UESPWiki talk:Patrollers

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Defining "content space"

This discussion does not apply to any nominations which were started prior to a consensus being achieved and any new policies being in place.

I suggest that, for the Immediate Disqualifications section, we should better spell out what exactly qualifies as "content space" to avoid the debates that have cropped up occasionally during Patroller nominations, which distract from discussion of the nominee. I think the section should read:

"A minimum of 250 edits in content namespaces will allow the nominee's knowledge of many different aspects of wiki markup to be judged. Content space does not include any talkspace, the User space, or any Wikispace. A break-down of edits by namespace can be found by entering a username here."

While many edits in the Wikispaces are arguably content edits, they are rare and we don't have a way of discerning them from the rest, so a blanket ban on Wikispace edits from counting as content edits is what happens in effect regardless. Also, people who have content edits in the Wikispaces generally have far more than 250 edits, so I sincerely doubt that anyone will suffer from such a rule.

I am under the presumption that File, Template, Category, General, Help and the Mod namespaces all qualify as "content space" for the purposes of this rule. If we could all agree on that, the second sentence could read:

"Content space is any namespace that is not a talkspace, the User space, or a Wikispace."

Thoughts? Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 03:52, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't count File, Template, or Category because most of the edits to those namespaces are maintenance. While it's definitely not a bad thing to have edits in those namespaces, it's very easy to get many edits in one "maintenance project". I've had some that are more than 250 by themselves. And this is coming from the editor with arguably the most edits in those namespaces.

Now, on the technical side. If you look at Special:Statistics, you will see the line "Content pages". This defines what is considered "content". I consider content to be anything that is an "article", and so does the software. elliot (talk) 05:11, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Elliot here. File/Template/Category edits should definitely be considered maintenance edits and doesn’t really require an awful lot of ES knowledge, which is what’s needed for a patroller (along with at least basic wiki markup skills). Thinking back, I actually remember users saying stuff like ‘just do some file edits to bump your edit count, then you'll make patroller in no time’ – and that is certainly not healthy at all. --Krusty 05:41, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) At the moment, only Nephele and Daveh can tell us what goes into that count, as it's defined in a server-side file. Once we're at MW 1.16 or better, the API could tell us as well ([1]), but of course, we're not there yet. Regardless of that, though, the definition posted on the Patrollers page currently defines it as not userspace and not talkspaces. I think for most users, 99-100% of edits to UESPWiki will also effectively be talk pages, and also wouldn't be considered as "counting", which is why I made the change I did a couple of hours ago under the assumption it would be considered non-controversial.

While you have a point that a single maintenance project can easily put you over the 250 mark, keep in mind that these are suggested qualifications. Special cases like what Zappatized is doing in Tes3Mod space (which I think most people would consider to be content space) would almost certainly be considered by most people as not sufficient due to the high number of nearly identical edits. File space is no different in that regard - it requires looking at what the user has done and if the edits were basically the same edit or type of edit to a whole bunch of pages, or if they required knowledge of different wiki policies, like image ratios, not having UI elements, proper naming, categorization, licensing, etc.

So to the point, I think we should try to present our qualifications in that manner: that edits should be generally diverse, are always taken to exclude talk pages and userspace, but that the number alone isn't an absolute. – Robin Hood↝talk 05:45, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

I can understand completely if category and template edits as maintenance were excluded, but File space is 99.9% images, which are directly important to the articles, and lots of work needs to be put into them, which is why we have editors who can rack up hundreds of edits in them. It would be cool if we were to exclude Category and Templates, but I insist on File space being included in what qualifies as a "content edit". However, I am not saying that it bears the same weight as a gamespace page and that 300 File edits earns you Patroller, I am saying that it is a very important aspect of the work that gets done and still needs a large amount of consideration.ES^{Question?•Email•Contribs} 05:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Adding {{cleanimage}} to 40 pages is by no means "content". elliot (talk) 06:29, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

It is not, which is why I said it should count, but have a lesser weight than gamespaces. There are editors who actually upload tons of good images, which should count, which is why I said it should be balanced and given slightly less consideration, but still be looked at. ES^{Question?•Email•Contribs} 06:36, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

It's too ambiguous to include it in a definition, to be honest. We need to define "content" as an article. Anything else is open to interpretation, which will get us no where. elliot (talk) 06:43, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

(←) So, content space excludes talkspaces, the User space, Wikispaces, or maintenance spaces like File, Category, and Template. I'm hesitant to say that the File space is not a content space because I don't feel like that's a fair characterization of the work of the "photographers", who contribute so much to the site's articles via the File space, but I'll defer to the File editors on the subject.

