Wikipedia:New Pages Patrol - Be Nice To The Newbies

Be Nice To The Newbies

Throughout the entire process of new pages patrol, it is important to remember not to bite the newbies. Far from being a monolithic horde of vandals, trolls, and spammers, the available evidence seems to indicate that newcomers write most of Wikipedia's content. If you see a new user or IP address contributing significantly, {{welcome}} or {{welcome-anon}} them if you're so inclined, and include a pointer or two of feedback about how they can make their contributions even better. Most will gladly welcome the support.

It is also important to assume good faith as much as possible, or, minimally, to assume incompetence instead of malice. For example, remember not everyone is as computer-literate as you; some people will accidentally blank or damage pages when attempting to cut and paste material from Wikipedia. Others may not understand that, yes, their changes really are visible to the entire world immediately; consider using {{Uw-draftfirst}} to suggest that new users work on their article as a userspace draft.

Remember that children also contribute, and they are not all vandals (some of our New Page Patrollers are also very young and inexperienced!), You may wish to copy and add a link to WP:Guidance for younger editors to their talk page: ]

Please do not be too hasty with certain speedy deletions, especially those lacking context (CSD A1) or content (CSD A3). Research has shown that writers unfamiliar with Wikipedia guidelines should be accorded at least 10 to 15 minutes to fix the article before it is nominated for speedy deletion. If you see a page that has been tagged too hastily, please notify the tagger about their hasty deletion with the {{uw-hasty}} template. The template {{hasty|one hour after creation UTM}} can also be added to the tagged article to flag that it was hastily tagged.