Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Anti-harassment/Reduce Conflict - Change Revert workflow

Random proposal ►◄ Anti-harassment  The survey has concluded. Here are the results!

Reduce Conflict - Change Revert workflow

• Problem: Reverts can cause conflict and harassment, but this may be due system issues as well as editor behaviour. Causes of conflict to do wth reverts are are that discussions are not happening, or are happeing using comments on reverts rather than talk, or on user talk rather than article. Attacks on user pages has been linked to the loss of experience editors and harassment

  Currently, the revert process is:

  1. An edit is done by the soon to be revertee.
  2. Watchlist is triggered, an editor reviews with the help of ORES
  3. The reverer reverts, and a revert triggers a notification to revertee.
  4. Revertee may be upset at speed of revert (perceived injustice may cause conflict)
  5. The revertee clicks on the notification, and they are sent to diff
  6. The difference screen

Issues with this are:

• There is no clear call to action, and the screen is powerful but complicated (uncertainty is a cause of conflict).
• The diff screen has lots of coloured options/links, but most will cause conflict if done for the wrong reasons ([restore this version], [edit], and [Undo] etc).
• The diff UX accidentally personalises the revert ; the revertee editor (left) vs Revertor editor name(right), and the last coloured line (so most likely to be done if confused) links to the revertor's user page and user talk).

As an aside, code repositories sometimes use mine/theirs to remove bias.

• Proposed solution: A new preference (set to Yes for new editors) gives two choices
  1. No - Same as now
  2. Yes - the revertee to be given clear choices
     1. Add revert topic to article (or maybe project talk)
     2. revert summary, and link to diff copied to article talk, with a reply started to be filled in by the revertee, revertor receives a notification upon save

  The next step in the dispute resolution is outlined.

  • View the diff
  • Learn more about reverts
• Who would benefit: Editors Community as it encourage dialogue see Wikipedia:Revert_only_when_necessary#Explain_reverts, and Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution
• Risks: Editors do deletions rather than reverts.
• More comments:
• Phabricator tickets:
• Proposer: Wakelamp (talk) 12:26, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Voting

•  Oppose This is fundamentally trying to change the social structure of the community through technology. That's not how this is supposed to work. * Pppery * _{it has begun} 03:41, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
•  Oppose I agree that this sometimes is a problem, the analysis is correct, but I do not agree with the solution. This is not just a problem with new editors, but might also involve experienced editors. This is not a technical problem, but involves attitudes of editors. --JopkeB (talk) 04:41, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
•  Support Libcub (talk) 05:40, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
•  Support Komavo (talk) 14:15, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
•  Oppose Other dispute resolution processes are welcome here. Thingofme (talk) 14:35, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
•  Support De nue pw (talk) 22:21, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
• Neutral yes this sometimes is a problem, but is not a technical problem. Elilopes (talk) 19:03, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
•  Oppose Ani6032 (talk) 10:03, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
•  Oppose --cyrfaw (talk) 11:36, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
•  Support Paulo Rená (talk) 10:25, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
•  Support I believe this proposal is worth trying. In case it fails it is easy to go back to the current workflow. Elucches (talk) 21:32, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
•  Support Packerfan386 (talk) 09:47, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
•  Support This sounds like it would be a great convenience for all editors. Probably needs more discussion before implementation. I would like an option to "undo and talk" which would start a new section on the talk page with the edit summary. Perhaps clicking the edit summary on thehistory page would take you to the talk page discussion. Constant314 (talk) 18:01, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

  @Constant314 As the proposer agree that more discussion is needed but I do think the system UX and quality control post edit are the root cause of a lot of conflict. (@WhatamIdoing had doubts when I mentioned it to them in passing).

  This proposal grew out of analysis I have been doing on toxicity within Wikipedia. My opinion is that the vast majority of the community is actually very polite, but brusque/time poor/Usenet/ASD dev style /passionate hobbyist style/academic/ in its approach to argument. This might reduce the conflict a little bit.

  At first I wanted a toxicity filter on user talk for comments by new editors, but then I worked out the root cause might be reverts

  @WhatamIdoing has doubts.

  This proposal grew out of a lot of analysis I have been doing on toxicity within Wikipedia. At first I wanted a toxicity filter on user talk for comments by new editors, but then I worked out the root cause might be reverts. (The WMF mechanical turk style analysis had issues, but I think their figure that 40 %iah of toxicity is caused new and IP editors seems accurate) Wakelamp (talk) 02:03, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

•  Support Krokofant (talk) 09:35, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
•  Oppose Don't see a technical problem. Scripts like Twinkle allow the user to send a notification after the revert. ~~~~
  User:1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 17:33, 24 February 2023 (UTC)