This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
"Can edit; a new edit is visible immediately if the previous version is already confirmed; otherwise not visible to readers by default until confirmed by a 'reviewer'" What does 'if the previous version is already confirmed' mean?
Also, I think that autoconfirmed users should maintain their right to edit semiprotected pages immediately. Quinxorin ( talk) 05:15, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Something that is not clear to me is how the revision process will work if subsequent pending changes conflict with eachother. An example:
Questions/observations:
-crossposted at Help_talk:Pending_changes 69.142.154.10 ( talk) 09:09, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
In light of rollout of the pending changes tool in 3 days now (June 14), I'm updating WP:RFPP and WP:PP to note some basics that will be needed by then. Otherwise it'll probably be a horrible mess of chaos on the day.
Usage and requests have no good (non- BURO) reason to be in a different place from semi-protection. The reviewing aspect is different but the scope, usage and requests (ie WP:RFPP aspects) are likely to be nearly identical to semi-protection and can usefully go on the same page.
Keeps it simple to have all forms of page protection and their requests in one place, even if they are in fact 2 tools for that purpose.
FT2 ( Talk | email) 08:20, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm not finding an answer to this in obvious places, so will stick it here, and send a link to RobLa to comment. It's likely that there will be a fair number of edits that are not accepted for various reasons. What happens to them? Do they remain in the article's history? Do they remain in the user's contribs? Are they specially marked in the article history/user's contribs so they can be identified as never having gone "live" for public view? I ask for a couple of reasons; first off, if they disappear into the ether, then it will be difficult to track problematic editors (or checkuser them, for that matter). Secondly, if they remain in the history, certain edits will remain eligible for revision deletion and/or suppression, and we need admins and reviewers to be aware of this, and to arrange for one or the other where appropriate. Risker ( talk) 21:15, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
When will the reviewer right be granted? It is listed in Special:ListGroupRights and there is a backlog on Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Reviewer. — Mike moral ♪♫ 23:07, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
We probably need a page where reviewers can report edits they're unsure about, or where specific issues with reviewing can be discussed, we could start doing this on the talk page Wikipedia talk:Pending changes/Queue, and if needed create a page such as Wikipedia:Pending changes/Noticeboard. Cenarium ( talk) 04:05, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
In the current version of the page there seems to be some confusion over who can accept edits by non-autoconfirmed editors. The lead says that (any) auto confirmed editor can. The table in the "Description" section says that only reviewers can.
(There is another sentence on this in the "Description" section and I notice that Delldot recently changed this to say reviewer, rather than unconfirmed.)
The idea that (any) autoconfirmed editor can confirm edits (presumably limited to pending changes level 1) was added to the lead on the 5th of June.
My first reaction is to think that this recent change must be based on a misunderstanding... but it actually seems to make sense. After all, on a level 1 page, an auto confirmed editor could make the changes directly should he/she want to.
Yaris678 ( talk) 16:35, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
I have created WP:PCQ as a redirect to Wikipedia:Pending changes/Queue, to save having to type the full title -- PhantomSteve/ talk| contribs\ 18:14, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
Are there any plans to have an IRC channel to discuss the pending changes (something like #wikipedia-en-pending connect? Bug reports, help for new reviewers, etc? Or will people be directed to #wikipedia-en-help connect? -- PhantomSteve/ talk| contribs\ 18:14, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
I've registered #wikipedia-en-pending connect (after discussion on IRC) to prevent takeover by a malicious user, myself and Phantomsteve are ops for the moment. Quite happy to give op status to any other established editor who would like to help out with the channel (there will probably be a fair bit of people coming in). If nobody disagrees here then I'm going to add the channel to the policy page and the header about pending changes, so users can come into the channel for help and #wikipedia-en-help connect doesn't get flooded with requests. - EdoDodo talk 18:30, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
A few things:
(FYI, I won't be around for the scheduled time of implementation.) Cenarium ( talk) 18:22, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
I have asked this on several occasions but I have not gotten an answer despite the extreme importance of the question. We all know that the real purpose of flagged revisions is to shield the Wikimedia Foundation from libel lawsuits on BLP articles. Two points. It is absolutely unclear to me that such a libel case would ever be successful against the Wikimedia Foundation for hosting the encyclopedia. That would be tantamount to blaming the owners of a building for somebody writing graffiti on it. What does seem clear to me is that a good lawyer could argue that those who have flagged revisions as acceptable have become liable for those edits. In other words, flagged revisions now place legal burden on editors that were not there before. Editors are now responsible for libel which might not even be obvious to the casual reader. This change, besides being unnecessary in my opinion, is fundamentally flawed. It creates a legal issue out of thin air and endangers the participants of the project. Jason Quinn ( talk) 18:25, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
I see no reason for this page to be policy. It's just the way the software works - that's not policy. Rich Farmbrough, 19:32, 15 June 2010 (UTC).
Maybe this: [code redacted]
— fetch · comms 23:17, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
It would be nice if along the way a simple guide can be provided for the administrators who don't delve into this area. I suspect that we will be getting a bunch of requests as this feature is ramped up. Having a short 'checklist' would help. Are we also going to replace 'forum shopping' with 'admin shopping' when one admin rejects a request and the user tries a second or a third? Will there be a way to see if a user has already been rejected? Vegaswikian ( talk) 23:27, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, this has no doubt been raised before, but something that immediately jumps out looking at this new arrangement is that, despite the hype that it's supposed to be increasing accessibility, auto-confirmed users are actually losing the ability to edit pages with immediate effect (if there are outstanding unreviewed edits on those pages). Is this intentional? Is there a way round it?-- Kotniski ( talk) 08:36, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm not particularly fond of the "accepted by" language [1], what about simply "sighted by" ? – xeno talk 13:56, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
Several interesting questions about the "pending changes" system have come up at Wikipedia talk:Reviewing, and they would benefit from wider participation. They include:
I hope we can keep the discussion centralized at WT:Reviewing. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 15:47, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
Here is a situation that came up not long ago on the World War I article:
What should be the next step to take as a reviewer?
Should reviewers take steps and prevent such edit wars on PC-protected pages from occurring or getting out of control, or should they take a more passive "see no evil, hear no evil" approach to situations like this and enforce edit warring sanctions as before when they occur? Discussion is strongly encouraged here. – MuZemike 17:43, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
Just to clear this up, since I'm still a little confused - any edit made by an autoconfirmed user (like me, for example) would automatically be visible to all, right? This page states such edits will be "automatically approved" - but I'm not sure if that means the edit is visible immediately, or that the reviewer has to approve it regardless of any other factor. All Hallow's Wraith ( talk) 19:10, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
The problem with marking edits by autoconfirmed users AFTER a non-autoconfirmed edit that hasn't been checked is that the autoconfirmed user could not see the vandalism by the anonymous user, and then it would stay in the verified version of the article for readers to see. - EdoDodo talk 05:33, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
Hello. Please have a look at this issue discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Vector & Pending Changes. Yours, Dodoïste ( talk) 11:59, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
I, and it appears a large number of other editors, have been granter reviewer rights whether we deserve them or not. It is clear that this is in the design a two-tiered system of registered users, putting further power distance between IP users and the 'authorised' (read 'those with reviewer status'). Of course, for flagged revision to work, there would need to be a large number of ordinary editors reviewing, otherwise the system will grind to a halt. However, this business is now giving me the creeps because it smacks of removal by the back door of the long-standing principle of equality of access for all; the controls on such accessibility confer additional powers to admins (who I believe, for the record, are quite powerful enough) is diametrically opposite to what I understand WP is supposed to stand for. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 16:30, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
The documentation here and at Wikipedia:Reviewing isn't very clear about who sees the last approved version of the article and who sees the "draft" version with unapproved changes. This page says that unapproved changes will not be seen by "users who are not editors (unless they wish)." What is a user who is not an editor? Anyone can edit. How does the software define a "user who is not an editor"? If a "user who is not an editor" is the same as an IP user, this should be stated explicitly. Or does it include non-autoconfirmed editors or some other group of users? Users with accounts who have never edited a page? Whatever the definition of "user who is not an editor" is, it should be explained clearly.-- Srleffler ( talk) 20:12, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
So far, the approach has been to apply pending changes to articles that are known vandalism targets. There's nothing wrong with this approach, but I'd like to suggest another approach for consideration should pending changes be brought in following the conclusion of the trial.
This approach would be the ability to apply pending changes to IP ranges, and individual editors (I've no idea if this would be technically possible, but that's for the developers to consider). The way it would work would be that applying the restriction to an IP or editor (at either level, as appropriate depending on the scale of the problem) would not prevent editing, but mean that the edit would have to be approved before it went "live", in a similar way to how pending changes is working already. Such protection could be used to monitor edits from IP ranges where there is a known problem, and in the monitoring of individual editors whose edits may be problematic in some areas, but not made as intentionally vandalistic - in effect allowing some overseeing and guidance as an alternative to a block. Mjroots ( talk) 16:36, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
If an edit is pending and it is something like a worse expression in English am I supposed to accept it? As in..not vandalistic, accepted.. and then go back and edit, revert, addition was bad English? Off2riorob ( talk) 21:32, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, that is how I see it also, there is no reason to accept an edit that is detrimental to the article. Edit just like you would as you say. This is interesting (meaning for pov edits, you could either accept or not accept, depending on your interest in facilitating that debate) accepting a POV edit that you agree with is not going to occur very often (hopefully) regards . 21:56, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
I reverted vandalism using Twinkle on the World War I article (see the history, but my change was not automatically accepted (I am a reviewer). This doesn't seem to match what the table is saying. The same thing happened to User:RashersTierney who is also a reviewer, but the revision he reverted was actually already accepted. Why are we having to review the edits of a reviewer? -- Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 14:50, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
Colleagues, forgive me if it's set out somewhere and I've missed it: trials normally require at least some benchmarks by which their success or failure is to be measured. Yet I see none. If there's to be community comment during the trial, and especially at the end, subjective opinions will be important, but I am surprised that there are no solid expectations or criteria that we might consider, too. I was prompted to write this after seeing this post. Tony (talk) 08:50, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
Just based on my experience with this after a brief while, something is starting to become apparent to me. I'm seeing a lot more need to revert vandalism on previously semi-ed pages (example: 4chan), which can easily make one conclude that semi-protection was better. But I have a feeling that this perception may be an artifact of testing the process on pages that had been semi-ed. It might well be a big improvement on pages that had some vandalism but were previously not protected at all. I point this out because the current structure of the trial may be masking this fact, by making it look like the process is worse than semi. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 21:28, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm hoping someone can explain what the rationale of pending changes is, because I can only hope I've misunderstood it. As things stand, it appears we're adding level-one pending-changes protection to articles that would normally be semi-protected; indeed we're removing the semi-protection. Adding level-one PC protection means that any of our tens of thousands of autoconfirmed accounts will still see the BLP and other vandalism. So articles may still contain nonsense or libel, and this will be visible to tens of thousands of readers. Adding level-two PC protection instead reduces the numbers a little, but thousands of readers who are reviewers will still see the problematic material.
Can someone explain the point of this? SlimVirgin talk| contribs 05:55, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
If an article is moved from long term semi protection and there is over a period of time (a few days a week), say 50 or 60 vandalistic type edits from unconfirmed accounts all of which had to be reverted by a reviewer then I would myself take the article back for return to semi protection, all the reviewing work is only worthwhile if there is actually a percentage of beneficial additions from uncomfirmed users. Some articles will not benefit at all from pending and it should not be considered as a replacement for semi protection but another tool that may be helpful in some situations. Really for it to be used you need a decent percentage of beneficial contributions from uncomfirmed users, if that is not happening then return the article to semi and the occasional constructive contribution from an uncomfirmed user will as they do now find their way to the talkpage to request the edit be made. Off2riorob ( talk) 09:01, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
In a few of the articles under pending changes that I have watchlisted (for the sole reason of this trial), I note that vandalism by non-autoconfirmed users is rather far and few inbetween; examples of articles with little unconstructive edits over the past week include the following:
This is very valuable information that can be used to gauge whether or not articles can be completely unprotected – something that we would not have without pending changes. That is, with our current practice of unprotecting articles (without factoring in pending changes), it's similar to "rolling the dice" and seeing whether or not vandalism picks up again and hoping for the best. This gives us a good system in evaluating many of our longtime-protected articles and seeing if protection is still necessarily. – MuZemike 16:15, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
Since we're discussing the merits of WP:PC here I wanted to bring up something else that concerned and confused me. Why is it that when I went to check a pending revision at Avatar (2009 film) and I clicked on "rollback (vandal)" ( diff here), the system required my reversion edit to be reviewed? I am a reviewer, so why is it that I needed to go back and accept my own rollback of the IP's vandalism?. — CIS ( talk | stalk) 21:58, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
I rollbacked vandalism, then rollbacked my change by mistake and now it wants me to review my rollback and the unaccept bottom won't display. What do I do? Truthkeeper88 ( talk) 00:20, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
This is totally against what I thought was the Wikipedia Ideal. It also appears as a "sneak in" in it's timing... It appears to me as blatant CENSORSHIP. It is time for the rival to be started: EUROPEDIA based in the EUROPEAN UNION (ie. Brussels) There is some weird neo-con evil force taking over Wikipedia.... I also really resent the recent changes in appearance etc. Why do things self destruct? It is all very dis-heartning. But as soon as Europedia starts or this doesn't stop I will be ouuta here! Also the "accepted version box" on top of the Aristotle article is like a fist in the face in an undisclosed location..... The Encyclopedia of the World should be out of the Hegemonic power of the world. And we all know that that power is no longer the United States of America. It is in the European Union. You can check that in the CIA World Factbook...-- Oracleofottawa ( talk) 01:24, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Think of the Founding Fathers as they wrote The Declaration of Independence all those years ago and in the top right corner their was a box that contained the words: Latest Accepted Version... -- Oracleofottawa ( talk) 01:58, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
I realize that I may be in the minority her, but I am so sick and tired of rolling back vandalism caused by IP editors. Since long term article protection is so difficult to get, this will help. Every time I have tried it end up being for a week at most, but the vandalism starts up right after expiration. I think this is great. It will prevent vandalism from ever getting threw, while still allowing the majority of good editors to make good edit. This stops the problem before it is a problem. However, I do realize it is a change, so there will be headaches for a time, but I think in the end it will be a good things.-- ARTEST4ECHO talk 01:43, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
How come this IP edit [2] was automatically accepted? DrKiernan ( talk) 07:14, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Sorry if this has already been brought up and it probably doesn't really matter that much, but there is a "feature" where if the username or IP has been suppressed, you can unaccept the revision, but you cannot accept it without unhiding the username. -- B ( talk) 19:43, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Should some bots that deal with vandalism be given review rights? At the time of this comment, the Big Bang page had vandalism that was reverted by ClueBot (at 23:22 GMT June 23, 2010). The edit was still pending for review. If bots are given reviewing rights, they would be able to make the job of the reviewers easier. It might have to be given out selectively based on the bot's task, but for bot like ClueBot that are just reverting edits, they could automatically mark the edits as reviewed. I do think that if there are other edits pending, should be made to not mark as reviewed. Rabbitfang ( talk) 23:50, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to see if I'm just laughed at on this one: we generally don't semiprotect talk pages, but I've strongly considered it on some (like Talk:Lil Wayne) because of the tendency for anons to use them as discussion forums. Would putting them under pending changes control fall under the trial, or is it just too wild of a thing to test?— Kww( talk) 00:11, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
I have a question about this. If pending changes is a success after the trial and is kept, will semi-protection and full-protection be deleted from Wikipedia? I am asking this because some pages need protection. The main page, for example, really needs full-protection; we can't have risks of anyone vandalizing it, and it is very possible for a reviewer to vandalize it, as a reviewer is not necessarily a veteran on Wikipedia and can suddenly start vandalizing right when they get reviewer status so that their edits will immediately be visible I know this is highly unlikely to happen to pages, but still, it can happen very easily, so I would like to know if semi-protection and full-protection will go down the drain or not. I know this seems like a weird question, but I am concerned about what will happen if semi-protection and full-protection do go down the drain. -- Ha dg er 00:54, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Is there a way to request articles be PC enabled? Or will that have to wait until the testing period is over? Glenn Danzig is a pretty high-profile BLP that could really benefit from PC1. <>Multi‑Xfer<> ( talk) 05:15, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
No one wants this. 152.31.193.40 ( talk) 18:26, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
No, I don't believe it's selection bias causing slowness. Articles that I used to edit regularly with no problem are now excruciatingly slow to load when reviewing a change. It's gotten to the point where I am now ignoring "pending changes". I'm donating valuable time to this project, and I don't need it wasted. If I see a pending change, I move on to other things. I daresay others may feel the same way, and the last thing we want is for a new "feature" to chase off constructive editors.
Also, have a look at Talk:Avatar (2009 film)#"Pending changes". This new PC thing has resulted in the destabilization of a pretty good article, with reviewers allowing in vandal edits. ~ Amatulić ( talk) 20:51, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
Just compared current rendering times with old ones. Reference taken from WT:Citing sources/Archive 27#Making pages faster to load, I used this revision and this PCP copy. Ten tries, render times in seconds:
Late 2009 | 26 | 23 | 16 | 16 | 22 | 16 | 28 | 28 | 16 | 16 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
June 2010, unprotected | 25 | 17 | 26 | 25 | 26 | 17 | 18 | 25 | 17 | 17 |
June 2010, pending | 17 | 26 | 25 | 17 | 17 | 17 | 17 | 17 | 26 | 29 |
Based on that limited test the render times appear practically unchanged, in both protection scenarios. The two classes of rendering times depend, I assume, on two classes of server setups that render the page. Amalthea 21:46, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
Makes no difference whether the diff I look at is accepted, not accepted, or not PC-protected at all.
Diff, PCP, unaccepted: | 17 | 17 | 17 | 17 | 17 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Diff, PCP, accepted: | 25 | 17 | 17 | 17 | 17 |
Diff, no PCP: | 17 | 26 | 17 | 17 | 17 |
That's a bit weird though, actually. When I look at a diff to the current revision, it shouldn't have to render anything since the latest revision is almost always cached somewhere. Was that always that way? The whole perceived slowness may be a general regression. Amalthea 10:05, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
This accentuates the elitist, panel-based editing practices of Wikipedia. I don't like it. 80.225.185.63 ( talk) 03:45, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Not sure this is the correct place to ask this question, but with regard pending changes, if you review an edit and it is not accepted is it counted as a revert, in regard to 1RR articles would it be counted as a breach if you made another revert? Mo ainm ~Talk 16:10, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
pages to avert any claims of not knowing. Mo ainm ~Talk 07:56, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Ok, let me admit right here and now that I stopped paying attention to the debate on this a long time ago as it seemed it would drag on forever. I had the impression that this was going to be trial run on BLP articles, but it seems it is being used elsewhere now as well. Did I miss something or was the scope expanded to cover other articles? Beeblebrox ( talk) 21:44, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Is there a specific place to vote on passing this new policy yet? A p3rson ‽ 02:58, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
I know that there will be a poll after, but what about during the trial, to see if anyone even wants it? A p3rson ‽ 02:44, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Unless there's a link I haven't been shown, pending changes essentially get dealt with as they show up on the recent changes page. Now granted, that's not a huge problem now, but sometimes edits can go through the list pretty quickly, and it would be convenient to just be able to look over all the pending changes there are instead of only concentrating on a page at a time. Half Shadow 19:50, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to request that we stop adding high-profile vandalism targets to the queue, such as Adolf Hitler, Enimem, and John Lennon. Invariably the vandalism continues and dealing with it creates extra work, which seems pointless. Would the PC test not make more sense on articles where the effect was harder to predict? SlimVirgin talk| contribs 19:09, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm trying to copy-edit the page but find I can't understand parts of it. Does anyone know what the following means (confusing parts in bold)?
1. Logged-in users, and anonymous users who click the "edit this page" or "pending changes" tabs, will see the latest changes as usual. Any pending changes on such pages are visible to all users via an additional tab.
2. Any pending changes on such pages are openly visible to all users via an additional tab, and the presence of new edits in the queue is explicitly clear to help reviewers.
SlimVirgin talk| contribs 14:17, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
I propose we add that "Attempts to downgrade from semi-protection to pending changes protection on articles where it is probable to result in considerable vandalism should be spaced on the duration of the trial.". Because too many at the same time can add too much burden on recent changes patrollers, reviewers and editors, as it did to some extent since the beginning of this trial. On the other hand, several articles where one could expect substantial vandalism have received little or not at all. So it shouldn't be abandoned completely, but spaced in time. Cenarium ( talk) 23:09, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Depending on the cases, it can be more appropriate to use (1) PCP indef or temp, (2) SP indef or temp, or (3) PCP temp or indef and SP for a short time. (1) best for articles meeting the requirements for protection but with constructive edits by unconfirmed users and no massive vandalism (2) best for articles (recently) subject to massive vandalism with no constructive edits (3) best for articles with (recently) massive vandalism but also constructive edits by unconfirmed users. To explain the later, in such cases PCP may not be able to 'break the vandalism cycle' so a short use of SP would be needed, but the article may still be 'vulnerable' for some time, so PCP could be applied for a while, or indef if persistent. Cenarium ( talk) 02:47, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Anything marked "pending changes" "automatically accepted," or "accepted by" seems to be incredibly slow to load, and when you click on the latter two you are taken (very slowly) to the current revision of the article. The rollback feature doesn't seem to work on things marked "pending changes," yet the "unaccept" option (which is a very peculiar word; what does it mean?) isn't selectable.
Also, I don't really get the point. As the current discussion over the protection level on Eminem shows, this isn't actually preventing vandalism at all. As I understand it, the idea is that casual users won't see the vandalism, only registered users. But Wikipedia currently has 47,333,951 named accounts, and all of those users can potentially see any vandalism/libel/deliberate errors. So pending changes is simultaneously downgrading the protection level, increasing the amount of work required to deal with vandalism, and increasing the amount of vandalism that will be seen on a given article. What is the point of preventing "vandalism or inappropriate changes from ever being displayed publicly outside the editorial community" when the "editorial community" is so vast? This really would only be a sensible idea if the number of editors was very small -- in the hundreds, perhaps.
In fact, it seems that the only type of user this is helpful for at all is a user who is editing while not logged in. Such an editor who wished to make a useful edit would previously have had to request changes on the talk page of a protected article, where the changes might have actually had to be discussed, while an anonymous vandal would have been prevented from vandalising the article. But under this system, vandalism isn't prevented at all: any vandal who isn't logged in can simply edit the article, and their edits will still be seen by potentially millions of users, while the task of preventing their vandalism is now passed on to admins and the new "reviewers." Really. What is the point? Exploding Boy ( talk) 19:31, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Rollback can be used on articles with PC, to revert the latest editor as usual (and it automatically accepts the new revision if the revision to which it was reverted was accepted, at least native rollback, Twinkle rollback has issues). There are many registered accounts, but probably only a small minority used to read articles and not to edit. I don't expect that even vandalism on high profile articles would be seen by more than a hundred of logged-in users. And the editing community is relatively accustomed to vandalism happening on articles. So I don't see an issue in displaying by default the latest revision to logged-in users, setting which can be overridden.
While statistically there are more vandalism by unregistered users than by registered ones, it does not imply that unregistered users are more likely to vandalize than registered users, at least not to a proportional level. There's research work been done by the
usability team which shows that many people are not fully aware that they can edit articles in a (relatively) straightforward manner. And since we made
MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext more accessible to users, there has been many more edit requests; so there are definitely people out there trying to edit, most in good faith. And I've seen many good edits which would otherwise not have been made.
If the level of vandalism is too high, articles can be put back under semi. Citing my reply at AN: "Let's say PC adds a more flexible level of protection, which can be used in cases where SP is justified in terms of policy, but where using SP would be unnecessarily restrictive. There are several needs to balance: to allow constructive editing, to protect the encyclopedia from harm, to avoid wasting resources unnecessarily, etc; they should be considered on a case by case basis.".
Cenarium (
talk) 03:14, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
This seems entirely too complicated. It will make Wikipedia harder to explain to new users. (I'm not all that new, and it's hard for me to figure out how this would work.) Since it's so easy to register, why not simply "semi-protect" all articles, and let anonymous IP users suggest changes on the talk pages (or maybe a "suggested changes" page connected to the article)? An anonymous user who doesn't get a response to a suggestion could simply register and do it oneself. Ruckabumpkus ( talk) 00:09, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Why bother? To decrease the easy access of the ever present vandals that denigrate WP's reputation as a "reliable source." After a long running and ongoing battle with a banned editor who using a cell phone, changes ISPs as often as diapers, she has overtly demonstrated that some restrictions need to be placed. After a community ban and much discussion, the banned editor's response is a blatant "Catch me if you can, and you can't!" DocOfSoc ( talk) 22:02, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Regular editors frequently forget the following:
:"Our goal here is to produce the best encyclopedia we can". The problem with that statement is that while it may be the best known editable encyclopedia online, it is not now, nor will it ever be, the best online encyclopedia. As long as anyone can edit and it is a continually evolving entity, Wikipedia will never be a true encyclopedia that is used as a reliable source and reference. If college and university (or even public school) students are not allowed to use Wikipedia as a reference for school work, it's not a real encyclopedia.
Further, as long as the cliques, clubs, rogue editors, and those with a certain stamp of approval are allowed to go unchecked as they bully and intimidate new and experienced editors alike, Wikipedia will remain the joke it truly is among the educated (and those seeking to be truly educated). And let's not forget the behind the scenes politics where deals are made as to who can stay, who is expendable, and who gets blocked or banned (if you think there are no such agreements, you're wrong). Wikipedia has become a social networking site that only looks on the surface like an encyclopedia. In reality, it's become no different than Usenet, Facebook, or MySpace (with the exception that Wikipedia appeals to shut-ins, geeks, nerds, and obsessive, neurotic control freaks). Set alongside the social messaging and networking sites, Wikipedia is the same brand - it just has different packaging.
