Wikipedia talk:Rollback

Purpose of rollback right

I read the project page and I still don't understand, how exactly Twinkle's rollback & restore version is any less powerful than Rollback. I came here to request this right, but I'm not even sure if I really get anything I can't already do. It's so easy and convenient to be able to leave custom summaries, or be able to choose one specific revision to restore rather than the tool choosing a revision itself, which may itself be problematic. ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 16:36, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Your mileage may vary. I use both, as well as popups and manual reverting sometimes, but I use rollback by far the most. Rollback is quicker, more efficient, and more reliable, as everything is done on the servers, whereas Twinkle relies on JavaScript in your browser. I'm not sure, but I guess Twinkle might involve fetching the old content, then re-uploading it? From the client point of view, rollback involves a simple HTTP request. Rollback can sometimes work better when the revert is dispatched to a background tab, if browser tabs need to have focus to run JS effectively. Rollback also doesn't add pages to your watchlist, if that's a setting you have enabled. It doesn't, by default, have all the things you like about Twinkle, but it gets the job done most efficiently when applied correctly. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 17:25, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

In terms of functionality, the Twinkle rollback button is effectively identical to the software rollback. The software rollback may be slightly faster because of the reasons zzuuzz mentioned, but for everyday purposes, the Twinkle rollback button can stand in the place of the software rollback almost completely. In my view, the primary reason we continue to gate rollback behind WP:PERM is because certain fast-reversion software like Huggle require the rollback permission, and we want to check whether editors are ready to use such software before they begin using it. Mz7 (talk) 20:17, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Without having seen this thread, I recently made some changes to the page that include details on the differences between Twinkle rollback and true rollback. I will say, re Mz7, I've had rollback for 9+1⁄2 years, have never touched Huggle, and would still hate to ever part with the permission. The speed increase does add up—when I have to use Twinkle rollback on other wikis it rather frustrates me—but most importantly the ability to do mass rollbacks really is a huge time-saver when dealing with fast vandals or cleaning up after sockpuppets. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 20:22, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Right, my point was more that, if it weren't for the Huggle/fast-reversion angle to the permission, there isn't that big a reason in my mind to simply make the rollback permission available to all autoconfirmed users, just as Twinkle rollback is. Mz7 (talk) 21:13, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

@Mz7: Hmm. When combined with the right scripts, like User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/massRollback.js, it has a decent attack potential. Some wikis do hand rollback out automatically, but usually it's more like extendedconfirmed here. dewiki, for instance, does it at 60 days + 300 mainspace edits. But I mean, I take your point. If you ask me, though, we should be moving in the opposite direction. We have too many non-rollbacker recent change patrollers using Twinkle rollback to revert every IP they see; I'd rather we made it that to use any pseudo-rollback tool you need to be a rollbacker. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 21:35, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

I noticed that the “Rollback” button doesn’t always show in View History (Twinkle’s Rollback button). I have this habit of going back to View History after reviewing edits, because I used to use Undo (I didn’t start using Twinkle yet at that time). Maybe a reason for someone to request for Rollback user rights. Myrealnamm (💬talk · ✏️contribs) at 20:34, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Question about requirement

I was wondering, to have the rollback right, is it a requirement to be acting against vandalism or can I have the right only to have the extra functionality? Thinker78 (talk) 03:22, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

In general, anything at Wikipedia needs a reason to occur. Attempting to gain rights with no particular reason related to improving the encyclopedia is disparagingly referred to as WP:HATCOLLECTING. Johnuniq (talk) 03:39, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

I understand (not that I agree with the essay's premise very much, getting higher responsibilities is a general source of pride everywhere in society). But would it be a proper reason to just have the extra functionality of rollback rights? My main focus is not vandalism, but I do patrol daily my 700 pages watchlist. Therefore I revert vandalism when I see it. It is like someone who is not a mechanic but has a set of tools in case they are needed. Thinker78 (talk) 15:44, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

revert vs rollback

what are the differences between them and why use one above a another? Soulware2 (talk) 18:40, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

