Wikipedia talk:Rollback/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

User using rollback userpage tag, but does not have rollback permission...

Is this allowed? User:DVMt — raekyt 04:35, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Proposal for there to be a "confirmation" page after clicking "Rollback"

I propose that there be a confirmation page after clicking "Rollback." The purpose of this confirmation page is to do the following:

1. Prevent users from accidentally performing a Rollback. There are several users who use Wikipedia on their mobile devices, and sometimes, the wrong link will be clicked and that wrong link was "Rollback;" this is very common for user who use mobile devices.
2. Allow users to review all of the edits that Rollback affects prior to performing the rollback. This will ensure that editors are reverting only unnecessary edits; there are some cases where there are multiple edits by an editor in a row, but not all of them are disruptive.

The first point happens more often than the other; most instances to use Rollback properly involve a disruptive editor who has been disruptive with every consecutive edit done on an article, and most improper use comes with accidentally clicking on "Rollback". Steel1943 (talk) 05:00, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Alternate proposal

I just wrote the proposal, and I already have an alternate proposal. As an alternate, I propose that there be a confirmation page for "Rollback", but make the confirmation page an option that can be turned on/off at the Preferences menu. Steel1943 (talk) 05:05, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Rollback rights

An editor has recently given me reviewer, rollbacker, autopatrolled and file mover rights. About 50% of my contributions to Wikipedia are on a regular volunteer basis and the other half are in a public relations capacity. I do things properly in my PR role, using Talk pages and creating GA works. However, the thought comes to mind that having a "paid editor" with elevated rights may make folks uncomfortable? Or am I just being silly. Does anyone think this is an issue? It's unimportant to me, just want to avoid ruffling any feathers. CorporateM (Talk) 05:28, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

• CM, its a question of trust and you have shown that you play things right down the middle and have more then the necessary level of clue. I certainly have no issue with trusting you with this limited toolset and in the longer term I'd personally be willing to support an even wider toolset should you have need for them and we can find a way to do it without upsetting people with ruffleable feathers. Spartaz ^Humbug! 07:46, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I've a question

The article says a request is unlikely to be successful without a contribution history that demonstrates an ability to distinguish well intentioned edits with minor issues from unconstructive vandalism. Now, if any editor faces any edit that clearly seems to be in good faith but still clearly unacceptable to the article, what should he do then? Use [AGF], [rollback], or (undo)? I generally revert such edits by [AGF] using twinkle, but this line is making me confusing. Is it saying to retain such edits? Or I'm misunderstanding? -AsceticRosé 18:29, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

AsceticRose If you see an edit that is not a deliberate attempt to vandalize wikipedia ans the editor means no harm then yes I would use AGF. For complete vandalism such as complete gibberish and vulgar language where its not supposed to be, for example; serious profanity in an animal related article that has nothing to do with the topic, I use Rollback the tool and twinkle rollback for that. I haven't used "undo" in four months, its slow and useless for vandal fighting. Prabash.Akmeemana 21:02, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks User:Prabash.A for your answer. Actually I also deal with this in the way you described; only, that sentence was making me confused. Now it is clear to me. -AsceticRosé 15:52, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Rollback on mobile site

Is it possible to use rollback on WP's mobile site? Logged in yesterday to the site on my Blackberry and saw the rollback links, but I am unsure if they would work there. hmssolent\^{You rang?} _{ship's log} 10:57, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, you can use rollback on your mobile. I have tried that before and it works here. See my contributions and you can find some of my reverts using rollback is mobile edits. Thanks. Jianhui67 Talk 13:21, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Advertising?

What's the protocol for using rollback to remove edits that are actually advertisements for goods or services? Morganfitzp (talk) 13:33, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Reverting blocked Users

This guideline says that only banned users' edits can be reverted using rollback but doesn't mention blocked users. Is there a particular reason for that? I do find rollback quite helpful in reverting socks of blocked editors specially when they have edited several articles and reverting their edits by other means will require a lot of time. -- SMS ^Talk 16:24, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Edits made in defiance of a ban or block can be reverted, but edits made before the ban or block can be allowed to stand. 2Awwsome^{Tell me where I screwed up. See where I screwed up} 16:45, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Minor edit - not true, Part 3

I feel that applying 'minor edit' flags to reversions runs contrary to existing guidelines as to what constitutes a 'minor edit' and hence confabulates the meaning of the symbol.

It leaves me with the same shifty feel I get when I find an editor has made significant—possibly controversial—copy edits under a glib misleading summary and flagged it all with a 'minor edit' "m". It can be challenging to assume good faith at such times when parsing as an attempt to avoid notice seems easier.

I think having the "m" on rollback edit summaries may easily set up situations which inspire the same 'ick' factor at first glance. Even when strictly applied within rollback guidelines. If an editor is applying the guidelines liberally—or has simply lost sight of them—then the 'minor edit' flag may well come across as demeaning/insulting as well as shifty/misleading and further risk setting a poor tone for following communication. At first glance—even if applied within present guidelines—it just doesn't look well in histories to see a minor "m" next to a large changed byte count or above greatly highlighted columns in diffs.

I'm thinking that an auto-generated summary might more appropriately sport a bot "b" than a minor edit "m". Still doesn't quite fit but is getting closer to the truth. Or perhaps some explanatory cues within the auto-summary itself would help to avoid giving an initially callous impression of an unexplained summary with a "m" flag to those reading page histories, watchlists, and such.

The summary as it's presently implemented ...

m Foo (Reverted edits by Foobar (talk) to last version by Snafoo)

... seems to make for a poor example for others. Novice and veteran alike. Perhaps ...

(Rollback feature reverted edits by Foobar (talk) to last version by Snafoo)

...or more in the style of twinkle's "(TW)" ...

(Reverted edits by Foobar(talk) to last version by Snafoo. (RB))

... or ...

(Reverted edits by Foobar(talk) to last version by Snafoo. (ROLLBACK))

... might serve as well.

In the spirit of 'least surprise', including a direct link to the rollback guidelines would serve readers with an explanation as to what specifically has been done. The link would also likely serve as a check on misuse by making the feature's intended limited use more readily discoverable.

[It's actually a case of misuse which drew me into exploring this topic today. Earlier, I had a few edits (including a simple Wikilink repair!) glibly rolledback with a minor edit revert summary. It wasn't readily apparent to me that an automated function had been involved. A glance at the involved user's recent contributions showed a clear pattern and inspired me to do some research. Which eventually led me here.]

