Wikipedia:Pending_changes/Request_for_Comment_2012 References

Pending changes discussions

WP:PC/RFC2012

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Background: The idea of WP:Pending Changes (also referred to in some implementations as “Flagged Revisions”) has a long history on Wikimedia projects. Originally developed at the urging of the community, the idea of having edits be reviewed prior to going “live” has been around the English Wikipedia since at least 2008. Discussions since the concept of the tool was introduced have often revolved around what, if any, implementation would be suited to the English Wikipedia community. The topic has been hotly contentious for nearly as long as it has been discussed. A trial of what was termed “Pending Changes”, a customized version of the original “Flagged Revisions” concept, was run in 2010.

At the close of the trial, community opinions varied on whether the trial had been successful and, if it was felt to have been successful, what form “Pending Changes” should take going forward. As a result of this community indecision, and at the urging of Jimbo Wales in September of 2010, Pending Changes entered a kind of limbo, in which it remained on some pages but had no clear guidelines for implementation or usage. A 2011 Request for Comment addressed the limbo state in which Pending Changes had been left and brought about the removal of Pending Changes from the English Wikipedia.

On the basis of Newyorkbrad’s closing statement in that RfC that "this community decision [to end the trial of Pending Changes] is without prejudice to any future discussion relating to adoption of pending changes or flagged revisions or some similar system based on a new discussion. There seems to be a consensus that a bit of a break from this discussion would be a good thing", a new RfC was begun roughly one year later, on 23 March 2012, to address the essential question of “should Pending Changes be activated on the English Wikipedia?”

Basis of the Current RfC: Formatted by Beeblebrox as a choice between three mutually-exclusive options, the 2012 RfC was intended to produce "an actionable result" regarding whether Pending Changes should "be permanently deployed here". Commenters were encouraged to support one of three possible options:

Position 1: "The negative aspects of pending changes outweigh the positive. Therefore the tool should not be used at all on the English Wikipedia."
Position 2: "Despite the flaws of the trial period pending changes has proven to be a useful tool for combating vandalism and other types of problematic edits. The tool should be used in accordance with the following draft policy. This policy is intended to reflect the community input in discussions. It is not set in stone and after use of the tool is resumed there may be unanticipated problems which can be corrected through normal consensus gathering processes."
Position 3: "Pending changes should be kept in the long term, but the draft policy is insufficient and/or out of step with what the community wants from the tool. Pending changes should not be rejected entirely but should remain unused until such time as there is a more complete policy in place that has been explicitly approved by the community."

The RfC remained open to comment for 60 days, and was accompanied by a concurrent "Discussion" section which remained open until the posting of this close statement. Users were encouraged to focus on supporting one of the three options and to direct commentary to the RfC’s "Discussion" section. Users were not permitted to add additional positions to the RfC beyond the original three.

Raw results of this RfC: The numerical results of this RfC are as follows, after IP votes, duplicate votes, struck votes, and commentary are removed from the positions’ "support" lists:

Position 1: 178 supports
Position 2: 308 supports
Position 3: 17 supports

This gives a total participation in this RfC of 503 distinct user "support"s, of which roughly 35% supported Position 1, 61% supported Position 2, and 3% supported Position 3.

Analysis of arguments: The closers of this RfC (DeltaQuad, Fluffernutter, The Blade of the Northern Lights and Thehelpfulone) considered all of the available positions in light of both raw numbers and strength of argument. As such, the closers acknowledge the following arguments as among the most notable:

Position 1 supporters stated the belief that the idea of Pending Changes – that is, of edits not necessarily going "live" when made, depending on user status – is counter to the ethos of Wikipedia, the "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". This was countered by supporters of Positions 2 and 3, who felt variously: that accuracy of information, especially in relation to BLPs, trumps openness to edits by anyone ("Wikipedia is first and foremost an encyclopedia (pillar #1) and ought to be reader-centered, not editor centered" [1]); that the limitations set by Pending Changes were no philosophically different than the limitations set by semi and full-protection, both of which have been deployed on Wikipedia for years; and that Pending Changes actually left articles more open to editing by users who would otherwise be shut out by our current page protection mechanisms.

Some Position 1 supporters felt that the implementation of Pending Changes would put in place a hierarchy of editors where one hadn't existed before. Some of these arguments were based on the assumption that those given "reviewer" status would use it to force through their preferred content or that those able to turn on the "reviewer" right for other users would hold it hostage. Supporters of Position 2 countered this by pointing out that "reviewer" would be no different a right than any other that could be turned on by administrators. The closers of this RfC reject, as a violation of WP:AGF, the blanket argument that those who support Pending Changes should be assumed to be willing to abuse the system or the giving of user rights.

Position 1 supporters stressed that the sheer volume of articles on Wikipedia is staggering, and that if even a small proportion of them are put under Pending Changes, the community will not be able to handle the volume of edits in need of reviewing. Many of these comments cited experiences on other WMF wikis which have already implemented some variety of Pending Changes. Supporters of Position 2 argued that Pending Changes, when used sparingly and in accordance with the draft policy presented on the RfC, may actually streamline the acceptance of edits in comparison to those on semi-protected pages. A number of Position 2 supporters cited their experiences on other PC-active wikis as evidence of how Pending Changes implementations can be functional and useful. It must also be kept in mind that each wiki which uses Pending Changes is able to customize its implementation, and the implementations used on other wikis may not be useful evaluators of the proposed implementation on English Wikipedia. Supporters of Position 2 also suggested that the issue of backlogs be addressed by an "end" to the queue of Pending Changes, such that all changes not approved after a certain amount of time should be automatically approved.

A point of essential disagreement between supporters of Positions 1 and 2 is whether Pending Changes is preferable – that is, adds value – to any case in comparison to semi or full-protection. Arguments from Position 1 supporters highlighted that few users had requested Pending Changes, as opposed to protection, during the PC trial, and that if the Pending Changes queue backlogs, application of PC may be less useful than page protection. It was also suggested that the lack of being able to see one’s edits "live" may be demoralizing to new users. Position 2 supporters felt that Pending Changes did have value beyond that of page protection, especially in the areas of discouraging vandalism (arguments suggested that if a vandal knows their edits will never be displayed to the world at large, they are less likely to make them) and encouraging edits by new and inexperienced editors (who would otherwise need to request the confirmed user right or use a template to request that another user make their requested edit).

A number of Position 1 supporters stated that though the notion of Pending Changes is useful, and the general concept of lightweight content controls even more so, they were unable to support Pending Changes as it was proposed and/or felt that the system needed so much work to become useful as to be essentially unsupportable currently.

Many supporters of Positions 2 and 3 felt that the potential damage done by vandalism, especially damage to BLP articles, outweighs the potential inconvenience to editors who are unable to have an edit go immediately live under Pending changes. This was countered by Position 1 sentiment that openness is the basis of Wikipedia, and to lose some amount of openness would fundamentally alter the functionality of the project.

A number of issues with the trial implementation and/or the suggested Draft Policy of Pending Changes were raised by supporters of all three positions, including:

The possibility of ongoing review backlogs and the lack of guidance provided in the Draft Policy for addressing them.
Lack of detail as to the responsibilities of reviewers and the qualifications a user must possess to be given the “reviewer” right.
Lack of detail as to when Pending Changes should be preferred to semi-or full protection, and how administrators and those who request the implementation of some form of protection/pending changes should make the decision about which to apply. In particular, it was pointed out that though Pending Changes may be particularly useful in two types of cases, the draft policy gives little consideration to the types of cases in which it may be most useful, described by one editor as: "One, where the vast majority of edits are good faith, but bad faith ones are causing exceptional damage. Two, where the vast majority of edits are bad faith, but the article nonetheless has a history of productive anon edits." ( [2])

Consensus of this RfC: The notion of "consensus" on Wikipedia holds unanimity as an ideal, but acknowledges that unanimity is often impossible to achieve in the real world. Consensus in our real world, then, is "determined by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy". In contentious cases such as this RfC, then, the closers must take into account not only the raw number of editors supporting each option, but also the strength of arguments presented by supporters of each position and the content of those arguments, to reach the most appropriate decision – the decision supported by the strongest arguments, and with which the largest number of editors can abide. The closers of this RfC commend the RfC’s participants for working constructively with each other for a sustained period, often striving to reach common ground and agree as to what specific outcomes of each issue might be acceptable on both sides (or all three sides) of the aisle. Your efforts at explaining your positions, both to us and to other users, and your careful reasonings for holding the positions that you do, were immensely helpful to our ability to close this RfC.

Our findings as to the consensus of this RfC are as follows:

The consensus of the community is that Pending Changes should be implemented on the English Wikipedia, based on both the majority of votes and the strength of arguments presented

However, it is clear that though the community supports the adoption of Pending Changes, the community is also well aware that both the Pending Changes Trial of 2010 and the draft policy as presented in this RfC suffer(ed) from weaknesses.

Therefore community consensus on this matter is determined to be that the community should dedicate itself to determining the implementation of Pending Changes that it wishes to be turned on. Many opinions have been presented in the various areas of this RfC as to what works and doesn’t work in Pending Changes as implemented/proposed; the community must now focus its energy on optimizing the implementation of Pending Changes that it wishes to see go live. Because the community must have time to discuss this, and in order to avoid the holiday season which would interfere in both devs’ and editors’ schedules, Pending Changes will become live on 1 December, 2012. To allow developers enough preparation time, we recommend that community discussion about changes to the draft Pending Changes policy be concluded no later than 1 November, 2012. If the community has not, at that time, reached a consensus about how to change the draft policy, Pending Changes will be implemented according to the terms of the Draft Policy until the community can find a consensus.

The closers stress to the community that consensus does support the implementation of Pending Changes, and we urge all the participants of the RfC– as well as its developers- to participate in the upcoming discussion about how to implement the software version of this consensus. We strongly recommend that this RfC be considered the endpoint of up/down community discussions about whether Pending Changes should be used on English Wikipedia for a period of time of no less than two years to allow community focus to move to the use, adaptation, and evaluation of the Pending Changes tool.

We thank the community for offering its input into forming the consensus and hope to see the community come together for the finalization of the policy.

The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 03:01, 23 June 2012 (UTC) reply
A fluffernutter is a sandwich! ( talk) 03:03, 23 June 2012 (UTC) reply
-- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 03:05, 23 June 2012 (UTC) reply
The Helpful One 11:30, 23 June 2012 (UTC) reply

Shortcut

WP:PC/RFC2012

This RfC uses transcluded subpages for most of its content. To monitor additions to the RfC, please remember to watchlist:

This RfC was open for 60 days from its start date. This means it was closed to comment at 23:59 UTC on May 22, 2012.

Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012

~~Coordinating admins are working on a close. Target date unknown at the moment, but we will try to keep the community updated. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! ( talk) 20:44, 24 May 2012 (UTC)~~ Close posted above. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! ( talk) 00:44, 26 June 2012 (UTC) reply

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Background information

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Shortcut

WP:PCRFC

Pending changes
Interface: Pages with pending edits · Pages under pending changes · Pending changes log ·
Documentation: Main talk · Reviewing guideline · Reviewing talk · Protection policy · Testing · Statistics

2010 Trial and 2012 Implementation

Historical: Trial proposal · Specifics · Reviewing guideline · Metrics · Terminology · Queue · Feedback · Closure · 2012 Implementation
Discussions:

Summary information for editors

Current status - Pending changes (level 1) was re-enabled on December 1st, 2012 by community consensus according to the 2012 RFC.
Logged in users – Logged in users (or users choosing to view pending changes) will see all edits as usual (unless the relevant setting has been changed in their preferences). All edits will still be added to the wiki and inappropriate edits must still be reverted or fixed as usual.
Logged out users – Until checked for obvious vandalism or superseded by appropriate editing, edits by new and unregistered users to "pending changes protected" pages will not be seen by users who are not logged in until approved. Edits by autoconfirmed users are approved automatically at level 1 when the prior revision is approved.
Policy – See the pending changes usage policy and the guideline on reviewing
Reviewer rights – Become a reviewer!.
Support and testing – Test page: Wikipedia:Pending changes/Testing. Bugs: Report them at WT:PC. For more information visit the IRC channel: #wikipedia-en-pc ^connect
Provide feedback and suggestion – Feedback page: Wikipedia talk:Pending changes. Your feedback and suggestions are appreciated.

Interaction of Wikipedia user groups and page protection levels
	Unregistered or newly registered	Confirmed or autoconfirmed	Extended confirmed	Template editor	Admin	Interface admin	Appropriate for (See also: Wikipedia:Protection policy)
No protection	Normal editing						The vast majority of pages. This is the default protection level.
Pending changes	All users can edit Edits by unregistered or new editors (and any subsequent edits by anyone) are hidden from readers who are not logged in, until reviewed by a pending changes reviewer or admin. Logged-in editors see all edits, whether accepted or not.						Infrequently edited pages with high levels of vandalism, BLP violations, edit-warring, or other disruption from unregistered and new users.
Semi	Cannot edit	Normal editing					Pages that have been persistently vandalized by anonymous and registered users. Some highly visible templates and modules.
Extended confirmed	Cannot edit		Normal editing*				Specific topic areas authorized by ArbCom, pages where semi-protection has failed, or high-risk templates where template protection would be too restrictive.
Template	Cannot edit			Normal editing			High-risk or very-frequently used templates and modules. Some high-risk pages outside of template space.
Full	Cannot edit				Normal editing		Pages with persistent disruption from extended confirmed accounts. Critical templates and modules.
Interface	Cannot edit					Normal editing	Scripts, stylesheets, and similar objects central to operation of the site or that are in other editors' user spaces.
* In order to edit through extended confirmed protection, a template editor must also be extended confirmed, but in practice this is almost always the case. Other modes of protection: Create protection Move protection Upload protection Office protection Cascade protection view talk

Purpose

The purpose of this request for comment is to determine what the future of pending changes on the English Wikipedia will be. Due to problems with the previous discussions this request for comment will be restricted in its scope. All participants are asked to respect these limitations. A group of volunteer coordinators will be administrating this process; their task will be to keep the discussion focused on the relevant issues and at the conclusion of this process to perform a close which reflects the community's desires.

Three positions are presented. They are designed to be mutually exclusive of one another. Therefore, each participant will choose one position only to endorse. If you change your mind and decide to switch positions, please strike out your previous endorsement but do not remove it entirely. Users may participate in the discussion section regardless of whether they have endorsed one of the three positions, but are asked not to make alternate proposals. Unregistered users may participate in the discussion section but may not endorse a position due to the risk of sockpuppetry.

Rationale

The official pending changes trial ended some time ago. For a period of time after the trial the tool was used without any clear policy regarding how it was to be used, or even if it was supposed to be used at all. This RFC aims to resolve these issues.

The policy presented below is based on the provisional policy used during the trial period, with modifications based on input at the previous RFC in 2011 that ended with the tool being temporarily taken out of service. That action was taken more or less to "clear the air" for further debate, but at the time interest in further discussion of these issues was on the decline and the matter has remained more or less unresolved for most of a year.

The format will be similar to other RFCs, however users are asked not to add additional positions. This may seem overly restrictive but it is necessary in order to arrive at a clear result. The three positions presented are designed to be mutually exclusive of one another, and to only address the very core issues involved as the smaller details will change over time anyway, as with all Wikipedia policies. Users may add a brief comment to their endorsement, but all threaded discussions should take place in the discussion section. Any overly long comments or replies to endorsements will be moved to the discussion section. Discussion not related to these core issues will be removed, in order to avoid expanding the scope of the discussion away from its intended purpose. Any discussion of the RFC itself should be posted to the talk page, not the discussion section.

A note on the "improve it first" position

The option of the tool itself (as opposed to the policy on its use) being improved or altered before considering re-deployment is deliberately absent from the positions. Pending changes is a specialized version of the more restrictive " flagged revisions" system. It was developed by the Wikimedia Foundation specifically to be used on en.Wikipedia and is not used on other projects. For that reason the Foundation made it clear that it would not expend any more resources to develop pending changes until this project had determined that they would actually use it. Therefore the option of improving it first before deciding is not viable at this time.

To add your endorsement, you must edit the section of the option you want to endorse; editing of the main RFC page has been disabled

Position #1

The negative aspects of pending changes outweigh the positive. Therefore the tool should not be used at all on the English Wikipedia.

