Wikipedia:Pending changes

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.

There are three protection levels: semi flag protection, intermediary flag protection and full flag protection, and a usergroup Reviewer. On semi- or intermediately-flag protected pages, the latest confirmed revision is by default displayed to readers. Reviewers can confirm revisions on semi and intermediately flag protected pages. All autoconfirmed users are auto-confirmed on semi flag protected pages , that is, if the latest version of a page is confirmed, a new revision by an autoconfirmed user is automatically confirmed. On intermediately flag protected pages, reviewers are auto-confirmed but not autoconfirmed users who are not reviewers.

The table below resumes this:

The process will work like this:

1. Article receives heavy vandalism from anons or users that have yet to be autoconfirmed
2. Someone requests flagged 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 basic workings of flagged revision can be previewed here, except in this implementation, there is no need to set user rights to flag revisions.

The scope of flagged protection is limited by the protection policy. The conditions for semi flagged 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 flagged revisions either. Likewise, only pages that would otherwise be fully protected under the protection policy may be put under full flagged protection. Intermediary flagged protection can be used for articles meeting the requirements for full protection when it doesn't involve a content dispute, or when there is consensus for using it.

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.

• Wikipedia:Flagged protection and patrolled revisions/Implementation for the technical implementation of flagged protection