User:Cassiopeia/CVUA/MikeTheEditor104

Hello, welcome to your Counter Vandalism Unit Academy page! Every person I instruct will have their own page on which I will give them support and tasks for them to complete. Please make sure you have this page added to your watchlist. Your academy page has been specifically designed according to you and what you have requested instruction in - for that reason, please be as specific as possible when under my instruction, so that I know the best ways to help you (and do not be afraid to let me know if you think something isn't working). If you have any general queries about anti-vandalism (or anything else), you are more than welcome to raise them with me at User talk:CASSIOPEIA/CVUA/MikeTheEditor104.

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

How to use this page

This page will be built up over your time in the Academy, with new sections being added as you complete old ones. Each section will end with a task, written in bold type - this might just ask a question, or it might require you to go and do something. You can answer a question by typing the answer below the task; if you have to do something, you will need to provide diffs to demonstrate that you have completed the task. Some sections will have more than one task, sometimes additional tasks may be added to a section as you complete them. Please always sign your responses to tasks as you would on a talk page.

Good faith and vandalism

1. Twinkle is a very useful tool when performing maintenance functions around Wikipedia. Please have a read through WP:TWINKLE.

Enable Twinkle (if haven't already) and leave a note here to let me know that you have enabled it.

Enabled and running well!

When patrolling for vandalism, you may often come across edits which are unhelpful, but not vandalism - these are good faith edits. It is important to recognize the difference between a vandalism edit and a good faith edit, especially because Twinkle gives you the option of labeling edits you revert as such. Please read WP:AGF and WP:NOT VANDALISM before completing the following tasks.

2. Please explain below the difference between a good faith edit and a vandalism edit, and how you would tell them apart.

Answer: A good faith edit is done without the intention to vandalize Wikipedia whilst a Vandalism edit is done with the pure motive of ruining articles/talk pages and so on.

Both types can be categorized in different forms, in general, good faith edits might be from a new user who is unaware of Wikipedia's policies or the harder example of two users in an edit war (that would be considered a dispute, not vandalism), Vandalism edits can either be in a highly obvious form, i.e deleting entire pages, adding complete nonsense or profanity and in some tougher cases, "hidden vandalism" which is done in sections which do not appear by default but can be seen when editing.

The key here is intention. As long as a user intends to help Wikipedia, but the edits are might be disruptive, they are still considered a "good faith" editor and should be dealt with differently from a vandal. Vandalism is a deliberate attempt to harm Wikipedia. Just because an edit adds incorrect or unsourced information does not necessarily mean a user is a vandal; they key is their intention. A non constructive edit is a little different from disruptive. A disruptive edit could be adding info without source (place unsourced warning message on editor's talk page), bold phrases which not adhere to MOS:BOLD guidelines and etc. However, non-constructive would have the indication (not always though) of doing something once should not do. Looking into the editors' contribution log history is a good way to find out. Do note, if an editor remove the content of a page without edit summary, and we are not sure if it is a vandalism . CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 11:15, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

3. Please find three examples of good faith but unhelpful edits, and three examples of vandalism. You don't need to revert the example you find, and I am happy for you to use previous undos in your edit history if you wish. (pls provide hist diffs)

Good faith

Answer i: In this case, the editor wanted to edit information in an info box, unfortunately they did not realize that their edit would ruin the formatting of the infobox. This was done in good faith because the information the individual decided to edit was not nonconstructive. Original Edit Fixed Edit User Talk Page

. You meant THIS EDIT]. A {{subst:uw-unsourced1}} and link to Template:Break and links would be helpful. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 11:15, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Answer ii: Here, we're dealing with a simple redirect section, the editor misunderstood the purpose of this section and simply put their edit as a general edit at the top when in reality you'd need to link a page in the list provided.

Original edit Fixed edit User Talk Page

. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 11:15, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Answer iii: The editor in this case wanted to remove a section from an article as they believe it was not sourced, unfortuantely their edit would not only remove that particular section but also ruin a big chunk of formatting to the article. Personally, I also think they were trying to remove quite an important section of this article which made me think this was verging on Vandalism however, since it's a fairly new editor who seemed to be editing using their mobile, with no history of Vandalism and this case wasn't obvious vandalism, I assumed good faith.

Original Edit Fixed Edit User Talk Page

.That is a vandalism - editor has only made 3 edits and the second edit - see HERE is a vandalism edit. Check the editor history log would be a good idea in such case. A {{subst:uw-unsourced}} should be placed. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 11:15, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Vandalism

Answer i: A very simple case of Vandalism, which I feel is self-explanatory. Vandalism Edit Fixed Edit User Talk Page

. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 11:15, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Answer ii: The user in this case decided to add profanity/nonsense to an article. Vandalism Edit Fixed Edit User Talk Page

. Good. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 11:15, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Answer iii: A trickier example of the bunch however fairly obvious upon further inspection, this user seems to have a habit of using the same phrase and simply throwing it in random sections of an article possibly to try make it blend in more, this case was rather obvious as they tried to replace the word "The" which isn't exactly going to translate into much.

Further evidence is shown in their edit history, where the same pattern can be observed.

Vandal Edit Fixed Edit User Talk Page

MikeTheEditor104 Good day. Any question regrading the assignment, please let me know here. For other questions not relating to the assignments, ping me on the talk page of this subpage Here. See above the first assignment. Ping me here when you are done and ready for review. By the way could you able to access to Huggle? CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 08:16, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

All done! CASSIOPEIA

As for Huggle, not at the moment no, I requested rollback rights and it's currently still pending as I believe you need to have those in order to use it. MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 09:10, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104. I asked because you place Huggle userbox on your userpage. You might want to remove that. I think you will not get the rollback right yet for you just got unblockedd. You have to wai until you have proven you have edited constructively and prove you have done many correct vandalism edits. You might want to increase you edit count as it would difficult for you to work on the final exam without some vandalism tool. Try to increase to 1000 in mainspace (make sure they are constructive edits) and let me know when you have done that. See the comments I made above and let me know if you have any questions or you are ready to move next assignment. Cheers. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 11:15, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

CASSIOPEIA Understood, my apologies on that. Basically, I was going to install Huggle yesterday but I then realized you need rollback permissions for that to work, I had added that userbox before I realized this and didn't change it in time, I've clarified that on my userpage now.

I assume you meant, "I don't think you will get the rollback rights" and yes I agree with you, I believe the Administration will find that it is too early considering the unblock and that is completely understandable, I simply tried anyway as if it were granted I'd be able to start using Huggle earlier and that there might be a slim chance of consideration although I understand if there is any doubt from their side.

Mainspace edits consist of manual edits done to articles I presume? I have "521" edits but I believe these are including any automated edits on talk pages along with reverts which don't count. For me, increasing that number with constructive edits shouldn't be a problem, it will probably take a while as I rarely edit articles with new information since I'd be afraid of adding the wrong info or that I generally wouldn't know what to add. Today I actually added a small snippet of information to this article as seen here, hopefully a good start.

All your feedback on this assignment was noted and greatly appreciated, I also posted on that user's talk page with the template and links you suggested.

Personally, I'd like to move onto the next assignment but if you feel as though more time is needed, I am willing to wait it out, no problem. I believe I can spot the difference between Vandalism and Good faith edits to an acceptable level, sometimes however I get confused with certain edits (i.e the one I got wrong in this assignment and the one I asked about on the talk page), from what I've gathered I should double check the user edit history more and also ensure that I've gone over the entire edit they are proposing fully. (I have a tendency to rush through sometimes because if it is vandalism, getting it reverted quickly is crucial)

Thank you again for your advice, I'm finding all of this to be very informative. :) MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 11:51, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, Thank you for letting me know I had missed the "not" and I have it added. Good to know you have started to contribute to other areas besides counter vandalism. I have removed the unsourced portion of you edit as we dont assume what the examples would be if they are no per source. When we add/change the content, we need to summaries the important and relevant bits of the sources and write in neutral point of view, in your own words and do not introduce/include what could not find in the source.

