Wikipedia:Autopatrolled

Autopatrolled is a user right given to prolific creators of clean articles and pages in order to reduce the workload of the new pages patrol process on Wikipedia. New articles and pages created by autopatrolled editors are still listed on new page lists and feeds, but are automatically marked as "reviewed" and "patrolled" in the system, and hence are listed as if a new page patroller has already looked through them and manually marked them as legitimate or acceptable. Users with this right have no additional technical abilities; it does not change how an editor creates articles, nor does it change or "enhance" any aspect of the user experience, user interface, or the ability for an editor to create or modify pages. It only automates a process "behind the scenes" that is normally performed by other users manually.

There are currently 4,828 autopatrolled users.

Function

The differences with the article creation process between users with and without the autopatrolled user right is outlined and detailed below:

Normal process:

1. An editor without the autopatrolled user right creates a new article directly in the mainspace, or creates a page that gets moved to the mainspace from the draftspace or other location.
2. The page will appear on the new pages list, where it will be highlighted in yellow and not marked as "patrolled". It will also appear on the new pages feed, where it is not marked as "reviewed". The new page is hidden from search engines until either 90 days elapse or it is marked as "patrolled" or "reviewed", whichever comes first.
3. A new pages patroller manually reviews the new article in order to check for major problems. If none are found, the reviewer will then mark the page as "reviewed" or "patrolled" on their respective log or feed entry.

Autopatrolled process:

1. An editor with the autopatrolled user right creates a new article directly in the mainspace, or creates a page that gets moved to the mainspace from the draftspace or other location.
2. The page will appear on the new pages list, but will be automatically marked as "patrolled" (not highlighted in yellow). It will also appear on the new pages feed, where it is automatically marked as "reviewed". The new page is not hidden from search engines, and is automatically eligible for indexing.
3. Since the new page has already been automatically marked as "patrolled" and "reviewed" by the MediaWiki software, a human patroller does not need to manually review it (but may do so if they wish).

Points to note

• The autopatrolled user right will not help you create articles. This user right is assigned to prolific creators of clean articles in order to reduce the work load of New Page Patrollers. It does not change how articles are created in the first place.
• Editors who are prolific with the expansion of existing articles will not benefit from this user right. The autopatrolled right will only assist with reducing the backlog and work load in regards to the creation of new articles. Granting this user right to editors who do not regularly create new articles will have absolutely no effect on the backlog or the work load of new pages patrollers.
• New pages patrollers will not benefit from this user right. The autopatrolled right only serves to reduce the backlog and work load of new pages patrollers by automatically marking articles created by trusted users as being patrolled; it does not affect the patrolling experience, help new pages patrollers review pages faster or more efficiently, or provide any benefits to editors who use Wikipedia tools to patrol new pages.
  • Non-article pages (e.g., templates, Wikipedia essays, and files) may also be patrolled, though the mechanisms are not identical to articles.
  • Autopatrolled was formerly referred to as autoreviewer, which is still the technical name of the user group.
• Autopatrolled users may mark their own pages as unreviewed. Use cases for this include where most of the page's content was written by someone else who is not autopatrolled, where the user has a conflict of interest, or where the user is unfamiliar with the topic area or otherwise thinks the page would benefit from an outside review.

Obtaining the right

You can request the user right at Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Autopatrolled or from any administrator who is familiar with your work. Administrators may also assign the right to themselves.

Guidelines for granting

Autopatrolled is typically given to trusted editors who regularly create articles.

• Applicants should regularly demonstrate familiarity with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, especially those on biographies of living persons, copyrights, verifiability and notability.
• A suggested standard is the prior creation of 25 valid articles, not including redirects or disambiguation pages.
• The right is not normally given to very new editors, regardless of the number of articles created.

Other guidelines

• The Autopatrolled user right does not grant the ability for these users to mark pages as reviewed or patrolled; one must apply for the new page reviewer right on this page in order to do this.
• If you know an experienced editor with a reliable history of creating "clean" articles, feel free to request the right for them.
• Administrators may grant this user right to anyone at their discretion if they feel that the user's page creations are prolific; this reduces the workload of new page reviewers. In these cases, they are free to assign the user right to other editors (including themselves) without a formal request or discussion beforehand.
• Administrators may also decline to grant the user right at their discretion, even if the numerical standards described above are met, if they believe that a user's page creations could benefit from going through the new pages patrol process and manual review by a new pages patroller.

There are currently 4,828 users with the autopatrolled user right. In the 12 months prior to April 2022, 55% of the 213 requests were approved.

See also

• JVbot with its patrol whitelist was the predecessor to this system, before the functionality was built into the MediaWiki software.
• The Village Pump discussion that led to the creation of this usergroup.
• Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Autopatrolled – the place to request Autopatrolled rights for yourself or anyone else.
• {{Autopatrolled topicon}} – a top icon template to indicate you have the autopatrolled user right. Adds a category to page automatically.
• {{User wikipedia/Autopatrolled}} – a userbox template to indicate you have the autopatrolled user right.
• {{User autopatroller since}} – a userbox to indicate having autopatrolled permission with period of time.
• Wikipedia:Database reports/Editors eligible for Autopatrol privilege – a daily generated database report that lists users that may be eligible for the autopatrolled user right. (Replaces DBQ-87 – a database query used to generate candidates for this privilege.)
• Wikipedia:New pages patrol/patrolled pages
• Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Redirect autopatrol list– A pseudoright granted to users which has redirects they create patrolled by a bot.