User:Yunshui/CVUA/Lor

Hi, and welcome to your CVUA school. By the time you've completed the tests and tasks here, you should have a good working knowledge of Wikipedia's policies and processes with regards to vandalism, and should have no difficulty understanding and dealing with 99% of the the things you'll encounter in this area. You can ask me questions on my talkpage at any time if you aren't sure about anything here, and I also welcome suggestions for ways of improving this course.

You can complete the sections in any order; let me know when you've finished one and I'll mark it and close it for you. Save for a few cases, there are generally multiple ways to answer the questions; not many of them have clear right/wrong answers. Although I'll always try and give a reason for each mark, the basic responses you'll see are:

• Y Good answer; interprets policy correctly and shows a sound understanding of the issues involved.
• Y Incomplete/insufficient answer; whilst partly correct, there are better responses to this question.
• N Poor answer; shows an inadequate understanding of the policies and guidelines concerned.

Have fun!

Vandals

Because anyone can edit Wikipedia, not all the edits that are made are constructive - some, in fact, are deliberately disruptive and need to be reverted. Please have a read of this essay and this guideline, then answer the questions and perform the tasks below. There's no time limit for this, it's more important that your work in this area be accurate than fast. If you aren't sure whether it's vandalism or not, it probably isn't.

Good faith and vandalism

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

:A good Faith Edit Is An Edit that Wasn't necessarily meant as vandalism but just Unintentionally Doesn't Adhere to Wikipedia Policy. A Vandalism Edit is Bladent Vandalism With nothing to suggest it wasn't made unintentionally.

Y The definition of Good Faith is okay, but your second sentence basically says, "Vandalism is vandalism," which doesn't tell me much about your understanding of it. Please could you expand a bit on your answer?

A good faith edit is most of the time a user that is new, does not know much about wikipedia policy, and has broken a policy for some reason. A vandalism edit is an edit to intentionaly disrupt Wikipedia. If it's adding the text "POOPY!" to an article, or replacing all the words in an article with Lorem ipsum.

Y Yep, that's a textbook definition.

• Please find and revert three examples of good faith but unhelpful edits, and three examples of vandalism. Please warn the editors with the correct template and give the diffs of your revisions below.

Vandalism

• [1] and User talk:66.27.221.79 (no dif Due to First Edit on page)
  

Y Definitely vandalism, and that was the correct warning template to use.

• [2] And User talk:175.100.61.234
  

Y Again, correct on both the revert and the warning.

• [3] No Warning As Reported At AIV
  

N Not only was this not vandalism, but you also reintroduced a spelling error by reverting the edit. We've already discussed the AIV report.

Good Faith

• [4] No Warning As Good Faith Edit

Y Yes, this is not vandalism but it doesn't really belong there. You can always leave a custom message on the user's talkpage to let them know why you reverted them - templates aren't the only way to communicate!

• Revert: [5] Warning (level one as good faith): [6]

Y This one's on the cusp, but it's always better to assume good faith, and the warning was completely appropriate.

• Revert:[7] Warning (Level one): No Diff Due to first Edit on page

Y Revert was correct, and a good choice of warning.

Warning and reporting

• Please answer the following questions
  • Why do we warn users?

:Three Reasons

1. We can Check what that User/IP Did Without Checking their Contribs (Even Iff they remove the warnings because there would be a saved Copy of the page)
2. Admins Jobs Get easyer Because when they get reports at AIV they just have to check the offending Users talk page to make sure the user that reverted it warned them
3. Because its Easier than checking the reverts Edit summaries

Y That's pretty much the same reason stated in three slightly different ways - whilst ease of review is indeed one of the reasons we issue warnings, it's not the only one, or even the most important.

Quite a few reasons. First, it tells the user what they did wrong if they did not know before, most edits that are against guidelines (Well at least we hope), the user does not know about the guidelines. Another reason is that it's housekeeping. It saves the effort of checking the Offending user's Contribs in the rare (Well..Hopefully Rare) chance a report is made about it.

Y Yes; the main reason we warn users is in the (often vain) hope that they will change their ways.

• • When would a 4im warning be appropriate?

When the User has done vandalism That Isn't a good faith edit that is a personal attack or someone else's Personal details (anything that would be suppressed at WP:OS )

Y Anything worthy of supression is indeed probably worthy of a 4im warning, but there are some other occasions when you could use it.

4im warnings are for vandalism thats...Just...Dirty. Like, a naked photo that's defamatory to someone, or even the location of where somebody lives. It's not taken lightly, and it's very unlikely that this type of warning is used. But sometimes, it has to be used. Lots of opinions i see go around on where a 4im warning is meant to be used. In my own opinion, it's just for things you think are pulling away from your average vandalism. Though it should never be used for good faith edits. Only when you have good reason to Assume bad faith.

Y Good answer; it's basically for any vandalism that needs to be stopped right away (serious BLP violations, oversightable material etc.). You can also use it if a user has made a large number (>4) of vandalism edits but for some reason hasn't been warned previously (remember to check for removed warnings in the talkpage history first, though).

• • What should you do if a user who has received a level 4 or 4im warning vandalises again?

Report it to AIV and Notify the User/IP they have been reported (Depending on the type of vandalism)

Y Yep - notification is a nice touch, but it's not required.

• Please give examples of three warnings that you might need to use while vandal patrolling and explain what they are used for.

"{{subst:uw-vandalism1}} Is for Vandalism that doesn't fit into anything else but isnt as Unique to fit into {{subst:uw-disruptive1}}

Y It's for vandalism, yes, but the rest of your answer doesn't really tell me about your understanding of the warning - when, for example, would you use this warning as opposed to {{uw-vandal2}} or {{uw-disruptive1}}?

Speaking (or in this case writeing) of {{subst:uw-disruptive1}} Is used for vandalism that doesn't fit into anything else but doesn't fit into {{subst:uw-vandalism1}}

N As above. {{uw-disruptive1}} is worded more severely than {{uw-vandal1}} - why would you use one in preference to the other?

{{subst:uw-test1}} Is for edit tests that are not in the sandbox...Think that doesn't need much Explaining.

Y Yes, that's pretty much right.

{{uw-vandalism1}} is for mostly assuming good faith, or warning and welcoming the user at the same time. {{uw-disruptive2}} is for edits that would not be classified as vandalism, but still are disruptive. It's like saying Yunshui Is a pickle, it may be insulting, and if it is, then you can give them a warning for not being Civil. {{uw-test1}} is for test edits not in a sandbox...That is all. To add onto this confusing structure of warnings though, there is warning levels. Such as. Level 1 for very new users. Level 2 for users that may not be new, or if you don't want to use a level 1 template. Level 3 is slightly with a harsher tone of language, and should be used when they keep [Put thing that you warn user about here]. Level 4 is when things have got out of hand and it's your final warning to the user. Level 4im is for when your assuming bad faith, and you are only giving one warning to the user.

Y Pretty much right on the specific templates, but the levels of warning don't work quite like that. The warnings are strictly cumulative: level one for a first offence, level two if they do it again after receiving a level one warning, level three if they do it again after that, level four if they carry on after that, and AIV if four warnings hasn't served to convince them. You don't really need to worry about how long the user's been here; just see how many times they've been warned before and judge your warning level based on that.

• Find and revert some vandalism. Warn each user appropriately, using the correct kind of warning and level. Posts the diffs of those warnings below.

[8] Warning: [9]

N That isn't really vandalism - it's a user trying to add what they see as a pertinent piece of information to the article. They went about it the wrong way, but it hardly merited the smackdown of a level 4 BLP warning - note that the previous warning was about two two weeks old, so it's unlikely to be the same person behind the IP address.

So It wasn't Adhering to WP:NPOV @Yunshui: Dudel250 Chat PROD Log CSD Logs 08:45, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

More like WP:V, with a touch of WP:BLP. It looks to me as though the user thought, "Hey, I know this thing about that guy!" and stuck it in the article without knowing that we requires sources for, well, everything really. New users don't know policy, remember.

• Find an edit which could be a test edit and revert it. Warn the user with the most appropriate template, then post the diff below.

[10] No diff of warning due to first edit on page

Y Hmmm - I'd have been a bit less generous here, that looks like straight-up vandalism to me. What could they possibly be trying to test with that edit?

• Report 2 users to AIV and post the diffs below. Be sure to follow the guidelines and only report users where necessary; do not report simply for the sake of this task.

[11]

Y Valid report, and the IP was blocked for a week as a result.

[12]

Y Definitely a vandal, and a block was issued as a result.

Dealing with difficult users

• Why do we deny recognition to trolls and vandals?

It's more of a preventive measure if anything. It stops us getting stressed, being stressed 5/10 of times causes us to not monitor our actions properly and we end up giving them "Fuel" of sorts. (Yes, feel free to put a on that) Another good reason is because we might end up giving them ideas..Like deleteing the main page!.

Y Fortunately the Main Page can't be deleted, even by admins (that was one of the first things I checked when I got my tools...). You've hit the nail on the head with the idea of "fuelling" vandals; acknowledging their childish actions sometimes encourages them to seek attention by continuing.

• 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 for the most part will be Civil (Well, for the most part. sometimes they can have good intentions but not the right attitude.) And a troll might Attempt to insult you, either because of race, religion, editing beliefs, or...sigh Interests that you show on your User page.

Y Civility is a good litmus test, but the "best" trolls (i.e. best at trolling) can be extremely civil. An additional characteristic to monitor is that trolls will tend to be repetitive, repeating the same arguments over and over with only slight variations regardless of how rigrorously you dismantle their logic. They'll also tend to be drawn to more contraversial topics, and will often espouse (or pretend to espouse) quite extreme positions on those topics.

@Yunshui: Point taken, i haven't seen many of them around Wikipedia though. So i figured it was not worth mentioning that. (Though then again, around half a year ago i was too lazy to spell. So i may be quite wrong) Lor^Chat 08:49, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Protection

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

When a large amount of vandalism from IPs or New accounts seems to happen. Either because of pure "luck" so many people are vandaliseing it, or a 4chan raid.

Y We haven't had one of those in a while.

• In what circumstances should a page be fully protected?

When a large amount of Edit warring is happening by users who are not IPs or new. As Gamergate has shown us. This only really happens when the article is a sensitive subject. This also happens on certain pages for Adminstrive reasons. Like on the AWB check page.

Y Yes, that's far and away the most common reason for full protection.

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

Semi protected for one week due to sock puppetry and vandalism cross-wiki. User has also been global blocked and this may end up warranting a Long term abuse case in the future.

Y Good call.

Related pages

• Anti-vandalism for beginners
• Twinkle for beginners