Wikipedia:Tips for pending changes reviewers

This page is an optional, non-binding list of tips, suggestions, and criteria for pending changes reviewers to apply while doing pending changes patrol. This is in addition to the required criteria laid out at Wikipedia:Reviewing pending changes § General criteria.

Accept or revert?

The question to think of when reviewing an edit is If this page was not pending-changes protected, do you think it would be reverted? If the answer is yes, then revert the edit. If the answer is no, then accept it. Also keep in mind these particular exceptions to the rule:

• Mandatory citations – WikiProject consensus requires new additions to these types of pages to have a citation:
  • Date pages (for example, March 16), per WP:DOYCITE
  • Requested Articles subpages about companies (for example, Wikipedia:Requested articles/Business and economics/Companies/A-E) or living persons.
• Birthdates – If the page is a biography of a living person, and the information being added is an unsourced or poorly sourced birthdate, reject it.
• Not an improvement – Even if the edit does not violate the PC criteria, if you are confident the edit does not improve the page, feel free to revert it.
• If you are unsure – Don't forget, if you are unsure, you can always take no action and return to the queue, leaving the review for a more experienced reviewer.
• Complex content disputes – Reject obvious content problems such as strong POV or factual inaccuracies. But don't feel obligated to reject something complex that would normally be solved on a talk page. You can accept it and let the page's regular editors figure it out.

User talk pages

• Welcoming – If you accept an edit from a registered editor with a redlinked talk page, consider starting a talk page for the editor with a {{subst:Welcome}} ~~~~ template (or one of the many welcome options in Twinkle) to welcome them to the project and give them some places to go to get help and become more familiar with the way things work here.

• Warnings – If you reject an edit, and the edit is a severe violation of our guidelines, consider placing a user warning template on the editor's talk page. You can use Twinkle to assist with this. Warning users communicates clearly to them how they can improve their editing in the future, and is an important first step in the process used to block disruptive editors.

Other tips

• Google – If something seems factually incorrect, take a second to google it. You can often figure out if it's true or not.
• Many edits – If there are many edits in a row by many different editors, review them one editor at a time, bottom up. Do this by viewing a diff of the edits you want to review. The diff page also contains the pending changes tools. Take a moment to check that a problem edit isn't already reverted by one of the later pending edits, though.
• Comments – In general, you do not need to leave a comment for accepts, and you should always leave a comment for reverts.
• We all make mistakes – Edits awaiting approval sometimes contain formatting errors or other coding issues, especially if an infobox or table is involved, as these are sensitive to misplaced formatting characters. While these can be reverted, if the edit is otherwise an improvement to the article, you should consider fixing the issue and then accepting the change.
• Non-English names - Biographies sometimes contain foreign-language versions of the name of the subject. These are sometimes hijacked by vandals to add insults that can only be understood by those who speak that language. Be especially suspicious of changes to longstanding foreign-language versions of names. Google Translate can be helpful.

Most active reviewers

Log in, click "Fork", then click "Submit query" to get updated results.

• Most active pending changes reviewers (all time). Note that this query can take a while to execute so be patient!
• Most active pending changes reviewers (last 30 days)