WikiQueer:Maintenance

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Maintenance departments

Shortcuts:

As well as editing, many people at WikiQueer are involved in maintenance tasks. Most of these tasks can be done by any user. For other useful directories, see the navigation bar above.

Maintenance work is a vital part of keeping WikiQueer running optimally. Be careful to avoid creating more maintenance work through instruction creep. Organize when you can, but always keep the big picture in sight: we are here to create an encyclopedia. If you wish to contribute to WikiQueer in ways other than maintenance, please see WikiQueer:Contributing to WikiQueer. Tasks of the most pressing importance can be found at WikiQueer:Backlog.

Contents

[edit] Things to watch

[edit] Deletion

Non-admins can help keep deletion pages clean by resolving discussions. Administrators are needed to actually delete pages. Anyone can nominate pages for deletion. See:

[edit] Possible copyright violations

WikiQueer:Copyright problems lists articles which will be deleted if it can not be proven that we have permission to use them under the terms of the GFDL. For pages listed there, you could replace the infringing article's text with new (re-written) content of your own. This must be done on a temp page, so that the original "copyvio version" may be deleted by a sysop. Temp versions should be written at a page like: [[Talk:PAGE NAME/temp]]. If the original turns out not to be a copyvio, these two can be merged. Alternatively, you can write to the copyright owner and check whether they gave permission. You can also ask for permission using the boilerplate request for permission. If someone claims to have permission, but this has not been verified, you can send the confirmation of permission letter to check. If images have been listed, you may want to consider whether these constitute fair use and write the appropriate disclaimers on the image description page. See WikiQueer:Image description page#Fair use rationale for guidance on this.

[edit] Maintaining portals

See WikiQueer:Portal for a list of existing portals and associated projects and maintainers.

[edit] Welcoming newcomers

Welcome people using one of the standard user greetings or make up your own. Use {{Opentask}} to leave an automatically updated task list on a new user's page. New users can be found by looking for red talk page links on recent changes or by querying the database. Efforts to co-ordinate the activities of welcomers are being made at WikiQueer:Welcoming committee. The {{Opentask}} message gives newcomers some ideas of articles to work on. The tasks listed in this template can be changed at Template:Opentask.

[edit] Main page

The Main Page needs regular updating. Only sysops can edit the page itself. See WikiQueer:Editing the main page for links to the relevant templates and further guidance.

[edit] Vandalism

Anyone can revert vandalism. See WikiQueer:revert for instructions. If you see any recurrent vandalism, you can list it at WikiQueer:Administrator intervention against vandalism. You can also check other listings on that page and follow them up by seeing if the users listed there have made any further vandalism since the listing. Do this typing the url http://www.wikiqueer.org/w/Special:Contributions/ followed by the username. Unreverted edits will still have (top) next to them. Sysops may choose to block recurrent vandals, following a warning on the user's talk page using Special:Blockip, or for unlogged-in users clicking the block link next to their IP on recent changes.

The pages linked to from the main page often see the most vandalism, so checking those pages via the links on Editing the Main Page can be a good place to look if you feel like vandal spotting.

See also: WikiQueer:How to spot vandalism

[edit] Current events

Not maintenance as such, but Portal:Current events is a page that needs to be updated daily. Please read WikiQueer:How the Current events page works before working on this.

[edit] Request and maintenance queues

Here are some tasks you can do:

For each queue listed below, editors are needed to:

  • Rotate individual articles and projects onto Template:Opentasks (shown above) as they are fixed or become stale.
  • Publicize neglected lists or consolidate them with active pages
  • Remove articles from the listings as they are fixed.
  • Actually fix the individual articles that are listed.

Instructions are given on each page.


Category Description Relevant page WikiQueer custom message
Cleanup Articles to cleanup WikiQueer:Cleanup {{clean}}
Controversial issues Articles that need watching for bias WikiQueer:List of controversial issues {{controversial}}
Copyright infringement Articles with possible copyright infringements WikiQueer:Copyright problems {{copyvio|url=<place URL of allegedly copied material here>}}
Deletion Articles that should be deleted WikiQueer:Articles for deletion See WikiQueer:Articles for deletion for instructions.
Disputed accuracy Articles of Accuracy dispute WikiQueer:Accuracy dispute {{Disputed}}
Disputed neutrality Articles of NPOV dispute WikiQueer:NPOV dispute {{NPOV}} or {{disputed}}
Duplicated articles Articles on the same subject which need to be merged WikiQueer:Duplicate articles  
Foreign language Articles not in English WikiQueer:Pages needing translation {{notenglish}}
New pages Newly created articles Special:Newpages  
Open tasks WikiQueer's open tasks Template:Opentask {{opentask}}
Pages needing attention Articles that have good information, but need work for some reason WikiQueer:Pages needing attention  
Requested images Pages that need images WikiQueer:Requested images  
Requested peer review Articles that need peer editing WikiQueer:Peer review  
Stubs Stub articles WikiQueer:Find or fix a stub See WikiQueer:WikiProject Stub sorting for a list of subject-specific stub templates.
Too short Subjects that deserve a longer article WikiQueer:Requests for expansion  
Too long Articles which strain browsers Special:Longpages  

[edit] Disputes

There are many pages in Category:WikiQueer dispute resolution which could use help in resolving various kinds of disputes. Some disputes are easy to resolve - someone needs to propose or implement a compromise (check out the appropriate talk page), or the dispute is over and someone just needs to declare the problem solved. Many disputes between parties can be resolved after uninvolved strangers wander in, read the article in question and the debate so far, and just give common-sense opinions. In rare cases, delicate negotiating skills are needed to bring warring parties to a satisfactory agreement, or administrative powers are needed to ban vandals or uncooperative editors.

The main page to list disputes is WikiQueer:Requests for comment. This is a static listing, and your help is needed to remove old requests, in addition to commenting on current requests.

There are lists of articles in dispute in:

[edit] Initial categorization efforts

See also: WikiQueer:Categorization projects (current)

[edit] Images with missing articles

Several pages on the web offer their public domain images in a long list. To avoid checking these lists again and again for matching WikiQueer articles, WikiQueer:Images with missing articles has a list of specific images with missing articles. If you see that one of these articles exists, please add the image from the external link, and remove it from the list.

[edit] Peer review

WikiQueer:Peer review is designed to solicit comments on articles that have had major work by a single author, or which are going to be submitted to WikiQueer:Featured article candidates. Articles that don't successfully become featured are often referred back to this step.

Editors are needed to:

  • Comment on articles listed
  • Remove old requests (instructions are on the page itself)

[edit] Make a donation

WikiQueer is in constant need of more server capacity, bandwidth and other technical services to keep it running and keep it fast enough to be useful. Financial contributions to our non-profit parent, The Aequalitas Project, are greatly appreciated. Please see http://donate.aequalitasproject.org/

[edit] Publicize WikiQueer

See Category:WikiQueer publicity.

[edit] Help other users

Even new users can help answer factual questions on the WikiQueer:Reference desk, which serves the same purpose as a reference desk you might find in your local library. You do not have to be an expert on WikiQueer because:

  • You can help people find answers in existing WikiQueer articles.
  • If you know the answer to a question not answered by WikiQueer, you can assist the questioner and at the same time, add that information to WikiQueer for the benefit of future readers.
  • If you do not know the answer to an interesting question, you can research it in non-WikiQueer sources, and then improve WikiQueer for the benefit of the questioner and future readers.

If you already have some experience, your assistance in one of the many WikiQueer help forums, including WikiQueer:Help desk, would be a valuable contribution. You can help WikiQueer grow by helping other people share what they know.

[edit] Programmers wanted

Programming skills are especially valuable, to help write useful standalone scripts, or to improve the software that runs WikiQueer.

[edit] See also