Wikipedia talk:Edit warring/Archives/2013/July

Proposal to replace a few sentences

The version of the consecutive edits rule in the green box seems fine, but the version after the box is not fine:

"A series of consecutive saved revert edits by one user with no intervening edits by another user counts as one revert."

If "consecutive" means "no intervening edits", this is wrong (user A does revert, non-revert, revert with no other users around — the reverts aren't consecutive edits so incorrectly appear to count as two). If "consecutive" means "no intervening reverts" or "no intervening reverts by this 'one user'", this is also wrong (user A reverts, user B edits without reverting, user A reverts — the reverts are consecutive reverts so incorrectly appear to count as one). Both of these wrong interpretations are allowed by the sentence. A lesser problem is that "saved edits" is clunky (there ain't any other sort of edit).

I notice that above there is a proposal regarding the previous sentence of same paragraph. Actually the paragraph is very poor, with obscure meanings and grammatical errors. Replacing it in toto with better text would be the best action.

Oh well, let me make an explicit proposal.

Existing paragraph

A "page" means any page on Wikipedia, including talk and project space. A "revert" means any edit (or administrative action) that reverses the actions of other editors, in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material. A series of consecutive saved revert edits by one user with no intervening edits by another user counts as one revert.

Proposed replacement

A "page" means any page on Wikipedia, including those in talk and project space. A "revert" means any edit (or administrative action) that reverses any action of another editor, in whole or in part. In counting reverts, it makes no difference whether they involve the same or different material. A series of consecutive edits by one user, with no intervening edits by another user, never counts as more than one revert.

Rationale

As noted on this page, the second sentence has grammatical errors. Moreover, it combines two things that would be clearer if separated: what "revert" means, and how reverts are counted. The third sentence is ambiguous, as I showed earlier in this section. My intention is to fix only the wording, with no change to the policy. I hope I have achieved that. Zero^talk 10:23, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Discussion?

Wikipedia policies and guidelines are not intended to cover every possibility with exactitude, but to give a fair minded and cooperative editor a good idea of what is expected. Endlessly reworking them to cover hypothetical exceptions is, in my opinion, a waste of time and possibly harmful. In the multiple edit example you give, the intent is clear. If there is an intervening edit by the reverter that is not a revert judgement can be applied by the admin. What if a different editor fixed an unrelated typo while the reverter was making their sequence of revert edits? Again I would say judgement is called for. Absent some evidence that the supposed lack of clarity is causing problems in practice, I would suggest leaving the current wording in place. --agr (talk) 17:29, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

"If there is an intervening edit by the reverter that is not a revert judgement can be applied by the admin." — this only illustrates my point about the ambiguity. Standard practice for many years does not allow intervening edits by the reverter to make any difference at all. My proposed rewording is a precise statement that matches established practice. It is simpler and clearer than what it seeks to replace, and matches the wording in the green box rather than contradicting it. Zero^talk 21:33, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit wars hit the news

The BBC reports that WP's edit wars are newsworthy! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23354613 has the outline discussion. Preumably this is a reference worth adding to an article, but which? Fiddle Faddle 18:50, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

RfC on 3rr exceptions on non-3rr edit wars

Do you agree or disagree with this statement. In cases in which editors do not violate WP:3rr, only the pattern of reverts and not the content of the reverts should determine an edit war. In other words, unless an editor qualifies for one of the exceptions under WP:3rr, here, no content should be considered in an edit war that does not violate WP:3rr.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Casprings (talk • contribs)

The original question here is the opposite of what the asker is actually asking. Full context available here.--v/r - TP 02:53, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

It is an WP:RFC on policy. I am confused by the hostility. I am asking for community consensus on the point that you made. Your wording can be found in this thread, below.Casprings (talk) 03:01, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

• Disagree In cases where the 3rr threshold has not been crossed, a finding of edit warring becomes a subjective decision and it is necessary to consider all relevant factors. Introducing a policy such as that suggested by the RfC provides too much opportunity to game the system. Federales (talk) 02:11, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
• The qustion is, "Is WP:NPOV an exemption to edit warring?" and the answer is no. That would open the policy up to gaming as Federales has said.--v/r - TP 02:17, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

• Disagree 3RR is not about 'NPOV', it's about not being 'disruptive' by fighting in an article. If someone needs to be revert, unless it is something like a BLP, there is no need for you to insist on it being a 'fight with you' rather than an 'expression of consensus' by a group of 'random' editors taking action independently....and it makes the whole thing more confrontational. Revent (talk) 02:23, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

• Clarification please Disagree - what problem is this solving? I'd like to see a specific example of how it works currently vs. how it would work with the new wording before commenting. Off the top I'm leaning disagree because context is very important and the proposed change appears to eliminate the ability to consider context. Is that what is intended? Zad68 02:30, 27 June 2013 (UTC) Thanks for the clarification and the context... move to straight disagree, policy lists the exceptions and general good-faith content isn't listed as an exception for a reason. That ANI thread... ow my eyes! And it's not even close to the longest thread currently happening there... Zad68 02:59, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

• • Casprings wants to know: Aside from the clearly spelled out exemptions at WP:3RRNO, does the context of his reverts, namely that he claims to have edited to his "WP:NPOV" position, exempt him from an edit warring block.--v/r - TP 02:36, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
    • Please stop distorting what I am asking. I am asking, in determining an edit war that is not 3rr, should one consider more than the reverts and consider the content of those reverts, to determine if there is an edit war.Casprings (talk) 02:52, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