I agree with the IP editor above: shut down the possibility for IP editors to edit, and donations will likely suffer. 97.50.112.120 ( talk) 19:25, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
This was implemented on Burger King and withing an hour the IP vandalism started. What good is this? -- Jeremy ( blah blah • I did it!) 18:35, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
Is there anywhere where I can get a list of articles that currently have pending changes. I'm not talking about a list of articles that are using the feature, I want a list of articles that currently need reviewing. Why? Because I want to experience reviewing before making up my mind about the trial. And I haven't done not one review edit, because every time I go to an article that uses the feature, the edits have already been accepted by others. Feed back (talk) 09:05, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Not only is it just as easy, but only people with real/good edits are going to post on the talk page. Vandals aren't going to waste their time with that. And people who take their time referencing the material they put in the articles probably have no problem with the extra time they use posting on the talk page. Feed back (talk) 18:38, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure but would having an article semi-protected with pending changes be appropriate? It would seem to allow all the autoconfirmed users to edit but only the reviewers to approve, which seems like a more restrictive version of semi-protection and just bizarre. I'm asking because that's what LeBron James is now under and frankly, I want to make sure before I get into any more with that admin. -- Ricky81682 ( talk) 08:43, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
I think that my title says it all. People who don't know the intricacies of this won't know what is going on. Also, you are removing the all-important element of user interface design (feedback...see what you did, see what has been done). And the benefit is small. Basically reduction of (vs. fast correction of) vandalism. North8000 ( talk) 13:08, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm looking at the table in Wikipedia:Pending_changes#Description. There's 4 columns (which really describe 5 kinds of editors) and 5 different levels of protection. That's 25 possible combinations. Nobody can keep all that straight in their head. Well, maybe some people can, but I can't.
As an admin, I don't see how I'm going to effectively administer this scheme. Right now, when I see an article that's getting vandalized a lot, I've got to pick which of two levels of protection I want (semi or full) and the duration. I pretty much just always use semi-protection, and take a WAG at the time, so that's pretty simple. Now I've got to pick which of FOUR levels I want? I just don't see any rational way I'm going to be able to evaluate the level of damage, compare it to the multitude of possible protection levels, and come up with the right solution. The more choices you give somebody, the greater the chance that they'll pick the wrong choice.
I appreciate the effort that went into designing this, but I think it's got to go back to the drawing board to come up with something simpler. Even if the level 1 / level 2 stuff gets merged, I still think this is going to be too complicated. What/s the elevator pitch here? -- RoySmith (talk) 13:33, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Well I'm just glad VECTOR isn't mandatory and I can go back to Monobook because the lack of compatibility with all the scripts I have is very frustrating. And I hope this Flagged Revisions thing doesn't pass. This is something that can damage the whole aspect of "Anyone can edit". Feed back (talk) 23:47, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Does reviewing an article count as the reviewer's edit or as the the guy who actually wrote it? Feed back (talk) 23:47, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Its not about the edit count, its about wasting valuable time. You say spending 2 hours improving the encyclopedia and 1 hour editing like if its a good thing, but its not. Reviewing is not "making a difference" or "improving the encyclopedia". Its just a new needless obstacle that prevents a lot of users from editing the encyclopedia. In no way is this a "contribution", its just a waste of time. Feed back (talk) 22:12, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
I can't imagine even at this stage of the trial that WP:PEND will be anything but an unqualified success and ultimately will be expanded well beyond the limited test group of articles. The reason is quite simply that it's a sensible solution to a common issue on the wiki--that of admins' choices being limited to just semi-pp when anon vandals, disrupters and POV pushers are in the mix, thereby denying the good-faith IP user the opportunity to contribute productively without necessarily becoming part of the community.
..... Seems to me the occasional need for admins to revoke reviewer rights will likely be vastly less common than the current (or at least previous) demand for admins to answer requests to implement edits for protected pages. Levels 1 and 2, as has been noted by others already, greatly expand the capability for productive editing by anon IPs in semi-pp situations, in part because the anon is more likely to submit an edit on a semi-protected page--the offer to edit the page is already there in front and the IP doesn't need first suffer a rejection and then decide to take the extra step of requesting an edit on their behalf.
..... Using the current number of rollbackers to make a bald speculation of how many reviewers we'll have, it seems plausible to me that Pending-changes procedure will at least triple the number of trusted users willing to attend to these situations. (That's taking the existing admin pool plus roughly double the number of rollbackers as there are admins, to make a very speculative guess about numbers--seems to me there could well be many more than that in the end.) Whatever the overall number of reviewers turns out to be, I can only imagine there will be a significant net reduction of the total admin workload and a net increase in the productivity provided by anon IPs. In any event it looks like the trial period will at least go though to its completion, so we've got roughly another six weeks of experimenting to go, and much more direct feedback to get from a lot of users and admins. So, my personal response to the trial thus far is unequivocally positive. ...
Kenosis (
talk) 15:26, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia still has:
When you click Save, your changes will immediately become visible to everyone.
Rich, my suggested text until the trial is over (and then restored if, later, this is fully implemented) would be something like this:
That way the expectation is there that the edit may not be there immediately. Optionally, we can state that it applies generally to anonymous users. CycloneGU ( talk) 21:30, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
I think it would be informative to know, what percentage of unconfirmed edits have had to be reverted? Will this detail be possible to collect? Off2riorob ( talk) 18:46, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
I was very very dubious when WoW was picked for pending changes. It used to *drown* in juvenile vandalism (edit to add) and I expected that to return. With pending revisions, some anon edits worth keeping have been made, and some of the usual vandalism has popped up and been addressed. But it seems that if the vandals can't see their graffiti at once, some of them wander off, or even better just "leave the paint in the can."- Sinneed 20:55, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
If some vandals are not vandalizing because they can't see their edits immediately, isn't it obvious that some productive anons are doing the same thing? Leaving because their edits aren't immediately viewable? Feed back ☎ 02:24, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
A frequent vandalism target (including once by myself back on April Fool's day 07:) it has been semi-proted since that particular padlock was created. It is a controversial BLP and, in short, a perfect candidate for this interesting little experiment.-- R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) ( talk) 11:59, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
I don't see how Seohyun meets the criteria for pending changes. It would not have met the criteria for semiprotection, and p.c. only applies to pages that could otherwise be semiprotected, right? — Carl ( CBM · talk) 12:24, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
I think that the edit notice for protected pages is not large enough. Maybe saying "Vandalism, or edits by unconfirmed users will not be added, unless a reviewer accepts the edit. Therefore, any non-Wikipedia appropriate statements will not appear" Maybe?, A p3rson ‽ 01:46, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
As I continue to experiment with this trial, there seems to be a lack of "Review conflict" a la "edit conflicts". When I'm reviewing an edit, and someone is reviewing it at the same time, there is no "edit conflict" notice. When I thought my review was done, in reality, another editor had reviewed them and Wikipedia did not inform me. This happened a total of 3 times. Feed back (talk) 22:21, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
When I look at Special:OldReviewedPages, some of the pages will say "(under review)". Presumably, this means that a reviewer is looking at them already. Two questions:
Yaris678 ( talk) 12:33, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia is trying to take away privileges from anonymous editors. Why not just obligate everyone to make a user before editing, while we're at it? At least that makes more sense than "flagged revisions". Feed back (talk) 21:35, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
I was reviewing a page, and there were 7 edits by an IP that were accepted by an editor. Great. Well, the IP did 3 more edits which I wanted to reject. So I should rollback, right? "Wrong. The rollback would remove the 7 accepted edits. Then that means I should undo, right? Wrong. The undo will only remove the last edit and keeps the first two. Basically, the first 2 edits the IP did don't even have to be reviewed to get into the article, all an IP has to do is make a nonsense 3rd edit, it gets undone and boom, his first 2 edits get in an article. Do you guys not see the problem there? Feed back ☎ 20:35, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
What is it you guys aren't getting? Its pretty simple. Due to pending changes, the IPs are making "almost edits". In semi-protection, if someone wanted something added, they would have had to post it on the talk page and I would have added it manually with a click. Instead, they get to post whatever they want and I have to review each of their edits one by one. Its obviously more taxing to review the edits one by one. And even if they aren't one by one, have to manually edit what you want to go in or not. If you still don't understand, I'll explain graphically:
current sentence: "The quick brown fox jumped over the dog."
With Pending Changes, I'd have to analyze each edit, diagnose which edits were productive and manually edit from scratch to create "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog", a combination of both constructive edits which were intervened by a bad edit.
With Semi-Protection, the IP would have posted what he wanted on the talk page, and there would be no time wasted on figuring out the correct way the article should be (and no rollbacks, reverts or any space in the history whatsoever). Feed back ☎ 00:16, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
With Pending Changes, I'd have to analyze each edit, diagnose which edits were productive and manually edit from scratch to create "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog", a combination of both constructive edits which were intervened by a bad edit.
It seems what you take issue with here are problems with the MediaWiki software itself. Merging problems are not and should not be fixed by FlaggedRevs. It should be fixed in core. And as a user, you can fix this the same way you would in the past: manual editing. Nothing changes in this regard. Reach Out to the Truth 03:38, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
"Can edit; a new edit is visible immediately if the previous version is already confirmed; otherwise not visible to readers by default until confirmed by a 'reviewer'" What does 'if the previous version is already confirmed' mean?
