Wikipedia:Clarify the cleanup
 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Use a specific cleanup template other than {{cleanup}}. |
 | This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. |
The above is a very useless template. It tells an editor that a certain page may require cleanup. However, most articles are quite long, and finding the section that needs "cleanup" is very boring and an unpleasant task to do. Please discuss the specific cleanup issue on the talk page or replace the generic cleanup tag with a more specific message. This helps the cleaners a LOT.
More specific message
At WP:TC, there are tons and tons of messages that you can use to clarify what you're talking about when you think the artcle needs to be changed. Even {{cleanup-section}} is more useful than saying that the whole article needs cleanup. When you use a more specific template, articles actually get categorized when you have that template on a page. At WP:TC, there are cleanup messages for everything, even spell check and contradictions.
Discuss on the talk pages
This is another great way to help cleaners. On the template, there is a "Discuss on talk page" link. This helps out more than you can possibly imagine. Just leaving a note on the talk page, stating why you posted the message, and where you think a spot may need cleanup is a great way to help those people who correct your criticism. There's a reason that the template is there. Also, for those of us more template-oriented, you can just subst the template and add a more elaborate message to the text on the page. Hey, it's easy! It takes a whole two minutes more to help explain what you need cleaning.
See also
