Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012/Option 3

Position #3

Pending changes should be kept in the long term, but the draft policy is insufficient and/or out of step with what the community wants from the tool. Pending changes should not be rejected entirely but should remain unused until such time as there is a more complete policy in place that has been explicitly approved by the community.

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Users who endorse this position

I would like the draft policy to address: (1) the responsibilities of reviewers, more clearly, (2) the status of users who were previously given the reviewer right, and (3) the kinds of development improvements that will be requested of the developers. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:21, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Tryptofish. I have not minded giving out a useless reviewer right. Now it is about to become meaningful. The policy should address this.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:43, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I like the idea, but think it should only be used exceptionally. I'm worried about a huge backlog, and the drama that could ensue when a reviewer decides that an otherwise good-faith edit is rejected. It'll happen, and I fear it'll be hard to tell whether a reviewer was acting maliciously. Furthermore, new editors may perceive a chilling effect when they make a good-faith edit that's at odds with a reviewer's idea of a good-faith edit. I'm not sure if the ensuing drama from this technology will be less than the drama it solves. All in all, I just think there needs to be a whole lot more documentation on what's expected from a reviewer, and what's expected from an admin who has the option of choosing between prot and pending changes. Xavexgoem (talk) 00:42, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I support PC, but the polarisation towards options one and two suggests to me that we haven't learned the lessons of the failure first time around. There are two broad groups of situations where pending changes is useful. One, where the vast majority of edits are good faith, but bad faith ones are causing exceptional damage. Two, where the vast majority of edits are bad faith, but the article nonetheless has a history of productive anon edits. Pending changes in its current form is a terrible solution on articles that attract a large number of good faith and bad faith contributions alike (current events, suspected deaths, extremely high profile figures etc). In a nutshell, the draft policy in option #2 does not give any guidance on the tool's strengths and limitations. It must. —WFC— 13:51, 30 March 2012 (UTC) (there is a third, important group PC is useful for that I omitted: very low traffic BLPs). —WFC— 14:20, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The current draft policy will need to be revised before I can support reactivating Pending changes/Flagged revisions. To this end I recommend that WikiProject Flagged Revisions be reactivated (and if need be renamed WikiProject Pending Changes) to address the concerns of Tryptofish and Allens amoung others. – Allen4names 05:07, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: Allens changed position after this revision. – Allen4names 02:52, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I would be willing to change my position back (to, first, requiring considerable policy clarifications, and, second, dealing with the potential for vandals to clog up the reviewer queue after doing vandalism - not removable by non-reviewers - using an autoconfirmed account) if the Pending Changes policy was firmly such that it (at least in its PC1 form; I can see PC2 on article that would otherwise get full protection) would not be used on any BLP or similarly liability-provoking article. As it is, given that these are the exact articles it's being proposed for by at least some, I have to oppose it given the near-certainty of inadvertent misuse due to liability fears. (I apologize if this isn't the right place for this comment/clarification.) Allens (talk | contribs) 21:34, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
For pending changes, there needs to be a clear guide on what should and shouldn't use it, and when it's appropriate to add it to the article; it has to be at least remotely easy to use and navigate too, which it was far from. There are articles where pending changes would work wonders (years, schools), yet there are articles where they would be a waste of time. The two extremes above give me a bad gut feeling about how it's going to turn out, as deciding between none at all or them everywhere is a lose-lose situation. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 14:31, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I find myself in agreement with most of the comments in this section. FlaggedRevs needs both technical and policy adjustments to be effective here. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:50, 4 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I saw it in action and, as it stood, did not see it as more useful than semi-protection. I think this is an answer looking for a question, although I can see the technology may be useful if the rationale for deploying it is rethought. Orderinchaos 03:55, 7 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I would argue that the draft in #2 contradicts what my experience with Pending Changes was. I would like to strongly agree with WFC above. Those indeed are the three situations in which I found PC to be incredibly useful. It was successful in removing semi protection from highly vandalized pages, that could still have useful contributions, ones in which articles had high quantities of good faith edits, and small detractors who could cause exceptional damage (generally violations of BLP/personal attacks, or simply factual errors introduced). Finally, the usage of the review system on low activity BLPs found reasonable success, in my view. I was able to unprotect numerous pages as a result. However, the policy above fails to account for much of this. Subcriteria 3 fails to address its strengths, and furthermore does not adequately address when it is not to be used, with the exception of the pre-emptively criteria. Although I am not sure what to think about this, especially on lesser edited BLPs, pre-emptive protection