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Discussion of enforced BRD

Moved from User talk:Galobtter § Side discussion

 – Galobtter (pingó mió) 07:18, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Hey, responding here to the "strong oppose" part of your vote at the noticeboard, so I don't clutter the discussion too much there. Would you mind clarifying some things for me, because from what I gather from your various comments I think we have a fundamental misunderstanding about the role of consensus-required, and I'd like to try to get on the same page. Would you be willing to discuss this for a bit? ~Awilley (talk) 19:57, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Awilley, Yeah, feel free to ask/discuss with me here :) Galobtter (pingó mió) 04:49, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

OK, first let me make sure I understand your position.

1. You believe that the consensus-required restriction has brought a great deal of stability to the Trump article.

2. It has brought the stability largely through enforcing a list of "current consensus" items that are the result of lengthy talk page discussions.

2a. Bold edits that go against the "current consensus" are quickly reverted because they violate consensus-required.

2b. If consensus-required were removed this would no longer be the case. For example "false and misleading statements" could be changed to just "misleading statements" without violating discretionary sanctions, and then we'd have to rehash the issue (again) on the talk page.

3. If the the consensus-required rule were removed, the article would become less stable because the old, settled disputes could be reignited every time someone makes an edit that goes against the current-consensus.

4. Removing the consensus-required rule would allow single editors to overturn a consensus garnered through a wide RfC. (I'm extrapolating from your statement that "articles are meant to represent consensus and single editors should not generally overturn a consensus garnered through a wide RfC." Let me know if I went too far.)

5. The end result of removing consensus-required would be more lengthy discussions and RfCs rehashing old issues, and a less-stable article, with a constant churning of the Lead, including those sentences that previously reflected current consensus.

Please let me know where I got your position wrong and correct me. (I'd also be interested in what you think my position is, but if you're short on time don't bother.) ~Awilley (talk) 13:33, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

I think that is a quite good summation of my position (I'd add, that I think the lead Donald Trump of is in quite a good place now; and a hashed out neutrality where every word is debated is unlikely to be improved and only is likely to be worsened by drive-by edits) Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:40, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

OK, thank you. Let me see if I can root out some incorrect assumptions that I think your position is based on.

• Bad assumption 1: Removing the consensus-required rule removes the requirement of consensus. This is false. Consensus is required, always and everywhere. WP:CONSENSUS is a core policy and will never go away. The assumption that removing the DS rule will result in people suddenly ignoring consensus is the same fallacy as assuming that the removal of the Civility restriction (also placed by User:Coffee) would result in people suddenly becoming uncivil. I removed the civility restriction a month ago [1] and there hasn't been a noticeable change in incivility. WP:CIVIL is still a core policy and it still applies. I think this assumption underlies points 3 and 4 above.
• Bad assumption 2: The system of "current consensus" stems from and is enforced by the consensus-required rule. This is demonstrably false. The "current consensus" list actually has nothing to do with the consensus-required restriction, and actually stems directly from the small-print of the 1RR restriction. Go to {{American politics AE}} and open the collapse box at the bottom where you will find this: "With respect to the WP:1RR restriction: Edits made solely to enforce any clearly established consensus are exempt from all edit-warring restrictions. In order to be considered "clearly established" the consensus must be proven by prior talk-page discussion." My proposal in no way modifies the 1RR restriction or exemptions, so the current method of enforcing "current consensus" would be unchanged. (I'd also point out that Talk:Hillary Clinton has had a list of FAQs that has served a similar purpose as the Trump "current consensus" list since 2008, 8 years before Coffee came up with his consensus-required rule.) I think this assumptions underlies points 2, 2a, 2b, and parts of 3, 4, and 5.

I believe removing these assumptions invalidates points 2 through 4, and part of 5 (the bit about the churning of sentences reflecting current consensus). Let me know if you would like to discuss any of these points. (I was thinking #3 might merit further discussion about reigniting disputes.)

I would still like to further discuss #5 as well as the role consensus-required plays in forming consensus, but let's put that on hold for a bit so you can respond to the above. ~Awilley (talk) 14:58, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Awilley, Okay, I've been thinking about this for the past hour or so, and I'm still thinking over some points/how much to reconsider my position. I'll sleep over it and have a response tomorrow. Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:06, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Of course, no problem. I'm grateful you're taking the time to think about it. ~Awilley (talk) 21:19, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Just wanted to say I'm still interested in your thoughts. Even if the AN thread is now moot I'd still like to avoid changing it while you strongly object. ~Awilley (talk) 14:42, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Ha, Awilley, just writing the response right now :) Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:43, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Okay, so first before I respond I have to thank you Awilley for taking proactive steps in improving the DS area of AP2; not many admins want to take on this thankless task :) Anyhow:

• Re Assumption 1: I of course know that consensus applies irregardless (and I do/did support the removal of the civility restriction). However, in AP2 DS areas, people do try their best to go against consensus when they don't like it, through long-term editing against it, edit warring etc. Drive-by edits that go against consensus is especially an issue on the Trump article due to its profile (hence the big DO NOT CHANGE THIS WITHOUT PRIOR CONSENSUS comments). One could as well say that, because the edit warring policy also still applies to AP2, that there's no need for a restriction like 1RR
• Re Assumption 2: I know this, but my sort of assumption based on your comments at the previous AE that you also wanted to remove that footnote in the collapsed section too. But as I've been thinking over this, I realize that the most important bit here (i.e, why I was strong opposed) is not wanting the system of truly binding consensus (however bureaucratic it may be at times) to go away. So especially if that footnote is moved up to a restriction like "Editors should not edit against a clearly established consensus" (so that it is easier to point to), my opposition would be significantly reduced to a mild oppose or even a vague neutral. Part of this is because 24 hours is enough time to garner a consensus on the Trump talk page, so there may not be a massive difference in how things work on the page.

However, I do think the consensus-required restriction works with the footnote. When a discussion is still garnering comments, how does one establish that a clearly established consensus is there? With "consensus-required", that is when a person is confident enough to reinstate the disputed edit; with "enforced BRD", one can still easily edit war when there's a consensus on the talk page. I feel the footnote supplements the consensus-required restriction rather than being a restriction in it of itself, and so it may not makes less sense to remove the consensus-required restriction while leaving that footnote.

Another reason I like consensus-required is that when people make bad drive-by edits that cannot be "fixed" through BRD, because they are fundamentally poor/violating NPOV (which is quite often), the consensus-required restriction puts a stop to it with one revert - no need for further reversion of more attempts to re-add the "bad edit" or anything like that. So it is nice in that away; and I largely never see an edit being reverted where I feel that discussion and re-addition of the change modified resolves the issue, which is what you say the advantage of the "enforced BRD" restriction would be; rather, if I feel an edit is poor but could be fixed with a change to it, I just do it myself instead of reverting.

Overall, I've realized my opposition and disagreement with you is even more fundamentally based on the fact that: I don't see the consensus-required restriction as a problem and the "status quo" is fine, and also that the change in restrictions could very well cause problems and while I see a vague possible benefit I don't see very large benefits. Additionally, a change of the restrictions does require editors to "re-learn" things, which is a cost.

So right now I'm no longer super-opposed to the change, especially if it is treated as a trial that can and would be reverted if issues arise. However, before changing anything on the Trump article I'd suggest asking more of the regular editors there - JFG, MelanieN, and Mandruss come to mind - (and probably posting on the talk page there) what they think of the restriction; I'd definitely be interested in their thoughts and I don't believe they have commented on this yet.

Penultimately, I think removing the burden of a "complex" (compared to 1RR) restriction like "Enforced BRD" or "Consensus-required", or even of any restriction, is more important than replacing consensus-required. Articles like Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, or Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination (even when the controversy was most heated) work surprisingly well without any restrictions like even 1RR, so I think you could remove all restrictions or consensus-required from half or more the articles it is on without too much of an issue.

Lastly, as you can probably judge by the size of this wall of text, I'm pretty much all out of thoughts on this; and am somewhat busy for the next couple of weeks and so probably won't be able to write too much in further response. (also, if anything here doesn't make sense, please ask: I did proofread it but not that much :) Galobtter (pingó mió) 15:19, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. @MelanieN, JFG, Mandruss, the proposal we're talking about is at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Proposal_to_replace_"Consensus_Required"_on_American_Politics_articles (I don't think either of us had linked it here). ~Awilley (talk) 15:39, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

To a large extent this is above my unpay grade, but thanks Galobtter for the vote of confidence. I'll say this much.
Enforced BRD, as written at the above link, would often result in the following. After the first revert, the reverted editor would post his/her rationale on the talk page and consider the discussion requirement met. This is already often done by editors who claim to be following BRD. The word "discuss" is like Potter Stewart's "obscenity": I know it when I see it, but it's impossible to define. Even if the editor makes a good-faith effort to discuss, I see nothing in the proposed language that would prevent them from reinstating after 24 hours while the discussion is evenly divided, or even leaning against the edit. Maybe I'm missing something, but I fail to see how that would be an improvement. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:02, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, perfunctory discussion could be an issue + poor reinstations. Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:15, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

If Consensus is required, always and everywhere. were enough, we could drop consensus-required without replacing it with anything, couldn't we? Perhaps the problem could be addressed by strict enforcement of that principle at AP2 articles. Apparently Coffee felt that that stricter enforcement couldn't happen without the additional editing restriction, and I suspect he was right. It would hardly be the first time that a policy, alone, was not sufficient. That's dysfunctional in my opinion, but it is what it is. Many serious Wikipedia problems have underlying causes that are never addressed because our system of self-selected self-governance is sorely inadequate to the task. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:31, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Currently on the go and responding from my phone. I wrote User:Awilley/Enforced BRD FAQ to try to respond to common concerns. Q4 is the response to the "gaming the system" aspect. So yes, that kind of gaming would be technically allowed, but it would also be painfully easy for an admin to see and identify as gaming, and respond by placing a "consensus required" restriction on the individual editor that would prevent them from reverting against consensus on ALL articles, not just those covered by sanctions. That would address the problem at a lower level instead of restricting more normal editing for everyone else. ~Awilley (talk) 16:49, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

In my experience admins tend to be reluctant to exercise that kind of discretion, I strongly suspect because of the community-tolerated shitstorm that too often results when they do. See "underlying causes" above. As I indicated, our system is incapable of addressing foundational problems. Alas, that's too meta for this discussion, so I'll leave it to you and wish you luck. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:10, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

It would be a sad irony if an admin were to experience significant community-tolerated backlash for imposing a sanction on a single disruptive editor that had previously been imposed without backlash on hundreds of innocent editors. ~Awilley (talk) 18:43, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Case in point (one of many): Seventeen years after inception we have yet to agree on the role of MoS in Wikipedia editing—with no reason to believe we ever will. Under a more functional system of governance this would have been settled permanently within the first year or two. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:08, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

@Galobbter, I wanted to take a minute and give you a more thorough response to your long post above. I've read it multiple times, and appreciate the thought you put into it. Responding very quickly to some of the points in no particular order:

1. If the new sanction causes problems I am also viewing it as a trial of sorts, and I'll be around to revert myself if needed.
2. I am interested in hearing from others, and I've tried hard to solicit and then really understand people's opinions. But if I'm really being honest I'm not particularly interested in having a big forum where all the regular Trump editors comment...there are too many agendas swirling under the surface.
3. I haven't talked much about the benefits I hope to see from the change. Here are a couple:

A. Takes the power out of talkpage stonewalling (this I have mentioned before)

B. As a proposed sentence goes through cycles of BRD with partial reverts from multiple editors, the phrasing can change in ways where it is more acceptable to editors with opposing views. This type of rapid compromise is much more difficult to achieve through talkpage discussion alone.

C. I am hoping that this will affect a change in the current ethos surrounding AP articles by nudging editors towards finding compromise (as opposed to trying to ram through their proposed changes through party-line straw-polls and RfCs).

Anyway, this is also a very quick unedited brain vomit, as I'm running short on time as well. ~Awilley (talk) 21:38, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Regarding point 2, I think you know as well as me who has what agenda and can take the feedback with the grains of salt necessary; and well, as you have gone ahead with the replacement, you'll get that feedback soon enough whether you ask beforehand or not. Galobtter (pingó mió) 04:45, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Indeed. Adding to point B., the current editing about the Mulher sentence in the Lead section is a good illustration of this. Since the original Bold edit and revert the sentence has gone through 10 different iterations [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] in under 9 hours, morphing into something different and significantly more nuanced than what MastCell had originally added, and people on both sides of the aisle seem to be "meh ok" with it. Under Consensus-required it might have gone through maybe 3 revisions before going to a vote.

Contrast this with the example of the lede sentence "Many of his comments and actions have been perceived as racially charged or racist." That wording came from MrX's suggestion on 14:28, 13 July 2018 where he proposed "Many of his comments and actions have been perceived as racially-charged." That proposal went through a long and convoluted discussion in July, An RfC from July 15 to July 22, a separate RfC from July 15 to to August 16 that passed with "weak consensus", a close review at AN from August 23 to September 1, a third long and convoluted RfC from August 16 to October 9 that slightly modified the wording (added "or racist"), and several smaller threads like this. So after literally months and pages of discussion we end up with a wording that is nearly identical to the original proposal. I wonder if things might have been different if that sentence had been allowed to go through a few BRD cycles in the article. Did MrX actually strike gold on his second swing, stumbling on The Consensus Wording? Or is there a better wording out there (maybe something not in passive voice or begging for a template) that we just haven't discovered yet, because we've been too focused on whether anything makes it into the article at all, instead of seeking compromise on wording? ~Awilley (talk) 16:46, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

@Galobtter: Thanks for notifying me about this initiative, and @Awilley: congrats for taking the plunge into this minefield. My editing experience in the AP subject area over the last two years has been at some times very pleasant and at others very frustrating. The principal issue that has frustrated me was the immense waste of editor time and stamina in the face of some "guardians of the Truth" who never genuinely seek to reach NPOV through dialogue with their fellow editors. The attitude I'm seeing is "my POV is the only really neutral POV, how dare you question it? and if you don't comply, well here's RS1, RS2, RS3 stating exactly that POV in their headline". Then if the actual source text gives a more nuanced picture, and another editor attempts to convey said nuance, s/he gets accused of cherry-picking, or worse, misrepresenting the sources. There is also a noticeable WP:OWNership issue at some pages, but well, you can't go against somebody's hobby I suppose. I have had many pleasant experiences when editors listen to each other and come up with creative solutions to take into account various objections to a particular wording.

I have often wondered whether the prevalent "consensus required" regime did more or less harm than some less stringent constraints. I have come to a similar conclusion to yours: the method of seeking consensus does not really matter, only the good will of editors, no matter which "side" they are on, towards truly listening to other views, can effect progress in the long run. If I were an admin, I'd want to work with a system that a) lets me see exactly what is the dispute at hand, and b) gives me the authority to stop disruption from expert "system gamers". In that respect, I was quite pleased with your experiment of "special sanctions" applying to some individual editors, to protect them from their own natural tendencies. The most reasonable of those people have continued to be productive editors, with less friction than usual, and those who couldn't handle the scrutiny have simply given up. The atmosphere has been noticeably more collegial over the last few months, and I would like to give you some credit for setting the tone there.

