User:The converse highs and lows/Adoption school

Thanks to User:Yunshui, who wrote this adoption school and allowed others to use it.

Hi, and welcome to your adoption school. By the time you've completed the tests and tasks here, you should have a good working knowledge of Wikipedia's policies and processes, and should have no difficulty understanding and dealing with 99% of the the things you'll encounter on this site. You can ask me questions on my talkpage at any time if you aren't sure about anything here, and I also welcome suggestions for ways of improving this course.

You can complete the sections in any order; let me know when you've finished one and I'll mark it and close it for you. Save for a few cases, there are generally multiple ways to answer the questions; not many of them have clear right/wrong answers. Although I'll always try and give a reason for each mark, the basic responses you'll see are:

• Y Good answer; interprets policy correctly and shows a sound understanding of the issues involved.
• Y Incomplete/insufficient answer; whilst partly correct, there are better responses to this question.
• N Poor answer; shows an inadequate understanding of the policies and guidelines concerned.

In general, you need around an 80% ratio of ticks to crosses before I'll close a section - you're also free to have another go at questions which are yellow-ticked or crossed.

Have fun!

Five Pillars

Wikipedia is governed by a large number of policies and guidelines - don't worry, you aren't expected to know all of these when you start out (or even after being here for a while!). All of these rules, however, stem in one way or another from Wikipedia's fundamental principles, which are known as the Five Pillars. Learn these and you can hazard an educated guess at all the rest. Please take a few minutes to read through the following pages: Pillar 1: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia Pillar 2: Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view Pillar 3: Wikipedia's content is free to reuse Pillar 4: Editors should be civil in their interactions Pillar 5: There are no firm rules

Cleanup

Cleanup The Random article button (located in your left-hand sidebar menu) is very useful for locating articles that are in need of improvement (although I find that 90% of the time you get a random article on either an obscure village in the mountains of Pakistan or a little-known Eastern European football team...). However, there are easier ways to locate articles that need attention. When editors come across a page that needs to be improved but they are unable to do so themselves (due to time constraints, lack of sources or just because they don't feel like it) they will often tag it with a cleanup tag. As well as placing a notice at the top of the page to say what needs doing, this also has the effect of listing the article in one of several cleanup categories. You can access most of these categories here. General cleanup What I'd like you to do is this: First, locate an article in need of cleanup. I'd suggest something fairly straightforward, like a page that needs copyediting for spelling and grammar (there's a full list of pages tagged thus here). Make three improvements to the page; these can be minor changes to word order, wikilinks, punctuation or typo fixes, I'm not fussed. When you've done this post a link to the article here - type the page name and enclose it in double square brackets, like this: [[Name of page]]. G-Dragon - Y Mostly good, although you made one small grammatical error which I'm sure was an oversight. Typo fixes Now go to the page Commonly misspelled words and select a word from the list there. Put the incorrect spelling of the word into the Wikipedia search bar at the top right, prefacing it with a single tilde, like this "~mispeling". The tilde means that, rather than searching for an article titled "Mispeling", the search engine will instead return a list of pages which contain the word "mispeling". You can now open each of these in turn, locate the typo, and change it to the correct spelling. Post here when you've fixed three typos in this way. Faf du Plessis (adress-address) - Y Lungi Ngidi (adress-address) - Y Lungi Ngidi (supoort-support, not a typo from the list but was close on the page to the first typo) - Y

Markup

Markup Wiki syntax can be, frankly, a right pain in the proverbials when you start editing. After a while, it becomes second nature - so much so that I now use it instinctively in places where it doesn't work, like emails and Word documents - but it takes time to become familiar with the nuances. Below are a list of markup tasks you can play about with to help increase your understanding. Most of the necessary codes are available at the cheatsheet. Format the words on this line into bold text. - Y Format the words on this line into italic text. - Y Create a level 2 header for this line. - Y Create a level 3 header for this line. - Y Indent this line. - Y Indent this line one level further than the previous one. - Y - Y "This is a quote which I'd like you to block off from the rest of the text on this page." Put the following quote into a separate block: - Y Turn the following into a numbered list: Item one Item two Item three Item four - Y Turn the following into a bulleted list: Item one Item two Item three Item four - Y Make the text on this line red. - Y Make the text on this line small. - Y Create a link to the page on Barry Manilow. - Y Create a link to the "Health" subsection of the Barry Manilow page. Make it display on this page as "Things that have gone wrong with Barry". Things that have gone wrong with Barry - Y Create a link to the Wikipedia policy on maintaining a neutral point of view. Wikipedia: Neutral point of view - Y Make this link: http://www.britannica.co.uk display on this page as "Encyclopedia Britannica". Encyclopedia Britannica - Y Add the Like template to the end of this line. Like - Y Make the picture of Emperor penguins at File:Emperor penguins.jpg display on this page as a thumbnail. Give it the caption: "A bunch of penguins". A bunch of penguins - Y Create a two column table. In column one, titled "Things", list the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4. In column 2, titled "Stuff", list the first four things that spring to mind. Things Stuff 1 jackfruit 2 poodles 3 Erik the red 4 sunglasses - Y

References

References Because anyone can edit Wikipedia at any time, it's impossible to be sure that the information contained here is always accurate. At any point, a random passerby can change the text of a page to something that isn't actually correct - many do. We have methods in place to prevent this, but the most fundamental one is the requirement that information here must be verifiable. If Wikipedia says something, it should be possible to locate that information in a source and check that it is correct. Because of this, we need references to reliable sources in every article. Citing references is an area that many editors struggle with - it does, however, look far more complicated than it actually is. See this essay for a simplified explanation of the process. The most common form of citation used on Wikipedia is the {{cite}} template (used in almost all automated citations) - there are variations for books, journals, web pages, newspapers and many other media. You will probably find yourself using these templates for most of your references, but it isn't mandatory, and you should try to develop at least a passing familiarity with other citation formats, such as short citations (useful in articles which rely heavily on a few extensive sources) or Harvard (parenthetical) referencing (unusual, but still totally acceptable). The fundamental thing to remember with any reference is that you need to provide enough information for the reader to stand a reasonable chance of being able to check the reference. Hyperlinks to online sources are fairly standard (remember to add the date that you accessed the page, in case it changes), but if you use an offline source, be sure you include sufficient detail: "Bailey, 1989" is pretty useless on its own, whereas "Bailey, John; Information Science, Routledge 1989, p. 17" gives the reader plenty to go on if they want to find the source in a library or bookshop. Your next task is to find a page or pages that require additional references and supply them. You can choose any page for this purpose (there's a full list of articles without sources here). Post the diffs of three edits where you've added citations below. Let me know if you need a hand, or if you want anything explained further. Diff 1 Diff 2 Diff 3

Reliable sources

Reliable sources Once you've learned how to cite refrences, it's important to know which references to cite. Wikipedia doesn't accept just anything found on the internet as a source - as Abraham Lincoln famously said, "The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can't always be sure of their authenticity". As a result, Wikipedia only accepts citations from reliable sources. Deciding what is and is not a reliable source can sometimes be a tricky process. Please read Identifying reliable sources and comment on the use of sources below, answering the following in each case: Does the source meet Wikipedia's guideline for reliable sources? Does the source verify the text? Does the source count towards the topic's notability? (note that not all sources which meet the criteria for reliability automatically help establish notability) Note that the text quoted is not taken from the article - links to the articles in question are provided only for context. Kylie Minogue Article text: Kylie Minogue was the headline act at the 2012 Malasian Grand Prix. Source cited: [1] Blogs aren't reliable sources. The citation doesn't link to a valid page. Someone might be gossiped about if they aren't notable, but it is more likely someone will gossip about a person if they're famous. Incisoscutum Article text: Placoderms like Incisoscutum engaged in penetrative sex and gave birth to live young. Source cited: [2] This links to a reputable scientific journal. However, the researchers are unsure, though the quote states it like fact. The topic seems like a sensible thing to write an article on, being a species known to have existed. Mohamed H.A. Hassan Article text: Hassan is the Executive Director of TWAS. Source cited: [3] This links to his personal resume, or a word document titled as if it were his personal resume. This isn't a reliable source. Arthur & George Article text: The book explains that Conan Doyle argued successfully that Edalji's nearsightedness would have prevented him from committing the crimes. Source cited: [4] This links to a non-reputable source, and so can't verify any information. This Providence Article text: The band's Christian morality is clearly expressed through their song lyrics. Source cited: [5] The reference link is broken, and is to a comment on Amazon. Not being a link to a reputable source, and the commenter's own opinion, it can't verify any information in the article. Mount Erebus Article text: The mountain is named after the personification of darkness in ancient Greek mythology. Source cited: [6] This links to a reputable source, and is useful as it directs the reader to parts of the book highlighted with 'Erebus'. It does in fact confirm Erebus is the personification of darkness in Greek Mythology, however it doesn't confirm Erebus was the mountain's namesake (like how the city of Paris wasn't named after the etymologically distinct Paris, abductor of Helen). Ami Suzuki Article text: Suzuki was born on February 9th, 1982. Source cited: [7] The source is from a reputable enough site to confirm Suzuki's date of birth, and information on it confirms the fact given in the article. Seth Kimbrough Article text: Kimbrough's earliest memory of BMX riding is the day that his brother taught him the "bunny hop" technique. Source cited: [8] The source would be reputable enough to verify a personal anecdote, but the video doesn't confirm the fact.

