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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

RfC discussion on promotion

Please direct comments to Wikipedia:PC2012/RfC_3#Discussion_on_draft_reviewers_guideline after that RfC is open. Gigs (talk) 20:31, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Kill the logo. With fire.

The logo, File:Wikipedia_Reviewer.svg, illustrating the page is, as an across-the-pond friend of mine would say, bloody awful. It looks like a direct rip-off of the CBS logo (File:CBS_logo.svg), it carries dystopian connotations (Big Brother is watching you), and it's apparently derived from a graphic associated with Flagged Revisions (a feature that by overwhelming consensus we have decided not to use use on the English Wikipedia). Now, maybe pending changes is Flagged Revisions Lite and maybe it isn't, but I, for one, don't want to be reminded of the possibility every time I look at this page. Anyone else support giving it the heave-ho? Rivertorch (talk) 16:15, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Previous discussion: Wikipedia talk:Reviewing/Archive 2#the logo, Wikipedia talk:Reviewing/Archive 3#Reviewer logo. In short, no one has yet proposed any other logo that has enjoyed any more consensus than the current one. Anomie⚔ 16:03, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
And a bad logo is preferable to no logo because . . . Rivertorch (talk) 19:59, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
"No logo" also does not have consensus. Anomie⚔ 04:53, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Technically true, but the discussion occurred two years ago, and five of its nine participants were critical of the eye. I'm making a new proposal—that either a new logo be developed or no logo be used (at least for the moment). Rather than using the very shaky consensus of two years ago as an excuse for doing nothing, I'd rather like to have a fresh discussion based on the merits and faults of my proposal. What do you think about the eye? Do you think it's essential that there be a logo at this stage? Rivertorch (talk) 06:49, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
The eye doesn't bother me. A logo of some sort is needed for certain (non-essential) purposes such as {{reviewer topicon}} and so is not going to go away even if it happens to be removed from this page. Anomie⚔ 11:38, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

List?

Is there a list somewhere of all articles in which pending changes is in place? Not just those with unreviewed changes (which most of the time I have checked, is between zero and two), but all those in which PC is in force. I am curious to see how many there are and what they are. Neutron (talk) 02:15, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

The oddly-named Special:StablePages lists them. Anomie⚔ 03:24, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! I figured there had to be such a page, but you're correct, that name would not have been my first (or hundredth) guess. Neutron (talk) 22:39, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
It's called "Pages using Pending Changes" on Special:SpecialPages, which is a bit better. Anomie⚔ 02:41, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Previously?

Why is this sentence phrased this way? Previously, criteria for requesting the reviewer permission were as follows: Does this mean to suggest that the standards are now different? Is it not pretty much what we should still be going by? delldot ∇. 01:39, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Legacy from the trial ending. As far as I know, we never arrived at consensus to change the criteria for granting the permission (though removal did change). Monty845 02:13, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Ah, gotcha. Should we change the wording here? delldot ∇. 22:28, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
 Done Change it if you want the wording different. StevenJ81 (talk) 22:48, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Confusion

It seems that a lot of users (mostly new ones) confuse pending changes reviewers with Wikipedians who review articles for creation. What if either of the two things (one is an additional user right; the other just some wikiwork anyone can get involved in) is referred to as differently? Because people who review articles for creation are referred to as reviewers almost everywhere: on AfC pages, talk pages of articles created via AfC, etc. smtchahal(talk) 16:03, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

It would be quite difficult to change the name of this usergroup (changing plenty of mediawiki messages, getting consensus for a new name ...). If there are problems, you may use a notice of clarification on pages where this comes up. Cenarium (talk) 14:25, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Why?

Did I have to accept my own edit, rather than auto-confirmed? Carlossuarez46 (talk) 20:06, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Because an IP edited just before you did. Cenarium (talk) 14:28, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

When to not accept a revision

I noticed some confusion about the instructions for not accepting a revision (although I lost the diff and can't remember where it was). There was some confusion over whether the reasons listed here were the exclusive times a revision should be rejected:

You should not accept the new revision if in analyzing the diff you find that:

  1. it conflicts with the Biographies of Living People policy
  2. it contains vandalism or patent nonsense
  3. it contains obvious copyright violations
  4. it contains legal threats, personal attacks or libel.