Also, I think that autoconfirmed users should maintain their right to edit semiprotected pages immediately. Quinxorin ( talk) 05:15, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Something that is not clear to me is how the revision process will work if subsequent pending changes conflict with eachother. An example:
Questions/observations:
-crossposted at Help_talk:Pending_changes 69.142.154.10 ( talk) 09:09, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
In light of rollout of the pending changes tool in 3 days now (June 14), I'm updating WP:RFPP and WP:PP to note some basics that will be needed by then. Otherwise it'll probably be a horrible mess of chaos on the day.
Usage and requests have no good (non- BURO) reason to be in a different place from semi-protection. The reviewing aspect is different but the scope, usage and requests (ie WP:RFPP aspects) are likely to be nearly identical to semi-protection and can usefully go on the same page.
Keeps it simple to have all forms of page protection and their requests in one place, even if they are in fact 2 tools for that purpose.
FT2 ( Talk | email) 08:20, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm not finding an answer to this in obvious places, so will stick it here, and send a link to RobLa to comment. It's likely that there will be a fair number of edits that are not accepted for various reasons. What happens to them? Do they remain in the article's history? Do they remain in the user's contribs? Are they specially marked in the article history/user's contribs so they can be identified as never having gone "live" for public view? I ask for a couple of reasons; first off, if they disappear into the ether, then it will be difficult to track problematic editors (or checkuser them, for that matter). Secondly, if they remain in the history, certain edits will remain eligible for revision deletion and/or suppression, and we need admins and reviewers to be aware of this, and to arrange for one or the other where appropriate. Risker ( talk) 21:15, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
When will the reviewer right be granted? It is listed in Special:ListGroupRights and there is a backlog on Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Reviewer. — Mike moral ♪♫ 23:07, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
We probably need a page where reviewers can report edits they're unsure about, or where specific issues with reviewing can be discussed, we could start doing this on the talk page Wikipedia talk:Pending changes/Queue, and if needed create a page such as Wikipedia:Pending changes/Noticeboard. Cenarium ( talk) 04:05, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
In the current version of the page there seems to be some confusion over who can accept edits by non-autoconfirmed editors. The lead says that (any) auto confirmed editor can. The table in the "Description" section says that only reviewers can.
(There is another sentence on this in the "Description" section and I notice that Delldot recently changed this to say reviewer, rather than unconfirmed.)
The idea that (any) autoconfirmed editor can confirm edits (presumably limited to pending changes level 1) was added to the lead on the 5th of June.
My first reaction is to think that this recent change must be based on a misunderstanding... but it actually seems to make sense. After all, on a level 1 page, an auto confirmed editor could make the changes directly should he/she want to.
Yaris678 ( talk) 16:35, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
I have created WP:PCQ as a redirect to Wikipedia:Pending changes/Queue, to save having to type the full title -- PhantomSteve/ talk| contribs\ 18:14, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
Are there any plans to have an IRC channel to discuss the pending changes (something like #wikipedia-en-pending connect? Bug reports, help for new reviewers, etc? Or will people be directed to #wikipedia-en-help connect? -- PhantomSteve/ talk| contribs\ 18:14, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
I've registered #wikipedia-en-pending connect (after discussion on IRC) to prevent takeover by a malicious user, myself and Phantomsteve are ops for the moment. Quite happy to give op status to any other established editor who would like to help out with the channel (there will probably be a fair bit of people coming in). If nobody disagrees here then I'm going to add the channel to the policy page and the header about pending changes, so users can come into the channel for help and #wikipedia-en-help connect doesn't get flooded with requests. - EdoDodo talk 18:30, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
A few things:
(FYI, I won't be around for the scheduled time of implementation.) Cenarium ( talk) 18:22, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
I have asked this on several occasions but I have not gotten an answer despite the extreme importance of the question. We all know that the real purpose of flagged revisions is to shield the Wikimedia Foundation from libel lawsuits on BLP articles. Two points. It is absolutely unclear to me that such a libel case would ever be successful against the Wikimedia Foundation for hosting the encyclopedia. That would be tantamount to blaming the owners of a building for somebody writing graffiti on it. What does seem clear to me is that a good lawyer could argue that those who have flagged revisions as acceptable have become liable for those edits. In other words, flagged revisions now place legal burden on editors that were not there before. Editors are now responsible for libel which might not even be obvious to the casual reader. This change, besides being unnecessary in my opinion, is fundamentally flawed. It creates a legal issue out of thin air and endangers the participants of the project. Jason Quinn ( talk) 18:25, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
I see no reason for this page to be policy. It's just the way the software works - that's not policy. Rich Farmbrough, 19:32, 15 June 2010 (UTC).
Maybe this: [code redacted]
— fetch · comms 23:17, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
It would be nice if along the way a simple guide can be provided for the administrators who don't delve into this area. I suspect that we will be getting a bunch of requests as this feature is ramped up. Having a short 'checklist' would help. Are we also going to replace 'forum shopping' with 'admin shopping' when one admin rejects a request and the user tries a second or a third? Will there be a way to see if a user has already been rejected? Vegaswikian ( talk) 23:27, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, this has no doubt been raised before, but something that immediately jumps out looking at this new arrangement is that, despite the hype that it's supposed to be increasing accessibility, auto-confirmed users are actually losing the ability to edit pages with immediate effect (if there are outstanding unreviewed edits on those pages). Is this intentional? Is there a way round it?-- Kotniski ( talk) 08:36, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm not particularly fond of the "accepted by" language [1], what about simply "sighted by" ? – xeno talk 13:56, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
Several interesting questions about the "pending changes" system have come up at Wikipedia talk:Reviewing, and they would benefit from wider participation. They include:
I hope we can keep the discussion centralized at WT:Reviewing. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 15:47, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
Here is a situation that came up not long ago on the World War I article:
What should be the next step to take as a reviewer?
Should reviewers take steps and prevent such edit wars on PC-protected pages from occurring or getting out of control, or should they take a more passive "see no evil, hear no evil" approach to situations like this and enforce edit warring sanctions as before when they occur? Discussion is strongly encouraged here. – MuZemike 17:43, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
Just to clear this up, since I'm still a little confused - any edit made by an autoconfirmed user (like me, for example) would automatically be visible to all, right? This page states such edits will be "automatically approved" - but I'm not sure if that means the edit is visible immediately, or that the reviewer has to approve it regardless of any other factor. All Hallow's Wraith ( talk) 19:10, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
The problem with marking edits by autoconfirmed users AFTER a non-autoconfirmed edit that hasn't been checked is that the autoconfirmed user could not see the vandalism by the anonymous user, and then it would stay in the verified version of the article for readers to see. - EdoDodo talk 05:33, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
Hello. Please have a look at this issue discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Vector & Pending Changes. Yours, Dodoïste ( talk) 11:59, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
I, and it appears a large number of other editors, have been granter reviewer rights whether we deserve them or not. It is clear that this is in the design a two-tiered system of registered users, putting further power distance between IP users and the 'authorised' (read 'those with reviewer status'). Of course, for flagged revision to work, there would need to be a large number of ordinary editors reviewing, otherwise the system will grind to a halt. However, this business is now giving me the creeps because it smacks of removal by the back door of the long-standing principle of equality of access for all; the controls on such accessibility confer additional powers to admins (who I believe, for the record, are quite powerful enough) is diametrically opposite to what I understand WP is supposed to stand for. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 16:30, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
The documentation here and at Wikipedia:Reviewing isn't very clear about who sees the last approved version of the article and who sees the "draft" version with unapproved changes. This page says that unapproved changes will not be seen by "users who are not editors (unless they wish)." What is a user who is not an editor? Anyone can edit. How does the software define a "user who is not an editor"? If a "user who is not an editor" is the same as an IP user, this should be stated explicitly. Or does it include non-autoconfirmed editors or some other group of users? Users with accounts who have never edited a page? Whatever the definition of "user who is not an editor" is, it should be explained clearly.-- Srleffler ( talk) 20:12, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
So far, the approach has been to apply pending changes to articles that are known vandalism targets. There's nothing wrong with this approach, but I'd like to suggest another approach for consideration should pending changes be brought in following the conclusion of the trial.
