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User:Vertium/CVUA/Biblioworm

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Hello Writing Enthusiast Biblioworm, and 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 or at my talk page.

If you're not using Twinkle, you might find it helpful to do so. It makes giving the appropriate user warnings much easier. For more information, see WP:Twinkle.

How to use this page

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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.

Good faith and vandalism

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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. Please read WP:AGF and WP:NOT VANDALISM before completing the following tasks.

Q1. Please describe below the difference between a good faith edit and a vandalism edit, and how you would tell them apart.

Any edit that is made with the intention of improving Wikipedia is not vandalism, even though the edit might be nonconstructive. Vandalism is essentially any edit that is made solely for the purpose of disrupting or damaging Wikipedia. To tell the difference, I would look at whether or not the edit was a genuine attempt to add information (ex. original research, uncited info, etc.), or if it was clearly made with bad intentions (ex. HAHA IM A VANDAL LOL!!!!). I would also look at previous contributions, whether or not the user has received any warnings, and his or her response to the warnings if they have been received. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 00:21, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Agree Intent is a key consideration and in the absense of clear malicious intent, I tend to revert disruptive edits as Good Faith, with an appropriate message explaining why. Your approach to determining intent is very good.


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 Reverts

http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Lake_Whatcom&diff=624731470&oldid=624731334 - The edits here were well intentioned, but there was some addition of uncited content and removal of some ref tags. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 23:01, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

 Comment: A couple of things: First, while using the full URL is fine, you can create diff links more easily if you go to the diff in the page history (using the Compare selected revisions button) and then copy the diff URL into your update with single brackets. For your first link above the Diff link would look like this: [1]. If you look at this page in edit mode, you'll see that the actual URL is formatted a bit differently than yours as well.
Also, the editor you reverted has posted comments on her own talk page and made further edits. You probably want to follow up and offer to help or clean up the article if he/she needs it. Often times, while fighting vandalism, you come across an edit that is either grammatically incorrect, lacks some punctuation or otherwise would take only a minor change to fix. If you can improve the article more by making minor updates rather than reverting the editor, that's the preferred path.
Let me know what happens with this article... Vertium When all is said and done 23:49, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
To be honest, I've always had trouble making a decision on edits that have questionable content mixed with good content. Especially when they are blended and hard to distinguish. It can be tricky sometimes. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 00:20, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
If in doubt, AGF, especially if the editor's page isn't littered with warnings about prior vandalism. Again, if you can clean it up manually rather than reversion, you can leave a note on the user's talk page indicating what you've done, validating the good parts of their contribution and helping them understand why other parts weren't as constructive. Vertium When all is said and done 01:18, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

[2] - I'd assume good faith here. The edit was nonconstructive, as it removed well-written content and replaced it with promotional-tone material. However, the user had received no previous warnings before that. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 00:30, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Agree. Good call. Some might go right to the "revert vandalism" buttons on Twinkle or Stiki, but as you note, no history and it could have clearly been just someone who doesn't know what they're doing. All this user's edits are from the same day, so I'd keep him on my watch list and see what he does moving forward. Vertium When all is said and done 01:18, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

[3] - This IP had received no previous warnings, and I suspect it just might have been an overreaction, as he/she might have interpreted the message as an attack (i.e. You apparently don't understand...). Writing Enthusiast ☎ 14:27, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Side note: This editor messaged me and apologized, saying he/she had done the removal in error. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 14:47, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
Agree. It's great that you caught the disruptive editing on a talk page, evident mostly in that it was a deletion, and nice that it got resolved so amicably. One thing to note is that they're probably going to be looking at your article edit counts (versus talk, etc.) when considering granting you rollback rights, which you'll want to make fighting vandalism more easily. Not trying to direct you away from watching talk pages as well, just a side note for your consideration.
You can continue to post anything else here if you have a question as to whether you handled it properly, but you seem to have a good grasp of when an edit should be AGF'd. Vertium When all is said and done 13:05, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Vandalism Reverts

http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Temperate_climate&diff=624732379&oldid=624731545 - This IP has received warnings before and continues to make nonconstructive edits. I think it's safe to call this intentional disruption. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 23:09, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Agree. Any time someone blanks a page, a full section or even significant amounts of text (particularly cited text) without an edit summary explaining the rationale, it should be reverted (particularly when they put in silly nonsense like this one did). However, you do have to look carefully at the edit summary, as well-intentioned editors will go in and clean up large swaths of unreferenced content (particularly in BLP) and explain their thinking in the edit summary. I agree that you reverted this correctly. Vertium When all is said and done 23:49, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