HERE is your Wikipedia edit info. Go to "Main" Under "Namespace Totals" and that is your total main space edits. As it stands today is 200. You can contribute in many areas in Wikipedia, such as typo/spelling / copy edit (grammar), translation, WikiProject, subsort, clean up (adding sources) and etc. - see Wikipedia:Maintenance and choose the topcis you are interested in and help out.

When it comes to counter vandalism, do take your time, we are looking for clearly vandalism/descriptive edits. Better be right then fast. Cheers. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 12:21, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Warning and reporting

When you use Twinkle to warn a user, you have a number of options to choose from: you can select the kind of warning (for different offences), and the level of warning (from 1 to 4, for increasing severity). Knowing which warning to issue and what level is very important. Further information can be found at WP:WARN and WP:UWUL.

Please answer the following questions

(1) Why do we warn users?

Answer: We warn users that have made harmful or disruptive edits. The goal of issuing a warning to a user is to ensure they cease their behavior, this however can be seen to have 2 interpretations depending on the type of edits made.

Towards edit made in good faith (i.e test edits), the purpose of warnings is to guide them in order to stop making making unintentional disruptive edits. For bad faith editors, it is to discourage and ideally stop them from their reckless behavior with vandalism as they are clearly aware of they're vandalism.

Good. The purpose is to "educate" the editors on constructive editing, especially those who are new to Wikipedia and to "deter" them of such actions with stronger warnings leads up to a block. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 06:32, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

(2) When would a 4im warning be appropriate?

Answer: This is a Level 4 ONE AND ONLY warning, which is the highest level of warning you can receive. This means that instead of the traditional level's 1-4 system, a user is skipped straight ahead to Level 4 due to consistent and extreme blatant vandalism in a very short amount of time.

This would be most appropriate towards a user that has done a lot of damage in a short time-frame, for instance you find the same user that decided to fill up an entire page with profanity with about 4 edits and seeing as they clearly know what they're doing it would be pointless issuing them separate warnings so a form of "ultimatum" warning is appropriate here.

4im is usually reserved for these extreme cases, for a fresher account with the assumption that the edits were not extreme levels of vandalism but still high in quantity, a Level 3 warning may be issued instead essentially giving them an extra chance.

Good. 4im is only for widespread and particularly egregious vandalism such as vandalism only account and for use lower warning for less egregious vandalism. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 06:32, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

(3) Should you substitute a template when you place it on a user talk page, and how do you do it?

Answer: Yes you should, this is because when you use the "subst:" addition, you'll be able to edit the source code of the template directly on the talk page.

Here is a prime example, let's say we decide to append a template directly:

Hello, I'm MikeTheEditor104. An edit that you recently made seemed to be a test and has been removed. If you want to practice editing, please use the sandbox. If you think a mistake was made, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thanks!

This is not going to be as good for a couple of reasons. When editing, you cannot directly edit the source code as you are simply given the template in square brackets and any changes reflected on the original one will be reflected on the talk page, this will add confusion. To prevent all of this, one should simply do the following:

Hello, I'm MikeTheEditor104. An edit that you recently made seemed to be a test and has been removed. If you want to practice editing, please use the sandbox. If you think a mistake was made, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thanks!

You can already see the template looking much better in the 2nd example as it now uses my actual name, upon checking the edits we are now able to edit the source code in the template directly.

Both template had your name on it. To substitute {{uw-test1}}, we place "subst" before the "uw" - {{subst:uw-test1}}. We always subt as the message on the talk page will not change even if the template is changed. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 06:32, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

(4) What should you do if a user who has received a level 4 or 4im warning vandalises again?

Answer: At this point the user has broken their final warning in both cases, from here I would report the user to WP:AIV, an Administrator will then decide on whether or not a block should be applied to the reported user.

. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 06:32, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

(5) Please give examples and please do the substitution (using {{Tlsubst|''name of template''}}) of three different warnings with three different levels (not different levels of the same warning and excluding the test edit warning levels referred to below), that you might need to use while recent changes patrolling and explain what they are used for.

Answer i:

Hello, I'm MikeTheEditor104. I wanted to let you know that one or more of your recent contributions have been undone because they did not appear constructive. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. If you have any questions, you can ask for assistance at the help desk. Thanks.

Please refrain from making unconstructive edits to Wikipedia. Your edits appear to constitute vandalism and have been reverted. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Repeated vandalism may result in the loss of editing privileges. Thank you.

Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to vandalize Wikipedia, as you did at Article, you may be blocked from editing.

This is one of the standard warnings used for Vandalism, these are issued to users who are clearly aware of the Vandalism they're doing i.e adding profanity to an article, blanking the page for no reason, etc. In this case, if the user is a fresh account with no prior warnings or an old account which hasn't been warned for quite some time, we would issue a Level 1 warning, if they vandalize again a Level 2 warning will now be published and so on.

A special case to consider here is Level 3 may be sometimes used as the first warning instead of using 4im, mainly for less severe vandals that don't require a 4im directly.

. Do note we dont need to start from lvl 1 and progress to lvl4 every time. If severe vandalsims across many pages in a short period of them and the nature of the vandaslim is particulary bad a 4im cant be issued. Most of the time new editor whose account is purposefully for vandalism (vandal sim only account) will be given a indef (indefinite) block by the admin. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 06:32, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Answer ii:

Hello. This is a message to let you know that one or more of your recent contributions did not appear constructive and has been reverted. Please take some time to familiarise yourself with our policies and guidelines. You can find information about these at our welcome page which also provides further information about contributing constructively to this encyclopedia. If you only meant to make test edits, please use the sandbox for that. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you may leave a message on my talk page. Thank you.

Please refrain from making unconstructive edits to Wikipedia, as you did at Article. Your edits appear to be disruptive and have been or will be reverted.

If you are engaged in an article content dispute with another editor, please discuss the matter with the editor at their talk page, or the article's talk page, and seek consensus with them. Alternatively, you can read Wikipedia's dispute resolution page, and ask for independent help at one of the relevant notice boards.
If you are engaged in any other form of dispute that is not covered on the dispute resolution page, please seek assistance at Wikipedia's Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.

Please ensure you are familiar with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, and please do not continue to make edits that appear disruptive. Continued disruptive editing may result in loss of editing privileges. Thank you.

Please stop your disruptive editing.

If you are engaged in an article content dispute with another editor, discuss the matter with the editor at their talk page, or the article's talk page, and seek consensus with them. Alternatively you can read Wikipedia's dispute resolution page, and ask for independent help at one of the relevant notice boards.
If you are engaged in any other form of dispute that is not covered on the dispute resolution page, seek assistance at Wikipedia's Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.

If you continue to disrupt Wikipedia, you may be blocked from editing.

These particular warnings are used for "disruptive" editing rather than vandalism. It is very important to understand the difference between these 2.

Disruptive editing is NOT Vandalism, it is when an editor is trying to contribute to adding their input to an article but they are not following the correct guidelines in doing so and to add insult to injury they are aware of this and continue doing it anyway. This is when a Disruptive warning is issued.

A prime example of a disruptive editor is someone that is trying to edit using their own bias without citing any sources and completely going off-topic from any discussions in the talk page of the article.

Unintentional disruptive editing may sometimes occur too, I believe we can use my example today in the "Social Experimentation" article as I added a small section which was assumed and not fully cited.

The tricky part in these cases is confirming the disruptive editing as some may be very sneaky about it, it is important to always check the edit history of the user along with the articles talk page to confirm.

This would be a level 2 warning, if the user disruptively edits again after level 3, they can either be reported to WP:ANI or any other dispute noticeboard.

Yes disruptive is not considered a vandalism ; however continues making disruptive edits will also lead to a temporary block. Also do note editor can remove "unsouced content" that is not vandaslim or disruptive; however, if a very huge chunk of content is removed and editor has not place any edit summary for the remove, and might want to leave a note on the editor page and asking why the content is removed and ask them to leave an edit summary in their edit. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 06:32, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Answer iii:

Hello, I'm MikeTheEditor104. I noticed that you recently made an edit to Article in which your edit summary did not appear to describe the change you made. In the future, it would be helpful to others if you described your changes to Wikipedia with an accurate edit summary. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thanks.

