Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012
Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012
Background information
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Purpose
The purpose of this request for comment is to determine what the future of 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 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 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 "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 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.
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Position #1
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- Users who endorse this position
- While I do understand the benefits of PC and why people support it, I still believe that any PC/FR-style protection is against the fundamental principles of the project, in that there should no difference between editors (except such differences that are unavoidable) and that everyone should be able to edit equally (while semi-protection for example blocks IPs, those users can easily get the status that allows them to edit regardless - PC on the other hand would restrict editing in those cases to a small group of users). I also think that the PC trial showed that this is a kind of "power" that a number of admins do not grasp correctly and I fear that PC will lead to further problems with incorrect usage and problems with anon / new users being scared away by overzealous "reviewers" who use their new-found "powers" to reject valid edits they don't agree with. Imho the problems of any tool that allows one group of users to decide which edits of other users are valid without discussion by far outweigh the benefits. Regards SoWhy 19:06, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- That's pretty much it. I get the idea and all, but it just didn't work out. Rcsprinter (orate) 20:27, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- Will be glad to see the back of it. HairyWombat 20:34, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- Use of pending changes over a significant fraction of our articles would contradict fundamental principles and create huge mountains of work. I was supportive of the alternative idea of using pending changes as a form of protection, but I don't think the benefits outweighed the drawbacks. Protected pages are by definition subject to abuse, most suggested edits to pages under PC were not constructive, and the edits which were useful did not justify the expense of editor effort to weed out the problematic edits. At the same time there is certainly the potential for abuse in the manner described by SoWhy. I don't think use of the tool can be justified except possibly in a handful of special cases. Hut 8.5 20:43, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- Pending changes is strictly worse than any other antivandal/accuracy measure we've got, since it can very easily be gamed by vandals, is overly reliant on an ever-shrinking user pool (last time I pegged the rate of reviewers to potential PC candidates at 1:65), and does active harm to Wikipedia and its reputation if understaffed/ignored. There is no way in creation that this would serve any purpose for Wikipedia, other than depressing already-anemic membership numbers even further. No new blood means nobody to write the encyclopedia. —Jeremy v^_^v Bori! 21:19, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- I understand the good intentions, but I wonder if I would have been as likely to join WP if I had to start out as a third-class-citizen. Our radical openness and the immediacy of an edit is an essential part of the Wikipedia experience. If we applied PC only to pages currently protected, perhaps it would help openness-- but I think we can reasonably anticipate that PC will be used more liberally, e.g. every BLP. We're a wiki-- no one expects us to be perfect. It's okay if a 'bad' revision is public for a bit-- that's an opportunity the readers to learn just how democratic WP is. In some ways, "reviewing" could make things worse-- implying that an article has been 'screened for quality' in some way, when in fact, it's only screened for obvious vandalism. In the balance between "Openness" and "Quality", we are too far towards quality. "Quality Mania" has to stop before we drive all new users away. HectorMoffet (talk) 02:04, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- I dislike Pending Changes (and any derivative of flagged revisions) primarily due to the "third-class citizen" idea that it brings about, which has been brought up by others above. I also think that Pending Changes is largely only seen as good from the "vandal fighting" perspective, but there is more to Wikipedia than attempting to control the behavior of others and the content of articles which are in an editors personal interest area. It looks like a foregone conclusion that this RFC will show Pending Changes as being supported, but I believe that it's use is antithetical to the core principles of editing Wikipedia.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 05:54, 24 March 2012 (UTC) - I find the system unnecessarily complicated to use and administer. Wikipedia is already complex enough, especially for newbie editors. The aims of the draft policy below, to protect pages that need it from disruption, can just as well be achieved by applying the standard full or semiprotection tool. Sandstein 08:06, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Pending Changes would, I believe, make Wikipedia more authoritarian and less democratic. The fact is this is a free and open encyclopaedia that anyone - even the most malevolent and ignorant people on the Internet - can and may edit, and edit it without censorship. --... there's more than what can be linked. 10:45, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Right problem, wrong solution. Incomprehensible technical wizardry, confuses everyone as to whether they are in fact editing the article, and even as to what "the article" in fact means at a given time. I don't so much share the concerns about preserving "core principles" of openness and democracy - which are double-edged swords - but just want things simple and upfront. If an article is closed to public editing, then tell people so, tell them why, and tell them how they can still get changes made. Victor Yus (talk) 11:39, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- As a purist, I think Wikipedia should remain instantly updateable, without allowing privileged users to "approve" content. As a radical, I think we should just remove all currently unsourced content and revert any new additions of unsourced content, to prevent any sort of "sneaky vandalism" or other unhelpful edits whatsoever. That would be a ore useful solution than pending changes, I think. Really, I think we should have a Wikipedia where anyone can write crap, and a second Wikipedia, which can claim to be reliable. Of course, Citizendium tried that and essentially failed. But I digress. Pending changes compromises my ideal of openness, and is inadequate in stopping vandalism or undesirable edits. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 17:04, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- This tool is fundamentally in violation of the idea of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. I am not convinced that our coverage is so great or our problems so immense that we need to change this foundational policy and make it more difficult for new users to edit. ElKevbo (talk) 23:18, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Absolutely not. I quietly watched the first trial from afar and saw no saving virtues in it whatsoever. Moreover, we'll no longer be able to call ourselves the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit". Lock Pending changes up and throw away the key. Evanh2008 (talk) (contribs) 23:49, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Pending changes has a cumbersome interface, is confusing to use and unnecessarily complex to administer, has the potential to drive away clueful editors, and fails utterly to address the most serious content problems we are facing. More troubling, we are again putting the cart before the horse by considering resurrecting PC in the absence of any credible evidence that it is needed. Effective tools to combat persistent vandalism, BLP violations, and other unconstructive edits already exist, and they work well; other options have been identified but not actively considered. Unless it can be demonstrated that there is a serious, intractable problem that pending changes is uniquely capable of solving, let's not go down this road again. Rivertorch (talk) 07:26, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Pending changes will make Wikipedia controlled by only some individuals in certain pages, which is entirely different from the main principle of the free encyclopedia. I am also in favor of comment number 1, 4, 5, 8 and 11. --G(x) (talk) 10:41, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- --Michig (talk) 11:26, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Frood! Ohai What did I break now? 16:30, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Logan Talk Contributions 16:34, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Bzweebl (talk) 17:00, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- I think pending changes unnecessarily complicates Wikipedia even more for new users. I think that page protection and edit requests can accomplish the same task without adding unnecessary work for reviewers. – GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:34, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Per SoWhy. -Branabus 19:41, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Just complicates matters. As things stand it's easy enough to throw an edit request at someone when a page actually needs it, at least enough that a lot of people do figure out how, and they'd still have to do that even with PC in use, so what's the point? Thing doesn't even work on high-traffic pages, which seem like they'd need it the most; such pages would still have to be at least semi-protected. And as for other pages which might have use for it, well, present countervandalism measures aren't that ineffective, are they? Meantime it just makes everything that much more confusing. — Isarra (talk) 20:34, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Jane (talk) 20:35, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Particularly as per HectorMoffet and GorillaWarfare. AllyD (talk) 21:05, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- No, no and no. This has been resurrected and buried a couple of times now. Why will nobody let this corpse rest in its grave? The only thing to come of this is arguments, more arguments, and Wikidrama. It's dead, for god's sake leave it that way. BarkingFish 21:22, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Although as a community we have dealt with vandalism and content disputes in the past, if there are serious flaws with an editors who are interested in an article who watch it can always revert it and begin a discussion if necessary. One of the virtues and responsibilities of Wikipedia is that ANYONE can edit an article (and we are to have good faith that for the most part that anyone will be editing in a positive manor that keeps with the pillars that guide our community), and with such freedom others can also alter those edits if they are deemed to not be keeping with guidelines and policies that have consensus by our community. Granted this means that involved knowledgeable editors need to patrol for vandalism or content they believe do not meet WP:V or WP:NPOV or something else (like WP:BLP), but that is the responsibility that keeps with the freedom of openness that makes Wikipedia so accessible. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:56, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- My views are summed up by many of the previous posters here. Dalliance (talk) 12:03, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Unnecessary complexity creep. TotientDragooned (talk) 14:28, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose. I am concerned that this proposal will result in a more hierarchical system with more power to administrators and reviewers. The draft policy requires reviewer status to have similar requirements to rollback, but as others have noted the exact requirements to get the permission and what exactly reviewers should accept or not are not clear, which is unacceptable. PC protection is different from the existing semi-protect because AFAIK confirmed is an automatically granted permission; not one that requires beseeching one of our administrative overlords to allow you into the cool kids club, yet another potential dealbreaker for a possible new editor. OSborn arfcontribs. 15:17, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- PC level 1 proved to be a spectactular failure: added complexity, reduced performance, conflicting views as to what editors should look for, and generally less usable than our current system. PC level 2, while underused previously, appeared to have actual merit and value. I would support a move to add PC 2 to our toolset, but oppose PC 1.—Kww(talk) 19:27, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- It simply didn't work properly. Reyk YO! 20:36, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- There are over 3000 pages under Category:Wikipedia semi-protected pages; of which I can only assume a good portion will eventually achieve "pending changes" status instead. This is not to mention Category:Biography articles of living people which contains over 500,000 pages, of which it is safe to assume at least a small portion will achieve "pending changes" status as well. Let's assume that only 1% of BLPs eventually get saddled with pending changes: That's 8,000 articles. Who is going to review all of these? And more importantly, what projects will suffer from losing editors to pending changes. I suspect Special:Newpages and Special:Recentchanges will lose some people, and those projects are incredibly backlogged already. There just aren't enough man-hours to go around, and not enough benefit to the Wiki. This is only one of my reasons for not supporting Pending Changes, but I feel a long-winded tirade would be unwelcome here. Great idea, but then again so is communism: It only works on paper. -RunningOnBrains(talk) 21:38, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Pending changes are confusing and ineffective, considering the sheer number of daily changes made to most popular articles. --Dmitry (talk•contibs) 22:21, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Feeling that this RfC is forum shopping until the desired outcome is achieved. OhanaUnitedTalk page 01:24, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
- Never supported it. Never will. — ξxplicit 06:22, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
- --M4gnum0n (talk) 14:13, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
- PC should only be used as an alternative to protection and semi protection on the ~3000 pages that currently use it. It should not be used on more than a small percent of all pages as PC can only combat blatant vandalism -- at the price of a more authoritarian and bureaucratic system, an unknown number of lost edits and editors, and encouragement of more subtle vandalism. This is what we should fear. In my ~8 years as a WP reader, I've only stumbled upon vandalism or broken pages (e.g broken infobox syntax) by causal browsing a few times in a few hundred of thousands page views; of course, this is thanks to all the time-consuming vandalfighting done by our community. Sure, this quick fix will reduce the workload of antivandal fighters, but it will increase the workload of reviewers. PC will not make WP less prone to errors, OR or SYNTH; at best, it is a dangerous system that will save us some time, but this should be shown by the proponents of this idea. jonkerz ♠talk 16:30, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
- In my opinion the PC is partial implementation of WP:PP. Given that it comes with an overhead and disputable benefits, I would propose to stick with the consistent and stable WP:PP. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 18:09, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
- Two reasons; one we don't have the manpower to create this huge backlog and time sink. Two, despite being active in page protection for two years, I've never seen a single situation where I thought PC would be a better solution than just semi'ing the page. While not a perfect system, it serves without asking editors to devote dozens of man-hours a day keeping it straight. Witness the Russian Wikipedia, where backlogs containing several hundred unreviewed edits on a single page are not uncommon, to see where an undermanned PC system could have us end up. Courcelles 21:46, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
- The trial was a failure in my opinion. Actually, if we had not discontinued the trial's system of mass unprotecting pages to implement PC, then it would have been a complete failure. Not only did it create more unnecessary work for users, a number of times that I've seen where people who have requested or suggested PC over semi-protection on an article/articles have done put in little to absolutely no effort in alleviating the workload on the requested/suggested articles. Considering that I work mainly with vandalism and anti-abuse, I don't see how PC will realistically help deal with the vandalism, the trial very clearly showed us this. I also agree with Courcelles's second statement, semi-protection is just plain better. Elockid (Talk) 02:06, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
- In my opinion the experiment failed to show any benefit with Pending Changes. Edgepedia (talk) 06:00, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
- I had an experience with PC in Arabic Wikipedia and it scared me off for months. Another new editor who I invited made one big referenced edit, but left WP when it was refused. The bad thing about PC is that you either accept all changes or reject all. Unlike what many think here, I believe that just like with the Arabic WP, many articles will have multiple PCs forming a long backlog. I think this should only be used when semi-protection isn't effective enough. Mohamed CJ (talk) 16:25, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
- I would still say that semi-protection performs all the tasks of PC without adding a new reviewer user-right. If someone wants to edit a page, they can ask on the talk page for semi-protection. PC will add more complication, time, energy, and effort than exists now. Angryapathy (talk) 17:16, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
- Not needed. INeverCry 01:34, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
- Even though I am a respected user on en.wiki - I am an admin, an arbitrator, and I have FA and GA experience, when I edit on some other wikis, such as the German wiki, I have to have my edits approved as I have not edited there enough to be a confirmed user, and sometimes I have had fairly minor edits queried or refused. That has discouraged me from using wikis with PC. I would prefer registered editing - provide my email and personal details as I did when becoming an arbitrator, and then be allowed to get on with editing. A one time, simple registration rather than making a series of edits and then waiting several days. SilkTork ✔Tea time 10:17, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
- I endorse Postion #1 for many reasons which are covered within the broad language of, "The negative aspects of pending changes outweigh the positive. Therefore the tool should not be used at all on the English Wikipedia." Refrigerator Heaven (talk) 11:54, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
- Too clunky - in PC, editor makes edit which is left hanging until reviewed. The often-obscure change leaves a reviewer scratching their head as the editor who made the edit has long gone. Semiprotection means the requester has to explain the rationale for a proposed edit first. I find semiprotection a more useful tool in the situation. Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:40, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse: Semi-protection and blocking individual editors is sufficient enough when dealing with vandalism. When necessary, an edit request can be made to the talk page for good faith editing IP addresses and non-autoconfirmed editors. Regards, Whenaxis (contribs) DR goes to Wikimania! 01:17, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse position 1. Although I like the idea and possibilities of this tool, it would create an enormous workload on administrators. I am not taking this position as a lazy admin, anyone who knows how I started along the admin path in the Cats for Deletion, knows I enjoy the work. Unfortunately, there is always a backlog of work somewhere. When I took over CfD, one admin was doing all the work, and he was wore out, I wasn't even an admin, but somebody had to do it. At first there will be a well groomed group of admins and a committee to ensure there is no backlog, but we have that now on several other admin boards, and there is always a backlog. At that point there is no difference from full protection requiring an admin to make a change and the new provisions, eventually an admin will have to not only make the change but research and verify it as well. After a time, there will be fewer admins actively working on the project and possibly even days where there is no admin monitoring it. I feel this will only negatively impact the constant updates by all users to improve on the Wikipedia project. «»Who?¿? 02:51, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
- In ru_wiki it's been imposed and caused nothing but trouble and dismay. Huge number of articles hang 'pending' there (and will be forever) for numerous reasons, including those mentioned above. 'Reviewing' business is tricky more often than not, while the 'protection' effect of PC is nil. --Evermore2 (talk) 08:51, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
- Doesn't scale, and there's no way to fix it so it does. Given anything like our current ratio between casual, occasional editors and regular contributors who could be recruited as reviewers (a ratio that is getting steadily higher), there's no way to institute a review-based system. Chick Bowen 19:05, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse Position 1. I feel that at the moment, the negative outweighs the positive. Until something drastic changes, I think this is a dead end. Tarl.Neustaedter (talk) 23:10, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
- Per SoWhy. SpencerT♦C 19:08, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
- This is a bright idea that has too many ramifications. The one that may have been overlooked is that with "permanent" implementation, many articles would then be semi-protected by the admins for a long period. Is this good? Right now, the admins figure, "Hey, this article requested for semi-protect is not getting much more vandalism than any other. Each article has to "take it's share of vandalism. Stop it one place, it squirts out another." This procedure would be great, but undoing the procedure is a cultural problem. Also, new users want to see instant change when they first edit. A lot of them edit out their own vandalism immediately! Just wanted to "prove it" to themselves. Can't do that with a delayed system. And yes, we have to put up with a lot of awful edits in the meantime. It is not a perfect system but it may attract more new editors. Student7 (talk) 18:19, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
- ENDORSE position 1. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ms33 (talk • contribs)
- Per SoWhy and Ohms law. Also I am opposed to the amount of user rights currently in existence, and adding another will make it worse. I thought "anyone could edit Wikpedia" but apparently I was wrong. Why would anyone think that new Wikipedia users know less about a subject than experienced users? And this feature really won't help new users. Under the current system they have to create an account and wait three days to be able to edit a few semi-protected pages, but under this system they will have to wait several months before they can edit without their changes being scrutinized by a user who really doesn't know anything about the subject and is biased towards new users anyway. The view that this will help IPs and new users is very short sighted. Liam987 07:26, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
- CharlieEchoTango (contact) 08:33, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
- That pages are directly editable by anyone is the basis for this project. To require review before edits are "live" would be to eliminate this. The openness of Wikipedia is an advantage. I think people need to slow down and consider exactly what vandalism is, and what effect PC would have on it. Are we worried that vandalism makes Wikipedia "look bad"? Are we worried that it wastes editors' time? Are we worried that it's resulting it readers obtaining less or inaccurate information? This proposal suggests that IPs and new users actually have a different version of the article displayed to them. How could this be an advantage? Our readers know what Wikipedia is, and they're reading it because of what it is. They know that the page they're viewing has been edited by hundreds of completely anonymous individuals, and that anything could have been added by anyone, and they're reading Wikipedia because of this, not in spite of it. We have no reason to pretend to be something that we're not. --Yair rand (talk) 17:35, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
- The very idea of PC is antithetical to the idea of an open encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It is fundamentally incompatible with the project's principles. It does. It does not serve the readers, only a small group of editors. It also has an incompatibility with the spirit, if not the legality of previous contributions, which were submitted in good faith in a framework that did not include these conditions. It must not return. oknazevad (talk) 19:57, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
- During the trial, I found pending changes to be clunky, unintuitive, confusing, and frequently misapplied. Although I believe that it is a potentially useful tool as long as it is used very sparingly, I highly doubt that it would be used properly, and I think the risk of making anons and new users feel marginalized (among other concerns) far outweighs the potential benefits. --Bongwarrior (talk) 14:17, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
- Pending Changes is a proposal uniquely marked by deception; its goals are not to stop vandalism but to censor articles. It started with a trial that the community voted clear consensus to stop three times, but which still limped on regardless of all consensus and deadline. Even after it was stopped, an administrator kept using it on some favorite biographies of his, at level 2 with no editing by anyone outside the reviewer pool allowed, while making it clear (having previously removed my reviewer right) that people who simply disagree that BLP policy should be so expansive on a discussion page are subject to revocation. When actually saying yes or no, the duties of reviewers have never been specified, and it has never been answered whether reviewers are liable for libel if they approve such an edit. While it is being marketed as a "less than lethal weapon", like tasers were when they were introduced, we should all know that this is anything but the truth - articles that would not have been semi-protected, like "all BLPs", will be hit with level 1 pending changes, and articles that would never have gotten full-protection will routinely be subjected to level 2 pending changes. This is admitted every time proponents say that it will "cut down on BLP violations", because if it were replaced only in the manner claimed, it would only allow more BLP violations by allowing more people to edit. Stake and decapitate, salt and burn! Wnt (talk) 16:55, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
- I endorse this position. At the end of the day PC doesn't stop vandalism, it just tries to cover it up by delaying the publication of new edits. It would also create additional problems whilst solving none; giving too much power to reviewers, creating an additional backlog of work (regardless of the scale), and potentially be open to creeping extension to more and more articles by making protection appear as less of a big thing. Not to mention the fact that since WMF is refusing to make improvements unless we commit to use the extension, we are effectively being forced to accept it blind, and with no option to change our minds later. Additionally, by assuming all edits to be unconstructive until proven otherwise by being approved, this is effectively removing the assumption of good faith. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, "they who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety". --W. D. Graham 18:37, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
- I am wholeheartedly opposed to implementing pending changes on this project. Our burning, big picture, problem is new editors being pushed away by complex procedures, brusque or automated replies to edits from existing editors and steep learning curves for everything else. Our minor problems of vandal fighting and what-not become immaterial if wikipedia ceases to be a living resource. I could support a full revamp of the model for page changes but only if it respects the premise that new editors are not inherently a threat. I won't go on because my position is basically unchanged from past RfCs. Protonk (talk) 20:19, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
- Yet another barrier to editing that we don't even have the manpower to keep up with.©Geni 16:26, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
- Kaldari (talk) 18:57, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
- Others have said it more eloquently, but it just goes against the spirit of this project, it will not be the encyclopedia anybody can edit if this passes. Snowolf How can I help? 02:42, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
- It seems to me that PC restricts the ability of autoconfirmed editors to deal promptly with errors, but increases the ability of anonymous editors to introduce errors (unless the reviewer is 'all knowing'). What will be the procedure when the body of W editors need to censure an incompetent reviewer? Don't introduce this new hurdle. Wikipedia is already too complex. Apuldram (talk) 11:17, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
- Mbak Dede (talk) 12:31, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
- simply no again. mabdul 16:43, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- No to change! Mutationes non sunt multiplicandae sine necessitateTwr57 (talk) 15:26, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- No ideological problems with designing light controls for Wikipedia to improve the quality of content. My objections are pragmatic. It's convoluted and complicated, which outweighs its tiny benefits as an anti-vandalism tool. We're better off finding other ways to fight vandalism. Shooterwalker (talk) 22:42, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- The biggest problem with pending changes is that they don't actually work. Any situation where pending changes would plausibly be turned on would be helped more by semi-protection and with less confusion about the current state of the article. This renders other concerns (which exist!) moot anyway. SnowFire (talk) 23:56, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- I am new here, and I found the openness of articles I was interested in spectacular. There is some great feeling I associate with improving this encyclopedia, no matter how small. I am secure in the knowledge that I am further expanding the knowledge of the world. Denying that to anyone is attrocious. There comes a point in time where a society, such as our wonderful one, will have to make the distinction between liberty and "safety," which in this instance is a unobtainable freedom from vandalism. This is the fundamental conflict inherit in the internet. There is no way to be open and encourage participation amoung all who may have valuable contributions without dealing with those malicious people that try and ruin it for all of us. So, in order to remain true to our vision and remain open to all, we must stay free. (Not in the money sense ^^) Added by Jon Weldon II: (talk) 14:57, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
- I didn't get on with the trial, so that has partially shaped my impression of it. However, a bigger issue is that it seems to add another hurdle in the way of attracting new editors - everybody who started editing here remembers the sense of excitement when something you added appeared straight away. If new editors see their edits being regularly refused/sat in a queue for ages, then it rather misses the point of the project and could see experienced editors spending all their time reviewing rather than contributing. Bob talk 19:12, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
- Pending changes is a bad idea for all the reasons stated above. Pages placed under full or semi-protection is by far the better option as it is less complicated and does not put a greater burden on the present users. Pending changes is also a possible door to censorship and the enforecement of one's particular POV. Imagine the chaos that would ensue were pending changes to be applied to The Troubles-related articles where edit-warring and POV-pushing are already rampant.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 05:40, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- I've argued against PC at length during the trial period, so rather than re-iterating my position I'll echo the heading: the negative aspects outweigh the positive. Jebus989✰ 12:31, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
- As an editor resident in the EU, unless someone can put forward a good argument to address the question that I have raised on the discussion page here I would not be willing to review edits, especially on BLP pages, without personally checking and archiving copies of the sources. I can envisage many other EU residents adopting a similar position. This has the potential to make editorial control of EN Wikipedia more US centric, which I do not believe is a good thing. FrankFlanagan (talk) 20:23, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
- The one most necessary thing for the survival of Wikipedia is that we continue to attract new editors. For most new editors, the attraction of seeing one's edits immediately in the live version is one of the key attractions. Therefore other considerations are not even relevant. But in any case, the problems which incoming articles and new edits is much less than those with existing ones: we are already more careful than in the past. I left a site (Citizendium) where although I had status to edit directly, most others needed them approved--I left because experience showed the site was dying because of inability to attract newcomers. Our procedures are already excessively troublesome both to newcomers and to anyone who sets out to help them--it's the main complaint of those trying to start working here DGG ( talk ) 03:33, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- OpposeIf it gives admins the power, some cruel admins(I am not blaming any kind admin, but cruel ones) can block users for nothing or do personal attacks.--Al Sheik!Woiu!I do not fish! (talk) 12:49, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- CommentI think it should be reformed although the PC looks fit.--Al Sheik!Woiu!I do not fish! (talk) 05:43, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- This is not a request for comment, it's a request for votes. The structure is ridiculously constraining. If it was a proper request for comment, then we wouldn't be so rigidly confined to discussing the three predetermined options. Of the three options available, this is the one that comes closest to my view, although I really ought to be editing the sections called "not this rubbish again" and "haven't we already hunted this down and killed it several times before?" and "no doubt I'll see you all again at the next pending changes-related RFC".—S Marshall T/C 08:25, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
(Later) I want to emphasise that this is a serious point. There are users who are determined to keep asking the same question in slightly different words until they get a positive answer. This time the gimmick is to force us into particular predetermined slots and to close down (and literally hat) all discussion of alternatives or attempts to step off the railway tracks that take us directly to pending changes. Veni, vidi, voti.
Please will the pre-appointed closers (!) also take into account the positions I expressed in the March 2011 RFC.—S Marshall T/C 17:29, 21 May 2012 (UTC) - I would like to vote for the adoption of Pending changes -- or something like it -- but the entire process of its adoption has been so badly handled that there will never be a consensus for adopting it in the foreseeable future. (Frankly, I consider the whole Pending changes debate a text book example of how not to change policy on Wikipedia.) A majority of Wikipedians -- either a slight or large majority, depending on who one talks to -- supports it; a sizable minority is opposed to it; yet there has been no effort to attempt to talk to the minority to understand & address their concerns, nor even to provide an objective way to test whether Pending changes can/will fix any problems. Let's just drop the whole idea for a long, long time. -- llywrch (talk) 16:57, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- We would be better served by semi/full protection. It is confusing to tell an editor that they can edit the page, only to have their edit not show up after they make it. Either let them edit the page, or tell them flat-out that they can't and how to make an edit(semi)protected request. There were also serious problems with overuse even during the trial, and I would be very concerned about yet another backlog requiring human intervention. Requiring edit(semi)protected drives away vandals while still allowing good-faith users to put in their edit; under PC, they'll still make the vandal edit and require someone to waste time figuring out it's vandalism and disapproving it. Seraphimblade Talk to me 03:17, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- Pending changes has the potential to alienate users, make it harder to remove wrong information that is already present when pending changes is applied, waste the time of reviewers and create backlogs. James500 (talk) 17:56, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- Given the potential liability of reviewers for approvals of "defamatory" material - which may include true material, depending on the jurisdiction - I am changing my viewpoint to oppose pending changes, at least if it is to at all be used on BLP and similar pages. I would be willing to change my position back to Option #3 (to, first, requiring considerable policy clarifications, and, second, dealing with the potential for vandals to clog up the reviewer queue after doing vandalism - not removable by non-reviewers - using an autoconfirmed account) if the Pending Changes policy was firmly such that it (at least in its PC1 form; I can see PC2 on article that would otherwise get full protection) would not be used on any BLP or similarly liability-provoking article. As it is, given that these are the exact articles it's being proposed for by at least some, I have to oppose it given the near-certainty of inadvertent misuse due to liability fears. Allens (talk | contribs) 18:24, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- For the benefits gained, we'd be adding disproportionate extra complication, and a frustrating indefinite time lag to the edits of a much broader section of the editorship. Also, the responsibility for accepting edits is currently on the entire community (implicitly, by not reverting them) - transferring that onto a single individual (by explicitly approving an edit) does not seem like a desirable situation to me. Quackdave (talk) 20:14, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- Goes against the basic principles. Ian¹³/t 22:20, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse. What Seraphimblade said, viz. "We would be better served by semi/full protection. It is confusing to tell an editor that they can edit the page, only to have their edit not show up after they make it. Either let them edit the page, or tell them flat-out they can't, and how to make an edit(semi)protected request..." – OhioStandard (talk) 23:13, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse position #1 – "The negative aspects of pending changes outweigh the positive. Therefore the tool should not be used at all on the English Wikipedia."
If enacted, Wikipedia's statement on the main page of "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" would have to be changed to "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, but contributions to articles protected by pending-changes protection may not be posted until they are reviewed and approved by other people." The current Protection policy already in place for articles is sufficient. The enactment of pending changes to pages would very likely significantly discourage new editors from contributing to the project. There are also concerns of elitism, in which in some cases only "approved" editors would be allowed to edit articles with their contributions immediately posting, while all other editors, including autoconfirmed editors in some cases, would have to wait for the "approved" editors to provide permission. Then a bunch of new policies and guidelines would have to be created to clarify what types of contributions would be "acceptable" and "unacceptable", in addition to Wikipedia's current policies and guidelines. For example, if an editor adds very basic information to an article, the type that typically doesn't require sourcing to be included, or information without inline citations that is backed by sources already present in an article, would the entry be denied or allowed? If an editor were to add controversial information to an article that is backed by reliable sources, would the information be included or denied by the reviewers? Pending-changes protection would also create a type of class system, in which the content of some Wikipedia articles would be ruled by an oligarchy, with the rest of Wikipedia's contributors being in the position of a lower class within this type of article governance system. Northamerica1000(talk) 08:19, 18 April 2012 (UTC) - Endorse Goes against the spirit of the project and with antivandal bots improving all the time, loss exceeds gain. --Dweller (talk) 10:46, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse Any official control of content by a select group is completely antithetical to the spirit of WP. As for vandalism of BLPs, I am certain that for every dedicated vandal, there are more dedicated users willing and able to undo the vandalism quickly. Where we're falling short is in sourcing content, but that's another discussion all together. Paratrooper450 (talk) 14:32, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse - fully agree with someone above: "Pending Changes would, I believe, make Wikipedia more authoritarian and less democratic." Cramyourspam (talk) 18:13, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
- It was an interesting experiment, but it has significant problems. 1) It's superfluous; it creates an additional fuzzy concept that overlaps massively with semi-protection, a much easier to implement approach. 2) It is going to add a major new workload to a site which already has backlogs everywhere. 3) It adds another tier of "more equal" users who stand above "regular" editors. 4) Finally, it is yet another way to discourage and disenfranchise new participants. —Torchiest talkedits 22:40, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
- I agree with many of the points made above. PC is anathema to the spirit of Wikipedia, whose immediacy is a large part of its appeal. Semi-protection is somewhat restrictive but easy to understand, and reasons for proposing or opposing proposed edits can be better explained on talk pages than in edit summaries. PC creates extra layers of bureaucracy, hierarchy and obfuscation, with enormous potential for misunderstanding. Reviewers are left with no clear idea of what's expected of them; IP's and newbies may erroneously assume that only blatantly inappropriate material will be blocked and that their good faith edits will all be accepted; and casual readers may imagine that "reviewed" articles have been subjected, in their entirety, to some sort of rigorous quality control. We also have no evidence that enough reviewer-hours would be available to make its widespread implementation remotely feasible. Contains Mild Peril (talk) 05:24, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
- Kennedy (talk) 12:22, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
- I will never support this tool unless or until someone provides some actual hard evidence about who are the types of people who are making the most useful edits, and whether this tool would have a detrimental effect on them. If there's already been a trial, this should be possible, yes? I strongly suspect that most useful edits come largely from relatively new users, the exact types of people who really wouldn't understand this tool, or rather, wouldn't really want to learn about it before they lost interest in contributing altogether. I can't find any evidence that backs up the claims being made that this tool 'works' and I suspect the only thing that is meant by that is that it stops vandalism. There's a reason why all the prospective competitors to Wikipedia have failed, and it's not been because they were too easily vandalised, but because they all fundamentally misunderstood what made Wikipedia a success in the first place - openness, simplicity and immediacy. If Wikipedia isn't careful, then it won't be too hard for Google to hijack the market by rebooting 'original' Wikipedia but with ads, using all of the content already here. All they're waiting for, is for Wikipedia to vacate the position of market leader by turning itself into something that doesn't work, or at least can't sustain itself with enough users and edits to keep writing it, as well as keeping what's already in it relevant and accurate. The key facts relevant to this decision is not vandalism or quality, they are that Wikipedia is clearly still not finished, Wikipedia is not immune to competition, and Wikipedia does not pay its contributors for their work. Krismeadon (talk) 19:04, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
- How many times must this come up? --Gwern (contribs) 19:37 20 April 2012 (GMT)
- Problem, chaos, solution? Yeah, I know it's cryptic. Think about it! Gzuufy (talk) 00:56, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
- It seems too complicated and burdensome per WP:LIGHTBULB. Warden (talk) 11:52, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
- For a new editor like me, its already difficult and complicated enough without this. I also do not support because in my many years, I have learnt that there are many 'tools' that come and go but nothing can ultimately replace basic human direct. painstaking effort. One day a major error will certainly be made by this system or machine and then it will be too late to rue. Many thanks, AsadUK200 (talk) 13:22, 22 April 2012 (UTC)AsadUK200
- It risks producing inadvertant content forks, where there may be two wildly different versions, the approved version and the "live version". For articles which are not on many watchlists - which probably counts for most of the articles on wikipedia, changes may takes years to get approved, thus discouraging good faith changes and in many cases locking harmful content in (this will stop non-reviewer editors from removing pre-existing vandalism as well as adding it). In addition, he experience of the trial shows that it doesn't work on large article that are edited frequently.Nigel Ish (talk) 22:07, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
- How many times will Pending Changes (PC) re-spawn after we kill it? It's overcomplicated and the problems it intends to solve can be better address with already established means like the various levels of page protection. Several times I raised questions about potential legal burden PC puts on page patrollers. Never once was I given an answer. We built the best encyclopedia in the world without PC. There's no obvious improvement using PC, so let it die once and for all. Jason Quinn (talk) 13:15, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
- Per SoWhy, BarkingFish, and OhanaUnited. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 04:16, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
- Was wondering if we could implement this tool for school/shared IPs only. That could be useful. Hghyux (talk to me)(talk to others) 15:38, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
- Wkipedia is meant to be the encyclopedia which anyone can edit, and this detracts from that ethos. Wikipedia worked well enough for years without it, and we don't need it now. The German version has been a disaster. The attraction which Wikipedia has to new editors is that their edits are visible immediately, not hours, days or weeks later. Enough is enough. Richard75 (talk) 00:12, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
- Te Karere (talk) 07:26, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
- For the reasons given above. --catslash (talk) 14:06, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
- Those who are in favour of this tend to be those who might be in a position to wield power over who edits Wikipedia and how. This is antithetical to the premise of Wikipedia. --Cooper42 16:39, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
- Overly complicated, convoluted, hard to understand, and doesn't work well, anyway. We have enough procedures and protections.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:31, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
- Pending Changes was designed in reaction to our failure to prevent vandalism on BLPs. Since it seems widely agreed that it fails to adequately protect BLPs, suffers from major design problems and bugs, and is not a supported piece of software in the long run, it would be extremely unwise to enable the use of it on any scale. Steven Walling • talk 01:49, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
- It ain't broke. Don't "fix" it. Doprendek (talk) 05:21, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
- Strong Reject. This really just seems like a whole layer of bureaucracy that Wikipedia doesn't need, and shouldn't need. The fact that changes can be edited in to articles, but not shown, so that an innumerable slate of other editors can edit the same thing in just seems awful. I cannot see how this would become anything more than a hassle for editors and an inscrutable horror for reviewers. Either you can edit an article or you can't. Since you can always suggest an addition to an article in its talk page, this proposal is even redundant to our existing procedures. Send it to the dark pit from whence it came. VanIsaacWScontribs 05:29, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse position #1 we need to put this approach aside and move on. I'm open to similar approaches with different implementation, once the dust has settled, however. Stuartyeates (talk) 10:44, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
- Strong Endorse to position #1. The negative aspects of pending changes outweigh the positive. Therefore the tool should not be used at all on the English Wikipedia. This is putting more power into the hands of those (administrators included) that manipulate WP rules to remove and control knowledgeable contributors and push their own twisted agenda. Bureaucracy is already a problem on WP - we do not need more of it! Much of WP is ruled by people getting together in groups and pushing new editors out. It's ugly and this rule would only enforce that! As for the child issue, position #1 would cause more damage because it's the abusers that are the most forceful and manipulative. They will find a way to push their agenda.~ty (talk) 18:16, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
- Per my experiences both as an en.wiki reviewer and on the German Wikipeida as an IP, where my beneficial changes (including the removal of personal information/email addressed) sat ignored for almost a week. ThemFromSpace 02:53, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse Pending Changes will only speed up the decline of editors, encourage smaller, less constructive edits to large projects, and maintain the position of a limited few editors as somehow 'better' than the massed ranks of day-to-day contributors. doktorb wordsdeeds 13:07, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
- While I understand that there are some positives to PC, I think Wikipedia is better without it. Blocking and protection has worked find for a very long time so will continue to be a suitable way of solving this. Wikipedia's openness is a major feature that we all love, removing it would be an insult. Overall, I am highly against this. Jwikiediting (talk) 15:39, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
- Arcandam (talk) 17:00, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse The current protection scheme is more than reasonable. PC, by comparison, would create an unreasonable situation for both reviewers and editors due to backlogs and neglect. I am sure that this system will lead to some edits taking a week or more to be approved, which will only serve to drive away editors. I also don't buy the argument that PC could be relaxed on some articles if there is a community consensus. How many good faith editors would have to suffer first? Contributions should be valued equally and judged later. Lithium6ion (talk) 03:58, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse This is destroying one of the strongest and most attractive tenets of Wikipedia; the encyclopaedia anyone can edit. While understandably, abuse has hampered Wikipedia before, I do not believe any amount of vandalism should cause us to close some doors; if anything, vandalism should merely spur us to be more vigilant, rather than hide like a turtle in its shell. With all due respect, Orpherebus. (talk) 06:48, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
- I am strongly opposed to PC as I think it changes the character of Wikipedia, and it is illogical expansion of Wikipedia's bureaucracy. Wikipedia's growth has occurred because of its open and egalitarian edit structure where very few articles cannot be editted by an autoconfirmed user. Now, there will be far more articles that a regular user will not be able to edit without going through a reviewer. I see a situation where certain articles will become dominated by a few reviewers, and the articles will become highly biased and impossible to modify. There will be a drop off of newer users who are dissatisfied with the inability to enact changes to any high-profile article. Furthermore, the creation of two new protection levels, and a new class of users (i.e., reviewers) is totally unnecessary. A far simpler proposal would be to ban anonymous IP edits (i.e., require registration), and to strictly enforce rules against vandalism, edit warring, tendentious editting, etc. Debbie W. 03:42, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
- Absolute Endorse Good changes often get slowed down by this - especially on pages with little experts. Overmage (talk) 06:17, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
- Strong Endorse Agree with comment above, "Pending Changes would, I believe, make Wikipedia more authoritarian and less democratic." Darrell_Greenwood (talk) 03:15, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse. This goes against the very spirit of Wikipedia. Wikipedia would not be the "Encyclopedia that Anyone Can Edit" but the "Encyclopedia that can only be Edited if Someone Else Supports your Edit". meshach (talk) 19:38, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse. I believe this goes against the principle and spirit of Wikipedia. Pending Changes would, in my opinion, go against what made Wikipedia great in the first place. FrostytheSnownoob (talk) 08:22, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse. Keep it simple. The immediate feedback is what makes this work. Stevei 17:58, 5 MAY 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse. Pending changes was an unmitigated failure. People have grown to understand the wiki system, and the risk of vandals. In the end, it's a feature, not a bug. -- ۩ Mask 10:32, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
- Agree with comment above, "This goes against the very spirit of Wikipedia. Wikipedia would not be the "Encyclopedia that Anyone Can Edit" but the "Encyclopedia that can only be Edited if Someone Else Supports your Edit"."Energythief (talk) 14:14, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
- Not until this reviewer "right" can be taken away from administrators just as easily as it will undoubtedly be taken away from regular editors. Malleus Fatuorum 20:18, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse — Although I had originally supported pending changes, the reality was that it turned out to be a pain in the ass. It was overused as a whole and frequently used on pages that required specialist knowledge to correctly review. This created a situation where the number of reviewers capable of approving the changes with confidence was proportionately low to the number of people trying to edit the page. Combined with the logged use of forcing people to either approve or decline a change, it also made it problematic for people wanting to help: if they approve a change that turned out to be "wrong," then their name is just as much on it as the person making the change. Similarly, should they decline a change that turned out to be "right," they opened themselves up to accusations of not assuming good faith or biting the newbies. In either case, it could be something used against you in the future, so instead of making a choice, people would choose not to choose. Because of this, changes would sit in the queue for long periods of time. Oh, and on a related note, WP:RFPP is regularly backlogged as it is. I'd hope that instead of thinking of new ways to backlog it, that we deal with what's already on our plate, rather than over-committing us and spreading us even thinner. Just a suggestion. --slakr\ talk / 20:56, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
- By the way, we already have pending changes waiting at Category:Wikipedia protected edit requests. It, too, is backlogged, and I'd like to see supporters of proposal 2 or 3 work on that before endorsing a plan to expand it even further. Just a thought, guys, just a thought. --slakr\ talk / 21:10, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse. This may sound like a good idea at first sight, but it doesn't work well where it is in use in other languages (changes may take months to be accepted), and in practice it serves no useful purpose. In the very small proportion of pages where there is a need for something of the sort, this need is already addressed by semi-protection. Лудольф (talk) 08:31, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse #1. There is really next to no benefit to the pending changes system. It focuses more power in the hands of a few, violating the fundamental spirit of Wikipedia. The inevitable delay in updating pages that benefit from "near-live" updates in respect of current events, sporting results and the like will have an overall negative impact on Wikipedia far in excess of the problem of small sporadic outbreaks of vandalism, for which the existing semi-protection and full protection are more than adequate in almost every circumstance. If there are articles that would benefit from additional editor patrols, a WikiTaskForce could take care of this without any problem without fundamental changes. Dybeck (talk) 12:29, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse Huge problems, and it really doesn't do anything that is needed. Makes a confusing problematic mess out of editing. Kill it 100% Sincerely,North8000 (talk) 03:05, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse per SoWhy; fundamentally backwards. Arbitrarily0 (talk) 13:53, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse per Casliber and OSborn. Lesgles (talk) 18:10, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse. Would discourage the newbies, like myself, who need nurturing into the system not keeping at arm's length.Cpsoper (talk) 19:19, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse. The litany of reasons given before this make a solid case against. This would discourage new users from editing Wikipedia, and without Wikipedia being open to all the project is doomed become biased and elitist. Moreover, given Wikipedia's edit volume a huge corps of trusted reviewers would be needed to review changes in a timely fashion (lest the articles be never updated at all). When trusted editors make changes while not logged in, as I often do, their edit would be picked up by the system and add to the workload. Wikipedia's abuse filter, bots, and programs that allow editors to quickly revert vandalism do a very good job already and are much simpler tools that do not strike at the core of what Wikipedia is about. It doesn't say "The Free Encyclopedia" because you don't have to pay for it. Knight of Truth (talk) 22:43, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse: The negative aspects of pending changes outweigh the positive. Therefore the tool should not be used at all on the English Wikipedia.Chjoaygame (talk) 11:18, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse Position #1 because it is against what Wikipedia is: an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Instead, this gives reviewers who specialize in certain articles control over those articles to include or not include content based on what is supposed to be facts and references, but could easily be corrupted and opinionated. Plus, it makes it increasingly difficult to become an autoconfirmed user when many of these experienced reviewers are sure to be discriminating against new, unconfirmed users who do not know how to cite sources on Wikipedia, again threatening the "anyone can edit" statement. The current system of no protection, semiprotection, and full protection works much better - all new users need to do to earn the right to edit semiprotected articles is to edit unprotected articles without vandalizing - this does not require knowing how to cite. Additionally, if these specialized reviewers are unavailable due to their real lives (remember, ALL of us have real lives that often take away the time we spend here) then outdated versions of pages do not get corrected. If this is going to applied more often to BLPs than to non-BLPs, then becoming outdated is a huge problem, and I don't see any way how Pending Changes can be fixed to deal with this problem. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 23:03, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse - As a very new user here I've been goaded (very kindly I might add) into learning the ropes in a rather short time frame. I think the bureaucracy needed to run a project of this nature should be limited as a matter of policy. That is to say, any steps taken that might increase the level of bureaucracy (even though they might seem to improve the quality of the project) should be very carefully considered indeed. There is already enough of a bureaucratic mire to wade through as a new editor and, as such, newbies will be instantly discouraged from contributing if they are shut out from the very beginning. Just say no to bureaucracy! - Themoother (talk) 12:05, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse. It is exactly that – a whole lot of bureaucracy for little benefit. The bureaucracy clogged up the system and deterred editors from making edits. I was put off editing many-an article because of the tag, and I'm sure many others less experienced than me were also deterred. Because I was automatically granted 'reviewer' status, any of my edits automatically implied approval of the prior/pending edit, whether I intended to or not. As a gnome, I only have a fleeting interest in quite a large number of articles, my gnoming actions would actually create a false sense of security. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 15:20, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse Given the feeling that PC is less restrictive than semi-protection (which it is IMHO not), PC will be inevitably used more frequently than semi-protection. I rest my case. If restricted strictly to BLP pages, PC might have some merit, but as the option is not on the table, it is better to avoid PC altogether. Ipsign (talk) 17:42, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse for multiple reasons. It is unclear how often PC would be used; probably more widely than [semi]protection. IP edits can block autoconfirmed editors even with PC1, giving potential for a DoS attack. Seeing their edit seem to disappear will put off newcomers. There are serious concerns about reviewers' liability. PC is another complication to deal with. If there's any doubt, let's err on the side of status quo, because this is a neverendum: PC will be reoffered until it gets a consensus. Certes (talk) 20:29, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse Td1wk (talk) 21:28, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse Doing this is going to lead to disputes between editors between what is right and what is wrong, not every editor sees another's edits the same way and while this is a good idea I dont think its going to help. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:17, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse I spend much of my time here dealing with the enormous wave of vandalism that occurs every day on Wikipedia and so I generally support more tools to address this issue. However, Pending Changes does little to stop vandalism, puts drastic bars in the face of legitimate contributors, and imposes an insanely complicated system in front of what is supposed to be a very simple concept: an encyclopedia anyone can edit. A great deal of constructive contributions come from unregistered and new users. (Everyone was unregistered once!) Finally, Option 2 is still simply too vague to constitute a meaningful policy and is simply a restoration of the old status quo of the never-ending trial period. We need stronger tools to more directly address vandalism rather than trying to sweep it under the rug with PC and protection.Zachlipton (talk) 00:48, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse position 1. It would overly bureaucratizes the system - it would protect from outright vandalism, but would alienate editors because editors ´would have to review all pending edits before their own edit becomes visible. Worse, it would likely alienate careful editors more than others: sometimes it can be tricky to perform a correct and thorough review (for example if the last edit has an inline reference which is not available online), therefore editors who really want to push a further edit into the article may tend review and accept overly generously, whereas more conscientious editors would be discouraged from editing if they feel unable to appropriately review the previous edit. So it could deter especially the careful editors from improving an unreviewed article. And it would not protect at all from purposely introduced bias or other abuse of Wikipedia. --Chris Howard (talk) 18:49, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse pos. 1 - This will add unnecessary complexity and discourage new editors. mgeo talk 21:00, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse position 1. 1) PC forces all editors with reviewer status to review all pending changes before editing. This is an impediment to editing. 2) Per 12 Victor Yus and 24 Isarra.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikimedes (talk • contribs)
- Endorse I have opposed Pending changes in the past, and I still do. It's a fundamentally bad idea. Manxruler (talk) 21:41, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse. --Toccata quarta (talk) 14:10, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse per GorillaWarfare. Well said. Nomader (talk) 16:15, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse. I thought this was the free encyclopedia that anybody could edit. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 17:05, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse. To quote O'Hare from the 2012 movie The Lorax: "Let it die! Let it die! Let it shrivel up and - come on, whose with me?" TomStar81 (Talk) 01:01, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse Davewild (talk) 09:20, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
- I oppose this discriminatory policy : Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Naked Nomad (talk) 11:07, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse Pending changes is an invitation to bite the newcomers tool. Whatever its advantages, it is not good for the long-term health of Wikipedia. Wikipedia needs newcomers. It is already difficult enough with all the many templates people have created for different talks.--Toddy1 (talk) 19:10, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse If there is a problem with people vandalizing BLPs, they should be addressed by technological solutions that work in the background. I can envision doing a statistical analysis of the types of wording typically used by vandals, the time of day relative to the location of the IP address, and possibly the type of article and creating bots that bring these edits to people's attention. Also, perhaps the Foundation should consider hiring a couple people to do real monitoring. Speciate (talk) 07:35, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse, strongly. PC was a fundamentally bad idea to begin with and the trial period demonstrated why rather clearly. Wikipedia badly needs to attract new editors and to retain existing active editors. The PC feature would do significant damage to both. It will put-off and bewilder new editors and create a significant and completely unnecessary new burden on existing editors who have better things to do than sift through changes made by others. The trial period clearly showed that there is no type of pages for which PC would work well. For actively edited pages PC would just add to confusion and chaos and complicate things needlessly. For rarely edited pages PC would result in accumulation of pending edits that are not confirmed for a long time. Existing features such as semii-protection and full protection work better because they do not require significant workload overhead on existing users. If someone is really worried about overall qualifty controls for WP content, they should consider more radical solution that do not impose significant workload burdens on established users, such as, for example, disallowing any editing by IPs. That would be more honest and more effective than the PC charade. Nsk92 (talk) 13:54, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse Position #1: I agree with the stated position: the negative aspects outweigh the positive. I've seen this in action on some pl.wp pages and it seems to be confusing and discourages editing IMHO. I suspect that PC might be related to part of an anti-wiki backlash - there's too much danger to authoritarian organisations of losing too much control over knowledge distribution, and PC might offer a way to bog down Wikipedia and wikis in general by legal challenges over editorial responsibility and by encouraging internal struggles over editorial control that distract from the main issue of article content. I'm not suggesting that individual Wikipedians in favour of PC are trying to support authoritarian organisations - the pressure from authoritarian organisations should be expected as a systematic effect - partly through secret, offline pressure on WMF Board members, partly through indirect pressure on Wikipedians, through mainstream media misrepresenting the nature of wikis and the responsibilities of readers to judge the quality of the information they read. Boud (talk) 19:18, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
- On top of everything else I find the notion odd that FR has improved de.wp. On the contrary, it has introduced one more subtle level of hierarchy to make the climate worse than it was before. --Pgallert (talk) 07:57, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
- I would say No changes should be blocked,for not any second, but This should only be used for marking, state what pages haven't been reviewed.Justincheng12345 (talk) (urgent news here) 11:01, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
- Absolutely, unequivically no. It is hard enough to find and keep editors without removing one of the few things (the satisfaction of editing and gratification of immediate publication) that works in that regard. A phrase about cracking walnuts with tanks springs to mind... Meetthefeebles (talk) 13:12, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse Keep it as it is. The negative effect of a structural hierarchy of reviewers destroys the ethos of the project. It becomes edited by a few instead of edited by all.Davdevalle (talk) 14:30, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse Pending changes is ideologically wrong for Wikipedia. It means that the vast majority of editors will be restricted from editting sensitive articles (e.g., BLP). Wikipedia has become the lead online encyclopedia because of its open structure. Unless we've decided that it's time for Wikipedia to stop growing, and instead enter a maintenance phase, PC must be rejected. NJ Wine (talk) 00:56, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
- The pending changes system may look OK in theory, but the trial period convinced me that we are better off without it. --Zundark (talk) 21:18, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
- I am sympathetic to the problem of a dwindling cadre of editors struggling to conserve a growing repository of information, but I think PC will hinder rather than help, for several reasons: 1) Whatever arguments can be made that PC does not violate WP:Anyone can edit, it will be seen as violating it and thereby will hurt WP's image; 2) I don't see a problem with the current regime of semi-protection for articles under attack, with discipline applied to problem users and sockpuppeteers; 3) While there may currently be a backlog of bad-faith edits that have not been dealt with, PC will not make that go away but instead will create a second backlog of good-faith edits that are not visible because reviewers have not gotten around to looking at them. I see this as potentially disastrous, not least for the prospect of developing new editors. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 01:24, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse--Drboisclair (talk) 08:13, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse-- My understanding of the PC issue is that the crux of it is designed to address and control vandalism. According to a Wikipedia statistic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Edits_by_user_type.png 8.1 percent of all edits are vandalism, comprised of 6.5 percent attributed to unregistered editors and 1.6 percent attributed to those registered - meaning 91.9 percent of edits are outside the purview of vandalism. Adopting PC will serve to control all Wikipedia edits, not just vandalizing edits. Wikipedia has become a globally trusted, although imperfect, source of information due to the "anyone can edit" policy. PC will undermine the credibility of Wikipedia as a democratically derived information source and defeat the only equal access information provider on the planet. Wikipedia is akin to a living, breathing organism structured and capable of presenting valid and accurate information within a real-time capacity. Let's keep it that way. --SgtMayDay (talk) 09:39, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
- I can appreciate the appeal of more granular editing privileges and PC has some clear advantages over the current use of edit requests. That said, the current incarnation of PC is a nightmare for a laundry list of reasons detailed above and I don't think it can be salvaged. I believe that the deployment of PC on large portions of the wiki, a possibility that a few editors are excited about, would be nothing short of disastrous. ButOnMethItIs (talk) 17:00, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse--The PC system is draconian, complicated, frustrating, and will only serve to repel rather than attract new editors.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 13:03, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
- I think that with the page protection system already in use is enough. Some pages in Wikipedia have a high amount of edits per hour, so reviewing each edit is a hard task. We're only 90,000 active users against millions of unregistered editors plus the registered ones. So, it'll make a mess more that fixing the problems. --Hahc21 [TALK][CONTRIBS] 14:29, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse I trust those people wanting to introduce this system will spend their time operating it - I predict a log-jam, frustration and other tasks being overlooked. Arjayay (talk) 17:49, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
- MeegsC | Talk 01:19, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse' We have a similar PC system in the german Wikipedia and it's better without it. Also people who don't edit wikipedia yet but thinking about doing their part will get problems wirh that and it will disattract a lot of potential new editors. -- Laber□T 02:59, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse per SoWhy, Wnt, DGG, W. D. Graham, and Sandstein, as well as per the past discussions. I additionally reaffirm that this tool is inefficient and counterproductive, that its deployment would inevitably dissuade new and anonymous editors from participating, that its handling has repeatedly violated the community's trust, and that we should never stand for any proposal designed to undermine core principles of the project. — C M B J 11:35, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- At first sight, it seems to be a good initiative to protect good articles from persistent vandalism. But there are thousands of articles that require further edits to get improved? How did Wikipedia grow up so soon? Only because people here can think themselves as the part of an encyclopedia as they can edit and add info from anywhere anytime and they can see their edits instantly displayed. Hence they feel motivated. Do you want Wikipedia to turn out to be Citizendium? In this age, people do not like hierarchy. If you can check pending changes, why don’t you make a list of new changes without keeping them pending? And then check them. If you find anything unreferenced, remove them. If you find anything that breaks Wikipedia policy, discuss. If you are so much concerned with the vandalism from unregistered users, then make sure that no unregistered user can edit Wikipedia. If you cannot trust them, how can they trust you? How will you make sure that all the administrators and reviewers would be unbiased and knowledgeable and they would not keep a change pending for its truthfulness? Smmmaniruzzaman (talk) 13:51, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse - Per Sandstein & SilkTork. Semiprotection is adequate. Pending Changes would add to the complexity of WP. Many novice IP editors would get discouraged and bail out. PC would add to the bureaucracy & hierarchy. --Noleander (talk) 14:28, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- Per SoWhy and because I do not think the benefits are worth the extra layer of process complexity. JohnCD (talk) 21:42, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Position #2
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- Users who endorse this position
- During and after the trial, PC was shown to be an extremely helpful tool for combatting bad-faith edits while still allowing easy submission of good-faith edits. We shouldn't let the various problems with the trial prejudice us against the tool itself. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:42, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- Long overdue; get it right this time. (I would have been first but it was protected (or something like that)). Alarbus (talk) 17:45, 23 March 2012 (UTC) Self-admitted sock of Jack Merridew. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 15:55, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- PC worked good during and after the trial and it would be a shame to let a useful thing dry up and blow away in the wind. Simply put PC is perfect in allowing good faith edits while combating bad faith edits.--Dcheagle 18:04, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- Although it just adds one more level of complexity to Wikipedia, I think it will be very helpful and sounds good to me. Jesse V. (talk) 18:17, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 18:23, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support PC, especially on BLPs to prevent defamation. Reaper Eternal (talk) 18:56, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- Per Beeblebrox, essentially. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:59, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- I had experience with flagged revisions in Russian Wikipedia for about three years, and I obviously have experience with NPP here (I always patrol NPP from the back of the list, trying to find smth out in the oldest articles). I think there are obvious problems with the new page patrol: (1) the backlog is only 30 days long. It is not currently a problem, since the backlog in practice is never longer than a week, but potentially it is a problem. (2) one can only patrol new articles, never old articles and never the same article twice. If you start thinking about it, this is actually a serious restriction. Basically, patrolling an article is a way to state it is actually ok. However, the article may be ok at some point and become not ok at a different point, for instance, after being vandalized or after copyrighted material has been introduced or whatever; conversely, an article which initially was not ok can become ok after references and categories have been added. The logical extension is flagged revisions, which is patrolling (potentially) not just an article once but every revision so that one knows that the article is ok at some given point (even if it was not ok before and may become not ok in the future). I am convinced that flagged revisions is what we will ultimately come to, since it is just a logical and convenient extension of the patrol idea. However, it is not what we are discussing now, and not what can be realistically speaking implemented now. I believe pending changes is a step in the right direction (though an incomplete one) and I certainly endorse implementation of pending changes.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:08, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- Per Reaper Eternal, with the additional comment that we need a community commitment to use PC in order to signal the developers that their efforts to improve PC will not be wasted. Jclemens (talk) 19:09, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- Per Beeblebrox and Dcheagle. jcgoble3 (talk) 19:21, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- Strong support, with the understanding that re-interpreting or changing the policy to something radically different than what we are voting for here requires a new consensus --Guy Macon (talk) 19:36, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- I've been championing some form of this process since I started editing Wikipedia in 2005. To paraphrase Shimon Peres (and others), an imperfect PC is better than a perfect editing war. Grika Ⓣ 19:45, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- As I expect problem edits to get worse, all options should stay open --Chris.urs-o (talk) 19:50, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- Strong support; seems like a perfect mid-way point between page protection and open editing. It will help IPs Be bold and fix our mistakes, even on controversial pages. Achowat (talk) 19:58, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support. I don't have any experience with pending changes, but the proposed idea seems reasonable. --Karl.brown (talk) 20:00, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- Blurpeace 20:09, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- Pending changes works. It allows users who might not otherwise be able to edit with a means to contribute, while allowing us to screen out unhelpful edits before readers can see them. I understand the frustration with the way the trial ended (or rather didn't end), but by ending its use over those issues, we are cutting our nose off to spite our face. As a community, we should welcome with open arms anything that offers a solution to our problems of vandalism without totally shutting out new and unregistered editors. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:16, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support per Beeblebrox and HJ Mitchell. Geoff Who, me? 20:46, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- A supporter of option 1 commented that, in their experience, the editor time used rejecting unwanted edits outweighed the benefit that a small number of useful edits could be waved through. That's different from my experience, where the balance was the other way. Obviously, it may vary depending on the article. But I think the answer to that is make sure, as best we can, that both PC and SP are used where they are most appropriate, and for admins to be flexible in upgrading from PC in cases where editors are experiencing genuine difficulty in administering it. Oh, and the process of removing PC from anyone who abuses it should be efficient and not held back by sentiment. FormerIP (talk) 20:52, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- Unconditionally support. Yeah, it could use some tweaking, but implement it, then work out the remaining bugs. - Jorgath (talk) (contribs) 21:14, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- Per HJ Mitchell. The minor problems encountered in the trial did not demonstrate the unworkability of the system; instead they demonstrated that it basically did work. Sam Blacketer (talk) 21:16, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- Morten Haan (talk) 21:31, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- I do have some concerns, but not enough to put me among the supporters of #3. Nolelover Talk·Contribs 21:32, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support ~FeedintmParley 21:40, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- Noting that it will only work if pending changes are rapidly accepted or rejected and hence a large and willing community of reviewers is needed. I am experienced with FlaggedRevs on another project and the most common cause of alienation of new good f aith editors is the perceived lack of trust that a "pending changes" system creates. QU TalkQu 21:57, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- "As with other forms of protection" says almost everything we need to know. It's not some incredibly arcane process. We should use it in ways that are consistent with how the English Wikipedia does everything else. We can flesh out the details later. (I'd particularly like to see it replace indefinite semi-protection on some lower-traffic pages (to be chosen case-by-case, using our best judgment, etc.), since the data from the last round indicated that this was a particularly functional use.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:02, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- PC is much more open to editing than the alternatives like semiprotection. I don't understand why we ever stopped using PC. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:05, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support. --Teukros (talk) 22:27, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- [[File:Support.png|20px]] Armbrust, B.Ed. Let's talkabout my edits? 23:33, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- Edit requests will be easier to handle in this system. →Στc. 00:02, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support - there are too many problems with vandalism on Wiki, and the existing options are poor, especially for the less active pages. Obviously to be used in moderation. Rwessel (talk) 00:37, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support-- While it has been pointed out that this tool could be considered against the spirit of the project, I would like to note that it would stop IP vandals from rushing rapidly through high profile pages and vandalizing them. It strikes me as a sensible thing to implement on high profile pages. And it is hardly a barrier to editing. Edits will still be made, pending approval, and if that is really that annoying to honest editors, they can register. --Pstanton (talk) 01:16, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Vital and basic, especially for BLPs. JN466 02:42, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support: Pending changes are a much better alternative to semi-protection, since semi-protection is overkill and pending changes also help keep many problematic articles clean. They worked perfectly last trial. Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 03:36, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse the proposal. PC is useful especially in BLPs. Suraj T 04:22, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- We lose credibility in the eyes of our readership when vandalism is present. This is one way to attempt to address vandalism and while not perfect we need to add to add it to the others. I would support its use on many of the articles that are currently under my watch and semi protected.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:41, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support. A great help against vandalism and on controversial pages. Night of the Big Wind talk 04:44, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support: I think the benefits outweigh the possible disadvantages, as long as it doesn't end up getting applied to far too many articles Pesky (talk) 05:15, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- My76Strat (talk) 05:25, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- This is a useful weapon against vandalism ϢereSpielChequers 05:27, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support per above.--Ankit MaityTalkContribs 07:24, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support. Ariconte (talk) 08:24, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support. Pending changes is a useful tool that should be available to administrators. The proposed policy is an adequate working draft.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Eluchil404 (talk • contribs)
- Support. HJ Mitchell has come closest to my sentiments here. It would be a mistake to throw out a very useful "baby" with the "bathwater" of the messy trial ending. PC would be enormously valuable in BLPs, and as someone said above, is almost like a kind of enhanced
{{edit-protected}}
in many ways. I'll say this, though - the success or failure of PC will depend in large part on the quality of the reviewers, and that selection process was far too "loose" last time - perhaps partly because it was a trial. Begoon talk 11:33, 24 March 2012 (UTC) - Support Pending changes simply takes what we already have in the form of protected and semi-protected pages (and the {{editprotected}} and {{edit semi-protected}} templates) but makes it user-friendly. Currently, if you want to edit a semi-pp'd page, you can't. Being able to have semi-pp with pending changes for non-confirmed users just provides a more user-friendly anyone-can-edit implementation of requiring people to go and leave a message on a talk page with a special magical template, and waiting for a user or admin to come and update the article based on their often vague instructions. PC makes it a better experience for the editor, and reduces the workload on confirmed users and on admins. Seriously, there's nothing to worry about, let's get on with it. —Tom Morris (talk) 12:12, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support--Aervanath (talk) 13:52, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support – A useful extra tool against disruption: given time to bed in I think it will become so widely adopted we'll wonder how we coped without it.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 14:17, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support – Let's work out the bugs and reinstate it. – Confession0791 talk 14:32, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support Its a highly useful tool against vandalism. Its a much user friendly system then the current one of semi and full protected pages. ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ Talk Email 16:10, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support per HJ Mitchell and the fact that this is to be one more tool in a set that includes the various types of page protection, rollback, etc, all designed to help combat vandalism. Imzadi 1979 → 16:20, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- This is a step towards a wider introduction in order to control malicious content more flexibly. It also will help against self-promoters, allowing established editors in good standing to contribute and sockpuppetters to be blocked. There are plenty of long established editors who get caught by full-protection because they don't want to get involved in the politics of becoming admins. A lot of these editors are better able to make good content decisions than the typical admin in it for the powergaming.--Peter cohen (talk) 17:08, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support with the caveat that the policy must state that semi-protection is preferable to PC on very heavily edited articles such as current event articles. Problems with edit conflicts on such articles are massively exacerbated by PC, whereas there are by definition numerous editors working on such articles who are able to revert vandalism within moments. PC has no benefit and big disadvantages in such situations and I'd like to see its use on such articles explicitly discouraged. --Pontificalibus (talk) 18:32, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support Having read right through the opinions expressed here, I sense that, behind the problems of detail, there lies a "philosophical" concern: those who reject PC want to maintain a free and open community which values the participation of all and sundry while those who support it want to protect the quality of the product even if it means a certain reduction in freedom and openness. For my part, I am on the side of quality, since lack of quality will in the long-run mean people sense the project is not worthwhile and therefore stop participating. On exploring the site, I have come across concerns about the lack of knowledgeable editors, burnt-out and people who simply stop participating. This seems a reasonable way of encouraging editors to stay by reducing the hassle. The one caveat I would make is that PC should be seen as an on-going process open to fine-tuning in the future. Perhaps it may turn out to be unsuitable for some articles with intensive editorial interventions, but I suspect there are many where it would make editing easier and allow us to concentrate on improving the article in question.Jpacobb (talk) 20:14, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support A very effective tool, based on my use of it during the test, especially for WP:BLPs. First Light (talk) 21:00, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support Badly needed and desirable. I also think that this will reduce complexity rather than increase it - the main alternative now is semi-protection and the process for that is much more involved both for applying it (request have to be made, administrators have to get involved), and for new accounts trying to make legitimate edits (now they have to a request post to the talk page, which then may or may not be seen and reviewed) - PC would just streamline the (beneficial) idea behind this process and make it easier to work with.VolunteerMarek 23:35, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support – You can't have freedom without accepting some responsibilities. Unfortunately, too many people desire freedom without responsibility. Revising articles, especially BPL's, create real-world consequences. Editing BLP's irresponsibly actually makes the subject of the biography less free since the subject would become affected by forces (i.e. the irresponsible revisions) outside of his or her control. Freedom without responsibility is actually freedom at the expense of others. This means that we're unfortunately playing a zero-sum game, which means that we need to strike the right balance between the freedom of Wikipedia contributors and the freedom of subjects of biographies (i.e. we need to compromise some of our own freedom so that it doesn't come at the expense of others). Human society has been playing this zero-sum game for a long time. Human society decided to create governments that could outlaw thievery even though it came at the cost of some of their freedoms because they felt that governments were a necessary evil. I believe that Pending Changes is our necessary evil. My experience with Pending Changes has been a pleasant one. I didn't have any problems with the interface. MuZemike has also made an interesting observation. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 00:09, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- ~~Ebe123~~ → report 00:46, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support. The question of the essential nature of our project should be kept in mind and considered carefully, but I think that PC does not represent a phase change in our philosophy. Even with PC, the ability of anyone in the world to contribute to our database is vastly greater than almost anywhere else (and a huge step up from the dark days before the internet). I think that we are not on a slippery slope to exclusivity here, any more than PixieBot represents a threat to the Guild of Copyeditors. We serve two masters - openness and accuracy; the value to the larger community of readers, to my thinking, outweighs the other concerns. - 2/0 (cont.) 04:05, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support Barts1a / Talk to me / Help me improve 07:08, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support Sensible to many ends. – sgeureka t•c 07:46, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support --Dlrohrer2003 08:39, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support. I opposed before and reconsidered because of this: the fact that changes will not be visible until reviewed might quench motivation to vandalize. Materialscientist (talk) 11:53, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support - I am most concerned with the status of BLPs on this project, and this tool can be effective protection those lightly watched articles that have been shown to suffer from subtle vandalism. Xymmax So let it be written So let it be done 14:14, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support full pending changes, without any conditions of its use - I support adding pending changes to prevent ip vandalism, if somone is serious about editing on wikipedia, they would make an account. When i say full pending changes, i mean it should be on all pages and not just added to a page like how "page protection" is added to a page i.e on request. thats useless, not revolutionary to take the site forward and wont help much--Misconceptions2 (talk) 16:30, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Pol430 talk to me 16:40, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support per HJ Mitchell. Also, I admit to having been a little concerned about the potential consequences of being too liberal in applying pending changes - we don't want to end up with a situation where our reviewers are spread too thinly. However, the draft policy seems good, and if the protection is applied sensibly I don't think this would be a problem. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 17:08, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- —GFOLEY FOUR!— 17:39, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support Hallows Aktiengesellschaft (talk) 21:22, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support I dont have problem with a hierarchy of editors as long as positions are based on merit and all have the opportunity to earn higher positions. There are too many important articles which are a mess, not only because of vandalism, but with "too many cooks" all wanting to add something to a popular article. One good example of this is Mexico City. Ive been asked to work on it but I refuse because I know any work I do on it will revert one way or another back to the mess we have now.Thelmadatter (talk) 21:30, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- While I do have a problem with the fact that a page that is protected by PC can not be edited by certain users and that could - potentially - drive away those users that may have the potential to be great editors down the road, I believe that Pending Changes works and support this position per HJ Mitchell. StrikerforceTalk Review me! 21:33, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support per HJ. Hot StopUTC 21:45, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support per Beeblebrox and HJ Mitchell. Haseo9999 (talk) 22:01, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit, not the encyclopedia anyone can damage, undermine, or subvert. It is heartening to see, with the healing passage of time, a greater understanding of Wikipedia's principles, and corresponding support for a flexible tool to help realise Wikipedia's goals. Geometry guy 22:51, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support - a reasonable extra tool to combat improper editing. An experience with semi-protection shows that the admins were cautious and gradual with the introduction of a new edit restriction. Staszek Lem (talk) 00:17, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support with two caveats: First, and obviously, this should be used sparingly. Second, policy should contain a provision to address a backlog overflow. Automatically approve the edits if they are more than twenty-one days old, perhaps? I see PC to be eminently more practical that the current tiers of protection, as it allows a decent barrier to vandalism and BF edits with less time investment from administrators and far less disruption to regular users, as editing for them will be much easier than under page protection currently. It will get out of hand if it is used too often, though, so standard expiration times should be established. CittàDolente (per me si va) 00:44, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support - I didn't see how it was ineffective earlier.Jasper Deng (talk) 03:06, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support It's not a panacea, but it will be a useful tool in many places. Zagalejo^^^ 04:10, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support per HJ Mitchell. —Bruce1eetalk 06:39, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support, useful tool. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:56, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support, it can get some vandalised pages finally out of the full protection, and some even out of semi-protection, and it will help us protect other pages which are sensitive (especially BLPs). --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:29, 30 April 2012 (UTC) Moved up as a duplicate. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:12, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
- Useful tool, good policy-draft Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 09:52, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support as a useful option that will help improve the quality of the project. As Wikipedia matures, we have to be willing to consider new options to reflect the changing nature of the site. The PC option allows us to better protect the quality of what has become a widely used resource that many readers depend upon while still allowing for input from all. --Ckatzchatspy 10:03, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support - Ltr,ftw (talk) 10:49, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support - I've always felt that the good things about this far outweigh any disadvantages. Dougweller (talk) 11:02, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support - A good policy draft to work with, as I think the tool does have a place on the English Wikipedia. CT Cooper · talk 11:25, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support. I believe that it will reduce the amount of vandalism (vandals want their vandalism to be seen, after all) and its visibility, while allowing newcomers to edit positively on the same articles. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:40, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support. I wholeheartedly agree with HJ. Salvio Let's talk about it! 13:18, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support Badgernet ₪ 14:16, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support Terminator92 (talk) 15:43, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support-While it does, obviously, need to be used sparingly, PC is an excellent tool and offers a less disruptive alternative to other forms of protection.--Fyre2387 (talk • contribs) 16:02, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support - Essentially per Hj. A really valuable tool. Edinburgh Wanderer 18:41, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support - years of usage in German and Russian wikis demonstrate the lack of fatal flaws in the idea, as well as long term quality improvement potential. --illythr (talk) 20:08, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Absolutely. About time. 28bytes (talk) 20:15, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Absolutely Support Does the content of Wikipedia have "value"? Yes, else why are we spending time editing it and reverting vandals. If it has value, it is worth "safeguarding". This is an essential step towards the "safeguarding of Wiki-assets" created through the efforts of hundreds of thousands of editors. History2007 (talk) 21:16, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support (though hoping "liberally" wrt BLPs is not misunderstood - I take it to mean edits are more thoroughly vetted on BLPs under PC) Collect (talk) 21:48, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support. It's not an unreasonable bar to legitimate editing, and anything that stops/slows vandalism (and hence my need to revert it) is only a good thing, especially on those "magnet" articles that seem to just attract such vandalism. Best, Markvs88 (talk) 22:30, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support. This is probably the best idea I've ever heard, and keeping bad edits from reaching anyone other than the capable editors of Wikipedia is a common sense sort of thing. Lucasoutloud (talk) 23:24, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support--Phospheros (talk) 02:10, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support Yasht101 :) 02:40, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
