Wikipedia:Article Feedback/Feedback response guidelines

The Article Feedback Tool allows users an easy option to leave suggestions on how to improve pages. However the feedback tool is also open to abuse, and in some cases more abuse than articles.

These guidelines exist to assist users in when to use the tools at their disposal to deal with feedback submissions. These guidelines do not bind users to act in the way described here (with the exception of oversight which is bound by the oversight policy), however they should be used as a reference.

User roles and abilities

Users are placed into four groups for the purposes of the Article Feedback Tool; these guidelines contain information for all four of these groups. They are:

Non-confirmed users (titled 'Readers')

Logged out users and non-confirmed users are able to post feedback, mark feedback as helpful and unhelpful and flag submissions as abuse. See Wikipedia:Article Feedback/Help for more information on how to use the tool.

Confirmed users (titled 'Editors')

Confirmed and autoconfirmed users have the added ability to mark feedback submission as featured and resolved. See Wikipedia:Article Feedback/Help/Editors for more information on how to use the tool.

Monitors

Administrators, reviewers and rollbackers have the added ability to hide and see hidden feedback and request Oversight. See Wikipedia:Article Feedback/Help/Monitors for more information on how to use the tool.

Oversighters

Oversighters have the added ability to oversight and see oversighted feedback. See Wikipedia:Article Feedback/Help/Oversighters for more information on how to use the tool.

Featuring and resolving feedback

Featuring

Any feedback which is reasonably actionable, may be useful to the community, is likely to improve the article and at some point is likely to be marked resolved either as done or as rejected (as opposed to unuseful), should be featured. The format of the feedback (such as whether it is all in capitals or not) should not be considered when deciding whether to feature or not.

If a user continually features unhelpful feedback, the community may come to a consensus to ban the user from participating in Article Feedback. Discussions of this nature should take place at the Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.

Resolving

Feedback should only be marked as resolved if the conditions for featuring and the conditions for hiding do not apply.

Users are encouraged to look through featured feedback and see if they can make the suggested changes (etc.) to the article. When the suggested change is completed, the feedback should be marked as resolved (please consider including a link to the diff).

Feedback should be marked as resolved if it has already been fulfilled (that is, it is already in the article). Feedback should also be marked as resolved if it includes a reasonable suggestion (which would normally meet the conditions for featuring) but is clearly not going to be fulfilled on policy grounds (please also state the policy as a comment when you mark it as resolved).

Feedback which does not contribute to the development of the article (such as "good as it gets for my needs, very informative, thanks" or "good") may be marked as resolved to remove it from the feedback listing for that article. If feedback such as this is marked as resolved a comment to that effect should be included.

Marking feedback as un/helpful

Marking feedback as helpful or unhelpful does not affect its appearance, only the percentage shown below the feedback.

Mark feedback as unhelpful if it does not contribute to the development of the article (such as "Justin Bieber is great" or "ksnknck"); if the feedback submission should be hidden according to the criteria, do that instead.

Mark feedback as helpful if it is generally helpful, but not likely to be marked as resolved in the future.

Flagging feedback as abuse

Feedback should be flagged as abuse where it may meet the criteria for hiding, but the user cannot (that is, doesn't have monitor rights) or does not (for example, waiting for a second opinion) want to hide it. Monitors regularly patrol the flagged as abuse filter looking for feedback which should be hidden, so feedback flagged as abuse should recieve a relatively fast response.

Hiding and unhiding feedback

Only users titled monitors can hide and view hidden feedback. All users in the adminstrator, reviewer and rollbacker user groups are monitors. If an editor is hiding feedback inappropriately, and the issue cannot be resolved through discussion, the ability to hide feedback may be removed using the normal process for removing the parent right that is granting the ability to hide.

Monitors are free to use their discretion in deciding what action to take with the exception of feedback which meets criteria H1, H2 or H5. For these criteria, the feedback must be hidden regardless of whether it is useful or not. Monitors are advised to make reference to the below reasons by adding a note when prompted. They are anchored as H#, for example WP:AFT5G#H2. Generally, only feedback which meets one or more of the following criteria should be hidden:

• H1 Copyright violations.
• H2 Insulting, degrading, or offensive material, allegations, harassment, threats or attacks including personal attacks directed at specific editors or Wikipedia editors in general (this criterion should be interpreted liberally).
• H3 Purely disruptive material that is of little or no relevance or merit to the project. This includes nonsensical text (such as aksnksckdjdvfpqsk), browser-crashing or malicious HTML or CSS, shock or phishing submissions, and spam links (which are not related to the article).
• H4 Personal information not serious enough to be oversighted (such as email address, which do not include real names or other identifiable material).
• H5 BLP violations which are not serious enough to be oversighted.
• H6 Non-contentious housekeeping including correction of clear and obvious unintended mistakes in previous hides, changes to hides based upon communal discussion and clear consensus, adding information to the notes, hiding blank feedback.
• H7 Duplicate feedback submissions by the same user on the same article may be hidden if they provide the same or similar information provided in their duplicates. Monitors should determine whether the most detailed or the most recent feedback submission will be left unhidden. This criterion should be used only when another criterion would not justify the feedback submission being hidden. That is, if H2 applies to one or some of the submissions, use it first, then use this critera if there are still duplicates.
• H8 Ignore all rules. Monitors are encouraged to use their own judgement and discretion when assessing whether a submission should be hidden or not. If you are unsure, mark it as abuse, as this filter will usually be viewed by other monitors, or hide it and leave an explanatory reason.