Now, to the core debate over "consensus required" vs "enforced BRD". First, I have argued several times that "consensus required" was an explicit way of enforcing the BRD cycle on people who are quick to R and slow to D. Your proposed rule "when reverted, discuss for at least 24 hours" sounds like an improvement, in that it's often been difficult to assess exactly when consensus is reached under the prevalent rule "when reverted, stop until you reach consensus". In a good-faith environment, this should facilitate iterative tweaks of the content without taking days or weeks to reach consensus. The more operative question is "what happens in a bad-faith environment?" The most thorny issues on AP articles have occurred when a POV-pushing editor vocally opposes any and all attempts at developing a more nuanced wording than whatever they initially had in mind. The mirror problem is status quo stonewalling, whereby a reverter objects to any changes, even when their main objection has been addressed by rephrasing or by bolstering the proposed edit with sourcing and due weight arguments. Under the current 1RR/CR regime, POV pushers are stopped cold, and stonewallers are vindicated. To eventually place acceptable changes in the article requires significant participation from other editors than the first two. That process takes more time, but yields more stable outcomes. In fact, I quite like it that instant clickbait headlines take two or three days to be debated on the talk page, by which time the news often have moved on, and the absolute necessity of reflecting them in our encyclopedia spontaneously fades away. In fact, I have so gotten used to the CR regime that I tend to edit as if it applied everywhere. If we move to a looser, iterative process encouraging "try stuff, but only once a day", I'm afraid that a team of stonewallers can easily stab any innovation in the text, because each of them will have a revert to "burn", and the age-old gaming by numbers will come out in full force, just like when a simple 1RR restriction is in place. Same goes with a team of POV pushers in preventing proper discussion, by re-adding whatever was challenged, with small enough changes that the POV nature of the initial edit remains in place.

In conclusion, I feel that to be efficient against the most common POV-pushing and stonewalling scenarios, the 24h "stop and discuss" rule should apply to everybody, not just the first two editors getting involved (edit + revert). How about this?

If an edit has been challenged by reversion, you must discuss the substance of it on the talk page, and wait 24 hours before re-instating this exact edit or a very similar one. Other editors are also prohibited from making the same edit for 24 hours, and encouraged instead to take part in the discussion and suggest a more acceptable variant. After 24 hours have elapsed, you or another editor can place in the article a wording that has previously been suggested on the talk page, or a new one that takes into account the arguments made in the intervening discussion. If that is in turn challenged the burden is on the challenger to explain how the discussion arguments were not reflected in the new edit, and the clock re-starts for 24 hours before this same part of the article can be changed. If, on the other hand, a consensus develops rapidly on the talk page, either for or against your edit, neither you nor other editors should attempt to stonewall the change with repetitive objections against the consensus view.

Perhaps that's a bit long for the sanction warning, but it should fit well in your FAQ, if you think that's worthwhile. — JFG ^talk 01:09, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

@JFG: Wow, thank you for that thoughtful analysis. Your first paragraph describes how I see the area, and if it had a "like" button I'd be pressing it. Re: ...when editors listen to each other and come up with creative solutions to take into account various objections to a particular wording Yes! That is the solution, and there are far too few editors interested in doing this.

As you talked about the various types of editors specific names came to mind...like the people who never edit the article but just hang out on the talk pages to put in their 2 cents...like Scjessey–so convinced that his personal view is Objective Reality™ or Markbassett's chronically incorrect appeals to policies that don't apply to the situation but the WP:SHORTCUTNAMES sound convenient in supporting his position. (Hopefully I don't get in too much trouble for naming names.) Out of curiosity I just now looked up the contributions of those two editors...Mark, despite being a regular commentator at the talk page, has made exactly 5 edits to the Donald Trump article in their last 500 mainspace edits (that's looking back to May 2017). 5 edits in 1.5 years! They've made about 230 edits to the talk page in that same time. (ScJ's ratio is better, didn't count exactly.) Yet with the consensus-required restriction we give them a lot of power over the article without any motivation to try to understand the objections of others, or to find a creative solution for a specific wording, or to even need to stick their neck out for an actual edit or revert. Throwing out Consensus Required in a way forces them to "put up or shut up". Simply repeating their opinions ad-nauseum won't get them as far.

You make a very valid point about the consensus-required slowing down the insertion of fresh headlines. I agree that's a problem but sometimes wonder if it's a chicken and egg thing. Looking at some of the big pushes to get fresh headlines into the article I wonder if people are making that push because they fear that if they wait until it's not Top Headlines anymore then they won't be able to drum up enough support on the talk page to ever get it past the stonewallers and into the article. I'm certainly not suggesting that Consensus Required created WP:RECENTISM, and it obviously slows down new info going into the article, but what is it doing to the culture?

OK, so the big problem of the "gaming by numbers" or "tag team edit warring" as I frequently hear it called. That is perhaps the biggest drawback to the BRD solution over Consensus-required. I think it was this comment by User:Aquillion that pushed me over the edge on that. (Scroll down, it's the second comment in the diff.) Obviously I don't think that talkpage stonewallers/opinionators are beneficial, but it's extremely difficult to sanction one directly. You can't block someone for excessive opinionating, especially when they're polite all the time. But it's super easy to sanction someone for edit warring. Tag-team edit wars are also easy to identify and sanction, especially if the sanctions are reasonable. I don't remember if you were around at the time, but during the last US presidential election (Obama Romney) User:TParis used to sanction them all the time. They'd get one "final warning" and then a topic ban the next time they were in a tag-team edit war. My own plan was to go with something even more "reasonable" than that with a "special" sanction at User:Awilley/Discretionary sanctions#Consensus required. Used with some discretion, I think that could be a way to weed out the people who team up to burn their reverts, to encourage other people to actually focus on understanding and compromising, and to let the regular consensus-builders do their work. I also think your proposal has a lot of merit and I'm going to sleep on it tonight and see if I can think of a way to condense it down a bit, maybe get some form of it into the FAQ as advice, and maybe even get some of it into the template instructions (collapsed portion). ~Awilley (talk) 04:52, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

As much as I don't like the people who only edit the talk page with their opinions and never actually edit the article, they have less power than it seems (or I think, they think they have), simply because most edits - even major reorganizations or additions of controversial sections - never get reverted and never get to a talk page discussion where they can influence it. Their main influence is on the lead, but the body can be changed a lot without too much kerfuffle. Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:15, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

• Ugh, seems I should have commented here and pinged Awilley so to avoid this discussion on multiple pages, anyway, on their talk, I’ve asked them to restore the CR sanction on some of the more high profile pages and look at the BLPs again. Letting people here know that. I’m personally a bit frustrated because as I expressed there, this was actually done faster than Coffee set it up. I think we need to work through this and an willing to be part of that discussion as someone who stays out of AP2, but I believe that what happened today isn’t the solution, though I only feel super strong on it on the high profile subjects. TonyBallioni (talk) 07:28, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Refining the proposed restriction

@Awilley: Your reference to Aquillion's comment above prompted me to take a closer look at your very detailed table of scenarios, and how each proposed rule affects the ability of editors to be disruptive or constructive. Because the AE discussion has been archived, let me copy your table here, and we can comment below. — JFG ^talk 09:43, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Awilley's original comparison chart, augmented in version below.

No restriction (just vanilla 1RR) 1RR for bold edits Enforced BRD Enforced BRD and 1RR for bold edits Enforced BRD or 1RR for bold edits Consensus-required Prevents Bad Behavior 1 of 8 3 of 8 4 of 8 5 of 8 2 of 8 7 of 8 1RR exploit: Original editor immediately reverts a Bold change back into the article N Y Y Y Y Y Gaming BRD: Original editor leaves a note on the talk page and immediately reverts a Bold change back into the article N Y N Y N Y Gaming 1RR: Original editor waits a day and then reverts a Bold change back into the article. N N Y Y N Y Gaming 1RR and BRD: Original editor leaves a note on the talk page, waits a day, then reverts a Bold change back into the article against objections on the talk page N N N N N Y Gaming consensus-required: Reverting editor slows down normal article development by "challenging" bold edits and stonewalling on talk page to force extended discussions Y Y Y Y Y N Slow edit war (2 editors): Editors repeatedly revert a recent change in and out of the article every 24 hours without participating on talk N N Y (requires original editor to participate on talk) Y (requires original editor to participate on talk) N Y Slow edit war (2 editors) with talk: Editors repeatedly revert a recent change in and out of the article every 24 hours while participating on talk N N N N N Y Tag-team edit war (many editors): Different editors repeatedly revert a recent change in and out of the article N N N N N Y Allows Good Behavior (normal dispute resolution) 4 of 4 2 of 4 2 of 4 1 of 4 3 of 4 0 of 4 Immediate partial revert: Original editor immediately reinstates an edit taking into account the objections of the reverting editor (dispute resolution via edit summary) Y N N N N N Delayed partial revert: Original editor waits 24 hrs, then reinstates a change that takes into account the objections of the reverting editor Y Y N N Y N Fast BRD: Original editor discusses a reverted change on talk page, then partially reinstates the edit taking into account the objections of the reverting editor Y N Y N Y N Slow BRD: Original editor discusses a reverted change on talk page, waits 24 hours, then partially reinstates the edit taking into account the objections of the reverting editor Y Y Y Y Y N

This chart raises the question of whether it is more important for page-level restrictions to prevent bad behavior or allow good behavior. My personal view is that editor-level sanctions should be our primary tool against bad behavior and page-wide restrictions should strike a balance between preventing bad behavior and allowing good behavior, in a way where the bad behavior is obvious to admins who can step in and deal with the bad at the editor-level. ~Awilley (talk) 21:40, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

On one note, I am somewhat seeing the benefits of the new restriction at Talk:Donald Trump#Description of Mueller inquiry in lead. Galobtter (pingó mió) 10:19, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

On the face of this analysis, the CR rule has been most efficient for stamping out quick-fire POV-pushers, but it may have erred too far into easing the job of professional stonewallers. The new "Enforced BRD" rule that Awilley imposed to replace CR is ostensibly the above "Enforced BRD and 1RR for bold edits" column, which, if we count ticks, should be the next-best thing for preventing disruption, while giving some breathing space to constructive editing. That looks overall like a positive step to me, and I welcome the experimentation. I would be opposed to any further relaxation of the rules, at least until we gather sufficient experience with the new rule on high-profile articles. My fear, shared with TonyBallioni, is that this new rule does nothing to stamp out tag-teaming, and contrary to Aquillion I am doubtful that admins can effectively police such behaviour without getting bogged down in long and subjective AE disputes. We want to ease the fear of sanctions for good-faith editors, while limiting the nuisance potential of tenacious system-gamers. I've made a proposal above which, although long-winded, may hit the sweet spot of balance. I'll run it through the table's filter to see how it compares. Let me call it "Enforced slow BRD" so we have an easy shorthand to discuss it. Replacing the next-to-last column that only addressed 2 out of 8 bad behaviors, so the table does not get even more cluttered. — JFG ^talk 10:28, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Proposed rule "Enforced slow BRD"

If an edit has been challenged by reversion, you must discuss the substance of it on the talk page, and wait 24 hours before re-instating this exact edit or a very similar one. Other editors are also prohibited from making the same edit for 24 hours, and encouraged instead to take part in the discussion and suggest a more acceptable variant. After 24 hours have elapsed, you or another editor can place in the article a wording that has previously been suggested on the talk page, or a new one that takes into account the arguments made in the intervening discussion. If that is in turn challenged the burden is on the challenger to explain how the discussion arguments were not reflected in the new edit, and the clock re-starts for 24 hours before this same part of the article can be changed. If, on the other hand, a consensus develops rapidly on the talk page, either for or against your edit, neither you nor other editors should attempt to stonewall the change with repetitive objections against the consensus view.

	Vanilla 1RR	1RR for bold edits	Enforced BRD	Enforced BRD and 1RR for bold edits (Awilley rule)	Enforced slow BRD (JFG rule)	Consensus-required
Prevents Bad Behavior	1 of 8	3 of 8	4 of 8	5 of 8	7 of 8	7 of 8
1RR exploit: Original editor immediately reverts a Bold change back into the article	N	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Gaming BRD: Original editor leaves a note on the talk page and immediately reverts a Bold change back into the article	N	Y	N	Y	Y	Y
Gaming 1RR: Original editor waits a day and then reverts a Bold change back into the article.	N	N	Y	Y	Y	Y
Gaming 1RR and BRD: Original editor leaves a note on the talk page, waits a day, then reverts a Bold change back into the article against objections on the talk page	N	N	N	N	Y	Y
Gaming consensus-required: Reverting editor slows down normal article development by "challenging" bold edits and stonewalling on talk page to force extended discussions	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N
Slow edit war (2 editors): Editors repeatedly revert a recent change in and out of the article every 24 hours without participating on talk	N	N	Y	Y	Y	Y
Slow edit war (2 editors) with talk: Editors repeatedly revert a recent change in and out of the article every 24 hours while participating on talk	N	N	N	N	N	Y
Tag-team edit war (many editors): Different editors repeatedly revert a recent change in and out of the article	N	N	N	N	Y	Y
Allows Good Behavior (normal dispute resolution)	4 of 5	2 of 5	2 of 5	2 of 5	3 of 5	1 of 5
Immediate partial revert: Original editor immediately reinstates an edit taking into account the objections of the reverting editor (dispute resolution via edit summary)	Y	N	N	N	N	N
Delayed partial revert: Original editor waits 24 hrs, then reinstates a change that takes into account the objections of the reverting editor	Y	Y	N	Y	Y	N
Fast BRD: Original editor discusses a reverted change on talk page, then partially reinstates the edit taking into account the objections of the reverting editor	Y	N	Y	N	N	N
Slow BRD: Original editor discusses a reverted change on talk page, waits 24 hours, then partially reinstates the edit taking into account the objections of the reverting editor	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	N
Honor WP:NOT#NEWS: Substantial discussion of the relevancy and due weight of "breaking news" can occur before such content is rushed into the article	N	N	N	N	Y	Y

I have added "Honor WP:NOT#NEWS" as another positive behavior that should be encouraged. This was in my opinion a positive effect of the CR restriction, which the proposed "Enforced slow BRD" rule also allows, while not being as prone to stonewalling as the CR rule. On the other hand, "Enforced BRD + 1RR for bold edits" (Awilley's rule) does not enforce a cool-down when inserting inflammatory "breaking news", because of the team effect where several contributors who like the headline can force its insertion within the same day after the original revert, without substantial discussion. Finally, please note that I have corrected the application of Awilley's rule to the "Delayed partial revert" case: this practice is actually allowed and encouraged by the rule, so I placed a tick mark at that spot. — JFG ^talk 10:50, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

I don't mind hosting this discussion on my talk page but I wonder if it would be better to host it somewhere more centralized. Template talk:American politics AE is a little in the boonies but I think it'd be good to have a centralized place to discuss the AP2 restrictions (that isn't tied on one admin (such as Awilley's) talk/subtalkpage) and that doesn't seem that bad of a place for it. Galobtter (pingó mió) 11:08, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

You're such a gracious host! Let's not get bogged down into a choice of venue. As soon as a consensual proposal emerges from the present discussion, the resulting text and rationale can and should be open for wider scrutiny at VPP or AE. — JFG ^talk 11:53, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

• @JFG and Awilley: no idea where to reply, so doing it here: the issue is that this isn’t a proposed criteria: it is the active sanction because Awilley imposes it against consensus at AN without consulting anyone as to what pages it should be put on or trying to take into account at all the concerns raised by others. I hate to be so blunt, but I’m growing really frustrated about being forced to discuss this while the changes are still in place because they never should have been made on this scale to begin with, and while technically I suppose I could unilaterally restore consensus required since we’re always free to up sanctions, it feels wrong to do and the last thing I want is more of a mess. Having read all of this, my suggestion is this:

1. Awilley reverts all of the new sanctions now.
2. All of the pages where they removed sanctions entirely keep sanctions off them unless issues arise.
3. We create a userspace workshop for the remaining articles and see which ones need active page-level sanctions at all.
4. From those we go through and see which would benefit most from 1RR, CR, and the don’t restore until 24 hours rule.

