Wikipedia:Pending changes: Difference between revisions

The following is a draft working towards a proposal for adoption as a Wikipedia policy, guideline, or process. The proposal must not be taken to represent consensus, but is still in development and under discussion, and has not yet reached the process of gathering consensus for adoption. Thus references or links to this page should not describe it as policy, guideline, nor yet even as a proposal.

This page in a nutshell: Flagged protection provides an alternative to page protection for articles, its use being limited by the protection policy.

This Wikipedia page needs to be updated. Please help update this Wikipedia page to reflect recent events or newly available information. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page.

Pending changes (formerly known as "Flagged protection") is a specific use of flagged revisions which provides an alternative to the current page protection feature: instead of disallowing editing for certain users, editing is allowed, but those edits must be flagged before being displayed to non-registered readers by default. Flagged protection is part, along with patrolled revisions, of a planned trial implementation on the English Wikipedia.

One of the problems that this proposal is trying to solve is that about 3,000 articles are semi-protected. While 0.1% of English Wikipedia may not seem a huge fraction, semi-protected articles tend to be among the most-read ones, and many readers will also want to make legitimate contributions to them. Anonymous and new users can use the {{editsemiprotected}} template to suggest changes to the page, but it is tedious and daunting for newcomers to use. Thus, while it makes an article somewhat safer from vandalism, semi-protection locks out people who want to contribute in good faith to an article. Therefore, this system is designed to diminish the need for {{editsemiprotected}}, and to allow users to make changes directly to the article without knowing how to use the template.

Similarly, full protection permits only administrators to make consensus-based edits to articles. With full flagged protection, any user could make a change, which editors could then discuss; administrators would flag edits that reflect consensus rather than make them directly.

Pending changes introduces new protection levels which can be used as an alternative to regular semi-protection and full-protection. During the trial, the conditions for using pending changes are the same as for using semi-protection; they are determined by the protection policy. Autoconfirmation can be turned off if the article meets the requirements for full-protection or if there is active consensus to do so. Disputes should still be handled by full protection^[1]. Classic protection can and should still be used, for example in cases of exceptionally high levels of vandalism, where using flagged protection would be counter-productive. The full spectrum of protection levels are shown in the following table:

Interaction of Wikipedia user groups and page protection levels

	Unregistered or newly registered	Confirmed or autoconfirmed	Extended confirmed	Template editor  ★	Admin	Interface admin	Appropriate for (See also: Wikipedia:Protection policy)
No protection	Normal editing						The vast majority of pages. This is the default protection level.
Pending changes	All users can edit Edits by unregistered or newly registered editors (and any subsequent edits by anyone) are hidden from readers who are not logged in until reviewed by a pending changes reviewer or administrator. Logged-in editors see all edits, whether accepted or not.						Infrequently edited pages with high levels of vandalism, BLP violations, edit-warring, or other disruption from unregistered and new users.
Semi	Cannot edit	Normal editing					Pages that have been persistently vandalized by anonymous and registered users. Some highly visible templates and modules.
Extended confirmed	Cannot edit		Normal editing				Specific topic areas authorized by ArbCom, pages where semi-protection has failed, or high-risk templates where template protection would be too restrictive.
Template	Cannot edit			Normal editing			High-risk or very-frequently used templates and modules. Some high-risk pages outside of template space.
Full	Cannot edit				Normal editing		Pages with persistent disruption from extended confirmed accounts.
Interface	Cannot edit					Normal editing	Scripts, stylesheets, and similar objects central to operation of the site or that are in other editors' user spaces.
★  The table assumes a template editor also has extended confirmed privileges, which is almost always the case in practice.
Other modes of protection: Create protection Move protection Upload protection Office protection Cascade protection view talk edit

Advantages over the current system

• Even though their edits are not visible immediately to readers, unregistered and new users can edit pages protected by pending changes, while they cannot edit semi-protected pages. So this allows constructive changes while disallowing vandalism and other unconstructive changes.
• Semi-protection is insufficient in certain cases, especially for articles targeted by persistent vandals or sockpuppets, or subject to extreme BLP violations; these sometimes require full protection. The option to deactivate auto-reviewing for autoconfirmed users who are not reviewers (autoconfirmation) provides a protection level adapted to handle those case

The process will work like this:

1. Article receives heavy vandalism from anons or users that have yet to be autoconfirmed
2. Someone requests pending changes protection on WP:RFPP
3. Administrator activates flagged revisions on the article
4. Anon makes a legitimate edit to the article
5. An autoconfirmed user can decide to confirm or revert the revision made by the anon

In case of abuse, administrators can revoke the reviewer right.

The scope of pending changes protection is limited by the protection policy. The conditions for level 1 pending changes protection should be the same as to what the current semi-protection policy allows. If the article does not meet the requirements for semi-protection under the current semi-protection policy, then it should not be protected with pending changes either. Likewise, only pages that would otherwise be fully protected under the protection policy may be put under full (level 2) pending changes protection. The expiry date or the absence of such (indefinite protection) should be considered the same way as for normal protection.

It has been suggested that Reviewing guideline be merged into this page. (Discuss)

Confirming is generally based on the diff between the latest confirmed revision and the new revision. A new revision should be confirmed in general if it doesn't:

1. conflict with the Biographies of Living People policy
2. contain vandalism or patent nonsense
3. contain copyright violations
4. contain legal threats, personal attacks or libel.

Reviewers should take special consideration of the reason given for protection, and make sure to uphold it.

If a revision is not confirmed because of such concerns, the article should be edited^[who?], and unconstructive edits reverted, so that the latest version can be confirmed as soon as possible.

Edits should not generally be left unconfirmed on other grounds, such as containing Original Research, not being neutral, or not being adequately verified, except where this contradicts the policy on the biography of living persons, if the edit introduced many such problems, or the violations are egregious.

On a fully flag protected page, a revision may be validated if there is consensus to validate this revision, or if it is non-controversial compared to the latest validated version.