Deletion

Deletion Often, you'll encounter pages that are not suitable for Wikipedia, for one reason or another. Have a read of this essay, and then refer to the deletion policy before tackling the questions below. Speedy deletion You may want to check the specific policy on speedy deletion to respond to the following test. Below are a number of articles which may meet one or more of the speedy deletion criteria. For each example, say whether the article is an appropriate candidiate for speedy deletion, and which criterion it should be deleted under (some may be eligible under more than one). If you don't think it should be speedily deleted, say what you would do instead (if anything). Assume unless otherwise stated that all of these are found in article space. 1. Danille Stross A. This article reads like a Facebook post, and was written by her boyfriend. It should be speedily deleted. - Y Correct, but under which speedy deletion criterion? Second attempt: A7 2. Waichi A. This article shouldn't be on the English language Wikipedia. It should be speedily deleted, and posted instead on the Japanese language Wikipedia. - N This article is in Finnish, not Japanese. Not being in English is not a reason to speedily delete a page, unless it has been copied word-for-word from a foreign language Wikipedia article (Criterion A2). Non-English pages are, however, eligible for speedy deletion if the content of the page meets any of the other criteria for speedy deletion - you can check this by pasting the text into Google Translate. This page is eligible for speedy deletion - which criterion should you use? Second attempt: 3. Zack de Vries A. The article should be linked to reliable sources. 4. Black troat laufingtrhash A. If the bird is real, a page has likely already been written on it. The article should be expanded with information referenced from reputable sources and heavily copyedited. While it could technically be fixed, not much effort has been put into the page and it's unhelpful enough that it should be speedily deleted. - Y An article has indeed already been written on it, and pages that are duplicates of existing articles can be speedily deleted. What is the existing page, and which speedy deletion criterion should you use? Second attempt: Black-throated laughingthrush, A10 5. Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Barry Ross This example should be treated as an AfC submission A. This person isn't notable enough to have an article written about them, as the only reference is to the subject's own LinkedIn profile. This was likely written by either someone associated with Barry or the man himself as self-promotion. It should be speedily deleted. - N Only mainspace articles can be deleted for lacking notability, not AfC drafts or other types of page, as these are works in progress. If this draft were submitted for review when you came across it, you should decline it on the basis of lacking notability. 6. Alfreld Herchkerck A. 'Alfreld Herchkerck' is an unlikely misspelling, and only lists one page. It should be speedily deleted (G14 & R3). 7. Blgah A. This page is all random letters. It should be speedily deleted. - Y Correct, but which numbered criterion applies to nonsense pages? Second attempt: G1 8. Draft:ACME Hospitality India This example should be treated as an AfC submission. Note that it was created by me as an example; pretend that the company mentioned in it is actually real and therefore can't be deleted as a hoax. A. This is an advertisement (G11). 9. Portland Square Bombing A. The sources aren't reputable sites, and one link is invalid. The writer has made unlikely claims that aren't verified by the links. It should be speedily deleted as a hoax (G3). 10. User:Chest McFlink This example should be treated as a userpage A. It seems like he's written his own mini Wikipedia page on himself :p (U5) 11. Tsutomu Yukawa A. The links to sources are all unusable. The links should be clickable and link to sources proving the subject's notability and verifing the article's information. 12. Johnny Awesome A. This was made to disparage, and so should be speedily deleted (G10.) 13. Total health A. The writer might have meant to add this as an edit to another page. It is a sentence-long and lacks all context, however, and so should be speedily deleted (A1). 14. Gregory Davis (actor) Note that this page was created by me as an example; pretend that the person mentioned in it is actually real and therefore can't be deleted as a hoax. A. If the subject is notable only as a mass shooter, his article should be merged with the page on the ACME mass shooting. If a page on the shooting does not yet exist, this article should be a part of it. Thanks to Worm That Turned for constructing some of the pages linked to. Proposed deletion Proposed deletion (PROD) is a deletion method used for articles, books and files that don't meet Wikipedia's criteria for speedy deletion, but still stand little chance of surviving a deletion discussion. It is chiefly used for pages about topics that are clearly non-notable, but cannot be deleted under A7, such as articles about software, geographic locations, books and films, and for articles which are blatant violations of What Wikipedia is not, but do not meet any of the speedy deletion criteria, such as advocacy essays, dictionary definitions, how-to guides and large collections of statistics without any context. BLPPROD is a subset of the proposed deletion process that applies only to unsourced biographies of living people. Biographies of deceased people, or biographies with sources, are not subject to BLPPROD. Read through the policies linked above, and then answer the following questions: 1. Why do we have a specific deletion process for unsourced biographies of living people? A. False and harmful information might harm a subject's reputation. For every unsourced claim on a person, Wikipedia might be hosting libel. 2. You come across an obviously inappropriate article (it's an unsourced personal essay) and tag it for deletion under PROD. The page's creator removes the tag. What would your next step be? A. I'd make sure the user knew their article wasn't allowed on Wikipedia. If they then ignored my message or refused to fix the article I'd report the account. 3. You encounter a biography of a living person which contains four paragraphs of text, but only one reference (which does little more than verify the subject's name and existence). What tag would you place on the article? A. A BLPPROD tag. 4. Why were [9], [10] and [11] incorrect applications of the BLPPROD tag? A. The tag should be applied only for cases of articles written on a living person without citations, but all linked articles cite sources. 5. A page creator removes a BLP-PROD tag from an article without adding any sources. What do you do? A. Ask the account if they know why the tag was added, and try to politely resolve the issue. If the user ignores my message or refuses to add sources I would then report them to an admin. 6. An unsourced BLP is tagged with {{prod blp}}, and the tag is removed after the addition of two sources. The page is still unsuitable for Wikipedia (it concerns an individual who's clearly only notable for one event, and is not likely to be notable for any other reason). Can you legitimately apply a regular {{Proposed deletion}} template to the article? A. Yes. Their article should be merged with the event's. Articles for deletion Articles for deletion is a process for dealing with cases where an editor feels that an article should be deleted, but that article is not suitable for speedy deletion and a proposed deletion would be or has been contested. In other words, you would use AFD if you think that other editors might disagree with the decision to delete. At AFD, articles are put up for discussion for (usually) one week, and any editor is free to comment on whether the page should be deleted or not. When nominating an article for AFD, it's important to explain your reasoning. If the page could have been deleted as obviously non-notable, you need to explain why you think it isn't notable, and why you are using AFD instead of PROD or CSD. If your reason for deletion is anything other than notability, you need to show which policy it violates. When !voting in an AFD discussion (we use the term "!vote" instead of "vote" to indicate that AFD isn't a majority vote; decisions are not made purely on headcount), it's important to note (and preferably link to) the policies under which you feel the article should be deleted, and explain why it does not meet those policies. Whilst a lot of AFDs contain !votes that read, "per nominator", these are not given much weight by the reviewing administrators. If you want your opinion to count, you need to offer an explanation for your reasoning. There are also many common arguments to avoid; making any of these will not help your case. It is a great help to the reviewing administrator if you keep your comments in an AFD discussion concise and relevent to the discussion. Tangential arguments and long screeds tend to derail the discussion, and can make it very difficult to establish consensus. You should take a look at the the best practice guidelines for contributors before getting stuck in. No quiz here, but instead, I'd like you to comment at five AFD discussions, and link to them below. 1. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/REPLACE THIS TEXT WITH NAME OF ARTICLE 2. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/REPLACE THIS TEXT WITH NAME OF ARTICLE 3. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/REPLACE THIS TEXT WITH NAME OF ARTICLE 4. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/REPLACE THIS TEXT WITH NAME OF ARTICLE 5. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/REPLACE THIS TEXT WITH NAME OF ARTICLE

