Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit/Academy (old)/Resources

This page is about resources you can use in your CVUA Teachings. For the page on instruction methods, see WP:CVUA/IM.

This page serves a location for instructors to come for lesson plans, tests, quizzes, and more related to their CVUA Teachings. If you have something to add, be bold and go ahead! And don't hesitate to get in touch if you still have questions.

General Practices

Academy Page

It is recommended, though not required, that you give each student their own "academy page", usually as a subpage of your talk, i.e. User talk:Example/CVUA/Example. You can then use the /CVUA page as your centralized instructor page (see "Centralized Instructor Page", below). These academy pages usually build up as the lessons go on - you first add the Introduction, then the steps following from a Method of your choice (from either below or of your own creation).

Centralized Instructor Page

Want a cool, centralized page for all of your students to be able to go to and easily find links to their personalized academy pages, as well as other frequent counter vandal tasks? Consider using something like ItsZippy's Personal CVUA page as a starting point.

Instruction Methods

These instruction methods should be considered suggestions/starting points, and by no means "the law." You are free to teach however you like - just be sure that, in the end, the student knows everything listed on the Instruction Methods page!

This section gives broad suggestions for methods to use while instructing users. Instructors are free to add their own section detailing the kind of things they do. This may give you ideas about how to structure your course, what kind of approach to take with students, how to decide if a student graduates or not, and similar broad issues for instructors.

Callanecc's method

I've adapted my version primarily from ItsZippy but the two tests are adapted from Electriccatfish2. It might save Zippy sometime, not needing breaking it all down into steps. My version is at User:Callanecc/CVUA/Tasks.

ItsZippy's method

This method is what I used for my CVUA course, further details can be found at User:ItsZippy/CVUA. Take a look through any of my current of past candidate's academy pages to see how I approach instruction. I tend to create an academy page for my students, which I build up over time. There is a level of genericness (there are a lot of things every student needs to know), but I try to tailor them to specific students. The page will gradually grow as a student completes tasks and then sections. Once they've completed the whole course, they have a five-day monitoring period, during which I will watch their progress, ensure they're on track, and notify them if I see any problems. After this time, I will set them a final test. If they pass the test and I am happy with their progress in the monitoring phase, they will graduate.

Suggested tasks

One of the best ways to train someone in anti-vandalism to give them tasks to complete. By giving a student tasks to do, you force them to apply what they have learnt to real situations, and to deal with other people in a live editing environment. It is important to make tasks appropriate to the student - don't throw them in at the deep end, but make sure you challenge them sufficiently. Always ensure that the tasks you do won't get them in trouble (getting a student to file a test report at AIV will just get them and you in trouble). Tasks can be practical activities (find and revert X type of vandalism, warn a user, etc.) or questions based on what they've learnt.

Good faith and vandalism

• Please explain below the difference between a good faith edit and a vandalism edit, and how you would tell them apart.
• 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 revisions below.

Warning and reporting

• Please answer the following questions
  • Why do we warn users?
  • When would a 4im warning be appropriate?
  • What should you do if a user who has received a level 4 or 4im warning vandalises again?
• Please give examples of three warnings that you might need to use while vandal 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. Posts the diffs of those warnings below.
• Find an edit which could be a test edit and revert it. Warn the user with the most appropriate template, then post the diff below.
• Report 2 users to AIV and post the diffs below. Be sure to follow the guidelines and only report users where necessary; do not report simply for the sake of this task.

Dealing with difficult users

• Why do we deny recognition to trolls and vandals?
• How can you tell between a good faith user asking why you reverted their edit, and a troll trying to harass you?

Protection and speedy deletion

• In what circumstances should a page be semi-protected?
• In what circumstances should a page be fully protected?
• In what circumstances should a page be speedy deleted?
• Correctly tag one page for speedy deletion and post the diff below.
• Correctly request the protection of one page (semi or full); post the diff of your request (from WP:RPP) below.

Graduation

• There is a graduation template that can be used at Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit/Academy/Graduate; you must type your own message to the student into that.
• Callanecc has a template with an example message here.