User blog comment:Atvelonis/Past, Present, and Future: 2019/@comment-3528442-20190104165613/@comment-25356303-20190106041526

I wouldn't dwell on it. It's quite possible to patrol Recent Changes without having custodial tools, for example, if you're still keen on contributing. Fixing up formatting, explaining editing skills to new users, handing out sweetrolls, that sort of thing.

Clicking "mark as patrolled" for each edit takes a moment, sure, but actually revising other people's work is the real brunt of the job. If that's gotten out of the way in advance, even just in edits here and there, it will still save the patrollers a fair bit of time!