Interaction

Whilst mastering the technical nuances of Wikipedia can be a challenge (one you've hopefully overcome in the above sections), it pales in comparison to navigating the delicate web of interaction between Wikipedia's users. Although our primary goal - one we should never lose sight of - is the construction of the world's greatest encylopedia, the nature of the project means that you will have to communicate with other editors in order to get things done. Politeness The most fundamental policy governing user interaction is Civility, one of the Five Pillars you learned about earlier. Basically, you are expected to communicate with other editors in a respectful manner, assume that they are acting in good faith and avoid insulting or otherwise attacking them. Remember, behind every IP or ridiculous username is a real person, and it's that real person who is being hurt by insults, accusations and abuse hurled their way. 1. What would your response be if another user called you a "blithering imbecile"? A. To ignore the user, and then report the user if they were to do it again. 2. A source you added to an article is removed with the edit summary, "Removing crappy reference". Is this a personal attack? A. No. 3. In the heat of the moment, you refer to another editor as an "idiot". He posts this template on your talkpage and reports you to the administrators board. You respond to the report at the admin board - what do you say? A. I'd apologise to the editor I called an idiot. I'd show I'd taken back what was said by striking it through. Assuming good faith In learning about vandalism, you will have come across the idea of a "good faith edit", i.e. an edit that doesn't actually improve the article, but was made with the intention of doing so. The same applies to other editors' posts in discussions. Whilst it may seem that User:X is belittling you at every turn and is clearly biased and/or incompetent, there's actually a strong likelihood that he believes the same thing of you, and is doing his best to protect Wikipedia from what he sees as your problematic editing. In the same vein, don't automatically assume that a comment you find upsetting was intended to cause an upset - other users don't know you, and they don't know what sort of thing will push your buttons. 1. You add a large amount of sourced text to an article, which another editor removes. When you discuss it on the talkpage, the editor argues that your source "was written by an incompetent sot" and implies (but doesn't directly state) that you must be equally incompetent to have used it. How do you respond? A. I would say why I believe the source is reliable, and ignore the personal insult. 2. You encounter a new editor who is removing sourced content from a biographical page, claiming that it is disrespectful to the subject to include it. How do you explain the situation to them? A. I would say reliably sourced, neutrally-written information can't be removed. It'd take a tremendous amount of effort to evenly apply removals on the basis of "respect". Consensus Decisions on Wikipedia are made based on community consensus. This means that we are largely unconcerned with issues of right or wrong, true or false, correct or incorrect - what matters on Wikipedia is what the community decides. Because not every user can be involved in every possible discussion, we have policies and guidelines that have developed widespread consensus for use, and these serve to provide the opinion of Wikipedia editors in general. For example, in an Articles for deletion discussion or a Request for comment, only a handful users will participate - but by quoting relevent policies (such as WP:What Wikipedia is not) they are able to convey the established view of the Wikipedia community as a whole. For this reason, local consensus does not override policy - if you can get three people on a talkpage to agree to include a link to your fansite on your favourite actor's article, that doesn't mean you have the authority to override the policy on external links. That said, it is important to get agreement from the community for any potentially controversial edit or action you wish to make, even if you believe it to be in line with policy. If you make such an edit and it gets reverted, the appropriate response is to discuss it with the user who reverted you, ideally on the article's talkpage so that other users can comment too. Only when there is clear agreement (not necessarily unanimous, but definitely obvious to an outside observer) to include your revision should you go ahead with it. 1. At Articles for deletion, a discussion has taken place in which User:X proposes deleting a page (because after much searching, no-one has been able to locate suitable sources for it) and User:Y proposes keeping it because they have found it useful for a research project. Four other editors chime in to support the Keep vote, all with the rationale, "per User:Y, page is useful" or something very similar. You are the admin closing the discussion; do you close it as Keep, Delete or No Consensus, and why? A. I would delete. I wouldn't be convinced by the only Keep point made. The article can't be sourced, and so it must be deleted. 