Since there still seem to be people on this list who believe that inappropriate reversions are a sufficiently rare event to be unworthy of notice, I draw your attention here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Administrative_Appeals_Tribunal&am...
Now, admittedly this is not as egregious a case as the one I cited earlier as an example. However, it appears to me that the admin involved reverted simply on the basis that (a) it was a deletion of a large block of text (b) performed by an IP (c) without an edit summary.
Even a quick skim should reveal that the deleted text is an irredeemable editorial rant written by someone with an axe to grind.
Greg Maxwell has made the point earlier that if, as a community, we want to revert any large block deletions by IPs without edit summaries, we would be better served to modify one of the many existing bots to do so rather than encourage people to do it. And I believe that Greg and I are in agreement that such blind reversions are a bad thing, regardless of whether they are performed by people or bots. People should be expected to read, particularly so in an era when we have so many anti-vandalism bots operating.
And yes, we now have an OTRS ticket on this.
The Uninvited Co., Inc. (a Delaware Corporation)
The Uninvited Co., Inc wrote:
Greg Maxwell has made the point earlier that if, as a community, we want to revert any large block deletions by IPs without edit summaries, we would be better served to modify one of the many existing bots to do so rather than encourage people to do it. And I believe that Greg and I are in agreement that such blind reversions are a bad thing, regardless of whether they are performed by people or bots. People should be expected to read, particularly so in an era when we have so many anti-vandalism bots operating.
While it's certainly nice for people to read all edits, on the flip side, people should be expected to post at least a few words in the edit summary, especially for significant changes. Something like "deleting rant" would be sufficient. Making large changes without so much as a single word in comment (in either the edit summary or talk page) is rather discourteous.
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
The Uninvited Co., Inc wrote:
Greg Maxwell has made the point earlier that if, as a community, we want to revert any large block deletions by IPs without edit summaries, we would be better served to modify one of the many existing bots to do so rather than encourage people to do it. And I believe that Greg and I are in agreement that such blind reversions are a bad thing, regardless of whether they are performed by people or bots. People should be expected to read, particularly so in an era when we have so many anti-vandalism bots operating.
While it's certainly nice for people to read all edits, on the flip side, people should be expected to post at least a few words in the edit summary, especially for significant changes. Something like "deleting rant" would be sufficient. Making large changes without so much as a single word in comment (in either the edit summary or talk page) is rather discourteous.
We advertise ourselves as "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit", but you expect people to know all our rules and policies before they do so. /That/ is discourteous; if you're going to tell people "your do it rong" (in your worst Engrish) you could at least have the decency to explain WHY.
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
Delirium wrote:
While it's certainly nice for people to read all edits, on the flip side, people should be expected to post at least a few words in the edit summary, especially for significant changes. Something like "deleting rant" would be sufficient. Making large changes without so much as a single word in comment (in either the edit summary or talk page) is rather discourteous.
We advertise ourselves as "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit", but you expect people to know all our rules and policies before they do so. /That/ is discourteous; if you're going to tell people "your do it rong" (in your worst Engrish) you could at least have the decency to explain WHY.
I don't expect them to "know all our rules and policies", but I *do* expect them to read the text "edit summary" (conveniently placed right next to the "save" button) and deduce that that's where they should place a summary of their edit. I don't recall having to read policy pages to figure that out when I was new here.
-Mark
On 26/10/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
I don't expect them to "know all our rules and policies", but I *do* expect them to read the text "edit summary" (conveniently placed right next to the "save" button) and deduce that that's where they should place a summary of their edit. I don't recall having to read policy pages to figure that out when I was new here.
A touch of logic in the engine that recognised a diff as a revert of the previous edit (i.e., identical to the last-but-one revision) would be useful. Then a summary-less revert could be rejected with the message "edit reversions must be given a summary".
On 10/26/06, Earle Martin wikipedia@downlode.org wrote:
A touch of logic in the engine that recognised a diff as a revert of the previous edit (i.e., identical to the last-but-one revision) would be useful. Then a summary-less revert could be rejected with the message "edit reversions must be given a summary".
I think making edit-summaries mandatory for anonymous users is an excellent idea.
(Making it mandatory for registered users would have the added advantage of removing it as an RfA criterion)
On 10/26/06, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/26/06, Earle Martin wikipedia@downlode.org wrote:
A touch of logic in the engine that recognised a diff as a revert of the previous edit (i.e., identical to the last-but-one revision) would be useful. Then a summary-less revert could be rejected with the message "edit reversions must be given a summary".
I think making edit-summaries mandatory for anonymous users is an excellent idea.
(Making it mandatory for registered users would have the added advantage of removing it as an RfA criterion)
Hmm. Interesting.
