User:Trinity507/Mentorship

custodian request
Hi Maggie. Your request has been open for a few days now, so I just wanted to repeat that I'm happy to serve as mentor if you're comfortable with me. If you're not, that's fine too :-). --SB_Johnny talk 02:20, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for your offer, I think that would be wonderful! I was waiting for you to get the message on my time zone (it's Central if you haven't read it yet). I'm excited for my mentorship, and hopefully, future custodianship. Trinity507 03:52, 31 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, let's start! You'll notice you have a couple new buttons now: "protect" and "delete". Best way to experiment is create some pages in your userspace and see how they function.
 * On your watchlist and recent changes you'll also notice 2 more options: edits can be rolled back, and you have the option to block users. Try rolling back your own edits somewhere, and maybe block yourself to see what blocked users see when they try to edit (don't worry, you can unblock yourself... you just can't edit while your block is in place).
 * Finally, have a look at Special:Log/delete. If you go to one of the deleted pages, you'll see an option to view/undelete. have a look at pages deleted recently to get an idea of what should just be deleted.
 * I'll be around on and off the next few days (working on the farm). Let me know if you have any questions. There's nearly always custodians on our IRC chanel as well, if you want to pop in! --SB_Johnny talk 13:19, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll give those new options a go over the next few days. Thanks! Trinity507 21:33, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, tested everything, deleted, protected, blocked, etc. Wow. The block was certainly a weird experience. I think I understand how to use them; the when to use them is a little trickier. I checked the deletion log too for a good idea, and the block list. How many blocks does Wikiversity get a month, and what is the primary reason? Where is the best place to request/discuss a block? I know the deletion requests, etc. so that's pretty easy. Also, when is protecting a page necessary, and does it need to be discussed first like deletion and blocks? Ditto rollbacks - I don't really understand when to use them. Trinity507 03:08, 2 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Just to pick one question. There is a proposal at Rollback that describes when it should be used.  Here is an example where someone inserted a spam link to advertise a commercial product.  Here is another where a vandal had inserted images of nudes on a number of talk pages using different accounts.  --mikeu talk 04:17, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah...vandalism. Gotcha. So rollbacks are for good, salvageable pages targeted by vandals, and deletion is mostly for the pages created by the vandals (or other reasons, too, but that's the difference between them). Thanks for clearing that up! Trinity507 19:57, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * You do need to be carefull about rollback. Let's say that a user makes four edits to one page, but only the last edit is vandalism.  If you use rollback it will remove all four edits by that user back to the last version edited by someone else.  In this case you would want to use Undo instead.  --mikeu talk 04:52, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Re: page protection. There are certain templates that are targets of vandals, for instance inserting a crude message or image in welcome  Take a look at the log edit summary to get an idea of how it has been used in the past.    A short protection might be used if there is an edit war, but you would need to think about that one carefully.  Would it really cool off a heated argument or make it worse?  Protection may also have been used a couple times to prevent recreating pages that were deleted as being outside the scope of wv.  Advertising, for example.  Also, click on the Protect tab and read the comments in the drop down box which are some of the common reasons.  Notice also that there are options like Block New and Unregistered Users from editing which can be used to prevent vandalism, while allowing existing users to continue working on the page. You can also specify a short duration that is longer than the attention span of a vandal.  --mikeu talk 04:44, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Rollback deletes all subsequent edits by a user? Ouch. I'll be careful, then. The protection thing makes sense, too. Okay. Trinity507 18:11, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The other occasionally tricky thing with rollback is that you're not really sure what the version you're returning to looks like, and on rare occasions you might revert back to a version that was vandalized already by another user (or even the same user if they have a shifting IP). That's more often a problem on Wikipedia than here though... they have a lot more vandals there. --SB_Johnny talk 09:23, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Rollback deletes the current edit and all previous edits by the same user, back to the first edit by someone else. See the history of this page for an example where I made three edits followed by a rollback.  Go ahead and try that on this page.  --mikeu talk 14:33, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I tried the rollback with one edit. Sounds like a rather scary but necessary tool to use unless you're sure of what you're doing. And yes, the vandalism problem does seem to be much bigger on Wikipedia, for obvious reasons (much wider usage and individual page traffic). All right. What should I do next? Trinity507 03:19, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Take a look at the pages in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion. What you think should be done with Comparative politics, Finding the Remainder and Topic International Relations Division?  Also go to WV:RFD and read each nomination.  Give some thought to what you personally think should be done with each page, and also try to assess what the community consensus is.  You might want to look at a few of the recent discussions in the archive to see how things have been handled in the past.  --mikeu talk 03:47, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I apologize for my long absence, somehow this edit did not end up in my watchlist and I missed it when I logged on briefly to check. I also have been on-and-off ill lately, so that didn't help things. :-S I'll get right on doing those... Trinity507 03:39, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
 * No problem at all. I'm sorry to hear you have been ill and hope you are feeling better.  Just let us know when you are ready to resume.  --mikeu talk 11:46, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I am now 100% better and should be on all weekend, so I'll check out those links and keep working! Trinity507 03:48, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
 * How should a community discussion be started about a request for deletion, per se? And when is it usually determined that consensus is reached? I read the archives and got a general idea, but are there any hard-and-fast rules to this? It seems to me that Comparative politics doesn't have a clear goal or purpose, and thus might be hard to get "adopted", but it doesn't look like it should have been a speedy deletion request to me. It isn't a copyright violation or offensive. Trinity507 03:57, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Anyone can start a discussion by placing a Deletion request on the page and then creating a rationale for why it should be deleted at WV:RFD. There are no hard and fast rules, and judging concensus can be a bit difficult given that there is often little participation at these forums.  If you encounter a page with a speedy delete tag that you are unsure about, I would change the template to deletion request and start a thread to get more input from others.  Some of these discussions have been a bit contentious.  Some have expressed the opinion that just about nothing but vandalism should be deleted, and others that deletion can be an important part of the process of organizing content.  A number of the deletion discussions stalled and were closed as no concensus.  BTW, did you notice that you can view deleted pages by clicking on Finding the Remainder and then on view or restore deleted edits? --mikeu talk 14:49, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