--Kevjonesin (talk) 09:52, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Hello there! Well, I'm not sure about changes to the m flag; anyway, I'm always treating minor edits the same as if they weren't marked as such. On the other side, I'm totally with you regarding the need for such reverts to be marked as performed by the rollback feature, with this format being my favorite:

(Reverted edits by Foobar(talk) to last version by Snafoo. (ROLLBACK))

— Dsimic (talk) 13:15, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

I disagree. The amount of size changed is irrelevant in deciding whether the edit is considered "minor". What rollback does is reverting, and as long as that definition stands, regardless of what the byte count was, it still was an uncontroversial reversion. See Help:Minor edit#When to use mark an edit as a minor edit, which allows marking obvious vandalism reversions as "minor edits". Reverting obvious vandalism that caused addition of a huge number of bytes (usually with no useful content) is still reverting obvious vandalism. Smtchahal (talk) 12:25, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 February 2014

Letthenlal (talk) 07:03, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

No request was made. You need to mention the edit/change you want to do in the form of "change X to Y", so someone could do it on your behalf. -- SMS ^Talk 11:17, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Change in rollback edit summary

I actually realised that the rollback edit summary was recently changed. The word Reverted doesn't link to Help:Reverting anymore. I would suggest a change of the example rollback summary on Wikipedia:Rollback#How it works. Thanks. Jianhui67 ^T★C 17:20, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Hello there! You're right, and it's no longer linked at least since October 2013. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 00:21, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Rollbacker rights

How it work on Wikipedia, which means rollbackers can revert vandalism edits from users to make people understand of the article was. Can I have rollback rights as of my successful effort on Wikipedia. --Allen ^Talk 06:29, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Proposal that User:Protonk's removal of my (Flyer22's) WP:Rollback rights be overturned

Opinions are needed on the above linked discussion. A WP:Permalink regarding it is here. Flyer22 (talk) 22:58, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 November 2014

2601:C:8980:307:98DD:9E79:18F0:218F (talk) 05:38, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Stickee (talk) 08:57, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Discussion regarding changing the way rollback is granted

See Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Rollback 2015. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:30, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

This was closed today. I will archive it to this talk page's archive in 48 hours, unless participants there tell me to do it sooner. StevenJ81 (talk) 22:50, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Archived. See archive box above. StevenJ81 (talk) 18:26, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

For clarity: The archive link is: Wikipedia talk:Rollback/Archive A. Yaris678 (talk) 11:38, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

User:Zvn/confirmwatchlistrollback.js

Is this script still meant to work? I installed it just now and although it gave me a pop-up "are you sure?" when rolling back on my watchlist, it went ahead and rolled back anyway, before I could click the pop-up. --McGeddon (talk) 13:02, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Redo / rollforward feature / tool?

It would be handy if there was a Redo / roll forward feature, to redo a few constructive edits hidden in a sea of unconstructive ones. I'm guessing someone's created such a tool. Anyone?--Elvey^(t•c) 21:09, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

If you want to redo an edit that was reverted, then you undo the revert. HighInBC 21:12, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Can't do that. It's often the case that the revert undid both the few constructive edits hidden in a sea of unconstructive ones, and the sea of unconstructive ones.--Elvey^(t•c) 21:34, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Rollback function has been changed

Please see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Rollback_function_has_been_changed. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:48, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Requesting a rollback

I need assistance from an editor with rollback rights, to roll-back many of my own edits; please ping me if you can help. Thanks. fgnievinski (talk) 05:32, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Rollback here vs twinkle rollback.

I use twinkle, and as such am granted the three rollback categories (good faith, normal, vandal), Is their any benefit of gaining rollback rights if I have twinkle? Iazyges (talk) 03:58, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

WP:Twinkle's rollback and MediaWiki's rollback are pretty much the same, except MediaWiki's rollback will not ask for confirmation and leaves a generic message (so use it responsibly if you get the permission). Also, user warnings are not semi-automated like they are in Twinkle. Morphdog (t - c) 22:11, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Twinkle's rollback too will not ask if the user disables confirmation in the preferences. - TheMagnificentist 17:31, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Why would I want this?

If it is the exact same thing as Twinkle's rollback feature, why would I want this?--Mr. Guye (talk) 17:03, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

It's faster than Twinkle, and Twinkle requires JavaScript. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:59, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

From what I read, the rollback permission adds additional "rollback" on a page's revision history. Twinkle doesn't. - TheMagnificentist 10:46, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

So what's the difference to clicking "undo" somewhere further down an article's history?

Anybody can revert any number of consecutive edits with 2 mouseclicks. Could use some more elaboration. 85.244.68.79 (talk) 16:23, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Each "undo" takes several clicks. After pressing undo, you are shown a preview of the edit and can provide an edit summary. Rollback skips the edit preview and instantly generates an edit summary. It is much faster, but allows less transparency and flexibility compared to the undo function. Malinaccier (talk) 17:22, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Rollback allowing non-admins to rollback edits on fully protected pages?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T183045

I've noticed that I have the "rollback" option beside the most recent edit on a fully protected page... even though I should not be able to edit said page.

• This only shows up on my watchlist and not in the history of the page... making me think it might be a glitch, and
• I have not tried it to see if it would actually revert the edit, since doing so outside of a pre-planned test wouldn't be a good idea

I can't find anywhere that states the rollback feature should be able to circumvent full protection... can someone more experienced fill me in on if this is supposed to be possible? - Vanstrat ⁽⁽🗼⁾⁾ 05:07, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Vanstrat -- I have the same issue for whatever that is worth. -- Dolotta (talk) 06:55, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Do you know the answer? -- Dolotta (talk) 07:06, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

@Vanstrat and Dolotta: The page protection is tested against whether you have the sysop right or not. If you actually try one of these rollback links, you'll find that you can't do it. You'll probably get a "Rollback failed" message; I'd be interested to know exactly what text it presents to you. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:06, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

This is the text when a non-admin tries to rollback a fully protected page. ~ GB fan 11:33, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

So it errs on the side of safety, by presenting the same message (Template:Protected page text/full) as the user would get if they clicked the "View source" tab. I've left a note at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Misleading rollback links. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:07, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

@Redrose64: this does not allow actually rolling back, as you suspected. It gives:

• MediaWiki:rollbackfailed (as the page title)

MediaWiki:protectedpagetext ($)

MediaWiki:returnto ($)

— xaosflux ^Talk 12:19, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Redrose64, GB fan and Xaosflux. You are definitely a wealth of information! -- Dolotta (talk) 14:51, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Agreed! Thanks for clearing it up! - Vanstrat ⁽⁽🗼⁾⁾ 14:52, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Note: A Phabricator task has been opened regarding these links. - Vanstrat ⁽⁽🗼⁾⁾ 06:03, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Why rollbacker?

