User:FormalDude/Mentorship/TeddyBearRocker123

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Welcome to your adoption school! This will be the page where you complete assignments and communicate with me about the course. I'll start each lesson with some information and wikilinks that covers the topic. Please read the lesson and the page links included in it, and ask any questions you may have. Then we'll proceed to a quiz for each lesson. ––FormalDude talk 22:44, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Lesson 1: The Five Pillars of Wikipedia

One of the most important essays in Wikipedia is WP:FIVEPILLARS which is designed to summarize why we're here.

• Pillar one defines Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. It suggests some things that we are not. Thoughts about what we are not are covered in the deletion lesson.
• Pillar two talks about neutrality, a concept that this lesson will be concentrating on.
• Pillar three talks about free content. The Copyright lesson will go into this in more detail.
• Pillar four talks about civility. Wikipedia is a collaborative working environment and nothing would ever get done if it wasn't. I'll go into civility more during the dispute resolution module.
• Pillar five explains that Wikipedia does not have firm rules. This is a difficult concept and will be covered in the Policy and consensus lesson.

How articles should be written

The articles in Wikipedia are designed to represent the sum of human knowledge. Each article should be written from a neutral point of view – personal opinions such as right and wrong should never appear, nor should an editors experience. Neutrality also means giving due weight to the different points of view. If the broad scientific community has one set of opinions – then the minority opinion should not be shown. An example is in medicine – if there was an article on say treatment of a broken leg, a neutral article would not include anything on homeopathy.

To ensure that the information in an article is correct, Wikipedia has adopted a policy of verifiability. Anything written in Wikipedia should be available to confirm by looking at the associated reliable source. Wikipedia should not include anything not verifiable by seeing it is published elsewhere; in other words, it should not contain anything original.

Reliable sources

So what is a source? Wikipedia uses the word source for three interchangeable ideas – a piece of work, the work's creator or the work's publisher. In general, you would expect a reliable source to be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both. This doesn't mean that a source that is reliable on one topic is reliable on every topic, it must be regarded as authoritative in that topic – so while "Airfix monthly" may be a good source on the first model aeroplane, it probably would not be authoritative on the Boeing 737.

A source that is self-published is in general considered unreliable, unless it is published by a recognized expert in the field. Generally, self-published sources aren't considered reliable. This means that anything in a forum or a blog and even most websites are considered unreliable by default. One interesting sidepoint is on self-published sources talking about themselves. Obviously, a source talking about itself is going to be authoritative, but be careful that the source is not too self-serving – the article really should not be totally based on a direct source like that.

Mainstream news sources are generally considered reliable... but any single article should be assessed on a case by case basis. Some news organizations have been known to check their information on Wikipedia – so be careful not to get into a cyclic sourcing issue!

There's a lot more about what makes a source reliable here.

Questions?

Any questions? If not, I will post the quiz.

I fully understand the lesson, and I'm ready to move on to the quiz. ^{TeddyBearRocker123} _Talk 23:39, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

@TeddyBearRocker123: I've graded the quiz, good work. Please respond to any of the questions that you didn't get correct or to anything that you have further questions about. Then we'll move on to the next lesson. ––FormalDude talk 00:46, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Quiz

@TeddyBearRocker123: Here is the quiz. You have up to one week to complete it once I've posted it, but it shouldn't take more than 30 minutes maximum to complete. I'm looking for thoughtfulness in your answers, and reserve the right to post follow-up questions should your answer be ambiguous or not on the right track. Good luck, and here we go: ––FormalDude talk 01:08, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

1.) Q- You have heard from a friend that Mitt Romney has been appointed the chancellor of Harvard University. Can you add this to Romney's (or Harvard's) article? Why?

A- No, you cannot add it to either article. Word of mouth is not a published and accessible source, and reliable sources have to be, along with other things, published and accessible to both readers and editors.

Y Correct. Even if it's true, it must be verifiable.

