Help:Wiki University--Patrolling Recent Changes Page

Patrolling
One of our responsibilities as missionaries is to ensure that articles comply with Wiki policies. Changes to the Wiki go live as soon as they are saved. For this reason, patrolling recent changes and new pages on a daily basis is a standard part of the Wiki missionary assignment. (We missionaries are the Meerkats of the wiki and the first line of defense.)

All new pages and changes and additions to existing pages, no matter how trivial, are listed on a page named Recent Changes. All pages must be patrolled. (The only exception is pages that are edited by moderators [Wiki missionaries].)

When you are patrolling and find something that needs to be referred to another missionary for resolution, mark the change patrolled so that someone else doesn't work on it at the same time.

Setting Your Recent Changes Page Preferences
Selecting "Recent changes" under My preferences on the right side of your screen under "Personal tools" gives you options on how recent changes are displayed when you patrol. For example, you can specify how many changes you want to see at a time and how far back they should go. It is also recommended that you check


 * Hide patrolled edits in recent changes
 * Hide patrolled pages from new page list

Anatomy of the Recent Changes Page
Here is a sample of three entries from the "Recent Changes" page.


 * ( diff | hist ) . . m ! Ship Brooklyn ; 15:45 . . (-57) . . KeslerJL ( Talk | contribs | block )

diff - means "difference" (not shown on new pages). By clicking on "diff" it will take you to a page which shows what change or changes were made. Here is a sample diff page from our first entry above:


 * The yellow on the left highlights the previous version of the article (or section)
 * The green on the right highlights the current version of the article (or section)
 * The actual changes are in red.
 * Below these yellow and green boxes is the whole article as it now appears. Scroll down the page and check out the rest of the page in case something else has been missed in the past (content or article anatomy).

The next chapter will deal with problems you may see in this quick look.
 * In this case, the change was a minor correction to the text. However, some changes involve paragraphs and sometimes whole pages. Occasionally you will find a page with no changes; this occurs when the user does not make changes and saves the page rather than canceling the edit.
 * If the present change appears to be okay, click "Mark as patrolled" and go on to the next entry.
 * If you see problems that need to be fixed, make sure you come back to fix them. You can do this by fixing the page on the spot or writing down the title of the article (or add it to your watch list) so you can fix it later after you have finished patrolling.


 * ( diff | hist ) . . m ! Ship Brooklyn ; 15:45 . . (-57) . . KeslerJL ( Talk | contribs | block )

hist - by clicking on "hist" you can see all edits and changes that have been made to this page since its creation.


 * ( diff | hist ) . . m ! Ship Brooklyn ; 15:45 . . (-57) . . KeslerJL ( Talk | contribs | block )

Kind of Edit - "M", "N" or blank.


 * M - stands for minor edit.
 * N - stands for new page. If the article is new, there will not be a "diff" entry and the reviewer will need to click on the name of the article.
 * blank designates the edit as a major change. Edits default to major unless you click the "minor edit" box. (Whether an edit is a major or minor change is a judgment call. Many times the user is unsure as to what it is and as a result don't check anything.


 * ( diff | hist ) . . m ! Ship Brooklyn ; 15:45 . . (-57) . . KeslerJL ( Talk | contribs | block )

Checked or not - ! means the edit has NOT been checked or patrolled.


 * ( diff | hist ) . . m ! Ship Brooklyn ; 15:45 . . (-57) . . KeslerJL ( Talk | contribs | block )

Article title - "Ship Brooklyn" is the title of article that has been edited or changed.


 * ( diff | hist ) . . m ! Ship Brooklyn ; 15:45 . . (-57) . . KeslerJL ( Talk | contribs | block )

Time of edit - 15:45 in military time.


 * The time displayed will be according to the time zone you selected in your "Date and time" preferences. If you do not select a time zone, the time will be the time on the server.


 * ( diff | hist ) . . m ! Ship Brooklyn ; 15:45 . . (-57) . . KeslerJL ( Talk | contribs | block )

Size of edit - (-57) the number of bytes added to or subtracted from the article. Generally, a byte equates to a letter, number, or space. In this example 57 letters, numbers or spaces have been removed from the article.


 * ( diff | hist ) . . m ! Ship Brooklyn ; 15:45 . . (-57) . . KeslerJL ( Talk | contribs | block )

User name - name of user who made the edit. If the name is in blue, there is something on the user page. If in red, the user page is blank.


 * ( diff | hist ) . . m ! Ship Brooklyn ; 15:45 . . (-57) . . KeslerJL ( Talk | contribs | block )

Talk page - link to the user's talk page. It the link is blue, the page has been created. (Generally, shortly after a user begins contributing, the welcoming committee posts a welcome message.)


 * ( diff | hist ) . . m ! Ship Brooklyn ; 15:45 . . (-57) . . KeslerJL ( Talk | contribs | block )

contribs - this links to a page with listing the contributions this person has made to the Wiki.


 * ( diff | hist ) . . m ! Ship Brooklyn ; 15:45 . . (-57) . . KeslerJL ( Talk | contribs | block )

block - This block only shows up when the person patrolling is an authorized administrator. If blocked, the user ifs prevented from adding more material to the Wiki. This step would only be taken if the contributor repeatedly violates Wiki guidelines. Unless the edits are very egregious, the user should be contacted through the user talk page to explain the issue. If the user doesn't respond, refuses to fix the problem, or continues to add inappropriate content, consult with mission leadership.

A support team member without administrator privileges can recommend a user be blocked by posting on Yammer for an administrator.

If, in the future, the user agrees to follow Wiki policies and guidelines, the block can be removed.

Summary - In the entry below our example you see (Citations for This Collection Database). These remarks were put in the Summary box, which you see below the edit box. In the summary box you should place the reason, or state very briefly what changes you have made to the article. However, if no entry was made there will be no summary comment as in our example.

Rollback - This is again in the entry following our example. Be very careful with this. By clicking on this link, you cancel all changes made by the most recent user back to the prior user. This is helpful for issues such as a blanked page or significant format corruption. Caution: cannot be undone. Just be sure you know what you are doing if you use the rollback link. Contact other team members if you have a question.

Undo - This appears at the end of the first entry in the example with green border under the explanation for hist. By clicking on this link, you reverse the most recent change. This action can be reversed.

Try these out
 Quick Quiz
 * The green box on the diff page shows the part of the page that was changed as it was originally.


 * True
 * False


 * The changes in the text are in blue.


 * True
 * False


 * When you see the N it means the user is new to the Wiki.


 * True
 * False


 * When the number in the parentheses has a minus sign in front of it, it means the article had a reduction of material.


 * True
 * False


 * You can learn about a user if the user name is in red.


 * True
 * False


 * If no reason for the change is displayed, the user failed to type in a reason in the Summary box.


 * True
 * False


 * If you want to see how many times the page has been changed, you click on diff.


 * True
 * False

Check your answers