Anyways, there are no objections to Help or General being considered content space? Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 10:01, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

P.S., just to address Robin's points: this policy is not a part of the suggested qualifications. It is under "Immediate Disqualifications", and taking the plain meaning of that term, it's a pretty clear-cut rule. It should allow us to do some quick math and determine whether the content space requirement has been met and a candidate can be considered. In practice, though, it often seems like people are voting on whether or not this threshold was met, rather than what they actually think about the candidate's contributions. And maybe I'm being too much of stickler for procedure here, but it irks me to think of people casting votes on a matter which is ineligible for deliberation in the first place.

I agree that we don't have to be so narrow-minded about the delineations that we can't be equitable and make exceptions where appropriate. For instance, let's say there's an nominee with 150 edits in the content spaces, but also another 150 in File. If he/she could rely on the fact that the vast majority of the File edits were additions of original images (which I think we can agree are content edits), at least enough to cover the difference, I wouldn't be opposed to allowing a nomination to proceed.

I also agree that we should encourage the diversification of aspiring patrollers' contributions to the site so they have broad knowledge bases, but we could do that by explicitly saying something amounting to "diversity is encouraged" in the Suggested Qualifications section. Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 10:58, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Good point, ME! I think because of the way it's worded, I'd always taken it as a suggested qualification, but it is indeed in the disqualifications section, which I think we need to be more careful about, since, like you, I take that to be a little more rigid.

In all three of File, Category, and Template spaces, I think a judgement call is required. To use Template space as an example, if you're editing one of the table templates, for example, you need to know quite a bit about appropriate formatting in some cases. On the other hand, if all you're doing is adding categories, that's a bit simpler...though even there, you need to know how to properly use <noinclude> and/or <includeonly> tags, and whether to add the category to the /Doc page, or the template itself (mostly when there isn't a /Doc page). Either way, I'd say it takes a fair bit of knowledge about how our wiki works to make template edits. Similarly, File edits can be stupidly simple or require a fair bit of knowledge of appropriate style, but I can see an argument for excluding them too. Ditto on Category space edits: most category edits are as simple as typing up a line or two describing the category—hardly something we can judge a Patrollers edits by—but I've seen a few category pages that have more complex text and formatting (and lets not even get into things like catpagetemplate). Again, though, I can see the argument. If it comes down to it, I won't vote for or against either File or Category being considered content space.

In the end, it comes down to a certain degree of flexibility, even in what are otherwise clear-cut rules, not to mention a human assessment of the editor's work rather than allowing rules to completely dictate what's required. If we just add something in the rules that allows for exceptions, I'd be happy enough with almost any decisions we come to, really. Maybe something like: "In special circumstances, these qualifications and exclusions may be overturned by the community. It is the nominator's job to indicate why they feel an exception is warranted, and the community's votes will decide the issue." – Robin Hood↝talk 04:18, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

I'll make this comment brief, since you guys seem to have done all the discussing. Template edits count, even if they are only adding categories. Category edits do not count. File uploads count if they are properly formatted, have the appropriate categories, are decent quality, etc. Editing existing Files doesn't count. RH, I like how you phrase the exceptions. • JA^Talk 05:09, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Reminder!

Hey all you patrollers! I don't mean to nag or nitpick or anything, but as I'm going through all the old unpatrolled edits, I'm noticing a lot of cases where patrollers have answered questions but forget to mark the original question as patrolled. (There have been similar cases where someone will post a bug or note that needs reformatting, then a patroller comes along and reformats it but doesn't mark the contribution as patrolled.) It's not a huge deal, and I don't think anyone should patrol an edit they don't feel comfortable patrolling. However, it would really make the job of catching up a lot easier if everyone could pay better attention to these things. Thanks a bunch! eshe^talk 14:00, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Patrolling unfixed edits

I've gone around a few talk pages and answered some questions. If they're from a few months ago, then more often than not when I go to patrol the edit, somebody else already has. If I remember correctly from what I checked, these edits tend to be marked patrolled about a month after they're posted. There isn't any one person I notice patrolling a lot of these questions, but a number of people patrolling a few each. Why are people patrolling unanswered questions? Is it because you think you're going to answer the question, and then don't? Is it because it's at the end of the RC unpatrolled list and the thought is that nobody will answer it? There's also people patrolling talk page edits that lack signatures, and then they don't add the {{uns}} template, which is more common than marking unanswered questions patrolled, I think.

