Forum:Are we too quick to undo/revert
Just been thinking about what the experience here is as a new user. I've been seeing a lot of n00b edits and IP edits being reverted for not adding anything constructive to articles, but without actually doing any damage to articles. Many of our articles are, frankly, pretty sub-standard fare. Having people go into an article which says "Hitler was kissing Barack Obama. GAY! LOL!!!1!!" and changing it to say "Barack was kissing Hitler. FAGGORZ!!!" - while there is no improvement, there is no real damage, and people may be changing things to just get an idea of how the site works, etc. I just saw an undo where an IP had changed "Hick" to "Redneck" and a few other minor changes like that. There was no damage done by leaving it as it was, but we may have lost someone who was testing the water before writing more substantial stuff.
Aleister said something recently where instead of reverting an IP edit, he built around it so that it became much funnier. I was ready to delete Ellen Page because it wasn't that funny to me, but it also wasn't anywhere near as bad as some of the other articles we have, and in retrospect it was actually better then some of the 05/06 features.
Can we please stop reverting/undoing minor changes and deleting pages that are not vandalism/bullying simply because they aren't featurable? Nominally Humane! some time Monday, 01:56, Apr 19 2010 UTC
- No. —Pelozurian (talk) 01:58, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
- Well, as a vandalism patroller, I suppose I must defend myself.
- When I undo an edit, it's usually typical dumb vandalism, adding really unfunny content, or substantial changes to features/good articles. I tend to use the "If it isn't broken, don't fix it" policy. I don't like people replacing already-good content. That's a slap in the face to the author. No offense, but I'd rather offend an IP than an established user, as an established writer may leave if offended. An IP would be more likely to just leave anything. I get your point about bad articles, I tend to just ignore this. I try to avoid really difficult revert calls. I'd rather an admin handle that, as I feel they would have better judgment.--Sir ~HELPME~ Count! Awards! Pee! Help! 02:04, April 19, 2010 (UTC)
- By the same token though, as an established writer, I actually have a watchlist that I patrol fairly regularly. If an IP has edited one of my articles, then I will actually make a judgement call before reverting. I wouldn't be offended if an IP had added a LOLCATS reference to one of my articles - I can remove that myself. If I was an IP and had put in the effort to try and improve an article, just to have it reverted in five minutes by someone who classes it as "vandalism" because it doesn't tickle their funny bone, then I wouldn't be trying to improve my edits, I'd just stop. Nominally Humane! some time Monday, 02:22, Apr 19 2010 UTC
- Well, not all writers are the same. Some are more easily offended than others. Usually, if I felt it was good, I would leave a message for the IP. Like this:
- By the same token though, as an established writer, I actually have a watchlist that I patrol fairly regularly. If an IP has edited one of my articles, then I will actually make a judgement call before reverting. I wouldn't be offended if an IP had added a LOLCATS reference to one of my articles - I can remove that myself. If I was an IP and had put in the effort to try and improve an article, just to have it reverted in five minutes by someone who classes it as "vandalism" because it doesn't tickle their funny bone, then I wouldn't be trying to improve my edits, I'd just stop. Nominally Humane! some time Monday, 02:22, Apr 19 2010 UTC
- "Hey, your writing on <insert article here> was good, but I reverted it because the article didn't really need to be replaced. I'd really like you to write your own article or rewrite a bad one, though- you're a good writer. :)"
- True, we are a Wiki, and nobody owns their articles. But whatever, I just don't like good writing to be replaced. I suppose that's just a personal opinion of mine.--Sir ~HELPME~ Count! Awards! Pee! Help! 02:28, April 19, 2010 (UTC)
- I'm more concerned about when we revert crap back to crap, because the crap added to the crap was crap, but the crap before the crap was just as crap as the other crap. Nominally Humane! some time Monday, 02:42, Apr 19 2010 UTC