User:Esquivalience/How to patrol pages correctly

New page patrolling is kind of like fighting vandalism. There are just two differences. With counter-vandalism, you're patrolling edits; with new page patrolling, you're patrolling newly created pages.

The second difference is: it's hard to do correctly. Counter-vandalism is pretty easy to do well; you can just hunt for edits that are silly, childish, or just plain wrong. New page patrolling is much harder. There are many complicated criteria to apply, processes to follow, and mistakes to be made along your way.

This guide will hopefully make it easier to patrol new pages correctly and beautifully. This guide will assume that you already have some experience with new page patrolling.

Notability

On Wikipedia, as Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, articles and lists must be created discriminately. A topic must be notable in order for it to be included on Wikipedia. Notability is not based on an editor's subjective opinions. It is based on coverage from the outside world, such as in the press, in books, or in academic journals.

You will encounter many articles that lack notability, so it is extremely important to gain at least a basic knowledge of notability. Below is a summary of the general notability guideline.

If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject, it is presumed suitable for a standalone article or list.

How to tag articles for speedy deletion correctly

The criteria for speedy deletion (referred to as "CSD") define when it is appropriate to bypass community discussion and delete an article. This section will assume that you already have tagged some articles for speedy deletion and have some experience with them.

Their wording is strict, so it must be easy to apply them even if sloppily done, right? Barely. It's not that easy to apply the criteria, because they are prone to misapplication. Furthermore, the damage done by sloppy tagging is tremendous. Tagging newly created pages most likely will drive whoever (usually newcomers) created the article away. We do not want to drive anyone away save for vandals and disruptive editors. Most newbies who create botched pages did so in good-faith, just unaware of the norms of Wikipedia.

It is critical that you don't usually tag as a first resort and you try alternatives to outright tagging the article.

Alternatives to tagging

Often, an article that you find that meets a CSD criterion simply needs improvement. Even if they meet a criterion that is less fixable than others (e.g. A7 - no credible assertion of significance), as soon as the topic is notable, try not to tag it.

Do not do this for every article. Articles that urgently need to be deleted should be tagged immediately (e.g. G10 attack pages.)

If you encounter such an article, you have four options.

• Be bold and fix the article yourself. This is often the best option. Improvement is preferred over deletion. This tells the article creator (usually a newcomer) that there are a base of editors that are willing to improve on their article.
• Ask the article creator to fix the issues themselves.
• Inform the article creator about considering moving the article into draft space and/or submitting their article through the articles for creation process. Place {{Uw-draftfirst}} on his/her talk page, or write a custom message. Be sure to elaborate on the issue and how to fix it.
• Move it into draft space yourself. This is not recommended for most cases, as it can appear very bitey.

Education and time is important

See also: Wikipedia:Give newbies time for their new articles

Another blunder made by trigger-happy patrollers is to move to immediately delete an article without telling the article creator why it was inappropriate and what to do next time. Put yourself in the perspective of the article creator. If your article was suddenly deleted, would you suddenly know why it was inappropriate? Tout est pardonné for the deletion without a chance to find sources and fix the article? Probably not.

It is important to educate article creators on how to create proper articles, where they can seek assistance, and alternatives to deletion if any of their topics are non-notable. That way, their first impression will be positive and hospitable; that Wikipedia helps new editors and provides many helpful resources. It will also help them improve the article so it meets Wikipedia standards, invoke alternatives to deletion, and even encourage them to continue editing Wikipedia, even if they initially only came to create their article.

It is equally important to give articles creators time to improve their article, find sources to prove notability, and surprise you with what they can create. Immediate deletion deters editors; time saves legitimate topics. Even if, for example, they fail to improve the article and find sources, they at least see that you gave them a chance. If, in addition, you educated them about Wikipedia, they would know of the possibility of a merger or a redirect and be satisfied with it or even why their article was deleted and how to create proper articles next time.

The "main" criteria and how to use them correctly

When new page patrolling, you will use only several of the criteria most of the time. This section highlights them and describes how to use them correctly.

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General criteria

The general criteria (prefixed with a G) apply to all pages, except Wikipedia:Sandbox and user sandboxes (except for G10, G11, and G12) and any other explicit exceptions.

G1: Patent nonsense

Pages consisting entirely of incoherent text or gibberish with no meaningful content or history. This excludes poor writing, partisan screeds, obscene remarks, implausible theories, vandalism and hoaxes, fictional material, coherent non-English material, and poorly translated material. This excludes the sandbox and pages in the user namespace. In short, if you can understand it, G1 does not apply.

This criterion applies to articles that make no sense whatsoever; articles that:

• consist of material that no reasonable person can even partially comprehend; or consists of material with no meaning whatsoever. The text comprises gibberish or incoherent text.

