Thoughts on the edit warring policy

Where are we leading? Do we crowner that edit war isn't "always an immediate suspension" and impletemnt a notifier?

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

I feel it's been long enough for a crowner if we're ready, but I wasn't sure what to put on one.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

If the ABA rule is loosened, should we retroactively unsuspend/unban those (or at least some of those) who had violated the previous ABA rule?

100 years of hard labor in old pudding! (My Troper Wall)

I feel like we could at least release any current suspensions for ABA cycles (or ABAB cycles if multiple people were involved) and be less harsh if someone with a prior suspension gets suspended from the wiki another time, but that's just my opinion and not a mod statement. This ties into what I said about the workload being increased by the current system's strictness.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jan 9th 2024 at 12:11:32 PM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Yeah. It feels kinda backwards that someone can get suspended for ages at a time solely because they may have stumbled into an edit war. And releasing people would avoid issues in the future.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 9th 2024 at 1:16:14 PM

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I mean, I'm not sure what a crowner would achieve; have we even got multiple options? Beyond "change anything" and "change to one thing".

The proposal is... what, ABA(B) is just a reason to send a notifier now unless there's some other issue with the edit reasons that run into other rules anyway? Suspension would be reserved for continuing to go back and forth beyond that point or the usual 'repeatedly ignoring notifiers' issue?

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Follow-up to my previous question: You know how ppl are permabanned (or at least suspended indefinitely) from a certain part of this site if they violate a rule three times? Well, if tropers were permabanned (or indefinitely suspended) for violating the ABA rule three times, should their bans be reversed if the ABA rule is loosened?

Edited by JHD0919 on Jan 11th 2024 at 11:48:37 AM

100 years of hard labor in old pudding! (My Troper Wall)

I can't see why? Even under the proposed changes, doing an edit war multiple times after being told what to do is a much more serious violation since at that point it's less likely to be a mistake.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Do we have anything to work with for reforming the edit war rules? This thread's been up for a while, and I'd prefer to get the adjustments over with to make it easier to deal with edit war reports. (I've been going with a self-imposed moratorium on issuing suspensions for ABA edit wars, but I was thinking it's been long enough to make the changes official.)

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Go ahead and make the adjustments.

Edited by JHD0919 on Jan 20th 2024 at 9:02:13 AM

100 years of hard labor in old pudding! (My Troper Wall)

Which ones?

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

I tend to formulate "edit warring" as "repeating one's own edit many times", that might be a place to start from.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I mean, we may need a crowner or something since multiple variations of the rules (or at least multiple solutions) have floated around.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Yeah, I was thinking a crowner would be a good idea. I just wasn't sure what to put on it.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Fixing an example that violates the rules twice isn't suspension-worthy, but is doing so repeatedly?

Yes, I'm nodding at a certain message, but it is relevant here if we're clarifying what counts.

Edited by Amonimus on Jan 28th 2024 at 10:55:58 PM

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

On a general note, what's the underlying reason for suspensions of this kind? Is it to stop the warring or is it to punish? I once got suspended for an supposed warring incident dating two months back. So it obviously wasn't put in place to prevent further damage. Should the timeline factor into the mod's decision making?

With mod hat off - yes, timeline is a factor.

If we belatedly see that, say, someone has 30 notifications for Indentation and ZCE problems on the wiki, but none are newer than 2016 and they're still a regular editor, we're not going to suspend them for that.

Edit wars are trickier, because the problem only arises when two or more users clash. So the fact someone was in an edit war six months ago and the problem hasn't recurred doesn't mean they've now learned the policy. It might just mean that nobody has reverted an example they feel strongly about during that time — or, if someone has, they haven't noticed yet.

If, hypothetically, we spot an edit war from a year or more ago, I don't think there's a fixed rule. But my starting point would be to look at more recent edits, check notifiers, and see if there are other issues we might want to discuss (if so, I'd be more likely to suspend). Then we'd probably take a team decision, as we usually do on "grey area" cases.

Going by the first post, if someone else restores a previously deleted edit, then I wouldn't consider that edit-warring since it was a different troper who re-added.

I feel the threshold would be either of the following:
Troper A: Adds example
Troper B: Deletes example with valid edit reason
Troper A: Restores edit, with or without valid edit reason

Or

Troper A: Adds example
Troper B: Deletes example with valid edit reason.
Troper C: Re-adds example, with or without valid edit reason.
Troper B: Re-deletes example, citing valid edit reason.

I would consider the first one to be edit-warring on the part of Troper A.
I feel the second one would be edit-warring on the part of Troper B.

So...anyone else wanna chime in?

100 years of hard labor in old pudding! (My Troper Wall)

Trying to fit my older post to crowner format.

• Change the treatement of "A-B-A edit cycle" from "immediate suspension, with exceptions" to a regular editing violation that should be resolved through Notifiers (with a new "edit-warring" notifier being made) and requesting the tropers noticing the dispute to start a discussion at the Discussion tab and inviting parties involved. Ask The Tropers is to be considered "when everything else fails". In case of signs of agenda, it's fine to open an Ask The Tropers query to get a moderator's viewpoint.
• Specify that launching a trope through Trope Launch Pad doesn't count as the troper's first edit when the policy is concerned, as TLP drafts are considered to be community-made. Suspicious edits can still be discussed at Ask The Tropers.
• In case an Ask The Tropers query is made regarding edit-warring, require getting attention of involved parties through ~ ping format, except when there are concerns for provoking vandalism.

e: updated

Edited by Amonimus on Mar 3rd 2024 at 11:09:01 PM

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

This might be assumed already, but if option one is taken, I would like to add a caveat that any edits that qualify as an edit war (that is, the second A in the ABA cycle), would be reverted by default while the issue is being discussed. And that doing so wouldn't qualify as edit warring. Since there's potential for edit wars to end with the discussion just kinda petering out and leaving in whoever's edit is most stubborn about it

That sounds like dumping fuel on the fire, though. Even with such a practice, the most stubborn party would have an advantage, anyway.

Come to think of it, is this really crowner-worthy? The suspension thresholds tend to be customs applied by moderators, not a set-in-stone policy.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I haven't really observed it not being consistently enforced and reported accordingly. If it's not going to be strict, it's one of the biggest changes yet.

Edited by Amonimus on Mar 2nd 2024 at 2:27:41 PM

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

I'll put forth a proposal: Moderators should only be called if attempts to initiate a discussion - say, by moving the contested text to discussion - have failed or if there are good reasons to believe that such attempts will fail.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman