Missionedit's Adoption
Homepage •
Discussion || Current Adoptee Pages:
Ploreky ||
Inactive:
Scribbleink •
Jtamad •
Elsa Enchanted •
Molly's Mind •
Ntomlin1996 •
Venustar84 •
Acj1 •
AmazingAlec •
Faiz7412 •
Hisashiyarouin •
Marcus1093 •
WelshWonderWoman || Graduates:
FiendYT
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() A few questions for you to start off this adoption: 1) Would you prefer to be called Scribbleink, Scribble, or something else?
Lesson 1: The Five Pillars of WikipediaThe Five Pillars of Wikipedia These are the five "pillars", or fundamental principles, of Wikipedia. I've reworded them a little from the original to further explain/simplify.
@ Scribbleink: Any questions? Moving on to templates after this. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 21:24, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
References for lesson 1
Lesson 2: Templates 201Templates 201 This lesson is mostly taken from User:Hersfold/Adopt/Templates. Template basicsTemplates allow you to post large sections of text or complicated sections of code while only typing a few characters. All templates have "Template:" as a prefix (eg. Template:Cite web or Template:User Sandbox). Templates work similarly to regular links, but instead of using [[double square brackets]], you use {{curly brackets}}. To "call" a template, just type the title of the template between the curly brackets. Whenever you call a template, the content of the template page will be displayed. You don't need to include the "Template:" prefix; the MediaWiki software automatically searches within the Template namespace for what you're looking for. Only if the page you're looking for is in a different namespace (has different prefix), such as "User:" or "Wikipedia:", do you need to specify it. See below:
In that last example, I get a {{{1}}} where a number should appear. This is due to the fact that I did not specify a parameter in that template. A named parameter looks like this: |(parameter name goes here) = (value goes here) and an unnamed parameter looks like this: |(value goes here) Parameters allow you to change certain aspects of a template. One template you can use to welcome new users,
Template:W-basic, has several parameters which can customize its appearance. Most of those parameters are named, meaning that you have to specify what the name of the parameter is when you use it by putting something after the equal sign. If you set the parameter "anon" to "true" in this template: There are two ways to call a template. Transclusion is simply calling a template as I showed you above: {{exampletemplate}}. This displays the template where you put the call for it, but leaves the curly bracketed call in place so that it's easy to remove. This also causes the template to update every time the page is loaded, if it has been edited or has a time-sensitive variable. Substitution, or "subst'ing" a template, causes the opposite effect. To substitute a template, add the code "subst:" at the beginning of the call: {{subst:exampletemplate}}. When you save the page, the MediaWiki software will replace that call with the template's code. This causes all the content of the template to virtually be copy-pasted to your page. This makes it more difficult to remove, because instead of the simple template call, you've probably got lines of code that are now clogging up your article/page. Depending on how the template it written, it may require subst'ing to work properly, or it may require transclusion. The page at WP:SUBST gives details on what templates should, must, or must not be substituted.
End of lesson 2@ Scribbleink: I know this is a lot to absorb and understand, especially if you have no experience with computer coding. If you completely drowned in the jargon in this lesson, please tell me (I can write a simpler lesson). These are only the basics of templates. We can cover more advanced stuff later, but only if you really want to. Any questions? ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 01:47, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
References for lesson 2
Lesson 3: WikiquetteWikiquette " Wikiquette" is, as I'm sure you know, a portmanteau of "Wikipedia" and "etiquette". If this stuff is boring for you, please tell me what you would like to cover instead and we can learn that. Otherwise next lesson will be on vandalism. Assuming good faithAlways assume that every member of the community you come across is trying to do the right thing. The exception to this would be somebody who already has four plus vandalism warnings and who is making more malicious edits; they probably aren't acting in good faith. Apart from that, don't jump straight in to assume somebody is malicious. ThreadingYou've seemed to have figured this out already. When you're responding to something I write, you use one colon. When I then respond to you, you use two colons. When you then respond to me, you use three colons. When you want to respond to the original post, then you just go back to using one colon. Think of it this way: whatever you want to respond to, preface it with one more colon than what it had already. Avoiding common mistakesAvoid these mistakes which have been made by many an editor:
SignaturesThere are also Wikiquette rules for signatures. You can customize a signature any way you want using CSS and other code (as you have discovered). There are a few no-nos, though.
End of lesson 3@ Scribbleink: I know you don't need a test for this one, but it's good to know this stuff about signatures just in case. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 04:04, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
Lesson 4: VandalismVandalism This lesson has been ruthlessly pinched from the vandalism lessons of
User:Brambleberry of RiverClan and
User:Hersfold, with a few of my own touches. What we're going to do now is get started with some basic vandalism patrols. This is by no means something you will be obligated to do as an editor, many people prefer to do other things. But it is something you should know how to do due to the high risk of vandalism on Wikipedia, and you are likely to run into some. Should you ever wish become an administrator, you will be expected to deal with vandalism at least in some respect. Some background on vandalismWikipedia is, as you know, a wiki, meaning anyone can edit virtually any page. This is both a blessing and a curse: while it does allow a wide range of information to be added and shared, it also allows people with less than benevolent intentions to come in and mess around with stuff. It requires a fair amount of work being done 24/7 by well-intentioned editors to ensure that this vandalism does not run rampant and destroy Wikipedia. Fortunately, with the enormous amount of volunteers across the world, this doesn't really cause a problem. Various tools aid our cause and help us "revert", or remove, vandalism within minutes or even seconds. What we define vandalism as is "an edit which is deliberately attempting to harm the encyclopedia" to an article or other page. Most commonly, these are pretty blatant - replacing a whole page or section with curse words, simply removing entire sections, and so forth. Occasionally, it's less obvious, like changing key words in a section to completely alter the meaning. Basically, anything that can't be helpful at all to the article should be considered vandalism. However, you should always remember to assume good faith for questionable cases. Special:RecentChangesThe tool most commonly used to combat vandalism is Special:RecentChanges. Recent Changes is a special page that lists every edit made across Wikipedia within the last few minutes. You can find a link to it in the toolbar to the left of any page on Wikipedia. The page is formatted similarly to a page's history, with a few differences. Here's how a standard entry generally looks:
TerminologyI'm going to explain what all these terms mean. Many of these terms are used across the project
Your assignmentNow that you know how to use Recent Changes, I want you to go and find some vandalism edits. I don't want you to remove the edit yourself just yet - we'll get to this shortly and chances are, another editor or bot will beat you to it. So before you go on, go to Special:RecentChanges and find three vandalism edits. So that I can check your work and we can discuss things, I want you to copy the links to the diffs of these three edits into the brackets you see below. (This is most easily done by copying the URL from your address bar while you're viewing the diff.) IMPORTANT WARNINGDue to the very nature of vandalism on Wikipedia, it is possible you will encounter something that will offend you. I take this time to point out Wikipedia's Content Disclaimer, which basically says that you can find just about anything on here and it's not WP's fault. While you may find something offensive in your searches and subsequent vandal patrols, it is best to simply brush it off and not take it to heart. Later on, when you are actually reverting vandalism, it is possible that your own user pages will be vandalized. Here the same thing applies - ignore and simply remove it. I do not tell these things to scare you, or to imply that it will happen. I am simply pointing out that it is possible, although exceedingly rare. In many cases, these attempts to attack you are in fact somewhat amusing. If it occurs, just remember how intellectually superior you clearly are to the vandal and be glad that you actually have a life. Please add your signature here (~~~~) to confirm that you have read and understand this warning: scribble · ink chat\ contrib 05:24, 2 March 2015 (UTC) How to RevertWell, If you're using anything but Internet Explorer, I would suggest using Twinkle. You can turn it on by going to My Preferences --> Gadgets --> Twinkle. Then save your preferences and refresh the page. Suddenly you have new things to play with! Each diff gives you 3 options to roll back - more information can be found at
WP:TWINKLE. Warning vandalsThere many different templates available to warn vandals after you've reverted their edit. I would recommend using Twinkle. If you are, the first step will be under the "Wel" button, while the rest will be under "Warn":
If someone has a level 3 warning on one charge (such as vandalism), but doesn't have one on another (like using a talk page as a forum), start with a level 1 warning on the new charge. I've found that some vandals have multiple charges. WP:AIVOccasionally, you'll get an editor who won't stop vandalizing even after the final warning. When this happens, there is no choice left but to block them, which is something only an administrator can do. AIV, or Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism is just for this specific purpose. You can report them using Twinkle, as Twinkle has the option "ARV", which allows you to fill out a form that get sent to WP:AIV. Once it gets sent, there is no more left for you to do; let the admins handle it. However, if I were you, I would keep track of the editor and what the admins decide on for punishment. Different vandalsThere are multiple kinds of vandals. Scared vandals. There are those kinds of vandals that make one kind of unhelpful edit (like replacing a heading with "muahaha" or some type of gibberish) thinking that everyone on Wikipedia does that. They then get a warning and are scared straight immediately. They either choose not to edit ever again or become upstanding editors. Repeat vandals. The repeat vandals are bored and looking for a little fun. Once again, most of their vandalism is gibberish replacing good text. You can give them as many warnings as you want, but they won't bother. Once you get past the level 4 warning for them, you report them to WP:AIV and the admins deal with them. Belligerent vandals. These vandals are similar to the repeat vandals, except the belligerent vandals will often leave a nasty note on your talk page or vandalize your user page when you give them a warning. Then you can give them two warnings: one for vandalism and one for personal attacks. If something like this happens, you just have to take it in stride. Personally, being a Christian, I find vandals forgivable. But without that factor, I guess you just have to remember that there will be mean people in the world, and that you can't let them get you down. Just revert their offence and hand them a {{ uw-npa}} warning of whatever severity you deem necessary. Malicious vandals. These are hardest to notice, because their edits aren't immediately recognizable. They will seem to be improving the article at first glance, when really they're replacing true information with false, often libelous parodies. Others replace valid links with shock sites, or add hidden comments with offensive information. This last version doesn't actually appear in the article, but is there waiting when someone comes to edit it. A similar type of vandal, the "on wheels" vandal, is here for the sole purpose of destroying the encyclopedia. The namesake, User:Willy on Wheels, replaced dozens of pages with the text "{{BASEPAGENAME}} has been vandalized by User:Willy on Wheels!" The BASEPAGENAME variable is a magic word that displays the name of the page. After his blocking, Willy continued to create hundreds of sockpuppets for the same purpose. This sort of vandal is clearly here to vandalize, as such actions are not accidental. With them, you can safely assume bad faith right from the start and slam them with a more severe warning. You don't have to escalate level warnings in all cases - if there is no doubt that the edit was made with bad intentions, you may start with a higher level than normal. In this case, you can give them {{uw-vandalism4im}}. If they continue vandalizing (which they probably will), report them to WP:AIV. End of lesson 4@ Scribbleink: Tah-dah! You have just successfully read through one of the longest and most tedious lessons of this course. If you have problems with Twinkle or any other questions please tell me. The point of your assignment is to get you familiar with finding vandalism. After you find a couple instances, we can then move on to reverting vandalism. Unless, of course, you have previous experience with fighting vandalism? ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 03:34, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
Lesson 5: DeletionDeletion Deletion theory is one of the most discussed and contentious issues on Wikipedia. There are two primary factions, the inclusionists and the deletionists. The full policy on deletion is located here. While Wikipedia does strive to include as much information as possible, there is a practical limit as to what we're going to include as an article. Just because you think your pet cat is the cutest thing on the planet, that does not mean you should create an article about it. There's a whole list of things that Wikipedia is not. Some relate simply to style or formatting, such as Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia or Wikipedia is not censored. Most, however, relate to the content of the encyclopedia, and what is considered encyclopedic and what isn't. WP:NOT is an official policy, which means that all articles must adhere to it. If they don't, they're at risk of deletion. This lesson will have a test. WP: CSDWP:CSD, short for "Criterion for speedy deletion", is, in its most practical form, a tag which you place on articles that need to be deleted "speedily", or as soon as possible. These are the following criterion for speedy deletion in article space (you rarely need to use it in any other space):
You should wait at least ten minutes after an article is created before tagging an article with either A1 or A3, because the author may add more information in that time that would render the CSD templates void. WP:PROD
PROD, short for "Proposed deletion", is what you use if the page doesn't fall under a CSD, but you're pretty certain it can be deleted without too much discussion on the issue. Someone can always contest your PROD, in which case you should take it to AfD. To PROD an article, add the template {{ subst:prod|reason}} to the top of the article. YOU MUST include the "subst:" code at the beginning of the template. This adds a little blue box at the top of the page to indicate that the page is being considered for deletion. If the box remains in place for five days, the article will be deleted. However, anyone can contest the deletion by removing the template. If you still believe the article should be deleted after this happens, you should open a debate at WP:AFD, which I'll explain how to use in a moment. PRODs also come with a notice for the author, {{ subst:PRODWarning|Article title}}. WP:XfDWP:XFD (XfD stands for Anything for Deletion) allows users to debate the merits (or lack thereof) a particular article and decide by consensus what to do with it. This does not involve voting - sheer numbers have no effect on the outcome of these debates. Only reasoned comments are (or should be) considered when concluding the debate. We will do the next lesson specifically on this subject, "votes" and consensus, an interesting topic in itself. The template to the right shows all the different types of deletion debates. Each XfD page outlines the process for each, which often is somewhat complicated. Deletion review is where users can appeal a deletion debate, and follows similar procedures. The most frequently used XfD is AfD, Articles for Deletion. WP:AfDWP:AFD, short for "Articles for deletion", is where you go if you think something should be deleted but want to be sure. You can list it at AfD using Twinkle under the XFD button and then say why you think it should be deleted. Then the usual consensus debate process is followed. If you ever want to become an administrator, AfD is a great thing to be involved in. End of lesson 5@ Scribbleink: Questions? I hope you found this lesson useful. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 18:56, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
TestQuestions 4-7 are hypothetical scenarios. Answer what CSD or PROD criterion (if any) you would tag these articles under. 1.) Q- Explain a scenario in which you would use PROD.
2.) Q- You attempt tag an article for CSD under A7, but the creator blanks the page in the process and causes an edit conflict (two versions of the page colliding with each other). What should you do?
3.) Q- Why should you wait before tagging an article for A1 or A3?
4.) Q- You find an article which says: Joe Garrison is so nice and awesome and the best person I've ever met! He always has a beer and a hot dog for you! His fiancée Ashley is really cool too!
5.) Q- You find an article which says: ajdflajsdlfjalghaiefjalsfj
6.) Q- You find an article which says: Mike Smith is a trumpeter in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. He used to be in the Boston Pops. He likes to read and swim when he's not playing the trumpet.
7.) Q- You find an article which says: On the night of 22 April 1941, during the the blitz, over 70 civilians were killed, including a mother and her six children, when a bomb fell on the shelter near the Planetarium. The bomb shelter consisted of a series of underground tunnels which many had long-presumed lost but were rediscovered in 2006. The bomb blast was so big that human remains were found in the tops of trees. In 2006 an appeal was made to raise money for a public sculpture to honour those who lost their lives. (This one's a tricky one, but ask yourself: do you know what the article is talking about?)
8.) Assignment- find an article worthy of deletion (CSD, PROD, or AFD), and tag it/begin the process. Please explain what you did and why you did it below.
End of testSo sorry for forgetting :) Feel free to refer back to the lesson during the test. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 02:05, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
Lesson 6: Consensus and "voting"Consensus and "voting" Since Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia, when we have a disagreement on something, we go by consensus of the community. You can add your opinion to a debate by "voting". However, this type of voting is not like voting at an election or a poll. It is more like participating in a debate, with each comment contributing a new idea to keep the consensus discussion going. (Interesting fact: WP:Articles for Deletion used to be called Votes for Deletion, but the name was later changed as a result of consensus.) "Voting"A "vote" usually begins with Support or Oppose. However, just saying "Support" is very different than saying "Support: - User has been a loyal host at the Teahouse since its inception, shows a good article track record, and has enough experience in the administrative work they intend to participate in that I have no concerns with them using the tools." The latter is what your "votes" should look like. It is necessary to explain why you have "voted" support or oppose, otherwise, a stack of votes with no reasoning behind them will collect, and the discussion will not have progressed. Articles for deletionThese are the following "votes" you can use at AfD:
Requests for adminship/bureaucratshipThese are the following "votes" that you can use in RfAs and RfBs:
You can add "Strong" or "Weak" to "Support" and "Oppose". Or you can also go for a more humorous approach, eg. "Oh my goodness yes". It's usually in better taste to have a humorous vote for a support than an oppose :) Bad argumentsThere are many bad arguments that you should avoid on Wikipedia when participating in discussions. Please read these pages:
End of lesson 6There's no test on this one, just an assignment: participate in 3 AfDs and in any RfAs or RfBs that they have around. You can vote in AfDs at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. You can vote for RfAs or RfBs at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship. If there are no RfAs/RfBs you can skip that part of the assignment. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 19:01, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
Lesson 7: Reviewing articlesReviewing articles One skill editors should know is how to review articles. It may not be something you do all the time, but it's still good to know. Wikipedia assesses its articles on a scale according to how much information they provide and how well the information is presented. Article assessment/rankingThis assessment scale is largely unofficial, with the majority of assessments made by WikiProjects who claim jurisdiction over the articles. There are, however, two official ratings which are given to those articles which are nominated by editors and reviewed to see if they meet a series of criteria. The full ranking is as follows:
Other types of pages are graded outside this criteria, including:
New pagesReviewing newly created pages is a rather different matter. Special:NewPages, or, more recently, Special:NewPagesFeed, is a list of new articles. All of these articles need to be checked for their overall content and their suitability to Wikipedia. Some of them are nominated/tagged for deletion, and many of them are tagged as needing fixing up in one way or another. These articles are not ranked, so to speak, but instead pass review by being properly tagged or fixed. End of lesson 7@ Scribbleink: Assignment: Now that you've seen the different kinds of articles and how to review them, take a look at some articles using Special:Randompage and tell me what you think they should be graded as. Don't look at the talk pages or what they are already ranked as, just read the article and give it your own assessment. Give a short reasoning of why you have graded it such. If you believe an article is worse than any of these rankings, mark it as a "sub-stub". After you do a couple of these, I want you to review some pages at Special:NewPagesFeed. Good luck! ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 01:34, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
Lesson 8: Semi-automatic toolsSemi-automatic tools You've had some experience with semi-automatic tools already, but we might as well officially cover it :) A semi-automatic tool is basically a pre-written program designed to make certain repetitive tasks easier and less complicated. There's no test for this lesson, just an assignment. I want you to go to the "Preferences" button at the top of the page, and then the "Gadgets" tab. There are two gadgets that I want you to enable. The first is Twinkle, fifth from the bottom under "Browsing". The second is HotCat, fourth from the top under "Editing". Just check to boxes to enable them on your account. These two tools are some of the most commonly used on Wikipedia. TwinkleTwinkle is a handy little tool that's been around for awhile. It allows you to easily tag articles and mark them for deletion, as well as some other useful things. After you enable Twinkle, you should see a tab with the letters "TW" to the left of the search box at the top of any page. Click on that tab and you'll be presented with a variety of options:
I encourage you to experiment with these as long as your edits are responsible (see "Responsibility", below) HotCatHotCat is a tool that makes adding categories easy. Once you have it enabled, look at the categories at the end of a page. They should now look something like this: Categories (++): French equestrians (-) (±) | (+) The double-plus next to categories allows you to add several categories at once. The (-) after French equestrians allows you to remove that category, while the (±) allows you to modify it. The (+) at the end allows you to add one new category. This tool comes in very handy if you work with categories in any way. Responsibility WARNINGI encourage you to explore with Twinkle and HotCat, but don't forget to be responsible with them. As you know, you should not tag articles just because it's fun or to annoy people, but do it to better the encyclopedia. User talk:Sandbox for user warnings allows you to test out warning, welcoming, and talkback. You are fully and completely responsible for all of your actions using or regarding semi-automatic tools. Please add your signature here (~~~~) to confirm that you have read and understand this warning:
End of lesson 8![]() ![]() @ Scribbleink: Twinkle and HotCat are only a few of the many semi-automatic tools on Wikipedia. Any questions? Having trouble enabling/using these tools? ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 16:52, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
Lesson 9: Manual of StyleManual of Style The Manual of Style is the style guide for all Wikipedia articles. Sometimes adopters neglect to touch on it, but I think the MOS a very important and necessary part of Wikipedia, and deserves its own lesson :) Here are the main points of it: Article titles, headings, and sections
Spelling and grammar in different forms of EnglishThere are many different kinds of English from various cultural and ethnic backgrounds. To make sure the English style used throughout an article is consistent, sometimes an invisible template such as {{ Use American English}}, {{ Use British English}}, or {{ Use Irish English}}, is placed at the top. Otherwise, it's best to try and follow the style the rest of the article is written in to keep it consistent. Capital letters
End of lesson 9@ Scribbleink: Any questions? I have included only the very basics; there is much more at Wikipedia:Manual of Style. There'll be a test for this lesson—it won't be too hard :) ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 19:36, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
Notes
Test1.) Q- Capitalize the following article titles accordingly:
2.) Q- Put the following in the correct order according to the Manual of Style. The title of the article is "Peter Laufer"—do not refer to the actual article:
3.) Q- Name everything that's wrong with this if it were an article title:
4.) Q- What type of English should you (most likely) use in an article if this is a sample sentence from it?
