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Administrators' newsletter – July 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2020).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

  • Following the banning of an editor by the WMF last year, the Arbitration Committee resolved to hold an RfC regarding on-wiki harassment. The RfC has been posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Anti-harassment RfC and is open to comments from the community.
  • The Medicine case was closed, with a remedy authorizing standard discretionary sanctions for all discussions about pharmaceutical drug prices and pricing and for edits adding, changing, or removing pharmaceutical drug prices or pricing from articles.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:25, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Follow up on User_talk:Bradv/Archive_18#1RR_violations

Following up on my long (sorry) comment near the end of that thread...I'm curious what you think about the idea of linking 1RR to the content being reverted (so reverting the same content twice is a violation, but making two separate reverts of unrelated content only counts against the user's 3RR for the day) or alternatively dropping 1RR sanctions from articles and leaving the 24-hr BRD sanction which would have the same effect with an extra discussion requirement. ~Awilley (talk) 20:07, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Awilley, sorry I'm a little preoccupied at the moment. But don't go anywhere – I am interested in talking about this with you. – bradv🍁 20:07, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
Of course, Thank you. Just let me know when you're free. Looking at that page, I'm glad the "consensus required" remedy didn't pass. ~Awilley (talk) 15:00, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
If you don't mind, I'd like to put down a bit of background while I have time, and you can read it when you have time. In a nutshell, the "24-hr BRD cycle" sanction I mention in the archived thread was my attempt to fix problems I saw with the "Consensus required" sanction, (AFAICT) which was User:Coffee's attempt to fix problems with regular 1RR, encourage stability, and give "content editors" a leg up on drive-by POV pushers.
I have a little essay here that discusses the differences between vanilla 1RR, Consensus Required, and the BRD sanction. A primary takeaway of that is what I call the "first mover advantage" problem with 1RR. Editor A makes a Bold edit, Editor B reverts (1RR), Editor A reverts (1RR) and the article is left in a non-consensus state. It then requires a third editor to use their 1 revert and restore the status quo. (If you're really interested in the history, a modified 1RR rule was imposed by ArbCom back in 2017 that kind of fixed the first-mover problem link, but there was a fatal flaw in the wording that led to confusion and a bizarre scenario where an editor could be blocked for one revert even if it was their first edit in a week, so it was rolled back to just regular 1RR in late 2018 link.)
Currently there are 134 articles using Template:American politics AE. I don't know the exact numbers, but I'd guess that there are roughly the same number of articles under Consensus Required (CR) as there are under BRD, and then a smaller number under 1RR only. And admins are split on their preferred sanction as well. I've been the primary proponent of the BRD sanction, and I'm responsible for most of the articles under that (in the ballpark of 50 if memory serves). I know of a couple admins who prefer CR and who were chagrined when I unilaterally changed it to BRD on those 50 articles. And there are a couple who prefer 1RR. I imagine some of them roll their eyes when they see me going on like this. But they've been tolerant with my BRD experiment.
Moving forward: I'm still not happy with the current situation, partly for problems with 1RR mentioned in the archived thread, partly because I'm not entirely happy with the BRD sanction itself. Broadly, I think there are two possible paths forward. One would involve changing how 1RR works globally, which I think would be very difficult if not impossible. The other would be to come up with something new and try it out on some articles, and if it works maybe it will spread from there.
I'll end with an idea for a page-level sanction that I've been mulling over recently:

If a change you make to this article is reverted, you must wait 24 hours (from the time of your original edit) before reinstating that change. Exception: if you discuss the issue with the other editor and agree on a wording that addresses the other editor's objection, you may implement the new consensus wording before the 24-hr mark. (All editors are still subject to WP:3RR.)

~Awilley (talk) 05:18, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
@Awilley: The issue I have with the 24-hour cycle is it can enable slow moving edit wars. What if we created a restriction that is a combined mixture of BRD, 1RR (or 3RR if appropriate) and WP:VNOTSUFF? VNOTSUFF would already seem to imply people shouldn't be adding back material without consensus, after content's inclusion is disputed, and IMO forcing consensus building (on highly heated topic areas, covered by ArbCom's cases) is the best route given that consensus is supposed to control everything on the site (besides libel, etc). Thoughts? — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 05:51, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
I spent a little time on this new idea, and attempted to cover all of the bases. In my view this would handle all of the issues Awilley discovered and listed very thoughtfully in his essay. Unfortunately to get to such a resolution it does make the restriction list rather long (hence my additional idea in rule 8 to attempt to rectify people simply glancing over it and continuing to edit), but if anyone can think of a way to tighten the wording (and achieve the same goal) that would be appreciated. Here's the idea so far:

Please follow these restrictions:

1. Verifiability: You must cite a reliable source to attempt to include new data.
2. Do not edit war: If an attempt to include verifiable data is reverted, you are not allowed to re-instate the exact same edit without consensus. You also may not make more than three reverts to this page within 24 hours. (See point 6 for exceptions.)
2. Explanations are required for removal: You must explain why you think data should not be included, either in an edit-summary or on the talk page, so that your fellow editors can be apprised of your concerns.
3. Continue to be BOLD: You may make a new edit to include data if the issues raised by the disputing editor are able to be addressed without discussion, and your edit is a good faith attempt at compromise.
4. Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion: Editors must achieve consensus via discussion on the talk page, if the inclusion of information cannot be achieved via BOLD edits.
5. Removal restriction: If you make an edit to remove content that a prior discussion has determined should be included, and another editor re-instates the data, you are not allowed to remove the data again. A new consensus must be reached via discussion, on the article talk page.
6. 3RR limitations: If an editor removes content prior discussions have determined to include, you are allowed to re-instate the data and are not subject to WP:3RR. The best practice is to inform the removing editor of the prior discussion on their talk page.
7. No gaming: Gaming this system in any way is strictly prohibited. If an uninvolved administrator finds a pattern of abusing this system, they may levy additional sanctions at their discretion.
8. Awareness: If you were not aware of these restrictions you may be given lenience on a first offense, at the discretion of an uninvolved administrator.
I've included some things that apply generally, but for heated topic areas need extra enforcement to ease the strain on our lasting contributors (such as rule 1). I would be interested to see us test this out on a couple pages to see if it can work better than enforced-BRD or my earlier Consensus Required idea. And of course, I am open to any other ideas either of you have. Just stayed up late tonight, and decided to try to finally find a way to solve these problems. Let me know what you guys think. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 08:59, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
@Coffee: Wow, thank you. It's obvious you've put a lot of thought into this, and you've observed the problems in the topic area.
First, the issue you raised with the BRD sanction is the most common objection I hear from editors seeing it through the lens of "Consensus Required". Assuming by "slow edit warring" you mean "gaming" the system by reverting again and again every 24 hours, then yes, it does allow that. But this doesn't worry me because gaming is already well-defined, against policy, easy to identify, and easy to sanction. It's about as straightforward as sanctioning 3RR violations (just looking at diffs to check the timestamps and make sure they're reverts and checking the talk page to see if there's possibly mitigating collaboration going on). If by "slow edit war" you're referring to "tag team edit wars", well, that's a different conversation.
While I agree that the topic area would be vastly better if editors followed the 8 points you listed above, I have a lot of mixed feelings about actually posting those as sanctions. My first impression is that the list is too creep-y. The longer the and more complicated instructions are, the less likely people are to read or follow them. I'm also not crazy about having "redundant" sanctions...sanctions that are actually just restatements of existing policy. Numbers 4 and 7 fall into this category I think, while numbers 3, and 8 are just restatements of current norms. #1 worries me because adding new material without adding a citation is sometimes perfectly ok. And I think some of the other points similarly lack bright lines. Where do you draw the line between a good and bad-faith attempt at compromise (#3)? And would reporting someone for borderline or unclear violations violate #7's "no gaming" requirement? I think that to be effective a sanction needs to be short, easy to understand, and easy to see what is a violation and what's not. (And yes, I'm aware that my BRD sanction doesn't fully live up to that standard.) I think that's why 1RR has seen such widespread acceptance. Despite its problems, it's easy to understand and there's a bright line. ~Awilley (talk) 15:22, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Awilley, Coffee, this last part is key. Sanctions and restrictions must be easy to understand, easy to follow, and easy to enforce.
I argued at ARCA that arbitration enforcement blocks must still be preventative rather than punitive, which also means that it should be very obvious which editor is gaming the rules in order to get a leg up in a discussion, or is disrupting the consensus-building process in order to get their way.
So my challenge is this: What is the simplest possible restriction that can be used to curb and identify this sort of behaviour? – bradv🍁 15:53, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
When considering the simplest possible remedy, imagine one editor among a group of 5 or 6 editors. If there are only two editors battling with each the enforcement is simple - protect the page. But what about a one-against-many situation? Or even two-against-many? What's the clearest way to force them to collaborate? – bradv🍁 16:04, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Bradv, a bit of clarification: when you say "this sort of behavior" you are talking about gaming, correct? If I understand, you are saying that sanctions in general shouldn't be easy to game, and you were not asking us to come up with the simplest possible sanction that directly prohibits gaming, right? ~Awilley (talk) 16:36, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Awilley, that's the thought experiment, yes. If someone is disrupting the consensus-building process, it should be easy to identify and explain the disruptive behaviour, particularly among a group of editors. – bradv🍁 16:41, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Ok, that's a tough challenge. There are lots of ways to disrupt the consensus-building process, especially on talk pages. I think a lot of it boils down to stonewalling and intransigence and unwillingness to see things from any point of view other than one's own. Spend some time in the area and you'll see groups of editors divided roughly along partisan lines who cite the WP policies that are convenient for the argument they're making one day and then cite the opposite policy the next day for a different issue. If you want something in an article you say that it's WP:Verifiable and widely reported in WP:Reliable Sources. If you oppose having it in the article you cite WP:Undue or WP:Recentism or WP:Notnews or the like. And when too few people are interested in compromise or concessions, the "consensus building process" often ends up being a nose count via straw poll or RFC, which too often ends up with one "side" winning outright and getting their preferred result implemented in the article without it having undergone significant modifications to account for the objections of the other "side". This is the main reason I dislike the "consensus required" sanction. It rewards intransigence because editors opposing a change can often prevent it by simply refusing to compromise on the talk page. And that was the idea behind the "exception" in my proposed sanction above. It attempts to reward compromising on the talk page. ~Awilley (talk) 17:16, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Awilley, one of the things that I'm noticing about your proposed wording is that it imagines only two editors. I think the reality is a fair bit different – articles under DS restrictions usually have plenty of editors.
But more to the point, if Editor "B" (the reverter in the BRD process) is being difficult, that does not necessarily give Editor "A" licence to try their edit again 24 hours later in the hopes that they get a different result. I don't think that's the advice we should be giving. What we should be telling them is to seek further opinions, to compromise, and to reach consensus for their proposed change. – bradv🍁 17:38, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Bradv, I think your comment is thoughtful and on point. In general, my reaction to these bespoke page restrictions etc. is that a lot of rumination and hypothetical discussions have occurred over the past several years without a real clear definition of the problem they are intended to solve. Rules and regulations and enforcement need to address the empirically given problem, and I don't think it's been helpful to try out solutions in real time without first articulating the problem(s) or dysfunctions of process that they are intneded to solve. DS enforcement has worked best when wise experienced Admins have seen a specific disruption and addressed it. Almost none of the helpful enforcement has come from scripted restrictions insofar as I can tell. SPECIFICO talk 18:44, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Bradv, OK, three things... 1. multiple editors, 2. how to dissuade Editor A from just waiting out the 24 hours and trying again, and 3. how to encourage editor B to participate in the consensus building/compromise.
1. I think that the sanction above would function similar to 1RR does with multiple editors with the exception of blocking Editor A's initial revert and maybe providing an extra nudge/incentive to discuss on talk during the 24-hr cooldown. But, like 1RR, it would allow tag-team edit wars where Editor A adds, B removes, C re-adds, D re-removes, etc. That is something that should be considered as well...I personally don't like them, but they can be helpful if the content is changing on each iteration to resolve concerns of previous editors (adding citations, editing for neutrality, etc.) I currently think that the collateral damage of trying to eliminate them outweighs the relatively small benefit. I can elaborate if you like.
2. I'm not sure, other than to keep an eye out for slow-revert warring (gaming) where the editor keeps re-adding the disputed content without trying to resolve the issue. Do you not think the "exception" is enough incentive?
3. For editor B, I think the incentive to compromise is the knowledge that Editor A or Editor C could simply re-add the disputed content if they don't. But really the onus should be on Editor A to resolve concerns and make a case for the edit, since they're the one trying to change the status quo.
Generally I want to steer clear of anything that would prohibit people from performing "partial reverts" (trying the edit again but tweaking it based on the concerns of Editor B). From WP:BRD: "To avoid bogging down in discussion, when you have a better understanding of the reverter's concerns, you may attempt a new edit that reasonably addresses some aspect of those concerns. You can try this even if the discussion has not reached an explicit conclusion, but be sure you don't engage in any kind of edit warring." That's obviously advice, not policy, but it's good advice I think. ~Awilley (talk) 20:13, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Those do not sound like scenarios that actually occur, at least at American Politics. Do you have half a dozen examples of threads from AP articles wherein your proposed solutions might have led to quicker or more lasting agreement on article text? SPECIFICO talk 20:58, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Awilley, doesn't your idea for a page-level sanction just limit editors to making "one contested edit" per day? This would include a bold edit which is reverted, and the reversion itself. If the bold edit is discussed and a consensus is found, it is not longer contested. Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:35, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
@Kolya Butternut: Not exactly. The "contested edits" would be linked to the content being edited. So a user can make any number of "Bold" edits in a day, as normal. And a user could make up to 3 reverts per day, as normal, but they can't make the same revert more than once. I see this last bit as being potentially helpful for established users keeping things under control in articles about recent events where new, SPA, and IP editors are enthusiastically making unhelpful edits that need to be reverted, but the editors doing the reverting are limited to 1 per day. ~Awilley (talk) 20:13, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
@Awilley: That sounds like it could be the same thing I was saying? Only the "same revert" is actually "contested"; unchallenged bold edits are not, unless I misunderstand. Kolya Butternut (talk) 21:42, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Taking the liberty of pinging a few editors to make them aware of this discussion. MrX and JFG are both experienced editors in the topic area who, though they often find themselves on opposite sides in RfCs, both work hard to follow policy and craft workable article text (as opposed to just opinionating from the sidelines). Mandruss is another experienced editor in the topic area who, more than almost anyone else I've seen, shows no political agenda and is very focused on following proper procedure. He's the one who sweeps up after edit wars, fixing citations and stuff. All three have expressed an interest in policy discussions like this, and I think a discussion like this would be lacking without their perspective. I should probably also ping TonyBallioni who is really good at poking holes in my ideas, and who is probably sick of hearing from me by now. Noting also that the proposed sanction at the top of this section was intended to be a jumping-off point...something concrete to discuss. I only came up with the actual wording yesterday, and I'm definitely not married to that exactly. ~Awilley (talk) 22:05, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

