Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment February 2011

How you can help

Please take your time and read through the concerns below. For each item, you are invited to offer a proposal that addresses the concern. Where possible, you are encouraged to provide examples, references, diffs and so on in order to support your viewpoint. There isn't a limit on the scope of your proposals; the sky is the limit, here. Most importantly, Answer as few or as many questions as you wish. All responses are evaluated, so any information you provide is helpful.

Once you've provided your responses, please encourage other editors to take part in the review. We stress that editors who didn't participate in the previous phases are encouraged to participate now - more responses will improve the quality of research, as well as increasing the likelihood of producing meaningful results. Once again, thank you for taking part!

Question one

Pending changes was activated on a trial basis. Although that trial has been over for some time pending changes continues to be used. Should we keep pending changes in use and continue discussing how it is to be used, remove it from all articles until there is a consensus based policy in place, or reject it entirely? (Note that even if you answer that it should be turned off you are still free to answer the remaining questions as you see fit.)

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Question two

The exact purpose of pending changes protection has never been clearly defined. Should it be used only to prevent edits that meet Wikipedia's definition of vandalism? If not, what other types of problematic edits may be rejected? Does it make a difference if the edit contains claims about a living person?

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Question three

Many users have expressed the view that pending changes is confusing or difficult to use. Have you found the current interface to be confusing or difficult to use? What improvements would you like to see to the interface? How could it be made more user-friendly? Please try to be constructive and specific rather than general, and feel free to read or edit the list of feature ideas on mediawiki.org.

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Question four

Users have expressed a concern that Pending Changes can discourage or even drive away inexperienced users or users who do not wish to register an account. Other users expressed the view that PC was less of a barrier than semi-protection and may encourage new users. Do you believe pending changes will prevent new users from contributing? Do you believe it to be more or less of a barrier than semi-protection? If it is kept, how do we balance this concern with the concern of preventing vandalism to Wikipedia?

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Question five

Generally, when should pending changes be used? Should it be considered in accordance with the existing protection policy on the same basis as semi protection, or should the bar for PC be higher or lower than that used for semi-protection? Please be as specific as possible.

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Question six

There is a general consensus that maintaining biographies of living persons and other articles that contain information about living persons is a top priority due to the possibility of legal issues and real harm to real persons. Some have proposed that PC be used more liberally on BLPs or even suggested that pending changes protection should be added to all BLP articles. Should the standards for using PC be lower on BLP articles? What should the standards be for articles wherein the primary topic is not biographical but there is still content related to living persons? Should pending changes protection be applied to all biographies of living persons irrespective of whether an issue with such an article has acutally arisen?

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Question seven

During the trial period pending changes was added on an indefinite basis to many articles. Should pending changes be added indefinitely by default, be subject to the same restrictions as other forms of protection, or have some new criterion for determining length of protection? If so what should that criterion be?

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Question eight

In the second phase, many users indicated that they believed that the standards for granting reviewer user right were too low, while others felt that being easy to acquire was a positive trait. What standards should be used to grant the reviewer right? What standards should be used to justify revoking it?

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Question nine

What specifically should be expected of reviewers? If they reject an edit, should they inform the user why the edit was rejected if the reason was something other than obvious vandalism? Should this notification be just in the edit summary, or should it be on the article talk page or the user's talk page?

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Question ten

Are we done yet? That is, do you feel the results of this questionnaire combined with the previous discussions at the RFC and elsewhere are sufficient to determine a consensus? If not, what should be done next? Should there be a poll, a more specific policy proposal, another RFC, or some other option that has not yet been tried?

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Comment section

This section is for any further comments, suggestions, criticisms, or anything else you would like to say about either pending changes or this process that was not covered by the above questions.

Summary so far

1. PC helps in the fight against vandalism on BLPs, and on preventing improper additions to BLPs. 2. Semi-protection helps prevent IP vandalism to BLPs. 3. If reviewers are opening themselves to legal liability for accepting improper edits, it would be nice to know it. This is likely answerable by WMF in any case. 4. We do not have statistics on how many edits were accepted and rejected in the trial, nor how many of them would have been rapidly caught without pending changes in effect. 5. Without ongoing usage, it is unlikely that the software will get appreciably improved, as feedback on the software will cease. 6. Arguments about it being difficult to use will not be addressed without it being in active development. 7. A substantial number of editors suggest that removing some portion of IP editors' ability to directly edit articles is contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia as originally intended.

Does this fairly represent the last few hundred thousand words on the topic? Collect (talk) 11:50, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

That's a good representation! The summary was a good idea. NOW I get all the hub-bub :-) -The Wing Dude, Musical Extraordinaire (talk) 17:13, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

@Collect Fairly represent? No. At the very least, you've left out that it's confusing and slow and shouldn't be implemented without consensus. Rivertorch (talk) 17:32, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

(appended from archive - as the person starting this new page saw fit to essentially remove it from view immediately after others replied to it) I feel this section will be of substantial value in explaining what the issues are. Note further that the issue about "being difficult to use" was, indeed, in the summary. Again - does this fairly represent the preceding few hundred thousand words? I fear, by the way, that this "new page" will, if anything, prove as confusing or more confusing in settling any issues than the preceding pages were. IMHO. Collect (talk) 18:54, 20 March 2011 (UTC)