Hello, can anyone tell me what is the use of having rollback rights if rollback option is available in Twinkle to Autoconfirmed users? Aggarwala2727 (talk) 15:39, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

@Aggarwala2727: There are various things that you can use, like the antivandalism program Huggle, that requires rollback rights. Myself, I also find rollback helpful when recent changes patrolling. The rollback button will be visible for all the current edits, so you don't have to look at the edits that Cluebot or another editor has already taken care of. -- Dolotta (talk) 16:25, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

One of the most useful cases I encountered was when someone was using an unapproved bot to quickly make damaging edits. The edits were coming in so fast (many each minute) that, without the single-click rollback permission, it would have been impossible to keep up. Once one IP was blocked the editor would simply change IPs and resume in a matter of seconds. The small time savings of rollback made a huge difference in being able to effectively thwart the attacker's disruptive plans. - Vanstrat ⁽⁽🗼⁾⁾ 05:46, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

All edits

Hello, is it possible to rollback all edits made by a user? I'm talking about reverting back all of the user contribution. Or it has to be done bit by bit?--Azerifactory (talk) 15:09, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

• @Azerifactory: -- there is a script that you can install at User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/massRollback.js that might be useful. Once installed, there will be an additional link available when you view their contributions. -- Dolotta (talk) 16:36, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
• @Dolotta:, I'm an admin in Azerbaijani wiki and there's currently user with his clones which changes name of the topics and vandalizing everything. Is there any way to rollback all of his edits?--Azerifactory (talk) 16:42, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

• Azerifactory -- The link I provided above should rollback all of the current edits from a single account once you add the link to your account's common.js file. I'm not sure if this will work for page move vandalism -- or even how well it will transfer to your language's site. That is above my pay grade. There are a quite a few smart people over at the WP:TEAHOUSE or the Azerbaijani equivalent who could probably answer your question better than I if the script doesn't work well for you. -- Dolotta (talk) 18:59, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Rollbackers incorrectly using the tool for non-vandalism edits

Hello, a couple of users have been undoing my edits using WP:ROLLBACK in contravention of the usage gudelines.

1. Denisarona (talk · contribs) four times rolled back my edits to talk pages, and then dropped two simultaneous "vandalism" warnings on my talk page. He refused to discuss the matter on his own talk page, even though he was apparently complicit in Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia without providing adequate attribution.
2. The Herald (talk · contribs) on Theistic evolution: used rollback on my constructive edit, restoring unsourced contentious assertions about living people, and then he dropped a "final warning" of vandalism on my talk page.

• I would like to see these spurious warnings retracted before someone judges me unjustly of having committed vandalism, which I have not done in the least. 2600:8800:1880:188:5604:A6FF:FE38:4B26 (talk) 17:00, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

cancel and revert switched

Just hit rollback by mistake on my phone. Got a “are you sure?” confirmation. Clicked “cancel”. It rolled the edit back! Tested this a few times on my sandbox and the buttons seem to be flipped. Popcornduff (talk) 04:44, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

@Popcornduff: Per WP:BUGS, this is worth filing at phab:. Be sure to state the steps to reproduce, also the make/model of your phone, and the OS and browser that your phone uses. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:36, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Requesting a rollback

What this page does not cover, is how an editor without rollback rights can request a rollback. (e.g. A user that have removed info in several other places, made several unexplained and uncited changes to the Mahikeng article, how do I request someone to consider rolling it back?) MoHaG (talk) 09:33, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

• @MoHag: It is not covered mainly because it would generally take at least as much or more time to request a rollback from a rollbacker that to just undo the edit in question yourself. As to the edits you alluded to, I would guess, without going into the appropriateness of the edits themselves, that it would not be suitable for a rollback because an edit summary beyond the standard rollback summary. -- Dolotta (talk) 12:32, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Equal to AutoWIkiBrowser

All this user right does is just a trusted flag to users trusted to used cool things like Huggle or STiki, similar to getting access to AutoWikiBrowser. That's it. If you use the Twinkle gadget, you are automatically a rollbacker as an autoconfirmed user. Or even better, you can automatically become a global rollbacker. So other than acquiring Huggle, STiki, or other programs requiring rollback, why are people even requesting this? {{replyto}} Can I Log In's (talk) page 03:31, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Can I Log In, sorry for being late to the game but the primary advantage of Rollback, in its current form, is convenience. The Rollback feature shows the number of edits made in a row, useful for reverting GF edits (if just one edit out of a long string is bad, the number of edits may be the sole indicator between mild vandalism and GF unconstructive edits) Another reason is a symbol of trust. Adminship is not a Request for Permission/(admin-toolkit); rather it is a symbol of trust. Similarly, rollback can be seen as a symbol of trust in countering vandalism. Eumat114 formerly TLOM (Message) 07:16, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

What to do in case of Rollback abuse

Hello, can anyone please advise me, what to do if a Rollbacker abuses the Rollback flag, i.e. reverts obvious Good Faith edits using this button, and/or abuses it for editwarring or contentual dispute. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with the local practices, but I know for sure, that in Russian WP it is a perfectly valid reason to remove the flag. Please explain, if there is similar policy here, and if yes, where I can complain. Thanks --A.Savin (talk) 13:24, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

A.Savin, in case of a user misusing rollback, for sufficiently serious cases rights can be revoked -- see WP:Rollback: "Standard rollback may only be used in certain situations – editors who misuse standard rollback (for example, by using it to reverse good-faith edits in situations where an explanatory edit summary would normally be expected) may have their rollback rights removed. Since rollback is part of the core administrator tools, an admin could be stripped of their administrative privileges entirely to remove those tools." However, if this issue isn't persistent then maybe it might be an accident, which naturally is common with rollback and doesn't lead to a block. Eumat114 formerly TLOM (Message) 10:46, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Clarification

Hello,

I have a question about the use of rollback that I feel stupid for not asking much earlier, but here goes: when policies say "Rollback is to be used only for vandalism", does the definition of "vandalism" encompass only edits which are clearly done with malicious intent, such as strings of obscenities or slander against a living person, or can rollback also be used to undo edits that, whilst not necessarily malicious in intent, are in practice purely disruptive to the encyclopedia? What I mean by this is edits that were most likely intended as light-hearted humour rather than malicious vandalism (e.g. "Hahaha [name of article subject] is a funny clown and likes riding pink elephants!"), and nonsense edits that are probably done by new users as tests (e.g. "Bold textItalic text--Passengerpigeon (talk) 00:24, 8 June 2020 (UTC)www.example.comerugoiuergow7yndonsuOV7GRQ79734OH87OYE"). I wouldn't classify either of these as "vandalism" in the strict sense, but I see plenty of people reverting these via Rollback and Huggle without summaries and have done so myself in the past. What is the official verdict on this? Thank you, Passengerpigeon (talk) 00:24, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

screenshot of rollback links

I think only one type of rollback is for vandalism only. Unfortunately, there are multiple types of rollback, and I have found the guidance to be lacking. I see three different rollback links when I'm viewing a diff (see screenshot to right). When I use the red one, it gives me no opportunity to leave an edit summary. It leaves an automatic one like this:

m 9,362 bytes -1,989‎ Reverted 15 edits by Eric (talk) to last revision by Cornellier (TW)

Note re above edit summary: I have only now noticed for first time that using the red "rollback (vandal)" link marks the edit as minor, which I believe is contrary to guidance given for doing manual reverts.