Click here to edit this section

Users who endorse this position

While I do understand the benefits of PC and why people support it, I still believe that any PC/FR-style protection is against the fundamental principles of the project, in that there should no difference between editors (except such differences that are unavoidable) and that everyone should be able to edit equally (while semi-protection for example blocks IPs, those users can easily get the status that allows them to edit regardless - PC on the other hand would restrict editing in those cases to a small group of users). I also think that the PC trial showed that this is a kind of "power" that a number of admins do not grasp correctly and I fear that PC will lead to further problems with incorrect usage and problems with anon / new users being scared away by overzealous "reviewers" who use their new-found "powers" to reject valid edits they don't agree with. Imho the problems of any tool that allows one group of users to decide which edits of other users are valid without discussion by far outweigh the benefits. Regards So Why 19:06, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
That's pretty much it. I get the idea and all, but it just didn't work out. Rcsprinter (orate) 20:27, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Will be glad to see the back of it. HairyWombat 20:34, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Use of pending changes over a significant fraction of our articles would contradict fundamental principles and create huge mountains of work. I was supportive of the alternative idea of using pending changes as a form of protection, but I don't think the benefits outweighed the drawbacks. Protected pages are by definition subject to abuse, most suggested edits to pages under PC were not constructive, and the edits which were useful did not justify the expense of editor effort to weed out the problematic edits. At the same time there is certainly the potential for abuse in the manner described by SoWhy. I don't think use of the tool can be justified except possibly in a handful of special cases. Hut 8.5 20:43, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Pending changes is strictly worse than any other antivandal/accuracy measure we've got, since it can very easily be gamed by vandals, is overly reliant on an ever-shrinking user pool (last time I pegged the rate of reviewers to potential PC candidates at 1:65), and does active harm to Wikipedia and its reputation if understaffed/ignored. There is no way in creation that this would serve any purpose for Wikipedia, other than depressing already-anemic membership numbers even further. No new blood means nobody to write the encyclopedia. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:19, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
I understand the good intentions, but I wonder if I would have been as likely to join WP if I had to start out as a third-class-citizen. Our radical openness and the immediacy of an edit is an essential part of the Wikipedia experience. If we applied PC only to pages currently protected, perhaps it would help openness-- but I think we can reasonably anticipate that PC will be used more liberally, e.g. every BLP. We're a wiki-- no one expects us to be perfect. It's okay if a 'bad' revision is public for a bit-- that's an opportunity the readers to learn just how democratic WP is. In some ways, "reviewing" could make things worse-- implying that an article has been 'screened for quality' in some way, when in fact, it's only screened for obvious vandalism. In the balance between "Openness" and "Quality", we are too far towards quality. "Quality Mania" has to stop before we drive all new users away. HectorMoffet ( talk) 02:04, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
I dislike Pending Changes (and any derivative of flagged revisions) primarily due to the "third-class citizen" idea that it brings about, which has been brought up by others above. I also think that Pending Changes is largely only seen as good from the "vandal fighting" perspective, but there is more to Wikipedia than attempting to control the behavior of others and the content of articles which are in an editors personal interest area. It looks like a foregone conclusion that this RFC will show Pending Changes as being supported, but I believe that it's use is antithetical to the core principles of editing Wikipedia.
— V = IR ( Talk • Contribs) 05:54, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
I find the system unnecessarily complicated to use and administer. Wikipedia is already complex enough, especially for newbie editors. The aims of the draft policy below, to protect pages that need it from disruption, can just as well be achieved by applying the standard full or semiprotection tool. Sandstein 08:06, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Pending Changes would, I believe, make Wikipedia more authoritarian and less democratic. The fact is this is a free and open encyclopaedia that anyone - even the most malevolent and ignorant people on the Internet - can and may edit, and edit it without censorship. -- ... there's more than what can be linked. 10:45, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Right problem, wrong solution. Incomprehensible technical wizardry, confuses everyone as to whether they are in fact editing the article, and even as to what "the article" in fact means at a given time. I don't so much share the concerns about preserving "core principles" of openness and democracy - which are double-edged swords - but just want things simple and upfront. If an article is closed to public editing, then tell people so, tell them why, and tell them how they can still get changes made. Victor Yus ( talk) 11:39, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
As a purist, I think Wikipedia should remain instantly updateable, without allowing privileged users to "approve" content. As a radical, I think we should just remove all currently unsourced content and revert any new additions of unsourced content, to prevent any sort of "sneaky vandalism" or other unhelpful edits whatsoever. That would be a ore useful solution than pending changes, I think. Really, I think we should have a Wikipedia where anyone can write crap, and a second Wikipedia, which can claim to be reliable. Of course, Citizendium tried that and essentially failed. But I digress. Pending changes compromises my ideal of openness, and is inadequate in stopping vandalism or undesirable edits. / ƒETCH COMMS / 17:04, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
This tool is fundamentally in violation of the idea of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. I am not convinced that our coverage is so great or our problems so immense that we need to change this foundational policy and make it more difficult for new users to edit. ElKevbo ( talk) 23:18, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Absolutely not. I quietly watched the first trial from afar and saw no saving virtues in it whatsoever. Moreover, we'll no longer be able to call ourselves the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit". Lock Pending changes up and throw away the key. Evanh2008 ( talk) ( contribs) 23:49, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Pending changes has a cumbersome interface, is confusing to use and unnecessarily complex to administer, has the potential to drive away clueful editors, and fails utterly to address the most serious content problems we are facing. More troubling, we are again putting the cart before the horse by considering resurrecting PC in the absence of any credible evidence that it is needed. Effective tools to combat persistent vandalism, BLP violations, and other unconstructive edits already exist, and they work well; other options have been identified but not actively considered. Unless it can be demonstrated that there is a serious, intractable problem that pending changes is uniquely capable of solving, let's not go down this road again. Rivertorch ( talk) 07:26, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Pending changes will make Wikipedia controlled by only some individuals in certain pages, which is entirely different from the main principle of the free encyclopedia. I am also in favor of comment number 1, 4, 5, 8 and 11. -- G(x) ( talk) 10:41, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
-- Michig ( talk) 11:26, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Frood! ^Ohai _{What did I break now?} 16:30, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Logan _Talk ^{Contributions} 16:34, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Bzweebl ( talk) 17:00, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
I think pending changes unnecessarily complicates Wikipedia even more for new users. I think that page protection and edit requests can accomplish the same task without adding unnecessary work for reviewers. – GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:34, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Per SoWhy. - Branabus 19:41, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Just complicates matters. As things stand it's easy enough to throw an edit request at someone when a page actually needs it, at least enough that a lot of people do figure out how, and they'd still have to do that even with PC in use, so what's the point? Thing doesn't even work on high-traffic pages, which seem like they'd need it the most; such pages would still have to be at least semi-protected. And as for other pages which might have use for it, well, present countervandalism measures aren't that ineffective, are they? Meantime it just makes everything that much more confusing. — Isarra ( talk) 20:34, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Jane ( talk) 20:35, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Particularly as per HectorMoffet and GorillaWarfare. AllyD ( talk) 21:05, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
No, no and no. This has been resurrected and buried a couple of times now. Why will nobody let this corpse rest in its grave? The only thing to come of this is arguments, more arguments, and Wikidrama. It's dead, for god's sake leave it that way. BarkingFish 21:22, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Although as a community we have dealt with vandalism and content disputes in the past, if there are serious flaws with an editors who are interested in an article who watch it can always revert it and begin a discussion if necessary. One of the virtues and responsibilities of Wikipedia is that ANYONE can edit an article (and we are to have good faith that for the most part that anyone will be editing in a positive manor that keeps with the pillars that guide our community), and with such freedom others can also alter those edits if they are deemed to not be keeping with guidelines and policies that have consensus by our community. Granted this means that involved knowledgeable editors need to patrol for vandalism or content they believe do not meet WP:V or WP:NPOV or something else (like WP:BLP), but that is the responsibility that keeps with the freedom of openness that makes Wikipedia so accessible. -- RightCowLeftCoast ( talk) 00:56, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
My views are summed up by many of the previous posters here. Dalliance ( talk) 12:03, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Unnecessary complexity creep. TotientDragooned ( talk) 14:28, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Oppose. I am concerned that this proposal will result in a more hierarchical system with more power to administrators and reviewers. The draft policy requires reviewer status to have similar requirements to rollback, but as others have noted the exact requirements to get the permission and what exactly reviewers should accept or not are not clear, which is unacceptable. PC protection is different from the existing semi-protect because AFAIK confirmed is an automatically granted permission; not one that requires beseeching one of our administrative overlords to allow you into the cool kids club, yet another potential dealbreaker for a possible new editor. OSborn^arf_contribs. 15:17, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
PC level 1 proved to be a spectactular failure: added complexity, reduced performance, conflicting views as to what editors should look for, and generally less usable than our current system. PC level 2, while underused previously, appeared to have actual merit and value. I would support a move to add PC 2 to our toolset, but oppose PC 1.— Kww( talk) 19:27, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
It simply didn't work properly. Reyk _YO! 20:36, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
There are over 3000 pages under Category:Wikipedia semi-protected pages; of which I can only assume a good portion will eventually achieve "pending changes" status instead. This is not to mention Category:Biography articles of living people which contains over 500,000 pages, of which it is safe to assume at least a small portion will achieve "pending changes" status as well. Let's assume that only 1% of BLPs eventually get saddled with pending changes: That's 8,000 articles. Who is going to review all of these? And more importantly, what projects will suffer from losing editors to pending changes. I suspect Special:Newpages and Special:Recentchanges will lose some people, and those projects are incredibly backlogged already. There just aren't enough man-hours to go around, and not enough benefit to the Wiki. This is only one of my reasons for not supporting Pending Changes, but I feel a long-winded tirade would be unwelcome here. Great idea, but then again so is communism: It only works on paper. - RunningOnBrains^(
talk) 21:38, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Pending changes are confusing and ineffective, considering the sheer number of daily changes made to most popular articles. -- Dmitry _{(
talk•
contibs)} 22:21, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Feeling that this RfC is forum shopping until the desired outcome is achieved. OhanaUnited ^{Talk page} 01:24, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Never supported it. Never will. — ξ ^xplicit 06:22, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
-- M4gnum0n ( talk) 14:13, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
PC should only be used as an alternative to protection and semi protection on the ~3000 pages that currently use it. It should not be used on more than a small percent of all pages as PC can only combat blatant vandalism -- at the price of a more authoritarian and bureaucratic system, an unknown number of lost edits and editors, and encouragement of more subtle vandalism. This is what we should fear. In my ~8 years as a WP reader, I've only stumbled upon vandalism or broken pages (e.g broken infobox syntax) by causal browsing a few times in a few hundred of thousands page views; of course, this is thanks to all the time-consuming vandalfighting done by our community. Sure, this quick fix will reduce the workload of antivandal fighters, but it will increase the workload of reviewers. PC will not make WP less prone to errors, OR or SYNTH; at best, it is a dangerous system that will save us some time, but this should be shown by the proponents of this idea. jonkerz ♠talk 16:30, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
In my opinion the PC is partial implementation of WP:PP. Given that it comes with an overhead and disputable benefits, I would propose to stick with the consistent and stable WP:PP. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff ( talk) 18:09, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Two reasons; one we don't have the manpower to create this huge backlog and time sink. Two, despite being active in page protection for two years, I've never seen a single situation where I thought PC would be a better solution than just semi'ing the page. While not a perfect system, it serves without asking editors to devote dozens of man-hours a day keeping it straight. Witness the Russian Wikipedia, where backlogs containing several hundred unreviewed edits on a single page are not uncommon, to see where an undermanned PC system could have us end up. Courcelles 21:46, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
The trial was a failure in my opinion. Actually, if we had not discontinued the trial's system of mass unprotecting pages to implement PC, then it would have been a complete failure. Not only did it create more unnecessary work for users, a number of times that I've seen where people who have requested or suggested PC over semi-protection on an article/articles have done put in little to absolutely no effort in alleviating the workload on the requested/suggested articles. Considering that I work mainly with vandalism and anti-abuse, I don't see how PC will realistically help deal with the vandalism, the trial very clearly showed us this. I also agree with Courcelles's second statement, semi-protection is just plain better. Elockid ^(
Talk) 02:06, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
In my opinion the experiment failed to show any benefit with Pending Changes. Edgepedia ( talk) 06:00, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
I had an experience with PC in Arabic Wikipedia and it scared me off for months. Another new editor who I invited made one big referenced edit, but left WP when it was refused. The bad thing about PC is that you either accept all changes or reject all. Unlike what many think here, I believe that just like with the Arabic WP, many articles will have multiple PCs forming a long backlog. I think this should only be used when semi-protection isn't effective enough. Mohamed CJ ^(talk) 16:25, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
I would still say that semi-protection performs all the tasks of PC without adding a new reviewer user-right. If someone wants to edit a page, they can ask on the talk page for semi-protection. PC will add more complication, time, energy, and effort than exists now. Angryapathy ( talk) 17:16, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Not needed. INeverCry 01:34, 29 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Even though I am a respected user on en.wiki - I am an admin, an arbitrator, and I have FA and GA experience, when I edit on some other wikis, such as the German wiki, I have to have my edits approved as I have not edited there enough to be a confirmed user, and sometimes I have had fairly minor edits queried or refused. That has discouraged me from using wikis with PC. I would prefer registered editing - provide my email and personal details as I did when becoming an arbitrator, and then be allowed to get on with editing. A one time, simple registration rather than making a series of edits and then waiting several days. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 10:17, 29 March 2012 (UTC) reply
I endorse Postion #1 for many reasons which are covered within the broad language of, "The negative aspects of pending changes outweigh the positive. Therefore the tool should not be used at all on the English Wikipedia." Refrigerator Heaven ( talk) 11:54, 29 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Too clunky - in PC, editor makes edit which is left hanging until reviewed. The often-obscure change leaves a reviewer scratching their head as the editor who made the edit has long gone. Semiprotection means the requester has to explain the rationale for a proposed edit first. I find semiprotection a more useful tool in the situation. Casliber ( talk · contribs) 12:40, 29 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse: Semi-protection and blocking individual editors is sufficient enough when dealing with vandalism. When necessary, an edit request can be made to the talk page for good faith editing IP addresses and non-autoconfirmed editors. Regards, Whenaxis ( contribs) ^{DR goes to Wikimania!} 01:17, 30 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse position 1. Although I like the idea and possibilities of this tool, it would create an enormous workload on administrators. I am not taking this position as a lazy admin, anyone who knows how I started along the admin path in the Cats for Deletion, knows I enjoy the work. Unfortunately, there is always a backlog of work somewhere. When I took over CfD, one admin was doing all the work, and he was wore out, I wasn't even an admin, but somebody had to do it. At first there will be a well groomed group of admins and a committee to ensure there is no backlog, but we have that now on several other admin boards, and there is always a backlog. At that point there is no difference from full protection requiring an admin to make a change and the new provisions, eventually an admin will have to not only make the change but research and verify it as well. After a time, there will be fewer admins actively working on the project and possibly even days where there is no admin monitoring it. I feel this will only negatively impact the constant updates by all users to improve on the Wikipedia project. «» Who ?¿? 02:51, 30 March 2012 (UTC) reply
In ru_wiki it's been imposed and caused nothing but trouble and dismay. Huge number of articles hang 'pending' there (and will be forever) for numerous reasons, including those mentioned above. 'Reviewing' business is tricky more often than not, while the 'protection' effect of PC is nil. -- Evermore2 ( talk) 08:51, 30 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Doesn't scale, and there's no way to fix it so it does. Given anything like our current ratio between casual, occasional editors and regular contributors who could be recruited as reviewers (a ratio that is getting steadily higher), there's no way to institute a review-based system. Chick Bowen 19:05, 30 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse Position 1. I feel that at the moment, the negative outweighs the positive. Until something drastic changes, I think this is a dead end. Tarl.Neustaedter ( talk) 23:10, 30 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Per SoWhy. Spencer^T♦
C 19:08, 31 March 2012 (UTC) reply
This is a bright idea that has too many ramifications. The one that may have been overlooked is that with "permanent" implementation, many articles would then be semi-protected by the admins for a long period. Is this good? Right now, the admins figure, "Hey, this article requested for semi-protect is not getting much more vandalism than any other. Each article has to "take it's share of vandalism. Stop it one place, it squirts out another." This procedure would be great, but undoing the procedure is a cultural problem. Also, new users want to see instant change when they first edit. A lot of them edit out their own vandalism immediately! Just wanted to "prove it" to themselves. Can't do that with a delayed system. And yes, we have to put up with a lot of awful edits in the meantime. It is not a perfect system but it may attract more new editors. Student7 ( talk) 18:19, 1 April 2012 (UTC) reply
ENDORSE position 1. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ms33 ( talk • contribs)
Per SoWhy and Ohms law. Also I am opposed to the amount of user rights currently in existence, and adding another will make it worse. I thought "anyone could edit Wikpedia" but apparently I was wrong. Why would anyone think that new Wikipedia users know less about a subject than experienced users? And this feature really won't help new users. Under the current system they have to create an account and wait three days to be able to edit a few semi-protected pages, but under this system they will have to wait several months before they can edit without their changes being scrutinized by a user who really doesn't know anything about the subject and is biased towards new users anyway. The view that this will help IPs and new users is very short sighted. Liam987 07:26, 2 April 2012 (UTC) reply
CharlieEchoTango ( contact) 08:33, 2 April 2012 (UTC) reply
That pages are directly editable by anyone is the basis for this project. To require review before edits are "live" would be to eliminate this. The openness of Wikipedia is an advantage. I think people need to slow down and consider exactly what vandalism is, and what effect PC would have on it. Are we worried that vandalism makes Wikipedia "look bad"? Are we worried that it wastes editors' time? Are we worried that it's resulting it readers obtaining less or inaccurate information? This proposal suggests that IPs and new users actually have a different version of the article displayed to them. How could this be an advantage? Our readers know what Wikipedia is, and they're reading it because of what it is. They know that the page they're viewing has been edited by hundreds of completely anonymous individuals, and that anything could have been added by anyone, and they're reading Wikipedia because of this, not in spite of it. We have no reason to pretend to be something that we're not. -- Yair rand ( talk) 17:35, 2 April 2012 (UTC) reply
The very idea of PC is antithetical to the idea of an open encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It is fundamentally incompatible with the project's principles. It does. It does not serve the readers, only a small group of editors. It also has an incompatibility with the spirit, if not the legality of previous contributions, which were submitted in good faith in a framework that did not include these conditions. It must not return. oknazevad ( talk) 19:57, 3 April 2012 (UTC) reply
During the trial, I found pending changes to be clunky, unintuitive, confusing, and frequently misapplied. Although I believe that it is a potentially useful tool as long as it is used very sparingly, I highly doubt that it would be used properly, and I think the risk of making anons and new users feel marginalized (among other concerns) far outweighs the potential benefits. -- Bongwarrior ( talk) 14:17, 4 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Pending Changes is a proposal uniquely marked by deception; its goals are not to stop vandalism but to censor articles. It started with a trial that the community voted clear consensus to stop three times, but which still limped on regardless of all consensus and deadline. Even after it was stopped, an administrator kept using it on some favorite biographies of his, at level 2 with no editing by anyone outside the reviewer pool allowed, while making it clear (having previously removed my reviewer right) that people who simply disagree that BLP policy should be so expansive on a discussion page are subject to revocation. When actually saying yes or no, the duties of reviewers have never been specified, and it has never been answered whether reviewers are liable for libel if they approve such an edit. While it is being marketed as a "less than lethal weapon", like tasers were when they were introduced, we should all know that this is anything but the truth - articles that would not have been semi-protected, like "all BLPs", will be hit with level 1 pending changes, and articles that would never have gotten full-protection will routinely be subjected to level 2 pending changes. This is admitted every time proponents say that it will "cut down on BLP violations", because if it were replaced only in the manner claimed, it would only allow more BLP violations by allowing more people to edit. Stake and decapitate, salt and burn! Wnt ( talk) 16:55, 4 April 2012 (UTC) reply
I endorse this position. At the end of the day PC doesn't stop vandalism, it just tries to cover it up by delaying the publication of new edits. It would also create additional problems whilst solving none; giving too much power to reviewers, creating an additional backlog of work (regardless of the scale), and potentially be open to creeping extension to more and more articles by making protection appear as less of a big thing. Not to mention the fact that since WMF is refusing to make improvements unless we commit to use the extension, we are effectively being forced to accept it blind, and with no option to change our minds later. Additionally, by assuming all edits to be unconstructive until proven otherwise by being approved, this is effectively removing the assumption of good faith. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, "they who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety". -- W. D. Graham 18:37, 4 April 2012 (UTC) reply
I am wholeheartedly opposed to implementing pending changes on this project. Our burning, big picture, problem is new editors being pushed away by complex procedures, brusque or automated replies to edits from existing editors and steep learning curves for everything else. Our minor problems of vandal fighting and what-not become immaterial if wikipedia ceases to be a living resource. I could support a full revamp of the model for page changes but only if it respects the premise that new editors are not inherently a threat. I won't go on because my position is basically unchanged from past RfCs. Protonk ( talk) 20:19, 4 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Yet another barrier to editing that we don't even have the manpower to keep up with.© Geni 16:26, 5 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Kaldari ( talk) 18:57, 5 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Others have said it more eloquently, but it just goes against the spirit of this project, it will not be the encyclopedia anybody can edit if this passes. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 02:42, 6 April 2012 (UTC) reply
It seems to me that PC restricts the ability of autoconfirmed editors to deal promptly with errors, but increases the ability of anonymous editors to introduce errors (unless the reviewer is 'all knowing'). What will be the procedure when the body of W editors need to censure an incompetent reviewer? Don't introduce this new hurdle. Wikipedia is already too complex. Apuldram ( talk) 11:17, 6 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Mbak Dede ( talk) 12:31, 6 April 2012 (UTC) reply
simply no again. mabdul 16:43, 7 April 2012 (UTC) reply
No to change! Mutationes non sunt multiplicandae sine necessitate Twr57 ( talk) 15:26, 9 April 2012 (UTC) reply
No ideological problems with designing light controls for Wikipedia to improve the quality of content. My objections are pragmatic. It's convoluted and complicated, which outweighs its tiny benefits as an anti-vandalism tool. We're better off finding other ways to fight vandalism. Shooterwalker ( talk) 22:42, 9 April 2012 (UTC) reply
The biggest problem with pending changes is that they don't actually work. Any situation where pending changes would plausibly be turned on would be helped more by semi-protection and with less confusion about the current state of the article. This renders other concerns (which exist!) moot anyway. SnowFire ( talk) 23:56, 9 April 2012 (UTC) reply
I am new here, and I found the openness of articles I was interested in spectacular. There is some great feeling I associate with improving this encyclopedia, no matter how small. I am secure in the knowledge that I am further expanding the knowledge of the world. Denying that to anyone is attrocious. There comes a point in time where a society, such as our wonderful one, will have to make the distinction between liberty and "safety," which in this instance is a unobtainable freedom from vandalism. This is the fundamental conflict inherit in the internet. There is no way to be open and encourage participation amoung all who may have valuable contributions without dealing with those malicious people that try and ruin it for all of us. So, in order to remain true to our vision and remain open to all, we must stay free. (Not in the money sense ^^) Added by Jon Weldon II: ( talk) 14:57, 11 April 2012 (UTC) reply
I didn't get on with the trial, so that has partially shaped my impression of it. However, a bigger issue is that it seems to add another hurdle in the way of attracting new editors - everybody who started editing here remembers the sense of excitement when something you added appeared straight away. If new editors see their edits being regularly refused/sat in a queue for ages, then it rather misses the point of the project and could see experienced editors spending all their time reviewing rather than contributing. Bob talk 19:12, 11 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Pending changes is a bad idea for all the reasons stated above. Pages placed under full or semi-protection is by far the better option as it is less complicated and does not put a greater burden on the present users. Pending changes is also a possible door to censorship and the enforecement of one's particular POV. Imagine the chaos that would ensue were pending changes to be applied to The Troubles-related articles where edit-warring and POV-pushing are already rampant.-- Jeanne Boleyn ( talk) 05:40, 12 April 2012 (UTC) reply
I've argued against PC at length during the trial period, so rather than re-iterating my position I'll echo the heading: the negative aspects outweigh the positive. Jebus989 ^✰ 12:31, 14 April 2012 (UTC) reply
As an editor resident in the EU, unless someone can put forward a good argument to address the question that I have raised on the discussion page here I would not be willing to review edits, especially on BLP pages, without personally checking and archiving copies of the sources. I can envisage many other EU residents adopting a similar position. This has the potential to make editorial control of EN Wikipedia more US centric, which I do not believe is a good thing. FrankFlanagan ( talk) 20:23, 14 April 2012 (UTC) reply
The one most necessary thing for the survival of Wikipedia is that we continue to attract new editors. For most new editors, the attraction of seeing one's edits immediately in the live version is one of the key attractions. Therefore other considerations are not even relevant. But in any case, the problems which incoming articles and new edits is much less than those with existing ones: we are already more careful than in the past. I left a site (Citizendium) where although I had status to edit directly, most others needed them approved--I left because experience showed the site was dying because of inability to attract newcomers. Our procedures are already excessively troublesome both to newcomers and to anyone who sets out to help them--it's the main complaint of those trying to start working here DGG ( talk ) 03:33, 16 April 2012 (UTC) reply
OpposeIf it gives admins the power, some cruel admins(I am not blaming any kind admin, but cruel ones) can block users for nothing or do personal attacks.-- Al Sheik!Woiu!I do not fish! ( talk) 12:49, 16 April 2012 (UTC) reply
CommentI think it should be reformed although the PC looks fit.-- Al Sheik!Woiu!I do not fish! ( talk) 05:43, 16 April 2012 (UTC) reply
This is not a request for comment, it's a request for votes. The structure is ridiculously constraining. If it was a proper request for comment, then we wouldn't be so rigidly confined to discussing the three predetermined options. Of the three options available, this is the one that comes closest to my view, although I really ought to be editing the sections called "not this rubbish again" and "haven't we already hunted this down and killed it several times before?" and "no doubt I'll see you all again at the next pending changes-related RFC".— S Marshall T/ C 08:25, 16 April 2012 (UTC) reply
(Later) I want to emphasise that this is a serious point. There are users who are determined to keep asking the same question in slightly different words until they get a positive answer. This time the gimmick is to force us into particular predetermined slots and to close down (and literally hat) all discussion of alternatives or attempts to step off the railway tracks that take us directly to pending changes. Veni, vidi, voti.
Please will the pre-appointed closers (!) also take into account the positions I expressed in the March 2011 RFC.— S Marshall T/ C 17:29, 21 May 2012 (UTC) reply
I would like to vote for the adoption of Pending changes -- or something like it -- but the entire process of its adoption has been so badly handled that there will never be a consensus for adopting it in the foreseeable future. (Frankly, I consider the whole Pending changes debate a text book example of how not to change policy on Wikipedia.) A majority of Wikipedians -- either a slight or large majority, depending on who one talks to -- supports it; a sizable minority is opposed to it; yet there has been no effort to attempt to talk to the minority to understand & address their concerns, nor even to provide an objective way to test whether Pending changes can/will fix any problems. Let's just drop the whole idea for a long, long time. -- llywrch ( talk) 16:57, 16 April 2012 (UTC) reply
We would be better served by semi/full protection. It is confusing to tell an editor that they can edit the page, only to have their edit not show up after they make it. Either let them edit the page, or tell them flat-out that they can't and how to make an edit(semi)protected request. There were also serious problems with overuse even during the trial, and I would be very concerned about yet another backlog requiring human intervention. Requiring edit(semi)protected drives away vandals while still allowing good-faith users to put in their edit; under PC, they'll still make the vandal edit and require someone to waste time figuring out it's vandalism and disapproving it. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 03:17, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Pending changes has the potential to alienate users, make it harder to remove wrong information that is already present when pending changes is applied, waste the time of reviewers and create backlogs. James500 ( talk) 17:56, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Given the potential liability of reviewers for approvals of "defamatory" material - which may include true material, depending on the jurisdiction - I am changing my viewpoint to oppose pending changes, at least if it is to at all be used on BLP and similar pages. I would be willing to change my position back to Option #3 (to, first, requiring considerable policy clarifications, and, second, dealing with the potential for vandals to clog up the reviewer queue after doing vandalism - not removable by non-reviewers - using an autoconfirmed account) if the Pending Changes policy was firmly such that it (at least in its PC1 form; I can see PC2 on article that would otherwise get full protection) would not be used on any BLP or similarly liability-provoking article. As it is, given that these are the exact articles it's being proposed for by at least some, I have to oppose it given the near-certainty of inadvertent misuse due to liability fears. Allens ( talk | contribs) 18:24, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply
For the benefits gained, we'd be adding disproportionate extra complication, and a frustrating indefinite time lag to the edits of a much broader section of the editorship. Also, the responsibility for accepting edits is currently on the entire community (implicitly, by not reverting them) - transferring that onto a single individual (by explicitly approving an edit) does not seem like a desirable situation to me. Quackdave ( talk) 20:14, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Goes against the basic principles. Ian¹³ /t 22:20, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse. What Seraphimblade said, viz. "We would be better served by semi/full protection. It is confusing to tell an editor that they can edit the page, only to have their edit not show up after they make it. Either let them edit the page, or tell them flat-out they can't, and how to make an edit(semi)protected request..." – OhioStandard ( talk) 23:13, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse position #1 – "The negative aspects of pending changes outweigh the positive. Therefore the tool should not be used at all on the English Wikipedia."
If enacted, Wikipedia's statement on the main page of "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" would have to be changed to "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, but contributions to articles protected by pending-changes protection may not be posted until they are reviewed and approved by other people." The current Protection policy already in place for articles is sufficient. The enactment of pending changes to pages would very likely significantly discourage new editors from contributing to the project. There are also concerns of elitism, in which in some cases only "approved" editors would be allowed to edit articles with their contributions immediately posting, while all other editors, including autoconfirmed editors in some cases, would have to wait for the "approved" editors to provide permission. Then a bunch of new policies and guidelines would have to be created to clarify what types of contributions would be "acceptable" and "unacceptable", in addition to Wikipedia's current policies and guidelines. For example, if an editor adds very basic information to an article, the type that typically doesn't require sourcing to be included, or information without inline citations that is backed by sources already present in an article, would the entry be denied or allowed? If an editor were to add controversial information to an article that is backed by reliable sources, would the information be included or denied by the reviewers? Pending-changes protection would also create a type of class system, in which the content of some Wikipedia articles would be ruled by an oligarchy, with the rest of Wikipedia's contributors being in the position of a lower class within this type of article governance system. Northamerica1000^(talk) 08:19, 18 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse Goes against the spirit of the project and with antivandal bots improving all the time, loss exceeds gain. -- Dweller ( talk) 10:46, 18 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse Any official control of content by a select group is completely antithetical to the spirit of WP. As for vandalism of BLPs, I am certain that for every dedicated vandal, there are more dedicated users willing and able to undo the vandalism quickly. Where we're falling short is in sourcing content, but that's another discussion all together. Paratrooper450 ( talk) 14:32, 19 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse - fully agree with someone above: "Pending Changes would, I believe, make Wikipedia more authoritarian and less democratic." Cramyourspam ( talk) 18:13, 19 April 2012 (UTC) reply
It was an interesting experiment, but it has significant problems. 1) It's superfluous; it creates an additional fuzzy concept that overlaps massively with semi-protection, a much easier to implement approach. 2) It is going to add a major new workload to a site which already has backlogs everywhere. 3) It adds another tier of "more equal" users who stand above "regular" editors. 4) Finally, it is yet another way to discourage and disenfranchise new participants. — Torchiest ^talk_edits 22:40, 19 April 2012 (UTC) reply
I agree with many of the points made above. PC is anathema to the spirit of Wikipedia, whose immediacy is a large part of its appeal. Semi-protection is somewhat restrictive but easy to understand, and reasons for proposing or opposing proposed edits can be better explained on talk pages than in edit summaries. PC creates extra layers of bureaucracy, hierarchy and obfuscation, with enormous potential for misunderstanding. Reviewers are left with no clear idea of what's expected of them; IP's and newbies may erroneously assume that only blatantly inappropriate material will be blocked and that their good faith edits will all be accepted; and casual readers may imagine that "reviewed" articles have been subjected, in their entirety, to some sort of rigorous quality control. We also have no evidence that enough reviewer-hours would be available to make its widespread implementation remotely feasible. Contains Mild Peril ( talk) 05:24, 20 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Kennedy ^(
talk) 12:22, 20 April 2012 (UTC) reply
I will never support this tool unless or until someone provides some actual hard evidence about who are the types of people who are making the most useful edits, and whether this tool would have a detrimental effect on them. If there's already been a trial, this should be possible, yes? I strongly suspect that most useful edits come largely from relatively new users, the exact types of people who really wouldn't understand this tool, or rather, wouldn't really want to learn about it before they lost interest in contributing altogether. I can't find any evidence that backs up the claims being made that this tool 'works' and I suspect the only thing that is meant by that is that it stops vandalism. There's a reason why all the prospective competitors to Wikipedia have failed, and it's not been because they were too easily vandalised, but because they all fundamentally misunderstood what made Wikipedia a success in the first place - openness, simplicity and immediacy. If Wikipedia isn't careful, then it won't be too hard for Google to hijack the market by rebooting 'original' Wikipedia but with ads, using all of the content already here. All they're waiting for, is for Wikipedia to vacate the position of market leader by turning itself into something that doesn't work, or at least can't sustain itself with enough users and edits to keep writing it, as well as keeping what's already in it relevant and accurate. The key facts relevant to this decision is not vandalism or quality, they are that Wikipedia is clearly still not finished, Wikipedia is not immune to competition, and Wikipedia does not pay its contributors for their work. Krismeadon ( talk) 19:04, 20 April 2012 (UTC) reply
How many times must this come up? -- Gwern (contribs) 19:37 20 April 2012 (GMT)
Problem, chaos, solution? Yeah, I know it's cryptic. Think about it! Gzuufy ( talk) 00:56, 21 April 2012 (UTC) reply
It seems too complicated and burdensome per WP:LIGHTBULB. Warden ( talk) 11:52, 22 April 2012 (UTC) reply
For a new editor like me, its already difficult and complicated enough without this. I also do not support because in my many years, I have learnt that there are many 'tools' that come and go but nothing can ultimately replace basic human direct. painstaking effort. One day a major error will certainly be made by this system or machine and then it will be too late to rue. Many thanks, AsadUK200 ( talk) 13:22, 22 April 2012 (UTC)AsadUK200 reply
It risks producing inadvertant content forks, where there may be two wildly different versions, the approved version and the "live version". For articles which are not on many watchlists - which probably counts for most of the articles on wikipedia, changes may takes years to get approved, thus discouraging good faith changes and in many cases locking harmful content in (this will stop non-reviewer editors from removing pre-existing vandalism as well as adding it). In addition, he experience of the trial shows that it doesn't work on large article that are edited frequently. Nigel Ish ( talk) 22:07, 22 April 2012 (UTC) reply
How many times will Pending Changes (PC) re-spawn after we kill it? It's overcomplicated and the problems it intends to solve can be better address with already established means like the various levels of page protection. Several times I raised questions about potential legal burden PC puts on page patrollers. Never once was I given an answer. We built the best encyclopedia in the world without PC. There's no obvious improvement using PC, so let it die once and for all. Jason Quinn ( talk) 13:15, 23 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Per SoWhy, BarkingFish, and OhanaUnited. -- Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 04:16, 26 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Was wondering if we could implement this tool for school/shared IPs only. That could be useful. Hghyux ( talk to me)( talk to others) 15:38, 26 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Wkipedia is meant to be the encyclopedia which anyone can edit, and this detracts from that ethos. Wikipedia worked well enough for years without it, and we don't need it now. The German version has been a disaster. The attraction which Wikipedia has to new editors is that their edits are visible immediately, not hours, days or weeks later. Enough is enough. Richard75 ( talk) 00:12, 29 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Te Karere ( talk) 07:26, 29 April 2012 (UTC) reply
For the reasons given above. -- catslash ( talk) 14:06, 29 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Those who are in favour of this tend to be those who might be in a position to wield power over who edits Wikipedia and how. This is antithetical to the premise of Wikipedia. -- Cooper⁴² 16:39, 29 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Overly complicated, convoluted, hard to understand, and doesn't work well, anyway. We have enough procedures and protections.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 18:31, 29 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Pending Changes was designed in reaction to our failure to prevent vandalism on BLPs. Since it seems widely agreed that it fails to adequately protect BLPs, suffers from major design problems and bugs, and is not a supported piece of software in the long run, it would be extremely unwise to enable the use of it on any scale. Steven Walling • talk 01:49, 30 April 2012 (UTC) reply
It ain't broke. Don't "fix" it. Doprendek ( talk) 05:21, 30 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Strong Reject. This really just seems like a whole layer of bureaucracy that Wikipedia doesn't need, and shouldn't need. The fact that changes can be edited in to articles, but not shown, so that an innumerable slate of other editors can edit the same thing in just seems awful. I cannot see how this would become anything more than a hassle for editors and an inscrutable horror for reviewers. Either you can edit an article or you can't. Since you can always suggest an addition to an article in its talk page, this proposal is even redundant to our existing procedures. Send it to the dark pit from whence it came. Van Isaac_WS^contribs 05:29, 30 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse position #1 we need to put this approach aside and move on. I'm open to similar approaches with different implementation, once the dust has settled, however. Stuartyeates ( talk) 10:44, 30 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Strong Endorse to position #1. The negative aspects of pending changes outweigh the positive. Therefore the tool should not be used at all on the English Wikipedia. This is putting more power into the hands of those (administrators included) that manipulate WP rules to remove and control knowledgeable contributors and push their own twisted agenda. Bureaucracy is already a problem on WP - we do not need more of it! Much of WP is ruled by people getting together in groups and pushing new editors out. It's ugly and this rule would only enforce that! As for the child issue, position #1 would cause more damage because it's the abusers that are the most forceful and manipulative. They will find a way to push their agenda. ~ty ( talk) 18:16, 30 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Per my experiences both as an en.wiki reviewer and on the German Wikipeida as an IP, where my beneficial changes (including the removal of personal information/email addressed) sat ignored for almost a week. Them From Space 02:53, 1 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse Pending Changes will only speed up the decline of editors, encourage smaller, less constructive edits to large projects, and maintain the position of a limited few editors as somehow 'better' than the massed ranks of day-to-day contributors. doktorb _words^deeds 13:07, 1 May 2012 (UTC) reply
While I understand that there are some positives to PC, I think Wikipedia is better without it. Blocking and protection has worked find for a very long time so will continue to be a suitable way of solving this. Wikipedia's openness is a major feature that we all love, removing it would be an insult. Overall, I am highly against this. Jwikiediting ( talk) 15:39, 1 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Arcandam ( talk) 17:00, 1 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse The current protection scheme is more than reasonable. PC, by comparison, would create an unreasonable situation for both reviewers and editors due to backlogs and neglect. I am sure that this system will lead to some edits taking a week or more to be approved, which will only serve to drive away editors. I also don't buy the argument that PC could be relaxed on some articles if there is a community consensus. How many good faith editors would have to suffer first? Contributions should be valued equally and judged later. Lithium6ion ( talk) 03:58, 2 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse This is destroying one of the strongest and most attractive tenets of Wikipedia; the encyclopaedia anyone can edit. While understandably, abuse has hampered Wikipedia before, I do not believe any amount of vandalism should cause us to close some doors; if anything, vandalism should merely spur us to be more vigilant, rather than hide like a turtle in its shell. With all due respect, Orpherebus. ( talk) 06:48, 2 May 2012 (UTC) reply
I am strongly opposed to PC as I think it changes the character of Wikipedia, and it is illogical expansion of Wikipedia's bureaucracy. Wikipedia's growth has occurred because of its open and egalitarian edit structure where very few articles cannot be editted by an autoconfirmed user. Now, there will be far more articles that a regular user will not be able to edit without going through a reviewer. I see a situation where certain articles will become dominated by a few reviewers, and the articles will become highly biased and impossible to modify. There will be a drop off of newer users who are dissatisfied with the inability to enact changes to any high-profile article. Furthermore, the creation of two new protection levels, and a new class of users (i.e., reviewers) is totally unnecessary. A far simpler proposal would be to ban anonymous IP edits (i.e., require registration), and to strictly enforce rules against vandalism, edit warring, tendentious editting, etc. Debbie W. 03:42, 4 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Absolute Endorse Good changes often get slowed down by this - especially on pages with little experts. Overmage ( talk) 06:17, 3 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Strong Endorse Agree with comment above, "Pending Changes would, I believe, make Wikipedia more authoritarian and less democratic." Darrell_Greenwood ( talk) 03:15, 4 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse. This goes against the very spirit of Wikipedia. Wikipedia would not be the "Encyclopedia that Anyone Can Edit" but the "Encyclopedia that can only be Edited if Someone Else Supports your Edit". meshach ( talk) 19:38, 4 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse. I believe this goes against the principle and spirit of Wikipedia. Pending Changes would, in my opinion, go against what made Wikipedia great in the first place. FrostytheSnownoob ( talk) 08:22, 5 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse. Keep it simple. The immediate feedback is what makes this work. Stevei 17:58, 5 MAY 2012 (UTC)
Endorse. Pending changes was an unmitigated failure. People have grown to understand the wiki system, and the risk of vandals. In the end, it's a feature, not a bug. -- ۩ M ask 10:32, 6 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Agree with comment above, "This goes against the very spirit of Wikipedia. Wikipedia would not be the "Encyclopedia that Anyone Can Edit" but the "Encyclopedia that can only be Edited if Someone Else Supports your Edit"." Energythief ( talk) 14:14, 6 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Not until this reviewer "right" can be taken away from administrators just as easily as it will undoubtedly be taken away from regular editors. Malleus Fatuorum 20:18, 6 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse — Although I had originally supported pending changes, the reality was that it turned out to be a pain in the ass. It was overused as a whole and frequently used on pages that required specialist knowledge to correctly review. This created a situation where the number of reviewers capable of approving the changes with confidence was proportionately low to the number of people trying to edit the page. Combined with the logged use of forcing people to either approve or decline a change, it also made it problematic for people wanting to help: if they approve a change that turned out to be "wrong," then their name is just as much on it as the person making the change. Similarly, should they decline a change that turned out to be "right," they opened themselves up to accusations of not assuming good faith or biting the newbies. In either case, it could be something used against you in the future, so instead of making a choice, people would choose not to choose. Because of this, changes would sit in the queue for long periods of time. Oh, and on a related note, WP:RFPP is regularly backlogged as it is. I'd hope that instead of thinking of new ways to backlog it, that we deal with what's already on our plate, rather than over-committing us and spreading us even thinner. Just a suggestion. -- slakr^\
talk / 20:56, 6 May 2012 (UTC) reply
By the way, we already have pending changes waiting at Category:Wikipedia protected edit requests. It, too, is backlogged, and I'd like to see supporters of proposal 2 or 3 work on that before endorsing a plan to expand it even further. Just a thought, guys, just a thought. -- slakr^\
talk / 21:10, 6 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse. This may sound like a good idea at first sight, but it doesn't work well where it is in use in other languages (changes may take months to be accepted), and in practice it serves no useful purpose. In the very small proportion of pages where there is a need for something of the sort, this need is already addressed by semi-protection. Лудольф ( talk) 08:31, 7 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse #1. There is really next to no benefit to the pending changes system. It focuses more power in the hands of a few, violating the fundamental spirit of Wikipedia. The inevitable delay in updating pages that benefit from "near-live" updates in respect of current events, sporting results and the like will have an overall negative impact on Wikipedia far in excess of the problem of small sporadic outbreaks of vandalism, for which the existing semi-protection and full protection are more than adequate in almost every circumstance. If there are articles that would benefit from additional editor patrols, a WikiTaskForce could take care of this without any problem without fundamental changes. Dybeck ( talk) 12:29, 7 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse Huge problems, and it really doesn't do anything that is needed. Makes a confusing problematic mess out of editing. Kill it 100% Sincerely,North8000 ( talk) 03:05, 8 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse per SoWhy; fundamentally backwards. Arbitrarily0 ^(
talk) 13:53, 8 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse per Casliber and OSborn. Lesgles ( talk) 18:10, 8 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse. Would discourage the newbies, like myself, who need nurturing into the system not keeping at arm's length. Cpsoper ( talk) 19:19, 8 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse. The litany of reasons given before this make a solid case against. This would discourage new users from editing Wikipedia, and without Wikipedia being open to all the project is doomed become biased and elitist. Moreover, given Wikipedia's edit volume a huge corps of trusted reviewers would be needed to review changes in a timely fashion (lest the articles be never updated at all). When trusted editors make changes while not logged in, as I often do, their edit would be picked up by the system and add to the workload. Wikipedia's abuse filter, bots, and programs that allow editors to quickly revert vandalism do a very good job already and are much simpler tools that do not strike at the core of what Wikipedia is about. It doesn't say "The Free Encyclopedia" because you don't have to pay for it. Knight of Truth ( talk) 22:43, 8 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse: The negative aspects of pending changes outweigh the positive. Therefore the tool should not be used at all on the English Wikipedia. Chjoaygame ( talk) 11:18, 9 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse Position #1 because it is against what Wikipedia is: an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Instead, this gives reviewers who specialize in certain articles control over those articles to include or not include content based on what is supposed to be facts and references, but could easily be corrupted and opinionated. Plus, it makes it increasingly difficult to become an autoconfirmed user when many of these experienced reviewers are sure to be discriminating against new, unconfirmed users who do not know how to cite sources on Wikipedia, again threatening the "anyone can edit" statement. The current system of no protection, semiprotection, and full protection works much better - all new users need to do to earn the right to edit semiprotected articles is to edit unprotected articles without vandalizing - this does not require knowing how to cite. Additionally, if these specialized reviewers are unavailable due to their real lives (remember, ALL of us have real lives that often take away the time we spend here) then outdated versions of pages do not get corrected. If this is going to applied more often to BLPs than to non-BLPs, then becoming outdated is a huge problem, and I don't see any way how Pending Changes can be fixed to deal with this problem. RedSoxFan2434 ( talk) 23:03, 9 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse - As a very new user here I've been goaded (very kindly I might add) into learning the ropes in a rather short time frame. I think the bureaucracy needed to run a project of this nature should be limited as a matter of policy. That is to say, any steps taken that might increase the level of bureaucracy (even though they might seem to improve the quality of the project) should be very carefully considered indeed. There is already enough of a bureaucratic mire to wade through as a new editor and, as such, newbies will be instantly discouraged from contributing if they are shut out from the very beginning. Just say no to bureaucracy! - Themoother ( talk) 12:05, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse. It is exactly that – a whole lot of bureaucracy for little benefit. The bureaucracy clogged up the system and deterred editors from making edits. I was put off editing many-an article because of the tag, and I'm sure many others less experienced than me were also deterred. Because I was automatically granted 'reviewer' status, any of my edits automatically implied approval of the prior/pending edit, whether I intended to or not. As a gnome, I only have a fleeting interest in quite a large number of articles, my gnoming actions would actually create a false sense of security. -- Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:20, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse Given the feeling that PC is less restrictive than semi-protection (which it is IMHO not), PC will be inevitably used more frequently than semi-protection. I rest my case. If restricted strictly to BLP pages, PC might have some merit, but as the option is not on the table, it is better to avoid PC altogether. Ipsign ( talk) 17:42, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse for multiple reasons. It is unclear how often PC would be used; probably more widely than [semi]protection. IP edits can block autoconfirmed editors even with PC1, giving potential for a DoS attack. Seeing their edit seem to disappear will put off newcomers. There are serious concerns about reviewers' liability. PC is another complication to deal with. If there's any doubt, let's err on the side of status quo, because this is a neverendum: PC will be reoffered until it gets a consensus. Certes ( talk) 20:29, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse Td1wk ( talk) 21:28, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse Doing this is going to lead to disputes between editors between what is right and what is wrong, not every editor sees another's edits the same way and while this is a good idea I dont think its going to help. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 00:17, 11 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse I spend much of my time here dealing with the enormous wave of vandalism that occurs every day on Wikipedia and so I generally support more tools to address this issue. However, Pending Changes does little to stop vandalism, puts drastic bars in the face of legitimate contributors, and imposes an insanely complicated system in front of what is supposed to be a very simple concept: an encyclopedia anyone can edit. A great deal of constructive contributions come from unregistered and new users. (Everyone was unregistered once!) Finally, Option 2 is still simply too vague to constitute a meaningful policy and is simply a restoration of the old status quo of the never-ending trial period. We need stronger tools to more directly address vandalism rather than trying to sweep it under the rug with PC and protection. Zachlipton ( talk) 00:48, 12 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse position 1. It would overly bureaucratizes the system - it would protect from outright vandalism, but would alienate editors because editors ´would have to review all pending edits before their own edit becomes visible. Worse, it would likely alienate careful editors more than others: sometimes it can be tricky to perform a correct and thorough review (for example if the last edit has an inline reference which is not available online), therefore editors who really want to push a further edit into the article may tend review and accept overly generously, whereas more conscientious editors would be discouraged from editing if they feel unable to appropriately review the previous edit. So it could deter especially the careful editors from improving an unreviewed article. And it would not protect at all from purposely introduced bias or other abuse of Wikipedia. -- Chris Howard ( talk) 18:49, 11 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse pos. 1 - This will add unnecessary complexity and discourage new editors. mgeo talk 21:00, 11 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse position 1. 1) PC forces all editors with reviewer status to review all pending changes before editing. This is an impediment to editing. 2) Per 12 Victor Yus and 24 Isarra.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikimedes ( talk • contribs)
Endorse I have opposed Pending changes in the past, and I still do. It's a fundamentally bad idea. Manxruler ( talk) 21:41, 11 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse. -- Toccata quarta ( talk) 14:10, 12 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse per GorillaWarfare. Well said. Nomader ( talk) 16:15, 12 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse. I thought this was the free encyclopedia that anybody could edit. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 17:05, 12 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse. To quote O'Hare from the 2012 movie The Lorax: "Let it die! Let it die! Let it shrivel up and - come on, whose with me?" TomStar81 ( Talk) 01:01, 13 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse Davewild ( talk) 09:20, 13 May 2012 (UTC) reply
I oppose this discriminatory policy : Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Naked Nomad ( talk) 11:07, 13 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse Pending changes is an invitation to bite the newcomers tool. Whatever its advantages, it is not good for the long-term health of Wikipedia. Wikipedia needs newcomers. It is already difficult enough with all the many templates people have created for different talks.-- Toddy1 ( talk) 19:10, 13 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse If there is a problem with people vandalizing BLPs, they should be addressed by technological solutions that work in the background. I can envision doing a statistical analysis of the types of wording typically used by vandals, the time of day relative to the location of the IP address, and possibly the type of article and creating bots that bring these edits to people's attention. Also, perhaps the Foundation should consider hiring a couple people to do real monitoring. Speciate ( talk) 07:35, 14 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse, strongly. PC was a fundamentally bad idea to begin with and the trial period demonstrated why rather clearly. Wikipedia badly needs to attract new editors and to retain existing active editors. The PC feature would do significant damage to both. It will put-off and bewilder new editors and create a significant and completely unnecessary new burden on existing editors who have better things to do than sift through changes made by others. The trial period clearly showed that there is no type of pages for which PC would work well. For actively edited pages PC would just add to confusion and chaos and complicate things needlessly. For rarely edited pages PC would result in accumulation of pending edits that are not confirmed for a long time. Existing features such as semii-protection and full protection work better because they do not require significant workload overhead on existing users. If someone is really worried about overall qualifty controls for WP content, they should consider more radical solution that do not impose significant workload burdens on established users, such as, for example, disallowing any editing by IPs. That would be more honest and more effective than the PC charade. Nsk92 ( talk) 13:54, 14 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse Position #1: I agree with the stated position: the negative aspects outweigh the positive. I've seen this in action on some pl.wp pages and it seems to be confusing and discourages editing IMHO. I suspect that PC might be related to part of an anti-wiki backlash - there's too much danger to authoritarian organisations of losing too much control over knowledge distribution, and PC might offer a way to bog down Wikipedia and wikis in general by legal challenges over editorial responsibility and by encouraging internal struggles over editorial control that distract from the main issue of article content. I'm not suggesting that individual Wikipedians in favour of PC are trying to support authoritarian organisations - the pressure from authoritarian organisations should be expected as a systematic effect - partly through secret, offline pressure on WMF Board members, partly through indirect pressure on Wikipedians, through mainstream media misrepresenting the nature of wikis and the responsibilities of readers to judge the quality of the information they read. Boud ( talk) 19:18, 15 May 2012 (UTC) reply
On top of everything else I find the notion odd that FR has improved de.wp. On the contrary, it has introduced one more subtle level of hierarchy to make the climate worse than it was before. -- Pgallert ( talk) 07:57, 16 May 2012 (UTC) reply
I would say No changes should be blocked,for not any second, but This should only be used for marking, state what pages haven't been reviewed. Justincheng12345 ( talk) ( urgent news here) 11:01, 17 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Absolutely, unequivically no. It is hard enough to find and keep editors without removing one of the few things (the satisfaction of editing and gratification of immediate publication) that works in that regard. A phrase about cracking walnuts with tanks springs to mind... Meetthefeebles ( talk) 13:12, 17 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse Keep it as it is. The negative effect of a structural hierarchy of reviewers destroys the ethos of the project. It becomes edited by a few instead of edited by all. Davdevalle ( talk) 14:30, 18 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse Pending changes is ideologically wrong for Wikipedia. It means that the vast majority of editors will be restricted from editting sensitive articles (e.g., BLP). Wikipedia has become the lead online encyclopedia because of its open structure. Unless we've decided that it's time for Wikipedia to stop growing, and instead enter a maintenance phase, PC must be rejected. NJ Wine ( talk) 00:56, 20 May 2012 (UTC) reply
The pending changes system may look OK in theory, but the trial period convinced me that we are better off without it. -- Zundark ( talk) 21:18, 18 May 2012 (UTC) reply
I am sympathetic to the problem of a dwindling cadre of editors struggling to conserve a growing repository of information, but I think PC will hinder rather than help, for several reasons: 1) Whatever arguments can be made that PC does not violate WP:Anyone can edit, it will be seen as violating it and thereby will hurt WP's image; 2) I don't see a problem with the current regime of semi-protection for articles under attack, with discipline applied to problem users and sockpuppeteers; 3) While there may currently be a backlog of bad-faith edits that have not been dealt with, PC will not make that go away but instead will create a second backlog of good-faith edits that are not visible because reviewers have not gotten around to looking at them. I see this as potentially disastrous, not least for the prospect of developing new editors. -- BlueMoonlet ( t/ c) 01:24, 19 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse-- Drboisclair ( talk) 08:13, 19 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse-- My understanding of the PC issue is that the crux of it is designed to address and control vandalism. According to a Wikipedia statistic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Edits_by_user_type.png 8.1 percent of all edits are vandalism, comprised of 6.5 percent attributed to unregistered editors and 1.6 percent attributed to those registered - meaning 91.9 percent of edits are outside the purview of vandalism. Adopting PC will serve to control all Wikipedia edits, not just vandalizing edits. Wikipedia has become a globally trusted, although imperfect, source of information due to the "anyone can edit" policy. PC will undermine the credibility of Wikipedia as a democratically derived information source and defeat the only equal access information provider on the planet. Wikipedia is akin to a living, breathing organism structured and capable of presenting valid and accurate information within a real-time capacity. Let's keep it that way. -- SgtMayDay ( talk) 09:39, 20 May 2012 (UTC) reply
I can appreciate the appeal of more granular editing privileges and PC has some clear advantages over the current use of edit requests. That said, the current incarnation of PC is a nightmare for a laundry list of reasons detailed above and I don't think it can be salvaged. I believe that the deployment of PC on large portions of the wiki, a possibility that a few editors are excited about, would be nothing short of disastrous. ButOnMethItIs ( talk) 17:00, 20 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse--The PC system is draconian, complicated, frustrating, and will only serve to repel rather than attract new editors.-- Jeanne Boleyn ( talk) 13:03, 21 May 2012 (UTC) reply
I think that with the page protection system already in use is enough. Some pages in Wikipedia have a high amount of edits per hour, so reviewing each edit is a hard task. We're only 90,000 active users against millions of unregistered editors plus the registered ones. So, it'll make a mess more that fixing the problems. -- Hahc21 ^{[
TALK][
CONTRIBS} 14:29, 21 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse I trust those people wanting to introduce this system will spend their time operating it - I predict a log-jam, frustration and other tasks being overlooked. Arjayay ( talk) 17:49, 21 May 2012 (UTC) reply
MeegsC | Talk 01:19, 22 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse' We have a similar PC system in the german Wikipedia and it's better without it. Also people who don't edit wikipedia yet but thinking about doing their part will get problems wirh that and it will disattract a lot of potential new editors. -- Laber□^T 02:59, 22 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse per SoWhy, Wnt, DGG, W. D. Graham, and Sandstein, as well as per the past discussions. I additionally reaffirm that this tool is inefficient and counterproductive, that its deployment would inevitably dissuade new and anonymous editors from participating, that its handling has repeatedly violated the community's trust, and that we should never stand for any proposal designed to undermine core principles of the project. — C M B J 11:35, 22 May 2012 (UTC) reply
At first sight, it seems to be a good initiative to protect good articles from persistent vandalism. But there are thousands of articles that require further edits to get improved? How did Wikipedia grow up so soon? Only because people here can think themselves as the part of an encyclopedia as they can edit and add info from anywhere anytime and they can see their edits instantly displayed. Hence they feel motivated. Do you want Wikipedia to turn out to be Citizendium? In this age, people do not like hierarchy. If you can check pending changes, why don’t you make a list of new changes without keeping them pending? And then check them. If you find anything unreferenced, remove them. If you find anything that breaks Wikipedia policy, discuss. If you are so much concerned with the vandalism from unregistered users, then make sure that no unregistered user can edit Wikipedia. If you cannot trust them, how can they trust you? How will you make sure that all the administrators and reviewers would be unbiased and knowledgeable and they would not keep a change pending for its truthfulness? Smmmaniruzzaman ( talk) 13:51, 22 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse - Per Sandstein & SilkTork. Semiprotection is adequate. Pending Changes would add to the complexity of WP. Many novice IP editors would get discouraged and bail out. PC would add to the bureaucracy & hierarchy. -- Noleander ( talk) 14:28, 22 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Per SoWhy and because I do not think the benefits are worth the extra layer of process complexity. JohnCD ( talk) 21:42, 22 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Position #2