2. On an article talkpage, three users disagree with your addition of an external link to the subject's official site, even though such a link is allowed under the External links policy. No other editors have supported your position. What do you do? A. I would delete the link, because community consensus would be against its inclusion. Conflicts of interest A lot of users come to Wikipedia for the first time with the intention of writing about their company/band/charity/self. Editors who do this have a conflict of interest with Wikipedia. 1. What do you understand by the term "conflict of interest"? A. The writer has a personal interest in promoting a thing they're part of, which is against Wikipedia's policy that all information should be neutral. 2. What advice would you give an editor who wants to write an article about their start-up company on Wikipedia? A. Wikipedia isn't a place for advertising or promotion, and that'd likely be their intent. Also, their company is unlikely to have articles written on them that can be sourced from, and original research isn't allowed. For these reasons I would advise them to leave it, and in time if it becomes notable someone will write an article on the company. 3. User:FredAtBillsWidgets has created a draft article about the company Bill's Widgets. The content is reasonably neutral, and he has sourced the page to three local newspaper stories which talk about the company in some depth. What action - if any - do you take on discovering the draft? A. I would mark the article as for debate, and message the account to make the policy on 'no writing about your own thing' rule clear. Resolving disputes If two or more editors are unable to agree on some aspect of an article, and no consensus seems to be possible, then continuing to argue on the talkpage is somewhat futile. Recognising this, Wikipedia has developed a number of processes for resolving such disputes. In rough order of escalation, these are: Third opinion. If only two editors are involved, they can request that another uninvolved editor examines the dispute and gives their opinion. This is not binding, but the fresh perspective can sometimes break the deadlock. Request for comment. Starting a Request for comment (RFC) on the article's talkpage will attract other editors who are not involved with the dispute - basically, a whole load of third opinions. RFCs are usually constructed around a simple yes/no proposal, e.g. "Should content about the subject's hairstyle be included in the article", which editors either support or oppose. RFCs typically invite comment for a month before closing. The results of an RFC are not technically binding, but they are generally considered to be indicative of consensus and so are usually adhered to. Dispute resolution noticeboard. Reports posted on the Dispute resolution noticeboard (DRN) are viewed by numerous editors who will try and mediate the disagreement. The DRN is often used for disputes which are more complex than the simple support/oppose mechanism of an RFC, such as disputes involving accusations of sockpuppetry, multiple pages or several interrelated content issues. Mediation. The Mediation Committee is a small group of trusted editors who will formally oversee a structured debate on a disputed issue. All involved parties must agree to mediation, and are expected (though not obliged) to abide by any successful outcome. Arbitration. If all other options in resolving a dispute have been exhausted, the case can be brought to the Arbitration Committee (ArbCom). This is a panel of editors (almost always highly experienced administrators) who have been elected by the community to provide a final resolution to disputes. Decisions made by the Arbitration Committee are binding, meaning that users who edit in defiance of an ArbCom ruling may be blocked or otherwise sanctioned. No questions on this section; the above is provided purely for your information. Hopefully, you'll never have to use any of it!

