[WikiEN-l] A six-day roll-back poll?

[Gracenotes]

On 1/4/08, Chris Howie <cdhowie at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Also AFAIK, "rollback" is special in only a few ways:
>
> 1. The edit summary is filled automatically and cannot be changed.


 It is possible to specify a custom edit summary, and this can
be handled gracefully by anti-vandalism software (a bit more
difficult without).

2. It does not require two page loads, only one.


 Right: undo requires two page loads after viewing a diff,
and also for you to send a large amount of data to the
server. The rollback permission requires one page load,
and you sending a minimal amount of data to the server.
Twinkle, by contrast requires three page loads (two
medium-to-large page loads, and one small pageload),
plus you have to send a large amount of data to the server.
Add another page load if you view the main article after
saving the edit.


> 3. It fails if the document was edited since you loaded the diff.


With undo (and, to an extent, Twinkle), you're just mincing text
based on what the last revision said. Rollback is true revision
management, and it's very suitable for anti-vandalism
efforts.

--Gracenotes