Wikipedia:Pending changes

"WP:PC" redirects here. For establishing context in articles, see WP:PCR. For press coverage, see WP:PRESS. For the Pokémon Collaborative, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Pokémon. For the Page Curation tool, see WP:PAGCUR.

"WP:PEND" redirects here. For pending AFC submissions, see CAT:PEND.

For a list of articles with pending changes needing review, see Special:PendingChanges.

Pending changes protection is a tool used to suppress vandalism and certain other persistent problems on Wikipedia while allowing good-faith users to submit their edits for review. Intended for infrequently edited articles that are experiencing high levels of such problematic edits from new or unregistered users, pending changes protection can be used as an alternative to semi-protection and full protection to allow unregistered and new users to edit pages, while keeping the edits hidden to most readers until they are accepted by a reviewer. There are relatively few articles on Wikipedia with this type of protection.

When a page under pending changes protection is edited by an unregistered (also called IP) editor or a new user, the edit is not directly visible to the majority of Wikipedia readers, until it is reviewed and accepted by an editor with the reviewer right.

Pending changes are visible in the page history, where they are marked as pending review. The latest accepted revision is displayed to the general public, while logged-in users see the latest revision of the page, with all changes applied. When editors who are not reviewers make changes to an article with unreviewed pending changes, their edits are also marked as pending and are not visible to most readers.

Both logged-in users and anonymous users who click the "edit this page" tab edit the latest version as usual. If there are pending changes awaiting review, there will be a dropdown box next to the article title, pointing to the pending changes.

Pending changes may be used to protect articles against persistent vandalism, violations of the biographies of living persons policy, and copyright violations.

heh gay...

Administrators may apply pending changes protection to pages that are subject to heavy and persistent vandalism, violations of the biographies of living persons policy, or insertion of content that violates copyright. Pending changes protection should not be used as a preemptive measure against violations that have not yet occurred, nor should it be used to privilege registered users over unregistered users in content disputes. Pending changes protection should not be used on articles with a very high edit rate, even if they meet the aforementioned criteria. Instead semi-protection should be considered.

In addition, administrators may apply temporary pending changes protection on pages that are subject to significant but temporary vandalism or disruption (for example, due to media attention) when blocking individual users is not a feasible option. As with other forms of protection, the time frame of the protection should be proportional to the problem. Indefinite PC protection should only be used in cases of severe long-term disruption.

Like semi-protection, PC protection should never be used in genuine content disputes, where there is a risk of placing a particular group of editors at a disadvantage.

Editors without administrator privileges can request page protection if the above criteria are met. Removal of pending changes protection can be requested of any administrator, or at requests for unprotection.

Reviewing pending edits

The process of reviewing is intended as a quick check to ensure edits don't contain vandalism, violations of the policy on living people, copyright violations, or other obviously inappropriate content. Reviewers are users sufficiently experienced who are granted the ability to accept other users' edits. Reviewers have a similar level of trust to rollbackers; all administrators have the reviewer right. Potential reviewers should recognize vandalism, be familiar with basic content policies such as the policy on living people, and have a reasonable level of experience editing Wikipedia. Reading the reviewing guideline, where the reviewing process and expectations for a reviewer are detailed, is recommended.

Acceptance of an edit by a reviewer is not an endorsement of the correctness of the edit. It merely indicates that the edit has been checked for obvious problems as listed above.

Reviewer rights are granted upon request at Wikipedia:Requests for permissions. While any administrator has the technical ability to remove the reviewer permission, removal should occur only as the result of consensus from a discussion or when an editor requests the removal of their own permission. Discussion regarding removal of the reviewer permission should normally occur at the Administrators' noticeboard. Discussion with the involved editor and/or a request for a second opinion at the Pending changes talk page is recommended before formally requesting removal.

Reviewing of pending changes should be resolved within reasonable time limits (at most a few hours). Backlog management should be coordinated at a community level. The backlog can be viewed at Special:PendingChanges. As of January 2013, edits are rarely unreviewed for more than two to three hours and the backlog is frequently empty.

