Hello Flalf, and 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 in your answers, 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 Wikipedia:Vandalism as that's the knowledge which most of the questions I ask you and tasks you do will revolve around.
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.
There are several sections of the training course. In some of them, will be asking you to do perform practical exercises; in others, I will ask you to read certain policies and guidelines, and then ask you some questions about their content. To be clear, it is not a problem if you give the wrong answer to any of the questions - making mistakes and discussing them is a crucial part of the learning process. For that reason, it is important that you do not attempt to find previous users' training pages in order to identify the 'right' answers to give: all your answers should be your own, so that we can identify and address any misconceptions that you might have. There is no time pressure to complete the course: we will go at whatever pace works for you, and you can take a pause or ask questions at any point along the way.
Counter-vandalism work can result in very large watchlists, which can make it more difficult to monitor pages using that alone. For this reason, I will ping you whenever I update this page with some feedback or a new task; I would also ask you to ping me when you have completed a task, so that I get a notification telling me that it's ready for review. See WP:PING for details on how to do this if you aren't sure. GirthSummit (blether) 15:52, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
Twinkle is a very useful tool when performing maintenance functions around Wikipedia. Please have a read through WP:TWINKLE.
I have enabled Twinkle and read WP:Twinkle. I still don't know how to use it though... Flalf ( talk) 17:33, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
When patrolling for vandalism, you may often come across edits which are unhelpful, but not vandalism - these are good faith edits. While it is often necessary to revert such edits, we treat them differently from vandalism, so it is important to recognise the difference between a vandalism edit and a good faith edit. Please read WP:AGF and WP:NOT VANDALISM before completing the tasks in this section.
Good faith edits are edits that, while not constructive, are made with the intent of improving the page on which it is done. Vandalism is editing which is intended to be disruptive and to hinder the work of other editors.
There are multiple ways of checking if an edit is vandalism or good faith, the methods I normally use are:
Vandalism Examples
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Provisional_Irish_Republican_Army&oldid=942235778
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Ryoyu_Kobayashi&oldid=942474128
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Porsche_Macan&oldid=942474463
Good Faith Examples
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Trent_(name)&oldid=942477798
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Sinn_F%C3%A9in&oldid=941467168
but without the active support of the leadershipis acting as an adverbal phrase there, describing how the motion passed, and then
and Adams did not speakis a clause in its own right, adding additional (but related) information. I guess you could argue that the sentence is awkward and could be improved upon - after all, if two native speakers of a language disagree on whether a sentence is grammatical, it's a pretty good indication that it could be phrased better - but I wouldn't revert another editor because I don't like their sentence construction. Anyway, I don't think we need to flog this to death - let's move on. I'll add the next task in my next comment. GirthSummit (blether) 23:09, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Eileen_McCallum&oldid=942755696
@ Girth Summit: What do I do now? Flalf Talk 16:30, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
Flalf Next section below... GirthSummit (blether) 23:28, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
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. Further information can be found at WP:WARN and WP:UWUL.
arnings are to show users that we are aware of their negative editing and that we would like them to stop before further penalties are instituted.
When would a 4im warning be appropriate?
4ims are for users who have committed blatant and excessive vandalism.
Should you substitute a template when you place it on a user talk page, and how do you do it? (Hint - read the link before answering!)
Yes you should substitute a template, to do it you add subst: before the page name inside the curly brackets.
What should you do if a user who has received a level 4 or 4im warning vandalises again?
Report to an administrator.
Alright, done! Flalf Talk 15:27, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
# | Diff of your revert | Your comment. If you report to AIV please include the diff | Trainer's Comment |
---|---|---|---|
1 | https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Xu_Ning&diff=prev&oldid=944239197 | IP kept editing a character as a fool (er bai wu) and I did WP:AGF at first but after repeating I issued a warning. | ![]() |
2 | https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Champ_(food)&diff=prev&oldid=944241872 | Added criticism to food. | ![]() |
3 | https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Faust&diff=prev&oldid=944242418 https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Faust&diff=prev&oldid=944242654 | Called german legendary character a 'boomer' which led to me leaving a notice, and after noticing they were a repeat offender I reported to an administrator which resulted in a block. | ![]() |
4 | https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Tesco_International_operations&diff=prev&oldid=948521467 | Remade Tesco into an a fascist global superpower. | ![]() |
5 | https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Template:The_world_will_definetly_end_on_29th_of_april_2020&diff=prev&oldid=948522761 | claims the world will end on the 19th of april | ![]() |
6 | https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Food_porn&diff=prev&oldid=953773187 | Renamed foodporn to foodpoop (warned) | ![]() |
7 | https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Food_porn&diff=prev&oldid=953773225 | After I sent a warning, and after receiving another final warning yesterday they proceeded to again rename foodporn to foodpoop which I reported to an admin for being a repeat offender. | ![]() |
8 | https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Mark_Hopkins_Jr.&diff=prev&oldid=954143529 | Assorted vandalism, five edits reverted (warned) | ![]() |
9 | https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Mark_Hopkins_Jr.&diff=prev&oldid=954143529 | Vandalised twice more after warning- gave final warning | ![]() |
10 | https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=List_of_Touhou_Project_characters&diff=prev&oldid=954178911 | Called a Touhou character a child of Dio. | ? I don't know what any of that means. Could these not be characters from the same game? Or some related show or something? I know nothing about any of this, just wondered. |
Sorry this is taking a while! Flalf Talk 06:55, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
Protecting and deleting pages are two additional measures that can be used to prevent and deal with vandalism. Only an administrator can protect or delete pages; however, anyone can nominate a page for deletion or request protection. You can use the Twinkle menu to request page protection or speedy deletion (the RPP or CSD options).
Please read the protection policy.
@ Girth Summit: I finished with the exception of the requesting protection. Thanks! Flalf Talk 14:48, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
Please read WP:CSD.
In past iterations of this course, students have been asked to go out and actually tag pages for deletion, but with the introduction of WP:ACPERM, the amount of straight vandalism that gets created directly in mainspace has reduced dramatically. As such, I'm going to ask you to say how you would act in a set of hypothetical scenarios. What would you do if you saw the page listed in each scenario? Note that not all scenarios may warrant speedy deletion.
A user with the username "BobSucks" creates an article called "John Smith" that contains solely the following text:
John Smith is the worst elementary school teacher on the planet.
G10 - This is an attack on a person.
A user with the username "GoodTimesLLC" creates a user page with the following text:
'''Good Times LLC''' is an organization dedicated to helping your children get the highest quality education at an affordable price. Visit our website at goodtimes.info and contact us at 123-456-7890.
G11 - This is self promotion.
A user creates an article titled "Edward Gordon" with the following text:
'''Edward Gordon''' (born July 1998) is an aspiring American actor and songwriter. So far, he has starred in many school plays and has published two albums on SoundCloud. He has over 5,000 subscribers on YouTube.
A7 - This wouldn't be notable enough for an article
A user creates an article titled "Bazz Ward" with the following content:
Bazz Ward was a Hall of Fame roadie and I wish he was as well known as Lemmy. Cheers Bazz.
A7 - Bazz envies lemmy for being notable.
(Attribution: Ritchie333 came up with this scenario as a question to an old RfA candidate. I've borrowed his example here. Hint: Try Google searching a few key terms from this short article.)
A user creates an article that was clearly copied and pasted directly from another website, which states "All Rights Reserved" at the bottom of it. Would your answer be the same if it didn't state "All Rights Reserved" at the bottom?
G12 if it states all rights reserved - if it is in the public domain, from what I've seen, (and as much as I hate it) it doesn't seem like you can speedy delete at all.
A user creates an article, but you can't understand any of it because it's in a foreign language.
A2 if it has content that is similar to an other language wikipedia otherwise tag as not english
A user creates an article, but shortly after creating it, the same user blanks the article by removing all of its content.
A3 - has no content
A new user creates a user page with nothing but the following content:
Jlakjrelekajroi3j192809jowejfldjoifu328ur3pieisgreat
Nothing as this is on a user page
How would this scenario be different if the page was created in a different namespace?
As in mainspace? If it's that then it's a G1.
@ Girth Summit: I think I'm finished. Flalf Talk 15:53, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
Please read WP:Revdel and WP:Oversight.
Occasionally, vandalism will be so extreme that it needs to be removed from publicly accessible revision histories - the criteria for these are described in the articles above. Revision deletion hides the edit from anyone except admins; oversight provides an even greater level of restriction, with only oversighters able to see the comments. The threshold between the two is quite fine - I've been on the wrong side of it a few times. If you are in doubt as to whether revdel or oversight is required, the best bet is to forward it to the oversight team - whoever reviews it will be able to make the decision and act on it.
I would email an administrator on the Category:Wikipedia administrators willing to handle RevisionDelete requests per Wikipedia:Revision deletion.