Vandals

Vandals Because anyone can edit Wikipedia, not all the edits that are made are constructive - some, in fact, are deliberately disruptive and need to be reverted. Please have a read of this essay and this guideline, then answer the questions and perform the tasks below. There's no time limit for this, it's more important that your work in this area be accurate than fast. If you aren't sure whether it's vandalism or not, it probably isn't. Warning and reporting Please answer the following questions Why do we warn users? In case they made the edit in good faith, and are unaware of how they've breached policy. When would a 4im warning be appropriate? For severe cases of vandalism. What should you do if a user who has received a level 4 or 4im warning vandalises again? Report them to an admin. Please give examples of three warnings that you might need to use while vandal patrolling and explain what they are used for. Please refrain from making unconstructive edits to Wikipedia, as you did at PageName. 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. This warning is for mild cases of vandalism, e.g. if an account that has made a few good edits makes a minor unconstructive edit. {{subst:uw-vandalism3|PageName} This warning is for more serious cases of vandalism, e.g. if an account inserts an insulting line into an article after the user has been warned. This is your only warning; if you remove or blank page contents or templates from Wikipedia again, as you did at PageName, you may be blocked from editing without further notice. This warning is for users on a section blanking spree, and will be their only warning. Find an edit which could be a test edit and revert it. Warn the user with the most appropriate template, then post the diff below. Report 2 users to AIV and post the diffs below. Be sure to follow the guidelines and only report users where necessary; do not report simply for the sake of this task. Good faith and vandalism Please explain below the difference between a good faith edit and a vandalism edit, and how you would tell them apart. A good faith edit is one made to improve an article, whether the article is actually made better by the edit or not. A good faith edit might look like vandalism if the editor isn't familiar with Wikipedia, or what's allowed on it. Vandalism will often be unsourced personal insults, or deletion of sections or articles. A good faith edit might be information formatted incorrectly or not written to Wikipedia's standards. An example of a good faith edit that'd have to be deleted is a section about a popular but uncomfirmed/unreported on rumour about personal beef between two celebrities. An example of vandalism would be an editor going onto the page and defacing it, then linking the page to that of the other celebrity. Here are some example edits. For each diff provided, state whether the edit is good-faith but unhelpful, or is pure vandalism. If it is a misguided good-faith edit, state why it is unhelpful or against policies. 1) Special:Diff/962964771 A: The edit is in good faith but unhelpful, being original research. 2) Special:Diff/962963456 A: This is vandalism. 3) Special:Diff/962963060 A: Since this isn't information on the bird itself, this should be on the talk page. 4) Special:Diff/962963337 A: Testing shouldn't be done on a mainspace page. Now it's time to practice edit reversion for real. Find and revert three unhelpful edits, warn each user with the appropriate template, and state whether the edit was good-faith but unhelpful, or vandalism. A good way to find unconstructive edits is through the edit filter log, although not all edits caught by the filter are vandalism. 1) Misguided or vandalism: 2) Misguided or vandalism: 3) Misguided or vandalism: Dealing with difficult users Why do we deny recognition to trolls and vandals? Because trolls find it fun to upset others online. If they can provoke a reaction, they'll stay. How can you tell between a good faith user asking why you reverted their edit, and a troll trying to harass you? You can spot a troll by EXCESSIVE USE OF CAPS LOCK, inflammatory words, and no want to calm down or listen. Protection In what circumstances should a page be semi-protected? If it's often vandals' target. In what circumstances should a page be fully protected? If changes to the page would break many other pages, e.g. widely-used templates. Or, for extensively vandalised pages. Correctly request the protection of one page (semi or full); post the diff of your request (from WP:RPP) below.

Copyright

Copyright You probably already know that copy-pasting text from elsewhere is strongly frowned upon in Wikipedia. It's one of the things newer editors often fall foul of. Copyright, because it has legal ramifications in the real world, is one of the most important things to get right here, and for the same reason, is also a bit of a minefield. I've prepared a short quiz to test your understanding of the major issues, however you'll need to do a bit of background reading first. The principal pages that cover copyright issues are as follows: Wikipedia's official copyright status and licensing Wikipedia's policy on copyright violations Wikipedia's policy on image copyright Instructions on donating copyrighted material All the answers you're likely to need should be in one or more of these pages. 1. You find a book on Amazon that appears to be reusing the text of Wikipedia articles - in fact, they proudly announce it on the cover! The book costs £20.00. Are they allowed to use other writers' work to make money in this way? If so, why? If not, why not? A. Yes, because anyone is allowed to freely reproduce Wikipedia's text content. 2. Is it ever permissible to copy and paste text from another website to Wikipedia? If so, under what circumstances would this be allowed? A. Yes, if the content is public domain or the author has given permission for its use on Wikipedia (or if the editor authored the original content). 3. A new user uploads a picture of Tony Blair from a newspaper article in the free newspaper The Metro. The newspaper has national circulation, and is read by millions of people daily, so the image is already readily available; it's also easy to find on Google Images. Is this picture: a) Acceptable under "fair use"? b) Acceptable because it's in the public domain? c) Acceptable because it doesn't cost anything - the newspaper is given away for free? d) Acceptable for some other reason? e) Unacceptable because it's under copyright? f) Unacceptable for another reason? Please give a brief reason for your answer. A. Permission must be obtained to reproduce images under copyright. If it's in the public domain, however, anyone can freely reproduce and adapt it for any purpose. Owning a copy of the newspaper, and it being easy and free to own a copy of the newspaper, doesn't mean the rights to its contents are as freely available. The use isn't transformative and isn't (or shouldn't be) criticism of the picture itself, so its use is not protected under "fair use". 4. You find a new article that appears to contain a block of text (about half the article's content) which has been copied directly from a non-free source. The rest of the article seems to be original material. What do you do? A. I remove the material, and tell the editor to rephrase it before its readdition. 5. An editor adds some text from a website that he owns the copyright to. He has issued a statement on the original website saying that, "the content of this site can be freely used on the English version of Wikipedia". Is the text acceptable? If not, why not? A. No, because once text is on Wikipedia it's allowed to be used by anyone. Its use can't be limited only to the English language Wikipedia, due to the nature of licensing on Wikipedia. 6. A user uploads an image that he has created, a Microsoft Paint version of a diagram from a copyrighted work. His version is all but identical to the original, but is definitely his own work. Can this image be used on Wikipedia? A. No, because it follows the original too closely and is supposed to substitute the work exactly. 7. Some images may be better off being uploaded to Wikimedia Commons rather than Wikipedia. To which project would you upload the following: a) A screenshot from Doom 3'. b) An image from Flickr that had been released under a CC-BY-SA licence. c) A scan of a medieval painting, dating to 1223. d) A photograph of Ian Botham that you took yourself at a cricket match. e) A picture of your hand, taken by your cousin (he says he's happy for you to use it however you see fit). f) A low-resolution copy of a company logo. A. a) Wikipedia, it seems unlikely to be used anywhere else b) Wikimedia Commons c) Wikimedia Commons d) Wikimedia Commons e) Wikipedia, there are enough pictures of hands on Wikipedia Commons, so a hand specific enough to have a new upload must have a specific use in the article f) Wikipedia, unless the company is only just notable enough to have its own Wikipedia page the logo will likely have some especial reason to be included in the article 8. The subject of an article, a minor local celebrity, has uploaded a promotional photo of himself, taken at a book signing, to use on his Wikipedia page. Does he own the copyright to it? Can it be used on Wikipedia? A. As a 3D object, the photographer owns the rights to their composition. So no, he doesn't own the right to the picture unless it's a selfie. 9. A new editor wants to use text from her website on Wikipedia. Assuming that the text is suitably impartial and that she isn't affiliated with the subject, what would you advise her to do in order to allow Wikipedia to use her work? A. I'd advise her to write a release notice on the site hosting the original content. Then, I'd tell her to use the text release template in the talk page of the article. 10. An editor adds the text, "Carter's discovery of the tomb created a sensation in London, where he was widely celebrated. Banners were hung in his honour, and a national holiday was declared," to the article Howard Carter. The source provided for this text (a recently published book on Carter's life) contains the wording, "His discovery of Tutankhamun's grave created a sensation back in London, where he was heavily feted. People hung banners from their windows in his honour, and the Queen declared a national holiday." Has the editor committed a copyright violation? A. Yes, because the material is only slightly rephrased.