Help talk:Reverting/Archive 1

NB: for discussion on the appropriateness of reverting, which used to be at Help:Reverting but is now at WP:Reverting, please use WT:Reverting.

Revert Instructions (are they correct)?

Are the How to Revert instructions correct? I'm following these instructions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_revert_a_page_to_an_earlier_version#How_to_revert Once you get to the stage where you have added your Edit Summery it says to click History, should that not read Save Page instead. pjb007 09:12, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

rv deletion

what about when someone marks a page for deletion as per WP:DP, is removing that a rv? Pdbailey 01:07, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Correction to section regarding WP:3RR

One of the statements in the section Three revert rule conflicts with a statement in the Wikipedia:Three-revert rule document: From the Three revert rule section of this document:

In consideration of the harm of reverting, Wikipedia policy states that you may not revert any article more than three times in the same day. This is a very strict limit, not a given right; you should not revert any one article more than three times daily.

From the Wikipedia:Three-revert rule document: This statement conflicts with the information found at Wikipedia:Three-revert rule, which states that:

An editor must not perform more than three reverts, in whole or in part, on a single page within a 24-hour period.

The statement in this document should be revised so that it will be consistent with the other and to eliminate confusion with understanding what's required of editors under this guideline. Therefore, my suggestions would be to change the statement in the Three revert rule section of this document to:

In consideration of the harm of reverting, Wikipedia policy states that you may not revert any article more than three times, in whole or in part, within a 24-hour period. This is a very strict limit, not a given right; you should not revert any one article more than three times within a 24-hour period.

The problem with the statement is that certain editors might take the statement to mean that up to 3RR can be made from the first revert to 12 midnight UTC, when really the policy is that to third revert to an article covers the period from when the last allowable revert occurs to a full 24 hours after that revert (e.g., third revert made at 22:44 UTC 12 August 2007 (UTC) means that no more reverts by same editor are allowed to the same article until after 22:44 13 August 2007 (UTC)). Hopefully, this change will take care of the conflict in meaning between the two documents. →Lwalt ^♦ talk 22:45, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Clarification is necessary, so it is done.  ^{.`</sup>^) Paine<sup>diss`cuss} (^^`.  04:00, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Undo rules

Are the rules of Undo the same as the rules of Revert? In other words, When are we allowed to undo or not? --Arican 17:35, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia defines a "revert" in broad terms as any change to an article that partially or completely goes back to any older version of an article (emphasis added). So, from this definition, the rules appear the same for both "undo" and "revert."

Undo allows rollback of a specific change(s) to a version of the document (i.e., a partial roll back, leaving some of the newer changes untouched in the document - this would be the same as manually editing the document to add back the change or delete the change from the article, while leaving other changes untouched). An editor can pick and choose version to undo changes. Revert, on the other hand, rolls back all changes to one or more document versions (i.e., a complete roll back, erasing all changes by one or several editors - this would be the same as restoring the complete, older version of the article from a backup and overwriting the recent changes).

Example: Changes were made (saved) to an article at 1:05 on August 14, 23:56 on August 12, 11:00 on August 12, 8:00 on July 31 and 14:00 on July 15, and an editor reverted the article at the 4:00 version from July 15. The effect is that all edits to the 1:05, 23:56, 11:00 and 8:00 versions are removed from the article, which causes the the 14:00 version from July 15 to become the current version of the article and results in a loss of effort, time and work over four editing sessions. Now you see why editors become PO'd when someone overwrites their work in this way? Here comes the edit wars.... The difference between undo and revert is really the scope of restoring the older version of an article. The use of Undo in the same way (esp. selectively undoing changes across various versions of the article) is just as disruptive as using Revert.

Of course, there are [[exceptions to the revert/undo rules, such as undoing/reverting yourself, undoing/reverting obvious vandalism, reverting/undoing content related to copyright and privacy violations, from and so on. →Lwalt ^♦ talk 20:47, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

"rvv"

Can this article include a clear statement that the use of "rvv" or "vandal(ism)" should not be abused and should only be applied when there is clear evidence to support it? Some users use these terms with alarming regularity and do not give proper reasons for reverts even when there is no evidence of any vandalism, only a change the reverter doesn't like. I am getting sick of it on this resource. 62.25.106.209 15:35, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Do or Do not mean what?

What mean "Do" and "Do not" in the article "When to revert"? Perhaps, "Do" means "You should consider..." and "Do not" means "You do not allow...". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arican (talk • contribs) 16:57, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Don't edit this!

Then protect the copy!--Angel David 20:45, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Multiple reverts

If someone edits in vandalism over several edits, what's the easiest way to handle the revert? One by one, or is there a way to select all the edits that need the revert? -- Harish - 01:43, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

You can edit the correct version before all the vandalism edits and save it. -- Mentifisto 09:06, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Should've thought it'd be as simple as that. -- Harish - 14:54, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Repeatedly ignoring the instructions.

How do we deal with people who ignore WP help instructions? Is there a template or something? Dscotese (talk) 01:42, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

You can just talk to people, you know? Not everything has to be done through templates. Richard001 (talk) 07:42, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Help!

The user Lord of Spoons has vandalised his own talk page. The problem is he vandalised it twice! I have to revert both edits if I want to restore his page, but that seems to be impossible! What (other than painfully copying out the page before it was vandalised) can I do? Smartguy777 (talk) 06:29, 13 March 2008 (UTC).

"Ad hominem" revert

Some editors would revert the entire set of edits contributed by an user if it contains a single error. Why would they waste the contributer's effort and revert the whole thing when most of it was correct? Isn't it better to just remove the irrevelent information only, instead of reverting the entire edits of an user? I've seen lots of these cases. This should be mentioned in the article.71.175.31.106 (talk) 22:06, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Revert trolls

Increasingly, I see reverts not for any problem in the improvements I contributed, but with the given reason that my little essay explaining them insufficient to placate the reverter. The essay appears only in the History section. Our mission with Wikipedia is a world-beating encyclopedia, not a world-beating set of edit descriptions.