Feedback submitters, if you believe your feedback has been hidden incorrectly, please leave a message at the AFT5 noticeboard.

Requesting oversight

According to the usual oversight policy, Oversight should be requested on feedback which contains non-public personal information, such as phone numbers, home addresses, workplaces, schools or identities of pseudonymous or anonymous individuals who have not made their identity public. This includes hiding the IP data of editors who accidentally logged out and thus inadvertently revealed their own IP addresses. Suppression is a tool of first resort in removing this information

Email addresses should be hidden, but Oversight should not generally be requested unless the email address contains identifiable information.

If in doubt it is better to request Oversight and leave the decision up to the Oversighter, rather than not request it and have potentially problematic information stay live.

Once a feedback submission has its initial Oversight request declined, Oversight should not be re-requested. If a monitor feels that it should have been Oversighted they may re-request Oversight using the tool leaving a detailed reason.

User warnings

A number of user warnings are available for use. A multi level template series is available for editors post feedback which contravenes the guidelines for appropriate or which meet the criteria for hiding for another reason. The user warning templates are {{subst:uw-af1}}, {{subst:uw-af2}}, {{subst:uw-af3}}, {{subst:uw-af4}}, and {{subst:uw-af4im}}.

Three single issue notices, are also available to be used in specific circumstances:

• {{subst:uw-af-personalinfo}} may be used when editors submit feedback which includes personal information. Care should be taken to ensure that the submission has been Oversighted, or at least hidden before this template is used.
• {{subst:uw-af-contact}} may be used when editors submit feedback which reads as an attempt to contact a person or company, usually related to the subject of the article.
• {{subst:uw-af-question}} may be used when editors submit feedback which includes a question about the content of the article. This template directs the user to the Wikipedia:Reference desk.

Feedback disabling

The feedback tool can be disabled on pages in two ways, by adding the page to the Article Feedback Blacklist (called feedback blacklist protection), which is an option available to all editors, or through the normal protection interface (called feedback protection), which is only available to administrators.

Feedback protection

Administrators may protect a page against feedback being submitted by logged-out users, autoconfirmed users, or non-admins through the regular protection interface. As with move protection, when pages are edit semi protected, feedback protection should also be at "enable for autoconfirmed users only" to prevent abuse moving to the feedback tool.

Feedback protection (through the regular interface) has it's fault in that it can only be instituted at the same level as edit protection (for example, on an unprotected page feedback protection cannot be instituted). As feedback protection can only be set and changed by an administrator meaning that it may take some time for it to be set, but also meaning that it cannot be unset as a disruptive tactic.

Admins may institute feedback protection when the vast majority of feedback submissions on that page are hidden or marked as abuse according to the above criteria. The time frame used to judge "the vast majority" is up to the admin, and may range from one day to one month. For articles (particularly BLPs) which have had a number of submissions hidden under criteria H1, H2, and/or H5, the "vast majority" requirement may be relaxed to a level decided on by the admin.

Feedback blacklist protection

Adding pages to the Article Feedback Blacklist category can be seen as a less severe form of protection as it can be reversed any user (in the majority of cases). However, it also has two faults, one being that (on an edit unprotected page) any editor can remove the category, and the other is that it removes the tool indefinitely and is much harder to track than using the protection interface.

Feedback blacklist protection may be instituted on any page outside the Main, Wikipedia, and Help spaces (corresponding talk pages may be added to the category). It may also be used to disable the tool on pages where the tool has a long term history of abuse.

Feedback protection (using the protection interface) is the preferred option to prevent abuse as it can be tracked more easily, and an expiry time can be set.

Conflict of interest

In general, an editor should not use any auto/confirmed (for example, featuring feedback) or monitor (for example, unhiding feedback) tools on feedback they submit, with the exception of hiding feedback that they submitted with their own account.

Wheel warring

The requirements listed at WP:Adminstrators#Reinstating a reverted action ("Wheel warring") are applied to all actions by monitors (that is the word "administrator" is replaced by "monitor").

In general, if a monitor has already reversed a monitor action (for example, hiding feedback), there is very rarely any valid reason for the original or another monitor to reinstate the same or similar action again without clear discussion leading to a consensus decision. Discussion of this sort should take place on the AFT5 noticeboard.

Sanctions will vary depending on whether the users involved are admins or reviewers/rollbackers. Admins are subject to the conditions at WP:WHEEL, so usually in an immediate Request for Arbitration. Reviewers and rollbackers may have these rights removed by an uninvolved admin; whether removal comes before or after discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents would depend on the extent of the wheel-warring.