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This is draft for a possible new Pending changes RFC. It is not an active proposal at this time, please do not add comments, endorsements, etc to this page. To discuss this idea please go to my talk page. Thanks. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:38, 30 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Current status - Pending changes (level 1) was re-enabled on December 1st, 2012 by community consensus according to the 2012 RFC.
Logged in users – Logged in users (or users choosing to view pending changes) will see all edits as usual (unless the relevant setting has been changed in their preferences). All edits will still be added to the wiki and inappropriate edits must still be reverted or fixed as usual.
Logged out users – Until checked for obvious vandalism or superseded by appropriate editing, edits by new and unregistered users to "pending changes protected" pages will not be seen by users who are not logged in until approved. Edits by autoconfirmed users are approved automatically at level 1 when the prior revision is approved.
Can edit Changes are only visible to logged-in users until reviewed by a pending changes reviewer or administrator.[ε]
Can edit Changes are visible to everyone if there aren't any unreviewed pending changes. Otherwise, they are only visible to logged-in users until reviewed by a pending changes reviewer or administrator.[ε]
Can edit If there are any unreviewed pending changes, the administrators will be required to review them before they can edit the page.[ε]
Infrequently edited pages with high levels of vandalism, BLP violations, edit-warring, or other disruption from unregistered and new users.
^ abcHowever, if any editors (including unregistered editors) revert all unreviewed pending changes back to the latest accepted version, that revision is automatically accepted and pending changes reviewers and administrators aren't prompted or notified.
^Only noncontroversial changes or requested changes following an achieved consensus should be performed.
^Cascade protection extends to all pages that are transcluded onto the protected page, unless the transcluded page is at the same protection level or higher. Cascade protection can only be applied to pages that are fully or office-protected because otherwise it creates a workflow flaw.
^The interface protection level is automatically set by the MediaWiki software to a specific set of pages, such as pages in the MediaWiki namespace, system-wide CSS and JavaScript pages, and personal CSS and JavaScript pages of other users. It is not a protection level that an administrator can manually apply to any page, nor is it a protection level that can be modified on pages currently under interface protection. Because of this, administrators also cannot cascade-protect pages that are Interface-protected.
^ abUnder the default no protection, unregistered and newly registered users can create talk pages in all namespaces and draft articles in the Draft namespace. For these namespaces, it would therefore be possible for the creation protection to only apply to unregistered and newly registered users
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 focussed 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 removed 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 revision" system. It was developed specifically to be used on en.Wikipedia and is not used on other projects. For that reason the Wikimedia Foundation made it clear during previous discussions 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.
Position #1
The negative aspects of pending changes outweigh the positive. Therefore the tool should not be used at all on the English Wikipedia.
users who endorse this position
Position #2
Despite the flaws of the trial period pending changes has proven to be a useful tool for combatting vandalism and other types of problematic edits. The tool should be used in accordance with the following draft policy. This policy is intended to reflect the community input in discussions. It is not set in stone and after use of the tool is resumed there may be unanticipated problems which can be corrected through normal consensus gathering processes.
Pending changes should be kept in the long term, but the draft policy is insufficient and/or out of step with what the community wants from the tool. Pending changes should not be rejected entirely but should remain unused until such time as there is a more complete policy in place that has been explicitly approved by the community.
users who endorse this position
Discussion
(a separate discussion subpage will be transcluded here)
