Forum:Adding a Patrol

Hey everyone, I have really wanted us to implement a new feature for a long time:

The Recent Changes Patrol

Basically, it's an add-on that lets certain users mark edits that they check to make sure they are good edits. Then, those "Patrolmen" can filter the Recent Changes to look only at un-patrolled edits.

The TL,DR is that good editors get to check only parts of the RC, and work together more. More edits get inspected, with individual editors having to look at less.

Admins and Content Mods get this new ability by default. Otherwise, it's a given right to any user.

Please, check the link above if you have any more questions. 20:37, November 24, 2016 (UTC)

Discussion
I don't expect much resistance to adding this feature (though posts in support in support are still necessary to approve it), because it's pretty much a win-win, so instead I want to start the conversation on more specifics of it. If it turns out people don't like it, we can bring the conversation wider.

My questions for the community are:


 * Who gets this right, and how is it given out?
 * My personal opinion is that multiple admins should agree and give it out to editors with a proven ability to inspect edits for high quality as well as basic vandalism checks.


 * Is there an activity requirement that goes along with this right?
 * I would like to see a much higher activity threshold than other rights, as misuse can lead to many inaccuracies on our articles. I would like to see a requirement of a high number of edits in a two week period as the requirement. If the requirement is not met, the right should be removed (with some obvious leniency for issues such as vacations, school finals, uncontrollable wiki absences, etc). If the right is removed, users should be able to instantly reapply.


 * How does this right interact with Rollback rights?
 * Does it make sense to have two smaller levels of vandalism/bad edit that exist in parallel? I'm not really sure on this issue.

Anyways, let's discuss! 20:37, November 24, 2016 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Aside from admins and content mods, we should give it to active editors with good records. Basically anyone who generally does good edits and doesn't get in a lot of arguments. 22:08, November 24, 2016 (UTC)

I believe that function is useful only in wikis with huge amounts of edits/users (i.e. Wikipedia), so although you say it's a "win-win" you should think if it's needed before. Edits by admins, moderators and whoever has the patrol rights should be automatically "checked", therefore first we should ask ourselves: are there enough unpotrolled edits to justify the extension? What I mean to say is, if 70% of the edits come from people that already has that right, it becomes less useful. After all, the purpose of the extension is to manage better the "untrusted" edits among the "trusted" editors so that people don't double-check every time the same things. However that's more useful the less "trusted" editors there are in comparison to the "untrusted" edits.

TL;DR: the extension is meant for wiki with huge amount of activity, so we should think if we actually need it or if we have ever had a problem without it.