User:The Transhumanist/Virtual classroom
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Virtual classroom on advanced Wikipedia skills
Forum for discussing advanced editor topics - anything goes Become one with the wiki Welcome to the Virtual classroom. This page hosts presentations, focussed discussions, question and answer sessions, and other classroom assignments covering the various activities of developing and maintaining Wikipedia. Anybody and everybody are welcome to join in and participate. If you are a beginner and have found this page, be sure to see also the New contributors' help page and the Help desk. The goal here is to fine tune our Wikipedia skills. You are welcome to join in to learn, teach, or both! |
| Pages you might find useful on Wikipedia | |||||
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| Wikipedia:Contents Centralized directory to the encyclopedia proper, and a key issue here |
Department directory Centralized Wikipedia administrative directory |
Adopt-a-User One-on-one mentorship |
Curriculum Essential reading for becoming a well-rounded Wikipedian |
Editor review Where contributions to Wikipedia are evaluated by peers |
Live chat rooms Dynamic interaction with editors who are online right now. |
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- To display the above box on your userpage, use {{VC assignments}}.
{{User:The Transhumanist/Virtual classroom/Userbox}} :
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Virtual classroom. |
Welcome to the Virtual classroom. As time progresses, sections for discussion and assignments will be added, in which participants are encouraged to share and compare their philosophies, approaches, tools, and methods. A general Q&A section is also provided for asking any question you want. Also feel free to respond to anybody else's posts with questions or comments. This is a completely open learning environment, so come on in and enjoy yourself. Let the fun begin...
The new lesson is up. You may be familiar with the threat of vandalism and the constant war that is raging to keep it under control. Well, another not so well known war is being fought against a similar but distinct problem on Wikipedia: Link spam. Many people place links on Wikipedia that don't belong, for various reasons, and our anti-spam teams are struggling to keep up. Below, Yuser presents this dimension of wiki-maintenance, and explains how you can help fight the good fight. Viva la Wikipedia! The Transhumanist 22:49, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- Topics of discussion here are open-ended, so our previous discussions are presented below as well. Feel free to contribute to those too. --TT
Contents
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[edit] Yuser, on fighting linkspam
Linkspam is the name for links added to Wikipedia to advertise a company, website, or organization, or that divert readers to an unrelated destination. Linkspam is often off-topic, placed in articles that the links have nothing to do with. On-topic links to non-notable websites are also considered linkspam. Wikipedia is not an advertising service. Linkspam detracts from Wikipedia's content and degrades its quality. Because of Wikipedia's long-standing policy of open access, linkspam remains a perennial problem, much like vandalism, and Wikipedians must diligently fight linkspam wherever it appears.
This guide is specifically for the English Wikipedia, but very likely will be true for other Wikipedias with little modification.
[edit] Spambots
Spambots are programs or scripts ("bots", or "robots") designed to automatically run a user account to add spam links non-stop at fast rates. They are tireless and may continuously add three to six links per minute, but the actual number varies and some spambots can be slower or faster than this. If allowed to continue, a spambot can do a huge amount of damage to Wikipedia. As a result, Wikipedians must swiftly stop them. Because spambots are simple programs that lack conversational ability, a spambot posing as a user will usually ignore any message you add to its user talk page. If you discover a user you think is a spambot, get administrator help or report the spamming account immediately.
[edit] Spammers
Spammers are users who place linkspam on Wikipedia. The links they add nearly always lead to external websites, often of a commercial or unsuitable nature (e.g., porn), though their motive isn't always to make money. Spammers usually work fast, placing spam links rapidly one-after-another. Spammers tend to focus on commercial-related articles, such as "Credit card". Most spammers do not respond to messages posted on their talk pages.
[edit] Who in the world would want to spam Wikipedia?
Many spammers are just people linking to their hobby site, or to a web forum they enjoy. These users may not be familiar with Wikipedia policy nor realize that their links are inappropriate. Sometimes companies hire professional spammers to spam Wikipedia for the purpose of increasing their search engine ranking. Some have the simple motive of advertising directly on Wikipedia to increase their website traffic, regardless of how it disrupts operations here.
[edit] Spotting linkspam
[edit] Types of linkspam
- Promotional spam links
Spam links are generally added for the purpose of promoting a company, organization, or website. These are referred to as "promotional spam links". Requests for discussion with these people are usually completely ignored, and the same link is typically added to many articles. Most often, links are added to articles related to the subject of the website in question; for example, a website named "http://www.books.com" would usually be added to "Books", "Online books", and other articles of similar nature. Sometimes spam links are added that appear to be free but gain money from a large assortment of banner ads. Sometimes users insert spam links that stand to make no money whatsoever. Regardless of financial gain, promoting any company, organization, or website is link spam.
- Off-topic spam links
Another genre of spammers are those who add links unrelated to the subject title, usually with a misleading description or edit summary. These people tend to include links to "shock sites" or other websites of an inappropriate nature, and are nearly always acting maliciously.
[edit] Where are spam links added?
- Where on a page
Many spam links are added to the "External links" section of articles, but occasionally they might be posted to the "See also" or "References" sections by mistake. For that reason, look for these section titles when examining edit summaries.
Some links are added using standard format:
[http://www.example.com Example.com has *the best* range of products and examples available on the web!]
Or, just as often:
http://www.example.com - Example.com has *the best* range of products and examples available on the web!
Experienced, possibly repeat, spammers might use the <ref> ... </ref> tag in mid-article:
... Wikipedia is a free,<ref>[http://www.example.com Example.com has *the best* range of products and examples available on the web!]</ref> open-content encyclopedia ...
- What pages are most susceptible
Quiet, backwater articles are generally the most vulnerable, in the long run, to spam attacks. Popular biographies are also susceptible. Extremely general articles tend to be a frequented area for spammers who don't understand how focused Wikipedia tends to be (a lyrics database spam link on Song is a good example). Articles about cities, counties and states tend to get spammed by organizations based within their borders. Practically all articles about commercial topics are likely to get "hit" at some time.
The wording of a sentence can "provoke", or facilitate, spammers - here are a couple of examples:
- "Soap.com was set up in 2007 for the purpose of selling best-quality soaps."
- In this case, the "selling best-quality soaps" will often provoke a commercial spam link.
- "Engineering.com claims to excel in designing fine cars."
- "Claims to excel" and "designing fine cars" are likely to give spammers fun.
Therefore, it is very important that any articles on commercial topics are written from a neutral point-of-view.
[edit] Examples of Spammer Contributions
[edit] Make sure it's spam before you remove it
Before removing links, as described in the next section below, it is important to check the spammer and the spam links:
1. Has every single edit the spammer has made been to add a link?
- Check the contributions page for the user you suspect of being a spammer, and examine the pattern of the user's edits:
- Has the spammer edited more than one page recently?
- Has the spammer added the same link to each page? Is there no edit summary, or is the edit summary the same each time?
2. Does the spammer respond to talk invitations?
- Be sure to give spammers at least two chances to reply before reporting them. The reason for this is because it is possible they were editing a page while you sent them the message, and therefore won't notice it until they exit the edit window. If they add another link after that, then they have obviously seen and disregarded the message, in which case you should take one of the steps listed below in the "reporting spammers" section.
-
- If the spammer responded, was their response uncivil or obstinate?
3. Is the website strongly biased or in some way promotive of a product?
- Promotive websites tend to "puff up" their product to make it seem better than someone else's. See WP:PEACOCK for examples of promotional language unsuitable for Wikipedia articles.
If any of the above is true, the link is probably spam, and should be removed by following the instructions below. If you suspect a link is spam, but aren't sure, ask for assistance from one of the anti-spam teams presented later in this article.
When dealing with spammers, it is very important to assume good faith. Though remember, while you should assume that an edit was made in good faith in absense of evidence to the contrary, that does not mean that you should automatically assume an edit is good for Wikipedia. Remove inappropriate links on sight, regardless of the intentions of the editors who posted them.
Occasionally, an editor in good standing will add a spam link in good faith, believing it to be an appropriate external link. If it is linkspam, it should still be removed, but in these cases, rather than reporting the editor or using warning tags, discuss the matter with the editor on his or her talk page. If the editor disagrees that it is spam, do not overlook the possibility that you may be mistaken - seek to reach consensus by discussing the matter on the article's talk page.
[edit] Dealing with spammers and linkspam
So, you've spotted a link spammer. Now what?
It's time to deal with both the spammer and his spam links...
[edit] Removing spam links
Carefully following the advice in this section is very important. There are two ways of removing spam links! I tend to favour the second method, but it is only really of much use when a spammer is adding (not modifying) the same link on many pages and the link is clearly inappropriate for Wikipedia. I'd personally recommend using the first way when you detect a spammer and then following up with the second if required.
[edit] The first method
This method requires basic knowledge of reverting. If you don't know how to comfortably revert yet, I'd recommend asking an administrator or other experienced user for help.
- Warn the spammer using one of the warning templates described below.
- Click on the spammer's "contributions" link, or enter the full URL into your web browser manually. It will be:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/USERNAME
- where 'USERNAME' is the spammer's username. (Substitute spaces ' ' in_the_username_with_underscores '_', not '-'.)
- Click on the "diff" link.
Tip for those using a tabbed browser: You can open multiple tabs with each of the articles. Right click (ctl-click on Macs) and select "Open Link in New Tab" or something to that point.
- You should see an "undo" button at the top of the right-hand diff. Click it.
- Append "rvs", "rv spam", "reverting spam", or some other descriptive edit summary to the end of the summary box.
- Click "save".
- Click the Back button on your web browser two times, and move on to the next "diff" link.
- When you have undone all the spammer's contributions, click the Reload button on your web browser, and see if the spammer has made any more contributions.
- If so, give them a higher-level warning, and if they spam beyond a recent final warning, see here - just make sure they have made at least two edits since you issued a final warning them (remember the "two chances" rule above).
- Restart from step three again if necessary.
[edit] The second method
Being simpler than the first method, this is probably a good way to start off removing spam links if you're new, or want to make a mass-removal of a link. Before implementing it, however, check that the link is clearly inappropriate - ie., open it in your web browser to check. I am generally assuming the spammer has already been blocked.
- Manually maneuver your web browser to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Linksearch
- or click here.
- Enter the URL you wish to remove in the box and click "Search".
- Open each page provided, and scan the edit box for the link in question. When you find the link, remove it and all the text associated with it.
- Tip for those using a tabbed browser: You can open multiple tabs with each of the articles. Right click (ctl-click on Macs) and select "Open Link in New Tab" or something to that point.
- Append "rms", "rm spam", "removing spam", or some other descriptive edit summary to the end of the summary box.
- Click "save".
- Click the Back button on your web browser two times, and move on to the next page until you have done all of them.
[edit] Warning templates
"Warning templates" are templates that, when used on a spammers "talk" or "discussion" page, produce a message of a specific severity. Increase the warning level if spam links continue be added after the previous warning. Do not report spammers for blocking unless they have recently received a final warning, notably {{subst:uw-spam4}}. (Note that the boxes in the examples below were provided for the purposes of this lesson, and are not included with the actual template messages.)
[edit] {{subst:welcomespam}} will produce the following message:
Welcome
Hello and welcome to Wikipedia. We appreciate encyclopedic contributions, but some of your recent contributions seem to be advertising or for promotional purposes. Wikipedia does not allow advertising in articles. For more information on this, see
- Policy on neutral point of view
- Guideline on spam
- Guideline on external links
- Guideline on conflict of interest
If you still have questions, there is a new contributor's help page, or you can write {{helpme}} below this message along with a question and someone will be along to answer it shortly. You may also find the following pages useful for a general introduction to Wikipedia.
- The five pillars of Wikipedia
- How to edit a page
- Help pages
- Tutorial
- How to write a great article
- Manual of Style
I hope you enjoy editing Wikipedia! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. Feel free to write a note on the bottom of my talk page if you want to get in touch with me. Again, welcome!
You should use it as the first warning for people who are good-faith spamming to their hobbyist website, for example.
[edit] {{subst:uw-spam1}} will produce:
Use it as the first warning for spammers whose links are unsuitable, but not malicious.
[edit] {{subst:uw-spam2}} will produce:
Use it as the first warning for spammers whose links are clearly inappropriate or out-of-place, but not malicious.
[edit] {{subst:uw-spam3}} will produce:
Use it as the first warning for spammers whose links are obviously inappropriate, and likely being added in bad faith.
[edit] {{subst:uw-spam4}} will produce:
Use this message as the first warning for spammers who are maliciously adding spam links in bad faith. This warning is also technically interpreted as "final".
[edit] Reporting spammers
- For long term, repeat spammers, see What to do about long-term spammers, below. If you think the spammer is actually a spambot, you should report it right away.
Before reporting a spammer to be blocked, check that they:
- Are spamming now.
- Have received a final warning (ie., {{subst:uw-spam4}}) in the last 24 hours.
If the spammer satisfies both the above requirements, report the user on the intervention noticeboard by editing the section named "User-reported". Add users to the bottom of the section. When reporting spammers, use a description like this:
For a registered user:
{{vandal|USERNAME}} - spamming past final warning. ~~~~
For an anonymous IP:
{{IPvandal|IP}} - IP spamming past final warning. ~~~~
Then enter an edit summary including the username of the spammer, and click "save".
[edit] What to do about long-term spammers
Repeat offenders are a special problem for Wikipedia. Long-term spammers are harder to detect than casual or begginner spammers, as they tend to be more discrete in the way they spam, such as intermingling many good edits with an occasional spam link, and often attempt to wikilawyer their way out of trouble when they are caught.
If you believe you have found a long-term spammer, report him or her on the administrator's incident noticeboard. Be sure to include the following information:
- The username of the spammer.
- Why you believe they are a long-term spammer.
- The length of time the spammer has been active.
- Provide evidence, such as pages hit, links added, and spammer patterns - provide a permanent link to the diff for each incident.
- Any specific behavior that indicates the spammer is malicious and not just a mistaken editor.
For the edit summary, enter "Spammer alert", followed by the spammer's username, and click "save". Keep an eye on the discussion and be ready to answer questions and to clarify on any points you might have missed.
[edit] Anti-spam teams you can join
If you have a real interest in removing spam, you might wish to join one or more of the following projects.
[edit] Projects
- WikiProject Spam focuses heavily on removing and locating spam.
- Recent Changes Patrol is a good way to find spam by monitoring the Recent Changes list.
[edit] Real-time chat rooms
Wikipedia is assisted by IRC channels on the Freenode network. To access them, you will need to have an IRC client loaded. The spam-related channels are:
- #wikipedia-en-spam - this channel contains bots that attempt to detect spam on the English wikipedia.
- #wikipedia-spam-t - this is a live (real-time) discussion about spam.
[edit] Tools for spam fighters
For more information see WP:WPSPAM#Tools
There are several tools that are available for the regular user who would like to defeat spam. Existing bots can also aid you in eradicating linkspam.
- Shadowbot is a bot created by Shadow1 that automatically reverts spam sites on its blacklist. You can add requests for sites to be blacklisted at User:Shadowbot/Blacklist requests.
- The IRC chatroom #wikipedia-en-spam is a very good place to spot spam as it has been added to Wikipedia; there are bots that report on every external link as it is being added to Wikipedia.
- Special:Linksearch - find all external links to a particular site, useful when a spam link is added by many different IP addresses or accounts.
- To combat repeat offenders, you may request to have links added to the Wikimedia-wide spam blacklist.
- Daily digests of the logs from the linkwatcher, to see how many times each link was added and by whom: User:Veinor/Link count (today's page: here, or here if the previous is a redlink).
[edit] Questions and answers
If you have any questions, please ask away! If you know the answers, please share your insights! Also feel free to add new lesson subsections above with your comments, observations, and how-to expertise on link spam.
[edit] Q: Is link spam a form of vandalism?
- A: From Wikipedia:Vandalism:
-
- Vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia.
- The answer, therefore, depends if the spam is being added maliciously to harm Wikipedia (adding links to shock sites, for example). Generally, someone adding a link on a relevant article to their company website would not be attempting to harm Wikipedia, simply increase their web traffic. Because of this, it is always a good idea to assume good faith when dealing with spammers.
Q: A while ago I had a huge spam fight with a guy who'd copied dozens of wiki-pages, pasted them into his own geocities page, covered in adverts. It may be instructive to see what this guy did - start at User:Acaca1 and see what he did. He also made dozens of sockpuppets to add similar links. Is there an easy way of tracking this down by, for example, searching using Google on urls? I ended up actually going to his website, making a note of all the pages he had copied, then heading back to WP to watch all those pages for his linkspamming.... The Rambling Man 20:55, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Learning the ropes
This lesson is specifically about how to use Wikipedia to learn about Wikipedia. Here we will point out all the resources dedicated to help you help Wikipedia. This isn't just for beginners; below we cover how to learn in general, which can be applied to any particular skill or area of activity on Wikipedia. Enjoy. The Transhumanist 09:23, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Learn your way around...
Here's a quick overview of Wikipedia's structure...
[edit] By name
To access an encyclopedia article directly, type the topic or subject into Wikipedia's search box, and click "Go". If an article by that name exists, it will be displayed on your screen. If an article with that exact name doesn't exist, the program will automatically look for near matches (in the titles and content of pages) and display the matches it finds in a list for you to choose from. If you pressed "Go", and got an article you weren't looking for, press "Search" - that'll bypass the viewing and will execute the match search just described.
For instructions on how to access other page types besides encyclopedia articles, see the section immediately below...
[edit] By namespace
Wikipedia can be considered to be two-levels deep. The top level is the encyclopedia itself (the collection of articles about every subject under the sun, and beyond), and it is therefore the easiest to access - simply enter the name of the article you wish to view in Wikipedia's searchbox. The section of Wikipedia that the articles are on is called the "main namespace". It is Wikipedia's default namespace - pages from all other namespaces must have their namespace specified in searches or links (followed by a colon). But not articles in the main namespace. Because they're the whole point of Wikipedia.
All of Wikipedia's namespaces other than the main namespace can be considered Wikipedia's 2nd-level. For a list and explanation of these, see Help:Namespace.
[edit] By link structure
Almost every page on Wikipedia is connected within a massive web of links. Some pages are more centrally connected than others and serve as tables of contents or directories to the information on Wikipedia. These pages are presented in Wikipedia's 3 main navigation bars, found at the top of the very same pages, the navbars allowing for easy movement between and browsing of these pages. Each of these navbars is just one-click away from Wikipedia's Main Page...
The following navbar presents the tables of contents to the encyclopedia itself, and is accessible from the Contents link on the Main Page.
Contents · Overviews · Academia · Topics · Basic topics · Tables · Glossaries · Portals · Categories
Wikipedia's main help pages are available on the navbar below, which is accessible from the Help link on the Main Page and on Wikipedia's navigation menu (in the sidebar).
The next navbar shows the Wikipedia community's main directories and resource pages, and it is accessible from the Community Portal link in Wikipedia's navigation menu (in the sidebar). Note that policies and guidelines are listed on the shortcuts directory.
Community · Directory · Maintenance · Projects · Quick directory · Requests · Shortcuts · Tips · Tools
[edit] Other major link structures
When looking for subjects relevant to any particular page you are viewing, be sure to check the page's "See also" section (if it has one), and also the "What links here" command in the toolbar menu on the sidebar on the left-side of your screen (the location of this command on the page varies if you have selected a skin in "my preferences").
[edit] Learn by reading and doing
The most direct way to learn is to just jump in and try to do things. Instructions on just about every aspect of Wikipedia are available to assist you in your endeavors...
[edit] Help pages
Wikipedia's instructions manuals, and recorded know-how:
- Help:Contents - Wikipedia's core instruction manual.
- Wikipedia:Tutorial - Quick lessons on all the basics of editing an article in Wikipedia.
- User:The Transhumanist/Virtual classroom - lessons on key Wikipedia subjects. (Like the one you are reading right now).
- Wikipedia:Help desk - While this is the place to ask questions about how to use Wikipedia, it is also a great place to read the answers to questions asked by others.
- Wikipedia:Help desk/Archive - More of the above.
[edit] Pre-answered questions
Just about every question you can think of has probably already been asked and answered on Wikipedia, somewhere. Save time by looking them up directly. Here's where to find them and their answers:
- VFAQ - the questions asked the most often about Wikipedia, and their answers.
- FAQ - If you have a general or fairly basic question about how to do something on Wikipedia, the chances are that your question is asked and answered here.
- Wikipedia:Help desk/Archive - all the questions ever asked at the help desk are kept here. If you read through a few hundred questions and answers, you will have a pretty good feel for Wikipedia's operations.
- Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive - like the help desk, but the questions and advice are far more complex, tricky, or expert-level. If you read a few thousand of these questions and their answers, you'll be a Wikipedia expert (or well on your way).
[edit] Learn by asking
If you can't figure something out or are having trouble finding what you need to know, ask. Keep in mind that most questions that have been asked before, and their answers, are immediately accessible. See Pre-answered questions, above. Here's where to ask new questions, or questions you can't find the answer to:
[edit] Help forums
Volunteers are standing by...
- Wikipedia:Reference desk - where to ask encyclopedic questions (real-world-subject-related, like "How many species of porcupine are there in North America?")
- Wikipedia:Help desk - ask questions about how to do something on Wikipedia, and receive answers fast.
- Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance) - more hands-on than the help desk.
- Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) - where to ask the most difficult quesitons.
[edit] Asking users directly
Another approach to asking questions is to ask specific users directly. There are many places to find the right user to ask:
- Wikipedia:Welcoming committee/members - these are experienced Wikipedians dedicated to assisting newcomers and to answering their questions.
- List of Wikipedians by number of edits - the most prolific (and most experienced?) Wikipedians can be found on this list.
- List of administrators - one of the prime requisites for becoming an administrator is a willingness to help other users. That's what they're here for.
- WikiProjects - most WikiProjects have a list of members. Wikiprojects are devoted to particular subjects in the encyclopedia. If you have a question related to the editing of articles in a particular field, these are the people to ask.
- Departments - to find someone to answer departmental questions, check the edit history of a department's main page to see who works on it the most. Chances are they know the department well.
- Category:Wikipedians - many users identify their areas of expertise and the level of their expertise using userboxes or category tags, which automatically lists them in the directory of Wikipedians presented in Wikipedia's category system. You can find experts by subject (such as historians) or by skill type (such as programmers).
[edit] Learn by example
Where to find mentors and role-models:
- Wikipedia:Adopt-a-User - if you are new, you can get "adopted" by a more experienced editor, who will help teach you the ropes.
- Wikipedia:Admin coaching - if you know your way around but would like assistance in advancing your skills further, this program is for you.
- Study the contributions of the experts - when you are viewing a userpage or user's talk page, the "user contributions" command is displayed in the toolbox menu on the sidebar. Click on it to see a record of all the edits a user has ever made to Wikipedia. To learn how such user operates, go to each of the pages he or she has edited and study their edits. To find someone to study, see the Asking users directly section above.
[edit] Learn by teaching
As mentioned in the previous section, the following programs are for receiving training. What may not be as obvious is that the trainers may learn from the experience as well. Like, what do you do if students ask questions you don't know the answers to? You find out the answers, so you can teach them! And your students will probalby ask about things you've never even heard of, taking you in new directions.
- Wikipedia:Adopt-a-User - as long as you have 500 edits and haven't been blocked in the past 6-months, you can be an adopter.
- Wikipedia:Admin coaching - coaching isn't limited to admins. Any experienced Wikipedian can coach.
[edit] Learn from feedback
Learn from your mistakes, by having others point them out to you...
- Wikipedia:Editor review - Have other editors evaluate your contributions and identify the areas you need improvement in, and suggest ways to improve.
- Wikipedia:Requests for feedback - Where to ask for feedback on a specific article, and thus on any writing you contributed there.
[edit] Questions and answers
If you have any questions concerning the subject of this lesson, or would like to open a related issue for discussion, please post them here...
[edit] Elaragirl, about deletion and deletionism
Deletion refers to the processes used on Wikipedia for removing articles, images, miscellaneous pages, user pages, stubs, and categories. While any user (with a fully activated account) can create new pages on Wikipedia at any time, this is not the case with removing pages. Wikipedia has very strict policies and procedures for the removal of pages in various circumstances, generally requiring group discussion and finally a sysadmin to do the actual removal. This is necessary to prevent the most destructive forms of vandalism and censorship which, if direct deletion were allowed, could cripple Wikipedia, making large sections of it unavailable at any given time.
[edit] Why do articles get deleted?