2.) Q - The Daily Telegraph has published a cartoon which you see is clearly racist as part of an article. Can you include this as an example of racism on the newspaper's Wikipedia article? What about on Wikipedia's racism article?

A-Unless the fact that the cartoon was racist was published in a reliable source, no. You would also not be able to put it on Wikipedia's racism article for this reason.

Y Correct. It's also probably outside the scope of the article on racism, considering this is such a specific incident.

3.) Q- You find a reliable article that says Americans are more likely to get diabetes than British people and British people are more likely to get cancer than Americans. You find another reliable article that says Americans are capitalists and British people are socialists. Can you include information that says capitalists are more likely to get diabetes and socialists are more likely to get cancer anywhere on Wikipedia? Why or why not?

A-No. You should allow readers to draw their own conclusions after you have stated those with the reliable sources.

 Additional information needed: The example says you found a reliable source, so why can't this be included?

If you included that information, you would be violating WP:SYNTH, a part of the policy on original research, which states that you cannot source A, then B, and then conclude C unless C is stated by a reliable source. This would be called improper editorial synthesis.

Y Correct.

4.) Q- Would you consider FOX News to be a reliable source for information on MSNBC? What about for information on Sarah Palin? Why or why not?

A-Since MSNBC is a competitor of Fox News, the article about MSNBC by Fox News is likely to be biased, so no. However, Fox News is not biased on Sarah Palin, so that would be a reliable source.

N Incorrect: Depending on the content, FOX News coverage on MSNBC can be reliable as long as it is not related to politics or medicine. Per current consensus (WP:FOXNEWS), FOX News is not reliable for political or medical topics and therefore is not reliable for coverage about Sarah Palin (who is a politician).

So, from what I understand, Fox News is a reliable source unless the subject is related to politics or medicine. From the link, Fox News is also not reliable in its talk shows, except for attributed statements.

Y Correct.

5.) Q- Would you consider Ben and Jerry's official Twitter page a reliable source? Why/why not?

A-If the sentence being sourced states something not controversial about Ben and Jerry's (like their an ice cream shop) than yes, otherwise no. A company stating something about themselves is considered reliable until the information is biased.

Y Correct. Falls under WP:SELFCITE if not controversial.

6.) Q- A "forum official" from the Chicago Tribune community forums comments on the newspaper's stance on world hunger. Would this be a reliable source? Explain why.

A-It would not be a reliable source, as Internet forums are not reliable sources, no matter their status. The comment is also likely to be biased.

Y Correct. That would be WP:UGC, which is unreliable.

7.) Q- Would you object to the "about us" section on say Burger King's website being used as a citation in its article? (Hint: see WP:SELFSOURCE) Explain your reasoning.

A-If the thing being sourced is dubious or otherwise controversial, than yes; otherwise, no. Burger King saying it is a restaurant is unbiased and reliable, but Burger King saying it is awesome is biased and unreliable.

Y Correct.

8.) Q- Everybody knows that the sky is blue right? An editor doesn't agree - he says it is bronze, do you need a source? Why or why not?

A- If something is controversial, then you need a source. However, in this case, you would only need a source if multiple people were saying that the sky is not blue. In that case, you should be able to find a reliable source. You don't need a source in this instance, but you could have it.

Y Correct. And, even if multiple people were objecting, you still wouldn't need source. Wikipedia is not a democracy.

Lesson 2: Wikiquette

@TeddyBearRocker123: You've successfully completed the first lesson. I'll warn you, that was the easiest one. Now, let's move on to some bigger and better things, shall we? Lesson 2 is below:

WP:Wikiquette - or the etiquette of Wikipedia is something that you may already be familiar with, depending how much reading around the different wikipedia pages you've made.

I'm just going to highlight some of the important Wikiquette items that you should try and remember. It may help you out.

• Assume good faith - This is fundamental and I'll be going over it again in dispute resolution. Editors here are trying to improve the encyclopedia. Every single member of the community. EVERY ONE. If you read a comment or look at an edit and it seems wrong in some way, don't just jump straight in. Try and see it from the other editors point of view, remembering that they are trying to improve the encyclopedia. To reiterate, until proven otherwise, all editors are acting in good faith.
• Sign your talk posts with four tildes ~~~~. The software will stick your signature and timestamp in, allowing the correct attribution to your comment.
• Try and keep to threading, replying to comments by adding an additional indentation, represented by a colon, :. Talk pages should look something like the example below. Have a read of WP:THREAD to see how this works.

How's the soup? --[[User:Alice]] :It's great!! --[[User:Hatter]] ::I made it myself! --[[User:Alice]] *Let's move the discussion to [[Talk:Soup]]. --[[User:Jimmy Wales]] **No, that's not the right venue. --[[User:Maryana Iskander]]

How's the soup? --Alice It's great!! --Hatter I made it myself! --Alice Let's move the discussion to Talk:Soup. --Jimmy Wales No, that's not the right venue. --Maryana Iskander

• Don't forget to assume good faith
• There are a lot of policies and guidelines, which Wikipedians helpfully point you to with wikilinks. Their comments may seem brusque at first, but the linked document will explain their point much better than they may be able to.
• Be polite, and treat others as you would want to be treated. For example, if someone nominated one of the articles you created for deletion, I'm sure you'd want to know about it, so if you are doing the nominating make sure you leave the article creator a notification.
• Watch out for common mistakes.
• Did I mention that you should assume good faith?
• Comment on the edits. Not the contributor.

Assuming good faith is one of the most important points of Wikipedia (as you may have noticed by my numerous mentions). The test will focus primarily on assuming good faith, threading, and on more assuming good faith. Do you have any questions? If not, let me know, and I will post the test. Thanks. ––FormalDude talk 04:57, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Question: On talk pages, what happens when there are the indentation gets to deep? ^{TeddyBearRocker123} _Talk 10:40, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

@TeddyBearRocker123: You can use an {{outdent}}. See Template:outdent. If you don't have any other questions, feel free to start the quiz below. ––FormalDude talk 02:30, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

@TeddyBearRocker123: I've graded your quiz, please see the two that you missed and let me know if you understand and are ready to move on, or need clarification. ––FormalDude talk 00:09, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Quiz

1.) Q- In your own words, explain what it means to assume good faith. Cite an example of a situation in which, while it may be tempting not to, one should still assume faith.

A- To assume good faith is the inherent and fundamental belief that all editors are trying to help the encyclopedia. One may be tempted to not assume good faith when an editor makes an improper citation, but they should still assume good faith anyway.

Y Correct.

2.) Q- Explain how you would deal with this scenario using specifics: You are working in New Page Patrol and come across a new page that, though it's content is fine, has a few minor formatting issues. The page is three minutes old. You fix the format issues on the page. A few minutes later, you get a nasty note on your talk page which states that you caused the new editor, who created the page, an edit conflict by performing your few minor corrections. He was unaware of how to correct an edit conflict, and therefore lost everything he was trying to do. He even goes so far as to start an AN/I discussion about how you're incompetent and should butt out of his editing. What specific steps would you take? Disclaimer: This is based on a true story. Note: A similar question will be asked once we get to the dispute resolution question, but simply based on assuming good faith, I want to hear how you'd approach this scenario.

A- First, I would apologize to the the editor for me losing his work. I would then ask him whether he wanted help to do what he was trying to do. If so, I would help him, and if not, I would go away and not edit the page where the edit conflict occurred.

Y Correct.

3.) Have a look at the conversation below:

What's the best car in the world? -- Rod Probably something German or Japanese. -- Freddie Like what -- Rod's Mate I dunno, something like Volkswagon? -- Freddie Volkswagon Passat --Passat Lover <-Postion:A What do you want it for? -- Jane Volkswagon Passat --Passat Lover <-Position:B

Well, the Passat lover clearly loves his Passat, but who is he replying to? In

3a.) Position A?

