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Obtund's Academy Page

Instructor: Vertium
Welcome to the Obtund's Counter Vandalism Unit Academy page. Take a look around and see what I've done!

Hello Obtund, welcome to your Counter Vandalism Unit Academy page! Every person I mentor 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. If you have any general queries about anti-vandalism (or anything else), you are more than welcome to raise them with me here. I will check this page at least once a day while we're working together.

How to use this page[edit]

This page will be built up over your time in the Academy, with new sections being added as you complete old ones. As well as giving you important information, each section will contain various tasks, 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 as part of the task, please 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. Indicate below when you've read this and we'll get started! Vertium When all is said and done 18:31, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

checkY Read it! ObtundTalk 19:21, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Good Faith and Vandalism[edit]

Since your previous instructor didn't take you very far down the path, I'm going to start with the basics. If you're already familiar with some of this, it will go pretty quickly, though if you're not, there is no need to rush (the vandalism will still be out there when we finish!). I'm going to make an assumption here that you use Twinkle, but if you don't, just let me know whether you want to or not. I can teach you the techniques either manually or with Twinkle. Once you get Rollbacker status, you can use a tool like STiki or Huggle.

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 recognize the difference between a vandalism edit and a good faith edit, especially because Twinkle gives you the option of labeling edits you revert as such. The first step is to make sure you've read: WP:AGF and WP:VAND. Just indicate below when those have been completed, and feel free to ask ANY questions you may have! Vertium When all is said and done 19:59, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I use twinkle a lot and yes I know the difference between vandal and agf edits. and I have read them. ObtundTalk 21:59, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Great. Then you probably already know the 4 levels of warning, but here's how they should be used and additional actions required when you get to Level 4 and beyond.

  1. User has written I love Chris LOL! :) in the article on Monarch butterflies. This is their first edit on Wikipedia. Issue them a general note for vandalism (which van be found on twinkle by clicking the TW tab near the top right of the page and click on 'vandalism'). This is the same warning shown in WP:WARN.
  2. The user has reverted your revert and has replaced the vandalism, or created new vandalism (or performed any other vandalism on the same day. Do the same process as above but give them a level 2 warning ( labelled as a caution on Twinkle)
  3. The user is now seen as purposely vandalizing Wikipedia as they have, on the same day gone onto a completely different article and have placed 'Dfdfhhgrhdhdthdthdthdthdthgdhdthdhthhtdtfhdhdhdthdtfghfhtdh'. Like before, give them a warning but now under level 3 (labelled as warning on Twinkle). This message informs the user that they maybe blocked if they continue.
  4. The user has continued to vandalize in another article. Issue them their final warning (level 4 labelled final warning using Twinkle). If, you are dealing with a registered account (not an IP) it is probably clear that this is a vandalism only account and you can report at WP:AIV using Twinkle. You click on the TW tab and click 'ARV'. Click on the 'select report type' and click vandalism. Then it asks you to tick a box, asking you why you have reported them. Click on 'Evidently a vandalism only account'. Note - you have an option to add a message. Then click 'submit query'.
  5. If you have given the registered user another chance or the IP has continued to vandalize after the final warning, then report at WP:AIV using Twinkle and click on 'vandalism after final warning' with optional message and submit query.
If there is a user who already has a warning for vandalizing Wikipedia (on the same day you revert the vandalism) there is no need to start from a general note. If they were given a caution, give them a warning, if they were given a final warning on the same day, report them.

Given all that... here are your first tasks. I'll also be looking at your contributions periodically and checking reverts you do. If you have any questions, just ask. If you can let me know the time of day you typically edit, I'll be sure to check in around those times. Vertium When all is said and done 22:06, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Q1. Please describe below the difference between a good faith edit and a vandalism edit, and how you would tell them apart.
A: A good faith edit is when an editors spirits are in the right place. What they are doing isn't hurting the article or the project but what they added (or deleted) is unneeded at the current moment. They may also not understand the policies of Wikipedia. Vandalism on the other has is disrupting the common flow of Wikipedia from adding inappropriate phrases to attacking someone/something. Like below editors may try to hide vandalism with constructive edits. The differences between the two is the editors motives. ObtundTalk 00:37, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

