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Wikipedia:New pages patrol

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TutorialDiscussionNew page feed
Reviewers
Curation tool
Suggestions		Coordination
NPP backlog
Articles
26570 ↑185
Oldest article
3 years old
Redirects
49374
Oldest redirect
5 months old
Article reviews
1377
Redirect reviews
2685
  • There is a very large articles backlog
  • The articles backlog is growing rapidly (↑369 since last week)
  • There is a very large redirects backlog

Reading time: approx. 34 minutes

New pages patrol (NPP) is a group of Wikipedians who check whether new articles, redirects and other pages conform to Wikipedia's core content policies. The purpose of patrolling new pages is equally to identify pages which cannot meet this standard, and therefore should be deleted, and to support the improvement of those that can. Pages that pass New Pages Patrol don't have to be perfect, but they must be appropriate for an encyclopedia and suitable for inclusion.

All new articles and redirects are patrolled, unless the user that created them had the autopatrolled permission. NPP's first priority is to identify pages with serious content problems—including attack pages, copyright violations, and vandalism—and mark them under speedy deletion criteria. Beyond that, patrollers consider whether articles are suitable for inclusion in their current state according to the relevant policies and guidelines. Articles considered unsuitable are nominated for deletion or, in certain circumstances, moved to the draft namespace for improvement. Articles considered suitable for inclusion are marked as 'reviewed', with a notification sent to the user that created it. Reviewers may also flag issues with reviewed pages with maintenance tags, perform basic copyediting, and/or sort the article into relevant categories, stubs, and WikiProjects. Until they are passed as patrolled, New Pages are not indexed by external search engines and will not appear in search results.

NPP is done by experienced users with the New Page Reviewer permission, many of whom have graduated through the NPP School, and by administrators. New Page Reviewers are expected to have a very good knowledge of Wikipedia's content policies, prior experience with its processes for handling articles, and good communication skills. They primarily use the new pages feed and page curation tool for patrolling.

There are currently 894 users with the new page reviewer permission and a total of 1,701 New Page Patrollers (including administrators). Aside from the technical ability to mark pages as reviewed, New Page Patrollers do not have any special decision-making powers over new articles. They are expected to work carefully and assume good faith, paying particular attention to treating newcomers with kindness and patience. Disputes over new page patrolling should be resolved using the dispute resolution process.

This page is the tutorial. It contains the guidelines and resources for using the reviewing system. Discussions related to new page patrolling and further help take place primarily at the talk page for reviewers.

Tools

Getting started: Like any user manual, NPP has a steep learning curve but don't feel overwhelmed by the charts and the content. Before you apply for the user right or do any patrols, read it all through once and also check out the Page Curation tool manual, then forget most of it until you need to come back to it. In other words, you already know most of our policies otherwise you wouldn't be here.

Curation tool

Curation tool, 'unreviewed' view

The most important feature of NPP is the Curation Tool interface and its special set of instructions for use. The tool is linked by a 'Review' button that appears on all pages in the NewPagesFeed. It contains the actual button to mark a page as reviewed. It also contains an information summary about the page and its creator, tools for tagging articles with maintenance tags, and a tool to send comments to editors who have worked on the article. A copyright violation detector can be added to the toolbar with this user script. There are many other useful tools available to make doing NPP easier. You can find many of them on the resources page or linked throughout this page.

Special:NewPagesFeed

New Pages Feed, dynamic article list

Special:NewPagesFeed is the central motor for reviewing new pages and drafts. It logs new pages immediately after the first version is saved. While it is a good idea to reduce the backlog of unreviewed pages by working from the back of the list, it is nevertheless important that serious breaches of policy such as spam and attack pages be deleted very quickly. A comprehensive preferences panel lets you select what kind of new pages you want to review. The system remembers your preferences each time you open the feed. A list daily created by a bot at sorted list classifies all unreviewed articles by topic, along with a short excerpt of the article. Use this list if you prefer to work on articles in your own sphere of knowledge. A system called ORES inserts alerts of possible problems with the article. Other meta information will easily help you identify if the article creator is a beginner.

It is often helpful to review the oldest pages in the NPP queue, rather than the newest, as these may have even been indexed by search engines. When reviewing from the back of the queue, you may come across pages that were created long ago but that recently were changed from being a redirect to an article (or vice versa). These articles pose a distinct challenge, as they are often the result of edit wars, other forms of tendentious editing, or paid editing and spam. Patrolling the "oldest" articles in the NPP feed has its own sets of questions and procedures that complement standard NPP workflows.

Other tools

NPP sorting thematically sorts all unreviewed articles and is of particular interest to reviewers with subject-specific knowledge. Updated daily.

The PageCuration.js user script conveniently adds a "Page Curation" link to your top toolbar that loads the NewPagesFeed.

The Deletion finder script adds "prev del" and "prev afd" links by the article title if found.

The Detect G4, G5 script displays alerts at the top of the page if it's a likely CSD G4 or G5 candidate,

Reviewing articles (Overview)

Simplified flowchart for reviewing articles

Reviewing mainspace articles is the primary purpose of new pages patrol and should be prioritized over other namespaces. Although new articles appear in the new pages feed immediately, take care not to alienate article creators (especially new editors) by patrolling them while they are still in progress. Unless there are serious content problems, wait at least an hour before nominating an article for deletion, blank-and-redirecting (BLAR) it, or moving it to draftspace. A creation date warning appears on each article in the feed that is less than one hour old.