Perhaps we can come up with some better wording to clarify this. Inks.LWC (talk) 15:48, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I was just wondering whether these were exclusive criteria. Say an anonymous editor adds an un-sourced statistic to an article that is neither vandalism, nor a copyvio, nor libel — do I accept the change because it doesn't fall into any of the four categories? Say I try to verify the addition and find it to be incorrect. Do I reject the change? Or accept it, then revert it? Braincricket (talk) 19:28, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
I'd say accept then revert or alter as needed as you would with any not-great change that isn't strictly one of the above four. delldot ∇. 04:32, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
Got it. Thanks. Braincricket (talk) 18:18, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
But should we make that more clear in the instructions? Inks.LWC (talk) 18:45, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
I have found that it's not necessary to accept the change before reverting it. In the case of a good faith edit (i.e. not meeting one of the four criteria listed) that needs to be reverted for another reason, I have just used "undo" and provided an explanation in the edit summary. My revert is auto-accepted and the original edit seems to be just ignored, neither accepted nor rejected. I agree that there is a distinction between "reject" (violates the specific criteria) and "undo/revert" (for some other reason) and I also agree that this could be made clearer in the guideline. However, I hesitate to edit the guideline myself because I'm not confident enough that my interpretation is how the feature was intended to be used. I imagine that some might feel the distinction is unnecessary, because the end result is the same – an unwanted edit does not make it into the article. However, I try to look at this from the point of view of a new editor. Use of the word "reject" might be perceived as too harsh if the edit was made in good faith. Either way, reject or undo/revert, an explanation should be given, and that's another point that could be emphasized in the guideline. – Wdchk (talk) 18:09, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
I think the problem is that people think they are reviewing just the diff rather than the resulting state of the article. I don't know if reviewing diffs rather than revisions was what was "intended", but it's not the way it actually works. Anomie⚔ 20:17, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
I think you're supposed to review the state of the article, not just the diff—but the policy is also clear that reviewers are not responsible for factual accuracy, only for protecting on specific criteria, and WP:AGF. The trick is that those of us who are honest, responsible reviewers feel compelled to take others' sloppy edits and clean them up, making the reviewing job bigger than what was intended. Where it gets tricky is where the obviousness of (good edit/POV violation/vandalism) is not clear; see following. StevenJ81 (talk) 22:43, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

More on accepting/not accepting and numbers/figures/statistics

I find in reviewing that this type of issue is the most difficult to address. I'll give two examples, and how I handled them:

  1. I seem to run across various articles around the current Indian Twenty20 cricket season. (I'm a Yank, FWIW.) These I often accept pretty comfortably, because typically what it appears to be is a season's record incremented by one or two wins or losses, or some reasonable number of runs, or some reasonable number of wickets. I wish someone actually added a citation every time, but I'll be honest with you: that seems pretty unlikely. These people just want the year's statistics up to date.
  2. Occasionally, I run into articles about "number of records sold" or "numbers of game consoles sold" or some such article or list. And sometimes these numbers jump a lot. And it's hard to know: is it vandalism? is it commercial POV (one way or the other)? When they don't obviously look like vandalism, I've been accepting, with the comment "I hope you have a source for this." I should probably also add a {{citation needed}} flag as well. But is this really good practice? Is accepting and undoing better? Not accepting? I'd love to hear what others are doing about this. StevenJ81 (talk) 22:38, 23 May 2013 (UTC)


I rewrote the section on the reviewing process here. This provides clarifications and examples, based on past discussions. I would welcome feedback. Cenarium (talk) 21:23, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Interface messages

You may have noted that I have modified the interface messages MediaWiki:Revreview-reject-text-revto and MediaWiki:Revreview-reject-summary-cur (and a few others). I'd welcome comments on those. Cenarium (talk) 22:04, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

I also changed 'reject' to 'revert', as it's less bitey. Cenarium (talk) 02:28, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
I like both, as well as your revision of the guidelines (per above). Thanks; those changes were helpful. StevenJ81 (talk) 21:39, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Automated tool

Had anyone heard of, or would consider building an automated tool for reviewing. I think some similar functionality to the AFC helper tool. It would be great to be able to accept/reject a change and also post a message to the user's talk page, either warning about vandalism or saying something like, "Thanks for your edit, I accepted it but it would be great if you could add a source...". Some other functionality would be to cycle through revisions when there are more than one to accept them individually. Possibly to accept and then open the page for editing too Jamesmcmahon0 (talk) 12:01, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