checkY Brilliant. It's always around the editor's intent Vertium When all is said and done 21:02, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Yep! The key is their motive/intention. ObtundTalk 22:55, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
Q2. 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 reverts below.
Good faith
  1. [1] An IP edited on Desire (emotion) spaced "immediately" to "im mediately" and added "This makes psychologists look very silly indeed" I AGF because frankly making something look silly could be someones opinion and is not necessarily vandalism. ObtundTalk 00:46, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
  2. [2] An IP edited Chris Wilder changing his nickname from chris to christoph ObtundTalk 00:54, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
  3. [3] An IP edited La Liga Filipina and added some words in spanish. ObtundTalk 01:13, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
Vandalism
  1. [4] An IP edited Gordias and I gave him a general note. ObtundTalk 00:51, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
  2. [5] An IP edited Two Left Feet (song) I gave hims a level 2 (caution) second time today. ObtundTalk 00:58, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
  3. [6] An IP edited Jordan Knight and changed who he was married to mostly likely their personal name. General Note. ObtundTalk 01:01, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
  4. [7] An IP edited Placement exam and placed "RON PAUL 2012" on the front. General Note. ObtundTalk 01:07, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
  5. [8] An IP edited Alcatraz Island reverted vandalism. General Note. ObtundTalk 01:11, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
  6. [9] An IP edited MBLAQ's Hello Baby with constructive and vandalism. They were trying to hide the vandal. Two edits of vandal[10][11] and another one to edit a word in the vandal[12] out of the 12 total edits. Twinkle reverted all of them. Level 2 Caution. ObtundTalk 01:20, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

checkY All done really well. Congratulations!

I've had a look at your edits above and others on your contributions list. You're doing great! I'll have another task here for you in the next day or so. Vertium When all is said and done 21:14, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll check back tomorrow. ObtundTalk 22:55, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Do You Agree?[edit]

The following diffs illustrate various reverts that have been done by other editors or rollbackers. Please indicate whether you agree with the revert and it's categorization as either a good-faith revert or vandalism. Also, please explain your rationale for your decision. Vertium When all is said and done 17:51, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Reversion of Good Faith edits:

I agree, this is a good faith edit because the editor doesn't understand the polices of citing sources on Wikipedia. ObtundTalk 05:10, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
I agree, this is a good faith edit because the editor doesn't understand the polices of citing sources on Wikipedia. ObtundTalk 05:17, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
I agree, since the editor was moving commas and periods and putting them inside of the quote, but the editor did not know about WP:LQ which is one of Wikipedia policies. ObtundTalk 04:06, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Reversions for Vandalism:

I disagree, as that is a good faith edit because the editor made the number more specific which was unneeded. ObtundTalk 03:35, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
I disagree, because the editor was just saying what band the person was from, but when Cluebot catches provocative words, it doesn't understand. ObtundTalk 03:30, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
I disagree, this is tricky because the rollbacker says that the user was a sockpuppet, but I looked into it and found nothing. This edit was a good faith edit because the editor was just adding the polish pronunciation of the name, which was unneeded because the ruler was ruler of Medieval Lithuania and should only have the Lithuanian pronunciation. The editor added this because Medieval Lithuania occupied Belarus and Poland at that time. Also, in Medieval Lithuania, they barely talked in Polish. But even if they did, that means that we would also add the translations for Belarusian, Yiddish, German, Tatar and Karaim which would make no sense, so you use what the majority used, which was Lithuanian. ObtundTalk 03:47, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
I agree, it was either on purpose to mess up the page, or the editor was making a test edit, which is vandalism. ObtundTalk 03:33, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
checkYI agree with your assessments on these. Great citation of the WP:MOSLQ policy!

Some last questions[edit]

We're nearly finished! A few more questions and/or tasks:

Editor Feedback[edit]

1. How would you personally determine the difference between a good faith user asking why you reverted their edit, and a troll trying to harass you? What are the appropriate actions for each?