5.) Q- Capitalize the following accordingly as if they were in a sentence. If correct, write "correct":
End of test
Lesson 10: Copy editingCopy editing Copy editing is a skill which you will likely have to use at one time or another on Wikipedia whether you are writing a new article or fixing an old one. This lesson is mostly taken from the GOCE (Guild of Copy Editors) page. Guild of Copy EditorsSince you seem pretty confident in the areas of English grammar and spelling, I am pleased to invite you to join the Guild of Copy Editors. Wikiproject Guild of Copy Editors a collaborative effort that focuses on copy editing articles, as well as other minor cleanup jobs. To "copy edit" is to go through and check spelling, grammar, wikilinks, formatting, etc. Basically making an unreadable page readable :) How to copy editThe best way to copy edit is to fix all of the spelling, grammar, and basic formatting first. Then you look up the type of the article (eg. biography) in the Manual of Style to see if every heading is in the proper order. For example, if I was copy editing a novel, I would go to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Novels to see what order the headings were supposed to be in. Organizing your copy editing strategy
Different kinds of EnglishSometimes you'll see A quick reference for these different kinds of English is available at American and British English spelling differences. End of lesson 10@ Scribbleink: Sorry it took me so long to get this up, Nik; I've been busy :) The Guild of Copy Editors has a list of article copy edit requests. Assignment: Pick an article from the list that you are going to work on, tell me which one you picked, and I'll monitor your copy editing and tell you how you did at the end (hint: Articles going for a GA or FA review are going to expect a higher level of copy editing). Make sure to read all the rules on the request page before beginning. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 00:55, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
Related linksPersonal breakPersonal break You're about half way through the course (congrats!), so now it's time for a personal break. These questions won't be graded, I just want to get to know a little more about you as a person and as a Wikipedian.
1.) Q- Why did you begin editing Wikipedia? Why did you decide to become adopted? Why do you continue to edit?
2.) Q- Give me a little background on your username. Is it a derivation of your real name, from a show, sports team, game, book, etc.? Is it simply a random conglomeration of letters?
3.) Q- What are your major interests? What type of things do you like to do on Wikipedia?
4.) Q- Do you have any future goals as far as something you'd like to do on Wikipedia?
End of lesson@ Scribbleink: Do have any preference for topic of the next lesson? If not, we'll move on to dispute resolution. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 21:09, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
Lesson 11: Dispute resolutionDispute resolution No matter how well you edit Wikipedia, no matter how simple and obvious your changes may seem, you are very likely to end up in a dispute. This is especially likely to happen if you take to editing in the more contentious areas of Wikipedia. The higher the number of page views and the more evocative the subject - the more likely the area is going to be considered contentious. ![]() I'm going to go through the different methods of dispute resolution there are on Wikipedia. They are all covered at the dispute resolution page and the tips there are really worth following through. This lesson will have a test. Simple ResolutionI'm not expecting you to back down. You obviously believe in your side of the argument, and there is nothing wrong with that. What you should do, though, is attempt to resolve the dispute. First, assume good faith: remember the person you are in a dispute with is (most likely) also trying to improve the encyclopedia. They are not trying to deliberately damage the encyclopedia. Try to see things from their point of view and see if you can both come to a compromise. Keep calm. There's no urgency to the change you are trying to put in or take out, and it will wait until the discussion is complete. If you try to make your point by editwarring (repeatedly reverting someone else's same work) to keep your preferred version there is a chances that you will get nowhere and face a block. So, instead, follow the Bold, Revert, Discuss rule - one editor makes a bold edit which they feel improves the encyclopedia. A second editor reverts the edit because they disagree. Then, these two (or more) editors discuss the matter on the talk page until they come to an agreement or proceed along Wikipedia's dispute resolution process. When it comes to discussion, try and stay in the top 3 sections of the pyramid to the right; this pyramid explains the different forms of disagreement. Something you should never do is use personal attacks to try to get your way; attacks on the character of an editor will only make thing worse. If an editor is "attacking" you, don't respond in kind - stay focused on the editors argument and respond to that. If it continues, report them to admin. If you think about what you are saying and how the editor you are talking with is likely to respond, you realize that you have a choice. Your comment will generally go one of two ways:
Accusing the other editor of attacks, bad faith, ownership, vandalism, or any number of negative things are going to fall into (2). If there are issues with one of these problems, use the following dispute resolution process and try to keep a cool head. If needs be, walk away and have a cup of tea. Play a game of racketball. Whatever you do to calm down and just not be on Wikipedia. Wikipedia dispute resolution processIf the simple techniques don't work (and you'd be amazed how often they do if you try them), Wikipedia does have some methods of dispute resolution. AssistanceIf you want someone to talk to but not necessarily step in, there is an WP:Editor Assistance notice board. The editors there are experienced and can offer suggestions about how to resolve the situation. Third opinionYou can get someone uninvolved to step in and give an opinion on a content dispute. Third opinion has instructions on how to request a third editor to come in and discuss the situation. Another option to get a third opinion is to go to the project noticeboard associated with the article to ask for an opinion (the talk page lists which projects are associated with the article). Finally, you could leave a message at a relevant noticeboard - WP:SEEKHELP MediationIf the issue won't go away, even after a couple of people have weighed in, you can try the more formal route of Requests for mediation. The editors here specialize in sorting out debates. Request for CommentYou can use Request for Comment to draw community discussion to the page. You are likely to get a larger section of the community here than with a Third Opinion request. Request for comment is rarely necessary and should not be taken lightly. Only after almost every other route of dispute resolution has been taken should this happen - and it requires at least two editors having the same problem with one editor to be certified. ArbitrationI really hope you'll never have to go this far with a dispute. It's the last resort; the community has elected its most trusted willing volunteers to preside over the most complicated and serious cases. Have a read of WP:Arbitration Committee if you like, but try not to end up there. Reporting misconductIf an editor is acting badly, there are a few boards where you can get some help. Remember: you could be wrong!You could be acting against consensus! But as long as you are open to the possibility and have been sticking the top 3 sections of the pyramid, there's nothing wrong with disagreeing. Just make sure you are aware that at some point you might have to realize you are flogging a dead horse. End of lesson 11@ Scribbleink: This is a tricky area. Any questions before the test? ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 02:08, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
Test1.) Q- Explain, in your own words, each level of dispute resolution:
2.) Q- Editor A adds something that he believes is helping Wikipedia. Editor B disagrees and reverts it, so Editor A re-adds the content only for Editor B to revert again. What should the two editors do instead of this edit warring (repeatedly adding and removing content)?
3.) Q- You mark a particular article for deletion. The creator of the article then leaves a message on your talk page, calling you an incompetent, intellectual snob who has no right to edit Wikipedia. How should you react?
4.) Q- You find information saying that the island fox is making a comeback and decide put it in the article with a proper citation. Then another editor reverts it as patent nonsense. What should your next step be?
5.) Q- When you are in the middle of a dispute with someone, they insult you on the basis of gender and religion. What should you do?
6.) Q- OPINION: Is there any way to make the dispute resolution process easier?
End of test@ Scribbleink: Here you go. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 18:54, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
Lesson 12: Templates 202Templates 202 In the previous template lesson, we saw how to use parameters to add custom information to a template message. In this lesson, we'll look at how to use other templates to make even more happen, depending on the parameters entered. These other templates are called "ParserFunctions" and are built into the MediaWiki software that Wikipedia is based on. Because of that, you can't edit these templates by going to their template page (there isn't one), and they also are called in a unique way. This lesson is mostly ripped from User:Hersfold/Adopt because even I have a hard time understanding some of this stuff--it is very advanced. So don't feel bad if you get confused :) Get ready for a really long lesson!! ReviewBefore we look at these, let's have a quick review of how parameters work, because many of these ParserFunctions depend on them and you using them correctly. You can create a parameter by putting three curly brackets around a name (or number), like this: {{{foo}}}. In that case, calling the template "example" would require you to use a "foo" parameter, like this: {{example|foo=bar}}. That will cause the word "bar" to appear wherever you have the code "{{{foo}}}" in the template. If you forget the parameter, though, (just using {{example}}), bad things happen. Instead of a useful word, you get a big ugly {{{foo}}} in the middle of your message. We can avoid this by giving "foo" a default value with a pipe character: {{{foo|Hey, dummy, you forgot to set "foo".}}} Now, instead of an ugly parameter, we get a helpful message that tells us exactly what went wrong and how to fix it. If we'd rather our templates not insult us when we mess up, we can make the default value simply not appear at all: {{{foo|}}}. This works just as well, and in fact is exactly what we want to do for some of the ParserFunctions we're now going to look at. #if:The most basic function available is {{#if:}}. #if: probably looks fairly strange to you - since when do we start templates with a # sign? And what's with the colon? Actually, the colon and # are what tells us and MediaWiki that we're calling a ParserFunction instead of a normal template. Here's how #if: works: {{#if: <text that either is or is not blank> | <what you want to appear if it isn't blank> | <what you want to appear if it is> }} Huh? #if: works a little differently than most "if... then..." structures work. #if: is set up like this: "If this space has something in it, I print this. If it's blank, I print that." How does this help us? Well, remember how we could set our parameters to have a blank default value? Imagine what would happen if I wrote this code: {{#if: {{{1|}}} | Hello! | Goodbye! }} Now, when I call the template that uses this code, I will do one of two things. I will either enter a parameter or I won't. If I don't, this code will display "Goodbye!" because there is nothing displayed between #if: and the first option; we set our parameter 1 to be blank by default, so there is nothing but blank space for #if: to look at. However, if I do enter a parameter, regardless of what it is, that code will display "Hello!". This is because when #if: looks at what you gave it, there's something between it and the first option. It doesn't care what that something is, it just cares that something exists. But now, here's why we had that short review on parameters: {{#if: {{{1}}} | Hello! | Goodbye! }} The difference between these two sets of code is minor, but causes the whole thing to bork up. This time, there is no pipe in our parameter, so there is no default value. As a result, when we don't set the parameter in the template, #if: still sees {{{1}}} right after its colon. So, regardless of what we do, we're always going to get "Hello!" as a result of this function. #ifeq:#ifeq: is a bit more useful. #ifeq: stands for "If equal" - instead of just checking to see if something exists, #ifeq: checks to see if that something is equal to something you specifically told it to look for. Here's how it works: {{#ifeq: <text you input> | <text you want to compare against> | <what you want to appear if it they match> | <what you want to appear if they don't> }} {{#ifeq: {{{1}}} | foo | Hello! | Goodbye! }} In the sample above, I want to see if the user typed "foo" as a parameter to my template. If they did, #ifeq: will see that and print out "Hello!". If they enter anything else, though, or in this case, nothing at all, #ifeq: will compare whatever they enter to "foo", see that they don't match, and print "Goodbye!" instead. ( bar =/= foo; {{{1}}} =/= foo ) This code is a bit more "secure" - if you want the template to do something if the user enters "yes" as a parameter, #if: is not what you want to use. If you use #if:, it'll do whatever you told it to do even if the user enters "no". By using #ifeq:, the function will only do this thing if they enter "yes", exactly like that. It won't work even if they enter "YES", because uppercase letters and lowercase letters aren't the same. But what if you don't want to risk confusing the user? What if you do want "YES" to work? It's pretty pointless to make an #ifeq: for every single different capitalization of "yes". There's two options available to you. One is to use another ParserFunction, which we'll get to shortly, which acts like a super #ifeq:, checking for multiple different parameter values at once. Another, much easier way, is to tell the parameter to use all uppercase or lowercase letters. How? Magic. Observe:
You can use these codes (which are examples of some Magic words) on just about anything - including your parameters. Obviously, it won't have much of an effect on {{{1}}}, but when your user types in "YES" when your #ifeq: is expecting to find "yes", adding the code {{lc: {{{1}}} }} will solve all of your problems. #switch:This is the "super #ifeq:" I mentioned earlier. #switch: allows you to check a single line of text for a practically unlimited number of possible results. It works like this: {{#switch: <text you input> | <possible value 1> = <what is displayed for possible value 1> | <possible value 2> = <what is displayed for possible value 2> | <possible value 3> | <possible value 4> = <what is displayed for possible values 3 AND 4> | #default = <what appears if the value you input doesn't match any possible value> }} What this template does is this: It takes the value you enter (which is probably a parameter, which is probably forced to be either lower or upper case for the same reason it would be in #ifeq:) and moves down the list, comparing it to each possible value in turn. As soon as it matches something, it stops, and looks for the next equals sign. It then prints whatever you have between that equals sign and the next pipe. Let's look at an example, based on the above format: {{#switch: {{lc: {{{1}}} }} | foo = bar | ice = cream | french | burnt = toast }} If I enter "foo", #switch: replies with "bar". Likewise, "ice" gets "cream" as a response, and "burnt" gets "toast". But "french" also gets "toast". This is because "french" doesn't have anything set specifically for it - there's no equals sign after "french". Because of this, #switch: is going to keep looking for the next equals sign, which is after "burnt". This makes sense for me, because I want that to happen. "burnt toast" and "french toast" both make sense. However, I do have to be careful about what order I put things in; this code may look similar, but will cause "french" to come out with a different result: {{#switch: {{lc: {{{1}}} }} | foo = bar | french | ice = cream | burnt = toast }} Now, entering "french" will return "cream", because "ice = cream" is the next value in line for #switch: to find. For both of these, anything not listed in the ParserFunction will not return anything - nothing will be printed, because there is no default value. For #switch: to print something out regardless of what I type in, I would need to specify "#default = <something>" at the very end of the template. There's really no technical reason why #default has to be at the end, but it just makes it easier for other users. #time:Time is an interesting thing in how it is calculated and how it brings some order to our lives. Because of that, it's important we have a bit of code that allows us to display time however we would like. #time: is just that code, allowing you to enter your own custom time and change it however you wish. It's a very useful code, that you'll see used in many places throughout Wikipedia - for example, proposed deletion templates "expire" after five days, and those templates use a #time: function to control that. Time, of course, is rather complicated, and #time: itself is complicated to mirror that. Because there are many different ways to display the time, there are many different things you can tell #time: to do. Before we cover that, though, let's look at how #time: works: {{#time: <how you want the time displayed> | <what time you want displayed> }} OR {{#time: <how you want the current time displayed> }} (to display the time at which the page was viewed) As you can see, there are two ways to set this code up. You can display the current time, or a custom time that you specify. This custom time can be simply a change in timezone, a certain about of time before or after the current time, or a fixed time that you set. Here are some examples below of how that works. You can ignore the formatting code for just the moment, we'll cover that shortly. Just focus on what I have entered in the time slot on the right hand side.
With me so far? You can do almost anything you want with the time that way, but there are some limitations to the template. For example, I was trying to set up a stopwatch here, that would display how many months, days, hours, and minutes had gone by since I saved the code onto the page. This is the code I tried to use: {{#time: n "months," j "days," G "hours, and" i "minutes" | -{{subst:CURRENTTIMESTAMP}} }}. There's nothing wrong with the format, and the time looks as though it might work, but instead I got this: Error: Invalid time.. Obviously not what I wanted. The problem was that I didn't specify any units for it to subtract, and the number {{CURRENTTIMESTAMP}} spits out is way to big to be considered a time zone. #time: is very finicky about what it will accept as a time - it has to be something it can easily recognize and use, or it's not going to bother. Here are some examples:
Now that you roughly know how to tell #time: and what time to show, let's take a look at how to get it to show it. You'll have noticed from above that I've been sticking what seem to be random letters in the format side of #time:. #time: appears to be written for the sole purpose of being confusing, because few of the codes for the format make any sort of sense whatsoever. No, simply typing "day" won't work - if you're lucky, #time: will simply print "day" out and it won't look horrible, but it's also possible you'll get another big red error message. So what does it take? Let's figure it out:
Anything that doesn't appear in this list will generally be treated as what it actually is. So, you can wikilink dates by enclosing the format code in square brackets: {{#time: [[F d]] }} produces July 14. If, however, you want to type a letter that is in this list, you'll need to enclose it in quotes: {{#time: U represents a time }} comes out to:
To get the template to display as you intend it to, you'll need to use {{#time: U "represents a time" }} (1720965115 represents a time) or something similar. Things get easier from here out, don't worry! #expr:This is the last ParserFunction we'll cover; although there are more, this is the last of the more commonly used ones. #expr: stands for "expression", referring to the mathematical sort. #expr: is your calculator, allowing you to play with parameters and variables to spit out something that may or may not be useful. It also can be used for logical statements, where 0 is considered false and anything else is considered true. Here's what you can do with it:
You can combine mathematical stuff and logical stuff in the same #expr:, as well as add parentheses to group operations - for example, {{#expr: (30 + 2) / 16 > 3}} will produce 0 ((30 + 2) / 16 = 32 / 16 = 2, which is less than 3, so false or 0). The function follows a specific order of operations, with all things going from left to right:
Make sure to be careful about this; just as in school, failing to pay attention to order of operations can easily cause your equation to come out to something you didn't expect. Obviously there are some things you can't do with #expr: - it doesn't like letters, so using exponential formats such as 6.67E-11, or mathematical constants like e won't work. Also, it's limited by the usual laws of mathematics (for example, you can't divide by zero, etc.) Other ParserFunctionsThere are a total of 5 other ParserFunctions we haven't covered. I'll list these below, but won't go into detail about them because they are rarely used outside of meta-level templates, such as {{ db-meta}}. Each of these is either fairly basic (along with what you already know) or can be easily represented by using one of the functions already covered. If you have an interest in these templates, they, along with the ones mentioned above, are covered in full detail at m:Help:ParserFunctions (Note: this page is on MetaWiki).
Templates and tablesYou've noticed that all of these functions use pipes, just like regular templates do. You've probably also noticed that most templates use tables to keep their formats in a readable order, and that these tables also use pipes. So, how does MediaWiki know when a pipe is a template pipe or a table pipe? Well, it doesn't. Say you're setting up a template, that displays a table with an optional third row, triggered by the parameter {{{row}}}. Here's the code you try: {| class="wikitable" |- !This is !a template. |- |This is |a row. {{#if: {{{row|}}} | |- |Here's an |extra row. }} |} So, let's see what happens when we test this out. We made {{{row}}} be blank by default, so we should see a table that has only two rows.
Yuck. That's not quite what we wanted. Things came out this way because when we condense the #if: code to a single line, this is what we get: {{#if: {{{row|}}} | |- |Here's an |extra row. }}. #if: doesn't know that it's in a table. #if: just sees that for some reason it's being given four different bits of text to choose from. However, it only cares about the first two: the blank section between the first two pipes, and the dash between the second two. Oops. So how can we tell #if: it's in a table, and needs to ignore some of those pipes? We trick it. The templates {{
!}} {{
!!}} and {{
!-}} are all designed for this purpose. Since we can't put an actual pipe in there and have it work, we fake it with another template. What happens is that #if: sees the template as a template, that is, like this: {| class="wikitable" |- !This is !a template. |- |This is |a row. {{#if: {{{row|}}} | {{!}}- <!-- That makes a new row --> {{!}} <!-- That makes a new cell --> Here's an {{!}} <!-- That makes a new cell --> extra row. }} |} And so we get:
That's it! Remember, {{ !-}} produces |-, {{ !}} produces |, and {{ !!}} produces ||. End of lesson 12@ Scribbleink: That's everything! Try testing out these templates in a sandbox, and seeing what all they can do. Once you're confident with what they do, feel free to add userbox {{|User t|3|c}} to your user page - you'll have earned it! You can ask questions--but then I in turn might have to ask someone else who knows this stuff better than I do ;) ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 20:28, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
Lesson 13: Policies, guidelines, and essaysPolicies, guidelines, and essays This lesson has been mostly ripped from Brambleberry of RiverClan's adoption course. It will have a test. PoliciesA policy is a page describing a topic whose views have wide acceptance among editors and describe standards that editors should normally follow. Examples of policies are WP:NOT, describing things that Wikipedia is not and therefore should not lead to pages of, and WP:Verifiability, saying what counts as a reliable source. These are commonly described as being "rules". However, there are usually exceptions to these rules. GuidelinesA guideline is a page describing a best practice as supported by consensus. Editors should attempt to follow guidelines to the best of their abilities, although exceptions probably apply and everything should be treated with common sense. Examples of guidelines are WP:Assume good faith, which tells you to always assume that editors are working for the good of Wikipedia, and WP:Citing sources, which outlines the best way to cite sources on Wikipedia. EssaysAn essay is a page describing the opinion of an editor or group of editors. Essays are not rules or even guidelines to follow, and they do not represent the entire community's view. They are, however, worthy of consideration when you are editing. Examples of essays are WP:Existence ≠ Notability, which says that just because something exists doesn't mean that it deserves a Wikipedia page, and WP:Just drop it, which says that if things get heated, you shouldn't continue arguing. Misconceptions
Ignore all rulesThe fifth pillar of Wikipedia is "Ignore all rules". It basically says that you should ignore a rule that keeps you from improving the encyclopedia. Some people try to apply it in bad situations, and it rarely works to their favor. There's an essay about it called Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means. It basically says that if rules keep you from wanting to enjoy participating in the wiki, ignore them and go about your business. Everyone has their own interpretation of this pillar, and that's how it should be. End of lesson 13@ Scribbleink: Sorry it took so long to get this one up. Any questions before the test? ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 18:41, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
Test1.) Q- Explain, in your own words, the difference between a policy, guideline, and essay.
2.) Q- Can policies change? If could change a policy, which one would you change/how would you change it?
3.) Q- Which policy do you think is the most relevant to your current work on Wikipedia?
4.) Q- Wikipedia:Nobody cares is a popular essay. Do you agree with it? Why or why not?
5.) Q- What does "Ignore all rules" mean to you specifically?
End of test
|
Missionedit's Adoption
Homepage •
Discussion || Current Adoptee Pages:
Ploreky ||
Inactive:
Scribbleink •
Jtamad •
Elsa Enchanted •
Molly's Mind •
Ntomlin1996 •
Venustar84 •
Acj1 •
AmazingAlec •
Faiz7412 •
Hisashiyarouin •
Marcus1093 •
WelshWonderWoman || Graduates:
FiendYT
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() A few questions for you to start off this adoption: 1) Would you prefer to be called Scribbleink, Scribble, or something else?
Lesson 1: The Five Pillars of WikipediaThe Five Pillars of Wikipedia These are the five "pillars", or fundamental principles, of Wikipedia. I've reworded them a little from the original to further explain/simplify.
@ Scribbleink: Any questions? Moving on to templates after this. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 21:24, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
References for lesson 1
Lesson 2: Templates 201Templates 201 This lesson is mostly taken from User:Hersfold/Adopt/Templates. Template basicsTemplates allow you to post large sections of text or complicated sections of code while only typing a few characters. All templates have "Template:" as a prefix (eg. Template:Cite web or Template:User Sandbox). Templates work similarly to regular links, but instead of using [[double square brackets]], you use {{curly brackets}}. To "call" a template, just type the title of the template between the curly brackets. Whenever you call a template, the content of the template page will be displayed. You don't need to include the "Template:" prefix; the MediaWiki software automatically searches within the Template namespace for what you're looking for. Only if the page you're looking for is in a different namespace (has different prefix), such as "User:" or "Wikipedia:", do you need to specify it. See below:
In that last example, I get a {{{1}}} where a number should appear. This is due to the fact that I did not specify a parameter in that template. A named parameter looks like this: |(parameter name goes here) = (value goes here) and an unnamed parameter looks like this: |(value goes here) Parameters allow you to change certain aspects of a template. One template you can use to welcome new users,
Template:W-basic, has several parameters which can customize its appearance. Most of those parameters are named, meaning that you have to specify what the name of the parameter is when you use it by putting something after the equal sign. If you set the parameter "anon" to "true" in this template: There are two ways to call a template. Transclusion is simply calling a template as I showed you above: {{exampletemplate}}. This displays the template where you put the call for it, but leaves the curly bracketed call in place so that it's easy to remove. This also causes the template to update every time the page is loaded, if it has been edited or has a time-sensitive variable. Substitution, or "subst'ing" a template, causes the opposite effect. To substitute a template, add the code "subst:" at the beginning of the call: {{subst:exampletemplate}}. When you save the page, the MediaWiki software will replace that call with the template's code. This causes all the content of the template to virtually be copy-pasted to your page. This makes it more difficult to remove, because instead of the simple template call, you've probably got lines of code that are now clogging up your article/page. Depending on how the template it written, it may require subst'ing to work properly, or it may require transclusion. The page at WP:SUBST gives details on what templates should, must, or must not be substituted.
End of lesson 2@ Scribbleink: I know this is a lot to absorb and understand, especially if you have no experience with computer coding. If you completely drowned in the jargon in this lesson, please tell me (I can write a simpler lesson). These are only the basics of templates. We can cover more advanced stuff later, but only if you really want to. Any questions? ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 01:47, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
References for lesson 2
Lesson 3: WikiquetteWikiquette " Wikiquette" is, as I'm sure you know, a portmanteau of "Wikipedia" and "etiquette". If this stuff is boring for you, please tell me what you would like to cover instead and we can learn that. Otherwise next lesson will be on vandalism. Assuming good faithAlways assume that every member of the community you come across is trying to do the right thing. The exception to this would be somebody who already has four plus vandalism warnings and who is making more malicious edits; they probably aren't acting in good faith. Apart from that, don't jump straight in to assume somebody is malicious. ThreadingYou've seemed to have figured this out already. When you're responding to something I write, you use one colon. When I then respond to you, you use two colons. When you then respond to me, you use three colons. When you want to respond to the original post, then you just go back to using one colon. Think of it this way: whatever you want to respond to, preface it with one more colon than what it had already. Avoiding common mistakesAvoid these mistakes which have been made by many an editor:
SignaturesThere are also Wikiquette rules for signatures. You can customize a signature any way you want using CSS and other code (as you have discovered). There are a few no-nos, though.
End of lesson 3@ Scribbleink: I know you don't need a test for this one, but it's good to know this stuff about signatures just in case. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 04:04, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
Lesson 4: VandalismVandalism This lesson has been ruthlessly pinched from the vandalism lessons of
User:Brambleberry of RiverClan and
User:Hersfold, with a few of my own touches. What we're going to do now is get started with some basic vandalism patrols. This is by no means something you will be obligated to do as an editor, many people prefer to do other things. But it is something you should know how to do due to the high risk of vandalism on Wikipedia, and you are likely to run into some. Should you ever wish become an administrator, you will be expected to deal with vandalism at least in some respect. Some background on vandalismWikipedia is, as you know, a wiki, meaning anyone can edit virtually any page. This is both a blessing and a curse: while it does allow a wide range of information to be added and shared, it also allows people with less than benevolent intentions to come in and mess around with stuff. It requires a fair amount of work being done 24/7 by well-intentioned editors to ensure that this vandalism does not run rampant and destroy Wikipedia. Fortunately, with the enormous amount of volunteers across the world, this doesn't really cause a problem. Various tools aid our cause and help us "revert", or remove, vandalism within minutes or even seconds. What we define vandalism as is "an edit which is deliberately attempting to harm the encyclopedia" to an article or other page. Most commonly, these are pretty blatant - replacing a whole page or section with curse words, simply removing entire sections, and so forth. Occasionally, it's less obvious, like changing key words in a section to completely alter the meaning. Basically, anything that can't be helpful at all to the article should be considered vandalism. However, you should always remember to assume good faith for questionable cases. Special:RecentChangesThe tool most commonly used to combat vandalism is Special:RecentChanges. Recent Changes is a special page that lists every edit made across Wikipedia within the last few minutes. You can find a link to it in the toolbar to the left of any page on Wikipedia. The page is formatted similarly to a page's history, with a few differences. Here's how a standard entry generally looks:
TerminologyI'm going to explain what all these terms mean. Many of these terms are used across the project
Your assignmentNow that you know how to use Recent Changes, I want you to go and find some vandalism edits. I don't want you to remove the edit yourself just yet - we'll get to this shortly and chances are, another editor or bot will beat you to it. So before you go on, go to Special:RecentChanges and find three vandalism edits. So that I can check your work and we can discuss things, I want you to copy the links to the diffs of these three edits into the brackets you see below. (This is most easily done by copying the URL from your address bar while you're viewing the diff.) IMPORTANT WARNINGDue to the very nature of vandalism on Wikipedia, it is possible you will encounter something that will offend you. I take this time to point out Wikipedia's Content Disclaimer, which basically says that you can find just about anything on here and it's not WP's fault. While you may find something offensive in your searches and subsequent vandal patrols, it is best to simply brush it off and not take it to heart. Later on, when you are actually reverting vandalism, it is possible that your own user pages will be vandalized. Here the same thing applies - ignore and simply remove it. I do not tell these things to scare you, or to imply that it will happen. I am simply pointing out that it is possible, although exceedingly rare. In many cases, these attempts to attack you are in fact somewhat amusing. If it occurs, just remember how intellectually superior you clearly are to the vandal and be glad that you actually have a life. Please add your signature here (~~~~) to confirm that you have read and understand this warning: scribble · ink chat\ contrib 05:24, 2 March 2015 (UTC) How to RevertWell, If you're using anything but Internet Explorer, I would suggest using Twinkle. You can turn it on by going to My Preferences --> Gadgets --> Twinkle. Then save your preferences and refresh the page. Suddenly you have new things to play with! Each diff gives you 3 options to roll back - more information can be found at
WP:TWINKLE. Warning vandalsThere many different templates available to warn vandals after you've reverted their edit. I would recommend using Twinkle. If you are, the first step will be under the "Wel" button, while the rest will be under "Warn":
If someone has a level 3 warning on one charge (such as vandalism), but doesn't have one on another (like using a talk page as a forum), start with a level 1 warning on the new charge. I've found that some vandals have multiple charges. WP:AIVOccasionally, you'll get an editor who won't stop vandalizing even after the final warning. When this happens, there is no choice left but to block them, which is something only an administrator can do. AIV, or Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism is just for this specific purpose. You can report them using Twinkle, as Twinkle has the option "ARV", which allows you to fill out a form that get sent to WP:AIV. Once it gets sent, there is no more left for you to do; let the admins handle it. However, if I were you, I would keep track of the editor and what the admins decide on for punishment. Different vandalsThere are multiple kinds of vandals. Scared vandals. There are those kinds of vandals that make one kind of unhelpful edit (like replacing a heading with "muahaha" or some type of gibberish) thinking that everyone on Wikipedia does that. They then get a warning and are scared straight immediately. They either choose not to edit ever again or become upstanding editors. Repeat vandals. The repeat vandals are bored and looking for a little fun. Once again, most of their vandalism is gibberish replacing good text. You can give them as many warnings as you want, but they won't bother. Once you get past the level 4 warning for them, you report them to WP:AIV and the admins deal with them. Belligerent vandals. These vandals are similar to the repeat vandals, except the belligerent vandals will often leave a nasty note on your talk page or vandalize your user page when you give them a warning. Then you can give them two warnings: one for vandalism and one for personal attacks. If something like this happens, you just have to take it in stride. Personally, being a Christian, I find vandals forgivable. But without that factor, I guess you just have to remember that there will be mean people in the world, and that you can't let them get you down. Just revert their offence and hand them a {{ uw-npa}} warning of whatever severity you deem necessary. Malicious vandals. These are hardest to notice, because their edits aren't immediately recognizable. They will seem to be improving the article at first glance, when really they're replacing true information with false, often libelous parodies. Others replace valid links with shock sites, or add hidden comments with offensive information. This last version doesn't actually appear in the article, but is there waiting when someone comes to edit it. A similar type of vandal, the "on wheels" vandal, is here for the sole purpose of destroying the encyclopedia. The namesake, User:Willy on Wheels, replaced dozens of pages with the text "{{BASEPAGENAME}} has been vandalized by User:Willy on Wheels!" The BASEPAGENAME variable is a magic word that displays the name of the page. After his blocking, Willy continued to create hundreds of sockpuppets for the same purpose. This sort of vandal is clearly here to vandalize, as such actions are not accidental. With them, you can safely assume bad faith right from the start and slam them with a more severe warning. You don't have to escalate level warnings in all cases - if there is no doubt that the edit was made with bad intentions, you may start with a higher level than normal. In this case, you can give them {{uw-vandalism4im}}. If they continue vandalizing (which they probably will), report them to WP:AIV. End of lesson 4@ Scribbleink: Tah-dah! You have just successfully read through one of the longest and most tedious lessons of this course. If you have problems with Twinkle or any other questions please tell me. The point of your assignment is to get you familiar with finding vandalism. After you find a couple instances, we can then move on to reverting vandalism. Unless, of course, you have previous experience with fighting vandalism? ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 03:34, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
Lesson 5: DeletionDeletion Deletion theory is one of the most discussed and contentious issues on Wikipedia. There are two primary factions, the inclusionists and the deletionists. The full policy on deletion is located here. While Wikipedia does strive to include as much information as possible, there is a practical limit as to what we're going to include as an article. Just because you think your pet cat is the cutest thing on the planet, that does not mean you should create an article about it. There's a whole list of things that Wikipedia is not. Some relate simply to style or formatting, such as Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia or Wikipedia is not censored. Most, however, relate to the content of the encyclopedia, and what is considered encyclopedic and what isn't. WP:NOT is an official policy, which means that all articles must adhere to it. If they don't, they're at risk of deletion. This lesson will have a test. WP: CSDWP:CSD, short for "Criterion for speedy deletion", is, in its most practical form, a tag which you place on articles that need to be deleted "speedily", or as soon as possible. These are the following criterion for speedy deletion in article space (you rarely need to use it in any other space):
You should wait at least ten minutes after an article is created before tagging an article with either A1 or A3, because the author may add more information in that time that would render the CSD templates void. WP:PROD
PROD, short for "Proposed deletion", is what you use if the page doesn't fall under a CSD, but you're pretty certain it can be deleted without too much discussion on the issue. Someone can always contest your PROD, in which case you should take it to AfD. To PROD an article, add the template {{ subst:prod|reason}} to the top of the article. YOU MUST include the "subst:" code at the beginning of the template. This adds a little blue box at the top of the page to indicate that the page is being considered for deletion. If the box remains in place for five days, the article will be deleted. However, anyone can contest the deletion by removing the template. If you still believe the article should be deleted after this happens, you should open a debate at WP:AFD, which I'll explain how to use in a moment. PRODs also come with a notice for the author, {{ subst:PRODWarning|Article title}}. WP:XfDWP:XFD (XfD stands for Anything for Deletion) allows users to debate the merits (or lack thereof) a particular article and decide by consensus what to do with it. This does not involve voting - sheer numbers have no effect on the outcome of these debates. Only reasoned comments are (or should be) considered when concluding the debate. We will do the next lesson specifically on this subject, "votes" and consensus, an interesting topic in itself. The template to the right shows all the different types of deletion debates. Each XfD page outlines the process for each, which often is somewhat complicated. Deletion review is where users can appeal a deletion debate, and follows similar procedures. The most frequently used XfD is AfD, Articles for Deletion. WP:AfDWP:AFD, short for "Articles for deletion", is where you go if you think something should be deleted but want to be sure. You can list it at AfD using Twinkle under the XFD button and then say why you think it should be deleted. Then the usual consensus debate process is followed. If you ever want to become an administrator, AfD is a great thing to be involved in. End of lesson 5@ Scribbleink: Questions? I hope you found this lesson useful. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 18:56, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
TestQuestions 4-7 are hypothetical scenarios. Answer what CSD or PROD criterion (if any) you would tag these articles under. 1.) Q- Explain a scenario in which you would use PROD.