A-He is replying to Freddie.

N Incorrect: Both Passat Lover and Freddie are replying to Rod's Mate. Replies are marked by indentations, not new lines.

So, he is replying to Rod's Mate. Got it.

3b.) Position B?

A-He is replying to Jane.

N Incorrect: He is replying to Rod. "What's the best car in the world?" - "Volkswagon Passat". Replies are marked by indentations, not new lines.

That actually makes more sense. Thanks for the info.

3c.) An editor who has a low edit count seems awfully competent with templates. Should he be reported as a possible WP:SOCK? Why or why not?

A-No. We should assume good faith and allow him to continue to edit, as long as he has done nothing wrong. To report him as a sock would be not assuming good faith.

Y Correct.

4.) In which of the following scenarios is it OK not to assume good faith. Please bold your selection (use three apostrophes '''bold text''' before and after the choice).

I: An editor comes to your talk page and calls you an idiot because you reverted his edit.

II: An IP editor deletes the content on Hillary Clinton, and replaces it with "Hillary Rodham Clinton is a _______(insert expletive here) who will rot in _____"

III: An editor deletes all the content on a page and replaces it with "butts"

A: I only

B: II and III

C: II only

D: III only

E: I, II, and III

F: None of the above.

Explain your answer: The first one is not trying to hurt the encyclopedia; the editor has no seen intention of trying to hurt the encyclopedia. We can assume good faith. The second and third ones are vandalism, which makes it clear that they want to hurt the encyclopedia. We cannot assume good faith.

Y Correct.

When you're finished, we'll move on to a really fun topic, vandalism.

Lesson 3: Vandalism

What we're going to do now is get you started with some basic vandalism patrols. This is by no means something you will be obligated to do as an editor, however it is something you should know how to do due to the high risk of vandalism on Wikipedia. Should you ever become an administrator, you will likely be expected to deal with vandalism in some respect.

To start off, let's get some background. Wikipedia is, as you know, a wiki, meaning anyone can edit virtually any page. This is both a blessing and a curse, however, as while it does allow a wide range of information to be added and shared, it also allows people with less than benevolent intentions to come in and mess around with stuff. It requires a fair amount of work during every hour of every day to ensure that this vandalism does not run rampant and destroy the project. Fortunately, with a near-endless supply of volunteers across the world, this doesn't really cause a problem. The addition of various tools help aid our cause and make the "reversion", or removal, of vandalism happen within minutes (sometimes seconds).

What we define vandalism as is "an edit which is delibrately attempting to harm the encyclopedia" to an article or other page. Most commonly, these are pretty blatant - replacing a whole page or section with curse words, simply removing entire sections, and so forth. Occasionally, it's less obvious, like changing key words in a section to completely alter the meaning. Basically, anything that can't be helpful at all to the article should be considered vandalism, however you should always remember to assume good faith for questionable cases.

The most commonly used, and arguably the most critical tool in this respect, is Special:RecentChanges. Recent Changes is a special page that lists every edit made across the project within the last few minutes. You can find a link to it in the toolbar to the left. The page is formatted similarly to a page's history, with a few differences. Here's how a standard entry generally looks:

• (diff) (hist) . . Shigeru Miyamoto‎; 14:32 . . (+28) . . 201.152.102.192 (Talk) (→Competition with Sony and Microsoft)

So that you can know all the terminology (which in some cases will be used across the site), I'm going to explain what all of this means. Feel free to skip this if you've already clicked the links.

1. A "diff" is the difference between two revisions. Wikipedia has a special feature that allows you to compare revisions to see exactly what was changed. This is particularly useful when on vandal patrol, as this is the best thing available to tell you if the edit was or was not vandalism. Clicking on the link above will only take you to the help page on diffs, unfortunately, however an actual diff link will bring you to a screen that looks like this one, an actual diff of another article. Content removed appears in red text in a yellow box on the left; content added appears in red text in a green box on the right.
2. The "hist" link will bring you to the page's history. You can click on the "hist" link above to get to the help page for this feature. A page's history lists all edits ever made to a page, something which is required under the terms of the GFDL, Wikipedia's licensing.
3. The next link is the article that the edit was made to.
4. The time stamp will indicate when the edit was made. The time will appear in your time zone, as you have it defined in your Special:Preferences. Note that this is different from signature timestamps, which are always in UTC/GMT time.
5. The green or red number after the timestamp will tell you how much was added or removed to the article in the edit. A green "+" number shows the number of bytes added to the article - a red "-" number indicates the number removed. In general, the number of bytes is equal to the number of characters, however this is not always the case: Certain special characters can contain more than one byte, and templates can completely mess this number up. Templates will be covered in another lesson later on, however you will be using some in your patrols later. This number will be in bold if a very large number of characters were removed, which is usually a good indicator of vandalism.
6. The next part is the name of the user who made the edit, which will link to their user page. In this case, an IP address made the edit, so the link will instead go to their contributions. Since most vandalism comes from these anonymous editors, this serves as another convenience to those on patrol. The user name is followed by a link to their talk page.
7. The last part of a RC report is the edit summary. When editing a section of an article, the title of that section will automatically be included in the edit summary, as you see above. Other special edit summaries include "Replaced page with..." and "Blanked the page". In general, these last two are dead giveaways for vandalism edits, however you will occasionally see an editor blank his own user or user talk page, so be careful about that.

Now that you know how to use Recent Changes, I want you to go and find some vandalism edits. I don't want you to remove the edit yourself just yet - we'll get to this shortly and chances are, another editor or bot will beat you to it. So before you go on, go to Special:RecentChanges and find three vandalism edits. So that I can check your work and we can discuss things, I want you to copy the links to the diffs of these three edits into the brackets you see below. (This is most easily done by copying the URL from your address bar while you're viewing the diff.)

• [1]
• [2]
• [3]

IMPORTANT WARNING: Due to the very nature of vandalism on Wikipedia, it is possible you will encounter something that will offend you. I take this time to point out Wikipedia's Content Disclaimer, which basically says that you can find just about anything on here and it's not WP's fault. While you may find something offensive in your searches and subsequent vandal patrols, it is best to simply brush it off and not take it to heart. Please add your signature here (~~~~) to confirm that you have read and understand this warning: ^{TeddyBearRocker123} _Talk 00:09, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

How to Revert

Well, If you're using anything but Internet Explorer, I suggest using Twinkle. You can turn it on by going to My Preferences --> Gadgets --> Twinkle. saving your preferences and then holding shift while pressing the refresh button. Suddenly you have new things to play with! Each diff gives you 3 options to roll back - more can be found at WP:TWINKLE

Vandalism and warnings

You occasionally get the repeat vandal. The vandal who is here, not because he is bored and has nothing better to do, but because he has a singular purpose of wreaking as much havoc as he can before he gets blocked. These vandals go in and remove entire sections of text, or replace entire pages with gibberish repeatedly. Even after you've given them a warning, they ignore it and continue. It is for these vandals we have multiple levels of warnings. In general, you will escalate up those levels from 1 to 4 as the vandalism continues. If it's nothing clearly malicious (see below), you should always assume that it was a careless mistake (in short, assume good faith, one of Wikipedia's foundation principles), and just let them know that you fixed it. As it continues, it becomes more and more obvious that they intend to cause trouble, so the warnings get more and more stern. Occasionally, you'll get the vandal, who despite all logical reasoning, continues to vandalize after that final warning. When this happens, we have no choice left but to block them. Since we're not administrators, we lack this ability, so we must report them to those with that power at Administrator intervention against vandalism. That page provides complete instructions on how to file a proper report. If you are using Twinkle, you can report a user to this page by clicking the "arv" tab at the top of any of their user pages. Usually, an administrator will take action within minutes, but until that happens, you need to continue watching the vandal's contributions and reverting any further vandalism. The Three-Revert Rule does not apply when dealing with obvious vandals. I should also note here that many vandals will remove warning template from their talk page. While this may appear as vandalism, and for a time was treated as such, it is not necessary to re-add these warnings, and no warning should be issued for the blanking of the talk page. While these templates do serve as an easily accessible record for other vandal fighters, their main purpose is to alert the vandal to the consequences of their actions. Removing the templates is considered a way to acknowledge that they have been read.