You could ask for an integration in WP:HG or a similar tool. They weren't interested around the time of the trial, but it was a while ago. Cenarium (talk) 18:58, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Edit warring in Pending Changes

I've just noticed an IP keeps undoing reverted pending changes at Allyson Robinson that have been declined because the IP's edits violate WP:BLP. If I keep rejecting them, can I be dinged for edit warring? I have dropped a note on the talk page telling them to stop it. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:46, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

I hope not; you're in the right. But maybe this is a page that requires semi-protection. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:25, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
Interesting question, and one I'm not sure has arisen before. In theory, it might be argued either way, depending on whether one considers a pending edit to constitute an edit. In practice, it probaby doesn't much matter, since we have enough reviewers that someone else is bound to happen along to handle it within a few minutes. Obviously, blatantly unacceptable edits (vandalism, obvious BLP violations and copyvios) are exempt from 3RR concerns even if 3RR does apply, but if the pending edit falls into a gray area it might be better to wait for another reviewer to deal with it. Rivertorch (talk) 18:43, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Whether edits are pending or not has no bearing on the edit warring policy, all edits are treated the same. The 3RR applies or it does not apply, in case of vandalism it does not apply, in case of BLP it depends. Having the ability to review edits doesn't modify the relationship to other users when it comes to editing or reverting. There is no 'rejection' of edits; edits can only be reverted, overwritten or left alone. Independently of that, reviewers can accept edits, provided they are acceptable, but no obligation can exist. Cenarium (talk) 19:32, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Suggested change to project page

I suggest the section titled Purpose of Reviewing be changed to Overview. This is because the section contains info on the purpose, the process, how reviewer permissions are granted and removed. Therefore the current title is misleading. -- — Keithbob • Talk • 18:12, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Okay, changed. Cenarium (talk) 19:37, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Clarification or change needed on "unaccept"

I'm assuming that "unaccept" means simple reversion of the just-accepted change? If so, then:

  • reversion of a change by the person who just accepted it is not only to "undo an error" it is the only proper way to handle a change which meets the reviewer criteria but which is a bad idea/an idea that previous-reviewer does not agree with. I.E. accept it as a reviewer, and reject it as an editor.
  • reversion by somebody else is simply a person acting as an editor, and not a subject for coverage under reviewing.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 12:58, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm going to assume that "unaccept" means a normal editing reversion, and not some reviewing mechanism that I'm not aware of. I plan to wait a couple days and then edit that section accordingly. North8000 (talk) 12:57, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
Done. North8000 (talk) 11:46, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
I restored the section because it indeed refers to a reviewing mechanism - if you look at the bottom of this revision for example, you can see an "Unaccept revision" button and that's it. I've tried to clarify. Cenarium (talk) 19:13, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
Cool. North8000 (talk) 01:46, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
The word "unaccept" is terrible and poorly chosen. It means removing the mark "accepted" from the particular revision in question, and is a seldom needed action. There is hardly any reason to "unaccept" a previously accepted revision unless you wish to immediately revert your own actions. The word originates from the programmers who developed the Flagged Revisions. On other Wikipedias we are able to translate the terms into our own languages and amend the poorly chosen expressions whereas the English Wikipedia is forced to use the terminology that has been decided elsewhere. --Pxos (talk) 14:47, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Most people are not going to understand that reversing an acceptance of an edit is not referring to reverting the edit. I put in a brief example sentence that clarified that by noting that one could accept the edit and then revert it. My addition was taken out on the grounds that those are two unrelated things. That's just the point...they are two unrelated things, and without something like that, that paragraph would be confusing to and misread by most people. North8000 (talk) 18:04, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I understand your point. That's why I suggest a radical change to the word "unaccept" rather than trying to write better instructions. Most people don't read instructions, they just press the buttons. If there is a button labeled "ground floor" in an elevator that really takes you to the basement, there is little point in providing everyone with a leaflet where the terminology is explained. The system messages behind the term "unaccept" ought to be changed. --Pxos (talk) 21:20, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Removing the reviewer right

Does anyone know why there is a higher standard to remove the reviewer useright than there is to remove any of the other admin granted rights? According to WP:Reviewer#Overview the right can only be removed by an admin after community discussion whereas all the others (eg rollback, autopatrolled, account creator) can be revoked by any admin and template editor needs criteria to be meet. It seems strange that a userright we give out quite liberally requires the most effort to remove. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:56, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Monty knows: [1]. --Pxos (talk) 13:40, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
@Monty845: Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 14:31, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
straw poll during RFC 3 Didn't receive all that much discussion, but there wasn't any real objection. It was incorporated into the close by the closer. As the drafter of the proposal, it was, and still is, my position that other admin granted rights should move towards that model, or at least have clear criteria for removal, as with Wikipedia:Template editor#Criteria for revocation, rather than an admin just deciding for what ever reason a person is no longer "trusted". Monty845 15:08, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Cluebot and Autoaccept

I've noticed that when Cluebot reverts vandalism on a PC-protected page, the revision is auto-accepted... and yet the page continues to show under Pending Changes and continues to show pending revisions under the article's history page. The revisions cannot be accepted via the normal form, although a "Unaccept revision" button is available. I could edit and save the article with no changes to accept a new revision, but that feels kludgey. What's the correct way to address? -- ferret (talk) 19:49, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Please provide the necessary links to the articles in question. --Pxos (talk) 20:10, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
Here's the one I noticed today, on Finding Dory. -- ferret (talk) 20:44, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Where do the comments go when you accept a revision?

I accepted this revision because it didn't technically violate the reviewing guideline, but I included some pertinent comments that I couldn't then find in the edit history. What is the purpose of the comments (if they don't show up in the edit summary or history) and how/ where then can they be viewed? Roberticus talk 03:33, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

The comment goes to the page's review log. The comment is meant to only be related to reviewing itself; where you'd like to leave a comment on article talk, you have to do so by hand. --Gryllida (talk) 07:04, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

@Gryllida:, a belated thanks for this response, I'd forgotten to watchlist this talk page! Roberticus talk 20:42, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

BLP reviewing question

An edit that I accepted is being scrutinized by another editor, and since I'm pretty new at reviewing I'd like to ask for advice. There is a detailed discussion on my talk page but the summary is that an article on a K-pop group is PC1 protected, a new editor adds birthdays of the group members to a table listing the members, and the edit is up for review. I see the edit, verify the dates by way of the group members' individual wikilinked bios which are properly sourced, and accept the edit. Another editor takes issue with the source not being provided inline and reverts, letting me know that I should not have accepted the edit. In my consideration, since the information added was verifiable by way of the linked bios, the edit was not a violation of WP:BLP and there was no reason to reject. I had noted this in my review summary but neither of us knows how to find it. Should I have rejected the edit? Ivanvector (talk) 13:37, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

To see the review log, go to the article's history page. Click "View Logs for this page" near the top, and then click "Show review log." You can see the accept/reject texts there. There may be other ways to navigate there, but that's the one I know. -- ferret (talk) 14:01, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
Thank you ferret for letting us know. I just got the link for the review log. The review summary of Ivanvector is there. Had I seen it, it would have been sufficient for me, at least as an indication that the reviewer followed due diligence when allowing the edit. I may not have agreed with the decision to allow it, but the decision taken by him was fully explained and well within the purview of any good-faith, diligent reviewer. I would not have commented on his talkpage, had I been aware of his review summary. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 01:15, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Pending changes block

I'm working on a 'soft block' proposal that is to classic block what pending changes protection is to classic protection. My draft is located here and I welcome any input before going ahead with the proposal. This also involves a new usergroup, although this is not strictly necessary for it to work. Cenarium (talk) 17:28, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Becoming a Reviewer

How does one become a reviewer? I wanted to edit an article, but it seems my changes might take a bit to get to if there is a backlog. Mr. C.C.Hey yo!I didn't do it! 00:56, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

The vast majority of articles are not under PC so your edits go live immediately. On the few articles under PC, it takes an average of half an hour to accept edits, so don't let this stop you. The guideline states how you become reviewer. Cenarium (talk) 12:55, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
Just noticed that those statistics are entirely unreliable, they're only based on the current unreviewed edits so are highly volatile. I'm going to make a bug on this. It should at least cover a day of reviews, several timeframes would be best. Cenarium (talk) 17:33, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Pending changes block proposal

The proposal is now available at Wikipedia:Pending changes blocks, it has been thoroughly rewritten. I welcome all opinions, though it isn't yet the time for a definitive determination of consensus, so this is really about first impressions or suggesting modifications and clarifications. In light of previous PC discussions, consensus should preferably be assessed in an organized RFC, or it gets unwieldy, so I've made a draft for it, I also invite comments on it. Feel free to copy edit and such both of those. Cenarium (talk) 22:27, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Brakpan Skyline Pic Upload

Anyone got a good Image of Brakpan Skyline ?{{Reflist} Brakpan Skyline Image} Davinciji (talk) 13:40, 5 January 2015 (UTC) 

 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Davinciji (talk • contribs) 13:37, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

why you removed data

Its useful data Praveenkumarchrg (talk) 18:06, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Major grammatical errors in a contribution?

If an edit is otherwise neutral and has information not in the article but the writing quality (grammatical errors, etc.) stemming from non-native speaker are of such an extent that the article's overall quality suffers dramatically and would require rewriting by someone with specialist knowledge of the topic, should it be accepted or rejected? I didn't see anything about this in the archives. My sense of the rule is that there's nothing that does not say accept, except for the fact that the quality of the encyclopedia would suffer from acceptance (which is a sort of IAR reason for reject). Thanks! -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 17:28, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

My view is that reviewers are not meant to make assessment on quality of submissions. Just to check that they it doesn't violate any policies. That said in cases like you mention, I would usually accept and then improve the grammar / spelling myself without really changing the gist. If I don't have the time or inclination, or I can't see an easy way to fix it I will often leave it for the next more ambitious reviewer. Jamesmcmahon0 (talk) 08:46, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
Thank you James. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 14:07, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
In my view, WP:Reviewing#Acceptable edits covers this. That is, "You should treat the edits as you would habitually." if there is no Reviewer policy reason to reject. If the grammar is such that on any other article you would revert it, you are still free to revert it. -- ferret (talk) 14:34, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Article submission denied despite sufficient third party sources

The article which was created for Integra Global, the international private medical insurance provider was rejected for the second time on 12 November. I am writing to dispute this rejection as I believe that there are sufficient sources as evidence of the subject's notability.

I can see that other private insurers have been approved to enter the Wikipedia open space, Now Health International, Bupa & Cigna to name a few. I also think that the basis of disapproval of my article is unfair because although there are less sources listed than the aforementioned insurance groups, Integra Global should not be penalised because it is a younger and smaller company. The third party sources that have been included do however prove that Integra Global is a notable company and one that should be given the right to be included in your encyclopedia.

I ask you to reconsider your decision and allow this article to be published. Expat Audience (talk) 10:23, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Automatically accept self-reverts?

When a user makes and edit and then reverts it again, the changes still appear on Special:PendingChanges for review. Is it technically possible to avoid this (as it seems unnecessary – no net change was made to the article), or is there a reason to still have them reviewed? Gap9551 (talk) 23:06, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Reviewing multiple edits

I am a reviewer, and I know what to do when I find there is one edit awaiting review. But what am I meant to do if there are several? I have tried handling the oldest one first, and handling the newest one first; neither produces the results I would expect. Handling them all at once seems impracticable, as I may want to accept some and revert others. I am surprised that the page gives no guidance on this. Maproom (talk) 12:05, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

If the aggregate is ok, just review it (technically, you will be reviewing the last edit). If it is not ok, the easiest is to reject those you find disruptive and then review the new aggregate.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:38, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

How to leave comments for a reviewer?

Under what circumstances might it be considered appropriate and useful for someone to leave comments for a reviewer, and how should that be done?

Might this article benefit from a brief section with a title something like "How to leave comments for a reviewer"?

I ask, because on 2020-04-02 I added a section on "Violations of the NPT" to the article on "Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons". On 2020-04-04 I saw an edit by User:14.201.99.159 that cited an article by Noam Chomsky that included what I felt was poorly worded and misrepresented what Chomsky had said. That inspired me to substantially revise that section, citing that Chomsky article. When I posted that revision, I was surprised to see the message, "The latest accepted version was reviewed on 2020-04-02. There are 7 pending revisions awaiting review." Those 7 include 5 by User:14.201.99.159 followed by two by me. I thought about leaving a comment for the reviewer but decided against it, not knowing what to say. Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 04:46, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