Articles usually get nominated for deletion for one of three reasons:
- They cannot be verified. In order to conform to policy, each article must present reliable source references which support its facts. By extension, Original research is disallowed and is subject to deletion, as it can't be verified with reliable sources. Original research is anything that hasn't been reported in reputable public media, and includes things like your personal discoveries and observations, personal opinions, and speculative writing. [Your essay "My trip to the zoo last Friday", or your unpublished or non-notable treatise on "The fine art of nosepicking" are not appropriate because they are directly from the source (you), though Wikipedia does have an article on nosepicking. -TT ]
- They have to be notable. While Wikipedia theoretically has infinite space for any topic, we cannot currently prevent vandalism, false information, or copyright infringements on many articles. As a result, Wikipedia has a strict list of things we don't allow. Many articles about lesser known events -- local musicians, websites, companies, small groups, minor business or educational professionals, and the like -- simply aren't noted enough by the public to be worth the opportunity cost of maintaining an article on such. Articles can show notability by having a source that shows external coverage of the topic.
- They have to meet legal requirements. Biographies cannot contain libel, for example. We are limited in what we can use that isn't freely licenced, and we cannot accept any copyrighted material without specific permissions by the copyright owners.
Comment: Note that most articles do not (yet) have references included. This brings up the obvious questions "Why haven't they been deleted?" and "Why were they allowed to be placed on Wikipedia in the first place, without references?" The simple answer is "Wikiprudence".
Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. If article submissions were somehow blocked for lack of references, then far fewer people would submit new pages to Wikipedia because tracking down references is a lot harder than simply writing what you know about a subject from memory. Plus, there is no easy way to automatically check articles for appropriate references - that takes humans to do.
To require human screening of new articles would create a huge bottleneck which could significantly delay the display of new pages, which might also discourage participation. So, new pages without references are allowed to be added to Wikipedia by default, even though they are in violation of Wikipedia's verification policy. Any such page is subject to deletion at any time, but the deletion process provides the opportunity for fixing any problems before a final decision is made, so it's not as bad as it sounds.
So far, most pages that lack references have never been nominated for deletion, because it isn't typical for a user to nominate an article that seems plausible or conforms to what the user already knows about the subject. This is mostly because there are so many other more important things to do on Wikipedia with one's scarce resource of time, such as delete articles which are blatantly false. So many editors prefer to tag an article with requests for reference citations, or to track down and provide the references themselves, rather than nominate such articles for deletion. --The Transhumanist 02:11, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Correction: the only policy governing content is verifiability, original research (none is allowed) and What Wikipedia Is Not, to keep this an encyclopedia. There is no requirement for references or "notability". Dan100 (Talk) 12:33, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Comment - when considering criteria for deletion such as "Original research, violates WP:NOR policy", it is worth remembering that "Article contains original research (commonly abbreviated to OR)" and "Article is OR" are two completely different things.
- "Article contains OR" is not a criteria to delete an entire article, just to remove those sections. The remaining material should then be judged on its own merits. (Example: an article about zoos in general, which also includes "My trip to the zoo last Friday".)
- "Article is OR" should be used when the vast majority of the article's content is OR, or the article's very topic is OR. In such cases, the article is a valid candidate for deletion. (Example: an article solely about "My trip to the zoo last Friday".)
However, even an article that is mostly OR might contain some well-sourced material. This material might be suitable to be merged into a "parent topic" article. For example, an article about a music single might contain a large amount of OR. The OR can be removed, and any sourced information remaining can be merged into an appropriate article - one about the album that single comes from, perhaps. Once any useful content like this has been salvaged, the article can be deleted. Quack 688 01:27, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
- Comment
- : Unsourced articles are kept even after screening because editors assume good faith that these details can become sourced. Most of the unsourced materials that get kept are those which do not include overwhelmingly weird claims and personal experience, just factual information which are verifiably correct (not the sense of "verifiable" in WP:V, but the sense that one can repeat the experiment and get the same result). If the writer can put the information here, he can also publish the same information elsewhere. By then it is quite likely that the information can become sourced. --Deryck C. 18:20, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Why do other pages get deleted?
Images are usually deleted because of copyright problems - if the proper release isn't included, an image must go. User pages and categories and the like are internal matters that are deleted either because they are disrupting Wikipedia, or to make way for a more efficient method.
[edit] A five-step approach to deletion
Before we cover the specific procedures on how to delete articles, lets examine how the deletion processes and policies are best applied, including a rational approach to deciding whether or not an article should be put through the deletion process in the first place. The deletion process can use up a lot of time and effort on the part of many users, and if this can be prevented through forethought and article revision, then so much the better. The following five step approach helps keep things in perspective, and ensures that the deletion processes are not misapplied:
- : Verify
- : Determine
- : Examine
- : Submit
- : Review
[edit] Step One: Verify if the article in question can be improved rather than be deleted
This simple step is often ignored, especially by Wikipedians scanning over new pages contributed by anonymous authors, but you should always do it. Many people create stubs, or very short articles, with the intention of trying to expand them later. Many of these article may, at first glance, fail Wikipedia policy. See if you can find any sources easily with a 2 minute Google search. See how many Google hits the article has. If you can't easily find any sources and there are very few Google hits relating to the article, go on to step two. If you CAN find sources, though, go ahead and add references to the article. Make sure it is categorized correctly, add the appropriate stub template if applicable, and if it's not a stub tag it as in need of expansion. (Tagging means placing a standard template message on the page, usually at the top). This simple process will ensure that others can expand the article, and that if someone comes across it looking for information, they will have sources to explore further.
[edit] Step Two: Determine if the article violates any speedy deletion criteria.
Some people would make this the first step, but that would be incorrect, since some articles that are notable might be written in a way that doesn't assert notability, or might include original research you can remove. However, if you've gone through step one and can't find good sources, check the article against the list of speedy deletion criteria. Here's my rule of thumb:
| “ | If an article fails one or two criteria, you can speedy delete it. If it fails more than two, you should understand that whoever created the article clearly does not understand how Wikipedia works, and may remove your speedy deletion tag. | ” |
A speedy deletion tag is not supposed to be removed, but it happens, and if you aren't watching or do a large number of speedy deletions, you may never notice. While there are people who watch all changes to Wikipedia in real time, they may not catch it either.
In any event, if you find an article that fails the criteria, tag it appropriately. If the tag stays, then it will get deleted in short order by an administrator. If it gets removed, you should leave a warning on the talk page of the user who did so asking him for an explanation. If you don't get one, proceed to step three.
What to do if it doesn't fail any speedy criteria but you can't source it? Proceed to step three.
[edit] Step Three: Examine the article for formal deletion criteria
Assuming that the article isn't a speedy candidate or you don't feel like mucking with speedy deletion with a stubborn author who keeps removing the tag or who disagrees it meets a CSD criterion, you can take the article to Articles for Deletion. But prior to doing that, make very sure you can find a reason why the article should be deleted. The reason must be based on policy!
Cruft is not a policy, nor is "I don't like it". Policy is a requirement to put an article up for deletion. If the article is unsourced, but verifiable and doesn't violate any other policies, you cannot delete it. However, if an article contains original research, or cannot be verified, or lacks notability under a guideline, or is a point-of-view article, or any of the other deletion criteria, then you can list it at articles for deletion.
Again, always review what you submit before submitting it. A person who nominates a lot of articles for deletion that don't actually fail policy may be considered disruptive or even a troll. If you can find reasons to delete, list it for deletion and proceed to step four.
Comment - Some examples of formal deletion criteria can be found in the following sections of WP:DELETE:
Problem articles where deletion may be needed
Problem articles where deletion may not be needed
Quack 688 02:06, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Step Four: Submitting to Articles for Deletion
Once you've listed the article on "Articles for Deletion", other Wikipedians will discuss and present their viewpoints. After several days, an administrator will review the arguments made and determine if the article should be kept or deleted. It is considered bad form to nominate an article for deletion multiple times within a short span of time, particularly if there was not a close decision.
Whether an article is kept or deleted, you should examine the logic and the reasoning given by the closing administrator. Most of the time, the admin makes the correct decision. However, occasionally, the admins get things wrong. An admin who simply doesn't like an article might delete it against consensus. Alternatively, an admin with a personal interest in an article might keep it, even if valid policy reasons have been given for its deletion.
IF and ONLY IF you can find SPECIFIC REASONS why you are SURE an admin closed a deletion discussion the wrong way, should you take take it to Deletion Review. Do NOT take things to deletion review just because you don't like the outcome, particularly if you feel the article should have been deleted.
[edit] Step Five: Review the article at Deletion Review if needed
Listing an article at deletion review is the last court of appeals for an article. It is NOT a second vote for deletion, but is only to specifically review the circumstances that led to the closure of an deletion discussion. You should only make arguments towards that end. For example: An admin closes a discussion with 10 delete votes based on policy, and two keep votes with no policy or rationale for keep given, as a keep. Obviously the admin's closing was flawed, so you can take it to Deletion Review. However, if the article was kept by every other participant than you, and you feel upset, you cannot take it to Deletion Review.
Now it's on to the deletion procedures themselves...
[edit] The four deletion processes
Before we cover what you can and should do, let's cover what you should not even attempt to do. You do not delete an article directly. Do not blank a page to delete an article (that's considered vandalism and can get you in trouble). The physical removal of articles from Wikipedia is handled by its system administrators, usually after they are nominated for deletion, and then based specifically on the outcome of the corresponding deletion discussions called Articles for deletion. Sysadmins are entrusted to enforce and abide by Wikipedia policy, and therefore even they cannot go around deleting anything they want. Those who do don't remain administrators for long.
In addition to the above safeguard, there are very strict deletion criteria, which users engaged in deletion discussions are required to consider. Wikipedians do not allow most pages to be deleted unless those pages violate a policy or fail to meet notability standards. In many cases, an article can be improved by rewriting part of it, by adding source references, or by other corrective measures, thereby making deletion unnecessary.
That being said, there are four deletion processes:
- Speedy deletion is for things that blatantly fail Wikipedia's policies of what should be included in the encyclopedia. Pages that attack people or are nothing more than vandalism, spam, or blatant copyright violations are subject to speedy deletion. For example, a page which was created for the sole purpose of displaying the message "Charlie Hackmaster is a %#&*head" can be speedied.
- Proposed deletion is for when an article fails a criterion, but not one that allows for speedy deletion. Experienced Wikipedia users call this prodding an article, because the template used in this procedure is called prod. A deletion proposal should present an uncontroversial reason, that no one would oppose. Anyone can contest such a deletion proposal if they think the article should be kept and can cancel the proposal (by removing it). If the proposal is cancelled without the problem being fixed, the issue may proceed to a deletion nomination (see below).
- Deletion debates, take place when articles are nominated for deletion, and are where users examine such articles and try to come to an agreement on whether or not they should be deleted. While this agreement consensus is indicated by votes of keep or delete, the administrator who closes a discussion will interpret the votes based on the comments each user made in the debate, and according to Wikipedia policy (closing admins can override consensus when such consensus violates policy). Deletion debates can delete anything, but you will be discussing it with other people, so be polite. Each page type has its own deletion debate section on Wikipedia, for example Wikipedia:Articles for deletion and Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion. These debates are collectively called XfD by experienced Wikipedians, because the shortcuts are WP:AfD, WP:CfD, WP:IfD, WP:MfD, WP:RfD, WP:SfD, and WP:TfD (for articles, categories, images, miscellany, redirects, stub types, and templates, respectively), and each page includes instructions on how to nominate a page of that type for deletion.
- Admin discretion - Finally, admins can delete things unilaterally, if they are harmful to the Wikimedia Foundation. Admins are under a lot of scrutiny, so the reasons for such a deletion must be blatantly obvious and uncontroversial.
Each of these processes is dealt with in more detail below:
[edit] Speedy Deletion
As mentioned above, the "Speedy deletion" policy is a way to delete some very limited types of articles or other pages "on sight" without further debate, as in the cases of patent nonsense or pure vandalism. Speedy deletion is usually the first step in the process of deletion analysis.
[edit] What are the Speedy Deletion Criteria
These are the most common criteria you will use. See the pages on criteria for speedy deletion for the full list.
| Code | Description | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| G1 | Patent Nonsense | Gibberish. Ex: "23983292dkkjkd lollll!!!" Nonsense is NOT bad spelling or punctuation. |
| G2 | Test Pages | Pages conducted as experiment. Ex: "Can I make a page?" Note that a page that is an outline is NOT a test. |
| G3 | Pure Vandalism | Pages that are nothing but vandalism. Ex: a copy of penis, with stupid jokes. But check the history FIRST to make sure the page wasn't vandalized and actually has good content. If it does, simply revert the vandalism. |
| G4 | Already Deleted Material | The recreation of stuff that was deleted using an AfD process. |
| G5 | Banned User | Any page created by a banned user should be deleted. Make sure you check the block log to ensure the person really is indefinitely banned, and the user was banned when creating the page. |
| G10 | Attack Pages | Page created for no other reason than to attack someone. Ex: "Bob is a cow!" Be very careful with this code, as it is sometimes misused. |
| G11 | Blatant Advertising | Spam. Ex: "Buy WhiteRite today, for cleany shiny teeth!" The advertising must be BLATANT -- a link to a website is not advertising ... unless it's the entire article (in which case you can just use A3). |
| G12 | Copyright Infringement | For clearcut cases of copyright infringment. Ex: exact copy of a copyrighted website, down to spelling errors. |
| A1 | No context | Ridiculously short articles with no context. Ex: "Bob is a famous doctor." Try to get an idea of notability before applying this tag. |
| A3 | No content | Articles which don't contain any content at all, but just the title, maintenance tags, external links, etc. |
| A7 | Non-notability | Unremarkable people, companies, groups, companies, and websites. Ex: "Weebritz is a web forum with 10 members" Like above, try to see if you can find notability before applying the deletion tag. |
Ensure you use the right reason. Ensure, doubly so, that your reasoning is both logical and factual. Do not simply throw a tag on an article. Take some time, at least five minutes, to research it properly.
[edit] How exactly do I list an article for Speedy Deletion?
Once you are assured that the article is indeed a Speedy Deletion candidate, you follow a two-step process.
- Step One: Place the appropiate template on the page of the article, at the very top of the page. A list of the templates can be useful in identifing the proper one to use.
- Step Two: Place a notification on the author's talk page. There will often be an example of what code to use at the bottom of the template you apply; for instance, you can type {{nn-warn|name of article}} ~~~~ when warning a user about an article that you've nominated for an A7 speedy deletion. This allows the person to fix the article if needed, by using a {{hangon}} tag.
[edit] Tips on Speedy Deletion
- If the article is clearly garbage, make very sure you review the entire history. Some things may look like crap but have been vandalized. You should do this with all deletions, but it's particularly important in speedy deletion.
- Speedy deletion can work quickly, but remember that the speedy tag can be removed by the author. It's generally not worth it to make a huge edit war over this, just take it to AfD instead if it happens.
- If someone uses a hangon tag, it's generally a good idea to be helpful in trying to fix the article. Some articles are created as frameworks and don't immediately show notability.
- ALWAYS make sure you leave the user notice when you speedy delete. Since speedy deletion can happen quickly, not doing so leaves you open to charges that you are not following process correctly.
[edit] Proposed Deletion
Proposed Deletion is pretty simple, and straightforward. If an article meets the standard (not speedy) criteria for deletion, such as violations of unreliable sources, verifiability, original research, and the like. It should only be used when things are uncontroversial. In practice, that's pretty rare.
To prod an article, simply place a prod tag on the article page like this: {{subst:prod|reason goes here}}. If the prod is removed, take the page to AfD if you think it still violates policy.
[edit] Tips for Proposed Deletion
- : Prods are best used on articles that haven't been edited in several months, have a single editor, and appear inactive. An active article that is inappropiate for Wikipedia should be taken to AfD instead, since a prod can be undone legally by removing the tag.
- : Prods are usually deleted with some rapidity, but there can be a backlog. Sometimes, the deleting admin will remove your prod if he or she feels it doesn't apply.
[edit] Deletion debates
| Deletion Debates |
|---|
| Articles (by category) |
| policy - log - tools |
The main way to delete an article is to use the Articles for Deletion page. The AfD page has a very good explanation of how to list an article for deletion so I won't repeat it here. Instead, I'll make a few observations:
- This is not a vote: When articles go up for deletion, users examine the article and the deletion argument and make suggestions that resemble a vote, such as "keep" or "delete". However, the purpose of XfD is to decide whether an article fails a policy. Even if 40 people vote to delete, if they don't have a reason to do so, the article will be kept. -
- A good vote has a policy attached: The best votes, for keep or delete, include the proper policy to back that vote up. Don't just say "per nom", come up with your own reason.
- Don't vote keep because you like it.: The idea of voting is bad, but voting based on your personal stake or impression of the article is worse....
- Don't vote delete because you hate it: This is even worse than voting keep without a good reason. If you want something deleted, find a policy that supports your view. Don't just spam (delete, stupid author) or whatever.
- Civility is paramount: Being rude only undercuts your argument, and makes it less likely people will view your AfD in the impartial atmosphere you need.
[edit] Administrative Deletion
In very rare cases the administration of the Wikimedia Foundation will step in to resolve a dispute, such as when the bureaucracy of Wikipedia is being abused, or a conflict spirals out of control and is wasting an inordinate amount of human resources. Such was the case with the deletion debates concerning Brian Peppers, in which Jimbo Wales finally stepped-in and personally deleted and temporarily "salted" the article until February 21, 2007.
[edit] How do I get an article back?
In the unhappy event you are the author or significant contributor to an article that has been deleted at AfD, you may have two options open. If the article was speedily deleted as nonsense, an attack page, a copyright violation, or if it was deleted by adminstrative oversight, then you are better off leaving it deleted. Recreations of such content can be construed as trolling.
However, if you feel you can work on the article enough to fix it, or that the deletion process was unfair to the article, you have two choices.
[edit] Deletion Review
Deletion Review is the high court of appeals for deletion cases. If you believe that an article was improperly deleted because proper procedure wasn't followed or some policy was broken or ignored, then you may submit the article for Deletion Review. Deletion Review is not another deletion debate. Its purpose is to determine if an AfD discussion adhered to policy, including the way it was interpretted and closed. If your article was listed at AfD and the discussion was closed as delete after 54 minutes, then you have a case. If your article was put up at AfD, ran for 5 days, and everyone but you voted to delete it, then you most likely do not have a case. Some people frown very strongly on spurious submissions to Deletion Review, so be sure you have a valid argument.
[edit] Userfication (aka: "Content review")
If a deleted article is not inflammatory or otherwise disruptive, and you want to work on it in your user space, you can ask an admin to give you a copy to put in your user space. Or you could post your request at WP:DRV#Content review. Instructions for userfication are also included there.
In your userspace, such articles are usually immune to XfD attempts as long as you are working on it to make it fit wikipolicy. Do NOT link to it outside of your user space, or attempt to get things to link to it. Don't game the system.
Once the article has been brought up to standard, move it to article space, and then request that the history of the original page be restored, at WP:DRV#History only undeletion. This is so that all authors of the article are credited (as per Wikipedia's content license requirements), and for reference and communication purposes (so the previous editors can be looked up and contacted if the need ever arises, etc.).
[edit] Article re-creation
There is no policy against article re-creation, provided you act in good faith and did your best to adhere to Wikipedia policy. But in the case of a topic which has been repeatedly voted down, it may be "salted" (replaced by a protected notice page) to prevent re-creation. If the topic becomes eligible (like a previously obscure web site which has suddenly garnered a lot of popularity and press), then you may make a request for page unprotection so that you can re-create the page. (Requests for unprotection are handled on the same page as requests for page protection).
If the topic of an article is deemed inappropriate (due to lack of notability, for instance), then the article should not be re-created (until the notability of the topic itself changes).
- For example, an article is written about a virtually unknown author who wrote a single book which sold no more than 500 copies which received no coverage in the mainstream or even field-specific press. According to Wikipedia policy, the author is non notable and should not be afforded an article. Therefore the article gets nominated for deletion and during the debate the "delete" votes prevail. But a few weeks later, the author appears on Oprah and the book sells a million copies. The topic now qualifies for inclusion in Wikipedia and the article can be re-created.
If an article is nominated for deletion because the quality of its contents are not up to par (such as lacks references and depth), you can save a copy to your user space before the article is deleted. Once you have fixed the article and it no longer violates Wikipedia policy, it can be moved back to article space. Be sure to explain on its talk page how the article no longer violates policy, and how it has been improved.
Tip: If you believe an article (which you find useful) is in danger of getting deleted, you can save a copy of the article in your user space or off-line on your hard disk.
Tip: To keep your user space from getting cluttered, you can save articles vertically in a "stack" by using a single page in your user space to store them. Each time you wish to add an article to the stack, blank the page, cut and paste the new article to the page, and save. The previous article is preserved in the page's history. Be sure to indicate the name of each article in its edit summary, to enable you to find it later.
--The Transhumanist 14:18, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] What are the guidelines in deleting things?
Here are some relevant guideline shortcut pages.
WP:NOT WP:OR WP:V WP:N WP:RS WP:MUSIC WP:BIO WP:CORP WP:SCHOOL WP:DEL WP:OFFICE WP:SPAM
Here are some quick guidelines:
[edit] Copyright
- If it violates copyright in any way, it has to go.
- If ALL the pages in the history are copyvios, place a copyvio deletion tag on it ({{db-copyvio}}).
- Otherwise, revert back to the first page that doesn't contain the copyvio.
[edit] Verifiablity
- Check the verifiability of the article yourself.
- Make sure you do at least a quick search for sources.
- Articles without any sources that make large claims are almost always deletion worthy.
[edit] Notability
- Be aware of sub-types of notability, such as WP:MUSIC, WP:CORP, and WP:LOCAL.
- Notability is under a lot of changes recently, so review WP:N when you can.
- Subjects that aren't notable generally get deleted, but most things that fail notability tend to fail verifiability as well.
[edit] Encyclopedic
- Review WP:NOT for a good idea of what not to make into the subject of an article.
- Instead of deletion, encourge transwiking topics to other wikis like Wikitionary or Wikibooks.
- Remember that Wikipedia is not censored. Offensive content can still be encylopedic.
[edit] Purpose
- Attack pages must go, post haste.
- Inaccurate and unsourced biographies of living people MUST go.
- Any article that doesn't SEEM to openly violate polcies but reads like an ad should be closely reviewed.
[edit] Deletionism & Inclusionism
Deletionism and Inclusionism, while most often represented as black and white opposites which completely oppose each other, are really two ends of a continuum. Wikipedians' inclusion standards all lie somewhere along the line between "include everything" and "delete everything"; inclusionism and deletionism are shorthand terms which describe the small number of Wikipedians whose views sit at the lowest and highest ends of this continuum.
Inclusionism holds that articles that do not violate instant deletion issues (such as blatant copyright violations or attack pages) should not be deleted if there is a way for them to be expanded. They tend to point more towards expansion of stubs, finding sources for articles without sources, and editing to make most articles suitable for Wikipedia. Or to simply leave the article in place so that others can come along and improve it. However, a common criticism of Inclusionists is that they advocate cleanup and sourcing but rarely perform such acts themselves, which only leads to ever-increasing backlogs of unsourced articles. Inclusionists may point out that Wikipedia is by default unsourced, and that WP:VER isn't applied consistently - if it was, then most of Wikipedia would be up for deletion. Inclusionists bitterly dislike the idea of notability, stating that it is being used as a club to prevent anything non-mainstream from being included in Wikipedia. They may argue that if a subject or field is mainstream enough to have an article on Wikipedia, then its subtopics are eligible for inclusion as well.
Deletionism holds that articles that do not meet the basic policies of Wikipedia and cannot be immediately fixed with a minimum of effort should be deleted. Deletionists tend to rely on the direct and literal reading of particular policy and dislike the idea of putting things such as sourcing articles or removing original research off, since it usually never gets done. However, deletionism is under increasing criticism due to the fact that many deletionists spend more time deleting things than creating articles, and that many deletions are either railroads of articles that could be expanded or rely on increasingly specific deletion criteria that continue to tighten. Deletionists bitterly dislike the principle of rules like WP:IAR and statements that Wikipedia is not Paper due to the fact that they feel such are allowing cruft (content of importance only to a small group of enthusiastic fans) into an otherwise factual wikipedia.
It is worth noting that there are roughly 400 to 500 inclusionist editors, and perhaps a total of 200 deletionists. This is out of over 3,000,000 users. Even assuming that 75% of the userbase is nothing more than sockpuppets or onetime users, the combined inclusionists and deletionists make up less than 0.002% of total users. Yet they account for at least 55% of all XfD activitity. This means that, while factionalism is seen as bad on Wikipedia, both Inclusionists and Deletionists are seen as disruptive at times. It is always best to judge each article up for deletion on its own merits and not to align yourself with any faction.
- Comment I think there are various problems with this section; the criticisms of both inclusionists and deletionists are essentially stupid ones (although they are indeed common ones), and the statistics as to the number of both inclusionists and deletionists are not remotely accurate. Every Wikipedia editor falls somewhere along the Inclusionist-Deletionist continuum, even if many don't know the terms, we all have our own attitudes and beliefs as to what our policies should be and what should or shouldn't belong. And, from what I've observed in the WP:IAR talk page, it is the inclusionists, in fact, who dislike IAR, at least at the moment. --Xyzzyplugh 00:09, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Other considerations
- Always remember that someone might have put a lot of hard work into an article, even if it doesn't fit Wikipedia's policies. Being uncivil and derogatory usually generates more ill will than such comments are worth, so try to avoid it.
- Never, ever vote "per nom". Examine the article when voting for deletion, and make your OWN choices.
- If an article violates a policy and you're voting in AfD, don't just say "fails WP:POLICY", but explain how it fails it. If it fails WP:RS, then say "All the sources are from fansites and there is no independent media coverage, and some sources are just blogs."
- If you vote to "keep and cleanup", be prepared to clean up. I, for one, keep a close eye on articles where this seems to be the consensus, and I will take it back to AfD after a month or so if no one bothers to touch the article in that time. To vote for keep and cleanup and then not clean it up is just lying.
- Don't try to solicit votes to keep or delete an article. It's tacky, and it's a violation of policy.
- Comment - I disagree that one shouldn't post brief "delete per nom" or "delete per policy" votes. Frequently deletion is the obvious choice, and the nominator has already thoroughly explained why. However, AfD debates frequently end up getting relisted because they didn't get enough responses, or consensus wasn't reached. If only one person votes Delete along with the nominator, article may get relisted, so even one additional "delete per nom" can save the trouble of relisting. In addition, if there are only two delete votes, and someone comes along and just types "keep" with no reasoning, article could get relisted. "Delete per nom", while being a bit lazy, can be useful. --Xyzzyplugh 23:59, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense
Hey, here's a deletion topic we missed...
Sometimes a bad page is so bad that it is actually good, er, funny. And even though you know and agree that it should be deleted, it feels like a shame to get rid of it. Well, Wikipedia has a place for such pages, called Wikipedia:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense. You'll be surprised what some people have posted as articles on Wikipedia. So the next time you want to relax and need a good laugh, check it out.
[edit] The profanity/sexual jargon deletion war
There seems to be a constant battle on Wikipedia between those who wish to create lists and glossaries of profanity and sexual slang words (and neologisms) and those who enforce policy. Such lists violate WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Even though there is an exception for glossaries in the policy, that exception pertains to glossaries of technical or specialized terms needed to support Wikipedia subjects and articles. The argument that glossaries of sexual slang are needed for article support generally falls on deaf ears (blind eyes?), and such pages are axed again and again. Sometimes the battles are lengthy and arduous - the participants may fight over every single edit (between AfDs) - and though it may take the enforcers 2 or 3 AfDs to finally get rid of a list, in the long-term they generally prevail.
Currently, the following sexual jargon pages (or pages which include sexual jargon) still exist on Wikipedia, but for how long?
- List of Japanese sex terms - it has undergone (and survived) 2 AfDs so far.
- Mandarin slang - it has survived at least one AfD.
- Singapore sexual slang terminology - it has survived 1 AfD so far.
All of the English lists that I know of are gone. Though lists (or additional words) appear in related articles from time to time, but are generally removed (unless they are links to actual articles).
Why am I mentioning all of this? Because it is deletion-relevant and because...
What the builders and supporters of such lists often don't realize, at least with the English word lists, is that they are reinventing the wheel and are therefore wasting their time. Almost every conceivable sexual slang word known to Man has already been posted to Wikipedia (at least in English), and deleted, and yet... they are still here for kicks and grins. They're in Wikipedia's alternative deletion graveyard mentioned above. And these pages are open for adding additional terms. Each such collection lasted on Wikipedia for years before finally being "deleted". So instead of wasting your time trying to add similar (English) terms or lists to Wikipedia's article space, why not just expand the lists that already exist? They are a lot more fun to "work" on, because there's a lot more to work with because they aren't censored at all. Here they are:
- Wikipedia:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense/Body Parts Slang
- Wikipedia:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense/Sexual Slang
- Wikipedia:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense/Toilet Slang
And just when you thought we had had covered everything on deletion. Well, we haven't. There are more deletion-related links provided below.
[edit] Where can I learn more?
- WP:DRV - deletion review: instructions and proposal department
- WP:DRV#Content review - covers userfication, and is a request department for same
- WP:DEL covers deletion policies.
- WP:V covers verifiability.
- WP:RS covers what is a reliable source.
- WP:AFD covers the criteria for deletion.
- WP:OR goes over original research.
- WP:NOT is a good start on finding inappropriate article types.
- WP:N, and its subsets WP:BIO, WP:CORP, WP:MUSIC, etc, are good for determining notability. Be aware that WP:N was recently changed.
[edit] Discussion
[edit] Deletion of good articles
(Question copied here from The Transhumanist's user page, since it is relevant to this topic):
I have seen you around here on Wikipedia and have noted that you are among the more intelligent of Wikipedians (your work with virtual classroooms is outstanding). I've had this issue bugging me for a while but I wasn't sure who I could talk to about it. After reading your profile, I think you might know how to deal with this issue.
Recently, it seems that many high-quality articles are up for deletion quite often. Yes, there are the dozens upon dozens that are blatant advertising or spam, but now a large number a day seem to be up for deletion. I'm not sure what I (or anyone) can do about this.
Lost and confused, S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 01:48, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] It's censorship
- It comes in two basic forms on Wikipedia...
- The most prevalent form of censorship on Wikipedia currently is deletionism, which is the Wikiphilosophy that holds that if an article isn't complete (or good) enough, it isn't ready to be displayed on Wikipedia. In the face of the vast number of stub articles on Wikipedia, and the fact that many of our volunteers make small contributions at a time, this approach is rather absurd. One argument for deletionism is that Wikipedia is mirrored all over the internet, such as on http://answers.com, and therefore it should hold to professional publishing standards and only provide finished (polished) product.
-
- One counter argument is that Wikipedia is a work in progress being constructed by volunteers (that is, it relies entirely on volunteers to build it), therefore it should take advantage of any work (contributions) which volunteers make, regardless of how small. When additions are removed, they aren't there for others to work on and build upon (or for others to read!), so in this sense, it's taking a step backwards; but more significantly, it harms Wikipedia by disallowing collaboration.
-
- Collaboration on Wikipedia for the most part consists of multiple users contributing to an article, but this becomes difficult if articles are removed for insufficient content - you can't build upon what isn't there! The easiest way for editors to find each other to collaborate is by going to the article they are interested in. Many may not know about draft hosting nor know how to find a draft hosted in someone's userspace. Deletionism unbuilds Wikipedia. It's like there's an unwritten rule that if you don't give a certain amount of material at one time (a whole article), you can't give at all.
-
- Noteworthiness is another major issue for deletionists, in which they favor the mainstream. So if an article isn't noteworthy in the general sense even though it may be noteworthy in the field to which it pertains, it may have some trouble getting past the deletionists. Fortunately, the deletionists are opposed by the inclusionists and incrementalists... and by the vast number of contributors to Wikipedia - currently, there are just too many people adding material to Wikipedia for the deletionists to keep up with. See meta:Conflicting Wikipedia philosophies, meta:Deletionism and meta:Inclusionism.
- The second and more insidious form of censorship on Wikipedia is information suppression. This is when users delete articles they don't agree with or because the articles don't support their agenda. It is akin to book banning (and burning). It's harder to spot, because the censors don't cite the real reasons why they are trying to delete the articles. From what I have observed, it appears that the policy used the most as the basis for such deletions is Wikipedia:Verify. Since citing sources is policy (mandatory), and because most of Wikipedia doesn't cite sources (and is therefore in violation of policy by default), WP:VER is the most readily available weapon for censors. The only effective defense against this argument for deletion is to provide references (that is, actually do the research, find, and post the references in the article). See: Wikipedia:Censorship and WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not censored.
- What's the solution? The solution is: Vigilance...
- Deletionism is easy to deal with. The deletionists love Wikipedia every bit as much as the rest of us. They're not against additions to Wikipedia per se, just additions that aren't up to their standards. The solution for articles which aren't complete enough is to complete them. The solution for non-noteworthy articles is to provide references of their noteworthiness; failing that, save them off-line or in your userspace until they become noteworthy.
- Information suppression is harder to deal with. Censorship isn't allowed on Wikipedia, so if someone really is purging material from Wikipedia due to some bias or special interest, then an RFC can be started once enough evidence of policy violation is gathered concerning his or her behavior. But that is a lengthy process. In the meantime, more damage is being done, and has to be opposed directly. The only way to solve the problem of censorship is to fight it at every level...
- In the deletion debates, you've got to address whatever the reasons given for deletion are and fix the article so that they no longer apply. Once done, make sure you place a note at the top of the deletion debate for the closing admin pointing this out. Otherwise, the admin might just count the votes and not even check the article. If everyone's concerns are met, then the consensus is to keep.
- Beyond the debates, articles which aren't "salted" (protected) can be re-created from scratch, or simply reposted once they are fixed/improved. Material may be relevant in other articles, so the parts that are can be included in those articles.
- But to re-use information in such a way, it is of paramount importance TO SAVE A COPY OF THE ARTICLE BEFORE IT IS DELETED. You can save it off-line, or in your userspace. If you don't make it in time, don't panic -- you can request that an admin make a copy of the article to your userspace for draft purposes (admins have access to Wikipedia's deleted articles). This can be a pain, so it's best to make a copy beforehand.
- At the risk of sounding redundant, the best defense against censorship/deletion is to save a copy. So if there is an article you are worried about, save a copy of it right away. If you put it off too long, you may be caught off-guard by a red-link. If you do come across a red-link for which you know there was a good article there before, look up its deletion debate to see if you can do anything about it. If fixable, edit or redraft the article, and repost it.
- While there may be nothing you can do to keep censors off of Wikipedia, it is your duty as a Wikipedian to fight censorship wherever you find it on Wikipedia. The only way to beat censorship is to fight it, and that means get the word out. Be ready to repost the information in some form somewhere. Also don't let censors operate in a vacuum. Bring their activities, or the material in question, to the attention of others. There are forums all over Wikipedia for this. See: Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Request comment on articles, Wikipedia:Requests for feedback, and Wikipedia:Third opinion.
- I hope this helps. Go get 'em!
- Sincerely, The Transhumanist 05:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Bone to pick with deletionists
(copied to here from user pages, by --The Transhumanist)...
Hey Pascal,
For some reason, many deletionists have really be egging me lately. You are one of the few self-proclaimed deletionists who goes out of his way to make Wikipedia a better place and you don't seem to fit the deletionist stereotype, as I've seen you try to save several articles.
Anyway, after spending a few months here on Wikipedia and many hours in WP:XFD, I've come to think that many deletionists are just too lazy to contribute by adding new information. I don't know whether this opinion is misguided or not (and if I ever ran for RFA, I'm sure this will come back to bite me), but it seems that many of those who claim they are deletionists would rather just stay in WP:AFD and !vote "delete" down much of the list instead of adding new information to Wikipedia. To mask their laziness, they use the guise of the Wiki-philosophy Deletionism. Why improve an article when you can point out its faults and then delete it?
Confused and in need of advice,
S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 03:16, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
- Deletion and deletionists and some thoughts...
- Hello Sharkface. I think you first have to assume that everybody involved around AfD and other Wikiplaces believes that they are working for the good of the project. Of course there's enough vagueness in the whole concept of Wikipedia that it's just normal to find that people are sometimes pulling in different directions. Sometimes (actually oftentimes) you get the feeling that the community's decision is mistaken but overall anyone has to admit that the whole thing is fairly successful.
- A while back, I spent quite a bit of energy arguing for the deletion of Category:Terrorists. As it turns out, the category was kept and I still believe this to be a mistake (look at the debate if you want to know why, but that's not really relevant here) and it left me with the sad feeling that too many editors were not taking enough time to think things through. But I accept the consensus not because I believe that it always ends up being the best choice for the encyclopedia but because it allows the project as a whole to run smoothly. The only thing I can do when I find I'm in disagreement with the majority is to make my point as clearly as I can and hope that this will sway opinion. If it doesn't happen, well so be it, I move on and continue to do my bit to help
- A similar situation arose around the time I was up for RfA: I argued for keeping List of hookers with hearts of gold and as you may remember this had people screaming bloody murder and frankly people that argued that I was bringing up ILIKEIT arguments were either acting in bad faith or had not read that debate. This is how Wikipedia works: you make your point, you respect others' opinions and when all is said and done you go with the flow, even when you feel the decision is ill-advised.
- Deletionists, like me, tend to view deletion as something less than catastrophic and are worried that articles on extremely fringe topics, almanach-like trivia, vanity or fan-boyish biographies, etc, end up costing Wikipedia a considerable amount of editing time and are skewing its reputation. Consequently, they end up voting for deletion in a lot of AfD debates. Save for the occasional wacko, they don't do so out of lazyness: they believe that some articles are not worth saving. I take it you disagree with that position and that's fine with me. Just remember that people on the other side of the fence also believe they're defending Wikipedia's best interests. When you feel that deletion of a specific article is particularly problematic, take the time to argue your point, take the time to expand the article and demonstrate its worth, take the time, if need be, to ask deletion supporters to expand their arguments. If that does not work, then just accept that you disagree with the majority and work on something else. Surely, you won't lose much sleep if Mongolian Barbecue Great Place to Party is deleted but even in cases that you feel more strongly about, don't be bitter when you see the decision not going your way.
- Well, ok that was a bit of a longish reply, sorry... Cheers, Pascal.Tesson 04:27, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
-
- Wow, Sharkface, that's an excellent way to insult a lot of people. I happen to be a very strong deletionist, yet I have created 20 + sourced, complete articles; massively contributed to at least 20 more; hundreds of minor contributions; started a wikiproject to review deletions, and various other activies. Oh, and I wrote this article on deletion. Yeah, I'm 'lazy.
- If anything, I'd say more often than not it's inclusionists who fit your definition of lazy. They have no problems with adding "information" to the Wiki, but they don't think it's important that this information be sourced, verifiable, or that it's even important to anyone. Some of them feel that if it's important to anyone it should exist. When asked to source, they don't. When they vote to keep and cleanup an article, they don't. If you call them on it, they tell YOU to do it since it bothers you. And so forth.
- Quite frankly, when I hear someone is "frustrated" with "deletionists" I see contributions that are marginably notable, conflicting, or don't have good sources along with editors who seem to think they are the only ones acting in good faith and that anyone who ever votes to delete their article, even if it's completely made up, is evil. So much for assuming good faith.
- Contributors like you make me wonder why I even bother with Wikipedia. --ElaragirlTalk|Count 08:44, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
-
-
- Elara, while I admit that the once pseudo-private discussion between me and Pascal (who I have have regard for as a fine editor and consider to be a person who I certainly look up to) isn't really assuming good faith on the part of "deletionists", I'd like to note that you're not assuming that I have good faith. My apologies if my question to Pascal offended you. Admittedly, I was a bit tired that day after browsing through WP:AFD (although I know that is no excuse for the incivility of my question) and I certainly didn't mean that question to Pascal to be as inflamitory as you made it out to be. Honestly, I was just having a bad day and I needed some advice. I did not expect the conversation to be taken here (although I guess I must assume that in the future all my work will be under the microscope, more so than now). If anything, I would ask that you not reply to my question to Pascal (what I assumed to be a question between fellow editors) and instead reply to my question to The Transhumanist, found in the discussion above this one. I was much more civil in asking that question and less inflamitory. Again, I am sorry if I offended you and I hope to be more civil in the future. S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 20:29, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
- Oops. Sorry about that. You've been marked for deletion. Now 200 deletionists will be rabidly hunting you! My fault.
But you're not alone, man. I've had the same impression of AfD'ers from time to time. It can be rather frustrating when you are trying to save a savable article and nobody will lift a finger to help (and in one sense all typing is is lifting, and dropping, fingers). And you watch helplessly while everyone there simply votes to kill the article. It's easy to pronounce sentence on something... much harder to actually work on it -- and that goes for deletionists and inclusionists both. But that's the way Wikipedia is set up. Just be glad that only a select and trusted few have the ability to remove articles from Wikipedia. Imagine what it would be like if we didn't have the deletion debates. Anarchy. Wikipedia would be like an unguarded sandcastle on the beach.
- On the bright side, the way Wikipedia is set up is rather smart (and cool)... because there is no policy that an article can't be re-created. So, if an article is deleted for lack-of-quality or incompleteness reasons, you can rewrite or revise the article and repost it. As long as you have addressed (and fixed) all of the concerns in relevant AfDs, there shouldn't be a problem with the re-created page. Unless of course the article is on a topic that is deemed inappropriate for Wikipedia (where the subject matter itself violates policy, like an article on a non-notable author), then you really shouldn't be trying to re-create such a page.
- I believe the most painful deletion experience is when a page you've written (or worked on a lot), or one that you really like, gets axed without your knowledge, and you discover it only when you try to go there and it just ain't there anymore. For newcomers that can be especially traumatic, since they don't know that they may be able to resurrect the page, first by looking up the deletion debate to see why it was deleted and whether or not it is fixable, second by requesting of an admin that he or she copy it (from the deletion graveyard) to their user page for repair/editing, and third by fixing it.
- Keep in mind that mirrors of Wikipedia don't get updated right away, so that a deleted article may still be displayed on other websites on the internet for days or even a week or more after it has disappeared from Wikipedia. So you can save a copy for yourself from a mirror, or even use it as the basis for a new draft (as long as you follow policy -- blatantly reposting policy-violating content can get you in trouble). One such mirror is http://answers.com. You can use google to find others (by doing a search using the article's name), or wade through Wikipedia's list of mirrors. If you have any doubts about whether you can repost a fixed page, submit a proposal to Wikipedia:Deletion review including a link to the fixed page (in your userspace).
- Deletion isn't quite as tragic as it first appears to be. So don't panic, and don't let it get you down. And remember, when in doubt, ask an admin, or post your question on one of Wikipedia's help forums (like WP:HD). I hope these tips help. The Transhumanist 12:13, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
- Oops. Sorry about that. You've been marked for deletion. Now 200 deletionists will be rabidly hunting you! My fault.
- Elara, while I admit that the once pseudo-private discussion between me and Pascal (who I have have regard for as a fine editor and consider to be a person who I certainly look up to) isn't really assuming good faith on the part of "deletionists", I'd like to note that you're not assuming that I have good faith. My apologies if my question to Pascal offended you. Admittedly, I was a bit tired that day after browsing through WP:AFD (although I know that is no excuse for the incivility of my question) and I certainly didn't mean that question to Pascal to be as inflamitory as you made it out to be. Honestly, I was just having a bad day and I needed some advice. I did not expect the conversation to be taken here (although I guess I must assume that in the future all my work will be under the microscope, more so than now). If anything, I would ask that you not reply to my question to Pascal (what I assumed to be a question between fellow editors) and instead reply to my question to The Transhumanist, found in the discussion above this one. I was much more civil in asking that question and less inflamitory. Again, I am sorry if I offended you and I hope to be more civil in the future. S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 20:29, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
-
[edit] Teacher-Student Advice - Deletion "Cliffsnotes"
Good evening (GMT time); I was wondering if there is a policy and guideline resource you actively refer to when XfDing, or if you reccommend any sure-fast resources that can be used to justify your opinion at a XfD?
Kind regards,
anthonycfc [talk] 00:21, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
- Deletion-related motives are closely associated with one's Wikiphilosophy. I'm an incrementalist, for instance. So many of my arguments come from that philosophy.
- The rest of the arguments pertain to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Those two links have brief summaries of each one (and serve as memory boosters). For a firm grounding in the reasons for deletion, you should be familiar with all the policies and guidelines in the deletion and content sections of those two pages.
- I hope that helps. The Transhumanist 06:10, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] The Rambling Man, on vandalism
This is an interview with the Wikipedian known as The Rambling Man, an avid vandalism hunter. Below he shares his expertise on vandalism.
| Vandalism |
|---|
| Dealing with vandalism |
| Resources & assistance |
|
Counter-vandalism tools |
| Further information |
| Blocking IP addresses ISP contact information Don't provoke vandals |
Rambling Man, I noticed you put in over 4,000 edits in the last 2 weeks. Please describe the procedures you use for fighting vandalism.
I also have some questions for you:
- #How do you switch between VandalProof and AWB so fast?
- #Is VandalProof easier to use than Popups for reverting vandalism?
- #Do you feel the warnings posted to users' talk pages about their vandalism help?
- #Do you make use of the Defcon system?
- #Where did you learn how to fight vandalism (what instruction pages did you read, who taught you, etc.)?
- #Do you actually read each edit before you revert, or guess based on certain factors?
- #Sometimes vandalism hunters revert valid edits; how does this happen, and how can it be avoided?
I look forward to your replies. The Transhumanist 11:02, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Hi Transhumanist, thanks for your interest in my recent vandal-hunting exploits! I'd be delighted to respond to your questions.
[edit] How do you switch between VandalProof and AWB so fast?
I tend to kick AWB off with some rudimentary task such as spell checking on a large category e.g. Category:1980 births, set it to skip pages to which it makes no changes and let it run, perhaps even minimising it. Then I get on with VP and focus my attentions on anonymous IP vandalism. Whenever AWB finds a page which it thinks needs changing, the taskbar (I'm running XP) will flash so that I can quickly restore AWB, check that the mods AWB is suggesting are sensible, save or ignore as appropriate, and minimse to get back to VP again. One thing (I'll talk more about shortly) that I would suggest is refreshing VP when coming back to it after a period of time (even a relatively short one) to avoid mistakes...!
[edit] Is VandalProof easier to use than Popups for reverting vandalism?
Yes, oh yes, and thrice yes. VP allows multiple edits to be reverted in one click and adds a suitable warning to the vandal's talk page. VP also allows you to keep track of vandals you yourself have already blacklisted and checks user pages for warnings already posted.
Although mistakes can be made with VP, I believe that even more are possible with Popups.
[edit] Do you feel the warnings posted to users' talk pages about their vandalism help?
Yes, I think that a large proportion of anonymous IP vandals really are testing out Wikipedia and as such the test templates are ideal. In most cases I normally only have to issue a test1 or test1a (for when they blank sections of the page) to first-time vandals and they back down.
Clearly there are serial vandals out there for whom the warnings are useless, but it's right and proper to follow the procedures of at least giving a third and fourth level warning before opting for WP:AIV.
[edit] Do you make use of the Defcon system?
Kind of. I will tend to stay on longer if Defcon is 3 or worse, but on the whole I tend to keep my eyes peeled when the kids in the USA get to school which starts early afternoon for me. In my experience there's usually a huge surge of "blah is a poop head" around that time.
[edit] Where did you learn how to fight vandalism (what instruction pages did you read, who taught you, etc.)?
Learning was (and still is) by just applying the policies as best I can with the tools. I'd recommend WP:VAND, of course, which places considerable emphasis on assuming good faith in all edits before declaring them as vandalism. I do base the level of warning on the type of vandalism - it's a case of trying to judge whether the edit you're about to revert really was a test or if the editor knew exactly what he was doing.
I didn't receive any tuition from anyone really. I spent some time looking at why pages had "rvv" in their edit summary, and spent some time trying to understand WP:EL so that I could keep an eye on spam links being added. I've certainly upset a number of anon IPs who think I'm victimising them, which of course I'm not, I'm just removing their vandalism.
Finally, most of my learning comes from the mistakes I make! Remaining polite, calm and circumspect is very useful when under assault from (righly) disgruntled editors!
[edit] Do you actually read each edit before you revert, or guess based on certain factors?
Both, but it does depend on how VP reports each edit. VP will highlight pages with large changes in the number of characters, so blanked pages or sections of pages stand out like a sore thumb. Generally I'll revert those on sight, but that has lead to one or two mistakes (more below). Large additions from anon IPs also tend to be "blahisgay" copied and pasted a thousand times. This is clearly identifiable from the diff and I'll revert them instantly. Most editors who contribute significantly and intelligently will tend to be logged in. I do spend 99% of my time hunting the anon IPs.
I also tend to seek out changes without edit summaries, although most of anon IP edits are made without them so it can be a false indicator.
[edit] Sometimes vandalism hunters revert valid edits; how does this happen, and how can it be avoided?
Yes, and in the last 4000 edits I have to admit to a few mistakes. The warning VP places on user talk pages encourages discussion if it is believed that the reversion was made in error. I positively encourage this too. In most cases the reason my reversions have been mistakes are that I'm trying to do too much at once. As I said earlier about using AWB in parallel, if I leave VP just before I press the rollback button (in other words, rollback is still available before I go to AWB) and then come back and rollback, there's a good chance that I'll rollback a reversion that VP hasn't seen which took place while I was using AWB. The only foolproof way of avoiding this is to refresh the list of recent changes or click another edit within VP and click back to the one in question. This way VP reloads the edit history and mistakes can be avoided!