Effect of various protection levels

Interaction of Wikipedia user groups and page protection levels

	Unregistered or newly registered	Confirmed or autoconfirmed	Extended confirmed	Template editor  ★	Admin	Interface admin	Appropriate for (See also: Wikipedia:Protection policy)
No protection	Normal editing						The vast majority of pages. This is the default protection level.
Pending changes	All users can edit Edits by unregistered or newly registered editors (and any subsequent edits by anyone) are hidden from readers who are not logged in until reviewed by a pending changes reviewer or administrator. Logged-in editors see all edits, whether accepted or not.						Infrequently edited pages with high levels of vandalism, BLP violations, edit-warring, or other disruption from unregistered and new users.
Semi	Cannot edit	Normal editing					Pages that have been persistently vandalized by anonymous and registered users. Some highly visible templates and modules.
Extended confirmed	Cannot edit		Normal editing				Specific topic areas authorized by ArbCom, pages where semi-protection has failed, or high-risk templates where template protection would be too restrictive.
Template	Cannot edit			Normal editing			High-risk or very-frequently used templates and modules. Some high-risk pages outside of template space.
Full	Cannot edit				Normal editing		Pages with persistent disruption from extended confirmed accounts.
Interface	Cannot edit					Normal editing	Scripts, stylesheets, and similar objects central to operation of the site or that are in other editors' user spaces.
★  The table assumes a template editor also has extended confirmed privileges, which is almost always the case in practice.
Other modes of protection: Create protection Move protection Upload protection Office protection Cascade protection

Frequently asked questions

If an established user edits an article with unreviewed pending changes, is the new version automatically accepted?

No. If the user is a reviewer (that is, the user has been granted the "reviewer" permission), he/she will be prompted to review and accept any unreviewed pending changes. If the user is not a reviewer, the edit will also be marked as "pending review". (Reviewers can test this by unaccepting the current version of a page under pending changes and then trying to edit.) An exception to this is when a user reverts a pending edit to the latest accepted revision: in this case the revert is automatically accepted.

What happens if several IP edits to an article under pending changes result in a null edit? (For example, an IP makes an edit, then another IP undoes it.)

If they were all made by a single IP, the new version is automatically accepted. If different users edited, the new version is not accepted (to prevent potential abuse).

On which kind of pages can pending changes be used?

It was determined by consensus that pending changes could only be used on articles, subject to the protection policy. The only exceptions are pages in Wikipedia namespace reserved for testing at Wikipedia:Pending changes/Testing. It is not technically possible for talk pages to be placed on pending changes. As of 2013, pending changes on templates is functional only if both the template and the article using that template are placed under pending changes protection. Protecting the template alone does not prevent unprotected articles from displaying the newest, unreviewed versions of the template.

Wasn't pending changes protection dropped?

Yes and no. Pending changes protection was deployed on a trial basis in 2010. In 2011, pending changes protection was dropped as a mechanism for protecting pages, until a consensus agreement on its deployment was reached. There have been a series of discussions on using the feature and it was put back into service on December 1, 2012. During the first three to six months, only pending changes level 1, affecting the edits of new and unregistered users, is being used. The use of level 2 may be proposed for truly exceptional cases, but is rarely accepted.

Timeline

See also: Template:Pending changes discussions

Below is a list of past discussions and polls relating to the Pending-Changes feature:

• March 2009: First poll 4 to 1 approving original trial
• May 2010: RFC on some pre-trial issues
• June 2010 – August 2010: Pending changes trial
• August 2010: Straw poll 2 to 1 in favor of continuing PC in some form
• September 2010: Straw poll on interim usage
• September 2010 – May 2011: Continuation of pending changes without clear mandate
• February 2011 – May 2011: PC RfC 2011 Ended the original PC trial.
• March 2012 – June 2012: PC RfC 2012 established consensus to enable PC before the end of 2012.
  • September 2012: WP:PC2012/RfC 1 discussed whether to use Level 2 pending changes.
  • October 2012: WP:PC2012/RfC 2 discussed when to apply pending changes, the criteria for rejecting edits, and various ideas for reducing backlog.
  • November 2012: WP:PC2012/RfC 3 discussed deployment and usage of the pending changes feature.
• December 2012 – : Pending changes re-enabled on a permanent basis
• May 2013: PC RfC 2013 is closed as requiring further discussion for implementation. It reopened the question of whether to use Level 2 pending changes.
• January 2014: Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2014 opened to determine if there is consensus on how to implement pending changes level 2. By the time it was closed in June, there was no longer a consensus to use pending changes level 2 at all, but if and when such a consensus does develop, there is some consensus on when to apply it.

See also

• Wikipedia:Flagged protection and patrolled revisions, the original trial proposal.
• Wikipedia:PC2012, an overview of the 2012 implementation of pending changes.
• Wikipedia:Pending changes caveats, an essay on why the use of pending changes was severely limited.
• Wikipedia:Patrolled revisions, a request for a passive reviewing system, part of the original proposal.
• Wikipedia:Deferred revisions, a request for a way for the edit filter to defer suspect edits for review.

Interface

• Special:PendingChanges, pages with pending edits
• Special:StablePages, pages under pending changes.
• Special:ValidationStatistics, various statistics pertaining to the Pending Changes feature.

Logs

• Special:Log/stable, actions to enable or disable pending changes.
• Special:AdvancedReviewLog, actions to review edits.