• It is coming from the conversation here: User:TParis stated that

I'm outright saying that unless you qualify under one of the exemptions here, you are edit warring despite the content of the reverts. I'm saying it doesn't matter in the slightest and you can ask any administrator, any of your choosing, if they agree. I'm trying to get you to understand a community standard. You're misapplying your real-world expectation of "fairness." It doesn't exist here. What matters is the stability of an article and with the exception of the few legal reasons that exist, of which consensus and NPOV are not, there is no excuse for edit warring. Modify your understanding to that fact

• Basically, I want policy to clearly say one way or the other.Casprings (talk) 02:39, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
  • It does already.--v/r - TP 02:40, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

• Disagree per Federales and Zad68. Administrators are expected to use their sound judgement, and restricting the amount of information said judgement is based on will not help. Huon (talk) 02:42, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Upon reading parts of the AN/I discussion I should clarify that content is not a "get out of edit warring free" card. Admins should certainly be allowed to consider context, but unless we're talking WP:3RRNO stuff, editors may still be found to be edit warring despite content. WP:NPOV, for example, all too often is a judgement call that definitely does not excuse edit warring. Huon (talk) 02:59, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I am not asking for a "get out of jail free" card. I am saying that it is a subjective judgement, and content does matter. Or if it doesn't, lets say that. In either case, I want the policy to clear on this. If it is only the pattern of reverts one is looking at, so be it. If it isn't, so be it.Casprings (talk) 03:03, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

• Comment I don't agree with the wording the OP has used, but it's very clear in the specific example that inspired this RfC that the editors are edit-warring. Editors who !voted Disagree should examine Rape and pregnancy controversies in United States elections, 2012 to see that the same group of editors are repeatedly reverting each other. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:08, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

• Maybe I was. If it was the case, I didn't understand policy. Like I said, I don't see a problem with looking at the wording of policy.Casprings (talk) 03:10, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

@Casprings: The very first sentence of WP:Edit warring states, "An edit war occurs when editors who disagree about the content of a page repeatedly override each other's contributions, rather than trying to resolve the disagreement by discussion." You and several other editors are doing exactly that. It sounds like policy fits to a T. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:19, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

• Disagree - This seems like it could get editors in trouble when they insert a paraphrase, instead of repeatedly reverting a deletion, in order to avoid 3RR. that's not something desirable because the act of coming up with a good paraphrase can very often lead to alternate compromise text which resolves the underlying conflict. So I would hate to see someone in trouble for violating the "spirit of 3RR" because they took the time to come up with alternate text in a revert war. EllenCT (talk) 07:42, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

• Disagree - I know it may seem like I'm just jumping on the bandwagon, but, really, I strongly disagree with the statement proposed. The way that it is phrased, the pattern of reverts could take precedence over a ridiculous content dispute that is logically being reverted a lot. WP:3RR exists for a good reason, as does the rationale that the administrators, who we carefully select, listen to the advice of the community in cases like this, and each edit war, in my opinion, deserves a case-by-case evaluation. We don't need blanket statements like the above. --Jackson Peebles (talk) 02:40, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to change the wording of the policy

Based on the wording of the debate above, I propose the following change:

The three-revert rule applies per person, not per account; reverts made by multiple accounts operated by one editor count together. Editors violating 3RR will usually be blocked for 24 hours for a first incident. Even without a 3RR violation, an administrator may still act if they believe a user's behavior constitutes edit warring, and any user may report edit warring with or without 3RR being breached. The rule is not an entitlement to revert a page a specific number of times. In determining rather or not an edit war has occurred when the 3RR rule has not been breached, the judgement is based off of the pattern of reverts and the context of those reverts. It is a subjective judgement, not an objective rule.

The bolded last sentence is what I suggest adding.Casprings (talk) 04:01, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose Not broken, no need to fix. Federales (talk) 04:15, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per Federales, and a free link to WP:POINT to go with it. Huon (talk) 07:21, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose I dinna ken what precisely is broken and how exactly this proposal would fix it. Collect (talk) 01:03, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose as unnecessary. And in serious need of proofreading AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:26, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose as potentially discouraging problem solving paraphrase attempts, per my comments above. EllenCT (talk) 07:43, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per Federales. --Jackson Peebles (talk) 02:42, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. Policy violating content always is relevant to any discussion. User:Carolmooredc 17:29, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Clarification needed?

We need to fix this. The sentence " A "revert" means any edit (or administrative action) that reverses the actions of other editors, in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material." has a tag saying "it should be made clear if an initial edit modifying a page (edited by the other person/persons) counts". I think it obviously does. As an aside, I've just had an editor say that he didn't make 4 reverts because "I've only reverted 3 times. I removed the info (not reverted it), the info was modified, then there were three reverts thereafter." Do we need to clarify this? He obviously thinks that because he didn't revert the editor he is edit-warring with it doesn't count. Dougweller (talk) 05:21, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Its very circumstantial, but I would say that an initial edit that removes content is not necessarily a revert. At some point, edits to an article become old enough that a change or removal is no longer fairly called a revert. If I found an article that hadn't been edited in 5 years, and decided that some part of it should be removed, I would hardly call my removal a revert, just because long ago an editor added what I am know removing. Its gotta be a judgement call, butI would say if its pretty old, give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe remind them that 3RR is "not an entitlement to revert a page a specific number of times". An editor that is pushing close to the 3rr rule often enough that this sort of a distinction is important is heading for trouble either way. Monty₈₄₅ 03:34, 25 July 2013 (UTC)