Forum:Proposal:Edit summary policy

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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 03:41, June 4, 2012 (UTC)

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Discussion

It shouldn't be a policy, but more so a guideline, if anything The Wikia Contributor ^{T | C | E | Q} 03:47, June 4, 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, but no thanks. We shouldn't be obliged to have to provide an edit summary. If someone's pissed, we have something called a user talk page. DarkMetroid567^okay 03:50, June 4, 2012 (UTC)

So if a user is too shy to leave a talk page message or doesn't know how, they have to just sit there and accept that their edit was undone with no reason at all? How is that fair? Joe Copp 03:52, June 4, 2012 (UTC)

The only way to see an edit summary is in history and recent changes. If that user can't find a talk page I doubt they can find those.

Crazy sam10 • Talk

04:07, June 4, 2012 (UTC)

While I admit edit summaries are a great help in looking over past edits I fail to see how they are needed all the time. When I undo IRL or Speculation any other user can see that, after which point we normally put a bad edit template on said users talk page. I admit this should be a guideline, but we can’t start banning people just because they didn’t give a reason, I mean it’s evident that new users don’t fully know our policies about COD:LEAK and COD:IRL so clearly we’re going to have a lot of new users undoing edits without summaries. Understandably in situations when I’m undoing something where I have anecdotal evidence I’ll add it to the summary, but when it’s policy breaking I don’t need to add it the summary, and to be honest I don’t think that stops users anyway. In short this adding much more hassle than it’s solving, as my main points have highlighted new users won’t adhere to this straight away, obvious policy violations such as IRL can easily be undone, and we have the Bad Edit and Vandalism templates for talk pages. I don't think it necessary to even have a forum about them since they have pretty much always been in effect, just not written down.

Crazy sam10 • Talk

03:54, June 4, 2012 (UTC)

Added note, please tell me how this is an effective edit summary? Yes I can tell V = Vandalsim, but I don't think every user will.

Crazy sam10 • Talk

The point of my proposal was to let the user that made the original edit know what the reasoning was. "V" was just a convenience to other editors at the time. Joe Copp 04:05, June 4, 2012 (UTC)

I though V) was a weird smiley face :3 The Wikia Contributor ^{T | C | E | Q} 04:03, June 4, 2012 (UTC)

The policy would be unnessecary. Plus, when you undo an edit, it even says "..if the edit is not vadalism, please provide a reason." Conqueror of all Zombies 03:56, June 4, 2012 (UTC)

I think, while you have the right idea here, what's to stop a user from saying "fuck you" for an edit summary? Metl^Talk 04:07, June 4, 2012 (UTC)