We simply can’t have a discussion on how to fix a problem when one of the participants in the discussion has already enforced their solution and no one else can do anything without them agreeeing to it. That’s how DS was designed to work in a way, but it was not ever envisioned that one admin would basically apply sanctions to all the significant pages in a topic area. That happened in 2016, so we’re here, but the solution to this can’t be one admin doing the exact same thing and discussing from that stance. CR has been the status quo for going on three years until last night. Restoring the status quo until a reasonable way forward can be found on a per-article basis is the best path forward, not trying to fix the new situation from where it is. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:11, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Live case study

@JFG: Just something to consider...this revert would not have been permitted under your proposed rule, as you reinstated challenged material within 24 hours of its addition. Under your rule your only option for fixing the sentence would have been to remove it entirely, forcing 24 hours of discussion only. Not saying it's a bad thing, just a working example to consider. ~Awilley (talk) 14:38, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

You are correct, and had this proposed rule been in force, editors including me would have stopped tinkering with the text live, taking their proposals to the talk page. Hopefully 24 hours later, something acceptable by all would have emerged. No deadline, but no stonewalling either. — JFG ^talk 17:57, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

And here we go: a newcomer to the dispute just reverted me and restored MrX's version which had been contested on the talk page.[12] This definitely would not be allowed under my "Enforced slow BRD" proposal. Under your "Awilley rule" in effect, I'm not sure whether it's an infringement. Let's see:

Edit	Time	Author	Edit summary	Discussed on talk page?	Is this a revert?	Acceptable under ruleset?
						1RR	Awilley	JFG	CR	Spirit of BRD
[13]	12 Dec 00:52	MastCell	a summary of convictions resulting from the investigation is relevant enough to deserve mention here […]	No	No	Y	Y	Y	?	Y
[14]	01:37	JFG	Please get consensus before adding such a long tirade to the lede section. […]	No	Yes	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
[15]	19 Dec 06:41	Galobtter	add per Talk:[…], try out the new BRD™	Yes	No	Y	Y	Y	?	Y
[16]	09:12	Galobtter	clarify	Yes	No	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
[17]	10:10	Galobtter	clarify, based on suggestion from User:Politrukki	Yes	No	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
[18]	10:50	Galobtter	clarify per talk	Yes	No	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
[19]	11:38	JFG	Clarify scope of charges on Trump associates; improve grammar	Yes	No	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
[20]	12:45	MrX	Removing: "for charges unrelated to Russia's efforts". This is (not intentionally) misleading, at worst objectively false. Let;'s discuss further.	Yes	Yes	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
[21]	13:52	JFG	There is consensus in the ongoing discussion for explaining what Trump associates were or were not charged for; […] Let's continue on the talk page.	Yes	Yes	Y	Y	N	N	N
[22]	14:58	Galobtter	ce - russia's efforts makes sense to us but not when the paragraph is read by someone who doesn't know about all this; efforts at what?	Yes	No	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
[23]	15:14	MrX	this may help a little	Yes	No	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
[24]	21:26	Ahrtoodeetoo	'unrelated to Russian interference' is unsourced and most definitely false	Yes	Yes	Y	Y	N	N	N
[25]	23:21	Ahrtoodeetoo	Not just guilty pleas. There's a jury verdict as well.	No	No	Y	Y	N	Y	N
[26]	20 Dec 06:46	Galobtter	rvt change from "guilty please by" to "convictions" - quite inaccurate/false like I said on talk	Yes	Yes	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
[27]	14:05	JFG	Six editors support a more precise wording	Yes	Yes	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
[28]	14:05	JFG	c/e	No	No	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
[29]	14:08	JFG	Link to criminal charges	No	No	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
[30]	19:35	Ahrtoodeetoo	cn tag for 'unrelated to Russia's efforts' - see talk - I dispute that this is verifiably supported in the article body	Yes + started RfC	No	Y	Y	N	?	N
[31]	22:36	PackMecEng	Washington Post is cited in the body for this, CN tag is not needed	No	Yes	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
[32]	21 Dec 02:38	Muboshgu	bold edit per talk	Yes	Yes	Y	Y	N	N	N
[33]	03:45	D.Creish	Consensus was established here after much back and forth Talk:[…]	Yes	Yes	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
[34]	12:51	MrX	+tag linking to dispute. (Alternatively, the disputed words can be removed until there is clear consensus)	Yes	No	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
[35]	22:08	Drmies	more than just "disputed"--and here's the thing, without this modifier, the sentence is well-verified. with it, it becomes dubious.	Yes	Yes	Y	Y	N	N	N
[36]	22 Dec 21:17	Politrukki	charges against Flynn, Gates, Papadopoulos, Manafort, and Cohen were not related to alleged collusion	Yes	No	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
[37]	21:19	Politrukki	everything is now verifiable	Yes	Yes	Y	Y	Y	N	Y
[38]	21:41	Drmies	Reverted 2 edits by Politrukki (talk): Do not think this is that simple. see talk page.	Yes	Yes	N	N	N	N	N
[39]	22:09	D.Creish	rv 1RR violation by Drmies but more importantly prior consensus should stay until the new RfC is closed	Yes	Yes	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
[40]	23 Dec 00:35	Awilley	Protecting the WP:WRONG version due to slow edit war. This dispute won't be solved by compulsively reverting the same material in and out of the article.	Yes	No	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
[41]	24 Dec 15:27	Awilley	Restoring EC protection with the expectation that people will follow the spirit of WP:BRD, making edits that reasonably address the concerns of other editors instead of just reverting back and forth in a slow edit war	Yes	No	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
[42]	26 Dec 07:27	Markbassett	LEAD reverting line w wording dispute to long-standing para version, per ONUS and BRD; see TALK	Yes	Yes	Y	Y	N	Y	N
[43]	08:11	Calton	That was sudden.	No	Yes	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y

The 21:26 edit by Ahrtoodeetoo is acceptable under the "Awilley rule" because, although it's an exact repeat of MrX's revert at 12:45, challenged by me at 13:52, it was performed by a different editor. The "JFG rule" would prohibit this for all editors until 24 hours have elapsed. As you noted above, my own revert of MrX would have been prohibited as well, but somebody would have probably returned the text to statu quo ante (before the first bold edit by Galobtter at 06:41) rather than leaving the imprecise text in place. Let's see what happens next… — JFG ^talk 23:16, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

So I think here we are seeing the "reverting" against a discussion that is at-least leaning towards including that qualifier if not having a consensus for it. Galobtter (pingó mió) 04:32, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm trying to walk a fine line here between cracking down on people who edit war against consensus like I said I would, and letting things run organically to get an honest view of how things would work if there weren't admins hovering. ~Awilley (talk) 13:40, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Regarding my addition of "The investigation has led to guilty pleas from a number of Trump associates."; while it may not would have been a CR violation, had the CR restriction been there I'd have waited for agreement from the reverter (JFG) - CR really discourages even restoring similar edits even if they take into account objections. Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:44, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Understood. I agree that the CR cloud has a chilling effect; that's why we're here trying a lighter set of rules. — JFG ^talk 15:03, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Responding to the above, CR explicitly prohibits restoring similar material without talkpage consensus. ~Awilley (talk) 20:24, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Right, and that puts us back in a situation where different people will have a different appreciation of whether sufficient consensus has been reached. That is one of the weak points of CR in delicate cases like the one at hand. — JFG ^talk 20:56, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

@JFG, I've been thinking about a way to implement something like your suggestion but in a clearer manner without all the convoluted case scenarios. (some might see that as ironic coming from me.) I wonder if a modified version of regular CR might work, with an escape clause that allows editing to resume every 24 hours. For example: If an edit has been challenged (via reversion) no editor may reinstate that edit sooner than 24 hours (from the original edit) without obtaining consensus on the talk page. This includes making edits similar to the ones that have been challenged. ~Awilley (talk) 20:24, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

That does look simpler, and would adequately prohibit edits such as the 21:26 case above. However, it would still let the opposing editor do their thing after 24 hours, moving into the slow-revert-war scenario. I think we must specify that any re-instatement of a challenged edit must demonstrably have taken into account the challenger's arguments. We want to encourage iterations on the challenged wording based on reasonable discussion by involved editors (the D spirit from BRD), not enable slow-moving revert wars with people repeating the same arguments and talking past each other, until one of them gets exhausted. — JFG ^talk 21:21, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

@Galobtter, as soon as you get tired of seeing the orange bar of death feel free to close this and copy-paste this everything with a note over to Template talk:American politics AE or something. You've been very kind to host this workshop, but I don't want to take too much advantage. ~Awilley (talk) 20:24, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Not too much of an issue since you guys are largely discussing while I'm asleep, but I've moved it since this is a better place. Galobtter (pingó mió) 07:18, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