I would email User:Oversight per Wikipedia:Revision deletion
@ Girth Summit: It's been awhile, but, I did it! Thanks! Flalf Talk 14:26, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia has a policy which details the types of usernames which users are permitted to have. Some users (including me) patrol the User creation log to check for new users with inappropriate usernames (note that you can set this to view 500 users rather than the default 50 - I find that easier to scroll through quickly, and the link on my userpage takes you there directly). There are four kinds of usernames that are specifically disallowed:
Please read WP:USERNAME, and pay particular attention to dealing with inappropriate usernames.
@ Girth Summit: Completed! Thank you for the quick response to my edits earlier! Flalf Talk 17:34, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
I hope this never happens, but as you participate in counter-vandalism on Wikipedia, it is possible that you may come across a threat of physical harm. In the past, we have had vandals submit death threats in Wikipedia articles, as well as possible suicide notes. The problem is, Wikipedia editors don't have the proper training to evaluate whether these threats are credible in most cases.
Fortunately, there's a guideline for cases like this. Please read Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm carefully and respond to the questions below.
I would email emergency@wikimedia.org and in the email I would include the diff of the edit.
All threats should be taken seriously.
@ Girth Summit: Done again! Flalf Talk 12:49, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
Occasionally, some vandals will not appreciate your good work and try to harass or troll you. In these situations, you must remain calm and ignore them. If they engage in harassment or personal attacks, you should not engage with them and leave a note at WP:ANI. If they vandalise your user page or user talk page, simply remove the vandalism without interacting with them. Please read WP:DENY.
Trolls and vandals often enjoy bothering people or disrupting things, by not giving them attention and quickly dealing with them they will get bored.
In some cases it is hard to tell whether it is vandalism or not, but per WP:AGF I assume the user is working for the benefit of the project unless I see proof that they are doing otherwise. Flalf Talk 15:28, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
@ Girth Summit: Done! Flalf Talk 15:32, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
In light of your recent contributions, I expect that if you apply for the rollback permission at Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Rollback, an administrator would be happy to enable it on your account, but first we should demonstrate that you understand what the tool is, and the responsibilities that go along with it.
The rollback user right allows trusted and experienced counter vandalism operatives to revert vandalism with the click of one button, not unlike the "rollback" button that you've already been using in Twinkle. This would give you a new rollback button in addition to the three you've been seeing in Twinkle. The new rollback button is slightly faster than the Twinkle rollback button, but more importantly, having the rollback right gives you access to downloadable counter-vandalism software like Huggle.
If you're interested, take a look at our rollback guideline at WP:Rollback and feel free to answer the questions below. The rollback right is not an essential part of this course, so if you're not interested, feel free to say so and we'll skip this section.
Describe when the rollback button may be used and when it may not be used.
Wikipedia:Rollback states that the rollback button may be used to revert blatant vandalism, edits to your userpage, your own edits, edits by banned or blocked users, or to revert widespread edits that are unhelpful to wikipedia.
Hopefully this will never happen, but it does occasionally. If you accidentally use rollback, what should you do?
Self revert and explain it was an accident, or if it was going to be good faith reverted anyway make a dummy edit with an edit summary explaining why.
Should you use rollback if you want to leave an edit summary?
No, because rollback leaves a generic edit summary.
@ Girth Summit: Done! Should I apply for rollback permissions now or wait until after the final assessment? Flalf Talk 18:21, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
When you're ready, the final exam for the course is below. There's no rush to complete it - go through it at your own pace and ping me when you're done. Cheers GirthSummit (blether) 17:39, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
Please read each of the following questions carefully, and ensure that you have responded fully - some of them ask you to expand on what you would do in different situations. When responding to numbered questions please start your response with "#:" (except where shown otherwise - with **). You don't need to worry about signing your answers.
@ Girth Summit: I have completed it! I hope I did well! Thanks for being such a good instructor! (flattery? what? I would never) Flalf Talk 17:09, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
Congratulations from both myself and all of the instructors at the Counter Vandalism Unit Academy, on your successful completion of my CVUA instruction and graduation from the Counter Vandalism Unit Academy. You completed your final exam with 84%. Well done!
As a graduate you are entitled to display the following userbox as well as the graduation message posted on your talk page (this can be treated the same as a
barnstar).
{{User CVUA|graduate}}
:
![]() | This user is a Counter-Vandalism Unit Academy graduate. |
GirthSummit (blether) 12:42, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
Hello Flalf, and 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 in your answers, 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 Wikipedia:Vandalism as that's the knowledge which most of the questions I ask you and tasks you do will revolve around.
