Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive15

The 202.180.83.6 IP has been the source of lot of vandalism lately, unfortunately it's also the IP of a good admin, so care should be taken while blocking the ip (as to minimize inconveniences to Grutness. User talk:202.180.83.6 has been protected so the vandal cannot remove the notices and explanations, so it shouldn't be unprotected unless necessary. Please don't remove the explanation and comments either, so admins unaware of the issue won't block grutness for long periods of time. -- (drini's page|☎) 08:18, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Mindspillage recently changed Wikipedia:Revert to including the following:

:Using admin rollback on edits that are not simple vandalism is strongly discouraged and should in most cases be avoided. Reverting a good-faith edit as if it were vandalism sends the message that "I think your edit was no better than vandalism and doesn't deserve even the courtesy of an explanatory edit summary." It is a slap in the face to a good-faith editor; do not abuse it.

I'm reposting it here to draw your attention to it (I wholeheartedly agree). In support of this, I suggest we change MediaWiki:Revertpage from

:Reverted edits by $2 to last version by $1

to

:Reverted obvious vandalism by $2 to last version by $1

Changing this message without warning is clearly a bad idea. If there are no objections in, say, the next week, I suggest we do this. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:35, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

• I'm not sure I like the strong wording of it though. Yes I agree it should be for vandalism, but say if it weren't used for that, the it would definately be sending a message of "I reverted you for vandalism" when it wasn't intended. ∞Who?¿? 02:39, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
• The point of changing the wording is to effectively prohibit use of rollback except in cases of obvious vandalism. If we do this we should strengthen the wording at Wikipedia:Revert from strongly discouraged to something more like never to be used except in cases of obvious vandalism. Using rollback in any other case is (IMO) simply rude. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:47, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

:*I agree, it is, I've just had to do it when extremely buzy with CFD, like when a user rv's my bots changes for no apparent reason. While were discussing changing it, maybe add the talk page link;

::Reverted edits by $2 to last version by $1 see talk

:which may encourage admins to provide reason (when necessary). ∞Who?¿? 02:51, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with the change because, as Who points out, there are some few other cases in which it is appropriate; moreover, the wording is inflammatory and will only make misuse-of-rollback disputes more acrimonious. Also, this will aggravate a situation in which an admin rolls back an edit by mistake (as I have done several times); an editor who is already offended at having his work rolled back will not be mollified to see it called "obvious vandalism". — Dan | Talk 02:56, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

• It's news to me that rollback should only be for vandalism. I don't remember coming across that before. Quite frankly, with that wording you might as well disable rollback. I wouldn't think twice about using rollback on adspam, or a newbie test, but I would never call it vandalism. I have used rollback when I messed up a reversion (e.g., manually reverting without realising someone else had reverted, etc.) The whole idea sounds like a bad idea to me. Guettarda 02:56, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

• As for the suggestion that a link to the talk page be added: this is contrary to the purpose of rollback, which is to save time. I'm not about to start explaining every time I revert "PENISPENISPENIS" on George W. Bush. — Dan | Talk 03:05, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

If it's changed so that the message says "reverted obvious vandalism..." or the like, then the "rollback" button needs to get changed so that instead of saying just "rollback", it says something that warns the user that that's the message he or she will send. Besides, I've occasionally reverted my own edits when they were not vandalism. Michael Hardy 03:09, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

• This change is ill-thought out. It suggests changing a fairly innocuous message into an insult. If it goes through, I will stop using the rollback option altogether and go back to manual reversion with an edit summary of Reverted edits by $2 to last version by $1 as I used to do before the rollback option was invented. I would encourage other editors to do the same. After all rollback is just a convenience and if it's made inconvenient there's no point in using it. -- Derek Ross | Talk 03:17, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
• If this goes through, I'll use rollback to undo it :-) --Carnildo 04:37, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
• I think this is a solution looking for a problem. There's other things that are reverted using rollback that aren't vandalism, (a good example would be a clearly POV edit) and using obvious vandalism would just end up agitating editors and ending in flaming wars. Leave it the way it is, it has worked fine until now. Titoxd^(?!?) 03:24, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
• Indeed, rollback can be and is used for edits that aren't vandalism but are bad, generally without the least bit of controversy. Newbie tests have already been pointed out; I for one happily rollback copyvio text dumps (e.g. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pretty_Little_Lightning_Paw&diff=prev&oldid=16812762]) and edits that are probably well-intended but are obviously erroneous (e.g. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arwen&diff=prev&oldid=18675399] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edward_Said&diff=prev&oldid=19484346]), and I suspect other sysops do this as well. (In the latter case I'll explain the revert if someone repeats the edit, but that usually isn't necessary.) If some sysops are misusing this power in edit wars, then those sysops need to be reminded that rollback is not for edit warring; it is not necessary to make life more difficult for all of the others. —Charles P. (Mirv) 03:54, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
• The idea that rollback is for vandalism only comes up occasionally but is not our policy and is not a change that I support. There are many situations where it can and should be used where the narrow Wikipedia definition of vandalism does not apply. Among these are groups of closely related edits to which a shared rationale for the revert applies (such as category changes), self-reverts, bulk removal of link spam (or other spam), and reverting the edits of a banned user or sockpuppet. The important thing IMO is to be sure that the reason for the revert is presented somewhere, on the affected editor's talk page, for example. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 04:07, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I do not support the proposed change. As pointed out, there are multiple reasons why rollback is appropriately used. Fawcett5 04:22, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