Whatever the reasons, there's a number of unfixed or unanswered edits being patrolled on talk pages. I'd like to ask for a bit more attention to be paid to these edits before marking them patrolled. Vely^{►Talk►Email} 17:35, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

As far as older edits being marked as patrolled, it's automatic once they drop off the Recent Changes list (28 days). – Robin Hood↝talk 19:29, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

I see... but some of those edits are manually marked patrolled before they are off the RC list, so that's a bit odd. Would it be worth putting that piece of information somewhere on the guidelines page? Vely^{►Talk►Email} 19:34, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I think with the backlog, there's been a tendency to mark things as patrolled if they're just going to fall off the list anyway. Personally, I leave them unpatrolled, but different patrollers take different approaches. For example, I don't know about anybody else, but I tend to patrol questions that are so arcane as to be effectively unanswerable (the kind that involve a dozen different rare situations all happening at once) and I think we should probably add something to that effect to the guidelines. Which brings me to your second question, yes, the fact that edits get marked as patrolled automatically should probably be added to the guidelines under the Unpatrolled Edits section. Looking at some of the older edits, it was sort of implied, but never stated clearly. – Robin Hood↝talk 20:41, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Patrolling Dawnguard Pages

Hey, so I realize that, for a while at least, we're limited on our ability to verify the accuracy of information added about Dawnguard. I know that Jak and I are Xbox users (I'm not sure who else), so we should be able to do some in-game checking (though I realize we are both technically considered semi-active at the moment, and I'm not positive that Jak has it yet), but I'm not sure about any other patrollers. I know a lot of patrollers play on PC, and right now we don't have the ability to check the CK or CSlist for information from game data, since it's not available there yet. So, when it comes to edits that we aren't able to verify via in-game checking, should we simply add VN tags, leave them unpatrolled, add a {{Quality}} tag to the pages, or what? I've been trying to fix grammar and formatting for now, since I haven't gotten the opportunity to play yet (that will be remedied in a few hours!), but I was wondering what to do about the information we can't check for now. What do you all think? ABCface^◥ 23:21, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

For now; if you're not able to play Dawnguard, the way to patrol the edits is to make sure they're not completely nonsensical - and IF you're able to play Dawnguard, it's still the same. It's all about getting the pages up and running and the content done, regardless of how sad it may seem at first glance. This is only temporary, but the brilliant deal between Microsoft and Beth had to cause a few problems. Basically, it's back to 'if it isn't nonsense, it's good to go'. This approach will probably last until the PC and PS3 versions gets released. :( --Krusty 02:24, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Reminder #2

Patrollers! Please remember mark a question as patrolled when you respond to it. We're always going to have a backlog of edits, but if we could get these "easy" patrols out of the way while we go, it could prevent some of the edits that need more attention from falling off the edge of the RC. This issue is coming up a lot, so please remeber: when you answer a question, try and find the edit you responded to and mark that sucker patrolled. Thanks! ⇠eshe^talk 13:50, 26 September 2012 (GMT)

In a similar vein, "me too" posts on talk pages can also be patrolled unless they ask follow-up questions or otherwise require a response outside the initial question or bug. – Robin Hood↝talk 15:26, 26 September 2012 (GMT)

Receiving a Warning as a Patroller

I believe that should this happen, the patroller should have his/her rights removed for at least two months. Currently, any user that is looking to become a patroller is not eligible for one month after receiving a warning. I believe that as you move up in "rank", you should be held to a higher standard. While mistakes do happen, very few mistakes are deserving of a warning. From what I can see, we actually raise our threshold for issues as a user becomes more active and gets in a "higher" position, which should not occur. Our patrollers and administrators should be held to the highest standard, with regular users being held to a slightly lower standard. Not much lower, but enough to accommodate their inexperience. I would also like to note that I do not believe this should be retroactive. Of course, this does not apply to any wrongfully given warnings or in the event the community decides against the removal of rights. ~ Ad intellige ^(talk) 21:22, 5 August 2014 (GMT)

Sure, just make sure the warning is deserved, or based on policies no-one understands. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 21:31, 5 August 2014 (GMT)

Inflammatory remarks are not doing you any favors, Silencer. Please move on and find a more meaningful way to contribute. ⇠eshe^talk 21:36, 5 August 2014 (GMT)

I'll think about it. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 21:38, 5 August 2014 (GMT)

I would support this policy. I do think patrollers should be held to a slightly higher standard, and its rare enough that a patroller gets a warning that its not like people will be getting warnings left and right. --AN|L (talk) 21:42, 5 August 2014 (GMT)

What, are we still not done talking about this? It's been like two weeks. It's rare enough that patrollers are warned, if a warning occurs and no further problems are experienced, that's all that needs to happen. Removing someone's rights for serious violations is one thing, but removing them for a warning, even temporarily, is overdoing it, especially if the person being warned is legitimately sorry. I really don't see this kind of thing happen enough to justify instituting a policy like this; there's no evidence that it's NEEDED. Let's stop drudging up old conflicts, shall we? Zul se onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 21:49, 5 August 2014 (GMT)

(←) (edit conflict) If anything, the question is whether to mirror the current rule rather than make a more severe one. Two months instead of one is going to do nothing but increase the likelihood that the patroller will quit altogether. Let's be serious: by moving up in "rank", a patroller is basically expected to keep doing exactly what they did before they became a patroller, only with a little more button-clicking.

