Help:Patrolling Discussion pagesEdit This Page

When patrolling Discussion/Talk pages, after ensuring that the policies and guidelines are followed and marking the edits as patrolled, we are also looking for:

• Questions that patrons ask
• Problems, concerns, or requests for additional discussion
• Trends that may indicate larger concerns or issues to resolve
   

Questions that patrons ask

1. If the question is about the information in the main article:
   • Answer the question if you know the answer. Once it's answered, add the {{helpme-helped}} template to the page above the question.
   • If you don't know the answer, ask the Patrolling team for their thoughts.
   • If together you can't answer the question, the {{helpme}} template will tag the question so it can be reviewed and we can make sure it gets an answer later.
      
2. If the question is not about the information in the main article, such as a research or product question, it doesn't belong on this page.
   • Add a note to refer the patron to the forums to ask their question.
   • Add the {{helpme}} template to the page.
   • Once the patron asks their question on the forum, delete the entire question from this page.
      
3. After a patron has been helped, change the {{helpme}} template to {{helpme-helped}}.

Problems, concerns or requests for additional discussion

Problems or concerns  generally require discussion among those who are actively editing the related page. If you see one of these:

1. Add the {{unresolved}} template to the page, just above the comment.
2. Feel free to chime in on the discussion if you would like to add your thoughts.
3. Depending on the importance/urgency of the issue, if time goes by with no resolution, you might suggest that the individual go ahead and make the changes they suggested, or encourage them to contact a major contributor of the page in question.
4. When the issue has been resolved, change the {{unresolved}} template to {{resolved}}.

Trends or larger issues

If the item shows a problem or trend that may indicate larger issues, bring it up to the patrolling team to discuss.

Patrolling Discussion pages process

The following diagram shows what templates to use for patron questions: