Wikipedia:Administrators' guide/Cleaning backlogs

Wikipedia is a backlog, in and out – there's always plenty of work to do as an admin. This page documents the venues that often require admin attention.

Your best friend for finding work to do is the admin dashboard. Note that anything highlighted in red in the "immediate requests" table have priority - either due to its severity or that it is heavily backlogged. Many admins transclude this template {{admin dashboard}} in their userspace, providing it options to show only the venues and backlogs they specialize in.^[1] See the template documentation for more information.

The following noticeboards are those that do or might require administrator attention.

The citations indicate

or gadgets that can assist you in responding to reports at that noticeboard. Usage of these is recommended as you may find yourself doing repetitive tasks, and anything to expedite your work means more work can be done and the project is overall better maintained.

Administrators' noticeboards

• WP:AN
  ) – for anything that affects administrators; General announcements, discussion of administration methods, ban proposals, block reviews, and backlog notices
• WP:AN/I
  ) – reports of incidents requiring admin intervention
• three-revert rule
• WP:CR)^[3] – requests to have uninvolved administrators assess, summarize, and formally close a discussion

Urgent matters

These noticeboards fill up quickly, and usually involve matters that require immediate administrator intervention in the form of blocks, page protection, or deletion.

• vandalism
  requiring immediate administrator intervention
• WP:RFPP)^[2] – reports of disruption to pages that may require protection as a preventive measure, or templates that are of high-risk
  due to high transclusion count
• WP:UAA)^[2][4][5][6]
  – reports of usernames that are such blatant and serious problems that they may need to be immediately blocked
• speedy deletion

Deletion

The following venues (not necessarily referred to as a noticeboard) are for pages or items that might require deletion or merging.

• WP:AfD)^[8]
• WP:TfD)^[9]
• WP:FfD)^[9]
• WP:CfD)^[9]
• WP:RfD)^[9]
• WP:MfD)^[9]
• CAT:CSD)^[7][4][5][6]
• proposed deletion

  Note also

  CAT:BLPPROD

  for BLP-specific PROD articles

• WP:REFUND
  )

Other

• abusively operated by the same person
• WP:PERM)^[2] – requests changes in user access levels
• WP:RM
  ) – retitling (moving) of pages that may require an admin to delete the target page to make way for the move
• delete revisions
  from the page history, or the page altogether
• WP:RFHM
  )
• edit filter
  use and management
• WP:EFR
  )
• CAT:EP)^[11]
  – requested edits to pages that only admins (or sometimes template editors) can edit
• CAT:RUB
  ) – requests for unblock or block reduction from blocked users, or users under collateral damage caused by an unrelated block
• CAT:ADMIN!
  )

How to respond to reports

Every noticeboard differs in some way. Specific instructions for any given noticeboard may be found at the /Administrator instructions subpage. If such page exists, you will see a link to it at the top-right of the noticeboard page. For instance,

WP:AfD

).

Instructions are sometimes also found in the

edit notice

.

Semi-automation

Working at some noticeboards can involve repetitive tasks, for which there are some useful scripts to expedite your work. Above in the list of noticeboards, look for citations that denote scripts that may pertain to that venue.

Twinkle

applies to any area where you might need to delete, block or protect. Note especially its usefulness when mass-deleting or mass-protecting pages.

Notes