This Wikipedia page has been superseded by Wikipedia talk:Requests for rollback and is retained primarily for historical reference. |
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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
We keep hearing about Twinkle.
As someone who doesn't have such access, would someone like to list the benefits of Twinkle, so that we might be able to compare Twinkle/rollback/undo?
Also, are there any other similar programs in use atm (For example, can AWB duplicate this as well?)
And if someone really wanted to, perhaps create a comparison chart : ) - jc37 10:09, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
The following 3 rollback functions are available on the diff screen of an article, for the current revision only. Following a rollback, a separate browser window is spawned with the rolled-back user's talk page open for editing, so that a notice or warning can be issued:
Note that rollback and rollback vandal are also available from user contribs pages, as links listed next to articles for which this user was the last contributor.
This is the revert function, available in diff screen for all revisions:
At Wikipedia talk:Rollback for non-administrators#Some suggestions, I made a suggestion for a way to avoid edit wars. Several others had suggested limiting how often a non-administrator could use rollback; I suggested looking at it from the point of view of the article: "Limit rollbacks on an article. For example, two in a row, or two in an hour. Limiting rollbacks need not limit ordinary editing (including reverting). Also, make rollback subject to the three-revert rule just as a revert is." Would this be compatible with the present proposal? Fg2 ( talk) 12:17, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
If someone uses rollback inappropriately then let an admin know and it will be dealt with. There is no point in making hard and fast rules about how many uses per hour or article. If there was a persistent vandal who was using proxies to change their IP, then using the rollback many times would be appropriate. We can handle this is simple sense and consensus instead of numerical rules. 1 != 2 17:54, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
It's quite clear from the poll there is no consensus for this. This doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of becoming policy. The best that can be done is a new proposal that addresses the concerns the opposers have raised, if that's possible. — Ashley Y 08:36, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
I've created a new page to discuss the creation of a new proposal. All are invited to brainstorm: Wikipedia:Non-administrator rollback/Creating a new proposal. Equazcion •✗/ C • 15:18, 6 Jan 2008 (UTC)
'Cause I got another one for you. This is very informal, doesn't need to go on very long, and will not decide anything. However I just wanted to get an idea of how many people here think the current poll shows a consensus acceptance of the proposal, and how many feel no consensus is shown. Vote below. Equazcion •✗/ C • 17:14, 6 Jan 2008 (UTC)
No consensus - I don't feel the poll currently shows consensus acceptance of this proposal. Equazcion •✗/ C • 17:14, 6 Jan 2008 (UTC)
No consensus - Even though I voted for Support, I realize that majority does not equal consensus. Dansiman ( talk| Contribs) 20:10, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
No consensus - I don't see consensus at this time because majority does not equal consensus Alex fusco 5 20:19, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
No consensus We ought to keep this poll running until we finally come to a conclusion or compromise or someone from the WMF decides. Marlith T/ C 00:39, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
No consensus Even if some of the !opposes are using faulty reasoning, a lot of people just don't feel good about this proposal. I'm disappointed at the lack of input at the new proposal page, perhaps the banner invitation has only attracted drive-by's rather than a fruitful discussion of ideas. Franamax ( talk) 01:21, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
No consensus There are considerable yea and nay positions on this issue, determining consensus amidst this is problematic at best. Edit Centric ( talk) 01:31, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
The worst part about this is that theres so many Supports and Opposes that I can't even remember if I'm one of them! Ferdia O'Brien (T)/ (C) 03:46, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I refuse to sum my comment up in few words of bold print. From the start, through 380+ responses, comments placed under the "Support" section have outnumbered comments placed under the "Oppose" section by a little over 2 to 1 (or roughly 70% in the "Support" section). Of course, given WP:DEMOCRACY and WP:CON, tallying that gets us precisely nowhere. :) Reading the comments is more informative. People are coming from all over the place. A lot of comments are concerned with abuse. Perhaps that's because when the poll was started, the restriction that rollback was only to be used against obvious vandalism wasn't there. Of course, once that was added, others switched to oppose due to the change. Others complain of the lack of entrance requirements; I note that originally, there were some, but the proposal was changed during the poll. Polling on a moving target; what a mess. But I do see some fairly strong support, overall, for some kind of solution. The poll unfortunately preempted useful discussion of what the solution should be. I note many of the comments use the same rationale, regardless of "Support" or "Oppose": Script tools are available, so (why not give them to everyone|no need to give them to everyone). I'm not sure how to interpret that! — DragonHawk ( talk| hist) 03:59, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Even though I currently oppose the proposal, I would support a trial run. How would others feel about a trial run? -- Ned Scott 00:53, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I am new to Wikipedia and it is fantastic but a rollback? I am wondering if an ability for Non-Admins. to make easy changes is a good idea? I have read the arguements about editing wars and vandals but what about concerns of losing good editors. If it is really easy to "undo" someones work, and this happens on a large enough scale, will this cause editors or someone qualified that can edit, or that does edit, to stop for fear that a lot of work may be wasted? This seems like a logical point to ponder. I understand that editing can be done anyway but not by just pushing a button. It seems to me, on the face, that a rollback would be a fantastic idea when used correctly--BUT-- how many times will it be abused? Will a person editing a page have to keep copies of his(or her) work and a watch on every page he(or she) edits to make sure "rollbacks" have not been performed incorrectly or unjustly? I do not have enough knowledge of the subject but if Editors police pages and change the works of vandals can vandals then, at least until caught, be able to just log on and push a button also? Oh! I am sure that an IP address is recorded but if someone just fooling around has dial up then the IP address changes. If a user name surfaces more than once it can be stopped from being allowed to use the feature but how hard would it be to just create another name? I am just asking what appears to me to be common sense questions so I hope I do not offend anyone by any lack of knowledge I may have on the subject. There are a lot of individuals that have the time to edit pages for correct reasons, and spend a lot of time doing so, but I can imagine there are a lot of individuals with nothing to do with their time but create problems. Will this be an easy tool for them? Otr500 ( talk) 03:41, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
It is common practice in debates to discount brand new users due to the risk of sock puppetry and meat puppetry. Due to the notice above our watchlists we are getting real new users as well. I don't have the time to do it myself, but before considering the results of this poll it may be beneficial to examine the contribution history and account creation dates of those who gave opinions.
If these people are predominantly sincere new users then there should be similar numbers on both sides of the argument, with a bias towards being less experienced with Wikipedia. However if people are using sock/meat puppetry then there may very well be a strong person bias evident in the side the new accounts are taking.
Regardless it is long standing practice to give greater weight to established contributors in debates about how Wikipedia should be ran. 1 != 2 18:05, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
If it will be a major benefit to those who fight vandalism, then why there are no prerequisites? A user should be a long term vandalism fighter, i.e. he should have at least X reverts of vandalism every month/day/week during Y months/days/weeks to apply for the tool. X and Y can be small. Any thoughts? Jhony | Talk 21:54, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
What about the new Wikipedian who wants to do great things for WP but doesn't take the time to learn about policies and templates and usage? I had someone try to speedy delete a Wiktionary redirect because it was too short and they claimed, not notable...its a WP TEMPLATE fer cryin' out loud, its a long as it needs to be...so whats to stop this person from just deleting anything they don't understand/haven't learned about? Errors made with good intentions are still errors that undermine the credibilty we are all working so hard to build.
