This question is about patrolling. OK, I’m patrolling, and a minor edit has been made (e.g. spelling), but I suspect that some of the suggestions in the article might not be advisable, or might be downright inappropriate. But the spelling correction was certainly correct. In other words, I’m in the position of endorsing an improvement in the spelling of an article that has content problems. What do I do? Skip? If knew enough about the subject, I might be able to flag it somehow --I suspect this is what the RC button is for (?)-- but not knowing enough, I feel silly for interfering with someone’s perfectly good edit.
Or rather, “Surface changes to an article on a subject I know little about”. (I wish we had the ability to underline things here …)
Are we talking about an edit that corrected spelling and
added some questionable (in the sense of “I don’t know if this is a good addition or not”) content? I encounter these from time to time; I skip them and hope that someone who knows something about the subject will review it instead. On the other hand, if the questionable material already existed, and the edit was an unquestionable improvement, then mark it as patrolled and move on. You’re only endorsing the spelling improvement, not the article itself.
If you are very concerned about an article, then by all means bring it to the forums or to IRC
for discussion, or nominate it for deletion if it is unquestionably in violation of our policies. Also, you can underline things here, like <u>this</u>.
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It is not unusual to glance at article content went viewing a recent change, and seeing the need to quickedit part of the page not related to the recent change, but this requires knowing whether the suspect content actually needs to be changed. If you are unsure, it is fine to open a new discussion on the collaboration corner, and copy the page link to make finding it easier. For serious issues, you can also put a template for attention on the page, but these do not mean it will get an immediate response.
Lewis Collard had it right: it was to patrol a minor improvement (e.g. spelling correction, or punctuation) to article already containing questionable material. I corrected it, and marked it patrolled and moved on, but that doesn’t flag the older material as questionable. I guess the thing to do was to put a template for attention as BR says above, if I only knew how!
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Here is an article to teach you how to use templates http://www.wikihow.com/Use-Templates-on-wikiHow
And here is the page listing the categories of templates themselves http://www.wikihow.com/wikiHow:Templates
Here, then, is the list of article page templates http://www.wikihow.com/wikiHow:Templates/Article
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Woo! Go BR!!! Nice coaching there guy! Those are excellent articles for Arch. Thanks!
@Arch5280
you already sound like a great patroller! This level of concern is exactly what the best patrollers have. BR and Lewis’s suggestions are great. Here are a couple other ways you can handle questionable content as well: 1. As you get more experience around wikiHow, you might become more comfortable with removing information that looks bad. This is especially true if you see a tip that just looks misleading. Often it’s best to just remove it. 2. Fact check it. When I have time to do diligent patrolling, I like to fact check things that stand out to me. I open another browser window and go look for verification on other authoritative websites that the information in question is good. If I can confirm it, I put a reference link in the article . Here’s how to to do that: http://www.wikihow.com/Reference-Sources-on-wikiHow
If I can’t verify the information, I remove it. Bonus points for me if I explain why I removed it in an edit summary or discussion page note. 3. Post the article to the collaboration corner on the forums and solicit input from others.
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The edit summary is more than just bonus points, it makes it much more likely the edit will be patrolled, rather than reverted, since it gives the patroller insight as to why you made the change. Even editing fellows and interns have good edits reverted simply because they fail to add a summary explaining the reasoning for edits/changes.
