Topic on Talk:Page Curation

The "Triage Principles" section explains a system of having pages become "fully triaged" when either a user with the pagepatroller right of a certain number of users without the right patrol the page. I see a few problems with this:

• Allowing a certain number of users to be equivalent to an experienced user and able to mark a certain section of patrolling as "done" is going to encourage using socks, possibly even by helpful, productive users.
• Having a system where if one ordinary user patrols something and then an admin also looks at it it's as though the first patrol was useless could be quite discouraging.

I suggest replacing this system with having a list of people who've patrolled an article(/edit?), perhaps with icons next to names of users who are pagepatrollers/admins ("This page has been patrolled by Example and SomeAdmin.") with patrolling options to only look through completely unpatrolled pages, or pages that haven't been reviewed by a pagepatroller, or an admin, or by a user who is logged in, or a certain number of users, etc.

Makes sense - particularly about patrollers not doing their best if they know their work is going to be checked anyway - but there are other issues.

It may be better to avoid hierarchic patrolling for several reasons. To mention but a few:

• Currently on en.Wiki there are on average never more than about 8 users patrolling pages, and this is not enough to cope with the flow of 1,000 - 1,500 new pages that arrive every 24 hrs.
• Most of the 8 or so patrollers do not carry out all the checks that are required.
• The frequency of mis-tagging, and marking pages as patrolled that should be tagged (or even deleted) is too high.
• A significantly high percentage of new pages are from developing and/or non-English speaking countries and they arrive when the US and most of Europe is asleep.
• There are even fewer admins on 'deletion duty' at any one time.There to my knowledge only very few admins residing in those time zones. There are periods ere in Asia when I can barely keep up with the actual deletion of pages that can be uncontroversially and summarily deleted, as they arrive.
• To ensure the retention of new users, pages need to be processed as soon as possible (not as quickly as possible)
• Some kinds of toxic pages need to be deleted extremely rapidly

Possible solutions would be to:

• Create a user right for patrollers. This would attract more users to the task of patrolling pages, because as one commentator above put it 'people are power whores'.
• Ensure that those who want to be page patrollers are given adequate training. (Carrot-n-stick principle)
• Currently the only part of page patrolling that needs the intervention of an admin is the actual deletion. There could be a feature to flag an article for a second opinion. This may also help reduce the 30-day backlog. It's the closest I think we could get to 'multiple view patrolling'

A detailed survey of patrollers is currently taking place, and we hope to publish some data in a couple of weeks.

I think most stuff you wrote above is quite sound and reflects some of my [much more limited] experience in the area. I'm curious however how do you see the patrollers' selection or election process taking place, assuming a right is going to be implemented for that. Currently the NPP work is a stepping stone toward adminship, at least for some from what I hear; I didn't look at RfAs much myself. But RfAs are a big deal today unlike they were in the past. Presumably, gaining patrollership should be a less daunting process. How would you see that done in practical terms? ASCIIn2Bme 23:38, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

A survey is currently being carried out among patrollers that asks, among other things, for respondents to provide their opinions on whether NPP should be a right, and if so, by what criteria they suggest it be based upon, and by whom or how the right could be accorded. Based on this data, the Wikipedia community(ies) will be asked to reach a consensus on these matters; what we can do, and are doing here at MediaWiki , is bump start such proposals by listening to the community's needs, developing software solutions for them, and offering valuable statistics for the Wikipedia communitiy(ies) to take into consideration during their debates.

For those who have the tools, adminship is most definitely no big deal. As such, because it is not a goal to be achieved, there are no stepping stones to it. Having minor rights are sometimes taken into consideration by RfA !voters, but they are not a prerequisite for adminship. Nevertheless, experience drawn from research appears to demonstrate that many candidates for adminship and other rights may indeed be 'trophy hunters'.