User:Sirdog/Studybook

The purpose of this page is for me to take notes regarding these policies to help me ingrain them. Simply reading them (especially with how beefy they are) does not tend to serve me. Any editor who sees anything of issue here (by the way, if you are even here, hi) is encouraged to alert me on my talk page.

Merging Page History
Before page moving was more widely available to editors a page would be named by performing a cut-and-paste move. This is when the entire contents of the article would be copied, the page at the wanted name would be create, and then the content was pasted into it.

This still occurs occasionally for a couple of reasons:


 * An editor may be unfamiliar with the page move function.
 * An editor may be unaware of the fact that now attribution is necessary when back in the day it wasn't thought about.
 * An editor may do so after failing to figure it out another way and not know that they can ask an administrator for help at Requested moves.

When this is done it splits the page history between 2 or more pages, which is very bad as attributing edits to an account or IP address is necessary for copyright reasons.

In some situations administrators can correct this issue by performing what is known as a page history merge, commonly referred to as a HISTMERGE.

Special:MergeHistory
Administrators are granted access to a special page which allows them to perform this process automatically with the software. The varies from performing the manual method in various ways:


 * The software automatically detects the latest version of the source page, which is generally older than whatever the oldest version of the target page is, and won't allow the administrator to move later revisions. This is good if the source page eventually changed substantially, but is not good if the first revision of the target was to redirect to the source. If a redirect is blocking the process, the redirect (target) and any older edits need to be deleted or merged into a separate redirect. There is a separate process for this at Administrators' guide.
 * The administrator can, however, tell the software to only move earlier revisions than that – it is possible to select the latest revision it should move.

Manual process
Apparently undoing a history merge is very annoying, so history merging should not be attempted by someone who is unsure.

The easy case
Scenario: The source page Alabama/History was the only article on the subject, and that article developed from various edits. Consensus decided to move this to History of Alabama (target). For whatever reason, the source article content was copy and pasted to the target title with the original title reverting to a redirect. In other words, the move tool wasn't used. Cringe.

Steps to resolve:


 * Move source to target using the move tool. An administrator of some kind approves the deletion of the target for the move to function.
 * The target is undeleted, by
 * Viewing the Page history
 * Linking via "View or restore ... deleted edits?", and
 * Clicking on "Restore". (Now the new title's history has both the old and new versions, including an extra copy of the most recent version of Alabama/History, created by the move tool.)
 * At this point, the target should simply be a redirect (being that the most recent version of the source was the redirect).
 * Now the target is simply reverted to whatever version it was prior to a move being attempted in the first place.

Revision limit
Administrators are technically prohibited from deleting a page with more than 5000 edits total. In the event the target exceeds this threshold, the solution is to then:


 * Move target to source with a summary indicating a history merge is in process and that the move is not permanent.
 * Undelete the revisions of the source containing page history.
 * Move source back to target.
 * If necessary, undelete the remaining revisions at source.

Complexity Increases
Sometimes, after a cut-and-paste move, the source is edited for some other purpose (e.g turning into a disambiguation). This causes the target to have part of it's own history at the source, but the source also contains history of the target. Selective deletion allows these to be repaired as well.

Scenario: Military of Japan (source) was moved to Japan Self-Defense Forces (target) with the source changed to a disambiguation page. Repairing was done by:


 * Deleting source.
 * Selective undelete was used to undelete only versions which belonged to the target.
 * The versions belonging to the target at the source are selectively moved back to the target using the regular page-move function. This requires the target to be deleted but can be done as part of the move.
 * Undeletion of target restores the rest of the versions of that article to it's history.
 * This results in the most recent version of the target to be the most recent version of the old history from the source (it's a copy of the source, created by the page-move). So a dummy edit should be made at the target to bring the edit history back to the forefront, ignoring the warning given by the software about not editing the most recent version.
 * The 3rd bullet will have left a history containing a redirect to the source. Delete the redirect.
 * Undeletion of all the other versions of the source restores the more recent history of that article; no additional steps are required.

