This page describes the most frequent routine maintenance tasks for the Wiki and how to address them if users ever come back.
Patrolling new pages[]
Main article: Special:NewPages Page explanations:
- The page lists all newly created page in reverse order of their creation time (i.e. latest new article is listed first).
- Unpatrolled pages are marked in yellow. Pages created by administrators are automatically marked as patrolled as the software assumes these pages do not need to be checked. In general, this is correct; however, admins are only humans as well and a cursory check can't hurt.
- To mark a page as patrolled, you have to open it via the link on Special:NewPages. A link with the text "Mark this page as patrolled" will then show up just above the categories. Clicking it will mark the page as patrolled.
How to address:
- Is the page categorized correctly? Are the existing categories appropriate/correct? Do other categories need to be added?
- Is the page formatted properly? For example, does it have headlines, are navboxes in the correct places? If a standard layout exists for this kind of page, does the page follow it?
- Is the page's infobox filled out correctly? Were fields entered wrong? Are required fields missing?
- If there are issues which are not within your capability to fix.
- Check for major spelling errors.
Daily maintenance[]
Broken redirects[]
Main article: Special:BrokenRedirects
Page explanations:
- The page lists redirects which point to non-existent pages.
How to address:
- Either point the redirect to an appropriate page or delete it.
Double redirects[]
Main article: Special:DoubleRedirects
Page explanations:
- The page lists redirects which point to other redirects.
- For each row, the first entry is the "double redirect", the second is the redirect it points to and the third is the target of the redirect from the second entry.
How to address:
- Change the "double redirect" (the first entry) so it points directly to the second redirect's target (the third entry).
Protected pages[]
Main article: Special:ProtectedPages
Page explanations:
- The page lists all pages which are protected from editing.
How to address:
- Occasionally it should be checked whether the protection level for indefinitely protected articles can be lowered or changed to a reasonable timeframe (check the "Indefinite protections only" checkbox and set "Namespace" to "(Main)", then click "Go"). Generally articles should only be protected as long as necessary.
Uncategorized categories[]
Main article: Special:UncategorizedCategories
Page description:
- This page lists categories which are not categorized themselves, i.e. categories which are not connected to the category tree.
How to address:
- Add the category page to appropriate parent categories. Frequently you can copy the categories of a similar category and adapt them.
Uncategorized files[]
Main article: Special:UncategorizedFiles
Page description:
- This page lists files (images) which have no categories.
How to address:
- If the image is unused, delete it unless you think it can be used somewhere (if so, use it there).
- Check whether the new image is a duplicate of an existing one; if so, delete the new upload and update the links.
- People also frequently upload smaller thumbnails of existing images; these count as duplicates, too. A file name starting with a number followed by "px-" (e.g. 120px-Example.jpg) is a good indicator for such an image. Removing the "[number]px-" part of the name should lead you to the original image if it exists on this wiki.
- Check licensing info and correct/add it.
- Add appropriate category/categories. Image categories are separate from article categories; usually image categories have the name of the corresponding content one in singular, with "images" appended.
Uncategorized pages[]
Main article: Special:UncategorizedPages
Page description:
- This page lists articles which have no categories.
How to address:
- Add appropriate categories.
- The most frequent causes for an uncategorized page are either that the page is new and hasn't been patrolled yet (see #Patrolling new pages above), that the article was vandalized or that somebody accidentally deleted them. In the latter cases, always check the revision in which the categories got lost and see whether there was more valid content lost which needs to be restored.
Wanted categories[]
Main article: Special:WantedCategories
Page description:
- This page lists categories which have been used on pages but do not exist.
How to address:
- Either create the category (see #Uncategorized categories above) if it is really needed or remove the category from the page that includes it.
Maintenance categories requiring admin attention[]
Articles nominated for deletion[]
Main article: Category explanations:
- This category lists pages which have been marked for deletion by users with {{delete}}. As only administrators can delete pages, this category naturally needs admin attention.
How to address:
- In clear-cut cases (vandalism, nonsense etc), delete the page directly.
- In less clear-cut cases, wait a few days and check whether people object to the deletion.
- If there are objections, wait for consensus to be reached and then act accordingly (remove {{delete}} tag or delete page).
- If there are no objections, delete the page.