Hope some of that helps. Feel free to ask me more about my vandal-hunting, my mistakes or anything else! Cheers! The Rambling Man 16:26, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
| WikiDefcon |
 WikiDefcon 3: Significantly elevated levels of vandalism from shared IPs and experimenting users. |
| [] |
|
Vandalism increasing among new and IP users. (USA and UK schools) IRC user real96, 12:17, 30 March 2007 (UTC) |
Yes, it helps a lot. Thanks. And yes, your answers have brought some more questions to mind:
- 8. #Do you use different browsers at the same time?
- 9. #Do you operate both AWB and Vandalproof in Internet Explorer windows?
- 10. #I just reread the description of your external interface - has that changed at all?
- 11. #What is the difference between vandal hunting and Recent changes patrol?
- 12. #What was the most confusing thing you had to overcome when you started learning how to deal with vandalism?
- 13. #What is your main method of finding vandalized pages?
- 14. #What other methods of finding vandalized pages do you use?
- 15. #Do vandalism hunters work together, or do you all pretty much work on your own? How do vandalism hunters coordinate their efforts?
- 16. #What other kinds of edits do you come across when dealing with vandalism, and how do you deal with those? For example, do you spot them in VandalProof, and then work on them in another window? Or is VandalProof multi-purpose in this regard?
- 17. #Do you use AWB for fighting vandalism, and if so, how?
- 18. #Is VandalProof useful for anything else besides finding and reverting vandalism?
- 19. #You mentioned in a previous discussion that VandalProof is a bit buggy. Are you still having problems with that? Have the bugs been fixed, or have you found some workarounds?
- 20. #What other procedures do you use to fight vandalism?
- 21. #What is the most important thing to keep in mind when fighting vandalism?
- 22. #Do you have any other tips for would be vandalism hunters?
- 23. #I'd like to invite some more vandalism hunters to participate in this discussion. What are the easiest ways to find them?
The Transhumanist 22:09, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Wow... I'm midway through seeing Europe (hopefully) regain the 2006 Mosconi Cup but I'm keen to answer these questions now as I'm out of action for a couple of days. Fingers crossed I don't get too distracted!
[edit] Do you use different browsers at the same time?
- With IE7, we've finally caught up with Safari and Firefox with half-decent tabbed browsing. Unfortunately most developers are still stuck in the land of Windows so I have to revert to my trusty Dell where I can just IE7 on its own. On my iBook I do use both Safari and Firefox together, but unfortunately it precludes the use of both AWB and VP (for the time being...) so I'm stuck with Popups which does tend to blitz Safari. I do confess to being on Mac OS X 10.3 though, perhaps with Tiger or Leopard these problems will go away.
[edit] Do you operate both AWB and Vandalproof in Internet Explorer windows?
- No, they both operate in their own environments, independent of IE. This is a good thing because it means that when IE crashes (does that ever happen?!) then my life isn't overwhemingly disrupted. VP has its fair share of bugs, and it does crash out often. If, like me, you enjoy long sessions (e.g. over a couple of hours), VP becomes very sensitive and falls over a lot. It's been reported to the author and a number of users are hoping for resolution soon. Having said that, the power of the tool by far compensates for the shortcomings.
[edit] I just reread the description of your external interface - has that changed at all?
- No, other than I'm now using IE7 on my Windows platform(s) instead of IE6. The tabbed browsing is good, but still lacking in user friendliness with respect to Safari.
[edit] What is the difference between vandal hunting and Recent changes patrol?
- I do a bit of RC patrol, it tends to concentrate on people using it for attack pages or nonsense pages. These are the pages that I spend most of my time on (without tools) and simply using the {{db...}} templates. Vandal hunting ranges from noticing sections or pages being blanked to individual statistics and references being subtly modified. Vandal hunting and RC patorl are different disciplines, but they most certainly have common elements.
[edit] What was the most confusing thing you had to overcome when you started learning how to deal with vandalism?
- That's an interesting question. I think the most challenging thing was remembering to be bold, in other words, I had to trust my instinct. If someone anonymously changed a number in an article without good reason (i.e. an edit summary) it felt strange to use the tools to suggest that they shouldn't have done it.
[edit] What is your main method of finding vandalized pages?
- With WP:VPRF it's looking at the pages with most added or most taken away. Beyond that I'd suggest heading for anon IP changes without summaries and then after that it's just luck!
[edit] What other methods of finding vandalized pages do you use?
- I look at pages which are frequently vandalised and add them to my watchlist. For example, it was recently brought to my attention that Coventry City F.C. was a frequent victim of anon vandalism. I was asked to repair a partially reverted page and afterwards I chose to watch the page as it was clear that the vandal in question wasn't going to quit. I've also spent some time working (subtly!) within Wikipedia:WikiProject Football and they have a selection of pages to watch which are commonly vandalised.
- Talking to other editors is a good way of working out what will be subject to vandalism.
[edit] Do vandalism hunters work together, or do you all pretty much work on your own? How do vandalism hunters coordinate their efforts?
- As above I use hints from the odd Wiki-project, but generally I'm a independent vandal warrior.
- I'd just like to point out that many vandalism hunters use the #vandalism-en-wp channel on the Freenode IRC network to coordinate reversion efforts.--digital_me 05:10, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
- Yes. A lot of them do. When I used it I found it to be a great tool to use in fighting vandalism. If you are looking to fight vandalism and are interested in a tool check this out. Peace :) --James, La gloria è a dio 22:21, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] What other kinds of edits do you come across when dealing with vandalism, and how do you deal with those? For example, do you spot them in VandalProof, and then work on them in another window? Or is VandalProof multi-purpose in this regard?
- I do find that several edits are well-meaning but badly formed, in other words they're not exactly vandalism but they don't quite meet WP:MOS, say. In these cases I tend to head for the editor's talk page and chat about it, or in extreme circumstances I'll roll back their edits with VP (which allows you to do this without warnings being placed on talk pages) and carry on going for the extremists...
[edit] Do you use AWB for fighting vandalism, and if so, how?
- At the moment, no. I feel that I allow AWB to use my resources to make Wikipedia more accurate and more consistent. It's more of a background tool for me at the moment.
[edit] Is VandalProof useful for anything else besides finding and reverting vandalism?
- Well, it's certainly useful to see how the guts of Wikipedia works. It takes its feed from the IRC which means that it's quick and efficient. Observing how quickly bots and other VP users revert vandalism is an education, some of these guys work at light speed...!
[edit] You mentioned in a previous discussion that VandalProof is a bit buggy. Are you still having problems with that? Have the bugs been fixed, or have you found some workarounds?
- It's still buggy. But the VP community are honest and upfront and we add our comments here. The benefits of the tool by far outweigh its shortcomings. I'd like to see a Mac OS X version, but then I'm a bit of a snob like that!
[edit] What other procedures do you use to fight vandalism?
- I frequently check my watchlist, althought that got up to over 8,000 articles recently so I've cut that down a bit. I'm keen to listen to other users and add frequently vandalised pages to my watchlist.
[edit] What is the most important thing to keep in mind when fighting vandalism?
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- Be prepared to get it wrong. I've made several mistakes with the Popups and VP tools. Just be prepared to discuss it, be humble, apologise and get on with life!
- Be prepared to let it go. So you see an anon edit without summary that changes that population of town X from 10,000 to 15,000. You need to think twice about reverting it, but the key thing about VP is that it encourages editors to discuss their edits. However, we shouldn't bite the newbies and as such you need to be prepared to let some edits go. Either do the research or move on.
[edit] Do you have any other tips for would be vandalism hunters?
- Tips... be prepared to make mistakes, use VP judiciously and be aware that it will lead you astray unless the info is 100% tip-top up to date. I'm predominantly concerned with anon IP vandalism which can be demoralising because the last thing that Wikipedia wants to do is ban schools, colleges etc and that's where most of your daily work comes from. Be patient and cool, enjoy the chase and keep one thing in mind - everything you do should make Wikipedia better. Budgiekiller 23:10, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] I'd like to invite some more vandalism hunters to participate in this discussion. What are the easiest ways to find them?
- It's like being in the A Team! "If you know where to find them..."' and all that. Well, I bump into vandal hunters all the time, especially using VP. You tend to see who's reverted multiple acts of vandalism before you. You could add WP:AIV to your watchlist to see who's adding culprits (us vandal hunters) and who's deciding on whether or not they should be blocked (the admins). This page is frequently backlogged which is a source of frustration to us non-admin vandal hunters. Some vandals can run amock for over an hour after being reported... grrr. The Rambling Man 23:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] General questions for vandalism hunters
Feel free to post more questions for Budgiekiller above, or for everyone in general below. Also please feel free to add responses to Budgiekiller above, and to any answers provided below. The Transhumanist 00:00, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] What are the best methods you use for fighting vandalism on Wikipedia?
Hi, I feel that I have sufficient experience in vandal fighting to answer these questions... I tend to use Lupin's tools... for more info, see here and, extremely helpful, here. These tools are easy to use and quite quick, but save you from downloading any tools. Recent changes is also a good, but somewhat slower way of reverting vandalism, because there are a number of valid edits in there (which is GOOD, but harder to find vandalism in) however, you can see from the edit summaries where some vandalism is. CattleGirl talk | e@ 01:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I like to use VandalSniper both because I like it and because it's my tool. (So I'm a bit biased there.) It's very good at pointing out obvious vandalism by giving a count of lines removed, added, and changed, and it counts the number of words that could be considered vandal slang and/or blatant profanity. It also notifies me -- in real-time -- of changes made to my watchlisted pages and changes made by users that I've added to my VS blacklist. This makes RC patrol much quicker; I can patrol the recent changes, while knowing that my tool is watching users I've flagged as potential problems. I don't need to reload their contributions every 30 seconds to see if they've made any further edits, and any RC patroller knows that this becomes impossible once you've run into just five or so people. --Chris (talk) 19:08, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] How do you find vandalized pages to fix?
Just browsing you tend to find some vandalised pages, but checking out the new pages is always a good way to check for pages that should be speedily deleted. However, I, as I said before, use Lupin's tools, which bring me to a page found in my toolbar. This page filters the recent changes and picks out edits containing words that have been 'tagged', at User:Lupin/badwords. On this page is a "show details" button, which shows a diff of the edit, a rollback (revert) button, which reverts all edits on that page the user has made, a warn button, as well as a link to contributions and the talk page of that user. A really effective tool for reverting vandalism- CattleGirl talk | e@ 01:55, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
- CattleGirl, you mentioned "I use Lupin's tools, which bring me to a page found in my toolbar." What page? What toolbar? How did you set that up? The Transhumanist 05:00, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
- If you have a look on the left hand side of the screen, you will see a Toolbox, with a few links in it, for instance "What links here" and "Upload File", but with Lupin's tools, you have a number of extra links, my favourite being "Filter recent changes"- an effective vandal-fighter. The Transhumanist has posted some more links below- CattleGirl talk | e@ 06:40, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
- To summarize CattleGirl
, and with some additional links, here's a list of pages which can assist you in finding new pages that you can check for vandalism:
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- User:Lupin/Anti-vandal tool - after you have installed the tool in your monobook.js page, you can use it to patrol the following pages:
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- Some other pages to check (using VandalProof, etc.:
- I hope these help. The Transhumanist 04:24, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
If you have IRC (I use Chatzilla) you can look at a bot-feed of anything added to Wikipedia with 'http://' in it - great for removing linkspam (which is a growing problem). The bot itself is named Linkwatcher, and you can see this feed at #wikipedia-spam, or ask about it on its talk channel at #wikipedia-spam-t. It really is brilliant to see; you can just do a couple of middle-clicks from the channel and get the page dif and view the potential spam link, making it simply a matter of to revert changes or not. Those guys love new volunteers too, so hop on over. JoeSmack Talk 16:47, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] What can and should be improved about Wikipedia's anti-vandalism system?
I'd like to see a more effective way of stopping vandals. Just recently I came across an editor who had only made a few edits, including major vandalism and creating attack pages, and these edits were sufficient enough to get him blocked- however administrator's aren't superhuman, and can't get to every blatant vandal all the time. I suppose it's like what The Transhumanist said before- the encyclopedia is growing larger, and we don't have enough admins for it. There are a lot of users out there who would make fine admins, and would like to be an admin, however they have not applied for adminship- it's a matter of encouragement and confidence. CattleGirl talk | e@ 02:01, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Approximately what percentage of vandalism is reverted by the User:AntiVandalBot, as opposed to human editors? Is it growing or shrinking? Do you often clash with AVB when doing your reverts?
I'm not sure about the percentage, however it has over a hundred thousand edits and probably clocks up a few thousand edits per day. Here's its contribs- [1], as you can see, there were too many edits to count! I do sometimes clash with AVB when I revert, in an edit conflict, or sometimes I can't revert at all because it's beaten me to it, but it's a great tool. As the encyclopedia is growing and more users are editing, so are more vandals, and we need as many anti-vandal fighters as we can, both human and bot. CattleGirl talk | e@ 02:14, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
- If I can add to this (:)), I occasionally run User:MartinBot, which is an AVB clone, when the main bot is down. As it's on the toolserver, AVB has a far superior edit rate to any of the clones, and does a huge amount of vandalism, but only the blatant stuff (page blanking, addition of some "badwords") and often, bad edits will come in while the bot is reverting others, which subsequently get missed (the bot has to conform to an edit throttle per WP:B), so there will always be (huge amounts of) work for human vandal fighters, whether on RC patrol, or using any of the many tools available. To answer a part of the question I only just saw, the edit rate of AVB has probably reached its peak (ie, it did when it went on the toolserver!). Of course, there are fluctuations depending on the time of day, but I doubt that AVB can get much quicker, as there's only so many edits it can make per minute. Martinp23 19:10, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Wikidefcon
What would define a Defcon 1? Has it ever happened before? In this event, is there a system to simultaneously summon a large amount of editors to help? A call to arms for admins? Dfrg.msc 1 . 2 . Editor Review 22:44, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- The Wikidefcon levels are described at Template:Wdefcon/descriptions. I don't know whether defcon 1 has happened before (I assume it has). The Wikidefcon box that appears above on the right-hand side of the screen is the vandalism alert system! That box is the template called Template:Wdefcon and it is transcluded to this page. Whenever a template page is updated, the update appears wherever that page is transcluded. Hundreds of vandal fighters have the Wdefcon template transcluded to their user pages. To transclude that template to your user page, place {{Wdefcon}} wherever you want the alert box to appear on the page (preferably near the top so it's one of the first things you see when you access your page). If there's anything you need clarified further, please feel free to ask. The Transhumanist 10:47, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- How interesting. Thanks guys. Dfrg.msc 1 . 2 . Editor Review 21:53, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Defcon1 here apparently by Doc Glasgow/Wdefconbot. And at least one other occasion by a vandal.... Rich Farmbrough, 13:40 18 December 2006 (GMT).
[edit] Dial-up
Sorry, I've got another question, I'd also like to take time to say what an excellent resource this is and congratulation's to you all for your dedication and service.
My question to you is: I operate a Dial-up connection (45.1 kbps) which limits my time and inhibits effective vandal fighting and makes using programs like AWB and Vandal Proof difficult. Do you have any recommendations? Thanks, Dfrg.msc 1 . 2 . Editor Review 22:07, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- I don't think I could bear having a connection that slow. If all I had was dial-up, I would optimize performance by minimizing bandwidth requirements, and would therefore focus only on editing by cuttin and pasting a page to an editor (like Wordpad), editing it, and then cutting and pasting it back in to the article when I'm done editing it. Or write new articles from scratch on my computer and upload them when I'm done. Interactive editing using the Wikipedia interface would be too cumbersome because the wait times between actions would waste too much time. Therefore, off-line work is the key to optimizing performance. A slow connection pretty much rules out vandalism patrolling. Though you should still revert any cases of vandalism that you run across. I hope this advice helps. The Transhumanist 03:59, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
- I couldn't do it with dial-up. My party nights with vj.jar just wouldn't work because I really hate it when somebody beats me. When it's a bot, it's almost ok, but I pull my hair out when they beat me. It gets competative. I leave personal messages to vandals, so that makes me go slower I guess, but I believe a personal in adjunct with everybody else's template slapping does a very very nice job. X [Mac Davis] (DESK|How's my driving?) 23:22, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Are we doing this right?
I hope this is not too late to ask a question that has been bugging me. It seems to me from reading the above that most vandalism is done from anon IPs. In my experience, the path to blocking an anon IP, especially if it is a proxy, is too long. I often go to anon IP talk pages to leave a warning message, only to see that they already have 10 or 20 such messages and still have never been blocked.
I guess my question is basically this: first, is it technically possible to block access from anon IPs but still allow registered users from that IP to access? If so, don't you think it is legitimate to be "trigger happy" in blocking anon IPs, even for long periods of time? This could go with a friendly template stating that legit editors from that IP should sympathize with our difficulty and create users in order to be able to continue editing. Am I the only one who thinks this? --Zvika 07:43, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- Sorry for the late reply, but I've been busy in both the real world and in my RFA. I believe that blocking IP addresses will prevenet a registered user from editing from that IP address. In the words of WP:BLOCK,
- When a blocked user attempts to edit, their IP is "autoblocked", so that the user may not make the same edit anonymously or under a different username. Autoblocks expire after 24 hours — when a username is blocked indefinitely, their IP will be automatically unblocked 24 hours after he or she last attempted to edit a page.
- As for friendly templates, they actually already exist, the{{sharedwelcome}}, {{test3ip}} and {{Anon vandal}} templates all contain a caveat for good-faith editors working from IP addresses which may have received warnings in the past. They also ask anon editors to consider creating an account. Hope that helps. The Rambling Man 09:07, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
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- Hi BK, and thanks for your response. Am I correct in understanding that if User A vandalizes a page and is blocked, and User B shares the same proxy server, then User B will also be blocked -- even when logged in as User B? Doesn't this seem like a bug that ought to be fixed? Who would be responsible for fixing something like this? I think this could really help reduce the amount of vandalism on WP, by giving admins more freedom to block consistently troubling IPs (e.g. proxies) for long periods of time. --Zvika 16:08, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
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- Not necessarily - an administrator could block the user A, but disable autoblock to allow User B to continue editing, as well as any subsequent accounts registered from that IP (which creates the possibility of sockpuppetry). You might want to review WP:BLOCK#How to block for the complete documentation. anthonycfc [talk] 19:58, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
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[edit] Grutness's guide to stubbing
[edit] What are stubs?
Stubs are simply very short articles - articles that don't provide much more than a basic description of their subject.
[edit] Why do stubs exist?
It is rare for a new article to be submitted in full "finished" form on Wikipedia. Many editors write a small amount about a subject to get it started, in the hope that other editors will come along and add more information. Because of this, a great many articles start out as stubs. Sometimes, there isn't much known about a subject, so an article might remain a stub for a long time.
[edit] Why are stubs marked?
To help others find them. Many editors like to know where they can jump in and help. A stub tag is basically a notice that says "please expand me!". Stub tags have category tags built into them, so that the articles they are added to are themselves automatically entered into Wikipedia's category (index) system so that users can easily find them.
Stubs are also marked so that users will be aware that the subject is only barely covered yet, and that valid information or viewpoints are likely to be still missing.
[edit] How are stubs marked?
Stub articles are marked with a specific type of cleanup template called a stub template (also called a "stub tag"). This is put right at the bottom of the article with the category links (often immediately after the categories), but before the interwiki links.
[edit] Why are stubs sorted into different types?
There are over a thousand different types of stub templates, the simplest of which is the generic {{stub}}. The many different types describe articles in terms of the subjects to which they belong: there are stubs for geography articles, biographies, science articles, articles about movies, and so on.
There are a huge number of stubs - some estimates put it at 40% of Wikipedia's articles. If all of those were put into one category it would be an impossible task for anyone to find articles which they would like to expand. Everybody specializes to some degree, and this applies to their knowledge as well as their interests.
When Wikipedia: WikiProject Stub sorting started up, there were about 30,000 stubs in one category. In order to make it easier for editors to find particular types of articles which they would like to expand, the project has been sorting these articles into hundreds of different types so that, for example, someone who knows about the history of France can simply look through a stub category containing stubs about French history.
[edit] How are stub categories different from other categories?
To put it simply, the main categories are designed to make it easier for readers. A reader looking for an article on a particular subject can go straight to a category on that subject to see a selection of articles on that subject. Stub categories are for helping editors find articles which need expanding. If an editor knows about a particular subject, they are likely to want to be able to pick and choose between a number of articles they can work on. For that reason, your are unlikely to find stub categories with only one or two articles, like you can with permanent categories. The Stub sorting WikiProject does its best to ensure that stub categories are of a reasonable size - not so big as to overwhelm an editor, but not so small as to make it necessary for an editor to look through lots of categories (ideally, we use about 60-800 articles as a "working size" for stub categories). For that reason, stub categories aren't always identical to main categories, although we aim to make the discrepancy between the two as small as is practical.
[edit] How is stub-sorting done?
Stub-sorting is usually done by hand, though bots are sometimes used. The basic tools of stub-sorting are paired templates and categories. A specific stub template will usually put an article that contains it into one dedicated category. In general, when a stub article is made (for example, one on a neighborhood of St. Louis), it will be given a fairly coarse stub template type such as {{stub}} (the most basic template). It will be sorted from there into a more refined category using a more specific template (for example, {{geo-stub}}, since it's a geography-related article) and eventually will be moved into whatever the finest-grained category is for that specific article (in this case, Cat:Missouri geography stubs).
Checks are regularly made by the stub-sorting project to see which categories are no longer optimal in size, and in these cases proposals are made as to how to split any large categories into smaller ones. In addition, editors from outside the project also make proposals if they think up possible useful categories for stubs. The proposal process is only a guideline on Wikipedia, not a rule, but it is useful in that generally the stub sorters have the best idea as to which types of stubs are likely to be most useful, and specifically which ones are likely to clash with existing types. Since there are a very large number of stub types and a general dislike among editors of having too many stub templates on an article, creating a useful stub type can be a trickier process than it sounds. The proposal process often leads to long debate as to exactly what would be the best way of wording a stub template and category to be most useful for editors.
[edit] "Having too many stub templates"?
Ideally, it would be great if all stub articles only contained one stub template, but this is not practical, and isn't as useful to editors as having more templates. Although having several templates on an article can look messy, a case can be made for saying that a stub is pretty messy anyway simply for being so short. If an article has two stub templates, it will be sorted into twice as many stub categories, and therefore theoretically twice as many specialist editors will see it. Having too many stub templates on an article is very cumbersome, though, so it's better not to have more than three or (rarely) four stub templates on an article.
As the number of stub articles has increased, the number of 'cross-referenced" templates has increased, which has reduced the need for multi-stubbing articles a little. For example, at one time an article on a Canadian politician would have needed both {{Canada-bio-stub}} (Canadian biography) and {{politician-stub}}. Now it only needs {{Canada-politician-stub}}.
[edit] Are all short articles marked as stubs?
Most of them are. Disambiguation pages aren't, lists usually aren't (they have their own related template, {{listdev}}), and sometimes an article will be fairly complete even if it is very short. Note that only articles are stubs - categories are never marked as stubs (again, there is a related template for them, {{popcat}}), and pages in other namespaces like User pages and Talk pages aren't marked as stubs.
- There is a tendency to mark article that are hardly stubs, but could use devellopment as stubs, such as Luton Town Hall. While the stub discussing a complex topic could be long, such as the current Law of France, which can reasonably be called a stub (Compare Law of the United States, and remember half of the "Law of France" is a bibliography.), a stub is "article that is too short to provide encyclopedic coverage of the subject, but not so short as to provide no useful information." In that sense, Luton Town Hall is not a stub, but Law of France is. Circeus 20:04, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
- True. There is a separate template, {{expansion}}, which is used for articles which aren't stubs but still need expanding. An example I often use is the article on the village where I once lived, Croughton, Northamptonshire. It's short, but isn't a stub, whereas if the article on London or New York was that long, it definitely would be. Grutness...wha? 21:57, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
- {{expansion}} is far overused (and the fact it takes so much place is not helping), in my opinion. I delete it whenever there is no element on what is lacking at WP:RFX or the talk page. Besides, as far as Wikipedia is concerned, all articles are permanently requested for expansion!Circeus 17:48, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
- That is true, but it's not nearly as over-used as {{stub}}, and still has a useful purpose for articles that are of high priority when it comes to expansion (such as near-stub articles on topical current events). It's moderately widely used by WP:WSS to replace stub templates when an item is clearly not a stub but of significantly high importance. Grutness...wha? 03:55, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
- typical abusive use of {{expand}}. Circeus 15:11, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
- Point taken. Grutness...wha? 21:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
- That is true, but it's not nearly as over-used as {{stub}}, and still has a useful purpose for articles that are of high priority when it comes to expansion (such as near-stub articles on topical current events). It's moderately widely used by WP:WSS to replace stub templates when an item is clearly not a stub but of significantly high importance. Grutness...wha? 03:55, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
- {{expansion}} is far overused (and the fact it takes so much place is not helping), in my opinion. I delete it whenever there is no element on what is lacking at WP:RFX or the talk page. Besides, as far as Wikipedia is concerned, all articles are permanently requested for expansion!Circeus 17:48, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
- True. There is a separate template, {{expansion}}, which is used for articles which aren't stubs but still need expanding. An example I often use is the article on the village where I once lived, Croughton, Northamptonshire. It's short, but isn't a stub, whereas if the article on London or New York was that long, it definitely would be. Grutness...wha? 21:57, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Where can I find out more?