The nuclear case
Both of the above examples apply when there is an alpha topic with history split between a source and a target. They do not in any way help if a source is cut and pasted to target and the source is later reverted to an older version of itself and then edited from there. That creates, basically, wibbly-whimey timey stuff as page histories are now interweaving in the event a merge is attempted.

The appropriate thing to do here is to leave a note on the target talk's page pointing out that the source exists with the source moved to a sub-page of the targets talk page (e.g Talk:RandomArticle/OldVersion).

Parallel versions
If an alpha page is being created by a beta page and charlie page merging together into the alpha, that is referred to as a text-merge. A history merge is not appropriate in this case as the histories from beta and charlie would merge together chronologically and be an absolute mess. The ideal scenario is to use the Copied template and place it at the talk page of the alpha.

However, the software does not allow page history to be archived for the public if it is not a live article or a redirect. Therefore, if two pages with parallel histories are merged but it is undesirable for whatever reason to keep a redirect from the deprecated beta and charlie pages to the alpha, then the old page histories from the beta and charlie have to move somewhere. This is typically a sub-page of the alpha 's talk page space.

Preserving deleted edits
If a source is merging into a target, the administrator has to ensure that there are no legitimately deleted edits at the target, as then the target 's deletion will result in the legitimate deletions attaching to the rest of the history that has also been deleted. The deleted history should first be rescued from under the target by some process such as this: Move target to some other name, say B_zxcvbnm (without making a redirect). Undelete target. Move target to some other name, say B/old_version. If necessary, re-delete B/old_version. Move B_zxcvbnm back to B (without making a redirect).

Source definition
A source is where material comes from. Generally speaking, anything can be a source. Because of this a source can be reliable or unreliable based on the material it's attempting to support. An unpublished work or a person pulling from their own experience are sources that are prohibited.

Publish definition
A published source means that it is a source available to the public in some form. An unpublished work would be, for example, an unfinished manuscript from an author. Colloquially this refers to textual works, such as books, but this applies to all kinds of media. Like text, media should be produced by a reliable source and be properly cited. An archived copy of the media must also exist, though it isn't necessary for the archived copy to be on the internet.

Context matters
How reliable a source is for given material is contextual. Each one must be judged carefully for whether it is reliable for the statement it's attributed to and where it is an appropriate source for the content. Generally, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication is. Information provided in passing by an otherwise reliable source tend to have questionable reliability; editors should strive to only use statements in sources where the source is talking about the primary topic of the material it's being attributed to. The source should directly support in the information as it is presented in the Wikipedia article.

Age matters
Generally, more current sources should take precedent over older sources as information is superseded. This is especially prominent in law, politics, fashion, and medicine. Sources can be too new however - such as in breaking news - as later reports are far more likely to be accurate. Editors should also be wary of primary sources that purport to uproot an established consensus or introduce a new discovery. When talking about historical matters, sources that are closer to when the event occurred are generally preferred so long as it is not within "breaking news" territory. On the flip side, more recent sources may do a better job explaining primary sources from back then from a modern lens or debunk inaccuracies. It depends.

Recentism should be avoided, where possible. This is a phenomena where editors focus on editing an article to bring it up to date rather than editing an article to make it neutral and verifiable for the long-term.

Scholarly matters

 * Prefer secondary sources - Secondary sources are to be preferred in most cases. Using primary sources should result in extreme caution. It tends to be harder than most people realize to properly write about primary sources in Wikipedia's voice without unintentionally interpreting the content. This is a no-no in all situations.
 * Reliable scholarship - Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses.
 * Dissertations - It's a mixed bag if it's reliable. Some dissertations go through academic rigor prior to publication, others don't. Sometimes a dissertation is available prior to publishing, which disqualifies reliability immediately. If a dissertation is presented in a peer reviewed journal the journal should be cited instead of the thesis itself.
 * Citation counts - Generally, the more a particular work is cited by other scholars the more reliable it is. Generally is used quite loosely here. Works published in journals outside of mainstream databases may well be reliable but not easily found; editor evaluation is needed in such cases. This may be a misleading statistic as authors sometimes cite themselves.
 * Isolated studies - If it's a primary source, generally avoid it if secondary sources exist. Reliability depends on the field of study. In medicine, for example, it should be avoided at all costs. Secondary sources, such as meta-analyses, textbooks, and scholarly review articles are preferred when available.
 * POV and peer review in journals - Journals sometimes exist to push a particular point of view. A claim that a peer review was done is not an indication that the journal is respected or that the peer review was meaningful . Journals not peer reviewed by the wider academic community should not be considered reliable aside from showing the view of the groups representing said journals.
 * Predatory journals - These are journals that only have peer reviews as a "token" of some kind of status but are otherwise of very low quality. These journals tend to publish much of anything if the author pays enough cash. Some even attempt the mimic the names of established journals (see Category:Hijacked journals). At best these should fall under the umbrella of self-published.
 * Preprints - Preprints, such as those available on repositories like arXiv, medRxiv or bioRxiv, are not reliable sources. Research that has not been peer-reviewed is akin to a blog, as anybody can post it online.