Please do not use misleading edit summaries when making changes to Wikipedia pages. This behavior is viewed as disruptive, continuation of this behaviour may result in loss of editing privileges. Thank you.

Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to use edit summaries that are misleading, intentionally or not, you may be blocked from editing.

These warnings are used when an editor decides to use a misleading edit summary in an effort to vandalize a page or secretly disruptively edit.

Two cases;

A sneaky vandal uses the following edit summary: "Fixed some typos and grammar errors"

Reality: They might have actually fixed some typos to put off anyone checking their edit but upon further inspection you'll find a bunch of repeated letters and profanity in hidden sections.

A disruptive editor uses the following edit summary: "Edited article in accordance to what was discussed and agreed upon in talk page"

Reality: They did the exact opposite, they edited the article without any information discussed upon and are continuing to disruptively edit even though they were told not to.

This is the 1st warning for having a misleading edit summary, any further occurrences will be given a level 2, level 3 and finally level 4 warning. Further vandalism should be reported to WP:AIV.

We do see many sneaky vandals remove/add something when has nothing to do with the edit summary as what they put "typo" / "spelling" or they will make constructive edit in top part of the article and then make profanity remarks at the bottom of the article. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 06:32, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104 Greetings. Pleas see assignment 2 above. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 12:24, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Hello CASSIOPEIA, I've finished the assignment, looking forward. MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 14:10, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, For Q3 i-iii, you need provide the substitute the template - see - Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace/Multi-level templates, which means the answer need to show the template as per "What it makes" column. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:26, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Sorry about that CASSIOPEIA! I think it should be better now. MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 14:50, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, No worries. See comments and let me know if you are ready to move on to next assignment. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 06:32, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

CASSIOPEIA, thanks for looking through. Everything seems very clear, re the template sorry about that, originally it didn't load properly but I am also seeing my name on both, I probably had something on my end, I feel ready to move onto the next one. MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 07:03, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Tools

Wikipedia:Recent changes patrol#Tools includes a list of tools and resources for those who want to fight vandalism with a more systematic and efficient approach.

What you have been doing so far is named the old school approach. As well as manually going through Special:RecentChanges, it includes undos, "last clean version" restores, and manually warning users.

There are a large number of tool which assist users in the fight against vandalism. They range from tools which help filter and detect vandalism to tools which will revert, warn and report users.

Twinkle

Twinkle, as you know, is very useful. It provides three types of rollback functions (vandalism, normal and AGF) as well as an easy previous version restore function (for when there are a number of different editors vandalising in a row). Other functions include a full library of speedy deletion functions, and user warnings. It also has a function to propose and nominate pages for deletion, to request page protection to report users to WP:AIV, WP:UAA, WP:SPI, and other administrative noticeboards.

User creation log

In my early days of fighting vandalism on Wikipedia, one of the strategies I would use to find vandalism was to patrol the account creation log. This is located at Special:Log/newusers, and it logs every time a new user account is created on Wikipedia. You'll notice that new accounts with no contributions so far will have a red "contribs" links, whereas new accounts with some contributions will have blue "contribs" links. One great way not only to find vandalism, but welcome new users to Wikipedia is to check the blue contribs links that come in.

Rollback

See rollback, this user right introduces an easy rollback button (which with one click reverts an editor's contributions). I'll let you know when I think you're ready to apply for the rollback user right.

STiki

STiki is an application that you download to your computer, and it provides you with diffs which either it or User:ClueBot NG have scored on their possibility of being uncontructive, and you are given the option to revert it as vandalism, revert it assuming good faith, mark it as innocent, or abstain from making a judgment on the diff. In order to use STiki, you need one of the following: (1) the rollback permission, (2) at least 1000 article edits (in the article namespace, not talk/user pages), or (3) special permission via Wikipedia talk:STiki.

Huggle

Huggle is also an application you download to your computer which presents you diffs (orders them on the likelihood of being unconstructive edits and on the editor's recent history) from users not on its whitelist. It allows you to revert vandalism, warn and reports users in one click. The rollback permission is required to use Huggle.

Make sure you keep in mind that some edits that seem like vandalism can be test edits. This happens when a new user is experimenting and makes accidental unconstructive edits. Generally, these should be treated with good faith, especially if it is their first time, and warned gently. The following templates are used for test edits: {{subst:uw-test1}}, {{subst:uw-test2}} and {{subst:uw-test3}}.

I just wanted to make sure you know about Special:RecentChanges, if you use the diff link in a different window or tab you can check a number of revisions much more easily. If you enable Hovercards in the Hover section of your preferences, you can view the diff by just hovering over it. Alternately, you can press control-F or command-F and search for "tag:". some edits get tagged for possible vandalism or section blanking.

Find and revert some vandalism. Warn each user appropriately, using the correct kind of warning and level. Please include at least two test edits and at least two appropriate reports to AIV. For each revert and warning please fill in a line on the table below

#	Diff of your revert	Your comment - If you report to AIV please include the diff	CASS' Comment
Example	0	Delete of sourced content without explanation - give {{subst:uw-unsourced1}}
1	[1]	Blatant Vandalism (1 Instance) - The vandal tried adding nonsense to article which would also end up disrupting the formatting, a Level 1 Vandalism warning was issued as this was the only instance of vandalism.	Y. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 22:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
2	[2]	Blatant Vandalism (1 Instance) - The vandal decided to intentionally misspell a word with multiple characters, a Level 1 Vandalism warning was issued as this was the only instance and contribution of the vandal overall.	Y. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 22:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
3	[3] & [4] & [5]	Blatant Vandalism (3 Instances) - A fairly consistent vandal that wanted to edit the same piece of vandalism for 3 times, a Level 3 Vandalism warning was issued since they did the same piece of vandalism 3 times in a row.	Y. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 22:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
4*	*[6] & [7]	Blatant Vandalism (2 Instances) - The vandal tried editing the article with nonsensical information, since another Editor already warned and reverted their vandalism, I issued a Level 2 warning.	Y. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 22:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
5*	*[8] & [9]	Blatant Vandalism (2 Instances) - 2 Instances of Vandalism which involved the user adding nonsense to the infobox, since Cluebot reverted and warned them already I gave a Level 2 Vandalism warning as a followup warning.	Y. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 22:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
6	[10]	Blatant Vandalism (1 Instances) - The vandal wanted to put their opinion of "Black pudding" being a supposed bad choice for food, naturally this was reverted and a level 1 Vandalism warning was placed as it was the only instance.	N. Does this ready harm Wikipedia? No, but it is view that share with some people and it is unsourced. I would be WP:Fringe Theory. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 22:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
7*	*[11] & [12]	Blatant Vandalism (2 Instances) - The vandal wanted to delete a large chunk of the article and replace it with nonsense, Cluebot already reverted and warned them once so I appended a level 2 Vandalism warning.	Y. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 22:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
8	[13]	Blatant Vandalism (1 Instance) - The vandal wanted to add a completely unrelated/nonsense piece of information to the article, this IP Vandal has quite a long history however since no vandalism occurred in a period of a month, the 1st level 1 Vandalism warning was issued for this month.	Y. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 22:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
9*	*[14] & [15]	Blatant Vandalism (2 Instances) - Clearly a troll vandal trying to generate some kind of controversy, another Editor already reverted and warned them for the same vandalism, upon vandalizing again I reverted the 2nd edit and gave them a Level 2 Vandalism warning.	Y. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 22:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
10*	[16] & [17] & *[18] & [19]	Blatant Vandalism (4 Instances) - In this case a Level 3 Vandalism warning has been issued to give benefit of the doubt, initially I issued a Level 2 Vandalism warning but upon further inspection the vandal had vandalized the same article a few days ago although these were very very small edits without profanity, given the editor's history and all the aforementioned Level 3 was chosen rather than Level 4.	{{tick}.Note - unless you follow the sport or you know where to verify the sport databases info, leave it to other to verity if any changing of sport results/info unless it is extremely obvious like changing a boxer total fights from 20 to 2000. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 22:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
11	[20]	Blatant Vandalism (1 Instance) - The vandal tried to vandalize the article by adding some random information with regards to Politics, as such the edit was reverted and the vandal was given a Level 1 Vandalism warning as no other instances of Vandalism occurred on the article.	Y it is a disruptive edit but if continues the same edit after warning then a vandal warning can be placed. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 22:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
12	[21] & [22] & [23] & [24]	Test Edits - This innocent editor was experimenting with adding an infobox under an article, they seemed to have added it first with nothing else, removed it and tried various other formats of the Infobox unsuccessfully, I reverted their test edits and left them a warm welcome message with advice and links regarding this.	N. these are not the first few edits made by editor - see here. Test edit means "the editor trying to make an edit to make sure they could actually make an edit in Wikipedia. However, since this is the editor first edit, we could place test edit message to educate and lead the editor to their sandbox to practice their edits. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 22:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
13	[25]	Test Edits -This user put in genuine constructive edits but seemed to insert a bunch of </ref> tags which I presume was accidental, I undid the </ref> tags and left their previous edit without the error intact.	N. same comment as per Q12. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 22:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
14	[26] & [27] & [28]	Blatant Vandalism (4+ Instances + Sockpuppet Account) - A report was made to AIV as the account was an obvious sockpuppet of the vandal, including the fact that it was vandalism past the 4th attempt for sure although the sock puppet violation overrides everything.	Y. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 22:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
15	[29]* & [30]* & [31]* & [32]* & [33] & [34] & [35]	Blatant Vandalism (5+ Instances of Vandalism) - User vandalized past final warning, initially warnings were issued incorrectly but user was reported to AIV and blocked accordingly.	Y. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 22:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
16	[36]	Seems like a classical test edit, the user simply added "hi" and reverted it after. I decided to leave them a welcome message with feedback regarding this	Y. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 13:18, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
17	[37]	Quoting from the test edit page, I believe this may be the following: "It will be the addition of a small number of random characters or letters, patent nonsense, or careless keystrokes in only one place, and not be in combination with content removal or other potentially disruptive changes." I tried translating the words, it could possibly be the words "BT Cotton" in the Thai language, it's also the editors first contribution and they didn't modify any other part of the page.	Y I am not sure about this one as it is in Thai language (BT Cotton)and not sure what was the intention of the editor. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 13:18, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