Despite the flaws of the trial period pending changes has proven to be a useful tool for combating vandalism and other types of problematic edits. The tool should be used in accordance with the following draft policy. This policy is intended to reflect the community input in discussions. It is not set in stone and after use of the tool is resumed there may be unanticipated problems which can be corrected through normal consensus gathering processes.

Click "show" to view the draft policy

When a page with Pending Changes (PC) protection is edited by an unregistered user or new user, that edit and all following edits by any user are not included in the article displayed to the general public (that is, for readers who are not logged in), until the edits are approved by someone with the " reviewer" user right. PC protection is intended to quash inappropriate editing while allowing good faith users to submit their edits for review.

Reviewers are users with a similar level of trust to rollbackers (including all administrators) and the right can be granted and removed by any administrator. Reviewer rights are granted upon request at Wikipedia:Requests for permissions. Potential reviewers should recognize vandalism, be familiar with basic content policies such as the policy on living people, and have a reasonable level of experience editing Wikipedia. Reading the reviewing guideline, where the reviewing process and expectations for a reviewer are detailed, is recommended.

Pending changes should be used on pages where the disruption to good-faith editing caused by existing protection tools would be disproportionate to the problem the protection seeks to resolve. Suitable issues for pending changes protection include persistent:

Vandalism;

Re-insertion of rumor, error, and NPOV/ V/ OR violations;

Edit warring by large groups of unregistered users;

Disruption by users on highly variable IPs.

These standards are to be interpreted more liberally on biographies of living persons, or in any situation involving content related to living persons. As with other forms of protection, PC protection should not be used preemptively.

As with other forms of protection, the time frame of the protection should be proportional to the problem. Indefinite PC protection should only be used in cases of severe long-term disruption.

Like semi-protection, PC protection should never be used in genuine content disputes, where there is a risk of placing a particular group of editors at a disadvantage.