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.
There are several sections of the training course. In some of them, will be asking you to do perform practical exercises; in others, I will ask you to read certain policies and guidelines, and then ask you some questions about their content. To be clear, it is not a problem if you give the wrong answer to any of the questions - making mistakes and discussing them is a crucial part of the learning process. For that reason, it is important that you do not attempt to find previous users' training pages in order to identify the 'right' answers to give: all your answers should be your own, so that we can identify and address any misconceptions that you might have. There is no time pressure to complete the course: we will go at whatever pace works for you, and you can take a pause or ask questions at any point along the way.
Counter-vandalism work can result in very large watchlists, which can make it more difficult to monitor pages using that alone. For this reason, I will ping you whenever I update this page with some feedback or a new task; I would also ask you to ping me when you have completed a task, so that I get a notification telling me that it's ready for review. See WP:PING for details on how to do this if you aren't sure. GirthSummit (blether) 15:52, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
Twinkle is a very useful tool when performing maintenance functions around Wikipedia. Please have a read through WP:TWINKLE.
I have enabled Twinkle and read WP:Twinkle. I still don't know how to use it though... Flalf ( talk) 17:33, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
When patrolling for vandalism, you may often come across edits which are unhelpful, but not vandalism - these are good faith edits. While it is often necessary to revert such edits, we treat them differently from vandalism, so it is important to recognise the difference between a vandalism edit and a good faith edit. Please read WP:AGF and WP:NOT VANDALISM before completing the tasks in this section.
Good faith edits are edits that, while not constructive, are made with the intent of improving the page on which it is done. Vandalism is editing which is intended to be disruptive and to hinder the work of other editors.
There are multiple ways of checking if an edit is vandalism or good faith, the methods I normally use are:
Vandalism Examples
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Provisional_Irish_Republican_Army&oldid=942235778
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Ryoyu_Kobayashi&oldid=942474128
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Porsche_Macan&oldid=942474463
Good Faith Examples
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Trent_(name)&oldid=942477798
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Sinn_F%C3%A9in&oldid=941467168
but without the active support of the leadershipis acting as an adverbal phrase there, describing how the motion passed, and then
and Adams did not speakis a clause in its own right, adding additional (but related) information. I guess you could argue that the sentence is awkward and could be improved upon - after all, if two native speakers of a language disagree on whether a sentence is grammatical, it's a pretty good indication that it could be phrased better - but I wouldn't revert another editor because I don't like their sentence construction. Anyway, I don't think we need to flog this to death - let's move on. I'll add the next task in my next comment. GirthSummit (blether) 23:09, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Eileen_McCallum&oldid=942755696
@ Girth Summit: What do I do now? Flalf Talk 16:30, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
Flalf Next section below... GirthSummit (blether) 23:28, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
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. Further information can be found at WP:WARN and WP:UWUL.
arnings are to show users that we are aware of their negative editing and that we would like them to stop before further penalties are instituted.
When would a 4im warning be appropriate?
4ims are for users who have committed blatant and excessive vandalism.
Should you substitute a template when you place it on a user talk page, and how do you do it? (Hint - read the link before answering!)
Yes you should substitute a template, to do it you add subst: before the page name inside the curly brackets.
What should you do if a user who has received a level 4 or 4im warning vandalises again?
Report to an administrator.