- Strong support especially for BLPs, but also for other articles subject to attacks. We've discussed this ad nauseam - no one thinks it is the perfect solution, but the problem continues to mar the encyclopedia while we talk and talk. It worked well enough in the trial - we can fix problems as we go. Let's just do it already. Tvoz/talk 03:47, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
- support i have seen too many semi obscure articles suffer from terrible POV / BLP issues. With the incredible number of very obscure articles that never see regular review by experienced editors, I cannot imagine how many awful items are out there on the top search engine result. this is a good first step to combat those problems. -- The Red Pen of Doom 04:53, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
- Strongest support I have been using this feature @ a testing wiki website, and found it very helpful. This is one of the best tools. Dipankan says.. ("Be bold and edit!") 10:50, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
- Without a doubt Pending changes works, it reduces vandalism and allows good edits through. It's also a visible entry for non-SPA editors to get into Wikipedia (getting reviewer right was one of the largest factors in getting me into wikipedia). It's a massive positive to the encyclopedia, and should be used. WormTT · (talk) 10:59, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support Well overdue, to my mind, and the policy seems to cover all the necessary caveats and other requirements in order for this to be used properly. Anaxial (talk) 11:34, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support Same as last time. Doc talk 12:18, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support. Not perfect, but better than the existing semi-protection, which stone-walls new IP editors. LouScheffer (talk) 14:27, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support Neutron (talk) 15:05, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support As one of the more active admins (off and on) at RfPP, I came across many occasions when pending changes would have been by far the best option, but after the decision to quit using it, I would more often than not simply use long term semiprotection instead. Pending changes is a useful addition to the none/semi/full system we have been using. AlexiusHoratius 16:41, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support I echo AlexiusHoratius's view on the matter and think pending changes is an excellent addition to the existing methods of protection. Sure, there may be a few kinks that need to be worked out, but I don't see that there's any reason not to implement pending changes. Ks0stm (T•C•G•E) 20:48, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support I can definitely see how this can be a useful tool to combat vandalism before it hits the books. I looked over a lot of the opposing arguments and while many have merit I think the over all effect would be positive, especially on pseudoscience pages that are constantly bombarded by SPAs looking to promote their pet cancer "cure" or perpetual motion machine. In response to one particular argument, namely that this would fundamentally change WP, I would say that there's no problem with changing WP - fundamentally or otherwise - if the consequences are an overall positive, which I think this tool will be. SÆdontalk 21:00, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support. demize (t · c) 21:12, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support Makes sense. MBisanz talk 21:23, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
- This option seems reasonable to me. Steven Zhang DR goes to Wikimania! 22:22, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support. Cla68 (talk) 00:49, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 01:37, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support - As a very limited anti-vandalism tool only. Carrite (talk) 01:39, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support while initially not too keen on this, after seeing its use with little-watched BLP articles, I see the necessity Skier Dude (talk) 02:46, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support varying levels of protection. The German WP can take days to approve pending changes on lesser trafficked pages. - Gothicfilm (talk) 04:16, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support - it works well when used properly, and if it doesn't work on a particular page it can be removed or replaced. -- zzuuzz (talk) 09:16, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support Increasing the levels of protection will possibly even diminish the need for semi- and espacially fully-protected pages. JHSnl (talk) 13:27, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
- This seems to be a good idea. Allowing PC protection on some articles should help reduce vandalism and the like while allowing users to still edit these pages, which can only be a good thing. ItsZippy (talk • contributions) 19:37, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support as long bar for becoming a reviewer is low and Reviewers should themselves be reviewed before their edits can be made visible.War (talk) 21:53, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support I believe that, in particular, PC2 has a rare but important place in the protection toolbox for infrequently-edited biographies subject to sustained insertion of attacks. In many such cases, the confirmed vs. non-confirmed bar of SP and PC1 isn't helpful, but FP can be overkill. PC2 seems a superior alternative to FP in these cases. I don't believe that PC1/PC2 make a lot of sense on very frequently-edited articles, though, nor am I ready to support applying PC to most articles we wouldn't consider protection on today using some other mechanism. --joe deckertalk to me 22:13, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support I am not quite understanding how introducing PC would invalidate the catchphrase "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" when SP and FP already exist. Such measures are as necessary to implement as blocking misbehaving users are. I was not around when PC underwent its trial, but I do not see how pending changes could be so backlogged if it is a tool used sparingly and the "reviewer" right isn't very difficult to obtain. I have come across plenty of articles in which there were as many anonymous IP users contributing constructively as there were contributing vandalism, so I believe PC would be a better option than SP because SP would deter those editors who were making constructive edits. Sure they could make a request on the talk page, but I would like to know what percent of requests are 1. requested in the proper format, 2. understandable, and 3. actually carried out. An anonymous IP user is much more likely to correct a typo on a PC page than going through the trouble of making a request on the talk page (and if the user doesn't know much about Wikipedia, chances are they do not know such a feature exists to begin with). As a newcomer, I believe it is important to expand Wikipedia's features in order to keep up with the growing community and increasing amount of information. Yes implementing more features/tools requires more knowledge, but Wikipedia is already very complex and personally I don't find the idea of PC to be very complicated. – Jonadin(talk) @ 23:38, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support Themeparkgc Talk 23:44, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support. The original trial showed that the process improved Wikipedia. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 02:40, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support Bentogoa (talk) 12:20, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support No system is 100% perfect and problems and flaws can come at any point of time. The main thing is to discuss and correct those things as they come up. Pending Changes is very useful tool and will help build the project and encyclopedia more better. This (Pending Changes) tool is also used on many other projects of the Wikimedia Foundation and has proved useful. TheGeneralUser (talk) 13:00, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support TBloemink talk 14:11, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support - yes, yes, yes yes yes yes. Such a simple solution. The Cavalry (Message me) 16:09, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support I wasn't around during the trial period, but this makes perfect since. It would allow anons to edit while reducing the load on the anti-vandal team. Very good idea. --Nathan2055talk - review 17:06, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support Josh Parris 11:40, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
- I've been following the PC debate somewhat, but this is the first time I comment about it. I see two problems: 1) it creates more work; 2) admins and reviewers can let edits pass while others disagree, instigating conflicts. I believe these issues can be compensated when PCP is... 1) ...used sparingly, only for high-risk articles; 2) ...not applied during content disputes; 3) ...used with at least one reviewer watchlisting the page, preventing PC backlogs on Wikipedia.
I'm not completely sure, but still, I support. – theFace 19:04, 30 March 2012 (UTC) - Support' I think admins should have the power to approve or disapprove of all edits. There should be a comments box during editing to send messages to admins. Once your edit has been approved or disapproved you should recieve a notification of which admin a/d it. This will create more work and I think there should be a special type of admin especially for a/d articles. When you are notified of you edit being a/d, you should recieve a message from the admin. this feature should also have a way for you to defend your edit post a/d. More admins should be acquired and trained. Thepoodlechef (talk) 22:37, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support as a anti vandalism tool --Stefan talk 02:44, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support. MER-C 05:02, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support - as one of the users who questioned the prior RfC, I believe that pending changes already had a greater proportion of community approval when it was discontinued. I had personal experience with the tool on System of a Down, where constant genre "trolling" by IPs disrupts the article and leads to its inevitable indefinite semi-protection. Pending changes is a far less disruptive filter by which we can improve the quality of the encyclopedia without hindrance to the fundamental policy of Wikipedia being available for everyone to edit. It would be a disservice to not welcome this amazing anti-vandalism tool with open arms, as HJ Mitchell put it. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 08:04, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support as it can help to reduce the number of protected pages; the only negative effect is confusion when an editor finds a different version when starting to edit. −Woodstone (talk) 08:38, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support, especially as an anti-vandalism tool, but the #2 position statement describes my thoughts exactly :-) Mark Hurd (talk) 09:33, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support Peter (Southwood) (talk): 13:14, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support - Flawed (like almost everything) but helpful. Cresix (talk) 17:54, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
- Support - Yes. Twozenhauer (talk) 20:42, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
- Strong Support Puffin Let's talk! 16:42, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
- Yes please. Stifle (talk) 17:08, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support Indubitably. Tyrol5 [Talk] 22:41, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support Agree. CanuckMy page89 (talk), 01:27, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support - It is a powerful tool that will serve a clear function. Limiting its use is always possible, but throwing it away would be foolish. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 04:05, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support - Absolutely! It's well past time - Alison ❤ 05:49, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 08:27, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support – In de.wikipedia it is an indispensable tool for fighting vandalism. --Leyo 17:15, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support It works fine in de-wp and it appears to be very useful for BLP articles. --AFBorchert (talk) 17:38, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
- --Thogo 18:00, 2 April 2012 (UTC) As long as there is so little vandal fighting on enwiki that even years-old vandalism keeps undetected, it is an absolutely necessary tool to keep pages clean of crap for the readers. Example: undetected for more than two weeks
- ☮Soap☮ 03:59, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support - I endorse this position. AGK [•] 16:33, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support, PC proved its usefulness. vvvt 16:40, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support, good start... expanding it to all articles as on dewiki would be a good thing (in the far? future) - Hoo man (talk) 17:41, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support as one of those who believes that the trial period was less-than-brilliantly managed yet who has since come to appreciate the value of this feature. Application should reflect that of semi-protection. SuperMarioMan 22:36, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support - I was never a reviewer when it was alive, but I have seen the pending changes trial go forward, and I thought it was a good idea at the time. In fact, I thought it was still alive until I picked up Wikipedia back in December. I have read the draft policy and agree with it. --Michaelzeng7 (talk - contribs) 23:46, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support PC has shown effectiveness. John Carter (talk) 00:09, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support useful tool - Youreallycan 17:20, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support --John (talk) 18:40, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support Mark Arsten (talk) 20:24, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support PC has proven itself capable of significantly reducing the volume of problematic edits while still allowing anonymous editors to submit changes. --Allen3 talk 21:32, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support Useful tool with the right policy. William Avery (talk) 21:53, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support - Very useful, especially for BLPs and related articles. Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:32, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support I am confused by the arguments against, stating that PC hinders an anonymous user's ability to make direct edits to the encyclopedia, when in fact it does exactly the opposite, when compared to protection/semi-protection. I like PC from both an anon and a reviewer's perspective. --SubSeven (talk) 00:02, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse the draft. I've witnessed the usability of pending changes. And, as asserted above by many users, we should welcome anything that helps us to keep away vandalism. — Bill william comptonTalk 03:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support I believe PC is a useful tool, which alongside our current processes of PP, reverting and blocking could help to both open articles for editing by anonymous users without damaging the reliability of our content, and limit the amount of effort regular editors need to exert to maintain reliability while making proposed changes (clearing out the ESp queue, etc). More tools are better, and this one has a great purpose. — Jess· Δ♥ 05:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support - overdue. Ghmyrtle (talk) 18:11, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support, especially considering BLPs: better to review than to rollback. --Mark91it's my world 21:27, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support - PC was a useful tool in certain specific circumstances when we had it, and I believe the community is competent enough to use it appropriately. There are potential issues with the impact of pending changes on new-user interactions, but as it is unlikely it will ever be applied to a very large number of articles, hopefully this can be mitigated. Shimgray | talk | 22:18, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support useful tool for discouraging vandalism, and concomitantly make editing more attractive to serious users tired and frustrated to see their work being constantly vandalised. Works well on other Wikipedias, and should be the way forward for improving encyclopaedic quality. --ELEKHHT 23:07, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support It's a useful tool, especially for BLP articles. -Jhortman (talk) 03:05, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support, a useful tool.--wdwd (talk) 09:21, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
- Bmusician 10:00, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
- An excellent tool. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 13:11, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support While I was not active in Wikipedia at the time of the Pending Changes trial i feel that it will be an excellent tool in combating vandalism while still allowing new and unregistered users to make good faith edits to protected pages.Andrew Kurish (talk) 15:31, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support. It worked. There were problems, but we need to close down editing a bit. When the visual editor comes out, we will need this. theMONO 16:02, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support I wasn't a user when this was in beta, and I'm still not autoconfirmed yet, but I've been around Wikia a lot, and this sounds like a good idea. I know I could put it to use on the wikis I'm admin on. --Brovie (talk) 18:49, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support Baseball Watcher 22:07, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support I think this sounds nice, but why not use it as a replacement for semi-protection? Zaminamina (talk) 11:51, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
- 71.175.53.239 (talk) 22:42, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
- Ironholds (talk) 03:37, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- Sceptre (talk) 15:12, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support PC, as proposed in this RfC, improves the project. It does not alter en.wikipedia as "the encyclodedia that anyone can edit". It simply says that "anyone can edit" does not mean "anyone can edit, in real-time, without regard to whether the edit is an improvement". Not every contribution is an edit. Some contributions are vandalism. Not every edit complies with our "rules of the road". Some violate policy unintentionally, others quite intentionally. PC simply recognizes that not every edit improves en.wikipedia. Some make it worse. This gives the community a better chance to minimize harm and maximize benefit. David in DC (talk) 19:25, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support Only major issue I ever saw with it was the dramatically reduced load time of certain pages. Complaints from others do not sway my opinion - the fact that it is "complex to manage" has NOTHING to do with how easy it is for new users to use. From their perspective they just make an edit. I make no assertion as to whether or not it is easy to manage - I thought it was, but I'm also a software engineer. Point is, it opens the project beyond what is currently possible. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 20:42, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support – This will only help Wikipedia's reputation for being reliable. This is definitely a good thing. Acps110 (talk • contribs) 20:45, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support - TexasAndroid (talk) 20:43, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support - The tool was efficient, and still would be, if used appropriately. Hazard-SJ ㋡ 21:07, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support. It is important to deter vandalism, soapboxing and death-of-person hoaxes, in high-profile articles, especially for emotionally charged topics, where pre-screening by stable editors greatly reduces the trash-talk contents. -Wikid77 (talk) 08:13, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support - SudoGhost 10:24, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- it could be useful. Could we expand this to templates and the Userspace? --Guerillero | My Talk 18:59, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support - It is a useful tool. The draft actually doesn't go far enough, especially in the case of BLPs, but it is better than nothing. Rlendog (talk) 20:15, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support - Pending Changes is a useful tool to prevent bad edits of IP's (1) and most users (2). The draft is a good start, but level 2 + SP should be able to be used for strong vandalism instead of FP. James1011R (talk, contribs) 01:21, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support, much needed, negatives are far outweighed by the positive effect it has on our articles in the long run. Fram (talk) 10:13, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support - I was not active during the "never ending trial" so I have no first hand experience with the tool, but I have taken the time to read through others experiences with it. I have some issues with the draft policy, and feel other issues will arise over time. However, I feel the tool itself, when properly used, will enhance Wikipedia. Thus, it makes more sense to implement it now with the draft policy and work on improving the policy as we gain experience in its use. --ThaddeusB (talk) 21:39, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support - Needed. Tomtomn00 (talk • contributions) 14:42, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
- Suppport - I like. Magog the Ogre (talk) 20:24, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support for a multitude of reasons.