• Yeah, the rollback feature is being abused by many admins, and some focus on when not to use it is good. But I think changing the edit-comment in that way is too drastic. There's also differing opinions on what to call vandalism. But s polite reminder on the rollback-abusers talk-page should be enough if anyone want to start nagging admins with messages like that. Hmm, I might start writing them myself. It's really just lazyness, everyone can aford the extra 5 seconds and make those extra clicks to revert the old way and fill in a better edit-comment when a revert can't be expected to be obvious to the person being reverted. Shanes 05:16, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
• I have to disagree, because the Wiki has been so slow these last few days that those "few extra clicks" can take three minutes in a page the size of Hurricane Katrina or similar. That is when the rollback button really comes in handy. Titoxd^(?!?) 05:33, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
• Agreed. It's not always obvious vandalism- is there anything wrong with using it on newbie tests, so long as the user then adds {{test}} to that user's page? I would never use it during an edit war, but certain things can and should be rolled back that aren't vandalism by the strict definition of the word. Besides, let's not bite the newbies...calling someone's edits "obvious vandalism" when in some cases they're merely a page blanking test is abusive. I understand the reasoning behind this suggestion, but it's really not a good idea to change it. Ral315 W_S 05:53, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

:Second that emotion. Exploding Boy 05:59, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I use rollback only for vandalism, but I strongly oppose the change. If another admin used rollback for other things than vandalism, the previous editor would be mistakenly accused of vandalism. — JIP | Talk 06:10, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I use rollback only when the reason I'm reverting is quite obvious (i.e. newbie tests and outright vandalism), or when I want to quickly take back a misguided edit by myself. Things like a newbie adding "Hello!!!!!!!!!!!!" to an article is "rollbackable", but should not have the edit summary "reverted obvious vandalism". Newbie tests are annoying, but they are not vandalism, that is why we send the polite test1-templates. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:21, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Inflammatory wording is never a good idea, and sometimes it's hard to draw the line between a clueless newbie test and malicious vandalism [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tsunami&diff=25261743&oldid=25260009 (was this "obvious vandalism"?)]. Both are revertable, but calling it "obvious vandalism" bites the newbie. As others have pointed out, reverts are also applicable to linkspam, self-reverts, abusive sockpuppets evading 3RR (eg, recent history of {{article|Empire of Atlantium}} with Crankshuick 1 thru 17), and probably other cases. -- Curps 07:45, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I completely disagree with the proposed change to MediaWiki:Revert, and I agree with Sjakkale and Curps above. Additionally I think the wording on Wikipedia:Revert should also be clarified to explicitly allow for reverting newbie tests. As it stands it incorrectly implies that the admin has to have made a judgement that the edit was malicious, or alternatively that any admin abuses the rollback when they revert a newbie test. --RobertG ♬ talk 09:02, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

:I agree; this is a really bad idea. About half of my rollback reverts are not clear vandalism at all, and even if they were, this is not the way I want to handle it. Filiocht | The kettle's on 14:53, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Many of the situations cited for non-vandalism rollback on multiple articles could be more appropriately handled by inserting identical but more explanatory edit summaries when reverting. Using copy-and-paste shortcuts, this doesn't take that much longer than rollback.

However, because we encourage a narrow definition of vandalism for other reasons (notably civility), it is difficult to enforce a strict rule that rollback can only be used for this purpose. The narrowest interpretations would make rollback nearly unusable, and there is a case to be made that its use is reasonable in certain other situations. So I would suggest that "rollback is only for vandalism" is the underlying spirit, but should not explicitly be the letter of the rule. --Michael Snow 19:41, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I admit to being guilty of discussing this one mainly on IRC first, and not finding significant dissent. It was probably ill-considered; I do think rollback is abused overmuch, but it's difficult to discourage that without running into legitimate cases, and my statement was poor. Too hasty a change, it looks like; I'm not defending it. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 17:32, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

:I've come across this disccssion rather late, but I thought that I'd mention that I'm also against the change. I've been attacked for using rollback for edits that weren't vandalism (but were PoV, or disruptive, etc.), on the grounds that it's already policy that one shouldn't (Everyking and Kelly Martin were the main critics). I don't use it when the editor has given an edit summary, and when the edit in question is clearly good faith, though. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:51, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

:I've come across this discussion rather late, but I thought that I'd mention that I'm also against the change. I've been attacked for using rollback for edits that weren't vandalism (but were PoV, or disruptive, etc.), on the grounds that it's already policy that one shouldn't (Everyking and Kelly Martin were the main critics). I don't use it when the editor has given an edit summary, and when the edit in question is clearly good faith, though. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:57, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