Alright, done! Flalf Talk 15:27, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
# | Diff of your revert | Your comment. If you report to AIV please include the diff | Trainer's Comment |
---|---|---|---|
1 | https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Xu_Ning&diff=prev&oldid=944239197 | IP kept editing a character as a fool (er bai wu) and I did WP:AGF at first but after repeating I issued a warning. | ![]() |
2 | https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Champ_(food)&diff=prev&oldid=944241872 | Added criticism to food. | ![]() |
3 | https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Faust&diff=prev&oldid=944242418 https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Faust&diff=prev&oldid=944242654 | Called german legendary character a 'boomer' which led to me leaving a notice, and after noticing they were a repeat offender I reported to an administrator which resulted in a block. | ![]() |
4 | https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Tesco_International_operations&diff=prev&oldid=948521467 | Remade Tesco into an a fascist global superpower. | ![]() |
5 | https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Template:The_world_will_definetly_end_on_29th_of_april_2020&diff=prev&oldid=948522761 | claims the world will end on the 19th of april | ![]() |
6 | https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Food_porn&diff=prev&oldid=953773187 | Renamed foodporn to foodpoop (warned) | ![]() |
7 | https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Food_porn&diff=prev&oldid=953773225 | After I sent a warning, and after receiving another final warning yesterday they proceeded to again rename foodporn to foodpoop which I reported to an admin for being a repeat offender. | ![]() |
8 | https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Mark_Hopkins_Jr.&diff=prev&oldid=954143529 | Assorted vandalism, five edits reverted (warned) | ![]() |
9 | https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Mark_Hopkins_Jr.&diff=prev&oldid=954143529 | Vandalised twice more after warning- gave final warning | ![]() |
10 | https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=List_of_Touhou_Project_characters&diff=prev&oldid=954178911 | Called a Touhou character a child of Dio. | ? I don't know what any of that means. Could these not be characters from the same game? Or some related show or something? I know nothing about any of this, just wondered. |
Sorry this is taking a while! Flalf Talk 06:55, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
Protecting and deleting pages are two additional measures that can be used to prevent and deal with vandalism. Only an administrator can protect or delete pages; however, anyone can nominate a page for deletion or request protection. You can use the Twinkle menu to request page protection or speedy deletion (the RPP or CSD options).
Please read the protection policy.
@ Girth Summit: I finished with the exception of the requesting protection. Thanks! Flalf Talk 14:48, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
Please read WP:CSD.
In past iterations of this course, students have been asked to go out and actually tag pages for deletion, but with the introduction of WP:ACPERM, the amount of straight vandalism that gets created directly in mainspace has reduced dramatically. As such, I'm going to ask you to say how you would act in a set of hypothetical scenarios. What would you do if you saw the page listed in each scenario? Note that not all scenarios may warrant speedy deletion.
A user with the username "BobSucks" creates an article called "John Smith" that contains solely the following text:
John Smith is the worst elementary school teacher on the planet.
G10 - This is an attack on a person.
A user with the username "GoodTimesLLC" creates a user page with the following text:
'''Good Times LLC''' is an organization dedicated to helping your children get the highest quality education at an affordable price. Visit our website at goodtimes.info and contact us at 123-456-7890.
G11 - This is self promotion.
A user creates an article titled "Edward Gordon" with the following text:
'''Edward Gordon''' (born July 1998) is an aspiring American actor and songwriter. So far, he has starred in many school plays and has published two albums on SoundCloud. He has over 5,000 subscribers on YouTube.
A7 - This wouldn't be notable enough for an article
A user creates an article titled "Bazz Ward" with the following content:
Bazz Ward was a Hall of Fame roadie and I wish he was as well known as Lemmy. Cheers Bazz.
A7 - Bazz envies lemmy for being notable.
(Attribution: Ritchie333 came up with this scenario as a question to an old RfA candidate. I've borrowed his example here. Hint: Try Google searching a few key terms from this short article.)
A user creates an article that was clearly copied and pasted directly from another website, which states "All Rights Reserved" at the bottom of it. Would your answer be the same if it didn't state "All Rights Reserved" at the bottom?
G12 if it states all rights reserved - if it is in the public domain, from what I've seen, (and as much as I hate it) it doesn't seem like you can speedy delete at all.
A user creates an article, but you can't understand any of it because it's in a foreign language.
A2 if it has content that is similar to an other language wikipedia otherwise tag as not english
A user creates an article, but shortly after creating it, the same user blanks the article by removing all of its content.
A3 - has no content
A new user creates a user page with nothing but the following content:
Jlakjrelekajroi3j192809jowejfldjoifu328ur3pieisgreat
Nothing as this is on a user page
How would this scenario be different if the page was created in a different namespace?
As in mainspace? If it's that then it's a G1.
@ Girth Summit: I think I'm finished. Flalf Talk 15:53, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
Please read WP:Revdel and WP:Oversight.
Occasionally, vandalism will be so extreme that it needs to be removed from publicly accessible revision histories - the criteria for these are described in the articles above. Revision deletion hides the edit from anyone except admins; oversight provides an even greater level of restriction, with only oversighters able to see the comments. The threshold between the two is quite fine - I've been on the wrong side of it a few times. If you are in doubt as to whether revdel or oversight is required, the best bet is to forward it to the oversight team - whoever reviews it will be able to make the decision and act on it.
I would email an administrator on the Category:Wikipedia administrators willing to handle RevisionDelete requests per Wikipedia:Revision deletion.