When I use the blue rollback link, I'm prompted to leave an edit summary. In both cases, another tab opens to the user page of the user whose edits I'm rolling back.

As far as I know, I've never used the green one. I've just now tried testing it, but I get an error, apparently because I'm testing it on pages that only I have edited. Might try it here next. Eric ^talk 01:36, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Update: Just tried rolling back my edits here using the green link, "rollback (AGF)", and it seems to behave exactly the same as the blue rollback. Wish I could help more... Eric ^talk 01:45, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

You're talking about the Twinkle rollback function here; I am referring to the MediaWiki rollback feature, which must be applied for as a permission, and which appears as another blue "Rollback" link above the Twinkle ones. Passengerpigeon (talk) 01:52, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, I had no idea about the MediaWiki one. I sure wish the Lords of Rollback had come up with a less confusing naming scheme. Eric ^talk 01:58, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

• @Passengerpigeon: Rollback can be used to revert any obviously wrong edit like all of the examples you have given in your question. You are just fine! -- Dolotta (talk) 11:34, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Anyone know why "rollback (vandal)" marks the edit as minor? Eric ^talk 13:05, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

• @Eric: It is marked as a minor edit because it is the type of Twinkle rollback that is meant to mirror standard rollback, which is automatically marked as minor as well. -- Dolotta (talk) 23:57, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Misuse

I have noticed that one of my edits was undone with this tool by User:Chipmunkdavis. It does not fall under any of the criteria listed for when the tool may be used. The user is falsely labelling my criticism of an editor as a personal attack, and used the tool to remove my message in this edit. I note that here for the record. 82.132.220.25 (talk) 15:10, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Misused again, moments later: here. 82.132.220.25 (talk) 15:11, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Personal attacks may be removed on sight. Calling someone "incompetent" is a personal attack.

Be cautious when referencing this page, particularly when involved in a dispute with another editor, as it could be considered a personal attack.

{{reply to|Can I Log In}}'s talk page! 17:04, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

The IP is an obvious sock of community-banned WP:LTA/BKFIP, now range-blocked. Favonian (talk) 17:30, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

RfC

Hi wise Wikipedians on Rollback/Archive 3, there is an active RfC on m:WikiLoop/DoubleCheck/RfC:Levels_for_WikiLoop_DoubleCheck_Reviewers#Overview that we think you might be interested. Please join the discussion there. xinbenlv ^{Talk, Remember to "ping" me} 02:33, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Request for rollback permission

Is there a way I can request rollback permission? User3749 (talk) 09:58, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

User3749, you can do so at WP:RFP/R. However, I strongly advise you not to do so yet. Your account has been here for barely a month, and you have just 68 edits, 41 to articles. You don't have a long track record of vandalism and as a result, it is very unlikely for you to be given permission. Thank you. Eumat114 formerly TLOM (Message) 10:16, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

So when I can do so User3749 (talk) 10:17, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

User3749, I would say that you should at least try to fight vandalism (perhaps using Twinkle for a month or two, and file some AIV/UAA reports. Rollback "is not for very new users": see Wikipedia:Rollback#Requesting_rollback_rights. You could try, like me, to do reverts for a few months, but a track record is the most important. Eumat114 formerly TLOM (Message) 10:23, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

You mean reverting vandalisms User3749 (talk) 19:01, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

The only vandalism I ever saw was on 2020 NBA playoffs. I already undone that edit but from there I never saw more. That ip user deleted that entire section. User3749 (talk) 06:41, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

@Eumat114: But am i now ready for a rollback request? User3749 (talk) 15:45, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

• @User3749: I think you would be a well qualified rollback candidate at this point. -- Dolotta (talk) 23:58, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Explicitly restricting high-speed reversion software to rollbackers

(Apologies if I've missed any previous discussions; searching archives is a bit of a pain on mobile).

An editor who had had the rollback permission thrice denied to them modified Huggle in order to evade its rollback requirements (VP thread). WP:HUGGLE notes the software is restricted to rollbackers on enwiki, but there is apparently no policy or guideline that bars avoiding these restrictions.

The simple fix is to add a short sentence to the "Additional tools" section, something along the lines of "Certain tools that permit extremely fast reversion, such as Huggle, must only be used by rollbackers."

Thoughts? – Teratix ₵ 23:34, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

I'd just note that limiting this to specific named tools (eg just Huggle) is a bad, confusing idea. Because you need an answer to the question "What is Huggle?" Some people here may not appreciate this question, but a fork of Huggle with 75% of the code recoded is not really Huggle. Now you realise the line can't really be drawn anywhere. So if this limitation is to be added, it should apply to any [fast-acting] anti-vandalism tool, whether it be HG or custom coded or something else.

Then you need to have an idea of the answer to these two questions:

1. What is "fast acting"? SWViewer is limited to RB but I'm not sure I'd call it 'fast' personally
2. How do tools like RedWarn fall into this? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:48, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

The mention of Huggle is intended as an illustrative example of software that permits "extremely fast reversion", not an attempt to start a definitive list of tools requiring rollback. Hence why I wrote "such as". I'm not familiar with RedWarn or SMViewer; I'm sure there are some patrollers who could give a more informed opinion on whether these tools would permit "extremely fast reversion" comparable to Huggle. – Teratix ₵ 00:49, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Having used all three, Huggle is indeed the quickest – if you use keybinds and don't warn users, SWV is comparable in speed. Redwarn tends to be quicker than Twinkle because it has more pre-set revert reasons and is a little less-clunky when it comes to warning users (and it provides a dedicated RC monitoring feature), but is still substantially slower than Huggle or SWV. Blablubbs|talk 15:09, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Would this apply to users who use RedWarn and Twinkle too quickly? Indeed, would it not apply to editors who use software which can be fast-acting at an acceptable pace? Should the rate-limits be social or technical; if technical, should they be client or server side? ~ Chip🐺 00:26, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