News organizations
Tend to have both opinion and factual content. Most newspapers may reprint items from other agencies which are responsible for accuracy. The agency should be cited in addition to the newspaper that reprinted it. Editorial commentary, analysis, and opinion pieces, written by an editor or outside authors, are reliable sources for statements relating to that editor or author - but not for statements of fact. Human interest reporting is also generally not as reliable as news reporting, as the organization may not place the same accuracy checking standards on such articles as other articles.


 * When pulling from opinion content, identify the author. If they are a specialist and/or recognized expert it's more likely that they are simply stating what is already the significant and reliable viewpoint. If the statement is not an authoritative one, attribute it to the author but do not present it as fact in Wikipedia's voice. Note that irrespective of the authority of an author exceptional claims require exceptional evidence, which is a Wikipedia policy under verifiability.
 * A scholarly source or high-quality non-scholarly source is generally preferable to a news article. Press releases from the organizations or journals are often used by newspaper with minimal change; such sources are churnalism and should not be treated differently than the underlying press release.
 * Reporting rumors in articles has little encyclopedic value, though instances of verifiable information about rumors may be appropriate (i.e the rumor itself is noteworthy).
 * Beware circular sourcing.
 * News stories should be evaluated case-by-case.
 * Multiple sources should not be asserted for any wire service article. Such sources are essentially a single source.
 * In other words, do not cite multiple newspapers when writing about a wire service if all of those newspapers are using the same agency for the information, as that is functionally in all but name a single source.
 * If two different agencies are reporting on something, that can classify as 2 separate sources, unless the author is the same individual.
 * Some news organizations do not publish their editorial policies... sadly.
 * If a news organization releases corrections or willingly discloses conflict of interest, that is a very big green flag.

Vendor and e-commerce sources
If a non-commercial reliable source exists, it should replace a commercial source. These sources can generally be used to verify titles, running times, etc. Rankings proposed by the vendor tend to not be encyclopedically relevant.

Biased or opinionated sources
Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject. A biased source does not mean an unreliable source; it may be reliable within specific contexts. A biased source existing, and a source with editorial control, reputation for fact-checking, and independence from the topic are not mutually exclusive. Bias may still be attributed in text by declaring the bias of the source or author.

Sponsored content
Generally unacceptable as most times "sponsored" is synonymous with "editorial practices bypassed entirely" for the sake of the sponsor. This applies to symposia and supplements to academic journals. These tend to lack all oversight of the parent journal and should not be cited. The same applies to any supplement that does not declare the editorial policy or conflict of interest. These tend to be very subtle, such as the letter "S" being next to a page number of the abbreviation "Supple." in a reference. Note that supplement does not mean unreliable wholesale. Like most cases, it's context dependent. Many, if not most, supplements are perfectly legitimate sources, such as the Astronomy & Astrophysics Supplement Series, Nuclear Physics B: Proceedings Supplements, Supplement to the London Gazette, or The Times Higher Education Supplement.

Page Protection
The application of page protection is performed by administrators when a certain kind of disruption is expected beyond a reasonable doubt, or has been observed, where other forms of resolution are insufficient or undesirable but certain groups of editors must still be excluded to maintain a stable version. As Wikipedia aims to be an encyclopedia that anyone can edit there are very specific policies that apply to each level of protection that administrators must follow prior to implementing it.