Will there be a 6 month or 12 month "waiting period" before they can get this tool? Maybe its not such a good idea to have this in the hands of people who aren't quite as accountable as admins so that admins don't have to go behind these people and clean up messes. Let them take the time to learn to use Twinkle or one of the other Vandal Fighters, but giving them rollback would be double plus ungood. Legotech ( talk) 00:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Rollback is an anti-vandalism tool, undoing edits is an editorial tool. I only rollback if there is blatant vandalism, anything else I undo, because I don't want to use my admin priviliges (on wikinews) for anything else than blatant vandalism.
Is there a real need to provide non-administrators with a new but weak and only slightly faster anti-vandalism tool? No.
Dedicated vandal fighters can install tools and request adminship (which shouldn't be such a witchhunt). This proposal is not going to make a big difference, it is prone to abuse, and it goes against all previous logic. -- Steven Fruitsmaak ( Reply) 01:00, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Quite a number of the Oppose votes seem to think that the proposal is going to make vandalism easier. This is a misunderstanding that has been countered numerous times above, but still keeps occuring. I think that someone should keep a count of the number that have given this as the ONLY reason to oppose. This could be quite significant in deciding whether or not there is consensus. Ideally, someone neutral (ie who has not voted) should count but I will do it myself if others think this is worthwile and fair. SpinningSpark 11:44, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
The argument that this tool will increase vandalism seems to ignore the basic way that this is to be implemented. The default for users is no rollback right. It takes an administrator to grant the use of this tool. If an administrator starts, for example, granting rollback on request from new users, with no review, that admin could be called on it. It's unlikely to happen, though possible. Rollback doesn't really help much with *creating* vandalism. The argument that rollback will increase vandalism would also apply to granting rollback to administrators. They are merely a group of editors who have attained, at some point, the trust of the community, and they are trusted to use their tools properly. Sometimes they don't, but we do not therefore conclude that nobody but, say, developers should have the tools. What this proposal does, essentially, is to grant a right to administrators, but one much less hazardous than the rights they already have, the right to *delegate* use of the rather minor rollback tool. Do we trust administrators to use this right wisely? I know I do, and I know that the rare exceptions can be addressed specifically. Administrators are unlikely to grant rollback rights to users who are likely to offend. Mistakes will be made, but the real question is how often they will be made. Don't trust administrators? Conclude that they will commonly err, and vote no for this proposal. But even then -- exactly how does this make vandalism easier without at the same time making it easier to fix? Which would you rather revert, one rollback edit -- any editor can do this -- or two or three individual reverts? -- Abd ( talk) 16:42, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Let me also add some weight against the argument "if it aint broke dont fix it". Well just because something is not broken, does not mean it does not need an upgrade. Hell whats wrong with swords and arrows? Nothing, they were excellent for warfare and for at least a hundred years between 1350 until 1450, arrows were better than guns - upgrades like this are still essential. We don't and should not wait for something to break before changing. Tourskin ( talk) 03:59, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
As Equazcion remarked above, I think at this point, we've gotten as much out of this poll as we're going to. Response rate seems to be falling off, and I haven't seen anything in the way of new and unique ideas for some time. Are there any objections to closing the poll and then moving on with whatever happens next? • I would ask that people please, for the love of Jimbo, save discussion about how to interpret the poll, what should be done next, etc., etc., for another thread/section. :-) — DragonHawk ( talk| hist) 03:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Strong Support per above. (sorry, I couldn't resist). Lets close the <expletive> thing, merge the sub-proposals into this talk, or into the new proposal, and begin to edit the current proposal based on the consensus taken so far. I think that too many editors said "oppose" while citing one little issue, which many agreed should be fixed, when they could have discussed it, changed it, and said "support." I agree with the above, that while there is no consensus for how it should be implemented, there is a rough consensus that it should be implemented, and we should there. It might (or might not) help to focus on each individual aspect of the proposal at a time, reach consensus on that, and move on (or have section specific talk on this page). What I do know is that we are getting nowhere right now, discussion is all over the place, and we need to consolidate and reorganize (I sound like a mergist, not the deletionist I usually am). Also, I think most (if not all) discussion up to this point should be archived.<semi-serious>Oh, and as I see it, this small group of people, who have contributed the most to the discussion, have reached a consensus to get rid of the poll, so can we just get it done with, or shall we take another <expletive> poll on whether or not to do it? I swear, its feels like we are in the <insert inefficient democratic legislative body>.</semi-serious>-- Vox Rationis ( Talk | contribs) 05:59, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Based on discussion here and elsewhere, I decided to go ahead and mark the main straw poll, along with the first two alternative proposals and their pseudo-polls, along with the archived votes, all as "archived/do not modify". Please note that I, and I certainly don't think anyone else, considers this discussion to be closed. But enough with the support/oppose me-too-ism. — DragonHawk ( talk| hist) 06:56, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I had this idea today, when I was thinking about how rollback would be more efficient. Would it be possible to enable rollback for everyone, but not include it in the user interface? Basically, one would still need to use a script, app, whatever to preform the actions (as they would serve as the user interface), just as it is now, but at the very least those actions would be less taxing on the servers. I think this might be a good option if other proposals fail, since it wouldn't change anything, except making what already happens more efficient. Thoughts? Would this even be possible? -- Ned Scott 07:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
if ((((isset($_REQUEST'action'])) and ($_REQUEST'action' == 'rollback')) or (fnmatch('*api.php*',$_SERVER'REQUEST_URI']))) and ($wgDBname == 'enwiki')) $wgGroupPermissions'user']['rollback' = true;
I suggested this at the psuedo-RFC, but only one person has agreed so far (or, as far as I know, noticed). If there is consensus to implement, I think this would be a good idea. It is a compromise, however, and compromises make no one happy :P Gracenotes T § 16:21, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Okay. In same space of about eight days, we've had the main proposal (including its original form, which evolved into the current form, and the accompanying straw poll, which itself includes around 450 total top-level responses (not counting replies) and over 200 kilobytes of text), at least three counter-proposals, and various assorted discussions (on the project page and at this talk page (some now archived)), those also consisting of over 200 kilobytes of text. And before that, we had Wikipedia:Rollback for non-administrators proposal, Wikipedia:Rollback for non-administrators, and Wikipedia:Requests for rollback privileges and their accompanying talk pages, polls, archives, etc.
Now what do we do?
Some suggestions:
I think the ideal thing to do would be to refactor all the proposals, discussion, polls, responses, etc., into something as concise as possible. There's been a massive amount of text put forward on this, and until we know where we've been, I'm not sure we can really know where we should be going. That said, it will probably take a fair bit of effort just to review, summarize, and refine all that, and I don't expect the world to hold still in the mean time.
So, concurrently: I think we should strongly encourage discussion and consensus over simple voting. Avoid polarizing things into "Support" or "Oppose". Make sure any proposal fairly and completely presents all the pros and cons. Make sure objections (and counter-arguments, and counter-counter-...) are noted. Avoid bias in favor of any particular stance. Refactor it mercilessly. The idea is to get the proposal to a concise state that everybody agrees is an accurate presentation of all sides of the issue. In short, write the proposal like a Wikipedia article. The idea is to avoid legions of people posting "Support" or "Oppose" comments solely because they want their opinion to count. If the proposal addresses their opinions directly, they are much less likely to post a simple WP:ILIKEIT or WP:IDONTLIKEIT comment; they'll be content with the presentation "as is".
If consensus on what the "right" proposal is simply cannot be archived, despite long discussion, I'd say the next best thing would be to get consensus on a presentation of the issues (pros and cons), and multiple, stable proposals addressing those issues. If there must be a poll, people can then vote to indicate their support for a given proposal, or rejection of all of them, rather than trying to get their opinion expressed in a sea of almost 500 other opinions.
Comments? Suggestions? Other ideas? Condemnation?
— DragonHawk ( talk| hist) 07:35, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
It seems pretty clear that there is not consensus on this proposal. I think what we need to do is get whoever has the authority to tag this page {{failed}} so that people can go "back to the drawing board" and propose an entirely different solution to what they see as the problem they want to address. Sdedeo ( tips) 15:48, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm surprised you think so especially given the fact that you're an administrator! The AfD rule-of-thumb is that you need excellent reasons to decide consensus on anything weaker than 3:1, for example. I just don't see those reasons here; reasonable people have weighed in on both sides. Sdedeo ( tips) 16:00, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
The way I've seen things "go down" in consensus failures is one of four things:
In this situation it seems like a combination of the first three; it's not prima facie bad. The oppose remarks seemed to center on:
Sdedeo ( tips) 16:27, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
The main argument of Ryan and 1!=2 here is that they simply know what consensus is because they are very advanced users. 1!=2 adds that the opposition is "logically" flawed, although none of the three reasons I suggest as the main sources of opposition are logical in form. Simply because 30% of the community has a wide spectrum of reasons for opposition is not a reason to ignore them on the basis of "fragmentation." Anyway, my guess given the way things have happened in the past is that this won't go through. Peace. Sdedeo ( tips) 17:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I do not know whether it has been noted in the past, but it appears that hardly any vandals take any time or pains to embellish their signatures. Fancy signatures could, therefore, be argued to be a trademark of legitimate editors (perhaps with metapaedic tendencies). Consequently, it makes sense to propose the following: why not give rollback only to those editors with impressive, colourful, or otherwise interesting signatures? We could call it the Signature Criterion. This ought to simplify things a lot.
Not persuaded, are you? Ah, yes, I suppose this suggestion is mostly humourous (seriously, though, the observation I have based it upon is not). Well, I am simply trying to keep the atmosphere here light and friendly. Please don't shoot me. There is a strange gleam in your eyes...
Although the page is over-burdened anyway, I will accept to delete this message if enough editors agree. You can hold a poll for this below if you want to. Waltham, The Duke of 15:55, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi. Sorry, I oppose this entire idea. No further privileges-- no further editing shortcuts. I feel that all the tools which we have right now are fully sufficient. sorry to the good-faith editors who may support this. Frankly, i wish the idea to distribute the capability widely or collectively would just be discontinued from discussion. thanks. -- Steve, Sm8900 ( talk) 16:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
So let us evaluate this discussion. Did this pass or did it not? Considering that the number of supporters is double that of opposers, I beleive that the Wikipedia community is strongly supportive of this propsal. However, I note that the opposers arguements are much more detaild. However I note that they keep on repeating that "This will create a heiarchy of users" (How is this bad, it'll motivate newbies to move up the ranks) "This will cause edit wars" (Edit wars will always exist no matter what, it is like banning rock music and Wikipedia from schools. Editors will always get into disagreements). The supporters are the vandal fighters, they keep repeating about the faster reversion of vandalisim (however, why care if you beat others, it will get reverted anyway). The prevention of edit wars is more of a evaluation of the use of individualisim on Wikipedia. Let me note that collectivisim, is always a bad thing in all situations. Marlith T/ C 19:57, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
What happened to the proposal rewrite to reflect the consensus of the poll? Did we pass over that and move straight to dev review? It was my understanding that the devs are having little part in this discussion, that they have already made the feature, and are just waiting on our decision as to whether or not to implement it. I'll b going through shortly and adding or changing minor things to reflect consensus.-- Vox Rationis ( Talk | contribs) 22:45, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I wonder what the devs are doing now. Marlith T/ C 02:37, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
The watchlist notice is causing some confusion now that the poll is closed. Perhaps the notice should be removed now? Equazcion •✗/ C • 20:24, 8 Jan 2008 (UTC)
The last poll ended with the same percentage and was declared no consensus and the idea was shelved. Why is a similar result being treated differently this time? Wikipedia:Requests for rollback privileges/Poll. Hiding T 22:00, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
There's really no need to quarrel here. There is no consensus at the moment (indeed we've had a stable no-consensus for a while). As long as there is no consensus for a change, the status-quo holds. That may frustrate those who are pushing for a change - but, well, sorry. That's how it is. Take it away, work it though if you want, if you make a better case and find a better method, maybe sometime in the future consensus will change. But for now, you need to accept this result.-- Docg 00:32, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
How do those suggesting that the oppose logic was "flawed" propose we handle one-liner support arguments? For example, "obviously :-)", "Per common sense", "proposal as written". I'm not saying there is anything wrong with those comments, but I do take issue with one side insinuating flawed logic should result in an ignored vote, when many of the support votes don't even quantify the votes. While I don't agree that some of the logic used in opposes were proposed in a good fashion, if we are going to require a certain standard for oppose votes, we must require the same standard for support votes. So should the final decision maker(s) on this one simply ignore every support vote that didn't quantify or qualify their support?
This is exactly why straw polls should be avoided. Either take each vote for face value, or set the rules on how votes are metered from the very beginning of the debate. Many of the votes in support had very valid reasons for supporting this policy. Many of the votes opposing had very valid reasons for opposing this policy.
Wikipedia is not a democracy, and
polling is not a substitute for discussion. Specifically, #4 states "Similarly, if a straw poll is inconclusive, or if there is disagreement about whether the question itself was unfair, the poll and its results should simply be ignored." The results of this poll are at the very least inconclusive.
My last comment will be directed at
User:Ryan Postlethwaite's comment: "How is it that 67% of the community want this proposal, but the less majority (by a considerable ammount) don't want it yet get there way?" That comment stunned me.
WP:CON explains exactly how, and why, it is that 67% of the community wants something but doesn't get it. I've said it once, and I'll say it again,
Wikipedia is not a democracy... and as an admin, I'd expect you to know that.
Justin
chat 23:10, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Does anyone remember the Wikipedia-space page for "more than 100 Wikipedians supporting any one thing"? I think the new standard is more than 200, but this still qualifies! Franamax ( talk) 07:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Could someone go ahead and mark this "rejected" plz? And then we can go ahead with the proper consensus thing, which is to come up with a new proposal that works in the issues raised by the opponents, if that's possible. — Ashley Y 18:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
WP:RFR is up and running. I was a little confused on what happened, but per the answer to my question it seems the developer on this one saw this as a consensus to pass. So I suppose discussing it any further is pointless. Justin chat 01:01, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Who was the developer? Where is his decision explained? What were his criteria? Where did he announce it? To whom is he accountable? Where do I ask for a reconsideration? -- Docg 01:09, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Seems no haste was made to put up the request page, have a bot standing by to assist in it, and even putting up a watchlist notice. Anyone else getting the feeling that they're trying to get as many users as they can to request rollback, so that it can be claimed that turning it off is a disruption? -- Ned Scott 01:55, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Drafting an arbcom request for this now. Who wants to be added as a party? -- Ned Scott 02:23, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
More bullshit, at least two bots have been granted rollback. WTF. KnowledgeOfSelf | talk 02:51, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
I too am disgusted at what has happened. Obviously someone has to make a decision. Someone has to decide if a consensus was agreed or not. But where is the notice? Who, if any users, were formally told? What effort was made to inform users what was going on? And it's one thing to decide there might be in theory a consensus. But entirely another to completely ignore the serious objections of users. Such as, what exactly will be the criteria for granting this faculty? And what efforts will be made to minimise the possible abuse of this faculty? Disappointing.-- Gazzster ( talk) 03:18, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
A more interesting remark is that the software should allow bureaucrats to configure new groups like this. It probably should (within limits), and that would be an improvement. However, for the present time this isn't possible, so you have to involve sysadmins. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 03:51, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
I stand by my original point of view: drama :D -- TheDJ ( talk • contribs) 03:39, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
I would like someone to bring this to RFC or RFA, because this rollback decision against consensus! We are being told to go back to work, but I say let's strike! Say no to non admin rollback! Igor Berger ( talk) 22:29, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
I seem to recall that Werdna was going to implement this, but a wiser head suggested the RfC route.