I think the fundamental question to answer is: why should an editor need rollback for Huggle, but not Stiki, RedWarn, etc.? Levivich ^harass/_hound 01:19, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@Levivich: It's the high volume of reverts possible with Huggle that sets it apart from RedWarn and Twinkle. I am not sure about Stiki as I have never used it before and I have only heard of it a week ago. ―sportzpikachu _{my talkcontribs} 01:52, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

The same high volume of reverts (technically we're talking about one-click-revert with no or stock edit summary) are possible with other tools that don't require rollbacker, like Stiki and the one-click-restore script. The old fashioned Twinkle undo is only marginally slower (two clicks). And the difference in speed shouldn't even matter, because everyone should be taking more than one second before reverting. That Huggle is some kind of uniquely "high speed" or "powerful" vandalism tool is a myth. Levivich ^harass/_hound 02:07, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@Levivich: I disagree. Yes, they all revert at the same speed. However, Huggle shows the next diff in the queue (or whatever it is called) even when the last diff is reverting. This lets users to just spam the rollback button and blow up the entire wiki. With RedWarn and Twinkle, you have to go to each diff, wait for the buttons to load, and then click the rollback button. These tools also require you to click again to warn, which leads to less WP:BITEing. Also, not trying to wikihound, but it seems that you had your rollback permission removed in May, therefore you haven't used the rollback tool since May. ―sportzpikachu _{my talkcontribs} 02:13, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Not using rollback for a while doesn't mean one forgets how rollback works. This lets users to just spam the rollback button and blow up the entire wiki. Read WP:MEATBOT. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 03:05, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader: I am aware of the MEATBOT policy. What point are you trying to make by bringing it up? ―sportzpikachu _{my talkcontribs} 03:07, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Careless high speed semi-automated editing, not just in anti-vandalism but all types, is already a violation of existing policy, and thus sanctionable. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 03:11, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader: That is possible with Huggle, which is exactly why Huggle has a rollback restriction. I do not understand if you are agreeing with me or disagreeing with me right now. ―sportzpikachu _{my talkcontribs} 03:14, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Neither. I'm just saying misuse is already sanctionable [after the fact], as with all other forms of semi-automated disruption. I am guessing the crux of your argument is to be more preventative with anti-vandalism tools specifically, since bad reverting can turn new editors away and that can never be resolved even with sanctions after. If so, I think that's a good point. But where to draw the line here (as in, with what kinds of tools) is a fair question to ask.

We also need to consider what we're really solving here: Huggle already has a coded limitation to RBers, so this is just patching a 'hole' where people can adjust the source code and remove that limitation. I think we all agree that Huggle removing its RB restriction would be a bad outcome, but are the 'absolute newbies' who are manually removing the restriction causing disruption (very few who can do it, btw)? If yes, something needs to be done here. If no, we're legislating for the sake of principle, which I happen to think is a waste of time and unnecessary gatekeeping. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:15, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

A better solution would be to have system-wide throttling for edits of all types, with per-5-second, per-minute, per-10-minute, and maybe per-hour limits. The latter would be high enough that if if someone were using an automated tool to do rapid-fire vandalism cleanup or other rapid-fire actions, they would need to ask for a higher limit. On the other hand, everyone would be free to play around with tools and use them on a one-off or a-few-minutes-at-a-time basis. For example, I use WP:Twinkle for its consistency and to reduce errors, not for rapid-editing. However, I COULD spend an hour on WP:NPP and use Twinkle to do hundreds if not over a thousand edits an hour. Imagine the damage that could do if I was using it incorrectly! davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 🎄 01:37, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Even if this is a good idea (and I'm sure we could have a lengthy debate there) there is no way software limitations will be added in any timely manner into MediaWiki. There are lots of tasks on phab sitting in the backlogs. Even if this could be added, it's a waste of engineering time. I'd rather they fix the iOS notification "bug". Hence the focus here should be on social limitations. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:41, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

davidwr's proposal is purely a configuration change to $wgRateLimits and requires no additional development work (if I understand correctly). * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 04:14, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

I personally believe that Huggle (and the upcoming RedWarn patroller) is different than normal RedWarn and Twinkle. This is because Huggle can go through a set of edits extremely fast, repeatedly pressing the same button can, and will, rollback dozens of edits. Huggle automatically moves on to the next diff after action is taken, which means that the same action can be repeated and repeated until the whole wiki is in flames. RedWarn and Twinkle, on the other hand, require you to find the diff yourself using RCP or other tools, then revert it. It is not as big of a problem as the volume of damage is not as much as Huggle's, which is why I believe that users who cannot or have show their inability to dicsern between what is vandalism and not should not be allowed to use Huggle. It is also a decision by our community administrators at WP:PERM/R to allow or disallow certain editors from using Huggle, through the rollback permission. tl;dr: high-volume editing using tools such as Huggle needs to be restricted. ―sportzpikachu _{my talkcontribs} 01:50, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

I was going to make my own comment to this thread, but Sportz was able to say everything that I wanted to. Additionally, the Huggle process (which is usually read, decide, repeat) is way faster compared to the process of Twinkle and RedWarn (which would be open, read, decide, warn, repeat). With TW and RW, there's way more steps and more chances to stop and think about what you're about to do versus with Huggle, where a single push of a button is enough to rollback and warn a user. If Huggle is misused, someone can get sent straight to HAPPYPLACE for CIR issues, or blocked on sight, so the rollback permission is required since it means administrators have audited a user in order to determine whether or not they are good enough for the power that Huggle provides (and much is the same for requesting AWB permissions.) At the end of the day, "With great power comes great responsibility", and we obviously don't want such a power to be handed to editors who pass the bare minimum of autoconfirmed. Chlod (say hi!) 03:27, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

A social solution: Simply say that editors whose use of reversions become problematic may be put under a "no rapid editing" editing restriction that is enforced socially, like topic-bans were before page-blocking. There, no muss, no fuss, no changing restrictions on home-grown-Huggle-clones, no worrying about "did the user do edit by hand or with Twinkle." The only thing left to do is define "rapid reversions" - I would say maybe 10 EDITS per 10 minute period, NOT counting those with unique, non-canned, at-least-an-attempt-to-be-well-thought-out, reasonably accurate edit summaries. Basically, this would force problematic editors into putting in edit summaries unless they were just making one edit a minute, without the "gotcha" of "uh oh, I forgot the edit summary, please mister wiki-lawyer-admin don't block me." davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 🎄 02:42, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

