Guru-45 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
Hello, welcome to your Adoption 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 when under my instruction, 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 anything about adoption , you are more than welcome to raise them with me at my talk page.
- 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. I'll tell you when you need to sign.
- Examining tests
I'll use three signs to examine your tests. They are
- Good answer; correctly addresses all points relevant to the question and shows a sound understanding of the issues involved.
- Nearly a good answer, just something is missing-I will say what
- Wrong answer; shows a misunderstanding or wrong answer
Lesson 1 (Five Pillars)
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The Five PillarseditThe fundamental principles by which Wikipedia operates can be summarized in five "pillars":
How articles should be writteneditThe articles on 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 not appear, nor should an editor make changes based solely on personal experience. To ensure that the information in an article is correct, Wikipedia has adopted a policy of verifiability. Our readers should be able to confirm anything they read on Wikipedia by looking at the associated reliable source. Wikipedia should not include anything that cannot be verified elsewhere; in other words, it should not contain anything original. Reliable sourceseditInformation on Wikipedia should be based on reliable sources. So, what is a reliable 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 one of the following: a published material with a reliable publication process, an author who is 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 on the topic you are writing about. MLB.com is certainly a reliable source on matters related to Major League Baseball, but that does not make it a reliable source for information about NASA. It is certainly possible that a source could provide accurate information on a matter that it is not generally associated with. However, the best method is to use sources that are clearly related to the subject. A source that is self-published is usually considered unreliable, unless it is published by a recognized expert in the field. This is a very rare exception, so self-published sources should generally not be used. This means that anything in a forum, blog and even most websites will be 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. For the sake of neutrality, an article really should not be entirely derived from a direct source. 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 situation! There's a lot more about what makes a source reliable here. About this lessoneditHey if you have any question then you can ask me I said earlier. Now make sure you've read this three topics. You need to pass a pre-test to have the main test. So read and understand these three topics. Good Luck. --Pratyya (Hello!) 10:25, 18 September 2013 (UTC) Pre-testeditNow here's your pre-test. Each question contains 10 marks. So it's total 70. You need to get 60-65 to have the main test. This pre-test's mark will not be added in the final result. It's just a qualifier. If you've read and understand clearly what's written up there I think you'll get full marks.--Pratyya (Hello!) 06:32, 19 September 2013 (UTC) 1.) Q- You can play FIFA 13 nicely and you are master of the game. You know all the tricks, keys etc of that game. Can you add those guides of that game to the FIFA 13 article? Why do you think that?
2.) Q- Suppose you need to be bold to help Wikipedia. But one of Wiki's rule prevents you from being be bold. What'll you do then?
3.) Q-Suppose Ghosh 10 (I said suppose. It has no reality) making mistakes often and often. Will you be rude to him or scold him badly?
4.) Q- Suppose you've written Gareth Bale. Do you have the copyright of that article? Why do you think that?
5.) Q- Suppose Dav Whatmore has resigned from Pakistan Cricket Team. Can you add this to the Pakistan team's article?
6.) Q- Describe what's neutral point of view and what's under neutral point of view briefly.
7.) Q- Suppose you are writing about Saint Mary's Kindergarten (It's not real). What things your articles should and must contain and what should and must not. Describe briefly.
Result (Pre-test)editYou've passed the pre-test successfully. Here's the result.
Now read these three topics more carefully and clearly for one day. I'll submit the main test tomorrow. Good luck. This test's mark will be counted. At last you are doing great. If you go on like this I think in a few days you'll be more experienced than me. --Pratyya (Hello!) 14:36, 19 September 2013 (UTC) Test (Theoretical)editNow here's the final one for Lesson 1. Each question contains 5 and the total is 50. You have 2-3 days time to complete this. But if you are aware of the rules then I think you might need just 30 minutes tops to complete this test. Answer carefully you'll get the full marks. Good Luck --Pratyya (Hello!) 14:02, 20 September 2013 (UTC) 1.) Q- Would you consider FOX News to be a reliable source for information on MSNBC? What about for information on Sarah Palin?
2.) 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?
3.) Q - The Washington Times has published a cartoon which you believe is clearly racist. Can you include this as an example of racism on the newspaper's article? What about on the racism article?
4.) Q- You are writing about Goa Temple (I've made that up. It's not real) but don't find any reliable sources about that article. But in Goa it's very famous. What'll you do in that time?
5.) You create a page on your sandbox about Politics in South Sudan. You go back a couple of days later, and find it has been copied, and created by another user. Is this right? Explain.
6.) Q- You find a reliable article that says Indians are more likely to be older early than Chinese people and Chinese people are more likely to get AIDS than Indians. You find another reliable article that says Indians are Democratic and Chinese people are Socialists. Can you include information that says Democratics are more likely to get older early and socialists are more likely to get AIDS anywhere on Wikipedia?
7.) Q- Everybody knows that the sky is blue right? An editor doesn't agree - he says it is bronze, do you need a source?
8.) Q- One editor thinks that Diego Maradona is the greatest player in football and wants to say so on Maradona's Wikipedia article. Another editor disagrees and argues that the article should claim that Maradona is actually the second-best, because Pele is better. Who is right?
9.) You get a book autographed by J.K. Rowling at a book fair in Manchester, so edit her page saying where she was and what she was doing. Is this right? Explain
10.) 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)
Result (Theoretical)editNow here's the final result. I said that every question will contain 10, but I have converted that to 5. So the full mark is 50 I would let you pass if you scored 85% marks. But you scored 92% marks. It's great. You are really improving. Go on like this.
PracticaleditNow nothing is perfect without practical. So you must do some practical work. Find 10 articles which breaches these policy. You don't need to add tags to articles now. Just put the diffs here and tell me why it breaches the policy. I'll tell you about taggings, deletions in lesson 3-4. So wait until that. You have 2 days to complete this test. (Search Special:NewPagesFeed or Special:NewPages) Test (Practical)edit1.)Malda Medical College and Hospital
2.)Midnapore Medical College and Hospital
3.)Craftscape
6.)SCAN IT
8.)Specialty retailer of Private label Apparel
9.)Kendriya vidyalaya no 1 gandhi nagar jammu
10.)Public relations department of General post office, mumbai
Result (Practical)editNow here's the result for practical of lesson 1. You have achieved 52 out of 50. Superb! It's 104%. But I'll make a combine result, Which means Theoretical + Practical. Down there is the result for practical.
Result (Lesson 1)editHere's the final result. You have achieved 46 out of 50 in Theoretical and 52 out of 50 in practical. The summation of this is 98 out of 100! Wao! 98% marks! You are doing awesome. Go on like this.
Awardedit
This is your award for completing lesson 1.--Pratyya (Hello!) 15:32, 22 September 2013 (UTC) |
Lesson 2 (Wikiquette)
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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: WikiquetteeditWP: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.
About this lessoneditLike the previous lesson you need to pass a Pre-test in this lesson too. Do you have any question? Let me know when you are ready.--Pratyya (Hello!) 13:29, 26 September 2013 (UTC) Pre-TesteditHere's your pre-test. It contains 5 Questions. Each Question contains 10 Marks. The total is 70. I'll let you pass if you get 60-65 marks. Good Luck. 1.) You are fixing a mistake in Payari which I've created. You think my writing style is bad I need to improve it. Now will you write it in the edit summary that I need to improve?
2.) What to do you think is Assuming Good Faith?
3.) There are some policies in Wikipedia. One user created India. He thinks this policies are stupido, foul etc. etc. Is it right to place a debate in Talk:India for this policy discussion? Why?
4.) User:Example is warning you and giving you some advice cause your editing is not well. But you don't like his tone. What will you do then? Why?
5.) Bangladesh Premier League is having a important discussion for improvement on it's talk page. You are the only one who is answering questions. But it's all about BPL. Can you move it to your talk page? Why?
6.) User:K to the power 16 is a newbie. He makes mistakes often. You have reverted two of his edits. Will you scold him? Why?
7.) An editor who has a low edit count seems awfully competent with templates. Should he be reported as a possible WP:SOCK?
Result (Pre-test)editYou've passed the pre-test successfully. Here's the result.
Now read these topics more carefully and clearly for one day. I'll submit the main test tomorrow. Good luck.--Pratyya (Hello!) 13:48, 29 September 2013 (UTC) TesteditNow here's your test. As this lesson has just nothing with practical, so you'll have a 100 marks theoretical test. There's 10 questions. Each question contains 10 marks. You need to get at least 80-85 marks to complete this lesson. Good Luck.--Pratyya (Hello!) 14:58, 6 October 2013 (UTC) 1.) 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?
2.) Suppose you are reverting vandalism at John Abraham. You reverted that an edit as vandalism which was made by User:Jibraltar9985618. But that was a good edit. So Jibraltar comes to your talk page and reminding you about your mistake. But you think his tone isn't nice. Will you still ask for apology? Also what will you do about that "bad tone"?
3.) You are continuously making mistakes, also your works aren't appreciated as they are mistakes. You are getting warnings too. But you are going too fast , also these warnings making you angry. What will you do in this state? Will you still edit?
4.) English is User:Titi53John's second language. He can't speak English nicely. That's why he makes mistake in writing English. Will you talk about his disability or his edits? Also will you tell him that he doesn't understand English? At last will you criticize him? Why?
5.) User:LokhnouBadshah is almost a vandal user. Now he has posted a message to your talk page which is surely a personal attack. How you'll handle this; rudely or politely?