[4] - I'd call this edit vandalism. This edit seems to constitute disruptive intent and not just an editing test. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 00:37, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Agree. Cut and dried vandalism. Good find. I'm done for the night, but will check again tomorrow. Vertium When all is said and done 01:18, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
One of my favorite things to do is go to recent changes page and look for bold red edits. Some of these turn out to be page or section blanking. That's how I found this one. Problem is, a certain bot usually beats me to it... Writing Enthusiast ☎ 14:27, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

[5] - Previous warning have been received by this user, and they are not being heeded. I'd say this edit is rather obvious vandalism. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 14:39, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

 Comment:. While I Agree that it is clearly vandalism, you gave a level 4 warning to an IP address for their first instance of vandalism in the month of September. When an IP address is involved, you cannot be certain that it's the same human being at the other end of the vandalism that has committed the prior bad acts. If no warnings have been given in the last 24 hours, you need to restart with a level 1 warning. Level 2 warnings can only be given to those who've been warned with a level 1 within the prior 24 hours. If you give a level 4 or final warning to anyone who's gotten 3 or more warnings in the last 24 hours, you need to report them at WP:AIV so they can be blocked. If it's a registered user (has an account name vs. an IP address), and all you see on their talk page are vandalism warnings (even if they're not all from the same day), it's a good idea to check their contributions. If all of them seem to be solely for the purpose of vandalizing the wiki, then you should report them to AIV as an obvious vandal-only account. Hope that helps. Vertium When all is said and done 13:05, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Do You Agree?

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The following diffs illustrate various reverts that have been done by other editors or rollbackers. They're a little dated, but I've picked them specifically for this curriculum. Please indicate after each diff 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. Don't feel like you have to do all of these at once! Feel free to space them out over whatever timeframe you'd like, and continue to build your vandalism and reviews. Let me know if you have any questions.

Reversion of Good Faith edits:

Agree. This edit does not at all vandalism, and was a good faith attempt to help out. The only reason this got reverted was because Wikipedia doesn't allow Indian scripts, and I'm sure the editor didn't know that. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 22:30, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
If I were the editor you reverted and I left a message on your talk page, how would you justify this AGF revert? Is it true that Wikipedia doesn't allow Indian script at all? Vertium When all is said and done 02:04, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
Good question. I'm actually not sure how I would have justified this. Perhaps editors should put a link to the relevant policy in the edit summary when their change might be questioned. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 14:10, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
There is widespread use of Indian and Tamil script within articles and the only hard-and-fast thing I've seen (as much as anything around here can be hard-and-fast) is that there should never be non-English characters in an article title. Vertium When all is said and done 02:16, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
Agree. The edit was a only a minor change of words that was not completely accurate, and was not made with malicious intent. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 22:30, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
I'd have probably not even reverted this at all, leaving it to someone with some domain expertise on the topic. Vertium When all is said and done 01:58, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
I can't really understand your reasoning here. Why does a simple change of words need to be reviewed by someone that's an expert? Writing Enthusiast ☎ 14:10, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
Because the only difference is between "target" and "ambition", which is a pretty nuanced distinction. Given the political tension related to Scottish sovereignty, I'm not sure I can easily distinguish between the two, not being in the UK. Vertium When all is said and done 02:16, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
Agree. The editor that added the information followed the proper protocol by adding a citation. In fact, I'm not completely sure why this was even reverted in the first place. Unless the phrase "Bieber's lack of masculinity" was seen as a personal attack. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 22:30, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
Not sure I agree with your conclusion here. It seems that the editor purposefully introduced false "factual" errors that violate WP:BLP and tried to mask the edit by providing a source that does not verify the information. It's a bit WP:SNEAKY and probably warranted a level-1 warning on the editor's talk page. Vertium When all is said and done 01:58, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
On second thought, I'd have to agree with you. Isn't it a form of vandalism to write something and cite a source to make it appear cited? Writing Enthusiast ☎ 14:10, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes, that's a form of sneaky vandalism. Vertium When all is said and done 02:16, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
Agree. This was a good faith attempt to improve the article. The only problem was the lack of a citation. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 22:30, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
Agree Vertium When all is said and done 02:16, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
Agree. Like the edit above, the editor was trying to improve the article, but it was not cited. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 22:30, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
Agree Vertium When all is said and done 02:16, 15 September 2014 (UTC)


Agree. The edit was a good attempt to improve punctuation. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 22:30, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
Agree Vertium When all is said and done 02:16, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Reversions for Vandalism:

Disagree. The information was not cited, but it looks like an attempt to add some good information. The IP has received previous warnings, but this IP was registered an educational institution (and there's so many people there). I would assume good faith here. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 15:23, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

checkY Accidental misinformation meets WP:NOTVAND criteria Vertium When all is said and done 02:16, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

(Edited) This reversion looks like a mistake to me, since an experienced rollback user did this. This is an AGF situation. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 15:30, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
Agree Vertium When all is said and done 02:16, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
Partially agree. 371 is obviously way too many carriers, and the count dropping to 310 after the departure of one carrier is obviously a joke. However, it's not blatant vandalism, either. Overall, I'd say that calling it vandalism is mostly appropriate, but it could also be a test edit. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 22:30, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
It only takes a second to verify this, so it would be hard to see this as a good faith edit. So, I'd mark this as vandalism. Of course, as noted above, if the user didn't have a history of disruptive edits, an AGF revert wouldn't be a bad thing either. Good call. Vertium When all is said and done 02:16, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
Disagree. This edit was not blatant vandalism, and the editor was probably trying to improve the article. I'd AGF here. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 22:50, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
This kind of thing happens all the time, where an editor goes in and makes a minor change that is neither sourced nor necessarily improves the article. AGF is appropriate, especially if not sourced. Vertium When all is said and done 02:16, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
Disagree. The edit was not blatant vandalism and was not extremely harmful to the article. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 22:50, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
Agree Vertium When all is said and done 02:16, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
Partial agree. The edit did remove good information, but it was not clearly malicious, either. I would have used the neutral Twinkle button. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 22:50, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
checkY Vertium When all is said and done 02:16, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
Disagree. This was not vandalism. It's more of a test edit. Like the edit above, I would have used the neutral button. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 22:50, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
checkY Vertium When all is said and done 02:16, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Review and Comment on Your Reversions

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In this section, I'll post diffs for any reversions you've made where I have a comment or question. While I continue to review your answers in the previous section and have a look at some of your reversions, it will be a good idea to continue building your edit count in the mainspace. Good work so far!

I made a mistake here. This was the edit I meant to revert, not the source addition. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 15:38, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
The article is still missing the entire reference. I don't see where you undid the erroneous revert. If you're just trying to remove some bad text within an entry, you'll have to edit the page, not revert the full edit. Can you please fix the article? Vertium When all is said and done 00:06, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
 Done -Writing Enthusiast ☎ 00:25, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Level of Comfort? Questions?

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You've done well on the challenges I've put forth, and I'm going to continue watching some of our reverts over the next several days. You are supposed to have at least 400 edits in the mainspace before you request rollback rights (you had 247 last time I looked), so you need to get some more edits under your belt for that request, but that doesn't stop you from fighting vandalism as you have.

Please let me know your level of overall comfort with the policies and thought process around vandalism. Also, please identify any questions you've got below and I'll answer them the best I can. Vertium When all is said and done 02:27, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Just as a quick update, my edit count is almost near 600. I'm low on time right now, so I'll ask any questions I have soon. Writing Enthusiast ☎ 02:54, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm comfortable with what is and isn't vandalism. I do have a few questions, though. First, what do you do in cases when the edit cannot be easily categorized as good faith or vandalism? Can you skip these? Writing Enthusiast ☎ 01:00, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
As of right now, WritingEnthusiast's Editing Statistics show your mainspace edit count at 277. For the purpose of this, only article edits count, as the admins won't count your edits to other namespaces (talk, etc.) as a credential for giving you Rollbacker rights. as to your other question, if the edit is disruptive, it's really best not to skip it. If you can't decide whether it's GF or Vandalism, then I'd revert with AGF. If you're not sure whether it's truly disruptive, then skipping it is fine. You will also develop a network of people you work with (I'm one now) that you can send the diff to and ask their opinion or help.
Like I said above, you can continue to do the vandalism fighting as you have time. I'm going to watch your edits over the next few days and barring any issues, I'll post a graduation notice here in a few days. Once you hit the edit count, you can approach an admin and ask for Rollbacker rights. Once you have those, you can use Stiki, which to me is an easier tool than Twinkle (of course, it's your choice!). Thanks for putting so much effort into the Academy and your work in fighting vandalism! Vertium When all is said and done 01:41, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
What is the minimum required edit count to get the tool? Writing Enthusiast ☎ 03:16, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Per WP:Stiki you have to have Rollback rights to use it. The guidelines say that those with less than 400 edits in the mainspace are unlikely to be granted the rollback rights. You're not that far away and you'll get there very quickly at the rate you're going. Vertium When all is said and done 10:55, 16 September 2014 (UTC)


I now feel rather comfortable with what is and isn't vandalism. Thank you for all you help, and I'll be sure to ask you if I have any more questions. :) Writing Enthusiast ☎ 16:39, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Great. I'll update your entry in the list shortly, and when you get over the 400 mainspace edits, if you wish to apply for Rollback rights, you can invite the admins to contact me with any questions about your time in CVUA. Vertium When all is said and done 00:43, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Graduated

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Congratulations on your graduation from CVUA and earning Rollbacker rights. If you have questions, you're always welcome to contact me. Thanks for all your efforts in fighting vandalism on the project! Vertium When all is said and done 19:28, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

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