Wikipedia talk:Edit warring/Archives/2021/June

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:Edit warring. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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Reinstating documented consensus

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I previously opened a section at Wikipedia_talk:Edit_warring/Archives/2021/January about this. @Ritchie333: is the idea of reverts to enforce an established consensus, eg that documented in an RfC, actually controversial? I see it all the time, and there's rarely ever blocks for the reverter. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:02, 17 June 2021 (UTC)__DTREPLYBUTTONSCONTENT__-->__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2021-06-17T20:02:00.000Z","author":"ProcrastinatingReader","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-ProcrastinatingReader-2021-06-17T20:02:00.000Z-Reinstating_documented_consensus","replies":["c-Ritchie333-2021-06-17T20:12:00.000Z-ProcrastinatingReader-2021-06-17T20:02:00.000Z","c-Aquillion-2021-06-18T21:07:00.000Z-ProcrastinatingReader-2021-06-17T20:02:00.000Z"]}}-->

ProcrastinatingReader, I think we just need more discussion into it. One of the potential problems is this feud (one of several drawn-out discussions involving infoboxes) which was accompanied (if I recall correctly) by some edit-warring. Editors could have pointed to this policy and carried on reverting, "because it's consensus". However, the consensus ultimately did change. So this should only be policy if this is a widely-accepted standard without any issues. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 20:12, 17 June 2021 (UTC)__DTREPLYBUTTONSCONTENT__-->__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2021-06-17T20:12:00.000Z","author":"Ritchie333","type":"comment","level":2,"id":"c-Ritchie333-2021-06-17T20:12:00.000Z-ProcrastinatingReader-2021-06-17T20:02:00.000Z","replies":["c-ProcrastinatingReader-2021-06-17T22:42:00.000Z-Ritchie333-2021-06-17T20:12:00.000Z"]}}-->

@Ritchie333: That's fine (starting an RfC) but I'm just trying to understand your concern here, so appropriate wording can be drafted to mitigate it. Looking at that discussion, it seems there's a close saying the infobox should be uncollapsed. So then I'd say anyone reverting to reinstate that consensus is in the clear, right? If the close is bad then it should be appealed at AN but users can't just pretend like it doesn't exist. (Unless I'm misunderstanding the issue here?) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:42, 17 June 2021 (UTC)__DTREPLYBUTTONSCONTENT__-->__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2021-06-17T22:42:00.000Z","author":"ProcrastinatingReader","type":"comment","level":3,"id":"c-ProcrastinatingReader-2021-06-17T22:42:00.000Z-Ritchie333-2021-06-17T20:12:00.000Z","replies":[]}}-->

I think that this is a bad idea for several reasons. First, the crux of a dispute in a situation like that is often whether a particular edit reflects a consensus; inviting people to ignore the 3RR when they believe they're implementing a consensus is inviting potentially-contentious edit wars. Second, consensus can change; while sometimes this might require discussions, RFCs, and so on, we don't want to make those things mandatory; enshrining the idea of "documented" consensus and giving it teeth risks pushing people towards that. Third, while revert-wars are always a failure condition and we certainly don't want them happening at all, part of the principle behind the 3RR is that, as a failure condition, it at least means that the "default" in a dispute with many editors tends towards the numerical majority position - obviously, again, you don't want to stop there, and even reaching that point is a failure state; but we need to handle failure states somehow, and for a quick "the article needs to be in some state at the moment" situation that usually suffices. 3RR exemptions are for situations where it doesn't, even as a very temporary state while issues are discussed on talk (ie. BLP issues or the like.) I don't think "there's a standing local consensus for this" is a sufficiently strong argument to allow one editor to edit-war against multiple people and breach the 3RR in the process - it's not a five-alarm issue like a BLP violation or obvious vandalism. Especially since, well, if that consensus is so strong, you shouldn't be in a situation where you're staring at a page considering making a fourth revert to enforce it with nobody else backing you up, surely? EDIT: Also, of course, blatantly edit-warring against consensus (whether someone breaches the 3RR or not) is a more serious conduct issue than just edit-warring in general; I feel like, given the complexities involved, situations where someone is doing that are better handled at WP:AE or WP:ANI or the like rather than by edit-warring back while insisting consensus is on your side. --Aquillion (talk) 21:07, 18 June 2021 (UTC)__DTREPLYBUTTONSCONTENT__-->__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2021-06-18T21:07:00.000Z","author":"Aquillion","type":"comment","level":2,"id":"c-Aquillion-2021-06-18T21:07:00.000Z-ProcrastinatingReader-2021-06-17T20:02:00.000Z","replies":[]}}-->

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WP:3RR and reverting bots.

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Does the 3RR / 1RR apply to reverting bots? Should it apply under certain situations and not others? (eg. it might apply to reverting a bot because you disagree with the basic premise of what the bot is doing, especially if there's a clear consensus backing the bot's actions, but not because you think a bot did something in error.) For the 3RR this might not come up often, but it can come up more easily with pages under 1RR restrictions. The specific situation that came up for me just now was that I removed a low-quality source on a 1RR-protected article, but neglected to notice that it was used elsewhere in the article; AnomieBOT stepped in and salvaged it in that other place by expanding the reference. I then removed it there as well (since we were already citing a higher-quality source), but realized after doing so that that could technically be described, under the current wording of 3RR, as a revert, since I was reverting AnomieBOT's automatic expansion of the source. I don't think that it actually qualifies (there was no dispute, and I don't think AnomieBOT counts as a user for 'no intervening edits by another user' anyway), but I thought I would ask the question here, since I'm not 100% certain whether bots count as "editors" or "users" or the like for the purpose of policy. And either way, if not, it might be worth clarifying unambiguously. --Aquillion (talk) 21:10, 13 June 2021 (UTC)__DTREPLYBUTTONSCONTENT__-->__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2021-06-13T21:10:00.000Z","author":"Aquillion","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-Aquillion-2021-06-13T21:10:00.000Z-WP:3RR_and_reverting_bots.","replies":["c-HighInBC-2021-06-26T05:22:00.000Z-Aquillion-2021-06-13T21:10:00.000Z"]}}-->

It depends on the situation. If the bot is off the rails then the bot is going to be blocked and I would hope any admin would decide the user should not be blocked. If the user disagrees with the change that the bot is making and the bot is authorized to make those changes based consensus then yes that would result in a block from me. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 05:22, 26 June 2021 (UTC)__DTREPLYBUTTONSCONTENT__-->__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2021-06-26T05:22:00.000Z","author":"HighInBC","type":"comment","level":2,"id":"c-HighInBC-2021-06-26T05:22:00.000Z-Aquillion-2021-06-13T21:10:00.000Z","replies":[]}}-->