So why now can someone ignore the discussion and implement?
I agree that this was severely wrong.
I don't know if RfAr is appropriate, but as an additional alternative, a petition to the board might be effective.
I dunno. I guess I'm just at a loss for how amazing it is to see this happen. - jc37 03:10, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
As for someone "'asking'" him to have a look, of course someone did. The procedure to get a configuration change is to get consensus on-wiki, then file a request on Bugzilla to have it implemented, linking to the consensus. A sysadmin then reviews the request and implements it if they feel it's reasonable and the presented consensus is sufficient. The request in this case was T14534. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 03:55, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Do you people really find it that hard to believe he sincerely saw this as a consensus? 1 != 2 03:47, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
First off no need for name calling. Secondly, since when do we need 100% agreement to do anything? We don't agree 100% on a single thing here. A very vocal minority opposing does not mean there is no consensus. 1 != 2 04:09, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
There are two parties, those who want rollback and those who do not. Why do you think that one side should need to have such a substantial handicap against the other? The fact is that more people want rollback for good reasons than people don't want rollback for good reasons. Much more, twice as many. Why should the opinion of the few decide that the opinion of the many should not be acted on?
Numbers is not all that needs to be considered in consensus, but you can take into account the substance of the arguments and get the same answer. Disregarding public opinion altogether is a mistake equal to only taking public opinion into account. 1 != 2 04:25, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
I have been a strong opponent of proposals on wikipedia that serve to concentrate power, create "classes" of users, and put more decisions in the hands of administrators that contribute very little to the actual work of creating an encyclopedia.
For example, I am a strong opponent of a new proposal, "flagged revisions". You can read about my opinions on this subject at my blog, rhubarb is susan Flagged revisions, which turns "edit this page" into "suggest an edit to this page" for the overwhelming majority of wikipedia editors, was promised for October 2007. The dates have slipped, and now it looks like it will happen in late 2008; I wrote about the impetus behind it thus:
A relatively minor proposal, "non administrator rollback" (NAR), I opposed for similar reasons: new powers to admins to "certify" users as trusted or untrusted. A large amount of discussion, with a significant (30%) fraction opposing NAR for reasons such as mine, occurred in early January.
To my great surprise, and against longstanding wikipedia tradition, the 2:1 in favor was declared a "consensus" by a developer without remark, and the proposal was implemented. "Consensus" is a term of art, but only to a certain extent. No consensus-model group I've worked with, including those in the Quaker and academic traditions, would consider 2:1 in favor a consensus sufficiently obvious as to not require a great deal of further discussion.
My feeling in the past was that increasing centralization of power would generally fail because of the strict ways consensus -- necessary for new policy to be enacted -- has been interpreted. What seems clear at this point is that select administrators and other wikipedia "higher ups" are going to implement new policies as they see fit and without regard for consensus.
In the NAR consensus discussions, I've been particularly surprised by the bullying tone of administrators Ryan Postlethwaite and Until(1 == 2); similar behavior I encountered during arguments over flagged revisions from other administrators such as CBDunkerson, and it's re-enforced my belief that as much value as admins contribute in vandal fighting and dispute resolution, many lack the emotional maturity to handle power in a responsible, and responsive, fashion.
I have contributed a great deal to the encyclopedia, both in the field I hold my doctorate in (physics), and in other fields I've had a hand in over the years. It's plenty of fun. But I can no longer contribute value to a work that I feel has in a fundamental sense abandoned the principles that led me to join in. I will no longer contribute to wikipedia; I encourage others to do the same.
Sdedeo ( tips) 08:10, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Hey people. While I personally disagree with the decision to go ahead and implement the proposal despite a number of people with real objections, and a number of people questioning consensus on this, I don't feel a need to get so upset by it. Remember, Wikipedia is not bureaucracy and Wikipedia does not have firm rules. Any claims that Wikipedia is fundamentally different now, that this is an attempt to bypass consensus, etc., are an over-reaction. I'm sure the people moving forward on this were acting in good faith. I see no no angry mastodons charging at us, and I have no reason to think the world will end tomorrow. Nothing here is etched in stone, and even if it was, stone can be broken. There is no need to go to ArbCom, resign from editing, or jump off a cliff. • Personally, I am going to do a wait-and-see. If someone feels they must take immediate action in protest, check out dispute resolution. Most of the steps there can be applied equally well to policy and procedure as they can to articles. — DragonHawk ( talk| hist) 13:45, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
BTW: found this AFTER writing the above! Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-12-26/In the news, Shir-El too 15:41, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Saying, you can have peace if you shut up, is not helpful.-- Docg 17:55, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
But I do not accept that the community has decided it, so no.-- Docg 17:58, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
By the looks of this - it appear so. Could anyone lead me to where this was decided? Or was it just the devs? Thanks. Tiddly- Tom 19:31, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
rollback' => array( 'user' => array( 5, 60 ), 'newbie' => array( 5, 120 ), ),
I may have completely the wrong end of the stick here - please be gentle if I'm wrong about this.
"Rollback links are displayed on page histories, user contributions pages, and diff pages.". But not in the RSS feed for Special:Recentchanges, even though that does contain the diffs. It seems (please could an admin correct me if I'm wrong?) that admins get such a link, but non-admins with rollback permission don't. This matters, because that is what tools such as Lupin's AVT work from. For non-admins who use RSS-feed-based tools rollback permission seems to give little extra value.
Could non-admin rollback be extended to provide this? I hesitate to ask for this, because while I supported the proposal and believe that many of those who opposed it did so from an incomplete understanding of it, I also agree with those who argue that 2-to-1 is not a consensus. A fortiori, there is not a consensus for widening the power now, even though I believe that such a widening would be in the best interests of the project.
Also, do people feel it would be against the spirit of granting non-admin rollback permission for a developer of an RSS-feed-based tool to use a little Ajax to retrieve the required rollback token and then invoke rollback with it? (No, I'm not sure it would work. But I'm considering experimenting with doing it.) Philip Trueman ( talk) 19:47, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
As for rollback tokens, as far as I can tell, they can be easily constructed using the page name and target username, if you have the edit token. The correct token is md5( $token . namespace-prefixed article title
. username of the one being rolled back
) . EDIT_TOKEN_SUFFIX, and all that information should be available to bot editors. Actually I'm not sure why we bother salting it at all, and don't just use the edit token. —
Simetrical (
talk •
contribs) 20:49, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
I have formally requested arbitration on the matter of consensus.-- Docg 00:53, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
This Wikipedia page has been superseded by Wikipedia talk:Requests for rollback and is retained primarily for historical reference. |
1 |
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
We keep hearing about Twinkle.
As someone who doesn't have such access, would someone like to list the benefits of Twinkle, so that we might be able to compare Twinkle/rollback/undo?
Also, are there any other similar programs in use atm (For example, can AWB duplicate this as well?)
And if someone really wanted to, perhaps create a comparison chart : ) - jc37 10:09, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
The following 3 rollback functions are available on the diff screen of an article, for the current revision only. Following a rollback, a separate browser window is spawned with the rolled-back user's talk page open for editing, so that a notice or warning can be issued:
Note that rollback and rollback vandal are also available from user contribs pages, as links listed next to articles for which this user was the last contributor.
This is the revert function, available in diff screen for all revisions:
At Wikipedia talk:Rollback for non-administrators#Some suggestions, I made a suggestion for a way to avoid edit wars. Several others had suggested limiting how often a non-administrator could use rollback; I suggested looking at it from the point of view of the article: "Limit rollbacks on an article. For example, two in a row, or two in an hour. Limiting rollbacks need not limit ordinary editing (including reverting). Also, make rollback subject to the three-revert rule just as a revert is." Would this be compatible with the present proposal? Fg2 ( talk) 12:17, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
If someone uses rollback inappropriately then let an admin know and it will be dealt with. There is no point in making hard and fast rules about how many uses per hour or article. If there was a persistent vandal who was using proxies to change their IP, then using the rollback many times would be appropriate. We can handle this is simple sense and consensus instead of numerical rules. 1 != 2 17:54, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
It's quite clear from the poll there is no consensus for this. This doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of becoming policy. The best that can be done is a new proposal that addresses the concerns the opposers have raised, if that's possible. — Ashley Y 08:36, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
I've created a new page to discuss the creation of a new proposal. All are invited to brainstorm: Wikipedia:Non-administrator rollback/Creating a new proposal. Equazcion •✗/ C • 15:18, 6 Jan 2008 (UTC)
'Cause I got another one for you. This is very informal, doesn't need to go on very long, and will not decide anything. However I just wanted to get an idea of how many people here think the current poll shows a consensus acceptance of the proposal, and how many feel no consensus is shown. Vote below. Equazcion •✗/ C • 17:14, 6 Jan 2008 (UTC)
No consensus - I don't feel the poll currently shows consensus acceptance of this proposal. Equazcion •✗/ C • 17:14, 6 Jan 2008 (UTC)
No consensus - Even though I voted for Support, I realize that majority does not equal consensus. Dansiman ( talk| Contribs) 20:10, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
No consensus - I don't see consensus at this time because majority does not equal consensus Alex fusco 5 20:19, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
No consensus We ought to keep this poll running until we finally come to a conclusion or compromise or someone from the WMF decides. Marlith T/ C 00:39, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
No consensus Even if some of the !opposes are using faulty reasoning, a lot of people just don't feel good about this proposal. I'm disappointed at the lack of input at the new proposal page, perhaps the banner invitation has only attracted drive-by's rather than a fruitful discussion of ideas. Franamax ( talk) 01:21, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
No consensus There are considerable yea and nay positions on this issue, determining consensus amidst this is problematic at best. Edit Centric ( talk) 01:31, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
The worst part about this is that theres so many Supports and Opposes that I can't even remember if I'm one of them! Ferdia O'Brien (T)/ (C) 03:46, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I refuse to sum my comment up in few words of bold print. From the start, through 380+ responses, comments placed under the "Support" section have outnumbered comments placed under the "Oppose" section by a little over 2 to 1 (or roughly 70% in the "Support" section). Of course, given WP:DEMOCRACY and WP:CON, tallying that gets us precisely nowhere. :) Reading the comments is more informative. People are coming from all over the place. A lot of comments are concerned with abuse. Perhaps that's because when the poll was started, the restriction that rollback was only to be used against obvious vandalism wasn't there. Of course, once that was added, others switched to oppose due to the change. Others complain of the lack of entrance requirements; I note that originally, there were some, but the proposal was changed during the poll. Polling on a moving target; what a mess. But I do see some fairly strong support, overall, for some kind of solution. The poll unfortunately preempted useful discussion of what the solution should be. I note many of the comments use the same rationale, regardless of "Support" or "Oppose": Script tools are available, so (why not give them to everyone|no need to give them to everyone). I'm not sure how to interpret that! — DragonHawk ( talk| hist) 03:59, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Even though I currently oppose the proposal, I would support a trial run. How would others feel about a trial run? -- Ned Scott 00:53, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I am new to Wikipedia and it is fantastic but a rollback? I am wondering if an ability for Non-Admins. to make easy changes is a good idea? I have read the arguements about editing wars and vandals but what about concerns of losing good editors. If it is really easy to "undo" someones work, and this happens on a large enough scale, will this cause editors or someone qualified that can edit, or that does edit, to stop for fear that a lot of work may be wasted? This seems like a logical point to ponder. I understand that editing can be done anyway but not by just pushing a button. It seems to me, on the face, that a rollback would be a fantastic idea when used correctly--BUT-- how many times will it be abused? Will a person editing a page have to keep copies of his(or her) work and a watch on every page he(or she) edits to make sure "rollbacks" have not been performed incorrectly or unjustly? I do not have enough knowledge of the subject but if Editors police pages and change the works of vandals can vandals then, at least until caught, be able to just log on and push a button also? Oh! I am sure that an IP address is recorded but if someone just fooling around has dial up then the IP address changes. If a user name surfaces more than once it can be stopped from being allowed to use the feature but how hard would it be to just create another name? I am just asking what appears to me to be common sense questions so I hope I do not offend anyone by any lack of knowledge I may have on the subject. There are a lot of individuals that have the time to edit pages for correct reasons, and spend a lot of time doing so, but I can imagine there are a lot of individuals with nothing to do with their time but create problems. Will this be an easy tool for them? Otr500 ( talk) 03:41, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
It is common practice in debates to discount brand new users due to the risk of sock puppetry and meat puppetry. Due to the notice above our watchlists we are getting real new users as well. I don't have the time to do it myself, but before considering the results of this poll it may be beneficial to examine the contribution history and account creation dates of those who gave opinions.
If these people are predominantly sincere new users then there should be similar numbers on both sides of the argument, with a bias towards being less experienced with Wikipedia. However if people are using sock/meat puppetry then there may very well be a strong person bias evident in the side the new accounts are taking.
Regardless it is long standing practice to give greater weight to established contributors in debates about how Wikipedia should be ran. 1 != 2 18:05, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
If it will be a major benefit to those who fight vandalism, then why there are no prerequisites? A user should be a long term vandalism fighter, i.e. he should have at least X reverts of vandalism every month/day/week during Y months/days/weeks to apply for the tool. X and Y can be small. Any thoughts? Jhony | Talk 21:54, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
What about the new Wikipedian who wants to do great things for WP but doesn't take the time to learn about policies and templates and usage? I had someone try to speedy delete a Wiktionary redirect because it was too short and they claimed, not notable...its a WP TEMPLATE fer cryin' out loud, its a long as it needs to be...so whats to stop this person from just deleting anything they don't understand/haven't learned about? Errors made with good intentions are still errors that undermine the credibilty we are all working so hard to build.
