Thanks for your effort to clean up Benedictine! I suspect you did the clean-up by hand-editing out the vandalism, but there's an easier and surer way:
While the article is on display, click on the "History" tab at the top of the article. Beside each edit will be a "radio" button, with the two most recent version selected.
If the same editor has made several changes, click on the left-hand radio button for the most-recent version before they began editing.
Press "Compare selected versions". The differences will be shown to you with the old version on the left and the new, vandalized version on the right.
If everything the most recent editor did is vandalism, click on the header of the old version (for example, it may say "Revision as of 03:52, 14 February 2006"). That version of the article will be displayed.
Edit that version (click "Edit this page"), but don't make any actual edits, just fill in the "Edit summary" box with a brief message like "Revert vandal" or "rvv" and press "Save page".
The nice part about this is that if multiple people use this same method to revert the vandalism, the Wiki software understands this and doesn't save multiple versions of the reverted article. And because the now-reverted article is byte-for-byte identical with the earlier, good version, it makes it easier to "diff" the article in the future, the next time a vandal comes along. (And they do come along, all the time, everywhere! Its amazing that people have the time and inclination to make so many juvenile edits!)
Thanks again. I hope you like Wikipedia and decide to stay. Here's more good information for newcomers:
I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!
Welcome, Sir Lewk, to Esperanza, the Wikipedia member association! As you might know, all the Esperanzians share one important goal: the success of this encyclopedia. Within that, we then attempt to strengthen the community bonds, and be the "approachable" side of the project. All of our ideals are held in the Charter, the governing document of the association.
Now that you are a member you should read the guide to what to do now or you may be interested in some of our programs. A quite important program is the StressUnit, which seeks to support editors who have encountered any stress from their Wikipedia events, and are seeking to leave the project. So far, Esperanza can be credited with the support and retention of several users. We will send you newsletters to keep you up to date. Also, we have a calendar of special events, member birthdays, and other holidays that you can add to and follow.
In addition to these projects, several more missions of Esperanza are in development, and are currently being created at Esperanza/Possibles.
I encourage you to take an active voice in the running of Esperanza. We have a small government system, headed by our Administrator general, Celestianpower, and guided by the Advisory Committee comprised of KnowledgeOfSelf, JoanneB, FireFox and Titoxd. The next set of elections will be in April, and I would be glad to see you vote, or even consider running for a position.
If you have any other questions, concerns, comments, or general ideas, Esperanzian or otherwise, know that you can always contact Celestianpower by email or talk page or the Esperanza talk page. Alternatively, you could communicate with fellow users via our IRC channel, #wikipedia-esperanza (which is also good for a fun chat or two :). I thank you for joining Esperanza, and look forward to working with you in making Wikipedia a better place to work!
The Barnstar Brigade is a new program aimed at giving more very deserving yet unappreciated users barnstars. It will officially start on 2006-04-09, but signing up is encouraged before this date:
"Here in Wikipedia, there are hundreds of wikipedians whose work and efforts go un-appreciated. One occasionally comes across editors who have thousands of good edits, but because they may not get around as much as others, their contributions and hard work often go un-noticed. Sadly, these editors often leave the project. As Esperanzians, we can help to make people feel appreciated, be it by some kind words or the awarding of a Barnstar. A project the size of Wikipedia has thousands of editors, so there are plenty of people out there who deserve recognition, one just has to find them. The object of this program is not to flood editors with Barnstars, but to seek out people who deserve them, and make them feel appreciated."
The Stress alertsprogram aims at identifying users who are stressed, alerting the community of thier stress and works in tandem with the Stressbusters at trying to identify causes of stress and eliminating them.
Information
Welcome to the second issue of the new format Esperanza Newsletter - we hope you still like it! This week, it was delivered diligently by our new dogsbody. MiszaBot (run by Misza13): any execution complaints should go to him. Content comments should be directed at the Esperanza talkpage. Thanks!
The current process for accepting proposals for new programs has been deemed fine. All Advisory Council members and the Admin Gen are to endevour to be bold when viewing discussion. If they feel that consensus has been reached, they will act accordingly.
A plea from the editor...
The propsed programs page is terribly underused! Please leave any comments, good or bad, on the page, to help us determine the membership's thoughts on the ideas there.