6.) Suppose you are creating Jibon Drong. Where you'll put the External Links? example.com is reliable but not related to the article clearly. Will you add this as incline reference? Why?
7.) You want to write about you at Wikipedia. But you are not notable enough to be an article. Will you write about you? Where can you write about you?
8.) Suppose you have removed contents from Talk:India without archiving it. Is it right? Then User:LauandKodu watch's this. The wiki relation between you and him is slightly problematic. He is criticizing you for this. You too are criticizing him on a angry mind. Is it right? What is the best solution to stop this criticizing or waring? Would you forgive him for criticizing you in Wiki?(It is a technical question. It contains 5 rules. If you are able to write about 4-5, I'll give you full marks. If you are able to write about 3 then you'll get 7, if you are able to tell about 2 then I'll give you 5 if you are able to tell about 1 then I'll give you 3)
9.) Have a look at the conversation below:
Well, the Passat lover clearly loves his Passat, but who is he replying to? In 9a.) Position A?
9b.) Position B?
10.) Suppose Mong Chi is a short article. It has just 2 lines but with that 2 lines it can describe that article partially. It has also 3 reliable sources. Should the article get deleted? Why? Also the user who created that article knows how to edit well and does good works. But he has just 300+ edits which is pretty much less than you. Will you still honor him? Why?
Result (Test)editYou've passed the test successfully. Here's the result.
Result (Lesson 2)editHere's the final result. You have achieved 80 out of 100 in the test. Which means you've achieved 80% Marks. It's pass mark and you've passed. But you need to be more careful about this lesson. You are going to the next lesson but I'll ask you to learn this lesson more clearly. --Pratyya (শারদীয় শুভেচ্ছা) 12:34, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
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Lesson 3 (Dispute Resolution )
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No matter how well you edit Wikipedia and no matter how obviously helpful your changes may seem, if you participate here on a regular basis, you are very likely to eventually end up in a dispute. This becomes more and more probable as you get into the more drama–filled areas of Wikipedia. The higher the number of page views and the more controversial the topic, the more likely the area is going to be considered contentious. I'm going to go through some of the different methods of dispute resolution that we have on Wikipedia. They are all covered at the dispute resolution page and the tips there are really worth taking. Simple ResolutioneditIf you find yourself in a dispute, I don't necessarily expect you to back down. If you believe you are right, it's understandable for you to want to stand firm. Nevertheless, you should still attempt to resolve the dispute. Here are some basic dispute resolution practices: First of all, assume good faith. Assume that the person you are in a dispute with is also trying to improve the encyclopedia. Given them the benefit of the doubt that they are not trying to deliberately cause problems. Try to see things from their point of view and consider if perhaps you can both come to a compromise. Keep calm. Although it might seem urgent to you, a decision on the dispute can wait until the discussion is complete. If you try to fight by editwarring to keep your preferred version, it is very possible that you will get nowhere and face a block. So, instead follow Bold, Revert, Discuss - one editor makes a Bold edit, which they feel improves the encyclopedia. A second editor Reverts the edit as they disagree. The two (or more) editors Discuss the matter on the talk page until they come to an agreement or proceed along Wikipedia's dispute resolution process. When it comes to the discussion, I want you to try and stay stay focused on the different arguments and their merits, not on the people involved in the dispute. You've heard the phrase "Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit" right? Attacks on the character of an editor are never going to help anything. If an editor is "attacking" you, don't respond in kind - stay focused on the editor's argument and respond to that. If you think about what you are saying and how the editor is likely to respond, you realize that you have a choice. Your comment will generally go one of two ways: 1) it will address the editor's argument and put forward a counterargument which the opposing editor can understand; or 2) It will not address the situation, thereby infuriating the other editor and escalating the drama. Accusing other editors of making personal attacks, acting in bad faith, practicing ownership, committing vandalism or doing any number of other negative things will fall into the second choice from the paragraph above. If the other editor(s) are actually guilty of wrongdoing, don't make ugly accusations. Instead follow Wikipedia's dispute resolution process and try to keep a cool head. If needs be, get up and have a cup of tea. Play a game of racketball. Don't be unwilling to step away when you realize you are beginning to get riled up. Otherwise, you may wind up typing something you'll regret. Wikipedia dispute resolution processeditIf the simple techniques don't work (and you'd be amazed at how often they do, if you try them), Wikipedia does have some methods of dispute resolution. AssistanceeditIf you want someone to talk to, but not necessarily have intervene, there is an WP:Editor Assistance noticeboard. The editors there are experienced and can offer suggestions about how to resolve the dispute. Third opinioneditYou can get an uninvolved editor to step in and give an opinion on a content dispute. WP:3O has instructions on how to request a third editor to come in and discuss the situation. Another way to get a third opinion is to look at the article talk page and see which projects are associated with the article. Then, go to