Help talk:Reverting

Previous discussions are archived in /Archive 1. This includes threads relating to material which can now be found at WP:Reverting. Please continue discussing those topics at WT:Reverting. Please use this page for discussion of the content of this help page. Thanks.--Kotniski (talk) 12:27, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

???

Article not clear and did not adequately explain steps for reverting. This section needs to be more a "how to" and less encyclopedia article on merits and circumstances of reverting. KnowS (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:22, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't the "Manual reverting" section explain this in step-by-step detail? -- Kndimov (talk) 02:39, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I find this is the problem with most help pages in Wikipedia. Strong on the whys and general background (far too much info) but very poor on the hows tos. --P123ct1 (talk) 20:26, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

WP:"

WP editors will revert anything they feel like. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.69.120 (talk) 16:49, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

This is related to here. Why does WP:" redirect to Undo? Simply south (talk) 20:46, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it's some kind of code? Don't know.--Kotniski (talk) 16:14, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia-specific help section

Does anyone actually do this (I mean manually put links to users' contributions pages in edit summaries). Seems a bit of a waste of people's time encouraging them to do this. Surely the edit summaries we see in that form are automatically generated ones. I propose removing this whole section.--Kotniski (talk) 16:14, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, I"m going to do this (revert if you disagree for some good reason).--Kotniski (talk) 09:30, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

deleting pages

Hello, There must be some misunderstanding. I'm new on wiki and like to know why some pages are deleted. Thank you, Gerard —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gerabene (talk • contribs) 20:58, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

You might find this page useful: Wikipedia:Deletion policy. Check the section "Reasons for deletion". -- Kndimov (talk) 02:41, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

NPOV exists in a truthful statement

Why was my edit deleted? It was sourced an accurate, and there was no discussion beforehand. If we omit this fact then Outrage! is misrepresented. The POV problem is in deleting it. Outrage does currently advocate the repeal of age-of-consent laws.David4442 (talk) 16:14, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Can you please specify which edit you are referring to? -- Kndimov (talk) 02:43, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Space available for edit summary

We are encouraged "If you are undoing an edit that is not vandalism, explain the reason in the edit summary. Do not use the default message only." However, of the 200 characters that the editbox allows, 59 + 3 x (number of characters in the reverted editor's name) are already taken up. The edit number is of little use to those reviewing the edit history (the date of the edit might be more useful to most such people): why do we need direct links to both the contributions history and the talk page of the editor being reverted? Would a serious loss of utility result from replacing

• [[WP:UNDO|Undid]] revision 999999999 by [[Special:Contributions/Editorbeingreverted|Editorbeingreverted]] ([[User talk:Editorbeingreverted|talk]])
  with
• [[WP:UNDO|Undid]] revision by [[User:Editorbeingreverted]]

The former allows for 54 characters of explanation of the reversion, the latter allows 142. Is this the right place to propose a change to the automated introduction to the summary? Kevin McE (talk) 21:32, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

You might like to see previous discussion at MediaWiki talk:Undo-summary. There is also a central location to advertise discussions about changes to interface messages. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:04, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Now at Village Pump for larger audience. I'll notify at MediaWiki. Kevin McE (talk) 21:36, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Please update the 'Manual reverting' section

Click the "edit this page" tab as you normally would to edit a page. (Above the edit box, you will see a warning similar to: "You are editing an old revision of this page. If you save it, any changes made since then will be removed.")

This doesn't happen ever since the new site layout where the edit button was moved to the top right. I don't see a warning box anywhere, and the text in the edit box is of the most recent version and not of the earlier version that I selected. I'd like to know how I'm supposed to manually revert something. tildetildetildetilde

Great, now it works. Awesome coding, wikipedia. tildetildetildetilde

Codifing what constitues a revert

Hi, I've noticed there are many instances where whether an edit is a revert or not is very murky, so I have begun to codify what is a revert here. I of course need consensus to introduce the codifing officially so I ask that interested editors join me to fill in the question marks in the examples I have written out. As I will be posting this elsewhere as well, please talk on the talk page of the article. Thank you, Passionless -Talk 04:11, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Reverting images

I can't revert/upload any of the images. Is this a problem on Wikipedia? Zhvxoxqew (talk) 03:05, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

No. Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 08:33, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Multiple edit reverting -- how to get standard edit summary

When I follow the steps as described in this article (click an older date in history, click edit button) to revert the last couple of edits at once, I don't get the "Reverted edits by UserX (talk) to last version by UserY" summary but just a blank edit field. What am I doing wrong? Thanks for your help. Gap9551 (talk) 20:37, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Why change correct facts and remove positive response?

