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This page documents an English Misplaced Pages policy.It describes a widely accepted standard that editors should normally follow, though exceptions may apply. Changes made to it should reflect consensus.

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This page in a nutshell: Edit warring is not productive. Editors who revert a page in whole or in part more than three times in 24 hours, except in certain special circumstances, are likely to be blocked from editing.

The three-revert rule (or 3RR) is a policy which applies to all Wikipedians, and is intended to prevent edit warring:

An editor must not perform more than three reversions, in whole or in part, on a single page within a 24 hour period. Any editor who breaches the rule may be blocked from editing.

The rule applies per-editor. Thus, reverts made by sock puppets are counted as reverts made by the one editor. Editors who use sock puppets in an attempt to evade this rule are breaching the sock puppetry policy, and may be blocked from editing.

The rule applies per-page. If an editor performs three reversions on each of two articles within 24 hours, that editor's six reversions do not constitute a violation of this rule, although it may well indicate that the editor is being disruptive.

The rule does not convey an entitlement to revert three times each day, nor does it endorse reverting as an editing technique; rather, the rule is an "electric fence" designed to prevent edit warring. Users who engage in edit warring may be blocked from editing even if they haven't made more than three edits in any given 24 hour period; editors who persistently make three reverts each day, or make three reverts on each of a group of pages, for example, are engaging in edit warring behaviour, which is considered disruptive. The spirit of the rule is as important as the letter.

The bottom line: use common sense, and don't participate in edit wars. Rather than reverting multiple times, discuss the matter with other editors. Consider engaging in dispute resolution, making a request for page protection or asking for administrative assistance.

Apparent breaches of the rule may be reported at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR.

What is a revert?

A revert, in this context, means undoing, in whole or in part, the actions of another editor or of other editors. This can include undoing edits to a page, undoing page moves (sometimes called "move warring"), undoing administrative actions (sometimes called "wheel warring"), or recreating a page.

An editor does not have to perform the same revert on a page more than three times to breach this rule; all reverts made by an editor on a particular page within a 24 hour period are counted.

Note that consecutive reverts by the one editor are often treated as one revert for the purposes of this rule.

Exceptions

Since the rule is intended to prevent edit warring, reverts which are clearly not edit warring will not breach the rule. Since edit warring is considered harmful, exceptions to the rule will be construed narrowly.

Since reverting in this context means undoing the actions of another editor or editors, reverting your own actions ("self-reverting") will not breach the rule.

Other exceptions to the rule include:

• Reverting simple and obvious vandalism, such as graffiti or page blanking (this only applies to the most simple and obvious vandalism, for other vandalism please see Misplaced Pages:Administrator intervention against vandalism or Misplaced Pages:Requests for investigation);
• Reverting clear copyright violations or clearly libellous material;
• Reverting unsourced or poorly sourced controversial (negative, positive, or just highly questionable) material about living persons (see Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons);
• Reverting actions performed by banned users.

Any of these actions may still be controversial, thus it is only in the clearest cases that they will be considered exceptions to the rule. When in doubt, do not revert; instead, consider engaging in dispute resolution or asking for administrative assistance.

Note that in the case of vandalism, blocking editors who have engaged in vandalism, or protecting the page in question, will often be preferable to reverting. Similarly, blocking or page protection will often be preferable in case of repeated addition of copyrighted material.

Enforcement

If you violate the three-revert rule, you may be blocked from editing for up to 24 hours, or longer in the case of a repeat violation. In the cases where multiple editors violate the rule, administrators should treat all sides equally.

The rule may also be enforced by:

• Educating editors who may not be aware of good Misplaced Pages practice in the matter;
• Peer pressure and leadership by example (see Misplaced Pages:Revert only when necessary and Misplaced Pages:Harmonious editing club).

Apparent breaches of the rule may be reported at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR.

See also

2. Part 2

• Misplaced Pages:Three revert rule enforcement
• Misplaced Pages:Edit war
• Misplaced Pages:Reverting
• Misplaced Pages:Wikiquette

• Misplaced Pages policies