View source for Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012

{{Pending changes discussions|WP:PC/RFC2012}}
{{discussion top|1='''Background:''' The idea of [[WP:Pending Changes]] (also referred to in some implementations as “Flagged Revisions”) has a long history on Wikimedia projects. Originally developed at the urging of the [[de:|German Wikipedia]] community, the idea of having edits be reviewed prior to going “live” has been around the English Wikipedia since at least 2008. Discussions since the concept of the tool was introduced have often revolved around what, if any, implementation would be suited to the English Wikipedia community. The topic has been hotly contentious for nearly as long as it has been discussed. A trial of what was termed “Pending Changes”, a customized version of the original “Flagged Revisions” concept, was run in 2010.

At the close of the trial, [[Wikipedia:Pending changes/Closure|community opinions]] varied on whether the trial had been successful and, if it was felt to have been successful, what form “Pending Changes” should take going forward. As a result of this [[Wikipedia:Pending changes/Straw poll|community indecision]], and at the urging of [[User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 64#Announcement about Pending Changes|Jimbo Wales]] in September of 2010, Pending Changes entered a kind of limbo, in which it remained on some pages but had no clear guidelines for implementation or usage. A [[Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment February 2011|2011 Request for Comment]] addressed the limbo state in which Pending Changes had been left and brought about [[Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment February 2011/Archive 3#Closure|the removal of Pending Changes]] from the English Wikipedia.

On the basis of [[User:Newyorkbrad|Newyorkbrad]]’s closing statement in that RfC that "this community decision [to end the trial of Pending Changes] is without prejudice to any future discussion relating to adoption of pending changes or flagged revisions or some similar system based on a new discussion. There seems to be a consensus that a bit of a break from this discussion would be a good thing", a new RfC was begun roughly one year later, on 23 March 2012, to address the essential question of “should Pending Changes be activated on the English Wikipedia?”

'''Basis of the Current RfC:''' Formatted by [[user:Beeblebrox|Beeblebrox]] as a choice between three mutually-exclusive options, the 2012 RfC was intended to produce [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Pending_changes/Request_for_Comment_2012&diff=480017574&oldid=479987817 "an actionable result"] regarding whether Pending Changes should [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Pending_changes/Request_for_Comment_2012&diff=480082914&oldid=480077657 "be permanently deployed here"]. Commenters were encouraged to support one of three possible options:

#Position 1: "The negative aspects of pending changes outweigh the positive. Therefore the tool should not be used at all on the English Wikipedia."
#Position 2: "Despite the flaws of the trial period pending changes has proven to be a useful tool for combating vandalism and other types of problematic edits. The tool should be used in accordance with the following draft policy. This policy is intended to reflect the community input in discussions. It is not set in stone and after use of the tool is resumed there may be unanticipated problems which can be corrected through normal consensus gathering processes."
#Position 3: "Pending changes should be kept in the long term, but the draft policy is insufficient and/or out of step with what the community wants from the tool. Pending changes should not be rejected entirely but should remain unused until such time as there is a more complete policy in place that has been explicitly approved by the community."

The RfC remained open to comment for 60 days, and was accompanied by a concurrent "Discussion" section which remained open until the posting of this close statement. Users were encouraged to focus on supporting one of the three options and to direct commentary to the RfC’s "Discussion" section. Users were not permitted to add additional positions to the RfC beyond the original three.

'''Raw results of this RfC:''' The numerical results of this RfC are as follows, after IP votes, duplicate votes, struck votes, and commentary are removed from the positions’ "support" lists:
#Position 1: 178 supports
#Position 2: 308 supports 
#Position 3: 17 supports
This gives a total participation in this RfC of 503 distinct user "support"s, of which roughly 35% supported Position 1, 61% supported Position 2, and 3% supported Position 3.

'''Analysis of arguments:''' The closers of this RfC (DeltaQuad, Fluffernutter, The Blade of the Northern Lights and Thehelpfulone) considered all of the available positions in light of both raw numbers and strength of argument. As such, the closers acknowledge the following arguments as among the most notable:

* Position 1 supporters stated the belief that the idea of Pending Changes – that is, of edits not necessarily going "live" when made, depending on user status – is counter to the ethos of Wikipedia, the "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". This was countered by supporters of Positions 2 and 3, who felt variously: that accuracy of information, especially in relation to BLPs, trumps openness to edits by anyone ("Wikipedia is first and foremost an encyclopedia (pillar #1) and ought to be reader-centered, not editor centered" [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Pending_changes/Request_for_Comment_2012/Option_3&diff=492318926&oldid=492157692]); that the limitations set by Pending Changes were no philosophically different than the limitations set by semi and full-protection, both of which have been deployed on Wikipedia for years; and that Pending Changes actually left articles ''more'' open to editing by users who would otherwise be shut out by our current page protection mechanisms.

* Some Position 1 supporters felt that the implementation of Pending Changes would put in place a hierarchy of editors where one hadn't existed before. Some of these arguments were based on the assumption that those given "reviewer" status would use it to force through their preferred content or that those able to turn on the "reviewer" right for other users would hold it hostage.  Supporters of Position 2 countered this by pointing out that "reviewer" would be no different a right than any other that could be turned on by administrators. The closers of this RfC reject, as a violation of [[WP:AGF]], the blanket argument that those who support Pending Changes should be assumed to be willing to abuse the system or the giving of user rights.

* Position 1 supporters stressed that the sheer volume of articles on Wikipedia is staggering, and that if even a small proportion of them are put under Pending Changes, the community will not be able to handle the volume of edits in need of reviewing. Many of these comments cited experiences on other WMF wikis which have already implemented some variety of Pending Changes. Supporters of Position 2 argued that Pending Changes, when used sparingly and in accordance with the draft policy presented on the RfC, ''may'' actually streamline the acceptance of edits in comparison to those on semi-protected pages. A number of Position 2 supporters cited their experiences on other PC-active wikis as evidence of how Pending Changes implementations can be functional and useful. It must also be kept in mind that each wiki which uses Pending Changes is able to customize its implementation, and the implementations used on other wikis may not be useful evaluators of the proposed implementation on English Wikipedia. Supporters of Position 2 also suggested that the issue of backlogs be addressed by an "end" to the queue of Pending Changes, such that all changes not approved after a certain amount of time should be automatically approved.

* A point of essential disagreement between supporters of Positions 1 and 2 is whether Pending Changes is preferable – that is, adds value – to any case in comparison to semi or full-protection. Arguments from Position 1 supporters highlighted that few users had requested Pending Changes, as opposed to protection, during the PC trial, and that if the Pending Changes queue backlogs, application of PC may be less useful than page protection. It was also suggested that the lack of being able to see one’s edits "live" may be demoralizing to new users. Position 2 supporters felt that Pending Changes ''did'' have value beyond that of page protection, especially in the areas of discouraging vandalism (arguments suggested that if a vandal knows their edits will never be displayed to the world at large, they are less likely to make them) and encouraging edits by new and inexperienced editors (who would otherwise need to request the confirmed user right or use a template to request that another user make their requested edit).

* A number of Position 1 supporters stated that though the notion of Pending Changes is useful, and the general concept of lightweight content controls even more so, they were unable to support Pending Changes as it was proposed and/or felt that the system needed so much work to become useful as to be essentially unsupportable currently.

* Many supporters of Positions 2 and 3 felt that the potential damage done by vandalism, especially damage to BLP articles, outweighs the potential inconvenience to editors who are unable to have an edit go immediately live under Pending changes. This was countered by Position 1 sentiment that openness is the basis of Wikipedia, and to lose some amount of openness would fundamentally alter the functionality of the project.


