User:Interstatefive/Twinkle or RedWarn?

If you are an autoconfirmed editor (non-autoconfirmed editors will have to stick with doing everything manually) that wants to help Wikipedia by reverting vandalism, you may want to use a tool to help speed up the process. Of these, three of the most popular are Huggle, Twinkle, and RedWarn. Huggle is the fastest, but it requires you to have rollback permissions and to download a separate app to run it, so if you don't want to go through the process, or you do not have rollback permissions, your two main options are Twinkle and RedWarn. Of course, you could use another tool mentioned at Wikipedia:Cleaning up vandalism/Tools, but Twinkle and Redwarn are the most popular and have the most functionalities. So which one?

Speed edit

Both RedWarn and Twinkle have rollback-like functionalities which will get the job done fairly quickly for people that don't have rollback permissions. For people reading this essay that do have rollback permissions, however, RedWarn offers utilizing your permissions when using their tool to get reverts done a bit faster. Twinkle does not have an option to use your rollback permissions, and will always use rollback-like functionalities no matter what. Additionally, RedWarn has many built-in revert reasons that you can use when you don't want to manually type in the reason, while Twinkle only has a built-in function for vandalism.

Summary edit

If you have rollback permissions, RedWarn will be quite speedy with carrying out your reverts, with utilization of your permissions as well as about 20 built-in revert reasons. Even if you don't have rollback permissions, the 20 built-in revert reasons will still be very helpful to you.

Functions edit

RedWarn is solely focused on dealing with vandalism, with many tools avaliable to use to help extinguish the vandals (quick reverts, quite a few warnings, the multiple action tool (MAT), reporting users to WP:AIV or WP:UAA, as well as requesting protection of pages at WP:RPP. Twinkle is not as fast, but has everything RedWarn has and more. Twinkle has more warning templates, the ability to report users to WP:SPI and WP:AN3 as well as AIV and UAA, the ability to welcome constructive users, making quick deletion requests with either WP:AFD, WP:PROD, or WP:CSD, talkback, tagging articles, and some other functions that are not commonly utilized. Additionally, if you happen to be an administrator reading this essay, Twinkle has options to block users, protect pages, and delete pages, too.

Summary edit

Unless you are solely going to be dealing with vandalism, Twinkle is your cup of tea if you want a bunch of functions for deletion, welcoming, tagging articles, creating SPIs, reporting edit warriors, and more. Even if you are mostly going to be reverting vandalism and warning the vandals, Twinkle's huge plethra of warning templates[1] may be worth the relatively small amount of time you lose with having to type in your reason (you can always use abbreviations for common reverts such as rv unexpl del for unexplained deletions).

Interface edit

Both Twinkle and RedWarn have easy to use interfaces that don't have a flurry of buttons (unlike Huggle). RedWarn has a colorful UI with ways to ease up your experience (one example is the ability to go through your history to find the article you are warning someone about), and the few options it gives will make you have a very easy time doing everything you need to do. Twinkle has a grayish blue UI with few more stuff on the screen, with many checkboxes for you to either tick or leave alone, but still doesn't have stuff here and there for you to look at. RedWarn has a few icons that will always appear in the top-right, which are usually tucked away out of sight but sometimes can be a bit distracting, while Twinkle has its own dropdown near the "More" dropdown, which you will almost never be distracted by.

Summary edit

Despite having a lot more stuff when you click the dropdown, I have to give this to Twinkle due to the laid-back color and some options having a little question mark telling you what to do.

To conclude... edit

RedWarn is king when it comes to speed, as you can just press one of the 20 buttons for 20 different revert reasons, warn the user with a preselected template (if you are also extended confirmed, if not you can still search for your reason), and repeat. If you don't care about speed, Twinkle will triumph over RedWarn, with its options for page deletion, SPI , tagging, and more. Overall, though, Twinkle wins, as it's not too much slower when it comes to reverts. Of course, you can always install both and get speed and functions, which is what I do.

Notes edit

  1. ^ Many of these extra warning templates are for relatively rare things, so only the ones shared by Twinkle and RedWarn may be super useful to you.