Wikipedia talk:Reverting

"Wikipedia:REVERT" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Wikipedia:REVERT has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 April 3 § Wikipedia:REVERT until a consensus is reached. Jay 💬 07:44, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

clarification about this essay

I do not fully understand the section "Avoid reverting during discussion".

What does "status quo ante bellum" referes to? If I do an edit, someone reverts it without discussing it, is the status quo the version I had made before the reversion? And without reverting myself how can I tag that material as discussed in x place?

Also I guess this doesn't matter at all for BLP pages, which can be reverted immediately favoring the status quo? Cinemaandpolitics (talk) 16:48, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

The first shot of the war ("bellum") is your original edit (A). Status quo ante bellum is what was there before. The next editor reverts it (B) to the status quo ante bellum, which is OK. Were you to re-revert (C) to restore your change, that would be reverting away from status quo ante bellum, which is not OK. To tag the material as discussed in x place, you do a forward (not revert) edit (C') that adds the tag to the status quo (which is there after (B)).

Is that clear? Is there a wording we can use that makes it more clear? Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 00:02, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Cinemaandpolitics, I think the part you need to pay the most attention to is this:

Edit warring to maintain a "status quo version" is still edit warring, and you can be blocked for doing this. If a dispute arises regarding which version is the status quo ante bellum, be the adult in the room and don't revert. Tag instead. There is no rule on Wikipedia that requires anyone to revert, but if the page has already been reverted to an older, pre-dispute version, then it's especially helpful if you avoid reverting to a different version.

Also, no, you can't revert immediately for BLP pages. On BLPs, you can only remove unsourced or badly sourced information. Mind the gap between "revert" and "remove", and keep in mind that if the stuff you want to remove is already decently sourced, then the BLP exception no longer applies. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:28, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

@Giraffedata Your explanation is clear. The page, and the interactions of multiple pages with this, are not clear at all.

1) The whole paragraph makes no sense to me on the definition of "repetitive reverting". It states that revert is not encouraged, limited for vandalism and such... but if one reverts first it basically get's the priviledge to keep things like they are. And without even starting a discussion. The burden falls entirelly on the person that added a new element.

2) Then we get to the status quo ante bellum. How should I tag with "under discussion" something that doesn't exist, since the second person reverted everything new I added? This also makes very little sense to me.

3) This way more confusing definition seems to contradict entirelly the page WP:DONTREVERT which states "Do not revert unnecessary edits (i.e., edits that neither improve nor harm the article). For a reversion to be appropriate, the reverted edit must actually make the article worse. Wikipedia does not have a bias toward the status quo (except in some cases of fully developed disputes, while they are being resolved). In fact, Wikipedia has a bias toward change, as a means of maximizing quality by maximizing participation."

Even though I understand the concern of not promoting edit warring, giving all the burden of the discussion on the new editor clearly favor the status quo.

@WhatamIdoing The part you highlight basically say "be the adult and don't revert, start a discussion" which makes sense... but also favor those that don't. People revert immediatelly in both BLP and no BLP pages. Cinemaandpolitics (talk) 20:18, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

@Cinemaandpolitics, we are more interested in preventing an edit war than we are in preventing a second-mover advantage.

I agree that people will behave badly. We get about 800,000 registered editors each year, and 95% of them have less experience than you. Purely as a statistical matter, half of them are below the median level of editor for just about any measurement you could name, including intelligence, maturity, and how much sleep they got last night. You are going to encounter bad behavior. You are probably also going to make your own mistakes. One of my friends likes to say that you aren't a real Wikipedia editor until you've made at least 50 mistakes.

Starting a discussion isn't difficult. If the other editor didn't do so, then start one yourself. In fact, the (optional) Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle, in its purest form, is about making an edit and then waiting to see who you get to discuss it with. The person who reverts you is BRD's "Very Interested Person" – someone who cared enough to notice the change you made and reverted it. It's good to talk to people who care. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:39, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Of course, you are right that everybody does mistakes and that talking to those that revert is the first important step.

What I felt, and maybe couldn't convey, is that part of this essay seem to be at the root of "status quo as an argument and expectation" that is contrary to even the guideline. But I am probably wrong and there are other factors as you mention. Cinemaandpolitics (talk) 20:28, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

@Cinemaandpolitics One thing you might have missed about the significance of the status quo in Wikipedia is that it matters whether there is a dispute discussion in progress. The only time status quo has special privilege is when people are trying to discuss the article, because it's hard to discuss something that keeps changing. In the absence of a dispute discussion, status quo definitely does not have priority; there is no burden of proof on the editor who wants to change the article. It's possible that a bad faith editor could filibuster and keep a discussion going indefinitely so as to maintain the status quo by pointing to this essay, but that's getting pretty technical. In your example of where the other editor hasn't started a discussion, this essay leaves you free to revert away from the status quo.

About tagging something instead of reverting: You're apparently talking about where you want to add material to the status quo, and you're right - the essay doesn't make sense for that case. The author was considering the case that you want to remove (or reword) the status quo, and says that instead of re-reverting to remove the disputed status quo material, you should tag that material. When you want to add material to the status quo, there's nothing to tag – but also little desire to revert. People want to revert away from the status quo in the middle of a dispute discussion because it bugs them that bad material is in the article and can be seen by any reader right now. The tag mitigates that. But it doesn't bug people so much when there's material readers won't see until the discussion is over. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 00:16, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

I understand what you mean, and the broader psychological reasoning for reverting instead of tagging, ulterior edits, discuss first and such.

My point is that all of this is in strong contradiction with guidelines, that states "Great Wikipedia articles come from a succession of editors' efforts. Rather than remove imperfect content outright, fix problems if you can, tag or excise them if you can't."

All these essay are vague enough to legitimize people aggressively using reverts instead of improving an edit. Cinemaandpolitics (talk) 14:18, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Well then I'm lost. This talk page section starts out with a reference to a section of an essay that discourages reverting (in certain circumstances), and I thought that was what we were discussing, so I don't see how that could legitimize aggressively using reverts. There's nothing in there that advises one to revert the addition of new material. Another reason the rule about keeping an article stable while resolving a dispute cannot contradict the guideline that you should fix problems if possible is that the dispute is probably over what that guideline means or whether something short of outright removal is possible. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 23:05, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but I think Cinemaandpolitics is correct, at least in pointing out that no matter what this page says, there are editors who misrepresent it, especially when doing so advantages their own view.

IMO it's partly because Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions, and partly because our method of teaching the 'rules' is not very different from a telephone game. The end result is that you get editors saying "WP:QUO says I win and you always lose forever", and the rare person who actually reads QUO (or whatever the WP:UPPERCASE happens to be) will confused to find out that QUO says nothing of the sort. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:41, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

@Giraffedata

Keeping an article stable with appropriate tags is different that giving indications about an ante bellum version that actually erase the new additions. Or am I missing something?

This other essay has the same issue by the way, it says that reverting is not encouraged *in theory*, then gives a precise path for reverting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BOLD,_revert,_discuss_cycle

@WhatamIdoing totally. Cinemaandpolitics (talk) 18:30, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

@Cinemaandpolitics, I noticed your section heading and want to be sure you're aware that this page is an essay, not a guideline. WP:DONTREVERT is also just an essay. It's better to concentrate on learning the actual policies and guidelines. Schazjmd (talk) 20:28, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

@Schazjmd Thank you for the precision. Looking at the guideline I am under the impression that they say basically the same thing. They give a general idea of the editing process:

"Great Wikipedia articles come from a succession of editors' efforts. Rather than remove imperfect content outright, fix problems if you can, tag or excise them if you can't. "

and a clear cut rule of no 3 consecutive reversions in 24h WP:3RR

As I was able to observe until now people interprete this as revert first... discuss later. Cinemaandpolitics (talk) 20:43, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

If you'd like some more specific advice: Less than 8% of your article edits have ever been reverted, and most of those touch on real-world legal disputes (example). If you feel that it's impossible to reach a resolution on the talk page and through normal editing, then you may need to involve the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard or start an Wikipedia:Requests for comment to make progress. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:50, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the percentage, how were you able to calculate that?

I do not feel that it is "impossible to reach a solution" I feel that these essays are contradictory enough to give leverage to users to "revert first, discuss later". Cinemaandpolitics (talk) 08:39, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Here's a filtered list of all your reverted edits. The number of edits to articles (and other namespaces) is at https://xtools.wmcloud.org/ec/en.wikipedia.org/Cinemaandpolitics#namespace-totals WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:43, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

clean! thank you Cinemaandpolitics (talk) 18:45, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

One thing we learned from this discussion is that the advice to tag material instead of reverting from the status quo during a dispute is that it tacitly assumes that the dispute is over modifying or removing material in the status quo, and that is pretty confusing if you're thinking about a dispute that is about adding stuff to the status quo. So I have reworded it slightly:

If you believe the status quo version contains material too misleading to stand even for the duration of the discussion, add an appropriate tag indicating the text is disputed instead.

Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 23:19, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

better, thanks! Cinemaandpolitics (talk) 23:35, 14 August 2024 (UTC)