Help talk:Reverting

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[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] "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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] Don't edit this!

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

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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).

[edit] "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)

[edit] 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.