Click here to edit this section

Users who endorse this position

During and after the trial, PC was shown to be an extremely helpful tool for combatting bad-faith edits while still allowing easy submission of good-faith edits. We shouldn't let the various problems with the trial prejudice us against the tool itself. Beeblebrox ( talk) 17:42, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Long overdue; get it right this time. (I would have been first but it was protected (or something like that)). Alarbus ( talk) 17:45, 23 March 2012 (UTC) Self-admitted sock of Jack Merridew. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 15:55, 22 May 2012 (UTC) reply
PC worked good during and after the trial and it would be a shame to let a useful thing dry up and blow away in the wind. Simply put PC is perfect in allowing good faith edits while combating bad faith edits.-- Dch eagle 18:04, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Although it just adds one more level of complexity to Wikipedia, I think it will be very helpful and sounds good to me. Jesse V. ( talk) 18:17, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Strange Passerby ( talk • cont) 18:23, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support PC, especially on BLPs to prevent defamation. Reaper Eternal ( talk) 18:56, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Per Beeblebrox, essentially. Ed ^{[talk]
[majestic titan]} 18:59, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
I had experience with flagged revisions in Russian Wikipedia for about three years, and I obviously have experience with NPP here (I always patrol NPP from the back of the list, trying to find smth out in the oldest articles). I think there are obvious problems with the new page patrol: (1) the backlog is only 30 days long. It is not currently a problem, since the backlog in practice is never longer than a week, but potentially it is a problem. (2) one can only patrol new articles, never old articles and never the same article twice. If you start thinking about it, this is actually a serious restriction. Basically, patrolling an article is a way to state it is actually ok. However, the article may be ok at some point and become not ok at a different point, for instance, after being vandalized or after copyrighted material has been introduced or whatever; conversely, an article which initially was not ok can become ok after references and categories have been added. The logical extension is flagged revisions, which is patrolling (potentially) not just an article once but every revision so that one knows that the article is ok at some given point (even if it was not ok before and may become not ok in the future). I am convinced that flagged revisions is what we will ultimately come to, since it is just a logical and convenient extension of the patrol idea. However, it is not what we are discussing now, and not what can be realistically speaking implemented now. I believe pending changes is a step in the right direction (though an incomplete one) and I certainly endorse implementation of pending changes.-- Ymblanter ( talk) 19:08, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Per Reaper Eternal, with the additional comment that we need a community commitment to use PC in order to signal the developers that their efforts to improve PC will not be wasted. Jclemens ( talk) 19:09, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Per Beeblebrox and Dcheagle. jcgoble3 ( talk) 19:21, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Strong support, with the understanding that re-interpreting or changing the policy to something radically different than what we are voting for here requires a new consensus -- Guy Macon ( talk) 19:36, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
I've been championing some form of this process since I started editing Wikipedia in 2005. To paraphrase Shimon Peres (and others), an imperfect PC is better than a perfect editing war. Grika Ⓣ 19:45, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
As I expect problem edits to get worse, all options should stay open -- Chris.urs-o ( talk) 19:50, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Strong support; seems like a perfect mid-way point between page protection and open editing. It will help IPs Be bold and fix our mistakes, even on controversial pages. Achowat ( talk) 19:58, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. I don't have any experience with pending changes, but the proposed idea seems reasonable. -- Karl.brown ( talk) 20:00, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Blurpeace 20:09, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Pending changes works. It allows users who might not otherwise be able to edit with a means to contribute, while allowing us to screen out unhelpful edits before readers can see them. I understand the frustration with the way the trial ended (or rather didn't end), but by ending its use over those issues, we are cutting our nose off to spite our face. As a community, we should welcome with open arms anything that offers a solution to our problems of vandalism without totally shutting out new and unregistered editors. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:16, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support per Beeblebrox and HJ Mitchell. Geoff ^{Who, me?} 20:46, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
A supporter of option 1 commented that, in their experience, the editor time used rejecting unwanted edits outweighed the benefit that a small number of useful edits could be waved through. That's different from my experience, where the balance was the other way. Obviously, it may vary depending on the article. But I think the answer to that is make sure, as best we can, that both PC and SP are used where they are most appropriate, and for admins to be flexible in upgrading from PC in cases where editors are experiencing genuine difficulty in administering it. Oh, and the process of removing PC from anyone who abuses it should be efficient and not held back by sentiment. FormerIP ( talk) 20:52, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Unconditionally support. Yeah, it could use some tweaking, but implement it, then work out the remaining bugs. - Jorgath ( talk) ^(
contribs) 21:14, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Per HJ Mitchell. The minor problems encountered in the trial did not demonstrate the unworkability of the system; instead they demonstrated that it basically did work. Sam Blacketer ( talk) 21:16, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Morten Haan ( talk) 21:31, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
I do have some concerns, but not enough to put me among the supporters of #3. Nolelover ^Talk^· ^Contribs 21:32, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support ~ Feedintm^Parley 21:40, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Noting that it will only work if pending changes are rapidly accepted or rejected and hence a large and willing community of reviewers is needed. I am experienced with FlaggedRevs on another project and the most common cause of alienation of new good f aith editors is the perceived lack of trust that a "pending changes" system creates. QU ^TalkQu 21:57, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
"As with other forms of protection" says almost everything we need to know. It's not some incredibly arcane process. We should use it in ways that are consistent with how the English Wikipedia does everything else. We can flesh out the details later. (I'd particularly like to see it replace indefinite semi-protection on some lower-traffic pages (to be chosen case-by-case, using our best judgment, etc.), since the data from the last round indicated that this was a particularly functional use.) WhatamIdoing ( talk) 22:02, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
PC is much more open to editing than the alternatives like semiprotection. I don't understand why we ever stopped using PC. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 22:05, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. -- Teukros ( talk) 22:27, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
[[File:Support.png|20px]] Armbrust, B.Ed. ^{Let's talk} _{about my edits?} 23:33, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Edit requests will be easier to handle in this system. → Σ τ c. 00:02, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - there are too many problems with vandalism on Wiki, and the existing options are poor, especially for the less active pages. Obviously to be used in moderation. Rwessel ( talk) 00:37, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support-- While it has been pointed out that this tool could be considered against the spirit of the project, I would like to note that it would stop IP vandals from rushing rapidly through high profile pages and vandalizing them. It strikes me as a sensible thing to implement on high profile pages. And it is hardly a barrier to editing. Edits will still be made, pending approval, and if that is really that annoying to honest editors, they can register. -- Pstanton ( talk) 01:16, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Vital and basic, especially for BLPs. J N 466 02:42, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support: Pending changes are a much better alternative to semi-protection, since semi-protection is overkill and pending changes also help keep many problematic articles clean. They worked perfectly last trial. Johnny Au _{(
talk/
contributions)} 03:36, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse the proposal. PC is useful especially in BLPs. Suraj T 04:22, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
We lose credibility in the eyes of our readership when vandalism is present. This is one way to attempt to address vandalism and while not perfect we need to add to add it to the others. I would support its use on many of the articles that are currently under my watch and semi protected. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 04:41, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. A great help against vandalism and on controversial pages. Night of the Big Wind _talk 04:44, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support: I think the benefits outweigh the possible disadvantages, as long as it doesn't end up getting applied to far too many articles Pesky ( talk) 05:15, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
My76Strat ( talk) 05:25, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
This is a useful weapon against vandalism Ϣere SpielChequers 05:27, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support per above.-- Ankit Maity^Talk_Contribs 07:24, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. Ariconte ( talk) 08:24, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. Pending changes is a useful tool that should be available to administrators. The proposed policy is an adequate working draft.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Eluchil404 ( talk • contribs)
Support. HJ Mitchell has come closest to my sentiments here. It would be a mistake to throw out a very useful "baby" with the "bathwater" of the messy trial ending. PC would be enormously valuable in BLPs, and as someone said above, is almost like a kind of enhanced {{edit-protected}} in many ways. I'll say this, though - the success or failure of PC will depend in large part on the quality of the reviewers, and that selection process was far too "loose" last time - perhaps partly because it was a trial. Begoon ^talk 11:33, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Pending changes simply takes what we already have in the form of protected and semi-protected pages (and the {{ editprotected}} and {{ edit semi-protected}} templates) but makes it user-friendly. Currently, if you want to edit a semi-pp'd page, you can't. Being able to have semi-pp with pending changes for non-confirmed users just provides a more user-friendly anyone-can-edit implementation of requiring people to go and leave a message on a talk page with a special magical template, and waiting for a user or admin to come and update the article based on their often vague instructions. PC makes it a better experience for the editor, and reduces the workload on confirmed users and on admins. Seriously, there's nothing to worry about, let's get on with it. — Tom Morris ( talk) 12:12, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support-- Aervanath ( talk) 13:52, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support – A useful extra tool against disruption: given time to bed in I think it will become so widely adopted we'll wonder how we coped without it.-- JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 14:17, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support – Let's work out the bugs and reinstate it. – Confession0791 ^talk 14:32, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Its a highly useful tool against vandalism. Its a much user friendly system then the current one of semi and full protected pages. ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ ^Talk ^Email 16:10, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support per HJ Mitchell and the fact that this is to be one more tool in a set that includes the various types of page protection, rollback, etc, all designed to help combat vandalism. Imzadi 1979 → 16:20, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
This is a step towards a wider introduction in order to control malicious content more flexibly. It also will help against self-promoters, allowing established editors in good standing to contribute and sockpuppetters to be blocked. There are plenty of long established editors who get caught by full-protection because they don't want to get involved in the politics of becoming admins. A lot of these editors are better able to make good content decisions than the typical admin in it for the powergaming.-- Peter cohen ( talk) 17:08, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support with the caveat that the policy must state that semi-protection is preferable to PC on very heavily edited articles such as current event articles. Problems with edit conflicts on such articles are massively exacerbated by PC, whereas there are by definition numerous editors working on such articles who are able to revert vandalism within moments. PC has no benefit and big disadvantages in such situations and I'd like to see its use on such articles explicitly discouraged. -- Pontificalibus ( talk) 18:32, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Having read right through the opinions expressed here, I sense that, behind the problems of detail, there lies a "philosophical" concern: those who reject PC want to maintain a free and open community which values the participation of all and sundry while those who support it want to protect the quality of the product even if it means a certain reduction in freedom and openness. For my part, I am on the side of quality, since lack of quality will in the long-run mean people sense the project is not worthwhile and therefore stop participating. On exploring the site, I have come across concerns about the lack of knowledgeable editors, burnt-out and people who simply stop participating. This seems a reasonable way of encouraging editors to stay by reducing the hassle. The one caveat I would make is that PC should be seen as an on-going process open to fine-tuning in the future. Perhaps it may turn out to be unsuitable for some articles with intensive editorial interventions, but I suspect there are many where it would make editing easier and allow us to concentrate on improving the article in question. Jpacobb ( talk) 20:14, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support A very effective tool, based on my use of it during the test, especially for WP:BLPs. First Light ( talk) 21:00, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Badly needed and desirable. I also think that this will reduce complexity rather than increase it - the main alternative now is semi-protection and the process for that is much more involved both for applying it (request have to be made, administrators have to get involved), and for new accounts trying to make legitimate edits (now they have to a request post to the talk page, which then may or may not be seen and reviewed) - PC would just streamline the (beneficial) idea behind this process and make it easier to work with. VolunteerMarek 23:35, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support – You can't have freedom without accepting some responsibilities. Unfortunately, too many people desire freedom without responsibility. Revising articles, especially BPL's, create real-world consequences. Editing BLP's irresponsibly actually makes the subject of the biography less free since the subject would become affected by forces (i.e. the irresponsible revisions) outside of his or her control. Freedom without responsibility is actually freedom at the expense of others. This means that we're unfortunately playing a zero-sum game, which means that we need to strike the right balance between the freedom of Wikipedia contributors and the freedom of subjects of biographies (i.e. we need to compromise some of our own freedom so that it doesn't come at the expense of others). Human society has been playing this zero-sum game for a long time. Human society decided to create governments that could outlaw thievery even though it came at the cost of some of their freedoms because they felt that governments were a necessary evil. I believe that Pending Changes is our necessary evil. My experience with Pending Changes has been a pleasant one. I didn't have any problems with the interface. MuZemike has also made an interesting observation. -- Michaeldsuarez ( talk) 00:09, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
~~ Ebe 123~~ → report 00:46, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. The question of the essential nature of our project should be kept in mind and considered carefully, but I think that PC does not represent a phase change in our philosophy. Even with PC, the ability of anyone in the world to contribute to our database is vastly greater than almost anywhere else (and a huge step up from the dark days before the internet). I think that we are not on a slippery slope to exclusivity here, any more than PixieBot represents a threat to the Guild of Copyeditors. We serve two masters - openness and accuracy; the value to the larger community of readers, to my thinking, outweighs the other concerns. - 2/0 ( cont.) 04:05, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Barts1a / Talk to me / Help me improve 07:08, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Sensible to many ends. – sgeureka ^t•
c 07:46, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support -- Dlrohrer 2003 08:39, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. I opposed before and reconsidered because of this: the fact that changes will not be visible until reviewed might quench motivation to vandalize. Materialscientist ( talk) 11:53, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - I am most concerned with the status of BLPs on this project, and this tool can be effective protection those lightly watched articles that have been shown to suffer from subtle vandalism. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 14:14, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support full pending changes, without any conditions of its use - I support adding pending changes to prevent ip vandalism, if somone is serious about editing on wikipedia, they would make an account. When i say full pending changes, i mean it should be on all pages and not just added to a page like how "page protection" is added to a page i.e on request. thats useless, not revolutionary to take the site forward and wont help much-- Misconceptions2 ( talk) 16:30, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Pol430 talk to me 16:40, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support per HJ Mitchell. Also, I admit to having been a little concerned about the potential consequences of being too liberal in applying pending changes - we don't want to end up with a situation where our reviewers are spread too thinly. However, the draft policy seems good, and if the protection is applied sensibly I don't think this would be a problem. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 17:08, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
— GFOLEY FOUR!— 17:39, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Hallows Aktiengesellschaft ( talk) 21:22, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support I dont have problem with a hierarchy of editors as long as positions are based on merit and all have the opportunity to earn higher positions. There are too many important articles which are a mess, not only because of vandalism, but with "too many cooks" all wanting to add something to a popular article. One good example of this is Mexico City. Ive been asked to work on it but I refuse because I know any work I do on it will revert one way or another back to the mess we have now. Thelmadatter ( talk) 21:30, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
While I do have a problem with the fact that a page that is protected by PC can not be edited by certain users and that could - potentially - drive away those users that may have the potential to be great editors down the road, I believe that Pending Changes works and support this position per HJ Mitchell. Strikerforce^{Talk
Review me!} 21:33, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support per HJ. Hot Stop^U
T
C 21:45, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support per Beeblebrox and HJ Mitchell. Haseo9999 ( talk) 22:01, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can , not the encyclopedia anyone can damage, undermine, or subvert. It is heartening to see, with the healing passage of time, a greater understanding of Wikipedia's principles, and corresponding support for a flexible tool to help realise Wikipedia's goals. Geometry guy 22:51, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - a reasonable extra tool to combat improper editing. An experience with semi-protection shows that the admins were cautious and gradual with the introduction of a new edit restriction. Staszek Lem ( talk) 00:17, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support with two caveats: First, and obviously, this should be used sparingly. Second, policy should contain a provision to address a backlog overflow. Automatically approve the edits if they are more than twenty-one days old, perhaps? I see PC to be eminently more practical that the current tiers of protection, as it allows a decent barrier to vandalism and BF edits with less time investment from administrators and far less disruption to regular users, as editing for them will be much easier than under page protection currently. It will get out of hand if it is used too often, though, so standard expiration times should be established. CittàDolente _{(
per me si va)} 00:44, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - I didn't see how it was ineffective earlier. Jasper Deng (talk) 03:06, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support It's not a panacea, but it will be a useful tool in many places. Zagalejo ^^^ 04:10, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support per HJ Mitchell. — Bruce1ee^talk 06:39, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support, useful tool. -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T
C} 08:56, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
1. Support, it can get some vandalised pages finally out of the full protection, and some even out of semi-protection, and it will help us protect other pages which are sensitive (especially BLPs). -- Dirk Beetstra ^{T
  C} 12:29, 30 April 2012 (UTC) Moved up as a duplicate. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 16:12, 26 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Useful tool, good policy-draft Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 09:52, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support as a useful option that will help improve the quality of the project. As Wikipedia matures, we have to be willing to consider new options to reflect the changing nature of the site. The PC option allows us to better protect the quality of what has become a widely used resource that many readers depend upon while still allowing for input from all. -- Ckatz^chat_spy 10:03, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - Ltr,ftw ( talk) 10:49, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - I've always felt that the good things about this far outweigh any disadvantages. Dougweller ( talk) 11:02, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - A good policy draft to work with, as I think the tool does have a place on the English Wikipedia. CT Cooper · talk 11:25, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. I believe that it will reduce the amount of vandalism (vandals want their vandalism to be seen, after all) and its visibility, while allowing newcomers to edit positively on the same articles. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:40, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. I wholeheartedly agree with HJ. $Salvio$ ^{Let's talk about it!} 13:18, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Badgernet ₪ 14:16, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Terminator92 ^(
talk) 15:43, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support-While it does, obviously, need to be used sparingly, PC is an excellent tool and offers a less disruptive alternative to other forms of protection.-- Fyre2387 ^{(
talk •
contribs)} 16:02, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - Essentially per Hj. A really valuable tool. Edinburgh Wanderer 18:41, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - years of usage in German and Russian wikis demonstrate the lack of fatal flaws in the idea, as well as long term quality improvement potential. -- illythr ( talk) 20:08, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Absolutely. About time. 28bytes ( talk) 20:15, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Absolutely Support Does the content of Wikipedia have "value"? Yes, else why are we spending time editing it and reverting vandals. If it has value, it is worth "safeguarding". This is an essential step towards the "safeguarding of Wiki-assets" created through the efforts of hundreds of thousands of editors. History2007 ( talk) 21:16, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support (though hoping "liberally" wrt BLPs is not misunderstood - I take it to mean edits are more thoroughly vetted on BLPs under PC) Collect ( talk) 21:48, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. It's not an unreasonable bar to legitimate editing, and anything that stops/slows vandalism (and hence my need to revert it) is only a good thing, especially on those "magnet" articles that seem to just attract such vandalism. Best, Markvs88 ( talk) 22:30, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. This is probably the best idea I've ever heard, and keeping bad edits from reaching anyone other than the capable editors of Wikipedia is a common sense sort of thing. Lucasoutloud ( talk) 23:24, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support-- Phospheros ( talk) 02:10, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Yash t 101 :) 02:40, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Strong support especially for BLPs, but also for other articles subject to attacks. We've discussed this ad nauseam - no one thinks it is the perfect solution, but the problem continues to mar the encyclopedia while we talk and talk. It worked well enough in the trial - we can fix problems as we go. Let's just do it already. Tvoz/ talk 03:47, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
support i have seen too many semi obscure articles suffer from terrible POV / BLP issues. With the incredible number of very obscure articles that never see regular review by experienced editors, I cannot imagine how many awful items are out there on the top search engine result. this is a good first step to combat those problems. -- The Red Pen of Doom 04:53, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Strongest support I have been using this feature @ a testing wiki website, and found it very helpful. This is one of the best tools. Dipankan says.. ^{(
"Be bold and edit!")} 10:50, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Without a doubt Pending changes works, it reduces vandalism and allows good edits through. It's also a visible entry for non-SPA editors to get into Wikipedia (getting reviewer right was one of the largest factors in getting me into wikipedia). It's a massive positive to the encyclopedia, and should be used. Worm^TT · ( talk) 10:59, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Well overdue, to my mind, and the policy seems to cover all the necessary caveats and other requirements in order for this to be used properly. Anaxial ( talk) 11:34, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Same as last time. Doc talk 12:18, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. Not perfect, but better than the existing semi-protection, which stone-walls new IP editors. LouScheffer ( talk) 14:27, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Neutron ( talk) 15:05, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support As one of the more active admins (off and on) at RfPP, I came across many occasions when pending changes would have been by far the best option, but after the decision to quit using it, I would more often than not simply use long term semiprotection instead. Pending changes is a useful addition to the none/semi/full system we have been using. Alexius Horatius 16:41, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support I echo AlexiusHoratius's view on the matter and think pending changes is an excellent addition to the existing methods of protection. Sure, there may be a few kinks that need to be worked out, but I don't see that there's any reason not to implement pending changes. Ks0stm ^{(
T•
C•
G•
E)} 20:48, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support I can definitely see how this can be a useful tool to combat vandalism before it hits the books. I looked over a lot of the opposing arguments and while many have merit I think the over all effect would be positive, especially on pseudoscience pages that are constantly bombarded by SPAs looking to promote their pet cancer "cure" or perpetual motion machine. In response to one particular argument, namely that this would fundamentally change WP, I would say that there's no problem with changing WP - fundamentally or otherwise - if the consequences are an overall positive, which I think this tool will be. SÆdon^talk 21:00, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. demize ( t · c) 21:12, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Makes sense. MBisanz ^talk 21:23, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
This option seems reasonable to me. Steven Zhang ^{DR goes to Wikimania!} 22:22, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. Cla68 ( talk) 00:49, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 01:37, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - As a very limited anti-vandalism tool only. Carrite ( talk) 01:39, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support while initially not too keen on this, after seeing its use with little-watched BLP articles, I see the necessity Skier Dude ( talk) 02:46, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support varying levels of protection. The German WP can take days to approve pending changes on lesser trafficked pages. - Gothicfilm ( talk) 04:16, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - it works well when used properly, and if it doesn't work on a particular page it can be removed or replaced. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 09:16, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Increasing the levels of protection will possibly even diminish the need for semi- and espacially fully-protected pages. JHS_nl ( talk) 13:27, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
This seems to be a good idea. Allowing PC protection on some articles should help reduce vandalism and the like while allowing users to still edit these pages, which can only be a good thing. ItsZippy ^{(
talk •
contributions)} 19:37, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support as long bar for becoming a reviewer is low and Reviewers should themselves be reviewed before their edits can be made visible. War ( talk) 21:53, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support I believe that, in particular, PC2 has a rare but important place in the protection toolbox for infrequently-edited biographies subject to sustained insertion of attacks. In many such cases, the confirmed vs. non-confirmed bar of SP and PC1 isn't helpful, but FP can be overkill. PC2 seems a superior alternative to FP in these cases. I don't believe that PC1/PC2 make a lot of sense on very frequently-edited articles, though, nor am I ready to support applying PC to most articles we wouldn't consider protection on today using some other mechanism. -- joe decker ^{talk to me} 22:13, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support I am not quite understanding how introducing PC would invalidate the catchphrase "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" when SP and FP already exist. Such measures are as necessary to implement as blocking misbehaving users are. I was not around when PC underwent its trial, but I do not see how pending changes could be so backlogged if it is a tool used sparingly and the "reviewer" right isn't very difficult to obtain. I have come across plenty of articles in which there were as many anonymous IP users contributing constructively as there were contributing vandalism, so I believe PC would be a better option than SP because SP would deter those editors who were making constructive edits. Sure they could make a request on the talk page, but I would like to know what percent of requests are 1. requested in the proper format, 2. understandable, and 3. actually carried out. An anonymous IP user is much more likely to correct a typo on a PC page than going through the trouble of making a request on the talk page (and if the user doesn't know much about Wikipedia, chances are they do not know such a feature exists to begin with). As a newcomer, I believe it is important to expand Wikipedia's features in order to keep up with the growing community and increasing amount of information. Yes implementing more features/tools requires more knowledge, but Wikipedia is already very complex and personally I don't find the idea of PC to be very complicated. – Jonadin^(
talk) @ 23:38, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Themeparkgc Talk 23:44, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. The original trial showed that the process improved Wikipedia. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz ( talk) 02:40, 29 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Bentogoa ( talk) 12:20, 29 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support No system is 100% perfect and problems and flaws can come at any point of time. The main thing is to discuss and correct those things as they come up. Pending Changes is very useful tool and will help build the project and encyclopedia more better. This (Pending Changes) tool is also used on many other projects of the Wikimedia Foundation and has proved useful. TheGeneralUser ( talk) 13:00, 29 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support TBloemink _talk 14:11, 29 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - yes, yes, yes yes yes yes. Such a simple solution. The Cavalry ( Message me) 16:09, 29 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support I wasn't around during the trial period, but this makes perfect since. It would allow anons to edit while reducing the load on the anti-vandal team. Very good idea. -- Nathan2055 ^talk^- ^review 17:06, 29 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Josh Parris 11:40, 30 March 2012 (UTC) reply
I've been following the PC debate somewhat, but this is the first time I comment about it. I see two problems: 1) it creates more work; 2) admins and reviewers can let edits pass while others disagree, instigating conflicts. I believe these issues can be compensated when PCP is... 1) ...used sparingly, only for high-risk articles; 2) ...not applied during content disputes; 3) ...used with at least one reviewer watchlisting the page, preventing PC backlogs on Wikipedia.
I'm not completely sure, but still, I support. – theFace 19:04, 30 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support' I think admins should have the power to approve or disapprove of all edits. There should be a comments box during editing to send messages to admins. Once your edit has been approved or disapproved you should recieve a notification of which admin a/d it. This will create more work and I think there should be a special type of admin especially for a/d articles. When you are notified of you edit being a/d, you should recieve a message from the admin. this feature should also have a way for you to defend your edit post a/d. More admins should be acquired and trained. Thepoodlechef ( talk) 22:37, 30 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support as a anti vandalism tool -- Stefan ^talk 02:44, 31 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. MER-C 05:02, 31 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - as one of the users who questioned the prior RfC, I believe that pending changes already had a greater proportion of community approval when it was discontinued. I had personal experience with the tool on System of a Down, where constant genre "trolling" by IPs disrupts the article and leads to its inevitable indefinite semi-protection. Pending changes is a far less disruptive filter by which we can improve the quality of the encyclopedia without hindrance to the fundamental policy of Wikipedia being available for everyone to edit. It would be a disservice to not welcome this amazing anti-vandalism tool with open arms, as HJ Mitchell put it. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 08:04, 31 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support as it can help to reduce the number of protected pages; the only negative effect is confusion when an editor finds a different version when starting to edit. − Woodstone ( talk) 08:38, 31 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support, especially as an anti-vandalism tool, but the #2 position statement describes my thoughts exactly :-) Mark Hurd ( talk) 09:33, 31 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:14, 31 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - Flawed (like almost everything) but helpful. Cresix ( talk) 17:54, 31 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - Yes. Twozenhauer ( talk) 20:42, 31 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Strong Support Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 16:42, 1 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Yes please. Stifle ( talk) 17:08, 1 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Indubitably. Tyrol5 [Talk] 22:41, 1 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Agree. Canuck _{My page} ^{89 (talk)}, 01:27, 2 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - It is a powerful tool that will serve a clear function. Limiting its use is always possible, but throwing it away would be foolish. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 04:05, 2 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - Absolutely! It's well past time - Alison ^❤ 05:49, 2 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 08:27, 2 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support – In de.wikipedia it is an indispensable tool for fighting vandalism. -- Leyo 17:15, 2 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support It works fine in de-wp and it appears to be very useful for BLP articles. -- AFBorchert ( talk) 17:38, 2 April 2012 (UTC) reply
-- Thogo 18:00, 2 April 2012 (UTC) As long as there is so little vandal fighting on enwiki that even years-old vandalism keeps undetected, it is an absolutely necessary tool to keep pages clean of crap for the readers. Example: undetected for more than two weeks reply
☮ Soap ☮ 03:59, 3 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - I endorse this position. AGK [ •] 16:33, 3 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support, PC proved its usefulness. vvv^t 16:40, 3 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support, good start... expanding it to all articles as on dewiki would be a good thing (in the far? future) - Hoo man ( talk) 17:41, 3 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support as one of those who believes that the trial period was less-than-brilliantly managed yet who has since come to appreciate the value of this feature. Application should reflect that of semi-protection. Super Mario Man 22:36, 3 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - I was never a reviewer when it was alive, but I have seen the pending changes trial go forward, and I thought it was a good idea at the time. In fact, I thought it was still alive until I picked up Wikipedia back in December. I have read the draft policy and agree with it. -- Michaelzeng7 ( talk - contribs) 23:46, 3 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support PC has shown effectiveness. John Carter ( talk) 00:09, 4 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support useful tool - Youreally can 17:20, 4 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support -- John ( talk) 18:40, 4 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Mark Arsten ( talk) 20:24, 4 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support PC has proven itself capable of significantly reducing the volume of problematic edits while still allowing anonymous editors to submit changes. -- Allen3 ^talk 21:32, 4 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Useful tool with the right policy. William Avery ( talk) 21:53, 4 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - Very useful, especially for BLPs and related articles. Crisco 1492 ( talk) 23:32, 4 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support I am confused by the arguments against, stating that PC hinders an anonymous user's ability to make direct edits to the encyclopedia, when in fact it does exactly the opposite, when compared to protection/semi-protection. I like PC from both an anon and a reviewer's perspective. -- SubSeven ( talk) 00:02, 5 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse the draft. I've witnessed the usability of pending changes. And, as asserted above by many users, we should welcome anything that helps us to keep away vandalism. — Bill william compton^Talk 03:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support I believe PC is a useful tool, which alongside our current processes of PP, reverting and blocking could help to both open articles for editing by anonymous users without damaging the reliability of our content, and limit the amount of effort regular editors need to exert to maintain reliability while making proposed changes (clearing out the ESp queue, etc). More tools are better, and this one has a great purpose. — Jess· Δ ♥ 05:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - overdue. Ghmyrtle ( talk) 18:11, 5 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support, especially considering BLPs: better to review than to rollback. -- Mark91 it's my world 21:27, 5 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - PC was a useful tool in certain specific circumstances when we had it, and I believe the community is competent enough to use it appropriately. There are potential issues with the impact of pending changes on new-user interactions, but as it is unlikely it will ever be applied to a very large number of articles, hopefully this can be mitigated. Shimgray | talk | 22:18, 5 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support useful tool for discouraging vandalism, and concomitantly make editing more attractive to serious users tired and frustrated to see their work being constantly vandalised. Works well on other Wikipedias, and should be the way forward for improving encyclopaedic quality. -- ELEKHH^T 23:07, 5 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support It's a useful tool, especially for BLP articles. - Jhortman ( talk) 03:05, 6 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support, a useful tool.-- wdwd ( talk) 09:21, 6 April 2012 (UTC) reply
B music ian 10:00, 6 April 2012 (UTC) reply
An excellent tool. -- Anthonyhcole ( talk) 13:11, 6 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support While I was not active in Wikipedia at the time of the Pending Changes trial i feel that it will be an excellent tool in combating vandalism while still allowing new and unregistered users to make good faith edits to protected pages. Andrew Kurish ( talk) 15:31, 6 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. It worked. There were problems, but we need to close down editing a bit. When the visual editor comes out, we will need this. theMONO 16:02, 6 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support I wasn't a user when this was in beta, and I'm still not autoconfirmed yet, but I've been around Wikia a lot, and this sounds like a good idea. I know I could put it to use on the wikis I'm admin on. -- Brovie ( talk) 18:49, 6 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Baseball Watcher 22:07, 7 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support I think this sounds nice, but why not use it as a replacement for semi-protection? Zaminamina ( talk) 11:51, 8 April 2012 (UTC) reply
71.175.53.239 ( talk) 22:42, 8 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Ironholds ( talk) 03:37, 9 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Sceptre ^(
talk) 15:12, 9 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support PC, as proposed in this RfC, improves the project. It does not alter en.wikipedia as "the encyclodedia that anyone can edit". It simply says that "anyone can edit" does not mean "anyone can edit, in real-time, without regard to whether the edit is an improvement". Not every contribution is an edit. Some contributions are vandalism. Not every edit complies with our "rules of the road". Some violate policy unintentionally, others quite intentionally. PC simply recognizes that not every edit improves en.wikipedia. Some make it worse. This gives the community a better chance to minimize harm and maximize benefit. David in DC ( talk) 19:25, 10 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Only major issue I ever saw with it was the dramatically reduced load time of certain pages. Complaints from others do not sway my opinion - the fact that it is "complex to manage" has NOTHING to do with how easy it is for new users to use. From their perspective they just make an edit. I make no assertion as to whether or not it is easy to manage - I thought it was, but I'm also a software engineer. Point is, it opens the project beyond what is currently possible. -- Shirik ( Questions or Comments?) 20:42, 10 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support – This will only help Wikipedia's reputation for being reliable. This is definitely a good thing. Acps110 ^{(
talk •
contribs)} 20:45, 10 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - TexasAndroid ( talk) 20:43, 11 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - The tool was efficient, and still would be, if used appropriately. Hazard-SJ ㋡ 21:07, 11 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. It is important to deter vandalism, soapboxing and death-of-person hoaxes, in high-profile articles, especially for emotionally charged topics, where pre-screening by stable editors greatly reduces the trash-talk contents. - Wikid77 ( talk) 08:13, 12 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - Sudo Ghost 10:24, 12 April 2012 (UTC) reply
it could be useful. Could we expand this to templates and the Userspace? -- Guerillero | My Talk 18:59, 12 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - It is a useful tool. The draft actually doesn't go far enough, especially in the case of BLPs, but it is better than nothing. Rlendog ( talk) 20:15, 12 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - Pending Changes is a useful tool to prevent bad edits of IP's (1) and most users (2). The draft is a good start, but level 2 + SP should be able to be used for strong vandalism instead of FP. James1011R ( talk, contribs) 01:21, 13 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support, much needed, negatives are far outweighed by the positive effect it has on our articles in the long run. Fram ( talk) 10:13, 13 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - I was not active during the "never ending trial" so I have no first hand experience with the tool, but I have taken the time to read through others experiences with it. I have some issues with the draft policy, and feel other issues will arise over time. However, I feel the tool itself, when properly used, will enhance Wikipedia. Thus, it makes more sense to implement it now with the draft policy and work on improving the policy as we gain experience in its use. -- ThaddeusB ( talk) 21:39, 13 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - Needed. Tomtomn00 ( talk • contributions) 14:42, 14 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Suppport - I like. Magog the Ogre ( talk) 20:24, 14 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support for a multitude of reasons.
1. PC protection level 1 is just like semi-protection except that IP can still submit an edit that needs to be reviewed.
2. PC protection level 2 is just like full protection with the exception that reviewers can also edit and everyone else can submit an edit to be reviewed.
3. It can stop an edit warned still allow everyone to edit.
4. Researchers can have more confidence in the fact that the article will only change if submitted edits are approved first.
5. I have more reasons but the instructions told me to keep it short so, I will.
— cyberpower ^Chat_Online 21:43, 14 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Support with caveat — I think, overall, it's a good thing, however, those in Position 3 have exceptionally valid points that still need to be addressed, e.g., users Tryptofish and Wizardman. / Sctechlaw ( talk) 22:34, 14 April 2012 (UTC) Changed my mind. — Sctechlaw ( talk) 01:50, 3 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - I found this to be a very useful tool to combat multiple incidents of repetative vandalism to the same articles where anon editors were pushing PPOV edits or attempting to delete factual info they did not aggree with. Richard Harvey ( talk) 10:53, 15 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Per Beeblebrox and Dcheagle. 1exec1 ( talk) 12:48, 15 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support As long as we treat it as a weaker form of protection, it may be a helpful addition to our arsenal. Crucially, it should affect only a small number of articles (unlike on pl wikipedia, where it is the default for all). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus|
talk to me} 04:38, 16 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support per Piotrus. Qwfp ( talk) 12:15, 16 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support I am no longer a very active editor on Wikipedia because of IP vandalism frustration. -- CutOffTies ( talk) 13:33, 16 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support This a useful tool. It shouldn't be abandoned. Naŋar ( talk) 22:15, 16 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. Pending changes is not a panacea that would fix all the problems with Wikipedia, but on balance it's more of a positive than a negative. Robofish ( talk) 23:20, 16 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Would definitely make it easier to fight vandalism. I understand that English Wikipedia users might be unhappy not to see changes made to the Russian, Polish or Turkish Wikipedias directly, but hiding occasional changes by frequent users of other projects is definitely preferable to having vandalism on pages. -- Stefan2 ( talk) 23:48, 16 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support if only to counter the !voter who said that openness is more important than quality on Wikipedia. The staggering cost of that attitude has already taken its toll here, and it really needs to stop. -- Robster2001 ( talk) 02:26, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. We are well beyond the point of needing quantity over quality. The general viewing public has never criticized us for not having enough content; it's the quality of the existing content that is constantly under fire. If such a small (and temporary) limitation discourages an editor so much that he quits editing, then he probably wasn't cut out for this anyway. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department: Please take a number} 03:50, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. Quality of quantity, see the previous comment. Pim Rijkee ( talk) 05:58, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support per Beeblebrox far above me. -- Wiki13 ( talk) 11:16, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. I am aware that this tool can end up creating inconveniences at times, as not all non-registered editors mean harm or create trouble. However, this tool can help in reducing potential vandalism to a great extent, and it will also avoid making certain articles look absolutely silly. ~*~ Ankit Bhatt~*~ 13:22, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support but plain semi-protection should be removed IMO. The other options would cater to all the project's needs, IMO, and the progression of protection levels would be linear and more intuitive. -- Waldir ^talk 14:56, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support as per HJ Mitchell/Jonadin & others. FM [ talk to me | show contributions ] 15:53, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Something better may eventually be invented, but until then, this is the closest thing to being ready for implementation to address an ongoing problem. • Astynax ^talk 16:43, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support This tool and the proposed policy for its use make far too much sense to not be implemented. ‑Scottywong | yak _ 21:03, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support A potentially essential tool that could combat vandalism significantly, and also improve the quality of articles on the wiki where unconstructive edits are often ignored.-- SUFC Boy 00:34, 18 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Would be a great tool to combat vandalism, while allowing good edits to go through, without sending them, for example through Huggle. Dan653 ( talk) 01:54, 18 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support a great counter-vandalism tool. If an article is semi-protected with pending changes, it won't tell new users to 'go away' or force them to register, just makes them wait a bit. Matthew Thompson ^{talk to me bro!} 11:02, 18 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support as a viable alternative to semi-protection in many cases. -- N Y Kevin @866, i.e. 19:47, 18 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - an appropriate solution to certain important problems. An inappropriate solution (or not a solution at all) to others. This just means that its use should be carefully regulated, not that the technical capacity for it should be withdrawn! TheGrappler ( talk) 19:51, 18 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Another form of protection in the toolbox that allows users a way to contribute who would be unable to at other protection levels. Yep, the trial had problems. Don't conflate the two issues. Mojoworker ( talk) 20:18, 18 April 2012 (UTC) reply
It seems that many of the Option 1 !voters aren't reading the proposal and comments very carefully (or at all) – although, to be fair, that's probably true of the !votes in all sections. But, I'm seeing a fair amount of FUD among the supporters of Option 1. From conflating PC with Flagged Revisions, that PC amounts to censorship, disenfranchises editors, and contravenes the policy of being "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit". How is PC anything but less disenfranchising than semi or full protection? Some have expressed the conviction that PC will be used far more liberally than other forms of protection. What evidence can possibly support that view? Way to AGF in our admins. That issue can be handled with final guidelines on the application of PC. Same goes for the argument that the reviewer right was handed out promiscuously – so, delete all reviewer rights and have them reapply. It seems that, based on much of the rationale presented, many of the support !votes for option 1 really should be supporting Option 3. Mojoworker ( talk) 22:51, 20 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support This tool has proved extremely useful on German Wikipedia and its introduction here is long overdue. Even as a non-admin I can tell that admins are so busy going after vandalism and other unconstructive or problematic edits these days that they don't have time to actually improve Wikipedia anymore. Many less-watched articles (the vast majority of articles being in that group, after all) seem to become worse instead of better. -- Florian Blaschke ( talk) 22:15, 18 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support No further comment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HistoryRewriter ( talk • contribs)
Support In spite of the difficulties with the trial, having another tool in the box does far more good than harm. Sailsbystars ( talk) 13:36, 19 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Hesitant Support I understand the necessity for this tool, I am not happy with that necessity, but I think the good outweighs the bad. I am concerned about the potential backlog, but if it becomes unmanageable I'm sure the topic can be re-addressed. Nightenbelle ( talk) 16:57, 19 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. Sometimes it is simply necessarily to prevent editing to a page as vandalism or BLP issues reaches intolerable levels which cannot be dealt with trough blocks. This works, but at times there are also productive IP editors on a page who will be hit as well by this form of protection. Pending changes may not be perfect or entirely without flaws, but it should be seen as a tool that can complement or outperform the existing tools (blocks and protection) in some cases. When used with care it will definitely do more good then harm. Excirial^{(
Contact me,
Contribs)} 20:34, 19 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Ancient Brit
Support as per Florian (224) Bailo26 03:29, 20 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support It worked, darn it! It's a lighter touch than semi-protection and it allows new editors to be greeted by and guided by experienced ones who are more likely to be neutral about the article in question. — Elipongo ( Talk contribs) 08:54, 20 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support - Pending changes was useful, easy to understand, and reduced vandalism. OwainDavies ^(
about)_(
talk) edited at 16:26, 20 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support We can discuss specific issues if/when they arise, so there's no need to throw out the entire proposal. Let's try it (again). Dori ☾ Talk ⁘ Contribs☽ 00:56, 21 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Semi-protection is overkill, but pending changes are a reasonable way to combat vandalism. This is because unregistered users can edit the page, but they cannot view the changes unless approved by the reviewer. This way, constructive edits made by unregistered users can go through, while obvious vandalism can be detected quickly. Wikipedia is so much better with pending changes. Johnny Au _{(
talk/
contributions)} 16:48, 21 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support -> a significant reduction of vandalism. -- MisterGugaruz ( talk) 20:23, 21 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Of the three options given, this is the best. I would prefer having pending changes enabled on all articles and giving readers the choice of which versions to view (with the default being set in a similar way to this proposed policy), but this will have to do for now. -- Tango ( talk) 09:32, 22 April 2012 (UTC) reply
PC would be useful on articles that are in need of update or improvement. Peter E. James ( talk) 22:58, 22 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support I feel the system will work in countering vandals and false information, thus making Wikipedia better in the long run. Any changes to the system can be implemented based off consensus over time as we see it become more intergraded. DrNegative ( talk) 04:35, 23 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support; I think PC is a valuable tool. It's not always the best tool for the job; that's why we have semiprotection and so on. (And other tools such as blocks of IPs and ranges of IPs). However, I think we should have PC in our toolbox; implementing it would be a net positive. The fine details of process would presumably evolve as we go along, just as has happened with other tools. bobrayner ( talk) 10:07, 23 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support: I understand that PC level 1 may at some times make an autoconfirmed user wait for their edits to become live, however I don't think this will happen very often. In all other aspects it seems like a lower protection than semi, which will overall make it easier for users to edit some pages. I don't think this proposal is intended as a way for some users to tower over others with more permissions. – meiskam ( talk• contrib) 09:55, 25 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Strong support. Flagged Revisions / Pending Changes is a very simple thing after all: another protection level. And this protection level is good and useful. The policy may have weaknesses, but the policy can be improved. Instead of trying too hard to predict the weaknesses, it's better to start using the tool widely and to improve the policy later. -- Amir E. Aharoni ( talk) 12:18, 29 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Gives us a useful option for discouraging vandalism, even if some of the details could be improved. CWC 15:38, 29 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Utility of Flagged Revisions / Pending Changes should be used as a tool rather than assuming weakness. Hindustanilanguage ( talk) 19:02, 29 April 2012 (UTC). reply
Endorse: It allows bad edits to be filtered out and also allows the good ones to make an edit. Everyone's happy. The Master of Mayhem (t c) 22:17, 29 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support, many editors are IP editors & most IP editors are constructive ( WP:IPs are human too) so Semi-Block bars lots of good users.-- Николай95 ( talk) 15:47, 30 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support, better than nothing. Klausness ( talk) 18:14, 30 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support, has always seemed a good idea to me -- xensyria^T 18:27, 30 April 2012 (UTC) reply
This is still another way of putting more power into the hands of those (administrators included) that manipulate WP rules to remove and control knowledgeable contributors and push their own twisted agenda. Bureaucracy is already a problem on WP - we do not need more of it! Much of WP is ruled by people getting together in groups and pushing new editors out. It's ugly and this rule would only enforce that! ~ty ( talk) 19:51, 30 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. Deli nk ( talk) 20:47, 30 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support, this is good idea. -- Bff ( talk) 21:39, 30 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. I like the idea of pending changes, and as long as it doesn't become the standard for all articles and pages, I think it will be a valuable tool once the creases are ironed out. Cloudbound ( talk) 22:02, 30 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. It is a good tool to have at our disposal, and the policy can be refined. John Vandenberg ^(
chat) 01:50, 1 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Stong Support Wikipedia is 'the encyclopedia that anyone can edit' but eith Semi-Protection this has been limited. Pending Changes in my opinion provides that Happy Medium between anyone editing and semi-protection as anyone can still edit (well, except blocked users); but the vandalism doesn't get out on the live version of the article. Jamietw ( talk) 17:13, 1 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support We need a tool that protects pages without completely locking a large number of potential editors out. AIRcorn (talk) 00:47, 2 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. If pending changes is applied sensibly, it will enable more newbie participation on popular articles than was previously possible. That is most definitely a good thing. Concern for PC's impact on Wikipedia's editing community should be dealt with by fine-tuning the policy and monitoring use of the tool; not by throwing it out entirely. Someguy1221 ( talk) 01:29, 2 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Quality control should far outweigh any anonymous editor's desire to see immediate results of their edits. Such instant gratification is wholly unnecessary. Jim Miller ^{See me |
Touch me} 17:59, 2 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. KLP ( talk) 16:49, 3 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support with caveats. Like some in the third section, I see that some clarity in the responsibilities of the reviewers is needful, and I suggest the draft policy (while it's still "draft") be modified to make clear such responsibilities; of course by the usual concensus process. That said, I think some review of new articles is a necessary evil, given the size and popularity of Wikipedia. Marikafragen ( talk) 18:51, 3 May 2012 (UTC) reply
support this makes absolute sense especially when it comes to BLPs. - badmachine 19:46, 3 May 2012 (UTC) reply
-- Mitch Franklin ( talk) 04:56, 4 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. Pending Changes sounds like a great way to improve Wikipedia without sacrificing the freedom to edit. I think it will improve the credibility of Wikipedia. Reviewers will have to be careful about backlogs, however. A huge backlog would end up hurting an article, especially if it is semi-protected while reviewers catch up. — ^SuperRad ! ☎ 13:10, 4 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support for BLP articles. -- ♪Karthik♫ ♪Nadar♫ 16:44, 4 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support, because it seems the likely effect will be to make editing more accessible rather than less accessible, because the blunt tool of semi-protection will be used less often than is currently the case. -- P.T. Aufrette ( talk) 03:41, 5 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support It would make Wikipedia more difficult to vandalize, but still allowing freedom to edit. —Hue Sat Lum 15:55, 5 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Especially for BLP problems, I feel that Pending Changes is a useful tool. ~ Matthewrbowker ^{Talk to me} 16:06, 5 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support I wouldn't want to see knee-jerk over-application, but as an alternative to protection it's clearly better in most cases. Homunq ( talk) 17:39, 5 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support – sumone10154^{(
talk •
contribs)}
Support' This is the right direction. -- Taku ( talk) 03:31, 6 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support The up sides outweigh the down sides by far. -- ❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 18:40, 6 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support. Fences& Windows 23:37, 6 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support PC appears to solve vandalism while opening routes for new users to edit pages currently locked by PP. I am worried about the complexity and vagueness of the policy and hope it can be further refined after we've lived with it for awhile. However, not doing anything while we wait for perfection seems silly at this point. -- Ultracobalt ( talk) 07:37, 8 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Seems a no-brainer to me - to have such a tool available and refuse to use it makes no sense to me. waggers ( talk) 07:47, 8 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Full Support I'll be honest, I havent seen the effects of, nor used PC myself. But even a cursory overview of the wiki page show me the obvious choice, given bugs are worked out. PC is a brilliant idea, but we also need better protection against non-protected articles being vandalized. Libertarian=Truth? ( talk) 01:30, 9 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Definitely a positive move, especially for sites continually targeted by hate speech in one direction or the other (e.g., religion, atheism, controversial historical figures, etc.).-- Dsschmidt ( talk) 13:18, 9 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support -- Koopashell ( talk) 16:29, 9 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support -- debdebtig ( talk)
Support I was a reviewer and found that it was useful. In my experience, there was less vandalism even attempted since the editor knew there was very little chance of it gettign through. There were only a few edits that I had to reject, mostly for unsourced contentious material. Psu256 ( talk) 19:02, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support While the current system of protection and semi-protection may be adequate, I think the continued drop-off of experienced editors will put a strain on that system. PC allows more policing by fewer people without giving them "super-editor" privileges or a greater voice in discussions. The proposed guideline is sensible. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 19:35, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support It's about time we had an alternative to full protection and an effective semi protection. Alan.ca ( talk) 20:39, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support The pending changes trial worked well for its purpose of letting unregistered users edit pages that would otherwise be semiprotected and unavailable for their edits. — Ute in DC ( talk) 20:52, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support I think this is needed. -- Donald Albury 21:31, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Wikipedia should be the encyclopedia that anyone responsible can edit. We do waste too much time reverting vandalism, and the policy can always be adjusted as we learn its limitations from experience. And just in case: if the tool is to be limited only to certain type of articles, BLP and country articles should definitively be a priority, and may I suggest that FA and GA rated articles should also be protected to preserve the effort of the editors who went the extra mile to produce such quality articles.-- Mariordo ( talk) 03:56, 11 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Despite flaws, pending changes will reduce the vandalism viewable to end users and improve the overall quality of Wikipedia. -- Trödel 11:19, 11 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support A useful tool for dealing with vandalism.-- agr ( talk) 15:29, 11 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support useful tool indeed. -- Atlasowa ( talk) 16:10, 11 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support digit. -- Jayron 32 04:02, 12 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Sayan rc ( talk) 20:01, 12 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support -- Ceradon ^talk_contribs 19:02, 13 May 2012 (UTC) reply
support This was useful during the test with no real problems noted Hmains ( talk) 22:08, 13 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support ArishiaNishi ( talk) 16:33, 14 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support This seems the best way to enable our mission to go forward while blunting some of the negative aspects of such an open system. Fully support. Freedomstan ( talk) 19:22, 14 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Others have said everything I need to say. Egg Centri c 20:42, 14 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support The new pending changes policy would be far more beneficial than problematic. Vandalism and lack of accountability is definitely among WP's worst issues. Voyaging ( talk) 19:41, 15 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Although they will never be truly finished, the vast majority of (at least heavily trafficked) articles have matured to the point where it simply isn't necessary for them to exist in a state that "anyone can (immediately) edit" (and this proposal isn't stopping anyone from having input). In fact, if done right, I'm hoping that this mechanism will be better than semi-protection (found on so many popular articles) which effectively is a complete lockout for IP and newbie editors. I'm aware that the Pending facility will be open to abuse by those who crave power, however I'm hoping that the slow consensus-building process will be enough to rescue those cases; but of primary importance in my support is the ability to prevent (the often high levels of) vandalism from reaching readers who are expecting a continually high-standard of product from a more mature WP. The ability to have reliable check points for downstream processes (books, dumps, etc.) will also be nice. GFHandel ♬ 05:27, 16 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support As someone who has sorted through a large number of ill-formed Semi-protected edit requests, I would love to have this option. Seeing a diff view of a change is much easier trying to decipher "The third part in the under the early history section is clearly incorrect and should be fixed. Please replace it with ________." Besides, it would be nice to have a third option for those articles that aren't quite bad enough for semi-protection, but still get a lot of vandalism. ~ Adjwilley ( talk) 15:16, 16 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Have been registered years and edited very little. It's very easy to register, and reliability is the most important requirement for WP. If a user cares enough to edit and enough to want their edit immediately visible, registration is not a huge burden. LynnD71 ( talk) 22:25, 16 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Makes senses. -- MisterGugaruz ( talk) 07:22, 17 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse. With Wikipedia's current volume of content and overall popular use, I feel it has reached a point where it is necessary to minimize vandalism. This tool is necessary. PolicarpioM ( talk) 08:12, 18 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Despite a lack of statistics on vandalism, I still support this as anecdotal evidence from user(s) cites a need for it,. I don't see it as a violation of any Wikipedia principals as quality control is certainly important, and vandalism needs some way of being checked. This system is rather soft, and that's good. If it wasn't a simple matter of being auto confirmed in order to edit without pending changes, then I don't know I would agree, but as it stands this seems like a great idea! Supaiku ( talk) 09:20, 18 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support I see no difference between PC and semi-protection and full-protection, except that PC is less restrictive. Druid816 ( talk) 18:03, 18 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse - Pending changes only helps. --' J (t) 23:55, 18 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support as it has shown in DE:WP that the benefits outweigh the negative effects at length. -- Matthiasb ( talk) 10:48, 19 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support useful tool. Buckshot06 (talk) 21:54, 19 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Let us go ahead. Chandan Guha 21 May 2012 Chandan Guha ( talk)
Support looks alright. CorrectKnowledge ( talk) 12:04, 21 May 2012 (UTC) reply
This sounds close to my position on the issue. It would be a problem if we used PC too much, but if we only used it on articles that would otherwise be semi-protected, it would allow more users to edit without creating too much extra work. — Arctic Gnome ( talk • contribs) 19:27, 21 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse since no one can tell if his or her article will be subject to disruption of good-faith editing, and PC acts as a useful tool in reducing the seriousness of the issue when some inappropriate edits really occur. Sachreeko ( talk) 02:00, 22 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support A valuable, and long overdue, move to improve Wikipedia's reputation as a quality encyclopedia. SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 15:45, 22 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support Pending changes protection is a very good alternative to regular page protection as nobody is prevented from constructive, encyclopedic editing. -- Iste ( D) 16:53, 22 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support for BLP's and controversial pages. Targaryen^{speak or forever remain silent} 22:52, 22 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Support because the basic principle seems sound on organizational economic and mechanism design grounds, which are the basis of my moral stances, towards Wikipedia as well. I do worry about the extra complication caused by the system, to the editors in charge, because they might disincentivize people from joining the project and even the extant editors from doing what they do best. But still, in its current incarnation, I'd judge the basic idea behind the tool is right, and could also be rapidly developed further come feedback from widespread adoption. Especially since it takes much of the base incentive out of edit wars within contentious articles. Decoy ( talk) 23:21, 22 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Position #3

Pending changes should be kept in the long term, but the draft policy is insufficient and/or out of step with what the community wants from the tool. Pending changes should not be rejected entirely but should remain unused until such time as there is a more complete policy in place that has been explicitly approved by the community.