:: Obvious vandalism? Gee... that's not what I use the Rollback button for... I just use it on fussy bots or broken ones. --AllyUnion (talk) 18:42, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

There are clearly objections, so I won't make this change. I would encourage everyone to consider when using rollback that the supplied summary is well known by many users, and carries with it an implication akin to "speedy delete" (appropriate for vandalism, obvious nonsense, and newbie tests). -- Rick Block (talk) 00:27, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

How about adding a variable to the MediaWiki:Revertpage edit summary? It would read like this:

Reverted edits by $2 to last version by $1: $3

That way, we could type something along the lines of "Reverted edits by Titoxd to last version by Titoxd: obvious vandalism" in the edit summary. Then, if $3 is blank, just show the current summary:

Reverted edits by $2 to last version by $1

Comments? Titoxd^(?!?) 00:33, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

:But of course. Great idea. ~~ N (t/c) 00:37, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

::But in that scheme, the colon would still show up, would it not? I like the idea regardless. --HappyCamper 00:38, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

:::Umm... where would you type in the third field? There's no edit summary field in a revert... Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | W_S 00:40, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

:::: Where? I'm not sure, since I don't have rollback... but it could be placed somewhere near the rollback button. Titoxd^(?!?) 00:46, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

:I don't get it. As far as I can tell, mediawiki expects Mediawiki:Revertpage to have two variables. Where would it get the content of the third from? --fvw* 00:41, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

::Have the devs add a text field. ~~ N (t/c) 00:42, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

:::Make a feature request, it doesn't change current software behaviour so it doesn't need any support here. It's just there are so many feature requests I'm not sure this one will be done any time soon. --fvw* 00:50, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Nice idea, but not a great one unless the revert-summary is strictly optional. I don't want to have to explain why I have just reverted the blanking of George W. Bush for the 100th time. It's feeding the trolls. Admins should know well enough to be conservative in their use of rollback. The whole point of rollback is to make it much easier to repair the damage than to make it. Making our own lives harder to make sure we don't bite the trolls is doing ourselves a disservice. -Splash^talk 00:47, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

:Splash, if $3 is empty, the revert summary should be identical to the summary seen today. It is strictly optional. Titoxd^(?!?) 16:53, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

This is still a solution looking for a problem. There is nothing wrong with the current message and process so why are we suggesting that developer time be wasted on something that really isn't necessary ? -- Derek Ross | Talk 17:37, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

NO. Absolutely NOT. Lets just delete the rollback button! --Phroziac^(talk)25px 16:38, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

The [http://fi.wikipedia.org/ Finnish Wikipedia] is using a set of buttons in their edit toolbar, which add templates such as {{roskaa}} (meaning the article should be speedy deleted as garbage) and the various {{test}} templates into the article contents. Shouldn't we have such a feature too? I'm suggesting this here because it seems to be doable with the normal admin powers without need for developer intervention. — JIP | Talk 09:18, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

The ability to block users is of little use if I don't have access to links to the block user page. AFAICS, currently the only page where a link to block a specific user appears is on the Recent Changes page. On any other page, I would have to write "Special:Blockip" in the search box and manually type the user name. I currently only use User:Lupin's popups for blocking users, because they seem to be the easiest and fastest way, by far. — JIP | Talk 13:15, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

:Philosophically, I'm not sure that we want to make blocking a rapid and efficient process. Very few vandals tend to persist after a warning; either they take the hint or they get bored and leave. Getting blocked–in some cases–is exactly the attention they're looking for. There's also an argument that overreliance on blocking is contrary to our open principles.

:Practically, I've found that when things are ugly on RC patrol I keep Special:Blockip open in a browser tab in the background, and I can pull it up very quickly if I need it. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:17, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

::However, I wish there was more consistency about the availability of the block link. For example, there are links to Blockip in my Watchlist and Recent changes, but not on the History page, diff page, or, as would make the most sense, the User page. It is a little confusing, especially for new admins. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 14:40, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

:::I especially wish that Block links would be available on the History or User page. Having them on the Watchlist or Recent changes is useless. For the links on those pages to be of any use, you would have to block the user before you get to see what changes they have made. You would therefore have to think "Hmm, this is a known vandal, I'll block just to be sure" or, worse yet, "Hmm, this new user/anonymous IP looks like it could be vandalising, I'll block just to be sure", and then only see the changes afterwards. A far better solution would be to view the article's diffs or history first, and then have a Block link to block the user if the changes were indeed vandalism. Or this could be on the user's user page or contributions page, so you would get to it by clicking on the user's name on the history page. — JIP | Talk 16:43, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

If you add the link to Sam Hocevar's ubergodmode to your monobook.js, you'll have a button to get to the block and blocklog whenever you are on a user's user- or talk-page. If you debug it a bit, the block button opens a window for blocking, and changes the current page to the user's blocklog so you can see if you've been beaten to it. -Splash^talk 14:49, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

:Sounds interesting. I'll have to ask Sam Hocevar about it. Thanks. — JIP | Talk 16:43, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

::Add document.write('