My understanding is that, in a nutshell, reverting applies to undoing a single edit, while rollback is a way of undoing multiple consecutive edits. So, rollback is basically a bunch of reverts as a single action. Hope this helps! DonIago (talk) 19:03, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Maybe see Help:Reverting. Rollback is a subset of revert. It's suitable for situations involving single-user vandalism, where no explanation of the edit is required in the edit summary, and in circumstances where speed and efficiency may also play a role. The cons of rollback are the inability to use a custom edit summary (in fact being stuck with an edit summary which includes the vandal's username) and an inability to choose exactly which edits to revert. Manual reverting is almost the opposite. It probably gives the most flexibility to choose revisions, adjust content and provide explanations, and is an essential skill, though some user scripts such as Twinkle come close in terms of potential flexibility. Personally I use WP:POPUPS in addition to all the aforementioned tools, each in different circumstances. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 19:13, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Let's just remove the Twinkle ambiguity

Instead of having to explain that what Twinkle's "rollback" and "rollback (AGF)" mean isn't rollback (this confusion played a role in a WP:ANI issue in the past week), why don't we just change the Twinkle links to read "revert" and "revert (AGF)"?

When I was given the rollbacker role, I didn't even understand what had changed because I'd been seeing "rollback" links all along and didn't notice the new one right away. When I did notice it, I didnt realize it was new, I thought I was just first noticing it, and got confused over the multiplicity of these like-looking links.

So let's fix this.

Bonus: Having edited Twinkle code before, I volunteer to make the change if there's a consensus for it. Largoplazo (talk) 13:34, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

@Largoplazo, I agree. Changing the Twinkle labels would help. We also need a clearer explanation here. The rule needs to be something like

• iff edit summaries are needed for your reversions (e.g., not for simple vandalism or WP:RBI situations),
• and you persistently (=not just a problem on one day) don't use edit summaries when they're needed,
• and you do this on a lot of edits (=not just an occasional mistake),
• then we'll take away whatever tools are making it easy for you to avoid edit summaries.

This will probably require changes to the lead ("Where the following text refers to "Standard" rollback, it means the usual form of rollback, which does not include the option to provide a custom edit summary...") and the last half of the Wikipedia:Rollback#When to use rollback section.

I'd also like to see the tone changed so that it shifts from "This is such a seriuz bizness error that we will desysop you over this!!!!!!1!!" to something more like "Unfortunately, if you're an admin, then the only way for us to prevent you from screwing up with rollback may be to desysop you". I don't remember anyone actually getting desysopped over this, but perhaps I just didn't notice. Also, there are other options, e.g., a .css script that would hide the rollback button for that admin.

It might also be good to a line to the effect that we care about the results, not about the bureaucracy. If the person you're reverting knows exactly why you rollback'd the picture of rainbow glitter unicorns they posted on your talk page, then we're not going to attack you for failing to provide an edit summary (especially if the edit summary would realistically say something like "I told you to stop harassing me, you &^$&%@*!"). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:36, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps this shouldn't be said out loud, but let's face it: WP:ROLLBACK is our version of the (pre-Musk) blue check for anti-vandals. Yes, back in the day, there was no "undo", and tools like Twinkle had to fetch the whole text from the server (on your dialup connection, perhaps) and send it back. "Rollback" meant speed. Nowadays, rollback is still faster, but it's not such a huge difference.

What's important is that there is no difference (from the perspective of the "victim") between an unexplained undo, an unexplained Twinkle/RedWarn/UV revert, and an unexplained MediaWiki rollback. What actually matters is not the tool used, but the fact that the user in in the "rollbackers" group. When people hover over the reverters name, they see "rollbacker" and think, "oh, they know what they are doing, otherwise an admin would have taken away rollback by now".

Now, I'm not saying that it should be this way. But I don't think anyone truly believes that an default-summary undo is intrinsically worse than a default-summary rollback. The "OMG THEY MISUSED ROLLBACK" threads are about something else, and I think this is it. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:18, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree that there is no difference (from the perspective of the "victim") between an unexplained undo, an unexplained Twinkle/RedWarn/UV revert, and an unexplained MediaWiki rollback. Behavioral rules should IMO be tool-agnostic. If it is inappropriate to remove someone's contributions without an explanation, then it's inappropriate no matter which buttons you pushed to do the inappropriate thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:17, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

So what would be the correct response to these two users?

• Alice never provides a reason when reverting good-faith edits. But she is extremely careful to not "misuse rollback". Any time the edit is anything other than clear, obvious vandalism, she uses the "undo" button instead, and leaves the default summary. Eventually one of the "victims" goes to ANI and complains.
• Suff Bob usually provides a reason when reverting good-faith edits. But he is a bit more sloppy than the average user and perhaps just a bit too often clicks "rollback" on edits that aren't technically vandalism. (Whatever threshold you had in mind when you said not just an occasional mistake image he's teeny bit worse than that). Eventually one of the "victims" goes to ANI and complains.

