User:Jim Carter/CVUA/AtomsOrSystems

Hello, welcome to your Counter Vandalism Unit Academy 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 about anti-vandalism (or anything else), you are more than welcome to raise them with me at my talk page.

Make sure you read through Vandalism as that's the knowledge which most of the questions I ask you and tasks you do will revolve around.

 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. Please always sign your responses to tasks as you would on a talk page.

Note: Once you graduate I will copy this page into your userspace so you have a record of your training and a reference for the future.

Good faith and vandalism
Note: 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 recognise the difference between a vandalism edit and a good faith edit, especially because Twinkle gives you the option of labelling edits you revert as such. Please read WP:AGF and WP:NOT VANDALISM before completing the following tasks.

 Task no. 1  Please explain below the difference between a good faith edit and a vandalism edit, and how you would tell them apart.
 * A: A good faith edit is any edit that is made with the intent of helping Wikipedia, or the individual article it is made on. In some cases, these edits are unhelpful, and should be reverted; this could be due to the editor being unaware of Wikipedia's culture or policies, or it could simply be a mistake. Basically, a good-faith edit is any edit done with good intentions.
 * Vandalism, on the other hand, is an edit that is a deliberate attempt to compromise Wikipedia's integrity. It can come in many forms, including the addition of obscenities, intentional page blanking, or intentional insertion of incorrect information.
 * Because intent is hard to judge from the outside, it can sometimes be hard to distinguish between edits that are detrimental to Wikipedia but are done in good faith, and edits that are vandalism. A few things that can be used to distinguish between the two is the use of irrelevant obscenities, abuse of editors correcting the nonconstructive edits, and continued detrimental edits even after warnings. -- A TOMS O R S YSTEMS (TALK) 08:43, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

 Task no. 2  Please find three examples of good faith but unhelpful edits, and three examples of vandalism. You don't need to revert the example you find, and I am happy for you to use previous undos in your edit history if you wish.


 * A: Good faith:


 * 1)  -- Addiditon of nonsense text, apparently as a test, which was self-reverted.
 * 2)  -- An apparent good-faith effort to improve the grammar or readability of the sentence, possibly caused by a lack of knowledge about the subject.
 * 3)  -- Addition of non-English or nonsense characters, breaking the topic formatting. Likely a mistake by an inexperienced editor.
 * -- A TOMS O R S YSTEMS (TALK) 08:45, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Note that #1 edit was a addition of a smiley but as the edit was self-reverted so that implies they were testing how things work.
 * A: Vandalism:


 * 1)  -- First edit by an IP user, I would classify it as fairly minor vandalism due to the blanking with the addition of an unecessary obscenity. I would (did) respond to it with a reversion and the first level vandalism warning template, which is quite similar to a good faith warning. I became more certain it was vandalism with the second edit...
 * 2)  -- where the user responded to the reversion by once again deleting material, and adding an obscenity apparently aimed at the person who reverted their initial edit.
 * 3)  -- A different example of vandalism, not in the article mainspace, where an IP user continuously removed appropriate Sockpuppet tags from some user pages, and repeatedly added them inappropriately to another.
 * -- A TOMS O R S YSTEMS (TALK) 08:44, 10 February 2015 (UTC)



 Task no. 3  I'm listing four diffs below. You'll tell me whether they are vandalism or Good faith.
 * 1
 * A: Vandalism -- Minor image vandalism, and arguably a bit of (perhaps unintentional) hidden vandalism in the second edit. The repetition of the edits makes me more positive in my identification of this edit as vandalism.
 * 2
 * A: Good Faith -- Positive-though-uncited addition to the article (like much of the rest of the article). Wouldn't revert.
 * 3
 * A: Good Faith -- Accidentally broke the reference formatting while attempting to improve the article, would fix and move on.
 * 4
 * A: Good Faith -- Removal of referenced info w/o explanation, and addition ofa great deal of unsourced material that may fall under WP:OR. However, apparently done in the best interests of the article. Likely a new user.
 * -- A TOMS O R S YSTEMS (TALK) 22:10, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

 Task no. 4  An IP user has removed some unsourced information from an article without providing an edit summary. Will you revert the edit or will you not? Given reason why you think the edit should/should not be reverted. Is there anything you can do other than reverting/not reverting?
 * A: I would not revert the edit, because the removal of uncited material is beneficial to the project, so this is neither vandalism nor a good faith detrimental edit. Also, although including an edit summary is useful, recommended, and polite, it's not required.
 * Rather than revert the edit, I would likely leave a message on the IP user's talk page thanking them for their edit, and explaining that it is often considered helpful and polite to include an edit summary. If the change was in a contended article space, I would also probably suggest that it can sometimes be helpful to discuss non-controversial edits in the talk page. -- A TOMS O R S YSTEMS (TALK) 21:47, 10 February 2015 (UTC)



Warning and reporting
Note: 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. Please read WP:WARN and WP:UWUL before answering the following questions.

 Task no. 5  Why do we warn users?
 * A: Warnings serve the purpose of notifying a user that their disruptive edit has been reverted, and hopefully discouraging them from making further disruptive edits. Ideally, that is done by notifying them of the mistake they made and offering a more constructive environment (i.e. the sandbox) to make test edits. It also warns users who continue to make vandalizing edits that their actions may result in an administrator taking action against them. -- A TOMS O R S YSTEMS (TALK) 04:24, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

 Task no. 6  When would a 4im warning be appropriate?
 * A: A 4im warning is generally only appropriate when a user or single IP is excessively or continuously vandalizing Wikipedia. -- A TOMS O R S YSTEMS (TALK) 04:21, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

 Task no. 7  Should you substitute a template when you place it on a user talk page, and how do you do it?
 * A: User warning templates should always be substituted. To substitute a template, you add "subst:" to the template tag (e.g. rather than ). -- A TOMS O R S YSTEMS  (TALK) 04:11, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

 Task no. 8  What should you do if a user who has received a level 4 or 4im warning vandalizes again?
 * A: Submit a report to WP:AIV. -- A TOMS O R S YSTEMS (TALK) 04:18, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

 Task no. 9  Please give examples (using this format: ) of seven different warnings (not different levels of the same warning, I encourage you to use the templates referred to above), that you might need to use while recent changes patrolling and explain what they are used for.
 * A:

 Task no. 10  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 WP:AIV. For each revert and warning please fill in a line on the table below:
 * A: