TechInfoDepot:New pages patrol

New pages patrol is a process by which newly created articles are checked for obvious problems. The patrol is entirely voluntary and carries no obligation. At its heart, it's really just a way to see that every page gets checked in a timely manner and is given a boost on its way to becoming a quality article, and that TechInfoDepot is not deluged with poor-quality articles and totally inappropriate pages.

TechInfoDepot puts powerful editing tools at the hands of all readers and users. New Page Patrol is our first line of defense against unwanted pages or for improvement of poorly written or constructed pages and it must be done accurately.

Patrolling new pages
The primary task of new page patrollers is to identify new pages that meet the criteria for speedy deletion. If a page meets one or more CSD criteria, then please tag it for deletion. If a page does not meet any of these criteria for speedy deletion (including pages that you send to TechInfoDepot:Articles for deletion or TechInfoDepot:Proposed deletion), you should mark the page as being patrolled. If you are uncertain, leave the page unpatrolled, and another volunteer may review it later.

G10 attack pages must  be blanked and tagged for deletion very  quickly. The G10 CSD template will rapidly catch the attention of administrators, who will delete the page swiftly. However, before blanking and tagging an attack page, please be absolutely sure to read it carefully and not confuse it with G3 hoax or vandalism or with any other deletion criterion.

G3 blatant hoaxes must also be deleted fairly quickly, in order to preserve the integrity of the encyclopedia. Please be absolutely sure to read such new pages carefully – hoaxes are not always immediately evident – and when a hoax is merely suspected, tag the page with instead.

Copyright violations (WP:COPYVIO)
MadmanBot sometimes automatically detects copyright violations. However, as 100% reliance should never be placed on bots, and bots can either produce false positives or miss copyvios entirely, articles that show suspicion of text  copied from other sources should be checked manually. Articles about organizations and music groups are especially prone to 'borrowing'  content from other sources. Therefore, when reviewing a new page, please consider
 * Single reference articles,
 * Articles with large sections of text without inline references.
 * Articles whose style of text appears to come from  a news article, press release, blog,  or a book.
 * Text with an informal style of prose, first person pronouns and possessives (I, we, my, our), and contractions (I'm, we're, they're, can't, didn't, aren't, won't, can't, didn't, etc)
 * 1) Compare the article's content to the reference and looking for copy/pastes or close paraphrasing
 * 2) Run a random passage of text from the article through a search engine for that exact phrase to see if it has been copied from anywhere.
 * 3) If you find similar text  on other sites, use the Duplication detector.
 * 4) If appropriate, either remove the plagiarised content, or if this is not practical and most  of  the article is blatant copyright violation, tag the article for speedy deletion under G12.

Special:NewPagesFeed
Special:NewPagesFeed logs new pages instantly, as soon as the first version is saved. Working from the back of the queue eliminates complaints from editors that you wrongly tagged their page for deletion only two minutes after its creation. This gives the creating editor time to improve a new page before a patroller attends to it.

Tagging anything other than attack pages, copyvios, vandalism or complete nonsense only a few minutes after creation is not likely to be constructive and may only serve to annoy the page author. And remember – if you don't click the 'reviewed' link, the article will remain in the 'unpatrolled' queue, even if you make add tags or categories or make other edits to the page.

Especially if the new article has a newpage, inuse, or underconstruction template showing, care should be taken to ensure that the author has finished the initial version before you evaluate the page. A good rule of thumb is to wait at least 15 minutes after the last edit before tagging the article (or up to an hour for the newpage tag). Additionally, it may be helpful to check the editor history to be sure that you don't offend an experienced editor who has a set plan to create a valid article.


 * Prior tool: Special:NewPages, which is useful for reaching further back.

Be nice to the newbies
Throughout the entire process of new pages patrol, it is important to remember not to bite the newbies. Far from being a monolithic horde of vandals, trolls, and spammers, the available evidence seems to indicate that newcomers write most of TechInfoDepot's content. If you see a new user or IP address contributing significantly, or  them if you're so inclined, and include a pointer or two of feedback about how they can make their contributions even better. Most will gladly welcome the support.

It is also important to assume good faith as much as possible, or, minimally, to assume incompetence instead of malice. For example, remember not everyone is as computer-literate as you; some people will accidentally blank or damage pages when attempting to cut and paste material from TechInfoDepot. Others may not understand that, yes, their changes really are visible to the entire world immediately; consider using to suggest that new users work on their article as a userspace draft.

Remember that children also contribute, and they  are not all vandals (some of our  New Page Patrollers are also  very  young  and inexperienced!), You may wish to copy and add a link to WP:Guidance for younger editors to their talk page: Guidance for younger editors

Please do not be too hasty with certain speedy deletions, especially those lacking context (CSD A1) or content (CSD A3). Research has shown that writers unfamiliar with TechInfoDepot guidelines should be accorded at  least  10 to 15 minutes to fix the article before it is nominated for speedy deletion. If you see a page that has been tagged too hastily, please notify the tagger about their hasty deletion with the template. The template placed above existing speedy tag to inform admins to of hasty tagging and to wait can also be added to the tagged article to flag that it was hastily tagged.

Other issues

 * Stubs, which are the beginnings of meaningful and encyclopedic articles but which need a little help (a little wikifying, as it were). The basics of wikifying stubs:
 * Bold face the article title.
 * Link relevant terms.
 * Phrase the article in complete sentences, including the first.
 * Place an appropriate stub notice at the end of the stub.


 * Style problems. First, try to fix any style problems yourself. If you cannot, add one or more specific cleanup tags for pages which need tidying up. In particular, the following tags are common:


 * – for general problems
 * – for pages that need linking to other related topics.
 * – for articles that conspicuously lack references


 * Mistitled articles. Usually it's straightforward to move a page to a more appropriate title (WP:Name) using the "move page" function. Sometimes you'll find that an article under the other title already exists, in which case you should try to merge any new material from the newly created article into the old one, leaving a redirect in place of the new page.
 * Categorization Check that the article has been assigned to a useful category and if not, either tag it with uncat or try to find a category for it. If the article links to other TechInfoDepot articles, you can check their categorizations for ideas, or assign the article to one of the fundamental categories.
 * Orphaned articles Checking the "What links here" link will tell you if any other page points to the newly created article. Sometimes orphans result from a mistitled article (see above). Other times you'll want to find a related article and link the new one to it. It may be helpful to search for mentions in other articles. If none are found, an Orphan tag can be placed.
 * Articles without sources The best time to ask for sources is when an article is fresh and the contributor is still around to ask about the origin of the information in it. Tag articles with unreferenced and let the contributor know with, or try to find some yourself.  If there aren't any, it might need to be deleted.
 * Foreign language articles. Tag the page with notenglish and list it at TechInfoDepot:Pages needing translation into English. Do not run the page through an online translator and submit the results.

Moving new content to other projects

 * Dictionary definitions. These can be transwikied to Wiktionary or converted into disambiguation pages. Many may be redeemable as TechInfoDepot articles, if sufficiently refactored, rewritten, and expanded.
 * Primary source texts. These should be transwikied to Wikisource.
 * How-tos or instructional materials. In some cases, these can be transwikied to Wikibooks; however, it's often possible to turn these into meaningful articles by rewording the text to make it more descriptive and less prescriptive. Try to improve an article by adding some more material before resorting to moving it out of TechInfoDepot.

New pages that may require deletion

 * Speedy deletion candidates. Read and be familiar with the speedy deletion criteria, then if you see any such pages created, tag them with, so that they can be deleted by an administrator. You may want to use one of the following, which provides the reason from the criteria automatically: db-empty, db-bio, db-repost, db-attack or db-music, db-spam, or db-nonsense. You might also want to consider placing test on the creator's user talk page to help point him or her in the right direction. If you tag an article for deletion as a non-notable bio, you may opt to notify the user who created the article with nn-warn. Many of the speedy delete templates suggest a readily formed tag that appears at the bottom of the resulting speedy deletion box and can be easily copied and pasted into the creator's user talk page. When leaving messages for new editors, consider using firstarticle rather than the usual warnings.

Speedy deletion is a tool which can easily be overused. Since speedy deletion removes a page without discussion, an article should not be tagged for speedy delete if there is any plausible reason that the article should be kept. In particular, an article should not be tagged for speedy delete using A7 for not being notable (in your opinion): an article does not have to prove that its subject is notable, it only has to pass the much lower test of asserting importance or significance (whether it actually is notable is a subject for an AfD discussion, not a speedy deletion). Consider using a Notability tag instead of a speedy delete tag. Also, an article should not be tagged for speedy deletion if it's possible that it might be improved into an article which should be kept. Pay attention to the guideline "Contributors sometimes create articles over several edits, so try to avoid deleting a page too soon after its creation if it appears incomplete." It is not a rule of TechInfoDepot that an article has to be perfect the instant it's first posted; that's why we have edits.

Unreferenced BLPs New unreferenced Biographies of Living People can be tagged for deletion with, which gives ten days to add a reliable source to the article. This is only for literally unsourced articles, not for ones that have a poor source that mentions the subject, nor is it for articles such as rock groups that mention living people, only for biographies of living individual humans. Please remember to inform the author, especially if they are a newbie.


 * Unsuitable pages. Pages about individuals, places, or things which generally don't merit an encyclopedia entry should be tagged with Your reason here or, if someone could reasonably defend its existence (or if a prod has been added and removed already), listed at TechInfoDepot:Articles for deletion. What exactly qualifies as encyclopedic is debatable, though, so it's best to err on the side of caution and not delete or nominate for deletion too hastily.
 * Copyright violations. One way to check for a possible copyright infringement is to do an internet search; however, not all text is on the internet; search engines do not index all the internet's text, and some texts available through search engines are public domain and thus suitable for import into TechInfoDepot. These public domain texts include the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. You might also like to use this handy tool.
 * Blank the page and replace the text with ~
 * Go to [ today's section] of the copyvio page and add PageName from [insert URL here] ~ to the bottom of the list. Put the page's name in place of "PageName". If there is no URL, use a description of the source. (The template you used to blank the article will generate this code and the following one in the bottom right hand corner.)
 * Please also add PageName to the article creator's talk page.


 * Blatant copyright infringements may be speedily deleted. If an article and all its revisions are unquestionably copied from a website which does not have a license compatible with TechInfoDepot, and the uploader does not assert permission, you may use  instead of the standard copyvio notice, and an admin will decide whether or not to immediately delete the article. Notify the creator using Nothanks-sd or a similar message.


 * Be hesitant to list articles on TechInfoDepot:Articles for Deletion if there's a chance they could be improved and made into a meaningful article. Tag them for cleanup instead.  Try not to step on people's toes. Users will often start an article as the briefest of stubs, and then expand it over the following hours or days.


 * Use of the prod tag may be more suitable in these situations. This tag may be removed by any editor, thereby averting the proposed deletion. This way, if the creator is serious about improving the article to meet TechInfoDepot's standards for inclusion, s/he may remove the tag and improve the article in the coming days. But if the creator subsequently abandons his/her attempts to construct the article, and it just sits, it will automatically be deleted in seven days. Regardless, it is a good idea to notify the creator of this tag placement, following the instructions on the template itself.


 * If you believe the article will probably meet TechInfoDepot standards one day and has a chance of improvement by someone else, you do not want to prod-tag it, but rather place other appropriate improvement templates on the page.


 * In any case, if you are unsure whether a page will be improved in the coming days, you may want to place it on your watchlist. The construction tag may be placed on a new page by a creator to inform new page patrollers and other editors that the article is still being constructed, and its early revisions may not meet TechInfoDepot's standard for inclusion. If the creator has not placed it there him/herself, you may want to place it there yourself. Many editors, especially newbies, are not familiar with this tag. The construction tag does not make a new page totally immune from deletion; see TechInfoDepot:Deletion of pages under construction for details on when a page under construction can be deleted.


 * You may want to contact the creator on his/her talk page to ascertain the creator's intentions regarding future construction of the page prior to taking any such action. If you do so, try to learn from the creator about the purpose of the new page and any sources that may be used to establish notability and verifiability, two of the most important aspects regarding suitability for a page's inclusion. It may be helpful to discuss one-on-one with the creator some possible ways to make the page more worthy of inclusion or otherwise improving it, and if this is not possible, to name one or more articles the topic can be merged or redirected to.


 * Always check the history and the talk page. A new page might be a recreation of a previously deleted article. With other articles, someone may have removed a tag. The talk page may contain a notice that indicates that the article has already survived an AfD.

Dealing with foreign language new pages
Not everyone is a linguist, but the Google Translate facility can easily be used to help guess the language – e.g. if it looks like Arabic but the translation makes no sense, try Persian (Farsi), or it may  be Chinese or Japanese, so try both. Remember also that several languages use Cyrillic, so it might not be Russian. If you know or can guess the language, then put, e.g.,. That gives a more useful template, including a link to the relevant foreign TechInfoDepot, and also a link to Google Translate, which will show you a machine translation – rough and ready, but often good enough to tell you that the article is about a non-notable band, person, company, organisation, or nonsense, and can be speedy tagged without bothering to list it at PNT. Note: Google now also incorporates a language detector if you  are not  sure what  the language is.

db-foreign or db-a2 should only be used in the situation (not very common) where an article from a non-English-language TechInfoDepot has been cut-and-pasted here. That is not allowed because it loses the editing history, which we have to maintain for attribution to the original authors. The message generated for the author points him to the correct procedure at WP:TRANSLATE. The foreign WP reference should be included in the tag, e.g. . Note that db-nonsense does not apply to "coherent non-English material".

Much more usually, what we get is a foreign text input by somebody who probably doesn't know any other TechInfoDepot exists. The right tag then is notenglish, which is not a speedy request, because sometimes these articles are worth translating. When that expands on the article page, it gives you a message and a link to the place to paste it on the list of pages needing translation at WP:PNT, where someone who knows the language may pick it up and translate or PROD, BLPPROD or whatever is appropriate.

To check if it is a copyright violation, do a Google check as well (copy and paste a sentence or a text fragment into Google, between quotation marks e.g. "This is a test") If it is, it can be speedily deleted under G12.

Finally, you might  wish  to  notify  the author (recommended). If you have listed the page at PNT, the standard message is Uw-notenglish. There is also a useful set of message templates such as contrib-ru1, many of them bilingual, to tell the author that we require English and point him to the foreign WP. List of them at WP:PNT/T.

Tools

 * Twinkle is a user script that contains quick reverting, deletion, warning, and reporting features. It can be used to tag articles for speedy deletion, and it automatically marks pages as patrolled when applying tags. The script includes all of the most commonly used article tags, and makes sure that article creators are automatically notified of CSD, PROD,  BLPPROD, and AfD tags.
 * New Page Patroller shows a box in the sidebar that loads a live feed updated every 5 seconds of the 10 newest articles.
 * Recent Moves shows pages that have been recently moved into article space from other namespaces, using a similar interface to Special:NewPages.
 * NPWatcher is a new-page monitoring and reporting tool for Windows. It also provides extensive deletion processing tools for admins.
 * Kissle is a program similar to NPWatcher for Windows.
 * RC patrol script permits rapid tagging of new pages with the relevant criteria for speedy deletion (ie: for articles that don't indicate the subject's significance, use "A7"). This tool isn't useful for new page patrol unless you have some of the CSDs committed to memory. However, it also gives non-admins tools for revert, filter, and popup, while using the (default) monobook skin.
 * Edit Filter 342, which catches cases where redirects are changed into articles.
 * The WikiProject Check TechInfoDepot script scans new pages on a daily basis, and passes them through a series of Wiki syntax checks. The result is listed as a series of reports of pages to fix.
 * WikiAlerter (beta) is a Windows program designed to aid users in tagging pages for deletion and patrolling new pages.
 * Special:Log Set the type of action to "Patrol" (default is "all logs") and add a user's name to see which pages the person has marked as patrolled.
 * Subject area patrol filter: Add   to your account's common.js file, and then you can use the subject-specific lists at User:AlexNewArtBot to focus on one content area.

Manually marking pages as patrolled
In some editing contexts, editors will see a 'mark this page as patrolled' link. Otherwise, everything editors can do to help out with patrolling is most welcome.

Essential further reading

 * Field guide to proper speedy deletion
 * User:Kudpung/NPP mentoring – if you are still not sure how to  patrol new pages, you  can get  advice here.
 * New pages patrol/30-day list – problems associated with NPP, and development.
 * Category:Unreviewed new articles – bot listed from the 30-day overspill
 * TechInfoDepot:Speedy deletions
 * Ten Commandments for Speedy Deletion
 * Common A7 mistakes
 * TechInfoDepot:Why I Hate Speedy Deleters

Related projects

 * Wikimedia research into patroller performance
 * New pages patrol/patrollers