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Users who endorse this position

I would like the draft policy to address: (1) the responsibilities of reviewers, more clearly, (2) the status of users who were previously given the reviewer right, and (3) the kinds of development improvements that will be requested of the developers. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 18:21, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
I agree with Tryptofish. I have not minded giving out a useless reviewer right. Now it is about to become meaningful. The policy should address this.-- Wehwalt ( talk) 20:43, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
I like the idea, but think it should only be used exceptionally. I'm worried about a huge backlog, and the drama that could ensue when a reviewer decides that an otherwise good-faith edit is rejected. It'll happen, and I fear it'll be hard to tell whether a reviewer was acting maliciously. Furthermore, new editors may perceive a chilling effect when they make a good-faith edit that's at odds with a reviewer's idea of a good-faith edit. I'm not sure if the ensuing drama from this technology will be less than the drama it solves. All in all, I just think there needs to be a whole lot more documentation on what's expected from a reviewer, and what's expected from an admin who has the option of choosing between prot and pending changes. Xavexgoem ( talk) 00:42, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
I support PC, but the polarisation towards options one and two suggests to me that we haven't learned the lessons of the failure first time around. There are two broad groups of situations where pending changes is useful. One, where the vast majority of edits are good faith, but bad faith ones are causing exceptional damage. Two, where the vast majority of edits are bad faith, but the article nonetheless has a history of productive anon edits. Pending changes in its current form is a terrible solution on articles that attract a large number of good faith and bad faith contributions alike (current events, suspected deaths, extremely high profile figures etc). In a nutshell, the draft policy in option #2 does not give any guidance on the tool's strengths and limitations. It must. — WFC— 13:51, 30 March 2012 (UTC) (there is a third, important group PC is useful for that I omitted: very low traffic BLPs). — WFC— 14:20, 30 March 2012 (UTC) reply
The current draft policy will need to be revised before I can support reactivating Pending changes/Flagged revisions. To this end I recommend that WikiProject Flagged Revisions be reactivated (and if need be renamed WikiProject Pending Changes) to address the concerns of Tryptofish and Allens amoung others. – Allen4 names 05:07, 3 April 2012 (UTC) reply
Note: Allens changed position after this revision. – Allen4 names 02:52, 18 April 2012 (UTC) reply
I would be willing to change my position back (to, first, requiring considerable policy clarifications, and, second, dealing with the potential for vandals to clog up the reviewer queue after doing vandalism - not removable by non-reviewers - using an autoconfirmed account) if the Pending Changes policy was firmly such that it (at least in its PC1 form; I can see PC2 on article that would otherwise get full protection) would not be used on any BLP or similarly liability-provoking article. As it is, given that these are the exact articles it's being proposed for by at least some, I have to oppose it given the near-certainty of inadvertent misuse due to liability fears. (I apologize if this isn't the right place for this comment/clarification.) Allens ( talk | contribs) 21:34, 19 April 2012 (UTC) reply
For pending changes, there needs to be a clear guide on what should and shouldn't use it, and when it's appropriate to add it to the article; it has to be at least remotely easy to use and navigate too, which it was far from. There are articles where pending changes would work wonders (years, schools), yet there are articles where they would be a waste of time. The two extremes above give me a bad gut feeling about how it's going to turn out, as deciding between none at all or them everywhere is a lose-lose situation. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 14:31, 3 April 2012 (UTC) reply
I find myself in agreement with most of the comments in this section. FlaggedRevs needs both technical and policy adjustments to be effective here. -- MZMcBride ( talk) 17:50, 4 April 2012 (UTC) reply
I saw it in action and, as it stood, did not see it as more useful than semi-protection. I think this is an answer looking for a question, although I can see the technology may be useful if the rationale for deploying it is rethought. Orderinchaos 03:55, 7 April 2012 (UTC) reply
I would argue that the draft in #2 contradicts what my experience with Pending Changes was. I would like to strongly agree with WFC above. Those indeed are the three situations in which I found PC to be incredibly useful. It was successful in removing semi protection from highly vandalized pages, that could still have useful contributions, ones in which articles had high quantities of good faith edits, and small detractors who could cause exceptional damage (generally violations of BLP/personal attacks, or simply factual errors introduced). Finally, the usage of the review system on low activity BLPs found reasonable success, in my view. I was able to unprotect numerous pages as a result. However, the policy above fails to account for much of this. Subcriteria 3 fails to address its strengths, and furthermore does not adequately address when it is not to be used, with the exception of the pre-emptively criteria. Although I am not sure what to think about this, especially on lesser edited BLPs, pre-emptive protection may have some merit. (I still have not entirely determined what that would be). Though Allens above provides a possible way to exploit the system, vandals have generally been disorganized enough such that this would not occur. Those that have been organized enough to do so generally require widespread action on behalf of the community, beyond the proposed usage of PC. Finally, the fact that the Reviewer right now holds a higher responsibility (I have no idea if this is for the better or the worse) compared to previously creates a whole new scenario. Should the reviewer right be removed en masse? What is the threshold? It certainly is different than that of rollback, and although it could eventually be established, I fear that without hard guidelines the distribution of rollback is apt to cause unnecessary drama, and tons of legwork for admins. This is not to say PC could not be extremely useful. Given between option 2 and option 1, I would take option 2, but would prefer more thought be taken, and a thorough re-examination of the successes of the first PC trial be used. NativeForeigner ^Talk 03:40, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply
The draft proposal does not look well thought out. What is the resolution mechanism when there is disagreement about whether a page is appropriate for PC? What are the procedures for challenging and revoking Reviewer status? We can do better than this. Anoyatu ( talk) 18:59, 6 May 2012 (UTC) reply
It seems that there are many issues with the current policy of when to use Pending Changes. It would seem in some very specific cases that it could be a helpful tool, such as with frequently vandalized pages, those of a complicated topic (advanced physics for example) or things that arent hard facts (many car pages for instance have a constant back and forth when uses change them from "Sportscars" to "Supercars" and vice versa). However I would like to see a more developed - and clearly written policy. This needs to be able to be explained to new or inexperienced users without consulting a chart with more color-coding than a rainbow or a wall of text. If its implemented in a way that seems obtuse to users it may discourage them and reduce the potential pool of contributors. Racingfreak92 ( talk) 23:30, 8 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse. While I see the (potential) benefits of this proposal there are, in its current form, too many open ends with some important concerns (reviewers, when to use PC) that do not seem adequately addressed. -- Wolbo ( talk) 21:00, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse. The suggested changes to Wikipedia conflict with the entire principal of the encyclopedia. Furthermore, as these policies are they will make Wikipedia even more complicated and will create a larger gap between the general userbase and the admins. It would be nice to have a review-type process for oft-vandalized articles, however; I get very tired of reverting articles like The Legend of Zelda. Chevsapher ( talk) 01:16, 12 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Comment: I originally supported the idea (see #200 above ~~"Support with caveat — I think, overall, it's a good thing, however, those in Position 3 have exceptionally valid points that still need to be addressed, e.g., users Tryptofish and Wizardman~~"), but after continuing to read comments and having a further think on it, I un!voted, striking my response. I believe the problems it will introduce without addressing the points made in this section will create a wikiwar, if not several. I still think it's a good idea, but the demons are all in details that haven't yet been addressed: it needs more baking time as it's still not cooked. — Sctechlaw ( talk) 05:50, 12 May 2012 (UTC) reply
Endorse. Fighting vandalism is good; no one's denying that. I think many editors lose sight of the fact that Wikipedia is first and foremost an encyclopedia (pillar #1), and ought to be reader-centered, not editor centered. If Pending Changes helps the readers by better informing them or by keeping them from misinformation caused by vandalism, then it's a good thing. At the same time, Wikipedia is written by the editors, and most of them don't have special user rights. The thing is this: many users who have been around for several years (over three in my case), and who don't have special user rights will now have copious restrictions put in place when it comes to editing pages. What this well-intentioned policy does is take away editing privileges from the majority of well-behaved editors in the name of anti-vandalism; in a reactionary blitz against policy breakers, sockpuppets, trolls, and general malcontents. (This issue could be solved by creating another user access level, alongside of reviewer, to coincide with the Pending Changes policy, but that's a discussion fro another day.) Additionally, several questions remain unanswered. Which pages receive PC protection? Will there be community input into the discussion of which pages receive PC protection? How long will the edit approval process take? Will there be administrators or bots on hand for even the most obscure of protected pages? Simply put, the policy, as it stands, is too incomplete to be implemented. It is a fundamentally good idea, but to full of holes to be implemented at this present time. Buffalutheran ( talk) 06:06, 13 May 2012 (UTC) reply
The draft policy does not address preventing backlogs. If a backlog came about, good faith anons would be discouraged from being part of WP and good edits would be wrongfully blocked. Also, the draft policy does not provide clear guidance regarding when Pending Changes should be used instead of semi-protection. I believe Pending Changes has the potential to be a useful tool, but it has not lived up to that potential and the draft policy would not get it there. SMP0328. ( talk) 03:39, 19 May 2012 (UTC) reply
I can see the merits of this protection, but I also don't believed that usage guidance has been meaningful enough to ensure that it is not abused. This should include guidance for reviewers and for those placing PC on the page.The merits need to be discussed with the pitfalls and guidance needs to be gleamed from that discussion. WFC seems to have a reasonable understanding of this. — Ost ( talk) 20:35, 21 May 2012 (UTC) reply

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Discussion

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Blocking edits

I'm wondering if I'm understanding something correctly. If a page is level-1 protected, it appears that IP/new attempts to edit will effectively block non-reviewers from editing, until a reviewer comes along and either approves or disapproves the IP/new attempt to edit. Correct? Allens ( talk | contribs) 11:06, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I don't think so. At least, I once saw two edits to the same article listed in the queue, and if you couldn't edit the page again until the first was reviewed, then there wouldn't have ever been two edits simultaneously waiting for approval.

Also, even if that were true (and it doesn't seem to be), the typical length until review was only a couple of minutes during the trial last year. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 13:03, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Were the two edits in the queue in the same section, or different sections? As with edit conflicts, they can be separate...

What proportion of people were reviewers in the trial last year? Thanks! Allens ( talk | contribs) 21:33, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I don't remember; they weren't pages that I wanted to review, so all I really know is that there were multiple edits. If I understand things correctly, people who click "edit" see the latest version, including anything that has been changed but not reviewed. But readers only see the last-approved version, without any unapproved changes.

The number of people with the review right increased over time, but it includes all admins automatically, so there were more than 1,000 editors capable of reviewing at the start. Currently, there are about 7,000 people with the ability. I'm not sure how many people actually tried to review an edit, though, and that would be more relevant. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 17:45, 3 April 2012 (UTC) reply

When and how did we end up with 7,000 reviewers???? Wnt ( talk) 17:05, 4 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Well that was the trial, I suppose. My experience with the German Wikipedia, where we already have PC, shows the average length is hours, but it can take days or even weeks until some articles are reviewed. -- BerlinSight ( talk) 23:21, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply

The German Wikipedia uses the more restrictive "flagged revisions" tool. Pending changes is a specialized version of that tool developed specifically to meet the requests of this project. They are similar, but PC is applied on a case-by-case basis, only to articles that are experiencing problems, as with other forms of page protection used here. Beeblebrox ( talk) 23:47, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I personally think that Pending Changes should be able to detect good from bad edits in the way

Cluebot NG does before it will really benefit us. -- Kangaroo powah 04:08, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Doesn't the abuse filter already do that? Why does PC need to be able to do that as well? -- N Y Kevin @868, i.e. 19:50, 18 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Will policy be improved?

I'd just like to make a follow-up comment, after my "position 3" comment earlier. Assuming the community goes forward with this, I hope that the users who are working most closely with it will look very carefully at the points that I and others have drawn attention to in section 3, and present the community with a policy that is updated accordingly. I realize that this may be implicit in the way the RfC has been presented, but I thought it would be useful to point it out. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 20:02, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Sorry to say it, but I highly doubt that your concerns will be addressed. Just look at the way that this RFC was set up, so that there was a single position for enabling PC and two slightly different options to oppose it being re-enabled. That sort of engineering to diffuse the opposition doesn't bode well to those who want PC listening to our concerns at all. It's all about making vandalism patrolling easier, and everything else be dammed. The Foundation already scuttled one attempt to add a tool which would ostensibly have made NPP easier, and now there's this. It all comes down to control, control, control. It's time to start taking a knee and kissing rings in order to rack up the user privileges if you're interested in continuing to edit here.
— V = IR ( Talk • Contribs) 02:16, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Ohms, don't forget the straw poll was constructed in a similar way, except that the three pro-PC options were all tallied together. That straw poll was put together by a PC supporter. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 03:35, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
You guys may well be right. Beeblebrox et al.: I hereby challenge you to step up and prove them wrong! The ball is in your court. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 16:35, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Let me preface my remarks by saying that I am not and will not be involved with any administrative duties related to this RFC. There are four volunteer coordinators, all users who have not previously expressed any strong opinions about PC, who will be doing all that so even if I agreed with you I would not be the one making any such changes.

Since nearly 100 users have already endorsed the draft policy, I don't believe it would be reasonable or fair to begin changing it now. When trying to craft the positions for this, I quickly realized I was in a no-win-situation. There was simply no way to structure this RFC so that it would make everybody, or even almost everybody, happy and produce a usable result. When I tried last year to make it a binary choice, some users insisted it was not. When I tried to make this a trinary choice, with the option to "kick the can down the road" and deal with it later, some users objected to that, insisting that it was really a subset of supporting it. And now the objection is that it was deliberate tactic to diffuse the opposition into two camps,m which is the complete opposite of the previous objection to it. See what I mean?

The design is intended to present three distinct, mutually exclusive possibilities:

Do not use PC
Do use PC
Status quo

The format is deliberately not a "dogfight" between competing proposals for a fully-fleshed out policy. The reason for that is that it has repeatedly proven more or less impossible to make a decision this important in that manner. Some of you may remember a year or two ago, there was much interest in formulating a community process for removing admin rights. I was one of the early participants in that discussion, and what I learned there partially informed what was done here. I put up a proposed draft policy and asked others to help edit it and improve it until we had something we could put forward for a wider discussion by the community. Instead of collaborating everyone simply added their own complete proposals, many of them almost identical to ones already posted, and in the end we had 17 separate policies to decide between. And now he we are, still without any community de-adminship process.

Of course the other discussion that informed how this RFC was structured was the disaster that was the 2011 PC RFC, where we once again saw pretty much exactly the same thing, one position after another being added to suit each users specific needs or desires, often with only cosmetic differences from already existing positions. And again, no usable long-term result. The draft policy you see here is simply the same policy we already used during the trial, with minor tweaks based on what usable feedback we were able to get from phase 2 of the last RFC. It is not my original creation. I know it isn't perfect and doesn't please everyone, and also know that you could say the same for any other policy proposal I or anyone else would come up with. I won't deny that I have a desired outcome here, but more than that I believe Wikipedia needs an answer to the main question of whether to use PC at all or to do away with it for good. However, because there are some users that don't believe that and think that we should perfect the policy before making that decision that the option to leave things as they are for now is included.

Sorry for the TLDR post but I wanted to make sure I was as clear as possible about the thinking behind the structure of the RFC and the admittedly imperfect nature of the draft policy. Beeblebrox ( talk) 00:44, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply

The Tl;DR thing wasn't much of a problem to me. That all sounds well reasoned, but... On the other hand, nearly 100 people are supporting this (which should hardly be surprising since it was preloaded with nearly 60 supporters), as you've mentioned above. It doesn't feel worth it to take the time to go in depth with a criticism since this is basically a done deal (I don't know, maybe I'll find the motivation to reply later). I think that you're well aware of the possible criticisms anyway. What kills me is that nothing has really changed since last year, and yet here we are covering the exact same ground. Oh well, I for one am not going to get bent out of shape about it (I'm just not going to participate in anything to do with PC. *shrug*).
— V = IR ( Talk • Contribs) 02:01, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Beeblebrox: I totally sympathize with what you say about the difficulties of this task. And I'm not finding fault with any of that. But I (not necessarily the other commenters in this thread) was making a specific point, and you didn't really respond to that. I'm saying that I recognize that the community is going to support PC, but I'm pointing out that some useful suggestions have come out of "Position 3". It would just be common sense to make use of these suggestions. I don't mean changing the proposal mid-RfC, of course. But I'm saying that, post-RfC, it would be smart to incorporate the feedback from that section. Otherwise, there would have been no point in asking. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 22:35, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Ok, I guess I did kind of miss your point, the whole "balls in your court" thing made it seem as if you were indicating something should be done now. I've tried repeatedly, including right in the position statement itself, to acknowledge that the policy is incomplete and imperfect and it is fully expected that it will be changed in the future if the tool is put back into use, like any other policy we have. That's pretty much the way Wikipedia has always worked, decide if we want to do something, and tweak the policy or guideline that dictates how we will use it as needed. What horribly muddied the waters and made this so controversial now is what I think we all agree was a badly mismanaged trial period that resulted in a loss of trust. This time around, the only people we have to worry about trusting is ourselves. This isn't something Jimbo or the WMF is foisting on us, in fact I haven't heard a peep from any of them in this RFC. This is our decision to make, and, if it is approved, our policy to work with and alter as we see fit. I assume discussion would start back up at WP:RG if/when the tool is brought back into service. Beeblebrox ( talk) 23:21, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Thanks, that's a very thoughtful answer. I, in turn, probably shouldn't have said that thing about ball's in your court, but I guess that I was reacting to what the other two editors had just said. Anyway, as far as I'm concerned (maybe not as far as some other editors are concerned), that's all that I was looking for here. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 16:45, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I think that part of what bugs me about this is that there seems to be an assumption that... I'm not exactly sure. Something along the lines of "let us use it and we'll figure out the policy stuff as we go" (I'd say "we'll stumble around until we figure it out", but that's probably a bit too hyperbolic...). I think that there's still a sizable minority of folks who are basically saying "Wait a second, we don't think that using pending changes is that great of an idea at all!", which means that there are groups here who are decidedly talking past one another at this point (and that was a big reason for the "kerfuffle" over the trial, from my perspective). Personally, I don't even want to think about policy at this point until I see something that can reassure me that Pending Changes will not turn into a massive increase in the use of page protection (of any kind). To be frank, I don't trust that the current community of administrators here is utilizing the tools that they already have available in a responsible manner (based on my personal experience in observing how over-used full and semi protection currently are), which is making it (extremely) difficult to accept the idea that policy issues will be addressed. I don't necessarily think that Pending Changes is "evil" or anything (although there are some [minor] technical issues which need to be addressed); this is more about trust in the system administrator community, to my mind.
— V = IR ( Talk • Contribs) 18:22, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
- There was a sizable minority opposed to IAR, too. I don't think that I've ever seen a discussion about any proposed change that involved more than ten Wikipedians and didn't have a "sizable minority" opposed to the change, including changes that were handed down as a mandatory change from the WMF's legal department, so the existence of the Loyal Opposition doesn't disturb me.
  Your apparent wish that policies would spring fully formed from the community's forehead and then be eternally unchanging, however, does disturb me. I rather like the fact that the community learns and improves over time, even if that means that we sometimes stumble onto better processes than we first had. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 17:58, 3 April 2012 (UTC) reply
  In my mind, the problem with comparing this to the development of the IAR policy is that the character of the two items are basically reversed. At it's core, IAR is about enabling editors to do whatever it is that they need to do. In contrast, PC is about controlling what other editors are able to do. I suspect that statement will rankle some, since at least part of the justification is that PC is supposed to "enable" more than semi-protection does; which is true as long as it's use is limited to only those instances where semi- is currently used. However, we all know that isn't going to be the case, as there's a history to refer back to [the PC trial] which demonstrates that. I also don't see how comparing this to an office action is relevant (and frankly, that seems like a smoke screen here).
  I'm no fool either, in that I don't at all believe "that policies would spring fully formed from the community's forehead" (or even wish for that; policy is, and should be, a living thing). However, as I mentioned already, we have experience with Pending Changes now, and yet the policy questions are still very much unresolved. That's what makes me uncomfortable with the "we'll figure it out as we go" attitude, because that makes me suspicious that the actual motive is something along the lines of "the further we can spread the use of PC the better". I'd love to be incorrect about that, but so far there is nothing here being offered to satisfy my suspicions.
  The structure of this RFC, the pre-loading of the debate with support for position 2, breaking up discussion on multiple pages and hiding half of it on an untranscluded subpage (which has mostly been rectified and [somewhat satisfactorily] explained, following objections), and the note in the into to this RFC explaining the rational for limiting the "fix the problems first" opinion, all do nothing but fan suspicions rather than satisfying them. We did give PC a chance already, and so if those who support it's being reimplemented would address the concerns that are being brought forward, that would go a long way in moving things forward. I don't see what this needs to continue to be as polarized an issue as it's continuing to be.
  — V = IR ( Talk • Contribs) 03:41, 5 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Arguments against Position #2

In bulleted format, each bullet signed, for ease of threading.

"During and after the trial, PC was shown to be an extremely helpful tool for combatting bad-faith edits while still allowing easy submission of good-faith edits." I do not buy this argument as it relies on the same basic (psycho)logical fallacy that all PC/FR is predicated on, i.e. that every reviewer is knowledgeable about the subject and not a Knight Templar, not to mention it ignores the fact that not all bad-faith edits are obviously so, and those that are not can very easily slip by an unknowledgeable reviewer (of which there shall be many per topic. Not everyone is omniscient). How does this get addressed? — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:36, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
No, it does not rely on this argument. It does rely on the argument that every reviewer is knowledgeable enough to recognize vandalism, BLP violations, (good faith) deformatting and similar things, but definitely not necessarily in the subject of the article.-- Ymblanter ( talk) 00:16, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
It does, given the arms race that's been going on between vandals (especially dedicated ones) and administrators/editors. We already have issues with sneaky vandalism that unknowledgeable users cannot revert; it is this situation (as opposed to obvious vandalism) this argument is predicated on. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 03:33, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Reviewers are really going to check sources to see if an allegation is WP:WELLKNOWN? Come on, we've seen the fanatic BLP supporters who want this enacted. Their answer will be no, no, no, no, no. They'll be able to "review" a thousand edits in the time it would take me to do one, because all they have to do is look and say "that sounds nasty, goodbye". Wnt ( talk) 16:58, 4 April 2012 (UTC) reply
"Support PC, especially on BLPs to prevent defamation." Last time I calculated number of reviewers with number of BLPs I got a result of 65 articles to one reviewer, which is unworkable logistically. I would imagine the number has only since increased due to there being less active users and more BLPs. Given that BLPs tend to be edited rather frequently how can one address this fundamental flaw? — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:36, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
- Who says that it has to be used on every single BLP article? "Especially on BLPs" does not automatically equate to "please use PC on every single BLP". Why can't we use it on 1% or 2% of them? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 22:05, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Because those 1 or 2 percent are likely the highest-profile ones where PC can't work due to edit volume, and given that much of the arguments for PC that I have seen assume it will primarily be used on all BLPs, that is why I commented about the "all BLPs" bit.— Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 03:33, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
I wouldn't put PC on a high-traffic article. In fact, I have specifically advocated that it not be used on any high-traffic article, and I believe that my view is generally shared among those who have thought about it for more than a few seconds (e.g., any admin who actually deals with page protection). So your assumption about what is "likely" seems completely wrong to me. IMO it is far more likely that it would be used on a small number of low-traffic BLPs as a less restrictive alternative to semi-protection, or as a way of demonstrating that previously applied semi-protection was no longer necessary. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 13:01, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
That particular view runs counter to the bullet below, which advocates using it on controversial articles (which are either high-traffic or under sanctions, rendering PC useless or moot). Contrariwise, putting it on a low-traffic BLP is apt to be a waste since there's not likely to be anywhere near enough activity on it to justify PC, and logistics needs to be kept in mind since there's far less available reviewers compared to PC candidates. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 19:00, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Actually, you've got it backwards. Having an article under PC costs us nothing until some IP edits it. And then ten changes to one article cost us exactly the same as one change to each of ten articles. But watch-listing one busy article costs far less than watching ten separate articles. If you want to minimize resource waste, you put the low-taffic articles under PC and the busy article under either manual surveillance or under semi-protection. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 18:08, 3 April 2012 (UTC) reply

TheRedPenOfDoom's argument falls under this bullet as it is virtually identical and has all the same logistical pitfalls. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 22:04, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
"[...]seems like a perfect mid-way point between page protection and open editing. It will help IPs Be bold and fix our mistakes, even on controversial pages." It will not because controversial pages are generally universally-vandalized in the first place or otherwise difficult to . George W. Bush and Barack Obama both were put on PC during the trial and had to be removed from it because the volume of edits was too much. How can you reconcile this point with the actual reality of the matter? — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:36, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Pstanton's argument falls under this bullet as well, for much the same reason. High-profile pages are either too busy to use PC on, too partisan to attract anything but edit-warriors and truthers, or are under discretionary sanctions. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 03:52, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
While I support (with reservations) PC, I basically agree with your observation here: high-profile pages, high-edit-count articles are a poor match for PC.

Personally, I believe the best use case for PC involves low-traffic BLPs which have encountered long-term, episodic vandalism or libel. I deal a *lot* in the very-low volume article parts of the Wikipedia, and while the vast majority of such articles are, well, not severely problematic, then you end up with the occasional case that rarely gets edited, but for which problems (as a result) often linger for weeks or months. In these cases, PC1/PC2 feel to me to be superior alternatives to SP/FP respectively. -- joe decker ^{talk to me} 03:47, 30 March 2012 (UTC) reply
I agree with Joe. I think the best use of PC is for BLPs of minor politicians who need more editors but run the risk of vandalism that stays on the page for a long time. — Arctic Gnome ( talk • contribs) 19:23, 22 May 2012 (UTC) reply
"As a community, we should welcome with open arms anything that offers a solution to our problems of vandalism without totally shutting out new and unregistered editors." Part of the issue is that new editors already feel shut out because of the perceived air of elitism in the place. Adding another userright that amounts in several peoples' minds to "censor" does not help add editors; it helps drive them away. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:36, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
THIS. Wikipedia is already a place where some pigs are more equal than others. -- Jay Maynard ( talk) 01:57, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
The equality of pigs seems to be an argument in favour of PC. Rather than new editors not being allowed to edit semi-protected articles at all, PC will allow them to contribute. — Arctic Gnome ( talk • contribs) 19:23, 22 May 2012 (UTC) reply
The question isn't ability to contribute but edit retention, Arctic.gnome, since edit retention correlates somewhat with editor retention. Anon makes an edit, sees it's got to go through a bozo filter, stops bothering. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 20:32, 17 August 2012 (UTC) reply
"The minor problems encountered in the trial did not demonstrate the unworkability of the system; instead they demonstrated that it basically did work." By what metrics? — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:36, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Have you read the metrics that have been collected? For example, did you know that PC permitted us to benefit from more than 200 good edits from unregistered users per day during the initial trial, all of which happened on articles that had previously been semi-protected? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:50, 23 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Out of how many edits? I have seen the metrics, and they suggest those 200 edits are less than 50% of all edits caught behind the review filter. Compared to unprotection (the metric that should be used) that isn't a better situation. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 03:33, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
You're comparing apples and oranges. The proposal is to change from semiprotection to PC, not from unprotected to PC. If your idea is to remove the semiprotection from all the articles that it is on, and replace it with nothing, that would be a separate proposal. PC is only used for articles that would otherwise be semiprotected or fully protected, and it gives an improvement over those forms of protection. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 12:01, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
However, by its very nature PC is intended to allow unregistered/new editors to edit pages that would otherwise be semiprotected. Thus, comparing it to semiprotected is pointless (as semiprotected prevents those editors from editing that page in the first place) and the appropriate comparison is to an unprotected state (the only other way unregistered/new users can edit a page). This was brought up in the 2011 RFC. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 18:50, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
We agree that the point of PC is that the pages would otherwise be semiprotected. I don't follow the logic that, therefore, it is wrong to compare PC with semiprotection. Those are the two options for the pages we are talking about, and PC is only used on pages that could be (and would be) semiprotected anyway, so when deciding about the benefits of PC we should look at what would otherwise happen to the pages in question. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 20:27, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
If you're comparing edits by anon/new users between PC and semi, you're going to get positive results because of selection bias - semiprotected disallows edits by anon or new users. Thus, for a fair comparison, you have to compare it to unprotection, as PC is a middle ground between that and semiprotection. Thus, the arguments should support that PC is as effective as unprotection - the state closest in equivalence - in allowing users to edit. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 20:33, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply

No, that seems like a false dichotomy. It's like saying that methadone would have to have as few side effects as no drugs at all in order for people to use it to replace heroin. In reality, when someone is already addicted, methadone is far better for them even if it is far worse than being clean. Similarly PC is much better than semiprotection and that is all that matters, because we are talking about articles that are semiprotected anyway. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 20:42, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
I see no false dichotomy in my statement, and your drug metaphor is crap because it assumes a position of complete safety (being clean). My argument here is based on anonymous and newly-registered users being able to edit, as opposed to vandalism (where only full-protection grants complete safety). Thus, semi-protection is a poor metric because it prevents that (and even fails your drug metaphor because it's still relatively ineffective at stopping vandalism). — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 20:54, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I'm getting an IDIDNTHEARTHAT vibe here, so I'm out. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 20:59, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply
I heard everything you said. I'm disputing your metrics because they compare a nonzero value against zero, as opposed to two nonzero values. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:05, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply

There's a bit of "the pot calling the kettle black".
— V = IR ( Talk • Contribs) 01:19, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
- I pretty much don't understand this argument. You want the English Wikipedia to be "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit", right? But you object to a system that allows 200 good edits to be made each day, and 400 bad edits to never see the light of day, because only a third of the edits were good? And then you propose, as the preferable approach, that those 400 bad edits be shown to all readers? How is getting 200 good edits and showing 400 edits of obvious vandalism and libel to readers better than not getting 200 good edits and not showing vandalism and libel to our readers? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 13:09, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
That argument assumes that vandalism remains on an article for a relatively long time (let's argue fifteen seconds). Except for borderline cases (i.e. sneaky vandalism) and deeply obscure pages, this isn't often the case. Not to mention IPs are as apt to revert vandalism as named users. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 18:54, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
I've reverted blatant vandalism that was more than a year old. How about you?
But you're comparing it against no protection, which isn't relevant: the expectation is that the choice would be semi vs PC, whereas the existing choice is semi vs semi vs semi. How successful have you been at getting indef-semi'd articles de-protected? As far as I can tell, that size of that category grows continuously. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 18:08, 3 April 2012 (UTC) reply
My metric is ability of anons to edit in good faith (including reverting bad edits), not vandalistic edits stopped (as even semi-protection is barely functional in that regard), and that is why I compare FR to no protection. I have made this clear. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 18:30, 3 April 2012 (UTC) reply
"It also will help against self-promoters, allowing established editors in good standing to contribute and sockpuppetters to be blocked." Unless you can apply PC to redlinks, the first is effectively impossible and the second is already done by semi-protection (as most sockpuppetteers make socks specifically to cheat it, making them all the more obvious). Aside from putting all anon/new user edits through a bozo filter (which {{ editrequest}} does equally as well) what does PC do that semiprotection cannot? — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:12, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Editrequest plainly doesn't do it equally well. If you want to just fix a typo, it's non-intuitive and a hassle, and you are not likely to bother. At least, I wouldn't. FormerIP ( talk) 22:25, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply

And PC has much the same flaws. Why try to fix a typo if the change isn't live immediately? That hurts the encyclopedia. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 06:27, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply

No, with PC you edit in exactly the same way you normally would and it takes you exactly the same amount of time and effort. You don't have to find the talkpage, you don't have work out how to explain the change you want in words, you don't have to get into a conversation about it. The only difference between PC and regular editing is that there's a delay before your change will appear. FormerIP ( talk) 13:04, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply

And that's a whopper of a difference. You're also glossing over the fact that for said edit to ever appear, yourself or someone else will have to approve it. That's a fundamental, earth shattering change to the way that Wikipedia operates. Yourself and others can gloss that over, and try to dress it up in language about "200 good edits and 400 bad edits", but the fact is that pending changes fundamentally changes the way that Wikipedia works.
— V = IR ( Talk • Contribs) 16:07, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply

It does, but only by allowing editors to edit pages that they would otherwise be unable to edit due to semiprotection. No edit that the editor could otherwise make is blocked by PC. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 18:04, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I think this discussion is hampered by a difference in understanding of what "to edit" means. If it means "submit one's desired changes using the edit tab/text box/save button mechanism", then of course PC enables more people to "edit" than SP does. But if it means "independently alter the content of the article as it is displayed to the world", then PC sometimes allows fewer people to edit. In any case there's nothing earth-shattering about PC, unless it's to be used on many more articles than SP now is, since the differences are mainly technical.-- Victor Yus ( talk) 18:20, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Because PC is only used on pages that would be semiprotected otherwise, I don't know of situations where PC allows fewer people to edit in the second sense. If there was a proposal to change lots of pages from unprotected to PC, that would be different, but as things stand the only change is from semiprotected to PC. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 18:31, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply

That is because you are thinking of the hereandnow, CBM, as opposed to the long-term, where PC will (not could, will) be requested on unprotected articles. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 19:04, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Why PC allows fewer people to edit: If there's an unconfirmed user's edit waiting to be reviewed, then I (as a confirmed editor who is not a reviewer) cannot edit (in the second sense). I'm effectively reduced to being an unconfirmed user in that position.-- Victor Yus ( talk) 19:23, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Thanks, that makes sense. I assume that whoever made up this RFC has the statistics on how long it took for reviews to happen when PC was active before? — Carl ( CBM · talk) 19:37, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Whatamidoing indicates above it was, on average, a "couple minutes". Anything more accurate you'd have to go log-delving for; I do not have the time to do it at the moment but will do so tomorrow or Tuesday (PDT). — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 20:16, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply

The fact is, PC is all about some peoples desire to control what others can or cannot do on Wikipedia. If that's not a fundamental change to Wikipedia then I don't know what is. I don't expect anyone who's supportive of re-enabling PC to hear this, but that doesn't mean that it isn't true.
— V = IR ( Talk • Contribs) 02:05, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply

The first sentence is a borderline personal attack on everyone supporting option 2, and IMHO unsubstantiated by anything. Please retract it. -- N Y Kevin @903, i.e. 20:39, 19 April 2012 (UTC) reply

~~How so, and which sentence? If you mean the one immediately after the bullet, that is a direct quote from Option 2, not something I made up.~~ It's not a personal attack, Kevin, nor is it incivil. While it shouldn't be presented as fact (as it may not 100% be true) it's not explicitly denigrating reviewers. I would defend a statement comparing support of position 1 with collaborating with vandals (and indeed a similar comparison has been made on this page). — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 20:16, 20 April 2012 (UTC) reply

"Editing BLP's irresponsibly actually makes the subject of the biography less free since the subject would become affected by forces (i.e. the irresponsible revisions) outside of his or her control." In related news, it's not certain whether or not the reviewer would suffer legal responsibility for approving sneaky libellous vandalism. I'm unsure whether or not the Foundation has answered that question, but if reviewers are, then they share some of the liability when something like this inevitably happens. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 19:08, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply

It's been admitted by one proponent of PC that the likelihood that defamatory-even-if-true information will be blocked from being posted by reviewers worried about liability is one reason sie is in favor of PC. Sorry, but if it's true, if it's important enough that someone would classify it as defamatory (or positive!), then it should be posted. Allens ( talk | contribs) 18:29, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Defamatory content has no place in any article at anytime - Defamation is a crime. - Please don't miss-portray me and my comments. The thread the user is reporting on is here please read for yourselves - True? what is that - nothing I have mentioned. Anyone should take great care with any addition of content about a living person that might be considered defamatory - this is my position/this is current policy position/this is the foundations position - it has nothing to do with pending protection - Users should/are already legally responsibility for all their additions irrespective of pending protection. - Youreally can 18:46, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

"Defamatory" is a general word for negative content, as far as I am aware (note that the defamation article states that slander, a type of defamation, is "malicious, false, and defamatory content"; also note that the Wikitionary definition does not specify that it is untrue, although it notes - correctly - that it often is). "Defamation" is a more specific term; in the US, it specifically does not include true information (other countries vary); therefore, when I say "defamatory but true", I am not speaking about what in the US is legally defined as "defamation". I'm sorry if I mis-portrayed your comments; I had thought that's what you meant, and I believe I had indicated the information I was talking about was true below. One should make sure that such negative information is well-backed-up, of course - but I suggest that it is a violation of NPOV if one does not take similar care with positive information about someone, since otherwise an article is likely to look like an autobiography whether it is one or not. Allens ( talk | contribs) 19:16, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