I think a broader discussion would benefit from a location in WP space, either at AN or ARCA. SPECIFICO talk 00:21, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
Bradv, if you haven't had a chance to read Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-05-31/Op-Ed#Bias, prejudice and POV creep, please do. Atsme Talk 📧 01:09, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
Responding to ping. I struggle to reconnect with the Mandruss who expressed an interest in policy discussions like this. Right now I'm thinking there aren't any good solutions without fixing a lot of underlying foundational problems, many of which would be unfixable without WMF intervention that would piss off a large part of the vocal editing population and ignite megawars on- and off-wiki. In my view we are severely limited by our own sacrosanct "principles". Maybe I'm just not smart enough, or not knowledgeable enough. At this point I don't think I have much to contribute here, but thanks, Awilley, for the kind words and the ping. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:58, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
WMandrusss, I probably misremembered or conflated you with JFG. ~Awilley (talk) 03:18, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
Nah, that sounds like something I probably said one or two years ago. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:08, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
I will start by quoting myself from Bishonen's talk page: The current restrictions slow the damage done to articles, but they also slow the repair. Most experienced AP editors abide by the editing principles pointed out by Arbcom. That is largely the result of some of the most offending editors having been topic or site banned. I agree with what SPECIFICO wrote about 1RR slowing everything down, but I would actually propose eliminating 1RR on mature articles like Racial views of Donald Trump that are not heavily edited, and instead implementing a BRD restriction that respects the status quo/silent consensus. In other words, if an editor (boldly) adds new material (including tags, links, and categories) or removes material that has been in the article for some length of time (90 days or more?), then those edits are limited to 1RR and the editor must discuss the edit on the talk page and wait 24 hours before restoring. That would have saved numerous person-hours of dealing with the socks on this one article alone. I think we also need to lower the bar on identifying socks. Accounts jumping into controversial articles with precocious knowledge about NPOV and formatting refs are not new users learning to edit. I will say that all of the admins in this discussion have done exemplary work addressing editor conduct in the AP space, but the day-to-day burden of defending the integrity of content has largely fallen on the shoulders of regular editors who have contribute an untold number of volunteer hours to editing, research, and discussion, only to have their work damaged by the socks, SPAs, and throwaway accounts. 1RR and BRD are being gamed because these socks are not new editors and they understand that they will be given additional warning before being sanctioned. All they have to do is say they didn't see the yellow warning box. When they do get block, they can create a brand new account and start the whole process over. That could be solved by zero-tolerance enforcement that gives new users a short topic ban on the first offence, followed by escalating sanctions for repeat offences. - MrX 🖋 19:08, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
@MrX: Sorry for the long pause. Responding to a couple specific points. The sock/SPA thing is obviously a problem, and I don't know that this is the answer, but I think it would help, similar to the BRD idea. I like the idea of a quick topic ban on SPAs gaming the DS system, but the awareness requirements make that a bit more difficult, and explaining then enforcing the topic ban is more time and effort. It was partially this problem that led me to propose this (using edit filters to implement narrow topic bans/category blocks). Unfortunately it looks like that isn't going to happen soon. As for enforcing something based on the time something has been in the article (90 days) that seems very messy to me. Who's going to track that? You can't expect people to run a Wikiblame on every edit, and even with Wikiblame different people get different results. ~Awilley (talk) 04:30, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
Awilley I don't think the awareness requirements poses that much difficulty. Wikipedia:ACDS#Awareness says that "Editors using mobile devices may not see edit notices. Administrators should consider whether an editor was aware of the page restriction before sanctioning them." The edit notice is sufficient to meet the awareness standard, except (supposedly) in the case of mobile device edits, but only if the offending editor claims that that was the case. You also have to use admin judgement and decide whether the editor is editing like a clumsy new editor or a WP:PRECOSCIOUS editor as we have seen in the example I listed. Perhaps the 90 day status quo criteria would be onerous, but the principle behind it is sound. - MrX 🖋 13:15, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
On the awareness thing, the way I understand it is that I can't sanction a user for a 1RR violation (or BRD or whatever) unless at a minimum the user had been officially made aware of the sanctions in the topic area. Even though something like a short block isn't a "discretionary sanction" I would be sanctioning a violation of DS (the 1RR). That's what I was referring to when I referenced "awareness". ~Awilley (talk) 04:09, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

break (1RR)

OK, here's a new wording with some minor changes from the first attempt above:

If a change you make to this article is reverted, you must wait 24 hours (from the time of your original edit) before reinstating that change. Exception: if you discuss the issue with the reverting editor and agree on a wording that addresses their objection(s), you may implement the new consensus wording immediately. (All editors are still subject to WP:3RR.)

I have some specific questions (@Bradv and/or interested parties)

Regarding the first sentence:

1a. Is solving the 1RR first-mover problem important enough that a new rule like this is worth the trouble?
1b. Does this achieve a good balance of favoring the status quo vs. allowing article development? @MrX:
1c. Do you think linking reverts to content like this is helpful? (Reverting two different edits by two different editors is no longer a 1RR violation, but still counts against 3RR.)
1d. Are violations easy enough to see that this is enforceable? In my mind, a report at AE would consist of two diffs less than 24 hours apart showing the same content being added/removed, and a statement about the editor's participation on the talk page. Normal 3RR violations would go to WP:AN/EW, but I think this would be rare because the editor would have had to make 4 reverts, all of different content. (So an editor reporting a 3RR violation might need as many as 8 diffs: 4 reverts, and 4 showing the edit being reverted.) I see a possibility for some initial malformed reports to AE showing 2 clear reverts but of different content. Am I missing anything? Are there borderline cases that would cause reasonable people to disagree on whether there was a violation?

Regarding the second sentence:

2a. Do you think encouraging collaboration like this is worth the extra complexity?
2b. Do you think it will actually work to encourage collaboration? (Or will users just assume that they'll never find common ground with their irrational opponent and wait for a ideological allies to start a tag-team edit war?)
2c. This obviously has the potential for more borderline cases. Editor 1 interprets something Editor 2 says on talk as agreement on a compromise and then makes the partial revert, but Editor 2 didn't agree. Is it worth it to say that explicit consent is required?

