User:FrigidNinja/Adoption/Lesson Three B

Identifying Vandalism
So we've found some vandalism. What do we do now? Well, firstly I recommend that you enable Twinkle, under the gadgets section of your preferences. Suddenly, while visiting a diff page, you should see some links reading "rollback (AGF)", "rollback", and "rollback (VANDAL)". These links will enable you to easily revert vandalism. Now, what's the difference between them? Well, AGF, as you should know, stands for assume good faith. This link is for edits that don't seem to be intended to harm the encyclopedia, but are clearly not constructive, such as this one. The normal "rollback" link should be used for normal reverts, such as the addition of unsourced content. And finally, the vandal link should be used to revert vandalism (duh). Clicking on this link will revert the edit and also open up a vandal's talk page, where you can warn him/her about their vandalism.

Warning Vandals
Just as important as reverting vandalism itself is warning the editor that performed it. Without warning him/her, they will simply continue to vandalize, whereas warning them will let them know that they will be reported if they continue. So that we don't have to manually type in a warning ourselves, Twinkle has a handy little "Warn" button under the TW tab at the top. Clicking on this button brings up a dialog with many, many, many different choices. Many warnings, such as vandalism and section blanking, have levels 1-4, with more serious warnings. A typical warning will look something like this.

A level 4 warning is a final warning. Any more vandalism performed by the user will result in a block. However, we're not administrators. So, what do we do with a user that has continued to vandalize? We report them to WP:AIV. That page provides complete instructions on how to file a proper report. Twinkle has a handy little button reading ARV under the TW tab when you visit a userpage, which can also be used to report a vandal. Usually, an admin will block the vandal within minutes, but until this time, you must continue to watch the user's contributions and revert any more vandalism they perform.

When warning users, one of them may take offence and attack you on your talk page, or even vandalize your userpage. Don't take it personally; just revert, brush it off, and slap a warning on their talk page of whatever severity you deem necessary. It's fine to even use an "only warning" template.

In certain cases of plain and severe vandalism, such as replacing entire pages with "VANDALIZED!!!!!", you may safely assume bad faith (gasp!) and give the user a more severe warning. It's clear that this user is not here to improve the encyclopedia. For extremely severe vandalism, you may use a "4im" warning. This warning is the only warning that a user receives.

Just to ensure that you understand these templates, I'm going to ask you to warn User:Sandbox for user warnings about vandalism on his talk page, using a level 3 vandalism template. Please post the diff in the brackets below

[]

There are many other messages/warnings that you can use to communicate with editors. You can find them at WP:UTM. Please make sure to choose the most specific template, so that the user understands exactly what they did wrong.

Reading
This was a long lesson; you may want to read through the following pages to ensure that you understand the concepts I outlined. As always, this is optional, but it will be helpful for the test.


 * WP:VANDAL
 * WP:TWINKLE
 * WP:AIV

Questions
Once again, any questions?  Frigid Ninja