* A number of issues with the trial implementation and/or the suggested Draft Policy of Pending Changes were raised by supporters of all three positions, including:

:# The possibility of ongoing review backlogs and the lack of guidance provided in the Draft Policy for addressing them.
:# Lack of detail as to the responsibilities of reviewers and the qualifications a user must possess to be given the “reviewer” right.
:# Lack of detail as to when Pending Changes should be preferred to semi-or full protection, and how administrators and those who request the implementation of some form of protection/pending changes should make the decision about which to apply. In particular, it was pointed out that though Pending Changes may be particularly useful in two types of cases, the draft policy gives little consideration to the types of cases in which it may be most useful, described by one editor as:  "One, where the vast majority of edits are good faith, but bad faith ones are causing exceptional damage. Two, where the vast majority of edits are bad faith, but the article nonetheless has a history of productive anon edits." ([//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Pending_changes/Request_for_Comment_2012/Option_3&diff=484696473&oldid=483878453])

'''Consensus of this RfC:''' The notion of "consensus" on Wikipedia holds unanimity as an ideal, but acknowledges that unanimity is often impossible to achieve in the real world. Consensus in our real world, then, is [[Wikipedia:Consensus#Determining consensus |"determined by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy"]]. In contentious cases such as this RfC, then, the closers must take into account not only the raw number of editors supporting each option, but also the strength of arguments presented by supporters of each position and the content of those arguments, to reach the most appropriate decision – the decision supported by the strongest arguments, and with which the largest number of editors can abide. The closers of this RfC commend the RfC’s participants for working constructively with each other for a sustained period, often striving to reach common ground and agree as to what specific outcomes of each issue might be acceptable on both sides (or all three sides) of the aisle. Your efforts at explaining your positions, both to us and to other users, and your careful reasonings for holding the positions that you do, were immensely helpful to our ability to close this RfC.

Our findings as to the consensus of this RfC are as follows:

* The consensus of the community is that Pending Changes '''should be implemented on the English Wikipedia''', based on both the majority of votes and the strength of arguments presented

* However, it is clear that though the community supports the adoption of Pending Changes, the community is also well aware that both the Pending Changes Trial of 2010 and the draft policy as presented in this RfC suffer(ed) from weaknesses.

* Therefore community consensus on this matter is determined to be that the community should dedicate itself to determining the implementation of Pending Changes that it wishes to be turned on. Many opinions have been presented in the various areas of this RfC as to what works and doesn’t work in Pending Changes as implemented/proposed; the community must now focus its energy on optimizing the implementation of Pending Changes that it wishes to see go live. Because the community must have time to discuss this, and in order to avoid the holiday season which would interfere in both devs’ and editors’ schedules, Pending Changes will become live on 1 December, 2012. To allow developers enough preparation time, we recommend that community discussion about changes to the draft Pending Changes policy be concluded no later than 1 November, 2012. If the community has not, at that time, reached a consensus about how to change the draft policy, Pending Changes will be implemented according to the terms of the Draft Policy until the community can find a consensus.

The closers stress to the community that consensus ''does'' support the implementation of Pending Changes, and we urge all the participants of the RfC– as well as its developers-  to participate in the upcoming discussion about how to implement the software version of this consensus.  We strongly recommend that this RfC be considered the endpoint of up/down community discussions about whether Pending Changes should be used on English Wikipedia for a period of time of no less than two years to allow community focus to move to the use, adaptation, and evaluation of the Pending Changes tool.

We thank the community for offering its input into forming the consensus and hope to see the community come together for the finalization of the policy.

*[[User:The Blade of the Northern Lights|The Blade of the Northern Lights]]  ([[User talk:The Blade of the Northern Lights|<span style="font-family:MS Mincho; color:black;">話して下さい</span>]]) 03:01, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
*[[User:Fluffernutter|A fluffernutter is a sandwich!]] ([[User talk:Fluffernutter|talk]]) 03:03, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
*-- [[User:DeltaQuad|<span style="color:green;">DQ</span>]][[User_Talk:DeltaQuad|<span style="color:blue;"> (ʞlɐʇ) </span>]] 03:05, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
*[[User:Thehelpfulone|<span style="color:red;">'''The'''</span>]][[User_talk:Thehelpfulone|<span style="color:black;"> '''Helpful'''</span>]][[Special:Contributions/Thehelpfulone|<span style="color:red;"> '''One'''</span>]] 11:30, 23 June 2012 (UTC)}}
{{shortcut|WP:PC/RFC2012}}

{{mbox
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| image = [[File:Nuvola apps filetypes.svg|40px|Please note]]
| text = <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">  This RfC uses transcluded subpages for most of its content. To monitor additions to the RfC, please remember to watchlist:
*[[Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012/Option 1|The "Option 1" subpage]]
*[[Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012/Option 2|The "Option 2" subpage]]
*[[Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012/Option 3|The "Option 3" subpage]]
*[[Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012/Discussion|The "Discussion" subpage]]
}}

'''This RfC was open for 60 days from its start date. This means it was closed to comment at 23:59 UTC on May 22, 2012.'''

==Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012==
{{archive top|<s>Coordinating admins are working on a close. Target date unknown at the moment, but we will try to keep the community updated. [[User:Fluffernutter|A fluffernutter is a sandwich!]] ([[User talk:Fluffernutter|talk]]) 20:44, 24 May 2012 (UTC)</s> Close posted above. [[User:Fluffernutter|A fluffernutter is a sandwich!]] ([[User talk:Fluffernutter|talk]]) 00:44, 26 June 2012 (UTC)}}
===Background information===
{{collapse top|click "show" at right to view}}
{{shortcut|WP:PCRFC}}
{{Pending changes trial}}
{{Wikipedia:Pending changes/Protection level table}}
* [[Wikipedia:Pending changes/Metrics|Metrics]]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/stable Log]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:PendingChanges currently pending]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:StablePages All PC protected pages]
{{collapse bottom}}

===Purpose=== 

The purpose of this request for comment is to determine what the future of [[Wikipedia:Pending changes|pending changes]] on the English Wikipedia will be. Due to problems with the previous discussions this request for comment will be restricted in its scope. All participants are asked to respect these limitations. A group of volunteer coordinators will be administrating this process; their task will be to keep the discussion focused on the relevant issues and at the conclusion of this process to perform a close which reflects the community's desires.

Three positions are presented. They are designed to be mutually exclusive of one another. Therefore, each participant will choose one position only to endorse. If you change your mind and decide to switch positions, please strike out your previous endorsement but do not remove it entirely. Users may participate in the discussion section regardless of whether they have endorsed one of the three positions, but are asked ''not to make alternate proposals''. Unregistered users may participate in the discussion section but may not endorse a position due to the risk of [[WP:SOCK|sockpuppetry]].

===Rationale===
The official pending changes trial ended some time ago. For a period of time after the trial  the tool was used without any clear policy regarding how it was to be used, or even if it was supposed to be used at all. This RFC aims to resolve these issues.

The policy presented below is based on the provisional policy used during the trial period, with modifications based on input at the previous RFC in 2011 that ended with the tool being temporarily taken out of service. That action was taken more or less to "clear the air" for further debate, but at the time interest in further discussion of these issues was on the decline and the matter has remained more or less unresolved for most of a year.

The format will be similar to other RFCs, however users are asked ''not'' to add additional positions. This may seem overly restrictive but it is necessary in order to arrive at a clear result. The three positions presented are designed to be mutually exclusive of one another, and to only address the very core issues involved as the smaller details will change over time anyway, as with all Wikipedia policies. Users may add a brief comment to their endorsement, but all threaded discussions should take place in the discussion section. Any overly long comments or replies to endorsements will be moved to the discussion section. Discussion not related to these core issues will be removed, in order to avoid expanding the scope of the discussion away from its intended purpose. Any discussion of the RFC itself should be posted to [[Wikipedia talk:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012|the talk page]], not the discussion section.

===A note on the "improve it first" position===
The option of the tool itself (as opposed to the policy on its use) being improved or altered before considering re-deployment is deliberately absent from the positions. Pending changes is a specialized version of the more restrictive "[[Wikipedia:Flagged revisions|flagged revisions]]" system. It was developed by the [[Wikimedia Foundation]] specifically to be used on en.Wikipedia and is not used on other projects. For that reason the Foundation [[mw:Pending_Changes_enwiki_trial/Roadmap#Future_Releases|made it clear]] that it would not expend any more resources to develop pending changes until this project had determined that they would actually use it. Therefore the option of improving it first before deciding is not viable at this time.
{{imbox|text='''To add your endorsement, you must edit the section of the option you want to endorse; editing of the main RFC page has been disabled'''}}

{{Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012/Option 1}}

{{Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012/Option 2}}

{{Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012/Option 3}}
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{{Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012/Discussion}}
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