Hi, just writing to let you know that I've uploaded a larger version that has the slope corrected. I hope you like the new version :) enochlau (talk) 13:58, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The Administrator Coaching program is a program aimed at preparing Wikipedians for Adminship or helping them understand the intricacies of Wikipedia better. Recently, changes have been made to the requirements of coachees. Please review them before requesting this service.
This would be something like the Welcoming Committee, but for people who have figured out the basics of editing articles; they're not newcomers any more, but they might want some help in learning new roles. Some might like suggestions about how to learn vandal patrol, or mentoring on taking an article to featured status, or guidance with a proposal they plan to make at the Village Pump, for example. In this way, Esperanza would help keep hope alive for Wikipedia because we would always be grooming the next generation of admins.
The Stressbusters are a subset of Esperanza aiming to investigate the causes of stress. New eyes on the situation are always welcome!
Note from the editor
As always, MiszaBot handled this delivery. Thank you! Also, congratulations go to Pschemp, Titoxd and Freakofnurture for being elected in the last elections! An Esperanzial May to all of the readership!
Posting logs of the Esperanza IRC channel are explicitly banned anywhere. Violation of this rule results in deletion and a ban from the channel.
A disclaimer is going to be added to the Esperanza main page. We are humans and, as such, are imperfect.
Various revisions have been made to the Code of Conduct. Please see them, as the proposal is ready to be ratified by the community and enacted. All members will members to have to re-confirm their membership after accepting the Code of Conduct.
Referendums are to be held on whether terms of AC members should be lengthened and whether we should abolish votes full stop.
As you may have gathered, discussions have been raging for about a week on the Esperanza talk page as to the future direction of Esperanza. Some of these are still ongoing and warrant more input (such as the idea to scrap the members list altogether). However, some decisions have been made and the charter has hence been amended. See what happened. Basically, the whole leadership has had a reshuffle, so please review the new, improved charter.
As a result, we are electing 4 people this month. They will replace JoanneB and Pschemp and form a new tranche A, serving until December. Elections will begin on 2006-07-02 and last until 2006-07-09. If you wish to run for a Council position, add your name to the list before 2006-07-02. For more details, see Wikipedia:Esperanza/June 2006 elections.
The Esperanza To-Do List is a place where you may list any request, big or small, for assistance. If you need help with archiving your usertalk, for example, all you need to do is list it here and somebody will help you out. Likewise, if you need help with some area of editing on Wikipedia, list it here! Again, any matter, trivial or not, can be placed on this page. However, all matters listed on this page must not be of an argumentative nature. You do not need to be a member of Esperanza (or this program) to place or fulfill requests on this page. If you don't have any requests, consider coming by and fulfilling a few! This program has not been very active, but has lots of potential!
What's New?
In order to help proposed programs become specific enough to make into full-fledged programs, the In development section of the proposals page has been created. Proposals that are promising, but need to be organized in more detail are listed here. Please take a look at what is there, and help the proposals turn into programs.
To improve both the layout and text of the front page, in an attempt to clarify the image of Esperanza, the front page is going to have some redesigning take place. Please take your creative minds to Wikipedia:Esperanza/Front page redesign to brainstorm good ideas.
Many thanks to MiszaBot, courtesy of Misza13, for delivering the newsletter.
In order to make sure all users who join Esperanza are welcomed, a list of volunteers who are willing to welcome new Esperanzians is at Wikipedia:Esperanza/Members#Esperanza_welcomers. Please add yourself if you are interested; we want to make sure all new Esperanza members are welcomed!
The In development section of the proposals page has been created.
Proposals page: Some proposals have been moved to the aforementioned "In development" section, some have been left as a proposal, and others have been archived. For those proposals that were a good idea but didn't necessarily constitute a program, General Esperanzial Actions has been created.
Two small pieces of charter reform will be decided on in a straw poll at Wikipedia talk:Esperanza/Governance. One involves filling the position of any councillors who may leave, the other involves reforming the charter.
Until cooperation with the Kindness Campaign is better defined, it remains as a proposed program.
Although having the newsletter appear on everyone's userpage is desired, this may not be ideal for everyone. If, in the future, you wish to receive a link to the newsletter, rather than the newsletter itself, you may add yourself to Wikipedia:Esperanza/Newsletter/Opt Out List.