The argument for mirroring the rule is premised on the idea that we would expect a person to behave just as well as a patroller as they would as a prospective patroller. But there is one important difference between prospective patrollers and existing patrollers: an existing patroller is more likely going to be forced to deal with the contributions of another person which a regular contributor would rather ignore and leave to the patrollers. I can't count the number of times I've seen someone make poor edits, and it's been Silencer who's called them out on it, and he has done so dispassionately and without mincing words. All too often, especially since rpeh left, the UESP's "garbage man" has been the Silencer. He deals with the trash so we don't have to. It's an aggravating, thankless role. History suggests that the longer someone does this job, the more caustic they tend to become. But we need people like him, so you people can point your ****ing fingers and say, "There, there's the bad guy!" No offense, that's just a surprisingly appropriate Scarface reference.

But I digress. Point is, I believe any argument about a higher standard for retaining patroller rights as opposed to qualifying for patroller rights is a wash in the face of the changed circumstances a patroller faces, and patrollers like Silencer exemplify why this is the case. We need garbagemen, and we have to be understanding if, every once in a while, they don't smell like roses. Insignificant Revisions^{Threats•Evidence} 21:59, 5 August 2014 (GMT)

True, but at the same time we have to remember that garbagemen don't get free passes to make trash of their own (not to labor the metaphor). Zul se onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 22:32, 5 August 2014 (GMT)

(edit conflict) It might not be needed, but it still provides a template for rare events. I am not drudging up old conflicts. I even said this would not affect Silencer in the slightest. It would affect all patrollers equally.

Of course they are going to deal with those. But they still need to do it appropriately. In cases like where they are the "garbage man", I highly doubt a warning would take place. Even if they did receive a warning, it would likely be overturned because it is a minor thing, or they had to be somewhat rude. If it wasn't, then it could be brought to the community's attention and justification could be shown. Even if they don't always "smell" perfect, I am sure that giving warnings to patrollers would be very thought out and not a rushed thing. Also Minor Edits, you pointed out how thankless a job it is so I would like to officially say: Thank you Silencer and every other person who acts as our "garbage men" by cleaning up poor edits. Perhaps it is not needed. I hope it is never needed. But having it in place provides a clear guideline to follow in the rare event it does happen. Timing could be changed, of course, I just felt that it should be harsher because a patroller should know what needs to be done and what not to do. Looking at your points though, I do feel like one month would be enough. ~ Ad intellige ^(talk) 22:43, 5 August 2014 (GMT)

Well its time someone else dealt with the trash. I'm sick to the back teeth of people having a go at me for asking the difficult questions they're afraid to answer. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 22:44, 5 August 2014 (GMT)

Updating Guidelines

I think its fair to say that the one week timeframe I gave before making the changes is up (see here). These changes I am about to make as always do not apply to any ongoing nominations. Feel free to make any further minor suggestions for improvement in the next week (an arbitrary bedding in period). Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 20:08, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

In addition to the CP discussed changes I added modspaces and Books as eligible content, I don't see any reason they shouldn't be but just making it clear what I've done. Also I added a line that patrollers should be familiar with real-time chat functions. To me it fits with the email function as a quicker offsite discussion channel. I've said you only need to basically know how to use it, but if there are objections then remove and discuss. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 20:46, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Additional Qualification

I propose we add this requirement to the list of Suggested Qualifications:

• Elder Scrolls knowledge — Patrollers should be familiar with several different namespaces on the wiki and be able to patrol and correct edits in those spaces. Namespaces include games, lore, mods, books, merchandise, and general information. If a nominee's edits are concentrated in just one subject, they should have a high level of expertise.

Since it's a suggested qualification, this still leaves room for exceptions. However, I believe this has been an unwritten qualification for all nominees, since usually one of the positive aspects of a user's edit histories that gets highlighted is either their range of knowledge or high degree of knowledge in one area. —Dillonn241 (talk) 22:37, 13 July 2024 (UTC)