I would tend to agree with sportzpikachu on this one. Huggle is an extremely dangerous tool in the wrong hands, and its approach to sorting through the queue does introduce a risk of accidents (or malice) unlike that present with Twinkle, RedWarn, etc. That being said, I'm not entirely convinced of the merits of either solution here - social or technical. A social solution may be too open to edge cases and unhelpful drama, while a technical solution may be too rigid (and, as mentioned, it would be unlikely to be implemented in the near future). Surely there ought to be a middle ground ... Emma (chats ✦ edits) 03:04, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

I think Teratix's "simple fix" is the best solution: it's a harmless codification of current practice. We're not looking to change anything here. We're just making explicit what has already been implicitly understood for a long time: you need rollback for Huggle and similar tools that have also historically required rollback. (It then follows naturally that you shouldn't just modify and recompile Huggle to circumvent that community expectation.) This would not affect people who use Twinkle or RedWarn quickly because they haven't historically required rollback, and (to my limited understanding of RedWarn) they don't encourage the same rapid level of editing that Huggle does. (Yes, it is still possible to edit rapidly without Huggle, but Huggle makes it extraordinarily easy to make hundreds of bad reverts within an hour.) I don't really think we need to write into the policy the nitty-gritty of "what is fast acting"—we only need to state the general principle. If a new tool pops up that offers Huggle-like functionality, then we can discuss whether that new tool should require rollback on a case-by-case basis, based on the principles we've stated in the guideline. Mz7 (talk) 21:31, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Support language similar to that suggested by Teratix, per Mz7's and sportzpikachu's comments here and per Iridescent' comments at Village pump.[1][2] Alsee (talk) 05:37, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

I am also generally in support of a proposal like Teratix': It seems quite obvious to me that we shouldn't be allowing indiscriminate access to fast-paced patrolling tools – unless we want to grow the WP:Slough of Despond. There have been plenty of cases of users being disruptive with "slower" tools like Twinkle or RedWarn; I'm not very eager to find out what happens if we break with established practice and start handing out HG to everyone who is capable of installing a modified version of it. The rate limiting discussion seems to be a largely academic exercise because (as ProcrastinatingReader has pointed out) implementation would be tedious and time-consuming. Blablubbs|talk 15:26, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Strongly Oppose. Rollback is of historical relevance, but is no longer practical or necessary in the grand scheme of things. Getting ourselves into some vaguely defined territory where we preventatively restrict editors touching fast-paced patrolling tools because of some narrative that they have the potential to do harm would only serve to weaken the ecosystem. If editors truly believed this, the API and revert actions would be restricted to users with specific user rights. Any editor has the potential to do harm with any of the tools exposed to them, just because they're better tools for the job of counter-vandalism does not imply that editors will be more careless or somehow become trigger-happy; those sentiments are absurd.

Opening up Huggle to either 1) all editors, or 2) 'Huggle-approved' editors (which meet a strictly defined set of criteria) would be a net-positive. I highly doubt that the risk of allowing editors to use such tools will be greater than the benefits. Any arguments that Huggle will be used for disruptive editing over beneficial counter-vandalism exercises is purely hypothetical and only assumes a worst-case scenario.

Levivich summed this up well above; that Huggle is some kind of uniquely "high speed" or "powerful" vandalism tool is a myth.

We should continue, as always, to enforce WP:DE and WP:MEATBOT instead of preventing the vast majority from being able to use the tools of choice without an opinion of a single administrator.

There was an RfC proposing we change rollback from a user right to a gadget from 5 years ago. The support to oppose ratio at the time was around 1:2, no strong consensus was established & the closing comments suggested it would happen eventually and we should retry in around 5 years. I reckon we should raise a similar RfC again. ~ Chip🐺 19:49, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

It's perfectly reasonable to prevent editors from using tools with the potential to do harm if they have not demonstrated competency first. For example, we don't give non-admins the tools to implement page protection, block editors, or delete pages until they've demonstrated community trust at RfA, even though I'm sure there are dozens of non-admins who could use these functions competently if they were immediately granted access.

Levivich's claim that Huggle is no more powerful than any other antivandalism tool does not seem to be a widely held viewpoint; indeed, Blablubbs, Chlod and Sportzpikachu have given detailed explanations affirming that certain Huggle features make the software a more dangerous tool than, say, Twinkle or RedWarn. (This point also seems to contradict others; on one hand, Huggle and similar applications are said to be better tools for the job of counter-vandalism, but Huggle is apparently not a uniquely "high speed" or "powerful" vandalism tool). – Teratix ₵ 02:07, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

No one has addressed Stiki. Levivich ^harass/_hound 03:17, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

@Levivich: Stiki has been deprecated since March, if my understanding is correct ―sportzpikachu _{my talkcontribs} 03:20, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Irrelevant even if true. Stiki proves that Huggle is not uniquely high-speed or powerful. If we didn't need a rollback requirement in PAGs for Stiki, we don't need one now for Huggle (or similar tools). Levivich ^harass/_hound 03:25, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

In my view, STiki is not quite as high-speed as Huggle. Huggle gives you two hundred diffs at a time, each of which you can revert by pressing a single keyboard button, whereas STiki only gave you one diff at a time, and those diffs may not have necessarily been recent changes—STiki was really good at finding the "sneaky" vandalism that slipped through the cracks from a few days ago. STiki historically required any one of: (1) the rollback permission/right, (2) at least 1000 article edits (in the article namespace, not to talk/user pages), or (3) special permission via the talk page. These laxer restrictions seem reasonable to me given STiki's narrower scope. Mz7 (talk) 05:26, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't agree at all with the claim that turning rollback into a gadget is the solution. If an editor that was truly competent enough to use Huggle is denied the rollback permission at WP:PERM, then the problem is with the denial of rollback, not with the entire system of restricting Huggle to rollbackers. The system has worked for the last decade in making sure that editors don't use Huggle to revert and warn hundreds of good-faith editors. Identifying vandalism isn't rocket science, but it isn't as straightforward as "if the edit is unhelpful, then it is vandalism", which is the mistake that many new editors make when starting out (if you scroll through the list of denied rollback requests, I'm sure you can find a good deal of examples). Mislabeling edits as "vandalism", which is very easy to do on Huggle if you don't know what you are doing, is not just hypothetically harmful, it very much is harmful. Mz7 (talk) 05:41, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