Will there be a 6 month or 12 month "waiting period" before they can get this tool? Maybe its not such a good idea to have this in the hands of people who aren't quite as accountable as admins so that admins don't have to go behind these people and clean up messes. Let them take the time to learn to use Twinkle or one of the other Vandal Fighters, but giving them rollback would be double plus ungood. Legotech ( talk) 00:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Rollback is an anti-vandalism tool, undoing edits is an editorial tool. I only rollback if there is blatant vandalism, anything else I undo, because I don't want to use my admin priviliges (on wikinews) for anything else than blatant vandalism.
Is there a real need to provide non-administrators with a new but weak and only slightly faster anti-vandalism tool? No.
Dedicated vandal fighters can install tools and request adminship (which shouldn't be such a witchhunt). This proposal is not going to make a big difference, it is prone to abuse, and it goes against all previous logic. -- Steven Fruitsmaak ( Reply) 01:00, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Quite a number of the Oppose votes seem to think that the proposal is going to make vandalism easier. This is a misunderstanding that has been countered numerous times above, but still keeps occuring. I think that someone should keep a count of the number that have given this as the ONLY reason to oppose. This could be quite significant in deciding whether or not there is consensus. Ideally, someone neutral (ie who has not voted) should count but I will do it myself if others think this is worthwile and fair. SpinningSpark 11:44, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
The argument that this tool will increase vandalism seems to ignore the basic way that this is to be implemented. The default for users is no rollback right. It takes an administrator to grant the use of this tool. If an administrator starts, for example, granting rollback on request from new users, with no review, that admin could be called on it. It's unlikely to happen, though possible. Rollback doesn't really help much with *creating* vandalism. The argument that rollback will increase vandalism would also apply to granting rollback to administrators. They are merely a group of editors who have attained, at some point, the trust of the community, and they are trusted to use their tools properly. Sometimes they don't, but we do not therefore conclude that nobody but, say, developers should have the tools. What this proposal does, essentially, is to grant a right to administrators, but one much less hazardous than the rights they already have, the right to *delegate* use of the rather minor rollback tool. Do we trust administrators to use this right wisely? I know I do, and I know that the rare exceptions can be addressed specifically. Administrators are unlikely to grant rollback rights to users who are likely to offend. Mistakes will be made, but the real question is how often they will be made. Don't trust administrators? Conclude that they will commonly err, and vote no for this proposal. But even then -- exactly how does this make vandalism easier without at the same time making it easier to fix? Which would you rather revert, one rollback edit -- any editor can do this -- or two or three individual reverts? -- Abd ( talk) 16:42, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Let me also add some weight against the argument "if it aint broke dont fix it". Well just because something is not broken, does not mean it does not need an upgrade. Hell whats wrong with swords and arrows? Nothing, they were excellent for warfare and for at least a hundred years between 1350 until 1450, arrows were better than guns - upgrades like this are still essential. We don't and should not wait for something to break before changing. Tourskin ( talk) 03:59, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
As Equazcion remarked above, I think at this point, we've gotten as much out of this poll as we're going to. Response rate seems to be falling off, and I haven't seen anything in the way of new and unique ideas for some time. Are there any objections to closing the poll and then moving on with whatever happens next? • I would ask that people please, for the love of Jimbo, save discussion about how to interpret the poll, what should be done next, etc., etc., for another thread/section. :-) — DragonHawk ( talk| hist) 03:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Strong Support per above. (sorry, I couldn't resist). Lets close the <expletive> thing, merge the sub-proposals into this talk, or into the new proposal, and begin to edit the current proposal based on the consensus taken so far. I think that too many editors said "oppose" while citing one little issue, which many agreed should be fixed, when they could have discussed it, changed it, and said "support." I agree with the above, that while there is no consensus for how it should be implemented, there is a rough consensus that it should be implemented, and we should there. It might (or might not) help to focus on each individual aspect of the proposal at a time, reach consensus on that, and move on (or have section specific talk on this page). What I do know is that we are getting nowhere right now, discussion is all over the place, and we need to consolidate and reorganize (I sound like a mergist, not the deletionist I usually am). Also, I think most (if not all) discussion up to this point should be archived.<semi-serious>Oh, and as I see it, this small group of people, who have contributed the most to the discussion, have reached a consensus to get rid of the poll, so can we just get it done with, or shall we take another <expletive> poll on whether or not to do it? I swear, its feels like we are in the <insert inefficient democratic legislative body>.</semi-serious>-- Vox Rationis ( Talk | contribs) 05:59, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Based on discussion here and elsewhere, I decided to go ahead and mark the main straw poll, along with the first two alternative proposals and their pseudo-polls, along with the archived votes, all as "archived/do not modify". Please note that I, and I certainly don't think anyone else, considers this discussion to be closed. But enough with the support/oppose me-too-ism. — DragonHawk ( talk| hist) 06:56, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I had this idea today, when I was thinking about how rollback would be more efficient. Would it be possible to enable rollback for everyone, but not include it in the user interface? Basically, one would still need to use a script, app, whatever to preform the actions (as they would serve as the user interface), just as it is now, but at the very least those actions would be less taxing on the servers. I think this might be a good option if other proposals fail, since it wouldn't change anything, except making what already happens more efficient. Thoughts? Would this even be possible? -- Ned Scott 07:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
if ((((isset($_REQUEST'action'])) and ($_REQUEST'action' == 'rollback')) or (fnmatch('*api.php*',$_SERVER'REQUEST_URI']))) and ($wgDBname == 'enwiki')) $wgGroupPermissions'user']['rollback' = true;
I suggested this at the psuedo-RFC, but only one person has agreed so far (or, as far as I know, noticed). If there is consensus to implement, I think this would be a good idea. It is a compromise, however, and compromises make no one happy :P Gracenotes T § 16:21, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Okay. In same space of about eight days, we've had the main proposal (including its original form, which evolved into the current form, and the accompanying straw poll, which itself includes around 450 total top-level responses (not counting replies) and over 200 kilobytes of text), at least three counter-proposals, and various assorted discussions (on the project page and at this talk page (some now archived)), those also consisting of over 200 kilobytes of text. And before that, we had Wikipedia:Rollback for non-administrators proposal, Wikipedia:Rollback for non-administrators, and Wikipedia:Requests for rollback privileges and their accompanying talk pages, polls, archives, etc.
Now what do we do?
Some suggestions:
I think the ideal thing to do would be to refactor all the proposals, discussion, polls, responses, etc., into something as concise as possible. There's been a massive amount of text put forward on this, and until we know where we've been, I'm not sure we can really know where we should be going. That said, it will probably take a fair bit of effort just to review, summarize, and refine all that, and I don't expect the world to hold still in the mean time.
So, concurrently: I think we should strongly encourage discussion and consensus over simple voting. Avoid polarizing things into "Support" or "Oppose". Make sure any proposal fairly and completely presents all the pros and cons. Make sure objections (and counter-arguments, and counter-counter-...) are noted. Avoid bias in favor of any particular stance. Refactor it mercilessly. The idea is to get the proposal to a concise state that everybody agrees is an accurate presentation of all sides of the issue. In short, write the proposal like a Wikipedia article. The idea is to avoid legions of people posting "Support" or "Oppose" comments solely because they want their opinion to count. If the proposal addresses their opinions directly, they are much less likely to post a simple WP:ILIKEIT or WP:IDONTLIKEIT comment; they'll be content with the presentation "as is".