Part of the burgeoning problem may be a snippet that I saw somewhere in Wikipedia's instructions incautiously encouraging reverting changes as a way to get discussions started. This section should be clarified to indicate that the reasons for the revert should be stated in full -- i.e., giving the reasons why the original article text was deemed superior. What I'm seeing instead is demands to make the little essay explaining the changes (which are in any event self-explanatory) a better essay, without saying what was lacking with it in the first place (my little essays often take up much or all of the space allowed in the little "Edit summary" field as it is).

The proliferation of these "Revert Trolls" diminishes my enthusiasm for contributing to Wikipedia. An effective mechanism for identifying them and shutting them down or educating them about the inadvisability of failing to follow the reverting guidelines is needed.

Agreed. It happened to me recently by User:Rrburke, who seems to have some sort of bot that helps him revert articles, apparently a Hugglebot. I got pretty frustrated with his revert, which probably cost him all of 10 seconds to consider, but took me over 2 hours to create. When asked for details, he was non-responsive, and stopped reverting (eventually).

Reading his user page, however, it seems that I'm not the only one who has had a problem with him. From comments there, it appears that he has a pattern of reverting without explanation, and then not clarifying upon request. This is the kind of trolling behavior that gives Wikipedia an elitist atmosphere, and makes people not want to contribute. IMO, if you aren't willing to back up your reverts with details, you shouldn't have the authority to revert in the first place, as nothing productive is accomplished.

I don't know if it's practical, but I would have loved to have a way to tag him as a "revert troll" so that his future reverts received greater scrutiny, and that the edits I made weren't "lost by default". I'm happy to have my edits reviewed by a neutral party or parties.

Protection needed?

Hi, A casual glance at the History page reveals that a lot of time is spent on this Help article reverting vandalism (like blanking the whole page and replacing it with nonsense). Perhaps the page needs to be protected from new users or unregistered users.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 02:16, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Why is this page not protected?

It says at the top " Do not edit this page". Couldn't someone just protect it? 216.254.18.209 (talk)

Noah Lindsey Cyrus

This appears in the template. Is it supposed to be there? I'd remove it, but im worried about deleting the template. Metagraph comment 00:35, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Locking anonymous edits

It could be a terrific improvement for the site. No more casual vandalism and no more hours wasted for admins who resemble african kids making Nike shoes for 0$. Many will say "keep it open to everyone blah blah" but this kind of stuff is a heavy toll on the whole system, both in space used on the servers and in quality of the content. Why shouldn't wikipedia evolve some more as well to improve its smoothness? Valerio Kreuk (talk) 21:39, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

You'd just be adding one more step for the vandals. I'm sure that the anonymous people could take a little time and make a user name to then do vandalism with, except you could expect the name to sometimes be offensive itself. TAU Croesus (talk) 14:45, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree that locking anonymous edits would be a good idea for this page, it is one of the most vandalized pages I have on my watch list. --Funandtrvl (talk) 20:17, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Record Holders Republic

I am really worried about wikipedia's deletion of the article with above referred title. There was nothing much wrong with the article. But it was deleted without being discussed. Now the authority of RHR is there to speak to the administrators. So please revert the page and discuss. Thanks..--Broarticle (talk) 18:41, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Undo vs Revert

When discovering that the last edit to a page was obviously vandalism, would it be better to revert the edit manually or just use "undo"? I believe the end result to the article would be the same, since there are no other constructive edits to deal with, but is one preferable to the other for logging purposes? --Thomprod (talk) 16:52, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Several replies have been posted here. --Thomprod (talk) 17:13, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Unavailable Undo

I don't get into revert wars, and reverting edits is something I do only very occasionally. I've seen thousands of edit summaries that "undid" something, but I never knew just what "undo" is, or particularly cared. Just out of curiosity, however, I read about Undo today. I see there's supposed to be an Undo button. But there's no such button on my screen when I click on a diff. I've looked all over, but it just ain't there. Is this something that's available only to admins? -- JackofOz (talk) 20:06, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

It's after "(edit)", in the right-side column. See: Help:Diff#How it looks. --Funandtrvl (talk) 20:52, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

(*blush*) - I humbly withdraw my assertion that it's missing. I really did look, and look, and look, and couldn't see it. Thanks for the help. -- JackofOz (talk) 07:12, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

No problem!! --Funandtrvl (talk) 08:38, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Unexplained reversion.

An anonymous editor made this reversion:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help%3AReverting&diff=276721124&oldid=276603204

The editor provided no explanation. So, unless an explanation is seasonably forthcoming from that user (or someone else who has a problem with the reverted text) I will re-make the change. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 13:09, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Reverting Images

Is this section still uptodate? I'm logged in, but I do not see any revert link anywhere whithin the file history. --Traut (talk) 11:49, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

What's reverting?

is reverting like turning it back? - 89.243.236.97 09:51, April 4, 2009

Exactly that. As the first sentence of the page says: "Reverting means returning an article to an earlier version." Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 15:12, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Reverting an edit in Law of Atraction

I am reverting this edit because I did not use my log in identity when I did the edit. I used an ISP instead and I prefer to use my Log in Identity. If you check you will see that I replaced the exact information under my user name for wikipedia. Cao! Ti-30X (talk) 02:46, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Status quo reigns (?)

A recent disagreement here has suggested that the meaning of "status quo" in the following (see under "When to Revert") is ambiguous;

Don't revert to undo a good faith reversion of your change. If there is a dispute, the status quo reigns until a consensus is established to make a change. Instead of engaging in an edit war, propose your reverted change on the article's talk page or pursue other dispute resolution alternatives.

My reading - informed by reference to the article Status_quo - is that the edited version of a page is the status quo whilst the original version is the "status quo ante".
Thus, if the page reads (say) "Frogs are green" and I edit to read "Some frogs are green" then;

1. "Frogs are green" is the status quo ante.
2. "Some frogs are green" is the status quo.
3. The intent of WP:STATUSQUO is to prevent reverts from "Some frogs are green" to "Frogs are green" without discussion.
   

