Wikipedia talk:Checked edits brainstorming

Moved from Village pump in the wake of 1.4 being released

If you've looked at Special:Recentchanges lately, you've probably noticed the exclamation marks next to edits. These are part of the newly implemented edit flagging system. When you check a diff from the Recent changes page, a link saying "Mark as patrolled" should appear at top. For newly created articles, a link saying "Mark this article as patrolled" should appear at the bottom-right. If you click on such a link, the exclamation mark will be removed. This system exists to help Recent changes patrollers. If you wish to hide the exclamation marks, insert .not_patrolled { font-color: #f8fcff !important;} .unpatrolled {display: none;} into your user CSS. --Slowking Man 23:03, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

as I said in IRC, we just cant rely on this system. the markpatrolled id's are in a predictable fashion, eg 4769359, 4769360, 4769361.... the easiest way to vandalize the encyclopedia would be to manually or automatically mark them as read without looking --Alterego 23:10, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

Aargh red exclamation marks everywhere! Patrolling my watchlist takes long enough and I can't mark them as patrolled from there. I don't think talk pages should need such patrolling either, nor should the admin rollback. violet/riga (t) 23:18, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

On a diff page, there's just a "mark as patrolled" bluelink with no help or explanation. If you click on the link out of curiosity, expecting a definition or an encyclopedia page of information (which is what a blue link normally does in Wikipedia), then guess what... you've already marked it as patrolled just by clicking (counterintuitive behavoir for a blue link! Make it a button instead).

There's no explanation for what "patrolled" means. Does it mean:

• I am knowledgeable about the topic, and agree with this edit and endorse it
• I am not knowledgeable, but confirm that this edit does not seem to be obvious vandalism
• This edit is obvious vandalism but I will now take responsibility for reverting it, and mark it as patrolled so nobody else will need to bother
• ?? something else

Probably the definition of "patrolled" has been discussed in Village pump or elsewhere... but most users haven't read any such discussion. For somebody seeing this new feature for the first time on a diff page, there's no help or information at all... and probably many of the pages "marked as patrolled" today were clicked inadvertently as described above, and are thus not really patrolled at all... or clicked intentionally by people who have their own notion of what "patrolled" actually means. -- Curps 23:58, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Not only that, but we are asked only to patrol a "diff", yet when it's done we are informed that it's the revision that has been marked as patrolled. There may have been an earlier edit that performed vandalism but was not caught... thus it appears that I am endorsing the current revision in its entirety when in fact I only endorsed the latest diff.

Finally, there is a big problem if a more recent diff was made while you were patrolling the earlier diff (in a rapidly changing current-news page, for instance). Due to a flaw in the way diffs are done, it will probably appear that you endorsed the most recent diff rather the one that you intended to endorse (see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Recent_changes_page_and_History_page_don.27t_do_diff_as_expected.21). Thus you could be unintentionally endorsing vandalism.

I hope the above issues are being addressed. -- Curps 00:05, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure that an error in endorsing diffs could occur, because each diff has its own markpatrolled id. But, I'm no Mediawiki expert. Marking an edit as "patrolled" generally means that it's not vandalism or otherwise malicious. --Slowking Man 00:39, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

For marking new pages as patrolled there is a good set of guidelines at Wikipedia:New pages patrol. Thue | talk 13:06, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

A strictly wiki way to get rid of the "!"s is to add .unpatrolled {display: none;} to your /monobook.css, as in my css. May of course only apply to some skins. Jordi·✆ 00:19, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ah, there's the proper way to do it. I just lifted my suggestion from IRC. --Slowking Man 00:39, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

FWIW, it should work for the classic skin (in standard.css) as well. —Korath (Talk) 08:12, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

I tried making myself a monobook.css page, and added that .unpatrolled {display: none;} to it, but it didn't make any difference. What did I do wrong? What is a monobook.css anyway? Do I need all the other complicated technical jargon stuff that Anárion has got in his monobook.css before the .unpatrolled {display: none;} will work? Or should it work on its own? P Ingerson 08:48, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Just what you entered should be enough: all the rest in my user CSS are tweaks you probably do not want or like. It may take some time before your browser picks up the change, though. Jordi·✆ 08:50, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. It fixed itself after an hour or so. P Ingerson 16:03, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Is anybody marking edits? The only ones I've seen marked as patrolled were ones I did. Tuf-Kat 01:13, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

I did a fair few... but recentchanges rolls over very fast... I think the little exclamation marks are going to have to appear on watchlists too before this will really take off. Pcb21| Pete 14:25, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I marked some at special:newpages, where the results are more visible because the list moves slower. Thue | talk 13:06, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This sort of thing really makes me angry - it's not the first time we've had developers adding "it's not a bug, it's a feature" material to Mediawiki and then dumping that on Wikipedia as a default. I've managed to override it, but I don't believe that should be necessary.

