Help:Patrolling

Zelda Wiki.org prides itself in having every single edit marked and patrolled. The Patrollers and Admins/Bureaucrats all share the task of reviewing new changes at Zelda Wiki.org.

The Basics and Patrolling Etiquette
In the Recent Changes, you'll notice a red exclamation point beside Pagenames in the list. This indicates unpatrolled edits.

Clicking on "(diff)" opens a view highlighting exactly what has been changed between the newest edit the preceding one. Simply review the changes. From this point two options are available:
 * Mark as Patrolled- more or less approves the article changes. Before opening an edit view to make any corrections or additions that come to mind, scan to see if later changes have been made to the article.
 * Rollback- This is actually a risky function, though it can be undone. The Rollback function reverts all edits made by a single editor to a version made by another editor. If only one editor has edited on a page, the Rollback function will not work.
 * If the rollback button is accidentally pressed, be sure to quickly undo it with the regular undo button along with a statement in the edit summary stating it was an accident.

It is encouraged to further edit a page after performing a Rollback or Undo function, especially if a portion of the removed earlier change was legitimate. Furthermore, since users may not understand why their edits were reverted, it is also encouraged to leave a message on their talk page as to why the revert was carried out and how they can improve upon their editing style in the future.

Manipulating Your Recent Changes
Choosing the option "Hide patrolled edits" repopulates the Recent Changes to only show unmarked edits. Working from the bottom of the list may be easier to keep track of multiple changes to certain pages. This feature can also be set as a semipermanent function in the my preferences tab; useful for patrolling sessions.

It's also possible to increase or decrease the range of dates and number of edits shown, using "Show last x changes in last y days" settings under "Recent Changes options". This can be useful in conjunction with other options, as it allows viewing of previous unpatrolled edits which may have been missed, and is also helpful when dealing with a large backlog. The defaults for both of these options can also be set under the "Recent changes" section of the my preferences tab.

Also, the "Namespace" dropdown can be used to filter which edits are displayed. You may find it useful to concentrate on only edits to articles in the (Main) namespace, as article content is usually the most important area when patrolling. It is also possible to exclude a namespace from view; for example, if a batch of edits in the User Talk namespace were obstructing your work, selecting User Talk from the dropdown and checking "Invert selection" would remove them from view.

New Pages
To patrol a new page, follow the link to the page in the recent changes, or alternatively through the New Pages special page. The button to patrol the page is at the bottom of the article. Look through the page and make sure it is appropriate for an article, add any tags if necessary, and categorize the page if it has not been already.

Redirects
A newly created redirect may be patrolled in a similar manner as to new pages. Click on the redirect and then scrolling down to the bottom of the page, the mark as patrolled button will be there. Make sure that the redirect points to the correct location, and if applicable the right section, before marking it as patrolled.

Note: For new redirects to external wikis, you should copy the url to the redirect from the recent changes, and then add &redirect=no to the end of the url. Put this into your browser's address bar and follow it. This will take you directly to the redirect page instead of its target, the patrol button will be there if the URL was copied correctly. Alternatively, you may instead get to the redirect page to patrol it through the New Pages special page by choosing to show redirects; the resulting list of links will go directly to the redirect pages.

Userpages
In the case of userpages, you largely don't have to check for proper grammar or spelling. Most theories and opinions, within reason, are fine to have on there. Examples of content to revert on user pages are: hateful content directly targeting another user, overly obscene content, templates that are not supposed to be in the userspace, etc.

Talk Pages
For talk page edits, you largely don't have to be as thorough as a normal edit. Just make sure that the talk post is appropriate for the wiki and that it doesn't violate any of the wiki's expectations of good behavior. If it's simply not appropriate, use the template after the post. If it violates the rules of behavior, inform the rest of the online staff preferably through our Skype chatrooms so the matter may be discussed, privately in order to assess the situation fully. If said patroller cannot access the Skype chatroom for any reason, contact anyone on the administrative staff, especially other patrollers, to help review the situation, via talk page.

Edit Wars
Edit wars happen. If you are patrolling and you either run into two or more users edit warring, or a user is constantly undoing your patrol reverts, tell the rest of staff on the Skype chatroom so a course of action may be decided upon, so that all sides of the situation can be fully assessed, by the majority of the active staff. After the war is resolved, you largely don't have to inspect most of the edits made to the page in question during the war. Just mark them as patrolled and compare the first and last edits to see if anything needs to be fixed.