Is my understanding on this correct?
If so, would the following change to the above be in order;

Don't revert to undo a good faith reversion of your change. If there is a dispute, the edit should stand until a consensus is established to revert or modify the edit. Instead of engaging in an edit war, propose your revert or modification of the edit on the article's talk page or pursue other dispute resolution alternatives.

I realize that this proposed modification depends entirely on my understanding the policy correctly - hence this request for comment. Regards, -- Muzhogg (talk) 04:40, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I completely agree with your modification. The original wording shouldn't be in here, as it encourages ownership and even filibustering. It's a generational bias that favours the work of older editors over new ones. Since owners and filibusterers like to quote this paragraph, it's important. New editors do not need to seek consensus for changes and old editors should not assume that new edits need their consensus (i.e. permission). In fact, old editors should be actively discouraged from reverting on the basis of required consensus (see wp:own again), and the original wording of this section does the opposite. (Smallvillefanatic (talk) 14:10, 19 June 2009 (UTC))

Thanks for that remark, Smallvillefanatic. I agree that the ambiguity merely encourages the edit wars that the policy is intended to prevent. I should probably have pointed out that the wording of the first line need to be taken into account as it refers to "good faith reversion of your change" - i.e. it suggests that the original is the "status quo" and the policy is aimed at "reverts of reverts of changes" not "reverts of changes". Contrast this with the wording of the lead: "revert a good faith edit only as a last resort" - suggesting the edit should stand until consensus is reached. I simply don't know! There's a need to proceed slowly to prevent making a difficult situation worse, I think. -- Muzhogg (talk) 19:56, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid I disagree with your interpretation- not to say it isn't better than what's done, but WP:BRD is a very very widely accepted practice, and further, WP:3RR implies a preference for the original version, considering that a 1-on-1 dispute would, if pushed to the limit, always result in the maintenance of the original version.

Now, in a perfect world, I'd support a strict 0RR. But considering we have a situation where editors have radically differing levels of comprehension of policies and guidelines (and I'll note this page itself isn't marked as policy or guideline), and where we have vandalism, tendentious editing and wikilawyering, if we maintain the changed version of a page instead of the original version, we'll end up stuck with biased articles and never-ending filibustered arguments on article talk pages. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 21:08, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I completely agree with Mendaliv here, many edits need to be reverted immediately. Not only vandalism, but also the confused, unconstructive and just plain wrong all need to be taken out straight away. Of course, cleaning up the edit is always preferable, and this should be emphasised, but even with a good faith edit it can be too confused or the edit too extensive to easily unpick the nugget that might or might not be in there. Once reverted, the discussion should then move out of the article and on to the talk page.

I am completely taken aback by the comments of Smallvillefanatic. Older editors more experienced with Wikipedia policy and guidelines who very possibly have also gained a better understanding of the subject should be discouraged from editing in favour of newbies who often have not checked their facts (if indeed it is facts they are inserting) and really need to be quickly given guidance and a helping hand before they go any further? Are you sure about that? SpinningSpark 21:19, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

There's a lot here, and I can't respond to it all at once, but let me pick out a few key points:

@Mandaliv:

• 3RR would not favour the original version if taken to its limit. The first edit does not count as a revert. Therefore, the first person to reach three reverts would be the reverter, not the editor. If 3RR implies anything (I don't think it does), it's that the edit has precedence over the original version.
• BRD is widely accepted. It's also widely abused and misunderstood. It is a method for smoking out interested parties, not a justification of the behaviour of interested parties. Many people treat BRD like "RD". It's not.

@Spinningspark:

• You lost me at "easily". Yes, it would take a lot of work to integrate other people's bizarre edits rather than revert them, but collaboration isn't easy. If people don't care enough to properly integrate an edit, they don't care enough to revert it either. A proper conversation after a "RD" cycle will take more time than having been genuinely collaborative in the first place. Of course, most proper conversations never happen, because reverts are inherently uncollaborative and more likely to scare off the new contributor through biting. So reverting is only easier when it fails.
• As for the new versus older user question, I absolutely believe what I said. I completely reject the claim that older editors have better understanding of the subject. In fact, new editors usually head straight for the topic they know or care most about, while older editors tend to have tons of articles on their watchlist about which they know comparatively little. As pointed out in the "Don't Bite the Newcomer" article: "In fact, it has been found that newcomers are responsible for adding the majority of lasting content to Wikipedia (i.e., substantive edits): while insiders and administrators are responsible for a large bulk of total edits, these often involve tweaking, reverting, and rearranging content.". All older editors inherently understand better is policy (and sometimes not even that). (Smallvillefanatic (talk) 01:18, 20 June 2009 (UTC))

Do you actually have any evidence for your assertions? You appear to be taking your facts (as does the Don't Bite the Newcomers) from this blog by Aaron Swartz. It is certainly an interesting article but it is based on an extremely small sample of articles. It is also, as the article states, in direct contradiction of statements by Jimmy Wales - in fact its whole purpose is to attempt to refute Wales. I would not dispute that a lot of substantive content comes from new users, and of course it should be kept and improved, not reverted. That still does not change the fact that many newbie edits need reverting, faced with a confused sentence without a reference to go and check it can be impossible sometimes to actually divine the intended meaning, let alone copyedit it. The statistics here are quite out of date but probably still relevant, 28% of IP edits are reverted and in all probability quite correctly in the vast majority of cases. It would be absurd to write into the guidelines that all of those must stand until discussed. In most cases, the editor will never come back to discuss and errors and nonsense will be left in the encyclopedia. I am struggling not to take offence at your comments and only partially succeeding, I know that I contribute a lot of substantive content, including new articles, and so do many other established editors to a much greater extent than I. The articles going through DYK, GA and FA are by and large not the work of new editors and these reviews must surely be our real test of quality contributions. SpinningSpark 08:22, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

@SS I apologize if there was any offense. I may have made the mistake of taking at face value a claim made on the official behavioral guideline page. If you do not think it is verifiable, perhaps you should ask that it be removed. I imagine your claim that the majority of DYK, GA and FA being not the work of new editors is at least equally unverified, so do you have a source for it? Moreover, what is your verification that the "vast majority" of IP edit reverts are unsalvageable? (Smallvillefanatic (talk) 15:40, 20 June 2009 (UTC))

In the above example, "Frogs are green" is the status quo that should remain until consensus says otherwise. That's the whole point of status quo. A new change coming along out of nowhere isn't status quo, it's new, and if it doesn't have agreement to be there it can't be there. And that's the way things should be, otherwise anyone coming along can overthrow longstanding consensus and make any change they add the "default" version. That'd be a recipe for total disaster. DreamGuy (talk) 15:06, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I don't get the "status quo ante". To me, the status quo is what's been there, unchanging, for a perhaps undefined, respectable period of time. It withstands the sands of time - until it doesn't withstand them anymore. At that time, when a claim no longer stands up, is no longer true, then it can be changed. "All frogs are green". Then somebody discovers the "golden frogs of Panama" and edits to "Some frogs are green and some are gold<ref> . . . If someone disputes the gold claim and the verfication, then the claim ought to remain at "Frogs are green" until consensus is achieved or the dispute is settled another way.  ^{.`</sup>^) Paine<sup>diss`cuss} (^^`.  15:29, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

@DG: I don't see any way at all to reconcile your interpretation of status quo with preserve. What we are obliged to do under that policy is to keep information that could belong in a finished article. That is incompatible with your version of status quo. If anything that someone presents is salvageable, we should find a way to integrate it. So the status quo is not the default. Your interpretation of status quo encourages people to violate preserve, since they think it's up to editors to "prove" their edits belong rather than up to the community to integrate the edits, which is the actual policy. Moreover, your claim that people need consensus to make a change is a straightforward example of ownership, also a policy. Older editors do not "own" an article, no matter how many of them there might be or how long they might have been there. They are obliged, in every case, to try to integrate new information into the article. That's what wp:preserve is all about. (Smallvillefanatic (talk) 15:39, 20 June 2009 (UTC)) (Smallvillefanatic (talk) 15:40, 20 June 2009 (UTC))

It's not my "interpretation" -- it's what the term means and has always meant. There's no point to arguing over it, you're just wrong. DreamGuy (talk) 16:45, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, if you want to step away from the conversation, feel free. However, you haven't understood what I was saying at all (which is my fault; I was using a secondary sense of "interpretation", so I apologize). Change "interpretation" to "use" or "definition" and you'll see what I was saying. I'm perfectly aware what most people use this pseudo/quasi policy/guideline thing to mean. It's in irreconcilable conflict with wp:revert (an actual policy) and needs to be redefined or scrapped (Smallvillefanatic (talk) 17:52, 20 June 2009 (UTC)).

@anyone: What is wp:statusquo even doing here? Why is a policyesque statement buried on a help page? My understanding is that it simply doesn't belong here. It should become an essay, so that it may receive proper scrutiny and if enough people agree with it, it can be bumped up to guideline or even policy, if that's the consensus of the community, or fade into obscurity. It should not be sitting on a help page with a "WP:xxx" tag pretending to be authoritative (and it's definitely coming across that way; Muzhogg just accidentally called it a "policy"). (Smallvillefanatic (talk) 15:40, 20 June 2009 (UTC))

Yes, that's what I was just thinking. But on the original question, I'm sure whoever wrote this intended "status quo" to mean what had existed before the edit-war began, not what exists right now. And I think that's generally quite a good rule of thumb, although there must often be exceptions to it. Common sense must reign supreme. Now, any objections to moving this splitting off the policy/guideline-like content of this page to WP space (as WP:Reverting say) and marking it as an essay (or proposed guideline), per Smallvillefanatic? --Kotniski (talk) 15:59, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I see your point and the original points made by Muzhogg. However, to me, the "meat and potatoes" of the Status quo ditty is that there ought to be a consensus or dispute resolution before a proposed change is made. So if an editor wants to make a "meaning-changing" claim, then it is up to that editor to seek consensus before the change is made. Now, if the editor just comes in and changes the article without consensus (remember, this is not just some small edit, but a "meaning-changing" one), then are we to just accept blindly, sheepishly that the new edit ought to stay there until a consensus is achieved? Can you not see how this is wrong?

I've recently been through two such debates, one regarding the Shirley Temple article, and one regarding an article on The Age of Reason, a book by Thomas Paine. I tried to change the name of the first article to Shirley Temple Black. By your reasoning, I should have just changed the name, and then seek consensus. That's just not the way to do things. In the second debate about the book, a single editor had been going up against several other editors to keep a Featured Article from losing what I feel were two important claims – claims that were in the article when it became an FA. It was an edit war that needed settling, and I'm not sure it's settled, yet. In that case the majority editors kept removing the claims, and the one brave editor, who felt, like I do, that the claims were an important part of the article, kept reverting. Then the editor stopped reverting and opened a discussion. That's when I came into it. Well, there was no convincing the tyrannical majority, which had a huge leg up by the fact that the claims had stayed out of the article. That's what happens sometimes when edits are made and discussion ensues after they've been made. No, that's just not right. Those claims should have remained on that page until consensus was achieved or the dispute was settled. The majority ruled rather than the status quo. The dispute still isn't settled, and yet the Featured Article remains without the claims it had when it became a Featured Article. Sorry, but in my opinion, that's just wrong.  ^{.`</sup>^) Paine<sup>diss`cuss} (^^`.  16:23, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

P.E., I don't really know the battles you're referring to, but let me suggest something for the Thomas Paine case. You don't need wp:statusquo in order to protect the information there. The policy wp:preserve would be able to protect the essay from the kind of changes you describe. The current editing policy doesn't side with the "status quo" or the "ante status quo" or the "post status quo" or the "quid pro quo". It requires that we "preserve information". It's even italicised. On the one hand, in a case where someone is reverting an edit and destroying information, they are violating this policy, and on the other hand, in the case where someone is deleting parts of an article and destroying information, they are violating this policy. This is why wp:statusquo is irreconcilable with current policy. The actual policy favours information, not timestamps. Any guideline that could favour timestamps over information can never be reconciled. (Smallvillefanatic (talk) 20:09, 20 June 2009 (UTC))

The battles are over for now, Smallvillefanatic. I won a battle on the Shirley Temple renaming issue, but I lost the "war". There was no consensus to rename. The vote was 7 to 3 against renaming, which allows for my taking further steps toward dispute resolution. But I aquiesced until another editor makes the renaming suggestion independently. Thank you for the WP:Preserve tip. I shall check with the other editor who fought long and hard but lost that war. She might be "burned out". And I would not want to face those majority editors at The Age of Reason alone. I guess I just don't have her courage. She might see the Preserve option as viable, though. Thanks again.

Now, as for your take on the Status quo issue, I do understand. However I must still disagree. And I actually base this upon what I read at WP:Preserve. Well, at least for material that's been removed, I do. It does appear that Preserve protects new material that's been added, though. It's a tough nut to crack. Does the Preserve policy lead us to "preserve" the newly added material? or does it lead us to "preserve" the article as it was before the new material was added? I'm still unclear on that.  ^{.`</sup>^) Paine<sup>diss`cuss} (^^`.  20:44, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes or no, depending on what you mean by "material". We are required to preserve information, not necessarily the presentation of information. wp:preserve doesn't protect articles, but the information in articles. Presentation (well, non-protected articles) is not protected by wp:preserve. So, if someone puts up a bizarre edit with some new information, we are obliged to preserve that information and integrate it, but it does not protect the bizarre presentation. So, I guess my answer is: wp:preserve protects new and old information, but neither new nor old presentation. (Smallvillefanatic (talk) 03:50, 21 June 2009 (UTC))

With respect to the split, what I'd suggest is having an essay at "WP:statusquo" called "Default to the Status Quo" or something like that, and people can put a link here (if that's the way the discussion goes). It's the only orphaned "wp:xxx" here. There's nothing wrong with a help page linking to essays, but it shouldn't be housing guidelinesque "wp:xxx" sections. (Smallvillefanatic (talk) 20:09, 20 June 2009 (UTC))

Let me say this- this page is not policy. It is not guideline. It is a help page- that is to say, its purpose is to provide advice and assistance to editors unfamiliar with Wikipedia processes. Its current wording is pretty much a paraphrase of WP:BRD, which is a widely accepted manner of editing, though in itself neither policy nor guideline. I also see though, Smallvillefanatic that you've posted to WT:BRD with a question of clarification. Let me answer it- there's a damn good reason why BRD includes reversion. The first editor makes a WP:BOLD edit. Other editors engage in discussion, but no consensus is reached. Thus the version without consensus support remains. This goes fundamentally against how Wikipedia works. In virtually every single process on Wikipedia, you'll find that no consensus means preservation of the status quo. It's just how it works, has always worked, and quite frankly works well. Yes there are problems with it, but my god not nearly the problems the exact opposite would cause. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 00:24, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind having a chat about BRD, but this isn't the page for it. Since I've started one there, feel free to hit me up! It's on my watchlist. What I would say that is relevant to this is a) wp:statusquo is not a summary of BRD for reasons I can explain there ("BRD is not RD"), and b) you've presented a bit of a false dilemma. There's no reason at all that one need choose between something and its exact opposite. What I've said here before is that the policy (not a guideline, not an essay, policy) is that information needs to be retained. Editing policy on wikipedia takes no account of timestamps. (Note:looking over Muzhogg's original modification, I realise I may have misread it, and taken it to be a version of Wikipedia:ROWN; if it's stronger than that, I don't support it either, and I apologize for any confusion caused by my misreading) (Smallvillefanatic (talk) 03:50, 21 June 2009 (UTC)).

It is not correct that policy dictates that information must always be retained. Sometimes information, even when correct, is not relevant or suitable for a particular article. No one, however, is saying always revert, please don't use straw man arguments. SpinningSpark 10:25, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Wp:preserve doesn't make exception for irrelevant or inappropriate information. In fact, one of the methods it explicitly recommends is "moving text within an article or to another article (existing or new)". Deleting even irrelevant or unsuitable information to a given article is against wp:preserve. In terms of the straw man, I'm not sure what comment you're referring to. I searched the page for "always", but I don't think I've ever used it (well, until now!). If I either misspoke or said something ambiguous that implied that I meant people were saying to always revert, I apologize, since I didn't mean anything like that, that I recall (Smallvillefanatic (talk) 17:06, 21 June 2009 (UTC)).

As long as any of the facts or ideas added to the article would belong in a "finished" article, they should be retained doesn't mean keep in any old edit at all costs either. SpinningSpark 17:29, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

No, but it means keep any information that would belong in (i.e. be appropriate - you don't need to predict the future!) a finished article. It's precisely this policy with which wp:statusquo is irreconcilable. According to wp:statusquo, if there is any dispute about an edit, everyone (not just the reverter, everyone!) is obliged to stick with the status quo until consensus can be reached. However, if there is information in that edit that is salvageable, then to stick with the status quo goes against wp:preserve. In other words, wp:statusquo is in violation of wp:preserve in every single case where a contentious new edit has more information than the status quo (Smallvillefanatic (talk) 17:46, 21 June 2009 (UTC)).

Wikipedia-specific help section

Does anyone actually do this (I mean manually put links to users' contributions pages in edit summaries). Seems a bit of a waste of people's time encouraging them to do this. Surely the edit summaries we see in that form are automatically generated ones. I propose removing this whole section.--Kotniski (talk) 16:14, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, I"m going to do this (revert if you disagree for some good reason).--Kotniski (talk) 09:30, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Space available for edit summary

We are encouraged "If you are undoing an edit that is not vandalism, explain the reason in the edit summary. Do not use the default message only." However, of the 200 characters that the editbox allows, 59 + 3 x (number of characters in the reverted editor's name) are already taken up. The edit number is of little use to those reviewing the edit history (the date of the edit might be more useful to most such people): why do we need direct links to both the contributions history and the talk page of the editor being reverted? Would a serious loss of utility result from replacing

• [[WP:UNDO|Undid]] revision 999999999 by [[Special:Contributions/Editorbeingreverted|Editorbeingreverted]] ([[User talk:Editorbeingreverted|talk]])
  with
• [[WP:UNDO|Undid]] revision by [[User:Editorbeingreverted]]

The former allows for 54 characters of explanation of the reversion, the latter allows 142. Is this the right place to propose a change to the automated introduction to the summary? Kevin McE (talk) 21:32, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

You might like to see previous discussion at MediaWiki talk:Undo-summary. There is also a central location to advertise discussions about changes to interface messages. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:04, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Now at Village Pump for larger audience. I'll notify at MediaWiki. Kevin McE (talk) 21:36, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

WP:"

WP editors will revert anything they feel like. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.69.120 (talk) 16:49, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

This is related to here. Why does WP:" redirect to Undo? Simply south (talk) 20:46, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it's some kind of code? Don't know.--Kotniski (talk) 16:14, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Codifing what constitues a revert

Hi, I've noticed there are many instances where whether an edit is a revert or not is very murky, so I have begun to codify what is a revert here. I of course need consensus to introduce the codifing officially so I ask that interested editors join me to fill in the question marks in the examples I have written out. As I will be posting this elsewhere as well, please talk on the talk page of the article. Thank you, Passionless -Talk 04:11, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Reverting images

I can't revert/upload any of the images. Is this a problem on Wikipedia? Zhvxoxqew (talk) 03:05, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

No. Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 08:33, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Why change correct facts and remove positive response?

The Wolfman doesn´t have 32% at rotten...it has 33%.Not 4.7/10 but 4.8.I wasn´t allowed to correct that despite the page being so long amd full with text,it takes 20 minutes to read the page. The critical reception summary make it sound as no one gave the film a high grade or liked it,which isn´t the case.I just added from the VERY SAME critic that was qouted that the film "offers an authentic,emotional hook that too many horror movies today don´t have.",that was all,since the Critical reception part don´t mention anything that would make a person want to see the film,although it´s facts and not personal opinion. But that was too much info,despite about 7000 words about the delayed production and something similar about the score.So why write,or ALLOW to be written so much about a film that it seems no proffessional critic liked according to your page.Roger Eberts 2.5/4 was okay to submit but his collegue Richard Roeper giving it 4/5 is not something one is allowed to know?Seems very inconsistent is all I´m saying. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MizterPurple (talk • contribs) 12:38, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Maybe you could ask the user who reverted you? Possibly it wasn't because of the facts you added, but because your edits looked a bit like test edits (there were odd bits of example syntax mixed in).--Kotniski (talk) 13:15, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Edit summaries

Esp. in the case where a reverted edit had an edit summary, the revert should probably have a edit summary too (even a "see talk"), unless the reason is very obvious. (I realise that all involved have to assume good faith, edit summaries are mandated for every edit and so on.) The point being that the original editor gave a reason so the reverter should give one too. IMO it is a matter of courtesy more than anything else. 122.59.249.222 (talk) 23:29, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Rollback summary

The word 'reverted' in the rollback summary was changed from linking to WP:RBK to Help:Reverting, and this page hasn't been updated to reflect that fact. I considered updating it myself but I'm not actually sure how one would go about it, because if you try to link a page from itself it turns bold rather than linking: [[Help talk:Reverting]] gives Help talk:Reverting. Maybe link to Help:Reverting#top? Any thoughts? Cathfolant (talk) 17:36, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:01, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Did it. Cathfolant (talk) 22:16, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

deleting pages

Hello, There must be some misunderstanding. I'm new on wiki and like to know why some pages are deleted. Thank you, Gerard —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gerabene (talk • contribs) 20:58, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

You might find this page useful: Wikipedia:Deletion policy. Check the section "Reasons for deletion". -- Kndimov (talk) 02:41, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

NPOV exists in a truthful statement

Why was my edit deleted? It was sourced an accurate, and there was no discussion beforehand. If we omit this fact then Outrage! is misrepresented. The POV problem is in deleting it. Outrage does currently advocate the repeal of age-of-consent laws.David4442 (talk) 16:14, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Can you please specify which edit you are referring to? -- Kndimov (talk) 02:43, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 May 2014

I would like to undo the recents edits. the edits are slanderous and untrue about me. I would like to return to original content, Sid Miller

108.161.10.253 (talk) 14:26, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Help:Reverting. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. Jackmcbarn (talk) 14:54, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

I have removed your email address to protect your privacy. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:23, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

???

Article not clear and did not adequately explain steps for reverting. This section needs to be more a "how to" and less encyclopedia article on merits and circumstances of reverting. KnowS (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:22, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't the "Manual reverting" section explain this in step-by-step detail? -- Kndimov (talk) 02:39, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I find this is the problem with most help pages in Wikipedia. Strong on the whys and general background (far too much info) but very poor on the hows tos. --P123ct1 (talk) 20:26, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Manual reverting

One method suggested for reverting is restoring the article to a previous version. What about any innocent copy-edits that have been done in the meantime? They will be lost completely. My editing is mainly confined to cleaning up grammar, infelicities of expression, checking quotations are accurate against footnotes, etc, which many Wikipedia articles are in dire need of. It can take a long time to weed through an article to make it accurate and easily readable. I hope I have not misunderstood anything. --P123ct1 (talk) 20:29, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

@P123ct1: You have pointed out an area where the help page was/is lacking. I have added a first stab at Help:Reverting#Reverting multiple non-contiguous edits which should begin to cover the situation which you mention. The section still needs work, but at least mentions that the reverting editor is responsible to make sure that any intervening helpful edits are retained. — Makyen (talk) 23:28, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

@Makyen: Thanks for replying so promptly. First, I really don't think a user would take the trouble to read a passage as long and complex as that; it would have to be condensed down to no more than 10 lines, I think. I would like to point out some difficulties in reverting to a previous version as I see it. I do a lot of copy-editing of Wikipedia articles (correcting bad grammar and misquotes from footnotes, etc), and when I clean up a badly written article, it can involve redrafting a whole sentence, or adjusting part of a sentence, and not just and there, but throughout the whole article. Even if there were only a handful of edits dotted through an article, they would be very difficult to spot and weed out. In either case, reverting to a previous version while preserving such edits would entail reading through the whole article carefully to check for them. It would be extremely time-consuming and I just cannot see anyone taking the trouble to do it. I hope this description of what copy-editing can entail helps. I can provide an example if you would like me to; it would probably be easier for you to see what I am talking about if I did. --P123ct1 (talk) 08:34, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

@P123ct1: I'll see if I can condense it down a bit. However, if someone does not have the patience to read through a couple/few paragraphs should they really be taking on the task of manually reverting non-contiguous edits? That is a task that can take a considerable amount of time and diligence to accomplish accurately.

I believe I understand what you are talking about as to changes being dispersed throughout the article. It is actually relatively easy to see where these changes occurred by using the diff functionality. There is certainly no need to painstakingly read through the two different versions to see where the differences are. The diff will show exactly what changes were made including some context surrounding the changes. If the standard diff is not sufficient (sometimes it shows large changes where it was really minor), then there is the gadget User:Cacycle/wikEdDiff. The diff of only the edits which one desires to re-apply can easily be obtained by going to the page history, selecting the edit prior to them and the last edit of interest and clicking on "Compare selected revisions".

It is easier than you are implying to reapply such edits by having a diff of the edit open in one window and repetitively using "Show changes" in the window which you are editing. You start at the top and make changes such that the two diffs match in the areas of concern. Generally, the process for each change is: looking at the diff to see the change; highlight some text near the change; search for that text in the edit box and then copy-and-paste the edited text and some surrounding text from the other window to make sure you actually get the edit (and to have a convenient stop and end point for the copy-and-paste). Sometimes it is desirable to have a third tab/window where you have begun to edit – never intending to save – the version of the page with the edits in question and use this tab/window as the source for the copy and paste. This is desirable when the amount of text to copy and paste is large as a copy of the diff view sometimes picks up extraneous characters if selecting multiple lines.

I've done this process more than once (I don't recall how many times). It is not fun. It takes a considerable amount of time and diligence, but really is not all that difficult. — Makyen (talk) 16:12, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

@Makyen: Sorry, I'm quite new to editing in Wikipedia, so not very sophisticated at handling the "Show changes" under "View history", although I did realize this type of reverting would involve comparing two version of the article using the "diff"s. From your description I can see now how this kind of reverting is done, but it does seem an awful lot of work, especially if the date the article is being reverted to is some distance back. I have noticed from "View history" pages that even in a week there can be many edits to an article and can well believe that while not difficult this method is very time-consuming! I just hope that whoever attempts this method will be painstaking and conscientious about it. Thanks for the explanations! --P123ct1 (talk) 17:21, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Notice of discussion: "Undo" not working properly?

I just started this discussion: Village_pump_(technical)#"Undo" not working properly?. FYI. --{{U|Elvey}} ^(t•c) 16:16, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Americans for Prosperity page dispute

Greetings! I am wondering if 1. this is the place to take this issue, and 2. if someone can help me here. The AFP page is heavily disputed. However, about a month ago, there was a a majority consensus on the page. (Since several more editors have come in and it is chaotic). Anyways, after a lot of edits were made to the page and an admin placed 1RR limits, a user with a very obvious bias made a HUGE edit undoing everything claiming "restoring neutrality". (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Americans_for_Prosperity&diff=670142102&oldid=669806083). No user wanted to revert this edit because the 1RR restrictions were being heavily enforced and no one wanted to get blocked. As a result it has been allowed to stay. I was wondering if we could restore this version: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Americans_for_Prosperity&oldid=669806083

I dont doubt the page will then undergo more edits But I believe it will put it on the path to neutrality. Please let me know either what needs to be done or where I should take this inquiry if not here. Thank you for your time DaltonCastle (talk) 18:50, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 July 2015

Please delete the email address <win...len@xtra.co.nz> i included in the note I left about the book I published on Lepperton in the 'history' page Windyglen (talk) 23:48, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

 Done - I made a request for oversight and the email address has been hidden from the page history. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:38, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

WP:" shortcut

The shortcut WP:" does not redirect here. Please remove it from the {{redirect}} template. Thanks. 100.12.206.17 (talk) 02:13, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

 Done Datbubblegumdoe^It's_2016? 02:22, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

"Undid 2 revisions by"

There have been several cases where an edit summary contains "Undid 2 revisions by", such as [1] to Negro National League (1920–31) with edit summary "Undid 2 revisions by 64.251.48.138 (talk) -- rvv" and many edits by GAV80. Where does the "Undid 2 revisions by" edit summary came from and is there a link that will prefill this edit summary? 96.41.0.15 (talk) 22:46, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Several semi-automated tools provide such standard edit summaries, but I don't know which ones exactly. Also, protected pages that require review will show that message when someone reverts multiple edits. Gap9551 (talk) 22:54, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

@96.41.0.15: I do this edits manually without tools. I copy summary text from last wrong edit and then add quantity of edits and delete number of edit. GAV80 (talk) 20:43, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Multiple edit reverting -- how to get standard edit summary

When I follow the steps as described in this article (click an older date in history, click edit button) to revert the last couple of edits at once, I don't get the "Reverted edits by UserX (talk) to last version by UserY" summary but just a blank edit field. What am I doing wrong? Thanks for your help. Gap9551 (talk) 20:37, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Rollback automatically creates such an edit summery, for example, and other tools (self-reply). Gap9551 (talk) 19:17, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Revert and Warn

Hello, which is the easiest way to revert a vandal and warn him with the fewest possible clicks? Bertdrunk (talk) 14:17, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Reverting your own edits

I think the users should enjoy the feature of easily reverting a range of their own edits. There are gadgets for quickly adding categories and you can easily add a category to say 50 articles. But sometimes you can make errors. And then, making 50 reverts one by one, or asking an admin to do it automatically is not really productive. -- Fructibus (talk) 18:15, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Rajeev Paul

Hi I am indeed Rajev Paul And am trying to add my pics and links to the site But after 3 hours of edit I realise it's back.to.square one How do I do it?

I used and alibi fanofPaul as i.dodnt want to.show myself editing the same

Kindly help.me edit the site for my page.. Fanofpaul (talk) 11:45, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

If you are the subject of the Rajeev Paul article, or have any external relation with him, you are discouraged from any direct editing of that article. Least of all to add "my pics and links" – there are copyright regulations over use of images, and we do not normally allow links to Facebook or other social media in our articles. You must in any case disclose any conflict of interest that may influence your edits. More details are linked in the notice on your talk page: Noyster (talk), 13:35, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

I can't find the "Undo" button

When I look at an edit in page's review history, the "Undo" button doesn't appear anywhere. Does the "Undo" button work in mobile devices? Not a very active user (talk) 11:39, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 January 2019

The section on Tom Mulcair and the 2016 Edmonton convention is a well known fact within NDP circles. If you want confirmation one need go no further than the Bring Back Tom Mulcair Campaign site on Facebook and read what the membership, and some well known personalities within that membership, have to say. If you ask any of the admins they will forward the name and contact information for the constitutional lawyer who was involved in vetting the report done by Mr. Jackaman. The NDP, for obvious reasons, is attempting to shovel this under the rug - but facts are facts. Zorba Greek (talk) 02:19, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: This page is for editing Help:Reverting. Please make this edit request on the page you would like to edit. --DannyS712 (talk) 02:35, 14 January 2019 (UTC) DannyS712 (talk) 02:35, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Bug undo

Please see this: [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8] and more. Why? Please fix this. Xain36 (talk) 15:19, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

A confirmation prompt for rollbacks

The confirmation prompt works inline, like the thanks confirmation.

You can activate the prompt in your preferences, if you want to.
On dewiki, you can deactivate it in your settings.

Hello, in case you want to add it to Help:Reverting#Rollback, here is some information about a feature from Wikimedia Germany’s Technical Wishes team, which was deployed yesterday:

There is a new option in your user preferences: If you want to, you can add a confirmation prompt to your rollback links. Users from German Wikipedia have asked for this, because quite a lot of people on dewiki accidentally click on the rollback link, e.g. when they want to thank someone. But there are also people in other wikis who use various methods to prevent themselves from accidentally rolling back.

The confirmation prompt works inline, like the thanks notification. It’s switched off by default, but you can turn it on individually if you want to (and have rollback rights). This is the default setting for all wikis except German Wikipedia, where the confirmation prompt will be activated as a default. On dewiki, users who want to rollback quickly can turn it off individually in their user settings.

Please see the project page for more information about this wish, its background and timeline. Feedback is always welcome on the central feedback page.

Best, Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talk) 07:59, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Please update the 'Manual reverting' section

Click the "edit this page" tab as you normally would to edit a page. (Above the edit box, you will see a warning similar to: "You are editing an old revision of this page. If you save it, any changes made since then will be removed.")

This doesn't happen ever since the new site layout where the edit button was moved to the top right. I don't see a warning box anywhere, and the text in the edit box is of the most recent version and not of the earlier version that I selected. I'd like to know how I'm supposed to manually revert something. tildetildetildetilde

Great, now it works. Awesome coding, wikipedia. tildetildetildetilde

It doesn’t for me, every time I try to edit an old revision, it just says I’m viewing the source of the revision, plz help me! The person who should not be named (talk) 22:35, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Reverting#Proposal to add section encouraging partial reversion when appropriate

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Reverting#Proposal to add section encouraging partial reversion when appropriate. Sdkb (talk) 08:48, 12 March 2020 (UTC) Sdkb (talk) 08:48, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

how

how do i delete my alerts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MGHSHour (talk • contribs) 23:18, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

MGHSHour, could you please specify? Thanoscar21^talk_{contributions} 23:02, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Reverting spam with Twinkle

What is the preferred way to roll back spam? Twinkle has a button to roll back multiple changes from the same IP address, but it is only for good faith edits. Also, is there a way to report spam? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 07:39, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

@Chatul: I very rarely use Twinkle's green "rollback (AGF)" button; instead I use the blue "rollback" button and fill in a brief edit summary. So when reverting spam I'll use the middle button and an edit summary such as "rv spam link" or "rv advertising". If a spammer continues to advertise after receiving multiple warnings, then they can be reported at WP:AIV. Wikipedia:Spam covers this in more detail. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:17, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Whoops! Somehow I didn't notice the middle button :-(

How do you warn an anonymous user, e.g., 39.40.54.7/10? I've seen multiple spam edits from IP addresses of Pakistan Telecommunication company limited.

Thanks Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 15:43, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

@Chatul: There's no way to leave a single warning for an editor who keeps jumping to a new IP address. If the IP edits are all trying to post the same spam link, then you might be able to get it blacklisted at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist. Failing that, if it gets too bad then you could post at WP:ANI requesting a range block. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:09, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Reverting § Using undo for an edit that isn't a revert

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Reverting § Using undo for an edit that isn't a revert. CapnZapp (talk) 08:28, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Why is it so hard to undo a thread archiving?

Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Edit_filter/False_positives/Reports&diff=945872374&oldid=945872333 Why isn't this a one-click operation exactly?--50.201.195.170 (talk) 21:07, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Whether or not you can undo an archiving in one click depends on if there have been edits after the archiving or not. If there have been, chances are you will have to do it manually. While "One-click archiver" can archive any thread in one click, no gadget exists to undo an archiving in a click. You have to go to the archive and remove the thread and then add it back to the talk page. Mgasparin (talk) 20:44, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Why is it so hard to undo a thread archiving, 50.201.195.170? Because it is a relatively rare need. In other words, having to work a bit is deemed acceptable since it does not happen very often. CapnZapp (talk) 08:30, 2 October 2021 (UTC)