I'm starting to think that the Wikimedia board should give approval before we let the latest version of MediaWiki go live on Wikipedia - whoever asked for this, and particularly in this horrendously ugly form? Ambi 08:17, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

On the other hand I am very disappointed to read such a chorus of disapproval. People have been asking for a form of "approved edit" for years. When some developer takes it upon themselves to provide what is asked, they get all this shit dumped on them.

Yes it's a first cut, Yes the community will make suggestions for improvements, and doubtless they will happen as they have always happened before. But it would be much better to approach this as "Ah, thanks, that's a big step in the right direction. It would be good if a) the icon could be edited by users, b) there was a mark as patrolled button accessible from the watchlist too, c) whatever else is required. then we really will be harnessing the power of our editors better." Pcb21| Pete 14:25, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Absolutely agree with Pete. Thanks very much from me, anyways. What's truly disturbing, though, is the degree to which this is being used (or isn't). Going to recent changes, most of the edits aren't marked patrolled. Are people not looking at them, or just not using the feature? Meelar (talk) 14:44, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

Not using the feature. I do not agree with the underlying idea that all edits are suspect until marked otherwise: that's not how a wiki works. It might be made possible to mark a diff for review, if inspected and found suspect, but by default all difs should be treated as valid. Jordi·✆ 15:08, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I understand the logic of this measure, but i'm worried with the (very likely) possibility that vandals learn to outflank this thing. A smart vandal can mark vandalism as patrolled and what happens then? I dont think patrolled edits are trustworthy. muriel@pt 16:48, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Isn't there a way to make it impossible for users to patrol their own edits? If so, it should be implemented. Meelar (talk) 17:11, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

It wouldn't make much difference—they'd just vandalize as an anon and patrol while logged in. Or use a sock. —Korath (Talk) 17:38, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

If they're willing to go to that much trouble. I think most of our vandals wouldn't go to those lengths (if they even understood the place enough to work them). Meelar (talk) 19:19, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

Maybe it would be more workable if you could see who patrolled a given edit, so a known vandal/sockpuppet/troll's patrols aren't given much heed. Though this does cut both ways: I've been marking vandalisms as patrolled and then reverting them; if I'm beaten to the revert, or I mark an already-reverted vandalism as patrolled, then it looks like I'm hiding it instead of fixing it. —Korath (Talk) 17:44, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

On the one hand, I would like to thank the developers for their hard work, and the many improvements that have been made to Mediawiki. On the other hand, this approval of individual edits doesn't seem to have much potential. The recent changes page only shows about 2 minutes worth of changes, so even if everyone feverishly tried to approve all edits coming down the line, most of them would still have red exclamation marks beside them. Suppose, on the other hand, that an individual page's history displays them. If several, mutually distrusting editors are working on the page, the presence or absence of the red mark will mean nothing to them. Sorry that I don't have a useful counter-suggestion. --Yath 17:54, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Allowing several people to patrol an edit and displaying the list together with each edit in the page history could work. Thue | talk 13:06, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Good concept, incomplete execution. Thanks to the devs for doing it though; I'm sure it will improve eventually and it won't hurt anybody too much in the meantime (despite the negative remarks above). Being able to see the user name who approved the edit would be helpful. Having a complex (underneath) yet easy to use reputation system would be better. But, of course, people will try to game such a system, and finding the balance of necessary complexity and ease of use is certainly not a trivial task. I look forward to seeing this improve, but I probably won't use it much until it works on watchlists instead of just RC. Thanks again to the developers who implemented it. ~leif ☺ _HELO 22:02, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

Just a little comment, I reached this discussion from the Recent Changes Page (where most people would see it), but perhaps this feature is so great that it deserves its own page (or maybe even subpage?) Ambush Commander 03:13, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)

The feature is a lot more useful at New Pages things scroll slower and it has a snazy yellow highlight. Only problem is that after clicking on "mark as patrolled" it refers you to recent changes not new pages. BrokenSegue 05:11, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Let me rephrase what I said before. We do need some sort of feature to patrol edits, and thank you to the developers for this much, but this haphazard implementation is a mess. It's ugly, for starters, overzealous (i.e. applying to admin rollbacks), easy to game, and in its current form, fairly useless. I do hope we'll see an improved version of this in the future, but I maintain that the current version - at least as it applies to recent changes, is more of a bug than a feature. Ambi 07:13, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I really don't think that Recent Changes in the right place for this. I - and I suspect many others - 'live' on my Watchlist page and on NewPages. In those two locations it makes much more sense but as it isn't on my Watchlist page I have to hit the database more that I would if there was a 'patrolled' flag there too. Also, as Recent Changes is linked off of every page IWHT that there was more likelihood of partolling in error as newcomers look at that page and experiment ... I agree with many of the above comments though that presently it is more of a fault than a feature. --Vamp:Willow 14:23, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC) eep! this gets worse ... checking NewPages and spotting a couple that looked likely junk, went to them and found a message about the page not being found. (a) it isn't clear that this is a system message and not the text of a page, but (b) the page can be marked as 'patrolled'! This is insane! (and no explanation of why NewPages has gone yellow in place either) --Vamp:Willow 14:28, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

re a) It is a system error that shouldn't happen, so they can be forgiven for forgetting to remove the potrolled link IMO. re b) The patrolled pages are white, the unpatrolled are yellow. At the time you saw it there just wasn't any patrolled pages there. Thue | talk 18:02, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

actually, there were both 'white' and 'yellow' entries, but no explanation of what each signifies (unlike the brief explanation for the exclamation mark). Finding invalid (ie non-existant) pages is a normal part of editing and checking, and the old version of that page was clearly 'system info' not 'article like' in presentation. --Vamp:Willow 19:03, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It was an error page (right?); I assume people will not click on patrolled when the text says there has been a system error. It makes no sense to do so. So that seems harmless to me. But it would be nice if it was possible to add a message to the top of special:newpages (it isn't possible, I already checked). Thue | talk 19:52, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

OK, so I've done my first "Mark as patrolled", and the article is STILL showing up with a red exlamation point. Why? RickK 23:47, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)

I have created my first monobook.css page, which I didn't think I would need since I use the Classic skin. I did a Control-F5 to make sure the change took, and I'm still seeing the exclamation points. Is there a way to avoid seeing them when not using the monobook skin? RickK 23:54, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)

You may have to visit http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:RickK/monobook.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css and force-reload that before it will "take". Apparently the server does not properly expire the file when it is changed. Jordi·✆ 13:34, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The classic skin includes User:You/standard.css, not monobook.css. Try putting it there. —Korath (Talk) 13:57, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)

Looking at it now I see that not a single edit has been marked as patrolled. I really think that this makes the entire Wikipedia reviewing process look very poor. violet/riga (t) 00:07, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

FWIW I managed to "patrol" one of my edits this morning and the flag went away, so the system is actually operational. HTH HAND --Phil | Talk 16:06, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)

If you can 'patrol' your own edit then it makes it even more pointless, surely! --Vamp:Willow 17:12, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

(partly a repeat of what others have said) This feature would be more effective if we could 1) see the users marking the edit as patrolled and 2) see whether articles have been patrolled in our watchlists and in the page history of articles. I mostly check articles on my watchlist and it would save me time if I knew a trusted editor had already checked some anon's edit. --Jiang 03:41, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What is CSS?And how do I find it?--Onefool 01:35, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'll just turn it off if no-one wants to use it. Judging by the frequency with which edits are being checked at the moment, I think we can assume that no-one does. Forget improvements, I've spent enough time fixing this flawed feature as it is. I discussed at length how I thought an RC patrol feature should work, at Wikipedia:Checked edits brainstorming, but Timwi chose to ignore that discussion. I'd rather write my own from scratch. I just enabled it as a trial, since people kept asking about it. I think we can assume that the trial is over. -- Tim Starling 09:47, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)

A little time after it was turned off, 0.8% of edits and 8% of new pages in the last week had been marked as patrolled. For anons only, 2.6% of edits and 18% of creations had been marked as patrolled. Jamesday 11:12, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Most of them were log entries (deletion log, upload log, etc), which were automatically marked patrolled. Only 3.4% of the actual edits were patrolled. On January 4 it was 4.7%. -- Tim Starling 10:59, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)

Yes. Edit conflict merging merged my corrected numbers with your reply. 1503 of 195588 edits and 1381 of 17984 creations. For anons, 1203 of 46292 edits and 595 of 3285 creations. Jamesday 11:16, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think it was working well for new pages, or could work for special:newpages when more people figured it out (though I still think we should implement a more complete system). If it was possible it would be nice to have it turned back just for patrolling new pages, and making it possible to insert a note at the top of special:newpages with the patrolling guidelines already worked out at wikipedia:new pages patrol. Thue | talk 22:17, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)