This approach would be the ability to apply pending changes to IP ranges, and individual editors (I've no idea if this would be technically possible, but that's for the developers to consider). The way it would work would be that applying the restriction to an IP or editor (at either level, as appropriate depending on the scale of the problem) would not prevent editing, but mean that the edit would have to be approved before it went "live", in a similar way to how pending changes is working already. Such protection could be used to monitor edits from IP ranges where there is a known problem, and in the monitoring of individual editors whose edits may be problematic in some areas, but not made as intentionally vandalistic - in effect allowing some overseeing and guidance as an alternative to a block. Mjroots ( talk) 16:36, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
If an edit is pending and it is something like a worse expression in English am I supposed to accept it? As in..not vandalistic, accepted.. and then go back and edit, revert, addition was bad English? Off2riorob ( talk) 21:32, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, that is how I see it also, there is no reason to accept an edit that is detrimental to the article. Edit just like you would as you say. This is interesting (meaning for pov edits, you could either accept or not accept, depending on your interest in facilitating that debate) accepting a POV edit that you agree with is not going to occur very often (hopefully) regards . 21:56, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
I reverted vandalism using Twinkle on the World War I article (see the history, but my change was not automatically accepted (I am a reviewer). This doesn't seem to match what the table is saying. The same thing happened to User:RashersTierney who is also a reviewer, but the revision he reverted was actually already accepted. Why are we having to review the edits of a reviewer? -- Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 14:50, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
Colleagues, forgive me if it's set out somewhere and I've missed it: trials normally require at least some benchmarks by which their success or failure is to be measured. Yet I see none. If there's to be community comment during the trial, and especially at the end, subjective opinions will be important, but I am surprised that there are no solid expectations or criteria that we might consider, too. I was prompted to write this after seeing this post. Tony (talk) 08:50, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
Just based on my experience with this after a brief while, something is starting to become apparent to me. I'm seeing a lot more need to revert vandalism on previously semi-ed pages (example: 4chan), which can easily make one conclude that semi-protection was better. But I have a feeling that this perception may be an artifact of testing the process on pages that had been semi-ed. It might well be a big improvement on pages that had some vandalism but were previously not protected at all. I point this out because the current structure of the trial may be masking this fact, by making it look like the process is worse than semi. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 21:28, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm hoping someone can explain what the rationale of pending changes is, because I can only hope I've misunderstood it. As things stand, it appears we're adding level-one pending-changes protection to articles that would normally be semi-protected; indeed we're removing the semi-protection. Adding level-one PC protection means that any of our tens of thousands of autoconfirmed accounts will still see the BLP and other vandalism. So articles may still contain nonsense or libel, and this will be visible to tens of thousands of readers. Adding level-two PC protection instead reduces the numbers a little, but thousands of readers who are reviewers will still see the problematic material.
Can someone explain the point of this? SlimVirgin talk| contribs 05:55, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
If an article is moved from long term semi protection and there is over a period of time (a few days a week), say 50 or 60 vandalistic type edits from unconfirmed accounts all of which had to be reverted by a reviewer then I would myself take the article back for return to semi protection, all the reviewing work is only worthwhile if there is actually a percentage of beneficial additions from uncomfirmed users. Some articles will not benefit at all from pending and it should not be considered as a replacement for semi protection but another tool that may be helpful in some situations. Really for it to be used you need a decent percentage of beneficial contributions from uncomfirmed users, if that is not happening then return the article to semi and the occasional constructive contribution from an uncomfirmed user will as they do now find their way to the talkpage to request the edit be made. Off2riorob ( talk) 09:01, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
In a few of the articles under pending changes that I have watchlisted (for the sole reason of this trial), I note that vandalism by non-autoconfirmed users is rather far and few inbetween; examples of articles with little unconstructive edits over the past week include the following:
This is very valuable information that can be used to gauge whether or not articles can be completely unprotected – something that we would not have without pending changes. That is, with our current practice of unprotecting articles (without factoring in pending changes), it's similar to "rolling the dice" and seeing whether or not vandalism picks up again and hoping for the best. This gives us a good system in evaluating many of our longtime-protected articles and seeing if protection is still necessarily. – MuZemike 16:15, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
Since we're discussing the merits of WP:PC here I wanted to bring up something else that concerned and confused me. Why is it that when I went to check a pending revision at Avatar (2009 film) and I clicked on "rollback (vandal)" ( diff here), the system required my reversion edit to be reviewed? I am a reviewer, so why is it that I needed to go back and accept my own rollback of the IP's vandalism?. — CIS ( talk | stalk) 21:58, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
I rollbacked vandalism, then rollbacked my change by mistake and now it wants me to review my rollback and the unaccept bottom won't display. What do I do? Truthkeeper88 ( talk) 00:20, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
This is totally against what I thought was the Wikipedia Ideal. It also appears as a "sneak in" in it's timing... It appears to me as blatant CENSORSHIP. It is time for the rival to be started: EUROPEDIA based in the EUROPEAN UNION (ie. Brussels) There is some weird neo-con evil force taking over Wikipedia.... I also really resent the recent changes in appearance etc. Why do things self destruct? It is all very dis-heartning. But as soon as Europedia starts or this doesn't stop I will be ouuta here! Also the "accepted version box" on top of the Aristotle article is like a fist in the face in an undisclosed location..... The Encyclopedia of the World should be out of the Hegemonic power of the world. And we all know that that power is no longer the United States of America. It is in the European Union. You can check that in the CIA World Factbook...-- Oracleofottawa ( talk) 01:24, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Think of the Founding Fathers as they wrote The Declaration of Independence all those years ago and in the top right corner their was a box that contained the words: Latest Accepted Version... -- Oracleofottawa ( talk) 01:58, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
I realize that I may be in the minority her, but I am so sick and tired of rolling back vandalism caused by IP editors. Since long term article protection is so difficult to get, this will help. Every time I have tried it end up being for a week at most, but the vandalism starts up right after expiration. I think this is great. It will prevent vandalism from ever getting threw, while still allowing the majority of good editors to make good edit. This stops the problem before it is a problem. However, I do realize it is a change, so there will be headaches for a time, but I think in the end it will be a good things.-- ARTEST4ECHO talk 01:43, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
How come this IP edit [2] was automatically accepted? DrKiernan ( talk) 07:14, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Sorry if this has already been brought up and it probably doesn't really matter that much, but there is a "feature" where if the username or IP has been suppressed, you can unaccept the revision, but you cannot accept it without unhiding the username. -- B ( talk) 19:43, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Should some bots that deal with vandalism be given review rights? At the time of this comment, the Big Bang page had vandalism that was reverted by ClueBot (at 23:22 GMT June 23, 2010). The edit was still pending for review. If bots are given reviewing rights, they would be able to make the job of the reviewers easier. It might have to be given out selectively based on the bot's task, but for bot like ClueBot that are just reverting edits, they could automatically mark the edits as reviewed. I do think that if there are other edits pending, should be made to not mark as reviewed. Rabbitfang ( talk) 23:50, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to see if I'm just laughed at on this one: we generally don't semiprotect talk pages, but I've strongly considered it on some (like Talk:Lil Wayne) because of the tendency for anons to use them as discussion forums. Would putting them under pending changes control fall under the trial, or is it just too wild of a thing to test?— Kww( talk) 00:11, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
I have a question about this. If pending changes is a success after the trial and is kept, will semi-protection and full-protection be deleted from Wikipedia? I am asking this because some pages need protection. The main page, for example, really needs full-protection; we can't have risks of anyone vandalizing it, and it is very possible for a reviewer to vandalize it, as a reviewer is not necessarily a veteran on Wikipedia and can suddenly start vandalizing right when they get reviewer status so that their edits will immediately be visible I know this is highly unlikely to happen to pages, but still, it can happen very easily, so I would like to know if semi-protection and full-protection will go down the drain or not. I know this seems like a weird question, but I am concerned about what will happen if semi-protection and full-protection do go down the drain. -- Ha dg er 00:54, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Is there a way to request articles be PC enabled? Or will that have to wait until the testing period is over? Glenn Danzig is a pretty high-profile BLP that could really benefit from PC1. <>Multi‑Xfer<> ( talk) 05:15, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
No one wants this. 152.31.193.40 ( talk) 18:26, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
No, I don't believe it's selection bias causing slowness. Articles that I used to edit regularly with no problem are now excruciatingly slow to load when reviewing a change. It's gotten to the point where I am now ignoring "pending changes". I'm donating valuable time to this project, and I don't need it wasted. If I see a pending change, I move on to other things. I daresay others may feel the same way, and the last thing we want is for a new "feature" to chase off constructive editors.
Also, have a look at Talk:Avatar (2009 film)#"Pending changes". This new PC thing has resulted in the destabilization of a pretty good article, with reviewers allowing in vandal edits. ~ Amatulić ( talk) 20:51, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
Just compared current rendering times with old ones. Reference taken from WT:Citing sources/Archive 27#Making pages faster to load, I used this revision and this PCP copy. Ten tries, render times in seconds:
Late 2009 | 26 | 23 | 16 | 16 | 22 | 16 | 28 | 28 | 16 | 16 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
June 2010, unprotected | 25 | 17 | 26 | 25 | 26 | 17 | 18 | 25 | 17 | 17 |
June 2010, pending | 17 | 26 | 25 | 17 | 17 | 17 | 17 | 17 | 26 | 29 |
Based on that limited test the render times appear practically unchanged, in both protection scenarios. The two classes of rendering times depend, I assume, on two classes of server setups that render the page. Amalthea 21:46, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
Makes no difference whether the diff I look at is accepted, not accepted, or not PC-protected at all.