Wikipedia:Stub is the most obvious page to look at. Others include Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting and its subpages, and also the deletion process page Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion.
[edit] How can I help?
The simplest way to help is to make sure that any articles which seem very short are marked with a stub template, even if it's only the basic {{stub}}. The full list of stub types (at WP:WSS/ST) is pretty daunting even for regular stub-sorters, but even learning just the basic few (like bio-stub, geo-stub, hist-stub) and the way the names are normally created (shown at WP:WSS/NG) will give you a rough guide to how things can be marked. If you're willing to help out in a big way, the stub-sorting WikiProject is one of the busiest in Wikipedia and is always on the lookout for more keen helpers.
[edit] Further discussion on stubbing
If you have any questions for Grutness that don't fit in any of the sections above, please feel free to post them here. -- TT 11:26, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] External interfaces - let's compare
- See also Comparison of web browsers.
Please describe the programs (browsers, browser extensions, other programs, etc.) that you make use to navigate around and work on Wikipedia. Feel free to ask questions of any participant below about their interfaces. Immediately following this section, we continue with a comparison of our internal interfaces.
[edit] Transhumanist's external interface
For example, I use Windows XP, and usually have 9 windows open for Wikipedia purposes alone (with a dozen other windows open for other purposes). Firefox takes up 6 of those windows, usually with several tabs open in each. A macro program in another window. Wordpad in another for data massage, and to provide an environment in which to use the macros (they work directly in the browser's edit window too, but much faster in wordpad). And Internet Explorer/AutoWikiBrowser in another (though I haven't used the being logged-in on two accounts at the same time trick, recently).
- To make macros, you need a macro program. I use Macro Express. You can download it from most major download websites, and use it for 30 days free. I swear by it. It's pretty inexpensive, but there's a free macro program called AutoHotkey.
- Alternately, you could learn how to write java or perl scripts.
I used to only have 13 bookmarks on my toolbar. But as I've memorized all of those, I've found I could shorten their names to almost nothing to make room on the bar for more book marks. Now I have 30 up there, with half of them devoted to Wikipedia links or tools (which include the Wikr bookmarklet, which comes in very handy for Wikipedia lookups when you are browsing the rest of the Internet. Just highlight a word or phrase in the text of page you are on, click on wikr, and it automatical searches for and jumps to Wikipedia's page about the term you highlighted. It of course also works from within Wikipedia. One very fast way to add bookmarks to your toolbar is to hover your mouse over a link, press and hold down the left mouse button, and drag the link up to the toolbar and let go. Instant bookmark. Delete and create more each session to accomodate the pages you need to return to the most.
I use the Firefox extension "Session Manager" which automatically remembers what was opened in each window and each tab, so that if I turn off the machine purposely or accidentally, and most importantly when Firefox crashes, when I log back in all my Firefox windows are restored to their last location/contents. The new version of Firefox has this feature built-in, but you may want to wait, because that version of Firefox is still a bit buggy. Windows XP does the same for my other windows.
I've just started using the Firefox extension called Linky, and it's pretty powerful. It's a tab and window autocreator, and provides a great deal of navigation control over links and pages. Awesome little tool. Now you don't have to remember where the links are you want to navigate, just open them all in tabs and read them at your leisure. While middle-click already allows you to this one link at a time, Linky grabs all the links on the page in one easy operaton. With or without Linky, press ^F (Ctrl-F4) to remove a tab you are done with, and the next tab is intantly shown on the screen. Saves time waiting for page loads from the server. It also works specifically on images and/or image links too, but I haven't tried that out yet.
Of the six windows in Firefox, 4 are set on Wikipedia (User pages in one, project pages in another, main namespace browsing in another, and one for miscellaneous), the 5th is reserved for Google site-specific searching of Wikipedia, and the 6th always has interiots external edit counter in it (I started using this extensively when I started coaching).
And that's just the external interface. But it's a starting point. Okay, your turns... The Transhumanist 13:49, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] AMK152's external interface
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- I just use Windows XP and Microsoft Internet Explorer. -AMK152 14:57, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
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- I also use AutoWikiBrowser. I ahve downloaded VandalProof but don't use it. -AMK152 17:10, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The Rambling Man's external interface
I use XP & IE6 and/or Firefox at work and at home, and also use Safari and Firefox under Mac OS X Leopard at home. I've got pop-ups going, but as I've said before, it kills Safari pretty regularly. I'm also just getting into VandalProof which is a great tool, but seems very buggy at the moment. I've used the Interiot edit counter several times and link to it from my User page. I'm just about to check out AWB to see if it makes life easier as well. As for browser configurations, I'll typically have three or four IE's open, one on my watchlist (although I'm using this less now with VP), one on RC patrol and when I'm stub-sorting I'll have a couple pointing at the list of categories and stub types. That's about it! Budgiekiller 16:53, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
- Oh yes, AWB is a power tool. You can feed task lists (in the form of lists of page links that you need to work on) into it, and it automatically loads the next page on the list when you save the one your in. It also does search/replacing. And once you've mastered it, consider applying for a bot account, because AWB has an automatic mode in which it performs as a bot. When combined with a macro program, it is already a defacto bot, but if you ever use it that way, you should have a bot account (bot edits are hidden from recent changes, to avoid obscurring in-person edits) -- and you have to watch it extremely closely when macro-controlled, with your finger ready and your mouse hovering over the kill button. As a rule of thumb, you should never leave any bot unattended, because if something goes wrong, it could go really wrong, especially if you have several thousand pages in its task queue. Walking away from the computer when a bot is running on Wikipedia not a good idea.
- The user to watch as an example of bot expertise is Bluemoose and his bot account.
- By the way, have you ever wondered how Steve Jobs got his position at Apple back? I mean, what leverage did he have? What he had was the NEXT operating system, and its development team. It became OS X. (I'm sure there's more to it than that). And I've heard that they've switched over to the intel chips, a move which looks like they are getting ready to make their OS available for use on PCs. Is OS X PC-compatible yet? If it ever is, let me know, 'cuz I want it. The Transhumanist 08:13, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
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- I've heard that quite a few people have gotten OS X running on regular non-Apple x86 PCs, but it's difficult and certainly not blessed by Apple. --Gwern (contribs) 00:05, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] CBDunkerson's external interface
I use the current version of Firefox on one machine and the v2.0 beta on another. Probably going to switch to using v2.0 on both as it has many of the options I like (e.g. recovery of tabs from last session) built in and extensions for others (e.g. cloning a tab). When working on templates I will frequently clone a tab to show what it looked like before the change and then update the original tab and do a 'side by side' comparison. Likewise I will often open my watchlist in a tab and then clone off tabs for each page on the list I want to review. The recursive nature of the pop-ups script helps with that as I will often get the pop up, go to the history option, get the pop-up of the page history, hover over the 'last' links... and thus get a pop-up of the change to the page without ever clicking a link - if the change looks like something I want to review/comment on I'll open a new tab. I rewrote the search window logic for Wikipedia to perform a default 'Go' action rather than 'search' and generally use that for navigating around now... only drawback to that is when I am on Wiktionary or another project I'll often forget and type something in there and get the Wikipedia page rather than the Wiktionary page. Have vandalproof and similar tools, but don't use them much any more. I actually use Excel and Word for alot of 'automation'... copying things out to word for search and replace or Excel for formatting or building something which follows a formulaic progression. Haven't looked into AWB yet - powerful tool, but a computer can't detect and adjust for subtle differences the way a human can. --CBD 15:14, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
- AWB has an interactive mode and a an automatic mode. I'm pretty sure most of the users use it in interactive mode. It includes a full editor and can accept lists of pages, so when you save the page you are working on, it automatically loads the next page on the list for you to work on. When in interactive mode, you are always in control. Hope that description helps. It barely scratches the surface, of course. The Transhumanist 07:58, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
- A good example of Word and Excel usage to make editing easier can be seen at Wikipedia:Featured content. The articles displayed at the top of that page are randomly selected each time the page is refreshed. The selection is made from a list of former 'articles of the day', but with all 'demoted' featured articles removed. To create that list I used the following procedure;
- Copy the contents of Wikipedia:Former featured articles into Word as plain text (seconds)
- Use global replace to remove extra line breaks, bullets between article names, et cetera (five minutes)
- Compare 'demoted' list against the Article of the day archive (three hours)
- Note, there is no simple list of these available anywhere or this step could have been completed in minutes by an Excel 'vlookup'
- Use vlookup in Excel to mark dates with demoted featured articles (one minute)
- Sort article date list so that all demoted dates are separated from non-demoted dates (seconds)
- Copy non-demoted dates and put a 'rand()' result next to each. Sort on the 'rand()' values to create a randomized list. (seconds)
- Use text formulas to convert this randomized list to the content of Wikipedia:Featured content/SetDate (a few minutes to set up, seconds to reuse)
- Copy and paste the results onto the SetDate page
- Similar examples can be thought up for any sort of data or list manipulation. With the formulas and automated tools in most word processing and spreadsheet applications you can quickly complete work which might otherwise take days. --CBD 15:12, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, I have both of those programs, so I guess it's time to read the manuals. The Transhumanist 06:14, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Interiot's external interface
I use Firefox on Windows. Lupin's popups was causing excessive memory usage on an older machine, so I rely heavily on keymarks, much in the tradition of unix aliases. For instance: "con $username" shows someone's contributions, "wiki $search" shows google with site:en.wikipedia.org, "wikic $search" shows google with site:en.wikipedia.org inurl:wiki/category (and others for templates, wikipedia space, etc), "cnt $username" runs an edit count of the user, "slog1 $username" uses Special:Log to show who $user has blocked, "slog2 $username" to show when they've been blocked, etc.
In addition, I have a small Firefox extension that lets me run "w $page", and it will show the page. But also, if "[[..]]" is spotted in the page name, it will ignore anything before and after the square brackets. As a result, I don't have to do anything special to make wikilinks work easily in IRC or email or personal notes, I just copy-n-paste a line over, and the non-wikilink text is ignored. (granted, it ignores the 2nd, 3rd, etc. wikilinks, but in 95% of the cases, you're interested in copy-n-pasting just the first link on a line) (actually, my keymarks setup is a little more complicated than that, but you can see my latest keymarks here)
Per above, if you're not using tabs and middle-click a lot, you're not moving fast enough. Also, if you want to rack up your edit count with Special:Random, tabs are a good way. Set up a bookmark folder with 40 bookmarks to Special:Random. Open it up, and ctrl-f4 until you find a page that needs to be tweaked. Fix it, and keep ctrl-f4ing. When there are no tabs left, open the bookmark-folder again. It's probably a bit tough on the server, but it minimizes waiting time. --Interiot 02:28, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Translation of interiot's interface notes
Is your head spinning from reading the previous section? Okay, let's see if I can translate the above... The Transhumanist 07:49, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Keymarks (Smart keywords)
"$" stands for "string", which means the keystrokes you need to enter. "$search" means "the search string", "$username" means "type in a username here", etc.
Mozilla's name for keymarks is "smart keywords", and the link provided explains how to set up keywords for search boxes.
[edit] Edit counter smart keyword
- To set up an edit counter smart keyword using this method, you've got to find one that has a search box. Here's one: Interiot's external edit counter. It's slow, but good. When you use it to look soemone up, switch to another window and work on something for a minute or two while you are waiting for the results. Use the procedure at "smart keywords" to create a command for it.
[edit] User contributions smart keyword
You might be asking right about now: "How did Interiot get "con $username" to show someone's contributions?" Well, he cheated. He wrote his own Firefox extension (he'll let us know when it's ready for release). However, there is a standard way to do this in Firefox:
- In Firefox, create a new bookmark (Bookmarks/Manage Bookmarks/New Bookmark)
- Enter 'User's contributions' as Name (without the quotes).
- Enter 'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/%s' as Location.
- Enter 'con' as Keyword.
- Click OK.
To test this, first type ^L (Ctrl-L) to jump right to the location box, and then type 'con interiot' in the location box of Firefox. (Where the current URL, or internet address, is displayed at the top of the screen).
[edit] Block log lookup smart keyword
To set up a block log lookup smart keyword ("slog1 $username", above), use the same procedure, just change the data accordingly, like this:
- In Firefox, create a new bookmark (Bookmarks/Manage Bookmarks/New Bookmark)
- Enter 'block log' as Name (without the quotes).
- Enter 'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=block&user=%s
- Enter 'slog1' as Keyword.
- Click OK.
To test, hit ^L (Ctrl-L), and type 'slog1 interiot' into Firefox's location box.
In case you haven't guessed yet, "%s" means "string" in Firefox, or more precisely the "string variable". But when inserting it as code, you don't replace it with anything (you do that in the address box when you use the smart keyword).
To provide the above URL, I typed in "Special:Log" in Wikipedia's search box, and then I set up the log search the way I wanted, and then modified the URL in Firefox's location box, added "%s", and then cut and pasted it in above.
[edit] Help:Special pages
You may be wondering where Interiot and I got the names for the special commands of Wikipedia. They can be found at Help:Special page. The underlying linknames (that is, the real names) for Wikipedia's "special" commands are not always the same as the way they are displayed in the special menu, so it helps to know about that page.
[edit] Google's the better way to search Wikipedia
In most cases, Google does a better job of searching Wikipedia than Wikipedia's own search box. [Note that Google will be days to weeks out of date, though. Rich Farmbrough, 23:23 10 November 2006 (GMT).] Here's how to set up a smart keyword for a site-specific search (of Wikipedia) using Google:
- In Firefox, create a new bookmark (Bookmarks/Manage Bookmarks/New Bookmark)
- Enter 'Google search of Wikipedia' as Name (without the quotes).
- Enter 'http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=site:en.wikipedia.org+%s'
- Enter 'wiki' as Keyword.
- Click OK.
To test, hit ^L (Ctrl-L), and type 'wiki meaning of life' into Firefox's location box.
[edit] Google namespace searches
To set up a google search of the category namespace in Wikipedia, do the following:
- In Firefox, create a new bookmark (Bookmarks/Manage Bookmarks/New Bookmark)
- Enter 'Search category namespace' as Name (without the quotes).
- Enter 'http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=site%3Aen.wikipedia.org+inurl%3Awiki%2Fcategory+%s&btnG=Search'
- Enter 'wikic' as Keyword.
- Click OK.
To test, hit ^L (Ctrl-L), and type 'wikic google' into Firefox's location box.
To set up smart keywords for each of the other namespaces just repeat the steps above but change the description and url by replacing the word "category" with the name of the namespace you want, like "portal", and then change the c at the end of "wikic" to the first letter of the namespace. In this example, make it "wikip"
Besides article space, the various namespaces on Wikipedia are: Category, Portal, Help, Wikipedia, Template, Image, User, and MediaWiki.
[edit] Google advanced search on Wikipedia
Interiot didn't cover this, but I prefer the advanced search window of Google, and so here's how to set a smart keyword to search Wikipedia with Google advanced:
- In Firefox, create a new bookmark (Bookmarks/Manage Bookmarks/New Bookmark)
- Enter 'Adv search Wikipedia' as Name (without the quotes).
- Enter 'http://www.google.com/search?as_q=%s&num=100&hs=lnk&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&as_occt=title&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F&as_rights=&safe=images'
- Enter 'w' as Keyword.
- Click OK.
I've set it to show 100 results.
To test, hit ^L (Ctrl-L), and type 'w Glossary of' into Firefox's location box.
[edit] Installing these all at once
So now you know how to turn Firefox's location box into a command line. But to load all of interiot's keymarks into Firefox manually could take a long time. We can either wait for interiot to finish and release the firefox extention he is working on, or we can create a bookmark file to import into Firefox. I'm looking into the latter, 'cuz I'd like to start using these right away.
[edit] Moving around fast, and tab tricks
Why use tabs at all? Interiot mentioned that "if you're not using tabs and middle-click a lot, you're not moving fast enough". Creating tabs is easy, just press ^T (Ctrl-T) to create a new empty tab, while middle clicking on a link opens a new tab with contents of the page the link you clicked on leads to. Tabs can be navigated very rapidly using ^Tab (Ctrl-Tab), and you don't have to lift up on the ctrl key before pressing tab again. Shift-Ctrl-Tab navigates through the tabs in the opposite direction.
Firefox extensions, like Linky, expand this functionality to be even more powerful. Linky lets you load all the links on a page into tabs in one operation: Once you have Linky installed, highlight all or part of the text on a page by holding down the left mouse button starting at the top of the page and drag the mouse to the bottom of the page. Then right-click to bring up the drop-down menu, and click on Linky, and then click on "Open selected links in tabs". A list of all the links will come up with a little checkbox next to each in case there are links you don't want opened in tabs, deselect any you don't want, and then click on "Open selected links". Linky doesn't open tabs for duplicate links (a convenient feature).
Interiot's example of creating a lot of tabs on random articles requires using an external website. The same thing can be done right in the window you are on, without going anywhere, by middle-clicking on "Random article" rapidly 40 times (I suggest 80) at the sidebar menu. Then use ^F4 (Ctrl-F4) to cycle through them.
I didn't realize how fast middle click was until interiot mentioned trying it. I don't know what your middle button does, but when I click my scroll wheel (it also serves as the middle button), it invokes a very fast scroll mode (unless I click on a link). The scrolling doesn't apply to Wikipedia's edit window, as it scrolls the whole article/page. But it's great for skimming/scrolling through long articles. It's funny how long you I've gone without learning this useful feature that was literally right at my fingertips.
For more advice on how to use tabs effectively, see Ansell's post immediately below. The Transhumanist 08:54, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Ansell's external interface
I use Firefox under both Windows (Uni) and Linux (Home). I am a pretty simple kind of editor, with the exception of the 50+ tabs I usually generate during a session. Couldn't do without tabs!
I am doing some initial research into an Open Source .NET library to use against the api.php and similar Wikipedia interfaces, as I have not found any .NET open source libraries for doing similar things. I would rather use a standalone client which just gets XML responses as it reduces the server load, and means I do not have to cope with Firefox taking up large amounts of memory (as expected with 50 tabs). Ansell 02:39, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
- How do you keep track of what's in 50 tabs!? Do you have any special ways which make 50 tabs manageable? The Transhumanist 14:03, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
-
- For navigation I use "Control-Tab" with the Tab Mix Plus extension to give me listings of what are in each of the tabs. I also used to use another extension which gave me a screen full of miniature icons for each tab, but that one used too much RAM so I got rid of it.
- I also use an extension called Aging Tabs, which makes tabs that I have not been to recently gradually go black (or any other colour I choose).
- I also make sure that newly opened tabs have italic titles so that I know if I have middle-clicked and then not gone to the resulting tab. (See Tab Mix Plus for this one)
- Tab Mix Plus also gives me the option of opening new tabs next to the current tab, and in a "different order", so that related tabs always stay next to each other. The default which opens new tabs on the far-right doesn't make logical sense to me. I think that is the main set of things that I do to make tabs useful and manageable. Ansell 22:19, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Rich Farmbrough's external interface
I use Firefox by choice, with two primary (power) machines, and a networked laptop. I have other machines where I have Firefox with plugins but no other tools, and none of my database in general. At work I use IE, as Firefox is reserved for my on-laptop wiki, avoiding all the proxy problems of a large organisation. I use the spellcheck addin with firefox and linky to open lists of pages generated externally. I rarely have more than one window open, but can easily get to twenty or thirty tabs in normal usage (I beleive I have an algorithm which supresses openning new tabs and promotes closing of old ones as the number of tabs increases). I make extensive use of AWB for manual editing and for robotic editing using a robot account. I use perl to extract lists of articles that need fixing from database dumps - and to extract stats. Oh yes, I have used various anti-vandal tools, but generally find Anti-VandalBot and the speed and accuracy of other vandal fighters makes it fairly fruitless. Rich Farmbrough, 11:03 7 November 2006 (GMT).
[edit] Mac Davis's external interface
I've tried a bunch of browsers (Netscape, Firefox, Seamonkey, Camino, Safari, Internet Explorer) on my iMac, and have found that Safari beats them all, and by far. The normal Google search up at the top right is instead where I type whatever comes after "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/", for a direct approach to the article that is a lot faster than editing it in the address bar. If I want to use Google I hit ⌘⌥G (or if Wikipedia, I append "wikipedia" to the search words). Also, if you put an exclamation mark at the end of whatever you typed in, it gives you the first result in Google. For editing or researching Wikipedia that is handy if you can't guess the name of an article. If anybody wants to try the same approach, just mention it on my talk page or here! ;)
I also have a "Wiki to-do" folder in my bookmarks (not the bookmarks bar or menu), that I stick articles in that I need to edit later, other webpages that I need to use for a Wikipedia article, or just something I want to read later.
When doing my daily editing I use one window with many tabs, and when VFing, I use VandalFighter, which gives me a ton of seperate windows with one tab. Vitally, I play my favorite iTunes playlist during all editing hours. :) X [Mac Davis] (SUPERDESK|Help me improve) 17:25, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
- I have some questions for you:
- When you said "I hit G", did you mean that you click on a G (Google) icon on your toolbar?
- Why append "wikipedia" to the end of a google search when you can just hit another G, such as this: G. (To save this to your toolbar, just left-click, drag, and drop it there.)
- Yes, I'd like to try the same approach. I tried the exclamation point thing, but I'm not sure I understood your description, as it doesn't seem to be doing anything different. Can you provide step-by-step instructions?
The Transhumanist 23:23, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Cynical's external interface
I use Firefox on my home machines (or Opera on the too-frequent occasions when Firefox 2.0 is in a crashing sort of mood) and Portable Firefox on a USB drive whenever I edit WP from uni (all Windows). I used to have 'wp' set as a shortcut in the Firefox toolbar (for example, if I typed 'wp Wikipedia:Articles for deletion' then it would take me to that page instead of having to type the full URL) but I haven't got round to redoing it since I reformatted my laptop. I use AWB occasionally, nowadays I generally use it for fixing disambig links more than anything else. Cynical 19:28, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
- Do you mean that you replace links that lead to a disambig page rather than to the appropriate page? The Transhumanist 23:33, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Drumguy8800's external interface
I use Firefox 2.0 on my tablet and desktop which both run a modified version of Windows XP. I'm in the process of developing a bot (DallasBot) using Python with PyWikipediaBot. The most efficient method of browsing online I've devised is:
- g <search> does a google search
- w <search> opens that page in the Wikipedia
- d <search> opens that page at dictionary.reference.com
- t <search> opens that page at thesaurus.reference.com
I use the "w" one more than anything, of course. One thing I enjoy doing when I go to any article is converting local units into metric and vice-versa according to standards set at WP:MOS. For that, I can just type, for example, "Ctrl+T g 89 mi in km" and I have the conversion using google's handy calculator service :). It's a great idea to learn shortcuts.. Alt+P for preview, Alt+S for save, Alt+H for history, Alt+E for edit, Alt+D for discussion, etc. Also, I use AWB for disambiguation repair but I really enjoy using it to do complex regular expression edits. Another great program for batching regular expression edits when you're working on a single page (say you want to convert a horizontal list (list item 1 {{!}} list item 2 {{!}} ... {{!}} list item n) into a vertical list, you can go into Notepad++, key Ctrl+H, and tell it to replace | with \n and it automatically makes a bulleted list for you (assuming you have regular expression enabled on the Replace window.) drumguy8800 C T 12:21, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
- Very interesting. I've been wondering if there is a way to search and/or replace carriage returns in Notepad and Wordpad. Is there? And is there a way to enter ASCII codes into the search/replace strings? The Transhumanist 12:38, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
- Yup, this is pretty similar to how I work. "w $page" is most important. I use "wiki $searchterms" frequently too, to run a google "site:en.wikipedia.org $searchterms" when I don't know the exact pagename (or "hist $page" when I know the pagename and it's a redirect and don't want to follow the redirect). Re: Transhumanist... Use a better editor... either Notepad++ or Vim (my preference) or something. --Interiot 13:06, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
- Yeah, it's Notepad++ that I use, from sourceforge: Notepad++. On a sidenote, whenever I see a "$" in coding, I flip out. I'm used to object-oriented and html/dhtml/xhtml/xml/whateverothermlmlml not PHP and whatever mush that is. :D. drumguy8800 C T 13:24, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Taxipom's external interface
I use Firefox 2.0 on Linux. To edit, I use either xemacs or kile for LaTeX or even vi (or gvim) for complex editing or console context. When I need a specific tool, I look first at linux toolbox, then I use the tool which seems the most suitable to me (bash, sed, awk, m4, etc., C, Yacc, Lex, C++, C++ with Qt, Pliant) for my purpose and usually use some Makefile. pom 18:48, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Willtron's external interface
I usually work with Windows XP on my desktop computer and Ubuntu on my laptop. My browser is Firefox 2.0 on both of them. I use to translate articles from Spanish, Catalan or English Wikipedias to Aragonese one, so I use to open the articles in different languages in different tabs in order to compare them and make a good translation. I also have a lot of bookmarks on my toolbar. About editors, I don't like vi, I know that sometimes it's necessary, but also is difficult to handle. Normally I programme with Gedit or NEdit. Nevertheless I think that a good programmer must know at least how to work with vi, because could be very important if you don't have a graphical interface for example in a limited system. --Willtron (?) 
