Re: [WikiEN-l] Problem with the pending changes review screen.

2010-06-16 Thread Carl (CBM)
On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 12:25 AM, FT2 ft2.w...@gmail.com wrote:
 Once a revision is no longer current, then whether it was
 accepted, reverted, unchecked or the like in the past is immaterial.

This is not quite true.  If a revision is marked as reviewed, and a
reviewer later reverts the article back to that revision, the revert
will automatically be marked as reviewed. For this reason, it's
important not to mark any revision with vandalism as 'reviewed', even
if you immediately fix the vandalism afterwards.

I made an example of this at [[Wikipedia:Pending
changes/Testing/CBM]]. I used an alternate account CBM2 to make bad
edits, and used my admin account CBM to review them and remove the bad
ones.  I intentionally made a mistake at timestamp 3:06 by accepting a
revision with vandalism and then undoing the vandalism separately.

But later, I looked at this diff

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3APending_changes%2FTesting%2FCBMaction=historysubmitdiff=368307529oldid=368306510

and clicked undo because it looked safe.

Looking at that diff, wouldn't you do the same thing? Because the
vandalism was present in both of the versions being compared, the diff
didn't show it. But because the original revision was marked as
reviewed, the new version was also marked as reviewed.

The moral is you should try not to accept edits with vandalism in
them, under the assumption that any version you review might later
become the live version.

- Carl

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Problem with the pending changes review screen.

2010-06-16 Thread FT2
Updated at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Pending_changes#How_it_affects_past_revisions_and_page_history

FT2




On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 11:29 AM, Carl (CBM) cbm.wikipe...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 12:25 AM, FT2 ft2.w...@gmail.com wrote:
  Once a revision is no longer current, then whether it was
  accepted, reverted, unchecked or the like in the past is immaterial.

 This is not quite true.  If a revision is marked as reviewed, and a
 reviewer later reverts the article back to that revision, the revert
 will automatically be marked as reviewed. For this reason, it's
 important not to mark any revision with vandalism as 'reviewed', even
 if you immediately fix the vandalism afterwards.

 I made an example of this at [[Wikipedia:Pending
 changes/Testing/CBM]]. I used an alternate account CBM2 to make bad
 edits, and used my admin account CBM to review them and remove the bad
 ones.  I intentionally made a mistake at timestamp 3:06 by accepting a
 revision with vandalism and then undoing the vandalism separately.

 But later, I looked at this diff


 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3APending_changes%2FTesting%2FCBMaction=historysubmitdiff=368307529oldid=368306510

 and clicked undo because it looked safe.

 Looking at that diff, wouldn't you do the same thing? Because the
 vandalism was present in both of the versions being compared, the diff
 didn't show it. But because the original revision was marked as
 reviewed, the new version was also marked as reviewed.

 The moral is you should try not to accept edits with vandalism in
 them, under the assumption that any version you review might later
 become the live version.

 - Carl

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[WikiEN-l] Problem with the pending changes review screen.

2010-06-15 Thread Gregory Maxwell
Imagine an article with many revisions and pending changes enabled:
A, B, C, D, E, F, G...

A is an approved edit. B,C,D,E,F,G are all pending edits.

B is horrible vandalism that the subsequent edits did not fix.

You are a reviewer, you go to review page by clicking a pending review
link.  On the review page you can accept— thus putting the horrible
vandalism on the site. Or you can reject which throws out the all
the good edits of C,D,E,F,G by reverting it to A.

To quote someone from IRC: this seems like its going to make vandals
even more effective because all they have to do is make one edit in a
string of ten good ones, and then the entire set has to be thrown out

But that isn't true at all.   You're not confined to the review page,
you simply go to the edit history, click undo on B, and then approve
your own edit (it won't be auto-approved because G wasn't approved).
Tada.

