User:Omicronpersei8/Counter-vandalism practices

This article is a work in progress.

Purpose
My purpose for being an RC patroller on Wikipedia is unclear to me. Either I like the false sense of authority it brings, or I am simply satiating my obsessive tendencies. Many people have an addiction to Wikipedia, and this is true even for people who rarely contribute actual content, like myself. Either way, I like to preserve order, and I like seeing that done in an orderly way.

I also really like Wikipedia, as it has helped me out in a lot of situations. I'm not an expert on anything, but I feel compelled to improve the site in some way, so counter-vandalism it is. This is more of a statement of admiration than one of perceived indebtedness.

Behavior
This section is off-topic from the intent of this page, but I have included it to serve as a kind of personal introduction, or perhaps a primer for my conduct.

I'm a secretive, nervous person. I am happy to help out, but I take some caution at giving out personal details or contact information. I am especially paranoid about attending conventions involving people I know only through the Internet. Please don't be mad at me about these things -- that also makes me nervous.

I am a stickler about grammar, spelling, and phrasing, all of which factor into my decision to avoid the use of smileys. This is a quirk of mine, so please don't take it personally when I don't "smile" back or appear emotionless. Text is an inadequate medium for expressing one's feelings in the first place, so in general, I try to avoid expressiveness. I want to be cordial and respectful, but I'm also a perfectionist about what I type. I hope I will not be regarded as temperamental or aloof when I reply too formally -- it really is not my intent to present a cold shoulder.

I lose my cool sometimes, though -- when blatant vandals pretend like they have done no wrong and deserve to edit Wikipedia however they want, for example, I don't feel obligated to be especially nice to them. I do not, however, intend to bring a vandal-hating spirit to Wikipedia, nor do I do countervandalism in order to harass or block other users.

I have become better about this over the past few months. At first, I came to Wikipedia with a certain intolerance towards vandalism, and for a while I felt that bad edits should be confronted with stern disapproval. Now, however, the thought that I may be responsible for running off a potential good contributor scares me, especially if their improper additions were the result of innocent testing. In general, I try to warn vandals with first, unless their edits are of a strongly malignant nature. I am aware that these realizations are both obvious and implicit in the good faith policy, but I guess I just have a lot of growing up to do.

Why I can't be an administrator
I've trimmed this section down on a few different occasions; you're now reading the one that represents my current outlook.

Rather than make an essay out of it, as has been the case with previous versions, I'll just say that I need a little more time to "grow up" on Wikipedia. I need more experience with policy and more practice in keeping my temper in situations involving trolls and vandals. Regardless of whether I could pass an RFA, I think this issue would go badly at said discussion and wouldn't reflect well on the site. I have no exigent need for administrator tools nor a desire, so for now I think I'll just take the path of least resistance.

Well, that's it for this section. Thanks for reading.

Reporting me to the administrators
Or maybe you're here looking for a way to report me for unacceptable behavior. If so, we might as well not beat around the bush, right? Here are some relevant links:


 * Resolving disputes. First, are you sure you wouldn't rather just talk it out?
 * Requests for administrator attention. No? Then you may want to start here, as it's a hub for other grievance-oriented pages. It would be in the best interest of your report to put it in the right place, as ill-conceived attempts are sometimes ignored. Luckily, this page comes complete with explanations of the links listed.
 * Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. This is the standard page for passing along issues with other users to administrators, and perhaps the fastest avenue for non-vandalism-oriented complaints.
 * Administrators' noticeboard/3RR. Boasting a good success rate in producing editing blocks, this is the place to report users who have broken the three-revert rule. Please be sure that your report does not fall under the vandalism clause of this policy, or else it may be thrown out.
 * Requests for comment. Here is a good place to bring me to the attention of the community and also demand an explanation for my actions. This is a potentially long, slow, arduous process, but go for it if you feel it necessary.
 * Administrator intervention against vandalism. This is a page for reporting vandalism. I use it a lot to report vandals. If you feel I am one of this crowd, here is your possibly final opportunity to make your voice heard, given that the methods above have been unsuccessful.

I hope this is a helpful enough guide, although I would rather just engage in civil dialogue where possible. I trust that if you are interested in pursuing one of the methods above, you have already tried the conversational approach. I guess things don't always work out easily, though, huh?

RC patrol
I am a recent changes patroller, which means I patrol recent changes. Because IP users are more likely to commit vandalism, I almost always filter out the logged in ones. I do this because although sock puppets and newly registered vandals may get a free pass from me, I feel that they are easily lost among all the legitimate edits. When combining both logged in edits and IP edits in one list, the anonymous vandalisms are even more easily drowned.

Monitoring tools
On patrol, I use my custom quickie link page at User:Omicronpersei8/RC, because I'm still relatively new and don't have everything committed to memory, and also VandalSniper, which is basically a Linux (currently) cousin of VandalProof. I use VandalProof too, sometimes, and Javascript popups once in a blue moon.

VandalSniper allows real-time monitoring of edits by individual users, and also tracks edits to pages on a user's watchlist. I have begun to greatly abuse the watchlist feature, and recently went through Most vandalized pages and added almost every entry listed to mine. Altogether, I had 6,258 pages on my watchlist as of November 27, 2006 (excluding talk pages). Thus, I now do a lot more big article monitoring than before. Whether that means I will neglect recent changes remains to be seen.

