

   Y - Yes, promotional, and implies shared use.

2. Poopbubbles

   This isn't too bad, it's not really that offensive. I would advise that the user reads the username policies and try to pick a different one.

   Y Yes, it's not grossly offensive. I'd probably check their contributions, but if they weren't vandalising I'd probably just leave them alone.

3. Brian's Bot

   This one is misleading, pretending to be a bot. I would report this here: [42]

   Y

4. sdadfsgadgadjhm,hj,jh,jhlhjlkfjkghkfuhlkhj

   This one is too long and confusing, I would start by sending them a message including a link to username policies.

   Y

5. Bobsysop

   This one is a clear violation, "Bob" is not a sysop and needs to stop pretending to be one (misleading). I would report this here: [43]

   Y

6. 12:12, 23 June 2012

   This one is misleading, regarding the timestamps. I would report it here: [44]

   Y I agree with you that it's confusing. I'm not 100% sure that UAA would act on it - remember that the alternative would be to start a discussion at WP:RFCN.

7. PMiller

   I don't see any issue with this username. This is permitted.

   Y

8. OfficialJustinBieber

   This username is misleading because it impersonates Justin Bieber. I would report this here: [45]

   Y GirthSummit _(blether) 13:48, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Part 5

Answer the following questions based on your theory knowledge gained during your instruction.

1. Can you get in an edit war while reverting vandalism (which may or may not be obvious)?

   I read a little about this and if it is obvious vandalism, then it's okay. Otherwise, participating in edit wars is a bad idea and can lead to trouble.

   Y Yes - if it is obvious vandalism, or meaningless test edits, then you're OK. Also if someone is inserting unsourced controversial material into BLPs, you can revert as many times as necessary. But if there is any chance that it is good faith attempts to improve the article, even misguidedly, then don't edit war - start a conversation with them on the article talk page.

2. Where and how should vandalism-only accounts be reported?

   They should be reported here: [46], further information about the vandal must be included.

   Y

3. Where and how should complex abuse be reported?

   I took some time to study this one, I suppose it should be reported here: [47], since it is complex.

   Y

4. Where and how should blatant username violations be reported?

   Here you go: [48]

   Y

5. Where and how should personal attacks against other editors be reported?

   I don't think I would report this if it was against me, it really depends on how severe it is.

   Y That's your call, but be aware that ANI is the right venue should you ever feel it necessary.

6. Where and how should an edit war be reported?

   It should be reported here: [49], you must also provide details about the war, including diffs.

   Y You can make the report using Twinkle - much easier than trying to do it manually.

7. Where and how should ambiguous violations of WP:BLP be reported?

   That should be done here: [50]

   Y GirthSummit _(blether) 13:53, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for this wonderful test, it was enjoyable. ★AɾყαɳTԋҽAɾƚιƈʅҽAɾƚιʂƚ★ ✉ 14:07, 20 March 2019 (UTC) @Girth Summit:

Congratulations

Well done AryanTheArticleArtist - with a score of 78%, I'm delighted to report that you have completed and passed the CVUA training. Do please note the comments above where I've noted any mistakes, but overall I think you've gained a solid understanding of counter vandalism work on Wikipedia. Your dedication to improving your understanding of policy, and your efforts in removing vandalism from the project, are really appreciated.

Should you ever want to start using Huggle, I'd be happy to let you know my thoughts on it. Again, congratulations. GirthSummit _(blether) 14:00, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Hello, Thank you again for taking me through the course. I have learned countless things throughout the entire course and I am more than happy. You have been a great trainer and made the course easy to understand, step by step.

I also added this template User CVUA|graduate to my user page.

I have decided to start using huggle, but not before I hear your thoughts about it. I would like to be fully prepared beforehand. @Girth Summit: ★AɾყαɳTԋҽAɾƚιƈʅҽAɾƚιʂƚ★ ✉ 08:15, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Well, Huggle is a lot like Stiki - it's another diff browser. However, instead of showing you queued diffs from the past few hours or days like Stiki does, it presents them real time, as they come in - more like 'recent changes' in that respect, but much faster. With a single click or shortcut keystroke, you can revert the edit and warn the user automatically, so it's really quick and easy to revert vandalism. That's why, when using recent changes, you're often 'beaten to the revert' by someone using Huggle - if they see the same diff as you, it's quicker for them to revert it than it is with Twinkle.

So much for the positive - for me, the real time nature of it presents a negative side as well. You can see what other Hugglers are doing, and unlike Stiki (which only shows each diff to a single person at a time), other Hugglers are reviewing the same edits as you - you might be looking at a diff, and it will be reverted by someone else while you're considering it. That happens all the time, and it can lead to a sense of urgency - you want to make decisions quickly, and beat the others to the revert. I don't use Huggle very much myself for this reason - I can feel myself wanting to make snap decisions, and I don't like the feeling. I prefer using Stiki, where I can take my time.

Don't get me wrong - Huggle is a fantastic tool, and people like Oshwah, Shellwood, Serols etc use it very effectively to keep the majority of vandalism off Wikipedia; I prefer to do a slightly different job, using Recent Changes and Stiki to mop up the things that they miss. Both jobs are important, it's just a question of which you enjoy doing - we're all volunteers here, we do what we prefer doing.

If you decide to get into Huggle, I'd urge you not to resist any temptation to rush. I have seen more than one experienced Huggle patroller blocked because they started making hasty decisions, and I wouldn't want you suffer the frustration they went through - a couple of them have retired permanently because of the bad feeling it produced. Remember that anything you do with Huggle is subject to the rollback usage limitations, and you don't get a free pass if 99% of your reverts are valid and only 1% are bad decisions - Huggle lets you make a lot of reverts very quickly, and 1% of a big number is enough to get you blocked or your rollback rights rescinded.

Anyway, that's my take on it. Oshwah is always really supportive and approachable, I'm sure he'd be open to discussing this with you if you'd like to get an alternative view or some tips on effective Huggling. Congratulations again, and good luck with it. GirthSummit _(blether) 08:42, 25 March 2019 (UTC)