@Awilley: In this ongoing exercise, I would like us to agree on the evaluation of violations, because if we don't, it means the rules are unclear and would fail at AE adjudication, so let me reply to your editsum comment: I don't see that adding a {{cn}} tag violates any of the sanctions. It's not a revert because no cn tag had ever been added or removed from that sentence. It's definitely WP:POINTy though. The CN tag addition violates CR because, at the time of adding it, talk page discussion shows 7 editors endorsing the text against 1 repeat opposer, and because the statement has been appropriately sourced to The Washington Post. Additionally, it violates the part of "JFG rule" that states: If that is in turn challenged the burden is on the challenger to explain how the discussion arguments were not reflected in the new edit, and the clock re-starts for 24 hours before this same part of the article can be changed. Ahrtoodeetoo's edit at 19:35 is just 6 hours after my challenge at 14:05 of his previous change calling the phrase unsourced at 21:26 yesterday. We could also argue that the CN edit fails to recognize the emerging consensus on the talk page. If, on the other hand, a consensus develops rapidly on the talk page, either for or against your edit, neither you nor other editors should attempt to stonewall the change with repetitive objections against the consensus view. — JFG ^talk 20:53, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

OK, I can see how it would be a violation of the "attempt to stonewall" bit. That would be an interesting case if it went to AE. "I wasn't stonewalling, I legitimately wanted a citation for the sentence!"

On whether it violates CR, I think you might be reading too much into the name of the sanction (i.e. that "consensus required" means "you must not make any edit against consensus"). This is not the case. If you look at the actual wording of the sanction you'll see that it only governs what happens after something has been challenged by a revert. Nothing similar to the {{cn}} tag had never been added or removed from that sentence before, so adding the {{cn}} tag was an initial Bold edit. If in the future somebody removed the {{cn}} tag then it could never be re-added without a talkpage consensus under CN (kind of a ridiculous prospect). ~Awilley (talk) 21:13, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Technically, the CN tag is a new thing, that by definition has not been challenged yet. However, in the 21:26 edit, R2 already argued that the contested phrase was unsourced, and I challenged that assertion at 14:05, referring to a TP discussion where several editors deemed the sourcing appropriate. The CN tag is just a different way to make the same point, which is why in my interpretation is does violate the CR rule as written (after my 14:05 revert, R2 did not obtain consensus to re-instate an assertion that the contested phrase was unsourced). But all this discussion proves again that the CR rule is open to interpretation and has a chilling effect on less-bold editors. We need to construct a better formulation that filters out pointy behavior without hindering iterative progress on the article. The irony here is that on the talk page R2 claimed that other editors "disrupt the consensus-building process", while he was the only one editing against consensus. — JFG ^talk 21:34, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

With this morning's edits, we have entered the "tag team edit war" territory, which was identified as a weakness of the "Awilley rule". It is forbidden by both CR and the "JFG rule"; let's see how this would fare under your proposed "CR with 24h escape" rule. The original caveat regarding "unrelated" charges was added by Galobtter on 19 December at 10:10 and amended by me at 11:38. MrX removed it at 12:45, which I reverted at 13:52, citing emerging consensus. R2 removed it again at 21:26, which would have violated the proposed "CR for 24h" rule. After further discussion and 24 hours since "burning" my previous revert, I restored the text at 14:05 on 20 December, citing a 6/2 consensus for a more precise wording (which later morphed into a 7/1 consensus after MrX agreed to my version at 19:37). Later that day, R2 added the CN tag and started an RfC. Muboshgu erased the text again at 02:38 on 21 December, and was reverted by D.Creish at 03:45. Under "CR for 24h", it looks like the Muboshgu edit would have been allowed, because it occurred 29 hours after the R2 edit of 19 Dec 21:26. I feel that we need a rule that stops the "revert against consensus" after the first instance, i.e. the operative part in my proposed ruleset that places the onus on the person re-instating a challenged edit to demonstrate that objections from the challenger have been addressed. There is certainly a way to formulate this more concisely, let me think about it for a while. — JFG ^talk 06:46, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Proposals for a better ruleset

Let's recap what we learned, and iterate to find a clear and efficient ruleset. Note that all these rules are assumed to be enforced in addition to a standard 1RR provision. — JFG ^talk 08:15, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Original "Consensus required" , a.k.a. "Coffee rule"

All editors must obtain consensus on the talk page of this article before reinstating any edits that have been challenged (via reversion). This includes making edits similar to the ones that have been challenged. If in doubt, don't make the edit.

Very effective to stabilize articles and prevent POV pushing. Conversely it has slowed down article improvement (emboldened status quo stonewalling) and triggered excessive RfCs. Also prone to lengthy disputes about interpretation in numerous AE cases. This state of affairs has discouraged many editors from participating due to fear of unwittingly tripping up unclear limits and ending up sanctioned for good-faith edits.

Current rule "Enforced BRD", a.k.a. "Awilley rule"

If an edit you make is challenged by reversion you must discuss the issue on the article talk page and wait 24 hours (from the time of the original edit) before reinstating your edit.

Efficiently lifts the chilling effect of CR, allowing iterative improvement of challenged text, but ends up too permissive, especially for tag-team battles, because it only addresses the original editor's behavior. It also fails to explicitly forbid reinstatements against consensus after 24 hours.

Proposed rule "Enforced slow BRD", a.k.a. "JFG rule"

If an edit has been challenged by reversion, you must discuss the substance of it on the talk page, and wait 24 hours before re-instating this exact edit or a very similar one. Other editors are also prohibited from making the same edit for 24 hours, and encouraged instead to take part in the discussion and suggest a more acceptable variant. After 24 hours have elapsed, you or another editor can place in the article a wording that has previously been suggested on the talk page, or a new one that takes into account the arguments made in the intervening discussion. If that is in turn challenged the burden is on the challenger to explain how the discussion arguments were not reflected in the new edit, and the clock re-starts for 24 hours before this same part of the article can be changed. If, on the other hand, a consensus develops rapidly on the talk page, either for or against your edit, neither you nor other editors should attempt to stonewall the change with repetitive objections against the consensus view.

More permissive than Coffee and less than Awilley. Prevents stonewalling and catches the cases of tag teaming, but formulation is too complex and prone to interpretation disputes. May also be a bit too restrictive for good-faith improvement attempts.

Proposed rule "CR for 24 hours"

If an edit has been challenged (via reversion) no editor may reinstate that edit sooner than 24 hours (from the original edit) without obtaining consensus on the talk page. This includes making edits similar to the ones that have been challenged.

Simple and effective, easy to enforce. However does not prevent repetitive reverts against consensus after 24 hours, so that tag teaming still occurs, only slower.

Proposed rule "Spirit of BRD"

When an edit has been challenged (via reversion), all involved editors must strive to develop a consensus version on the talk page, taking into account each other's objections. The challenged text, or similar contents, can must not be re-instated before 24 hours have elapsed since the original bold edit. After 24 hours, any editor can implement a wording that has previously gathered support on the talk page, or a new one that takes into account the arguments made in the intervening discussion.

