Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 71#Make prompting for a missing edit summary the default

Support

(+ Happy Melon indicated support through discussion, but did not make a clear !vote) (+ Kayau didn't want to voice explicit support as 'nominator sort-of') (+ Yoenit refuted opposition but did not support {instead suggesting a trial})

Reasons given in support

• Introduces new users to our 'culture' of explaining edits
• Cut vandalism
• Easier for new users to make edits which are not reverted (which can discourage them)
• Insignificantly more difficult (net+)
• Less BITE (no need to warn users for no edit sum)
• Instant feedback (not a later talk message)
• Helps admins check previous versions quicker when considering PROD/BLPPROD, which can be benefit new users as old version can be salvaged
• Helps with NPP identification
• Shows intent of an edit - avoiding possible revert, conflict, warnings, etc.

Oppose

Reasons given in opposition

• Makes editing more difficult / complicated (unnecessarily)
• If a vandal uses an edit summary, then we won't get the automatic "blanked page" or "replaced page with" summaries" - could perhaps be resolved via edit filter
• Not needed in other websites (e.g. Facebook)
• They may not notice the box/prompt
• Edit summaries are not mandated in policy
• Edit summaries are not always useful
• Implies they're trusted based on edit summary
• No tangible benefits
• We have tools to check - eg WikiBlame
• Edit summaries can be misleading (and there is danger of wrongly assuming they are truthful)
• users may use the summary to "discuss" instead of using talk pages
• There is no problem to fix

Neutral

Equazcion

Other comments

• A step towards mandatory registration?
• Potential fix to software to still give reminder when editing a section (where edit sum is prefilled /* Section */ and the warning does not work)
• The error message (when summary blank) is not clear and obvious - potentially they'd miss it. One idea is a 'pop up' reminder. See also Wikipedia:MediaWiki messages#Proposed change for MediaWiki:Missingsummary.
• Should be disabled for minor edits

Evaluation commentary notes from Chzz

• Numeric evaluation (non-authoritative) is around 60% support
• Most, if not all, !votes seem thoughtful and reasoned
• Many people expressed concern over the difficult-to-see alert, and emphasized this should be articles only
• Many supporters said "Only for articles"; some that it should not apply to minor edits
• The debate attracted input from very experienced Wikipedians - of the 47 !voters above, all but 4 of have over 3000 edits; 16 have over 30,000 edits; 17 are SysOps)

IF

a) The alert only occured on article edits

b) It did not prompt on minor edits

c) Was a clear prompt

...then the proposal would likely get very high support.

The biggest difficulty is c) which would require a change to Mediawiki software.

• A trial could be conducted, on a random sampling of new users (either with the existing prompt, or an improved one), using a 'control group'.

• It might be possible for us to implement that through the edit filter

EF can certainly post up a warning for edits with no edit summary - similar to e.g. MediaWiki:Abusefilter-warning-blanking. It could also warn only for new users, only for edits > 'n' characters of change. I'm not sure if it can check if the user has enabled the preference to show a warning for blank edit summaries - probably not, and that may cause an issue.

EF could possibly used for a sample trial; it could act for only a selected number of specific new users. That would need evaluation for time impact on edits, but may well be possible.

• Alternatively, a test might be performed via WMF similar to the Foundation test of left-aligned edit links.