~Awilley (talk) 04:08, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Awilley This is not substantively different that the BRD restriction that you previously invented, which again, simply slows down editing. If an editor and a reverting editor agree on a wording that addresses their objection(s), then a level of consensus has been achieved and the problem is solved. The issues I would like to see addressed are 1) socks, spas, and IPs ganging up against long term editors and damaging content, and 2) admins who place restrictions on article need to patrol the article and enforce the restrictions. If you're too busy in real life to do that, then you shouldn't place restrictions on the article. - MrX 🖋 13:27, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
@MrX:, on 2, to be fair, I have only placed sanctions on about 7 pages (counting them from my creations in the template namespace) all of them BLPs running in the presidential primaries, so I'll probably be removing some of those soon. On the rest of the pages the BRD restriction was just replacing existing "Consensus required" sanctions. And I removed sanctions entirely from a good chunk of those pages that I downgraded from Consensus Required. On 1, I wonder if broader application of WP:Extended confirmed protection would be helpful. I'm a bit fuzzy on the policy for applying that, but since this thread is about 1RR I don't want to get too far off topic here. ~Awilley (talk) 00:03, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
Awilley, you continue to propose "solutions" to a problem that you have not demonstrated to exist. I have not seen experienced editors have not agreed with your apparent premise that back-and-forth revert warring is a significant problem in American Politics articles. The "enforced BRD" sanction has been in place for a long time now, with no constructive benefit. The best enforcement has come from Admins who have closely followed the articles and exercised their authorized discretion from time to time. Of course, it is logically possible that some more effective rule could be found, but you have not identified the real-world problem that you are proposing to solve. I think any discussion of solutions must begin from clearly identified data -- a set of examples of that show the problems that enforced BRD solved or that any other proposed rule would solve. SPECIFICO talk 14:00, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
SPECIFICO, for the existence of 1RR problems I would refer you to the long thread linked in this section header. ~Awilley (talk) 00:09, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Some general thoughts

Awilley, SPECIFICO, MrX, sorry for being MIA for much of this discussion – I've been distracted with a family emergency for the past 2 weeks or so. Things are mostly back to normal, but now work is picking up again.

I'll comment generally for now on what I think makes an effective remedy/restriction/sanction:

  • Simple: A restriction applied to an article or to an editor needs to be simple. It should consist of a straightforward instruction, without subordinate clauses, parentheses, or long lists of exceptions. We want people to contribute to the encyclopedia – page restrictions should not be about making that a daunting task.
  • Instructive: Restrictions should model our best editing practices, and thereby instruct new people in the best way to contribute to the project. Examples: If you have lost perspective on a certain topic and can't be collaborative anymore you should walk away. If you are the only one with a particular point of view you should stop and listen to your peers. If you make a bold edit and are reverted you should discuss it. These are the rules we should all follow everywhere, but especially on contentious subjects. Novel sanctions which have the effect of preventing bold edits, limiting the frequency of edits without increasing collaboration, or otherwise impose rules which are not modeled on good editing practices – these do not make effective remedies as they do not create model Wikipedians.
  • Diagnosable: When someone violates 3RR it is fairly obvious from the history who the problem is. If you see one person making 4 edits, all around the same size, on the same day, with intervening edits by others, that almost always indicates a 3RR violation. All our remedies should be this simple to enforce. Topic bans should have clear lines, page restrictions should similarly be clear and easy to follow. This is a far better way to prevent gaming than adding a "no gaming" clause to a sanction. If there's a component to a restriction that's up to the discretion of the enforcing admin, it's better to leave it out of the wording entirely.
  • Consistent: The rules of engagement should not be changing with every article. This is a major flaw in our current DS implementation, and something I would like to see addressed.
  • Constructive: Good restrictions help us to write a better encyclopedia. They must never be edit prevention schemes. This project is not complete, and never will be.

I can comment further on some of the specifics of the remedies being discussed here, but I'd like to hear your feedback on these basic principles first. Do you agree with these? – bradv🍁 14:20, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, and no problem on the wait. Real life comes first. I think those are very good principles, though I think there would need to be compromises in following all of them, as some of them are pulling in different directions. Like Simple vs Instructive. Simple implies that I should leave the 2nd sentence (the exception) off the new sanction, but instructive implies I should include it (encourage people to go to talk after reverts). But then having some talkpage-related caveat or requirement makes things harder to Diagnose.
Re: Constructive, I try to evaluate sanctions in terms of the bad behaviors and the good behaviors that they block and allow. Sometimes in attempting to block specific bad behaviors you also block potential other good behavior or enable a different bad behavior. I think this is pretty general...blocks and topic bans can prevent a user from edit warring on one page, but also prevent the user from making constructive contributions elsewhere. 1RR prevents edit warring, but also makes it harder to deal with large numbers of unhelpful drive-by edits. "Consensus required" stops tag-team edit warring, but it also blocks the normal progression of the BRD cycle (for example: a new bold edit with a proposed compromise based on the talk page discussion) and rewards talkpage stonewalling.
I agree Consistency is a big problem. I don't know if there's an easy way to solve that short of Arbcom stepping in. The last time the "BRD" vs. "Consensus required" sanctions came up at WP:AN there was a clear consensus against replacing one sanction with the other, and clear support for individual admin discretion. link ~Awilley (talk) 15:06, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
Another consideration not listed here but related to Diagnosable is Accountability. Editors should be accountable for their own actions, and not the actions of others. That was part of the fatal flaw in the Arbcom BRD-like sanction I mentioned above. Whether or not you violated the rule partially depended on the time stamp of an edit by a different editor. That's another problem with the "Consensus required" rule. A completely new editor to an article could run afoul of the sanction with thier "Bold edit" because that edit happened to restore something that another editor had "challenged by reversion" last week. We can ask editors to track and limit their own reverts. We shouldn't expect them to keep track of everybody else's reverts on top of that. ~Awilley (talk) 15:16, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
Bump to prevent premature archive ~Awilley (talk) 16:10, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
Awilley, I suspect you are trying to cover all of the rules around editing controversial topics in one sentence. I don't think that can be done. What we can do instead is give people good advice. If you see an edit you don't like, revert it once, and then start discussing. If you add something that someone disagrees with, talk to them. What is not good advice is to tell them to wait 24 hours and then make the edit again. If someone is making the same edit every 24 hours without ever talking on the talk page, they should be blocked for edit warring. If someone is stonewalling on the talk page, request a third opinion or start an RfC to get more input. These are just good editing practices, and we don't need custom sanctions to enforce them. This is still the "encyclopedia anyone can edit", and we shouldn't be making that any more intimidating than it already is. – bradv🍁 14:45, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure that's not what I'm trying to do (cover all editing rules in one sentence). There are very specific problems I'm looking to fix. Problems with existing sanctions currently active on many articles. I could go remove all the 1RR and related sanctions from a significant percentage of our most controversial articles in the area, but I'm not convinced that would benefit the project. And in order to get the sanctions removed from the other half of the articles I'd have to individually convince 20 different admins that it was a good idea. In a nutshell, I'm trying to find a simple rule that is capable of replacing 1RR. One that has a similar effect but that works better. Good advice is good, and I'm already pretty liberal in doling that out. But it can't solve the problems with the rules that are already in place. ~Awilley (talk) 15:51, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
Awilley, perhaps I'm not just seeing the problems that you're seeing. Do you have any examples of situations which could not be satisfactorily resolved with the standard 1RR + CR sanction? Feel free to share them by email if you don't want to reopen old wounds. – bradv🍁 16:07, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I may have missed it, but I still have not heard a simple statement of what problem you are trying to address. Can you state the major cause or causes of disruption or time-wasting unconstructive participation in American Politics articles? Then we can test any rules for effectiveness against the actual problem and see whether they address it. My view is that the main problem relates to NPOV and WEIGHT misapplied or misunderstood by editors who read a limited range of sources or cherrypick sources to fit personal narratives. Most of this first appears as good faith incompetence but it wastes vast amounts of editor time and attention when editors succumb to the temptation to respond with debate and rebuttal of talk page posts that would otherwise wither and die on the vine. I do not see much outright revert warring in the politics articles and I don't consider that much of the problem. SPECIFICO talk 16:14, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
Bradv, just clarifying, with the proposed sanction, I'm looking to fix the problems with regular old 1RR. Not 1RR + CR. CR has its own set of problems, and I think it should be purged from the project. But for the sake of staying focused on one problem at a time, let's just discuss 1RR for the moment if that's ok with you. Some of the problems with 1RR were apparent in the old thread now archived at User_talk:Bradv/Archive_18#1RR_violations. You hit on two of them in your first response in that thread. But for clarity, let me list a few of the problems here:
1. Unrelated reverts: It's unclear whether two unrelated reverts to different content, separated by others' edits, violate 1RR. You said in the previous thread, "...those are reverts to different sections of the page, and they did not revert back to the same version. I know that 3RR says that it applies "whether involving the same or different material", but I don't think I've ever seen 1RR interpreted that way - generally people are allowed to make multiple reverts provided they are to different content." I regularly see 1RR interpreted that way. In the AP topic area it is widely understood that you get one and only one revert per 24-hr period.
2. It forces editors to make any desired reverts in quick succession. I recall MrX describing how he tries to make edits and reverts in a rapid succession during slow times of day when he's less likely to run into intervening edits. If you have 3 edits to make to different sections of the article that could be considered "partial reverts", but after your second one somebody reverts your first edit, then you pretty much need to wait 24 hours before you can make the 3rd edit. It would break 1RR because it's no longer a continuous string of edits that can be called one revert. Or at least it's unclear enough that reasonable admins could interpret it differently.
3. 1RR's first-mover advantage: I described this problem above, and Rhotodendrites discussed it in the archived thread. It takes 2 editors using their daily revert to retain the status quo against a single editor using a Bold edit and 1 revert. (Note that the addition of a CR or BRD sanction also remedies this problem.)
4. It can discourage regular editors from doing the kind of regular article maintenance that counters the churn of IP and drive-by editors. When I see an IP editor add a paragraph at the end of the Lead about some recent controversy, I would want to trim that down to a WP:DUE size and work it into the body. But that trimming is a partial revert, so I did something similar earlier in the day or am involved in some other content dispute, I might let the minor issues slide so I can deal with the more important stuff. Or try to do everything at once (to avoid problem #2).
5. Related to #4, It makes it really difficult to maintain high traffic articles affected by recent events that draw hordes of new editors. Think of articles like Killing of George Floyd. Those kinds of pages are hard to maintain even when you have dozens of established editors armed with 3 reverts apiece. Fortunately admins generally refrain from placing 1RR on brand new articles, but not always. (I think Joe Biden sexual assault allegation got an early 1RR.) In my experience a wise admin watching pages with hundreds of revisions per day will choose not to look for 3RR violations by regular editors who are reverting unhelpful content.
Anyway, the proposed sanction would help to address all of the above problems with 1RR. I think. ~Awilley (talk) 21:01, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
Awilley, with the exception of #3, all of those issues are resolved by changing the policy so that 1RR only applies to the specific content being reverted and not the whole page. As for #3, the first-mover advantage is usually a good thing, per my "Constructive" criterion above. (It's easier to revert than it is to write content, and so our policies are biased toward writing content.) – bradv🍁 23:49, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
OK, I'd be happy with changing the definition of 1RR, though I'm not sure how the community would react to such a proposal. On #3, I respectfully disagree. Yes, there should be a fine balance, but that balance should gently favor the status quo. That's why we have a whole page on WP:BRD while WP:BRRD redirects to WP:Edit warring. And there's WP:ONUS and WP:STATUSQUO. Side note: examples of problematic page-level sanctions that are more extreme on the "status quo spectrum" are WP:0RR and "Consensus required". 0RR (yes it's been done) is really bad because it basically nukes the status quo. CR is bad because it favors the status quo too much. Anyway, if I were to go the route of trying to redefine 1RR, would you prefer something like You must not revert the same content more than once every 24 hours over the wording I proposed above ("If a change you make to this article is reverted, you must wait 24 hours (from the time of your original edit) before reinstating that change." on the bases of the "Constructive" criterion? ~Awilley (talk) 01:13, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Awilley, what I'm really resisting here is the idea that we need yet another custom page restriction for contentious topics. There are too many variations at it is. If 1RR truly is broken, then we need to start a community-wide discussion to fix it (which should also involve ArbCom as they're responsible for many of the 1RR restrictions out there). And if Consensus Required doesn't work (I'm not convinced), then we should start a broader discussion to figure it out once and for all. But I suspect what we really need is a thorough review of our entire discretionary sanctions system. And that certainly isn't going to happen on my talk page. – bradv🍁 01:37, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Re your first concern, I agree completely. I would not make this a new sanction without completely eliminating one of the others. In this case I should be able to retire the BRD sanction without too much trouble. Getting rid of the CR and the current wording of 1RR would be great, but as you said, much harder. If you think there's a path through ARCA that could result in a a change to 1RR, I'm willing to go that route. ~Awilley (talk) 02:10, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Bradv, do you think there's a possiblity of having Arbcom redefine/clarify 1RR? Specifically do you think they'd be inclined to clarify whether separate reverts of unrelated content are allowed, and possibly adjust the wording to close the first-mover loophole? ~Awilley (talk) 01:21, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
FYI, I started a thread at WP:VPP to try and get some more feedback on the 1RR thing. ~Awilley (talk) 00:01, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Discussion of Consensus Required

The following comment by SPECIFICO was originally a reply in the previous section here but I'm moving it here so it can be discussed without taking too much of a tangent ~Awilley (talk) 02:50, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I liked the Consensus Required restriction, although that is already sitewide principle. But the reason it was a well-formed rule is that it couldn't be gamed. If anyone falsely claimed "no consensus" to remove valid content, the solution was a simple poll or RfC. Hence, while there were lenghty discussions at times (per my previous concern about NPOV failures) editors knew that failure to provide good sources and valid arguments would only lead to consensus being demonstrated against them. The "first mover" "second mover" war games speculations don't address any observed problem. SPECIFICO talk 01:57, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

@SPECIFICO:, straw polls and RfCs are good for finding long-term solutions to intractable disputes. But they're blunt tools. They're time consuming for a lot of editors and they don't have much room for nuanced changes to wording. A problem with CR is that it kicked a lot of disputes straight to RfCs that would have been better resolved through two editors listening to each others concerns and tweaking the content through a couple cycles BRD. Editor A makes a POV edit, Editor B reverts, they discuss, Editor A makes the edit again with less POV, Editor B tweaks it, and it's settled. Under CR, Editor B reverts and they discuss, but there's less motivation to compromise. B can force A to drop the issue entirely or submit to an RfC by simply refusing to compromise, and it's a lot harder for A to propose new wordings using the talk page only where people can't edit each others text. Once the RfC is started, changes to the text stop, so when the RfC finishes you either get something that looks a lot like the original POV edit, or nothing at all. That's one of the reasons you get paragraphs full of short, choppy, non-sequitur sentences like "Trump has made many false or misleading statements during his campaign and presidency." and "Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged or racist." tacked onto the end of a paragraph in the Lead of Donald Trump. These are examples where one "side" was able to win a battle through an exhausting series of RfCs and close reviews (False: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Racist: [6] [7] [8] [9]) without much need to compromise with or make concessions for the opposing side. And then you get a constant stream of new editors come to the talk page citing that sentence to complain that Wikipedia is biased. (I'm not saying the sentences are untrue, I'm saying that with the ability to resolve disputes through a combination of discussion and editing, and some compromise, you could have found a better way to phrase them that worked better with the rest of the paragraph.) ~Awilley (talk) 04:02, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Thank you. I believe, just to take the Donald Trump article as an example, there have been an increasing series of RfC's and polls after the change to 24-hour-BRD, for example the worst of all, here, with no substantial prior discussion to clarify or winnow down the choices or bludgeoning to reverse a recent previous RfC: RfC at Trump Followed almost immediately by a second RfC on the same issue. There are other similar examples at the Joe Biden related articles. The result is that many of our best content editors have greatly reduced their editing in American Politics articles to avoid repetitive and ill-founded arguments against NPOV by an obstinate group of editors who tend to cite a variety of minority or fringe media POV's. SPECIFICO talk 13:23, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
@SPECIFICO: Continuing with the Donald Trump example, there's probably enough data to attempt some rough statistics. I just compiled some data by counting the number of times Legobot used the exact edit summary "Added: Talk:Donald Trump." at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Biographies and Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Politics,_government,_and_law. Granted, it's probably not the most accurate way to count, and it probably includes some double-counting, but it gives some numbers we can discuss. Here are the results:
RfCs per year (from Legobot edit summaries)
Biographies Politics, government, and law
2016 9 15
2017 14 12
2018 13 14
2019 11 8
2020 (through June) 7 7
I eliminated the CR sanction at the end of 2018.
Looking at these numbers, your intuition is correct that there has been a recent increase in the average rate of RfCs in the first half of 2020, but that is after a significant decrease in 2019. I'm personally wary of drawing any conclusions from these numbers, but I suspect some of the fluctuations can be explained by the timing and significance of real world events...like a spike in 2020 isn't surprising if you consider impeachment trial + pandemic & shutdown + civil unrest + election year. ~Awilley (talk) 14:50, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
The following comment by Bradv was originally a reply in the previous section here. ~Awilley (talk) 02:50, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Awilley, I don't agree with getting rid of CR. I think it's a superior restriction to Enforced BRD, in that it doesn't advise people to wait 24 hours and try their edit again. – bradv🍁 02:38, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

@Bradv: I don't think you are accurately describing the BRD sanction. It does not "advise people to wait 24 hours and try their edit again". It requires them to discuss the issue to the talk page before trying the edit again, and advises them against simply trying the edit again. Here's the full text of the sanction, emphasis added: If a change you make to this article is reverted, you may not reinstate that change unless you discuss the issue on the talk page and wait 24 hours (from the time of the original edit). Partial reverts/reinstatements that reasonably address objections of other editors are preferable to wholesale reverts. ~Awilley (talk) 04:02, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Awilley, so they can just post a message on the talk page, wait 24 hours, and then reinstate the edit hoping for a different result? How is this good advice to give someone editing a contentious topic? This just slows down the disruption, it doesn't actually form good editing habits. We should be teaching new editors to get consensus for their proposed changes when someone objects. They don't necessarily need to go through a formal RfC, but we do want them to collaborate and to listen to other points of view. – bradv🍁 04:16, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
They could do that in the same way they could WP:Game 1RR or 3RR, and a pattern of doing that would quickly be identified. I don't know that any sanction could force a person to form good editing habits, but at least this one makes them go through the motions by opening the discussion. I'll admit I'm a bit surprised that you like the CR sanction based on the criteria you listed above. It has problems with all 5 of the criteria: Simple (it can make contributing even minor changes a very daunting task and requires editors to track the content of others' reverts in addition to their own), Instructive (it leads to talkpages getting bogged down in discussion while eliminating collaborative editing until an explicit consensus is finally found), Diagnosable (judging violations requires admins to analyze talkpage consensus and sometimes dig into the edit history with Wikiblame to determine whether an edit was a "bold" edit to longstanding material or a "revert" of material that was recently added by someone else), Consistent (I think we agree that CR doesn't belong on every article in a topic area), Constructive (it strongly favors the status quo). Before we go further with this, would you mind reading my essay at User:Awilley/Consensus_Required_vs_Enforced_BRD? ~Awilley (talk) 04:36, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Awilley, you know where I stand on the matter. But Bradv was able to frame some of these problems with Enforced BRD with an especial eloquence and brevity, so kudos for that, Bradv. El_C 14:56, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
I second that, El_C. Also there are editors who repeatedly do exactly what Awilley says they could do and in at least one instance Awilley declinied to enforce his 24-BRD thing and said it was not a violation. This contradicted Awilley's analysis and 2-dimensional matrix comparing the sanctions at the time he took over the existing Consensu sanctions then in place. At any rate given what passes for "discussion" half the time, the 24-hr BRD adds nothing to 1RR. SPECIFICO talk 17:25, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
@Bradv, I thought it might help to have a small example of one of the CR problems related to "Diagnosable", "Simple", and "Accountability" criteria. Assume for sake of argument that the Justin Trudeau article is under the CR rule. Can you explain how this edit might violate that sanction? (Please don't spend more than 5 minutes on it.) ~Awilley (talk) 15:46, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Awilley, I might be a bit slow, but I didn't get it. And I took a passing glance at the talk page and archives. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ El_C 15:55, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Yeah I don't get it either. – bradv🍁 15:58, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
OK, here's a bit more info:
  • On 17 April, User:Shamila733 added the following text: "Generally, immigrants tend to settle down in the prominent cities of Canada. Canada has launched various Pilot programs in order to drive immigrants towards other lesser populated areas of Canada such as regional areas." [10]
  • 2 hours later, User:Elizium23 challenged that edit by reversion. [11]
  • Today (50 revisions later in the edit history), I added the same text with some tweaks and a citation. "Generally, immigrants tend to settle in larger cities like Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Calgary. But Canada has launched various pilot programs to encourage immigrants towards less populated areas of Canada." [12]
There was no talk page discussion or consensus for the edit. Assume I had received the required notification of the sanctions and declined to self-revert when someone requested I do so on my talk page. Would you block me if this was reported to you? Would your answer change if the original edit had instead been made on 17 May or 17 June? ~Awilley (talk) 16:45, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
If you declined to self-revert, then yes, I would sanction you. Maybe it would be a partial block, though. El_C 16:47, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
@El_C, two quick follow-up questions if you don't mind. 1. What if the original edit had been made and reverted on 17 April 2019? (What would be the cutoff when you would consider my edit to be a new WP:BOLD edit instead of a revert?) 2. Would it bother you that you were blocking me for my first-ever edit to the article, an edit that was, by most measures, constructive and in good faith? ~Awilley (talk) 16:56, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Awilley, if you had deliberately sought out a challenged edit and tried to sneak it back in, yes, I would remind you of the consensus required restriction and ask you to self-revert. If you refused, I would likely apply a 1-week partial block as a first offense. (Unless I thought you were going to disrupt other articles in the same way, in which case it would be a site block.)
In this case, since the text was improved and sourced, it would be reasonable to wait and see if someone reverted it, and then remind the parties to discuss it on the talk page. Blocks must still be preventative and not punitive, regardless of the actual wording of the restriction. – bradv🍁 16:52, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
If I understand it correctly, under Enforced BRD this edit would be perfectly fine, even if it were copied verbatim from the original challenged version. That's a problem. – bradv🍁 16:53, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
It's also worth noting that the person who originally reverted the edit would be freely able to revert this one too, so that is a more likely outcome than having an admin show up with a block. No one has gained an unfair advantage by making this edit - they have just been rather deceptive. If you look at the enforcement example that led to this thread, it was an unfair advantage and needed to be dealt with. – bradv🍁 16:59, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
One week partial block is also my basic default for first offenders. Anyway, something that is challenged in a CR setting does not expire, Awilley. A new article talk page discussion is expected. El_C 17:05, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
@Bradv, suppose that my edit were less similar to the original...not using the same words but adding the same information. Does that change anything?
You are correct, my edit would be allowed under the BRD rule. In fact it would be encouraged. I responded to the concerns in Elizium's edit summary. I got rid of the irrelevant and promotional language and added a citation to a better source. That's what you're supposed to do on Wikipedia.
I'm actually unclear on whether Elizium would be able to safely revert my edit. One could argue that Elizium's revert was challenged by reversion, and there is no consensus on the talk page and a 2 vs 1 consensus against Elizium in the article.
@El_C, if there is no backwards limit that means that any editor can try to get an opponent blocked for making an edit that was too similar to any edit that has ever been reverted in the past. In case you are curious, the standard for how CR was enforced back in its heyday (2017) was a vague cutoff of about 6 weeks depending on the article. The cutoff was established by User:NeilN who said,

Consensus required: All editors must obtain consensus on the talk page of this article before reinstating any edits that have been challenged (via reversion). If in doubt, don't make the edit. Any edit means any edit, whether addition of new material, the tweaking of long-standing existing material, or the removal of long-standing existing material. The meaning of "long-standing" changes from article to article. As with Donald Trump, I would take it to mean 4-6 weeks for this article. One this challenge has happened, no editor should be re-doing the addition/tweaking/deletion without obtaining consensus. link

~Awilley (talk) 17:38, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Awilley, we can't interpret for NeilN, but I am not taking his statement to be indicative of expiration after 6 weeks, but rather it being about how long it takes for material to become longstanding text. El_C 17:46, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
El_C, NeilN did link "longstanding" to both CR and 1RR. Let me come at this from a different direction. Every time I remove material from an article I am undoing the work of whoever added that material to the article, whether they added it last week or last year. Unless you have some cutoff for what is "longstanding", then every edit that removes material can be considered a revert. Without a cutoff I could walk up to any article under CR, remove a sentence I don't like with the edit summary "I'm challenging this by reversion", and keep it out of the article until a positive consensus forms on the talk page to put it back in. Or I could report editors for 1RR violations if they make 2 edits that happen to remove content. (They were obviously reverting somebody because somebody must have written that content.) Of course these are silly scenarios. This is why an edit that happens to add or removes content that was last added or removed a long time ago should be considered a new WP:BOLD edit that modifies longstanding material, not a Revert of an old edit. Here's another quote from NeilN from the same section I linked above:

So let's say a paragraph was added a couple months ago. The article is intensely watched but wonder of wonders, no one objects or comments. Fast forward to today and an editor decides the text isn't appropriate. They remove it. It gets restored. It cannot be removed again by saying, "well, no one explicitly agreed with the addition". Instead, reasons rooted in normal policies and guidelines must be given, hopefully by multiple editors. And in that case, the side wanting to retain the material cannot just rely on, "well, the material has been there for two months". They too, must come up with reasons rooted in normal policies and guidelines. However in this case the material should stay until that discussion has been had. It might be a quick discussion, it might be a lengthy one, but it needs to exist.

~Awilley (talk) 18:22, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
If it's a new edit that happens to be similar to something that was removed before, I wouldn't intervene. It it's clear that they dug through the history and copied an contested edit verbatim without bothering to go to the talk page, that is both deceptive and disruptive. If it's their own edit they restored, then it's obviously actionable. Again, we're not looking for reasons to block people, we're trying to give them good advice so that they learn to edit collaboratively. – bradv🍁 18:46, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Yes, and Awilley, it is my understanding that an edit needs to be objected to to fall under CR, otherwise, it's good per WP:SILENCE. El_C 19:11, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
We aren't looking for reasons get people blocked, but I can guarantee that others in this topic area are. I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that scrutinizing months old diffs and trying to divine whether someone is making a partial revert or a new "bold" edit isn't something admins should have to do for a good sanction. You said it yourself. "When someone violates 3RR it is fairly obvious from the history who the problem is...All our remedies should be this simple to enforce...If there's a component to a restriction that's up to the discretion of the enforcing admin, it's better to leave it out of the wording entirely." Anyway I'll try to stop pushing my anti-CR-rule agenda here. You've been kind enough to engage with my example and I assume you've read my essay by now, so there's probably not much more for me to say anyway. In any case I hope you'll keep my concerns in mind. I do hope to continue the 1RR discussion above if I haven't exhausted you. ~Awilley (talk) 19:24, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Awilley, your premise is grounded on the prospective violator refusing to self-revert, which is a poor starting point, in general. El_C 19:31, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
The likely scenario is that I didn't realize I was partially reverting some obscure 2-month-old edit and it wasn't adequately explained to me how I could possibly violate a sanction with my one and only edit to a new article. It's common for different people to read news articles about the same event and then try to update the same article without first scrutinizing the history to see if similar edits about the same topic have been reverted in the past. I often check the talk page to see if there's relevant discussion, but I don't typically dive into old diffs before attempting an bold edit.
If we changed the scenario and I didn't have a chance to self-revert because someone else did it first, would that change your approach? ~Awilley (talk) 20:35, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
In a scenario where someone saw a news source and innocently added it, not realizing it had already been added and challenged, I would not expect any admin to block. I might even go so far as to say such a block would be against policy, as there was no intent to disrupt the project. – bradv🍁 20:39, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
I just wanted to clarify that in your scenario, Awilley, for CR to come into effect, someone needs to be directly objecting on the basis of that edit vis-à-vis a previous revision that matches the contents of that the edit specifically. In that scenario, refusing to self-revert remains key here as it pertains to the corresponding sanction (say, one week partial block) by the enforcing admin. But if they missed their window to self-revert but are still expressing regret they could not have done so — in that case, a warning is preferred. El_C 20:51, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Bradv, I would also expect admins to not block. But that doesn't change the fact that a block would be 100% defensible per the wording of the sanction. "All editors must obtain consensus on the talk page of this article before reinstating any edits that have been challenged (via reversion). This includes making edits similar to the ones that have been challenged." Nor does it prevent editors from spending lots of time arguing about it at AE.
El_C, Thanks. For your consideration, here's an example of an editor who flatly refused to self-revert their textbook CR violation. (This was an instance of Editor A making an edit, Editor B reverting the edit, and Editor C reverting the revert.) At the subsequent AE reasonable admins were in disagreement as to whether there was a violation:
  • Bishonen: no violation
  • Ivanvector: maybe violation but no value in sanction
  • JzG: no sanction
  • Masem: no action
  • Sandstein: confused by the report, no action
  • MastCell: clear violation, some administrative response is indicated
  • SarekOfVulcan: seconded MastCell
  • regentspark: Let's move on
  • Closed by Drmies as "no violation".
This was a much more blatant violation than what you say you would have blocked me for. ~Awilley (talk) 22:13, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Awilley, I got a sense from the responses that this may have not been a particularly clear report and that there may have been some communication breakdowns along the way, which may to a large extent account for the discrepancies. Also, this was before we had half a sanction to work with, whereas now we do have that in our toolkit. El_C 22:17, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

My impression from reading some of the statements was that the "challenging" revert was dismissed as not a viable "challenge" because Simon didn't explicitly say he was "challenging" in the edit summary and because his actual edit summary of "illegible" was overstated. In any case it's clear that Thomas.W walked away from that with an assurance that CR doesn't apply unless the person doing the challenging specifically invokes the sanction in their edit summary. ~Awilley (talk) 22:23, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
If that's what it was, then sure, it is odd. A talk page comment can signify intent, too, though, one need not rely on edit summaries for that. El_C 22:26, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Bill Crager

Hi, I would like to restore this deleted article. Bill Crager is now the CEO of Envestnet and was interviewed in Barrons this weekend.

Envestnet Taps William Crager as Permanent CEO https://www.barrons.com/articles/envestnet-taps-william-crager-as-permanent-ceo-51585671719

Bill Crager: Perseverance and Innovation at Envestnet https://www.barrons.com/articles/bill-crager-perseverance-and-innovation-at-envestnet-51594388115

Stagophile (talk) 17:59, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Stagophile, I have emailed you the deleted text. You may recreate it yourself, but if it does not address the notability issue in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/William C. Crager it will likely be deleted again. I note that there typically isn't much difference in notability between an Interim CEO and a CEO, and a interview doesn't necessarily contribute to that notability. You will probably need more sources than the ones you listed above. – bradv🍁 13:41, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Hello Bradv,
I was wondering id you can fix something with your user script, Superlinks. I would like to use that script alongside RedWarn. The problem is when I click the links with RedWarn enabled, they don't respond. I don't want to have to keep disabling RedWarn to use your script. Can you please fix that please? Interstellarity (talk) 12:18, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Interstellarity, this is a RedWarn issue, for which I have proposed a patch. You may want to check with Ed6767 to see whether it has been implemented. – bradv🍁 13:37, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
@Bradv and Interstellarity:, is patched in RW15, but I've just patched it in the current release too. Flush your browser cache and the userscript should work. Sorry for the inconvenience. Ed6767 talk! 13:47, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
Thank you, Ed6767 for fixing this issue. Interstellarity (talk) 21:29, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment

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Administrators' newsletter – August 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2020).

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Precious anniversary

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Nomination of Ahmass Fakahany for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Ahmass Fakahany is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ahmass Fakahany until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Nathan2055talk - contribs 23:03, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Notifying you as the editor who reversed the most recent draftification. Nathan2055talk - contribs 23:03, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Happy Adminship Anniversary!


Nomination of Camden College (fictional college) for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Camden College (fictional college) is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Camden College (fictional college) until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Nathan2055talk - contribs 20:34, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Notifying you since you reversed the most recent draftification. Nathan2055talk - contribs 20:34, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Draft: Jo Gibb

Afraid this 'page' showed up in 'CAT' 'AfC submissions in mainspace'; I.e. it looked like a regular new article or submission. So I moved it and only then spotted the earlier restoration to mainspace. I now, of course, can't move it back! Help please. Thanks. Eagleash (talk) 08:08, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Done. It's back at Jo Gibb. – bradv🍁 10:50, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, I guess it can now go to AfD or maybe PROD'd as it is unsourced. Thanks again. Eagleash (talk) 12:54, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
@Eagleash: I went ahead and sent it to AfD since it had already been previously PRODed. Nathan2055talk - contribs 20:37, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
@Nathan2055: OK, good; I realised it had been PROD'd previously but hadn't got around to AfDing it. (On the todo list). Eagleash (talk) 20:42, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Happy Adminship Anniversary!

Happy Adminship Anniversary!

Have a very happy adminship anniversary on your special day!

Best wishes, CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 22:11, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Reverting Sunny719's use of IABot

User:Sunny719 made over 520 edits using IABot to unnecessarily add archive links to articles. That user account has been blocked as a sock puppet. Should the mass addition of useless linkage be reverted? I don't see the links serving any purpose, and the work of socks is usually reverted en masse, no matter how apparently well intentioned or helpful. I address this to you as the blocking admin. User:Yamla also became involved in denying the initial request for an unblock. Dhtwiki (talk) 23:04, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Dhtwiki, yes, if those edits are of no use please go ahead and revert them. This is a banned user, so G5 applies to any of their creations. – bradv🍁 23:25, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
I was hoping there was a magical way to make it all happen at once. I would have to visit each article and would probably only attend to the worst offenders in terms of bytes added (>10k). Dhtwiki (talk) 23:50, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
Dhtwiki, just looking at the IABot edits, and they don't look unhelpful. Converting bare links is a good thing, even if it's also a convenient way to game extended confirmed. I think I'd leave them, actually. – bradv🍁 23:53, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
I've rechecked Sunny719's mass IABot edits I've reverted recently, as well as those I haven't reverted that add over 10k to an article. I didn't see one instance of adding a citation template to a reference that didn't already have one. Have you actually seen such instances? A very few of these IABot edits have been helpful, in finding a link that was dead, or in doing something that seems helpful in formatting the reference; but for the most part they have merely added on the order of 500k to 1M of characters in total, and so to download time, without accomplishing anything. Dhtwiki (talk) 23:02, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
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