- PC protection level 1 is just like semi-protection except that IP can still submit an edit that needs to be reviewed.
- PC protection level 2 is just like full protection with the exception that reviewers can also edit and everyone else can submit an edit to be reviewed.
- It can stop an edit warned still allow everyone to edit.
- Researchers can have more confidence in the fact that the article will only change if submitted edits are approved first.
- I have more reasons but the instructions told me to keep it short so, I will.
- —cyberpower ChatOnline 21:43, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
Support with caveat — I think, overall, it's a good thing, however,those in Position 3 have exceptionally valid points that still need to be addressed, e.g., users Tryptofish and Wizardman. / Sctechlaw (talk) 22:34, 14 April 2012 (UTC) Changed my mind. — Sctechlaw (talk) 01:50, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support - I found this to be a very useful tool to combat multiple incidents of repetative vandalism to the same articles where anon editors were pushing PPOV edits or attempting to delete factual info they did not aggree with. Richard Harvey (talk) 10:53, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support Per Beeblebrox and Dcheagle. 1exec1 (talk) 12:48, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support As long as we treat it as a weaker form of protection, it may be a helpful addition to our arsenal. Crucially, it should affect only a small number of articles (unlike on pl wikipedia, where it is the default for all). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me 04:38, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support per Piotrus. Qwfp (talk) 12:15, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support I am no longer a very active editor on Wikipedia because of IP vandalism frustration. --CutOffTies (talk) 13:33, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support This a useful tool. It shouldn't be abandoned. Naŋar (talk) 22:15, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support. Pending changes is not a panacea that would fix all the problems with Wikipedia, but on balance it's more of a positive than a negative. Robofish (talk) 23:20, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support Would definitely make it easier to fight vandalism. I understand that English Wikipedia users might be unhappy not to see changes made to the Russian, Polish or Turkish Wikipedias directly, but hiding occasional changes by frequent users of other projects is definitely preferable to having vandalism on pages. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:48, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support if only to counter the !voter who said that openness is more important than quality on Wikipedia. The staggering cost of that attitude has already taken its toll here, and it really needs to stop. -- Robster2001 (talk) 02:26, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support. We are well beyond the point of needing quantity over quality. The general viewing public has never criticized us for not having enough content; it's the quality of the existing content that is constantly under fire. If such a small (and temporary) limitation discourages an editor so much that he quits editing, then he probably wasn't cut out for this anyway. Kafziel Complaint Department: Please take a number 03:50, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support. Quality of quantity, see the previous comment. Pim Rijkee (talk) 05:58, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support per Beeblebrox far above me. --Wiki13 (talk) 11:16, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support. I am aware that this tool can end up creating inconveniences at times, as not all non-registered editors mean harm or create trouble. However, this tool can help in reducing potential vandalism to a great extent, and it will also avoid making certain articles look absolutely silly. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 13:22, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support but plain semi-protection should be removed IMO. The other options would cater to all the project's needs, IMO, and the progression of protection levels would be linear and more intuitive. --Waldir talk 14:56, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support as per HJ Mitchell/Jonadin & others. FM [ talk to me | show contributions ] 15:53, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support Something better may eventually be invented, but until then, this is the closest thing to being ready for implementation to address an ongoing problem. • Astynax talk 16:43, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support This tool and the proposed policy for its use make far too much sense to not be implemented. ‑Scottywong| yak _ 21:03, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support A potentially essential tool that could combat vandalism significantly, and also improve the quality of articles on the wiki where unconstructive edits are often ignored.--SUFC Boy 00:34, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support Would be a great tool to combat vandalism, while allowing good edits to go through, without sending them, for example through Huggle. Dan653 (talk) 01:54, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support a great counter-vandalism tool. If an article is semi-protected with pending changes, it won't tell new users to 'go away' or force them to register, just makes them wait a bit. Matthew Thompson talk to me bro! 11:02, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support as a viable alternative to semi-protection in many cases. --NYKevin @866, i.e. 19:47, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support - an appropriate solution to certain important problems. An inappropriate solution (or not a solution at all) to others. This just means that its use should be carefully regulated, not that the technical capacity for it should be withdrawn! TheGrappler (talk) 19:51, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support Another form of protection in the toolbox that allows users a way to contribute who would be unable to at other protection levels. Yep, the trial had problems. Don't conflate the two issues. Mojoworker (talk) 20:18, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
- It seems that many of the Option 1 !voters aren't reading the proposal and comments very carefully (or at all) – although, to be fair, that's probably true of the !votes in all sections. But, I'm seeing a fair amount of FUD among the supporters of Option 1. From conflating PC with Flagged Revisions, that PC amounts to censorship, disenfranchises editors, and contravenes the policy of being "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit". How is PC anything but less disenfranchising than semi or full protection? Some have expressed the conviction that PC will be used far more liberally than other forms of protection. What evidence can possibly support that view? Way to AGF in our admins. That issue can be handled with final guidelines on the application of PC. Same goes for the argument that the reviewer right was handed out promiscuously – so, delete all reviewer rights and have them reapply. It seems that, based on much of the rationale presented, many of the support !votes for option 1 really should be supporting Option 3. Mojoworker (talk) 22:51, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support This tool has proved extremely useful on German Wikipedia and its introduction here is long overdue. Even as a non-admin I can tell that admins are so busy going after vandalism and other unconstructive or problematic edits these days that they don't have time to actually improve Wikipedia anymore. Many less-watched articles (the vast majority of articles being in that group, after all) seem to become worse instead of better. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:15, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support No further comment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HistoryRewriter (talk • contribs)
- Support In spite of the difficulties with the trial, having another tool in the box does far more good than harm. Sailsbystars (talk) 13:36, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
- Hesitant Support I understand the necessity for this tool, I am not happy with that necessity, but I think the good outweighs the bad. I am concerned about the potential backlog, but if it becomes unmanageable I'm sure the topic can be re-addressed. Nightenbelle (talk) 16:57, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support. Sometimes it is simply necessarily to prevent editing to a page as vandalism or BLP issues reaches intolerable levels which cannot be dealt with trough blocks. This works, but at times there are also productive IP editors on a page who will be hit as well by this form of protection. Pending changes may not be perfect or entirely without flaws, but it should be seen as a tool that can complement or outperform the existing tools (blocks and protection) in some cases. When used with care it will definitely do more good then harm. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 20:34, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support Ancient Brit
- Support as per Florian (224) Bailo26 03:29, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support It worked, darn it! It's a lighter touch than semi-protection and it allows new editors to be greeted by and guided by experienced ones who are more likely to be neutral about the article in question. —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 08:54, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support - Pending changes was useful, easy to understand, and reduced vandalism. OwainDavies (about)(talk) edited at 16:26, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support We can discuss specific issues if/when they arise, so there's no need to throw out the entire proposal. Let's try it (again). Dori ☾Talk ⁘ Contribs☽ 00:56, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support Semi-protection is overkill, but pending changes are a reasonable way to combat vandalism. This is because unregistered users can edit the page, but they cannot view the changes unless approved by the reviewer. This way, constructive edits made by unregistered users can go through, while obvious vandalism can be detected quickly. Wikipedia is so much better with pending changes. Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 16:48, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support -> a significant reduction of vandalism. --MisterGugaruz (talk) 20:23, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support Of the three options given, this is the best. I would prefer having pending changes enabled on all articles and giving readers the choice of which versions to view (with the default being set in a similar way to this proposed policy), but this will have to do for now. --Tango (talk) 09:32, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
- PC would be useful on articles that are in need of update or improvement. Peter E. James (talk) 22:58, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support I feel the system will work in countering vandals and false information, thus making Wikipedia better in the long run. Any changes to the system can be implemented based off consensus over time as we see it become more intergraded. DrNegative (talk) 04:35, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support; I think PC is a valuable tool. It's not always the best tool for the job; that's why we have semiprotection and so on. (And other tools such as blocks of IPs and ranges of IPs). However, I think we should have PC in our toolbox; implementing it would be a net positive. The fine details of process would presumably evolve as we go along, just as has happened with other tools. bobrayner (talk) 10:07, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support: I understand that PC level 1 may at some times make an autoconfirmed user wait for their edits to become live, however I don't think this will happen very often. In all other aspects it seems like a lower protection than semi, which will overall make it easier for users to edit some pages. I don't think this proposal is intended as a way for some users to tower over others with more permissions. –meiskam (talk•contrib) 09:55, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
- Strong support. Flagged Revisions / Pending Changes is a very simple thing after all: another protection level. And this protection level is good and useful. The policy may have weaknesses, but the policy can be improved. Instead of trying too hard to predict the weaknesses, it's better to start using the tool widely and to improve the policy later. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 12:18, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support Gives us a useful option for discouraging vandalism, even if some of the details could be improved. CWC 15:38, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support Utility of Flagged Revisions / Pending Changes should be used as a tool rather than assuming weakness. Hindustanilanguage (talk) 19:02, 29 April 2012 (UTC).