I mean, I don’t deny the idea that someone clueless can do damage with Huggle. But the avg clueless neither has the time or the ability to recompile Huggle. As far as PERM goes, I can link a bunch of jaw-dropping ridiculous outcomes (though I’m not sure it’s appropriate to put individuals on the spot), though this isn’t an RfC on our permissions processes. The crux of this debate really remains if we’re solving a real issue here, or simply creating more gatekeeping out of principle. I’m still yet to see any tangible damage done by this small group of individuals. I agree with you on the gadget part though - that’s DOA and I’d oppose myself. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 08:58, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

I also don't deny the idea that requests at WP:PERM are occasionally decided incorrectly, but the solution to that is to have a discussion with the administrator and then apply again later. The solution is surely not to allow editors to just recompile Huggle so they can use it anyway. If an administrator has denied a request for rollback, usually there is some kind of reason for why they did so that involves our trust in the editor not to cause damage with a tool like Huggle, so it would clearly be a bad precedent if the result of this discussion is an endorsement of this behavior. Merely having the technical knowledge to recompile Huggle does not entail having the knowledge to use Huggle appropriately. We've seen evidence of this in other software contexts: For example, just this past April, an ANI thread warned a user for inappropriately modifying WP:JWB to circumvent the AWB check page restriction, and in July 2020, an editor who was later found to be a sockpuppet inappropriately forked and modified RedWarn so that they could use it without autoconfirmed status. Mz7 (talk) 00:59, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

@Mz7: Yes, I’ve linked to that AWB/JWB discussion a few times in related threads but I find it slightly peculiar. The closing discussion rationale says: Can I Log In has agreed to stop using JWB at this time and has accepted responsibility for circumventing our policies and guidelines. + adding a more explicit warning ... not to try to game the system on automated type edits, meanwhile at WT:BOTPOL we have clarification from multiple current/former BAG and a crat that it is not currently a violation of the automated editing policy, and should not be. I suspect this is a set of enforcements where we have not had the proper policy discussion to really think this issue through. JWB is merely a loop around the problem, I can write a few lines of code on top of pywikibot to do a semiauto find+replace, without using JWB, and it’s totally acceptable without any authorisations. So the idea that one can write that code and it’s all ok, but cannot edit AWB code, is illogical imho. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 04:41, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for that link, I wasn't aware of that discussion (confusingly, it seems like we have several discussions about this same topic going on in parallel). Mz7 (talk) 06:16, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose — Initially, I laughed at the idea. But then after reading Chip, Wug, and PR's arguments, I've come around to their view: if the edits are good, it doesn't matter what user interface the editor is using; if the edits are bad, it doesn't matter what user interface the editor is using. If people want to fork a UI and use it to make good edits, there's no reason to stop them, no evidence that this is a problem that needs solving. Levivich ^harass/_hound 23:28, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Confirmation documentation

I have been using MusikAnimal’s script to add a confirmation step to rollbacks and was finding it to be a good fit for my needs. Some weeks ago, another confirmation step was added, meaning that my rollback process has been

1. click rollback
2. click OK in a script-generated dialogue box
3. click confirm in the in-line rollout
4. click OK in a second script-generated dialogue box

I’ve lived with it for a few weeks since I’m an infrequent rollbacker, but it is obviously not ideal. Earlier today, I removed MusikAnimal’s script from my common.js, and this resolved the conflicting confirmation steps within the desktop browser environment. I’m still getting redundant confirmation steps in my mobile browser, but there may be a cache issue there, so I’m not immediately concerned. I am curious, though, what is going on since the documentation on the rollback project page still states explicitly that no confirmation step exists. I thought the new confirmation might have something to do with the Gadgets tab in Preferences, where I see

☑ ^(D)Require confirmation before performing rollback on mobile devices

but this doesn’t seem to explain the appearance of the new step because (a) the description is specific to mobile browsers and (b) I have tried unchecking this and not been able to detect a change in behavior. Did I activate something unwittingly, or did the rollback defaults change without documentation being updated (or both)? Insights would be most appreciated. —jameslucas ^{▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄} 17:38, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Restricting high-speed reversion software

Should the following text be inserted in the Additional tools section? – Teratix ₵ 09:41, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Certain tools that permit extremely fast reversion, such as Huggle, must only be used by rollbackers.

Background

Certain reversion software, such as Huggle, prevents editors without the rollback permission from operating the program. An editor, who had thrice been denied rollback permissions (1 2 3) by multiple administrators, opted to ignore these decisions by modifying Huggle in order to bypass its rollback requirement. There does not appear to be a policy or guideline that prohibits this.

A discussion about inserting the wording petered out without a definite conclusion. See also VPP and BOTPOL discussions (both inactive).

Survey

• Support as proposer. This insertion merely installs current practice into a guideline. Experienced Huggle users have strongly affirmed that the software should not be used by inexperienced editors, due to the higher risk of problematic reverts arising from its speed.

To me, a lack of consensus on this matter would be the worst possible outcome – if Huggle and similar tools are to be available to all users regardless of experience, they should be available to all users – not merely those with the technical savvy to modify Huggle and knowledge of this loophole (which is the current situation). Hence this RfC. – Teratix ₵ 09:41, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

some of the Huggle tools are easily usable by anyone; some require skill and experience. DGG ( talk ) 10:35, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support. I find this an interesting topic matter. Recently a user modified the counter-vandalism tool RedWarn to bypass the requirements of extended-confirmed, as determined by consensus. However tools such as Huggle are much more powerful than diff tools such as Twinkle and RedWarn, as someone could just hold down the “Q” key and wreak mass havoc, even if they were blocked within a minute or two. Rollback is not only a useright for first reversions, it also shows that an administrator has asessed a user's contributions, and deemed it sutiable for them to have the rollback permission to use high-revert tools such as Huggle. Rarely are there cases of “rouge Huggle users”, as an sysop has given them a check, approving them for the userright. There is a reason tools like Huggle are locked to rollbackers, it means the chances of the counter-vandal becoming the vandal are much lower. There is however a broader question as well, should modifying tools to bypass restrictions be allowed? Maybe a decision for another RfC. — Yours, Berrely • ^Talk∕_Contribs 11:14, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

  It's essentially the same question: if reverting rapidly with a tool is prohibited unless you have rollback privileges, it doesn't matter if you wrote the tool from scratch, modified an existing tool, or used an existing tool that relies on the honour system. isaacl (talk) 19:21, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

  @Isaacl: If so, the text should be changed to something like

  Certain tools that permit extremely fast reversion, such as Huggle, must only be used by rollbackers. Modifying a tool to bypass restrictions must not be done against community consensus.