The Wolfman doesn´t have 32% at rotten...it has 33%.Not 4.7/10 but 4.8.I wasn´t allowed to correct that despite the page being so long amd full with text,it takes 20 minutes to read the page. The critical reception summary make it sound as no one gave the film a high grade or liked it,which isn´t the case.I just added from the VERY SAME critic that was qouted that the film "offers an authentic,emotional hook that too many horror movies today don´t have.",that was all,since the Critical reception part don´t mention anything that would make a person want to see the film,although it´s facts and not personal opinion. But that was too much info,despite about 7000 words about the delayed production and something similar about the score.So why write,or ALLOW to be written so much about a film that it seems no proffessional critic liked according to your page.Roger Eberts 2.5/4 was okay to submit but his collegue Richard Roeper giving it 4/5 is not something one is allowed to know?Seems very inconsistent is all I´m saying. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MizterPurple (talk • contribs) 12:38, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Maybe you could ask the user who reverted you? Possibly it wasn't because of the facts you added, but because your edits looked a bit like test edits (there were odd bits of example syntax mixed in).--Kotniski (talk) 13:15, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Edit summaries

Esp. in the case where a reverted edit had an edit summary, the revert should probably have a edit summary too (even a "see talk"), unless the reason is very obvious. (I realise that all involved have to assume good faith, edit summaries are mandated for every edit and so on.) The point being that the original editor gave a reason so the reverter should give one too. IMO it is a matter of courtesy more than anything else. 122.59.249.222 (talk) 23:29, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Rollback summary

The word 'reverted' in the rollback summary was changed from linking to WP:RBK to Help:Reverting, and this page hasn't been updated to reflect that fact. I considered updating it myself but I'm not actually sure how one would go about it, because if you try to link a page from itself it turns bold rather than linking: [[Help talk:Reverting]] gives Help talk:Reverting. Maybe link to Help:Reverting#top? Any thoughts? Cathfolant (talk) 17:36, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:01, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Did it. Cathfolant (talk) 22:16, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 May 2014

I would like to undo the recents edits. the edits are slanderous and untrue about me. I would like to return to original content, Sid Miller

108.161.10.253 (talk) 14:26, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Help:Reverting. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. Jackmcbarn (talk) 14:54, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

I have removed your email address to protect your privacy. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:23, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Manual reverting

One method suggested for reverting is restoring the article to a previous version. What about any innocent copy-edits that have been done in the meantime? They will be lost completely. My editing is mainly confined to cleaning up grammar, infelicities of expression, checking quotations are accurate against footnotes, etc, which many Wikipedia articles are in dire need of. It can take a long time to weed through an article to make it accurate and easily readable. I hope I have not misunderstood anything. --P123ct1 (talk) 20:29, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

@P123ct1: You have pointed out an area where the help page was/is lacking. I have added a first stab at Help:Reverting#Reverting multiple non-contiguous edits which should begin to cover the situation which you mention. The section still needs work, but at least mentions that the reverting editor is responsible to make sure that any intervening helpful edits are retained. — Makyen (talk) 23:28, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

@Makyen: Thanks for replying so promptly. First, I really don't think a user would take the trouble to read a passage as long and complex as that; it would have to be condensed down to no more than 10 lines, I think. I would like to point out some difficulties in reverting to a previous version as I see it. I do a lot of copy-editing of Wikipedia articles (correcting bad grammar and misquotes from footnotes, etc), and when I clean up a badly written article, it can involve redrafting a whole sentence, or adjusting part of a sentence, and not just and there, but throughout the whole article. Even if there were only a handful of edits dotted through an article, they would be very difficult to spot and weed out. In either case, reverting to a previous version while preserving such edits would entail reading through the whole article carefully to check for them. It would be extremely time-consuming and I just cannot see anyone taking the trouble to do it. I hope this description of what copy-editing can entail helps. I can provide an example if you would like me to; it would probably be easier for you to see what I am talking about if I did. --P123ct1 (talk) 08:34, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

@P123ct1: I'll see if I can condense it down a bit. However, if someone does not have the patience to read through a couple/few paragraphs should they really be taking on the task of manually reverting non-contiguous edits? That is a task that can take a considerable amount of time and diligence to accomplish accurately.