Diff, PCP, unaccepted: | 17 | 17 | 17 | 17 | 17 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Diff, PCP, accepted: | 25 | 17 | 17 | 17 | 17 |
Diff, no PCP: | 17 | 26 | 17 | 17 | 17 |
That's a bit weird though, actually. When I look at a diff to the current revision, it shouldn't have to render anything since the latest revision is almost always cached somewhere. Was that always that way? The whole perceived slowness may be a general regression. Amalthea 10:05, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
This accentuates the elitist, panel-based editing practices of Wikipedia. I don't like it. 80.225.185.63 ( talk) 03:45, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Not sure this is the correct place to ask this question, but with regard pending changes, if you review an edit and it is not accepted is it counted as a revert, in regard to 1RR articles would it be counted as a breach if you made another revert? Mo ainm ~Talk 16:10, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
pages to avert any claims of not knowing. Mo ainm ~Talk 07:56, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Ok, let me admit right here and now that I stopped paying attention to the debate on this a long time ago as it seemed it would drag on forever. I had the impression that this was going to be trial run on BLP articles, but it seems it is being used elsewhere now as well. Did I miss something or was the scope expanded to cover other articles? Beeblebrox ( talk) 21:44, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Is there a specific place to vote on passing this new policy yet? A p3rson ‽ 02:58, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
I know that there will be a poll after, but what about during the trial, to see if anyone even wants it? A p3rson ‽ 02:44, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Unless there's a link I haven't been shown, pending changes essentially get dealt with as they show up on the recent changes page. Now granted, that's not a huge problem now, but sometimes edits can go through the list pretty quickly, and it would be convenient to just be able to look over all the pending changes there are instead of only concentrating on a page at a time. Half Shadow 19:50, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to request that we stop adding high-profile vandalism targets to the queue, such as Adolf Hitler, Enimem, and John Lennon. Invariably the vandalism continues and dealing with it creates extra work, which seems pointless. Would the PC test not make more sense on articles where the effect was harder to predict? SlimVirgin talk| contribs 19:09, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm trying to copy-edit the page but find I can't understand parts of it. Does anyone know what the following means (confusing parts in bold)?
1. Logged-in users, and anonymous users who click the "edit this page" or "pending changes" tabs, will see the latest changes as usual. Any pending changes on such pages are visible to all users via an additional tab.
2. Any pending changes on such pages are openly visible to all users via an additional tab, and the presence of new edits in the queue is explicitly clear to help reviewers.
SlimVirgin talk| contribs 14:17, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
I propose we add that "Attempts to downgrade from semi-protection to pending changes protection on articles where it is probable to result in considerable vandalism should be spaced on the duration of the trial.". Because too many at the same time can add too much burden on recent changes patrollers, reviewers and editors, as it did to some extent since the beginning of this trial. On the other hand, several articles where one could expect substantial vandalism have received little or not at all. So it shouldn't be abandoned completely, but spaced in time. Cenarium ( talk) 23:09, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Depending on the cases, it can be more appropriate to use (1) PCP indef or temp, (2) SP indef or temp, or (3) PCP temp or indef and SP for a short time. (1) best for articles meeting the requirements for protection but with constructive edits by unconfirmed users and no massive vandalism (2) best for articles (recently) subject to massive vandalism with no constructive edits (3) best for articles with (recently) massive vandalism but also constructive edits by unconfirmed users. To explain the later, in such cases PCP may not be able to 'break the vandalism cycle' so a short use of SP would be needed, but the article may still be 'vulnerable' for some time, so PCP could be applied for a while, or indef if persistent. Cenarium ( talk) 02:47, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Anything marked "pending changes" "automatically accepted," or "accepted by" seems to be incredibly slow to load, and when you click on the latter two you are taken (very slowly) to the current revision of the article. The rollback feature doesn't seem to work on things marked "pending changes," yet the "unaccept" option (which is a very peculiar word; what does it mean?) isn't selectable.
Also, I don't really get the point. As the current discussion over the protection level on Eminem shows, this isn't actually preventing vandalism at all. As I understand it, the idea is that casual users won't see the vandalism, only registered users. But Wikipedia currently has 47,333,951 named accounts, and all of those users can potentially see any vandalism/libel/deliberate errors. So pending changes is simultaneously downgrading the protection level, increasing the amount of work required to deal with vandalism, and increasing the amount of vandalism that will be seen on a given article. What is the point of preventing "vandalism or inappropriate changes from ever being displayed publicly outside the editorial community" when the "editorial community" is so vast? This really would only be a sensible idea if the number of editors was very small -- in the hundreds, perhaps.
In fact, it seems that the only type of user this is helpful for at all is a user who is editing while not logged in. Such an editor who wished to make a useful edit would previously have had to request changes on the talk page of a protected article, where the changes might have actually had to be discussed, while an anonymous vandal would have been prevented from vandalising the article. But under this system, vandalism isn't prevented at all: any vandal who isn't logged in can simply edit the article, and their edits will still be seen by potentially millions of users, while the task of preventing their vandalism is now passed on to admins and the new "reviewers." Really. What is the point? Exploding Boy ( talk) 19:31, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Rollback can be used on articles with PC, to revert the latest editor as usual (and it automatically accepts the new revision if the revision to which it was reverted was accepted, at least native rollback, Twinkle rollback has issues). There are many registered accounts, but probably only a small minority used to read articles and not to edit. I don't expect that even vandalism on high profile articles would be seen by more than a hundred of logged-in users. And the editing community is relatively accustomed to vandalism happening on articles. So I don't see an issue in displaying by default the latest revision to logged-in users, setting which can be overridden.
While statistically there are more vandalism by unregistered users than by registered ones, it does not imply that unregistered users are more likely to vandalize than registered users, at least not to a proportional level. There's research work been done by the
usability team which shows that many people are not fully aware that they can edit articles in a (relatively) straightforward manner. And since we made
MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext more accessible to users, there has been many more edit requests; so there are definitely people out there trying to edit, most in good faith. And I've seen many good edits which would otherwise not have been made.
If the level of vandalism is too high, articles can be put back under semi. Citing my reply at AN: "Let's say PC adds a more flexible level of protection, which can be used in cases where SP is justified in terms of policy, but where using SP would be unnecessarily restrictive. There are several needs to balance: to allow constructive editing, to protect the encyclopedia from harm, to avoid wasting resources unnecessarily, etc; they should be considered on a case by case basis.".
Cenarium (
talk) 03:14, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
This seems entirely too complicated. It will make Wikipedia harder to explain to new users. (I'm not all that new, and it's hard for me to figure out how this would work.) Since it's so easy to register, why not simply "semi-protect" all articles, and let anonymous IP users suggest changes on the talk pages (or maybe a "suggested changes" page connected to the article)? An anonymous user who doesn't get a response to a suggestion could simply register and do it oneself. Ruckabumpkus ( talk) 00:09, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Why bother? To decrease the easy access of the ever present vandals that denigrate WP's reputation as a "reliable source." After a long running and ongoing battle with a banned editor who using a cell phone, changes ISPs as often as diapers, she has overtly demonstrated that some restrictions need to be placed. After a community ban and much discussion, the banned editor's response is a blatant "Catch me if you can, and you can't!" DocOfSoc ( talk) 22:02, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Regular editors frequently forget the following:
:"Our goal here is to produce the best encyclopedia we can". The problem with that statement is that while it may be the best known editable encyclopedia online, it is not now, nor will it ever be, the best online encyclopedia. As long as anyone can edit and it is a continually evolving entity, Wikipedia will never be a true encyclopedia that is used as a reliable source and reference. If college and university (or even public school) students are not allowed to use Wikipedia as a reference for school work, it's not a real encyclopedia.
Further, as long as the cliques, clubs, rogue editors, and those with a certain stamp of approval are allowed to go unchecked as they bully and intimidate new and experienced editors alike, Wikipedia will remain the joke it truly is among the educated (and those seeking to be truly educated). And let's not forget the behind the scenes politics where deals are made as to who can stay, who is expendable, and who gets blocked or banned (if you think there are no such agreements, you're wrong). Wikipedia has become a social networking site that only looks on the surface like an encyclopedia. In reality, it's become no different than Usenet, Facebook, or MySpace (with the exception that Wikipedia appeals to shut-ins, geeks, nerds, and obsessive, neurotic control freaks). Set alongside the social messaging and networking sites, Wikipedia is the same brand - it just has different packaging.
