Wikipedia talk:PC2012/RfC 3

Error
The last section opens with the term "P?C". I have no idea what this means, unless it's a code word for — Jeremy  v^_^v  Bori! 06:36, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Questions I'd like to ask in this RfC
If we're going to have a third RfC with any chance of its producing meaningful results before "the witching hour" ('fess up, Blade: you guys factored Halloween into that earlier close, right?), we need to get it up and running soon. Thanks to those who have begun work on the RfC, btw. Here is a draft of some other issues I think are preferable to ask about now, not after the PC era has officially begun. None of them will have any obvious effect on the technical development of the tool, but I think it would be preferable to resolve them as much as possible before December 1, and 2–3 weeks earlier would be even better. I'm posting this here instead of pasting it into the RfC because I'm too lazy to format it properly at present and because the wording is still very, very rough (and my judgment about wording questions was less than terrific in RfC2). All feedback appreciated. Please be bold and copyedit/reword as you see fit. Rivertorch (talk) 11:27, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I wish I had been intelligent enough to have thought of that; not like I do anything on Halloween anyways (I don't like going out, and my house is a good 400 feet away from the road so we never get more than 4 people). The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 21:09, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Eligibility for pending changes

 * 1) Must specific eligibility criteria be met for PC to be applied to a page?
 * Yes. For a page to be eligible for PC, it must
 * have fewer than 30 watchers,
 * be considered a poor candidate for semi-protection because it is frequently subject to constructive edits made by unregistered or non-autoconfirmed editors, and
 * be subject to recent, repeated instances of [vandalism/policy violation] from multiple editors, at least one of whom is not indefinitely blocked.
 * No. Eligibility criteria such as the above should generally be met, but administrators are not required to verify eligibility before applying PC.
 * No. Administrators have wide latitude in deciding to apply PC, and they are free to apply it to any page in the absence of consensus to the contrary.


 * 1) Is it permissible to apply PC to all name spaces?
 * Yes. PC may be applied in any name space.
 * No. PC must not be applied except to articles.
 * No. PC must not be applied except to articles or templates.
 * No. PC may be applied in various name spaces but must not be applied to talk pages.
 * There's a note on the other page that PC is not technically possible on talk pages. Gigs (talk) 17:09, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Reviewers

 * 1) Must edit count be considered in granting the reviewer permission?
 * Yes. Reviewers must have made at least 2000 edits.
 * Yes. Reviewers must have made at least 1000 edits.
 * Yes. Reviewers must have made at least 500 edits.
 * No. Administrators may ignore edit count when granting or rejecting requests for the reviewer flag.


 * 1) Aside from edit count, how high should the bar be for becoming a reviewer?
 * Very low. Any editor who is currently unblocked may be granted the flag.
 * Moderately low. Any editor who has had no blocks within the previous three months and is not currently the subject of any complaint at AN, AN/I, RfC/U, or SPI may be granted the flag.
 * Moderately high. Any editor who has held the rollbacker flag for at least three months, has had no blocks within the previous three months, and is not currently the subject of any complaints at AN, AN/I, RfC/U, or SPI may be granted the flag.
 * High. Editors who have held the rollbacker flag for at least three months, have had no blocks within the previous three months, and are not currently the subject of any complaints at AN, AN/I, RfC/U, or SPI are generally eligible. However, before granting the flag, administrators should spot-check the editor's recent contributions, paying particular attention to evidence of competency, civility, and compliance with the three core content policies.


 * 1) How easy should it be to remove the reviewer permission?
 * Easy. Any uninvolved administrator may remove it from any editor, without warning, for repeated misuse of the tool.
 * Moderate. Any uninvolved administrator may remove it from any editor for repeated misuse of the tool, provided the editor has continued to misuse the tool after being warned. Administrators are expected to recognize that PC is complex and entails a learning curve. Even when a warning has been issued, administrators should make a reasonable further effort to educate the user about proper PC reviewing instead of summarily removing the flag.
 * Difficult. It may be removed only for repeated misuse of the tool and only if consensus is reached at WP:AN or another designated noticeboard.

Noticeboard
A dedicated noticeboard would provide a centralized place to discuss certain PC-related matters, such as:
 * whether a particular pending edit should be accepted. (Rather than simply closing the tab and passing the buck to the next reviewer who happens along, opening a discussion to share the reasons for one's uncertainty and solicit other reviewers' opinions would be in keeping with the collaborative spirit of WP.)
 * problems with reviewers. (When one notices a pattern of problem reviews and a quiet word with the reviewer in question doesn't resolve one's concerns, this would provide an easy, informal opportunity for getting additional opinions without resorting to filing a report at WP:ANI and all the stress that entails.)
 * the advisability of applying PC to a given page. (This would provide a way to get additional opinions on whether a given page might be a good candidate for PC, if PC is causing too many problems on a given page, and so on. In other words, extended discussions that are generally beyond the scope of WP:RPP, which I assume hardly anyone watches anyway)
 * concerns about backlog, not enough reviewers, problems with PC policy, etc. (Each such discussion could go elsewhere, but it's not necessarily clear where it should go. This would be the no-brainer solution.)


 * 1) Should a dedicated noticeboard (separate from Requests for page protection), the Pending Changes Noticeboard, be established?
 * Yes, a separate noticeboard should be set up.
 * No, a separate noticeboard is unnecessary or undesirable.

Assessment in 1 year
The deployment of pending changes represents a significant milestone in the evolution of the English Wikipedia. The path to this point has been marked by innumerable discussions, abundant controversy, and a considerable amount of uncertainty. No one knows for certain precisely what effects PC will have on the project, but it is incumbent upon the community to take note of any significant effects and to use that newfound knowledge wisely. Many editors are understandably weary of PC-related discussion, and it will take some time to discover exactly what changes PC will bring, so it may be inadvisable to schedule any further meeting of minds too near in the future. Nevertheless, an eventual discussion would likely be beneficial, if not outright essential, to determine whether PC is working well and needs little or no tweaking or is causing major problems and needs a major overhaul or is causing enormous harm to the project and needs to be suspended or even scrapped. While such a discussion could be conducted sooner, if necessary, a year may be a reasonable interval to give everyone a break and give PC a chance. And, while formally planning such a discussion now isn't exactly obligatory, it may be preferable to take such a deliberate approach.


 * 1) '''Should a discussion be opened on or around 1 December 2013 concerning the efficacy and impact of pending changes?
 * Yes. We should plan on having such a discussion then.
 * No. Let's wait and see.

Discussion about potential Questions

 * In my opinion the specific minimum criteria framework for discussing reviewer eligibility is the wrong approach. Instead consider something like: "Editors with over X edits, a clean block log, and no recent misconduct should be granted reviewer on request." and then a second point: "Admins may also use discretion to grant the reviewer right to anyone else they believe has demonstrated an adequate understanding of the related policies to review effectively." Second, with respect to removal, I would create a mixed Difficulty version: "In the case of an editor using the reviewer right in bad faith, any uninvolved admin may remove the right to stop ongoing disruption. In all other cases, reviewer should only be removed via consensus at AN or AN/I." Monty  845  07:37, 19 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Monty. That does seem simpler, and simpler may be better here. Let me think about it. I was sort of hoping to hammer out a better draft and transfer it over tonight, but I'm not sure I'll have time. Do you think we need RfC 2 formally closed before opening RfC 3? Rivertorch (talk) 19:35, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I particularly like your removal part; good vs. bad faith should be a useful delineator. For the other part, I do think we might ask something about competency and familiarity with core content policies. (Seems to me there are editors with hundreds, even thousands, of edits consisting of anti-vandalism work, gnomish detailing, image uploading, etc., whose understanding of V/NOR/NPOV is still insufficient to hit the ground running as reviewers.) Also, you don't specify what how many edits equal x edits, and I don't think there's anything like consensus on that yet, so either we need to ask or we shouldn't mention it at all. Clearly, this isn't going to get off the ground in time for this week's Signpost, but since none of it should affect anything the developers do (or don't do, as the case may be), it shouldn't matter. Before I put much more time into it, I'd sort of like to hear someone explicitly agree with me that at least some of these questions are better answered before Dec. 1 and an RfC is a good way to seek those answers. Rivertorch (talk) 07:38, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Unprecedented
I don't think we've ever developed major swaths of policy this way, with big up front RfCs and referendums on each little detail. At least, it's never succeeded. This just isn't the way that things get done. Gigs (talk) 14:13, 18 October 2012 (UTC)


 * You may be right that it's unprecedented, but just because something hasn't gotten done a certain way in the past doesn't mean it shouldn't get done that way now. (Advocates of PC might say the same thing about the tool itself.) Pending changes itself is unprecedented, not just in its specifics but in the scope of its potential impact. To paraphrase some old guy, it is "the shot heard round the wiki". As such, it is reasonable to try to preempt the worst of the negative likely effects before they actually begin occurring. There is consensus for doing that, and this upcoming "informal RfC" is the last stage in that process. (Technically, there will be other tasks to perform vis-à-vis putting the results of these RfCs into operation—e.g., rewriting policy—but this is the last stage in which the community is being asked to say what should be done.) Even if you think it's a useless exercise, I hope you'll accept that it's well intended and contribute substantively to it as you see fit. Rivertorch (talk) 17:47, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Where was there consensus for ... what are we up to? 4 or 5 rounds of community-wide RfCs?  So few people even cared about RfC 1 that a non-admin had to close it months later because no admin had done it.  All I'm seeing is a growing weariness with RfCing. Gigs (talk) 19:59, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not clear what RfC you're talking about. RfC 1 was closed by the same admin who is slated to close RfC 2. The consensus was for having a series of "informal" "mini" RfCs to address perceived shortcomings in the wording of PC policy, and that's what we're "up to". I understand there's a ton of verbosity to sift through, but if you follow the talk page discussions and the RfC closes it's not impossible to figure out. As for weariness, yeah, well, I'm weary too. But one of the reasons why there's so much weariness, not to mention exasperation, with this whole process is because the entire years-long advent of PC has been marked by a lack of foresight, careful planning, and follow-through. If we abandon what we're doing now and let the chips fall where they may, that will be one more example of precisely that. So please consider your objection to further discussion noted, but realize that it's going to happen. As I said before, your substantive contributions to that discussion would be most welcome. Rivertorch (talk) 21:27, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not even sure what RfC/poll/whatever I'm talking about either. I thought it was RfC 1 but I guess not.  It was wherever the December 1 date was decided.  There's been so many it's hard to keep track.   I didn't mean "up to" in that way, I meant, what number are we up to.  My objection is not to further discussion,  it's to further RfCs, which are a horribly inefficient way to build consensus. Gigs (talk) 00:49, 19 October 2012 (UTC)


 * IMO there is only one question that really must be settled, and that is: What is the initial location for the text of the policy?  Everything else can be changed later, through normal policy-improving work.
 * And notice what question still hasn't even been discussed. So either a couple of us declare that the policy will reside at and deal with all the people screaming over whatever decision we make, or we can have RFC3.  Soon.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:54, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * That sounds reasonable to me. Get the policy in its final resting place, and use normal editing and talk page discussion to suss out the details.  Gigs (talk) 01:20, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, four of us have already posted questions or proposed questions for the RfC (including you, WhatamIdoing), and I, for one, would much rather not have anyone screaming at me. However, the provisional policy is here, and that seems like a good place for whatever replaces it to reside. I suggest that the changes to that page be made beginning in 3–4 weeks when the third RfC is over. That should be plenty of time to whip that page into shape before Dec. 1. Gigs, for the record, the Dec. 1 date was decided at what I've taken to calling "the big RfC", which was closed by four editors, each very much in possession of a mop. The one before that was closed by an Arbcom member. Unless you're talking about one of the two straw polls that ran more than two years ago, I don't think there have been any non-admin closures of PC-related RfCs. (I'm using the term "close" in the sense of "interpret the results"; I branded RfC 2 "closed" yesterday but don't consider it closed closed until Blade arrives to conduct the postmortem assessment.) By the way, "RfC 1" was preceded by many weeks of non-RfC discussion, and that discussion is where consensus formed to have this latest series of RfCs. Rivertorch (talk) 03:46, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, I must have confused it with some other RfC. I don't think you are getting what WhatAmIdoing and I are saying though, regarding it being OK to leave many of the details unsettled.  Our policies are always in a constant state of flux.  They aren't something that's voted on ahead of time and then settled forever.   We've got probably hundreds of pages of comments from the community on this.  If we can't come up with a reasonable first whack at the policy from all that we have so far, then we are doing something wrong.  Gigs (talk) 04:47, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Funny you should say that. For the past several months, even before RfC 1 began, I've been having a recurring thought that goes something like this: The provisional policy is so awful that all we need to do is create an improved version and then pit the improved against the provisional in an either/or RfC, and the improved is bound to win. There's only one problem with that, and unfortunately it's a big one. Even among the few of us who have been working on this for months, there's no agreement on what the improved version should look like. Actually, it's worse than that; we sometimes don't even agree on what would constitute an improvement. So it's give an inch here, take an inch there, concur (or at least remain silent) about the occasional detail, and we're still left needing to appeal to a larger group of editors to decide many of the points. Tiresome? For sure. I'll be glad when it's over, but I'd really like it to end as well as possible. I'm rather pleased that we've gotten through months of discussion, including two RfCs, without any particular belligerence or even any real incivility, and I have a feeling that detente would vanish very quickly if we start rewriting the policy before making some sort of effort to resolve several of the remaining questions. We'd also wind up beginning the PC Age with a policy that's not only incomplete, inevitably leading to poorly conceived unilateral decisions causing needless friction, but fundamentally unsound in ways that could cause major disruption, alienate longtime editors, and cause lasting harm to the project. No one can reasonably dispute what you say about policies in flux and things not being settled forever; those are just facts of life around here, and there's zero doubt in my mind that PC policy will continue to significantly evolve. But what we have before us now is a rare opportunity to get something as right as we can before the fact. Why on earth wouldn't we make that attempt? Because we're fatigued? Because we'd rather wait till next year and do it dramatically in a series of edit wars, acrimonious noticeboard threads, retiring editors, and maybe even an Arbcom case or two? Maybe you're right—maybe we're going about this all wrong—but at least we're going about it; we're making the attempt. If there's a compelling reason why we should settle for less than we need to, I'd really like to hear it. Rivertorch (talk) 07:22, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * People not coming to a consensus on which should be done should come as no surprise if you look at the arguments made over the 4 RfCs/polls concerning the use of PC. Even then people could not agree on any one specific implementation; it was all scattershot. — Jeremy  v^_^v  Bori! 18:44, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * That's exactly my point. That's the kind of results that polling tends to produce. Gigs (talk) 19:17, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Not any of those reasons. Because I think that building consensus by incorporating the input we have so far, drafting a policy on a policy page, posting that to VPP for input and doing further refinement through talk page conversations will be much more successful than another huge RfC.


 * Polling is a particularly inefficient way to really build consensus, and I think all those negative outcomes you mention are more likely if we try to settle everything through polling instead of our normal process.


 * Voting has the option to end without consensus. If that happens, any attempt to implement one option or the other can be criticized by editors pointing toward the no consensus RfC outcome.  A page being refined through talk page conversations is forced to converge on a consensus eventually.  The more polling we do, the more that people will become polarized on these issues, instead of engaging in working toward a mutually acceptable outcome.


 * You seem very passionate about this and that's a great thing. I'm not trying to stifle this process or throw away any of the hard work you've done.  I want to see it succeed, and my experience is leading me to different conclusions about what the best path toward success is.  Gigs (talk) 13:34, 19 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. Truth be told, I don't feel passionate about the subject at all; I'm sick to death of it. But earlier in this years-long process, a number of things that I consider unfortunate happened because not enough people were paying attention (myself included), so I decided to stick with it this time, at least until Dec. 1. One thing that I should have internalized by now but somehow having to keep reminding myself of is that a lot of things don't happen at Wikipedia unless someone just grabs the bull by the horns and does them. I'm trying to balance that with my belief that something as potentially game-changing as PC policy damn well ought to have a collaborative, consensus-driven basis. Take the question of how to select reviewers, for instance. Should determining the policy on that really be left up to two or three people? I don't think so. And we can't afford to leave it unresolved because it caused a lot of problems during (and after) the trial. Rivertorch (talk) 19:29, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * For better or worse, all our major policies have been initially written by small groups. There's still collaboration and consensus, as people who encounter the policy challenge specific aspects of the policy and those discussions get hashed out.  So it's not a rejection of collaboration and consensus, just a pragmatic way to manage it.    There's an essay I keep in my userspace you may be interested in. Gigs (talk) 20:24, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Interesting essay. It goes a little farther than I'd go, but the I take its point about unreferenced BLPs, and there's a parallel with pending changes. Several years ago, there erupted on Wikipedia a sort of hysteria over vandalism and BLP violations. It was claimed (by a handful of editors) that such edits were "out of control" and that if some drastic response wasn't undertaken promptly, it would be the end the world. An even smaller handful of editors disputed the existence of of a crisis, asked for hard data so that the matter could be assessed in quantitative terms, and suggested avoiding doing anything rash. Unfortunately, the hysterical editors (most of them high-profile administrators and among them someone with considerable influence) managed to persuade the masses to accept, on anecdotal evidence alone, that there was indeed a crisis. Cooler heads didn't prevail (hence PC) but over time were able to exert some influence; otherwise, we'd have flagged revisions wikiwide right now (as some still think we should). What I find most amazing about all of this is that nowadays vandalism has been addressed so effectively by the one-two punch of ClueBot and STiki that there are days when I find no unreverted vandalism on my watchlist at all—a state of affairs that would have been unthinkable three or four years ago. As for BLP violations that aren't also vandalism, a certain number of them will always be with us as long as we're "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit", and somehow the sky won't fall. The "bosses" will always be with us, too, I suppose. In any event, right now we have the chance to avert some damage that will inevitably happen if PC goes forward with the provisional policy in place. Trying to do that without asking for the community's input seems to me a very boss-like way to proceed, but I could be wrong. Rivertorch (talk) 12:35, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Gigs, I and others have said all along that we think there are very real downsides to using RfCs in this manner, and from mid-June to the beginning of September, we tried everything we could think of to increase community participation. We didn't get the necessary input, probably because of burnout on this issue, so we started with WP:PC2012/RfC 1 on the single issue of PC/2. We proceeded carefully, and RfC 1 was a success, in my view. Do you disagree? - Dank (push to talk) 13:30, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I consider any RfC that ends in a "no consensus" closure to be a failure. It's a failure to build consensus.  Consensus doesn't mean that most of the participants agree, in fact it's usually the opposite, that we've gotten to a point where we can live with our disagreements and go forward with a plan that is at least tolerable to everyone, some probably begrudgingly. The way that RfCs have become polls with some nebulous threshold for declaring a winner I think has helped people forget what building consensus in the "Wiki Way" is supposed to be about. Gigs (talk) 17:14, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * While it's probably the case in some instances, I believe generally the reverse is true: discussions fall back to polls because the interested parties are unwilling to work towards something they can live with. For better or worse, having concrete proposals to discuss appears to be the best way to steer a large group of commenters towards narrowing things down to a final proposal. There has been lots of feedback and conversation in these Requests for Comments, and I think the format has helped ensure everyone gets to present an initial statement of their views, without getting buried within sprawling discussion threads. It also has a little more chance of avoiding duplication of comments. So whether or not this format has been perfect, I believe it has been sufficiently effective at eliciting a broad range of opinions and ideas. isaacl (talk) 17:58, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * That's part of my point. We already have tons of community feedback here.  At this point I think we should distill it into a policy page, and open the talk page for further refinement and any disagreements with what we come up with.  My intent with this discussion is not to filibuster a third RfC, so if most everyone believes that's the way forward, keep working on it.  I'm just trying to persuade you guys that there might be a better way. Gigs (talk) 19:02, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Personally, I say go ahead and work on any parts of the policy for which you feel there is sufficient input (and in particular, taking the closing statement in consideration), and present the resulting proposals for discussion. As I've mentioned before, this is what I expected to happen. (My main point is I don't think the Requests for Comments process has been inefficient, or will cause problems: the willingness of participants to reach an agreement is the largest determinant of success. Consultation is a slow process, but as the discussions have shown, there are significant numbers of people who want to provide input.) isaacl (talk) 19:45, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I will change WP:Pending changes from "RfC mode" into something starting to resemble a policy page then. If we decide to merge its content later into a different page, so be it, but I see no harm in developing it there. Gigs (talk) 14:18, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Compromise hybrid RfC
Now that I have edited WP:Pending changes and WP:Reviewers into something resembling policy and guideline proposals that take previous community input into account, would anyone object to opening widely-advertised discussions on their talk pages? I think that any questions that would have been presented as a big RfC 3 could be presented on the relevant talk pages for consideration and wider feedback. Gigs (talk) 17:20, 23 October 2012 (UTC)


 * "Widely-advertised discussions" instead of RfCs. I'm sure there's a technical distinction, but any substantive difference eludes me at present. Whatever we call them, yes, I object to discussions (plural) being opened in multiple places to discuss a topic for which there's a centralized discussion place already. We'd end up with concurrent discussions about the same things in multiple places, which would be confusing and disruptive. Rivertorch (talk) 19:06, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * All of the policy discussion would occur on WT:Pending changes. The only reason to open a discussion on WT:Reviewers is for discussions specific to that guideline's wording.  If that's your only objection, then I'm sure we can find a solution.  Gigs (talk) 19:31, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Regarding the difference, the difference is that the discussion will be driven by the drafting of the policy page instead of abstract questions. We want to address the abstract questions, but editors being able to see them in the context of the rest of the policy is important for building consensus I think.  Gigs (talk) 19:35, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Personally I don't have a strong preference where the discussion should be held, but I don't see any compelling reason to deviate from the previous plan to centralize discussion on the PC2012/RfC_3 page, just to centralize discussion on a different page. (No matter where the discussion is held, after all, it can still request comments on specific policy drafts.) I believe it may have been premature to release a new RFC on WT:Pending changes without any co-ordination with those participating in WT:PC2012 or this page. I'm not sure what the best way forward is now; can any refinements to the planned questions for the last RFC be worked out in short order? isaacl (talk) 15:23, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and opened the discussion on WT:PC on 28 October 2012, integrating many of the questions from here and the RfC2 talk, based on my last exchange with Rivertorch where his main objection seemed to be to having more than one place for discussion, rather than to the informal format on the policy talk page I proposed.