If the page is not a candidate for a deletion process, but has other issues, there is rarely any need to rush. Inform the creator of any problems using maintenance tags, the article talk page, or the message feature of the curation tool and give them time to address them (perhaps several days) before taking further action. If improvements are not forthcoming, it may be appropriate to move the article to draftspace, to give the creator more space to work on it. However, it is important to remember that 'draftifying' is not a substitute to the deletion process, nor a catch-all solution for articles you don't know what to do with.

If you tag an article written by a newcomer, consider leaving a friendly note on their talk page, pointing them to Help:Maintenance template removal (WP:MTR), which is dedicated to explaining the process of addressing and removing maintenance tags and including that anyone can remove them (except for AFD and CSD tags) after the problems have been addressed (or if they were truly added in error). Most new editors don't know that they are permitted to do this.

Reviewers should make use of Page Curation tool to post short messages to the creator, provide informative edit summaries, and otherwise appropriately engage with other editors. It is essential that good faith new creators be encouraged to continue creating articles and editing Wikipedia.

It is not in the scope of NPP to mentor new users or complete their articles or populate the talk pages, but reviewers may wish to direct new users to the Teahouse question forum, help desk and Articles for Creation for assistance. Wikipedia:Your first article, Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia, the Wikipedia:Tutorial, The Wikipedia Adventure, and other help pages are also available. When drafts are approved at AfC and moved to the mainspace they will be checked again by new page patrollers in many instances.

Basic steps

Detailed flowchart for reviewing articles

Briefly, to review an article:

  1. Check if the page curation tool has flagged any potential issues (check also for comments by other reviewers)
  2. Check the page history for potential issues
  3. Skim the article for content problems (language, AI generated text, non-free images, etc)
  4. Review (or at least spot check) the listed sources, where accessible, especially ones for notability and claims for important statements.
  5. Decide whether to mark the article as reviewed, nominate it for deletion, move it to draft, or do something else

The rest of this section summarises in rough order of priority the issues you will identify and what to do. Step 5 is optional – if you don't know what to do with an article, leave it to another reviewer, add it to your watch list and see what they do with it.

Deletion

A major feature of the NPP process is identifying articles that are not suitable or not appropriate for this encyclopedia. There are several avenues of deletion, namely Speedy Deletion (CSD), Articles for deletion (AfD), Proposed deletion (PROD), and Proposed deletion of biographies of living people (BLPROD), and it is essential that reviewers be thoroughly familiar with their functions.

Serious content problems

Three types of serious content problems require immediate response: attack pages, copyright violations (COPYVIO), and vandalism. Do not wait 60 minutes before addressing these issues. All speedy deletion tags are in the Curation Tool — there is no need to add the tags manually, and do not mark the article as reviewed. Admins are usually quick to respond.

Attack pages

  • An article that disparages, threatens, intimidates or harasses its subject and serves no other purpose should be deleted immediately under deletion criterion G10. Blank its contents and nominate it for speedy deletion G10 from the Curation tool, or with template {{Db-g10}}.
  • Additionally, if the page contains potentially libelous or non-public personal information, contact an oversighter to remove it. Place the {{Uw-attack}} warning on the creator's talk page (if you feel comfortable doing so) or ask an administrator to follow up.
  • Look for signs of Copyright violations (copyvios). The New Pages Feed flags copyvios detected by the CopyPatrol tool. Other signs that an article is probably copied include unwikified text, large amounts of finished text added in one edit, unencyclopedic tone (use of the first person, informality, contractions, marketing speak, etc.), and out-of-context phrases that refer to the structure of the source document ("in this book", "go to top", etc.).
  • Physically check suspect text with Earwig's Copyvio Detector, or copy and paste sections of text into a search engine, and/or manually inspect references (especially PDFs) as the situation allows. Be aware that automated tools can be prone to false positives: proper nouns, text in quotation marks, lists of data such as a list of an author's books, or matches to a website that copied from Wikipedia are not copyright problems.
  • Possible translation from another language Wikipedia: check the original language in Earwig. A translation of copyvio is also copyvio and needs to be deleted.
  • If all or most of the article is a copyright violation (such as a copy paste of a copyrighted website), tag it for CSD G12.

Vandalism

Obvious misinformation, Blatant vandalism, and hoaxes (G3), nonsense, gibberish (G1), and test pages (G2) can all be tagged for speedy deletion immediately.

Other speedy deletion criteria

The criteria for speedy deletion (CSD) are for articles that can be immediately deleted without any practical chance of surviving an AfD discussion. The criteria below are the most commonly used and are available with others in the Curation Tool, while Twinkle has the full, more granular {{db}} series of CSD templates.

  • G1: Nonsense or gibberish, such as randomly typed characters. Do not confuse with non-Latin, Indic, or other Asian scripts. If it is understandable, G1 does not apply.
  • G4: Recreation of a page that was deleted per a deletion discussion (AfD). The feed will highlight pages that were previously deleted and it only applies to sufficiently identical copies; if in doubt nominate and the patrolling admin will compare the current version to the deleted history.
  • G7: Author blanked the page.
  • G11: Unambiguous advertising or promotion.
  • G15: Unambiguously LLM-generated page. The policy lists 3 objective signs. While there are other common signs of LLM writing, those are not sufficient for applying this criterion. (This includes an author admitting to creating an article using a LLM.) Instead, consider proposing the article for LLMPROD, nominating it at AfD, or starting a discussion at the AI noticeboard (as a courtesy, consider informing the editor with {{subst:AINB-notice}}).
  • A2: Foreign language articles that exist on another Wikimedia project
  • A3: No content (blank or almost empty page)
  • A7. No indication of importance (people, animals, organizations, web content, events)Schools and other educational institutions are explicitly excluded from A7 but must satisfy GNG.
  • A9 No indication of importance (musical recordings)
  • A10: Recently created article that duplicates an existing topic.
  • A11: no claim of significance or obviously invented (only applies to specific topics)

Any credible claim of significance disqualifies an article from deletion under A7, A9, or A11. This is a lower standard than notability.

A patrolling administrator will either delete the page or decline the nomination by removing the tag. Any editor other than the creator of the article may also remove the tag, which should be taken as a sign that the deletion is controversial and that another deletion process should be used.

If the article creator removes the tag, you can restore it and use {{subst:uw-speedy1}} to warn them on their talk page. Do not mark pages as reviewed after you tag them for speedy deletion. If the nomination is declined, or the creator removes the tag, it will need to be reviewed again.

Always consider alternatives to deletion before nominating an article for speedy deletion. Check the history for a better version; a page is eligible for speedy deletion only if all of its history is also eligible. Consider whether it could be stubbed, merged, or BLAR and redirected instead. Speedy deletion must be completely uncontroversial and used in only the most obvious cases. If a page has survived a deletion discussion in the past, it cannot usually be speedily deleted.

Deletion nominations

If an article is not suitable for inclusion, does not meet any of the speedy deletion criteria, and you have rejected all possible alternatives to deletion, it should be nominated for deletion. Most commonly, this is because the topic[1] of the article is not notable, or violates the 'NOT' policy. In each case, to ensure the article is actually eligible for a deletion process it is important to follow these "before" steps first:

Articles for Deletion (AFD)

AfD is the most common deletion process. A discussion is created where editors discuss what to do with the article. The essential BEFORE guideline by checking multiple search engine types for sources, before nominating an article for AfD. After 7 days, or longer if relisted, an admin will summarise and carry out the consensus of the discussion, which could be to delete, redirect, merge, keep, etc. When done, mark as reviewed.

Proposed deletion (PROD)

Proposed deletion is similar to AfD, but there is a 7 day waiting period. The page creator or any editor is able to stop the deletion process without a discussion. Many patrollers skip this step and just send everything to AFD. When done, do not mark as reviewed.

Proposed deletion for Biographies of Living People (BLPPROD)

A Proposed deletion for Biographies of Living People. BLPPROD should be used when a biography of a living person has no citations or external links. This tag may not be removed until sources are added, and is meant to encourage the author to add sources. If no reliable sources are added after a week, the article is deleted. When done, do not mark as reviewed.

Presumptive removal of AI-generated content (LLMPROD)

A Presumptive removal of AI-generated content is used when a user has a history of AI use, a series of their contributions may be assumed to violate Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. In this case, edits to existing pages may be reverted without review, and articles where the editor is the only significant contributor may be nominated for LLMPROD, subject to the requirements. Ensure the creator is its only significant contributor. Add {{subst:prod llm}} to the top of the article to nominate it. Unlike the standard PROD, an article can be LLMPRODed multiple times. If the tag has not been removed within 5 days, an uninvolved administrator will check that the PROD complies with requirements, and if so, delete the article.

Notability

Unless an article falls under what Wikipedia is not or a speedy deletion criterion, notability is the key test of determining whether or not it can exist in all but the most clear-cut examples of unwanted content. Assessing notability can be very time-consuming, requiring a proactive search for and evaluation of sourcing, and subject-specific knowledge. At a minimum, you should be able to identify topics that clearly lack notability and nominate them for deletion. You may also opt to investigate the notability of topics in more depth, but bear in mind that a full BEFORE-style search is only really necessary for AfD nominations.The final decision is taken by consensus at AfD.

Wikipedia's notability guidelines are complex, frequently subjective, and are often updated and adapted to new situations. New Page Patrollers should be familiar with the core notability guideline, especially the general notability guideline (GNG), and at least some of the more important subject-specific notability guidelines (SNGs). However, few if any editors can claim to have a comprehensive knowledge of every notability guideline because to read - and understand - them all would take several hours, so it is important to tread carefully and be aware of what you don't know.

Notability is based on the existence of suitable sources, not on the state of sourcing in an article

The absence of suitable sources in the article does not by itself indicate a lack of notability. Consider whether suitable sources are likely to exist, including sources that may not be available online, before tagging or nominating an article for lack of notability. Assessment of articles in topic areas with highly detailed SNGs is best left to reviewers familiar with those areas and guidelines. The {{notability}} maintenance tag (and its more specialised sub-templates) can be used to mark articles on topics of uncertain notability for review by others, but it's not a catchall for just not knowing what to do with it.

Sources

It is essential that reviewers be aware of the huge importance of sources and the policies that govern them, especially for Biographies of living persons (BLP). However, with the exponential growth in private websites, sites with user generated content, blogs, and AI (LLMs), not all references are reliable sources and the ones that are often used for notability are little more than fleeting mentions, a name on a team list, an employee card, an interview, a publicity site, or comments on social media or YouTube videos, all of which are inadmissible. Some sources, even certain major national newspapers are banned for use on Wikipedia. If in doubt, check this list or ask at the Reliable Sources noticeboard where notability experts are quick to respond.

  • Some sources fail to verify the claim or section they support or are already completely dead links or 404, others may be made up by AI (hallucinations). Notability sources must be an in-depth treatment. Other sources that verify other claims must also be reliable and not interviews. BLP that have no sources at all but which could be notable should be moved to draft.
  • Particular attention should be paid to the sources on translations of articles from other Wikipedias. Most other Wikis, including the other important language versions do not insist on the same strict level of sourcing required for the English Wikipedia.
  • Short articles that have many or sources or multiple reused sources are designed to make the article look more notable than it is.

Alternatives to deletion

You must consider the alternatives before nominating any article for deletion. First and foremost, if you can easily fix the issues yourself, do so, or use maintenance tags to bring the article to attention of someone who can. Otherwise, there are alternatives to wholesale deletion that retain some or all of the article's content that may be done boldly, unless you think it will be controversial or if it is challenged by another editor. In that case, it should be proposed and discussed at AfD.

Draftification

Articles that are clearly not ready for mainspace but which have potential can be given further time for improvement by moving them to draft. Examples include articles with no sources,[2] an obvious machine translation, very poor English, and obvious conflict of interest or undisclosed paid editing. The official draftification criteria are at Reasons for moving to draft; install the MoveToDraft tool in your .js prefs, it was made for NPP.

A draft does not necessarily increase the workload at AFC. A registered creator can either improve the article themself and return it to mainspace or submit it to AfC where a lot of help might be forthcoming - which is not in the remit of NPP. NPP also has deadlines - AfC does not.

To move an article to draft space:

  • First tag it for any obvious issues
  • The 'Move to draft' tool offers selectable rationales for the creator. An additional reason can be entered in the 'Other/additional reasons' field. However, avoid cluttering the message with too many blue links, the creator will get all the help they need if and when they submit their draft to AfC.
  • Preview the message before sending.
  • Be accountable for your draftification decisions per the standard described at Accountability.

Draftspace is optional. If the creator of the article objects, there is no consensus on where the page should be. This guidance is codified as DRAFTOBJECT and includes exceptions for article creations by editors with a COI, The recommended course of action (BRD) here is to return the page to the state it was in before the dispute began (i.e., in mainspace), and then attempt to solve it through discussion, for example, at AfD.

Merging

Merging is the method of preserving useful content if the created article does not meet the criteria for a stand-alone page. The content is added to an existing article or list that covers or partially covers the topic. If it is a fairy easy merge, consider doing it, blanking the page and creating a redirect; to save time you can also install the Easy-merge script which like 'Move to draft', the tool will appear in the 'More' menu. Otherwise editors can simply do it themselves by following the merging instructions. If you have believe that merging an article would be controversial, nominate it for merging at AfD, and move on. In this case you might want to leave the article unreviewed until the discussion concludes.

Blanking and redirecting

Blanking and redirecting (BLAR) is an alternative to merging if there is no content worth retaining but when the page title may be a useful search term. Tag the redirect with {{R with history}} and mark it as reviewed. The redirect target can sometimes be an appropriate section of a parent article. A frequent example is to redirect a non-notable school to the appropriate School District article (USA) or the Education section of the school's locality article (rest of the world) where it is probably already mentioned.

Stubbing

If an article's content is inappropriate but the topic is notable, you may choose to turn it into a Stub by deleting most of the content, just leaving a lead sentence and anything else you deem to be salvageable. Add a stub tag and consider watchlisting the page in case inappropriate content is re-added. When done, mark as reviewed.

Problematic articles

Some articles require more complex and time-consuming attention. Reviewers should address easy problems that affect the disposition of the article, but more extensive repairs are purely voluntary and are not strictly part of NPP.

Pages in languages other than English

If the article is copied, in whole or in part, from an article on another-language Wikipedia, which is often the case, it should be tagged for Speedy Deletion with {{Db-a2}} (CSD A2). Do not tag articles written in another language with G1 patent nonsense, as what looks to you like gibberish may well be a rare language - check it out in Google Translate. If an article is a copyright violation, it may be nominated for deletion criterion G12.

For other non-English articles, carefully follow the instructions at Pages needing translation. Essentially, this consists of reading a machine translation of the article (see comparison of machine translation applications). If the translated content of the article does not violate a CSD criterion and is likely to be notable, you can place the {{Not English}} template, e.g., {{notenglish|Spanish}}, to flag it for translation. If the content of the article is not worth keeping due to lack of notability, please use the appropriate deletion process.

Article titles

Check that the page title is appropriate and correctly spelled, if not, move it to the corrected title. Be aware that there are general naming conventions (such as using sentence case for non-proper nouns, or not adding disambiguation terms in parentheses if they are not needed), and also topic-specific naming conventions such as honorary titles and pre-nominals in BLPs.

If you move an article and the former name is an implausible redirect (and you can't suppress the creation of a redirect following the move), you will need to request its deletion using {{Db-r3}}. If you cannot perform the move for technical reasons, or if the move is potentially controversial, ask for help at Requested moves, and follow the instructions.

Duplicated content

Wikipedia's licensing allows editors to copy material from one article to another and to translate material from our sister projects in other language, providing that the original authors of the material are attributed. Copied material is therefore generally not a problem for NPP unless an entire article has been copied to a new title (a 'cut-and-paste move'), the copying has created a content fork, or the proper attribution has not been maintained.

The attribution requirement is usually fulfilled by a statement in the edit summary that links to the original page (e.g. copied content from page name; see that page's history for attribution). If you find an article that contains copied or translated material without attribution, you can add one in a dummy edit. For further information, see Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia#Repairing insufficient attribution.

Content forks

To aid reader navigation and make efficient use of editor resources, Wikipedia generally avoids having multiple articles covering the same or substantially overlapping topic. Such near duplicates are known as content forking.

If you encounter a broad or popular topic in the feed that you are surprised didn't already have a page, there is a high chance that it has been forked. Authors sometimes also link to pages they have forked from the "see also" section. If the new page has content the existing page does not, nominate the pages for merging; otherwise, just convert the new page into a redirect (BLAR).

Cut-and-paste moves

New users are generally unaware of the Moving an article system to correct or change a page title. Finding they cannot change a typo in the title by simple editing, or being unaware of redirects and wanting a topic found at another title, new users sometimes create new pages with the content of existing articles – 'cut-and-paste moves'. Doing so severs the edit history, required under copyright. In such situations, request deletion using {{Db-a10|article=Existing article title}} / {{Db-same|article=Existing article title}}. Though these templates have their own warnings, separately warn the user using {{subst:Uw-c&pmove}}. In the rare situation that the user has added significant content to the copy they posted that is worth merging, list the page for a history merge (note: not the same as a merge) at Requests for history merge.

Where an existing page or redirect has been used as the target of a cut-and-paste move the edit should be reversed, restoring the original page content.

Duplicate articles with separate origins

A duplicate topic but that has a separate origin (not copied from the existing article, addressed above), can be tagged for deletedion under CSD A10. However, if the article has useful content that can be easily merged, you can perform a merge (do not ask for a history merge) and redirect to the existing article. Be sure to provide mandatory copyright attribution when you do so. See PROMERGE.

Other and optional steps

The steps below are optional except where maintenance tags|maintenance tagging is needed to identify an issue found during the review. They can improve new articles and bring them to the attention of editors who work through maintenance and WikiProject lists. Wikipedia is a work in progress and the main task of NPP is to identify articles that need attention or that should be deleted, not to bring them up to a given standard.

BLP Talk pages

Add the Template:BLP: {{blp}} to the very top of the talk page under 'Creation' of a BLP.

Adding maintenance tags

Adding the required maintenance tags is important but quick and easy via the Page Curation tool in which all the appropriate tags can be selected. Avoid tag-bombing, use only the most useful tags to draw attention to significant problems. If you are undecided as to passing, moving, draftifying, or marking for deletion, you should nevertheless tag the glaring issues and consider the option of leaving a helpful message for the creator.

Basic copyediting

Fix obvious, minor problems if doing so is quick; don't turn NPP into copyediting. Patrollers often do some quick, very basic improvements, especially of the lead section such as bolding the page title words, adding relevant internal links to words that really require explanation, but removing overlinking of common words. Ensure that section headings conform to sentence case and page element order, and combining short passages of text into paragraphs, or condensing very short sections into other sections.

Categorizing

Categorizing is quite important. Check that one or more useful categories have been assigned, and if not, try to add categories with the semi-autofill Hotcat tool - the ('+') and ('-') buttons in the categories section at the foot of the page, or tag it with {{uncat}} from the Curation tool and move on.

WikiProject Sorting

WikiProjects are a fairly important way to get new articles noticed by their parent projects that follow up on tagged articles. They can help getting stubs expanded and more copy editing and fact checking. You can add WikiProjects either manually or using a script. Evad37's Rater is one current tool, and another, no longer actively developed one, is Kephir's Rater. If you can't find the appropriate Wiki project, move on.

Short description

Short descriptions, found at the very top of the page, are a useful part of an article. If you can, add the {{short description}} template if there isn't one already, and populate it. The Shortdesc helper gadget makes this easier.

Orphaned articles

The curation tool automatically highlights articles with no incoming links. It might be possible to quickly fix this by linking its title in other articles or relevant lists or set indexes. Otherwise, tag it with {{orphan}} and move on.

Stubs

Stubs are very short articles that satisfy notability criteria. In some cases, experienced creators have added the stub tag to their articles. If not, you can add the generic {{stub}} tag, but consider choosing a more topic-specific one, such as {{England-school-stub}}. See more at Stub types, but don't spend too much time attempting to find a better tag; there are dedicated editors at the Stub Sorting project who frequently add them quickly. .

If it qualifies as a Stub and isn't already tagged, add an appropriate stub tag or the generic {{stub}}. Stubsearch is a script that may help to find the right stub tag but don't waste NPP time searching for the perfect subtype. The Stub Sorting project can do that later.

Reviewing redirects

Does the redirect qualify one of the redirect-specific CSDs? These criteria are available in the Page Curation tool along with all other CSD criteria:

  • R2 - Inappropriate cross-namespace redirects
  • R3 - Recently created implausible typos
  • G8 - Pages dependent on a non-existent or deleted page

Consider using Twinkle to assist.

Does the redirect violate the reasons for deleting a redirect? If so, it may need to be nominated for RfD. Consider using Twinkle to assist.

  • For redirects concerning subjects you are unfamiliar with, at a minimum conduct an internal Wikipedia search and an internet search for the term to look for possible explanations or sources of confusion.
  • (Optional) Does the redirect need a redirect template? Consider using Twinkle or installing the CAPRICORN script to assist. Among the the most common used are used are R from move and R from modification.
  • Unpatrolled redirects that are at RFD, or sent to RFD, should be marked as reviewed.
  • If an editor in good standing is creating a lot of unproblematic redirects, consider recommending them for the redirect autopatrol list. Around 100 redirects are required to qualify.
  • If a redirect or blanked page is converted to an article, it will be marked as unreviewed and placed in the new pages feed. This is to avoid people hijacking reviewed redirects to create unreviewed articles. (and select "only include redirects") to check number of redirects created.

Redirects in languages other than English

Redirects from non-English titles are permitted when there is a significant linguistic or cultural connection between the title and the target. Dictionary type redirects or generic foreign-language translations of common terms are usually deleted at RfD.

Reviewing other pages

New page patrollers should focus their patrolling on mainspace articles and mainspace redirects. Patrolling other namespaces is discouraged due to the importance of patrolling mainspace (search engine indexing implications, most likely to contain BLP or copyright violations, etc.) and also the large backlog. Below are some checklists for patrolling other namespaces, kept for historical reasons:

Disambiguation page checklist

Disambiguation pages are located in mainspace so will appear in Special:NewPagesFeed like a regular article. They are usually easier to review than a normal article. Here are some tips specific to disambiguation pages.

  • Make sure it has {{disambiguation}}, {{hndis}}, or similar at the bottom. Keep in mind that {{hndis}} takes a SORTKEY as one of its parameters.
  • Categories - None. Using the proper template above will take care of the category (usually "Disambiguation pages")
  • For relevant pages, fix any hatnotes, incoming links, etc. that you can think of that might need fixing. {{Other uses}} can be a good hatnote to add to articles.
  • If you judge a disambiguation page is inappropriate, it is technically in mainspace and is not a redirect, so will need to go to Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion, or be BLAREd.

Drafts

The draft namespace is managed by the Articles for Creation project. New drafts are not reviewed by NPP but the draft queue can be accessed from the new pages feed. However, unless the user that moves them is autopatrolled, drafts moved to the article namespace enter the new pages feed and should be reviewed as normal. New page patrollers are automatically placed on the allow list for the Articles for Creation Helper Script gadget, in case they are ever interested in helping out at AFC. The AFC reviewing skillset is very similar to new page patrolling, but be sure to read AFC's tutorials to familiarize yourself with the differences.

Dealing with conduct issues

The purpose of new pages patrol is to review the content of new pages, not the conduct of the editors who created them. Nevertheless, new page patrollers are well-placed to identify conduct issues such as sockpuppetry, promotion, serial copyright violations, undisclosed paid editing and other conflicts of interest, and child protection issues. It is always worth checking the history of pages for evidence of these issues.

Conflicts of interest, paid editing, and AI (LLM) generated articles

New page patrollers are in a good position to spot conflict of interest editing (COI), which includes people writing about themselves, their family, friends, clients, employers, or anything else they have a financial or other close relationship with. Conflict of interest editing is strongly discouraged, but permitted within certain narrow conditions, namely that a) the COI is disclosed and b) that editors with a COI avoid directly editing the article in question. For new articles, the latter requirement means that they should be created via the Articles for Creation (AfC) process and accepted by a reviewer there. Editing with a financial conflict of interest ('paid editing') is even more tightly regulated, with disclosure mandated by the Wikimedia Terms of Use and AfC mandated by local policy.

Some indicators of COI and LLM editing include:

  • Articles that 'look too good to be true' – well-written, perfectly formatted articles with lots of neat references submitted by users with low edit counts
  • Multiple references to company, B2B, or financial listings, staff lists, or interviews
  • Articles with inline external links
  • Articles whose tone sounds like a news article, press release, blog, or book
  • Articles whose style of referencing includes many references to the subject's own publications
  • Article posted in one or very few edits, denoting meticulous offline preparation
  • Author has posted several single-edit new articles that are related
  • Author is very new and/or has a very low edit count
  • Author has a corporate-sounding username or a name that is otherwise reminiscent of the subject
  • Text written in first or second person (I, we, my, our, you, your)
  • Articles with irrelevant and/or non-free images
  • Biographies with photos that look like professional headshots, especially when attributed to the same editor that wrote the article as "own work"
  • REFBOMBed articles with an absurd amount of references that are trivial, redundant, or already dead.

If you suspect conflict of interest editing in a new article, the first thing to do is to check whether the creator has properly disclosed a COI (check both their user page, the article history, and the article talk page) and whether the article was accepted by an AfC reviewer. Then:

  1. If the creator has properly disclosed their COI and the article was created via AfC:
  2. If the creator has properly disclosed their COI but the article was not created via AfC:
    • Move the article to draftspace and inform the creator that they must (financial COI) or should (non-financial COI) use AfC
    • Tag the draft with {{COI}} or {{paid}} as appropriate
    • Add {{connected contributor}} or {{connected contributor (paid)}} to the article's talk page as appropriate
  3. If the creator has disclosed their COI, but not in sufficient detail:
    • Use {{uw-coi}} to inform them of the requirements
    • Proceed with #1 or #2 as appropriate
  4. If the creator has not disclosed a COI but you do not suspect a financial incentive:
    • Use {{uw-coi}} to inform them of the requirements
    • Proceed with #1 or #2 as appropriate
  5. If the creator has not disclosed a COI and you suspect a financial incentive:
    • Use {{uw-paid}} to inform them of the requirements
    • Tag the article with {{UPE}}
    • Proceed with #1 or #2 as appropriate
  6. If the creator has not disclosed a COI and you have evidence of a financial incentive:
    • Move the article to draftspace
    • Tag the article with {{UPE}}
    • Send your evidence to paid-en-wp@wikimedia.org, where a functionary will review it and take appropriate further action

