I've been thinking about that for a little while and I think the best thing in the start is to give you a simple task, see how you do and tell you how you can improve after you finished it. As a start, try editing Parrot OS to tone down its promotional tone so it follows WP:NPOV. TheAwesomeHwyh16:31, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You were right-Parrot OS had some serious problems. I fixed what I could, rewording salvageable sentences, deleting the ones that were 100% advertisement... what did you think? Sorry about the edit conflict, by the way. KingofScorpions16:53, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Is Wikipedia always like this? You think you've "fixed" an article, but more issues pop up. I've never been more grateful for the thousands of editors that make Wikipedia work... KingofScorpions17:02, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It can feel like it sometimes! But, I think its worth it because you just made that article a little more helpful to readers. I'm going to find something a little more complex for you to do, since you did such a good job with that task. TheAwesomeHwyh17:04, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Anti-vandalism? could you elaborate more on what that means? How do you anti-vandalize? Also, about Parrot OS... do you really think I did a good job on it, or were you just being nice? I can handle the truth:) KingofScorpions17:13, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I vandalized once as an IP, not knowing any better, but I didn't realize other people did it too. Could you show me how to identify and remove vandalism? That seems like something noble for me to assist in... [Also, I think by now it's official that our discussions are on my talk page...] KingofScorpions17:17, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, but anti-vandalism is one of the most complex tasks on the encyclopedia. One wrong revert and you can potentially scare away a user forever. One second, I think I have an idea on how to teach you, though it will probably be a long process (but a rewarding one!), and it is difficult to begin doing it, as much of the more powerful anti-vandalism tools aren't available to new users, only people who, almost paradoxically, already have a history of anti-vandalism. TheAwesomeHwyh17:23, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I observed that you found the edits that had problems [still not sure how you found them, though], undid them, and left a warning message on the talk page of the person who did the edits? With the warning different, depending on the edit? Let me know if I'm missing anything, KingofScorpions17:32, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I found them through WP:Huggle, one of the more advanced tools I mentioned earlier. Only trusted users can use it since it is extremely powerful, and allows you to revert and warn a user in under a second. Some users got higher level warnings because they had been warned more times in the past month. If a user was warned three times, then you give them a level four the next. Past that, you usually report a user to the administrators at WP:AIV. TheAwesomeHwyh17:36, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but I find it more difficult. You would use a combination of Special:RecentChanges and WP:Twinkle. You would look through recent changes for edits that look suspicious, and check if they are vandalism. If they are, you revert it with Twinkle. However, I wouldn't recommend you do this quite yet. I have an idea for an exercise to help you identify vandalism. I will make some edits to my sandbox, and you will identify if they are vandalism or not. If they are, revert me using Twinkle. If they seem like a good faith edit, then use the "thank" button. Tell me once you have Twinkle installed. TheAwesomeHwyh17:43, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oh your right. I must be tired, haha. Alright, well I realized that doing it in my sandbox is a bad idea since I'm planning to publish that as an article eventually, and we don't need that in the edit history! I'm going to think of something better, but it might take a while. I'll try to come up with something by the end of the day. TheAwesomeHwyh17:53, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That's fine, maybe I'll just try to neutrally word biased articles, like how we cleaned up Parrot OS? That sounds like a good idea... [sudden thought] Maybe you could create a second sandbox for our testing, and not use your main one? Let me know what you think... KingofScorpions17:58, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think I'll go to Recent Changes and perform one act of anti-vandalism. Please let me know if I do anything wrong, or if I did a good job. Thanks, KingofScorpions19:34, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I assume you mean this edit? There was nothing wrong with the reversion itself, but you probably shouldn't have tagged that as a test edit. It looks like vandalism to me, not a test. TheAwesomeHwyh22:20, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Did you find somewhere that I can carry out the idea you had earlier? While I waited, I did some major NPOV work on Chinese Garden, Singapore. Could you compare the revisions and tell mw how I did? (I did several revisions.) I also did some spelling and grammar work, and some NPOV work on other articles... KingofScorpions22:24, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! The idea I'm referring to is the proposed plan where I either thanked or reverted your edits, based on whether they were good-faith or vandalism. The one that you were going to look for somewhere else to try because your sandbox wouldn't work. Does that help? KingofScorpions22:33, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I was trying to find a better way to teach you about the complexities of anti-vandalism. I've thought about it some more, and I think