UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard/Archives/Updating Patroller Guidelines

Updating Patroller Guidelines
I noticed than on this page it says 100 edits is required to be nominated as a patroller, and this seems incredibly out of date to me. Lets use 300 edits minimum as an example for this one. It would give a much better idea on if they are going to stay on the site plus it is great experience for the user. 
Draft:
Nomination Guidelines

There are no truly hard and fast guidelines to nominating a patroller, but the community does look for certain things when deciding whether or not to accept the candidate. Here's a list of things that make up an guideline for patroller nominations.
:1. Editing Experience- As a patroller, you will be dealing with many different aspects of wiki markup. You need to know how to deal with headers, templates, and tables. A minimum of 300 edits will allow us to judge such things. Edits to your own User page, or User Talk page should not be counted as part of the 300.
:2. Time on the Site- The community needs to know that you'll be around for a while after becoming a patroller, so it is important to have 4 months or more of significant activity.
:3. Spelling and Grammar- As a patroller, you will be checking other people's edits for spelling and grammar mistakes, therefore you need to show this trait in your own edits. You need to adhere to the UESP Spelling page in order to properly patrol edits.
:4. Style- Being a patroller means that you must be able to follow the Style Guide. This means no first person within articles as well as a number of other things. Additions to UESPwiki should be as readable as possible, and thus patrollers will need to rephrase poorly written edits.
:5. Watch Recent Changes- As a patroller, you will have to watch the Recent Changes page thoroughly. Doing so before becoming a patroller is advisable to get a feel for the job.
:6. No Recent Nomination- If a user has been nominated with their consent in the past three months, and that nomination was either rejected or withdrawn, they are not eligible to be nominated again.
:7.VandalismIf ANY vandalizing edits were made under your name then you are not eligible for nomination for at least 6 months after the incident.
Feedback?--             01:46, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

:I think its OK, but the edits should go down to 300-350, 400 seem a bit too much. Everyone (including myself) will have to try harder to become patrollers!--   01:55, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

::It has been at 300 and you just broke 600 edits today.--             01:59, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

:::I thought it was 200 before... besides if you take away user/user:talk page edits I have 400, give or take.--   02:54, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

::::You can use this to check that--             02:59, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

::::: The number of edits isn't the be-all and end-all of a good patroller. SubtleCynicism never put a foot wrong, and although his low edit count was mentioned during the nomination process, he was darn useful during his (all too brief) stay on the site.
::::: Some people have suggested age as a criterion. No. Vesna was a great editor and patroller, who was just 13 when elected. Nobody ever had cause to mention her age when talking about her contributions to the site.
::::: When I was a patroller (and yes, I just re-self-nominated) I suppose my criterion for patrolling an edit was "Would I have made this edit?" If the answer was "yes", I'd mark the edit as patrolled. If no, I'd leave it. That's obviously not the case for vandalism, but vandal edits are easy.
::::: Some editors are active on certain projects and not others. The canonical example is PLRDLF, who is one of the site's three DF experts but who has turned down the opportunity to become a patroller on two (at least) occasions, for perfectly good reasons. OTOH, Gez and Theviking are great on the Tamriel Rebuilt project. Unfortunately there's no way we can split up responsibilities by project.
::::: Enough rambling and down to opinions. Pace my comments about edit counts, I think a patroller should have made 350 main/gamespace edits and should have been on the wiki for at least three months. That should be enough time and activity to judge whether or not somebody is ready. rpeh  04:51, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I have been subject to the age thing and I completely agree with that section. I have also learned there is another conversation about this topic.--             15:07, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

:I had been working on something similar last week, but lost my work when my computer restarted overnight :( .  Anyway, I like a lot of the suggestions here, I suppose.  Here, I've mocked up the changes I'd like to make to the Patroller Guidelines.  To go over my reasons, first of all, I wanted to separate suggestions from things that, I think, should immediately disqualify a person from nomination.  Of the four in that section, the only that's not self-explanatory is:
:*Active on the wiki: This, I think, covers the intended purpose of the original guideline.  It ensures that we have a person who has shown some level of consistency in editing.  I'm not particularly attached to the stated limits, it just seemed to make sense to me.
:For the "Immediate Disqualifications" section, a lot of them will need explanations:
:*Less than 250 edits in content space: Yes, I want to disqualify all talk page edits.  Answering questions on talk pages, helping people, etc; that's all important, but that's more of a "mentor" role on the wiki, and we have that program already.  I think patrollers should, rather, have proven themselves helpful in a content sense, and this will provide that.
:*Less than one month on the wiki: I'd like to require that the account itself be at least a month old.  As stated in my sandbox, this is the minimum time required to adequately learn this wiki's policies, procedures, and preferred styles.
:*Recent nomination: already in the guidelines, and worded as a disqualification
:*Recent warning: I think at least a month after a legitimate warning has been issued is required to ensure that the editor has improved.
:*Recent block: Should be self-explanatory, I think.
:*Recent resignation: Also possibly self-explanatory, but I think this would avoid any issues with future patrollers resigning in a fit of anger only to re-nominate themselves the next week.
:Anyway, this is what came to my mind.  Corevette's "vandalism" suggestion should be adequately covered under my "warning" and "block" suggestions, and I think 250 edits is a sufficient number when restricted to content edits.  Thoughts, suggestions, love it, hate it?  Tweak the numbers a little?  --GK  17:23, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

::The disqualifications section is a very good idea! I think it should be made clear when the block time starts. Like after the block time is up, or when it is administered.--             20:21, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

:::I agree with the ideas presented above, though I tend more towards the stricter requirements (300 edits, 3 or 4 months min), but there are two things I'd like to see added.
:::#E-mail functionality must be enabled. I think this should be part of any "staff" position on a wiki, for the simple reason that you may sometimes have a question as to why someone reverted or patrolled an edit, but it may not make sense to bring it up on the wiki (because it's too small a point, because it might cause flame/edit wars), you may want to thank them for editing something, or for whatever other reason. To me, the ability to contact someone offline just goes with the role.
:::#A clarification that these are guidelines and that in unusual circumstances, exceptions might be made. For example, if Nx ran for Patroller, I know I'd support it without hesitation because despite the small number of edits, they demonstrate expert-level knowledge of wikis, he's got copious amounts of quality edits at RationalWiki, and he's clearly familiarized himself with the specifics of our wiki. Users like him are the rare exception, however, so I think any such wording needs to reflect that the guidelines will apply unless there's an exceptional reason they shouldn't, not just because Joe Blow thinks he's special. (That said, arbitrating situations like this can be tricky, so I can also support the opposite position of just not allowing exceptions at all.)
::: ?      20:42, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

::::The email idea is very good actually. I need to make a new one for wiki-only stuff as all my others have about 10,000+ unread from facebook and spam. Thanks for the feedback and a goid idea for me.--             20:47, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

:::::I like the email suggestion, and have added it to my sandbox.  The "guidelines" suggestion, however, I think we can do without.  I'd rather not complicate it, and we can discuss special circumstances if and when they arise.  I've also updated my sandbox with a clarification that the "block" caveat begins at the expiration of the block.  As far as the numbers, as I've said, I'm not particularly attached to anything.  The numbers I listed are, basically, what I consider the minimum acceptable.  Personally, I think if an editor has amassed 250 edits in content-space, editing near-daily for a month, that would be sufficient activity to judge ability and trustworthiness.  I've left that as is for now, until we get more feedback.  Anyone else?  --GK  03:29, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I like your ideas but the email function as a must... ehh... sometimes people might not want to be contacted through email and besides, there's always their talk page that can be used to contact people. --       18:19, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

:Looks like we're at a consensus here, but someone correct me if I'm wrong.  I'll most likely update the patroller guidelines with the contents of my sandbox later today.  --GK  16:09, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
::Yup I think the consensus has been reached what sandbox of yours is this in GK?--             21:12, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

::: This looks good to me. I think it's ready for prime-time. rpeh  21:17, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

:Done.  And, Corevette, it was in my Sandbox no. 4, linked to in the discussion earlier, but it's on the Patrollers article now.  --GK  21:25, 24 March 2010 (UTC)