I would personally determine the difference if this was an editor's first or second offense it would be AGF, but after that you know that they are doing it on purpose and they are a troll. If it was AGF edit I would tell the editor indepth what they did wrong, and give them Wikipedia policies that would help them. If it were a troll, I would give them a warning since they have done it before and if they continued I would report it to WP:AIV. ObtundTalk 18:34, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
You may not always be able to accurately tell an editor's history for a couple of reasons. First, many will remove the notices from their talk page. You can always go look at history, but and if they're an autoconfirmed user, you can probably tell. The harder ones to determine are the IPs because there are so many editors who use shared IP addresses. Of course, if there's a handful of vandalism attempts, it should go to WP:AIV immediately to request a block.
The other suggestion I have relates to just how civil a conversation they're willing to have. Editors make mistakes, and so do all of us who revert. I'd suggest you consider a notice on your User page that indicates that you patrol recent changes and revert vandalism. Invite people to have a calm discussion if they disagree with you. I've been fortunate in that I don't encounter many trolls, but when I have, they tend to start off inflammatory and are looking for trouble. If someone flames me, I'll make my case as you note above, but if it continues, and I'm certain I didn't make a mistake, I just delete those from my talk page.
If, while you're in the midst of patrolling, if you make an inadvertent revert (for vandalism or good faith) and realize you've made a mistake, you should go revert yourself immediately and remove or strikethrough any warnings placed on the editor's talk page. If you're planning on using STiki (which makes your review process much faster), be extra careful, because it's easy to get click-happy and make mistakes with lightning speed. Vertium When all is said and done 21:17, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Protection and speedy deletion[edit]

  • In what circumstances should a page be semi-protected?
The circumstances for semi-protection are when edits are made by unregistered or unconfirmed users and they are vandalizing a page. It only makes sense to semi-protect a page when new unregistered users or unconfirmed users are coming back on a regular basis to vandalize, and warning every single vandal would be a daunting task; not when one unregistered or unconfirmed user is vandalizing. ObtundTalk 01:23, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
  • In what circumstances should a page be fully protected?
A page is fully protected only when vandalism is happening also by confirmed users. Semi-protecting a page, doesn't stop confirmed users from editing. Circumstances for full protection would be content disputes(edit warring) and vandalism by confirmed users. This method of protecting is rarely used because the admin will usually just block the users that are disrupting the peace, but when a large amount of confirmed users are vandalizing, this is the only way to stop it, otherthan blocking every user. ObtundTalk 02:27, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
  • In what circumstances should a page be speedy deleted?
Well, a page should be speedied if it is Patent nonsense, a test page, vandalism, a hoax, if it is made by a banned user, if there are technical deletions, if the author requests deletion, if the page is dependent on a non-existence page, if the office chooses to, attack pages, advertising, copyright infringement, if it has no context, if it is a foreign language article that exists on another Wikimedia project, if it has no content, if it is transwikied, if there is no indication of its importance, or if it duplicates a recently duplicated topic. ObtundTalk 04:36, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

These last two are situational and you may not necessarily find the opportunity to do so right now. If not, this page will remain active indefinitely, and you can always come back and post here.

  • Correctly tag one page for speedy deletion and post the diff below.
[13] As G2 because it was a test page because the editor wrote "I am still trying to learn how to use wikipedia.", the tag was then switched to A7 because editor added more information. ObtundTalk 20:01, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
Must have been a good speedy request, as the page is gone! Vertium When all is said and done 21:16, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Correctly request the protection of one page (semi or full); post the diff of your request (from WP:RPP) below.
Initial request:[14] Rewriting the request to sound better:[15] Diff of when semi-protection was added as I requested for the time period I requested:[16] ObtundTalk 01:29, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Ready?[edit]

You've done an outstanding job and it's clear to me you have a really strong grasp of what is and is not vandalism. This is a chance for you to express any questions you may have and to tell me if you feel prepared for rollbacker permissions. If you're all set, I'll send you a graduation notice on your talk page and once that happens, you can go to WP:PERM and apply for rollback rights and feel free to mention your successful completion of the Academy. Vertium When all is said and done 21:20, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Any questions I may have had have been solved. Especially what each level of warnings were for, I never knew that before you trained me. But, thank you so much for your help in training me to become a CVUA graduate and successful in fighting off vandalism! ObtundTalk 21:45, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Graduated[edit]

Great work Obtund, keep in touch if there's anything I can do to help. See you out there in the ongoing battle against vandalism. Thanks for all you do to make WP a better place. Vertium When all is said and done 23:56, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

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