may have some merit. (I still have not entirely determined what that would be). Though Allens above provides a possible way to exploit the system, vandals have generally been disorganized enough such that this would not occur. Those that have been organized enough to do so generally require widespread action on behalf of the community, beyond the proposed usage of PC. Finally, the fact that the Reviewer right now holds a higher responsibility (I have no idea if this is for the better or the worse) compared to previously creates a whole new scenario. Should the reviewer right be removed en masse? What is the threshold? It certainly is different than that of rollback, and although it could eventually be established, I fear that without hard guidelines the distribution of rollback is apt to cause unnecessary drama, and tons of legwork for admins. This is not to say PC could not be extremely useful. Given between option 2 and option 1, I would take option 2, but would prefer more thought be taken, and a thorough re-examination of the successes of the first PC trial be used. NativeForeigner ^Talk 03:40, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The draft proposal does not look well thought out. What is the resolution mechanism when there is disagreement about whether a page is appropriate for PC? What are the procedures for challenging and revoking Reviewer status? We can do better than this. Anoyatu (talk) 18:59, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It seems that there are many issues with the current policy of when to use Pending Changes. It would seem in some very specific cases that it could be a helpful tool, such as with frequently vandalized pages, those of a complicated topic (advanced physics for example) or things that arent hard facts (many car pages for instance have a constant back and forth when uses change them from "Sportscars" to "Supercars" and vice versa). However I would like to see a more developed - and clearly written policy. This needs to be able to be explained to new or inexperienced users without consulting a chart with more color-coding than a rainbow or a wall of text. If its implemented in a way that seems obtuse to users it may discourage them and reduce the potential pool of contributors. Racingfreak92 (talk) 23:30, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. While I see the (potential) benefits of this proposal there are, in its current form, too many open ends with some important concerns (reviewers, when to use PC) that do not seem adequately addressed. --Wolbo (talk) 21:00, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. The suggested changes to Wikipedia conflict with the entire principal of the encyclopedia. Furthermore, as these policies are they will make Wikipedia even more complicated and will create a larger gap between the general userbase and the admins. It would be nice to have a review-type process for oft-vandalized articles, however; I get very tired of reverting articles like The Legend of Zelda. Chevsapher (talk) 01:16, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I originally supported the idea (see #200 above ~~"Support with caveat — I think, overall, it's a good thing, however, those in Position 3 have exceptionally valid points that still need to be addressed, e.g., users Tryptofish and Wizardman~~"), but after continuing to read comments and having a further think on it, I un!voted, striking my response. I believe the problems it will introduce without addressing the points made in this section will create a wikiwar, if not several. I still think it's a good idea, but the demons are all in details that haven't yet been addressed: it needs more baking time as it's still not cooked. — Sctechlaw (talk) 05:50, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. Fighting vandalism is good; no one's denying that. I think many editors lose sight of the fact that Wikipedia is first and foremost an encyclopedia (pillar #1), and ought to be reader-centered, not editor centered. If Pending Changes helps the readers by better informing them or by keeping them from misinformation caused by vandalism, then it's a good thing. At the same time, Wikipedia is written by the editors, and most of them don't have special user rights. The thing is this: many users who have been around for several years (over three in my case), and who don't have special user rights will now have copious restrictions put in place when it comes to editing pages. What this well-intentioned policy does is take away editing privileges from the majority of well-behaved editors in the name of anti-vandalism; in a reactionary blitz against policy breakers, sockpuppets, trolls, and general malcontents. (This issue could be solved by creating another user access level, alongside of reviewer, to coincide with the Pending Changes policy, but that's a discussion fro another day.) Additionally, several questions remain unanswered. Which pages receive PC protection? Will there be community input into the discussion of which pages receive PC protection? How long will the edit approval process take? Will there be administrators or bots on hand for even the most obscure of protected pages? Simply put, the policy, as it stands, is too incomplete to be implemented. It is a fundamentally good idea, but to full of holes to be implemented at this present time. Buffalutheran (talk) 06:06, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The draft policy does not address preventing backlogs. If a backlog came about, good faith anons would be discouraged from being part of WP and good edits would be wrongfully blocked. Also, the draft policy does not provide clear guidance regarding when Pending Changes should be used instead of semi-protection. I believe Pending Changes has the potential to be a useful tool, but it has not lived up to that potential and the draft policy would not get it there. SMP0328. (talk) 03:39, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I can see the merits of this protection, but I also don't believed that usage guidance has been meaningful enough to ensure that it is not abused. This should include guidance for reviewers and for those placing PC on the page.The merits need to be discussed with the pitfalls and guidance needs to be gleamed from that discussion. WFC seems to have a reasonable understanding of this. —Ost (talk) 20:35, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]