I would email User:Oversight per Wikipedia:Revision deletion
@ Girth Summit: It's been awhile, but, I did it! Thanks! Flalf Talk 14:26, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia has a policy which details the types of usernames which users are permitted to have. Some users (including me) patrol the User creation log to check for new users with inappropriate usernames (note that you can set this to view 500 users rather than the default 50 - I find that easier to scroll through quickly, and the link on my userpage takes you there directly). There are four kinds of usernames that are specifically disallowed:
Please read WP:USERNAME, and pay particular attention to dealing with inappropriate usernames.
@ Girth Summit: Completed! Thank you for the quick response to my edits earlier! Flalf Talk 17:34, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
I hope this never happens, but as you participate in counter-vandalism on Wikipedia, it is possible that you may come across a threat of physical harm. In the past, we have had vandals submit death threats in Wikipedia articles, as well as possible suicide notes. The problem is, Wikipedia editors don't have the proper training to evaluate whether these threats are credible in most cases.
Fortunately, there's a guideline for cases like this. Please read Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm carefully and respond to the questions below.
I would email emergency@wikimedia.org and in the email I would include the diff of the edit.
All threats should be taken seriously.
@ Girth Summit: Done again! Flalf Talk 12:49, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
Occasionally, some vandals will not appreciate your good work and try to harass or troll you. In these situations, you must remain calm and ignore them. If they engage in harassment or personal attacks, you should not engage with them and leave a note at WP:ANI. If they vandalise your user page or user talk page, simply remove the vandalism without interacting with them. Please read WP:DENY.
Trolls and vandals often enjoy bothering people or disrupting things, by not giving them attention and quickly dealing with them they will get bored.
In some cases it is hard to tell whether it is vandalism or not, but per WP:AGF I assume the user is working for the benefit of the project unless I see proof that they are doing otherwise. Flalf Talk 15:28, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
@ Girth Summit: Done! Flalf Talk 15:32, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
In light of your recent contributions, I expect that if you apply for the rollback permission at Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Rollback, an administrator would be happy to enable it on your account, but first we should demonstrate that you understand what the tool is, and the responsibilities that go along with it.
The rollback user right allows trusted and experienced counter vandalism operatives to revert vandalism with the click of one button, not unlike the "rollback" button that you've already been using in Twinkle. This would give you a new rollback button in addition to the three you've been seeing in Twinkle. The new rollback button is slightly faster than the Twinkle rollback button, but more importantly, having the rollback right gives you access to downloadable counter-vandalism software like Huggle.
If you're interested, take a look at our rollback guideline at WP:Rollback and feel free to answer the questions below. The rollback right is not an essential part of this course, so if you're not interested, feel free to say so and we'll skip this section.
Describe when the rollback button may be used and when it may not be used.
Wikipedia:Rollback states that the rollback button may be used to revert blatant vandalism, edits to your userpage, your own edits, edits by banned or blocked users, or to revert widespread edits that are unhelpful to wikipedia.
Hopefully this will never happen, but it does occasionally. If you accidentally use rollback, what should you do?
Self revert and explain it was an accident, or if it was going to be good faith reverted anyway make a dummy edit with an edit summary explaining why.
Should you use rollback if you want to leave an edit summary?
No, because rollback leaves a generic edit summary.
@ Girth Summit: Done! Should I apply for rollback permissions now or wait until after the final assessment? Flalf Talk 18:21, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
When you're ready, the final exam for the course is below. There's no rush to complete it - go through it at your own pace and ping me when you're done. Cheers GirthSummit (blether) 17:39, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
Please read each of the following questions carefully, and ensure that you have responded fully - some of them ask you to expand on what you would do in different situations. When responding to numbered questions please start your response with "#:" (except where shown otherwise - with **). You don't need to worry about signing your answers.
@ Girth Summit: I have completed it! I hope I did well! Thanks for being such a good instructor! (flattery? what? I would never) Flalf Talk 17:09, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
Congratulations from both myself and all of the instructors at the Counter Vandalism Unit Academy, on your successful completion of my CVUA instruction and graduation from the Counter Vandalism Unit Academy. You completed your final exam with 84%. Well done!
As a graduate you are entitled to display the following userbox as well as the graduation message posted on your talk page (this can be treated the same as a
barnstar).
{{User CVUA|graduate}}
:
![]() | This user is a Counter-Vandalism Unit Academy graduate. |
GirthSummit (blether) 12:42, 21 November 2020 (UTC)