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Wikipedia:Pending changes/Feedback/Archive 1

< Wikipedia:Pending changes‎ | Feedback
Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 → Archive 5

Unapprove button

The unapprove button causes some confusion among reviewers, as many people will mistake the choice will be to approve or unapprove, when it really should of been approve or revert. 山本一郎 (会話) 05:18, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I forget where it was as I type, but I posted the idea of a "Decline" button that automatically reverts the edit in question. If another user has already declined it, the button would do nothing. CycloneGU (talk) 06:08, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
  • Rather than do "nothing", a note it has already been declined would be helpful, though you may have had that in mind. - BilCat (talk) 09:32, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
I was just coming to suggest the above statement. Therequiembellishere (talk) 07:11, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
I agree with above comments. Otherwise I love the new Pending changes, it will definately make Wikipedia better IMO. Esuzu (talk • contribs) 09:15, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
I concur also. Currently, edits reverted by a reviewr are not marked as such, and sometimes it even seems to mark them as "Accepted"! Having a "Decline" function, along with a summary field for any comments, would help to make it clearer what reverted edits were reviewed, distinguishing them from edits made by reviwers that may have been reverted by another reviewe. - BilCat (talk) 09:32, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
I agree. Having a 'decline' button would also make things a lot easier. After all, why have the 'decline button' when it's not for declining and we have to revert a request to decline it. I was confused about it myself and had to ask in IRC for help. BejinhanTalk 09:51, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Agree. Sadads (talk) 12:31, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Add my support of this. I wanted to decline an edit and it's not very clear how to do so. --~TPW 13:08, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
I agree, a decline button that would automatically just revert back to the last approved version would help a lot. When I first started reviewing I was kinda confused by the current setup. ♪♫Alucard 16♫♪ 05:32, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
I agree too - what we need is an Approve or Unapprove button (depending on whether the edit has been approved already) and a Revert button. Other than that, the system seems to work well. --Smaug123 (talk) 06:40, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
I would think it trivial to add undo & rollback links there. I think this would be a great idea.  --Joshua Scott (formerly LiberalFascist) 23:04, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Hi everyone, we have a "reject" button in the works. We weren't able to get the feature done in time for the launch, and there are some rather tricky aspects to a "reject" button. Please review the specification for the "reject" button and let us know if it is a suitable improvement to the user interface. Thanks! -- RobLa (talk) 18:13, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
I like the idea of Alternative A]. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 23:30, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
Having an "reject" button seems like a good idea. However, I think the most important thing is that the "unapprove" button should be hidden when it can't be used. Greying it out is just confusing. Yaris678 (talk) 17:11, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
Just went through the page. I, too, agree with Alternative A - it is more functional than Alternative C and not as messy than Alternative B. As per the proposed suggestion, this would also hide the "unapprove" button (which has confusingly been renamed the "unaccept" button). Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 18:20, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
Agree with Alt. A as the most effective/least confusing option for a highly necessary addition to the tool's usability. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 23:51, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Watchlist

On my Watchlist, the change does not say that the edit is subject to review, or whether or not it has been accepted. Some means of keeping track of this information on a User's watchpage would be very helpful. Sadads (talk) 12:31, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

It says that their are edits that need to be accepted. Never mind, Sadads (talk) 19:13, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

When viewing my Watchlist, I have always wondered what "(+100)" and "(-100)" represents. Could somebody please let me know. Zerowing22 (talk) 17:21, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

The figures are the change in size of the page. -100 means the page is 100 bytes smaller. +100 means the page is 100 bytes larger. HumphreyW (talk) 16:36, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Its bytes? I thought it was "Characters?"

Oh, right,thanks for informing me HumphreyW. Zerowing22 (talk) 18:22, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Best protection system yet

I see little wrong with it, other than what the two sections above entail. I like how one can rollback things that technically were never seen! If the vandalism doesn't even have the 20 seconds we usually grant it, it's virtually eliminated. Applying this to more pages would be cool. 2D ℳaestro Hablar/Escribir 12:50, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

It should be applied to more pages, especially those that have been semi-protected at least once and/or are vulnerable to constant vandalism. It works much better than semi-protection. Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 15:27, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Exactly. It should be added GLOBALLY to Wikipedia articles (within the mainspace). JBsupreme (talk) ✄ ✄ ✄ 20:33, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I love it. When are we going to do this for all pages?-- Kim van der Linde at venus 15:30, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

All pages? What, all 3 million? I sure hope that never happens, and indeed, I was under the impression that this trial was only to see if this would be a good substitute for semi-protection. So far, pending changes seems like a major waste of time. There's one semi-protected article I'm watching that was put into trial. The only effect this had on the article was to produce about a dozen+ anon edits that vandalized the page and then had to be reverted, a dozen times (of course), by good editors whose time is better spent elsewhere. That's what this whole thing is looking like to me, overall - it just allows vandals to have their edits recorded in the history log, while taking away time from good editors who could be out there expanding articles or reverting vandalism from pages where it is actually visible. I don't think any upsides outweigh that simple fact. And if pending changes were to be put into three million + articles, it would create a massive never-to-be-caught-up-with backlog of edits - on the one hand, it would discourage anon I.P.s from editing because their edits would almost never be immediately visible; on the other, it would swallow up all the time autoconfirmed editors have and could spend making useful edits. In short, it would reduce editing on Wikipedia by a fairly hefty percentage. It should never, ever, happen. All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 21:32, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
I agree - it should be a weak sort of protection applied to pages where it is requested, and all Featured pages, but not to any others IMO. --Smaug123 (talk) 06:41, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
I agree completely. This is supposed to be the encyclopedia that anyone could edit; that would most certainly not give that image. ~~ Hi878 (Come yell at me!) 05:10, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Our image has been an encyclopedia anyone can vandalize. This fixes that. Anyone can edit and it will get approved when someone trusted gets around to it. I think we've matured enough to the point that the good of this feature FAR outweighs whatever perceived "bad" you're seeing here. JBsupreme (talk) ✄ ✄ ✄ 20:35, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I'll have to disagree, at least partially, with the opinions in this section. I see two problems so far, although these don't necessarily negate all the benefits of the reviewer concept. First, my observation is that some (probably not a lot) of reviewers don't use their reviewing rights properly. I've seen it used to impose personal content preferences if a reviewer disagreed with content added, even though there was no vandalism or other policy violation. The fix for that may be tightening up the requirements to become a reviewer. Secondly, I disagree that the reviewing process should be used globally. Part of the reason for that is what I expressed above about irresponsible reviewers. In adddition, I believe the only really good way to reduce vandalism is to require registration to edit on Wikipedia. The VAST majority of cases of vandalism are from anons and new editors. I understand the argument that among anon or new editors there might be a gem among the rubble, but I think that doesn't outweigh the damage caused by the numerous anon or newly registered vandals. Requiring registration to edit not only would eliminate the need for most reviewers, it would cut down on the janitorial responsibilities of administrators. Cresix (talk) 18:08, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I concur, at least partially, on two remarks by Cresix. First, perhaps the requirements to become a reviewer should be tightened. Second, the review process should not be applied globally. The tighter requirments for reviewer would correct the problems mentioned. I think applying the PC policy globally would limit the amount of information contained in the encylopedia. I must dissent regarding mandatory registration, for the simple reason it takes such a very short time to register, therefore forcing registration will not stop vandalism. Anyone intent on causing chaos is more than willing to complete the registration process -- hundreds of times, if needed. IP blocking, while not perfect, does deter most vandals, and the current protection system should get the others. Additionally, forcing registration will exclude some editors that are against/fearful of any registration process (even at such a benign site at wikipedia) because of concerns of ID theft through hacking of databases, or a general misunderstanding of how registration works, etc.; yet they are extremely knowledgable regarding very specialized subject matter. In general, I am against the PC system, but fail to have a better idea to recommend at this point. (There is nothing civil about Civil War. 07:48, 11 July 2010 (UTC))

Accept/Unaccept

Actually I already mentioned this on the technical pump page, but perhaps this is a more appropriate place.

At any one time only one of the two buttons can be used. I found that having both buttons displayed, even with one greyed out, was confusing. I had expected that a change made by another editor was waiting for me to either accept or not-accept the edit but was presented with only a way to unaccept it (the particular edit had already been accepted, but I didn't realise that at the time). I thought this was a JS issue that was expecting me to enter some text in the associated box and that the JS would likely then enable the accept button for me to choose. Of course none of this happened, the accept button is permanently greyed no matter what one does on the page. I thought the whole thing was broken and reported a technical problem.

I propose to change the way the buttons are presented to avoid all the confusion. If an edit is waiting to be accepted, then only give the editor the option to accept. Simply leave out the unaccept button completely. And of course vice-versa, if an edit has already been accepted then only present the unaccept button, and never show the accept button. HumphreyW (talk) 15:56, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Hear hear. OhanaUnitedTalk page 04:13, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Observation

I've also made this observation elsewhere, but I'll repeat it here. This is as much about the trial, as about the feature itself. So far, the queue has been based on applying the trial to pages that are currently semi-protected indefinitely, as far as I can tell. I think that this may not be the best way to assess the usefulness of the feature. On pages that get a lot of IP vandalism, it's actually much easier to have them semi-ed than to deal with multiple edits that all have to be reviewed and reverted, so the trial is tending to create more work on many of the pages where it is being applied, making semi-protection look more attractive than pending changes. On the other hand, I think that the real usefulness of this process will prove to be on other pages, where there is some IP vandalism, some occasional good IP edits, and not enough vandalism to warrant semi-ing. There, pending changes would create no more work than exists now, would prevent some vandalism from being seen, and would allow good IP edits that would have been blocked by semi-protection. I hope this fact will be taken into sufficient consideration when the results of this trial are evaluated. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:34, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Agree with the above. Pending changes is not a good substitute for semi-protection where IP vandalism is at a chronically high level. It would work best where there is a proven track record of sensible IP input. Otherwise, it becomes a timewaster's friend, with the regular editors having to mop up.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 20:11, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
I also concur having seen some of these for a few days. Even took part in getting Julia Gillard reprotected after it became a spam target yesterday...so it works in having additional helpers find pages that NEED protection, too! CycloneGU (talk) 22:01, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
This echoes my observation also. Semi-protected pages are the wrong target for pending changes. HumphreyW (talk) 01:14, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Using semi-protected pages was the way the trial was set up, and one of it's purposes was to see if PC1 was an effective subsitute for semi-protection. In some cases it's working just fine, but in others it's not. More than likely, if Pending changes is approved, guidelines for PC1 will have to be maded with less strict criteria than for semi-protection. - BilCat (talk) 02:17, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
George W. Bush has gone back to semi-protection after pending changes led to a rash of vandalism. This is notable because the article was cited by the media as a flagship example of how the policy would work.[1] There has been a degree of enthusiasm for pending changes that may not always be matched by the reality. Like death and taxes, the IP vandals will always be with us, and the ability to edit a Wikipedia article will remain a privilege, not a right.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 05:52, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
I pretty much agree with this. In general it seems a good system, but there are pages it won't be appropriate for. We'll need better guidelines for when it is and isn't used (depending, as stated above, on the proportion of positive IP edits), but I'm generally fine with it. Although we should get the Accept/Unaccept buttons fixed, since, while I did work out how to use them without having to ask, it did confuse me at first, and it's not really that intuitive. Anaxial (talk) 22:20, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I've proposed a policy to handle the issue here. Cenarium (talk) 23:15, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Another page

Another page we should have the Pending Changes on is the List of Phineas and Ferb episodes page since it was previously was protected for IPs putting fake episodes/vandalism on it. You can let me look at the changes from the IPs as I follow the article's changes on my watchlist. Isabella and Lego Liker Whatcha doin'? 19:03, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Any page suggestions for addition to the trial should be made at WP:Pending_changes/Queue - Happysailor (Talk) 20:35, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Great idea

I think this is a great idea. Some vandalism is quite subtle and pending changes protection will be help keep it out until a knowlegeable reviewer can make a judgment call. The only suggestion I have would be a recommendation to reviewers that they not approve or disapprove pages where they are unsure about the content of the change. kcylsnavS{screechharrass} 20:23, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Completely agreed, but..... I'd take it one step further and completely ban IP-only edits. Qwrk (talk) 21:40, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
@Qwrk: That would gain significant opposition, especially because there are many constructive IPs that do not wish to create an account, because of their own reasons. Also, IP editors are mainly what produces the bulk of editors, as we registered editors with thousands of edits usually (though not always) make minor, not major edits to articles, so if we ban IP edits, then we will lose our main contributors to articles.
@Svanslyck: Absolutely agreed, but by the time they have someone else approve/disapprove the edit, more edits would have been made. —MC10 (T•C•GB•L) 22:55, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Jim Wales has made it quite clear that the issue of IP editing (Open editing) is non-negotiable. However, I've never seen an actual reason why this is a good thing as opposed to having only registered users, or why is is so "sacred" to Wikimedia (Jim Wales). IP editors are often called "anons", but it reality, I'm more anonymous than any IP editor, as my IP information is hidden from public view. If registration were made mandatory, most of the IPs who wished to continue editing would simply register. I know of very few websites of any kind that allow participation without registering first. I suspect that Open Editing has an advantage of some type, perhaps related to WP's position in Google seraches, or, more cynically, Jim Wales' wallet! Whatever the real reasons, it does cause more problems now than when first instituted, especially now that dynamic IPs are quite common. This means most IP editors lack a edit history, which is a disservice to them as much as to us registered users. But given the highly vocal opposition to Pending Changes, which has Jim's "public" support, there's no way mandatory registration will happen as the Wikifoundation is currently constituted. - BilCat (talk) 02:47, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
"If registration were made mandatory, most of the IPs who wished to continue editing would simply register." FALSE. Not everyone is here on Wikipedia to be a part of the community or anything like that; the bulk of Wikipedia's text (not edits) is contributed by users with very few edits, most of whom don't bother to register an account. (See here). It is crucial to encourage such casual users. Anyway, this is not the place to discuss IP editing, so it is unfortunate the topic has been brought up. Shreevatsa (talk) 03:09, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Then you shouldn't have resonded by calling my assertions "FALSE"! The reasons people "don't bother to register an account" is that they have never HAD to. That in no ways means they would NOT register if the had to. They have to register for practiaclly everything else on the internet, so it's not like registeration is a new concept. WP:BITE doesn't apply here. Now, if you respond again, and especially if you accuse me of giving FALSE information, you canexpect me to respond again. - BilCat (talk) 03:24, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
What I've experienced in my field of play [a mere niche, really] has surpassed my every imagination. I focus on mountaineering and the corresponding geographical regions, mainly in Central-Asia. The amount of vandalism that's going on in the geography related articles shouldn't have come as too big a surprise, as parts of these are still defined by approximate borders and the peoples living there tend to have very strong views of what's theirs. Quite a number of IP-only editors wrecking up parts of articles with nationalist POV are either of Pakistani, Indian or Chinese origin. If they'd just focus on the geopolitics I might even be able to live with that, but blighme!; they're even wrecking entries on mere mountains, biographies of mountaineers, whatever they deem wreckable. Sometimes I really think we should just hand Wikipedia to the dogs so they can have a forum for their BS. It's even come this far that, because of this warmongering going on, I will seriously have to reconsider whether it's worth the trouble at all giving Wikipedia my time, attention and expertise. And I'm surely not the only one when I see what's been uttered on other peoples talk pages. Qwrk (talk) 06:17, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Blocking all IP editors is a WP:PEREN issue, and not one that I agree with. It is also beyond the scope of this page to discuss it here. The statistics given in WP:PEREN are misleading, because only about 0.1% of articles are semi-protected, and this is usually done because of a history of timewasting from IPs. Nothing has changed with the introduction of pending changes, and semi-protection remains the best option where IPs are likely to cause disruption.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 06:37, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I like pending changes. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 00:55, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Maybe if IP editors who do not wish to register could get like their own thing, I don't know but if there was a database with good IP editors, and then there was a blanket ban on all other IP editors, maybe that would help, I don't know. If an IP editor wanted to edit, they would have to contact a trustworthy editor for approval before even editing? Anyways, just some possible, and very loose, ideas. It's Me(Speak to me)What have you done? 07:23, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

The trouble with IP-only editors is that [for me] it takes this much time to revert their wrongdoings I better contemplate refraining from reporting them as of now. You hardly get to do any constructive work at all! Or quit Wikipedia all together..... Qwrk (talk) 20:02, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Level 3 PC

I'm not sure how hard this will be to implement on a technical level, but I do want to propose another admin-only review level, a.k.a. level 3 PC. Pretty much it's a level of PC where admins are the only users with reviewing power. It would also be helpful too to create a page simliar to Special:OldReviewedPages but exclusively for level 3 pcp'ed page because I expect if an article was protected under level 3, they are probably very controversial and they deserve a much cleaner look than pages protected under level 1 and 2. 山本一郎 (会話) 04:23, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Isn't that what PC Level 2 is? - BilCat (talk) 04:35, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Level 2 is not exclusive to admins. 山本一郎 (会話) 04:42, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
OK, thanks. I couldn't find the definitions of the 2 levels, so I asked. - BilCat (talk) 04:44, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Ah, I see, level 2 just means that auto-confirmed edits will not automatically be reviewed until a person with a reviewer right comes and reviews it. Level 1 means that auto-confirmed users edit will be automatically be reviewed. I suggest we create a level 3 so that there's another option available for administrators to monitor pages that's extremely controversial. 山本一郎 (会話) 04:48, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Random question. How many admin. fists would you like down your throat? =) I've seen quite a few admins. speak out against this, about as many people as I've seen supporting it. The admins. I refer to will bring comments like one on another page, "extra work for no gain".
Feel free to test it, but I suspect that will not go over very well. =)
(My comments are in no way offensive, just a satirical question.) CycloneGU (talk) 05:32, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
If an article is so contentious that only adims should review it, it's not likely that using PC will accomplish much anyway. Full protection with request to make changes posted on the talkj page would be the best solution for such articles, as is stands in current policy. - BilCat (talk) 05:42, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
However, perhaps a Level 3 that blocks IP/non-confirmed edits, but allows autoconfirmed edits, would be feasible. - BilCat (talk) 05:45, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Isn't that Level 2? My bad, I just realized right after posting that that Level 2 still allows IP edits but they must be reviewed. If Level 3 is as suggested here, it might work, even on SEMI-protected articles being converted to such. CycloneGU (talk) 06:12, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Isn't what you mean equivalent to SP+PCP level 2 ? There's no need for a new level, as they can be used simultaneously. Cenarium (talk) 01:28, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
No. PCPL2 still enables reviewers to approve changes. The proposal by User:Yamamoto Ichiro is that PCPL3 changes would have to be approved by an administrator.
I can see that there might be occasions where you could use PCPL3, in preference to full protection. It mostly wouldn't be because of vandalism and BLP violations, it would be where there is a content dispute. An admin could apply PCPL3 for a period, to prevent edit-warring. If PCPL3 were implemented, I would also suggest that the pending version be only shown to admins by default.
Yaris678 (talk) 12:16, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
This to me seems like WP:CREEP, I am reminded of Hermes from futurama and the 100+ levels of bureaucrat. When we really get down to it we either trust people or we don't, I don't see creating levels upon levels of trust won't help much. If a page is truly contentious it can be protected, or someone's reviewer status can be removed if they can't be trusted. --nn123645 (talk) 14:56, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
In my above post I said that PCPL3 would be used more where there is a content dispute, rather than for vandalism or BLP violations. It would be used by administrators to get everyone to calm down while still allowing noncontentious edits to be accepted. It is not about creating an additional level of trust - we already rely on admins when consensus breaks down - it is just giving them a more subtle tool to use, in preference to full protection. Yaris678 (talk) 16:01, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

From an editor's standpoint, a bad idea

As an editor, comparing articles with the system in place and articles without suggests that the scheme is purely negative. There's just as much vandalism to deal with: apart from the added complexity, the main impact is that the ability of IP editors to revert vandalism has been removed, making things harder for the already shrinking active user base. Semi-protection is a much better alternative. -- Radagast3 (talk) 09:11, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I think part of the problem is that the trial is only able to use curren;y semi-ied articles, most of which were semi-ied for very good reasons. I think the trial will prove that while PC-L1 does work on some articles, semi-protection still has a place on WP , ans the PC will not replace it. I do believe that Pending changes will be useful on many articles, and is proving useful on some already. If Pending Changes is accepted after the trial, guidelines for PC-L1 will have to be made with less strict criteria than for semi-protection to be effective. - BilCat (talk) 09:35, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Aside from the typos, BilCat has hit it. I've seen it work on some articles, and not work on others as I've given examples of each. While I cannot foretell the future, I'll be interested in whether this process continues after the trial. CycloneGU (talk) 14:29, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Tables in simple skin no longer have borders

I am regular user of the simple skin. The table borders are gone. I am not really sure whether this happened when the vector skin was made default instead of the monobook skin or whether it was some unrelated change. I'm not quite sure what has to be changed so tables get their border back. -- machᵗᵃˡᵏ 10:15, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

This page is for feedback on the Pending changes trial. Try Wikipedia:Requests for comment/May 2010 skin change/Bug reports. --Bruce1eetalk 10:22, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Too slow

After I hit a "review" link on Special:OldReviewedPages on average it takes about 10 seconds for the resulting page to show up. On average, it also takes about 10 seconds after I hit "accept" for it to actually show as accepted. I'm not sure if other reviewers are experiencing this as well, but I hope this gets fixed soon.--Rockfang (talk) 10:58, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm also finding opening diffs on articles with pending changes very slow. --Bruce1eetalk 11:09, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm also finding the diffs load slowly (per the second comment, not the first). Brambleclawx 14:04, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Same thing as Rockfang. It's also slow if I hit undo to revert the change. Derild4921☼ 14:12, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Agree, extremely slow. Makes me reluctant to do a quick check on a pending edit.--~TPW 14:19, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Add me to the ones complaining about the slowness.  --Joshua Scott (formerly LiberalFascist) 17:50, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Me too. Just looking at the differences is sluggish.Cptnono (talk) 22:12, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
I echo the sentiments expressed herein. --Cybercobra (talk) 07:08, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
As do I. - Chrism would like to hear from you 13:58, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
It does tend to make it more of a chore than a simple compare and revert. Bob talk 18:00, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Yup, need to make the system sleeker if it will be used long term. A design goal to any system like this should be ease of use for the reviewer, which means low lag and minimal number of clicks. VQuakr (talk) 03:32, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

This issue is also discussed here and has been been reported as a bug here. --Bruce1eetalk 08:14, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Help link in reviewing interface

I'm not sure that the documentation is sufficiently accessible. Would a help link in the reviewing interface next to review this revision in the form of a question mark be useful (as in the protection interface) ? Cenarium (talk) 13:37, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I second that. There also should be links to the policy and feedback page on Special:OldReviewedPages or Special:StablePages. — Sebastian 06:00, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Feedback (Rules of chess)

On June 25, 2010, obvious vandalism to Rules of chess was accepted. The system failed. Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 16:23, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Chess is one of my expertise areas, though you wouldn't know by my not providing many edits to the area. However, I see that Black-Velvet was the reviewer who accepted the edits. I will not blame this error on the system; I will blame it on the reviewer not understanding the information presented and assuming it was a correction of what was previously there ("The White King has been checkmated. Black wins." - and the spammer flipped them around to see if we'd notice). The reviewer thus failed to review the edit appropriately, and thus I would say it's reviewer error, not the system. CycloneGU (talk) 16:44, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Considering the comment, see [2], it's a mistake or misunderstanding of how reviewing works. I think we probably need to make more visible the documentation. Cenarium (talk) 16:54, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
To me it was something that should obviously be checked rather than approved without checking. The first two edits of an IP user changing "white" to "black" and "black" to "white" is the kind of thing we should be detecting. Everything by an IP user should be looked at closely. The first edit(s) by an IP user should raise a red flag, and exchanging "white" and "black" should too. Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 17:05, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
I view this as partly a fault of the instructions given to reviewers. There seems to be little, if any, instruction to check information. The vibe I get is "if it seems good, accept it". I don't think that's good enough, but I also understand that it may be the only way not to bog down the system as we fact-check everything. Kansan (talk) 18:00, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
You can't expect to take a reasonably expert topic and to have a reviewer notice subtle technical vandalism. The system is supposed to allow detection of blatant vandalism; it's not a substitute for vandalism-checking. --Smaug123 (talk) 18:31, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Exchanging "white" and "black" by a first-time IP editor is pretty obvious. It is very typical of the dozens and dozens of cases of vandalism I've seen. Of course, I think it would be better to not allow anon editors. But I am in favor of this method being tested - to do something about vandalism. Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 19:02, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
I wouldn't necessarily think it to be obvious to an editor unfamiliar with chess diagrams or the rules of the game. Many times, the wording of sentences is changed around for sentence flow/etc. Again, I think the fault lies in the instructions given to reviewers. Kansan (talk) 20:33, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

)

Then of the reviewer is not sufficiently familiar with the subject to know whether or not it is vandalism, he should not approve it. Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 20:38, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm with Bubba on this one and left a memo on Black-Velvet's talk page regarding it; no reply yet. CycloneGU (talk) 21:04, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

One thing though, the vandal made his first edit with Caps Lock on, then one minute later redid it. It is possible that the reviewer only saw the second edit and thought that the vandal was only correcting the case. But how did the first vandalism edit get approved? Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 21:12, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Excellent question, and one that the reviewer would have to answer. Here is the first of the two edits. If the reviewer did instead only see the change in case edit, then he would have accepted. I thought it brings up both, however. CycloneGU (talk) 21:25, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
No, check the comment [3]. It's that the documentation is insufficient or interface suboptimal. Cenarium (talk) 21:35, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
I get it now. He clicked on the Accept button thinking it would merely accept his comment, and the edit thus ended up being accepted without him realizing it. CycloneGU (talk) 21:49, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Maybe it should be changed from "accept" to "accept pending changes" to make it clearer. Cenarium (talk) 23:54, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, it happened again to the same article. It was vandalized by a different IP user and accepted by a different reviewer. Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 01:57, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Ick. I brought that up earlier to review it, and found myself called to another matter and forgot about it, just coming back to Wikipedia now. I recall bringing it up and looking at the change and started to undo, but never finished. I'm trying to figure out why reviewers are approving edits they don't know anything about; however, it DOES say that our job is to revert OBVIOUS spam, and that isn't obvious spam, but it IS unsourced and completely untrue!
I'm starting to think that I should just take ownership of that particular article. I might start watching it (my first watched article, woohoo). CycloneGU (talk) 05:15, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

See below for a comment on this. FT2 (Talk | email) 10:14, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, clicked the wrong button, neglected to clean up my mess. Sorry for all the trouble. Black-Velvet 09:58, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Thoughtless implementation

Removing protection and using pending changes on high-profile pages as Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi is quite simply bad implementation. Said pages were overrun with IP vandalism, making a lot of peoples watchlist go nuts (due to the highly annoying way you are informed of pending changes). The bad implementation continued when an admin overruled consensus and re-installed pending changes on the Messi article (firstly out of ignorance, but didn't undo his changes when he was notified of it).

All in all, pending changes has been a very unpleasant experience. Sandman888 (talk) 17:05, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I've proposed a policy to handle this issue here. Cenarium (talk) 23:13, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
As an observation, current events articles are the ones most attracting new editors, and maybe surprisingly they receive in general more constructive edits than nonconstructive ones. I suspect that in the end the world cup alone will have attracted thousands of new editors, with hundreds of them continuing to edit relatively regularly. So trying it on articles related to the world cup instead of SP seems like a good idea. But indeed we should watch for articles likely to receive substantial vandalism even with PC. Cenarium (talk) 01:41, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Poor implementation, chaotic, extra work for little or no benefit

Has removed the very important principle that all readers of Wikipedia see the same text.

Sorry to be so negative! :)

I also can't see how to use it. I've several times tried to accept or reject an edit just to try it out, but so far I've not been able to. For example, this anon edit on John Lennon appeared on my watchlist as needing to be accepted or not. I clicked on "don't accept." But when I refreshed my watchlist, the edit was still there as needing to be accepted or not. So I went back into it, and this time the "don't accept' button wasn't highlighted. So my "don't accept" was not accepted. That has happened to me every time I've tried to review an edit. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 17:43, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

The documentation needs to be improved for sure. When you want to "non-approve" an edit, you should use rollback (if vandalism) or undo (if it's well-meaning, but not appropriate). I think we ought to get rid of the second button, or replace it with an undo link to make this more clear.  --Joshua Scott (formerly LiberalFascist) 17:55, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
In regards to the second button, this conversation has taken place here. CycloneGU (talk) 21:07, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
With regards to users seeing different versions - I think the only reason that would be acceptable is in BLPs. I have about 1,000 little-edited BLPs on my watchlist, but I believe there are tens of thousands of BLPs with 0 watchers. These are the ones that should be under PC - sort of a global shared watchlist for minor BLPs.  --Joshua Scott (formerly LiberalFascist) 17:58, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
I could see the sense of using this on BLPs, so long as it's not used instead of semi-protection, but on top of it, or instead of it on articles that don't need sprotection (though I think I'd argue that all BLPs need it). But otherwise it's very anti-wiki in so many senses: (a) preventing edits going live immediately; (b) showing different readers different versions, and (c) being so complex that even long-term editors are struggling with it.
Wikipedia succeeded because edits were live to air, as it were; because we all saw the same version; and making an edit was easy. Pending-changes threatens all that. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 18:37, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
I think it is a good idea but some kinks need to be worked out. In my opinion pages that have minor vandalism or where vandalism is disruptive but not enough to warrant semi-protection. I like how it gives anon editors the ability to still edit the article. Semi-protecting an article may turn good anon editors away that may not wish to register an account. The only negatives I have about this is it takes the page longer than normal to load when performing reviewer duties and the lack of a "decline" or "revert" button. ♪♫Alucard 16♫♪ 17:02, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
I can't see the point at all. It is very difficult to understand how to use the tool, or what advantage it gives over protected or semi-protected pages. All it has led to is an apparent increase in vandalism from non-registered users. Shritwod (talk) 19:08, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
I suspect we will find that it is inferior to protection and semi-protection, but offers some advantages for pages that are otherwise not protected at all. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:14, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I would be very negative on something if I did not understand how to use it as well. Perhaps you should withhold such an attitude until you clear yourself of such blatant ignorance? Just a thought! Love, Beam 00:31, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Use on some pages was just bad judgement

Implementing this on some of the most vandalised pages on WP, including Bible, Adolf Hitler, Eminem, Barack Obama and others was a very, very bad idea. Pages should not imho, as a rule, be downgraded from semi prot to pending changes. PC should be used for pages which have vandalism alongside substantial good edits from new/unregistered editors or where there is vandalism, but perhaps not enough to warrant semi prot. Unprotected article like those I just listed was nothing but a waste of time. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:04, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this is a similar point to what I was trying to say at #Observation, above. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:13, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
And here. CycloneGU (talk) 21:09, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Let's please remember that this is a trial, so any lessons learned are not really a "waste of time" in a practical sense. Perhaps some of these problems were inevitable, but the only way to know for certain was to test them in real time/real space. Also, let's not discount the effect the publicity on the trial may have had on vandals - they'll take any oppourtunity to be disruptive, especially on high profile articles. While that cannot be quantitatively assesed, it is a probable factor. Finally, as has been proposed above, a third level of PC that excludes IP editors could well be useful on some of these high-profile articles. - BilCat (talk) 23:29, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Exactly. JBsupreme (talk) ✄ ✄ ✄ 21:06, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

How is it a downgrade at all? Beam 00:31, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree. The one page that we switch from semi protect to pending changes obesity just gets a bunch of IP vandalism. At least it does not go live. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:08, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
Whether it goes live or not is immaterial. If it's in the history, it still inflates the clown's ego, because that means he had someone waste his time dealing with his garbage. —Jeremy (v^_^v Carl Johnson) 19:33, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
As I think I said before, there's just as much vandalism, but fewer people who are able to revert it, a more complex process for doing the reversion, and a greater chance that a batch of vandalistic edits will only get partially reverted. In other words, not a good idea. -- Radagast3 (talk) 09:19, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Too damn slow

While I'm here, why does it take so bloody long to load a diff for review? If the edit is vandalism, I roll it back from my watchlist, but I want to accept it, it takes forever to load the diff, even longer for the "accept" to go through and, after all that, someone else has usually already accepted it. Is there a way to speed it up and/or add an "accept" button to the watchlist? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:08, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

You can't see the edit differences from the watchlist. Thus, how can you possibly accept it? CycloneGU (talk) 21:10, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Many people use popups to view things directly from a watchlist. That could be the case here. Killiondude (talk) 21:55, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Ah, touché. CycloneGU (talk) 00:54, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Then it should rather be integrated into popups; accept buttons directly in the watchlists would be too confusing for many users. Cenarium (talk) 01:24, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Both of these issues are being discussed over on the flaggedrevs wiki (review from popups, and the slowness), here. {{Sonia|ping|enlist}} 01:36, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
The biggest issue affecting page load speed was addressed in a fix that was deployed last Friday (July 16). In particular, the display of the latest version inside of a diff (very common) should be much faster now. See bugzilla:24124 for more on this. -- RobLa (talk) 00:29, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Is this really worth it?

The review pages load far too slowly, for one thing. Another thing is that, as others have said, it lets IPs vandalize more pages, making it so there is quite a bit more vandalism to revert, taking time away from other things. The benifits? People don't see the vandalism that is usually reverted within a minute anyway. Yes, it lets non-autoconfirmed users and IPs make constructive edits to protected pages, but it isn't that hard to request that someone else edit it. The extra waiting that would cause most certainly isn't worth all of the extra vandalism that pending changes causes. It takes away far too much time that could be spent doing more useful things. ~~ Hi878 (Come yell at me!) 05:23, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I really don't think this PC thing is a good idea. Pages like Lil Wayne and Eminem were just vandalised and vandalised when their indifinate semi protection was takin off for PC. Could someone also answer this question? Wondering why my edits on Game have to be reviewed when I have made over 4,000 edits and they are 99.9% GF and/or constructive edits? STAT -Verse 05:46, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Doesn't auto-confirmed mean you have to verify an e-mail address? That's my best guess, though I could be wrong; maybe that's why? CycloneGU (talk) 06:17, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
No, it means that your account is at least four days old and has at least ten edits. ~~ Hi878 (Come yell at me!) 06:20, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Well i've oviouslly met that lol. Thats why im questioning it. STAT -Verse 06:23, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
You have to be a reviewer or admin for it to automatically review; or the previous revision has to have been accepted if you are only autoconfirmed. ~~ Hi878 (Come yell at me!) 06:30, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
STAT, have you applied for Reviewer status as yet? If you're correct about your edits (just an If-Then statement, not a quesstioning of your claim), then you should have no problem getting it. - BilCat (talk) 06:39, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
So if you're not a reviewer, you still have to have your edits reviewed? (Left off admin. because they are automatically reviewers.) CycloneGU (talk) 06:40, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Yes, that's basically it. If the previous version has been apporoved, and you are autoconfirmed, then it also automatically accepts. But in an other case, it won't. ~~ Hi878 (Come yell at me!) 15:54, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Of note i am a reviewer now so that problem is solved thanks for the help. STAT -Verse 16:50, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Even if you have the reviewer (or, for that matter, admin rights as I do) if you make an edit to one of these pages and there's a pending edit from an IP, your edit has to be reviewed, but you can always accept it yourself or make sure you revert or accept the IP edit before your edit. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:48, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Anyhoo, back to my original question: Is pending changes really worth it? ~~ Hi878 (Come yell at me!) 17:31, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I do not believe so. It works in some places but as I said earlyer in pages like Eminem and Lil Wayne that are high visability it just does not help cause there is alot of vandalism and it takes to long to deal with it. STAT -Verse 18:40, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Back to your question, the answer is HELL YES IT IS WORTH IT. Especially so on WP:BLP articles! I for one don't want to sit around until some poor person who has been defamed puts the "common carrier" argument to the test here. JBsupreme (talk) ✄ ✄ ✄ 20:36, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
What? ~~ Hi878 (Come yell at me!) 20:52, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Did I stutter? JBsupreme (talk) ✄ ✄ ✄ 21:02, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
I assume he means your refernce to the "common carrier" argument". I'm not familiar with that either! - BilCat (talk) 22:18, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
That's what I meant. ~~ Hi878 (Come yell at me!) 00:42, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Quoting from the top "People don't see the vandalism that is usually reverted within a minute anyway". Vandalism is rarely reverted within a minute. I have 100+ pages on my watchlist. On those pages, I've reverted more vandalism than all of the RC patrolers combined. And I'm not on every minute of the day. Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 02:51, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Alright, I suppose that I was exaggerating. There is quite a bit of vandalism that is missed. But still, PC gives people more opprotunities to vandalize, and even if it isn't seen, someone still has to revert it, which takes time away from other things. ~~ Hi878 (Come yell at me!) 02:59, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
If pages have high visibility (like the vuvuzela article), then pending changes shouldn't be applied at all. I don't believe using the pending changes feature is time consuming. Just click and you're done (apart from the long loading time I am experiencing). Back to the question, does it have any real benefits? I'm not ready to conclude.  Davtra  (talk) 03:04, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
Everyone (as far as I know) is experiencing the long load time, which is a bit time consuming, especially since we can't rollback from the list of paged with pending edits. There would also be more vandalism to revert on articles that used to have semi-protection, which wouldn't take up too much time per person, but collectively, it would take up quite a bit of extra time. As to your not being ready to conclude, I can understand that; 'm probably jumping to early, but this is just the impression that I have constantly been getting. ~~ Hi878 (Come yell at me!) 03:09, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
Seeing my post in the thread below...if a user chooses to accept the responsibility saying they are willing to help out, what's the big deal? I don't edit a lot of Wikipedia articles myself, maybe doing the odd article; my time is better spent reviewing, and if I want to add a new article (usually in the music category for an artist's missing albums), I can take time out from reviewing to do so. CycloneGU (talk) 18:47, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
Bubba...how long on average does it take for these edits to be reversed? If longer than an hour, then PC so far has a good track record; while they might exist, I haven't seen any reversed spam edits beyond ten minutes of their addition via PC, and those are all spam edits that admins. no longer have to worry about because they've already been reverted. CycloneGU (talk) 18:45, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
I think that we are just going to have to agree to disagree. Does that seem fair? ~~ Hi878 (Come yell at me!) 18:51, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
First, I don't know what "PC" is. Secondly, I don't know what the average time is. The Recent Changes Patrolers miss most of them, so it is hard to know how long (if ever) one of them would have noticed it. Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 03:20, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
PC is an acronym for "Pending Changes". ~~ Hi878 (Come yell at me!) 03:23, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. I was asked about the average time for RC patrolers to detect vandalism. In the 100+ pages on my watchlist, if they find vandalism it is usually very fast - often 1 or 2 minutes. But they miss the majority of it, in my estimation. Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 17:55, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Maybe not the majority, but quite a bit of it is missed, I agree. ~~ Hi878 (Come yell at me!) 18:40, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm talking about the ones on my watch list. Here is one from today diff, which is also a rare example of the vandal leaving an edit comment. Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 17:05, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
Another rare example of a vandal leaving an edit comment (plus another example not caught by RC patrolers.) Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 01:23, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Reading over this whole page I'm kind of concerned at an apparent laziness. The mere chance that an editor will stay at the project (let's say 1 in 100) is worth the Pending Changes system. That is what Wikipedia is all about. Why not just forgo the whole anon editing ability? I mean, really is all that vandalism REALLY WORTH IT? Beam 00:33, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

You are in an extremely tiny minority. This defeats the whole point of "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". Yes, it is worth it. And even if you think there are hardly any good edits coming form them (which isn't true), it would still kill Wikipedia's image to make it so that you need an account. ~~ Hi878 (Come shout at me!) 00:06, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
Hi878, although I am not necessarily opposed to the reviewer system, I must disagree that those who believe that registering should be required for editing are in a "tiny minority". Read this page. More than a "tiny minority" has expressed that opinion. And (as pointed out elsewhere on this page, several times) registration does not defeat the "anyone can edit" matter. Registration is incredibly easy and maintains anonymity. It takes about 20 seconds and doesn't require an email address, and a person can register under a variety of usernames if he/she wishes (except to avoid a block by sockpuppetry). There is no evidence whatsoever that serious editors would avoid editing if registration was required; that's just the way it's always been. Cresix (talk) 00:39, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
But would people become serious editors in the first place if registration was required? I started on Wikipedia by correcting the occasional typo, grammar error etc. when I came across them. I'd probably not have bothered if I had to register, but instead I edited in that fashion for years as an IP before creating an account and eventually becoming more serious about contributing. AJCham 01:13, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
Ok, tiny minority was a bad way to put that. I agree on that part. In regards to the other part, though, I disagree. "Anyone can edit" implies that anyone can just turn on their computer, go to the website, and change something. Having to make an account, however, would probably be kind of annoying to many people, and the casual IP editor that comes on and fixes a typo here and there when they see them while reading would not think it worth it to make an account just to fix a typo every once in a while. ~~ Hi878 (Come shout at me!) 01:20, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
I think we'll have to agree to disagree. It's a matter of opinion (yours, mine, or anyone's) as to how much registration will deter new editors because there are no data. I don't think everyone would interpret "anyone can edit" as being a prohibition against requiring registration (although you certainly are entitled to that opinion). I look at it like this: anyone can have an email address at Yahoo. That requires registration. Anyone can edit Wikipedia, even if they have to spend 20 seconds typing in a username. Cresix (talk) 01:44, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
Alright, I'l agree to disagree. :) ~~ Hi878 (Come shout at me!) 01:48, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
I don't think it is as simple as saying "Just create an account, it only takes a few seconds." It goes much deeper than that. There are a bajillion websites out there all saying the same thing, wanting us to commit to them with our time. It gets tedious to create accounts everywhere. And then the problem of remembering so many usernames and passwords comes up. The internal thought process is like this: "Oh, I forgot the password I used last time. Oh, I also forgot the username I had to make last time. Now I have to create yet another account with yet another password just to fix one stupid typo. Forget it." Having to create an account is a burden, it can't be dismissed with a "it only takes 20 seconds" quip, there is more to it behind the scenes. HumphreyW (talk) 02:44, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
What you see as a burden, I see as trivial. It really does take only 20 seconds (not a quip). If I only want to make a couple of edits and then move on (or even if my only goal is to vandalize), I can make up a username with a random string of letters, make my edits and move on. If I think of something else to add, I simply spend another 20 seconds creating another username. If someone is more serious about editing, he/she probably is more likely to remember the username. I've set up dozens of email accounts at Yahoo, knowing that I would only use each one once or twice, and Yahoo requires more effort to register than Wikipedia. If I forget the account name, I simply make up another one. If the email account is important, I remember it. We don't really know how many people would refuse to edit if required to register. And we'll never know unless it's tried, on a temporary basis just like this pending changes trial. Cresix (talk) 00:18, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
So for you, whether you wanted to vandalise or do good the requirement to register makes no difference, so you shouldn't care either way. So the registering, or not, discussion does not apply you or to those that feel the way you do. But for others that have less time to spend doing pointless 20-second registrations for a two second fix it is a much bigger consideration. If requiring registration would not stop vandalism (because as you said, it is so easy to register so therefore no barrier to vandalising) then why bother to make people register in the first place? HumphreyW (talk) 02:26, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
The scenario assumes the user of Wikipedia really wants to make edits. My first edits were things like changing a there to their. Clicked on the edit tab and it was easy. Would've have done it if some stupid dialog started asking me for an email address 'cause I wouldn't have cared enough. Gerardw (talk) 13:30, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Likewise, HumphreyW, for you, if you couldn't spare 20 seconds because you didn't think the edit was worth 20 seconds, the discussion does not apply to you or those who don't consider an edit worth 20 seconds. But for others, whom I believe to be in the majority of well-intentioned editors, 20 seconds is quite trivial if the goal is to make an improvement, even changing "there" to "their". And I didn't say that registering is "no barrier to vandalism". I said that some editors will register to vandalize. Perhaps what I didn't make clear is that it's easier to block vandals who are registered. If an anon vandalizes once every two weeks, that can go on a long time without a block because warnings get stale for vandalism from IPs, but there's no such thing as a stale warning to a registered user, even if that user has only made a few edits. And perhaps what I also didn't make clear is that, although some vandals will bother to register, I believe far more serious editors will register compared to the number who register to vandalize. Just like in real life, vandals tend to look for easy targets. Many will move on to something easier if they need to register, but I believe serious editors (even those making minor edits) are more willing to spend the trivial 20 seconds to make the edits. And as I've said before, we'll never know for sure unless we try it. Cresix 16:50, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
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