2.) Q- You attempt tag an article for CSD under A7, but the creator blanks the page in the process and causes an edit conflict (two versions of the page colliding with each other). What should you do?
3.) Q- Why should you wait before tagging an article for A1 or A3?
4.) Q- You find an article which says: Joe Garrison is so nice and awesome and the best person I've ever met! He always has a beer and a hot dog for you! His fiancée Ashley is really cool too!
5.) Q- You find an article which says: ajdflajsdlfjalghaiefjalsfj
6.) Q- You find an article which says: Mike Smith is a trumpeter in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. He used to be in the Boston Pops. He likes to read and swim when he's not playing the trumpet.
7.) Q- You find an article which says: On the night of 22 April 1941, during the the blitz, over 70 civilians were killed, including a mother and her six children, when a bomb fell on the shelter near the Planetarium. The bomb shelter consisted of a series of underground tunnels which many had long-presumed lost but were rediscovered in 2006. The bomb blast was so big that human remains were found in the tops of trees. In 2006 an appeal was made to raise money for a public sculpture to honour those who lost their lives. (This one's a tricky one, but ask yourself: do you know what the article is talking about?)
8.) Assignment- find an article worthy of deletion (CSD, PROD, or AFD), and tag it/begin the process. Please explain what you did and why you did it below.
End of testSo sorry for forgetting :) Feel free to refer back to the lesson during the test. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 02:05, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
Lesson 6: Consensus and "voting"Consensus and "voting" Since Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia, when we have a disagreement on something, we go by consensus of the community. You can add your opinion to a debate by "voting". However, this type of voting is not like voting at an election or a poll. It is more like participating in a debate, with each comment contributing a new idea to keep the consensus discussion going. (Interesting fact: WP:Articles for Deletion used to be called Votes for Deletion, but the name was later changed as a result of consensus.) "Voting"A "vote" usually begins with Support or Oppose. However, just saying "Support" is very different than saying "Support: - User has been a loyal host at the Teahouse since its inception, shows a good article track record, and has enough experience in the administrative work they intend to participate in that I have no concerns with them using the tools." The latter is what your "votes" should look like. It is necessary to explain why you have "voted" support or oppose, otherwise, a stack of votes with no reasoning behind them will collect, and the discussion will not have progressed. Articles for deletionThese are the following "votes" you can use at AfD:
Requests for adminship/bureaucratshipThese are the following "votes" that you can use in RfAs and RfBs:
You can add "Strong" or "Weak" to "Support" and "Oppose". Or you can also go for a more humorous approach, eg. "Oh my goodness yes". It's usually in better taste to have a humorous vote for a support than an oppose :) Bad argumentsThere are many bad arguments that you should avoid on Wikipedia when participating in discussions. Please read these pages:
End of lesson 6There's no test on this one, just an assignment: participate in 3 AfDs and in any RfAs or RfBs that they have around. You can vote in AfDs at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. You can vote for RfAs or RfBs at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship. If there are no RfAs/RfBs you can skip that part of the assignment. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 19:01, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
Lesson 7: Reviewing articlesReviewing articles One skill editors should know is how to review articles. It may not be something you do all the time, but it's still good to know. Wikipedia assesses its articles on a scale according to how much information they provide and how well the information is presented. Article assessment/rankingThis assessment scale is largely unofficial, with the majority of assessments made by WikiProjects who claim jurisdiction over the articles. There are, however, two official ratings which are given to those articles which are nominated by editors and reviewed to see if they meet a series of criteria. The full ranking is as follows:
Other types of pages are graded outside this criteria, including:
New pagesReviewing newly created pages is a rather different matter. Special:NewPages, or, more recently, Special:NewPagesFeed, is a list of new articles. All of these articles need to be checked for their overall content and their suitability to Wikipedia. Some of them are nominated/tagged for deletion, and many of them are tagged as needing fixing up in one way or another. These articles are not ranked, so to speak, but instead pass review by being properly tagged or fixed. End of lesson 7@ Scribbleink: Assignment: Now that you've seen the different kinds of articles and how to review them, take a look at some articles using Special:Randompage and tell me what you think they should be graded as. Don't look at the talk pages or what they are already ranked as, just read the article and give it your own assessment. Give a short reasoning of why you have graded it such. If you believe an article is worse than any of these rankings, mark it as a "sub-stub". After you do a couple of these, I want you to review some pages at Special:NewPagesFeed. Good luck! ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 01:34, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
Lesson 8: Semi-automatic toolsSemi-automatic tools You've had some experience with semi-automatic tools already, but we might as well officially cover it :) A semi-automatic tool is basically a pre-written program designed to make certain repetitive tasks easier and less complicated. There's no test for this lesson, just an assignment. I want you to go to the "Preferences" button at the top of the page, and then the "Gadgets" tab. There are two gadgets that I want you to enable. The first is Twinkle, fifth from the bottom under "Browsing". The second is HotCat, fourth from the top under "Editing". Just check to boxes to enable them on your account. These two tools are some of the most commonly used on Wikipedia. TwinkleTwinkle is a handy little tool that's been around for awhile. It allows you to easily tag articles and mark them for deletion, as well as some other useful things. After you enable Twinkle, you should see a tab with the letters "TW" to the left of the search box at the top of any page. Click on that tab and you'll be presented with a variety of options:
I encourage you to experiment with these as long as your edits are responsible (see "Responsibility", below) HotCatHotCat is a tool that makes adding categories easy. Once you have it enabled, look at the categories at the end of a page. They should now look something like this: Categories (++): French equestrians (-) (±) | (+) The double-plus next to categories allows you to add several categories at once. The (-) after French equestrians allows you to remove that category, while the (±) allows you to modify it. The (+) at the end allows you to add one new category. This tool comes in very handy if you work with categories in any way. Responsibility WARNINGI encourage you to explore with Twinkle and HotCat, but don't forget to be responsible with them. As you know, you should not tag articles just because it's fun or to annoy people, but do it to better the encyclopedia. User talk:Sandbox for user warnings allows you to test out warning, welcoming, and talkback. You are fully and completely responsible for all of your actions using or regarding semi-automatic tools. Please add your signature here (~~~~) to confirm that you have read and understand this warning:
End of lesson 8![]() ![]() @ Scribbleink: Twinkle and HotCat are only a few of the many semi-automatic tools on Wikipedia. Any questions? Having trouble enabling/using these tools? ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 16:52, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
Lesson 9: Manual of StyleManual of Style The Manual of Style is the style guide for all Wikipedia articles. Sometimes adopters neglect to touch on it, but I think the MOS a very important and necessary part of Wikipedia, and deserves its own lesson :) Here are the main points of it: Article titles, headings, and sections
Spelling and grammar in different forms of EnglishThere are many different kinds of English from various cultural and ethnic backgrounds. To make sure the English style used throughout an article is consistent, sometimes an invisible template such as {{ Use American English}}, {{ Use British English}}, or {{ Use Irish English}}, is placed at the top. Otherwise, it's best to try and follow the style the rest of the article is written in to keep it consistent. Capital letters
End of lesson 9@ Scribbleink: Any questions? I have included only the very basics; there is much more at Wikipedia:Manual of Style. There'll be a test for this lesson—it won't be too hard :) ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 19:36, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
Notes
Test1.) Q- Capitalize the following article titles accordingly:
2.) Q- Put the following in the correct order according to the Manual of Style. The title of the article is "Peter Laufer"—do not refer to the actual article:
3.) Q- Name everything that's wrong with this if it were an article title:
4.) Q- What type of English should you (most likely) use in an article if this is a sample sentence from it?