You got the message because, until the IP's edits were accepted or reverted, all subsequent edits to the article go into the queue of edits to be reviewed. I'm not sure what comment you felt that you needed to leave, but you could have made a null edit with an appropriate edit summary, for example. The pending changes procedure is intended to be a quick check to weed out obviously bad edits so an explanation is not ordinarily needed. I've accepted your edits. Best, Wham2001 (talk) 05:05, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
What triggered this?
Is this now triggered by any edit from an IP number to any Wikipedia article?
I ask, because I don't see any protection symbol on that page, now that you've accepted those edits.
Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 05:32, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
It's applied only to a small number of pages. The usual use case is articles where there is a low volume of editing, most of which is disruptive. There's a load more detail here.
If I edit Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in the wikitext editor there's a box at the top which reads Note: Edits to this page from new or unregistered users are subject to review prior to publication (help). (show details), and clicking on show details reveals 05:33, 27 February 2019 Samsara configured pending changes settings for Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons [Auto-accept: require "autoconfirmed" permission] (Persistent vandalism: via RfPP) (hist). I've added the pending changes protection icon template, which must have been overlooked when the page was protected originally. Best, Wham2001 (talk) 05:52, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. DavidMCEddy (talk) 11:52, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Exception for DOY?

Recently a change was added without consensus here which added Please note that when reviewing days of the year pages, all new additions require a direct citation per WP:DOYCITE. I feel this goes against General criteria and Acceptable edits and as such removed it. It does not fit any of the exsisting General criteria and is directly opposed to the Acceptable edits part that states It is not necessary for you to ensure compliance with the content policies on neutral point of view, verifiability and original research before accepting, but of course you are free to uphold them as you would normally with any edit you happen to notice. For example, in case of additions for which you can find no reference in the article but estimate unlikely to be vandalism, treat them as you would treat any such edit: do nothing, tag as needing citation, provide an appropriate citation, or revert – depending on the situation at hand. PackMecEng (talk) 02:58, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi, PackMecEng. The change that you are referring to merely assists reviewers in understanding the guidelines on DOTY articles, which were agreed by consensus two years ago, after a long discussion. To suggest that reviewers ignore these guidelines is not acceptable. Please be aware that you can have your reviewer status removed if you encourage others to ignore guidelines. Deb (talk) 07:10, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
In that vein, I've restored the material so WP:POINTily removed by PackMecEng. Please do not remove it again without consensus. That material is highly useful and was added by another user for all the right reasons without objection quite a while ago. Toddst1 (talk) 13:33, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
@Deb: The issue with that is it is outside the scope of pending change reviewing. Pending change is not to curate content for every niche topic. It is to prevent BLP vios, vandalism, copyright vios, and personal attacks. In fact it specifically states it is not responsible for venerability. So how do you square that circle? Also I will be removing it until consensus is formed per the top of the page Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page. So changing the whole scope of what pending change is to something that contradicts it is obviously unacceptable. PackMecEng (talk) 14:09, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
Hi, PackMecEng. I understand what you are saying. I have also noted your comment that you "do not plan on going with it". Stating that you don't intend to go along with a guideline is fine as long as you don't actually put that view into practice. If you decide to add unverified content to DOTY articles, or if you encourage others to do so, that may be regarded as disruptive editing. Deb (talk) 14:19, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
@Deb: That is fine and I understand that. That is not the question here, this is about accepting revisions and following pending change reviewing. What you are purposing, that reviewers are responsible for DOY content guidlines, is outside the scope of pending change review. The purpose of pending change is not to police content but to prevent BLP vios, vandalism, copyright vios, and personal attacks. PackMecEng (talk) 14:24, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
@PackMecEng: The guideline currently says Furthermore, reviewers should take special consideration of the reason given for protection and attempt to uphold it.. The reason for the protection of the DoTY pages is to prevent the addition of unsourced content. In my opinion it is helpful to reviewers to have a general statement of that on the guideline page that they will have read, since it is not obvious. The DOTY pages are a fairly substantial fraction of the pages under pending changes protection (I can't find the total number right now) and are fairly frequently edited compared to the average page under PCP, so this is not a niche aspect of a pending changes reviewer's work. The alternative to PC protection being used in this way would be to semi-protect all the DOTY pages; I do not feel that would be an improvement. Wham2001 (talk) 14:30, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
@Wham2001: The reason those pages are protected is generally vandalism. For example at February 26 it was added in 2014 for vandalism here. The passage you cite also is more along the lines of if a reviewer wants to do that they can. Which is certainly the case here, if a review wishes to revert based on that guideline they are welcome to. The issue I have is forcing them to do something outside their scope. It conflicts with the core ideals of what pending change review is. It is not a tool to enforce individual guidelines for each sections of Wikipedia. PackMecEng (talk) 14:36, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