• Examples: "faefehf8yr389hfiashflkbfhri39fhiodahf8eh33fdhiahf3hf8eaju83", "Re ef se ed da ss es ff"

• are extremely and irredeemably difficult for people of any language to comprehend. This is often vandalism.

No sense is the key word. If the article can be expected to make partial sense to at least one person who is not the article creator, then it is not eligible for speedy deletion. If:

• the article is blatant vandalism or hoaxing, use criterion G3 instead, as described below.
• the article is in a foreign language, follow the instructions here.
• the article is poorly written, improve it.

These articles should be immediately deleted, as they aren't fixable. Inform the article creator that Wikipedia article-space isn't a sandbox and point to the users' sandbox or Wikipedia:Sandbox if they wish to make further such edits.

G2: Test pages

A page created to test editing or other Wikipedia functions. Subpages of the Wikipedia Sandbox created as tests are included, but not the Sandbox itself. This criterion does not apply to pages in the user namespace, nor does it apply to valid but unused or duplicate templates (although criterion T3 may apply).

Test pages are created only to test Wikipedia functions, such as wiki markup. This criterion applies to test pages.

Examples of test pages include:

• Bold text, italic text, <ref>{{cite web|title=fhlajkelljk;e|url=htpsjtejkrjkfsakfslj}}</ref>
• Material copied from a page but with random characters inserted.
• Patent nonsense pages are usually created for testing, use G1 instead of G2 if so.

These articles should also be immediately deleted, as they aren't fixable. Inform the article creator that Wikipedia article-space isn't a sandbox and point to the users' sandbox or Wikipedia:Sandbox if they wish to make further such edits.

G3: Pure vandalism and blatant hoaxes

This includes blatant and obvious misinformation, blatant hoaxes (including images intended to misinform), and redirects created by cleanup from page-move vandalism.

This criterion applies to pages where the creator obviously and deliberately created it to vandalize (deliberate attempt to compromise Wikipedia) or misinform. It also applies to redirect pages that were created when`reverting vandal page moves, but you won't stumble upon those pages in day-to-day patrolling.

This does not apply to:

• pages that, to you, contain some false information. In that case, ask the article creator to cite a reliable source for the claims, or source it yourself.
• pages that aren't obvious hoaxing. In that case, nominate it at AfD (see the section on AfD for more details).

These articles should also be immediately deleted, as they harm the integrity of the encyclopedia if kept any longer. Warn the article creator for vandalism (see WP:WARNVAND for more details).

G10: Attack pages

These "attack pages" may include libel, legal threats, material intended purely to harass or intimidate a person or biographical material about a living person that is entirely negative in tone and unsourced. These pages should be speedily deleted when there is no neutral version in the page history to revert to. Both the page title and page content may be taken into account in assessing an attack. Articles about living people deleted under this criterion should not be restored or recreated by any editor until the biographical article standards are met. Redirects from plausible search terms are not eligible under this criterion. For example, a term used on the target page to refer to its subject is often a plausible redirect – see Wikipedia:RNEUTRAL.

Attack pages are articles or other pages that only exist to threaten, disparage, or spread negative falsehoods (libel). This criterion applies to both attack pages and pages about a living person or other topic/subject that are entirely negative in tone and unverifiable.

Examples: "Person X is such a meanie; his armpits are malodorous and he expels gallons of snot from his nose." "Person Y is a writer. He is known for biased and poor writing."

This does not apply to:

• biographies that contain mild bias against a person. In this case, tag the page with {{NPOV}} or remove the biased content yourself. If the bias seems intentional, warn the article creator about creating biased content.

These articles should also be immediately deleted, as they harm the integrity of the encyclopedia if kept any longer. Sternly warn the article creator. If repeated or severe (e.g. racism), go to WP:ANI.

G11: Unambiguous advertising or promotion

Pages that are exclusively promotional, and would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic. If a subject is notable and the content can be replaced with text that complies with neutral point of view, this is preferable to deletion. Note: An article which describes its subject from a neutral point of view does not qualify for this criterion. "Promotion" does not necessarily mean commercial promotion: anything can be promoted, including a person, a non-commercial organization, a point of view, etc. See Wikipedia:NOTFORPROMOTION for the policy on this.

Wikipedia is not a soapbox or means of promotion. With very few exceptions, every page on Wikipedia in any namespace must be created to further Wikipedia's goal of creating a high-quality, neutral, and well-researched encyclopedia, or to basically identify yourself as an editor.

Editors that create pages for promotion or soapboxing are said to have a conflict of interest (COI). Direct COI editing is strongly discouraged and sometimes even chided by the community, and there is zero tolerance for promotional editing on Wikipedia.

This criterion was created in response to promotional or soapbox COI editing. It applies to articles that are unambiguously promotional beyond repair, meaning that no encyclopedic parts of the article can be salvaged.