 * I agree that it was a bold move, and one that in hindsight was probably a mistake. It looked like the conversation here had died down, there was no activity since the 23rd.  My goal was not fait accompli, rather, I figured that everyone had tired of the matter, and that the process needed to be prodded a little in order to keep things moving for our December 1 deadline.  I think we can all agree that the old provisional policy is not appropriate at all.


 * Rivertorch has expressed on his talk his desire for me to shut down the discussion I've opened, or alternately, he would like to run a parallel RfC of his own formulation that would overlap to a large extent with what I've done. I don't think either proposition is very respectful to the other editors in the community.  If my discussion had not yet drawn comments, I would close it immediately, but it has unfortunately.


 * I would like to come up with a solution that would integrate any further concerns Rivertorch has into the currently open discussion. To me this is the ideal solution.  A less desirable solution would be a new discussion, but one without overlap with what's out there now.  I think we do need to be respectful of those who have commented so far, and not re-propose questions they have already answered, no matter what the solution.


 * I'm very sorry for jumping the gun on this.  If we can get any additional concerns integrated quickly into what's open, then I think we can salvage this without pissing off the community. Gigs (talk) 16:21, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I was OK with the wording of the questions on the RfC 3 page; two of the questions are the same as on the Pending changes RFC, so maybe the other two questions can be added. We'll have to see what revisions Rivertorch was thinking of, and maybe Dank's views can be solicited. isaacl (talk) 16:42, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Some of the questions are moot under the new format. There's no need to ask explicitly about a policy similar to semi-protection when there is concrete policy text already proposed on the main WP:PC page that's subject to comment in the RfC.  Likewise, the main page states that reviewer will be handled similarly to rollbacker, which is why I omitted questions regarding the level of trust for the permission and its removal, leaving people the option to raise objections to any of that in the bottom section, if they did object.   Gigs (talk) 16:48, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * BTW- I feel like the "best judgement or rigidity" question is covered well in the discussion I opened, I based that question on Rivertorch's proposal above, but I am open to feedback there. Gigs (talk) 16:51, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm likely to be offline for 1–3 days due to a weather event, so I apologize in advance for not being fully "here" to discuss this. Gigs, I just replied on my talk page. My hope was/is to get RfC 3 whipped into shape by this coming weekend. As for "RfC 2.5" (for lack of a better moniker) currently underway at WT:PC, I've commented on my talk page and don't really have anything to say here except that I wish it would be closed and hatted. Rivertorch (talk) 17:41, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Rivertorch and a lot of other Americans (including me, in North Carolina! Big damn storm) are being affected by the weather event, so it might be best to wait a couple of days before doing anything. Maybe box up the RfC at WT:PC, at least temporarily? - Dank (push to talk) 18:06, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh yeah, good luck with that, by the way. :-( ~Adjwilley (talk) 18:15, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

I'll put it "on hold", but I don't think we should discard the comments and questions that are already there. No one has actually articulated any problems with the questions that are there, only that there should probably be more. So if I put it on hold, give people a chance to add more to it, and then we can reopen it later, would that be acceptable to everyone? Gigs (talk) 18:58, 29 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't think that it's necessary to put the RFC on hold, and given the timeline, I think it may be unhelpful. If there are more questions to be added later, then we can add them later.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:11, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * That is my position as well, but I will concede to the other editor's concerns until we can get a consensus to reopen it. Gigs (talk) 19:41, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * WhatamIdoing, it is not a good idea to add questions (or make any substantive changes) to an open RfC. It's confusing, it's not fair to the people who have already commented, and it can skew the results. At this point, I admit to being fairly frustrated by what's happening. RfC 2 had issues—some of them can be placed squarely at my feet, but fwiw I did give everyone fair opportunity to make changes before I took it live—that I'd really like to avoid repeating, and while there is a deadline of sorts we're far from the hurry-up-and-panic stage. I'd ask that we please not rush forward here, but if consensus in my absence is to reopen Gigs's RfC, I'm pretty sure I can craft RfC 3 that will compliment, rather than complicate, it. Y'all do what you will; I'm signing off for a while. Rivertorch (talk) 20:27, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * One approach would be to say right up front in the RfC that new questions will be popping up from time to time, because we're trying to develop policy ... people should consider it a running RfC until the participants agree that it seems to have stabilized somewhat. I think there's a question or two I'd like to add. What happens if someone requests reviewership, and a discussion results? If the question gets complicated, we might want a crat to step in to close the discussion. - Dank (push to talk) 22:02, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it was implicit in the way I framed my discussion that more questions may arise. I left the open section at the bottom to propose changes or raise concerns about the proposed policy text.  Rfc does mean request for comments after all, not request for voting.  I'm a little frustrated that rivertorch insists on a rigid voting format, rejecting the normal style of more open ended comments to the point that he would rather run yet another rigid vote instead of integrating with this one.  Sorry if this message is mangled.  I'm on my cell phone because of the hurricane ... no power.Gigs (talk) 03:38, 30 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Future questions could also be handled in a fourth RFC. We could also leave notes for any early commenters if a subsequent question appears.  IMO there's no good reason to delay these questions merely because someone might have another question in the future.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:46, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I may have missed it, but I don't recall anyone insisting on a rigid voting format. If any additional questions are indeed complementary to the ones in the Request for Comments discussion now on hold, then I don't think there should be a problem with adding on additional questions (it would be equivalent to running another Request for Comments discussion immediately following the first one). isaacl (talk) 06:34, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry if I ascribed intentions to Rivertorch that are not there. He and I are both going through a storm and major power outages, which may have increased both our stress levels. Because he hasn't raised any actionable issues with the "on hold" RfC, I assumed that it was primarily because he objected to the looser discussion format of it, based on our earlier discussions, rather than any specific problem with the questions posed there.  I'm going to back away a little from this.  You all decide what the best way forward is.  Gigs (talk) 18:12, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Look, I don't want to make a big production out of this. I know Wikipedia business often proceeds in unexpected, non-linear ways, and I accept that. I did—still do—think it was a little strange for someone who just argued at considerable length against conducting any further RfCs on this topic to turn around and begin just such an RfC. That it was placed on a different page than the obvious page was stranger still, and the fact that it was written, opened, and advertised with zero input from any of the editors who had already been working on the next RfC was so strange that I really couldn't fathom it; the adjective inexplicable came to mind. And there's no need to speculate about the weather's effect on my stress level: when something strange and inexplicable arrives out of the blue and presents a needless complication in my on-wiki existence, I'll probably feel some stress from it even if there's not a cloud in the RL sky. If you really want to know, I thought it seemed POINTy—rather along the lines of, Okay, you guys are so insistent on an RfC, fine, here's your RfC—but it's not where, when or what you thought it would be. I'm not suggesting that was the actual intention, just that that's the way it came across the day before yesterday. Having mulled it over in the meantime, I came to the tentative conclusion that it was more likely just one of those impulsive ideas that may seem inspired at the time but quickly prove to have some unforeseen drawbacks. Whatever. I'm certainly not going to be stressed over it one second more. As I said further up the page, I think it should be possible to craft an RfC that doesn't conflict with the one currently on hold, and that is what I'll be trying to work on over the next couple of days. Rivertorch (talk) 09:53, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It wasn't that impulsive or ill-planned. I opened this subsection proposing a compromise talkpage RfC-like discussion to be located on WT:PC and WT:Reviewers on October 23.  I got exactly one reply, yours, which seemed to me to strongly imply that your main objection was to having a discussion in more than one place.  I replied saying that the main discussion could be at WT:PC.
 * Then I waited 5 days for further input. Nothing happened, except December 1 getting closer.  This RfC draft wasn't being updated, no one else was objecting to my proposal. So I gathered up the pieces of this RfC3 draft that I thought made sense in the context of a talk-page RfC (most of it), and opened a single discussion on WT:PC to address your concerns about having multiple discussions, integrating most of the questions that you had proposed, along with WhatAmIDoing's question about policy location.  The questions I left out were questions that seemed to overlap with things that were already stated in the draft policy.  I left a section open for people to challenge parts of the draft policy that they had a problem with. Gigs (talk) 15:55, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
 * As I said, whatever. I'm not going to worry about it, and I hope you won't worry about it either. I believe we have some objectives in common, and if those objectives can be achieved, it won't matter one iota how it happened. Rivertorch (talk) 18:56, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Well I do worry about it. I didn't expect a negative reaction, and it definitely wasn't intended the way you initially took it.   Are you saying you want to reopen the on-hold RfC then? Gigs (talk) 20:04, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
 * What I'm saying is that I suspect it probably can be reopened without getting in the way of RfC 3 too much; it should be possible to work around it, and if not, well, what's a little more chaos on the road to pending changes? I refuse to worry about it, whatever you or anyone else decides to do. I am a volunteer and this is supposed to be enjoyable, on balance. (And it almost always is, assuming I ignore agenda-pushing Conservapedian transplants, fail to notice when good editors retire, and remain blissfully unaware of certain Arbcom proceedings. Easier said than done.) But since you ask, I'll say no—I certainly don't want to reopen something I wish hadn't been opened in the first place. Rivertorch (talk) 11:51, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Are we good now? I've got some questions I'd like to add, but I want to see the reaction to my question at the 'crat noticeboard first. Thoughts welcome, here or there. - Dank (push to talk) 16:21, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

