Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 15:39, 27 June 2010

Please place any feedback regarding the pending changes feature in general from your personal experiences from the trial. Any suggestions and feedback will be welcome. Feel free to ask questions on the trial and implementation.

• WP:PC/F
• WP:PCF

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 Misplaced Pages 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)

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)

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 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 Misplaced Pages 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 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 Misplaced Pages 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 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)

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)

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♦ 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. 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 Misplaced Pages article will remain a privilege, not a right.--♦IanMacM♦ 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 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{_harrass} 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 Misplaced Pages to be a part of the community or anything like that; the bulk of Misplaced Pages'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 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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♦ 06:37, 25 June 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)

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 Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/May 2010 skin change/Bug reports. --Bruce1ee 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. --Bruce1ee 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)

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. --Bruce1ee 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)

Feedback (Rules of chess)

On June 25, 2010, obvious vandalism to Rules of chess was accepted. The system failed. Bubba73 , 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 , 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 , 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 , 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 , 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 , 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 . 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 , 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 Misplaced Pages 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)

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 Misplaced Pages 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 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.

Misplaced Pages 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 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)

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)

• There are plenty of pages where one could expect substantial vandalism would result, but actually didn't: Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Rome, etc. The vast majority of pages downgraded from SP to PC didn't get substantial vandalism. Though I think we should have spaced more the downgrades from SP to PC on articles where substantial vandalism would be likely, and should do so from now on. I'll try to come up with a policy statement. Cenarium (talk) 22:08, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
  • See Wikipedia_talk:Pending_changes#Articles_where_considerable_vandalism_is_probable_if_downgraded_from_SP_to_PC. Cenarium (talk) 23:14, 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)

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)

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 , 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 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  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 03:09, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I LOVE THE PENDING CHANGES FEATURE

The title says it all. FINALLY! Now if we could just apply this feature to the ENTIRE PROJECT, I wouldn't feel like the bulk of time many editors sink into this project is going to waste! Let the vandals waste THEIR time, not ours! I can't express in words how happy I am that this has finally been implemented! Long overdue to be sure, but better late than never. JBsupreme (talk) ✄ ✄ ✄ 17:43, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Um, I'm pretty sure it wastes our time. We need more people to check these pages for vandalism, making it so that there is far more to revert. So there is more vandalism, which does waste our time. It has never been the plan to implement it for the entire project; that would cause many problems, using it on 3 million+ pages. This was meant to be an substitute alternative for semi-protection, and as far as I can tell, it is quite a bit worse. ~~ Hi878 18:14, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

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