This is the CVUA page for

Initial Survey edit

Important Note: This survey is intended to be taken without any use of onwiki links or guidelines/policies. Only use your current knowledge. I want to see how much you know; I'm not testing you. Please answer honestly and to the best of your ability so I can best customize the rest of the CVUA course to your present knowledge.


  • How confident do you feel about anti-vandalism?
    • A:
  • What is a good faith edit?
    • A:
  • What is vandalism?
    • A:
  • How could one distinguish between good faith and vandalism?
    • A:
  • When should you revert an edit?
    • A:
  • What is sockpuppetry?
    • A:
  • What should you do if you encounter a sockpuppet?
    • A:
  • If you notice an account is vandalizing on multiple wikis, what do you do?
    • A:
  • What is the difference between how you should treat edits from an IP editor and from a registered user?
    • A:
  • What is ORES?
    • A:
  • If you see a threat of harm, what do you do?
    • A:
  • If you see a copyright violation, what do you do?
    • A:
  • If you see personal details or doxxing, what do you do?
    • A:
  • If you see personal attacks on a BLP, what do you do?
    • A:
  • If you see grossly insulting, degrading, or offensive content, what do you do?
    • A:
  • What is metawiki?
    • A:
  • What is mediawiki?
    • A:
  • What is the Wikimedia Commons?
    • A:
  • What copyright is text on Wikipedia licensed under?
    • A:
  • What can rollbackers do?
    • A:
  • What are a few of the more important things admins can do?
    • A:
  • What is a steward, and what do they do?
    • A:
  • If you have questions about anything, where can you go for help?
    • A:
  • Is this survey too long?
    • A:

Phase I edit

Reading edit

Phase I is composed of readings and related prompts to prepare you for counter-vandalism work. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have.

Phase II edit

Part I edit

  • Find 3 edits that are vandalism, and explain why they are so.
  • Find 3 edits that are good faith but disruptive, and explain why they are so.

Part II edit

When you use Twinkle to warn a user, you have a number of options to choose from: you can select the kind of warning (for different offences), and the level of warning (from 1 to 4, for increasing severity). Knowing which warning to issue and what level is very important. Further information can be found at WP:WARN and WP:UWUL.

Please answer the following questions
Why do we warn users?


When would a 4im warning be appropriate?


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


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


Please give examples of three different warnings (not different levels of the same warning and excluding the test edit warning levels referred to below), that you might need to use while recent changes patrolling and explain what they are used for.
Find and revert some vandalism. Warn each user appropriately, using the correct kind of warning and level. Please include at least two test edits and at least two appropriate reports to AIV. For each revert and warning please fill in a line on the table below
# Diff of your revert Your comment (optional). If you report to AIV please include the diff My comment
1 diff comment
2 diff comment
3 diff comment
4 diff comment
5 diff comment
6 diff comment
7 diff comment
8 diff comment
9 diff comment
10 diff comment
11 diff comment
12 diff comment
13 diff comment
14 diff comment
15 diff comment

Part III edit

Protecting and deleting pages are two additional measures that can be used to prevent and deal with vandalism. Only an administrator can protect or delete pages (I am not an admin); however, anyone can nominate a page for deletion or request protection. If you have Twinkle installed, you can use the Twinkle menu to request page protection or speedy deletion (the RPP or CSD options). If you want to report manually, either place a CSD tag on the page, or report at WP:RFPP.

Protection edit

Please read the protection policy.

In what circumstances should a page be semi-protected?


In what circumstances should a page be pending changes level 1 protected?


In what circumstances should a page be fully protected?


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


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


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

Speedy deletion edit

Please read WP:CSD.

In what circumstances should a page be speedy deleted? (very briefly, no need to go through the criteria.)
Correctly tag two pages for speedy deletion (with different reasons) and post the diff and the criteria you requested it be deleted under below.

Assessment edit

Here's a test so I can measure your progress in this area. The following scenarios each have multiple questions that are based on WP: VANDAL, WP:3RR, WP: REVERT, WP: BLOCK, WP: GAIV, WP: WARN, WP:UAA, WP:CSD, WP:911, WP:OS, WP:REVDEL and WP:UN. Good Luck!

Scenario 1 edit

You encounter an IP disrupting the article on Homosexuality. They are adding extremely nasty homophobic slurs, and death threats.

  • Would this be considered vandalism or a good faith edit, why?
  • Which Wikipedia policies and/or guidelines is it breaching?
  • Should you automatically report this, or should you give this person a warning? Why?

Scenario 2 edit

You see a new account called "Hi999" that has added random letters to one article.

  • Would this be considered vandalism or a good faith edit, why?
  • What would be an appropriate warning template to place on the user's talk page?
  • Which of the following Twinkle options should be used to revert these edits: Rollback-AGF (Green), Rollback (Blue) or Rollback-Vandal (Red)?
  • The user now has a level 3 warning on their talk page. They make a vandal edit, would it be appropriate to report this user to AIV? Why or why not?
  • If this user keeps on vandalizing, can this user be blocked indef.?
  • Which of the following reporting templates should be used in this case: {{IPvandal}} or {{vandal}}?
  • What would you include as the reason for reporting the editor?

Scenario 3 edit

  • A user is adding unsourced comments to a BLP, but you're pretty sure that this person is acting in good faith. Do you revert?
  • What would be an appropriate template to use in this situation?
  • This user now has a lvl 4 warning on their talk page. They add the comment again. Do you report?

Scenario 4 edit

You see a new account called "LaptopsInc" which has created a new page called "Laptops Inc" (which only contains the words "Laptops Inc" and a paragraph copied from www.laptopsinc.com). The user also added "www.laptopsinc.com" on the Laptop article. You research Laptops Inc on Google and find that is a small company.

  • Should you revert the edit to Laptop, if so which Twinkle option (agf, neutral, vandalism) would you use?
  • If you do revert which warning template would you use?
  • Would you tag the article they created with a speedy deletion tag(s). If so which speedy deletion criteria apply to the article?
  • Would you leave a template on the user's talk page regarding their username? If so which one and with which parameters?
  • Would you report the user to UAA? If so what of the four reasons does it violate?

Scenario 5 edit

You come across an account named "JohnIsAFag". You find that it's created the page "John Simmonds", which reads "John Simmonds is a guy born in 1991. He is still alive today, unfortunately, because he is an idiot. ahsjjdshhsd".

  • Would you tag the article they created with a speedy deletion tag(s)? If so, which speedy deletion criteria apply to the article?
  • Would you report this user to UAA? If so, What part of the username policy does the username violate?
  • The user puts the same insults in a different page 4 times, you have reverted 3 times already. Would another revert be a violation of WP:3RR?

Results edit

Your score:


Phase III edit

Part 1 edit

Check out Wikipedia:Cleaning up vandalism/Tools and install any tools you might want to use. List below any tools you download/install.

Part 2 edit

Final Exam edit

Final exam from ThePlatypusofDoom

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

GOOD LUCK!

For each of these examples, please state whether you would call the edit(s) described as vandalism or good faith edit, a reason for that, and how you would deal with the situation (ensuring you answer the questions where applicable).
  1. A user inserts 'ektgbi0hjndf98' into an article. What would you do if it was their first warning? What about after that.
  2. A user adds their signature to an article after one being given a {{Uw-articlesig}} warning. What would you the next time they did it? What about if they kept doing it after that?
  3. A user adds 'John Smith is the best!' into an article. What would you do the first time? What about if they kept doing it after that?
  4. A user adds 'I can edit this' into an article. The first time, and times after that?
  5. A user removes sources information from an article, with the summary 'this is wrong'. First time, and after that? What would be different if the user has a history of positive contributions compared with a history of disruptive contributions?

Part 2 edit

Which templates warning would give an editor in the following scenarios. If you don't believe a template warning is appropriate outline the steps (for example what you would say) you would take instead.
  1. A user blanks Cheesecake.
  2. A user trips edit filter for trying to put curse words on Derek Jeter.
  3. A user trips edit summary filter for repeating characters on Denis Menchov.
  4. A user puts "CHRIS IS GAY!" on Atlanta Airport.
  5. A user section blanks without a reason on David Newhan.
  6. A user adds random characters to Megan Fox.
  7. A user adds 'Tim is really great' to Great Britain.
  8. A user adds 'and he has been arrested' to Tim Henman.
  9. A user blanks Personal computer, for the fifth time, they have had no warnings or messages from other users.
  10. A user blanks Personal computer, for the fifth time, they have had four warnings including a level 4 warning.
  11. A user blanks your userpage and replaced it with 'I hate this user' (you have had a number of problems with this user in the past).
  12. A user adds File:Example.jpg to Taoism.

Part 3 edit

What CSD tag you would put on the following articles (The content below is the article's content).
  1. Check out my Twitter page (link to Twitter page)!
  2. Josh Marcus is the coolest kid in London.
  3. Joe goes to [[England]] and comes home !
  4. A Smadoodle is an animal that changes colors with its temper.
  5. Fuck Wiki!

What would you do in the following circumstance:

  • A user blanks a page they very recently created.
  • After you have speedy delete tagged this article the author removes the tag but leaves the page blank.

Part 4 edit

Are the following new (logged in) usernames violations of the username policy? Describe why or why not and what you would do about it (if they are a breach).
  1. NikeShoes
  2. IWANTTOTROLLWIKI
  3. Brian's Bot
  4. sdadfsgadgadjhm,hj,jh,jhlhjlkfjkghkfuhlkhj
  5. Bobsysop
  6. SteveTheAdminSUCKS
  7. Justin Stevens
  8. OfficialJustinBieber

Part 5 edit

Answer the following questions based on your theory knowledge gained during your instruction.
  1. Can you get in an edit war while reverting vandalism (which may or may not be obvious)?
  2. Where and how should vandalism-only accounts be reported?
  3. Where and how should complex abuse be reported?
  4. Where and how should blatant username violations be reported?
  5. Where and how should personal attacks against other editors be reported?
  6. Where and how should an edit war be reported?
  7. Who should you contact for material needing revision deletion?

Part 6 - Theory in practice edit

1. Find and revert three instances of vandalism (by different editors on different pages), and appropriately warn the editor. Please give the diffs the warning below.
2. Find and revert two good faith edits, and warn/welcome the user appropriately. Please give the diffs of your warn/welcome below.
3. Correctly report two users (either AIV or ANI). Give the diffs of your report below.
4. Correctly request the protection of two articles; post the diffs of your requests below.
5. Correctly nominate one articles for speedy deletion; post the diffs of your nominations below.
6. Correctly report one username as a breach of policy.

Final score edit

/ 45