This completely non-obvious to people, because the only options on the
review page are accept or reject, and it's already causing confusion.
  This is a direct result of the late in the process addition of the
review button, — trying to fit the round-peg of a revision reviewing
system (which we can't have because of the fundamental incompatibility
with single linear editing history) in to presentation-flagging system
square hole that we actually have.

I don't know how to fix this. We could remove the reject button to
make it more clear that you use the normal editing functions (with
their full power) to reject.  But I must admit that the easy rollback
button is handy there.   Alternatively we could put a small chunk of
the edit history on the review page, showing the individual edits
which comprise the span-diff (bonus points for color-coding if someone
wants to make a real programming project out of it) along with the
undo links and such.

In the meantime I expect enwp will edit the message text to direct
people to the history page for more sophisticated editing activities.


(Thanks to Risker for pointing out how surprising the pending review
page was for this activity)

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Problem with the pending changes review screen.

2010-06-15 Thread Gregory Maxwell
On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 11:05 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com wrote:
 Imagine an article with many revisions and pending changes enabled:
 A, B, C, D, E, F, G...
[snip]
 I don't know how to fix this. We could remove the reject button to
 make it more clear that you use the normal editing functions (with
 their full power) to reject.  But I must admit that the easy rollback
 button is handy there.   Alternatively we could put a small chunk of
 the edit history on the review page, showing the individual edits
 which comprise the span-diff (bonus points for color-coding if someone
 wants to make a real programming project out of it) along with the
 undo links and such.
[snip]


Further discussion with Risker has caused me to realize that there is
another significant problem situation with the reject button.

Consider the following edit sequence:

A, B, C, D, E


A is a previously approved version.  B, and D are all excellent edits.
 C and E are obvious vandalism.  E even managed to undo all the good
changes of B,D while adding the vandalism.

A reviewer hits the pending revisions link in order to review, they
get the span diff from A to E.  All they see is vandalism, there is no
indication of the redeeming edits in the intervening span.  So they
hit reject.  The good edits are lost.


Unlike the prior problem, the only way to solve this would be only
display the REJECT button if all of the pending changes are by the
same author (or limiting it to only one pending change in the span,
which would be slightly more conservative but considering the
behaviour of the rollback button I think the group-by-author behaviour
would be fine).   The accept button is still safe.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Problem with the pending changes review screen.

2010-06-15 Thread FT2
As I understand it, and apologies if mistaken, all of this is based on a
misunderstanding of the tool.

A reviewer faced with any mix of edits and wishing to do something (ie not
ignore it all) has two main choices.

They can accept the most recent edit, or they can add an edit of their own
(which could be a revert or a fix of problem edits).

In either case, the latest edit is presumed good quality (because they are
doing it) and it becomes accepted.

The misunderstanding, as I understand it, is that pending changes doesn't
care about any intervening edits or unchecked page history. If there had
been 1000 edits since the last accepted revision, or 30 but all vandalism,
none of that matters. The aim of the tool is to ensure the public (ie
/latest/) version is presentable. It doesn't care for or censor historic
revisions. Once a revision is no longer current, then whether it was
accepted, reverted, unchecked or the like in the past is immaterial. The
vandalism and good edits remain in the page history as normal, users can see
them, revert them, sort out complex mixes of vandalism/non-vandalism as much
as they like. Past good edits are no more lost than they ever were.  The
purpose of pending changes is to ensure the current presented version will
be presentable to non-editors and logged-out users - nothing more.

FT2

On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 4:30 AM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 11:05 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com
 wrote:
  Imagine an article with many revisions and pending changes enabled:
  A, B, C, D, E, F, G...
 [snip]
  I don't know how to fix this. We could remove the reject button to
  make it more clear that you use the normal editing functions (with
  their full power) to reject.  But I must admit that the easy rollback
  button is handy there.   Alternatively we could put a small chunk of
  the edit history on the review page, showing the individual edits
  which comprise the span-diff (bonus points for color-coding if someone
  wants to make a real programming project out of it) along with the
  undo links and such.
 [snip]


 Further discussion with Risker has caused me to realize that there is
 another significant problem situation with the reject button.