If consensus on what the "right" proposal is simply cannot be archived, despite long discussion, I'd say the next best thing would be to get consensus on a presentation of the issues (pros and cons), and multiple, stable proposals addressing those issues. If there must be a poll, people can then vote to indicate their support for a given proposal, or rejection of all of them, rather than trying to get their opinion expressed in a sea of almost 500 other opinions.
Comments? Suggestions? Other ideas? Condemnation?
— DragonHawk ( talk| hist) 07:35, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
It seems pretty clear that there is not consensus on this proposal. I think what we need to do is get whoever has the authority to tag this page {{failed}} so that people can go "back to the drawing board" and propose an entirely different solution to what they see as the problem they want to address. Sdedeo ( tips) 15:48, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm surprised you think so especially given the fact that you're an administrator! The AfD rule-of-thumb is that you need excellent reasons to decide consensus on anything weaker than 3:1, for example. I just don't see those reasons here; reasonable people have weighed in on both sides. Sdedeo ( tips) 16:00, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
The way I've seen things "go down" in consensus failures is one of four things:
In this situation it seems like a combination of the first three; it's not prima facie bad. The oppose remarks seemed to center on:
Sdedeo ( tips) 16:27, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
The main argument of Ryan and 1!=2 here is that they simply know what consensus is because they are very advanced users. 1!=2 adds that the opposition is "logically" flawed, although none of the three reasons I suggest as the main sources of opposition are logical in form. Simply because 30% of the community has a wide spectrum of reasons for opposition is not a reason to ignore them on the basis of "fragmentation." Anyway, my guess given the way things have happened in the past is that this won't go through. Peace. Sdedeo ( tips) 17:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I do not know whether it has been noted in the past, but it appears that hardly any vandals take any time or pains to embellish their signatures. Fancy signatures could, therefore, be argued to be a trademark of legitimate editors (perhaps with metapaedic tendencies). Consequently, it makes sense to propose the following: why not give rollback only to those editors with impressive, colourful, or otherwise interesting signatures? We could call it the Signature Criterion. This ought to simplify things a lot.
Not persuaded, are you? Ah, yes, I suppose this suggestion is mostly humourous (seriously, though, the observation I have based it upon is not). Well, I am simply trying to keep the atmosphere here light and friendly. Please don't shoot me. There is a strange gleam in your eyes...
Although the page is over-burdened anyway, I will accept to delete this message if enough editors agree. You can hold a poll for this below if you want to. Waltham, The Duke of 15:55, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi. Sorry, I oppose this entire idea. No further privileges-- no further editing shortcuts. I feel that all the tools which we have right now are fully sufficient. sorry to the good-faith editors who may support this. Frankly, i wish the idea to distribute the capability widely or collectively would just be discontinued from discussion. thanks. -- Steve, Sm8900 ( talk) 16:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
So let us evaluate this discussion. Did this pass or did it not? Considering that the number of supporters is double that of opposers, I beleive that the Wikipedia community is strongly supportive of this propsal. However, I note that the opposers arguements are much more detaild. However I note that they keep on repeating that "This will create a heiarchy of users" (How is this bad, it'll motivate newbies to move up the ranks) "This will cause edit wars" (Edit wars will always exist no matter what, it is like banning rock music and Wikipedia from schools. Editors will always get into disagreements). The supporters are the vandal fighters, they keep repeating about the faster reversion of vandalisim (however, why care if you beat others, it will get reverted anyway). The prevention of edit wars is more of a evaluation of the use of individualisim on Wikipedia. Let me note that collectivisim, is always a bad thing in all situations. Marlith T/ C 19:57, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
What happened to the proposal rewrite to reflect the consensus of the poll? Did we pass over that and move straight to dev review? It was my understanding that the devs are having little part in this discussion, that they have already made the feature, and are just waiting on our decision as to whether or not to implement it. I'll b going through shortly and adding or changing minor things to reflect consensus.-- Vox Rationis ( Talk | contribs) 22:45, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I wonder what the devs are doing now. Marlith T/ C 02:37, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
The watchlist notice is causing some confusion now that the poll is closed. Perhaps the notice should be removed now? Equazcion •✗/ C • 20:24, 8 Jan 2008 (UTC)
The last poll ended with the same percentage and was declared no consensus and the idea was shelved. Why is a similar result being treated differently this time? Wikipedia:Requests for rollback privileges/Poll. Hiding T 22:00, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
There's really no need to quarrel here. There is no consensus at the moment (indeed we've had a stable no-consensus for a while). As long as there is no consensus for a change, the status-quo holds. That may frustrate those who are pushing for a change - but, well, sorry. That's how it is. Take it away, work it though if you want, if you make a better case and find a better method, maybe sometime in the future consensus will change. But for now, you need to accept this result.-- Docg 00:32, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
How do those suggesting that the oppose logic was "flawed" propose we handle one-liner support arguments? For example, "obviously :-)", "Per common sense", "proposal as written". I'm not saying there is anything wrong with those comments, but I do take issue with one side insinuating flawed logic should result in an ignored vote, when many of the support votes don't even quantify the votes. While I don't agree that some of the logic used in opposes were proposed in a good fashion, if we are going to require a certain standard for oppose votes, we must require the same standard for support votes. So should the final decision maker(s) on this one simply ignore every support vote that didn't quantify or qualify their support?
This is exactly why straw polls should be avoided. Either take each vote for face value, or set the rules on how votes are metered from the very beginning of the debate. Many of the votes in support had very valid reasons for supporting this policy. Many of the votes opposing had very valid reasons for opposing this policy.
Wikipedia is not a democracy, and
polling is not a substitute for discussion. Specifically, #4 states "Similarly, if a straw poll is inconclusive, or if there is disagreement about whether the question itself was unfair, the poll and its results should simply be ignored." The results of this poll are at the very least inconclusive.
My last comment will be directed at
User:Ryan Postlethwaite's comment: "How is it that 67% of the community want this proposal, but the less majority (by a considerable ammount) don't want it yet get there way?" That comment stunned me.
WP:CON explains exactly how, and why, it is that 67% of the community wants something but doesn't get it. I've said it once, and I'll say it again,
Wikipedia is not a democracy... and as an admin, I'd expect you to know that.
Justin
chat 23:10, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Does anyone remember the Wikipedia-space page for "more than 100 Wikipedians supporting any one thing"? I think the new standard is more than 200, but this still qualifies! Franamax ( talk) 07:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Could someone go ahead and mark this "rejected" plz? And then we can go ahead with the proper consensus thing, which is to come up with a new proposal that works in the issues raised by the opponents, if that's possible. — Ashley Y 18:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
WP:RFR is up and running. I was a little confused on what happened, but per the answer to my question it seems the developer on this one saw this as a consensus to pass. So I suppose discussing it any further is pointless. Justin chat 01:01, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Who was the developer? Where is his decision explained? What were his criteria? Where did he announce it? To whom is he accountable? Where do I ask for a reconsideration? -- Docg 01:09, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Seems no haste was made to put up the request page, have a bot standing by to assist in it, and even putting up a watchlist notice. Anyone else getting the feeling that they're trying to get as many users as they can to request rollback, so that it can be claimed that turning it off is a disruption? -- Ned Scott 01:55, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Drafting an arbcom request for this now. Who wants to be added as a party? -- Ned Scott 02:23, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
More bullshit, at least two bots have been granted rollback. WTF. KnowledgeOfSelf | talk 02:51, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
I too am disgusted at what has happened. Obviously someone has to make a decision. Someone has to decide if a consensus was agreed or not. But where is the notice? Who, if any users, were formally told? What effort was made to inform users what was going on? And it's one thing to decide there might be in theory a consensus. But entirely another to completely ignore the serious objections of users. Such as, what exactly will be the criteria for granting this faculty? And what efforts will be made to minimise the possible abuse of this faculty? Disappointing.-- Gazzster ( talk) 03:18, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
A more interesting remark is that the software should allow bureaucrats to configure new groups like this. It probably should (within limits), and that would be an improvement. However, for the present time this isn't possible, so you have to involve sysadmins. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 03:51, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
I stand by my original point of view: drama :D -- TheDJ ( talk • contribs) 03:39, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
I would like someone to bring this to RFC or RFA, because this rollback decision against consensus! We are being told to go back to work, but I say let's strike! Say no to non admin rollback! Igor Berger ( talk) 22:29, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
I seem to recall that Werdna was going to implement this, but a wiser head suggested the RfC route.