"Effective tools to combat persistent vandalism, BLP violations, and other unconstructive edits already exist, and they work well; other options have been identified but not actively considered." Since this point was brought up, what's wrong with the edit filter? Where has Cluebot seriously erred? Why are the other antivandalism tools in the arsenal, except semiprotection, not being brought up? — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 19:12, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
"[...] [T]he fact that changes will not be visible until reviewed might quench motivation to vandalize." Contrariwise, the fact that changes will not be visible until reviewed might quench motivation to contribute in good faith. You're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 19:15, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
The weight of opinion does seem to be with option 2. Assuming it goes ahead, it would seem sensible to pre-define (a) a set of Critical Success Measures, to be supported by associated ongoing metrics and (b) a set of Critical Failure Measures, which would result in the whole thing being switched off again. This would include live instances of some of the points above, such as layered vandalism (which is after all close to how some vandals operate today, with the nasty edit hidden behond an innocuous spelling last-change). AllyD ( talk) 21:12, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
"I support adding pending changes to prevent ip vandalism, if somone is serious about editing on wikipedia, they would make an account. When i say full pending changes, i mean it should be on all pages and not just added to a page like how "page protection" is added to a page i.e on request. thats useless, not revolutionary to take the site forward and wont help much" Requiring IPs to register is a Foundation matter and not going to happen, and requiring PC on all pages is logistically impossible - we have nowhere near that level of manpower. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:51, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
- Well, on plwiki we have flagged revisions on all pages (887 332 articles in mainspace), community about 20 times smaller than on enwiki, and yet we have no problem with reviewing... -- Teukros ( talk) 22:10, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply
  Apples and oranges. The fact that the community is 20 times smaller (and I'm betting that is a conservative estimate) means that it's much easier for everyone to get along. If we want the enwiki community ot be 20 times smaller than it currently is (and I know for a fact that some would absolutely love that, although I don't think that anyone here so far would), then enabling flagged revisions is certainly a way to achieve that. Pending changes isn't flagged revisions of course, but it's at least similar.
  — V = IR ( Talk • Contribs) 02:08, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Not to mention it's extremely likely pl.wp's culture is completely different from en.wp's. This is also why comparisons to de.wp are pointless, as the culture of the two projects are very different. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 03:30, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply

On the one hand, that's correct. But, on the other hand it does tell quite strongly against hypothetical "we'll never be able to cope with the volume" naysaying. More likely, as en.wp, we will find our own equilibrium and optimum way of doing. It seems obvious that if we find we have too many articles on PC, we will adjust the number and get over the teething problem. I don't actually think there will be such a teething problem in the first place. We will undoubtedly build up to the right level, not switch a ridiculous number of articles to PC and then work down. FormerIP ( talk) 03:35, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Not as strongly as you think, as the number of active users is still more-or-less stagnant at best and dropping at worst. Assuming not all active editors are reviewers, there will come a point where there's not enough reviewers to handle it all. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 04:03, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply

It seems that in all the talk of comparing the various wikis, it is simply not enough to say that "cultures differ". You may as well post about the wetness of water. What is being neglected is just how much they differ, and why. If we take the two brought up recently (pl & de), then it is astonishing to me that the notion of competition has been completely overlooked. Sure, flagging works in pl, but that just might be because some of us are trying our level best to - if not be #1 - then at least be the definitive #2. And I am absolutely convinced there are individuals with similar motivations on de. (As to why I have consistently delivered many more edits into en than pl given what I've just said, consult my shrink.) Seriously, though... do the folks who are "pro" on PC not see that other wikis are even worse than comparative here? They're downright distortive in this context! Pimpoosh ( talk) 02:43, 9 May 2012 (UTC) reply

"[...]especially on pseudoscience pages that are constantly bombarded by SPAs looking to promote their pet cancer 'cure' or perpetual motion machine." Pseudoscience as an area of the encyclopedia is under ArbCom discretionary sanctions. SPAs that are noncompliant with Wikipedia policy in the area are as much subject to the sanctions as anyone else. Why do you need PC on that set of articles?— Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 04:02, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
"Pending changes [...] reduces vandalism and allows good edits through." This assumes spontaneous and blatant vandalism, not willful malice. If the past is any indication, vandals will very quickly find a way to cheat PC and make reviewers' lives more difficult. It's happened with every other antivandal measure save the bots: Semi-protection was ducked by four days, then four days and ten userpage null edits; the edit filter is easily probed for what will and will not work, the title-blacklist was cheated with non-Unicode characters. Given that PC is far weaker than all of these and falls very easily to tactics similar to those used by JarlaxleArtemis, how can it provide any protection, let alone the bare minimum Band-Aid measure semiprotection provides? — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 04:14, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
"I think admins should have the power to approve or disapprove of all edits. There should be a comments box during editing to send messages to admins. Once your edit has been approved or disapproved you should recieve a notification of which admin a/d it. This will create more work and I think there should be a special type of admin especially for a/d articles. When you are notified of you edit being a/d, you should recieve a message from the admin. this feature should also have a way for you to defend your edit post a/d. More admins should be acquired and trained." There's so much wrong with this argument....
1. "All edits" isn't even under consideration. English Wikipedia specifically requested Pending Changes, 'NOT' Flagged Revisions. The difference is that the former can be done on a case-by-case basis.
2. There is no practical way to provide all admins with a message that doesn't also include raising the attention of any other interested party (problematic on articles with POV problems) and if there were it would not be possible to do so while editing, as the system is designed to be used with no additional input from the editor aside from edit and edit summary.
3. Likewise, there is no practical way to be informed which reviewer (NOT admin, reviewer) approved or rejected your edit that doesn't also inform any other interested party. Something like this just seems designed to get an admin dragged to AN/I or AE because they don't fit the editor's POV. It is up to a reviewer as to whether or not to inform you the edit was rejected, but my money is on you'll have to be the one to bring it up to the reviewer, not the reverse. I've been here long enough to know that.
4. There already is a special userright for PC; it's called "reviewer". It's also not restricted to admins. Still will not help due to logistical issues.
5. At present it is widely acknowledged our administrator-promotion process is badly broken due to the extremely toxic atmosphere there by the users that regularly man it. See WP:RfA reform 2011. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 04:08, 31 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Is there any way at all to audit which reviewers are rejecting things for bad reasons i.e. POV? Wnt ( talk) 21:00, 6 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Not without checking the logs, which (when PC gets passed - not if) I'll try to do on a daily basis and sending to ArbCom. I would suggest others do the same. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:52, 6 April 2012 (UTC) reply

"This tool has proved extremely useful on German Wikipedia and its introduction here is long overdue.[...]" No, de.wikipedia is NOT using Pending Changes (which is applied to pages on a case-by-case basis); it's using Flagged Revisions (which is automatically applied to all pages on that project). Also, de.wikipedia and en.wikipedia have different cultures, so what's good for one is antithetical to the other. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 18:13, 19 April 2012 (UTC) reply
"[...]It's a lighter touch than semi-protection and it allows new editors to be greeted by and guided by experienced ones who are more likely to be neutral about the article in question." I don't know what fantasy world you live in, but unless you're building Turing-compliant reviewerbots, it'll be far more likely that the experienced editors won't do any of that unless approached by a (now-disillusioned) IP or user. And if we're talking an article under ArbCom sanctions, the usual response is apt to be an ARBXXX discretionary sanctions warning, not a friendly welcome. The problem starts with the mentality of the general editor corps. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 19:58, 20 April 2012 (UTC) reply
"Sometimes it is simply necessarily to prevent editing to a page as vandalism or BLP issues reaches intolerable levels which cannot be dealt with trough blocks. This works, but at times there are also productive IP editors on a page who will be hit as well by this form of protection. [...Pending changes] should be seen as a tool that can complement or outperform the existing tools (blocks and protection) in some cases." The Oversighters have opined that they actually had to oversight more edits during the PC trial. The edits don't magically go away, Excirial; they remain in the history. Also, PC is ineffective against vandalism (especially once it starts being aimed at reviewers) and rewards vandals for gaming it to a far greater degree than semi-protection. And compared to unprotection (the appropriate metric, since semiprotection does not allow anon edits and is just as effective against vandalism, if not marginally better compared to PC) PC is far less friendly to new users, again because of it being built to obscure one's edit and the general "barricade the doors" mentality of the general editor corps, who now have a nice excuse to reject IP/new user edits out of hand. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 20:06, 20 April 2012 (UTC) reply
"Support but plain semi-protection should be removed IMO." I will refer you to #Replace semiprotection with PC? below, where the consensus is that this should not be done, since that would make the next escalation (PC2/Fullprot) overkill. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 20:11, 20 April 2012 (UTC) reply
"Was wondering if we could implement this tool for school/shared IPs only." The way Wikipedia is set up this is not possible. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 06:20, 29 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Just keep asking

Moved from RfC discussion page. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 06:03, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply

As much as this has already been discussed, I guess that this RFC just goes to show that if you're dogged enough and remain focused enough that you can beat through whatever changes you want into Wikipedia. The whole "just keep asking until you get the answer you want" approach really does work, doesn't it?
— V = IR ( Talk • Contribs) 05:59, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply

If it had actually worked the last RfC would not have removed it. I disagree with you on the accusations of forum-shopping since a new RfC was always going to happen because the last RfC left the overall question of whether to use PC or not unresolved. It took this long to do it because the well had been sufficiently tainted by the neverending trial. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 19:56, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I hate to say this, Jeremy, but I agree with Ohms law on this. The process here is like the 5 year old in the supermarket nagging mom for candy, keep going and going and going and eventually, it will get its own way. That's not intended to be an ad-hominem, rather a direct view on a process which is trying to resurrect something which was killed, quite clearly. We had a trial which didn't stop, then a clear consensus that said switch it off. Now we're back to the old "what happens now?" which is where we've been before. It's dead, it died, it done gone an' kicked the bucket. Let's leave it there, please. You're not getting any candy this time. BarkingFish 19:54, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply

No, BarkingFish, the last RfC only determined that it should be switched off because the trial had been long overextended. The actual question on what to do with PC was left unresolved, and as Beeblebrox noted the atmosphere was far too toxic to try and resolve that question right away. It was never formally killed off. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 20:10, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I'd disagree with "The actual question on what to do with PC was left unresolved", and point to the same "toxic atmosphere" that you described to support that. But none of this appears to have much relevance anyway.
— V = IR ( Talk • Contribs) 20:58, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I didn't respond to this when it was first posted because I find it is often better to simply ignore baseless attacks on one's character. However, if we're really going to discuss this, let's be clear about the facts.

I opened the RFC last year with one goal only: to decide the fate of pending changes in the long term.
I felt like we were making progress towards answering that question, but in the end the RFC was diverted to the issue of what to do about the never ending trial period.
In the end the only decision that was made was to put the tool out of service until we had made that decision.
This was always going to happen at some point, and I waited nearly a year for someone else to do it before deciding to get the ball rolling myself.
Every other discussion we have had has been about the short term and/or the trial period, with the exception of the beginning of the derailed RFC from last year.
This is being discussed in the same place as before, an RFC subpage of the main PC page, and the same site-wide notices are in place as before, the accusations of forum shopping are obviously incorrect.

I will not be commenting here further as we are not here to talk about me, we are here to talk about pending changes. Beeblebrox ( talk) 21:42, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply

You view this as personal because as it turns out you've been shepherding everything to do with PC from the get go (as far as I can tell). When I first made this comment I hadn't realized that was true. If I had known... I mean, I still believe what I said here, but I may have posted this on your talk page (and in a slightly different manner). I do still believe what I said though, and I think that it's obvious that PC is something that you personally would really like to see in use here on Wikipedia (the protestations of neutrality ring somewhat hollow). You may consider that to be a "baseless attack", but it's my perception of events, and I think that my perception is based on a reasonable interpretation of events as they have been observed. I don't have a bone to pick with you personally at all (and don't really appreciate the insinuation that I do, but I'm willing to ignore it), I just don't think that PC is the wonderful tool that you seem to think that it is.
— V = IR ( Talk • Contribs) 19:15, 29 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Funny that, I thought the previous RfC was about whether to remove pending changes with no prejudice against starting it back up again if there is consensus. No prejudice... right. — Tom Morris ( talk) 20:42, 10 April 2012 (UTC) reply

That's what I'm saying, Tom. The last RfC never settled the question of what to do with PC; it only ended the overextended trial. This was made clear then. There shouldn't be this much controversy over this point. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 20:55, 10 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Where was everybody when semi-protection was proposed?

Moved from RfC discussion page. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 06:03, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I'm just asking where everybody was (note, back in 2005) when semi-protection was implemented, because I hear the similar comments flashed here as then for when semi-protection was proposed as an alternative to plain full-protection of everything (i.e. opponents of that claimed that semi-protection was similarly "un-wiki" and against the "editing principles"). -- MuZemike 07:54, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply

In case people was wondering about what MuZemike is referring to, here's a link: Wikipedia_talk:Semi-protection_policy/Archive_3#Oppose_.28please_explain_why.29. -- Michaeldsuarez ( talk) 22:24, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply

As everyone can now see (thanks Michaeldsuarez), there was some opposition to implementing semi-protection which has a familiar character to the opposition that there is to PC. It wasn't nearly as vocal, but back in 2006 semi-protection was an entirely new concept. That experience with semi-protection is there now, along with the prior (somewhat poor, technically) experiences that we've had with PC trials.
— V = IR ( Talk • Contribs) 01:16, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply

As with many concepts of "consensus" here on Wikipedia, policies and what-not favor those who have time to check in frequently, regardless of the importance of the discussion. -- Joe Sewell ( talk) 17:07, 16 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Draft policy

Moved from RfC discussion page. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 06:03, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Looking at the first sentence of the draft policy, "Edits on articles protected by pending-changes protection will not be displayed to readers who are not logged in, until the edits are checked by reviewers." Don't you mean that edits will not be incorporated into the version of the article displayed by default to readers who are not logged on? They can still see the edits if they look at the history, or the effects of them if they try (god bless them) to edit the page themselves. Also, if this is supposed to be policy, you'd better say which edits you mean - and be careful, because it's like "either all edits, or all edits made by unconfirmed users or even by confirmed users if there have been edits by unconfirmed users since the last review" (so level-1 PC is in fact slightly MORE restrictive than semi-protection, which I know is not to be spoken too loudly). Also you'd better say who can apply this protection (administrators I presume). -- Victor Yus ( talk) 12:24, 24 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Wouldn't the restrictiveness under this interpretation (which I also inquired about) vary depending on how frequent the reviewer "status" is among (auto)confirmed users? (BTW, the above is an example of what I would think should belong on the Discussion page - if it's transcluded onto the main RfC page.) [User:?]

Is this not the discussion page?-- Victor Yus ( talk) 17:41, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Not the one linked to from the proposal voting page - Wikipedia:Pending_changes/Request_for_Comment/Discussion. Allens ( talk | contribs) 17:44, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Oh, I see, there are actually two discussion pages. Starting to look like this whole exercise (like the abortion one I also wasted my time trying to take part in) is just a rubber stamp for a decision that's already been taken, somewhere. Try to minimize the likelihood of anyone's attention being drawn to any inconvenient facts before they fly by to vote. (90% of voters seem not to understand the issue anyway, their comments are effectively about whether or not restricting editing on certain pages is a good thing, not about whether PC is a better technical solution than semi-protection for achieving that. And those who do appreciate that this is the question, seem not to be aware of the downsides of PC. Maybe they think the upsides outweigh those downsides, which is fair, but I think there's no reason to assume voters have been given full enough information to make this vote worth anything.)-- Victor Yus ( talk) 18:01, 25 March 2012 (UTC) reply

So is a suggestion for a change for ease of navigation forthcoming? And rest assured, none of the coordinating admins here have any strong position on PC; that's why we're the ones who are watching over it. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 03:01, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I've suggested transcluding the discussion above the voting sections. But the whole exercise seems flawed (see below).-- Victor Yus ( talk) 07:06, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I object strongly to the notion that reviewer permissions should be any easier to remove than administrator permissions. Bluntly put, we had a large number of editors refuse to accept reviewer permissions, despite their undoubted abilities as editors, because any administrator could arbitrarily decide to remove the permission. The fact that a poor decision was made a long time ago (with the majority of participants in the discussion being administrators) to permit rollback permisions to be controlled by individual administrators does not mean we should repeat this error in judgment. Frankly, given the number of times I have seen administrators arbitrarily remove rollback permissions from users, I'm surprised we haven't had more requests for desysopping. I would prefer to see a defined number of non-automated edits that must be made before reviewer permission is automatically granted, with its removal only via a request to the Arbitration Committee or some other similar, elected, broadbased and representative committee (I'd fold in rollback if we went with the latter). I'd propose 500 non-automated edits.
Absolutely not, Risker. Automatically granting it at any number of edits is foolishness, especially if they're active in sections that have their own culture compared to the rest of WP. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 07:43, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Is it that much of a deal? We already get the right to edit semi-protected pages automatically after a certain number of edits; why not the right to accept other people's edits (which is really just part of the same thing). Same with rollback - why is that even called a permission at all? Why not just give all of these things to all (auto)confirmed users (and be prepared to block on sight any such user who is seen to be acting maliciously)? -- Victor Yus ( talk) 08:29, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Absolutely it's a big deal, Victor; I can think of quite a few editors who refused the permission the last time because of this issue. And Jeremy, it works just fine on other projects to make it very difficult to remove the permission. I don't so much have problems with admins granting the permission, but I really have problems with a single admin having the ability to arbitrarily remove it. We have seen some really horrendous errors in judgment on the part of admins when it comes to unilaterally removing rollback. Sadly, nobody has the courage to call those admins on their behaviour; other admins don't care, since it doesn't affect them, and other users don't want to be pilloried for pointing it out. Risker ( talk) 03:30, 29 March 2012 (UTC) reply

My objection isn't to being restrictive in it's removal, Risker. It's to automatically granting it after X amount of edits, and that's what Victor is responding to. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 03:40, 29 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Yes, that's right. Though if I were to address the other matter, I'd probably say that admins ought to feel empowered to remove the right without ceremony, for example if someone was clearly misusing it (waving through nonsense edits en masse, for example). People are much too worried about status around Wikipedia - losing reviewer or rollback rights (or even admin rights) can hardly matter than much to anyone in itself, particularly if it's only temporary, but when they are treated as badges of rank, people feel personally affronted to be "demoted" or "punished".-- Victor Yus ( talk) 06:50, 29 March 2012 (UTC) reply

You're confusing ability to edit with the ability to judge edits. Just because one can edit autoconfirmed pages does not mean they're any use with more advanced permissions (rollback, reviewer, administrator). — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 00:43, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
I'm not confusing anything. I just don't think there's that much difference between the ability to think of a change oneself and judge whether it's a good one, and the ability to see someone else's change and judge whether it's a good one. Or (with rollback) that there's much difference between being able to revert someone's edit with one mouse click or two. These are trivial things that are unworthy of the name "advanced permissions" (of course administrator rights are a different case). -- Victor Yus ( talk) 06:40, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
There is a quite stark difference between conceptualizing a change that you think is for the better and judging whether a change is for the better according to both consensus and Wikipedia policy. There is no such thing as an unbiased human. Everyone has their own opinion on what edits abide by Wikipedia policy; past obvious vandalism, it's all grey and shades thereof. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 19:53, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply
I don't see what this has to do with restricting reviewer rights to certain privileged individuals. Now, any confirmed user can handle (or reject) an unconfirmed's edit request on a semi-protected page. Since PC is supposed to be just semi-protection with technical enhancements, why significantly restrict the ability to handle ("review") edit requests ("pending changes") on PC-ed pages?-- Victor Yus ( talk) 07:14, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Because PC is a far more powerful tool relative to permissions than you give it credit for. A reviewer, if so inclined, could flat-out reject all anon changes, reject changes that don't fit his weltanschauung, or use it to further a content dispute. Such rejected changes, well-intended or otherwise, never appear on the live article, allowing for more subtle POV-pushing. This would be devastating to articles under discretionary sanctions (where POV-pushing is endemic), politics articles (and articles connected to same), and articles focused on divisive controversies. Making reviewer as hard to remove as admin is a very bad idea, and automatically granting it after X amount of edits or making it easier than administrator-level consensus (70%) is absolutely suicidal. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 08:58, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
But all these power actions you say a reviewer can do on a PC-ed article, any confirmed user can already do on a SP-ed article. In fact the whole point of semi-protection is to allow confirmed users to win edit wars against (certain disruptive) unconfirmed ones. Given that I can technically do what I like with an article anyway (delete its entire text, for example, or revert the last n actual edits), the ability to accept or reject other people's explicitly suggested changes is really no big deal. -- Victor Yus ( talk) 09:37, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
YOU ARE WRONG BECAUSE: I Am The World. This isn't about your abilities, it's about reviewers' abilities. And semi-protection prevents this type of issue in the first place by preventing anons from editing; the prot-pol explicitly states using it to win a content dispute is a misuse. With Pending Changes, the policy is in its infancy and its temptations for misuse are far greater than for semi-protection, since PC propagates a big lie, that anyone can edit the page provided things go through a bozo filter. If the bozo filter is himself a bozo (as will generally be the case as Reviewer is standard in admin kit and Lawful-Stupid-Shin-Megami-Tensei-Mesianism is nowhere near extinct in that group), what's the point of PC? — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 18:41, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
As I understand it, the point of PC is to make it easier for folks who have to go through the filter to feed stuff into the filter. I share your opposition to it (though probably for somewhat different reasons), but if we are going to have it, it seems illogical to refuse to grant the reviewer right to anybody who is supposed to be able to edit the page anyway. Being allowed to operate the filter doesn't seem any bigger a deal than being allowed to bypass the filter altogether. Anyway, I think we're repeating ourselves, so unless anyone important is actually listening to this conversation, I suggest we just agree to disagree.-- Victor Yus ( talk) 19:12, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply
I will admit that part of the opposition to automatic reviewerhood is personal - I do not want Reviewer rights period, and relinquished my adminship during the last trial when I found out admins have that userright. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 19:16, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Secondly, the policy does not address some of the major issues that were found during the course of the trial:
- Pending changes does not work properly on large articles; editors and reviewers were crashing on a regular basis because of load times, and there was some indication that this affected overall system performance. (This is the real reason that the George W. Bush article was removed from the trial.)
- Pending changes increases the frequency at which rumours and innuendo can be inserted into an article's history. We had a lot more oversighting to do on highly active articles during the trial.
- Pending changes is ineffective on highly active articles; edits to be reviewed were frequently overtaken by edits made by autoconfirmed users before anyone had a chance to review them.
- Pending changes on featured (and likely good) articles raised several problematic issues: poor quality edits that would have been stopped by semi-protection being accepted that adversely affected the overall quality of the article (remember that all non-vandalism edits were supposed to be accepted); disputes between longtime editors of the articles and reviewers over what should and should not be accepted; conflicts when primary editors of the articles did not have reviewer permissions; etc.
The proposed policy does not provide any guidance at all about what edits reviewers should be accepting, or the context in which they should be accepting them. While it's clear that genuine vandalism should not be accepted, it's not clear if the expectation is that any edit that is *not* vandalism of some form should be accepted. This actually requires a specific and nuanced discussion, as was identified during the last trial. We had reviewers (including several administrators) rejecting relatively non-controversial edits because they weren't accompanied by a reference, or because they had a typo in them, or because the reviewer didn't think the edit was helpful. We also saw a lot of edits rejected simply because they were made by IPs or newly registered users, in a repeat of the issues we see at Recent Changes patrol; there was nothing wrong with the edits themselves.
I would like to see Pending Changes returned in some form; however, until the policy is determined, and we address the issues that were actually identified during the trial, I cannot support its reinstatement. Risker ( talk) 04:37, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply
- Yes, too much missing or unclear information. People coming here to vote aren't being enabled to understand the question. In fact, I don't believe anyone fully understands the question. Is it about PC as an alternative to SP, or is it about using PC on pages that don't currently get SP? What numbers of PC-ed pages, and what numbers of reviewers, are we expecting? How long are we expecting it to take before changes get reviewed? (And if it's a couple of minutes, as has been suggested, then the question is begged: if there's a group of editors collectively willing and able to review all (unconfirmed users') edits to a particular group of pages within minutes, then why do those pages need any kind of protection at all? And how much is this costing in terms of the time spent on this task by these power users, who presumably would otherwise be contributing to Wikipedia in other valuable ways?)-- Victor Yus ( talk) 07:06, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I've a strong feeling PC supporters want a lot of this kept under wraps. I trust that they believe they're acting in the best interests of the encyclopedia, but I can smell the buyer's remorse. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 22:19, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Truly, everything about Pending Changes has been crooked from beginning to end. Even the bit about protecting BLPs, I don't believe. I think that once the class system is established, once we have a loyal clique of reviewers resolutely keeping discordant points of view out of articles, we're going to see a very sordid third act where these "protectors of BLPs" become the ones using articles to attack their subjects, and no one can prevent them. But of course, they'll be attacking the right people, or should I say, the left. Wnt ( talk) 19:40, 4 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Before this thread goes any farther along the track it's on, I'm (speaking for the coordinating admins) going to remind everyone to assume good faith of the people you're arguing against. Insinuating that supporters of Pending Changes are part of a conspiracy with nefarious intentions is no more helpful to the discussion than it would be for a supporter of PC to argue that a detractor is against it because they want freedom to vandalise. You're free to discuss the merits and problems of PC and people's logic in supporting or opposing it, but personally criticising other editors or assigning motivations to them is not acceptable here. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! ( talk) 21:12, 4 April 2012 (UTC) reply

To be clear, it is not my intention to suggest that they all have bad intentions. The tool will corrupt those who take charge of it, no matter who they are, and attract those who are corrupt to it. It is fundamentally a deviation from the principles the Wiki was founded on, and it will by nature work toward breaking them down. Wnt ( talk) 22:04, 6 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Like I wrote above, Jéské, this has been a textbook example of how not to change policy. Unlike Wnt, I don't think those who advocate PC are trying to deprive anyone of the ability to edit articles -- at least, not consciously. What I have seen happen here is a few think this is the perfect solution for... well, somthing -- exactly what this will solve has never been explained & proven to work to disinterested people (like me) -- & they have decided to keep pounding away at getting this adopted. -- llywrch ( talk) 20:47, 7 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Usage boundaries between pending changes lv. 1 versus semi-protection still not addressed

I remember there being discussion as to when it would be best to use Pending Changes and when it would be best to use semi-protection. The boundary isn't clear, and if this isn't addressed there's going to be a messy piecemeal system where if the admin likes PC, PC will be used, and if they don't, semi will be used. Something specific is needed. Sven Manguard Wha? 14:01, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Okay, I don't know if I can hit every point necessary here, but maybe at least I can get the ball rolling. SP is preferable to PC1 (and FP to PC2) on frequently-edited articles (pick a number, 1 edit/hour? 1/edit 10 minutes)? because things just get messy when multiple editors are queued, cognitively and otherwise.

SP is also preferable to PC (and FP to PC2), I would guess, when the type of problematic edit the protection is trying to address is not necessarily obvious from context. Vandalism that mostly consists of profanity is going to be clear to any reviewer who comes to visit, but the sorts of issues raised in cases where, to pick an example from an AfD I was just reading, the insertion of a date of birth is considered a BLP issue. There, the "Reviewer has to look at the Talk page and request in detail" is going to have a real advantage.

In my view (and I hear others dispute this, fair enough), PC1 is preferable to SP, and PC2 is preferable to FP, when these issues are not in play, because the changes an editor makes are captured, and, typically, incorporated into the encyclopedia. Such incorporation happens faster with PC than SP/FP, and no editors are pushed away by confusion about how to even *ask* to edit a semi-protected or protected article. It is, in my view, foolish to think that we don't have many editors simply walk away at the point they encounter an SP/FP article. I think PC1/PC2, problematic as they are, might actually be superior to editor retention in those cases.

Other suggestions? -- joe decker ^{talk to me} 04:06, 30 March 2012 (UTC) reply

That sounds quite reasonable - so PC1 would be used instead of SP on articles with where the problematic edits are not too frequent and are easily seen to be problematic. I still think, though, that if PC1 is to be regarded as SP with enhancements, then the reviewer right needs to be available practically to all confirmed users, otherwise those users will be shut out of editing in certain situations where at the moment they are not. I also feel that PC2 has not been discussed enough (well I'm sure it has, but I haven't seen it here). It cannot be regarded as an exact equivalent to full protection, since it allows reviewers, and not only admins, to edit (including to approve changes). And this raises the question: on what basis are the reviewers to operate in this regime? Are they supposed to act like admins in the case of full protection, and make/allow only changes that are completely uncontroversial or have demonstrated consensus? Or are they to allowed to use their own judgement as to what changes will be beneficial, as confirmed users can on a page that has semi-protection?-- Victor Yus ( talk) 08:02, 30 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I attempted to raise this issue in my support for option 3. Unfortunately, the structure of the top part of this RfC means that you are required to either support/oppose PC or explain what improvements need to be made before it is potentially workable, and most people (entirely understandably) have gone for the former option. — WFC— 14:29, 30 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Victor, With regard to your question about PC2, you're right that PC2 is not entirely comparable to FP, and I see that as a positive. I see the use case for PC2 as being articles where another careful set of eyes is used to check submissions to articles that have a history of serious problem edits (libel, attack, etc.) which which (a) are sometimes added by confirmed users and (b) are a sort of problem which is likely to be spotted by a reasonably aware reviewer. Right now, the best tool we have is FP, but really, any trusted, known editors with good judgement could identify serious problems.