On another note, I have a bot watching the category for speedy deletion and contested candidates for deletion. By adding User:Mu301Bot/Candidates for speedy deletion and User:Mu301Bot/Contested_candidates_for_deletion to my watchlist I can be alerted when pages are added or removed to these categories. Take a look at the pages in User:Mu301Bot/Candidates for speedy deletion. Some of them are images that are duplicate copies, some are missing source or license info, a few are for other reasons. I've had hangon to a unmber of the images which are now in the contested category. --mikeu talk 14:49, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
 * All right, I'll add those to my watchlist. A heads up that I might not be on as frequently as I'd like for another week, as unfortunately the flu is making another pass through the family. Once again, I apologize for this as my intention was to devote a lot more time to WV during the mentorship period, but life as usual tends to intervene...anything else I should be doing right now? Trinity507 04:59, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, now a personal reason to exercise my deletion tools: In working on my Ethnobotanical research projects/Trinity507 page, I accidentally left quite a redirect mess. The redirect system has always seemed a little wonky (to me) and combine this with a few typos and it's a recipe for a screw-up (and I definitely screwed up). Anyway, this has left me with a few duplicate pages, etc. and I was wondering if I could go ahead and delete those, since this is an attributed project and I'm the only editor. Do cases like these need consensus? Trinity507 04:33, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Things like broken redirects, pagename vandalism, and duplicate copies of images fall into the category of speedy deletion. Go ahead and use your judgement and delete them.  Just check the "what links here" first, to make sure that there are no links that need to be updated, otherwise they will become broken redlinks.  As an aside, we have Special:BrokenRedirects and Special:DoubleRedirects to help us find these.  I also have a bot that runs once each week that fixes double redirects and tags broken redirects for speedy deletion. --mikeu talk 13:05, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and deleted three of the pages, as one was a broken redirect and two I had accidentally duplicated. What a mess! :-p Anyway, that's fixed now and I think I have a better idea of the deletion process. Trinity507 16:07, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

How to sysop
Welcome, Maggie to probationary custodianship. You may be interested in the following resources/courses - feel free to join in (entirely optional):
 * How to be a Wikimedia sysop
 * How to be a Wikimedia sysop/Wikiversity

Feel free to let me know if I can do anything else. Sincerely, James. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 02:12, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll definitely check those out. I've had a hectic day today but tomorrow should be better; I plan to spend plenty of time on Wikiversity then. Thanks! Trinity507 02:15, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

couple of things
I almost forogt, you should list yourself as a Probationary custodian at WV:STAFF. Please include your timezone and any languages that you speak. You should also watchlist Request custodian action and Notices for custodians if you haven't already. --mikeu talk 12:17, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
 * All right, listed myself and watched the pages. Thanks for pointing this out. Trinity507 18:38, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Author request deletions
All right, I am a little frustrated right now (with myself). :-S I was trying to work my ethnobotanical research into Wikiversity through the EBP project, but unfortunately I think what I've done so far would be better on Wikibooks. Should I transcribe it into Wikibooks (copy and paste on the edit screen was pretty much what I was thinking and reformat it as needed) and then delete the pages here? Or do you think it should remain on Wikiversity? I'm the only editor so far.

This also begs the question of "author request" deletions. If I am the only contributor to a page, it is fairly new and I judge that that page is no longer useful on Wikiversity, can I delete that page? Unfortunately I've had a few messy projects which haven't worked out, etc. and I'd like to clean them up as part of my maintenance duties on WV. I'd also like to know what to do if somebody comes to me with a request to delete a certain page. How should community discussion be started in this case? I have a feeling that it's pretty rare, but any advice anyway? Trinity507 21:55, 3 October 2009 (UTC)