User:Whiteknight/Maintenance Tasks

This page is going to contain a short and informal list of basic maintenance tasks that new volunteers can tackle if they want to get involved. This is not a complete list, and if you can find other jobs around here, let me know about them so I can add them here. A long list of resources is available at WB:WM

Content: Authoring and Editing

 * Start a new book: Find a subject where we don't have good coverage? Know a subject that we don't have a book for? Start a new book and share your knowledge with the world.
 * Adopt a book: We have lots of books which have been abandoned by their original authors. Find a book that nobody else is editing, and adopt it! Take over, make improvements, write new content, and try to turn an old book into a featured book.
 * Editing and Reviewing: Books need editing
 * Publication: Books need print versions and PDF versions, cover pages, licensing statements, and all sorts of other things.
 * Illustrate: Books need images, so pull out your graphics software and try to throw a few together. Even a bad image is better then no image at all, and we can always improve them later. A good illustration is worth a thousand words.
 * Long pages: Very long pages should be broken up into subpages for ease of loading, navigation, and editing. Find the longest pages at Special:LongPages and shorten them up. Don't delete stuff, reorganize it!
 * Short pages and stubs: Go through the list at Special:ShortPages, and expand topics that need a little help.

Organizing

 * Watch Template:New: This list should only contain about 25 books at a time. When the number gets larger, remove books from the end of the list. To remove a book, take away the template, properly categorize the book, and add any necessary maintenance templates to keep the book in active development.
 * Adopt Orphans: Go through the list of orphaned pages. These are pages which are not linked from anywhere else on wikibooks. Evaluate these pages, see if you can merge them into an existing book, form them into a new book, or nominate them for deletion.
 * Categorization: Make sure all books are properly categorized with subject and alphabetical templates. Use the lists at Special:UncategorizedPages to help find them. Also, consider using and, where appropriate.
 * Subject pages: The subject pages are young and need all sorts of help. This can be formatting, categorizing, creating new subject pages, etc.
 * Maintenance templates: Find books that need help, and add the necessary maintenance templates to them. Also, if you find a maintenance template that needs rewording or redesign, start a discussion to have those changes made.

Technical Maintenance

 * Move images to Commons: Images that are under a free license are good candidates to be moved to Wikimedia Commons. Once an image is moved to Commons, they can be deleted here.
 * Delete duplicate images: Images that are located both here and at Wikimedia Commons can be deleted here. Find duplicate images and mark them with
 * Double-Redirects: A double-redirect is when a redirect page points to another redirect page. This can be fixed, if you can find them first. Check the list at Special:DoubleRedirects, and clean out problems you find.
 * Broken Redirects: Sometimes, old redirects don't point to anything at all! Find these and mark them for deletion. Use the list at Special:BrokenRedirects to help.
 * Unused templates: Templates which aren't being used anymore can probably be deleted. Follow the list at Special:UnusedTemplates, and mark unneeded ones for deletion.
 * Unused images: Images which aren't being used need to be evaluated. If the image is free, it can be moved to Commons for use on other projects. If the image is fair use, it needs to be marked for deletion. Check the list at Special:UnusedImages.
 * Forgotten transwikis: Go through the pages in the transwiki namespace, and merge these stubs into existing books. Remove the unnecessary formatting, and turn them into proper Wikibooks books or pages.

Recent Changes Patrolling

 * RC Patrolling: Watch the list at Special:Recentchanges for suspicious edits. Alternatively, you can watch the live edit feed on IRC at irc://irc.wikimedia.org/en.wikibooks.
 * Fight spam or vandalism: When you find bad edits, mark them with, and inform the admins at WB:AN. If you do this a lot, you should request +rollbacker rights from the community.
 * Welcome new users: New users who just started editing need to be properly welcomed. Send them a nice message on their user talk page.
 * Invite anonymous users: Anonymous users who are making productive edits should be invited to create a new account here. Use if you want an easy way to do this.
 * New page patrol: When a page is first created is the time when it needs the most help. Look through the logs at Special:NewPages, and check for nonsense. If you do this alot, you should request +patroller rights from the community.
 * New images: Images are a big deal because of all the potential copyright problems. Look through the list at Special:NewImages to make sure all images are properly licensed.

Community

 * Answer questions: You've asked questions when you were new, now you can help answer them for other new users. You can participate in discussions in the reading rooms, or you can put your knowledge to use by contributing to our help books: Using Wikibooks, Wikibooks Community, and Editing Wikitext.
 * Evaluate good books: Good books are nominated to be featured at WB:FBN. Find books to nominate, and participate in the discussions too.
 * Discuss promotions: Many long-time community members are well-trusted and can be nominated for various permissions. You can discuss these nominations at WB:RFP
 * Votes for deletion: Participate in discussions at WB:VFD. Make sure you know all our inclusion criteria first.