Protection can apply to the following actions: edit, page creation, file upload, and page move.

Protection should never be used to give a particular party in an editing dispute an advantage, directly or indirectly.

Semi-protection
This level of protection prohibits non-registered editors, and editor accounts that lack 3 days tenure and 10 edits, from editing a page. The most common use-case for this level of protection is where there is a significant amount of disruption or vandalism from new or unregistered editors, or as a means of preventing sockpuppetry. The level of disruption necessary for protection to be applied is lower for BLPs than other types of articles.

This level of protection should never be used preemptively or to give registered editors any kind of privilege. Various situations that may warrant semi-protection include:


 * Significant but temporary vandalism if blocking individual accounts is insufficient. Tends to be the case when a particular topic receives media attention.
 * If an article has edit warring and all participants are not autoconfirmed.
 * If an article has edit warring or vandalism by dynamic IP addresses.
 * A discussion page if it has persistent disruption. This should be a last resort and the level of disruption necessary to warrant talk page protection tends to be dramatically higher than article disruption. If performed, the talk page should direct editors who cannot edit to WP:ER.
 * The featured article of the day generally warrants this protection as it receives an unnatural spike in attention from users due to it's prominent placement.

Pending changes protection
This level of protection allows unconfirmed editors to submit edits successfully but any edit made is not visible to the public until a user with the pending changes reviewer user right accepts the edit. Any autoconfirmed user's edits are accepted and pushed to the public instantaneously. This tends to be used as an alternative to semi-protection when the level of vandalism is consistent but occurs infrequently.

Extended confirmed protection
This level of protection prohibits accounts younger than 30 days with less than 500 edits from editing. This user right is granted automatically once both criteria are met. This can be used as a general escalation from what was previous semi-protection once autoconfirmed accounts start participating in disruption, edit warring, or vandalism. It may also apply to certain topic areas as so declared by the Arbitration Committee or by community consensus at the administrators' noticeboard.

Template protection
This level of protection prohibits users that are not administrators or template editors from editing a particular page. This is protection is used almost exclusively for high-risk templates and modules. The existence of this protection level does not mean that lesser templates should receive this protection prima facie. In the event whether a template is "high-risk" is a borderline call extended-confirmed protection can be used in it's place.

Full protection
This level of protection prohibits non-administrators from editing a page. This tends to be used as an escalation from extended confirmed protection. An administrator may also, if uninvolved, fully protect a page temporarily in order to enforce consensus based editing if there is a multi-party content dispute of established editors. In this scenario, any edit request for a fully protected page must be uncontroversial or have abundantly clear consensus.

Interface protection
Otherwise known as permanent or indefinite protection, this level of protection prohibits non-administrators and/or non-interface administrators from editing a page. This is generally enforced at a software level.

Office protection
The Wikimedia Foundation at their discretion may decide to assign varying degrees of protection - though pragmatically it'll be full protection - to a page as part of an office action. Administrators, while possessing the technical ability to unprotect or edit said page, are prohibited from doing so or they may otherwise receive sanctions at the office level. These actions unilaterally supersede local consensus without exception.

Cascading protection
This level of protection prohibits non-administrators from editing a page and any page that transcludes onto the protected page will automatically be protected at the same level. This includes articles, templates, and images. This is typically used for egregiously visible pages, such as the main page.

Creation protection (salting)
This level of protection allows an administrator to, for a particular page title, allow autoconfirmed, extended confirmed, or just administrators to create said page. Since only autoconfirmed editors can make a page in article space salting at the semi-protection level is generally ill advised and should be reserved for namespaces outside of article space. Editors can request for a salted page to be created by asking any administrator or asking for it to be removed at WP:RFPP. Generally, a good case has to be made for an administrator to accept such - such as a good quality draft.

This level of protection tends to be permanent, though can be done finitely in the case of a single user (or sockmaster) being the culprit.

Move protection
This level of protection prohibits non-administrators from utilizing the move tool on the article. Any fully protected page is implicitly move protected. A move protected page is not an endorsement from the administrator of the live title. This tends to be applied during a content dispute involving a possible new name for the article, or for highly visible pages that will never be able to be moved uncontested (and thus will require consensus).