  ―sportzpikachu _{my talkcontribs} 08:14, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

• I'm not against this change, but as I mentioned before, I'd prefer to clarify that the restriction applies to the action (such as fast reversions), regardless of how it is carried out, whether it is through tools or someone staging a lot of edits and then executing them manually. isaacl (talk) 19:16, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
• I agree that modifying tools to bypass restrictions should not be allowed and that the restriction should apply to the action (such as fast reversions), regardless of how it is carried out. If we want to avoid damage/vandalism, it shouldn't matter how the damage/vandalism is done. ---Avatar317^(talk) 20:43, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support as a first step. However, I believe that adjusting the API throttle limits would be a more efficient method. It appears to me that all nonadmin users are currently limited to a rate limit of 100 rollbacks and 90 edits in a 60 second time frame. Couldn't it be adjusted downward to some appropriate number for nonrollbackers like 10 or 15? -- Dolotta (talk) 23:36, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support, per Berrely, and also my opinions above ―sportzpikachu _{my talkcontribs} 04:29, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support per the reasons I stated in the Wikipedia talk:Rollback/Archive 3#Explicitly restricting high-speed reversion software to rollbackers section above. Mz7 (talk) 05:47, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
• oppose I don't think it's a good idea to generalize few incidents. I can see many good contributions from users who use fast reverting tool. One such tool (maybe? I am not even sure it's a fast reverting tool) is SWViewer which requires you to have rollback on a wiki but you can also patrol other wiki if you have a certain amount of global activity and there are many trusted users from other wikis who use this feature and help patrolling English Wikipedia too. So by this we are basically saying no to them. ‐‐1997kB (talk) 04:10, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support per Teratix. As suggested by Dolotta, API throttle limits are also worth exploring. 207.161.86.162 (talk) 08:18, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Speed of rollback vs Twinkle

Is rollback proper faster at reverting a string of edits than Twinkle's rollback? Wikinights (talk) 02:49, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

You might ask this at WP:VPT. My guess is that in theory rollback would have a performance advantage since it's built-in to MediaWiki, but it is unlikely that the difference would be sufficient to show up in measurements. Johnuniq (talk) 05:05, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Wikinights, Johnuniq, rollback is particularly faster for reverting multiple edits. You can open a dozen rollback links in tabs and without further interactions you'd perform a dozen reverts. For individual reverts the difference isn't as much. Wikinights, if you want to try it out, register on https://commons.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/ and tell me your username, I can give you the right there. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 06:52, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Why is this a granted user right?

Simple question, why is the rollback user right even a thing when anyone can just install Twinkle and use its rollback features? What am I missing? Throast (talk | contribs) 15:30, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

@Throast: Rollback is much faster than Twinkle's pseudo-rollback features. The "rollback" API call is just one request instead of undo, which takes two (one to get revision information, another to undo). Likewise, some of the more powerful reversion features (e.g. mass rollback, Huggle's "one key to revert and warn" system) are most commonly hidden behind rollback, so as to prevent abuse. When getting rollback, you usually get a message saying that it's not as momentous as installing Twinkle, which is true for the most part. However, rollback can be a useful tool (and a key to unlock even more tools) for dedicated counter-vandalism editors who regularly deal with massive swaths of vandalism. Chlod (say hi!) 16:08, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

An addition

I'm noting that I've made an addition for something I see far too often. I thought it would go without saying, but obviously not: If you see a user with a username like "John Smith is a rapist", don't use a default rollback summary which adds the text, "John Smith is a rapist". Write something else instead. Duh. Thanks. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 16:05, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

@Zzuuzz: This usually occurs to me about 1/2 second after I click the rollback button. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:06, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Indeed. And then I'll delete your revision summary, describing it as "Grossly insulting, degrading, or offensive material", which will make it look like you added something really grossly offensive - which of course you did :/ Hey sometimes it takes many years for policies to seep into the collective consciousness. Maybe in a few years a few more people will think twice. One day some of you rollbackers may become an admin and start deleting stuff. You'll soon realise how annoying it can be to have to clean up after at least twice the number of vandals. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:29, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Rewriting the guideline

As recently discussed at WP:XRV, the rollback guideline looks out of date and needs a rewrite. In particular, "It is used to undo problematic edits such as vandalism." doesn't appear to be the main use anymore; indeed, the primary use is to be able to revert quickly, and there are now examples of people using rollback in good faith on edits which are also good faith, none of which causes an actual problem with the encyclopedia except for anyone looking at the text on this guideline page and walking away with the wrong impression. So the guideline has to change, because it doesn't reflect reality.

I'm just wondering if anyone has got an ideas of what specifically needs changing. Or shall I just be bold and go forth and copyedit myself? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:30, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

I've been using rollback more frequently lately (examples: diff1 + diff2) due to the unending stream of nonsense but I do not think any rewrite should suggest that rollback is permitted on reasonable edits. Once upon a time I might have crafted a message for the IP and the user in those examples but such cases are too frequent now. To me, "rollback" means there is no way this edit is reasonable and onlookers who might generally trust my judgment needn't bother examining the diff. Or (as explained at WP:ROLLBACKUSE #5), rollback is ok when reverting lots of edits provided an explanation is made elsewhere. The discussion at WP:XRV is too long for me to want to fully understand but a tool or rollback should not be used to revert reasonable edits without explanation. I think examples of the issue in that discussion are diff3 and diff4 which both include an explanation in the edit summary. That makes them ok as far as I am concerned. Johnuniq (talk) 22:41, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Revdelled usernames

@Zzuuzz: Regarding [3], I just tested it out here, and I think the behavior for revdel and oversight is the same. I made an edit to my sandbox with a test account, revdelled the username, then used rollback on the edit, and the auto-generated edit summary was Reverted edits by a hidden user to last version by Mz7. Mz7 (talk) 01:03, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi Mz7. I accept your test, however, I could point to numerous examples where this did not happen. From recently:[4][5][6][7] I would need to do more testing to see what's going on here, but I think I'd have a valid point if I said we can't rely on this behaviour. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 05:30, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

@Zzuuzz: Hmm, in each of the four examples you linked to, it looks like the revision deletion of the username happened after the rollback. In order for the a hidden user text to be generated, the revision deletion of the username needs to happen before the rollback occurs. Mz7 (talk) 06:05, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

That would probably explain a few things. It's a very rare workflow, eh? -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 06:19, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Right, yeah, exactly. Mz7 (talk) 07:35, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for helping clear that up. I think we can extend the same principle to the existing statement about oversight/suppression, and also extend it to global hidden locks (which aren't and don't need to be mentioned). It's probably useful to know, but it's so rare I've only seen it a handful of times. I think as it's framed it provides a bad example, giving the impression that it doesn't matter what the edit summary contains. I hope to return to this page to sort this out some time. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 11:45, 17 December 2021 (UTC)