Hi everybody.
First of all, for those of you who haven't been here, or didn't get
the complete picture, here is a short summary of some recent events:
* Last March, I started the Counter Vandalism Unit on Commons
<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Counter_Vandalism_Unit
* Later that month, the edit-patrol function
was enabled on Commons
<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2010Mar#Marking_edits_as_patrolled
* After a Sitenotice, a few users have signed
up to be "patrollers";
and with a small team of 3 to 4 regular patrollers, we keep a
checklist of anonymous edits.
<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/COM:ANO#Anonymous_edits
The Problem
Vandalism on Commons is a big problem, which generates a large
backlog. Commons is the primary media depository for most media used
throughout Wikimedia. Vandalism on Commons therefore has a greater
likelihood of affecting local projects.
And, this also brings along the source of vandalism: Vandals.
Local vandals are only a click away from Commons. Some don't even
realise they are no longer on the local wiki.
Some, whether or not knowing they've been blocked on a local project,
continue vandalising on Commons.
So, having that said, we are looking for help !
The most important areas, for now, are live watches on IRC or recent
changes, and the Checklists mentioned above.
Live watch
For a long time Commons has it's own cvn-channel on Freenode: #cvn-
commons <irc://irc.freenode.net/#cvn-commons>.
Although there are about a dozen idling users and a bot at any one
time, use of the channel for vandal-fighting is not as frequent as
desired.
Watching live is probably the easiest and most effective way to fight
vandalism.
Also, for those who don't have the time to patrol an entire daypart-
checklist, this is a great way to contribute when they only have a
spare few minutes. One can leave and join at any time, and click/
patrol for all edits that are reported in the channel.
In comparison to the checklists, the CVN-channel has a couple of
advantages. JelteBot (the recent-changes bot in #cvn-commons)
emphasises edits based on blacklists and watchlists, making it easier
to detect potential vandalism. (If you monitor other channels too, you
could add /Warning!/ to your IRC-stalklist.)
So I recommend the "patroller" right for anybody who wishes to
participate, which you can ask for here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_rights
. Please feel free to join #cvn-commons, or Commons' main channel
#wikimedia-commons, for more information about other ways to get
involved.
Every user in the counter-vandalism channel, watching and reacting to
the stream, reduces the backlog even more.
Watching live means the user can be reverted and warned directly; s/he
will either get blocked if they continue disruption, or (not unlikely)
the vandal will stop when s/he reads the warning.
Doing this live, instead of afterwards, prevents more vandalism, and
thus generate less edits in the backlog.
Checklists
Since it's unlikely (though the impossible goal of Live watch) to
click and patrol each and every link in the IRC channel, lots of links
are missed.
Either because no-one was on watch, or it got lost in the fast stream
of links.
For that, we have the checklists. These contain all unpatrolled
anonymous edits from a certain time frame.
These are, until we have a much bigger team, the primary and most time-
consuming ways of fighting vandalism.
Also, when you can't access IRC, or don't like it for some reason, the
RecentChanges-page is a good alternative:
-
<http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:RecentChanges&hidepatrolled=1&days=1&limit=50&hideliu=1&hidemyself=1
If you don't know how this works, check the following links to get you
up to speed:
-
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Patrol
-
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Counter_Vandalism_Unit
(last few headings on File and Tools)
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJXvZ65ttQ4 (short video tutorial on
the CVU)
Then visit the CVU and check out a portion/day-part:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/COM:ANO#Anonymous_edits
Thank you for reading,
Yours,
Krinkle
--
Greetings,
Krinkle
A Wikipedia Volunteer
krinkle(a)wikipedia.be
- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia