Wikinfo:Editing/Reverting
From Wikinfo
In general a revert is the advised action to deal with vandalism. It is not the advised action when dealing with edits that were made in good faith, or that may have been honest mistakes. It may only be necessary to leave a message on the editor's user talk page. Instead, have a break and think about how to stay cool when the wikying gets hot :)
Anyway, you may need to revert an article to an earlier version, perhaps because it really has been vandalised, or maybe it's to correct material which has been added or removed inappropriately, or maybe you made a mistake. Sysops have the ability to simply "rollback" the latest (2nd or higher) edit of a page, which makes it easy, but here we'll show you a way to revert to earlier versions which is almost as easy, and a lot more flexible:
- Go to the page, click on "page history", click on the time and date of the earlier version you want to revert to, which will show you that revision as if it were the current article (unlike "cur" or "last").
- Then when that page comes up, you'll see something like "(Revision as of 23:19 Aug 15, 2005)" below the title, rather than "From Wikinfo, an internet encyclopedia".
- Verify that you've selected the correct version, and click to edit the page, as you would normally.
- You'll get a warning at the top, just above the edit box and special formatting tools, about editing an out-of-date revision, blah, blah.
- Ignore that warning and click to "SAVE PAGE". Be sure to add the word "revert" to the edit summary, so others know. Some Wikinfos abbreviate this to "rv". It is common practice to mention the version of the page that you're reverting back to in the description as well.
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Reverts and Edit Conflicts
Reverts never cause an edit conflict - if between the time of your pressing edit and then save, someone else tries to edit the page, their edits will be silently overwritten (though still in the page history). So, beware of reverting high-traffic pages like the pump during an argument! Conversely, if it looks like someone has deleted your edits, consider if it's more likely that it's one of these unfortunate reversion conflicts.
The Sysop "rollback"
On the the history of any page, a GetWiki sysop has additional "rollback" links at the end of the top edit line which are also marked "current" in the user contributions. So, it's easy to rollback the last (2nd or higher) edit, and it's also easy to know if, in a user's contribution list, a revision is the current version of a page. Clicking on the rollback link immediately reverts to the last page edit, regardless of the author, with an auto-summary "Reverted to last edit by So-n-So".
Thus, in GetWiki, if I create a page and have been the only editor, clicking "rollback" just reverts to my last edit, which can come in handy, and may alone be a good reason to want to be a sysop. If, between loading the User Contributions page and pressing "rollback" someone else has edited or rolled back the page already, one gets the message "Rollback failed" with an explanation. The rollback feature is also especially useful in the case of a known vandal, whose edits one need not check anymore before reverting them.
Revert Wars Hurt the Wiki
All the above said, reverting wars, which have really never happened on Wikinfo, are harmful to the wiki. Here is a Wikinfo proposed guideline:
- Never revert the same article more than three times in the same day. If the edit really needs reverting that much, somebody else will probably do it - and that will serve the vital purpose of showing that the community at large is in agreement over which of two competing versions is correct. If you like, chat to other users, who you respect, and ask them if they could take a look. If you and the person you've asked to help have both needed to revert three times, then it is probably time to ask for the page to be "protected".
Page protection is another neat feature of being a sysop, but edit and reversion wars between two editors are uncool, especially if both are sysops, and it reflect badly on both participants as well as the wiki. Instead of performing a straight revert, look for ways to compromise on talk page, or alternate ways of saying the same thing - while such edits take more time and thought than another brainless revert, they are far more likely to result in a mutually satisfactory article.
In the case of newcomers who are genuinely making poor edits, being reverted by two or more people demonstrates that the reversions are not a one man crusade, but something closer to a consensus. However, they can also scare valuable contributors away. High-frequency reversion wars also make the version history less useful, make it hard for other people to contribute, and they flood recent changes and watchlists. Low-frequency reversions, one-time corrections, do not cause the community these problems, though, if done the right way.
References
- Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Wikipedia:How to revert a page to an earlier version" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AHow_to_revert_a_page_to_an_earlier_version January 30, 2004
