Every wiki has a list of Recent Changes (RC) that shows every edit made to its website. Here at wikiHow, anyone is invited to become a patroller. Responsibilities involve reverting any unhelpful edits as well as one-to-one coaching. Would you like to help out? Here's how!
Steps
- 1Go to http://www.wikihow.com/Special:RCPatrol.
- 2Compare the old revision of the page to the new revision. The old revision is on the left, and the new revision is on the right. This is called a "diff" page because it shows the difference between two revisions.
- If something was removed, that section will have a yellow background on the left.
- If something was added or changed, that section will have a green background on the right.
- Any text that was changed will be in red.
- If you scroll down, you will see what the page looks like now, after the edits have been made.
If you scroll down, you will see what the page looks like now, after the edits have been made.
- 3Click on the "Skip" button if you're not sure whether the edits improve the page. Clicking this button will move you on to a new edit to patrol and leave the previous edit for someone else to patrol. It's always better to skip than to risk patrolling a bad edit, or undoing a good edit.
Click on the "Skip" button if you're not sure whether the edits improve the page. - 4Use the "Quick Edit" button to fix changes that have been made to the article. For example, if someone adds a good tip with incorrect spelling, use this feature to make corrections before you mark as patrolled. When you press the button, a window will open to edit the page. Find the edits that need fixing (and feel free to make any other corrections while you're there) and then press the "Publish" button.
Use the "Quick Edit" button to fix changes that have been made to the article.
- 5Use the "Rollback" button when the entire edit should be removed (reverted) so that the article is changed back to the previous version on the left. Do this only when all the changes are unhelpful and unfixable. Most of the time, unless they are outright vandalism, edits are fixable.
Use the "Rollback" button when the entire edit should be removed (reverted) so that the article is changed back to the previous version on the left. - 6Press the "Thumbs Up" button to give the person who made the edit a little extra recognition for making a good contribution.
Press the "Thumbs Up" button to give the person who made the edit a little extra recognition for making a good contribution. - 7Use the "Quick Note" button to send a message to the contributor who made the edit (or one of the edits) you are currently patrolling.
Use the "Quick Note" button to send a message to the contributor who made the edit (or one of the edits) you are currently patrolling.- Write a personal note. In the text box, tell the contributor why you thought the edit he or she made was great. An example: "Thanks for fixing that typo in [[Get a Job]]. I always confuse "your" and "you're" myself so I'm happy we have people like you fixing that for people like me!" If you want, you can use the "basic thanks" button to start off the message, but it's more encouraging if you add a sentence that is specific to the edit, like "The tips you added were really insightful."
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Only use the "coach for bad" template button for when you had to rollback someone's edit.
Only use the "coach for bad" template button for when you had to rollback someone's edit. -
If you're patrolling edits made by more than one person, it'll say "and others" in the header for the current revision on the right. When you open quick note, there will be a dropdown menu for who you send the note to. By default, it'll send the note to whoever made the biggest edit to the page, who is usually NOT the same person listed before "and others" (that's the person who made the most recent edit to the page). If you're not sure you're sending the note to the right person, the only way to find out is by looking at the page history. If you don't want to do that, just skip or don't leave a quick note.
If you're patrolling edits made by more than one person, it'll say "and others" in the header for the current revision on the right.
- 8Click "Mark as Patrolled" when you're done making any necessary changes to the edit.
Click "Mark as Patrolled" when you're done making any necessary changes to the edit. - 9To become a respected and expert patroller, do not rush, and read and follow the tips in Patrolling Best Practices.
Video
Tips
- If you see no difference, that's probably because an edit was reverted by someone else while they were patrolling, and the page now looks the way it did before. It's worth looking at the page history, though, to see if that edit should've been reverted or not. Maybe it was a good edit that just needed some fixing, but the person accidentally judged it as a bad edit. You can view the page history by clicking "Advanced" and then "Page History". It'll open in a new window or tab so that you don't lose your place in RC Patrol.
- If you want to patrol only a particular kind of edit, click on the "RC Ordering" tab and explore the dropdown menu. Discussion, User, and User Talk are easier to patrol because we allow pretty much anything except obvious vandalism.
- Remember, some edits are only partially bad. A good tip with terrible grammar, for example, is still a good tip. Try to rollback edits only when the information isn't salvageable in any way. Otherwise, it is better to use Quick Edit to delete the bad and incorporate the good.
- Do not revert/edit articles with an In Use aka {{inuse}} tag.
- Develop your own method.
- Begin slowly, patrol safely, then pick up speed.
- Make easy fixes and add templates or spend more time on each article.
- Recent Changes is inaccessible to anonymous users. If you're anonymous, please create an account if you would like to become a patroller.
- Bunch Patrol on wikiHow: View a scrollable RC list of diffs for a logged in editor who has 4 or more unpatrolled RCs. There is no preview to view in this list. "Mark as patrolled" by clicking check boxes to left of each diff; skip some and "submit".
- While patrolling userpages, if you see any personal information like address, phone number etc, then put {{safety}} template or for email dispose {{Emailspam}} template in that user's talk page. Personal messages are highly appreciable with template.
Help
- Category:Patrolling - All-inclusive link
- Patroller Notice Board - To communicate with other patrollers.
- Administrator Notice Board - Report RC glitches in the Miscellaneous section.
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Article Info
Last edited:
May 7, 2012 by BR
Categories:
Patrolling | Help