New working draft
Apologies to anyone waiting with bated breath. . . I've finally gotten the text I've been working on onto the page. I left one section that was already there intact, removed another as potentially redundant, and incorporated the rest in modified form. (Please tell me if I screwed up. I may well have—it all starts to blur when I've been looking at it for days on end.)

If the decision is to reopen the suspended RfC at WT:PC, several of the questions here can simply be scrapped. That might not be a bad thing, since what I came up with looks rather long. Then again, maybe four total RfCs, two of them concurrent, would be more fatiguing for participants—I have no idea.

Comments, questions, assorted gripes, bold alterations are all much appreciated at this point. Dank, do you have anything to add based on your 'crat discussion? Rivertorch (talk) 21:16, 3 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Oh my.. Just a comment.. Please don't take this the wrong way, but the whole "Reviewers" section looks way too complicated... I can't think of a good other way though... So... I guess this isn't much help... gwickwire &#124; Leave a message 02:12, 4 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Not at all. I'm glad for the feedback. I agree it does look complicated. I wonder whether it would look less complicated if I tried to make it look a little tidier. Honestly, I find wiki markup a bit limiting when it comes to formatting text, but I'll play around a little and see what I can come up with. If that doesn't work, I suppose it might be possible to remove or merge a question or two. Rivertorch (talk) 04:42, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it would be helpful to restructure the reviewer question to make it easier for editors to suggest alternative thresholds, for instance, I would likely support an 'upper limit' threshold lower then 1.5k edits for no/very limited discretion grant on request. Also, while I'm fine leaving it to admin discretion below the upper limit threshold, someone might want both an upper limit where it is automatically granted, and a lower limit below which it pretty much can't, with a discretionary range in between. Monty  845  05:24, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Hmm. I'll have to think how to word that without making it even more complicated. Would you like to take a stab at it? (I've been wrestling with section header formatting for the past hour and was just about frustrated enough to abandon the whole thing till tomorrow until I noticed the "database is temporarily in read-only mode" notice. That should be in Day-Glo pink or something; I thought either my browser was suddenly improperly caching page previews or I was losing my mind.) Rivertorch (talk) 05:55, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The reviewer section is going to give a result you don't want, I think. PC will fail if sub-community doesn't form to promote it, and this community will at a minimum want to see that they have some power over the parameters of PC, that their efforts are having an effect and their feedback is taken seriouly. I'd be in favor of reducing the reviewer questions to a single question: "Have there been any decisions in the history from the past three months for the reviewer-right section at RFPERM that you disagree with?"  Hopefully, voters will do some actual digging and think about the real effects on real people. - Dank (push to talk) 12:03, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
 * How much digging do you expect the average respondant to an RfC to do? I just spent 30 minutes or so looking through the history of that permissions page, and I didn't glean anything much from it. I'm sure there are isolated decisions I'd second-guess, but I didn't find a troubling pattern; it looks as if the small handful of admins who are active there take it seriously and do a very good job, for the most part. If we asked the question you suggest, what kind of response would you expect to get? (I'd forecast a bunch of simple "no"s, for the most part. Am I wrong?) More to the point, how would you expect that response to inform the crafting of the policy? Btw, some of my concerns about reviewership are based on stuff that happened during the trial—ancient history, for sure, but history has a way of repeating itself. Rivertorch (talk) 15:34, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
 * How much digging? It probably depends on how interested they are in the tool and in the community that's developing. If they're basing their vote on some idea they had one day, they probably won't be interested enough to look at what's actually been happening. I don't mind biasing the voter pool in favor of the voters who care about the people and the issue. - Dank (push to talk) 21:21, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Me either, but I find it hard to believe that more than a few editors responding to the RfC will care enough to do very much research. Anyway, forgive me if I'm once again being dense; I have all sorts of hypotheticals floating around in my mind, as well as serious reservations left over from the trial period, and all of that may be coloring my perception of what needs to be asked. Since you're presumably not going to be closing the RfC, it might help if you'd be very direct about what you think and why. Reading between the lines, I sense that you think the status quo that has developed around approving/denying the reviewer permission is working well enough. Is that right? If so, then I can understand why you'd think the three questions in section 2.1 are unnecessary or even counterproductive. What about the remaining questions in section 2? My intention in posing those isn't to second-guess anything routinely going on at the permissions page with the regulars there. It's more to ward off ghosts from the trial period coming back to haunt us. (Monty, I'd like to hear your thoughts as well, since the reviewer questions at this point are a fusion of your ideas and mine.) Rivertorch (talk) 21:55, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
 * If PC is going to work ... and even if it's ultimately shut down, if the people doing the work are going to feel supported while it's going on ... then at some point, we have to switch from negative to positive, from "here's all the lines that can't be crossed ... not that we're going to help with the work" to "we believe in the project and we're here to help". The switchover doesn't have to happen right this second, but it has to happen before PC has a chance of being a success, and now would be as good a time to start as any. Part of the switchover would be framing the questions so that they give community support to the people who have been doing promotions (Reaper Eternal, Kudpung, and Ks0stm) and, by extension, to the people they've promoted ... because, in the absence of hierarchy, community support is the only thing that allows workers to be effective when they're challenged. If PC does succeed, then no matter what's decided in RfCs, reviewer work will require some judgment calls and take some heat, and promotion and demotion of reviewers will also get harder. - Dank (push to talk) 23:40, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
 * P.S. You do make a good point that few voters might be willing to do the work of evaluating the promotion work that's been done so far. Nevertheless, I think it's important. I was hoping some of the crats would be willing to do some of this work, because they've been publicly vetted and they'd bring some gravitas and visibility to the process, but none were willing when I asked a couple of days ago at WP:BN. One option would be to turn the role Reaper and others are filling into an elected role; elections usually draw people in. - Dank (push to talk) 23:52, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay. Now how do we frame the questions in a way that encourages community support of the people doing promotions and recognizes that (1) those people aren't the only people who will be doing promotions in the future and (2) those people aren't necessarily the ones who will be doing demotions? Rivertorch (talk) 04:54, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I for one think they have been doing fine work in reviewing the current requests, and as far as granting of the right is concerned, I'm not very motivated to change it much. One of the advantages to an automatic grant threshold is is places less burden on the admins considering permission, and allows them to focus more directly on the borderline cases. Even if we stick with the current practice, I don't think its going to engender particular controversy, and we could always tweak it later. For me the much more important issue is the question of removal, as was shown during the trial, mistakes or judgement calls subject to disagreement happen, sometimes they attract a lot of attention, and there can be a reflexive desire to strip the permission of whoever was involved. That is a much more serious issue. If we adopt a system where removal is harder, then we probably need to consider how easy the right is to get, as easy to get, hard to remove is likely to cause occasional problems. Ultimately, I'm not really sure how to precede on the granting question at this point. Monty  845  21:12, 5 November 2012 (UTC)


 * 1.1 We already have a draft policy at WP:PC. There's no need to ask people about some hypothetical when we have a concrete draft made.
 * 1.2 Not worth asking, considering the early feedback at the collapsed RfC, which was unanimously against it.
 * 1.3 Comments were unanimously in favor of this, at least transfer the comments from the collapsed RfC to this
 * 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 and all subsections. Should probably be replaced with a simple question "Should the criteria for granting and removal be the same as for rollbacker?"
 * 2.4 How many editors had reviewer forcibly revoked?
 * 3.1 Need to move feedback from the collapsed RfC.
 * 4.1 Early feedback was clear that people wanted to use the existing RFPP board.
 * 5 An RfC about having another RfC. You don't need consensus to open discussion again in a year, just do it if you think it's needed. Gigs (talk) 22:03, 5 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I think that Gigs is right on some of these points. I've boldly simplified the proposed questions and removed some.  I hope that you'll agree that it's an improvement, but please feel free to revert if it's not.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:50, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I think the semi-protection question is still highly misleading, because we already have consensus to only use it for BLP, vandalism, or copyright, which is more limited than semiprotection.  I'm going to reword it to focus on what I think it's trying to ask: whether it should be hard requirements or administrator discretion. Gigs (talk) 04:44, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I've transplanted comments from the previous RfC. Once we get close to opening we should canvass everyone who commented both inviting them to consider the additional questions and to give them an opportunity to review the way that I transplanted their comments, in case anyone changes their mind based on the new format or wordings. Gigs (talk) 05:02, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

The revision to the noticeboard question removed the entire original point of the question, which had nothing whatsoever to do with requests for PC. I'm changing the wording of that question to remove any mention of the noticeboard and re-adding the question about the noticeboard (with appropriate modification, since it would be confusing otherwise). I made a couple other significant changes, the reasons for which I hope are either self-evident or adequately explained in my edit summaries. (If not, I'll be happy to spell it out.) I'm less than thrilled with those comments from the other page being added in, but as long as the editors who made them are notified (after this goes live, not before) and acknowedge the notification, I guess it's not a big deal. Rivertorch (talk) 10:40, 7 November 2012 (UTC)


 * My thoughts are above ... the flavor of the current questions is very much "looking in from the outside", which is fine ... people doing the work of PC will need to know what lines we're not supposed to cross, what constraints we're working under. This RfC does none of the work of creating and supporting community ... I suggested a question above that would do that, but it doesn't seem to have support ... but I don't object to waiting to shift focus until after RfC 3. Given the outside-looking-in slants of all the RfCs so far, I don't recommend an RfC 4. - Dank (push to talk) 12:44, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I am OK with Rivertorch's revisions. Rivertorch, thanks for coming together on this.  I know we've had conflict over this and I'm glad we came to an arrangement we can both agree to, even if it's not exactly what either of us wanted.


 * GedUK has already added new comments. The presence of the transplanted comments is making people think this is already open, no matter how many warnings we put at the top. Should we go ahead and call this open? Gigs (talk) 14:34, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm a bit unclear on what is supposed to go under the first two headings, "Discussion on draft PC policy" and "Discussion on draft reviewers guideline". Is this supposed to hold free-form discussion on these topics? Similarly, I think there are other sections where some clarification can be added to specify where commenters are expected to add their feedback. isaacl (talk) 15:13, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, free form feedback on the policy and guideline so far (of course the answers to this RfC will still need to be integrated after). Please make bold changes to make it clearer what sections are for.  We need to get this running. Gigs (talk) 15:19, 7 November 2012 (UTC)


 * @ Dank: I don't have a problem with the question you proposed, although I have to say I don't see—and you haven't explained—how it would make this RfC less "outside looking in". (I think it would result in a general affirmation of the good work by Reaper, Kudpung et al, as well as perhaps some nitpicking about individual cases . . . meh.) But I trust your judgment: if you think we should ask it, please add it in. And soon. I'm about to do a final run-through and look for glaring errors, but I think someone (Gigs?) should open this by the end of today. Rivertorch (talk) 17:44, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * It looks good to go . . . except I really don't see the point of sections 1 and 2. They appear to lengthen the RfC needlessly, and general discussion on those points might be better at the relevant talk pages. Maybe I'm missing something. Rivertorch (talk) 18:49, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I have a proposed change to the draft pending changes policy. It doesn't change any of the meaning; it's only stylistic (I've suggested eliminating the "Description" section and merging it with the lead, as there is considerable overlap). Nonetheless, it might be good to settle this before the Requests for Comments discussion is started. isaacl (talk) 18:59, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Rivertorch, I feel like we need to have some wider discussion (or at least attention) of the actual proposed policy and guideline before we just mark them as policy and guideline. Gigs (talk) 19:15, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay. When/where? I need to get offline soon. Rivertorch (talk) 19:28, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * If you don't want to have it here then we should at least link to their talk pages in a prominent place on the RfC. Gigs (talk) 19:50, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * In thinking it over, I'm sure you're right. Either way works for me. Rivertorch (talk) 19:54, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I understand; there are already two sections in the RFC for discussing the pending changes policy and the reviewers guideline. Are you saying it needs to be discussed before the RFC is opened? isaacl (talk) 20:04, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * No, Rivertorch was questioning whether it was appropriate to include those sections here. We could move them to the bottom so that they don't disrupt the flow if they get long. Gigs (talk) 20:29, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I missed the part where Rivertorch asked about the first two sections in the RfC. Putting the open-ended questions at the end is a good move. isaacl (talk) 21:43, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

OK I linked those discussion pages to the sections here. Gigs (talk) 20:32, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I removed the promotion and demotion sections; I don't think they're appropriate for this RfC. You want to discuss those questions with people who are actually promoting and demoting, and with people who are and want to be reviewers, to find out what will work and give them a sense that the system is fair and that we're listening to their viewpoints. This RfC seems focused on soliciting the views of people who might not participate but might want to set boundaries for how PC can be used. I'm in favor of tackling this right after this RfC is closed. - Dank (push to talk) 21:40, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. Gigs (talk) 22:39, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, doesn't sound good at all to me. I can see skipping the promotion section, but I think the demotion section is vital, and I fail to see how asking the community about setting limits on demotion reflects in anything but the most peripheral way—if at all—on the status quo at requests for reviewership and the admins currently active there. If consensus is utterly against including the question now, then I think it's critical to ask it separately as soon as this RfC is closed. I hope that won't be too late. Rivertorch (talk) 05:13, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Sadly, most of what we've learned over the years at RfA can't be applied to RfA, but I'm hoping we can apply some of it here. One of the things I think we've learned is that, since everyone's a volunteer here, you have to tread carefully when dealing with things that feel "personal", such as promotion and demotion, or you lose your workforce. Promotion and demotion shouldn't just be tossed in with everything else for random passers-by to decide. I expect we'll have plenty of time after this RfC. - Dank (push to talk)
 * I agree with Dank. It's really something that should have a more nuanced discussion with stakeholders.  Voting without much prior discussion with stakeholders is likely to lead to an undesirable outcome.  I don't see any reason why the discussions can't run in parallel to the RfC on WT:PERM, since I don't think the outcomes here would weigh much into the discussion. Gigs (talk) 15:13, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Condensing lessons learned from RfA down to a sentence is hard, but the theme would be: it's not rocket science to evaluate someone according to a set of criteria, but to be good at it, and to be believable in the role, you have to actually want to do it ... some people offering opinions on promotion at RfA seem to have other priorities. Likewise, everyone who actually wants to be a reviewer will probably succeed. But not all voters in an RfC are going to belong to either of these groups; they will probably have a range of viewpoints and agendas, which is fine, that's what we want from an RfC ... but that's not what we want in a promotion or demotion process. Setting too many rules before we get started would make it harder rather than easier for a virtuous cycle to take root, that is: promoters/demoters make calls seen as valid (and resist bad calls, if some admins are making bad calls), which increases trust in the process, which makes it easier for candidates to hear what's being said, respond honestly without fear of the process, and do what's required. - Dank (push to talk) 16:15, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. But it seems to me that when it comes to reviewer demotion, one or two admins who make very bad calls—and I don't suppose these will be the same admins who are active in assessing requests for reviewership—can do great damage, driving away good editors, eroding trust in the admin corps, and persuading elements within the community that reviewership and pending changes are more about power trips and bolstering divisions among Wikipedians than they are about building and maintaining a better encyclopedia. If past experience is any guide, that such bad calls will happen isn't a matter of if but only of when—or are we going to pretend that there aren't admins who "go rogue" and use their tools in ways that are less than optimal? It couldn't matter less to me whether demotion is handled at AN/ANI or someplace else (WP:Requests for permissions/Reviewer removal?), but I do believe it should be handled transparently in a location where extended discussion can happen, constructive input from the larger community is welcomed, and consensus is encouraged to develop. It's one thing for the community to tell an editor he or she isn't trusted with the reviewer flag and agree it should be removed; it's something else entirely for one editor to tell another editor that and then act on it. Rivertorch (talk) 19:57, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I think things are already leaning toward ANI for any potentially controversial removal of rights, including reviewer. I think we'll easily get consensus for that in discussions with stakeholders. Have some faith. :)  Gigs (talk) 00:09, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't know if PC will turn out to be a big thing (that's not a dig at PC; I think it could work fine as a smallish process, if we don't succeed in getting a lot of people interested), but if it does, then the ability that admins have to promote or demote could cause a lot of trouble if misused, and I'd be in favor of putting notifications on the talk page of every admin giving them a link to discussions about standards and the current state of affairs at RFPERM. I wouldn't want this to come across as a threat, only as a heads-up that the community has decided (if we have) that it's important to get it right, and standards have developed (if they have). With respect, I think that most of the supporters of PC over the years who have talked about promotion or demotion have been on the wrong track, hoping that the promotion and demotion process would be trivial and automatic ... it might turn out that way, but if it does, that's the sign of a failed process. When people really get interested in doing volunteer work, it's generally important to them to take pride in a process and own it, and that means they'll be trying to do the maximum, not the minimum, which generally means that things evolve and get a little complicated. - Dank (push to talk) 00:23, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I honestly can't argue with anything you've just said. It makes a lot of sense. (And yes, Gigs, I'll try to have some faith—even when my inner pessimist urges me not to.) Rivertorch (talk) 06:52, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Whoa!
Is it time to !vote yet? Cause it still says draft... We really should get this going though, or we won't have much time before December 1.. Just my two cents. gwickwire &#124; Leave a message 04:56, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm transplanting comments from the aborted RfC. It's not open for new comments yet.  Yes, I agree we need to get it open soon.  Gigs (talk) 04:57, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Whoops... I probably should have recognized that.. Sorry. gwickwire &#124; Leave a message 05:07, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Quick Question -- "Your edit was saved"

 * Note sure this question really fit on the RfC anywhere, but may be worth considering: Now that we have the "Your edit was saved" infobox come up every time someone makes an edit as a way to let the editor know the page actually changed...will that need to be modified for new/unregistered users attempting to edit articles with PCs?  I, Jethrobot  drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 05:59, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * No, their work was saved. It just isn't displayed. Gigs (talk) 17:21, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
 * But I wonder – and I'm looking at this from the perspective of WP:BITE – whether the technical fact that the edit was "saved" might seem kind of insulting when the saved edit is nonetheless not visible on the page. I think the way most people would understand the word "saved" in this context is that the edit has been made part of the page, not that it is stored on a server. I can easily imagine good-faith users complaining, while the edit awaits review, that "I tried to make an edit, and it said that it was saved, but I can't see it on the page!" And telling them that, technically, it was saved is going to be a discouraging message. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:31, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps a message like "Your edit has been queued for review" would be apt. isaacl (talk) 00:16, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
 * That'd be fine. Would you file it in bugzilla? Gigs (talk) 01:41, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with this, even to the point that PC shouldn't go live until this is fixed. It's rather dishonest to tell a user that their edit has been "saved" when it's only been queued for review. Everyone outside of Wikipedia (and here, for that matter) believes that "saved" means implemented, whether that is technically true or not. First Light (talk) 02:11, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Saved is technically correct though, the best kind of correct. Seriously though, come hell or high water (literally true since we had to deal with Sandy while designing this RfC) we are going live on December 1. Is this message somewhere in editinterface land or is it something that has to go through bugzilla? Gigs (talk) 14:13, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

I found it: MediaWiki:Postedit-confirmation. There's no logic for PC in the code though. We can change the message to say something else though. Gigs (talk) 15:29, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Note that there is a persistent banner at the top of the article after a PC is saved that says: "Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia! Your changes will be reviewed shortly (?) There are 3 pending revisions (shown below) awaiting review.", and they will see their new version after the pending changes. Gigs (talk) 15:46, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I see this issue much as First Light does: it will be harmful if we go live without first making sure that the messages are consistent with one another and genuinely make sense. Treating good-faith editors with respect while their edits await review is more important than sticking to a deadline "come hell or high water". Look at it this way: do we really want to be greeted on December 1 with hundreds of queries from editors asking what is going on with edits that don't seem to work? --Tryptofish (talk) 16:06, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
 * There are no event hooks for PC vs a normal save that I can see. The plugin can't be modified, it'll take a core modification in the engine to add new hooks, and if we don't fire the existing hook, it could break other scripts and plugins.  The best we can do in the short term is either turn off the postedit plugin entirely, or change the message that everyone will see when saving, whether it's queued or not. Gigs (talk) 01:06, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll confess to blissful ignorance about the technical side, but I guess we should be braced for questions and perhaps complaints on Dec. 1. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:25, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Just to quickly add my two cents, I'd support changing the message for every edit to someing like "your edit has been recieved" or something else with a synonym for recieved, as this makes sure that there's no confusion of it not showing up, as it was recieved but not published. Make sense? gwickwire &#124; Leave a message 22:43, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
 * If I had my druthers, I'd go that way for edits being reviewed, and keep the "saved" message for edits that are actually saved and displayed. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:29, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * As a logged in user, I see the following banner text below the article title and above the article text:
 * Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia! Your changes will be reviewed shortly (?)
 * There is 1 pending revision (shown below) awaiting review.
 * Since this message is persistent, and won't go away, unlike the pop-up message, I think it should reduce any confusion about what will happen next to the edit. Can someone who doesn't mind editing as an anonymous user report what is displayed after a pending edit? isaacl (talk) 15:49, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * With my unautoconfirmed alt account, it said: "Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia! Your changes will be reviewed shortly". No sign of the new "edit saved" message. (Full disclosure: I'm not seeing the new message all the time, anyway. Is everyone else?) Rivertorch (talk) 16:32, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I did see the "edit saved" pop-up (I do get it all the time). If someone else can report on the pending edit experience as an IP address, that would be great! isaacl (talk) 16:49, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll second the request, but I wouldn't be too hopeful of any volunteers. If you and I don't want to put our IPs out there, why should anyone else? Fwiw, I think that the experience for an non-autoconfirmed account should be the same as for an IP. (Here's a technical question: if my alt account, which I've used exclusively for testing PC, becomes autoconfirmed, can that be undone or would I need to open yet another account?) Rivertorch (talk) 05:30, 24 November 2012 (UTC) Wait—how about a request at the Village Pump for a dedicated IP to give it a try? Throw 'em a link to one of the test pages and let them do their worst. Rivertorch (talk) 05:33, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm probably the last person who should give advice about the technical side of things, but this is probably something for the WMF developers to be made aware of, via Bugzilla. Maybe a discussion at Village Pump, Technical, would be useful too. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:43, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Is there any consensus on whether or not a request for enhancement should be placed to enhance the post-edit hook/add a new hook where there is sufficient context available to distinguish between a saved pending edit and a regular saved edit? (I don't know anything about the internals of MediaWiki; is there some kind of context object available in the post-edit hook that could be enhanced to provide this information? I realize that it may be a bit of work to provide it in an extensible way, assuming pending changes is an optional feature.) isaacl (talk) 15:39, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I obviously support such a request. It will have to happen sooner or later. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:41, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * At the risk of letting everyone know my IP, I tested it with my IP on one of the sandboxes and it looks the same as logged in. They actually do see their modified, unapproved, version as well, unless they navigate off of it and back onto it.  It's set into a GET parameter so even if they reload they still see the modified version. Gigs (talk) 00:20, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * We might be able to return a message in the status object of PageContentSaveComplete which is passed by reference that says whether it was PC or not. I don't know if the developers would want to go that way or not, since some plugins might detect a status message as an error. Gigs (talk) 00:26, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Time to close?
Comments have slowed to a trickle. More like a drip, really. If we'd like to give The Blade a chance to enjoy a leisurely holiday weekend and look the whole thing over, and still give ourselves a day or two to make some changes based on his reading of it, we probably ought to box it up. Rivertorch (talk) 06:40, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah I was going to say something similar. Good with me. Gigs (talk) 14:01, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed, but give it 24 hours since the discussion was mentioned in the Signpost Discussion Report. - Dank (push to talk) 14:45, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
 * This week's Signpost? That's awkward. Till tomorrow then. Rivertorch (talk) 18:38, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Or the next day, as the case may be. I've removed the RfC template and will give TBOTNL a holler. Rivertorch (talk) 16:11, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Time to close? (Part II)
So, there's only 2 days left in November... Canuck 89 (chat with me) 07:08, November 28, 2012 (UTC)
 * FYI. And the sky won't fall if we're still scrambling a bit in early December. (At least, I don't think it will.) Rivertorch (talk) 09:27, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

What's left to do before the witching hour?
I've been surfing through a veritable rabbits' warren of PC-related pages, most of them fine, some in need of updating, one or two utterly obsolete. What critical tasks remain to be done before the calendar gets flipped to December? Rivertorch (talk) 06:43, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I did several things, the most significant of which was to chain transclude the historical template from the old nav template which marked most of the old pages historical. I'd say just boldly fix whatever you see that needs fixing. Gigs (talk) 16:43, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Would it be possible to have a watchlist notification or new message header for everyone the first time they log in to notify them of the redeployment? It seems to me that not a lot of editors (mostly new, but quite a few more experienced) don't know about the redeployment which may cause confusion later tonight... Just a suggestion. gwickwire &#124; Leave a message 20:34, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Have the steps necessary for PC to actually be enabled been coordinated? I.E. is someone standing by the flip the proverbial switch? I'm just realizing that I don't really know what is required, and don't see any recent discussion. Monty  845  20:51, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Omg. I thought it was set automatically to come on... We have 3 hours left! It's not automatic? -runs around in circles screaming- gwickwire &#124; Leave a message 20:54, 30 November 2012 (UTC)


 * As I understand it, there's no switch to be flipped. It's just "legal" for admins to choose to use PC protection on pages now.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:11, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * That is my understanding as well. The ability to PC-protect pages was never taken away. I remember someone saying that it uses a different window/button than regular protection, but I can't remember who told me that. ~Adjwilley (talk) 21:16, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm a new admin, so I may well be missing something, but when I look at the protection interface for most pages, I don't see any option for PC. I also checked at Pending changes/Testing/1 and the option to protect with PC is there. Now I got the impression somewhere that it may just take an interface tweak to change that, but I wasn't sure, and wanted to make sure we had our bases covered. Monty  845  21:21, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok, I found it. The ed17 said it here (although I have no idea what a scrollbox is). Somebody should probably change the notice on the scrollbox he's talking about though, and that will probably have to be a WMF person. ~Adjwilley (talk) 21:23, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * We really need to figure out if we do need someone from the WMF. There is a lot of functionality in the media wiki space, and it may be that a knowledgeable admin can do it. But if we need someone from the WMF, and it hasn't already been coordinated, we better get going or it may not happen on time (if its not already too late for that). Monty  845  21:35, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * From what I understand, nothing was ever turned off, we just stopped using it. I don't think we need anything to be done on the WMF side, but a few MediaWiki: pages probably need to be updated. Legoktm (talk) 21:49, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Looks like the places I was checking have it disabled. The latest RFC said all name spaces, and some have it off, including the User name space. Not a big deal for the roll out, but will want to look into it eventually. Monty  845  21:51, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I've updated RFPP's headers and posted a reminder at VPM and AN. Let the screaming begin.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:31, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I have just performed a live test in article space and everything was fine. Only thing I noticed was that you have to do the protection manually, Twinkle does not support it currently, I will ask those folks if if it is possible to get support for it there. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:54, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Monty is right though, it is off in user space. Seems to be ok in WP space. And we already knew it is disabled for talk pages. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:10, 30 November 2012 (UTC)


 * This isn't terribly urgent, but WP:Reviewer needs attention. I've started on it a couple of times and keep getting distracted by RL. There's nothing there that will cause any great chaos if it doesn't get fixed today, but what it says is quite out of date. I suggest, btw, that we continue these sorts of discussions at WT:PC, which is probably where I should have started this one. (God help me, I'm almost going to miss this process. I wonder, does that mean I'm a certified Wikiholic or just certifiable?) Rivertorch (talk) 23:03, 30 November 2012 (UTC)