21:10, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Internal interfaces - what do you use?
How do you have Wikipedia set up? (What scripts do you have installed, what do they do, what skin, do you use the edit tool bar, etc.). The Transhumanist 00:52, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I've been urged on my talk page to expand this project, so we might be getting more people in here, therefore for each section each responder should set up a subsection so that it is easier to read each person's contribution.
[edit] AMK152's internal interface
-
- I don't have any scripts set up. I do not use the edit toolbar, I just type in wiki mark up manually. -AMK152 02:57, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The Rambling Man's internal interface =
-
- Pretty much ditto for me. I'm using the standard monobook skin and do my markup manually. Budgiekiller 13:45, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
-
- Okay, so I use pop-ups but have (well-documented by me) problems with it under Safari. I have a number of links in Safari and IE6 to get me to WP:AIV for example. Budgiekiller 18:16, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The Transhumanist's internal interface
Skin: monobook. Nothing special.
Edit toolbar: I definitely use this. For some reason, when I started here I didn't even touch the thing for nine months. It just looked so cryptic, and it was hard to memorize the buttons. But eventually I discovered it can be a real timesaver. I started using it to do redirects, as clicking the #R is much easier than typing it all out. And it puts the edit cursor right there inside the brackets so all you have to do is type the page name. After that, I was convinced that the toolbar was useful, so I opened a sandbox and practiced with the other buttons for about a half hour. So now I know what's up there, and have several more of the buttons memorized. They keep adding new buttons to this, and one of my favorites is the table button. That makes creating matrices a breeze.
Scripts: when Interiot's went down, I used the script to make use of Interiot's 2 (on a previous account). I also had popups installed, though I never really understood it (I only used one feature of it, so I'll have to try it out again sometime soon). I copied a whole bunch of scripts to my monobook.js page at one time, but since few scripts are documented adequately, I never could figure out what any of them did! At this time, in order to make heads or tails of the scripts you pretty much have to know Javascript. Weird things happen for no apparent reason (hitting certain key combinations) when you don't know what you have loaded, so someone will need to organize the script department better before it will be very useful. I'll let you know if I discover anything.
Navigation aids: Wikipedia provides many ways to use links.
- I use my userpage header and menu as a navigation bar (tools are hard to make sense of on Wikipedia, for instance, so I created my own tool page).
- I've redesigned my workshop to double as a navigation console. There are 4 navigation headers at the top of the page to choose from (contents, editorial, communications, and administration). The default is contents.
- I've streamlined the linknames on my Firefox toolbar to make room to add more wikibuttons, and have 13 of them crammed up there, which take up about half of the toolbar.
(If anybody else is reading this, please create a subheading and tell us all about your internal interface). The Transhumanist 17:59, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] CBDunkerson's internal interface
I'm always changing things around... sometimes I use the classic skin and sometimes monobook. Use popups and 'godmode lite' extensively even as an admin. I like the 'deep history reversion' feature of god-mode lite for vandals that coordinate multiple accounts to vandalize the same page... can go back to the last clean version with one click. Also use automated warning template scripts. Popups are great for getting a preview of what the change to the page was, seeing all changes since my last edit, getting to the talk or history of a linked page with one click instead of two, et cetera. Easily the most useful scipt available and works on both classic and monobook. Don't use much local css, just to hide the '.spoiler' class so I don't see the 'spoiler start/end' section notices. When using classic skin I suppress the search box entirely because I've got the same functionality set up in Firefox's search option. Haven't looked into getting this to work in monobook yet. Like flexibility of the classic skin better overall, but often need to use monobook to see how things will look for the majority of users since it is the default. --CBD 14:52, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
- What is "godmode lite", and please provide a link to the page it is available/described on. The Transhumanist 23:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
- See this site for info on the 'godmode lite' script and Wikiproject User Scripts for a list of that and other javascripts which can be used to add/change various custom features to the Wikipedia 'internal interface'. --CBD 11:29, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Interiot's internal interface
See #Interiot's external interface, above. Most of my tools are Firefox-based rather than being in monobook.css or monobook.js. The only thing my monobook.js does is include CSS that makes the left column totally disappear. The "go" textbox is replaced by my "w" keymark. I memorize most Special: locations, and go to them with "w". For the whatlinkshere/relatedchanges/etc, I memorize their keyboard accesskey (which still work because the left column is hidden, not deleted). And by some lucky mishap, the interwiki links appear just off the right side of the screen, so I just scroll to see them. This makes it a little less obvious that I use Wikipedia from work, and makes articles look a little cleaner. --Interiot 18:12, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Ansell's internal interface
I use the Cologne Blue skin as I do not like the colour scheme that comes with Monobook, and well, I have kind of got used to it. Albeit there are random disadvantages, like the common assumption with "popups" and other JS helps that Monobook is the underlying skin. I guess I could go back to Monobook and just customise the CSS to my needs, but I am comfortable and productive still so it is not a driving force. Ansell 02:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Rich Farmbrough's internal interface
I use monobook, with extensive Javascript addins, both my own and borrowed from others - mainly to do simple search and replace. I use popups which I find good for antivandal work, but sometimes gets in the way. I have my raw sig set to include the date so that I save a keystroke when signing my posts. I use WerdnaBot's good offices to archive my talk page, and I have a box of "admin links" on my user page (can't remember who I copied that from).Rich Farmbrough, 11:08 7 November 2006 (GMT).
- Oh yes I also have User:Dragons flight/Category tracker/Summary on my talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 11:52 7 November 2006 (GMT).
-
- I've merged the box of admin links above with the one on my old userpage, and have made the new one available at the top of my workshop page, which is accessible from my userpage menu. The Transhumanist 00:06, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
-
- For those interested in that shorter sig, it's actually pretty clever. It goes like this: "{{subst:CURRENTTIME}} [[{{subst:CURRENTDAY}} {{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}}]] [[{{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}]] (GMT)". It has to be added into your signature preference, and that has to be raw, or else things get messed up; obviously you'll need to prepend to those templates whatever your regular signature is, like for me, I would append to the templates "--[[User talk:Gwern |Gwern]] [[Special:Contributions/Gwern | (contribs)]]" I've added it into my signature; should be fun! --Gwern (contribs) 19:16 15 November 2006 (GMT)
[edit] Mac Davis's internal interface
I've recently switched from Cologne back to monobook. I like Colonge better, but monobook is more the standard. I don't have anything at all. No popups, no javascript. Manual editing. I never use the javascript editing toolbar either. Just text. X [Mac Davis] (SUPERDESK|Help me improve) 17:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Cynical's internal interface
I use monobook, with assorted javascript addins which have been acquired from other people (my knowledge of javascript consists of document.write and little else). The most important of these is popups, which is an absolute gem. In fact, I usually find myself RC patrolling manually (rather than using the snazzy 'alternative interfaces', some of which I have the javascript for set up) just because Popups is so effective at diff viewing, reverting etc. I never use the editing toolbar - I know the appropriate wikitext for everything I want to do, and having to scroll up the page to click a button (which sometimes puts the markup in the wrong place) is distracting. Cynical 19:32, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Willtron's internal interface
Just the standard monobook skin and also I write wiki mark up manually. --Willtron (?) 21:14, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Coaching
- Current active participants are Nol888, Extranet, Luckyluke, Vox Rationis, Dweller, Anthony_cfc, and The Rambling Man.
This section is for exchanging advice on improving participant's Wikipedia-related skills, experience, and expertise. If you'd like others to look over your contributions and give you feedback on your activities and experience, or would like some advice on a specific area in which you would like to improve, let us all know below. Everyone is encouraged to help everyone, so feel free to jump right in and help. You'll learn a lot by analysing the contributions of others. Please add new subsections to this section at the top, rather than at the bottom. Thank you. See also: Wikipedia:Peer review.
[edit] General assignments
Hi everyone! In this section are general assignments for you to complete, to avoid having to repeat them over for each of you. Of course, you can stll expect to receive individualized assignments.
- If you aren't yet completely familiar with proofreading and copy-editing, be sure to read those articles. Hone these skills. And be sure to read Wikipedia:How to copy-edit too.
- Participate in VC Lesson #1. Tell us about the interfaces you use. Note that there are 2 sections: be sure to explain both your external interface and your internal interface.
- Create a workshop page for yourself, for example [[User:your username/Workshop]]. After doing so, put the link to it at the top of your user page and talk page so that you can access it easily.
-
- Your workshop is an all-purpose link page that you can use for just about anything. You can use it to store your task list of articles you want to work on or create, organize the links to the pages in your userspace, jot down ideas on various projects, store your purge buttons and other controls, etc. See my workshop as an example.
-
- Drag this link to your browser toolbar. Then rename it to "EC" (edit counter). In addition to this, copy the link to your workshop.
- Until you are extremely familiar with them, you should spend some time out of each of your Wikipedia edit sessions studying the following pages and every page linked-to from them (especially the pages presented in the navigation bars across the top of each page). They will help you immensely in finding your way around Wikipedia and the Wikipedia community:
- The same goes for the menus on the sidebar, and the submenus linked from there. Explore each link and each command until you know exactly where each one goes and what each one does. Spend extra time on "Special pages", because it has a lot of items - but the most useful one there is "All pages".
[edit] Jasz
Hi Jasz!
Welcome to the virtual classroom.
I hope you enjoy it here.
[edit] Some questions for you...
In order to gauge how rigorous your training should be, and to determine what areas to focus upon, I've got some questions for you:
How much time do you spend on Wikipedia (per week)?
- about 7 hours
What have you learned to do so far on Wikipedia?
- I can't remeber all of them. I know something about vandals and to fight them.
What areas do you work on the most these days?
- mainly on spellchecking and deletion of bad things from articles.
What areas are you most interested in learning about?
- anything good.
What subjects are you most interested in within the encyclopedia? They can be general or specific. (e.g., Geography, dogs, Joan of Arc, etc.).
- countries,scientists etc.
That should be enough to get started. I'll have some more for you based upon your answers to the above. Cheers. The Transhumanist 10:34, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Assignments for Jasz
- Be sure to check the general assignments section above. Those are just as important as the ones I'll be posting here...
Based on your level of participation and experience, my feeling is that your efforts would be best applied in working on articles.
With respect to countries, are you familiar with these:
| Rankings through lists of countries | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Geography | Area* · Coastline · Highest point* · Compactness · Coast/area ratio · Northernmost point · Southernmost point · By continent | ||||||
| Demographics | Population* (graphical · by density) · Population growth rate* · Life expectancy* · Infant mortality rate* · Fertility rate* · Birth rate* · Death rate* · Homicide rate* · Human Development Index* · Income equality* · Literacy rate* · HIV/AIDS adult prevalence rate* · Unemployment rate* · Employment rate · Population living in poverty* · Immigrant population · Suicide rate · Undernourishment rate* | ||||||
| Economy | Current account balance* · Imports* · Exports* (per capita)
|
||||||
| Politics and society | Political rights and civil liberties* · Press freedom* · Privacy* · Perception of corruption* · Bribe Payers Index · Property Rights* · Economic freedom* · Ease of doing business* · Economic competitiveness* · Date of independence | ||||||
| Military | Military expenditures* · Number of active troops* · Possession of nuclear weapons* · UN peacekeepers currently deployed | ||||||
| Environment | * includes mapCarbon dioxide emissions* (per capita*) · GDP per emissions | ||||||
| Lists by country | |
|---|---|
| Lists of topics | Main article on each country · Country portals · Country categories · Country topics Economy · Geography · Maps · History · Politics · Country subdivisions* · Culture · Transport · Tourism |
| Codes | Country calling codes · FIPS country codes · Internet TLDs · IOC country codes · ISO country codes · Ship prefix |
| Names and symbols | Adjectives · Country name etymologies · Country native names · Coats of arms · Flags · National anthems · National emblems |
| Politics and government | Election results · Incumbents · Intelligence agencies · National leaders · National legislatures · Political parties · Sovereign states · State mottos · System of government · UN member states · Voting systems |
| Other data by country | Abortion law* · Airlines · Armed forces · Authors · Battles · Cathedrals · Cemeteries · Cities · Colleges and universities · Companies · Currencies · Death penalty* · Education · Emergency contraception · Forex rates · Historical capitals · Homosexuality laws* · Islands · Light-rail transit systems* · Music · National capitals · National parks · Newspapers · Official languages · People · Common family names · Popular tourist regions · Railway companies · Schools · World Heritage Sites |
| Other lists | * includes mapEU states by accession · EU states by political system · Oldest person · Tallest structures |
And with respect to scientists, are you familiar with these pages:
The Transhumanist 11:58, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I've not given you extra tasks yet, as you're yet to finish the above. --Dweller 11:21, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Nol888
Welcome!
Well, based on your messages on my talk page, I guess you want to get right down to your first set of assignments...
[edit] First, I have some questions for you
- Why do you want to be an admin?
- The main reason I want to be an admin is because I want to help the Wikipedia community. I want to be able to help Wikipedia and make it a good resource for years to come. I feel that the extra tools I gain as an administrator will help me achieve that goal.
- Do you think like an admin? If so, how so?
- I'm not sure if I think like an admin, but I try to always maintain a calm composure while replying to comments and editing articles.
- Do you act like an admin? What activities and chores do you engage in that are administrator-like?
- I am pretty sure I act like an admin. I actively participate in XfD discussions, RfA, and the like. Often I scan through the Articles for Creation page and clean that up. I participate on the noticeboards sometimes, and nominate articles for speedy deletion.
- In what ways do you help other users?
- I help other users, by most of the time, not adding substantial content (although I do have my share of good contributions), but by reverting vandalism and keeping that content the way it is supposed to be.
- How do you help other editors?
- I help other users, by most of the time, not adding substantial content (although I do have my share of good contributions), but by reverting vandalism and keeping that content the way it is supposed to be.
- What departments on Wikipedia are you involved with?
- I'm involved with several Wikiprojects. I am part of the Anti-Vandal Unit, and I participate in the Welcoming Committee. I've recently joined the Aviation Wikiproject, and am always looking towards other ways I can participate in Wikipedia.
[edit] Assignments for Nol888
- For each day that you are logged-on to Wikipedia, answer at least one question at one of the following "desks":
- Participate at Wikipedia:Editor review, by asking the editors questions and by reviewing as many of them as you have time for.
-
- I'm trying to review the editors as well as possible, but I'm afraid I'm not really good at giving constructive criticism.
-
- That's what practice is for. Just keep at it. You might try different approaches, like comparing them with yourself to see what they are doing different. In each case of difference, which approach is better? That might give you some insight into how they can improve. You could recommend your way of doing things if your way is more effective (faster, more efficient, higher quality, etc.). You could also compare them with more experienced editors, for additional insights. The Transhumanist 08:27, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- Good job so far. Be sure to look at their actual contribs, and not just the edit counter.
- Get involved with Wikipedia's decision-making. See my advice at Hey, check this out....
- I'd like you to get further policy exposure at by proofreading the pages on the List of policies. You'll be killing two birds with one stone - reading and improving the policies. To begin with, focus on fixing typos and grammatical errors. (If you want to change the meaning or content of the policies, please make suggestions on their talk pages.) I'll be watching your contribs so I can provide comments, guidance, etc. Work on them a little each time you log on.
-
- I'm about 1/4 way through the policies, there are quite a few typos.
-
- Where are your fixes for the typos you encountered? I couldn't find them in your contributions. The Transhumanist 08:17, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
-
- Take a look at [2]. It's about 1/2 way down. Things like Wikipedia:Image use policy and Wikipedia:Deletion policy.
-
- Sorry 'bout that. You mentioned "lots of typos", so I was looking for a big block of typo fixes. Good work. Cheers. The Transhumanist 00:00, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
- Shift the emphasis in your edits away from your userpage and user talk pages, to editing articles in the encyclopedia. In my opinion, you should have at least twice as many edits in the Main namespace as you have in any other namespace. Stay focused to a high degree on Wikipedia's articles.
-
- I'm already not editing my user page and changing my status, and focusing towards the mainspace and other places.
- Drag this link to your browser toolbar. Then rename it to "EC" (edit counter). In addition to this, copy the link to your workshop.
- Done. I actually have my edit count bookmarked, and a quicksearch to look up other users' counts.
- Click on the EC link you just created. It should take you to Interiot's edit counter. Enter your name, and look over your edit analysis. Especially notice your mainspace namespace edit count. You need more exposure there.
- Mainspace experience...hmmm... I guess I'll try to contribute more there.
- Maintain composure at all times. It will be expected of you when you are an admin.
As you complete the above assignments, I'll provide you with some more.
The Transhumanist 22:42, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
User:Dweller here. I'm another "coachee" and The Transhumanist has asked me to help out here. My task for you is to visit WP:Peer Review. Take a look at some well-developed (or recently archived) Peer Reviews and then please come back here and list five issues you find that frequently crop up. --Dweller 15:59, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Extranet
Ready to get started?
An implementation of your user page menu bar, in which the icons are linkified, can be found at: User:The Transhumanist/User page design/Menus.
Skim Wikipedia's Help pages. Then let me know which area you are most interested in improving first.
The Transhumanist 09:39, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
- For your first reccomendation about the user page menu bar, I have already tried this and it goes wierd when loading the page. The linked images actually go off the bar - I don't know whether its a browser glitch, but I left a message at the help desk and they simply told me not to use them. I am off to work now (I live in Australia) so I will follow up your second question of which area I need improving. Also, many thanks for being my tutor - it's much appreciated. Extranet (Talk | Contribs) 20:39, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
-
- As for my areas for improvement, is there any places you would suggest? Extranet (Talk | Contribs) 05:42, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- The main namespace. That is, editing articles (including lists and glossaries). Please pay special attention to "See also" sections and how they link articles together. The Transhumanist 03:39, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
- As for my areas for improvement, is there any places you would suggest? Extranet (Talk | Contribs) 05:42, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Yep, I'm game to improve and be coached on that area. Let me know what I have to do. Extranet (Talk | Contribs) 12:31, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
-
- Start with proofreading and copy-editing. Hone those skills. And be sure to read Wikipedia:How to copy-edit too. The Transhumanist 07:22, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- With the copy-editing, I seem to go well with doing that. A few diffs include 1 and 2. I will try to do some work on proofreading. Extranet (Talk | Contribs) 07:22, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
- On your first diff, you included a reference to the Gameplay section of the article. You should use section links for those, instead of quotes, like this: [[#Gamplay|Gameplay]]. The Transhu 20:21, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- Oh, okay. Thanks for that recommendation. I have been busy with work this week but I hope to get some things done on the weekend. Extranet (Talk | Contribs) 11:01, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
User:Dweller here. I'm another "coachee" and The Transhumanist has asked me to help out here. My task for you is to visit WP:Peer Review. Take a look at some well-developed and recently archived Peer Reviews and then choose an article newly listed there and give a detailed critique on its Peer Review page. Then please come back here and let us know where we'll find your posting. --Dweller 16:00, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
- I would actually enjoy doing that quite a bit. My first critique is at Wikipedia:Peer_review/Gabriel_Ferrari. Tell me how to improve if you wish. Extranet (Talk | Contribs) 06:38, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
-
- A nice start. If I was being critical (which I suppose I need to be), I'd note the following:
- Bulleted or point by point comments make it easier for the nominator to respond / deal with the issues
- Specific comments are the most useful - request for a photo is easy for the nominator to respond to, but "this article needs a fair cleanup" is vague. Try "Have you asked for a third party copyedit?"
- If I read that an article I'd worked hard on was "around a 4/10", I'd find it disheartening. Your rating isn't really what's needed - it's what suggestions you have for improving the article
- My Peer Review for that article would start by requesting more citations for claims made in the article. I'd also be asking about his life outside of football and I'd note the redlinked Category, and the fact that there must be more Cats that are appropriate.
-
- However, those comments notwithstanding, it was a pretty good first stab and I've seen many worse. Best of all, you got the overall tone right. You didn't hector and you were clearly trying to be constructive. Doing the opposite in Peer Review, Editor Review or the FA/GA nominations is a big no-no. I'm interested to see the nominator's response.
- So, a good start, well done. As your next task, I suggest you visit a dozen or so well-developed Peer Reviews and come back and post half a dozen "frequently made comments" by reviewers. --Dweller 15:58, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
-
-
- Sorry for not replying so swiftly as I do have work during the week. Six frequently made comments that I came across on most Peer Reviews were:
- "The article needs a fair cleanup"
- "You could add some pictures to describe the topic more"
- "Maybe if it is too much of a stub, you could merge it with another well-developed article"
- "The start of the article could be extended more as per WP:LEAD"
- "The article needs to be slimmed down to reduce page size"
- "Include more references for extra information sources"
-
I compiled this list throughout the past reviews in the archives. Extranet (Talk | Contribs) 11:08, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
- Nice one. Three new tasks/questions:
- a) Of those six, which one do you think was the least helpful to the editor/s working on the article?
- b) WP:LEAD is an important policy, often neglected by newbies possibly because contravention of it doesn't lead to deletion(!) Fine three peer reviews for articles that you believe contravene WP:LEAD in different ways. Make your comments and then come back here to point to what you've done.
- c) Pictures are a hot topic and tricky to get your head around. I know, because I've only just got my head around it... and I'm not convinced I fully "get it" yet, either. Have you successfully uploaded any images to-date? --Dweller 11:18, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Here are the replies to your questions:
- A) Of those, the third one ("Maybe if it is too much of a stub, you could merge it with another well-developed article") would be the least helpful because some people do find merging a very hard task (as per personal experience).
- B) I couldn't really understand your question quite correctly. I know you asked for three, but two peer reviews I looked over need consideration of WP:LEAD. Constitution_of_Belarus (review) and Crash (song) (review).
- C) Yes, I have uploaded a few pictures to Wikipedia. Some include the following:
 Lightning strike in Sydney, Australia |
 South Bank Lagoon |
 South Bank Vine |
 ADSL modem chip |
--Extranet (Talk | Contribs) 09:26, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Luckyluke
Hi Luke,
Thanks for choosing me as your coach. I hope you find my assistance, and that of the other participants here, helpful.
I've taken a look at your edit count breakdown, and it shows lots of experience in the main namespace, which is good. Now that you would like to get more involved in Wikipedia's administrative side, you should focus more attention (than you have been) on editing (proofreading, maintaining and improving) pages in the Wikipedia namespace.
I'll do a more thorough examination of your contributions as I find time.
I've posted some tasks for Vox below, and based upon what I've seen so far of your contributions, all initial six tasks I assigned to him apply to you as well. Number 5 is a fairly long-term endeavor, but the other five go very quickly. Let me know here when you have completed those (except #5), and I'll take a look.
When you are done with those 5, I'll have some more for you. Each day that you log-on to Wikipedia, you should devote some of your time to #5 (reading/proofreading policies), until you are very familiar with them.
Have fun...
...and may the Force be with you.
(couldn't resist)
The Transhumanist 20:20, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi Transhumanist,
Thanks for being my admin coach and helping me getting started. My progress so far as to the initial five tasks:
- Working on it.
- Workshop page has been created @ User:Luckyluke/Workshop. In addition, I have also added an adapted navigation bar to my userspace, from Vox Rationis.
- Edit count link has been created and appears on the Workshop page.
- Have reviewed my Wiki edit history as provided by the edit count link.
- Always taking taking the time out of each log-in to look at the list of policies.
- Should I still sign up for an editor review if I've recently had one?
Luke! 05:22, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
- You're welcome. I'm sure we have a lot to teach each other. Don't hesitate to provide me with observations or advice. I can use as much of it as I can get.
- Since your original Editor review didn't have much feedback on it, I've put it back up on the ER page. Be sure to reread the instructions for the department, cuz they've changed some. I've also added some questions to your ER.
- So you'd like to be an administrator, eh? Lesson #1: Train your eye. Whenever you visit a page, answer the question "is this page fulfilling its mission?" If not, determine how it is falling short, and then prioritize the work that needs to done on it in relation to the other things you are working on for Wikipedia. Work on highest priorities first. There are three approaches to helping any page:
- work on it personally
- call other Wikipedians' attention to it
- both
- So if you don't have time to work on it, maybe you can find others who do.
Hi Transhumanist, I noticed that you re-added the {{VC Assignments}} template back on to my user talk page. I understand that one of the conditions you set out was that I display it on one of my user sub-pages. I've already added the template to my Admin Workshop subpage. Is it ok there or do you prefer it on my talk page? Luke! 22:29, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
- That's perfect. I didn't see it there. Good work. The Transhumanist 03:22, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
So, it has been pretty quiet here on my front. Just wondering if there is anything else that I should be paying attention to besides the one's I'm working on below? Luke!
- I've not given you anything further, as you've not yet reported back on your existing assignments. --Dweller 11:19, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Further assignments for Luckyluke
- One method of advancing your wikiskills is from role models. So during your training, from time to time pick an experienced editor or two and study their contributions. Don't just look at the contribution list, study each contribution. Try to understand why they did what they did. Also use your edit counter to help you analyse their contributions. Be sure to study their logs too (the links to the logs are located at the top of the contribs page).
- To find role models adapt the suggestion at User:The_Transhumanist/Virtual_classroom#Asking users directly.
- Check out your Editor Review - there are some new questions there for you.
- (Dweller being cheeky) Grill me more. Your first attempt was excellent. --Dweller 13:48, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Vox Rationis
Welcome, Vox Rationis, we're glad you can join us...
Here are your initial assignments:
- Help us grill Dweller, in his section below.
That is, ask him questions about his Wikipedia skills and experience. - Create a workshop page for yourself, for example User:Vox Rationis/Workshop. After doing so, put the link to it at the top of your user page and talk page so that you can access it easily.
- Drag this link to your browser toolbar. Then rename it to "EC" (edit counter). In addition to this, copy the link to your workshop.
- Click on the EC link you just created. It should take you to Interiot's edit counter. Enter your name, and look over your edit analysis. Especially notice your Wikipedia namespace edit count. You need more exposure there - see the next task...
- Proofread the pages listed at List of policies. Don't worry, you don't have to complete them overnight. But portion a decent percentage of your wiki-time to proofreading them. Fix typos and grammatical errors. (If you want to change the meaning or content of the policies, please make suggestions on their talk pages.) I'll be watching your contribs so I can provide comments, guidance, etc.
- Sign up at Wikipedia:Editor review.
If you have any questions, well, that's what this section is for. Ask away!
The Transhumanist 21:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Nice job one your user page header. Very useful. By the way, it's a requirement for admins to be accessible by email, so I was very pleased to see that yours is activated. The Transhumanist 21:47, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks, I've had intentions of improving it (and my whole userpage, now that I am learning tidbits of basic HTML via Wikipedia) with graphics, but haven't really had the need or desire to do it, since the one I now have works fine...I've started reading through policies, most of them I've skimmed or read minor sections of in the past, but I already finished WP:3RR (hopefully my fixes were appropriate, I tried my best to support them by looking in the Manual of Style and various grammar websites). Also, may I ask what my "Workshop" page will be used for?--Vox Rationis (Talk | contribs) 21:55, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
-
- Generally, while a sandbox is for tinkering and draft-writing, a workshop page is for linking. It serves as both a bookmark page and notepad. You can use it to store your task list of articles you want to work on or create, organize the links to the pages in your userspace, jot down ideas on various projects, store your purge buttons and other controls, etc. It is an all-purpose link page that you can use for just about anything. See my workshop as an example. The Transhumanist 18:04, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
-
- And please don't overlook #1 on your task list. Dweller is definitely an advanced user. Analysing experienced Wikipedians will give you lots of insight into your own activities and ways to improve them. I consider #1 the most important task on your list. Use the edit counter on Dweller, go to his user page and look over his contributions (clicking "User contributions" on Wikipedia's toolbox menu), etc. Find something to ask him about. Ask questions about his opinions, his wiki-philosophy, his activities, particular edits, etc. Anything Wikipedia-related. Your questions will also help Dweller practice presenting himself and get used to being scruitinized, which is exactly what happens at RfAs, RfCs, Wikipedia's various reporting boards, etc. The Transhumanist 19:05, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Your proofread/edit of WP:3RR was excellent. The only thing I need to point out is that we generally don't change acceptable British spellings to American spellings. And they don't change our spellings to theirs. All major varieties of English are acceptable, because the English Wikipedia has English editors, Canadian editors, Australian editors, etc. We peacefully co-exist. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (spelling). The Transhumanist 08:11, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
- My apologies for the long delayed response. I have been on an unofficial wikibreak due to school, vacation, and my recent upgrade to Windows Vista Ultimate. Now I have mostly returned and will pick up where I left off. I understand the British brawling rules from the Manual of style, however, I had a bit of reasoning behind my spelling changes. I changed the word ”behavioural” because the policy was under the " behavior ” policy group, and it was spelled in the American Standard, so I assumed that we would want eight uniforms spelling as mentioned in the Manual of style. Also I change "libelous" to the American spelling because Wiktionary refers to the for spelling as being ” commoner British spelling", so I assumed that it was not a standard for spelling, and should be changed. Also, the article on the libel uses the American spelling, so I figured we want the two to match. I realize that I may have extrapolated some of the guidelines of the Manual of style beyond what they are intended to, but that was my rationale nonetheless. On a different note, now that I received Windows Vista I can use " voice recognition” technologies to better write Wikipedia's articles. We shall see how well it works, because it has been known to create some inaccuracies. (There may be some such inaccuracies in this reply right here, as it is being dictated.) Also on another subject, now that I have a headset for my computer, I was considering volunteering for the "spoken Wikipedia" project. Over the next couple days, I will be catching up on my watch list, and once have completed that I will get back to the tasks that you assigned me.--Vox Rationis (Talk | contribs) 04:04, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
I've not given you any additional tasks, as you've yet to complete the above. --Dweller 11:19, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Dweller
Ready for the 3rd-degree? Okay, here goes...
- What's your favorite aspect of Wikipedia (the thing you like to work on the most)?
This changes, from day to day, hour to hour. It's also changed as I've gained experience here. If you don't mind, I'll meld in the Why to this section, because I'm going to be awkward and give more than one answer.
Currently, I very much enjoy putting in quality spadework to get articles promoted to FA. I've done 2 and a third is close to FA status. I've worked in collaboration with some cricket WikiProject editors but my greatest partner in crime has been the indefatiguable Rambling Man, who (let's be fair about this) has done most of the work on the 3rd article.
From these activities, I derive considerable enjoyment. FA is the highest level of approval available in Wikipedia for an article's quality, as opposed to the merit of its topic.
I like to counter-point this (sometimes wearing) work with a mix of RC patrolling/Vandal bashing/Welcoming newbies/Conflict resolution and what I think of as "librarianship" at some of the ref desks. The first three are usually fairly easy to "get through" with a modicum of time invested, in other words, they're the exact opposite of the FA work - small investment for a small improvement here. Conflict resolution is something I find deeply satisfying. I like to do this from time to time. It takes a lot of time and effort and I try hard to be smart, so as not to antagonise situations further. My style is to be unilateral and make an effort to come out of left field. There are plenty of formal systems for this and currently, I'm not too interested in joining them. I hope I'm making a difference. Finally, the much-maligned Ref Desks. I think these are great. I dip in and out and make use of my own general (and specialist) knowledge and my Googling/WP-searching abilities. I spice it with a modicum of humour. I've learned not to make the first answer to a well-intentioned question too jokey.
I hope that just about covers What and why. Feel free to query me and point out where I'm outta line.
- Why?
See above.
- What tools do you use?
Ah. I'm rather low-tech. I've been using pop-ups for a while. I find it pretty useful, but it has some rather irritating aspects during editing, particularly when trying to cut and paste text that includes wikilinks. I had a comment from Glen that I should subst my warning messages. The ensuing debate (my atttidue here is slightly cocky, but I stand by it) led to him trying to boost my wikielbow by giving me "non admin tools". My monobook looked fabulous, the tools seemed brilliant... for the 0.3 seconds I could access Wikipedia before my humble laptop crashed. Again and again. Sadly, I've reverted back to simple pop-ups and I'm frankly reluctant to try out too much with my monobook. I am tempted to try downloading Firefox and give that a spin, but as I only own one of the machines I access WP from, I'll only tinker with that one. I occasionally make use of an edit counter (I placed a shortcut on my user page). I find this moderately interesting in an admittedly slightly self-absorbed manner, but I'm hardly obsessed with edit count etc. Mostly, I it's because at heart I'm a bit of a geek who likes stats. Recognise the cricket fan in me?
Glen's intervention was hugely welcome and disappointingly abortive. I recognise from pop-ups weedy abilities the utility of some of the tools that are out there, but I'm a little afraid of pushing my creaking kit too hard.
- What areas do you think you need the most improvement in?
Policy, policy, policy. In answer to the next question, yes, I've read them, but reading em and absorbing em is two different fish. I recently was rightly upbraided for speedy tagging repost on a reposted article that hadn't been to AfD. I wasn't aware of the issue, though I've read the speedy criteria umpteen times... I must have just missed the detail, which is worrying. Interestingly, I then found it interesting that an admin can salt an article that's being reposted without having been to AfD. I find that contradictory. Ho hum. Anyway, my main point is that I was shocked to have made such a basic mistake.
I've been participating in XfD to hone my antennae. My modus operandi has been to find debates where I'm the first opinion, or at least an early one, so I'm unaffected by others' opinions, other than the nom. When I first came to Wikipedia, I was definitely inclusionist, but I now find myself more of an appropriatenessist.
Other than that, I think I'm pretty good on civility. I have had a very occasional aberration. I am very keen to reduce those to a nil level as an ongoing platform. Whether it's my fault or not, I pride myself on apologising for even an accusation of incivility and doing my best to redress the situation. In my opinion, if I've upset someone, my intentions at the time are irrelevant and at the least I'm guilty of clumsiness. This of course applies to good faith editors. I'm polite to vandals (I try to encourage them if I detect a chance of redemption... I quite like the {{silly}} tag, as it is less confrontational than others...
- Have you read all of the policies?
Interesting question. No. Many are not relevant to me. For example, I will never run a Bot and rarely participate in Bot related interaction.
Obviously, I've read the most relevant policies (3RR, Vandalism etc) which apply to work I do. But what I've found is that I read the policies as I uncover a need to use them. For example, I've recently discovered WP:RFCN and before I began interacting there (nice debating chamber) I read WP:U, as you'd hope (and expect!).
More to the point, if I might redirect the gist of your question, I find myself querying whether I really understand the policies and can apply them correctly. As I've already indicated, I have cause to question myself with these big questions. My best options, all of which I've undertaken, are:
- Keep re-reading the policies
- Interact vigorously and using justification (few "per nom" comments from me) at places like XfD, WP:AIV, WP:ANI and WP:RFCN
- Occasionally drop in to respected admin's talk pages and suggest what I think an appropriate course of action would be and check they agree (and if not, why not)
- Editor review
- Erm... admin coaching. <Grins>
Fortunately, I would modestly say that I respond well to constructive criticism and indeed welcome it (I seek it out - see 3, 4 and 5 above). I have learned tons since my first tentative steps here (check this for an embarrassing early edit, although in good faith of course) and I fully expect to continue learning, possibly by making mistakes and possibly after any successful RfA. I have heard that admins are human and occasionally get things wrong... --Dweller 11:19, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Okay, that's a start. More questions to come after you've answered those. The Transhumanist 05:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
- Hi. Thanks for this. I'm raring to go and hope to learn lots, so please find my weaknesses! I'll be kicking this off, most likely, tomorrow (Monday). --Dweller 10:16, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
-
- Glad to have you here. I hope you have fun. You can post your answers above, indented under each question. And more questions will be coming! The Transhumanist 17:16, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
- Glad to have you here. I hope you have fun. You can post your answers above, indented under each question. And more questions will be coming!
-
- Email activated. Good. The Transhumanist 21:48, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Some comments on the answers you posted above...
Understanding of policies lies in their context. Some ways to understand policies better are to:
- Read a policy's talk page and talk page archive. The archive may provide the initial discussion and reasoning for why the policy was created (though you might have to search further afield to find them). But what you will find for sure are endless debates over each policy's purpose and the justifications and criticisms of it and its various clauses. I.e., a policy's context.
- Yes, you're right (of course). I'd worked this one out, but I've been too lazy. Some of the policies and guidelines have masses of back history. I've had some interaction at WT:N (can't remember the detail) - it's a hotbed of antagonism between the inclusionists and deletists in particular! (10 pages of archive). If you don't mind, this will be one option I'll be leaving till later in the process, though I definitely appreciate the rationale, which is clear and sound.
- To be exposed to policy context in general - and the attitudes, principles and philosophies that underlie policies - you could regularly read and participate in Wikipedia:Village pump (policy).
- Great idea. I'll make a point of doing that. I've added it to my watchlist.
- Another very good place for learning policy context is to see how they are actively applied and enforced at Wikipedia:Administrators' notice board.
- Yes. Until pretty recently, I was deterred by its name and <blushes> thought non-admins shouldn't post there. I know, I know. Funny, because I have plenty of edits to AIV and ANI. Perhaps because they're more task-focused. (Actually, on reflection, I was very nervous when first posting to ANI).
- Content-related policies are discussed a lot in Wikipedia:Deletion debates and at Wikipedia:Deletion review.
- I'm increasingly interested in these. I stepped up my contribution to XfD a couple of months ago and that has naturally led to interest in those areas.
The Transhumanist 18:56, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
To track down the cause of your laptop crashes, add one tool at a time to your monobook.js, and use it for awhile before adding the next one.
- Yup. I tried that in reverse (see the history) but might try it forwards too. I also cleaned up my hard drive a fair bit, so may get a better result.
Some more questions for you:
- When you need to find a particular word in the edit window of a long article, how do you do it?
- Control F
- You mean that finds them in an open edit window (after you've clicked "edit this page")? Wow! what browser do you use? The Transhumanist 00:49, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
- I thought for a moment that I'd written something stupid, but I just "Control F"d to find the word "Control" in order to respond :-) I'm using IE version 6.0 on this particular machine. --Dweller 09:16, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
- You mean that finds them in an open edit window (after you've clicked "edit this page")? Wow! what browser do you use? The Transhumanist 00:49, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
- Control F
- What methods do you use for searching and relacing?
- Yes, you asked me that on my talk page. Do you mean within text? I don't do an awful lot of that. I'd use Control F. I don't run AWB or any automated tools if that's what you're asking.
- Do you spellcheck the articles you read, edit, and create?
- Yes. I'm quite pedantic about typos and glitches.
- How?
- Well, I don't use the Preview option as much as I should, although a recent decision to try to remember to do so is paying dividends! I have a certain amount of, shall we say, "expertise" at proofing. I'm surprised when someone else needs to pick up on a typo of mine, though always pleased it's been corrected. (So long as it's not a fallacious correction!)
- What methods do you use for finding what you are looking for on Wikipedia?
- Gosh, that's a broad one. Well, the search box is quite useful <grins> but I supplement that with using list articles, Categories and links within relevant articles. I also resort to Googling sometimes.
- What browser(s) do you use?
- IE v6.0
- What browser extensions do you apply to studying and working on Wikipedia?
The Transhumanist 19:32, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Question from Luckyluke:
- Hello, I'm one of the newer students that Transhumanist has taken on. A policy-related question for you, as an admin, should you choose to, you will have to close AfD discussions. You have mentioned above that you wish to become more involved in XfD's to better understand policies. Since my time on Wikipedia, October 2004, I have seen a growth in articles about educational institutions (public high schools, private schools, private universities, public universities, etc.), what are you views on the notability of schools given that the formerly proposed notability guidelines for schools were not adopted? Luke! 05:47, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
- Hi. That's a really good question. When I first started coming across these (very early in my time here - indeed, my first ever edit was to a school article) I found it quite easy to apply WP:N and WP:ORG criteria. It's blatantly apparent that there are highly notable schools. It's equally clear to me that the nursery school round the corner from my gaff isn't notable.
- I saw WP:SCHOOL and it's talk page and found myself inclining with those who disagreed for the need for the guideline. If anything, all that was needed was a gloss to WP:RS, but I'm not even sure of the need there. Any school that's notable will have been the subject of comment in a reliable source or two.
- Claims of notability are of course more controversial and I'd be looking for clear consensus at AfD if the only claim was something like "<notable person> attended <this school>." (but I think that'd be enough for me to disallow a speedy) if that were the sole claim for notability. In essence, distilling my ramblings, speedy keep/delete options would be reserved for the clearer, less contentious issues where there is consensus (Shimeru's summary here is handy).
- I'd make no distinction between the notability requirements for private and government-funded schools.
- In terms of colleges and universities, I believe that properly accredited colleges and universities (which should almost certainly carry heavyweight WP:V anyway) are pretty much automatically notable. The difficulty comes with the proliferation of "send a cheque and your PhD is in the post" institutions. These are a minefield and I'd handle with extreme care. Indeed, I'd rather not touch 'em. I've come across these before in RL and they're slippery eels. However, heavyweight RS won't be verifying them. In short, I'd not close any speedy or AfD for a university unless it was a Keep based on heavyweight RS. For Delete, I'd avoid speedying but would consider an AfD WP:SNOW close... but it'd have to be a veritable blizzard. Admins should know their shortcomings.
- Thanks for the excellent question. --Dweller 10:35, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Questions for Dweller, round 2
Please provide the links to your FAs so we can learn from your activities and progress there. -TT
Hi there. Sure... I'm proud of them. All three (to-date) have been collaborations with User:The Rambling Man. Here they are, with some comments:
- West Indian cricket team in England in 1988. Our first effort. An article I began shortly after arriving at WP, which got on the main page as a WP:DYK, something I'd found immensely satisfying. We had a little help from the Cricket WikiProject.
- Paul Collingwood. We responded to an "advert" by User:Blnguyen (yes, it's a redlink), asking for help getting some cricket bios to FA in time for the impending World Cup. This was the first of two that we did. Blnguyen helpfully pointed to a bunch of bios with decent usable photos - one of the biggest problems to overcome. TRMan chose "Shep". There was considerable help from the Cricket WikiProject, in the enthusiasm garnered by Blnguyen's ad. Incidentally, TRMan and my posts at the WikiProject page stimulated the creation of a WikiProject "collaboration of the month".
- Adam Gilchrist. In all fairness, TRMan did most of the work on that one, with me chipping in. We had much less help from Cricket WikiProject members.
We're also close to taking Ipswich Town F.C. to WP:FAC. It's currently at peer review. We're waiting for a copyedit, as we dislike taking material to FAC until we're confident it's close to "approvable". Finally, we've just started work on our latest project, Norwich City F.C. --Dweller 11:31, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
What have you learned about getting articles through FA, that isn't covered in the instructions? -TT
Gosh. Lots. I'll try to distill it all. Some of this is in the instructions, but is worth picking out.
- Don't take an article to FAC until it's really, really good. A bunch of serious opposes begin to fill the page and make it look like a bad nomination. A good long time at Peer Review is best.
- Work on detailed responses to detailed objects/comments at the article talk page, for the same reasons as 1.
- Get the photos assessed by a photos specialist before going to FAC, to make sure all aspects of their licensing are OK. The shenanigans over the recent Main Page article Cricket World Cup losing all of its images on the very day it was featured was a horrible embarrassment to the cricket WikiProject and Wikipedia itself, IMHO.
- Deal with every comment and criticism without rancour. Remember that the purpose is to get the best possible article, not to bulldoze an almost-ready piece through. For that reason, thank your critics - they're doing you a favour.
- Number 4 does not mean that you need agree with every criticism. But have a very good reason for disagreeing. And don't do it often.
- Respond promptly to comments/criticisms, even with a placeholder "Good point - I'll look into it"#
- Be prepared to delete things (or comment them out) if they're POV or unsourcable. Even if they're (to your mind) important or really good bits of prose
- Be persistent. You'll get there.
- Ask expert editors on the topic to come and comment. Also, ask total novice editors on the topic. A cricket article must be satisfying to cricket lovers and half way understandable for everyone else. A brilliant recent Main Page FA that I (surprisingly) really enjoyed was 0.999.... I don't "get" maths, yet the article was challengingly digestible.
- Images help make an FA, but they can be hard to find, with the right licenses. Charts and other graphics, on the other hand, are much easier and if you can't do them yourself, ask for help from someone who's made one on another article.
- Start the process by adding {{cn}} tags to every single claim in the article. Then go back and replace them with proper inline citations - the "citeweb" methodology is preferred, it would seem. Position your references at the end of sentences/parags, after the full-stop.
- You need to read and understand WP:DASH. It's a bore, but you'll get opposed otherwise.
- Similarly for WP:MOS and WP:LEAD
Might add more, as I think of it. --Dweller 11:48, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- Looks like the perfect start for a lesson. Want to convert it into one? "Dweller, on Featured Article Development". Just say the word, and I'll transfer the above to a subpage, where you and our copy-editors can work on it. That reminds me! I've got to post the new lesson. :-) The Transhumanist 22:37, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
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- Excellent idea. I'd be honoured. I'd guess that TRMan would have an opinion or two! :-) --Dweller 17:27, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Question from Luckyluke:
Given that we are all aspiring to be adminstrators and that you have participated in RfA discussions a fair bit, do you have a general criteria of what constitutes a successful RfA? This may sound like a stupid question given that if we all knew the criteria we wouldn't be here coaching each other. However, you are well experienced and I am interested in your views. I am most interested in the criteria you use to judge other editors - what do you look for, what pleases you, what doesn't, etc. Are there any special instances where an RfA can proceed successfully beyond the normal conventions (ex. would it be possible for a low edit count user to successfully pass an RfA, etc.)? Luke! 23:38, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Assignments for Dweller
Until you're comfortable with policy and confident in your application of it, I recommend that you spend roughly half of your Wikipedia time on the following:
- Join the Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates and take on mediations. You'll be forced to interpret policy every step of the way.
- Read and keep up with Wikipedia:Administrators notice board. It's a base camp from where policy is actively enforced. And don't be shy. You can participate in the discussions there too.
- Read/participate in Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) regularly.
- Read all of Wikipedia's policies, and their talk pages and talk page archives. (You'll find yourself looking things up a lot in relation to your activities above, but a straight read through of all of them is important as well).
The other half of your time should be spent in the encyclopedia itself. After all, encyclopedia articles are the entire point.
The Transhumanist 18:56, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
- Indeed. I've kicked off a new FA hunt with The Rambling Man. We're working on Ipswich Town F.C.. Our third FA was passed overnight - Adam Gilchrist (though TRM did most of the work on that one). --Dweller 15:50, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Update. I have now installed Firefox on one of the machines I use. I have installed a copy of your monobook and it's working (better than!) fine. I'm restricted to IE on other machines I use, so it remains to be seen if they'll tolerate the tools. Advice on "extensions" is welcomed. --Dweller 13:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, I have a couple of recommendations. The first, is a feature of Firefox itself, rather than an extension: tabbing. There's a section about it on my tools page. Tabs are like windows, but they're within Firefox. See Interiot's suggestions on using it in the interface section on this page, below.
- The best tool I've found to enhance tabbing is Linky.
- "Tab" is just another name for "window". Try the following: Select text with about 100 links in it, click your right mouse button, click Linky on the drop down menu, click "Load selected links into tabs", uncheck any links you don't want to open, click "Open selected links", and then switch to another window and do something else while those links are loading. Then come back and look at the first tab (each tab contains a seperate Wikipedia page). When you are done looking at or editing that page, press Ctrl-F4 and it instantly disappears, and the next tab is displayed. When you need to see what you are doing, tabs + Linky is faster than AWB. Tabs + Linky + a macro program is a powerful tool, and complements AWB.
- Another extension I recommend is Translator. It is fantastic for viewing other-language Wikipedia's, which in turn serve as portals to the WWW pages in that each language. That is, the German Wikipedia is a great portal to the German Web.