I believe I understand what you are talking about as to changes being dispersed throughout the article. It is actually relatively easy to see where these changes occurred by using the diff functionality. There is certainly no need to painstakingly read through the two different versions to see where the differences are. The diff will show exactly what changes were made including some context surrounding the changes. If the standard diff is not sufficient (sometimes it shows large changes where it was really minor), then there is the gadget User:Cacycle/wikEdDiff. The diff of only the edits which one desires to re-apply can easily be obtained by going to the page history, selecting the edit prior to them and the last edit of interest and clicking on "Compare selected revisions".

It is easier than you are implying to reapply such edits by having a diff of the edit open in one window and repetitively using "Show changes" in the window which you are editing. You start at the top and make changes such that the two diffs match in the areas of concern. Generally, the process for each change is: looking at the diff to see the change; highlight some text near the change; search for that text in the edit box and then copy-and-paste the edited text and some surrounding text from the other window to make sure you actually get the edit (and to have a convenient stop and end point for the copy-and-paste). Sometimes it is desirable to have a third tab/window where you have begun to edit – never intending to save – the version of the page with the edits in question and use this tab/window as the source for the copy and paste. This is desirable when the amount of text to copy and paste is large as a copy of the diff view sometimes picks up extraneous characters if selecting multiple lines.

I've done this process more than once (I don't recall how many times). It is not fun. It takes a considerable amount of time and diligence, but really is not all that difficult. — Makyen (talk) 16:12, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

@Makyen: Sorry, I'm quite new to editing in Wikipedia, so not very sophisticated at handling the "Show changes" under "View history", although I did realize this type of reverting would involve comparing two version of the article using the "diff"s. From your description I can see now how this kind of reverting is done, but it does seem an awful lot of work, especially if the date the article is being reverted to is some distance back. I have noticed from "View history" pages that even in a week there can be many edits to an article and can well believe that while not difficult this method is very time-consuming! I just hope that whoever attempts this method will be painstaking and conscientious about it. Thanks for the explanations! --P123ct1 (talk) 17:21, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Notice of discussion: "Undo" not working properly?

I just started this discussion: Village_pump_(technical)#"Undo" not working properly?. FYI. --{{U|Elvey}} ^(t•c) 16:16, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Americans for Prosperity page dispute

Greetings! I am wondering if 1. this is the place to take this issue, and 2. if someone can help me here. The AFP page is heavily disputed. However, about a month ago, there was a a majority consensus on the page. (Since several more editors have come in and it is chaotic). Anyways, after a lot of edits were made to the page and an admin placed 1RR limits, a user with a very obvious bias made a HUGE edit undoing everything claiming "restoring neutrality". (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Americans_for_Prosperity&diff=670142102&oldid=669806083). No user wanted to revert this edit because the 1RR restrictions were being heavily enforced and no one wanted to get blocked. As a result it has been allowed to stay. I was wondering if we could restore this version: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Americans_for_Prosperity&oldid=669806083

I dont doubt the page will then undergo more edits But I believe it will put it on the path to neutrality. Please let me know either what needs to be done or where I should take this inquiry if not here. Thank you for your time DaltonCastle (talk) 18:50, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 July 2015

Please delete the email address <win...len@xtra.co.nz> i included in the note I left about the book I published on Lepperton in the 'history' page Windyglen (talk) 23:48, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

 Done - I made a request for oversight and the email address has been hidden from the page history. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:38, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

WP:" shortcut

The shortcut WP:" does not redirect here. Please remove it from the {{redirect}} template. Thanks. 100.12.206.17 (talk) 02:13, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

 Done Datbubblegumdoe^It's_2016? 02:22, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

"Undid 2 revisions by"

There have been several cases where an edit summary contains "Undid 2 revisions by", such as [1] to Negro National League (1920–31) with edit summary "Undid 2 revisions by 64.251.48.138 (talk) -- rvv" and many edits by GAV80. Where does the "Undid 2 revisions by" edit summary came from and is there a link that prefill this edit summary? 96.41.0.15 (talk) 22:46, 15 February 2016 (UTC)