User:Stephen Bain/3RR

The three-revert rule (or 3RR) is a policy which applies to all Wikipedians, and is intended to prevent edit warring:


 * An editor must not perform more than three reversions, in whole or in part, on a single page within a 24 hour period. Any editor who breaches the rule may be blocked from editing.

The rule applies per-editor. The use of multiple accounts is not a legitimate way to avoid this limit, and reverts by multiple accounts are counted as reverts made by the one editor. The rule otherwise applies to all editors individually.

The rule applies per-page. If an editor performs, for example, three reversions on each of two articles within 24 hours, that editor's six reversions do not constitute a violation of this rule, although it may well indicate that the editor is being disruptive.

The rule does not convey an entitlement to revert three times each day, nor does it endorse reverting as an editing technique; rather, the rule is an "electric fence". Editors who engage in edit warring may still be blocked from editing even if they haven't made more than three edits in any given 24 hour period. Editors who persistently make three reverts each day, or make three reverts on each of a group of pages, for example, are nevertheless engaging in disruptive behaviour. The spirit of the rule is as important as the letter.

The bottom line: use common sense, and don't participate in edit wars. Rather than reverting multiple times, discuss the matter with other editors. If an action really needs reverting that much, somebody else will probably do it – and that will serve the vital purpose of showing that the community at large is in agreement over which course of action is preferable. Engaging in dispute resolution or making a request for page protection is always more preferable than reverting.

Apparent breaches of the rule, including instances of edit warring, may be reported at Administrators' noticeboard/3RR.

What is a revert?
A revert, in this context, means undoing, in whole or in part, the actions of another editor or of other editors. This can include undoing edits to a page, undoing page moves (sometimes called "move warring"), undoing administrative actions (sometimes called "wheel warring"), or recreating a page.

An editor does not have to perform the same revert on a page more than three times to breach this rule; all reverts made by an editor on a particular page within a 24 hour period are counted.

Note that consecutive reverts by the one editor are often treated as one revert for the purposes of this rule.

Exceptions
Since the rule is intended to prevent edit warring, reverts which are clearly not edit warring will not breach the rule. Since edit warring is considered harmful, exceptions to the rule will be construed narrowly.

Since reverting in this context means undoing the actions of another editor or editors, reverting your own actions ("self-reverting") will not breach the rule.

Other exceptions to the rule are:


 * Reverting simple and obvious vandalism, such as graffiti or page blanking (this only applies to the most simple and obvious vandalism, for other vandalism please see Administrator intervention against vandalism or Requests for investigation);
 * Reverting clear copyright violations or clearly libellous material;
 * Reverting unsourced or poorly sourced controversial material about living persons (see Biographies of living persons);
 * Reverting actions performed by banned users.

Any of these actions may still be controversial, thus it is only in the clearest cases that they will be considered exceptions to the rule. When in doubt, do not revert; instead, engage in dispute resolution or ask for administrative assistance.

Note that in the case of vandalism, blocking editors who have engaged in vandalism, or protecting the page in question, will often be preferable to reverting. Similarly, blocking or page protection will often be preferable in case of repeated addition of copyrighted material.

Enforcement
If you violate the three-revert rule, you may be blocked from editing for up to 24 hours, or longer in the case of a repeat violation. In the cases where multiple editors violate the rule, administrators should treat all sides equally.

Additionally, the rule is enforced by:


 * Educating editors who may not be aware of good Wikipedia practice in the matter;
 * Peer pressure and leadership by example (see Revert only when necessary and Harmonious editing club).

Apparent breaches of the rule may be reported at Administrators' noticeboard/3RR.