- And of course, ChatZilla. Enjoy. The Transhumanist 04:14, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Some more assignments for you:
- You mentioned you joined the AMA. Good for you. If you'd like to see how I've been handling my first mediation assignment, see Paytakaran. I never actually joined AMA, instead I was tapped on the shoulder by an advocate who asked me to help. I was asked to participate here, I replied both here and Wikipedia:AMA Requests for Assistance/Requests/January 2007/Grandmaster here, and got started here.
- I've reviewed the case. My goodness. I think you've done such an outstanding job, it's rather off-putting; I'm not sure if I'm as wise as you! But I'm keen to give it a shot. I'll dive in today. If you don't mind, I'll notify you here about it and ask you to keep an eye on what I get up to. Sound advice is always welcome. For that matter, I welcome it in any area of my contributions. --Dweller 12:27, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- I recommend not setting up an AMA desk page, as it just splits up the discussion. Rather, I advise taking each case right to the talk page of the article at issue, and mediating right there.
- Yes, seems sensible. Much like my experience of working on FAC articles. Totally agree. Will amend my AMA member details and nuke my desk. --Dweller 12:27, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Anthony cfc
Hi Anthony. I admire your interest in becoming a Wikipedia admin, and I'd be happy to help you prepare yourself for that responsibility. Keep in mind that preparing for adminship isn't any different from learning Wikipedia better. They are one and the same. So concentrate on improving your Wikipedia skills in general, and more importantly your involvement in Wikipedia, and eventually someone will nominate you for adminship. Adminship is granted to those who are trusted by the Wikipedia community and who also need the tools. Examples of need include editors who are heavily involved in administrative activities like vandalism reverting. Going for adminship just because it's there, like a mountain to climb, is generally frowned upon. Adminship is an outgrowth of your Wikipedia activities, not the other way around.
So let's get started. In order to help you better, it would help us (everybody involved with this page) if you told us a little about yourself, like what your strongest areas of knowledge are, about your interests, and your Wikipedia activities and goals.... The Transhumanist 01:24, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
- First off let me start by thanking TT and everyone involved here for accepting me, despite the fact I had to turn down the initial opportunity due to illness. Cheers a lot!
- So, who am I? Well there's not much to know about me, that's not on my user page - I am almost completely internet anonymous except for my forename and home town. Who am I on Wikipedia is another matter, however. I generally vary my time on Wiki between the mainspace and the maintenance side of Wikipedia; on mainspace I am involved with Portal:Trains (Wikiproject British Rail and Wikiproject Trains) and with the article Cambuslang railway station. I have recently nominated Paddington railway station as a Good Article; I also carry out WP:GNOME duties - for example, I recently archived Talk:Spyware. Away from mainspace, I am a member of the WP:AMA, of Esperanza, the Recent Changes Patrol and the Med Cabal. I am also currently under nomination for the Med Com. In addition to this, I am a Checkuser (clerk).
- My Wikipedia goals - I have only one, simple aim. I aim to change the encyclopedia in my own, small but effective ways in a civil and friendly manner.
Wow. It looks like you would make a better teacher than a student. But here, we're all teachers and students at the same time. I have a few questions for you...
- In what small but effective ways would you like to change the encyclopedia?
- Are there any other subject areas you are interested in working on? (If so, what are they?)
- What wiki-skills would you like to acquire or improve?
- And which wiki-activities do you feel strong enough in that you could write about them with expertise?
The Transhumanist 12:48, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
- Here are some examples of small but effective ways I have changed the encyclopedia: (a); Paddington station - GA status; and I've deleted around 5 articles (such as Jed (artist). Although these contributions are small, I feel they are effective and I am rather proud of them.
- I am interested in writing for the Wikipedia Signpost - in actual fact I see around 3 or 4 stories that could be added to "Wikipedia In The News" and I also have ideas about setting up an interview system, where we could interview 1 key member of the community each week.
- The main wiki-skills I would like to aquire is a thorough knowledge of Wikipedia policy - perhaps even write a central location for them all: the pages that exist only cover the main policies.
- Wikipedia activities I feel strong enough that I could write about? Wikicode (<begingloat>DYK it only took me 1 day to write out my user page that I am rather proud of :)<end gloat>); neutrality; and soliving disputes.
You've edited 1017 pages. That's a lot. Each taken by itself may be considered a small contribution, but taken as a whole it shows that you are systematically improving Wikipedia, and that is no small task. Thank you.
At Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/About it states: "A Newsroom was set up to facilitate discussion of stories among the contributing editors. Anyone can contribute articles to the Signpost. Suggestions and news tips from the wider community are also welcomed at the newsroom's tip line."
I just checked the newsroom, and there are requests for articles in there. The page where stories are discussed and developed is Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Other. It's a little short notice for this issue (tomorrow), but it's probably not too early to start discussing next week's issue, or articles in general. Good luck.
Please check Wikipedia:List of policies and Wikipedia:List of guidelines, and let me know if those are complete.
Ooh, wikicode. I could never figure out where to find lists of all the codes you can enter after "style=", for instance. Can you point me to those? And where are all the "classes" defined? I found them once, but I didn't make note of the page, and I've not been able to find it again since. The Transhumanist 19:26, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
- Hmm... I don't actively refer to a list of code - WikiFormat comes to me as easily as <nowiki> comes to most users, but I'll dig around or, failing that, try to compile a list at my user page. Anthonycfc [T • C] 12:16, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- Can you think of a reason why I only have one barnstar? It seems to me that some users get loads and others get one (yours truly). Do you think I am doing something wrong? Anthonycfc 15:50, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Nope, you are not doing anything wrong. Keep in mind that barnstars are not scientific nor are they systematically applied. It's part luck and mostly it's just a matter of accumulating them over long periods of time. If you get a barnstar for every 2500 edits (not including user page edits), you're doing pretty good. The users with large collections of barnstars tend to have tens of thousands of edits under their belts, and have been contributing to Wikipedia a long time. So don't worry about it. Just do your best and others will recognize this and reward you accordingly. But remember, barnstars are more about giving than receiving. It feels good to be appreciated, and that's what barnstars are for: they are a fun way to let others know their efforts are appreciated. You can't control what others give to you, but you are in full control of what recognition you give to others, and in my opinion it feels just as good to give a barnstar as it does to receive one. So be sure to reward others whenever and wherever the reward is due. The Transhumanist 18:25, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Anthony cfc, assignments
Your current assignments are:
- Sign up as an admin coach, and help out on this page.
- Drag this link to your Firefox toolbar. Then rename it to "EC" (edit counter)
- Load Linky, and use it to load 50 tabs. Then use the Firefox tab commands on those tabs (see User:The_Transhumanist/Tools#Tabs_and_tabbing). Ask questions if you have any.
Let me know when you've completed those. The Transhumanist 15:58, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, sir :P a minute or two.. anthonycfc [talk] 16:29, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] New assignment
Now that you have Interiot's edit counter easily accessible, use it to look up each of the new students above. As you find the time, use the edit counter and the "user contributions" command on the sidebar, to do an "Editor review" on each of them, posting your observations in their respective sections above. Study their contributions, including the actual edits they made to the best of your ability.
Since each would like to be an admin someday, give them advice on what areas you believe they need to work on to prepare them for that responsibility.
The Transhumanist 21:32, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
- I relish the oppurtunity! Further note, I already had the edit counter up in my toolbars :) Regards, anthonycfc [talk] 21:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Review Me!
Could you do an admin-relevant review for me, like what happened for The Rambling Man (prev. Budgiekiller) earlier on? anthonycfc [talk] 21:38, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
- Sure. By the way, I just posted myself at Wikipedia:Editor review, to get first-hand experience of and insight into that process. Maybe we should overhaul it.
The Transhumanist 22:49, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Analysis of Anthony's contributions
Upon looking at your edit count, my eye is instantly drawn to two things:
1) Your Wikipedia namespace count, which is relatively low. And...
2) Your User page edit count, which is relatively high.
Therefore, slow down on user page edits, and focus more on the Wikipedia namespace.
Upon looking over your contributions, I noticed very little activity on policy pages. This is a major factor in advancing as an editor and becoming an admin, so you should really become more involved in those pages. They can be found on Wikipedia:List of policies.
I hope that helps.
Oh, and let me know if those relaxation techniques work. They sure work wonders for me. I've been using them for years.
The Transhumanist 23:08, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
- I've got a sockpuppet for user page edits (I often feel the need to perfect my userpage) so the only edits should be to my monobook.(j/cs)s. Any reason why I am appear "hyper"? anthonycfc [talk] 21:29, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
-
- It was just that the impatience you've expressed recently for your next RfA, was making me feel hyper. No big deal. I was just teasing, with the pendalum and all. As an admin, you will need to stay calm in the face of some pretty irrate jerks. I'm impressed with your composure. It wasn't meant as a test, but if it was one, you passed it admirably.
-
- Can you channel the OCD? That would give you an incrediable advantage. Like, if you could pick an area on Wikipedia that is backlogged, and get obsessed with that? Just curious.
- Can you channel the OCD? That would give you an incrediable advantage. Like, if you could pick an area on Wikipedia that is backlogged, and get obsessed with that? Just curious.
The Transhumanist 09:00, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
-
-
- Yeah, I can do that :) I think that's entirely possible, it's just that I have no control over what I obsess over, if you see what I mean! However, I was active at WP:GAC up until my break, and I cleared the 8-article Transportation backlog! Hopefully, I can use that sort of Obsession more! anthonycfc [talk] 21:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
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[edit] Further assignments for Anthony cfc
Here are some suggested assignments:
- Participate as a reviewer over at Wikipedia:Editor review. You can even review me, if you want, 'cus I'm on the list!
- Look over the questions I've posted for the various editors at WP:ER, and ponder your answers to them.
- Each day that you log on, answer one question at the Help desk. Later on, as you get more experienced, take turns between the various desks (WP:VPT, WP:RD, etc.).
- Take a permanent link snapshot of each of your user page designs (as you complete them), by substituting all the templates, and then saving. In the edit summary include "permanent snapshot", and your name for that design, or a version number. Then revert. You could do the same for your user pages too, cuz their just as cool.
- Store your permanent links on a subpage, for easy access to them, and perhaps to display them on your user page by transcluding that page.
The Transhumanist 09:00, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] RfA standards
The standard is that there is no standard. For an example of this, see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards/A-D.
The last chart on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards shows how articles are growing faster than adminships. It will be harder and harder over time for Wikipedia's admins to keep up with their responsibilities, unless an effective way to approve admins is found and adopted.
Another chart on there shows how long editors wait before going for their RfAs and their success rate. Based on this chart, it doesn't help much to wait. The Transhumanist 02:09, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] AMK152
Hi AMK. As part of my coaching assignment, I've been monitoring your edits. I'm impressed with the sheer volume of work you've been doing. I'm also glad to see you pull away from SpongeBob Squarepants from time to time (specialization is good, but some diversification is good too). You expressed interest in preparing yourself for adminship, and one of the things that come up in RfAs is whether or not the editor needs the admin tools. Based on your editing activities, it is clear that you do not need them at this time. You get along perfectly fine without them. There isn't anything in your editing routine that really requires the mop. There's nothing wrong with this. It's just that the mop is generally handed to those who are immersed in Wikipedia's administrative chores, like closing AfDs, monitoring recent changes and fighting vandalism, departmental chores like WP:POTD, helping out at peer review, requests for feedback, third opinion, etc.
Admin rights can be particularly helpful for working in certain areas of Wikipedia:
- Incidents that may require admin intervention
- 3RR violations
- Intervention against vandalism
- Copyright problems
- Candidate speedy deletion pages
- Requested moves
- Admins will also find their tools useful for RC patrolling.
But if you aren't interested in working in these areas, then the admin tools may not be of any use to you. There are many janitorial-like chores on Wikipedia which do not require admin tools, and these are listed in the editorial department section of the Wikipedia:Department directory. Performance in those areas are used as a guide to project how well one will perform as an admin. But before you go for adminship, you will need to know what you want to do with the admin tools.
So, if you are still interested, perhaps you should shift your efforts. Begin exploring and working on Wikipedia's "blue pages". Helping out on Wikipedia's backlogs is also greatly needed. Take a look at the Community portal and the Wikipedia Department Directory, and let me know what areas interest you the most.
The Transhumanist 12:47, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] General learning tip
Learn from the example of others. Pick some mentors. Choose some experienced Wikipedians you admire, and study their recent contributions (now that they are experts). You can find the most prolific and experienced Wikipedians at Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits. Read their user pages, and when you are there, click "User contributions" on the sidebar's toolbox menu. Use the diff command to study their edits. To learn what admins do, study the best admins. The Transhumanist 00:38, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Me too!
Same goes here- CattleGirl talk | e@ | review me! 23:46, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
- This is an easy one. Continue editing articles and reading help pages. As you proceed, familiarize yourself with Wikipedia's style guides, templates, and categories. As you become more experienced in editing articles and participating in article discussions on their talk pages, delve into Wikipedia's blue pages more and more (especially Policies and guidelines and choose areas you find interesting from my reply to Budgiekiller, above). Get to know your way around the encyclopedia (see Wikipedia:Contents and Wikipedia:Navigational templates) and the Wikipedia namespace {get to know Wikipedia:Community portal, Wikipedia:Shortcuts, and the Wikipedia:Department directory like the back of your hand). In about 6 months to a year, you'll be an obvious candidate for adminship. When you feel you are ready, read all the pages on the recommended reading list above. And of course, start using the tips posted on this page and at the Wikipedia:Tip of the day project. One of the fastest ways to learn is to teach, so putting in time at the Help desk and Wikipedia:Reference desks will improve your learning curve (be sure to browse their archives too). And throughout all this, remember, be supportive of your fellow Wikipedians (see Wikipedia:Welcoming committee, Wikipedia:Barnstars, and Wikipedia:Esperanza. Enjoy yourself, and edit away! The Transhumanist 00:38, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The Rambling Man: Analyze me!
- (formerly known as "Budgiekiller")
As I asked above, can you, from my contributions, tell me where I'm most likely to be considered weak if making an application to become an admin? Cheers! Budgiekiller 17:58, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
- As I answered above, that depends upon your approach or how you are presented. Many RfAs of specialized editors succeed on their strengths by emphasizing those strengths in the nomination. I believe that is the best (and most honest) approach. Vandal hunters are by far the most favored type of specialist at RfA, because Wikipedia needs as many vandal hunters as it can get. Trusted vandal reverters who can block vandals are in high demand.
- If you still want to take the generalist's approach, then work on Categories, Portals, templates, and pages in the Wikipedia namespace. Some Wikipedia namespace activities you can try are more deletion discussions (especially the types you haven't tried much WP:MfD, WP:CfD, WP:TfD), volunteer at Wikipedia:Peer review, Wikipedia:Featured article candidates, Wikipedia:Editor review, Wikipedia:Requests for comment, Wikipedia:Third opinion, Wikipedia:Help desk, Wikipedia:Reference desk, participate in the discussoins at the Wikipedia:Village pump (any or all), Wikipedia:Requests for adminship (providing useful commentary and not just "support"/"oppose", etc.
- When you spot a red-linked username or an IP contributing to a page send them the an appropreate greeting from the Wikipedia:Welcoming committee. Engage in policy and guideline discussions (found on the talk pages of policies and guidelines). Edit/cleanup/improve Wikipedia's help pages (some of which are in the Help namespace, and some in the Wikipedia namespace); those in the help namespace must be edited at Wikimedia (a link is always provided), except for the Wikipedia-specific portions.
- Wikipedia's daily departments, such as the features on the Main page (picutre of the day, etc.) need constant volunteer support (to select and schedule the contributory pages).
- Install an admin navigation bar on one of your userpages (see the one at the top of User:Rich Farmbrough's or the Go for it user page, and start frequenting the pages those link to. Hang out at Wikipedia:Administrator's notice board. And close some deletion discussions.
- Basically, general involvement in a wide variety of activities on Wikipedia's "Blue pages". The more areas you have experience in, the better. Put in a couple thousand edits, amongst the areas from those just mentioned which you've participated in the least, and you should be fine. But don't resign from the article namespace. Articles are the raison d’être of Wikipedia. The Transhumanist 00:38, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] My areas of weakness
Hi, well here goes! Your original advice to me was to get into some of the tools for vandal hunting and also to participate in the non-admin closure of AfD's. So far I've managed to convert to a PC (from my iBook) in order to get Lupin's pop-ups working without killing my browser, and I've been approved for, and am using, VandalProof with, I think, some degree of success - approximately 1000 edits in the past three or four days.
Unfortunately it appears that VP is a bit buggy at version 1.3, I'm hoping it'll be fixed soon so I can back on it.
So, I guess my first question is: looking at my contributions, can you identify areas which I need to work on right away? I must confess that vandal hunting is my primary contribution at the moment, but I have created over sixty articles so my non-vandal mainspace edits aren't too shabby either.
Anyway, let me know what you think, and thanks for agreeing to participate in coaching me! Cheers! Budgiekiller 12:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
-
- I too would like you to look through my contributions and tell me my weaknesses as well. Thanks. -AMK152 12:40, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
My advice: emphasize your strengths, rather than worry about shoring up your weaknesses.
- It is true that some nominees get denied admin status because they lack edits in one area or another. I think this is rather short-sighted of the people who happen to be "voting" at the RfA when this occurs, because there is no reason why a particular editor couldn't specialize and still be considered a valuable member of the sysadmin team. Wikipedia needs editors of all types and with different strengths, and that applies to sysadmins as well. I don't see the logic in demanding that system admins spread their edits out equally amongst the namespaces nor throughout the activities on Wikipedia. A sysop who specializes in vandal hunting, for instance, would most likely have more expertise in this area than an admin generalist with the same number of overall edits. And that's a good thing. If Wikipedia only had generalists, then the highest levels of expertise in each area would be lower. And that's not as good. Therefore: Viva la difference!
- I've taken a look at your contributions, and both of you are very strong editors. There is no reason why you shouldn't go for adminship on your current strengths. Trust is the major factor by which editors should be judged to be worthy sysadmins. But the reality is that users participating in RfA discussions can lend their support or object for any reason they see fit, and the reasons run the entire spectrum from the on-target issue of trustworthiness to minor peripheral tastes. I've seen RfAs turned down for lack of edits (based on one's overall total and on section totals), lack of participation in a specific area like AfDs, lack of consistent use of edit summaries, for grudges held by those they conflicted with in the past (such as on AfDs, etc.), and even based on a person's voting record at RfA, or for the fact that they nominated themselves! I've been informed by some that they wouldn't vote for me because of my colorful signature, or because of the way I emphasize my VERY STRONG DELETE or VERY STRONG KEEP votes (I'm sorry, "opinions") at deletion discussions (they said it represented a bad attitude and annoyed them because it meant I was shouting). And even though this situation exists, preparing openly specifically to overcome these potential objections is frowned upon as "gaming the RfA system". There is even criticism of aiming to become an admin in the first place.
- On the other hand, I've seen RfA's of extremely narrowly specialized individuals succeed with great support. So there is hope. It's pretty much the luck of the draw in terms of whomever happens to be participating on the RfA page when you make your request or are nominated.
Wikipedia needs more sysadmins. The team of sysadmins we have now cannot keep up with their maintenance duties, and the backlogs continually grow. Therefore, my best advice is to seek nomination and run on the strengths you currently have, and emphasize your strong interests in those areas in which you truly have strong interests. If you are turned down, then deal with the objections by correcting anything they've pointed out, and then ask your nominator in a few months to nominate you again, and explain at the RfA that you've worked on the areas pointed out to you the last time.
In my opinion, you are both ready to become sysadmins now. If you feel you must prepare more first, study the pages listed on the recommended reading list above.
- In the meantime, there's no reason to discontinue receiving coaching here, or ever, because there is little difference between those who wish to become better editors and those who wish to become admins. Great editors make great admins, and generally get nominated sooner or later in recognition of their contributions and their integrity. Take a look at the most prolific accounts on Wikipedia, and notice the proportion of those who are sysadmins, and you will see what I mean. Being an eventualist is by far the least stressful way of becoming an admin: that is, recognize that it will happen naturally anyways.
- I will continue to add new subjects to this page for your benefit and the benefit of all. I'm planning to create new sections in the future for sharing expertise on countering vandalism, running bots, AWB techniquies, approaches to resolving conflict, monitoring the state of the 'pedia, and more. If there are other specific areas you are interested in, please let me know. Sincerely, The Transhumanist 08:42, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The only difference between admins and other editors...
Note that there is only one thing that differentiates between administrators and other editors. And that is trust.
Administrators gain their position because the Foundation and the Community trust them enough to allow them the use of powers which could -- potentially -- be harmful to the encyclopedia. Otherwise admins are much like other editors: some know a lot about policy and get involved in enforcing it and some don't. While it's all very useful to learn about policy whether you are intending to be an administrator or not, that isn't the critical factor in passing an RfA. The critical factor is getting the community to like and trust you and that requires showing involvement, good judgement, people skills and commonsense above all. In short you have to be seen as an active, useful and likeable member of the community. Sure, knowledge of policy helps with that but it is only part of the formula. In the end Trust is the big thing you have to gain if you want to be an admin. Lose it and you won't remain an admin for long. -- Derek Ross | Talk 16:15, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Questions and miscellaneous comments - anything goes
[edit] Some script-related questions
Rich, I 've started looking over your monobook.js, and have some questions for you:
I've cut and pasted your Lupin popups calling script, and it works fine. And it's better than copying the whole program in. Will that syntax work for calling any script?
I noticed you have {{User:AndyZ/peerreviewer.js}} commented out on there. Did you actually have this transcluded and working?
What does the "clever watchlist stuff do?" The Transhumanist 12:44, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
- I believe that syntax works for any script. And it's been suggested I should make some of my stuff subpages included that way.
- Incidentally you will see I have a method for putting edit sections in .js. This appears to only work once the page has been edited in that session - very strange - but when it does it's useful.
- I never got peereviewer.js working. The watchlist breaks your watchlist down by user spaces - well actually it's by ":" so it can break some names. For example
- 17 November 2006
- Wikipedia
- (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism; 18:03 . . Omicronpersei8 (Talk | contribs | block) (Reporting 131.109.123.253 with VandalSniper)
- (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous; 18:02 . . Maxamegalon2000 (Talk | contribs | block) (→Science Fair)
- (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/Malplaced disambiguation pages; 17:38 . . TimBentley (Talk | contribs | block) (→Database dump report - fixed some, some need admin)
- (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia:Proposed mergers; 17:15 . . DrKiernan (Talk | contribs | block) (→Community-supported/unopposed merger proposals)
- (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism/TB2; 12:31 . . MER-C (Talk | contribs | block) (→Bot reported - -1 (blocked), empty)
- (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval; 11:07 . . MacintoshApple (Talk | contribs | block)
- (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia:Deletion review; 08:10 . . JzG (Talk | contribs | block) (Nov 17)
- Main
- (diff) (hist) . . m Death; 17:59 . . Omicronpersei8 (Talk | contribs | block) (Reverted edits by 195.93.21.6 (talk) to version 88424905 by AntiVandalBot using VS)
- (diff) (hist) . . m Balrog; 17:58 . . Yajaec (Talk | contribs | block) (→Popular culture)
- (diff) (hist) . . Uranium; 17:56 . . 205.174.124.2 (Talk | block) (→External links)
[...]
- The Lord of the Rings
- (diff) (hist) . . The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (film); 16:52 . . Wiki-newbie (Talk | contribs | block)
- Wikipedia talk
- (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion; 15:46 . . James086 (Talk | contribs | block) (→Martin Randall Travel - poojnted user in the right direction)
- (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval; 14:53 . . Lostintherush (Talk | contribs | block) (Trial results)
- Template
- (diff) (hist) . . m Template:Rating-10; 10:46 . . Huntster (Talk | contribs | block) (oops.)
Rich Farmbrough, 18:09 17 November 2006 (GMT).
-
- By edit sections in .js, do you mean the in-frame editing? Like so:
/////Edit-in-frame. fast and fun! document.write('<script src="' + 'http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Benutzer:ASM/quickedit.js' + '&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript"></script>'); var qeEnabled = true; // Activate Script? var qeEnableSection0 = true; // Enable QuickEdit link for section 0 (introduction)?
-
- Also, I noticed your capitalization script seems to decapitalize all words after the initial word in a header - this might lead to problems, such as with proper nouns. --Gwern (contribs) 19:56 17 November 2006 (GMT)
-
-
- Gwern, by "edit sections" I believe he meant headings, like this...
-
[edit] Edit section
He has a way of commenting them out, but they still work as wikicode, so the "[edit]" section buttons are made available on the right side of the screen.
Rich, it should be pretty easy to fix the peer review script not to break page names, by checking against the list of namespaces, right? "If this prefix is is not one of these, then process the line as one with a normal page on it." Right? The Transhumanist 06:05, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