Should allow iterative content improvement while providing reasonable stability against quick edit wars. Easy to interpret and enforce. Added it to the case study above. To be tested in the field. — JFG ^talk 08:15, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

The problem with spirit of BRD is that is too vague. The thing with restrictions, is that they only work if one can block people or topic ban them if they violate a portion of it; anything else is an "encouragement" that doesn't work (a la, "please be civil" or whatever); admins aren't really going to block someone for not e.g, "taking into account each other's objections" etc. Galobtter (pingó mió) 18:38, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Do you really think that's too vague? I think it's less vague than the CR restriction, which has generated so much hair-splitting about who challenged what when, and what level of discussion could be construed as consensus. Already in the unfolding case study above, we have noticed that it's hard for the participants here, all experienced DS/AP editors including admins, to agree whether some edits did or did not violate CR. No such disagreement arises from the Awilley rule or (yet) from the proposed "Spirit of BRD". You say it would be hard to detect violations? There are strong bright lines in the rule's language:

• Obligation to engage on the talk page ("all involved editors must strive to develop a consensus version on the talk page…")
• Prohibition from re-instating the same language or anything similar for 24 hours (may be we should say "must not be re-instated" instead of "can not be re-instated" here)
• When editing the same passage again after the cool-down period, the proposed wording must have gathered support on the talk page. This is intentionally vague so that stonewallers cannot filibuster against an emerging consensus, but also sufficiently strict that a lone POV pusher cannot ninja-restore his preferred angle on things without having convinced at least another discussion participant that his edit has merit. That weeds out a lot of disruption cases already, especially on less-prominent articles that do not have hundreds of eyeballs on them all the time.
• The part mandating to take into account discussion arguments is here to provide admins with a common-sense hook to warn or sanction IDHT-type editors who keep repeating their own point without paying attention to whatever the challengers are saying. Future AE scene: "I did pay attention, the other guy's position is just untenable." "Well, how have you refuted their argument beyond calling it untenable?" "My version is obviously true." "Meh. Go read WP:VNT and WP:RGW. Besides, even "being right" does not excuse you from following the rules and constructively seeking consensus."

Naturally, the wording can probably be further tightened, and I believe we can reach a crisp and efficient rule that is both easy to understand and easy to enforce. (I am well know for my general optimism towards life…) — JFG ^talk 23:11, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

@Awilley: Any feedback on this proposed ruleset yet? — JFG ^talk 18:43, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

It's been in the back of my mind, but I've been rather busy lately and I was flat-on-my-back sick most of yesterday. I will get to it at some point. On a slightly related note, I'm a bit worried that a lack of objectivity might be influencing your table above. I noticed that reverts against your preferred revision usually get a N while reverts in favor of your revision get a Y. The fact is that there is no STATUSQUO revision, and if there were one it would probably be Galobtter's paragraph before they added the "unrelated" bit. The talkpage consensus originally favored your revision, but it swung the other way and is currently about tied. ~Awilley (talk) 19:23, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Rest assured that I have been striving to evaluate each edit against the various proposed rules, irrespective of which way the edit swings about the content dispute. After the initial bold edits and rapid refinements, an early consensus was established in the thread Talk:Donald Trump#Description of Mueller inquiry in lead, by 7 to 1. Then the one dissenting editor started an RfC, in which indeed responses have been mixed so far. Perhaps your feeling of potential bias is based on the interpretation that the early consensus should be vacated because of responses in the ongoing RfC, while I do believe the text should not be modified while the RfC is ongoing (unless it trended towards a SNOW close, which is not the case). In any case, the ruleset amendment that I suggested would have prevented the edit war that you eventually had to stop by full protection, so it deserves consideration.

Wishing you a healthy recovery in time for Christmas Eve! — JFG ^talk 09:20, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

The status quo would be the last paragraph in this revision, i.e before the business of guilty pleas in the lead. Galobtter (pingó mió) 09:25, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Correct: that would be the anchor version if CR had still been in effect at this article. Under the current and other proposed rules, a second anchor point was reached just prior to the RfC. I don't see how an admin could mandate reversion to the first anchor point under any of the non-CR proposed rules. In particular, my 13:52 edit, which would not have been acceptable under the "JFG rule" or under "Spirit of BRD", would have still occurred under those rules, only a bit later: it would have been delayed until next morning, to comply with "wait for 24 hours after the original challenged edit", which was Galobtter's "try out the new BRD" at 06:41 on 19 December. Now the 13:52 edit, even delayed, could have been challenged by an opponent back to the first anchor point, but then we would have lost iterative improvements from 14:58 to 23:21. All considered, I feel that iterative edits were going on just fine, until the RfC started and polarized people into "for and against the four-word caveat" groups. And from that time, we saw reverts back and forth of the RfC-challenged text, which strikes me as unambiguous bad form. When opining during an RfC, you're not supposed to go along and alter the article text based on your opinion (unless there's egregious vandalism or privacy-invading contents). That task should be left to the closer. — JFG ^talk 13:42, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I've been disappointed too by what happened after the RfC started. Almost all attempts to compromise stopped and people slipped back into old habits, with the "regulars" firmly entrenching themselves in their normal and expected positions (with the notable exception of Scjessey). I've been trying to nudge people to try to understand the objections of the people on the "other side" and try to find a half-way compromise or Bold edit that reasonably accounts for some of those objections but I've gotten almost zero interest. I gave PackMecEng a fairly direct nudge, asking her to come half-way, and her response was to pull back even further, saying it would be better to just "kill the whole sentence". So yeah, I'm not convinced the RfC was needed in the first place, and I suspect it has actually made things worse, significantly slowing us down on the path to resolving the issue. I guess this result should be unsurprising because it takes time and effort to extinguish a bad habit; but I was hoping to see a little more effort by some folks. Maybe you, JFG, can come up with something. You've got a couple of different places you can start from. There were a bunch of ideas here that you shot down one-by-one, but I think you're smart and creative enough to tweak any one of those proposals to resolve your objection. Like you rejected the initial proposal because collusion isn't a crime one can be charged with, but how hard would it be to say that the charges were unrelated to collusion? There. Consider that a nudge (or prod?) for you to be the one to break the reverting cycle. ~Awilley (talk) 14:57, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

As much as I'd love to come up with an acceptable formulation for both "sides", I am out of ideas at the moment. Once we accept the premise that guilty pleas or convictions of Trump associates should be mentioned in the lede, it is unavoidable to reach a fundamental difference of opinion between editors who want to clarify that none of these people were charged with playing any role in Russian election interference (much less of "colluding", whatever that is), and editors who prefer to leave that unsaid either because it makes Trump look bad or because they speculate that Mueller may yet come up with Russia-related charges. This looks like a very hairy debate to settle, and I'm curious to see how the RfC will develop and eventually be closed. In any case I wouldn't touch the text during an ongoing RfC. In the "Alternate proposal" thread, R2 offered earlier to withdraw the RfC if some other wording was accepted, and that would have been a very constructive resolution. Unfortunately, we did not find consensus there, and many opinions started rolling into the Survey section, which would make an RfC cancellation unwise by now. — JFG ^talk 10:19, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

JFG, I've made a small addition to the current rule [44] that I think brings it a bit closer to the "Spirit of BRD". Like parts of the "Spirit of BRD" rule you proposed above, this isn't something admins can enforce with bright line violations, but it does provide some extra guidance. While it won't change any of the ticks or crosses in the chart above, if the rule were applied retroactively it would make a lot of the edit warring ticks "technical non-violations" that go against the spirit of the rule. Also I only spent about a half hour coming up with that wording, drawing from my FAQ and the text of WP:BRD (compared to the many hours I spent over several weeks tweaking the wording for the rest of the sanction), so there is probably some room for improvement. ~Awilley (talk) 01:44, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

@JFG: So I just wanted to share some thoughts I had about the rules you proposed above. First I want to share (a mangled version of) an analogy I remember User:Newyorkbrad sharing some time ago. From what I remember he used the example of a fairly standard city ordinance that reads something along the lines of "No pets allowed on the grass" and how that ordinance would apply to the following situations:

1. Someone playing fetch with an off-leash dog on the grass
2. Someone walking their leashed dog across the grass
3. Someone carrying their cat on the grass
4. A blind person walking across the grass with a guide dog
5. A police officer with a K-9 unit
6. Someone carrying a cage with a mouse inside

It's clear that some of the later examples don't violate the spirit of what the law was trying to prevent, so one might be tempted to rewrite the law to allow for all of the possible exceptions. You could conceivably write a law that says "No pets on the grass except for guide dogs or assistant animals or small animals in cages or law enforcement animals...etc." But (if I correctly remember NYB's point) it is better to just have a simple law that says "No pets on the grass" and then to enforce that law with discretion.

