Forum:Proposal:Edit summary policy

I've noticed more and more lately the lack of well-thought out and descriptive edit summaries when undoing another user's edit, or even an edit summary at all. This is a huge problem.

When a user makes a bad edit that is clearly not vandalism, it should certainly be undone, but to deny the user a reason as to why the edit was bad is simply unfair. I've seen many edit wars erupt because the person undoing the original edit was far too arrogant to even provide a link to COD:IRL. This is something I see normal users and administrators doing on a daily basis.

What I propound is to introduce a simple policy that requires an edit summary when undoing an edit that is not vandalism.

Other users know that I frequently hassle others for not supplying edit summaries, and I feel it's for good reason. I see many users trying to accumulate as many edits as possible by watching the recent changes for any edits by anons or new users and racing other users to the fastest undo. This cannot be allowed to continue. Granting only a slight glance at a user's edit and then undoing it because it "feels" incorrect is the epitome of ignorant behavior; the policy I've proposed will require the user to think about an edit summary, which will in turn require them to have a legitimate, verifiable reason. Making the user actually think about what they're undoing and explaining to the user why their edit was undone are my two goals here.

Assuming good faith means that there should be a reason for undoing edits, and to spare yourself two seconds by not providing that reason to the editor is an atrocity. I will not stand for this elitism that some users seem to have when it comes to edits from new users.

You must tell me what you think of my proposal. I will listen to reason, but my opinion stands. Thanks. Joe Copp 03:40, June 4, 2012 (UTC)