I agree with the IP editor above: shut down the possibility for IP editors to edit, and donations will likely suffer. 97.50.112.120 ( talk) 19:25, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
This was implemented on Burger King and withing an hour the IP vandalism started. What good is this? -- Jeremy ( blah blah • I did it!) 18:35, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
Is there anywhere where I can get a list of articles that currently have pending changes. I'm not talking about a list of articles that are using the feature, I want a list of articles that currently need reviewing. Why? Because I want to experience reviewing before making up my mind about the trial. And I haven't done not one review edit, because every time I go to an article that uses the feature, the edits have already been accepted by others. Feed back (talk) 09:05, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Not only is it just as easy, but only people with real/good edits are going to post on the talk page. Vandals aren't going to waste their time with that. And people who take their time referencing the material they put in the articles probably have no problem with the extra time they use posting on the talk page. Feed back (talk) 18:38, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure but would having an article semi-protected with pending changes be appropriate? It would seem to allow all the autoconfirmed users to edit but only the reviewers to approve, which seems like a more restrictive version of semi-protection and just bizarre. I'm asking because that's what LeBron James is now under and frankly, I want to make sure before I get into any more with that admin. -- Ricky81682 ( talk) 08:43, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
I think that my title says it all. People who don't know the intricacies of this won't know what is going on. Also, you are removing the all-important element of user interface design (feedback...see what you did, see what has been done). And the benefit is small. Basically reduction of (vs. fast correction of) vandalism. North8000 ( talk) 13:08, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm looking at the table in Wikipedia:Pending_changes#Description. There's 4 columns (which really describe 5 kinds of editors) and 5 different levels of protection. That's 25 possible combinations. Nobody can keep all that straight in their head. Well, maybe some people can, but I can't.
As an admin, I don't see how I'm going to effectively administer this scheme. Right now, when I see an article that's getting vandalized a lot, I've got to pick which of two levels of protection I want (semi or full) and the duration. I pretty much just always use semi-protection, and take a WAG at the time, so that's pretty simple. Now I've got to pick which of FOUR levels I want? I just don't see any rational way I'm going to be able to evaluate the level of damage, compare it to the multitude of possible protection levels, and come up with the right solution. The more choices you give somebody, the greater the chance that they'll pick the wrong choice.
I appreciate the effort that went into designing this, but I think it's got to go back to the drawing board to come up with something simpler. Even if the level 1 / level 2 stuff gets merged, I still think this is going to be too complicated. What/s the elevator pitch here? -- RoySmith (talk) 13:33, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Well I'm just glad VECTOR isn't mandatory and I can go back to Monobook because the lack of compatibility with all the scripts I have is very frustrating. And I hope this Flagged Revisions thing doesn't pass. This is something that can damage the whole aspect of "Anyone can edit". Feed back (talk) 23:47, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Does reviewing an article count as the reviewer's edit or as the the guy who actually wrote it? Feed back (talk) 23:47, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Its not about the edit count, its about wasting valuable time. You say spending 2 hours improving the encyclopedia and 1 hour editing like if its a good thing, but its not. Reviewing is not "making a difference" or "improving the encyclopedia". Its just a new needless obstacle that prevents a lot of users from editing the encyclopedia. In no way is this a "contribution", its just a waste of time. Feed back (talk) 22:12, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
I can't imagine even at this stage of the trial that WP:PEND will be anything but an unqualified success and ultimately will be expanded well beyond the limited test group of articles. The reason is quite simply that it's a sensible solution to a common issue on the wiki--that of admins' choices being limited to just semi-pp when anon vandals, disrupters and POV pushers are in the mix, thereby denying the good-faith IP user the opportunity to contribute productively without necessarily becoming part of the community.
..... Seems to me the occasional need for admins to revoke reviewer rights will likely be vastly less common than the current (or at least previous) demand for admins to answer requests to implement edits for protected pages. Levels 1 and 2, as has been noted by others already, greatly expand the capability for productive editing by anon IPs in semi-pp situations, in part because the anon is more likely to submit an edit on a semi-protected page--the offer to edit the page is already there in front and the IP doesn't need first suffer a rejection and then decide to take the extra step of requesting an edit on their behalf.
..... Using the current number of rollbackers to make a bald speculation of how many reviewers we'll have, it seems plausible to me that Pending-changes procedure will at least triple the number of trusted users willing to attend to these situations. (That's taking the existing admin pool plus roughly double the number of rollbackers as there are admins, to make a very speculative guess about numbers--seems to me there could well be many more than that in the end.) Whatever the overall number of reviewers turns out to be, I can only imagine there will be a significant net reduction of the total admin workload and a net increase in the productivity provided by anon IPs. In any event it looks like the trial period will at least go though to its completion, so we've got roughly another six weeks of experimenting to go, and much more direct feedback to get from a lot of users and admins. So, my personal response to the trial thus far is unequivocally positive. ...
Kenosis (
talk) 15:26, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia still has:
When you click Save, your changes will immediately become visible to everyone.
Rich, my suggested text until the trial is over (and then restored if, later, this is fully implemented) would be something like this:
That way the expectation is there that the edit may not be there immediately. Optionally, we can state that it applies generally to anonymous users. CycloneGU ( talk) 21:30, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
I think it would be informative to know, what percentage of unconfirmed edits have had to be reverted? Will this detail be possible to collect? Off2riorob ( talk) 18:46, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
I was very very dubious when WoW was picked for pending changes. It used to *drown* in juvenile vandalism (edit to add) and I expected that to return. With pending revisions, some anon edits worth keeping have been made, and some of the usual vandalism has popped up and been addressed. But it seems that if the vandals can't see their graffiti at once, some of them wander off, or even better just "leave the paint in the can."- Sinneed 20:55, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
If some vandals are not vandalizing because they can't see their edits immediately, isn't it obvious that some productive anons are doing the same thing? Leaving because their edits aren't immediately viewable? Feed back ☎ 02:24, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
A frequent vandalism target (including once by myself back on April Fool's day 07:) it has been semi-proted since that particular padlock was created. It is a controversial BLP and, in short, a perfect candidate for this interesting little experiment.-- R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) ( talk) 11:59, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
I don't see how Seohyun meets the criteria for pending changes. It would not have met the criteria for semiprotection, and p.c. only applies to pages that could otherwise be semiprotected, right? — Carl ( CBM · talk) 12:24, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
I think that the edit notice for protected pages is not large enough. Maybe saying "Vandalism, or edits by unconfirmed users will not be added, unless a reviewer accepts the edit. Therefore, any non-Wikipedia appropriate statements will not appear" Maybe?, A p3rson ‽ 01:46, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
As I continue to experiment with this trial, there seems to be a lack of "Review conflict" a la "edit conflicts". When I'm reviewing an edit, and someone is reviewing it at the same time, there is no "edit conflict" notice. When I thought my review was done, in reality, another editor had reviewed them and Wikipedia did not inform me. This happened a total of 3 times. Feed back (talk) 22:21, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
When I look at Special:OldReviewedPages, some of the pages will say "(under review)". Presumably, this means that a reviewer is looking at them already. Two questions:
Yaris678 ( talk) 12:33, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia is trying to take away privileges from anonymous editors. Why not just obligate everyone to make a user before editing, while we're at it? At least that makes more sense than "flagged revisions". Feed back (talk) 21:35, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
I was reviewing a page, and there were 7 edits by an IP that were accepted by an editor. Great. Well, the IP did 3 more edits which I wanted to reject. So I should rollback, right? "Wrong. The rollback would remove the 7 accepted edits. Then that means I should undo, right? Wrong. The undo will only remove the last edit and keeps the first two. Basically, the first 2 edits the IP did don't even have to be reviewed to get into the article, all an IP has to do is make a nonsense 3rd edit, it gets undone and boom, his first 2 edits get in an article. Do you guys not see the problem there? Feed back ☎ 20:35, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
What is it you guys aren't getting? Its pretty simple. Due to pending changes, the IPs are making "almost edits". In semi-protection, if someone wanted something added, they would have had to post it on the talk page and I would have added it manually with a click. Instead, they get to post whatever they want and I have to review each of their edits one by one. Its obviously more taxing to review the edits one by one. And even if they aren't one by one, have to manually edit what you want to go in or not. If you still don't understand, I'll explain graphically:
current sentence: "The quick brown fox jumped over the dog."
With Pending Changes, I'd have to analyze each edit, diagnose which edits were productive and manually edit from scratch to create "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog", a combination of both constructive edits which were intervened by a bad edit.
With Semi-Protection, the IP would have posted what he wanted on the talk page, and there would be no time wasted on figuring out the correct way the article should be (and no rollbacks, reverts or any space in the history whatsoever). Feed back ☎ 00:16, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
With Pending Changes, I'd have to analyze each edit, diagnose which edits were productive and manually edit from scratch to create "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog", a combination of both constructive edits which were intervened by a bad edit.
It seems what you take issue with here are problems with the MediaWiki software itself. Merging problems are not and should not be fixed by FlaggedRevs. It should be fixed in core. And as a user, you can fix this the same way you would in the past: manual editing. Nothing changes in this regard. Reach Out to the Truth 03:38, 30 June 2010 (UTC)