In MediaWiki 1.4 and above, a feature exists allowing specific users to mark items in recent changes as having been "patrolled" or "approved". This is useful when reviewing recent changes for undesirable edits, link spam and vandalism.
Marking edits as patrolled
- To mark an edit as patrolled
- Access Special:Recentchanges
- Changes which are not patrolled will be indicated with a red exclamation mark
- Click the (diff) link next to an edit
- To mark the edit as patrolled, click the mark as patrolled link
Customization
Enabling/disabling
Patrolled edits are enabled by default in MediaWiki 1.4. In MediaWiki 1.5 and later, set $wgUseRCPatrol in LocalSettings.php.
$wgUseRCPatrol = true;
Permissions
1.4
In MediaWiki 1.4, patrolled edits are enabled for all users. To restrict this to sysops, set $wgOnlySysopsCanPatrol in LocalSettings.php.
$wgOnlySysopsCanPatrol = true;
1.5+
In MediaWiki 1.5 and later, patrolled edits are enabled for sysops. Use the $wgGroupPermissions configuration variable for this.
For instance, to create a patrollers group:
$wgGroupPermissions['patrollers']['patrol'] = true;
Automatic patrolling
In MediaWiki 1.6 through 1.8, there is a user preference available to users who are able to mark edits as patrolled. When set, this causes their edits to be patrolled automatically.
This option is not available if patrolled edits are switched off.
In MediaWiki 1.9 this user preference has been removed and replaced by a new "autopatrol" right, assigned only to sysops by default. Also, users cannot mark their own edits as patrolled.
Marker
The formatting of the unpatrolled edit marker can be altered using CSS.