5.) Q- Capitalize the following accordingly as if they were in a sentence. If correct, write "correct":
End of test
Lesson 10: Copy editingCopy editing Copy editing is a skill which you will likely have to use at one time or another on Wikipedia whether you are writing a new article or fixing an old one. This lesson is mostly taken from the GOCE (Guild of Copy Editors) page. Guild of Copy EditorsSince you seem pretty confident in the areas of English grammar and spelling, I am pleased to invite you to join the Guild of Copy Editors. Wikiproject Guild of Copy Editors a collaborative effort that focuses on copy editing articles, as well as other minor cleanup jobs. To "copy edit" is to go through and check spelling, grammar, wikilinks, formatting, etc. Basically making an unreadable page readable :) How to copy editThe best way to copy edit is to fix all of the spelling, grammar, and basic formatting first. Then you look up the type of the article (eg. biography) in the Manual of Style to see if every heading is in the proper order. For example, if I was copy editing a novel, I would go to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Novels to see what order the headings were supposed to be in. Organizing your copy editing strategy
Different kinds of EnglishSometimes you'll see A quick reference for these different kinds of English is available at American and British English spelling differences. End of lesson 10@ Scribbleink: Sorry it took me so long to get this up, Nik; I've been busy :) The Guild of Copy Editors has a list of article copy edit requests. Assignment: Pick an article from the list that you are going to work on, tell me which one you picked, and I'll monitor your copy editing and tell you how you did at the end (hint: Articles going for a GA or FA review are going to expect a higher level of copy editing). Make sure to read all the rules on the request page before beginning. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 00:55, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
Related linksPersonal breakPersonal break You're about half way through the course (congrats!), so now it's time for a personal break. These questions won't be graded, I just want to get to know a little more about you as a person and as a Wikipedian.
1.) Q- Why did you begin editing Wikipedia? Why did you decide to become adopted? Why do you continue to edit?
2.) Q- Give me a little background on your username. Is it a derivation of your real name, from a show, sports team, game, book, etc.? Is it simply a random conglomeration of letters?
3.) Q- What are your major interests? What type of things do you like to do on Wikipedia?
4.) Q- Do you have any future goals as far as something you'd like to do on Wikipedia?
End of lesson@ Scribbleink: Do have any preference for topic of the next lesson? If not, we'll move on to dispute resolution. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 21:09, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
Lesson 11: Dispute resolutionDispute resolution No matter how well you edit Wikipedia, no matter how simple and obvious your changes may seem, you are very likely to end up in a dispute. This is especially likely to happen if you take to editing in the more contentious areas of Wikipedia. The higher the number of page views and the more evocative the subject - the more likely the area is going to be considered contentious. ![]() I'm going to go through the different methods of dispute resolution there are on Wikipedia. They are all covered at the dispute resolution page and the tips there are really worth following through. This lesson will have a test. Simple ResolutionI'm not expecting you to back down. You obviously believe in your side of the argument, and there is nothing wrong with that. What you should do, though, is attempt to resolve the dispute. First, assume good faith: remember the person you are in a dispute with is (most likely) also trying to improve the encyclopedia. They are not trying to deliberately damage the encyclopedia. Try to see things from their point of view and see if you can both come to a compromise. Keep calm. There's no urgency to the change you are trying to put in or take out, and it will wait until the discussion is complete. If you try to make your point by editwarring (repeatedly reverting someone else's same work) to keep your preferred version there is a chances that you will get nowhere and face a block. So, instead, follow the Bold, Revert, Discuss rule - one editor makes a bold edit which they feel improves the encyclopedia. A second editor reverts the edit because they disagree. Then, these two (or more) editors discuss the matter on the talk page until they come to an agreement or proceed along Wikipedia's dispute resolution process. When it comes to discussion, try and stay in the top 3 sections of the pyramid to the right; this pyramid explains the different forms of disagreement. Something you should never do is use personal attacks to try to get your way; attacks on the character of an editor will only make thing worse. If an editor is "attacking" you, don't respond in kind - stay focused on the editors argument and respond to that. If it continues, report them to admin. If you think about what you are saying and how the editor you are talking with is likely to respond, you realize that you have a choice. Your comment will generally go one of two ways:
Accusing the other editor of attacks, bad faith, ownership, vandalism, or any number of negative things are going to fall into (2). If there are issues with one of these problems, use the following dispute resolution process and try to keep a cool head. If needs be, walk away and have a cup of tea. Play a game of racketball. Whatever you do to calm down and just not be on Wikipedia. Wikipedia dispute resolution processIf the simple techniques don't work (and you'd be amazed how often they do if you try them), Wikipedia does have some methods of dispute resolution. AssistanceIf you want someone to talk to but not necessarily step in, there is an WP:Editor Assistance notice board. The editors there are experienced and can offer suggestions about how to resolve the situation. Third opinionYou can get someone uninvolved to step in and give an opinion on a content dispute. Third opinion has instructions on how to request a third editor to come in and discuss the situation. Another option to get a third opinion is to go to the project noticeboard associated with the article to ask for an opinion (the talk page lists which projects are associated with the article). Finally, you could leave a message at a relevant noticeboard - WP:SEEKHELP MediationIf the issue won't go away, even after a couple of people have weighed in, you can try the more formal route of Requests for mediation. The editors here specialize in sorting out debates. Request for CommentYou can use Request for Comment to draw community discussion to the page. You are likely to get a larger section of the community here than with a Third Opinion request. Request for comment is rarely necessary and should not be taken lightly. Only after almost every other route of dispute resolution has been taken should this happen - and it requires at least two editors having the same problem with one editor to be certified. ArbitrationI really hope you'll never have to go this far with a dispute. It's the last resort; the community has elected its most trusted willing volunteers to preside over the most complicated and serious cases. Have a read of WP:Arbitration Committee if you like, but try not to end up there. Reporting misconductIf an editor is acting badly, there are a few boards where you can get some help. Remember: you could be wrong!You could be acting against consensus! But as long as you are open to the possibility and have been sticking the top 3 sections of the pyramid, there's nothing wrong with disagreeing. Just make sure you are aware that at some point you might have to realize you are flogging a dead horse. End of lesson 11@ Scribbleink: This is a tricky area. Any questions before the test? ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 02:08, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
Test1.) Q- Explain, in your own words, each level of dispute resolution:
2.) Q- Editor A adds something that he believes is helping Wikipedia. Editor B disagrees and reverts it, so Editor A re-adds the content only for Editor B to revert again. What should the two editors do instead of this edit warring (repeatedly adding and removing content)?
3.) Q- You mark a particular article for deletion. The creator of the article then leaves a message on your talk page, calling you an incompetent, intellectual snob who has no right to edit Wikipedia. How should you react?
4.) Q- You find information saying that the island fox is making a comeback and decide put it in the article with a proper citation. Then another editor reverts it as patent nonsense. What should your next step be?
5.) Q- When you are in the middle of a dispute with someone, they insult you on the basis of gender and religion. What should you do?
6.) Q- OPINION: Is there any way to make the dispute resolution process easier?
End of test@ Scribbleink: Here you go. ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 18:54, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
Lesson 12: Templates 202Templates 202 In the previous template lesson, we saw how to use parameters to add custom information to a template message. In this lesson, we'll look at how to use other templates to make even more happen, depending on the parameters entered. These other templates are called "ParserFunctions" and are built into the MediaWiki software that Wikipedia is based on. Because of that, you can't edit these templates by going to their template page (there isn't one), and they also are called in a unique way. This lesson is mostly ripped from User:Hersfold/Adopt because even I have a hard time understanding some of this stuff--it is very advanced. So don't feel bad if you get confused :) Get ready for a really long lesson!! ReviewBefore we look at these, let's have a quick review of how parameters work, because many of these ParserFunctions depend on them and you using them correctly. You can create a parameter by putting three curly brackets around a name (or number), like this: {{{foo}}}. In that case, calling the template "example" would require you to use a "foo" parameter, like this: {{example|foo=bar}}. That will cause the word "bar" to appear wherever you have the code "{{{foo}}}" in the template. If you forget the parameter, though, (just using {{example}}), bad things happen. Instead of a useful word, you get a big ugly {{{foo}}} in the middle of your message. We can avoid this by giving "foo" a default value with a pipe character: {{{foo|Hey, dummy, you forgot to set "foo".}}} Now, instead of an ugly parameter, we get a helpful message that tells us exactly what went wrong and how to fix it. If we'd rather our templates not insult us when we mess up, we can make the default value simply not appear at all: {{{foo|}}}. This works just as well, and in fact is exactly what we want to do for some of the ParserFunctions we're now going to look at. #if:The most basic function available is {{#if:}}. #if: probably looks fairly strange to you - since when do we start templates with a # sign? And what's with the colon? Actually, the colon and # are what tells us and MediaWiki that we're calling a ParserFunction instead of a normal template. Here's how #if: works: {{#if: <text that either is or is not blank> | <what you want to appear if it isn't blank> | <what you want to appear if it is> }} Huh? #if: works a little differently than most "if... then..." structures work. #if: is set up like this: "If this space has something in it, I print this. If it's blank, I print that." How does this help us? Well, remember how we could set our parameters to have a blank default value? Imagine what would happen if I wrote this code: {{#if: {{{1|}}} | Hello! | Goodbye! }} Now, when I call the template that uses this code, I will do one of two things. I will either enter a parameter or I won't. If I don't, this code will display "Goodbye!" because there is nothing displayed between #if: and the first option; we set our parameter 1 to be blank by default, so there is nothing but blank space for #if: to look at. However, if I do enter a parameter, regardless of what it is, that code will display "Hello!". This is because when #if: looks at what you gave it, there's something between it and the first option. It doesn't care what that something is, it just cares that something exists. But now, here's why we had that short review on parameters: {{#if: {{{1}}} | Hello! | Goodbye! }} The difference between these two sets of code is minor, but causes the whole thing to bork up. This time, there is no pipe in our parameter, so there is no default value. As a result, when we don't set the parameter in the template, #if: still sees {{{1}}} right after its colon. So, regardless of what we do, we're always going to get "Hello!" as a result of this function. #ifeq:#ifeq: is a bit more useful. #ifeq: stands for "If equal" - instead of just checking to see if something exists, #ifeq: checks to see if that something is equal to something you specifically told it to look for. Here's how it works: {{#ifeq: <text you input> | <text you want to compare against> | <what you want to appear if it they match> | <what you want to appear if they don't> }} {{#ifeq: {{{1}}} | foo | Hello! | Goodbye! }} In the sample above, I want to see if the user typed "foo" as a parameter to my template. If they did, #ifeq: will see that and print out "Hello!". If they enter anything else, though, or in this case, nothing at all, #ifeq: will compare whatever they enter to "foo", see that they don't match, and print "Goodbye!" instead. ( bar =/= foo; {{{1}}} =/= foo ) This code is a bit more "secure" - if you want the template to do something if the user enters "yes" as a parameter, #if: is not what you want to use. If you use #if:, it'll do whatever you told it to do even if the user enters "no". By using #ifeq:, the function will only do this thing if they enter "yes", exactly like that. It won't work even if they enter "YES", because uppercase letters and lowercase letters aren't the same. But what if you don't want to risk confusing the user? What if you do want "YES" to work? It's pretty pointless to make an #ifeq: for every single different capitalization of "yes". There's two options available to you. One is to use another ParserFunction, which we'll get to shortly, which acts like a super #ifeq:, checking for multiple different parameter values at once. Another, much easier way, is to tell the parameter to use all uppercase or lowercase letters. How? Magic. Observe:
You can use these codes (which are examples of some Magic words) on just about anything - including your parameters. Obviously, it won't have much of an effect on {{{1}}}, but when your user types in "YES" when your #ifeq: is expecting to find "yes", adding the code {{lc: {{{1}}} }} will solve all of your problems. #switch:This is the "super #ifeq:" I mentioned earlier. #switch: allows you to check a single line of text for a practically unlimited number of possible results. It works like this: {{#switch: <text you input> | <possible value 1> = <what is displayed for possible value 1> | <possible value 2> = <what is displayed for possible value 2> | <possible value 3> | <possible value 4> = <what is displayed for possible values 3 AND 4> | #default = <what appears if the value you input doesn't match any possible value> }} What this template does is this: It takes the value you enter (which is probably a parameter, which is probably forced to be either lower or upper case for the same reason it would be in #ifeq:) and moves down the list, comparing it to each possible value in turn. As soon as it matches something, it stops, and looks for the next equals sign. It then prints whatever you have between that equals sign and the next pipe. Let's look at an example, based on the above format: {{#switch: {{lc: {{{1}}} }} | foo = bar | ice = cream | french | burnt = toast }} If I enter "foo", #switch: replies with "bar". Likewise, "ice" gets "cream" as a response, and "burnt" gets "toast". But "french" also gets "toast". This is because "french" doesn't have anything set specifically for it - there's no equals sign after "french". Because of this, #switch: is going to keep looking for the next equals sign, which is after "burnt". This makes sense for me, because I want that to happen. "burnt toast" and "french toast" both make sense. However, I do have to be careful about what order I put things in; this code may look similar, but will cause "french" to come out with a different result: {{#switch: {{lc: {{{1}}} }} | foo = bar | french | ice = cream | burnt = toast }} Now, entering "french" will return "cream", because "ice = cream" is the next value in line for #switch: to find. For both of these, anything not listed in the ParserFunction will not return anything - nothing will be printed, because there is no default value. For #switch: to print something out regardless of what I type in, I would need to specify "#default = <something>" at the very end of the template. There's really no technical reason why #default has to be at the end, but it just makes it easier for other users. #time:Time is an interesting thing in how it is calculated and how it brings some order to our lives. Because of that, it's important we have a bit of code that allows us to display time however we would like. #time: is just that code, allowing you to enter your own custom time and change it however you wish. It's a very useful code, that you'll see used in many places throughout Wikipedia - for example, proposed deletion templates "expire" after five days, and those templates use a #time: function to control that. Time, of course, is rather complicated, and #time: itself is complicated to mirror that. Because there are many different ways to display the time, there are many different things you can tell #time: to do. Before we cover that, though, let's look at how #time: works: {{#time: <how you want the time displayed> | <what time you want displayed> }} OR {{#time: <how you want the current time displayed> }} (to display the time at which the page was viewed) As you can see, there are two ways to set this code up. You can display the current time, or a custom time that you specify. This custom time can be simply a change in timezone, a certain about of time before or after the current time, or a fixed time that you set. Here are some examples below of how that works. You can ignore the formatting code for just the moment, we'll cover that shortly. Just focus on what I have entered in the time slot on the right hand side.
With me so far? You can do almost anything you want with the time that way, but there are some limitations to the template. For example, I was trying to set up a stopwatch here, that would display how many months, days, hours, and minutes had gone by since I saved the code onto the page. This is the code I tried to use: {{#time: n "months," j "days," G "hours, and" i "minutes" | -{{subst:CURRENTTIMESTAMP}} }}. There's nothing wrong with the format, and the time looks as though it might work, but instead I got this: Error: Invalid time.. Obviously not what I wanted. The problem was that I didn't specify any units for it to subtract, and the number {{CURRENTTIMESTAMP}} spits out is way to big to be considered a time zone. #time: is very finicky about what it will accept as a time - it has to be something it can easily recognize and use, or it's not going to bother. Here are some examples:
Now that you roughly know how to tell #time: and what time to show, let's take a look at how to get it to show it. You'll have noticed from above that I've been sticking what seem to be random letters in the format side of #time:. #time: appears to be written for the sole purpose of being confusing, because few of the codes for the format make any sort of sense whatsoever. No, simply typing "day" won't work - if you're lucky, #time: will simply print "day" out and it won't look horrible, but it's also possible you'll get another big red error message. So what does it take? Let's figure it out:
Anything that doesn't appear in this list will generally be treated as what it actually is. So, you can wikilink dates by enclosing the format code in square brackets: {{#time: [[F d]] }} produces July 14. If, however, you want to type a letter that is in this list, you'll need to enclose it in quotes: {{#time: U represents a time }} comes out to:
To get the template to display as you intend it to, you'll need to use {{#time: U "represents a time" }} (1720965115 represents a time) or something similar. Things get easier from here out, don't worry! #expr:This is the last ParserFunction we'll cover; although there are more, this is the last of the more commonly used ones. #expr: stands for "expression", referring to the mathematical sort. #expr: is your calculator, allowing you to play with parameters and variables to spit out something that may or may not be useful. It also can be used for logical statements, where 0 is considered false and anything else is considered true. Here's what you can do with it:
You can combine mathematical stuff and logical stuff in the same #expr:, as well as add parentheses to group operations - for example, {{#expr: (30 + 2) / 16 > 3}} will produce 0 ((30 + 2) / 16 = 32 / 16 = 2, which is less than 3, so false or 0). The function follows a specific order of operations, with all things going from left to right:
Make sure to be careful about this; just as in school, failing to pay attention to order of operations can easily cause your equation to come out to something you didn't expect. Obviously there are some things you can't do with #expr: - it doesn't like letters, so using exponential formats such as 6.67E-11, or mathematical constants like e won't work. Also, it's limited by the usual laws of mathematics (for example, you can't divide by zero, etc.) Other ParserFunctionsThere are a total of 5 other ParserFunctions we haven't covered. I'll list these below, but won't go into detail about them because they are rarely used outside of meta-level templates, such as {{ db-meta}}. Each of these is either fairly basic (along with what you already know) or can be easily represented by using one of the functions already covered. If you have an interest in these templates, they, along with the ones mentioned above, are covered in full detail at m:Help:ParserFunctions (Note: this page is on MetaWiki).
Templates and tablesYou've noticed that all of these functions use pipes, just like regular templates do. You've probably also noticed that most templates use tables to keep their formats in a readable order, and that these tables also use pipes. So, how does MediaWiki know when a pipe is a template pipe or a table pipe? Well, it doesn't. Say you're setting up a template, that displays a table with an optional third row, triggered by the parameter {{{row}}}. Here's the code you try: {| class="wikitable" |- !This is !a template. |- |This is |a row. {{#if: {{{row|}}} | |- |Here's an |extra row. }} |} So, let's see what happens when we test this out. We made {{{row}}} be blank by default, so we should see a table that has only two rows.
Yuck. That's not quite what we wanted. Things came out this way because when we condense the #if: code to a single line, this is what we get: {{#if: {{{row|}}} | |- |Here's an |extra row. }}. #if: doesn't know that it's in a table. #if: just sees that for some reason it's being given four different bits of text to choose from. However, it only cares about the first two: the blank section between the first two pipes, and the dash between the second two. Oops. So how can we tell #if: it's in a table, and needs to ignore some of those pipes? We trick it. The templates {{
!}} {{
!!}} and {{
!-}} are all designed for this purpose. Since we can't put an actual pipe in there and have it work, we fake it with another template. What happens is that #if: sees the template as a template, that is, like this: {| class="wikitable" |- !This is !a template. |- |This is |a row. {{#if: {{{row|}}} | {{!}}- <!-- That makes a new row --> {{!}} <!-- That makes a new cell --> Here's an {{!}} <!-- That makes a new cell --> extra row. }} |} And so we get:
That's it! Remember, {{ !-}} produces |-, {{ !}} produces |, and {{ !!}} produces ||. End of lesson 12@ Scribbleink: That's everything! Try testing out these templates in a sandbox, and seeing what all they can do. Once you're confident with what they do, feel free to add userbox {{|User t|3|c}} to your user page - you'll have earned it! You can ask questions--but then I in turn might have to ask someone else who knows this stuff better than I do ;) ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 20:28, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
Lesson 13: Policies, guidelines, and essaysPolicies, guidelines, and essays This lesson has been mostly ripped from Brambleberry of RiverClan's adoption course. It will have a test. PoliciesA policy is a page describing a topic whose views have wide acceptance among editors and describe standards that editors should normally follow. Examples of policies are WP:NOT, describing things that Wikipedia is not and therefore should not lead to pages of, and WP:Verifiability, saying what counts as a reliable source. These are commonly described as being "rules". However, there are usually exceptions to these rules. GuidelinesA guideline is a page describing a best practice as supported by consensus. Editors should attempt to follow guidelines to the best of their abilities, although exceptions probably apply and everything should be treated with common sense. Examples of guidelines are WP:Assume good faith, which tells you to always assume that editors are working for the good of Wikipedia, and WP:Citing sources, which outlines the best way to cite sources on Wikipedia. EssaysAn essay is a page describing the opinion of an editor or group of editors. Essays are not rules or even guidelines to follow, and they do not represent the entire community's view. They are, however, worthy of consideration when you are editing. Examples of essays are WP:Existence ≠ Notability, which says that just because something exists doesn't mean that it deserves a Wikipedia page, and WP:Just drop it, which says that if things get heated, you shouldn't continue arguing. Misconceptions
Ignore all rulesThe fifth pillar of Wikipedia is "Ignore all rules". It basically says that you should ignore a rule that keeps you from improving the encyclopedia. Some people try to apply it in bad situations, and it rarely works to their favor. There's an essay about it called Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means. It basically says that if rules keep you from wanting to enjoy participating in the wiki, ignore them and go about your business. Everyone has their own interpretation of this pillar, and that's how it should be. End of lesson 13@ Scribbleink: Sorry it took so long to get this one up. Any questions before the test? ~ Anastasia [Missionedit] ( talk) 18:41, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
Test1.) Q- Explain, in your own words, the difference between a policy, guideline, and essay.
2.) Q- Can policies change? If could change a policy, which one would you change/how would you change it?
3.) Q- Which policy do you think is the most relevant to your current work on Wikipedia?
4.) Q- Wikipedia:Nobody cares is a popular essay. Do you agree with it? Why or why not?
5.) Q- What does "Ignore all rules" mean to you specifically?
End of test
|