this is so advanced that we ought to work on simpler things first. How does working on referencing sound? Also, try to ping me. I don't usually check my watchlist. TheAwesomeHwyh22:40, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That is not a complete reference- compare the refrence you made there to the references on Go Vacation, an article I've made hundreds of edits to. I would also use a CS1 template (but only if you're the first author and if CS1 is already used in the article) instead of pure wikitext. I would also recomend using the WP:VisualEditor's automatic referencing button... thing. TheAwesomeHwyh23:08, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Perfect! Though, you have a space between the reference and the full stop, there shouldn't be one. Also, you should get rid of the template saying that the article has no references, as that isn't true anymore. TheAwesomeHwyh23:18, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've always been a quick learner:) I also like the feeling of improving something. I wish vandals would realize how satisfying contributing is... KingofScorpions23:34, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think thats one of the most complicated rules on Wikipedia, despite having one of the shortest pages. I think it's best not to worry about that one at the moment. On another note: have you thought about setting up a bot to archive your talkpage? It's getting kinda hard to navigate. TheAwesomeHwyh16:41, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
A robot- an automated computer program. There are two that I know of which archive talk pages, (See: Help:Archiving a talk page) Cluebot III and Lowercase sigmabot III. I use Cluebot, but both work. I also have it set to archive after only one month, instead of two. Both of them will automatically move sections that haven't been replied to for a set amount of time to a archive it will create. TheAwesomeHwyh16:49, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I do agree that my page is hard to navigate, though. Took me a while, but I set it to archive discussions older than two weeks. [Oh wait, that removes exactly nothing.] Gonna go set it to one week now... KingofScorpions16:56, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I would make the hour count larger than a week, and increase it to a month; people sometimes still reply after only 7 days. Also, you should add a maximum size to the archive (I use 75000), or else the bot will never make a new archive past 1 (I think). TheAwesomeHwyh16:58, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
We may have gotten off track a little with the whole "archive" thing. What do you think I should do today? I could do more NPOV stuff or something like that... KingofScorpions17:06, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It appeared to be promoting his music. I thought you weren't supposed to promote yourself on Wikipedia? I'm really sorry if I messed up... KingofScorpions17:30, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That was just that user talking about who they are... promotion is more like "King of Scorpions is the premier in scorpion technology, combining the latest in pineapples and water to create a whole new type of scorpion". TheAwesomeHwyh17:33, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I was actually trying to say that I was back, but then *edit conflict* I'm back now. Maybe I should try something different. Do you have any alternate ideas? KingofScorpions17:53, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oh! Haha, I thought that you were like, super upset that you couldn't tag it or something, I didn't even consider edit conflicts! There's a lot of stuff, hold on while I get some ideas. TheAwesomeHwyh17:55, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It may be a bit dificult to improve a lot of these, just because I've noticed that a lot of mobile games don't have much written on them. Also, it feels like all of the great games have already had decent articles written on them. Like, my favorite game of all time, Ōkami is already a WP:Featured Article! There is plenty to work on in the mobile games space, I think. Why not work on some of those games? TheAwesomeHwyh18:11, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The best way to describe them is, I think, a loose collective of people who all work on the same articles. They're useful since they help collaboration. TheAwesomeHwyh22:16, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, sorry it took me so long to reply. The first thing I was wondering was, how well do you understand the difference between all the ways an article can be deleted? Can you explain them to me? TheAwesomeHwyh01:33, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Well, one way is the Articles for Deletion process, where you can nominate an article for deletion, and then it is discussed for a week on whether it should be deleted, kept, or merged [I think]. The second way is speedy deletion, which has certain requirements for it to be tagged for that. Once it's tagged, it can be deleted if it meets the criteria. Am I correct? I know there's a third way, I just forgot what it is:) KingofScorpions16:03, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I actually was asking about how an article could be deleted yesterday, in the Teahouse. Long story short, I was doing my Category:Articles with a promotional tone sweep and came across an unreferenced, biasedly written article about something that I've never heard of, and I wanted to know how to delete it. (You were there temporarily, remember?) KingofScorpions16:09, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
So, my understanding of proposed deletion is: You can tag the article for proposed deletion, if it doesn't exactly meet the speedy deletion criteria. Then the tag stays on for a week, and if anybody objects, it can never be PRODed again? Am I missing something? Let me know if I missed anything, KingofScorpions15:56, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
