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Essays Low‑impact ![]() | |||||||||
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This page may end up being merged into a policy or guideline but until then its a useful way of dealing with stable versions in the mean time. Crouch, Swale ( talk) 18:08, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
There has been some debate about how long it takes for a change to become stable. There are 2 questions, please indicate which you're answer is for. Things like WP:TITLECHANGES, WP:RETAIN, WP:CFDS and WP:RMCI should be updated if this RFC gains consensus.
(1) How long in general should a version have been in place for it to be considered "stable" for the purpose of obtaining consensus? This isn't intended to be a strict rule but merely give some general rule since sometimes (like with the technical request of Talk:Kereta Api Indonesia#Requested move 8 June 2020) a move made years ago is requested as a revert of an undiscussed move even though the move happened over 2 years ago and in some cases like Omos an unrevert was made that the change was made a month ago even though it had had the same target since 2004 prior to the change.
(2) How long should a version take to be stable for the purpose of WP:RETAIN when a page is edited or renamed against this (and one of the exceptions doesn't apply, such as communality, strong ties or ATDAB)? See examples of Humour and Chinese whispers where this has been debated. @ SnowFire, FOARP, Necrothesp, and Calidum: who were involved significantly in the chinese whispers debate on this. Crouch, Swale ( talk) 18:08, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
Stability is a state of equilibrium, and it can come about quite suddenly, e.g. as the result of an RfC, RM, or other fairly formalized discussion, or simply because two parties who had been incessantly bickering finally ceased for a while and wandering off to go do something else, until they picked it up again later and punctuated that equilibrium with some more chaos. Stability can also come about gradually and organically (and mostly should). If we were to create a rule of thumb about it, maybe: the status quo before the dispute, to revert to pending a clearer consensus emerging, is the last version of the X under dispute that was not substantively changed for longer than the current round of dispute has been open. So, if people have been gnashing their teeth about it for 1.5 months, and the X content was only stable-ish for a week before that, and was preceded by another a month of striving, then that 1-week version of X is not the "stable" version to revert to. But if the version before that was left alone for 6 months, then obviously that is the one. In another case, if there's been 2 months of see-sawing, preceded by 3 months of stability, before which was 2 years of slow editwarring and other conflict, then that 3-month version is the one to revert to (it likely was the hard-won compromise of that longer dispute period).
I would add the caveat that making a change no one notices for a year, because it's in a page people don't pay much attention to, doesn't magically make it the stable version;
WP:BRD and
WP:RMTR#Requests to revert undiscussed moves are both often enough invoked about questionable changes after that long or even longer. But they would not be at an article like
Jacinda Ardern which has boatloads of watchers and many active editors. The stable version is a version before the currently disputed one, unless the currently disputed one has good evidence of enjoying some actual consensus (e.g. because it's in a guideline or policy (in a section people actually cite), or an article with many watchers, and has been around long enough that plenty of people have seen it and not raised objections or done reverts. It's also important to remember that we only revert to last stable version when current attempts to establish a consensus have failed, after considerable effort. You can't invoke status quo ante without doing the D in
WP:BRD in good faith with the other editors who care to participate. This is a lot like the
MOS:ENGVAR,
MOS:DATEVAR, and
WP:CITEVAR stuff: if consensus fails to emerge from a debate, including with regard to the last stable version, then the final fall-back position is to revert to the choice made in the first non-stub or "major" version of the article. This doesn't mean that the person who made that edit has more say in the discussion moving forward, nor does it endorse their version as better, it's simply something to do to bring that round of "discussion" to an end. But the discussion has to happen first.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼
16:25, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
![]() |
Essays Low‑impact ![]() | |||||||||
|
This page may end up being merged into a policy or guideline but until then its a useful way of dealing with stable versions in the mean time. Crouch, Swale ( talk) 18:08, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
There has been some debate about how long it takes for a change to become stable. There are 2 questions, please indicate which you're answer is for. Things like WP:TITLECHANGES, WP:RETAIN, WP:CFDS and WP:RMCI should be updated if this RFC gains consensus.
(1) How long in general should a version have been in place for it to be considered "stable" for the purpose of obtaining consensus? This isn't intended to be a strict rule but merely give some general rule since sometimes (like with the technical request of Talk:Kereta Api Indonesia#Requested move 8 June 2020) a move made years ago is requested as a revert of an undiscussed move even though the move happened over 2 years ago and in some cases like Omos an unrevert was made that the change was made a month ago even though it had had the same target since 2004 prior to the change.
(2) How long should a version take to be stable for the purpose of WP:RETAIN when a page is edited or renamed against this (and one of the exceptions doesn't apply, such as communality, strong ties or ATDAB)? See examples of Humour and Chinese whispers where this has been debated. @ SnowFire, FOARP, Necrothesp, and Calidum: who were involved significantly in the chinese whispers debate on this. Crouch, Swale ( talk) 18:08, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
Stability is a state of equilibrium, and it can come about quite suddenly, e.g. as the result of an RfC, RM, or other fairly formalized discussion, or simply because two parties who had been incessantly bickering finally ceased for a while and wandering off to go do something else, until they picked it up again later and punctuated that equilibrium with some more chaos. Stability can also come about gradually and organically (and mostly should). If we were to create a rule of thumb about it, maybe: the status quo before the dispute, to revert to pending a clearer consensus emerging, is the last version of the X under dispute that was not substantively changed for longer than the current round of dispute has been open. So, if people have been gnashing their teeth about it for 1.5 months, and the X content was only stable-ish for a week before that, and was preceded by another a month of striving, then that 1-week version of X is not the "stable" version to revert to. But if the version before that was left alone for 6 months, then obviously that is the one. In another case, if there's been 2 months of see-sawing, preceded by 3 months of stability, before which was 2 years of slow editwarring and other conflict, then that 3-month version is the one to revert to (it likely was the hard-won compromise of that longer dispute period).
I would add the caveat that making a change no one notices for a year, because it's in a page people don't pay much attention to, doesn't magically make it the stable version;
WP:BRD and
WP:RMTR#Requests to revert undiscussed moves are both often enough invoked about questionable changes after that long or even longer. But they would not be at an article like
Jacinda Ardern which has boatloads of watchers and many active editors. The stable version is a version before the currently disputed one, unless the currently disputed one has good evidence of enjoying some actual consensus (e.g. because it's in a guideline or policy (in a section people actually cite), or an article with many watchers, and has been around long enough that plenty of people have seen it and not raised objections or done reverts. It's also important to remember that we only revert to last stable version when current attempts to establish a consensus have failed, after considerable effort. You can't invoke status quo ante without doing the D in
WP:BRD in good faith with the other editors who care to participate. This is a lot like the
MOS:ENGVAR,
MOS:DATEVAR, and
WP:CITEVAR stuff: if consensus fails to emerge from a debate, including with regard to the last stable version, then the final fall-back position is to revert to the choice made in the first non-stub or "major" version of the article. This doesn't mean that the person who made that edit has more say in the discussion moving forward, nor does it endorse their version as better, it's simply something to do to bring that round of "discussion" to an end. But the discussion has to happen first.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼
16:25, 6 April 2021 (UTC)