Wikipedia:Editor review/Maverick Leonhart

Maverick Leonhart

Maverick Leonhart (talk · contribs) I've been editing pretty regularly lately (coming on several times a day to check my watch list and contribution pages for vandalism or any copy-editing that may need to be done). I've managed to fight a lot of vandalism in the past month or so (marking my real comeback to Wikipedia as an active editor) and I've also started using the Twinkle script. I've made it my hobby to revert vandalism on Wikipedia and am happy that I can assist in this aspect. Now what I want to know is how I can make my edits better and more professional and also how I can more efficiently fight against vandalism. I'd also like to learn the different codes used in making both userbox templates and templates for vandalism and other notifications. Any suggestions of ways I could start to learn these codes are welcome in this review. Maverick Leonhart (Talk | Contribs) 06:20, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Reviews

Your answer to question 2 shows a level of experience with the key concept of notability that I do not often see. I try to apply the notability policy at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion because most failed articles are deleted for lack of notability, not for other reasons. When I was just learning the ways of Wikipedia a year ago, I expressed the idea of notability by saying that there can't be an article on every little thing, or otherwise there would be a million articles about people nobody has ever heard of. It seems, in spite of that widely held sentiment, that Wikipedia will someday have a million articles about people nobody has ever heard of.

I admire counter-vandalism work, and I occasionally do it myself. However, as I have written repeatedly at editor review, I think counter-vandalism work should not be a person's primary focus on Wikipedia. Ultimately, it distracts you from the goal of improving the encyclopedia because all you are doing is maintaining the encyclopedia the way it's supposed to be. I sometimes try to compromise by stopping after I revert a vandalism edit to read the beginning of the article, especially if I'm curious about the topic, to see if there's a "positive" edit I can make.

That being said, if you wish to revert vandalism, you may as well do it effectively. There are certain acquired tricks you can use to locate suspicious diffs on Recent changes (link on the left sidebar). Any edit that fulfills three of the following four conditions is somewhat likely to be vandalism, and should be checked:

1. It is by an IP address or a new user. I don't wish to bite the newbies, but statistically, it seems that new user accounts are responsible for the vast majority of edits that need to be reverted.
2. It is on a high-profile article, such as Barack Obama or New York City. Almost nobody bothers to vandalize low-profile articles such as Jahn-Teller effect.
3. It involves the addition or subtraction of large blocks of text. This can be seen from the number of bytes changed between the current version and the previous version: green for a net addition of text, and red for a net subtraction.
4. It has no edit summary. Generally, when people leave edit summaries, they are honest. If they don't leave edit summaries, it may be worthwhile to check the diff.

For a list of user warning templates you can leave on talk pages of users who vandalizes, see WP:WARN. Twinkle can help you send messages automatically, but I don't know details because I don't use Twinkle. Finally, assume good faith until proven otherwise.

I wish you good luck. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 03:49, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Comments

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Questions

1. Of your contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?

   Well I honestly don't have one I'm particularly pleased with. Personally I'm pleased with all my edits (especially the vandalism reverts. Always makes me happy to help make Wikipedia more accurate). I can say that I am pleased with my additions to the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja (series) page. Working out the gameplay analysis for those games was a task I took on with enthusiasm and (despite some minor typographical errors) I believe it turned out quite well. I'm also pleased with my contributions to the Shinzo page. When I first seriously started editing for Wikipedia, there was no page for this anime and (at the time) it was my favorite anime. I took pride in creating the page so that the world would know about what I thought was a great anime. I also get the pleasure of saying that I started a page that (with the help of the Wikipedia community) made it to a B-class page.

3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

   I have been in a conflict in the past. Back when I was a new user I was involved in an editing war about the article for Robert Benfer. Back then my sites were very narrow. I thought "Well if I know who he is, he deserves a Wikipedia article". Every time it was deleted, I would remake it (sometimes with a new name due to protections put in place) and start a new argument for its acceptance. I've learned since then that I was wrong in acting in that way. Now the only time I would argue for an articles acceptance is if it truly was notable. And my word of advice to editors is this: just because someone is on IMDB or gets a few hits on google, that doesn't mean they are notable enough for a Wikipedia article. Anyone can get on IMDB, it's not that hard, really. And google will have anyone who has ever had even a passing mention on a website (I've even found myself on google a few times). True notability is established by a level of recognition that has the potential to reach a national, if not international, level. But anyway, yeah back to the question at hand. How will I deal with it in the future? A lot better than I have in the past, that's for sure. Less "Well I don't agree so I'll just recreate the page" and more "Well I don't agree so I want to discuss this and if it's decided to keep the decision, so be it. No hard feelings". It's really the best way to deal with issues.