I've also been collaborating with the cleanup crew in Freenode's counter-vandalism IRC channel, which is full of nice, friendly guys and gals who are much more adept at vandal tracking than myself.

Warning system
I like to give at least three warnings before I take things to AIV. I also prefer to start at level one good faith warnings, and then go up the ladder as needed. Most of the time, the vandalism must have been something pretty deliberate or indicative of a sock puppet to cause me to jump right to a report.

VandalSniper has a nice range of automatic warnings, so I try to utilize them where applicable. Nonetheless, please don't automatically assume I'm not paying attention to what I'm doing if I give a where you would have preferred I use.

Notability decisions
I use Google frequently when I have a question about an article's or section's notability. On occasion, I take my concerns to the talk page. I have also gotten some mileage out of. When I resort to Google, I usually do not go to any other lengths to establish credibility. Some will argue that a Google search is not a comprehensive enough tool to certify that a subject deserves a Wikipedia article. I disagree, because I feel the Internet has been around long enough to be a reliable echo not only of popular interests, but of almost anything of any note.

I feel I know how to perform Google searches correctly, so when my query fails to turn up at least a few hundred results, I bring the subject's validity into question. Naturally, there are exceptions to this, and I try to observe them when applicable, but if an article has no links, sections, or methods of verifying claims, makes express usage of the first person, or resembles an advertisement, I put it up for deletion.

When I see s removed without comment, I do the logical thing and escalate them with s for their proposers. This isn't a statement of support (although I do often agree), and as I usually cite the name of the proposer I'm ghost-editing for, I often don't offer my opinion at the AFD. Yes, that's right, "AFD", not "AfD", because I hate camel case, acronym or not.

Self-evaluation
I'm certainly not always right, and I'm definitely open to reconsideration of my actions. If you feel that I am doing more harm than good, and attempts to reason with me on my talk page have been unsuccessful, then one or more of the numerous solutions as defined by site policy (WP:AN, WP:ANI, WP:RAA, WP:AIV, WP:RFC) may be appropriate. (See again "Reporting me to the administrators".)

Mistakes I know I have made
Here is an incomplete list of mistakes I have made and will make again. Please contact me when I do.

Naive drive-by judgments
Sometimes I will see an edit that is apropos but does not seem it at first glance; one example is when I reverted what I thought was a racist, nonsensical addition to an article, not realizing, even after giving dictionary.com a cursory glance, that it was a completely valid edit. I honestly do try to examine edits before I do away with them, but sometimes I do not invest enough time or insight into my process. In my defense, it's a type of mistake most people make occasionally. I feel I have gotten quite a bit more rigorous about this lately, though.

Inappropriate deletion tagging
Historically, I have been more inclined towards speedy deletes than proposed deletions or AFDs. Naturally, not all of my nominations have been successful. This means I have either incorrectly labelled a legitimate article as illegitimate, or have used the wrong means of doing away with an article. It has not been a rare event for me to request speedy deletion for an article that should be discussed first, or vice versa.

Assuming bad faith
I am certainly not infallible in my viewpoints, and after dealing with vandals for a while, one tends to temporarily lose one's sense of humor. I have my own opinions about what is and isn't a valid edit, and when I feel someone has not made a decent improvement in his or her edits, it is easier than usual to assume that an individual does not have Wikipedia's best interests in mind. Vandalism has several different forms, one of which is stealthy inclusion of what may be considered nonsense. I tend to justify myself in holding opinions such as these, but I do regret when I mistake a valid editor for a vandal. In truth, I do need more work at assuming good faith. I try to be discerning, sensible, and perceptive; sometimes, this causes me to instead be rude, condemning, untrusting, temperamental, or egotistical. The best way to deal with me in such an instance is to either talk to me about it or report me if that has failed.

Erroneous reverting of blankings
One of the first lines of WP:ES states: An edit summary should strive to answer the question, "Why did you make this edit?". Please include edit comments when you blank. God knows I don't include edit summaries with all of my edits, sometimes even when I should, but simply removing someone's addition altogether needs to be qualified.

Generally, the most research I will do when I see an IP blanking is search back through the user's history for that article alone. I can easily ignore one section being removed without an edit comment, but two trips my alarm. Large, multi-section deletions are often deserving of reversion almost without question.

Conclusion: A plea for understanding
Why do some people get angry when I revert their edits? Either because they put time and effort into something that I did away with the click of a button, or because they resent having their claims questioned, possibly as a result of having a large ego. I believe the first situation is the more frequent one.

I try not to revert without a valid reason, and anyway, edits are kept in history for you to restore at your heart's content, as long as WP:3RR is observed. I try to avoid letting edit wars become habit, and probably won't do a second revert, unless I am dealing with something that obviously should be removed. I am usually happy to discuss my actions, and I will usually admit when I am wrong, as long as civility is maintained.

So please, when I do something stupid, I beg that you realize that I'm still pretty new here and that, in general, I only have the site's best interests at heart.

In my experiences, most IP edits to Wikipedia are to articles in the human interest or entertainment categories, and thus objectivity is especially hard to find. Perhaps relatedly, most IP edits do not include sources with their claims or additions.

Most of Wikipedia is unsourced, so one must use his or her wits to sort out the gold from the garbage. Thankfully, most of Wikipedia is gold.

-- Omicronpersei8 11 July 2006
 * Last updated: 19:00, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Appendix: Grammar userboxes