To be honest, I'm not seeing the problem with the current captions. They seem to be accurately describing the images... is there something I'm missing? Any help appreciated, KingofScorpions18:55, 10 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Eh, it wasn't the best example, but one of the images is literally just one word "larva". Seems too short but eh. I've just removed it as it seems too similar to the image next to it. TheAwesomeHwyh19:01, 10 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Ok. I think if you were any other new user I would have a lot more preparation than this, but seeing how fast you've been able to learn I have my confidence that you wont make (too many) mistakes. Why not look for vandalism in Special:Recentchanges? I will try to help you if you make any mistakes. TheAwesomeHwyh17:34, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That's good, but you also want to include a warning because people are usually only reported or banned after their final (4th) warning. The level 1 warnings aren't too harsh, I think. TheAwesomeHwyh17:50, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like when I used to use recent changes to find vandalism, I used "likely bad faith" instead. I think it picks up more false positives but also catches more vandalism that your settings don't. TheAwesomeHwyh18:17, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I only have 25 items listed because, usually past the first 5 or so, they've already been reverted. I like my filter because it doesn't catch many false positives... how did I do overall on the anti-vandalism? KingofScorpions(my talk)18:19, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
One thing I sometimes experience on Wikipedia when trying to write an article: If it's notable, there's usually already an article written on it; if it isn't, then there's no point in creating the article. What I'm saying is, all the "good" (I don't mean GA) video game articles seem to have been already created... KingofScorpions(my talk)18:33, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, haha I don't think I need help on any of them. I think that there was only one study done on that shark, anyways. I'm pretty much done with The Haunted Island, and The Case of the Invisible Wizard doesn't have much I haven't included either. TheAwesomeHwyh18:50, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That is a huge difference... on another note, how do you give someone a barnstar? I learned about them recently and want to give one to Serols for his anti-vandal work (Serols almost always beats me to the reverting)... KingofScorpions(my talk)19:02, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
For a second I was confused why we were both editing the same articles at around the same time... then I realized I was looking at my own contributions. Whoops. TheAwesomeHwyh20:45, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oh. I thought I would have to, like, triple the size of the article and add thirty sources. Maybe I will work on improving some articles. Where do I start? KingofScorpions20:51, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Well, first find an article; something that needs a lot of work and is something your interested in. I'd also make sure it was something that you could find a lot of sources for. TheAwesomeHwyh20:53, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It might be very difficult to expand that article, considering the ref's are in a language you don't speak. (Though it certainly wouldn't be impossible!) TheAwesomeHwyh21:34, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It's fine. Just curious, what time zone are you in (either in hours off of UTC or by what time your clock says, I can do the math either way)? Also, I think it's crazy how adaptable Wikipedia is-a new user with 1,000 edits can create an article that's in the top 3 Google search results on that topic... KingofScorpions01:14, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I turns out that I was traveling as well! I was visiting relatives, so I wasn't on Wikipedia. I should be more available from now on... KingofScorpions01:04, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@King of Scorpions: Actually, you've been great in terms of anti-vandalism. Have you thought about using some semi-automated tools to help with that, like Huggle? TheAwesomeHwyh
Yes. However, after that, it said that I needed a system administrator to run the program, and I don't know my computer's administrator password. Oh well-I can revert fine with rollback and Twinkle. Those work great-I really don't need more than that for counter-vandalism... KingofScorpions20:12, 10 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
100 MB is tiny though- there's a thousand of those in a gigabyte and most computers nowadays have like, 200 to 1024 gigabytes. I don't know about your computer though, but that seems like a tiny amount to me... TheAwesomeHwyh20:16, 10 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
A tank There are alternate photos of tanks you could use though, I like the one I've added to the side because of how clear it is at smaller sizes and since it has minimal dust blocking the image, but there are tons of others you could use. TheAwesomeHwyh22:31, 10 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Cool. I just have a question for you: is there a way to tell whether vandalism warrants a higher warning than level 1 for a first offense? I'm asking since you are an experienced anti-vandal. KingofScorpions18:37, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I rarely do that unless its something super serious, but use I WP:Huggle most of the time and I haven't actually figured out how to make it give a higher warning than normal. TheAwesomeHwyh18:43, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
