Wikipedia talk:Edit warring/Archives/2015/March

3RR seemingly favours change over status quo

It's always seemed slightly odd to me that 3RR is phrased as "three reverts" rather than "three actions" rule. The effect is that someone can come in with any change, possibly to long standing convention in an article, and as long as only one person is around to counter it, that person gets their way:

• Person A inserts new material
• Person B reverts (revert B1)
• Person A re-inserts the material (revert A1)
• Person B reverts again (revert B2)
• Person A re-inserts the material again (revert A2)
• Person B reverts again (revert B3)
• Person A re-inserts the material again (revert A3)

At this point, person B is prohibited from reverting for a fourth time. So now the new material gets to stand, unless it meets one of the specific exemptions to the 3RR (which doesn't include being unsourced, I note).

Obviously I'm well aware that edit warring in any guise is bad, and one should go to talk pages to resolve issues, hence not to get too hung up on the precise rules, but it still seems odd to me that the official rules do, at least until some other resolution is found, favour changes to the status quo rather than retaining the status quo. Unlike many other areas (such as WP:RM and WP:RETAIN) where the status quo is deemed to hold a slightly higher bar in the case of disputes. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 12:00, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Suggest minor rewording of 3RR definition

At the moment the definition of 3RR in the highlighted box contains this sentence: "Any appearance of gaming the system by reverting a fourth time just outside the 24-hour slot is likely to be treated as an edit-warring violation." I fully agree with the sentiment behind the sentence, but the sentence itself has multiple problems.

1. It is not true. Some fraction of such episodes are treated as edit-warring, but the vast majority are not. The word "likely" is simply false; it isn't likely at all. Nearly all admins (including myself) require more than a 3RR almost-violation, such as other evidence of intention to edit-war and/or repetition of the behavior.

2. It is not "gaming the system" at all. The definition and examples at WP:GAME do not apply to this situation. Please read that page; it refers to intentional use of Wikipedia rules contrary to their intention, not to behaving badly while staying on just the right side of the rules. In any case, the presence of the "gaming" phrase in the sentence does not improve it in any way.

Accordingly, I propose to replace the sentence thus: "Fourth reversions just outside the 24-hour period may also be taken as evidence of edit-warring, especially if repeated or combined with other edit-warring behavior." Zero^talk 00:34, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

No dissent after a few days, so I'll boldly do it. Zero^talk 11:35, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

I'll belatedly dissent, Zero0000 (too many pages on my watchlist). The line between the two scenarios you suggest for gaming is a fuzzy one, and I think gaming applies here (it's even mentioned in the opening of the guideline). That said, I would endorse a much more minor change to the wording to read: "Any appearance of gaming the system by reverting a fourth time just outside the 24-hour slot may be treated as an edit-warring violation." (changing "is likely to" to "may").--Bbb23 (talk) 15:47, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

I concur with Bbb23. There's no harm in rewording to make the policy clearer, but the reference to gaming should remain. Perhaps changes should be made to WP:GAME to explain that following the letter of rule, rather than the spirit, can be a form of gaming the system.- MrX 16:17, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

I think that the reference to gaming just gives the reader one more concept to understand unnecessarily. What useful purpose does it have? The rules should be stated succinctly, not burdened by poorly-defined labels. Zero^talk 22:07, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Is "gaming" (or "gaming the system") really a poorly-defined label? It's a fairly universally understood idiom in American English.- MrX 23:21, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia is supposed to be international and policy pages should not use American idioms. My (completely inexpert) understanding is that only young Americans can be expected to know the word. Older people, and people from other countries, can't be assumed to know it. As this discussion illustrates, even people who know the word aren't in agreement on exactly what it means. Reading around the web, mostly commonly it refers to exploiting a loophole to get some unintended advantage (such as avoiding tax by dubious-but-legal accounting tricks). It is not a loophole that 4 reverts in 25 hours is legal; it is just a plain reading of the 3RR rule. Without some evidence of edit-warring intent, making 4 reverts in 25 hours is like driving at 54mph in a 55mph zone — perfectly legal and not automatically indicative of bad intentions. If there are other reasons to regard someone's behavior as edit-warring, then a pattern of waiting for the end of the 24 hour period before resuming the warring can be added to the charge sheet (and I've blocked people for it). I'm particularly concerned that the sentence attempts to make the definition of a 3RR violation fuzzy, when one of the best things about the rule is its precision. In terms of editors knowing what the policy requires of them, "24 hours means 24 hours" is way better than "24 hours means 24 hours, except we might decide it means 25 hours, or maybe 26 hours, or whatever". Zero^talk 00:29, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

As my comments may suggest, my real preference is to not have any such sentence in the definition of 3RR at all. Instead, the article should make it abundantly clear that there is a lot more to edit-warring than 3RR. That is, nobody can claim to have not been edit-warring just because they obeyed 3RR. Zero^talk 00:37, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Rather than address the larger point, I'll comment on a small point because it's easier. I'm not sure where you're from, Zero0000 (I can't tell from your feet), but I'm not sure why you think only young Americans would know the word. I can't speak for other countries, but I know the word and I'm hardly a "young" American. BTW, 3RR is not as precise as some think. I know the policy says it's a bright-line rule, but even assuming that's true, in many cases not everyone agrees whether someone has violated it. As with most Wikipedia subjects, there's rarely universal agreement on much.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:35, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

The 3RR rule has the problem that "revert" is not (and can't be) defined exactly, and also that it can be argued in some cases whether the exceptions apply. But that's no reason to make the time interval imprecise as well. Incidentally, I have a theory: most reverts occurring soon after 24 hours pass have little to do with people reverting as soon as possible and much more to do with the fact that people tend to edit at the same time every day. I have a proposed solution too: change "24 hours" into "30 hours". I predict that if that change was made the issue of reverts just after the clock ticks over would practically disappear, to the extent that we could forget about it. I never proposed this formally because making major changes is a very difficult task around here. But I wonder... Zero^talk 10:03, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

The question is if an appearance of gaming the system is necessary for a fourth revert to be considered evidence of edit-warring? If not, then it's not necessary to mention it as a pre-condition. isaacl (talk) 12:35, 23 March 2015 (UTC)