Anyway, every time I look at the "Enforced slow BRD" rule the grass analogy comes to mind. Yes, the rule accurately describes a very good approach to resolving disputes, but I think it's way too complicated. People won't read it, or they won't understand it, or they won't remember it. I had to read it several times before understanding it, and even now I wouldn't be able to repeat the entire process back with all the caveats by memory. I think I just used 3 paragraphs when I should have just linked WP:CREEP.

I'm running short on time tonight, so I'll get to the other 3 at another time. ~Awilley (talk) 03:21, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

...Continued... I think my primary concern with the other proposals is a concern that I had with the original CR rule and the modified 1RR rule that was in effect in Israeli-Palestine articles last year. The concern is that whether an edit/revert of yours violates the rule or not depends in part upon the actions of other editors. So a new editor could come along and make a perfectly normal edit that would be fine in any other circumstance, but the edit violates the sanction because at some point in the past another editor made a similar edit that was "challenged". I'd prefer to have editors just be responsible for their own actions instead of having to carry around the mental load of trying to keep track of what everybody else is doing at all the articles they edit. Does that make sense? ~Awilley (talk) 02:43, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

@JFG: I was reading over the discussion above, and I was wondering if you have any feedback now that the BRD sanction has been in place for some time. In your first comment here you said, "My editing experience in the AP subject area over the last two years has been at some times very pleasant and at others very frustrating." I'm wondering if the move away from CR has had any noticeable effect. Tell me, how do you feel? ~Awilley (talk) 20:20, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Greetings Awilley. Sorry I did not answer your remarks in time. The editing climate on this particular article has calmed down, but I did not think we had enough hindsight to evaluate the improvement generally. I have seen quite frustrating discussions on other contentious pages, such as Presidency of Donald Trump or Timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Now an edit war has just developed at Donald Trump and reminded me of this rules discussion. See below #Preventing tag-team edit wars. — JFG ^talk 19:45, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Preventing tag-team edit wars

A recent thread at Talk:Donald Trump#Reversion explanation illustrates a situation that is not addressed by the current "Enforced BRD" rule: an editor adds a piece of content, another one reverts it as undue, and many different people start a restore and revert cycle, a.k.a. "tag team edit warring", all of them claiming they are right, rule-abiding (using their individual 1RR), and getting offended when somebody points out that they are fueling an edit war. An admin can't say a thing, because everyone is guilty or everyone is innocent. Meanwhile nobody is working towards consensus because they are all bickering about who did or did not violate the rules. Methinks the proposed "Spirit of BRD" rule would help in such cases, by just forcing everybody to pause for 24 hours before restoring news-of-the-day content. Editors could use that time-out to actually discuss the merits of the proposed edit instead of shouting "I'm obviously right" in edit summaries of each revert. — JFG ^talk 19:45, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. Looking at the Donald Trump talk page you mentioned above, it looks like some of the "bickering" you're talking about is the result of confusion where some editors (for instance Scjessey and MONGO and Markbasset) have conflated the new BRD with the old Consensus Required, and because Scjessey didn't realize the material had been added recently. If Consensus Required or the "Spirit of BRD" rule had been in place, Scjessey's revert would have been a violation of the sanction, not through any malice on his part, but because he didn't scrutinize the article history close enough to see the content that MONGO removed here (without anything in the edit summary indicating it was a revert) had been added earlier in two separate edits (making it harder to spot because the bytes didn't match MONGO's revert). Then we would get to have the conversation where people try to show Scjessey where he made a mistake. And if Scjessey has gone offline for a while, anybody is free to file an AE report where a dozen people can analyze the violation and argue over whether it is significant enough to merit a sanction.

The point I'm getting at is that I don't think it's good practice to have a sanction that requires someone to keep track of other people's reverts. It's enough trouble keeping track of your own reverts. Don't punish Scjessey for not realizing that Mongo's edit was a revert, but do punish Scjessey if he violates 1RR.

Yes, tag-team edit wars will occasionally happen, but they also seem to peter out on their own without administrative intervention. A few people use up their first 1RR revert initially, but I haven't seen many people gaming the system with reverts on days 2 and 3. ~Awilley (talk) 02:09, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't think it's that hard to track recent reverts, and the point of the restriction is not to punish people who make an honest mistake, but to prevent edit-warring and to promote constructive discussion instead. Scjessey promptly apologized when MONGO pointed out that he had restored reverted content. It's also true that "regulars" at these articles are still behaving as if the old CR rule was still in place; such a cautious approach to editing is welcome, and it's good that the specter of AE disputes has been lifted thanks to the lighter "Enforced BRD" rule. Still, some editors are not working in the spirit of BRD, as they wage revert wars without any substantive discussion of the merits on the talk page. Soibangla even insists that his insertion of content that was immediately reverted was "not a bold edit",[45] and dismisses disagreement by several reverting editors on those grounds. How can the rules nudge people to discuss contents more than they discuss process? I'm acutely aware of the irony of my discussing a process to try and encourage people to focus less on process. At least I'm doing this on a process page, not a content page. — JFG ^talk 06:33, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Re: "I don't think it's that hard to track recent reverts" Let me try an allegory.

"Take ONE"

• Pam from The Office, in an effort to improve morale, puts a bowl of candy on her desk. To prevent Kevin from eating all the candy she institutes a rule of one piece of candy per person per day. Dwight, who sits facing Pam's desk, keeps an eye on the bowl and keeps a log of who takes candy, and the log is consulted if someone is suspected of taking multiple pieces of candy.
• Jim, who also sits near Pam's desk, notices that some people are disproportionately taking the fun-size Snickers bars every day, and that it's becoming a source of conflict. To put an end to the Snickers Wars, Jim proposes a new rule: One piece of candy per person per day, and one piece of each type of candy per the office per day. So a Snickers bar can only be taken once per day.
• Oscar pipes up, saying "Guys, you're making this too complicated. I don't mind limiting myself to one piece of candy per day, but asking me to track what everybody else in the office eats is too much."
• Jim responds, "It's not that hard to keep an eye on what other people are taking, and if you're ever unsure you can just check Dwight's log.
• "Yeah!" says Dwight.
• Oscar retorts, "Not everybody pays as close attention as you two, and I don't want to get into a situation where we're punishing people for not keeping track of what everybody else in the office is doing."
• Jim: "This isn't about punishing people for honest mistakes."
• Dwight: "We can have office meetings every time there is a violation so we can determine whether people were acting in good faith. I'll start work on devising a demerit system."
• [Toby and Kelly saunter in separately from the annex; both grab Snickers bars]

~Awilley (talk) 14:49, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

In short, WP:NOTBURO. You win the contest for next addition to the Signpost's humor column. — JFG ^talk 20:26, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

• In that regard, consider the following example. User Onetwothreeip edit war on a page [46],[47],[48],[49],[50],[51]. Right after that, here same user Onetwothreeip invites user JFG to support him with reverts, and they actually do it together [52], [53]. They did it on this page before: [54],[55]. Note that JFG resumed reverts right after filing a DRN request. Is not it a tag-team edit war? My very best wishes (talk) 03:32, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

  @My very best wishes: You are cherry-picking edits and misrepresenting the situation. Following disagreements between various editors on including or removing pre-2015 stories from this timeline, and back-and-forth removals and restorations, I have suggested a process to reach consensus, by splitting the disputed contents into logical themes, and discussing the relevance of each theme in separate threads. As some of these threads reached consensus, I have acted on it. In other threads (actually most of them), there is no consensus, and I have deferred to the DRN process. Sometimes, you are the only person opposing, and I have fully respected your views as indicating lack of consensus. In particular, in the Butina thread where Onetwothreeip opined that other editors should remove the content, I have not done so, and I wrote instead: Status: A majority of commenting editors agree to remove all this, but one editor strongly opposes. Waiting for guidance from DRN process. Now you are trying to shut down the DRN process by making misleading claims there.[56] Let's work together instead. — JFG ^talk 06:11, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

I'd just like to know how long it's going to take until the inevitable happens, that large amounts of unnecessary detail are removed from the article? Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:21, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

No, I think that was correct presentation of the situation supported by diffs. If no one else wants to comment on that, I should probably wait and see if anything will be decided on DRN. My very best wishes (talk) 20:04, 20 May 2019 (UTC)