So why now can someone ignore the discussion and implement?
I agree that this was severely wrong.
I don't know if RfAr is appropriate, but as an additional alternative, a petition to the board might be effective.
I dunno. I guess I'm just at a loss for how amazing it is to see this happen. - jc37 03:10, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
As for someone "'asking'" him to have a look, of course someone did. The procedure to get a configuration change is to get consensus on-wiki, then file a request on Bugzilla to have it implemented, linking to the consensus. A sysadmin then reviews the request and implements it if they feel it's reasonable and the presented consensus is sufficient. The request in this case was T14534. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 03:55, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Do you people really find it that hard to believe he sincerely saw this as a consensus? 1 != 2 03:47, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
First off no need for name calling. Secondly, since when do we need 100% agreement to do anything? We don't agree 100% on a single thing here. A very vocal minority opposing does not mean there is no consensus. 1 != 2 04:09, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
There are two parties, those who want rollback and those who do not. Why do you think that one side should need to have such a substantial handicap against the other? The fact is that more people want rollback for good reasons than people don't want rollback for good reasons. Much more, twice as many. Why should the opinion of the few decide that the opinion of the many should not be acted on?
Numbers is not all that needs to be considered in consensus, but you can take into account the substance of the arguments and get the same answer. Disregarding public opinion altogether is a mistake equal to only taking public opinion into account. 1 != 2 04:25, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
I have been a strong opponent of proposals on wikipedia that serve to concentrate power, create "classes" of users, and put more decisions in the hands of administrators that contribute very little to the actual work of creating an encyclopedia.
For example, I am a strong opponent of a new proposal, "flagged revisions". You can read about my opinions on this subject at my blog, rhubarb is susan Flagged revisions, which turns "edit this page" into "suggest an edit to this page" for the overwhelming majority of wikipedia editors, was promised for October 2007. The dates have slipped, and now it looks like it will happen in late 2008; I wrote about the impetus behind it thus:
A relatively minor proposal, "non administrator rollback" (NAR), I opposed for similar reasons: new powers to admins to "certify" users as trusted or untrusted. A large amount of discussion, with a significant (30%) fraction opposing NAR for reasons such as mine, occurred in early January.
To my great surprise, and against longstanding wikipedia tradition, the 2:1 in favor was declared a "consensus" by a developer without remark, and the proposal was implemented. "Consensus" is a term of art, but only to a certain extent. No consensus-model group I've worked with, including those in the Quaker and academic traditions, would consider 2:1 in favor a consensus sufficiently obvious as to not require a great deal of further discussion.
My feeling in the past was that increasing centralization of power would generally fail because of the strict ways consensus -- necessary for new policy to be enacted -- has been interpreted. What seems clear at this point is that select administrators and other wikipedia "higher ups" are going to implement new policies as they see fit and without regard for consensus.
In the NAR consensus discussions, I've been particularly surprised by the bullying tone of administrators Ryan Postlethwaite and Until(1 == 2); similar behavior I encountered during arguments over flagged revisions from other administrators such as CBDunkerson, and it's re-enforced my belief that as much value as admins contribute in vandal fighting and dispute resolution, many lack the emotional maturity to handle power in a responsible, and responsive, fashion.
I have contributed a great deal to the encyclopedia, both in the field I hold my doctorate in (physics), and in other fields I've had a hand in over the years. It's plenty of fun. But I can no longer contribute value to a work that I feel has in a fundamental sense abandoned the principles that led me to join in. I will no longer contribute to wikipedia; I encourage others to do the same.
Sdedeo ( tips) 08:10, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Hey people. While I personally disagree with the decision to go ahead and implement the proposal despite a number of people with real objections, and a number of people questioning consensus on this, I don't feel a need to get so upset by it. Remember, Wikipedia is not bureaucracy and Wikipedia does not have firm rules. Any claims that Wikipedia is fundamentally different now, that this is an attempt to bypass consensus, etc., are an over-reaction. I'm sure the people moving forward on this were acting in good faith. I see no no angry mastodons charging at us, and I have no reason to think the world will end tomorrow. Nothing here is etched in stone, and even if it was, stone can be broken. There is no need to go to ArbCom, resign from editing, or jump off a cliff. • Personally, I am going to do a wait-and-see. If someone feels they must take immediate action in protest, check out dispute resolution. Most of the steps there can be applied equally well to policy and procedure as they can to articles. — DragonHawk ( talk| hist) 13:45, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
BTW: found this AFTER writing the above! Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-12-26/In the news, Shir-El too 15:41, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Saying, you can have peace if you shut up, is not helpful.-- Docg 17:55, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
But I do not accept that the community has decided it, so no.-- Docg 17:58, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
By the looks of this - it appear so. Could anyone lead me to where this was decided? Or was it just the devs? Thanks. Tiddly- Tom 19:31, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
rollback' => array( 'user' => array( 5, 60 ), 'newbie' => array( 5, 120 ), ),
I may have completely the wrong end of the stick here - please be gentle if I'm wrong about this.
"Rollback links are displayed on page histories, user contributions pages, and diff pages.". But not in the RSS feed for Special:Recentchanges, even though that does contain the diffs. It seems (please could an admin correct me if I'm wrong?) that admins get such a link, but non-admins with rollback permission don't. This matters, because that is what tools such as Lupin's AVT work from. For non-admins who use RSS-feed-based tools rollback permission seems to give little extra value.
Could non-admin rollback be extended to provide this? I hesitate to ask for this, because while I supported the proposal and believe that many of those who opposed it did so from an incomplete understanding of it, I also agree with those who argue that 2-to-1 is not a consensus. A fortiori, there is not a consensus for widening the power now, even though I believe that such a widening would be in the best interests of the project.
Also, do people feel it would be against the spirit of granting non-admin rollback permission for a developer of an RSS-feed-based tool to use a little Ajax to retrieve the required rollback token and then invoke rollback with it? (No, I'm not sure it would work. But I'm considering experimenting with doing it.) Philip Trueman ( talk) 19:47, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
As for rollback tokens, as far as I can tell, they can be easily constructed using the page name and target username, if you have the edit token. The correct token is md5( $token . namespace-prefixed article title
. username of the one being rolled back
) . EDIT_TOKEN_SUFFIX, and all that information should be available to bot editors. Actually I'm not sure why we bother salting it at all, and don't just use the edit token. —
Simetrical (
talk •
contribs) 20:49, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
I have formally requested arbitration on the matter of consensus.-- Docg 00:53, 11 January 2008 (UTC)