Also if the reason for pending change on a page is to enforce verifiability, then it is outside the scope of pending change. Per It is not necessary for you to ensure compliance with the content policies on neutral point of view, verifiability and original research before accepting, but of course you are free to uphold them as you would normally with any edit you happen to notice. For example, in case of additions for which you can find no reference in the article but estimate unlikely to be vandalism, treat them as you would treat any such edit: do nothing, tag as needing citation, provide an appropriate citation, or revert – depending on the situation at hand. Which is why you will notice at WP:PC and WP:PCPP they do not use verifiability as a criteria. PackMecEng (talk) 14:46, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
The consensus reflected at WP:DOYCITE is clearly intended to improve the encyclopedia. Perhaps an RFC to determine whether to add it to the scope of WP:RPC would help? Schazjmd (talk) 16:39, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
I agree that it is intended to improve the encyclopedia and help the people that edit DOY lists a lot. Though I do maintain that it goes against the purpose of PCR. Like where WP:PC states The process of reviewing is intended as a quick check to ensure edits don't contain vandalism, violations of the policy on living people, copyright violations, or other obviously inappropriate content and Acceptance of an edit by a reviewer is not an endorsement of the edit. It merely indicates that the edit has been checked for obvious problems as listed above or the essay WP:PCC which states The main reason for the above limitations is the position that reviewers find themselves in. Those working through a reviewer backlog are often not subject matter experts. They are not in a position to review edits for validity. If they did engage in such behavior, they risk immersing themselves in content disputes in every article they touch. We want to encourage reviewers, not punish them for volunteering to review edits by immersing them into disputes. By sticking to the clear cases, we avoid this negative effect. It also goes against what is acceptable for placing an article under pending change as it does not fit any of the criteria. PackMecEng (talk) 16:49, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
That's why I suggested an RFC to determine whether editors in general feel it should or should not be included in WP:RPC instructions. It's not a burden; just as you glance at a pending review to determine checkY not vandalism, checkY not a BLP vio, checkY not copyvio, it takes only a second to identify no source on DOY (and takes much less time than identifying and dealing with copyvio). I don't check the source (unless it's obviously unreliable), just confirm that one is included. My personal opinion is that this is for the benefit of readers more than "people who edit DOY lists". Arguing that it isn't in the rules now doesn't answer whether it should be. Schazjmd (talk) 17:03, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
Fair enough, I can see where you are coming from. Perhaps something at village pump might be warranted. I suppose I was more giving reasons why I might oppose such a change. Also it is not so much that it is not in the rules now, but expressly opposed by the rules that I have an issue with. PackMecEng (talk) 17:16, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
PackMecEng, good enough. Obviously, I would support the change. I don't think A citation to a reliable source is included in the edit is asking PCR to verify the information, so it isn't explicitly opposed by the rules. It's a supplement rather, for a specific class of article. There's probably an argument to be made there for slippery slope and every article class and project wanting special considerations, I just don't see that as a compelling objection to a simple review item for these articles. Schazjmd (talk) 17:30, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
The only issue is that to comply with WP:DOYCITE reviewers would be required to look over the source and confirm it supports the sentence. It is more than just having a source. PackMecEng (talk) 14:01, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
I see consensus here supporting the language which PackMecEng removed with only him dissenting. Toddst1 (talk) 16:14, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm not really seeing it. I see agreement for a RFC though. So perhaps we could work on some wording for a RFC at VPP. Also not a him PackMecEng (talk) 16:19, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
It's clear you're not WP:HEARing it and you haven't initiated the RFC you propose. Toddst1 (talk) 16:21, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
Correct, would you like to work on some wording with me on that? PackMecEng (talk) 16:23, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
I think per WP:PGCHANGE, any proposal for a significant change, to be valid, needs to be widely advertised, especially if it conflicts with another PAG elsewhere. Bold edits and local consensus can be (and have been) reverted. It should be a formal RFC at VPP. Levivich [dubious – discuss] 16:36, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Here's a suggestion for a formal RFC at VPP, please feel free to adjust wording as needed: Schazjmd (talk) 16:38, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Should the instructions for pending changes reviewers be amended to include Please note that when reviewing days of the year pages, all new additions require a direct citation per WP:DOYCITE.?
Background: In October 2017, a discussion at WP:WikiProject Days of the year reached consensus that day-of-the-year articles are not exempt from WP:V and that Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. WP:DOYCITE and WP:DOYSTYLE were updated to include that language.
In July 2019, the language Please note that when reviewing days of the year pages, all new additions require a direct citation per WP:DOYCITE. was added to WP:RPC.
There has been an objection to the addition of this language on the grounds that it contradicts WP:RPC, specifically It is not necessary for you to ensure compliance with the content policies on neutral point of view, verifiability and original research before accepting.

Add "Optional criteria" section to guideline?

Hello friends. I've got a couple hundred PC reviews under my belt, and I'm starting to see all the common scenarios pretty clearly now.

I'd like to suggest that we add an "Optional criteria" section to the guideline, where we can uncontroversially put "suggestions" for common scenarios, without needing to modify the General criteria (aka the minimum criteria/strict criteria). Here's a link to my draft. Wikipedia:Tips for pending changes reviewers. Transcluded below:

This page is an optional, non-binding list of tips, suggestions, and criteria for pending changes reviewers to apply while doing pending changes patrol. This is in addition to the required criteria laid out at Wikipedia:Reviewing pending changes § General criteria.

Accept or revert?

The question to think of when reviewing an edit is If this page was not pending-changes protected, do you think it would be reverted? If the answer is yes, then revert the edit. If the answer is no, then accept it. Also keep in mind these particular exceptions to the rule:

  • Mandatory citations – WikiProject consensus requires new additions to these types of pages to have a citation:
  • Birthdates – If the page is a biography of a living person, and the information being added is an unsourced or poorly sourced birthdate, reject it.
  • Not an improvement – Even if the edit does not violate the PC criteria, if you are confident the edit does not improve the page, feel free to revert it.
  • If you are unsure – Don't forget, if you are unsure, you can always take no action and return to the queue, leaving the review for a more experienced reviewer.
  • Complex content disputes – Reject obvious content problems such as strong POV or factual inaccuracies. But don't feel obligated to reject something complex that would normally be solved on a talk page. You can accept it and let the page's regular editors figure it out.

User talk pages

  • Welcoming – If you accept an edit from a registered editor with a redlinked talk page, consider starting a talk page for the editor with a {{subst:Welcome}} ~~~~ template (or one of the many welcome options in Twinkle) to welcome them to the project and give them some places to go to get help and become more familiar with the way things work here.
  • Warnings – If you reject an edit, and the edit is a severe violation of our guidelines, consider placing a user warning template on the editor's talk page. You can use Twinkle to assist with this. Warning users communicates clearly to them how they can improve their editing in the future, and is an important first step in the process used to block disruptive editors.

Other tips

  • Google – If something seems factually incorrect, take a second to google it. You can often figure out if it's true or not.
  • Many edits – If there are many edits in a row by many different editors, review them one editor at a time, bottom up. Do this by viewing a diff of the edits you want to review. The diff page also contains the pending changes tools. Take a moment to check that a problem edit isn't already reverted by one of the later pending edits, though.
  • Comments – In general, you do not need to leave a comment for accepts, and you should always leave a comment for reverts.
  • We all make mistakes – Edits awaiting approval sometimes contain formatting errors or other coding issues, especially if an infobox or table is involved, as these are sensitive to misplaced formatting characters. While these can be reverted, if the edit is otherwise an improvement to the article, you should consider fixing the issue and then accepting the change.
  • Non-English names - Biographies sometimes contain foreign-language versions of the name of the subject. These are sometimes hijacked by vandals to add insults that can only be understood by those who speak that language. Be especially suspicious of changes to longstanding foreign-language versions of names. Google Translate can be helpful.

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These are "de facto" practices that are not clearly stated to brand new reviewers, but that I have discovered while doing reviewing. Therefore I feel it would be good to document these. Thoughts? Thanks. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:56, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Hello everyone. I thought about this more, and I decided that instead of adding a bunch of content to a guideline, which would require a consensus on this fairly quiet talk page and maybe even an RFC, that I will just make this a Wikipedia-space essay and link to it instead. Feel free to make edits to it, especially if you are an experienced PC reviewer and you have some tips to add. Wikipedia:Tips for pending changes reviewers. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:35, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Admins no longer automatically get reviewer privileges?

I was trying to accept an edit today but did not have the buttons to do so, even though I'm an admin. After I added myself to the reviewer group, I have privileges. Is this an intended change or a bug in the code? —C.Fred (talk) 19:05, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

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