Forum:Reverting and edit wars

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I think we are too quick to revert edits. This leads to unnecessary edit wars and, even worse, angry editors. I propose that we review how we treat reverts, and perhaps see if we can update the guidelines/policies to make some points more explicit.

I am writing this post as a response to the discussion with 90TheGeneral09 about reverting edits and how the expectations of the reverter are unfair. I will begin by outlining the problem, and then I will propose somewhat of a guideline for reverting (nothing official yet).

The problem

Currently, when an edit is deemed "bad", it is reverted. When the author of the now-reverted edit disagrees, they are expected to initiate dialogue. Not doing so will lead to them being accused of edit warring (which is not an incorrect accusation), but nonetheless the reverter is expected to keep on reverting until the author gives in. The problem with this approach is that it assumes that the reverter is right until proven otherwise, which is a wrong assumption. Optimally, the article will be frozen at a random point in time until the authors have solved their conflict.

At the moment an edit war begins, both editors should be in the wrong when they try to revert. But then what about vandalism? Isn't it a good idea to keep on reverting a vandal's work?

Proposal

I propose that the following flowchart is followed whenever a bad edit is encountered.

Revert plan

Find a bad edit.

Bad faith

Good faith

Major edit

Minor edit

Revert the edit.

Revert the edit.

Revert is reverted

Nothing happens

Revert is reverted

Nothing happens

Leave a talk page message, and then revert the revert of the revert.

Done!

Leave a message on the author's talk page.

Done!

Your revert is reverted

Nothing happens

No timely response

Timely response

Revert the revert and inform an admin. Keep reverting.

Done!

Revert the edit, and keep waiting for a response.

Fight it out on the talk page.

Nothing happens

Your revert is reverted

Author leaves a late response

Done!

Do not revert again. Instead, inform an admin and leave another talk message.

Fight it out on the talk page.

Faith

When do you have good faith, and when do you have bad faith?

When someone (unnecessarily) inserts vulgar language or bogus into articles, you should obviously assume bad faith. While "bad faith" might not be the best term, I think edits of which you can verify that they are wrong (such as an edit erroneously claiming that deathclaws sometimes drop packs of cigarettes, or someone fixing a "typo" in a dialogue file) should also be treated according to the left branch in the flowchart.

Otherwise, assume good faith. I have made a distinction between major and minor edits. This is because reverts happen a lot, and starting a conversation over every little detail is not worth the effort. Sometimes a revert is a good alternative to leaving a talk message, because with minor edits no response occurs 90% of the time anyway. A minor edit is an edit of which you think not even the author would really mind if it were reverted. What is most important in this category is that you do not start an edit war if your revert is reverted. If you revert an edit while you have good faith in the author but do not initiate dialogue, do not accuse the other of edit warring when they revert your revert. Their reaction is natural, because they're only copying your behaviour. Be a good example and start a conversation instead.

Otherwise, if you find a good faith major edit, just start the dialogue right away. Leaving the page in a state that you think might be slightly wrong doesn't mean the end of Nukapedia, so leaving it in that state for an hour (or two) isn't a disaster. If you're really uncomfortable with the state of the article, you could temporarily add a {{cite}}, {{verify}}, or even a {{cleanup}} to indicate to our readers that the claims are contested.

Now what?

What I have written above are what I propose as guidelines for reverting. And then I don't mean official guidelines or anything, but more of an outline of what I think proper behaviour should be. I'd like to open a discussion on my view, because I'm certain not everyone agrees with this. After having had a discussion on what properly reverting means, we might be able to draft actual, official guidelines in a future forum post.

- FDekker ^talk 14:49, January 20, 2018 (UTC)

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Comments

I think we might be over complicating it here. If the edit is in bad faith, revert it. If the OP keeps reverting back then stop and find someone to protect the page in the absence of an admin. All reverting is going to do is draw attention to the problem.

If an edit is made in good faith, unless it is grossly incorrect, either by content or policy, it should not be reverted, but discussed. I think our policy already states this. Afterall that is what assume good faith is about. I know the incident that lead to this had too much focus on enforcing policy (sometimes we let ourselves get too bogged down with this, myself included) and Admins need to take more consideration to good faith over policy in these situations.

tl;dr: if the edit is made in bad faith, revert, if it is incorrect, revert, if it is questionable discuss. Sakaratte - Talk to the catmin 15:02, January 20, 2018 (UTC)

I wasn't sure about that first one: Should we keep reverting or not if it's obviously vandalism? What if someone keeps emptying a page and no admin responds in time?

If the policy already properly covers what to do in the case of good faith, then perhaps the takeaway from my post should be that you can also assume good faith on the basis of who edits it, and that it is not constructive to brand a revert of your revert as an edit war.

I don't think I'm overcomplicating it. In fact, I think my flowchart quite accurately represents exactly what you just said. But maybe I say that because I like flowcharts.
- FDekker ^talk 15:40, January 20, 2018 (UTC)

Obviously vandalism: rollback. It pulls it silently and often anons don't notice. Worst comes to, if you or Storm are knocking around, a days page protection can't hurt to give us a chance to get to the vandal.

Good faith should be assumed, regardless of if the contributor is new, long standing or simply an anon. This is a point I've tried to make several times in the past. I can be wrong, Mara can, Js can. Because we have rights and the ability to do more doesn't make us immune to being human. Same with anons, Rebel427 was an anon long before he got an account and if we assumed bad faith because of anon status, we wouldn't have got him as a user (I would assume, because who wants to stick around if they're cast out as an anon?)

Flow charts are good, comparison tables are good, there are just simpler ways of portraying information sometimes ;). Sakaratte - Talk to the catmin 15:48, January 20, 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I prefer rollback as well. Basically your point is that editors can trust on staff being present anyway, so it's no use making a fuss about that part anyway.

My point wasn't that anons should be mistrusted, but rather that, if you have experience with a user, you shouldn't forget that they might be more than willing to talk. In my experience anons often do not reply (though that doesn't mean you shouldn't try), so if it's a registered user it may be more worth the effort to try to talk (which is something to consider when you are tempted to just revert something).

Or rather, let me put this very concretely in terms of the event that sparked this discussion (note that this is not something personal towards anyone): Stop reverting edits only to make unconstructive accusations of edit warring, especially when it is know that the author has good intentions and is happy to partake in discussion.
- FDekker ^talk 17:32, January 20, 2018 (UTC)

The most important aspect of this consideration to take into account, is that our veteran users should be respecting their, by all accounts, peers, regardless of existing editing history.

We have too many users that have grown jaded, especially those that have been here for years, and it has gotten to the point where the only way to describe their attitude towards newer users and the anonymous, is utter and complete contempt.

And that contempt manifests itself in myriad of ways, including the neglect of the edit summary tool, and the neglect of sending thoughtful messages to users explaining their errors, and offering help to them improve.

Every day that I'm on here, I see it: Reverts using generic/non-descript summaries, or no summaries at all, and whenever messages are actually initiated by the reverter(s) first, I keep seeing these silly ass auto-messages, which to me, suggests nothing more than laziness and complacency.

Want to help cut down on edit wars? We need to start teaching our users to respect each other, and that goes doubly so for our more bitter veteran users that see those with less experience under their belts, as little more than nuisances to abuse. ^寧靜 18:46, January 20, 2018 (UTC)