To dig down into your question, I would say something closer to the latter, in that, their responsibility would be to deny edits which were clearly problematic (as libel, copyright, attack). It would be my preference that other potential problems be handled by "accept the edit, and then treat it as an editing disagreement", in other words, a reviewer who has a disagreement of benign fact (no BLP issues, etc.) would accept the change for the record, but then, if they so choose, could still act as a normal editor in taking issue with the change. I think of it as being akin to rollback in this sense. -- joe decker ^{talk to me} 18:32, 30 March 2012 (UTC) reply

For reviewers who intend to evaluate edits seriously, these policy issues are difficult problems. But for those who already make a practice of reverting a paragraph-long edit because a single supplementary source, in their opinion, is unnecessary, or because they just don't like talking about something nasty ... for them it is no problem at all. Wnt ( talk) 22:08, 6 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Victor, there are more than 7,000 people who can review edits right now. They tend to be very active editors. Although the overlap is imperfect, the top 7,000 editors make one-third of the edits to the English Wikipedia. I suspect therefore that we have a reasonable level of reviewers to handle some thousands of PC-protected articles. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 18:19, 3 April 2012 (UTC) reply

What of my alternative question then: if there are that many people capable of staying on top of that set of articles, then what's the need for protecting those articles at all? And will PC not have the unintended consequence of artificially directing an excessive proportion of those 7000 editors' working time towards a particular set of articles (and mostly handling quite minor changes to those articles), at the expense of whatever other contributions to Wikipedia they would otherwise have been making?-- Victor Yus ( talk) 06:33, 4 April 2012 (UTC) reply

I find it helpful to remember that everyone here is a volunteer who will do whatever they want to help. They are the best judge of their time, and it will take no time to ignore PC completely, especially where it's being used on 'low' traffic pages. There was also feedback before that some editors found it interesting to see different articles, and that review queues were not long. As for having too many and 'staying on top' - there is always vandalism which slips through the net, and that's where PC comes in. I think I've provided a few examples somewhere in the talk archives of really bad vandalism staying around for weeks. I spend most of my time around here finding it. To have it happen once is embarrassing; to happen twice is negligent. Anyone who thinks recent changes patrol is up to the job is mistaken. I'd also like to agree with Joe Decker's comments. I used PC1 a fair bit but PC2 only once, where there was an issue of libel. I found PC2 very helpful in that case. I found PC1 very useful on biographies with a history of trouble. I also found myself using it on a few school articles that nobody, seriously nobody was watching. And these articles needed every edit they could get. Most are probably now under permanent semi-protection and in a sad state. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 09:00, 4 April 2012 (UTC) reply

I'm not goinjg to argue that RC patrol is up to the task, but arguing that PC is better than RC patrol makes your whole argument self-contradictory because, as you point out, it will take "no time" to ignore Pending Changes - which is a problem as PC requires a far greater time commitment than RC patrol and far more dedication. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:32, 8 April 2012 (UTC) reply

I'm not sure I'm yet convinced that PC isn't a bit of smoke and mirrors (it creates the illusion of being a less restrictive version of semi-protection, whereas in fact it is more restrictive, unless you're prepared to be consistent and be ready to give the reviewer status to any confirmed user who wants it), but if it is to be used, as the voting suggests it will be, then I would certainly agree with what Joe Decker and you propose as regards the kinds of situation where it should be used.-- Victor Yus ( talk) 11:37, 4 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Implementation: Do we tack this on to RFPP or create a new request system

I recommend the first option. Sven Manguard Wha? 14:01, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I'm staying out of the actual debating this time around, but I believe I can easily answer this and it gives an opportunity to clarify an important point. The way PC was used during and after the trial, it was just another tool in the article protection suite. No new systems or noticeboards are needed to begin using it again, everything we need is still present, we just need a consensus on whether or not we are allowed to apply it. This is why the draft policy repeatedly uses the words " as with other forms of protection". The draft policy would be an addendum to WP:PP and PC would be just one of the options available to admins when reviewing requests for protection, whether made at RFPP or through other channels.. The draft policy is just that, a draft. It is not intended to be complete or perfect, it is intended to give us something to work with if the tool is approved and it is expected to be changed over time, or even right away, just like any other policy. The idea here is to make the decision to use the tool or not use it, and sort out the smaller details in the usual manner, by identifying specific issues through regular use and correcting them as we go. Beeblebrox ( talk) 16:55, 26 March 2012 (UTC) reply

My fear is that if a crap policy gets approved here, then whenever there's a proposal to change the policy in the future, even if it's supported by a clear majority of those who take an interest (which will probably be a much smaller number than the number of fly-by voters here), the minority who oppose the change will point to this vote as evidence that the "community" supports their point of view, since it has endorsed the policy as is. And the policy will remain crap (like most other Wikipedia policies I've seen).-- Victor Yus ( talk) 06:53, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I think that we should use RFPP for this - and work towards merging this into the protection policy. The idea is that PC is supposed to be a type of protection - adding this to pages is done on the protection screen (pages such as http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:Pending_changes/Request_for_Comment_2012/Discussion&action=protect), and for similar reasons to protection. Additionally, we may have a situation where the reporter thinks that protection is better and the handling admin thinks PC is, or visa versa; handling them together means that such situations are handled more neatly. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 15:56, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply

The use of Pending Changes should definitely follow most of the same procedures as semi- and full protection, including the use of the RFPP procedure, in my opinion. I hold out hope that PC will be as easy to remove as semi-protection is, which was one of the key problems with the trial period in my opinion (that Pending changes seemed to tend to "stick" to an article, unlike the way in which semi-protection tends not to "stick").
— V = IR ( Talk • Contribs) 19:23, 29 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I also support the "it's another form of protection, use the same processes" approach to any implementation of PC, RFPP included. -- joe decker ^{talk to me} 04:11, 30 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I wouldn't hold out a lot of hope for "not sticking". This is a "less than lethal weapon", to be used only as a kinder alternative to full-protection or semi-protection. Just like tasering a guy who asks a nasty question at a town hall meeting is a less-than-lethal alternative to shooting him for it. Wnt ( talk) 19:36, 4 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Ultimately, the view that you're describing here is the main reason that I oppose Pending Changes in general. If it is to be used, I sincerely hope that there are some controls put in place to limit both the breadth and depth of it's use (the number of articles and the length of time, to be clear).
— V = IR ( Talk • Contribs) 01:48, 5 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Pending Changes' use continued

When going to check the logs for average time of review, I stumbled upon this, which tells me that the consensus from the last RfC was not honored. I'd better start hearing explanations or I will take this up to the Arbitration Committee. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 19:59, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply

That is rather surprising. At present when one opens the protection interface there is a rather hard to ignore warning to not use PC, but it seems a few admins are not heeding it. I don't believe this is an issue for this RFC though, it is something that should be taken up with those admins. It looks like many of them either realized their mistake or were corrected quickly by others as well. Beeblebrox ( talk) 20:40, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Just checking: you know "reset pending changes" means turning it off, right? Almost all of those entries consist of a pair of actions: someone accidentally turning it on, followed by either self-correcting, or being corrected by others, fairly quickly. Special:StablePages shows no articles have pending changes turned on and the pending changes log you linked shows it happens, for a short time, very infrequently. -- Floquenbeam ( talk) 20:59, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I'm raising a stink over the "configured" parts of the log, not the "reset" ones. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:19, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I don't understand the outrage, then. A few people made mistakes and either realized their mistake and fixed it, or were corrected by others. No one did it twice. Are people not allowed to make mistakes without threats of ArbCom? -- Floquenbeam ( talk) 21:30, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply

A few minutes to a day is a mistake. Five ( AMP v. Persons Unknown) to 13 days ( Matt Stone) is willful disregard of the consensus. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:53, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply

"Willful disregard"? That's... not reasonable, and... well, I'll leave it at unreasonable. They both undid their mistake themselves, with notes saying it was a mistake. This really doesn't look like a big deal. -- Floquenbeam ( talk) 22:03, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply

If it was actually a mistake they would have taken them off PC far sooner than they did. There's only so far you can stretch the definition of "mistake". — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 22:22, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply

You can make a mistake without realizing you've made it. You might never correct it if it's not brought to your attention, but it was still a mistake. -- Victor Yus ( talk) 07:20, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Is this RfC really the right place to have this discussion? I don't see how it has anything to do with the current proposal or the re-implementation of PC, unless some of those articles can shed some light on whether it is effective. Everyone in the log admitted that they used PC by accident. If you feel it really requires attention, it seems like WP:ANI is a better venue than this RfC. I apologize if I am speaking out of turn. CittàDolente _{(
per me si va)} 23:50, 28 March 2012 (UTC) reply

These mountains you discuss look rather more like molehills. — Tom Morris ( talk) 20:37, 10 April 2012 (UTC) reply

I don't understand why people would agree with position 1. I understand 2 and 3, but 1 seems like flooring the issue won't be solving any of the issues. I voted on 133 for position 2. Do any of my comments have a place in this discussion? Thanks! Thepoodlechef ( talk) 22:42, 30 March 2012 (UTC) reply

If you can't understand it then I'm not going to bother trying to explain it. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 03:55, 31 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Let me clarify that statement. I'm not going to bother explaining it if you don't understand because almost everyone who has supported position 1 has given a rationale as to why they do not support it, and I myself have been MST'ing arguments from position 2. I will not claim to speak for everyone, but most of position 1's proponents support it on the same merits and arguments. If you can't understand where we come from, it's because you're not reading our arguments; thus, I'm not going to bother explaining it when reading the Position 1 arguments would be just as illuminating. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 18:41, 1 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Reopening Pending Changes Trial But On All English Wikipedia Pages

Discussion should be of the three options above; I don't mean to be a dick, but I'd rather head things off at the pass. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 04:56, 1 April 2012 (UTC) reply

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Personally, I can't make a decision on weather using PC instead of semiprotection (I guess) is better or worse because I realize that PC was only used on a few pages. If a trial on all pages was used, would that give a better judgement for people who are ignorant of its powers? Curb Chain ( talk) 02:15, 31 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Not going to happen as that crosses the line into Flagged Revisions. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 03:54, 31 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Importance of IP users

This essay by Aaron Swartz makes good reading. It suggests that the significance of IPs has been greatly underestimated by Wikipedians. Schemes to marginalize them from broad classes of editing should not be accepted. Wnt ( talk) 22:14, 6 April 2012 (UTC) reply

It isn't IP users (unregistered users) that PC would marginalize, since they're already excluded by SP. The ones it would marginalize, to some extent, is the confirmed users who are not reviewers, since in some circumstances their edits are now going to be subject to a reviewer's good grace, whereas they wouldn't be under SP. (Though in any case any edit anyone ever makes is liable to be reverted by someone, even if you're Mr Wales himself, so I wouldn't dramatize this issue too much.)-- Victor Yus ( talk) 09:27, 7 April 2012 (UTC) reply

They're only excluded by SP if only SP articles are converted to PC. But every time a PC supporter says that the scheme "will help reduce vandalism and BLP violations" they are saying that PC will be applied to additional articles.

While the effect of deleting the edit may be similar to reversion, PC differs from reversion in that there is no tendency for inaction to leave the IP's work alone, or to consider removing only part of it that he disagrees with (as any reverter should) - rather, the reviewer can safely reject without comment, or accept at risk of being accused of misdeeds or even libel over anything the person said. Wnt ( talk) 16:23, 7 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Wikipedia editors are not responsible for this. WP:OFFICE is. Curb Chain ( talk) 01:27, 15 April 2012 (UTC) reply

I think some of you don't realize that PC level 1 is virtually the same as SP as it still allows confirmed editors to edit without approval but the IPs can only push an edit with the approval of a reviewer like myself. It PC level 2 where confirmed and IP users can only edit with the approval of a reviewer. PC + SP means that only confirmed users can edit with the approval of a reviewer while IPs cannot. I also believe that PC will only be placed on an article that have continuous issues such as persistent vandalism from IPs where PC level 1 is warranted or edit warring or content disputes where PC level 2 is warranted or targeted consistent vandalism where SP + PC level 2 would be warranted. I hope I wasn't making a redundant statement here.— cyberpower ^Chat_Online 22:19, 15 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Bullshit. PC level 1 is not "virtually the same as SP" because it allows IPs to edit (and still vandalize) the article, thus wasting reviewers' time which could be better spent editing articles to improve them. It's far worse at stopping vandalism than SP, which is barely capable of doing so as is. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 07:08, 16 April 2012 (UTC) reply

And as I keep on saying without it apparently getting through to people, PC1 is also not the same as SP because, if there are unconfirmed users' edits in the queue, it does not allow confirmed editors to edit. Victor Yus ( talk) 07:20, 16 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Huh? Where did you get that idea? I don't believe that is true. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 17:14, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

I believe this is correct, at least this is how it works in other projects.-- Ymblanter ( talk) 17:35, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

(After edit conflict, replying to WhatamIdoing, not sure who Ymblanter is agreeing with.) Is it not? Enlighten me then. How can I edit the page if there are IP edits awaiting approval? (I mean in the strong sense rather than the weak one; I know I can still submit edits, but I don't believe I can instantly update the current public version of the page in that situation without a reviewer's approval - as I would be able to do under SP.) Victor Yus ( talk) 17:39, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

I agree with you, Victor Yus. You will still be able to submit edits, but these would only become visible after review.-- Ymblanter ( talk) 17:47, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Replace semiprotection with PC?

Something that crossed my mind was replacing semiprotection with pending changes? That way vandals would be kept out and good edits allowed. Zaminamina ( talk) 11:55, 8 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Semi-protection is moreover a further step in protection. It prevents all edits from being made to the article if by an unregistered or non-confirmed user. Removing semi-protection in favor of pending changes is a very testy decision, as it places more weight on the reviewers and administrators that monitor pending changes. Although I do endorse position #2, I firmly believe that semi-protection is also a very good idea for protection, and its been working for the past several years. Any editor who is willing to make a good faith edit can request to do so on the talk page. Semi-protection should be kept as a further level of protection, rather than it being replaced. -- Michaelzeng7 ( talk - contribs) 13:55, 8 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Semiprotection is useless against a determined vandal. Pending changes even moreso since, even though the edit was prevented from being seen, they've succeeded in getting someone to see it, which for hit-and-run vandals is the entire point. Not to mention a /b/ raid on a PC article will annihilate Pending Changes on that article since there's no way a reviewer can keep up with the volume of edits. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:29, 8 April 2012 (UTC) reply

I don't think vandals are motivated by the idea that someone will see their vandalism. I think they want the world or someone they know to see it. But in any case, why they are doing it is beside the point. PC can stop vandalism from being visible to the public. If the price of that is satisfying the vandal by looking at their vandalism, sobeit. FormerIP ( talk) 21:58, 8 April 2012 (UTC) reply

If I placed myself in the shoes of a vandal, I would say that I vandalized Wikipedia for the fun of it, or as a joke to trick a friend or foe, whatever. Pending changes makes it impossible (almost) for the vandalism to be made public. So, the fun is then spoiled. But a vandal can however, target the vandalism directly at the reviewers, which, depending on how severe the vandalism is, can lead to that user's blocking or perhaps semi-protection of the page. All another reason to keep semi-protection. -- Michaelzeng7 ( talk - contribs) 22:36, 8 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Absolutely. If we have no easy step up from PC, then we will have a problem sooner or later. FormerIP ( talk) 23:33, 8 April 2012 (UTC) reply

This theory neatly explains why we see large quantities of vandalism using {{ editprotected}} and {{ edit semi-protected}}! — Tom Morris ( talk) 20:40, 10 April 2012 (UTC) reply

We could always start off with pending changes protection however vandalism is targeted at the reviewer pending changes protection can be upped to semiprotection.— cyberpower ^Chat_Online 00:43, 15 April 2012 (UTC) reply

What happens with queued changes from non-reviewers when a reviewer approves/disapproves an IP/new edit?

OK. As I understand it, edits will queue up from non-reviewers if an IP/new edit has done an edit on a PC1 page. Let's say I'm a non-reviewer who has done an edit to a section of a PC1 page after an IP has edited that section. Two closely related questions:

Assuming that a reviewer approves the IP's edit, what happens to my edit? Does it immediately go into effect, or does the reviewer get to decide whether it goes through?
Say the reviewer did not approve of the IP's edit. What happens to my edit?

Thanks! Allens ( talk | contribs) 23:20, 8 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Oi, could someone knowledgable answer Allens? — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 00:14, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Help:Pending changes. You need to think it terms of the latest revision, which is pretty much the only one that matters for review, which has been edited by you both. Either you continue to include the IPs edits in the reviewed version, or you edit them out yourself like you normally would. To reject an edit you basically just undo it. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 00:36, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

That answer's a bit confusing, but I assume that as from "Either..." the word "you" begins to refer to the reviewer instead of the questioner. So the answer seems to be that it depends how diligent/lazy the reviewer is. If the confirmed user's edit is blocking the undoing of an IP edit, then it might get rejected just because the reviewer doesn't have the time to fiddle with the text manually. Victor Yus ( talk) 06:27, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Incidentally, at Help:Pending changes, it says "Reviewers accept or fix the latest version of a page; they rarely check all intervening changes." Regardless of whether this is a descriptive or prescriptive statement, it seems rather worrying, doesn't it? Victor Yus ( talk) 06:36, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Intervening changes are often ignored, and that's fine - what matters when reviewing is only the difference between the latest accepted revision of the article and latest revision - as anyone dealing with a 4chan vandalism raid will tell you. If it doesn't contain vandalism the latest revision will probably get accepted - either by yourself as a editor and reviewer, or by another watching the article, or another attracted by the review request. On your other question, it really is the same as using the 'undo' button and you need to give the same reasons. If there's a blocking edit for the 'undo' then it gets fixed manually the same as currently happens. And yes, if your revision contains the IP's vandalism then it'll wait until someone can come along and fix it. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 07:59, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

(The IP's vandalism or the IP's perfectly good edit; my edit will have to wait anyway, which is why PC is not just semi-protection with bells as some people seem to think.) OK so this is starting to make more sense; a good modus operandi for the reviewer is: look at the diff for the current vs. last accepted version, if all the changes are OK then accept the current version, if none of the changes are OK then revert back to the last accepted version, and if some are OK but some are not then get your hands dirty. I presume all this will be (or is) documented somewhere. Of course out-and-out vandalism will presumably not be the only reason for rejecting changes (particularly in light of the reviewer's possible legal liability), anything potentially defamatory will have to go as well, I imagine.-- Victor Yus ( talk) 09:41, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Is it really the same as using "undo" - as in I'll know about it if I've watchlisted the page? Or do rejected edits not show up on the watchlist? Allens ( talk | contribs) 10:56, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

I'm pretty sure they show up in watchlists, just as pending edits show up anyway for logged-on editors when they view the article.-- Victor Yus ( talk) 11:10, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

A question on liability

Has anyone done an analysis of the potential liability issues where, as will inevitably happen, defamatory content gets past reviewers? Thinking out loud, I would be of the preliminary view that where an editor puts up his own edit Wikipedia should be entitled, in EU law, to avail of the hosting exemption provided by Article 14 of the E-Commerce Directive 2000/31/EC and as no reviewer contributed to putting up the information no liability should attach to a reviewer. On the other hand where information can only be put up by being reviewed by a person granted priviliges to do so by the community I suspect that issues could arise. This is by no means a fully formed view, I am just wondering if the analysis has been done. FrankFlanagan ( talk) 20:36, 11 April 2012 (UTC) 22:34, 11 April 2012 (UTC) reply

The then-Foundation lawyer, Mike Godwin, posted a comment in 2009 about whether a reviewer could be held legally liable for approving an edit here. Essentially it's possible but no-one really knows. Hut 8.5 17:56, 12 April 2012 (UTC) reply

I pointed this out above in one of my bullets arguing against Position 2. Also Wikipedia is hosted in the United States and would fall under that set of laws, as opposed to the European Union's. (This would not prevent European reviewers from potentially getting in trouble, mind.) — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 18:58, 12 April 2012 (UTC) reply

For an overview of some of the issues see chapter 3 of Caution! You are now exercising editorial control. I note, by way of example, that an Italian court has handed down suspended jail sentences to US based Google executives, although it is understood that that case is under appeal, see Google bosses convicted in Italy. FrankFlanagan ( talk) 21:04, 12 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Surely this is a fundamental issue which needs a clear answer. Would it really be advisable for any editor based in Europe to ok a pending change, with the risk of personal legal consequences if it turns out to be well-crafted but malign? (Possibly even more so in the UK, with its parade of well-heeled libel-shoppers parading through the London courts.) AllyD ( talk) 20:56, 13 April 2012 (UTC) reply

For a current court case regarding Wikipedia edits, see [3]. -- J N 466 12:00, 13 April 2012 (UTC) reply
- A very strong argument in favour of making absolutely sure opinions are clearly stated as opinions of a particular source, rather then the current practice of "anything goes" on many articles. Particularly ones which attract POV editors at all, including political, religious, economic etc. articles. Where doubt exists, use direct quotations from the source on anything contentious. The case given was, of course, egregious. Collect ( talk) 12:38, 13 April 2012 (UTC) reply

- All editors are totally legally responsible for any additions of content they make to En Wikipedia. - as a reviewer and it is not your suggestion only your review you will be responsible but you will have a degree of mitigation to limit your responsibility. - At present legal charges against en wikipedia editors are at a minimal level - For the simple reviewing of basic desired edits such issues/worries will be IMO irrelevant. Youreally can 21:46, 13 April 2012 (UTC) reply

<sarcasm> The kind of authoritative legal advice we are getting here will surely have put everyone's mind at rest. Onward! </sarcasm> Victor Yus ( talk) 07:24, 16 April 2012 (UTC) reply

If you want an authoritative answer for your particular situation, then hire your own lawyer. Alternatively, don't volunteer to review other people's edits. Nobody's forcing you to do so, after all. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 17:21, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

I certainly have no intention of doing so. But I think we would (or should) all be somewhat concerned at the prospect that some of our fellow volunteers might be unwittingly exposing themselves to legal liability despite having only the best intentions for the project. We must at least ensure that anyone who is made a reviewer is consciously aware of the legal situation (or rather, of the fact that no one is sure what the legal situation is). But then there's still a problem since reviewers who are aware of this issue are going to be reluctant to approve edits that are in any way potentially defamatory, leading to a lot of "negative" information being excluded from the encyclopedia, giving it an undesirable bias in favour of its subjects... -- Victor Yus ( talk) 17:31, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

So you have no intention of reviewing any edits but you are worried that ... users will be "reluctant to approve edits that are in any way potentially defamatory," - good - all users should be at that point anyway - Negative is in the eye of the beholder. - All truly notable details will be unaffected - You say, "or rather, of the fact that no one is sure what the legal situation is" - The clear and already stated in the foundations legal declarations is that all users are completely legally responsible for all additions of content they make to this project - that clearly will include accepting reviews - you would have a degree of mitigation from a review edit that would limit your legal responsibility for those reviewed additions. Youreally can 17:40, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Problem is that some truly notable details are potentially defamatory. We want to say bad things about people sometimes, because our readers will be given a distorted or incomplete picture if we omit them (there's no pressure to exclude "positive" details, after all). But a reviewer (who likely will not be initimately familiar with the subject or the sources, will likely not have time to look into the matter in detail, and will be or ought to be worried about his/her own personal legal position) is going to feel under excessive pressure to reject such information, just to be on the safe side. Victor Yus ( talk) 17:52, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Yes, you are correctly stating the benefits of Pending changes. - An addition in clear responsibility for what are currently mostly anonymous editors. Youreally can 18:04, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Sorry, but that's an excellent argument against pending changes - causing people to be reluctant to approve the posting of true information just because it happens to be defamatory. Allens ( talk | contribs) 18:22, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

We can agree to differ. My position is that defamatory or potentially defamatory content should clearly be discussed and consensus resolved on the talkpage, so, no reviewer should ever add such content - such an addition is basically beyond a reviewers remit or responsibility - they should simply refuse to accept it and open a discussion on the talkpage to seek WP:Consensus - Youreally can 18:27, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Certainly we can agree to differ, but I believe I'm backed up by WP policy. Currently, policy as I understand it - which will not be changed by PC - is that encyclopedaic information that's backed up with references gets published, and removing such true information is a type of vandalism. No consensus is needed to add true, relevant, encyclopedaic information, whether it's "defamatory" or not. And if reviewers should be reluctant to add "defamatory" information, then to keep things NPOV, they need to be equally reluctant to accept positive information. No assumption should be made that "defamatory" information is less likely to be true, relevant, or encyclopediaic; doing otherwise violates NPOV. Allens ( talk | contribs) 18:41, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Umm... if the information is correct and well-backed-up, then defamatory material should certainly be published, with no reluctance, as should favorable material of which the same is true - and if material is not correct and thus not well-backed-up, then it should not be published, whether it is defamatory or favorable. (I'm less worried about unimportant material that is neither defamatory nor favorable, although it is certainly preferable if it is correct and well-backed-up.) That includes "defamatory" - and "favorable" - material that someone else may decide is not "notable", as long as it's backed up sufficiently to establish that it is indeed notable by Wikipedia standards.

Admittedly, in this case, anyone who edited the article after a piece of what a court decided was illegally "defamatory" material was added could probably be sued - not just a reviewer - since they do have a chance to revert such material... Allens ( talk | contribs) 17:56, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Not according to my fathers expensive lawyer - As an unpaid and unprofessional volunteer, if you edit an article and there is defamation in the article and you don't remove it you are in no way responsible. You are legally responsible for all your additions of content - A case could also be made against a Wiki user that was repeatedly removing content from a BLP if that removal portrayed the subject in a defamatory/undue negative light. Youreally can 18:04, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Is Daddy's expensive lawyer knowledgeable about defamation laws? If he's not, he shouldn't be offering an opinion. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 04:06, 19 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Encouraging editors, not discouraging them

Sorry for the new section, but since section editing of this article is limited, I can't find in the sea of plain text where the mention of "if this type of thing had been in place when I started editing, I wouldn't have started editing." I concur. In fact, the authoritarian acts already put in place have caused me to limit my Wikipedia participation to little more than fixing typos and modern-day pitiful grammar errors that keep me from actually reading the article.

I also have some experience in administratorship, being one of the first "supervisors" of WikiAnswers. Those in authority are not objective, because they're human. Disagreeing with the information will result in legitimate edits being removed. It is happening now. Pending Changes will only make the situation worse, allowing admins even greater power to maintain control without accountability. -- Joe Sewell ( talk) 17:07, 16 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Just for clarity's sake it should be stated that while admins will be the ones to apply PC to articles, any autoconfirmed user may accept edits under level one PC and anyone with the reviewer right may accept edits at level two. Beeblebrox ( talk) 02:20, 18 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Wow, really? So the table at WP:Pending changes, that says that (auto)confirmed users can "edit" but cannot accept under level 1 PC, is incorrect? Victor Yus ( talk) 06:53, 18 April 2012 (UTC) reply

I think you are viewing this a little to much as "a means to control", and to little as "a solution to a problem". The concerns you raise regarding the acceptance of edits are definitely valid, but is the current situation really that different from the situation afterwards? A few editors can technically gang-up and edit war an article to a preferred state or clog any discussion with a mass of red tape in order to maintain their preferred version. Pending changes won't really change this that much.

No, the real change that PC would bring is that there would be some way to allow editors to edit a normally inaccessible page. At times a page simply needs to be protected, and while this works it is a bit akin to carpet bombing al (new) editors who may actually be working productively. Were PC to be used it would allow those users to edit. That being said PC is not some kind of tool that is to be used liberally. Instead, it should only be used when there is a valid reason to place it, and those reasons (as far as i am concerned) are the same as the reasons that would otherwise result in the aforementioned carpet bombing of the same page. Excirial^{(
Contact me,
Contribs)} 20:58, 19 April 2012 (UTC) reply

You seem to be making the same error of reasoning (I assume it to be an error, since people go strangely quiet when they're asked to confirm that they know what they're on about) as several other PC supporters here. You say PC would "allow editors to edit a normally inaccessible page". In one sense of the word "edit", yes. But in the more meaningful sense (i.e. the ability to change the public Wikipedia article with immediate effect), PC actually has (compared with semi-protection) the reverse effect; it can prevent editors from editing a normally accessible page. Given that even the more (presumably) informed supporters of PC seem not to have realized this basic fact, one wonders how many of the drop-by-and-vote supporters are aware of it. And consequently how much validity can be attached to this vote, given that many users are at least partly unaware of what they are voting for.-- Victor Yus ( talk) 06:40, 20 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Your comment is somewhat vague, so i fear i have to guess what you are referring to. Seeing your comment a bit further up I gamble that you are referring to a hypothetical case where a page is protected PC protection level 1? And in specific a situation where an unreviewed edit has been made (but not accepted), while a confirmed user subsequently edits the page? And i assume that the concern is that the edit made by the confirmed user is not visible immediately and has to be reviewed, whereas it would be visible immediately when the page would have been protected trough a semi protection instead? Excirial^{(
Contact me,
Contribs)} 15:07, 20 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Correct. Victor Yus ( talk) 15:25, 20 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Ok granted, that is a valid concern and it is indeed something i considered as well. What i personally believe is that PC1 and PC2 are just another two tools in the vandalism-prevention belt, and like every tool they have their strengths and weaknesses. In some cases you would therefor use a specific tool while evading another ones like the plague as they are not effective, cumbersome or otherwise inappropriate. PC1 is ideal for situations where there is a mix between good and bad faith new editors, since semi protection would effectively cancel out both sets. Of course the situation above is unfortunate, but if PC1 is applied correctly the benefit of allowing everyone to edit should outweigh the drawback for confirmed users. And of course, there should not be a great deal of protected pages in the first place. As proposal 2 says: "As with other forms of protection, PC should not be used preemptively." Excirial^{(
Contact me,
Contribs)} 18:38, 20 April 2012 (UTC) reply

I agree that this is about weighing up pluses and minuses and appreciate that people might weigh them differently, but I'm still not persuaded that the "benefit of allowing everyone to edit" really outweighs the drawback I've pointed out (and I don't think the voters have properly been made aware of that drawback, which means they will not have done the weighing at all). When you say "allowing everyone to edit" you really only mean allowing them to submit edits using a more convenient interface (and not actually to make changes); and notice too that the text that they are allowed to "edit" will often not correspond to the article as they see it, which must surely be confusing. Add this to the inevitable increased bureaucracy and time-wasting squabbles about who should and should not be allowed to be a reviewer, and the many resolutely unanswered questions about how the policy is supposed to operate, and I'm still getting more minuses than pluses over the whole scheme.-- Victor Yus ( talk) 09:13, 21 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Interaction with anti-vandalism bots, STiki?

How is this going to (if it passes) interact with anti-vandalism bots and tools like STiki? Will reviewers have to be dealing with vandalism that a bot or someone using STiki would have dealt with otherwise? Allens ( talk | contribs) 11:04, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Thank you; that is informative. Allens ( talk | contribs) 18:44, 17 April 2012 (UTC) reply

The Encyclopedia That "Anyone Can Edit"

I don't see much of a problem with Pending Changes because the concept that "anyone" can do much of anything on Wikipedia without running afoul of countless policies rigidly defended by acronym-hurling editors strikes me as being just a little like "wishful thinking." Arcanicus ( talk) 07:39, 21 April 2012 (UTC) reply

When will this RfC be closed?

Is there a deadline? And if it has passed, who would close this RfC and write a conclusion? I've send a message to User:Beeblebrox, the creator of this RfC. Cheers, theFace 20:11, 21 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Oh wait... didn't knew there was also a talk page (another discussion page). See here: Wikipedia talk:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012#Closure of this RfC. Cheers, theFace 09:23, 22 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Deadline set: 22 May 2012. [5] [6] - theFace 18:46, 28 April 2012 (UTC) reply

A poorly designed and unsupported feature

I think it should be made more clear that this extension is significantly different than the Flagged Revisions extension as enabled on other large Wikipedias. One of the misunderstandings here is that we know the impact of the feature on editing activity because it is used on all articles on German, Polish, Russian and other Wikipedias. However, the last time the developers looked at this feature (I know, I asked them) they said that Pending Changes is so different that it should be forked into its own codebase. Enabling a feature that is poorly supported and untested (for how this proposal says it should be used) while the Foundation is tied up working on new feature enhancements like New Page Triage is a very bad idea in my opinion. Even if there are no new bugs, this convoluted piece of software really needs a makeover that it is unlikely to get. Steven Walling • talk 01:56, 30 April 2012 (UTC) reply

I'm just going to jump in and elucidate on what Steven said here. I'm not sure which developers he spoke to, but I recently had a conversation with Terry Chay, our new Director of Features Engineering (who comes here from Automattic/Wordpress. Great guy!) to brief him on this software. He has confirmed he will, regardless of what is happening with New Page Triage, probably be able to dedicate resources to upgrading the codebase. As for "unsupported"; the Foundation is supporting pending changes. The Foundation has always supported pending changes. Right back in November 2010 we promised that if the community asked for it to be switched on, we'd bring it up to date and develop it as any other feature. If anyone has further questions on it, please feel free to ping me, and I can pass them on to the staffers who will be directly working on this software. Okeyes (WMF) ( talk) 06:56, 1 May 2012 (UTC) reply

I'm personally interested in possibly mixing the workflow required with Pending Changes into the workflow of the curation toolbar part of the New Page Triage system. A year and a half ago I did a second level design pass on the feature, and it has a lot of rough edges which might be smoothed out. However, I'm not sure when we'll have resources to devote to improving the feature rather than maintaining it.-- Jorm (WMF) ( talk) 03:50, 2 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Can you tell us how PC differs from FR? I thought PC was just FR made to be enabled at the individual page level. Victor Yus ( talk) 05:48, 30 April 2012 (UTC) reply

The two bear very little resemblance in the underlying code (and not much resemblance in their actions, for that matter). The complexity of the code is part of the reason that it works so ineffectively on large articles. Risker ( talk) 05:57, 30 April 2012 (UTC) reply

This is not correct. The slowness is caused by how Parser works. Any "default page version is X" extension will suffer from this. Aaron Schulz 03:55, 3 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Thanks but I still don't get it. From my experience with FR on other projects, and my reading of the description of PC on this one, it just seems to me that their actions are practically identical (except that PC can be enabled per-page). Is there some place I can read about the differences? Victor Yus ( talk) 06:02, 30 April 2012 (UTC) reply

FR is a possibility to patrol every edit or every group of edits(in contrast to partol only new articles, as it is now) . Those edits may remain visible or remain hidden before they get patrolled (on most, or on almost all articles in German and Russian Wikipedias they remain visible). PC is something completely different, it is just a possibility to screen new revisions on a (small) subset of articles until those will be reviewed/patrolled/whatever. I agree with Steven that FR are way better, on the other hand, given the situation and the unwillingness of the developers to work further on the code until something gets implemented, I am pretty certain that if PC gets voted down now, we will never have a chance to implement FR (which is really needed). This is why I voted for PC as at least a step in a good direction.-- Ymblanter ( talk) 07:36, 30 April 2012 (UTC) reply

I'm sure it's just the sun affecting me, but I still fail to understand. What's the substantial difference (except with regard to the set of articles affected) between "edits remaining hidden before they get patrolled" (one of the FR options) and "new revisions being screened until they are reviewed" (PC)? As I read it, you've simply described the same scenario using different words. -- Victor Yus ( talk) 08:54, 30 April 2012 (UTC) reply

For FR, it is just one option and in my opinion not the most useful one. If this option is selected than there is indeed little practical difference between FR and PC. (In FRs I used to work with in this case the edits were hidden by default, and a reader always had an option to look at them, but this is a technical detail).-- Ymblanter ( talk) 09:01, 30 April 2012 (UTC) reply

So what you would like to see would be a system where all new edits (by unconfirmed users? on all pages or just selected ones?) were marked for patrol, but would still be immediately visible to the world (except on selected pages?) Sounds not a bad idea; but if it already exists in the form of FR, then I don't understand the need to vote for PC - why encourage the developers to turn their attention to a tool that you consider inferior to something that already exists? Victor Yus ( talk) 09:28, 30 April 2012 (UTC) reply

Yes, my favorit version of FR is when all edits of autopatrolled users are marked as patrolled automatically (similarly to how it is done now with new articles), and edits of non-autopatrolled users do not get marked but are still visible (possibly with the exception of a very few sensitive articles, like a recently died celebrity, or the articles which are now semiprotected), but any reviewer can mark any edit as patrolled. Since a large portion of the down votes of this poll is coming from the users who oppose ANY changes on the basis they introduce inequality of editors, I believe in the given situation FR do not stand any chance, and we should go for the PC and gradually arrive to FR. Otherwise we are stuck in the situation when no tool is introduced at all, and the tool is badly needed. -- Ymblanter ( talk) 09:36, 30 April 2012 (UTC) reply

You're ignoring the fact that membership growth is anemic at best. en.wp would grind to a halt were FR to be introduced. We aren't de.wp; the cultures are different and what works in one place is unsuitable for the other. Considering we have ~3,000K articles and only about 32K active users any given month, how the hell are you going to fill in the considerable gap? — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 07:39, 3 May 2012 (UTC) reply