The following sections that have an asterix marked had diffs that involve other editors reverting vandalism, I will include these and also mark them with an * however these are not my reverts per say.

MikeTheEditor104 Good day. You need to apply the what you learn into practice for this assignment. Twinkle does not have all the templates and if Twinkle does not show the template in the drop down list, then manually subst it. Most participants find this assignment a little difficult and if you need help do let me know. When you have done with the assignment and want me to review them, pls ping me. Cheers. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 07:46, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104 The "Your Comment" column is not for the warning tags, but you comment on why the edits of the editors needed to be reverted and why that particular warning is placed. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 13:06, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Noted, that makes much more sense now hehe, I'll fix them accordingly. Almost ready however I might take a bit of time till I run into certain edits. MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 13:10, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

(discussion-stalker comment) Also, if you find yourself manually substing a specific template a lot, you can add "custom templates" in Twinkle's settings, you can use that to add extra templates to Twinkle. That will add a new section to the drop-down where you can pick one of your custom entries. ^creffpublic _{a creffett franchise} (talk to the boss) 13:45, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Creffett Hi Thank you for your comment. If you have the intention to take up the program then I suggest you not to looking into any of the CVUA sub pages for questions/answers should be done by the participant alone so one could learn from the program. Thank you. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 13:58, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

CASSIOPEIA Sorry - just dropped by because I was taking a quick look at MikeTheEditor104's edits since their unblock, and made the comment before I saw your suggestion that I run through CVUA myself. Won't come by again, my mistake. creffett (talk) 23:09, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice Creffett! CASSIOPEIA, I've almost finished this assignment, I believe I have 2 older reports to WP:AIV however these were done before the assigmenht was assigned, do you prefer if I used those or do you want to me to find another new set? MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 16:23, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104 If the AIV are recent, then I would accept them. If they are 5 years ago then no. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 18:16, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

CASSIOPEIA, assignment is ready :) MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 18:46, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, Pls see comments and please provide 2 more test edit incidents on Q16 and Q17. Ping when you have done he 2 extra exercises. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 22:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

CASSIOPEIA, all your comments were noted. Mind I ask, is there an easier way to possibly find test edits? I tried filtering by newcomer but honestly was rarely (or in this case never as I assumed they were test) running into them. :/ MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 07:01, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, STiki might help but Huggle and it is a referable tool to find vandalism/test edit. Look for new editor (1-2 edits in total) and they either, change a character of the word or adding "hi/hello" and sometimes they revert their own edit after they had made them. The who point is that they try to see if they could actually made an edit in Wikipedia. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 09:38, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

CASSIOPEIA, I've added 2 newer edits which I believe are test edits, if this isn't the case, my apologies, I'll try again. MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 13:09, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, See comments. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 13:18, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Shared IP tagging

There are a number of IP user talk page templates which show helpful information to IP users and those wishing to warn or block them. There is a list of these templates

{{Shared IP}} - For general shared IP addresses.
{{ISP}} - A modified version specifically for use with ISP organizations.
{{Shared IP edu}} - A modified version specifically for use with educational institutions.
{{Shared IP gov}} - A modified version specifically for use with government agencies.
{{Shared IP corp}} - A modified version specifically for use with businesses.
{{Shared IP address (public)}} - A modified version specifically for use with public terminals such as in libraries, etc.
{{Mobile IP}} - A modified version specifically for use with a mobile device's IP.
{{Dynamic IP}} - A modified version specifically for use with dynamic IPs.
{{Static IP}} - A modified version specifically for use with static IPs which may be used by more than one person.

Each of these templates take two parameters, one is the organisation to which the IP address is registered (which can be found out using the links at the bottom of the IP's contribution page. The other is for the host name (which is optional) and can also be found out from the links at the bottom of the IP's contribution page.

Also, given that different people use the IP address, older messages are sometimes refused so as to not confuse the current user of the IP. Generally any messages for the last one-two months are removed, collapsed, or archived. The templates available for this include:

{{OW}} for when the messages are deleted from the talk page.
{{Old IP warnings top}} and {{Old IP warnings bottom}} for collapsing the user warnings and leaving them on the talk page.
{{Warning archive notice}} for when the messages are archived, and that archiving follows the usually naming sequence (that is, /Archive 1).

NOTE: All of the templates in this section are not substituted (so don't use "subst:").

Hi MikeTheEditor104 Posted Assignment 4 above. No exercises for this assignment but only some reading material. Once you have done reading, pls let me know. Best. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 13:24, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

All done CASSIOPEIA, these seem extremely useful especially when people vandalize from an Educational Static IP or similar. MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 13:31, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Dealing with difficult users

Occasionally, some vandals will not appreciate your good work and try to harass or troll you. In these situations, you must remain calm and ignore them. If they engage in harassment or personal attacks, you should not engage with them and leave a note at WP:ANI. If they vandalise your user page or user talk page, simply remove the vandalism without interacting with them. Please read WP:DENY.

Why do we deny recognition to trolls and vandals?

Answer: It is of utmost importance to do this. Giving recognition to trolls and vandals will further encourage them to continue their actions as a majority of times these users are seeking a negative reaction which fuels their behavior even further. As the old internet saying goes, "Don't feed the trolls."

. Trolls want attention. We dont feed them and dont get mad by denying them the recognition that they seek is critical to countering them. When interacting with trolls we reply in a mechanical way and repeating the same mechanical answer if needed. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:41, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

How can you tell between a good faith user asking why you reverted their edit, and a troll trying to harass you?

Answer: A good faith user will propose a constructive and polite counter-argument to their edit being reverted in complete response to the reason you reverted it. Generally, these users present their point well and in most cases the issue is resolved fairly quickly.

A troll trying to harass you can either be extremely obvious or very sneaky, in the obvious case the troll is writing profanity against you and probably vandalizing your page in order to get you to revert their "obvious vandalism" such as blanking big chunks of an article and so on.

The sneaky troll can be very deceiving if done correctly, they might twist the truth of an article and possibly even propose genuine sources in an effort to put up misleading information on article and when confronting you on reverting their edit, they might even propose a decent point to get their information back even if you are 100% certain it is misinformation, ultimately this person is also caught out as we are able to catch onto their lie.

At times good contributors do behave with displease when they edit is revert and a warning is placed in their talk page; however, there is a subtle different - trolls want to annoy you and good faith editors annoyed at you. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:41, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

A disagreement on content dispute - an editor states a message to you "That is is silly answer and your arguments have no basis." Does this constitute a personal attack and why?

Answer: Yes, firstly, it is completely unnecessary for the use of "silly answer", as they could have just used "incorrect" or some other polite alternative. Secondly, they need to further expand on why "your arguments have no basis", simply stating this short description is not enough information. It can be interpreted as a personal attack as they have not provided enough information.

Wikipedia:Sock puppetry is improper to use multiple accounts to deceive or mislead other editors, disrupt discussions, distort consensus, avoid sanctions, evade blocks, or otherwise violate community standards and policies.

. It might not be polite or pleasant to states an editor's answer is silly nor their arguments have no basis; however, the comment is not about the editor but their answer and their argument and that is not a personal attack. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:41, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

What forms socks puppetry usually takes? and where to report it?

Answer: The most common type of sock puppetry is when a user creates multiple accounts with the purpose of evading blocks in order to vandalize articles quicker. Unfortunately, something I used to dabble into back in the past.

There are multiple other types of sock puppetry that can be listed, something I am not proud of admitting is when I used to use this account as a "Good-hand account" with a slew of other socks vandalising the site, which is trickier to spot. Other examples can involve the use of logging out to edit as an IP user in an attempt to "mask your edits" and so on.

Another type of sock puppetry exists, known as "Meat Puppetry". This is when a person operating a sock puppet operation brings other people into the operation to help them vandalize even more.

Sock Puppetry must be reported as quickly as possible to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations.

. I am happy you get this right as you know first hand. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:41, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Hi MikeTheEditor104, See assignment 5 above. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 13:35, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

CASSIOPEIA, all done. MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 14:20, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, See comment above. Let me know if you have any questions. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:41, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

CASSIOPEIA, all good. My mistake on the "personal attack" one, at first I was actually thinking of saying No but got caught in the trap of falling for the "silly" comment. Everything seems clear. MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 14:44, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, Being rude, sarcastic, put down, no diplomatic and etc are not considered personal attack but would against WP:CIVIL policies. We the vandal fighters received many unpleasant message. We just need to ignore them. Let me know if you have further questions or you are ready to move on to next assignment. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:49, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

CASSIOPEIA, thanks for clarifying. I feel ready to move on to the next one. :) MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 14:51, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Protection and speedy deletion

Protecting and deleting pages are two additional measures that can be used to prevent and deal with vandalism. Only an administrator can protect or delete pages; however, anyone can nominate a page for deletion or request protection. If you have Twinkle installed, you can use the Twinkle menu to request page protection or speedy deletion (the RPP or CSD options).

Protection

Please read the protection policy.

1. In what circumstances should a page be semi-protected?

Answer: This is useful when a page is being affected by high amounts of Vandalism from unregistered and new users. In general, it is extremely useful in order to also prevent sock puppets from continuing to vandalize.

Examples of such pages would be biographies of living persons that recently had a high level of media interest.

. Pages is semi-protected if they receive persistent vandalism, disruptive editing or policy violations from user and sock puppets. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 06:41, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

2. In what circumstances should a page be pending changes level 1 protected?

Answer: This can be seen as an alternative to a semi-protected page. The main difference is unregistered and unconfirmed users CAN edit the page, but their changes will not be visible to the public until they are accepted by a reviewer.

The circumstances for this level of protection are exactly the same as semi-protected except this is used when the page in particular does not have a high edit rate and when Administrators may also feel that blocking individual users is not enough.

.The key is low volumn but persistent over time. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 06:41, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

3. In what circumstances should a page be fully protected?

Answer: Full Protection means only administrators are allowed to edit the page. In general, this is useful for extremely high risk pages/templates (the front page as an example) and Administrators may choose this option due to constant content disputes and edit warring (that doesn't involve them).

. Note: Permanent full protection applied to articles for long period of time is rare. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 06:41, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

4. In what circumstances should a page be creation protected ("salted")?

Answer: A page which has been creation protected means that Administrators have blocked access to create the page, this is because the page in particular is a bad article and is constantly being re-created by vandals.

. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 06:41, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

5. In what circumstances should a talk page be semi-protected?

Answer: This may happen when an editor which reverts vandalism runs into a vandal that decides to target them for further harassment by creating sockpuppet accounts. Semi-protecting the talk page will ensure that the vandal can no longer vandalize the page.

. Good. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 06:41, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

6. Correctly request the protection of one page (pending) and one (semi or full); post the diff of your request (from WP:RPP) below.

Answer i: Diff

. For Semi protection. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 06:41, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Answer ii: Diff

. For pending level one protection. Low volumn but persistence vandalism over time. Here, from the history log of the article, we could see the vandalism/distributive edits started on February 2 to February 7. This happens usually editors try to avoid edit warring so they revert each other edits after 24 hr of their previous edit or editor would only log on to Wikipedia one every few days. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 06:41, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Speedy deletion

Please read WP:CSD.

1. In what circumstances should a page be speedy deleted, very briefly no need to go through the criteria?

Answer: In reality, there are multiple circumstances that may lead to a page being speedy deleted. To keep things simple, it is usually for very basic foundation errors that make the creation of the page pointless. This is usually classified by a code starting with G, examples may include; G3 - Pure Vandalism and blatant hoaxes, this is given when a page is created purely for the sake of vandalism and nothing else so it is removed.

You need to briefly to through most of the criteria and state the reason in your own words. Kindly reword. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 06:41, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Re-Answer:A page may be speedy deleted by an Administrator if it meets one of the criteria listed under WP:CSD. In general, pages under the mainspace may be deleted if they include content written to promote someone, test pages created by new editors or blatant vandalism. Sometimes, an article posted to the English version of Wikipedia might be written in a foreign language, in this case if it is a direct copy and paste then the article is deleted, otherwise, it may be moved to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pages_needing_translation_into_English. A page may also fall under more than one criteria if necessary.

. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 00:26, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

2. Correctly tag two pages for speedy deletion (with different reasons - they can be for any of the criteria) and post the diff and the criteria you requested it be deleted under below.

Answer i: Diff G2, G8, G11.

. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 06:41, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Answer ii: Diff G11

. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 00:26, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, See Assignment 6 above. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 15:01, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

CASSIOPEIA, I've filled out the theory portions although I might take some time till I find any of the actual pages to request protection on, do you have any tips on how to do this more efficiently? I requested rights to possibly use STiki as I think it might help for this task but I'm not sure if they will accept. MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 12:17, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, STiki would help for sure. You could also check on pages (subjects) who are currently on breaking news of some sort of scandal where by negative comments might be placed on the page (such scandals), or sport pages which one team/athlete/fighter lose the game/matches/fight in devastating fashion or high school articles where they got vandalized by the students and etc. - usually pages of such need page protection. Best. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 12:30, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, I saw you used STiki to do counter vandalism work. However, upon checking on you contribution log, you stopped editing since 4 December, 2019. Is everything ok? Do drop a note if you are on vacation/trip or has some personal things to take are of and do state when you will be back to continue this program. Thank you. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 03:51, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

CASSIOPEIA, sorry for not replying for some time. I've been a bit busy with some examinations this month, hopefully soon done with them, so sorry again. Basically to finish this task I'll need a good amount of time in order to make sure I'm requesting the right page and such, will be fully active soon. :) MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 18:02, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104 Ok. Thanks for informing and see you here when you finished you exam.18:04, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104 Good day. Believe you have finished your school exam by now. Please let me know when you will be back to work on the assignment. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 03:50, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

CASSIOPEIA, Good evening. Indeed, thankfully all went well. :) I am going to be a bit inactive till the end of the month, most likely contributing bit by bit until the Christmas craze and such passes. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you :) MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 17:49, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104 OK. See you next year. Enjoy the holiday. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 05:16, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104} Hi, Happy new year and wonder are you back from your holiday/break yet as I have yet to see you work on the assignment. If you need help, please let me know. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 03:41, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

CASSIOPEIA} Hi, extremely sorry for leaving you on hold. To be honest I have gotten rather busy with some commitments recently, so I'm not really able to commit to Wikipedia for some time, is it possible if we could pause the assignment for the time being? MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 23:02, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104 Hi, you would take a short break and come back; however, it would not be as effective as go through the program as you would forget some to the info/assignment/guidelines you have worked. If you want to take a short break then please let me know when you will come back and also, please note it is very important for you to complete the program especially you were given a new start for the admins who support removed you from indef block do bank on you to achieve the new start status by doing what you set out which is complete the CVUA program. Let me know. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 04:17, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

CASSIOPEIA} Hi, yes I completely understand, my intent is to complete this program at some point as I've always enjoyed it. The main issue is I've recently been studying and been rather busy due to upcoming exams in the coming months, I'd be willing to take a short break say till the end of this month until my schedule settles down again. Thank you for understanding. MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 20:20, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104 Hi, Ok thanks for informing. I see you next month then. All the best on your exams. Cheers. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 10:43, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

CASSIOPEIA, hope you are well. I recently requested page protection for 2 pages, both were granted a semi protection although I had requested one for pending changes. I'm not sure if this counts or if you'd like me to try find another one for Pending changes. As for Speedy Deletion, I succesfully found and deleted a template, I'll be looking for 1 more in order to complete that task. As such, does this fit into any criteria? Thanks. :) MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 08:22, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104 Greetings. I have indicated the pending level one protection and semi protection on my comment on Q6. You are welcome to do additional practice on any questions to familair yourself on such topic. Just add (i) (ii) after the question - example for Q6 just add 6 (i) and ping and let me know so I may review. For CSD, pls see my comment and you still have one more question to answer - CSD Q2 (ii). Let me know when you have finished. Page protection is one of the harder subjects for this program and you are half way there to your final exam. Best. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 06:41, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Should be done CASSIOPEIA, let me know what you think. :) MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 08:44, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104 Done review. Best. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 00:26, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Usernames

Wikipedia has a policy which details the types of usernames which users are permitted to have. Some users (including me) patrol the User creation log to check for new users with inappropriate usernames. There are four kinds of usernames that are specifically disallowed:

Misleading usernames imply relevant, misleading things about the contributor. The types of names which can be misleading are too numerous to list, but definitely include usernames that imply you are in a position of authority over Wikipedia, usernames that impersonate other people, or usernames which can be confusing within the Wikipedia signature format, such as usernames which resemble IP addresses or timestamps.
Promotional usernames are used to promote an existing company, organization, group (including non-profit organizations), website, or product on Wikipedia.
Offensive usernames are those that offend other contributors, making harmonious editing difficult or impossible.
Disruptive usernames include outright trolling or personal attacks, include profanities or otherwise show a clear intent to disrupt Wikipedia.

Please read WP:USERNAME, and pay particluar attention to dealing with inappropriate usernames.

Describe the what you would about the following usernames of logged in users (including which of the above it breaches and why).

DJohnson

Answer: The only possible issue with this username is that it may be part of someone's real name, however, it is abbreviated in a generic way which would make it difficult for someone to trace it back.

I would not take any action for this username in particular UNLESS the edits shown are clearly trying to impersonate somebody. In that case, I would report it to WP:UAA in which a proof of identity would need to be shown.

. Well-done by observing if the editor claiming to be someone famous/well-known first. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:15, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

LMedicalCentre

Answer: This is a Promotional Username. It is clearly named after a company, in this case a hospital of some sort. The action taken on this type of username solely depends on the contributions the user makes. If the contributions are seemingly just edits to a company page done in a way to promote their company then the account is auto blocked by an Administrator. If the user does NOT edit problematically, they are allowed to continue editing Wikipedia but will be advised to change their username to something more appropriate.

In this case, I would review the users edits, if the user is clearly just editing for the sake of promoting their company, I will report them to WP:UAA. If not, I will monitor the account's contributions over time and act accordingly.

. Do write to the user and info and guide them about Wikipedia username policy and advise the user to change his/her name. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:15, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Fuqudik

Answer: At first glance this username may seem like plain gibberish but upon second glance you will see that it is a misspelled piece of profanity. This is considered to be a "Disruptive or Offensive" username. Although this is being done indirectly, it still violates Wikipedia's policy and will need to be changed.

I would report this username to WP:UAA.

. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:15, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

ColesStaff

Answer: The problem with this username is it has the appendage "Staff" embedded at the end. This could be seen as misleading since some users might assume this member is part of Wikipedia's staff team.

The action I would take for this username solely depends on their contributions to Wikipedia. If the user began with vandalism and disruptive edits in an attempt to impersonate Staff, I would automatically report it to WP:UAA. If the user seems to be acting in good faith, I will post on their talk page with the following templates subst:uw-username, subst:uw-uall or subst:uw-coi-username.

. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:15, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

~~~~

Answer: This username is allowed on Wikipedia. Such usernames are technically discouraged to be used as they are not legible to everyone on Wikipedia.

An actual user with a similar name, ~, can be seen for this example.

Confusing username that represents Wikipedia signature sign off symbol but nowadays, these types of usernames are automatically disallowed, so you won't come across them. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:15, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

172.295.64.27

Answer: This would be a forbidden username, I believe the system itself would probably prevent you from creating an account with this. IP users are generally editors who are not signed in to Wikipedia so it would make no sense to have a full account with this listed.

If it were somehow possible to see this type of username, I would report it to WP:UAA.

. Same here -nowadays, these types of usernames are automatically disallowed, so you won't come across them. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:15, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Bieberisgay

Answer: This would quite obviously be considered an offensive username, in particular, violating the BLP policy.

I would report it to WP:UAA.

. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:15, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, See Assignment 7 above. Best. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 00:28, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

CASSIOPEIA, all done, thanks. MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 22:33, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, See above comments. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:15, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Progress test

Congratulations, now have mastered the "basics" so we can move on. Please complete the following progress test, and I'll tell you what's next.

The following 2 scenarios each have 5 questions that are based on WP: VANDAL, WP:3RR, WP: REVERT, WP: BLOCK, WP: GAIV, WP: WARN, WP:UAA, WP:CSD, and WP:UN. Good Luck!

Scenario 1

You encounter an IP vandalising Justin Bieber by adding in statements that he is gay.

Would this be considered vandalism or a good faith edit, why?

Answer: This would be considered vandalism.

No constructive contribution is being made, there is nothing wrong with being gay, but in this case the vandal simply adds this misinformation as unfortunately it is used as a common "insult" by immature persons.

Which Wikipedia policies and/or guidelines is it breaching?

Answer: This would fall under "Blatant Vandalism".

- intent is to defame a person. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:13, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

What would be an appropriate warning template to place on the IP's user talk page?

Answer: If this is a new IP user which made it's first edit, I would place this template subst:Welcome-anon-unconstructive. Otherwise, I would simply warn with the standard warning templates depending on the number of times they vandalized.

. It is {{subst:uw-biog}} but it is also a false info so

Hello, I'm CASSIOPEIA. I wanted to let you know that one or more of your recent contributions have been undone because they did not appear constructive. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. If you have any questions, you can ask for assistance at the help desk. Thanks.. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:13, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

The user has now added offensive words to the article 3 times. You have reverted three times already, can you be blocked for violating the three revert rule in this case?

Answer: No, because the three revert rule does not apply to reverting obvious vandalism.

. good. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:13, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Which of the following reporting templates should be used in this case: {{IPvandal}} or {{vandal}}?

Answer: {{IPvandal}} because we are dealing with an IP user not a registered user.

. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:13, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

What would you include as the reason for reporting the editor?

Answer: In this case, the user has vandalized for 4 times in a row in a short succession of time, they are on their 4th warning. Generally, the rule of thumb would be to give them the 4th warning and report them if they vandalise after the 4th warning but in this case it's very clear that the user's intentions are to simply vandalize. I would report them for blatant vandalism, depending on the users history a temporary block should suffice given that this is an IP user, but that would be up to the blocking Administrator.

. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:13, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Scenario 2

You see a new account called "Hi999" that has added random letters to one article.

Would this be considered vandalism or a good faith edit, why?

Answer: Since this a new account, we would assume good faith and assume this to be an editing test.

It is generally taken case-by-case, if the edits made are clearly done to disrupt the page (i.e blanking + spamming letters everywhere) then it would fall under vandalism, but a few letters and non-major edit to the article would be considered a test edit.

. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:13, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

What would be an appropriate warning template to place on the user's talk page?

Answer: I would place the following template, subst:welcometest|Article

. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:13, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Which of the following Twinkle options should be used to revert these edits: Rollback-AGF (Green), Rollback (Blue) or Rollback-Vandal (Red)?

Answer: Rollback-AGF (Green)

. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:13, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

The user now has a level 3 warning on their talk page. They make a vandal edit, would it be appropriate to report this user to AIV? Why or why not?

Answer: No, assuming they started with a level 3 warning, made an edit and then obtain a level 4 warning then no, it would not be appropriate until they have vandalized another time after the 4th warning.

.Report if and only if it is considered vandalized only account with extremely officensive edits. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:13, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

If this user keeps on vandalizing, can this user be blocked indef.?

Answer: Yes, because the only contribution being made is vandal/disruptive edits.

. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:13, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Which of the following reporting templates should be used in this case: {{IPvandal}} or {{vandal}}?

Answer: {{vandal}} as this is a registered user not an IP user.

. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:13, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

What would you include as the reason for reporting the editor?

Answer: Vandalized past 4th warning.

. "Vandalism-only account". CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:13, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Scenario 3

You see a new account called "LaptopsInc" which has created a new page called "Laptops Inc" (which only contains the words "Laptops Inc" and a few lines of text copied from the company's website). The user also added "www.laptopsinc.com" on the Laptop article. You research Laptops Inc on Google and find that is a small company.

Should you revert the edit to Laptop, if so which Twinkle option would you use?

Answer: Yes, the edit placed is only being done for promotional purposes. I would use the blue rollback option and put in a custom reason for the edit summary (Reverting due to promotional external link).

. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:13, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

If you do revert which warning template would you use?

Answer: I would use, uw-advert1 in this case.

.or

Hello, I'm CASSIOPEIA. I wanted to let you know that one or more external links you added have been removed because they seemed to be inappropriate for an encyclopedia. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page, or take a look at our guidelines about links. Thank you. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:13, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Would you tag the article they created with a speedy deletion tag(s). If so which speedy deletion criteria apply to the article?

Answer: Yes. The article they created is only being used to advertise their company which is not in-line with any of Wikipedia's policy. The CSD critera for the article would be; G11 - Unambiguous advertising or promotion.

. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:13, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Would you leave a template on the user's talk page regarding their username? If so which one and with which parameters?

Answer: Yes, their username is currently violating Wikipedia's policy as it is a promotional username. In this case, uw-coi-username

. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:13, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Would you report the user to UAA? If so what of the four reasons does it violate?

Answer: Yes, it violates the following 4 reasons:

WP:ISU (Implying shared use, as this is a company account multiple users say from a PR department, may be editing from it.)
WP:ORGNAME (The account is named after a company, in this case Laptops Inc.)
WP:NOSHARING (Similar to (1), although this is directly referencing the fact that the account is being shared, regardless of promotional use.)
Solely editing for promotional purposes only, apart from the 3 previous violations, the account is not being used to contribute anything useful to Wikipedia.

.report to UAA with the reason "Violation of the username policy as a promotional username." CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:13, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, See Assignment 8 above. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:18, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

CASSIOPEIA, should be completed. :) MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 17:54, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, see above comments. well done. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:13, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Rollback

Congratulations now for the next step. The rollback user right allows trusted and experienced vandalism fighters to revert vandalism with the click of one button. Please read WP:Rollback.

Describe when the rollback button may be used and when it may not be used.

Answer: You may use rollback if you wish to revert obvious vandalism, edits in your own user pages, edits that you made or even accidentally made, edits made by blocked or banned users that would be made in their talk page* and finally widespread edits unhelpful to Wikipedia.**

[*] and ** Both of these actions will require a proper explanation on the relevant talk page and/or edit summary.

It cannot be used when you want to revert something on a page only edited by one person as there would be nothing else to revert to. Rollback also cannot be used to restore a deleted revision, an error message is displayed if this is attempted.

CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 20:29, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Rollback may NOT be used when

Answer: Reverting an edit done in good faith that could have been done using an edit summary and other manner.

CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 20:29, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

What should you do if you accidentally use rollback?

Answer: You can either revert your edit manually and and inform other users by mentioning "Reverting accidental rollback" in your edit summary or you could just rollback your original rollback although it is preferred to use the previous method to avoid confusion.

CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 20:29, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Should you use rollback if you want to leave an edit summary?

Answer: No, rollback does not let you put in an edit summary, it places a generic edit summary for you each time it is used.

CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 20:29, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, See assignment 9 above. Cheers. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:16, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

CASSIOPEIA, all done. MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 17:39, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, See above comment. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 20:29, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

CASSIOPEIA, all is noted, although I didn't see any comments for the second section. MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 20:37, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Monitoring period

Congratulations! You have completed the main section of the anti-vandalism course. Well done! Now that we've been through everything that you need to know as a vandal patroller, you will be given a 7-day monitoring period. During this time, you are free to revert vandalism (and edit Wikipedia) as you normally do; I will monitor your progress in anti-vandalism. If there are any issues, I will raise them with you and if you have any problems, you are free to ask me. After seven days, if I am satisfied with your progress, you will take the final test; passing this will mean you graduate from the CVUA. Good luck!

If you have any problems or trouble along the way please leave a message on below this section. If you make any difficult decisions feel free to post the diff below and I'll take a look.

MikeTheEditor104, Greeting. The next phase of this course is Assignment 10 - "monitoring period", see above. If you do hundreds of counter vandalism edits then I would not be able to check them all, so if possible keep it less to 50 counter vandalism edit. Follow the monitoring period is the Final exam. The exam questions will be similar that of all the exercises you have done. Go back to read all the necessary topics and check through all the comments made by me. Most student find it difficult to provide 3RR, pending changes level 1 protected and CSD examples, so make sure you familiar in this area. Thank you. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 20:41, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, Additional note: For reporting 3RR - pls see current and past (achieves - at the right side) at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring. Pls note you need to send 3RR warning message first to the involved editor and if the involved editor(s) violate the 3RR within 24 hours of their then you could make the report. It is very hard to find 3RR, and usual, same as other vandalism edits or pending level one protection, it happens either some breaking news of certain subjects or in the weekend when Wikipedia traffic is at its highest of the week. Hope this help. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 01:58, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, Hi I checked your contribution log and find you did not many counter vandalism edits so I will extend the monitoring period a little longer. Thank you. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 02:43, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Hi, not a problem, been a little busy so sorry about that. MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 08:45, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, thank you for informing. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 09:23, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, It has been two weeks that you have not been editing/work on some counter vandalism work so I could not review. Do make about 30 counter vandalism edits and we can move on to Final exam next which will be your last assignment. Power through Mike!. Best. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 23:01, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Sorry CASSIOPEIA, I'll be working on it this week, my apologies. :) MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 22:54, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, Good day I am here to inform you that I have changed my user name to sentence case. Cassiopeia^(talk) 00:49, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Cassiopeia, understood, thanks. Again, really sorry for taking so long to finish the monitoring period, trying my best to manage a lot of commitments at the moment. MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 16:33, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Cassiopeia, hope are you in good health considering the circumstances! Sorry for keeping you waiting, I am going to finish this task this week. MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 22:39, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, I am well thank you for asking. I am waiting for you to get it done so we may proceed to the final exam. Stay safe and best. Cassiopeia^(talk) 12:13, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Cassiopeia, I am extremely sorry for leaving you in the dark and "postponing" this task again. To tell you the truth I almost forgot about this task. Let this be assured that this week (04/05/20 - 08/05/20) this task will be completed once and for all, I will start monitoring from tomorrow morning, see you soon!. MikeTheEditor104 (talk) 22:09, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, Hi Mike, good to hear from you. All you need to do is work on some (about 30-50) vandalism related edits and should the edits are deemed correct then I will post the final exam questions to you. Stay safe Mike. Best. Cassiopeia^(talk) 08:11, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

MikeTheEditor104, You recent counter vandalism edits on May 2020 seems did not have much problem and I will post the final exam qustion below. Do note STiki is not working at the moment, so you need to use Twinkle and check edits on recent changes log to view new edits. Thank you. Cassiopeia^(talk) 03:06, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Final Exam

When responding to numbered questions please start your response with "#:" (except where shown otherwise - with **). You don't need to worry about signing your answers.

GOOD LUCK!

Part 1 (15%)

For each of these examples, please state whether you would call the edit(s) described as vandalism or good faith edit, a reason for that, and how you would deal with the situation (ensuring you answer the questions where applicable).

1 & 2. A user inserts 'sfjiweripw' into an article. What would you do if it was their first warning? What about after that.

Answer:

3 & 4. A user adds their signature to an article after one being given a {{Uw-articlesig}} warning. What would you the next time they did it? What about if they kept doing it after that?

5 & 6. A user adds 'John Smith is the best!' into an article. What would you do the first time? What about if they kept doing it after that?

Answer:

7 & 8. A user adds 'I can edit this' into an article. The first time, and times after that?

Answer:

9, 10 & 11. A user removes sourced information from an article, with the summary 'this is wrong'. First time, and after that? What would be different if the user has a history of positive contributions compared with a history of disruptive contributions?

Answer:

12. An IP user removes removes unsourced article, what would you do?

Answer:

13. An IP user removes a sourced content and stated "not relevant", what would you do?

Answer:

14. An IP user adds My parents do not love me. I going to jump out the balcony and kill myself", what would you do?

Answer:

15. An IP user adds "I going to kill the editor who have reverted my edit", what would you do?

Answer:

Part 2 Part 2 (15%)

Which templates warning would give an editor in the following scenarios. If you don't believe a template warning is appropriate outline the steps (for example what you would say) you would take instead.

1. A user blanks Cheesecake

Answer:

2. A user trips edit filter for trying to put curse words on Derek Jete

Answer:

3. A user trips edit summary filter for repeating characters on Denis Menchov

Answer:

4. A user puts "CHRIS IS GAY!" on Atlanta Airport

Answer:

5. A user section blanks without a reason on David Newhan.

Answer: i>

6. A user adds random characters to Megan Fox.

Answer:

7. A user adds 'Tim is really great' to Great Britain.

Answer:

8. A user adds 'and he has been arrested' to Tim Henman.

Answer:

9. A user blanks Personal computer, for the fifth time, they have had no warnings or messages from other users.

Answer:

10. A user blanks Personal computer, for the fifth time, they have had four warnings including a level 4 warning.

Answer: .

11. A user blanks your userpage and replaced it with 'I hate this user' (you have had a number of problems with this user in the past).

Answer:

12. A user adds File:Example.jpg to Taoism

Answer:

13. A user blanks your user page and replaced it with 'Idiot Nazi guy' just because you reverted his vandalism and he got angry with you.

Answer:

14. A user adds "Italic text to Sydney

15. A user adds "he loves dick" to Chris Hemsworth

Part 3 (10%)

What CSD tag you would put on the following articles (The content below is the article's content).

1. Check out my Twitter page (link to Twitter page)

Answer:

2. Josh Marcus is the coolest kid in London.

Answer:

3. Joe goes to England and comes home !

Answer:

4. A Smadoodle is an animal that changes colors with its temper.

Answer:

5. Fuck Wiki!

What would you do in the following circumstance:

6. A user blanks a page they very recently created

Answer: 7.

7. After you have speedy delete tagged this article the author removes the tag but leaves the page blank.

Answer:

8 & 9. A user who is the creator of the page remove the "{{afd}}" tag for the first time and times after that?

Answer:

10. A draft page which is last edited more than 6 months ago.

Answer:

Part 4 (10%)

Are the following new (logged in) usernames violations of the username policy? Describe why or why not and what you would do about it (if they are a breach).

1. TheMainStreetBand

Answer:

2. Poopbubbles

Answer:

3. Brian's Bot

Answer: .

4. sdadfsgadgadjhm,hj,jh,jhlhjlkfjkghkfuhlkhj

Answer:

5. Bobsysop

Answer: T

6. 12, 23 June 2012

Answer:

7. PMiller

Answer:

8. OfficialJustinBieber

Answer: I would report to UAA as a misleading username as the user is impersonating Justin Bieber.

9. The Dark Lord of Wiki

Answer:

10. I love you

Answer:

Part 5 (10%)

Answer the following questions based on your theory knowledge gained during your instruction.

Answer:

1. Can you get in an edit war while reverting vandalism (which may or may not be obvious)?

Answer:

2. Where and how should vandalism-only accounts be reported?

Answer:

3. Where and how should complex abuse be reported?

Answer:

4. Where and how should blatant username violations be reported?

Answer:

5. Where and how should personal attacks against other editors be reported?

Answer: I.

6. Where and how should an edit war be reported?

Answer: E

7. Where and how should ambiguous violations of WP:BLP be reported?

Answer:

8. Where and how should a stock puppet be reported?

Answer: S

9. Where and how should a page need protection be reported?

Answer:

10. Where and how should editors involved in WP:3RR be reported to

Part 6 - Theory in practice (40%)

1 & 2. Find and revert two instances of vandalism (by different editors on different pages), and appropriately warn the editor. Please give the diffs the warning below.

Answer:

3, 4 & 5. Find and revert one good faith edit, one self-revert test edit, one test edti and warn/welcome the user appropriately. Please give the diffs of your warn/welcome below.

Answer:

6 & 7. Correctly report two users (three AIV and one of 3RR to ANI). Give the diffs of your report below.

Answer:

8, & 9. Correctly request the protection of four articles; post the diffs of your requests below.

Answer:

10 & 11. Correctly nominate four articles for speedy deletion; post the diffs of your nominations below.

Answer:

12 & 13. Correctly report two username as a breach of policy.

Answer:

14 & 15. Why is edit warring prohibited? What leads to edit warring?

Answer:

16. In your own words, describe why vandalism on biographies of living people is more serious than other kinds of vandalism.

Answer:

17 & 18. What would you do if a troll keeps harassing you? What must you not engage with the trolls?

Answer:

19. What is the difference between semi and full protection?

Answer:

20. In your own words, describe why personal attacks are harmful.

Answer:

MikeTheEditor104 See final exam questions above. All the best. Stay safe and best. Cassiopeia^(talk)