This criterion does not apply to:

• partially promotional/soapbox articles that are repairable. In this case, remove the offending parts.
• articles that are not unambiguously promotional. If the promotion is mild, just remove or reword the offending parts.

In any case of non-G11 promotion, tagging the article with the {{advert}} tag is recommended.

G12: Unambiguous copyright infringement

Text pages that contain copyrighted material with no credible assertion of public domain, fair use, or a compatible free license, where there is no non-infringing content on the page worth saving. Only if the history is unsalvageably corrupted should it be deleted in its entirety; earlier versions without infringement should be retained. For equivocal cases which do not meet speedy deletion criteria (such as where there is a dubious assertion of permission, where free-content edits overlie the infringement, or where there is only partial infringement or close paraphrasing), the article or the appropriate section should be blanked with {{subst:Copyvio|url=insert URL here}}, and the page should be listed at Wikipedia:Copyright problems. Please consult Wikipedia:Copyright violations for other instructions. Public-domain and other free content, such as a Wikipedia mirror, do not fall under this criterion, nor is mere lack of attribution of such works a reason for speedy deletion. For images and media, see the equivalent criterion in the "Files" section here, which has more specific instructions.

Even though Wikipedia is created for the public good and not for private profit or advocacy, copyrights still need to be respected. Copyright is not a trivial matter; every day, thousands of people and organizations are sued and issued takedown letters for even the most trivial copyright violations.

This criterion applies to newly created pages copied verbatim from a copyrighted source, where the non-infringing parts of the article are not worth saving, and when there is no credible assertion that the source or fair use allows copying. In order for this criterion to apply, you must prove that the article actually violates a copyright by providing a link to the website the article derives its content from.

Sidenote: The doctrine of fair use (a similar idea called fair dealing exists in some jurisdictions) allows the use of copyrighted material normally reserved for the author in narrow cases, primarily when the work is used to benefit the public. Since Wikipedia is created to provide free information to the public, more claims of fair use are valid; nonetheless, Wikipedia avoids fair use when a free alternative is available because one of the core principles of Wikipedia is that it can be used and shared by anyone with very few restrictions. See the non-free content criteria for when fair use can be claimed.

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Article criteria

The article criteria (prefixed with an A) apply to articles and disambiguation/redirect pages (only if noted explicitly).

A1: No context

Articles lacking sufficient context to identify the subject of the article. Example: "He is a funny man with a red car. He makes people laugh." This applies only to very short articles. Context is different from content, treated in A3. Caution is needed when using this tag on newly created articles. This excludes coherent {{Non-English}} material, and poorly translated material. If any information in the title or on the page, including links, allows an editor, possibly with the aid of a web search, to find further information on the subject in an attempt to expand or edit it, there is enough context that A1 is not appropriate.

This criterion applies to very short (1-2 sentences, three at most) articles lacking sufficient context, where the subject cannot be identified easily. In the example above, he does not give sufficient context to identify the subject of the article, as it is a pronoun that could refer to any male deemed a "funny man with a red car".

This does not apply to:

• poorly translated material, even if they appear to lack context.
• non-English material. See the instructions here for handling such pages.

Important note: Avoid tagging articles for this criterion immediately. It is possible that the article creator is working on such an article, albeit in an irregular manner. You should nonetheless inform that articles in mainspace should be identifiable. If such an article is left for too long in the mainspace, you may continue to tag it, or move it to the creator's userspace or the Draft namespace.

A3: No content

Any article (other than disambiguation pages, redirects, or soft redirects to Wikimedia sister projects) consisting only of external links, category tags and "See also" sections, a rephrasing of the title, attempts to correspond with the person or group named by its title, a question that should have been asked at the help or reference desks, chat-like comments, template tags, and/or images. This may also apply to articles consisting entirely of the framework of the Article wizard with no additional content. However, a very short article may be a valid stub if it has context, in which case it is not eligible for deletion under this criterion. Similarly, this criterion does not cover a page having only an infobox, unless its contents also meet the criteria mentioned here. This excludes poor writing, coherent non-English material, and poorly translated material. Caution is needed when using this tag on newly created articles. (emphasis added)

• This also applies to disambiguation pages that don't link to any current or potential articles.

Articles in the article namespace are expected to have at least some content. This criterion applies to articles that have no actual prose, or content covering the subject. This applies even to articles with external/internal links, categories, a infobox lacking text other than the name of the topic, or content that does not cover the topic (the example of "attempts to corresponding with the person or group named by its title" is given).

This criterion does not apply to:

• disambiguation pages, except ones with no current or potential links.
• redirect pages.

Important note: Avoid tagging articles with this criterion immediately, unless the article was clearly created for a purpose other than covering the topic. It is possible that the article creator is working on such an article. You should nonetheless inform that articles in mainspace should have at least one sentence of prose covering the subject. If such an article is left for too long in the mainspace, you may continue to tag it, or move it to the creator's userspace or the Draft namespace.