- Endorse: It allows bad edits to be filtered out and also allows the good ones to make an edit. Everyone's happy. The Master of Mayhem (t c) 22:17, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support, many editors are IP editors & most IP editors are constructive (WP:IPs are human too) so Semi-Block bars lots of good users.--Николай95 (talk) 15:47, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support, better than nothing. Klausness (talk) 18:14, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support, has always seemed a good idea to me --xensyriaT 18:27, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
- This is still another way of putting more power into the hands of those (administrators included) that manipulate WP rules to remove and control knowledgeable contributors and push their own twisted agenda. Bureaucracy is already a problem on WP - we do not need more of it! Much of WP is ruled by people getting together in groups and pushing new editors out. It's ugly and this rule would only enforce that!~ty (talk) 19:51, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support. Deli nk (talk) 20:47, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support, this is good idea. --Bff (talk) 21:39, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support. I like the idea of pending changes, and as long as it doesn't become the standard for all articles and pages, I think it will be a valuable tool once the creases are ironed out. Cloudbound (talk) 22:02, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
- Support. It is a good tool to have at our disposal, and the policy can be refined. John Vandenberg (chat) 01:50, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
- Stong Support Wikipedia is 'the encyclopedia that anyone can edit' but eith Semi-Protection this has been limited. Pending Changes in my opinion provides that Happy Medium between anyone editing and semi-protection as anyone can still edit (well, except blocked users); but the vandalism doesn't get out on the live version of the article. Jamietw (talk) 17:13, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support We need a tool that protects pages without completely locking a large number of potential editors out. AIRcorn (talk) 00:47, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support. If pending changes is applied sensibly, it will enable more newbie participation on popular articles than was previously possible. That is most definitely a good thing. Concern for PC's impact on Wikipedia's editing community should be dealt with by fine-tuning the policy and monitoring use of the tool; not by throwing it out entirely. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:29, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support Quality control should far outweigh any anonymous editor's desire to see immediate results of their edits. Such instant gratification is wholly unnecessary. Jim Miller See me | Touch me 17:59, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support. KLP (talk) 16:49, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support with caveats. Like some in the third section, I see that some clarity in the responsibilities of the reviewers is needful, and I suggest the draft policy (while it's still "draft") be modified to make clear such responsibilities; of course by the usual concensus process. That said, I think some review of new articles is a necessary evil, given the size and popularity of Wikipedia.Marikafragen (talk) 18:51, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
- support this makes absolute sense especially when it comes to BLPs. -badmachine 19:46, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
- --Mitch Franklin (talk) 04:56, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support. Pending Changes sounds like a great way to improve Wikipedia without sacrificing the freedom to edit. I think it will improve the credibility of Wikipedia. Reviewers will have to be careful about backlogs, however. A huge backlog would end up hurting an article, especially if it is semi-protected while reviewers catch up. —SuperRad! ☎ 13:10, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support for BLP articles. -- ♪Karthik♫ ♪Nadar♫ 16:44, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support, because it seems the likely effect will be to make editing more accessible rather than less accessible, because the blunt tool of semi-protection will be used less often than is currently the case. -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 03:41, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support It would make Wikipedia more difficult to vandalize, but still allowing freedom to edit. —HueSatLum 15:55, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support Especially for BLP problems, I feel that Pending Changes is a useful tool. ~ Matthewrbowker Talk to me 16:06, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support I wouldn't want to see knee-jerk over-application, but as an alternative to protection it's clearly better in most cases. Homunq (talk) 17:39, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support –sumone10154(talk • contribs)
- Support' This is the right direction. -- Taku (talk) 03:31, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support The up sides outweigh the down sides by far. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 18:40, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support. Fences&Windows 23:37, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support PC appears to solve vandalism while opening routes for new users to edit pages currently locked by PP. I am worried about the complexity and vagueness of the policy and hope it can be further refined after we've lived with it for awhile. However, not doing anything while we wait for perfection seems silly at this point. -- Ultracobalt (talk) 07:37, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
- Seems a no-brainer to me - to have such a tool available and refuse to use it makes no sense to me. waggers (talk) 07:47, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
- Full Support I'll be honest, I havent seen the effects of, nor used PC myself. But even a cursory overview of the wiki page show me the obvious choice, given bugs are worked out. PC is a brilliant idea, but we also need better protection against non-protected articles being vandalized. Libertarian=Truth? (talk) 01:30, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support Definitely a positive move, especially for sites continually targeted by hate speech in one direction or the other (e.g., religion, atheism, controversial historical figures, etc.).--Dsschmidt (talk) 13:18, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support --Koopashell (talk) 16:29, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support --debdebtig (talk)
- Support I was a reviewer and found that it was useful. In my experience, there was less vandalism even attempted since the editor knew there was very little chance of it gettign through. There were only a few edits that I had to reject, mostly for unsourced contentious material. Psu256 (talk) 19:02, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support While the current system of protection and semi-protection may be adequate, I think the continued drop-off of experienced editors will put a strain on that system. PC allows more policing by fewer people without giving them "super-editor" privileges or a greater voice in discussions. The proposed guideline is sensible. RJC TalkContribs 19:35, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support It's about time we had an alternative to full protection and an effective semi protection. Alan.ca (talk) 20:39, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support The pending changes trial worked well for its purpose of letting unregistered users edit pages that would otherwise be semiprotected and unavailable for their edits. —Ute in DC (talk) 20:52, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support I think this is needed. -- Donald Albury 21:31, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support Wikipedia should be the encyclopedia that anyone responsible can edit. We do waste too much time reverting vandalism, and the policy can always be adjusted as we learn its limitations from experience. And just in case: if the tool is to be limited only to certain type of articles, BLP and country articles should definitively be a priority, and may I suggest that FA and GA rated articles should also be protected to preserve the effort of the editors who went the extra mile to produce such quality articles.--Mariordo (talk) 03:56, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support Despite flaws, pending changes will reduce the vandalism viewable to end users and improve the overall quality of Wikipedia. --Trödel 11:19, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support A useful tool for dealing with vandalism.--agr (talk) 15:29, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support useful tool indeed. --Atlasowa (talk) 16:10, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support digit. --Jayron32 04:02, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support Sayan rc (talk) 20:01, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support --Ceradon talkcontribs 19:02, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
- support This was useful during the test with no real problems noted Hmains (talk) 22:08, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support ArishiaNishi (talk) 16:33, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support This seems the best way to enable our mission to go forward while blunting some of the negative aspects of such an open system. Fully support. Freedomstan (talk) 19:22, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support Others have said everything I need to say. Egg Centric 20:42, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support The new pending changes policy would be far more beneficial than problematic. Vandalism and lack of accountability is definitely among WP's worst issues. Voyaging (talk) 19:41, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support Although they will never be truly finished, the vast majority of (at least heavily trafficked) articles have matured to the point where it simply isn't necessary for them to exist in a state that "anyone can (immediately) edit" (and this proposal isn't stopping anyone from having input). In fact, if done right, I'm hoping that this mechanism will be better than semi-protection (found on so many popular articles) which effectively is a complete lockout for IP and newbie editors. I'm aware that the Pending facility will be open to abuse by those who crave power, however I'm hoping that the slow consensus-building process will be enough to rescue those cases; but of primary importance in my support is the ability to prevent (the often high levels of) vandalism from reaching readers who are expecting a continually high-standard of product from a more mature WP. The ability to have reliable check points for downstream processes (books, dumps, etc.) will also be nice. GFHandel ♬ 05:27, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support As someone who has sorted through a large number of ill-formed Semi-protected edit requests, I would love to have this option. Seeing a diff view of a change is much easier trying to decipher "The third part in the under the early history section is clearly incorrect and should be fixed. Please replace it with ________." Besides, it would be nice to have a third option for those articles that aren't quite bad enough for semi-protection, but still get a lot of vandalism. ~Adjwilley (talk) 15:16, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support Have been registered years and edited very little. It's very easy to register, and reliability is the most important requirement for WP. If a user cares enough to edit and enough to want their edit immediately visible, registration is not a huge burden. LynnD71 (talk) 22:25, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support Makes senses. --MisterGugaruz (talk) 07:22, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse. With Wikipedia's current volume of content and overall popular use, I feel it has reached a point where it is necessary to minimize vandalism. This tool is necessary. PolicarpioM (talk) 08:12, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support Despite a lack of statistics on vandalism, I still support this as anecdotal evidence from user(s) cites a need for it,. I don't see it as a violation of any Wikipedia principals as quality control is certainly important, and vandalism needs some way of being checked. This system is rather soft, and that's good. If it wasn't a simple matter of being auto confirmed in order to edit without pending changes, then I don't know I would agree, but as it stands this seems like a great idea!Supaiku (talk) 09:20, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support I see no difference between PC and semi-protection and full-protection, except that PC is less restrictive. Druid816 (talk) 18:03, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse - Pending changes only helps. --'J (t) 23:55, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support as it has shown in DE:WP that the benefits outweigh the negative effects at length. --Matthiasb (talk) 10:48, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support useful tool. Buckshot06 (talk) 21:54, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support Let us go ahead. Chandan Guha 21 May 2012 Chandan Guha (talk)
- Support looks alright. CorrectKnowledge (talk) 12:04, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
- This sounds close to my position on the issue. It would be a problem if we used PC too much, but if we only used it on articles that would otherwise be semi-protected, it would allow more users to edit without creating too much extra work. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 19:27, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse since no one can tell if his or her article will be subject to disruption of good-faith editing, and PC acts as a useful tool in reducing the seriousness of the issue when some inappropriate edits really occur. Sachreeko (talk) 02:00, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support A valuable, and long overdue, move to improve Wikipedia's reputation as a quality encyclopedia. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 15:45, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support Pending changes protection is a very good alternative to regular page protection as nobody is prevented from constructive, encyclopedic editing. --Iste (D) 16:53, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support for BLP's and controversial pages. Targaryenspeak or forever remain silent 22:52, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- Support because the basic principle seems sound on organizational economic and mechanism design grounds, which are the basis of my moral stances, towards Wikipedia as well. I do worry about the extra complication caused by the system, to the editors in charge, because they might disincentivize people from joining the project and even the extant editors from doing what they do best. But still, in its current incarnation, I'd judge the basic idea behind the tool is right, and could also be rapidly developed further come feedback from widespread adoption. Especially since it takes much of the base incentive out of edit wars within contentious articles. Decoy (talk) 23:21, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Position #3
Click here to edit this section
- Users who endorse this position
- I would like the draft policy to address: (1) the responsibilities of reviewers, more clearly, (2) the status of users who were previously given the reviewer right, and (3) the kinds of development improvements that will be requested of the developers. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:21, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- I agree with Tryptofish. I have not minded giving out a useless reviewer right. Now it is about to become meaningful. The policy should address this.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:43, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
- I like the idea, but think it should only be used exceptionally. I'm worried about a huge backlog, and the drama that could ensue when a reviewer decides that an otherwise good-faith edit is rejected. It'll happen, and I fear it'll be hard to tell whether a reviewer was acting maliciously. Furthermore, new editors may perceive a chilling effect when they make a good-faith edit that's at odds with a reviewer's idea of a good-faith edit. I'm not sure if the ensuing drama from this technology will be less than the drama it solves. All in all, I just think there needs to be a whole lot more documentation on what's expected from a reviewer, and what's expected from an admin who has the option of choosing between prot and pending changes. Xavexgoem (talk) 00:42, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
- I support PC, but the polarisation towards options one and two suggests to me that we haven't learned the lessons of the failure first time around. There are two broad groups of situations where pending changes is useful. 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. Pending changes in its current form is a terrible solution on articles that attract a large number of good faith and bad faith contributions alike (current events, suspected deaths, extremely high profile figures etc). In a nutshell, the draft policy in option #2 does not give any guidance on the tool's strengths and limitations. It must. —WFC— 13:51, 30 March 2012 (UTC) (there is a third, important group PC is useful for that I omitted: very low traffic BLPs). —WFC— 14:20, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
- The current draft policy will need to be revised before I can support reactivating Pending changes/Flagged revisions. To this end I recommend that WikiProject Flagged Revisions be reactivated (and if need be renamed WikiProject Pending Changes) to address the concerns of Tryptofish and Allens amoung others. – Allen4names 05:07, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
- Note: Allens changed position after this revision. – Allen4names 02:52, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
- I would be willing to change my position back (to, first, requiring considerable policy clarifications, and, second, dealing with the potential for vandals to clog up the reviewer queue after doing vandalism - not removable by non-reviewers - using an autoconfirmed account) if the Pending Changes policy was firmly such that it (at least in its PC1 form; I can see PC2 on article that would otherwise get full protection) would not be used on any BLP or similarly liability-provoking article. As it is, given that these are the exact articles it's being proposed for by at least some, I have to oppose it given the near-certainty of inadvertent misuse due to liability fears. (I apologize if this isn't the right place for this comment/clarification.) Allens (talk | contribs) 21:34, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
- Note: Allens changed position after this revision. – Allen4names 02:52, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
- For pending changes, there needs to be a clear guide on what should and shouldn't use it, and when it's appropriate to add it to the article; it has to be at least remotely easy to use and navigate too, which it was far from. There are articles where pending changes would work wonders (years, schools), yet there are articles where they would be a waste of time. The two extremes above give me a bad gut feeling about how it's going to turn out, as deciding between none at all or them everywhere is a lose-lose situation. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 14:31, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
- I find myself in agreement with most of the comments in this section. FlaggedRevs needs both technical and policy adjustments to be effective here. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:50, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
- I saw it in action and, as it stood, did not see it as more useful than semi-protection. I think this is an answer looking for a question, although I can see the technology may be useful if the rationale for deploying it is rethought. Orderinchaos 03:55, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- I would argue that the draft in #2 contradicts what my experience with Pending Changes was. I would like to strongly agree with WFC above. Those indeed are the three situations in which I found PC to be incredibly useful. It was successful in removing semi protection from highly vandalized pages, that could still have useful contributions, ones in which articles had high quantities of good faith edits, and small detractors who could cause exceptional damage (generally violations of BLP/personal attacks, or simply factual errors introduced). Finally, the usage of the review system on low activity BLPs found reasonable success, in my view. I was able to unprotect numerous pages as a result. However, the policy above fails to account for much of this. Subcriteria 3 fails to address its strengths, and furthermore does not adequately address when it is not to be used, with the exception of the pre-emptively criteria. Although I am not sure what to think about this, especially on lesser edited BLPs, pre-emptive protection may have some merit. (I still have not entirely determined what that would be). Though Allens above provides a possible way to exploit the system, vandals have generally been disorganized enough such that this would not occur. Those that have been organized enough to do so generally require widespread action on behalf of the community, beyond the proposed usage of PC. Finally, the fact that the Reviewer right now holds a higher responsibility (I have no idea if this is for the better or the worse) compared to previously creates a whole new scenario. Should the reviewer right be removed en masse? What is the threshold? It certainly is different than that of rollback, and although it could eventually be established, I fear that without hard guidelines the distribution of rollback is apt to cause unnecessary drama, and tons of legwork for admins. This is not to say PC could not be extremely useful. Given between option 2 and option 1, I would take option 2, but would prefer more thought be taken, and a thorough re-examination of the successes of the first PC trial be used. NativeForeigner Talk 03:40, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- The draft proposal does not look well thought out. What is the resolution mechanism when there is disagreement about whether a page is appropriate for PC? What are the procedures for challenging and revoking Reviewer status? We can do better than this. Anoyatu (talk) 18:59, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
- It seems that there are many issues with the current policy of when to use Pending Changes. It would seem in some very specific cases that it could be a helpful tool, such as with frequently vandalized pages, those of a complicated topic (advanced physics for example) or things that arent hard facts (many car pages for instance have a constant back and forth when uses change them from "Sportscars" to "Supercars" and vice versa). However I would like to see a more developed - and clearly written policy. This needs to be able to be explained to new or inexperienced users without consulting a chart with more color-coding than a rainbow or a wall of text. If its implemented in a way that seems obtuse to users it may discourage them and reduce the potential pool of contributors. Racingfreak92 (talk) 23:30, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse. While I see the (potential) benefits of this proposal there are, in its current form, too many open ends with some important concerns (reviewers, when to use PC) that do not seem adequately addressed. --Wolbo (talk) 21:00, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
- Endorse. The suggested changes to Wikipedia conflict with the entire principal of the encyclopedia. Furthermore, as these policies are they will make Wikipedia even more complicated and will create a larger gap between the general userbase and the admins. It would be nice to have a review-type process for oft-vandalized articles, however; I get very tired of reverting articles like The Legend of Zelda. Chevsapher (talk) 01:16, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
- Comment: I originally supported the idea (see #200 above
"Support with caveat — I think, overall, it's a good thing, however, those in Position 3 have exceptionally valid points that still need to be addressed, e.g., users Tryptofish and Wizardman"), but after continuing to read comments and having a further think on it, I un!voted, striking my response. I believe the problems it will introduce without addressing the points made in this section will create a wikiwar, if not several. I still think it's a good idea, but the demons are all in details that haven't yet been addressed: it needs more baking time as it's still not cooked. — Sctechlaw (talk) 05:50, 12 May 2012 (UTC) - Endorse. Fighting vandalism is good; no one's denying that. I think many editors lose sight of the fact that Wikipedia is first and foremost an encyclopedia (pillar #1), and ought to be reader-centered, not editor centered. If Pending Changes helps the readers by better informing them or by keeping them from misinformation caused by vandalism, then it's a good thing. At the same time, Wikipedia is written by the editors, and most of them don't have special user rights. The thing is this: many users who have been around for several years (over three in my case), and who don't have special user rights will now have copious restrictions put in place when it comes to editing pages. What this well-intentioned policy does is take away editing privileges from the majority of well-behaved editors in the name of anti-vandalism; in a reactionary blitz against policy breakers, sockpuppets, trolls, and general malcontents. (This issue could be solved by creating another user access level, alongside of reviewer, to coincide with the Pending Changes policy, but that's a discussion fro another day.) Additionally, several questions remain unanswered. Which pages receive PC protection? Will there be community input into the discussion of which pages receive PC protection? How long will the edit approval process take? Will there be administrators or bots on hand for even the most obscure of protected pages? Simply put, the policy, as it stands, is too incomplete to be implemented. It is a fundamentally good idea, but to full of holes to be implemented at this present time. Buffalutheran (talk) 06:06, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
- The draft policy does not address preventing backlogs. If a backlog came about, good faith anons would be discouraged from being part of WP and good edits would be wrongfully blocked. Also, the draft policy does not provide clear guidance regarding when Pending Changes should be used instead of semi-protection. I believe Pending Changes has the potential to be a useful tool, but it has not lived up to that potential and the draft policy would not get it there. SMP0328. (talk) 03:39, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
- I can see the merits of this protection, but I also don't believed that usage guidance has been meaningful enough to ensure that it is not abused. This should include guidance for reviewers and for those placing PC on the page.The merits need to be discussed with the pitfalls and guidance needs to be gleamed from that discussion. WFC seems to have a reasonable understanding of this. —Ost (talk) 20:35, 21 May 2012 (UTC)