Then you get the belligerent vandal. This is very similar to the last kind, although they actually take the time to read the warnings (or are able to) and take offense. They go by the logic that anyone can edit Wikipedia, so who are you to tell them that they can't edit in this particular way? To make this rather annoying point, they will leave an offensive message on your talk page, or more often simply add some sort of vandalism to your main user page, which you generally won't notice for several more minutes, or days, if someone else reverts it first.

When this happens, you just have to take it in stride. Just revert it, and slap them a {{uw-npa}} warning of whatever severity you deem necessary. The last version got a {{uw-npa4im}} warning, an "only warning" for the most severe offenses, and I still reported him straight off anyway.

The final version is the malicious vandal. These are hardest to notice, because their edits aren't immediately recognizable. They will seem to be improving the article at first glance, when really they're replacing true information with false, often libelous parodies. Others replace valid links with shock sites, or add hidden comments with offensive information. This last version doesn't actually appear in the article, but is there waiting when someone comes to edit it. A similar type of vandal, the "on wheels" vandal, is here for the sole purpose of destroying the encyclopedia. The namesake, User:Willy on Wheels, replaced dozens of pages with the text "{{BASEPAGENAME}} has been vandalized by User:Willy on Wheels!" The BASEPAGENAME variable is a magic word that displays the name of the page. After his blocking, Willy continued to create hundreds of sockpuppets for the same purpose. This sort of vandal is clearly here to vandalize, as such actions are not accidental. With them, you can safely assume bad faith right from the start and slam them with a more severe warning. No, you don't have to escalate in all cases - if there is no doubt that the edit was made with bad intentions, you may start with a higher level than normal. The "4im" level is designed specifically for cases of severe vandalism, and is an only warning to cease and desist.

Keep an eye out for all of these vandals, and keep that information in mind when stopping them. There is a full customized range of warning templates to be found at WP:UTM - use the most specific one possible, so that the vandal, if he did make a simple mistake, has the links at hand to learn from his mistake and improve.

Quiz

I'm going to try to keep this test short. There is a practical aspect to this test, so if you don't have Twinkle turned on, I would recommend doing so now.

1.) Q- In your own words, define vandalism.

A-

2.) Q- What are obvious indicators of a vandalism edit while watching recent changes (e.g., before you look at the edit, what are indicators of vandalism from the list of recent edits at Special:RecentChanges?

A-

3.) Q- What warning template would you use if a user removed or blanked all the content from a page?

A-

4.) What if I came to your talk page and called you a !@#$!#$!@#$!#$!#$!#$!#$!#$!@#$!@#$!@#%#$^$%^#@$~#$@#$%!@#$!@#? Then what warning template would you use?

A-

5.) What is WP:AIV and when should you use it?

A-

6.) Find three instances of vandalism, revert them, warn the users appropriately, and post the diffs below (the diffs of the vandalism will suffice, I will go ensure that you warned them appropriately and don't need diffs to do so).

• []
• []
• []

7.) Should you always use warning templates when reverting vandalism?

A-

Communication

@TeddyBearRocker123: Here's the next lesson, please post any questions below and notify me once you're ready to move on to the quiz! ––FormalDude talk 01:56, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

• @TeddyBearRocker123: I've posted the quiz, please notify me when you're finished. ––FormalDude talk 09:03, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Hey @TeddyBearRocker123, just checking in. Haven't heard from you in over a week. ––FormalDude talk 16:57, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.