No, I am not ignoring anything, I have an extended first-hand experience. If the non-patrolled changes are visible, for the reader there is absolutely no difference whether they are patrolled or not. The difference is for editors, and the world will not go down even if they do not get patrolled systematically and the backlog grows. It is just a tool for our convenience to better organize the vandal fighting work. It can be organized by different means, just to give an example. Many of us watch articles we never created or considerably edited just to make sure there are no vandal edits or good-faith inappropriate edits (such as breaking templates). Right now, if I see, for example, in my watchlist, that the article has been edited by an IP, I need to go to the article and check what actually has been done. In 80% cases, this is a good-faith edit. If FR have been implemented, and I have a reviewer flag (which I am eligible for with my contribution), then I also see whether the edit has been marked by another reviewer as reviewed. If it was, I know there is no vandalism or major problems. If it was not, I would better go and look at the article, and then mark the edit as reviewed. Otherwise, one can make lists on non-reviewed articles (some of the lists are actually automatically generated similarly to WP:NPP) and distribute attention, choosing, for example, the oldest unreviewed edits. Even if nobody is doing this, we are not actually losing anything, and nothing changes for the readers. The only drawback I see, based on my own experience, that some people start perceiving this as a competition, and try to review as many articles per month as they can, with the understandable quality drop. But this kind of things we have everywhere.-- Ymblanter ( talk) 07:54, 3 May 2012 (UTC) reply

No, Ymblanter, you are. As the main clamoring has been "Think of the biographies of living persons!", as is evident from the supporters of Position 2, readers will see the last approved revision, not the present one. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 17:35, 3 May 2012 (UTC) reply

This is up to community to decide, not up to you alone.-- Ymblanter ( talk) 17:52, 3 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Seriously, Ymblanter, think about it. If the goal is to reduce the amount of time a damaging revision on a BLP is visible, then it's counterproductive to allow revisions that still need to be reviewed to be visible to the general public. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 18:01, 3 May 2012 (UTC) reply

In this hypothetical situation, Jéské Couriano, which we are not even close to at this point, I will be advocating to make the vast majority of unreviewed edits to be visible, and only a small minority, in a limited subset of sensitive BLP or otherwise sensitive articles, to be hidden.-- Ymblanter ( talk) 18:17, 3 May 2012 (UTC) reply

To be clear, however, the de.wp FR allows any editor with just 300 edits to review, whereas in PC reviewership is a prize plum to be handed out and taken away by admins depending on their political opinion of the would-be reviewer. Wnt ( talk) 17:24, 30 April 2012 (UTC) reply

The ru.wp FR flag is also given out by admins after a public discussion. It is all up to the community.-- Ymblanter ( talk) 17:41, 30 April 2012 (UTC) reply

More barriers like admin approval, less people are available to check the revisions. According to ru:Special:Statistics, there are 850,222 articles and 12,468 active users on the Russian Wikipedia, and by ru:Special:ValidationStatistics, there are still 111,355 outdated articles (most of them having over several dozen pending revisions) for the attention of a total of 1289 reviewers (including admins). The average review time is 168 days, with extreme cases going over 750 days (for example, ru:Vehicle registration plates of Russia currently has 138 unchecked revisions which are pending review since October 2010). I fail to understand how English Wikipedia is supposed to perform substantially better with 20 times as much registered users, 12 times as much active users, 10 times as much total edits, 5 times as much articles, and only 5 times as much reviewers and administrators, according to Special:Statistics. -- Dmitry _{(
talk•
contibs)} 23:25, 3 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Just in case - you are aware that PC on en.wiki isn't intended to be applied to every single article we have? And that it is instead a tool to complement our current protection policy by providing an alternative to either semi or fully protecting an article? Only a fraction of the 4 million article's we have is protected, and not every protection will be a PC variety. Even if we would decide to PC every single BLP we have we wouldn't even be close to the amount of protected pages the russian wiki has. Excirial^{(
Contact me,
Contribs)} 22:08, 4 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Just to clarify: that's exactly how Russian Wikipedia currently uses PC. It's enabled on featured and other high-traffic articles, not all articles. Maryana (WMF) ( talk) 22:05, 7 May 2012 (UTC) reply

The "average review time" of 168 is for pages that are currently pending review. The percentile table gives a better view of what to expect for a typical edit (for anons at least). The former number gravitates towards outliers and is thus larger. In any case, a month is still ridiculous as a review time. Aaron Schulz 05:16, 6 May 2012 (UTC) reply

A reduction of the workload still won't make bad design any better. Have you ever tried to check a several dozen independent revisions in the edit history, especially when heavy changes are being made in small batches, as most editors are accustomed to? Most of the time it's easier to just edit the recent version than to check the intermediate revisions either individually or as a whole. A reduction in the number of pages might alleviate the review time, but as it is currently designed, the review process is still tedious and error-prone. -- Dmitry _{(
talk•
contibs)} 10:00, 8 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Huh? Did you mean to reply to Excirial? Aaron Schulz 12:44, 9 May 2012 (UTC) reply

My presentation for Wikimania 2012

In this presentation I pointed out 5 advantages of Flagged Revisions & 2 advantages of Protection Policy. -- Николай95 ( talk) 18:07, 5 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Taking an overview

I'm an experienced editor with little knowledge of Wikipedia innards, technical or administrative, and only took an interest in PC by accident. That "objectivity" is either good or bad, I dunno. In order to decide I read thru this whole page (and others) and saw obvious categories of argument. Valid points are being made by people who:

Oppose PC on moral grounds, in that it fundamentally violates Wikipedia's mission
Oppose PC on process and/or tech grounds, as functionally worse than status quo
Provisionally Support PC, if tweaks to policy and/or technology are made
Support PC as proposed, if flawed, as functionally better than status quo
Support PC on moral grounds, even long overdue to improve Wikipedia

The poorest arguments, well meaning or not, seem to be centered on:

appeals to real or perceived breaches of trust during the trial period
claims to unverified/unverifiable insider knowledge about the tool or developers
complaints about whether Wikimedia is competent or has enough staff
didn't read the proposals correctly before commenting, pro or con

Don't forget a potentially large number who:

Are confused because they read this for hours and got tired before voting <- almost me

After this thinking, it seems that implementing PC solves vandalism problems while opening routes for new users to edit pages currently locked by PP. Worries about PC flaws seem overly blown. I'll vote above and look away, sorry in advance if this causes more yelling. -- Ultracobalt ( talk)

While you are correct that PC theoretically gives editors new routes to edit protected articles, I believe that there is concern that with PC, far more articles will be protected. Right now, an auto-confirmed editor (i.e., an registered editor after 4 days and 10 edits) can edit almost any article since very few articles have full protection. People believe that PC level 2 protection will be utilized far more frequently than full protection is currently used.

I like your analysis of the arguments, but I think that there is one more that you should consider -- bureaucratization. Why should we create two new levels of protection, and a new class of users (e.g., reviewers)? Wikipedia already has a quagmire of policies. PC effects me personally. I am regular editor of Wikipedia articles, but I have no interest in being an administrator. I want to edit article, not enforce policies or gain status. However, I could easily envision a situation where most controversial articles have PC2 status, and if you are not a reviewer, you cannot directly edit them. See my alternative idea which I propose below. Debbie W. 12:04, 8 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Your idea below is a no-go since it has already been vetoed by the Foundation.-- Ymblanter ( talk) 12:17, 8 May 2012 (UTC) reply

I disagree with that decision, but I am curious to know what their motivation was for nixing this idea. Do you have a link to their decision? Debbie W. 04:47, 9 May 2012 (UTC) reply

You do not need to be an administrator to have unfettered, immediate editing of any articles under PC protection. The PC reviewer flag has been handed out liberally, much like the rollbacker flag. Unless your block log is as long as your arm, you can pretty much get it by asking any admin nicely. Last I checked, nearly 6,000 people had done just that.

By contrast, in the case of a page protected—right now, today, under the non-PC system—to stop vandalism by autoconfirmed socks, you would have to be an admin, because there's no way to stop such vandalism without resorting to full protection. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 15:48, 8 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Thank you for responsing to my concerns. However, based on my own experiences, and the article IPs are human, autoconfirmed vandals are fairly uncommon. Roughly 20% of IP editting is vandalism, whereas 2-3% of registered editting is vandalism. I don't have any hard stats on it, but I expect that the rate of vandalism by autoconfirmed users is even lower than that of registered users, with most registered-user vandalism being among people who just signed up. Although I'm not an admin, in the event that I do see an autoconfirmed user making non-contructive edits, I can undo their changes. If they continue, I can report them on one of the noticeboards. I know that I can get reviewer status if I want it, but I disagree with the concept of it, and I disagree with the expansion of article protection. Article protection violates the fundamental idea that anyone can edit articles, and should only be used in rare circumstances where the problem is severe edit disputes, and not violations of Wikipedia policy. Debbie W. 04:47, 9 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Debbie, when I say Grawp, what immediately comes to mind? — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:57, 9 May 2012 (UTC) reply

I will say this much; there are certain types of vandalism which have to be undone by admins. Grawp is one such example, MascotGuy is another (and as of now, he doesn't even need to get autoconfirmed status to do what he usually does), and there are plenty of people who create lovely pages as John R. Niggerlover which have to be deleted and in some cases revision deleted. So while the vast majority of vandalism can be undone by just about anyone, there are certain types that require admin tools; I hope that sheds some light on the matter. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 02:40, 11 May 2012 (UTC) reply

You make a very good point about certain types of vandalism only being undoable by administrators. How does PC affect these situations? Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm thinking that PC would not prevent a long-term abuser from creating a nonsensical Wikipedia article or from harassing other users. Debbie W. 04:46, 12 May 2012 (UTC) reply

PC affects those situations by causing an escalation of misbehavior aimed at making PC unworkable or an active detriment to an article, such as masses of tiny edits coordinated off-wiki (4chan en generale) or cheating PC by editing first with an IP, then making a null edit with an autocon-buster. I mentioned Grawp specifically because his MO has evolved to a point where no matter what we introduce as an antivandal measure, he'll exploit its flaws. (He did this in the trial with Park51.) — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 19:45, 14 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Debbie didn't really start editing until last summer, and so probably doesn't know anything about Grawp. She has also just been blocked for systematic copyvios, so we should not expect a response.

On a side note, I wonder how well we'll do at identifying and rejecting copyvios under PC. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 20:00, 15 May 2012 (UTC) reply

I don't foresee Pending Changes being much better than the status quo at ferreting out copyvios or close paraphrasing since PC can't be preemptively applied to pages that are yet to be. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 22:21, 19 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Alternative proposal

Not a discussion of the options above. The place for this discussion would probably be either WP:VPP or WP:VPR. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 20:37, 9 May 2012 (UTC) reply

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

"Pending changes" is unworkable and violates the egalitarian spirit of Wikipedia. Rather than try to devise new ways of protecting pages, lets think of ways of reducing the number of articles needing protection. Here is a much simpler proposal - (1) Prohibit anonymous IP edits; (2) Strictly enforce rules against vandalism, edit warring, conflicts of interests, sock puppets, tendentious (biased) editting, and other abuses of Wikipedia.

There is no need need to further bureaucratize Wikipedia by creating a new class of users (i.e., reviewers), and two new levels of protection. The fact remains that most vandalism is caused by anonymous IP editors, and most requests for protection are driven by either by anonymous vandalism or by a single user violating Wikipedia's policies. Look for yourself through the current protection log. Debbie W. 12:04, 8 May 2012 (UTC) reply

I think the "prohibit IP editing" approach is one that we would regret if ever implemented. Having a fair bit of experience in RC patrolling, specifically IP contribs, I'm of the opinion that most of the edits they make are constructive. ^OohBunnies! Leave a message 15:23, 8 May 2012 (UTC) reply

From what I've read, 80% of IP editing is constructive, whereas 97-98% of of registered editting is constructive. If IP editting was banned, all the constructive IP edits would not disappear. Many of them would register, and than make their edits under a user name. Debbie W. 04:56, 9 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Closure / Level 1 only?

10 days left. I'm wondering what kind of conclusion the four admins (see top of talk page) will draw? Despite the presence of a majority, it is obvious that this subject deeply divides the community. If implemented, it would certainly dissatisfy, perhaps even antagonize, a lot of people.

Here's an idea: what if we would use level 1 only? Combined with some rules of thumb about when to favor it over semi-protection? I think it would be a good compromise. First, it would make the new situation less complex. Second, it would create a slightly smaller backlog, consisting only of IPs. Third, level 1 is less risky than level 2 in terms of worsening content disputes. Fourth, I suspect level 2 won't be applied a lot anyway. Level 2 may be used to protect a stable version against passionate but non-neutral POV-pushers. But then again, perhaps those protecting may be the ones with a POV, abusing there Reviewer powers to keep it in. I think the admins patrolling WP:RfP do realize this risk, even those supportive of Pending Changes, and will think twice before applying it. Cheers, theFace 07:11, 12 May 2012 (UTC) reply

I thought it would also hit non-autoconfirmed? And, as far as I am concerned, any FlaggedRevs implementation, including such a bastardized version of Pending Changes that I doubt the community at large would agree to, is anathema. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 05:55, 14 May 2012 (UTC) reply

You are highly negative... again. However, I believe you are right, not only about the non-autoconfirmed. If there's no consensus about the Pending Changes system as a whole, then neither can we speak of a consensus regarding my compromise. It would require another poll, which won't happen. So, I guess this is the end of it. Too much opposition, really. - theFace 18:55, 15 May 2012 (UTC) reply

I don't think so. It's generally been running two-to-one in favor of using PC, and some of the opposition rationales strike me personally as decidedly weak (presumably the opponents believe the same about the supporters' rationales). If this discussion were AFD, and we assumed that the arguments being made by each side were equally strong, then whatever the two-thirds majority preferred would be the outcome, and DRV would uphold it. So if it continues in this vein, I personally would not be at all surprised by a close that favored using PC.

But—that's really up to the poor souls who have to close this. I'm glad that I'm not one of them. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 20:07, 15 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Quantifying the Tool's Effects

Are there any statistics on how many acts of vandalism are perpetrated by unregistered/non-autoconfirmed users? And how many such acts are sock puppetry? An indication of the scale of such acts?

I hesitate to support proposition 2 because I'm not sure if there is a genuine need for this tool. Supaiku ( talk) 06:30, 13 May 2012 (UTC) reply

I don't believe that there are current stats for Wikipedia-wide vandalism. There are no stats for socking.

But there are substantial reports specifically about accepted/rejected IP editing under PC. See Wikipedia:Pending changes/Metrics, among other pages. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 20:10, 15 May 2012 (UTC) reply

A significant minority of edits by new and unregistered users are vandalism, and the vast majority of vandalism comes from those two groups of editors. But our existing systems are fairly effective and revert the vast majority of this almost immediately, the important thing about pending changes is its ability to deal with the minority of vandalism that gets past the patrollers. As someone who searches for and finds vandalism that gets past the current recent changes system I can confirm that our current systems have loopholes that some vandalism gets through (whenever you have a gap at recent changes with not enough patrollers to check everything for a few minutes then vandalism will get through). I would prefer to see pending changes on all articles, but introducing it on some would mean that they at least were more heavily protected against vandalism. Ϣere SpielChequers 07:48, 16 May 2012 (UTC) reply

In lieu of real stats, I'll just take your word for it Spiel, since you deal in the area regularly:) Supaiku ( talk) 09:14, 18 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Interesting. I likewise deal with a lot of "older" vandalism, via STiki - I regularly see vandalism that's days if not weeks or months old. But STiki helps take care of this pretty well, enough so that I wouldn't say pending changes is a really necessary thing (particularly not on all articles!). And it'd be possible to make STiki deal with even older vandalism by some modifications that I'll be talking to the maintainer about. Allens ( talk | contribs) 21:33, 20 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Questions about PC

I have a few questions about PC that I couldn't find an answer to?

(1) What standard must be met for an article to be put under PC1 or PC2 versus the current semi- and full-protection? Is it just an subjective decision, or is there some metric that will be used to decide the level of protection?

(2) What is the impetus for implementing PC? I recognize that there is frequent vandalism, but has there been any one particular incident (e.g., major BLP violation) that really drove the initiation of this proposal? NJ Wine 21:09, 18 May 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by NJ Wine ( talk • contribs)

Much like semiprotection, admins are intended to use their best judgment when determining what protection level to set a page to (none, Bribe CRASH, Semiprotection, Bribe LAPD, Full protection).
The impetus can be best summed up as BLPs' interests (rhetoric). — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 22:27, 19 May 2012 (UTC) reply

As I understand it, the software feature has been used in other wikis for several years (on all pages, not just on selected pages/as proposed for the English Wikipedia). It's been discussed off and on since before the feature was available to anyone. If memory serves, this particular round of discussions has been underway for something like two years now. So if there ever was some particular precipitating incident, it was a long, long time ago. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 02:04, 22 May 2012 (UTC) reply

With respect to (1), please see: Wikipedia:Pending_changes/Request_for_Comment_2012#Usage_boundaries_between_pending_changes_lv._1_versus_semi-protection_still_not_addressed

Roughly speaking, I feel PC1 could sometimes be a less painful alternative to SP on certain classes of infrequently-edited articles, and that PC2 is a less painful alternative to FP particularly for cases of rarely-edited articles that have been subject to a slow but consistent peppering of serious BLP issues from autoconfirmed users. There are probably exceptions, but I'd expect that'd be more or less the usual case. -- joe decker ^{talk to me} 23:55, 22 May 2012 (UTC) reply

How can any instance of PC be less painful when it requires far more willing manpower to maintain than SP? With no reviewers, PC is a liability. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 17:47, 24 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Fair question, I think you're forgetting that these are, more or less, replacing (in my view) {{ edit semiprotected}} requests. Those are a lot more hassle than even the somewhat flawed PC interface provides. Have you worked those? (I honestly don't know.) Particularly given how few of them manage to specify a precise request, well, that creates a fair amount of hassle right there. -- joe decker ^{talk to me} 20:41, 26 May 2012 (UTC) reply

I have worked those requests before, when I was an admin. Some of them were blatant vandalism aimed at trolling the reviewer. In fact, we discussed this above in #Replace semiprotection with PC? — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:35, 26 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Close?

Q for the closing Admins - Is this in the process of being closed ? - lots of strong comments here again from the vocal objectors to Pending protection - but being vocal is not supported by the majority - can we get this closed please, when is the target date/time - Youreally can 19:32, 24 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Yes, we are in the process of closing. There was, needless to say, a lot of ink spilled here, and the closing admins are going to need some time to analyze it to give you an adequate close. We don't have a target date set, but if users feel strongly that you need a specific date, we can try to brainstorm one in the next day or two. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! ( talk) 20:39, 24 May 2012 (UTC) reply

So in the next day or two you will give us a target date for estimated closure if we request strongly? - Can't you just close it - why would you need to "brainstorm one" you have been reading it all along - you should be looking to and able to close ASAP - Youreally can 20:47, 24 May 2012 (UTC) reply

It's already closed, but there's no decision yet. Let us hope that the silence indicates that the 4 admins are taking their time to piece together a neutral, elaborate, ultimate final decision on this matter. Phew... glad I'm not in their shoes. Cheers, theFace 21:16, 24 May 2012 (UTC) reply

I certainly hope the silence doesn't indicate they're having their discussions off-wiki!— S Marshall T/ C 21:50, 24 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Oh, I assume they do. I don't care, as long as they come up with something good. Cheers, theFace 19:50, 25 May 2012 (UTC) reply

I have an extremely low opinion of the way this RFC has been run.— S Marshall T/ C 20:55, 28 May 2012 (UTC) reply

I'm also not too thrilled with the mismanagement, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, at least for the time being. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:01, 28 May 2012 (UTC) reply

It's easier to assume good faith when there's transparency.— S Marshall T/ C 21:06, 28 May 2012 (UTC) reply

With something as contentious as this transparency had the potential to do more harm than good. If there is one thing we cannot afford with respect to PC, it's more delays. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:09, 28 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Constantly diminishing support

What I hope people evaluating this thing note is that the support level of this has trended downwards ever since the initial pop of PC supporters registered their opinions. On March 31, it was 140:53 (73% support ) and at close it was 309:178 (63%). That doesn't sound like much until you consider that in the votes since April 1, it ran 169:123, or 58% support. Choose April 30, and it's worse. 249:113 at that point (68% support) and support since then is 60:65, or about 48%. That suggests that if you left this open forever, the opinion would stabilize around 50% give or take a few points.— Kww( talk) 17:19, 26 May 2012 (UTC) reply

However the vocal opponents of this tool interpret the outcome of this community discussion, There is clear majority support for Pending changes in this RFC though after two months - ifs and buts and ow just leave it open forever and it will be (add your guess here) are distracting from that.- Youreally can 18:21, 26 May 2012 (UTC) reply

The thing you have consistently failed to demonstrate understanding of through this entire process is that a majority doesn't equal a consensus. If we just go numerically, 63% doesn't approach our normal numeric limits for consensus. I'm too biased to make an accurate determination on a "strength of argument" basis (the real measure of consensus), but my inclination is that supporters haven't prevailed by that measure either.— Kww( talk) 18:28, 26 May 2012 (UTC) reply

You say, "The thing you have consistently failed to demonstrate understanding of through this entire process is that a majority doesn't equal a consensus", I am not attempting to demonstrate that I am just waiting for the assessment and closure - after two months there is a clear majority support for Pending changes in this RFC I have had little input to this issue and to be honest care a lot less than I did previously . I would just run it and remove it if there were issues - the wheels won't drop off - or at least if we see them starting to drop off we can fix them - No wheels dropped of in the trials and it's no big issue imo - Its just another beneficial tool in the box for use as and when it helps. Youreally can 18:36, 26 May 2012 (UTC) reply

As I mentioned previously, based on the rationale they presented, many of the supporters of option 1 really should have supported Option 3. It seems that many of the Option 1 !voters didn't read the proposal and extant comments very carefully (or at all) – although, to be fair, that's probably true of the !votes in all sections. But, there were a number of misconceptions voiced by many of the supporters of Option 1 – conflating PC with Flagged Revisions; PC amounts to censorship; disenfranchises editors; and somehow contravenes the concept of being "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". I assume we will be seeing an RfC by those editors to eliminate semi and full protection for the exact same reasons. Some based their support of Option 1 on the conviction that PC would be used far more liberally than other forms of protection. What evidence can possibly support that view? Way to AGF in our admins. It seems clear that the next proposal needs to include guidelines that address at least some of these issues to minimize the FUD. Mojoworker ( talk) 20:21, 26 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Bullshit, Mojoworker. Many of the "FUD" points we raised are legitimate concerns (such as logistics and being more labor-intensive than even RC patrol or SP). Conversely, I wonder who you are to be making such accusations when you comment that the next RfC is going to be about removing protection, which nobody - save for a few misguided Position 2 supporters, as I noted above, and that's conditional on PC passing - wants to abolish. For every time I see a Position 2 supporter cry "FUD" I see another Position 2 supporter equating Position 1 to aiding vandalism. The blade cuts both ways, chummer, and it's hypocrisy. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:31, 26 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Jeremy, I appreciate your comments, but decidedly do not appreciate your uncivil tenor. Perhaps you misunderstood what I wrote. I listed the following points as FUD that were used as rationale by some of the option 1 supporters:

Conflating PC with Flagged Revisions;
PC somehow amounts to censorship;
PC somehow disenfranchises editors and contravenes the concept of being "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit";
PC would be used more liberally than other forms of protection;

My comment about an RfC to remove protection was satirical and in relation to point #3. I most certainly did not say anything about "logistics and being more labor-intensive than even RC patrol or SP", so I'm not sure why you brought that up. Nor did I label all of the rationale provided by option 1 supporters as FUD – on the contrary, there are indeed legitimate concerns. My point is that a number of option 1 supporters provided rationale that is plainly FUD. Mojoworker ( talk) 08:58, 27 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Likewise, Option 2 has been relying on FUD - "libel is astronomically high and we're too slow to react", "(Anonymous) vandals will run roughshod over Wikipedia if we don't implement this," etc. Saying it's only Option 1 supporters doing this is inaccurate as Position 2 has also been using scare tactics. That's what I was trying to get at. (I will note that some of the concerns by Option 2 supporters, such as RC patrol being inadequate, are valid, however.) — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 17:49, 27 May 2012 (UTC) reply

I switched from Option 3 to Option 1 because of how many problems I was seeing with PC - and each problem makes it less likely that all of the problems would/will be solved well. Allens ( talk | contribs) 20:56, 26 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Guys, I don't think anyone's going to benefit from continuing this. The admins in question are experienced enough that they can read through this whole long thing and come to their own conclusions without any of us pointing out factors that support "my" side, and especially without any further uncivil remarks. The time for comment was during the last two months, not now. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:25, 26 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Since a "no consensus" outcome is a distinct possibility, my remarks are directed at the next proposal – that it needs to include guidelines that address at least some of these issues in order to keep the FUD to a minimum, but also to address, where possible, the valid concerns raised by option 1 supporters. I saw an insightful comment by an uninvolved admin that "IMO the current state of voting indicates to me that good faith has broken down completely ... only a tiny fraction of the comments on either side attempt to rebut, or even address, the main points of the other side. That's going to make the discussion very hard to close" It's ironic, but in a thorough reading of all the responses, a case can be made to close as consensus for Option 3 – "Pending changes should be kept in the long term, but the draft policy is insufficient and/or out of step with what the community wants from the tool" – even though it received by far the fewest supporters. Mojoworker ( talk) 08:58, 27 May 2012 (UTC) reply

That was one of the reasons why I devoted an entire section above to rebutting arguments from Position 2. I (correctly) assumed that, while there would be far more substantial rationales on the Option 1 side than the Option 2 side (as was the trend in the previous RfC), some of it would just be ungrounded speculation and much of it wouldn't directly rebut the Option 2 supporters' arguments, regardless of their merits. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:06, 28 May 2012 (UTC) reply

One of the closers has indicated that the close may come fairly soon, and it's unlikely that the close will be: "The winner is Option [whatever]. Have a nice day." It will be easier to chart a course of action after we see what they have to say. I'm hoping some of the Option 1 guys will talk it out and come up with a course of action, and the same for some of the Option 2 guys. - Dank ( push to talk) 13:40, 27 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Kww's statistical analysis is, unfortunately, seriously misguided. I don't have the time and won't claim the expertise to do a full exposition of the convergent series principles involved, but his conclusion that support would eventual drop to the 50% level involves a basic statistical mistake. The point that a series like this converges to isn't determined simply by its concluding pattern, because as participation declines the "weight" os subsequent parts of the series declines. It's a trivial exercise (albeit one that makes many of those who aren't statistically adept suffer from blinding headaches and bleeding eyes) to construct a series of the form (A1-B1)+(A2-B2)+(A3-B3) . . . where, after a certain point, the B-terms are always greater than the A-terms, so that the sum of each additional pair is less than zero -- but the series converges (levels off) at positive number, never equaling or falling below zero. Several of the examples given in convergent series demonstrate this principle. There's no reason to believe that the outcome wouldn't stabilize at 60% or higher as participation fell off. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz ( talk) 17:30, 31 May 2012 (UTC) reply

You need to go reread the convergent series article. I agree that my 50% number is only an estimate, but the problem being solved isn't a convergent series problem at all. Those are sums of fractions that have a stated relationship to each other. This is a poll sampling problem, which has to do with the relative ratio of the population sampled to the population at large and discounting biasing effects.— Kww( talk) 11:07, 1 June 2012 (UTC) reply

I believe Yogi Berra's analysis is more relevant to this particular problem: it's tough to make predictions, especially about the future. - Dank ( push to talk) 12:16, 1 June 2012 (UTC) reply

Timetime

I wasn't here at the beginning, I was invited but doubted that people would write articles for free ... Whatever they close this attempt to strengthen policy implementation , the fact that users are desirous of pointy avoidance/weak policy asserts, those glory days are over and this appears IMO to be the death throes of the project, unless we strengthen WP:NPOV and WP:V - Weakly cited opinionated content is worse than nothing - uninvolved people/readers are now fully aware of the weakness and opinionated aspect of content here, and do not trust content here. Limited application of pending changes may well help to raise trust in small sectors of our content and protect a few limited notability subjects - if not we can remove it as easy we add it - its not wheels dropping off its just a tool in the box.. that might , in a limited way, raise trust between the reader and the project and strengthen the project moving forwards. Youreally can 18:57, 27 May 2012 (UTC) reply

I would argue the bulk of that issue rests with the "my way or the highway" mentality of most of the editors here. It's not an issue of sourcing; it's an issue of psychology and public perception, and always has been. Pending Changes would only exacerbate these issues by making the perceived elitism more prevalent. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 20:28, 27 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Youreallycan, I agree with you that WP:NPOV and WP:V have to be strengthened, but pending changes won't really help. I expect that if PC is implemented, it will reduce the amount of vandalism, but will substantially increase what I call "article capture." Article capture is when one or more editors takes control of an article, and prevents any changes to it -- see WP:TAGTEAM. Usually, article capture occurs on low-traffic BLP or controversy articles where the main editors undue changes that they dislike so that the article retains a certain point of view. Rather than eliminate biased content, PC, particularly PC2, will make it much harder to get rid of it. Currently, any editor can remove crap, whereas with PC, I see articles being locked up so that only reviewers and admins can fix them. NJ Wine ( talk) 21:04, 27 May 2012 (UTC) reply

(ec)The goal of Wikipedia isn't to be "trusted." It never has been. When people come to Wikipedia, only those who are delusional and disconnected from reality expect it to be vandalism-free, completely unbiased, and ultimately trustworthy at face value. This is why we have

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,

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, the myriad of template messages, page histories in the open, and discussion pages. This is because the tradeoff of letting everyone edit means that inherently things will be imperfect—and we've always been happy with that compromise. It's the reason why editors like me started contributing in the first place: we found something we thought was inaccurate (or vandalized) and we got addicted to helping to make things better. It's been what's caused this thing to explode with popularity and content to the point that millions(!) of articles exist. Cynics will say "oh, but lots of them are crap, and shutting it up and keeping people from creating crap will protect us from the crap!"

Let me emphasize this: Wikipedia will never be perfect without becoming something other than Wikipedia, and we must not get caught in a delusion that we ever will be "perfect" in any conventional sense. Most importantly, we should avoid allowing people who think they can truly make it perfect with panaceas to run things.

"Perfection" was the expectation of traditional final-print encyclopedias, and they've been summarily rejected by the populace at large. They want us. They want the imperfection. Personally, I think it's largely because we have this brilliant thing called a page history. It reveals all of the bias, all of the vandalism, all of the crazies, and all of the sanes that go into making an article—something few other truly competing encyclopedias—and no print one—has had up until Wikipedia. It's between that and our citations where we earn our true trust in editorial process. It's in that where all of our cards are laid out on the table for everyone to see what really goes on behind the scenes; what really is up-for-debate; what really is the "truth" and what's the Truth™ that people are pushing. Most importantly, it's in that where we're finally teaching the population, as a whole, to not simply trust what you read— verify it too.

To expect biographies to be libel-free; to expect histories to be bias-free; to expect polarizing issues to be opinion-free—these are all fairy tales that we and countless writers and academics throughout history have told ourselves. Reality inevitably intervenes; people disrupt; people sneak their way into power; people try to shut out and unduely censor differing opinions to make their reality the one-and-only Truth™ that everyone sees. We nonetheless try to prevent that from happening, but we must avoid compromising the very value that helps us offset it: ostensibly, a free and open editing environment.

Any form of page protection reduces how much of the page history—and thus how much of the overall "truth" in our editorial process—is revealed. We use current forms of protection for practical reasons, from vandalism to edit warring and sockpuppetry. It forces people to discuss a change and figure something out, and it helps curb as much disruption as we can without compromising our free and open editing environment.

The tradeoff has always been that on pages where we fully or semi-protect things, things change more slowly, less appears to be "wrong," and everything seems to be tranquil. This isn't necessarily the case: we've simply reduced further the number of people able to contribute to the page, and we've made it more difficult to see what's really going on behind the scenes. To those looking for perfection, many see a small number of people being able to edit as a good thing. To those looking to preserve and expand what we are, in all of our glorious imperfection, many see it as a bad thing.

We therefore have to carefully weigh what's essential due to its practicality (i.e., current, conventional protection to offset a disrupted editing environment) with alternatives in which the ends justify the means (i.e., pending changes to reduce the number of people able to edit pages even further in order to trend toward realistically-unattainable, fundamentally suicidal "perfection").

Admittedly TLDR-worthy, but I felt that I needed to express this.

-- slakr^\
talk / 21:09, 27 May 2012 (UTC) reply

slakr, I totally agree. A lot of problems would be eliminated by locking up articles, and only letting a select number of trusted people edit. But, then this wouldn't be Wikipedia with approximately 3,000,000 English-language articles, but instead Encyclopedia Brittanica with roughly 230,000 articles. Furthermore, while some Wikipedia articles have bias or mistakes, it's no worse than any other encyclopedia, and Wikipedia has a easy method of fixing those problems. NJ Wine ( talk) 21:36, 27 May 2012 (UTC) reply

- @ User:Slakr - The goal of Wikipedia isn't to be "trusted." It never has been" - We can disagree there all day long - reader trust is a primary objective and Pending protection is a clear benefit to developing that primary trust. Youreally can

If reader trust were a primary objective we wouldn't have so many editors in the first place, now would we? Seriously, a lot of our editors signed up primarily because we aren't trustworthy; we have issues with inaccuracy, poor fact-checking, relevance, elitism, bias, and trigger-happiness. To define PC as a means of enforcing trust, in spite of the huge logistical problem it can create due to its time requirements and the fact that it solves none of those six issues (think the Joker running Arkham) is tantamount to selling us a bill of goods. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:29, 28 May 2012 (UTC) reply

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.