Here in Wikipedia there are hundreds of wikipedians whose work and efforts go unappreciated. One occasionally comes across editors who have thousands of good edits, but because they may not get around as much as others, their contributions and hard work often go unnoticed. As Esperanzians we can help to make people feel appreciated, be it by some kind words or the awarding of a Barnstar. This is where the Barnstar Brigade comes in. The object of this program is to seek out the people which deserve a Barnstar, and help them feel appreciated. With your help, we can recognize more dedicated editors!
What's New?
September elections are upon us! Anyone wishing to be a part of the Advisory Council may list themselves as a candidate from 18 September until 24 September, with the voting taking place from 25 September to 30 September. Those who wish to help with the election staff should also list themselves!
Appreciation Week, a program currently in development, now has its own subpage! Share your good ideas on how to make it awesome there!
The Esperanza front page has been redesigned! Many thanks to all who worked hard on it.
Many thanks to MiszaBot, courtesy of Misza13, for delivering the newsletter.
The September 2006 Council elections will open for nominations on 18 September 2006. The voting will run from 25 September 2006 until 30 September 2006. If you wish to be a candidate or a member of the elections staff, please list yourself!
The new Esperanza front page design has but put up - many thanks to all who worked on it!
TangoTango has written a script for a bot that will list new members of Esperanza, which will help those who welcome new Esperanzains greatly!
Although having the newsletter appear on everyone's userpage is desired, this may not be ideal for everyone. If, in the future, you wish to receive a link to the newsletter, rather than the newsletter itself, you may add yourself to Wikipedia:Esperanza/Newsletter/Opt Out List.
Admin Coaching needs coaches!!! If you are an administrator, or even a generally experienced user, do consider signing up to be a coach.
Admin Coaching, now being coordinated by HighwayCello, is a program for people who want help learning some of the more subtle aspects of Wikipedia policy and culture. People are matched with experienced users who are willing to offer coaching. The program is designed for people who have figured out the basics of editing articles; they're not newcomers any more, but they might want some help in learning new roles. In this way, Esperanza would help keep hope alive for Wikipedia because we would always be grooming the next generation of admins.
What's New?
The Tutorial Drive is a new Esperanza program! In an effort to make complicated processes on Wikipedia easier for everyone, Esperanza working to create and compile a list of tutorials about processes here on Wikipedia. Consider writing one!
A discussion on how Esperanza relates to the encyclopedia has been started; please add your thoughts.
Many thanks to MiszaBot, courtesy of Misza13, for delivering the newsletter.
The list of proposed programs has been updated, with some proposals being archived.
There is now a new program: the Tutorial Drive! Consider writing a tutorial on something you are good at doing on Wikipedia.
The suggestion of adding a cohesive look to all the Esperanza pages is being considered; join the discussion if you are interested!
In order to make a useful interlanguage welcome template, those involved in translation projects will be asked what English Wikipedia policies are most important and confusing to editors coming from other language Wikipedias.
Shreshth91 informed everyone that he will be leaving the Esperanza council as life is rather busy; his spot will be filled by the runner up from the last election, HighwayCello.
Although having the newsletter appear on everyone's userpage is desired, this may not be ideal for everyone. If, in the future, you wish to receive a link to the newsletter, rather than the newsletter itself, you may add yourself to Wikipedia:Esperanza/Newsletter/Opt Out List.
I saw you at the FPC page.. you're a member of ticalc.org right? I'm Brian Gordon there (I believe my ticalc profile is linked from my user page). --frothTC07:43, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for uploading Image:Ti-89 game.png. However, there is a concern that the rationale you have provided for using this image under "fair use" may be invalid. Please read the instructions at Wikipedia:Non-free content carefully, then go to the image description page and clarify why you think the image qualifies for fair use. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
Thank you for your contribution to Elephant, but we are trying to write an encyclopedia here, so please keep your edits factual and neutral. Our readers are looking for serious articles and will not find joke edits amusing. Remember that Wikipedia is a widely-used reference tool, so we have to take what we do here seriously. If you'd like to experiment with editing, use the sandbox to get started. Thank you. cygnis insignis02:25, 18 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your contribution to Elephant, but we are trying to write an encyclopedia here, so please keep your edits factual and neutral. Our readers are looking for serious articles and will not find joke edits amusing. Remember that Wikipedia is a widely-used reference tool, so we have to take what we do here seriously. If you'd like to experiment with editing, use the sandbox to get started. Thank you. cygnis insignis 02:25, 18 September 2009 (UTC)