 Consider the following edit sequence:

 A, B, C, D, E


 A is a previously approved version.  B, and D are all excellent edits.
  C and E are obvious vandalism.  E even managed to undo all the good
 changes of B,D while adding the vandalism.

 A reviewer hits the pending revisions link in order to review, they
 get the span diff from A to E.  All they see is vandalism, there is no
 indication of the redeeming edits in the intervening span.  So they
 hit reject.  The good edits are lost.


 Unlike the prior problem, the only way to solve this would be only
 display the REJECT button if all of the pending changes are by the
 same author (or limiting it to only one pending change in the span,
 which would be slightly more conservative but considering the
 behaviour of the rollback button I think the group-by-author behaviour
 would be fine).   The accept button is still safe.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Problem with the pending changes review screen.

2010-06-15 Thread Risker
The crux of this issue is that to revert individual edits one has to go to
the page history, the pending changes review window does not permit this.

Gmaxwell and I have worked out a step-by-step process for even the least
technical reviewer to follow.  You can find it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Reviewing#Step-by-step_.22how-to.22_for_reviewing_multiple_edits

Best,

Risker/Anne

On 16 June 2010 00:25, FT2 ft2.w...@gmail.com wrote:

 As I understand it, and apologies if mistaken, all of this is based on a
 misunderstanding of the tool.

 A reviewer faced with any mix of edits and wishing to do something (ie
 not
 ignore it all) has two main choices.

 They can accept the most recent edit, or they can add an edit of their own
 (which could be a revert or a fix of problem edits).

 In either case, the latest edit is presumed good quality (because they are
 doing it) and it becomes accepted.

 The misunderstanding, as I understand it, is that pending changes doesn't
 care about any intervening edits or unchecked page history. If there had
 been 1000 edits since the last accepted revision, or 30 but all vandalism,
 none of that matters. The aim of the tool is to ensure the public (ie
 /latest/) version is presentable. It doesn't care for or censor historic
 revisions. Once a revision is no longer current, then whether it was
 accepted, reverted, unchecked or the like in the past is immaterial. The
 vandalism and good edits remain in the page history as normal, users can
 see
 them, revert them, sort out complex mixes of vandalism/non-vandalism as
 much
 as they like. Past good edits are no more lost than they ever were.
  The
 purpose of pending changes is to ensure the current presented version will
 be presentable to non-editors and logged-out users - nothing more.

 FT2

 On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 4:30 AM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com
 wrote:

  On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 11:05 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com
  wrote:
   Imagine an article with many revisions and pending changes enabled:
   A, B, C, D, E, F, G...
  [snip]
   I don't know how to fix this. We could remove the reject button to
   make it more clear that you use the normal editing functions (with
   their full power) to reject.  But I must admit that the easy rollback
   button is handy there.   Alternatively we could put a small chunk of
   the edit history on the review page, showing the individual edits
   which comprise the span-diff (bonus points for color-coding if someone
   wants to make a real programming project out of it) along with the
   undo links and such.
  [snip]
 
 
  Further discussion with Risker has caused me to realize that there is
  another significant problem situation with the reject button.
 
  Consider the following edit sequence:
 
  A, B, C, D, E
 
 
  A is a previously approved version.  B, and D are all excellent edits.
   C and E are obvious vandalism.  E even managed to undo all the good
  changes of B,D while adding the vandalism.
 
  A reviewer hits the pending revisions link in order to review, they
  get the span diff from A to E.  All they see is vandalism, there is no
  indication of the redeeming edits in the intervening span.  So they
  hit reject.  The good edits are lost.
 
 
  Unlike the prior problem, the only way to solve this would be only
  display the REJECT button if all of the pending changes are by the
  same author (or limiting it to only one pending change in the span,
  which would be slightly more conservative but considering the
  behaviour of the rollback button I think the group-by-author behaviour
  would be fine).   The accept button is still safe.
 
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