User:Vibhijain/CVU2

First Chapter - Vandalism

• What is Vandalism?

  Ans. This a negative alteration of wikipedia content that makes the quality of Wikipedia bad or compromises the standards of Wikipedia articles. Vandalism is at times willfully or un willfully propagated by Wikipedia editors/contributors. Some do it due to lack of editing policies and guidelines while some might do it just to hurt Wikipedia or to express their personal POV which is not Wikipedian.

• How to spot vandalism?

  Ans.Vandalism can be spotted from my watch lists of articles that I have ever edited. In Fact, I have set under my preferences a default 'watch every page that I edit, create or even move. I have a long list from which I get edit notifications via Email. I believe this would be a good list to watch out for. Secondly, I can get the recent changes on Wikipedia from the recent changes tab to the left of a Wikipedia page. I understand not all changes are vandal in nature and there are ways to spot possible vandalism; like blanking of pages, lack of references for added content etc. Looking at lists of most vandalized pages is also a nice place to check. Use of images in the wrong context.

• How to respond to vandalism?

  Ans.The best way to respond to ultimate vandalism is to undo/remove the unwanted material on Wikipedia and further sending messages to the concerned parties who had committed the vandalism. These messages can be warnings and advisory messages depending on the level of vandalism. If it is a username doing it for the first time, then the warning would be level 1 but if they have a persistent history of vandalizing Wikipedia then higher levels of warning would be used.On the worst case scenario, a request to block a user from further editing might be put up if he/she proves to be on prowl to destroy Wikipedia. IP vandals would be encouraged to create Wikipedia accounts.If there is an IP block that is causing habitual unwanted edits/contribution then it might be placed under Wikipedia Abuse response. For new articles that appear to be vandalism or that do not meet wikipedia policy guidelines, then they will be marked for speedy deletion while leaving messages to the users behind the edits in their respective talk pages.

• What should not be one in case an article is vandalized?

  Ans.Use of copyrighted images in Wikipedia, but persistent use after several warnings is vandalism. IP edits are not obviously vandalism, in most cases they are in fact constructive contributions. Lack of an edit summary. Personal harassment and lack of proper wiki mark-up. Bold editing. Articles that have a point of view rather than the NPOV as is required by Wikipedia standards. NPOV is a hard topic that even administrators struggle at times to achieve.

• How to warn vandalizing users?

  Ans.The warnings fall in different levels of vandalism. For fast time vandals, who are unaware they are vandalizing Wikipedia, then the use of level 1 warnings can be employed plus some helpful links to Wikipedia policies and editing guidelines. For persistent vandals who have gone up the scale of warnings to the last level, then an administrator might be requested to intervene to block the user from further editing.

Try to answer this questions in your own words. Don't get tensed, it is just to make you ready to fight vandalism. You have to just read WP:VAN, and simply answer these questions. There is no marking scheme, so no need to write in detail. ;P Just write as much you think is enough. You can quote the policy if appropriate. Thanks for taking your time. :) ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ ^{Talk Email} 07:16, 4 July 2012 (UTC)