I was thinking about making it mandatory for anons, but for everyone is even a different spin.
On Oct 26, 2006, at 16:27, George Herbert wrote:
On 10/26/06, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/26/06, Earle Martin wikipedia@downlode.org wrote:
A touch of logic in the engine that recognised a diff as a revert of the previous edit (i.e., identical to the last-but-one revision) would be useful. Then a summary-less revert could be rejected with the message "edit reversions must be given a summary".
I think making edit-summaries mandatory for anonymous users is an excellent idea.
(Making it mandatory for registered users would have the added advantage of removing it as an RfA criterion)
Hmm. Interesting.
I was thinking about making it mandatory for anons, but for everyone is even a different spin.
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com
When this has come up before, the idea of mandatory edit summaries has been mostly rejected on the grounds that it'd encourage useless summaries ("adsfdjhsf" etc). However, only certain types of edits requiring edit summaries might be useful, as for removing large blocks of text. Edit summaries of "asdfhjshf" vs "remove crap" might weed out the blankers from the miffed.
Or it might all go to hell.
On 26/10/06, niht-hræfn nihthraefn@gmail.com wrote:
When this has come up before, the idea of mandatory edit summaries has been mostly rejected on the grounds that it'd encourage useless summaries ("adsfdjhsf" etc). However, only certain types of edits requiring edit summaries might be useful, as for removing large blocks of text.
Or indeed reversions.
Edit summaries of "asdfhjshf" vs "remove crap" might weed out the blankers from the miffed.
And the usual remedies for bad behavior could be applied.
On 26/10/06, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
I think making edit-summaries mandatory for anonymous users is an excellent idea.
(Making it mandatory for registered users would have the added advantage of removing it as an RfA criterion)
Hmm. Interesting.
I was thinking about making it mandatory for anons, but for everyone is even a different spin.
It's a nice idea, but after a few weeks of everyone being good about it, I predict seeing lots and lots of edit summaries consisting of "." ...
On 26/10/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
It's a nice idea, but after a few weeks of everyone being good about it, I predict seeing lots and lots of edit summaries consisting of "."
That should be a warnable offense.
Earle Martin wrote:
On 26/10/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
It's a nice idea, but after a few weeks of everyone being good about it, I predict seeing lots and lots of edit summaries consisting of "."
That should be a warnable offense.
Why not make blank edit summaries a "warnable offense", then? It'd be essentially the same thing.
On 10/26/06, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Earle Martin wrote:
On 26/10/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
It's a nice idea, but after a few weeks of everyone being good about it, I predict seeing lots and lots of edit summaries consisting of "."
That should be a warnable offense.
Why not make blank edit summaries a "warnable offense", then? It'd be essentially the same thing.
A lot more technically friendly if the software requires them to enter "something" first; random people who aren't Wikipedia-familiar will understand a message popping up with a little paperclip saying "I've noticed you didn't enter an edit summary, these are important and required before we can enter the updated data".
George Herbert wrote:
On 10/26/06, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Earle Martin wrote:
On 26/10/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
It's a nice idea, but after a few weeks of everyone being good about it, I predict seeing lots and lots of edit summaries consisting of "."
That should be a warnable offense.
Why not make blank edit summaries a "warnable offense", then? It'd be essentially the same thing.
A lot more technically friendly if the software requires them to enter "something" first; random people who aren't Wikipedia-familiar will understand a message popping up with a little paperclip saying "I've noticed you didn't enter an edit summary, these are important and required before we can enter the updated data".
I still prefer human friendly to technically friendly. The pop-up is an encouragement to add any random entry. The summarries are important in many cases, but it would be madness to require them in all cases. If, for example, I move an article because of a small spelling change in the title, I will try to follow that by cleaning up the links. There may be 20 or 30 such links; I do not accept the need to generate a long series of edit summaries when those summaries are longer than the edits themselves.
Ec
On 27/10/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
There may be 20 or 30 such links; I do not accept the need to generate a long series of edit summaries when those summaries are longer than the edits themselves.
It may be a long series to you, but to someone inspecting the history of one of those pages, it is a single, unexplained edit which they need to read the diff to understand.
Earle Martin wrote:
On 27/10/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
There may be 20 or 30 such links; I do not accept the need to generate a long series of edit summaries when those summaries are longer than the edits themselves.
It may be a long series to you, but to someone inspecting the history of one of those pages, it is a single, unexplained edit which they need to read the diff to understand.
It would probably be marked minor, but they have every right to look at the diffs. The change will be obvious when they do. No problem.
Ec
On 10/26/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
George Herbert wrote:
On 10/26/06, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Earle Martin wrote:
On 26/10/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
It's a nice idea, but after a few weeks of everyone being good about it, I predict seeing lots and lots of edit summaries consisting of "."
That should be a warnable offense.
Why not make blank edit summaries a "warnable offense", then? It'd be essentially the same thing.
A lot more technically friendly if the software requires them to enter "something" first; random people who aren't Wikipedia-familiar will understand a message popping up with a little paperclip saying "I've noticed you didn't enter an edit summary, these are important and required before we can enter the updated data".
The summarries are important in many cases, but it would be madness to require them in all cases. If, for example, I move an article because of a small spelling change in the title, I will try to follow that by cleaning up the links. There may be 20 or 30 such links; I do not accept the need to generate a long series of edit summaries when those summaries are longer than the edits themselves.
Copy-and-paste is your friend. Linux copy-and-paste is even better, as you've got *two* clipboard buffers to work from.
On 27/10/06, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Earle Martin wrote:
On 26/10/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
It's a nice idea, but after a few weeks of everyone being good about it, I predict seeing lots and lots of edit summaries consisting of "."
That should be a warnable offense.
Why not make blank edit summaries a "warnable offense", then? It'd be essentially the same thing.
I was speaking in the context of software-enforced mandatory summaries, which would make blank summaries impossible - certainly not otherwise.
Earle Martin wrote:
On 27/10/06, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Earle Martin wrote:
On 26/10/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
It's a nice idea, but after a few weeks of everyone being good about it, I predict seeing lots and lots of edit summaries consisting of "."
That should be a warnable offense.
Why not make blank edit summaries a "warnable offense", then? It'd be essentially the same thing.
I was speaking in the context of software-enforced mandatory summaries, which would make blank summaries impossible - certainly not otherwise.
How about a software confirmation prompt for blank summaries, at least for non-logged-in users. This would require an extra mouse-click or keystroke, but would ensure that everyone who edits at least knows that the summary is available, and is normally expected.
-Rich
Earle Martin wrote:
On 27/10/06, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Why not make blank edit summaries a "warnable offense", then? It'd be essentially the same thing.
I was speaking in the context of software-enforced mandatory summaries, which would make blank summaries impossible - certainly not otherwise.
But in such a system an edit summary of "." is exactly equivalent to a blank edit summary, so I don't see the difference.
Bryan Derksen wrote:
Earle Martin wrote:
On 27/10/06, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Why not make blank edit summaries a "warnable offense", then? It'd be essentially the same thing.
I was speaking in the context of software-enforced mandatory summaries, which would make blank summaries impossible - certainly not otherwise.
But in such a system an edit summary of "." is exactly equivalent to a blank edit summary, so I don't see the difference.
The difference is that a blank edit summary can be the result of someone not knowing/forgetting to enter a summary, whereas a "." is an intentional act.
-Rich
On 10/26/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
I don't expect them to "know all our rules and policies", but I *do* expect them to read the text "edit summary" (conveniently placed right next to the "save" button) and deduce that that's where they should place a summary of their edit.
Perhaps you should read up on human perception. There have been numerous studies showing that people just don't see things that aren't part of the task at hand, no matter how obvious they are.
The only parts of the user interface that the average new editor sees are the big edit field and the "save page" button. All the rest of it is quite literally invisible, and there is nothing we can do to change that: any text we add will be similarly invisible.
Mark Wagner wrote:
On 10/26/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
I don't expect them to "know all our rules and policies", but I *do* expect them to read the text "edit summary" (conveniently placed right next to the "save" button) and deduce that that's where they should place a summary of their edit.
Perhaps you should read up on human perception. There have been numerous studies showing that people just don't see things that aren't part of the task at hand, no matter how obvious they are.
The only parts of the user interface that the average new editor sees are the big edit field and the "save page" button. All the rest of it is quite literally invisible, and there is nothing we can do to change that: any text we add will be similarly invisible.
Taking this one step further. The average person who visits to read some article can remain completely unaware of "Edit this page".
Ec
On 26/10/06, Mark Wagner carnildo@gmail.com wrote:
The only parts of the user interface that the average new editor sees are the big edit field and the "save page" button. All the rest of it is quite literally invisible, and there is nothing we can do to change that: any text we add will be similarly invisible.
Which is why a follow-up screen ("Oi, you need a summary") would serve to get their attention.
On 10/26/06, The Uninvited Co., Inc uninvited@nerstrand.net wrote:
Even a quick skim should reveal that the deleted text is an irredeemable editorial rant written by someone with an axe to grind.
Well... it's really just a little POV. Express it neutrally and it would be fairly good content - there's encyclopaedic material to be written about those cases. It's probably an essay someone's done for administrative law - not the worst example of this sort of thing.