When reviewing any article where you suspect a conflict of interest, be especially on the lookout for advertising masquerading as articles, promotional content (NOTPROMO), notability of commercial entities (NCORP), overuse of primary or unreliable sources (RS), and related problems. If you are not sure if there is a conflict of interest, or need help investigating one, ask at the COI Noticeboard (COIN). At all times, remember to assume good faith (AGF) and avoid casting aspersions: an editor with an undisclosed conflict of interest may simply not be aware of our requirements.

User names and vandalism

In serious cases, the creator of a new page may need to be blocked to prevent further disruption or damage to Wikipedia's reputation. Familiarise yourself with the WP:UAA and WP:AIV systems and their policies and report such cases as necessary.

Patroller conduct

Disputes and consensus

Any actions you take other than marking an article as patrolled will often be met indignation by the page creator. Sometimes they will simply listen to your feedback and address the issue promptly, occasionally they will even thank you for the advice, but disputes are common, and sometimes you will come across a user whom you will find obtuse, insufferable, and annoying. Don’t take the bait or you could become obtuse, insufferable, and annoying to that person. Whether it is about a cleanup tag, a deletion nomination, a move to draft, or something else, you must approach these disputes with humility, empathy, and tact; do not under any circumstances use any authoritative or condescending tones, and be aware that a vast number of editors are not native English speakers.

If and when escalating to noticeboards, some otherwise highly competent people may simply lack the skills necessary to edit Wikipedia. Use Competence is Required (CIR) with extreme caution; even if you are completely cUrrect in your judgement of an article - the CIRNOT official guideline is very clear on this - various form of evoking CIR can be perceived as PA and leave your own work open to scrutiny. Rather than labeling them as "incompetent" in the pejorative sense, we should ease them out of the Wikipedia community as graciously as possible, with their dignity intact. New editors might be unfamiliar with our practice of not asking permission to fix problems – and its obverse, not being offended when someone points out a problem with your work. Experienced editors might be reluctant to acknowledge that they too can making mistakes. All reviewing disputes are more likely to be resolved amicably if you try to understand the other party's point of view before putting forth your own characterisation of their work or inaccurate paraphrasing of their replies.

The new page reviewer right gives you the technical ability to mark pages "reviewed"; it does not give you any special decision-making powers over new articles or higher authority over other users. Like all advanced rights holders, from page movers to bureaucrats, the way you use your tools is subject to the consensus of other editors - your are accountable for your use of the additional right of New Page Reviewer.

For example, if you move a page to draftspace and the creator of the article objects to this, there is no consensus on where the page should be. The recommended course of action (BRD) here is to return the page to the state it was in before the dispute began (i.e., in mainspace), and then attempt to solve it through discussion, for example, by opening an AfD. In the specific case of contested moves to draft, this guidance is codified as DRAFTOBJECT and includes exceptions for article creations by editors with a COI, but Wikipedia's overarching policies on consensus, edit warring, and dispute resolution applies to all actions by new page patrollers. You should not simply insist that the page remains in your preferred namespace because you are a new page patroller and the other editor is not.

Hasty reviewing

As this tutorial demonstrates, proper new page patrolling takes time. A consistent standard should be applied, with quality taking precedence over quantity. Depending on the article and the patroller's experience, a review may take anywhere from a minute for a straightforward case to considerably longer for a complex one. Barnstars are nice, unexpected thanks for a job done, but NPP is not a race for awards - because a backlog drive is in progress reviews should not be rushed or standards lowered. Sustained rates such as 5–10 article reviews per minute are a strong indication hat articles are not being reviewed adequately. Poor reviewing will eventually be noticed and may result in revocation of the new page reviewer permission.

If a patroller is making frequent errors, tagging too quickly, or tag-bombing, offer friendly support or direct them to a specific section of this or another help page, and always refrain from sounding officious. In extreme cases you may need to inform an administrator, an NPP coordinator, or post at AN, but always try to help your colleague first.

Unreviewing

Page Curation also includes a feature to 'unreview' a new article. Nobody is absolutely perfect and errors can happen. The Curation toolbar will continue to display for about 30 days. If you come across an article that appears to have been reviewed incorrectly or inappropriately tagged, consider clicking the checkmark icon in the Page Curation toolbar ("Mark this page as unreviewed") and leave a friendly note for the patroller.

Other issues

Technical details

  • Namespace subject to review – Mainspace is the only namespace where the page curation toolbar displays. NPPs do not need to patrol other namespaces, and are encouraged to focus on mainspace.
  • Users subject to review – Most editors will have their mainspace page creations show up in the new pages feed as unreviewed until marked as reviewed by an NPP. Editors with the autopatrolled permission and global rollbacker permission are an exception: their pages do not show up in the new pages feed, and their pages are marked as reviewed when created. Admins are no longer autopatrolled by default, but can self-assign the permission if desired.[3]
  • Who can review which articles – New page patrollers are prevented by the software from reviewing or unreviewing their own articles, unless they are autopatrolled.
  • Autopatrol and page moves – For users with the autopatrolled permission, a page move will autopatrol an article if it is a move from outside of mainspace into mainspace. So an autopatrolled user should be careful, for example, when accepting AFC drafts, as these will be autopatrolled. However, the software lets them unpatrol it if needed.
  • Search engine indexing
    • Articles – Unreviewed articles are prevented from being indexed by search engines for 90 days.[4][5] After 90 days, the article remains in the queue to remind us to eventually review it, but search engines can begin indexing it.
    • Articles sent to AFD – Sending an article to AFD and marking it as reviewed will not allow search engine indexing (unless the article is older than 90 days), because there is a NOINDEX template used in the AFD template placed at the top of the article.
    • Redirects – Redirects are automatically marked as reviewed after 6 months.[6][7] As soon as they are marked as reviewed, they become indexable.
  • Patrol versus review – There is a difference between an article being marked as patrolled (which is the basic patrol system built into MediaWiki Core and uses the patrol log) and marked as reviewed (which is the advanced system used by the MediaWiki extension PageTriage and uses the page curation log). Clicking [Mark this page as patrolled], which appears in the bottom right corner of some pages, makes an entry in the patrol log only (pre–Jan 2026) and both the patrol log and the page curation log (post–Jan 2026). Clicking the green check mark in your toolbar always creates an entry in the page curation log, and often creates an entry in the patrol log, but not always due to some bugs. Most people use the "mark as reviewed" button, so most people should be checking the page curation log exclusively. You can apply the "Reviewing" log filter if needed, which will filter out non-reviewing from the page curation log. The patrol log should usually be ignored. [Mark this page as patrolled] appears when the Page Curation toolbar is closed (see next bullet), and in namespaces where PageTriage doesn't operate (for example, draftspace, template space, and talk pages). We do not need to patrol non-mainspace pages methodically and should focus on mainspace.
  • Closing and re-opening the toolbar – If you close the Page Curation toolbar completely, by first minimizing the toolbar using the top toolbar button, then clicking the top X icon on the mini-toolbar, it will disappear completely. In this situation, to get the toolbar back, you need to click "Open Page Curation" in the "Tools" menu.
  • How to calculate your # of articles reviewed – The "patrol" stat in xtools will give you an approximate count (probably an undercount). This Quarry query, added together with the count of your CSDs in your Twinkle CSD log, will give you an almost accurate count.

Administrators

Editors with the administrator user right can review new articles without any additional permissions. There are also a number of support tasks where admin assistance is especially needed:

Various project coordination tasks also benefit from the input of experienced editors.

Further reading

Guides to speedy deletion

Notes

  1. ↑ Take care to distinguish an article's intended topic from the article itself. The deletion process generally concerns itself with the topic, rather than the article: what an article potentially could include, rather than what it includes now; which sources are available, rather than which sources are cited.
  2. ↑ "No sources" is not the same as "no inline citations" . Articles without inline citations may still list viable sources in the general references, further reading, or external links sections. Such articles should be tagged with {{no footnotes}}.
  3. ↑ Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2021 review/Proposals#Passed: 7D Remove autopatrolled from default toolkit
  4. ↑ "mediawiki-extensions-PageTriage/extension.json at 3119b474f6ecdd0e1fe19e3bcd6c248bdb84b9c3 · wikimedia/mediawiki-extensions-PageTriage". GitHub.
  5. ↑ phab:T310974
  6. ↑ "mediawiki-extensions-PageTriage/cron/updatePageTriageQueue.php at 3119b474f6ecdd0e1fe19e3bcd6c248bdb84b9c3 · wikimedia/mediawiki-extensions-PageTriage". GitHub.
  7. ↑ phab:T227250
  8. ↑ phab:T8341
  9. ↑ Wikipedia_talk:New_pages_patrol/patrolled_pages/Archive_1#Poll
  10. ↑ phab:T14007
  11. ↑ See regular discussions of the backlog in the archives of Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol: View oldest non-patrolled? (March 2008), Oldest unpatrolled pages, Bot to help index pages that slip through, Backlog clearing effort
  12. ↑ meta:Research:Patroller work load
  13. ↑ Wikipedia_talk:New_pages_patrol/Unpatrolled_articles#Back_of_the_unpatrolled_backlog
  14. ↑ An idea originally floated by User:Beeblebrox in 2009, Wikipedia_talk:User_access_levels/Archive_1#Be_autoconfirmed_to_create_a_page?
  15. ↑ Wales, Jimmy (December 5, 2005). "[WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages".
  16. ↑ phab:T32208; quote from User:Jorm, 5 August 2011.
  17. ↑ meta:Research:New Page Patrol survey
  18. ↑ meta:Research:New Page Patrol survey/WMF report
  19. ↑ Wikipedia:Page Curation/Help
  20. ↑ meta:Page_Curation#Upgrade_2018:_adding_AfC,_ORES,_and_copyvio_detection
  21. ↑ mw:Page_Curation#Issues_with_Queue_Modification
  22. ↑ Wikipedia:New pages patrol/RfC for patroller right and Wikipedia:New pages patrol/RfC for patroller qualifications
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