the talk page of one or more of those projects and get some "expert" advice. Finally, you could leave a message at a relevant noticeboard - WP:SEEKHELP MediationeditIf the issue won't go away, even after a couple of people have weighed in, you can try Mediation. There are two processes here: Informal (WP:MEDCAB) and formal (WP:RfM). The editors at each specialize in sorting debates. Request for CommenteditYou can use WP:RfC to draw community discussion to the page. You are likely to get a larger section of the community involved that you would if you tried a 3O request. There is also an option to Request comment on a user. This is rarely necessary and should not be taken lightly. Only after almost every other route of dispute resolution has been taken should this happen - and it requires at least two editors having the same problem with one editor in order for the request to be certified. ArbitrationeditI really hope you'll never have to try this. It's the last resort. The community has elected it's most trusted and willing volunteers to preside over the most complicated cases. Have a read of WP:ARBCOM if you like, but do your best to avoid ending up there. ReportseditIf an editor is acting badly, there are a few boards that you can go to in order to get some help. Remember: you could be wrong!editYou could be acting against consensus! However, as long as you are open to the possibility and have been focusing on the disputed content instead of the disputing editors, there's nothing wrong with disagreeing. Just make sure you are aware that at some point you might have to realize you are flogging a dead horse. Any questions?editQuestions about any of the above? TesteditI thought about giving a pre-test to you. But I think you've read enough to omit pre-test. SO here I'm directly giving you the test. It contains 100 marks. If you get 85 (or more) I'll get you passed. Good luck. --Pratyya (Hello!) 14:15, 7 November 2013 (UTC) 1.) What do you think is Dispute Resolution? Explain in your words.
2.) In your own words, explain each "level" of dispute resolution (e.g., third opinion, mediation, etc.).
3.) Suppose Kavle Aurora is an article which is biased and inacuarate. What will you do here? Request for deletion or improve? Why? What'll you do if you don't know how to fix a problem of that page? Explain in your own words.
It depends on what the problem is.For sources,I'll seek help at WP:RSN.For something that is not exaclty clear or the article has multiple issues of various types with it,I will go to WP:DRN
4.) What do you think is Wikipedia:Negotiation? Explain in your own word and not too short.
5.) Two editors are in a Content dispute. Editor A adds something they feel helps the encyclopedia, Editor B reverts, Editor A re-adds, Editor B reverts again. Two part question:
6.) Imagine you are participating in an Articles for deletion discussion. You post your opinion and let's just say you think the article should be deleted. The creator of the article replies to your edit calling you an incompetent, intellectual snob who has no right to edit Wikipedia. How would you handle the situation?
7.) Suppose you are in a dispute with User:N Srinivashan. He is getting urgent. Is he right? What'll you do in this kind of situation? Will you hurry? Why?
8.) Now you are in a dispute with User:MS Dhoni. Only you two are in dispute. Will WP:3 be good for this dispute? Generally where you'll go to solve a dispute or which place will be a good starting point among the other dispute resuolution procedures?
9.) Suppose User:Pratyya Ghosh, User:Jonathan Trott and User:Guru-45's dispute became serious. What steps should be taken in this urgent situation? Where this dispute should not be taken?
10.) At last if a dispute isn't stopping after all the steps taken, what'll you do at last? Why?
11.) Suppose mine, yours and other 2 editors dispute has been identified as a dispute which involves user conduct, What steps should be taken?
12.) What do you think? When meditation will be useful in a dispute?
Result (Test)editYou've passed the test successfully. Here's the result.
Result (Lesson 3)editHere's the final result. You have achieved 95 out of 100 in the test. Which means you've achieved 95% Marks. It's more than pass mark and you've passed. --Pratyya (Hello!) 04:19, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
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Lesson 4
editVandalism
editWhat 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- The next link is the article that the edit was made to.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 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.)
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. Later on, when you are actually reverting vandalism, it is possible that your own user pages will be vandalized. Here the same thing applies - ignore and simply remove it. I do not tell these things to scare you, or to imply that it will happen. I am simply pointing out that it is possible, although exceedingly rare. In many cases, these attempts to attack you are in fact somewhat amusing. If it occurs, just remember how intellectually superior you clearly are to the vandal and be glad that you actually have a life. Please add your signature here (~~~~) to confirm that you have read and understand this warning: Understood.Guru-45 (talk) 02:51, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
Diffs
edit- https://en.wikipedia.org/?diff=590605280&oldid=590605210
- https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eye_color&diff=590604893&oldid=589327478
- https://en.wikipedia.org/?diff=590606129&oldid=590599313
How to Revert
editWell, 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
editYou 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, and remember that you are far more intelligent than them because you actually stop to read information instead of blanking it away, and thus the human race still has some hope for salvation. 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. Any questions, please put them on the adoption talk page.