Upload protection
This level of protection prohibits non-administrators from changing the version of a file. This does not prohibit the file details from being edited. A file being protected is not an administrative endorsement of the live file. This is typically done due to persistent vandalism, images with generic names, or images that otherwise should not be replaced (e.g interface images or images transcluded to the main page).

Flashcards
Q:

Definitions / Terms
Q: What is churnalism?

Q: What does WP:BLAR refer to?

Q: What is a published source?

Q: What is an academic journal supplement?

Q: What is a cut and paste move?

Q: What is circular sourcing?

Q: What is a reliable source?

Q: What is a Wikipedia guideline?

Q: What is a Wikipedia policy?

Q: What is a predatory journal?

Q: What does WP:109PAPERS refer to?

Q: What is a source?

Q: What is human interest reporting?

Q: What is a deprecated source?

Q: What is a blacklisted source?

Q: What does WP:SUSTAINED refer to?

Q: What is a press release?

Q: What is wire service/news agency?

Reliability / Verifiability
Q: Does a journal being peer reviewed indicate reliability?

Q: Can a recognized expert be attributed to making a statement of fact?

Q: Is a source with bias reliable?

Q: In what context should a biased source be used, if at all?

Q: Should an editor be cautious of a primary source purporting to be in the midst of uprooting established consensus or introducing a new discovery.

Q: If a statement is made in a reliable source offhand does the reliability of the statement change?

Q: Generally, citation count (in academic works) tends to indicate reliability. What is a situation where this isn't the case?

Q: What are 2 things that news organizations may do which tend to be huge indicators of reliability?

Q: Is churnalism unreliable?

Q: When attributing a quote to a person coming from a partisan source should editors be aware of anything in particular?

Q: How do you identify a press release?

History Merging
Q: Why is history merging important?

Q: What is the edit count on an article before an administrator is prohibited at a technical level from page deletion?

Q: If a source is moved to a target, and then the source page is reverted to an older version, and edited from there, is a history merge possible?

Notability
Q: What 2 categories can the SNGs generally be bundled into?

Q: How does Wikipedia marry the policy of WP:NOTNEWS and the guideline of WP:GNG when an event may receive substantial coverage from the media?

Page Protection
Q: When can an administrator undo a page with black lock protection?

Q: When would make an administrator prefer PCP over SEMI?

Q: In what abnormal circumstance is full protection permitted?

Q: If a page is salted can only administrators edit the page?

Q: If an administrator wants a fully protected page to not be moved what should they do?

Q: Where should an editor request to make edits to a file's details when it has upload protection?

What Wikipedia is Not

 * For this section, the answer is a binary true or false.

Q: Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia.

Q: Wikipedia is a dictionary.

Q: Wikipedia reports what independent reliable sources state.

Q: Wikipedia is a soapbox.

Q: Wikipedia is a compository for original thought.

Q: Wikipedia is a tertiary source.

Q: Wikipedia strives to remain neutral in it's writing.

Q: Wikipedia is a link repository.

Q: Wikipedia is a host for personal web services.

Q: Wikipedia is a directory for all things.

Q: Wikipedia holds guidebooks or textbooks.

Q: Wikipedia weighs the balance of points of view in multiple reliable sources.

Q: Wikipedia is generally unreliable.

Q: Wikipedia makes assumptions about the future.

Q: Wikipedia is a source for breaking news coverage.

Q: Wikipedia has administrators which assist with it's maintenance.

Q: Wikipedia is a collection of all information there is.

Q: Wikipedia is friendly for all audiences.

Q: Wikipedia is a platform for free speech.

Q: Wikipedia is a republic.

Q: Wikipedia determines things by majority vote.

Q: Wikipedia has various elements of a bureaucracy.

Q: Wikipedia has rules of which are the purpose of the community itself.

Q: Wikipedia behavioral disputes are overseen by a judicial-like body.

Q: Wikipedia is a research-driven community.

Q: Wikipedia is a place to win arguments.

Q: Wikipedia is open source.

Q: Wikipedia editors are compelled or expected to edit.