Wikipedia:Pending changes

Pending changes is a new tool undergoing a two-month trial on the English Wikipedia. It is intended to prevent certain kinds of vandalism or inappropriate changes from being displayed to readers who are not logged in. This is an alternative to restricting who may edit the article via full- or semi-protection.

Changes made by unregistered or newly registered users will be visible to non-logged-in readers only after being checked for vandalism and clear errors. Both logged-in users and anonymous users, who click the "edit this page" tab, will edit the latest version as usual. Any pending changes on such pages are visible to all users via an additional "pending changes" tab. For more information, see Help:Pending changes.

Overview

At present, several thousand articles of the 3.3 million pages on English Wikipedia are semi-protected in order to reduce the risk of vandalism and inappropriate editing. While 0.1% may not seem a huge fraction, these pages tend to be among the most widely read, and many readers will want to make legitimate contributions to their content. While protected articles are safer from vandalism, the protection method impedes people who want to contribute in good faith. The "pending changes" tool is designed to allow users to make changes directly to the article while at the same time reducing the risk of vandalism being seen by the wider (non-editing) public. This doesn't imply that semi-protection will be deprecated, as there are instances where it would be more appropriate to use semi-protection than pending changes protection.

As a result this feature brings a balance between the need to better protect articles subject to vandalism or BLP violations, and the need to keep Wikipedia editable.

Description

Pending changes introduces new protection levels which can be used as an alternative to regular semi-protection and full-protection. During the trial, the conditions in which pending changes can be used are the same as for traditional protection, as precisely determined by the protection policy. The full spectrum of protection levels are shown in the following table:

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 new editors (and any subsequent edits by anyone) are hidden from readers who are not logged in, until reviewed by a pending changes reviewer or admin. 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. Critical templates and modules.
Interface	Cannot edit					Normal editing	Scripts, stylesheets, and similar objects central to operation of the site or that are in other editors' user spaces.
* In order to edit through extended confirmed protection, a template editor must also be extended confirmed, but in practice this is almost always the case. Other modes of protection: Create protection Move protection Upload protection Office protection Cascade protection

One of the advantages of this system is that, though their edits are not visible immediately to readers, unregistered and new users can edit pages protected by pending changes, while they cannot edit semi-protected pages. So this allows constructive changes by anyone, while preventing vandalism and most of unconstructive changes. Another advantage is that semi-protection is insufficient in certain cases, especially for articles targeted by persistent vandals or sockpuppets, or subject to extreme BLP violations; these sometimes require the drastic full protection, the level 2 of pending changes-protection can handle those exceptional cases.

The process will work broadly like this:

1. Article receives heavy vandalism from anons or users that have yet to be autoconfirmed
2. Someone requests pending changes protection on WP:RFPP
3. Administrator activates pending changes on the article
4. Anon makes an edit to the article
5. A reviewer can decide to accept, revert, or overwrite the revision made by the anonymous user.

Scope

Main page: Wikipedia:Protection policy § Pending changes protection (trial)

The scope of pending changes protection is limited by the protection policy. The conditions for level 1 pending changes protection should be the same as to what the current semi-protection policy allows. If the article does not meet the requirements for semi-protection under the current semi-protection policy, then it should not be protected with pending changes either. Likewise, only pages that would otherwise be fully protected under the protection policy may be put under full (level 2) pending changes protection. If an article placed under pending changes is subject to exceptionally high levels of vandalism, semi-protection should be used instead, or it would be counter-productive. Pending changes should also not be used in cases of dispute, as it would have as consequence to disadvantage certain editors. The expiry date or the absence of such (indefinite protection) should be considered the same way as for normal protection.

Deployment and requests for inclusion

The deployment will be progressive, divided in three phases.

For the first phase of the trial, the first week, only articles listed at Wikipedia:Pending changes/Queue may be protected under pending changes, each day a new list of articles can be protected.

For the second phase of the trial, the second week, in addition to listed articles, articles in listed categories can be protected under pending changes, in accordance with the above policy, but limited by a progressively increased cap. Categories should be of reasonable size.

For the third phase of the trial, the remaining of the trial, pending changes protection can be applied in accordance with the above policy on any article, but limited by a progressively increased cap.

Removal of pending changes protection

Removal of pending-changes protection can be requested of any administrator, or at requests for unprotection. It may be removed by any administrator who feels it is providing insufficient protection or feedback for the trial.

Reviewing

Main page: Wikipedia:Reviewing § Reviewing process

The process of reviewing then accepting new edits is intended as a quick check, to be reasonably sure that they don't contain vandalism, violations of the policy on living people or other clearly identifiable inappropriate content. It does not constitute a guarantee of quality or accuracy, or total adherence to content policies. For more information on reviewing, see the Wikipedia:Reviewing#Reviewing process.

Reviewers

Main page: Wikipedia:Reviewing § Becoming a reviewer

Reviewers are experienced users who are granted the ability to accept other user's edits on pages protected by pending changes. Reviewers are expected to have a minimal editing history, know what is and what is not vandalism and be familiar with basic content policies. More details are provided at Wikipedia:Reviewing#Becoming a reviewer.

Reviewer rights can be granted by administrators, at their discretion based on the above guidelines. Except for reviewer rights removed at the request of the user, removal of the permission is only possible after review by the community or the arbitration committee.

See also

• Help:Pending changes
• Wikipedia:Flagged protection and patrolled revisions: The original proposal, partially implemented in this trial, approved in this poll.