Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was keep. —Doug Bell ^talk 19:33, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle

This essay does little more than provide a justification for PoV warriors: it takes their favourite approach – make radical ("bold") changes to an article first, discuss second – and tries to make it respectable. Having already had "I'm only following the steps of WP:BRD" thrown at me to justify a major deletion against consensus (and by the person who created this essay at that — see Wikipedia talk:Signatures), I can't see that it offers any advantages, though it's not only open to abuse... it invites abusive editing. Mel Etitis (Talk) 17:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• Strong keep. Why did you ignore the "revert and discuss" part, which goes against POV warring? We should delete 3RR instead; it allows reverting a reversion, while this does not. -Amarkov moo! 17:07, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Many, if not most Wikipedia articles require bold editing to bring them up to snuff. I don't see how this invites abusive editing, can you please explain? Edit warriors will be edit warriors, with or without this essay. (jarbarf) 18:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
• Wrong target? Nominator only seems to be objecting to the first of the 3 components. WP:BOLD is the actual guideline that describes making radical changes first, and discussing second. Perhaps that's the guideline the nominator would really like to see marked as historic? --Kim Bruning 22:46, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

  While you might well be right about WP:BOLD, my arguments at the essay's Talk page should indicate that that's not the only part of my problem with it. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 23:12, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, let me reread your arguments more carefully, to be sure I haven't missed anything. In the mean time, will you be nominating WP:BOLD as well? --Kim Bruning 01:13, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: Before I vote, I need examples from both sides. I agree with all three voters so far, but this vote should not be based on theoretical considerations alone. On the surface, there's nothing wrong with it. But the word "bold" is used in a false analogy: While WP:BOLD encourages obvious improvements, BRD encourages disputed changes, changes that can be seen as disruptive and legitimizes reasons other than improving articles. This is aggravated by the paragraph around "when cooperation has broken down, is when BRD is most effective". — Sebastian 23:50, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

A lot of times when mediating and seeking consensus, or watching others do so, I kept seeing the same problems return over and over.

The first (and biggest) problem is to find out who you're supposed to talk with to find consensus in the first place. The second problem is to get them to discuss with you.

Usually after ages and ages on talk pages, I'd get frustrated and just do the edit I was looking for... and suddenly people were showing up! A bit miffed at first, perhaps, but we'd eventually settle down and get something worked out, often in time periods as short as 24-48 hours. I've also seen this happen with other people. Once that first bold edit happens, suddenly things come to life.

Well, that's interesting, but how does it work? If you look down the left side of the flowchart at Wikipedia:Consensus, you'll see that it actually already contains people coming to the talk page and discussing. All that's really needed to set that process off is to do a BOLD edit upfront.

That's the meat of it really. After that, BRD basically just tells you to stick to WP:HEC (itself an improvement on WP:1RR), adds some improvements and embellishments to keep you out of trouble, gives some answers to common arguments, and throws in some tweaks to help keep you from getting overloaded.

So the short version: BRD is just a slight modification of WP:Consensus for tricky situations. The final objective is to return to a situation where consensus and the wiki-process in general work as normal.

I don't think it's possible to effectively disrupt using this method, because it relies so strongly on consensus. At worst, you will just fail to convince anyone, and just make yourself look silly. (which I'm sure I've done a couple of times ;-) ).

Actually, BRD is much nicer than WP:HEC at the moment, which is why I sometimes quote it in preference to that page, even though BRD isn't a perfect fit for the situation.

--Kim Bruning 00:28, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your description. I'm sorry if I was ambiguous: What I meant was some concrete examples where it worked and where you think other guidelines would have been less effective.

But I'm also seeing another argument in your description, which may not be so obvious with a diff: When and why does a user give up? I take your arument seriously that it is easier for you to give up after having gone through one or several BRD cycles than if you're caught in a pointless discussion, and I can imagine feeling the same way.

OTOH, the flow chart at Wikipedia:Consensus is simply wrong: There is of course a direct way from "Previous consensus" to "Take it to the talk page". It is absurd to omit that. A good guideline would give some advice when to prefer one path over the other. — Sebastian 01:22, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Bold revert discuss even works when all other guidelines fail. Very early on, En.wikinews was having issues with their main page, and couldn't get it changed due to a huge bureaucratic snarlup. Application of BRD there dug up all the editors involved in the situation, (we even got most of them to come to irc!). We discussed the issue and people started coming up with solutions on their own allowing us to route around the problem.

Another mildly effective application of BRD was during one of the GNAA deletion debates. This was with a less mature version of BRD, and was somewhat imperfect, and things got a little hotter than I'd liked. Apparently I hadn't done too badly though. In the end a Steward came in and simply enforced my position. :-P

Interestingly, the flowchart at Wikipedia:Consensus is actually correct. You always first want to try wiki editing, before you go to talk. In fact, roughly 90% of the time, your edits will stand, and no further action is required. I'm inferring this from existing statistics and trends.

This is less surprising than it might seem to you. Wikipedia is a wiki, after all. :-)

Note also m:Foundation issues which puts wiki-process upfront as well.

--Kim Bruning 03:20, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - Being WP:BOLD, I see this article as an essay which could be seen as means of de-escalating an edit war. I try to use it before I get into a 3RRR situation. Ronbo76 01:01, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• Weak keep. Because this is an essay and it does not blatantly infringe on any policy, there's not much reason to delete. Personally, I'm against it though. bibliomaniac15 01:47, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep -- I don't see any harm in having an essay on how to stop an edit war peacefully on Wikipedia. Let's keep it for now. ~~Eugene2x ^{Sign here} ☺ ~~ 03:04, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - like it or not, this is one of the better ways we can deal with conflicts here. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 03:15, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• Strong keep. I wish all "POV warriors" would follow this essay - of not engaging in an edit war if their change is reverted. On that grounds alone, it should be kept. I also wish the essay set out, as a goal, doing an edit that is likely to be seen as a good-faith compromise, rather than (as can be easily read) an edit likely to start a new round of (unproductive) discussions. Still, the overall objective of the essay is clearly constructive, and, who knows, maybe it works well for some people or for some articles. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 03:51, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

  In the first round, you have no idea what a compromise might look like. As you go through further rounds, building up (partial) compromises with each person in turn, you get a better and better idea of what the global compromise will look like. At some point, the global compromise gets good enough, and there's a smooth transition from WP:BRD back to the normal WP:Consensus. --Kim Bruning 04:34, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Based on what I read so far, I see that it has potential. I'd like to move the detail discussion to Wikipedia talk:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. — Sebastian 06:11, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep This is a good policy-like page, definitely one to keep.Tellyaddict^{Editor review!} 12:39, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep the official policy Wikipedia:Consensus shows this as a valid way to reach consensus. Follow the flowchart at the top of the page. Eluchil404 14:14, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, or transwiki to Meta I don't see how this will encourage any bad behaviour; the prinicple of making a change once to find out who disagrees (and leaving it in if nobody disagrees) is useful, especially in smaller wikis. I'm not entirely sure why it's here rather than Meta, though. --ais523 17:26, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Delete or userfy, at least pending major changes. What it describes seems to be the normal approach - make a change, then respond if someone objects. But describing it as if it is an unusual way to behave seems wrong to me. Describing it as a way to achieve breakthroughs in the face of conflict, seems to me that it would only be encouraging bad behaviour. I'm not even sure what it's saying. The introduction seems to say "go ahead and do what you want" while the details seem to be saying "discuss, don't revert". Some particular objections: "Talk with at most two partners at once. As long as the discussion is moving forward, do not feel the need to respond to everyone, as this increases the chance of discussion losing focus and going far afield." Talking to many people can mean that the conversation takes a long time to get anyway, true, but that doesn't justify the cost of ignoring other people who feel they deserve a say. And "There is no such thing as a consensus version" also strikes me as dangerous. Certainly, consensus has to be able to change, which means that people have to be allowed to make potentially non consensus changes. But to write something that some people will interpret as meaning consensus isn't important, I don't think we want to go there. While there are some good ideas in there, I think that the way they're packaged up is unfortunate. Regards, Ben Aveling 03:37, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

  The objective is briefly as follows:

  • Problem: A page is causing problems, and you need to change it and find consensus for those changes. Who do you talk to?
  • Solution: Find out who has the page on thier watchlists, then discuss with each individually.

  Perhaps the page bites off more than it can chew there, and things should be split across several pages. (How to find who to talk with, how to move towards agreement at a steady clip, etc). In the mean time, I don't know of many other descriptions of how to actually use the consensus system to achieve objectives. Sure, plenty of pages describing consensus. (no wait, those are few and far between too).. okay, nevermind. We need better guideline pages, period. :-P

  Other points you bring up step by step:

  • The trick is to deliberately be bold, even though it's a page where you expect people to be a bit surprised. (like trying to change the main page on wikinews, or editing a controversial policy). People who have it on their watchlists will then reply. Note that the fact that people would be surprised _at a normal edit_ is indicative of some problem with the consensus process on that page.
  • It is part of a methodology to achieve breakthrough. This also requires a lot of mediation skill, it won't work by itself.
  • Indeed, ideally you should never be the person doing reverts. (in reality this doesn't always quite work out, but not for lack of trying)
  • This is not a method for setting up talk page discussion clubs. This is a method for getting stuff that needs doing done, and for getting it done within a reasonable time frame. It breaks the problem up into smaller steps which are more easily solved. You get agreement from each individual separately, and step by step put those agreements together. You are basically assuming the role of moderator or mediator or coordinator, but without actually taking an official title, of course. This does take some measure of skill with informal mediation.
  • "Revert to consensus version" is practically an oxymoron, in the wiki system. It certainly does not provide any clues as to how to attain or modify that consensus :-p . And yet sometimes you do see that edit summary. I'm guessing that people who use it are probably thinking something more along the lines of "This doesn't match my personal WP:POV, go away!". People who actually want to express valid concerns will typically describe their problem with your edits in their revert summary/edit summary, or will take things to talk.

  Ultimately, the concept here is how to go about unjamming things when the Wikipedia:Consensus process gets jammed. This is a descriptive text from practice, it describes a practical and pragmatic solution, rather than some idealized concept. Therefore it isn't exactly pretty. It just works, no more, no less. It is not a theoretical exercise, and it is not trying to prescribe any kind of new behavior. Even if you dislike this particular method, please tell us of any other methods you might know, no matter if they are elegant or not. Very little is documented, and valuable experience is locked up in peoples heads, instead of on the wiki, where it belongs.

  --Kim Bruning 04:27, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.