Under the current rules, Alice is not "misusing rollback" so should keep her right. Bob is, and should have it removed. The justification will be along the lines of "Rollback is not a status symbol, it's a tool. Alice is not misusing the tool, so removing it will not prevent disruption." But rollback is barely a tool. It doesn't do much that the other tools (available to everyone) don't already do. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:17, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Removing rollback rights wouldn't change Alice's behavior. The sanction that would change Alice's behavior is a (threat of a) block.

Removing rollback rights would change Bob's behavior. If we want to change Bob's behavior, then removing rollback rights would remove the "you misused rollback" complaint. Using other tools might increase the likelihood of Bob using edit summaries. Even if Bob continued at the same percentage of edit summaries, it's probable that the behavior isn't high enough to justify a block on grounds of missing edit summaries (because that's a really high bar). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:42, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

I guess where I disagree is why Bob will change his behavior. Twinkle's "vandalism" button works almost like MediaWiki rollback, except it's slightly slower. Most importantly, it doesn't prompt for a summary. If Bob is lazy, he will, in all likelihood, continue being lazy with other, similar, tools. Except, he was just embarrassed in front ANI. The desire to avoid that happening again will probably motivate him be extra careful, regardless of the tool he uses.

Another scenario: Suppose that, instead of either Alice or Bob being dragged to ANI, next WP:THURSDAY a glitch disables rollback for everyone. And it takes a week to fix. I doubt either Alice or Bob are going to be leaving better summaries during that week. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:44, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the social pressure is likely to have at least temporary effects on Bob. I assume that Bob is unlikely to use Twinkle's bad-faith/vandalism button for good-faith/non-vandalism edits, so the behavior of the button he's not using is irrelevant. Bob would be presented with an opportunity to use an edit summary; it might make him more likely to add one.

In the new scenario, IMO Bob might leave more edit summaries, since he mostly does anyway, and the main tool for bypassing that isn't available. Note that I'm not saying Bob would intend to leave more edit summaries, but I think the change in software behavior might result in him unconsciously shifting his behavior slightly. But Alice never leaves edit summaries, even with the plain old Undo button, so I would not expect her behavior to change if rollback disappeared for a week.

BTW, one thing I've wondered here is whether anyone has actually lost admin rights over this. We threaten it, but does it actually happen? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:18, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I just started using Twinkle a few days ago and I am confused about what the difference between actual Rollback and Twinkle Rollback really are. Unless I remembered wrong, when I used the "Rollback" feature from Twinkle, Wikipedia will tag it as an "undo". So what Twinkle did was "manually revert" the edits from a user but not label it as "manual revert"? Then what's the point of the Rollback user right?! Myrealnamm (💬talk · ✏️contribs) at 22:23, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Are you talking about Undo tag in Special:Tags? (It looks like "Tags: Undo" in the page history.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:01, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

I can’t really remember. I’ll have to test it out. Myrealnamm (💬talk · ✏️contribs) at 00:19, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

I just tested it in the sandbox with one edit it will show the following after “Rollback” from Twinkle:

curprev 00:25, 16 April 2024‎ Myrealnamm talk contribs‎ 440 bytes −42‎ Reverted 1 edit by Myrealnamm (talk) undoTags: Twinkle Undo Myrealnamm (💬talk · ✏️contribs) at 00:28, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Now I’ve made four edits in the Sandbox. When “Rollbacked” using Twinkle this time, it is the exact same as above but instead it says “Reverted 4 edits” instead of “1”. So Twinkle… did what? It’s not “Rollback”, it’s just multi-undo in one edit. If this can be achieved, then what is the point of the Rollback User Right? I know that the difference is between an HTTP request and JavaScript, but then the Rollback User Right would be almost useless. That is why I agree to removing the Twinkle feature. Myrealnamm (💬talk · ✏️contribs) at 00:33, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

In terms of mechanics, I think the Twinkle mechanism is similar to the "[restore this version]" link at the top of diffs (look at the top of the first column). The Tag:Undo is described as capturing anything using the Undo button, but I don't know how it's coded, so it might capture more than that.

The rollback user right was never meant to prevent people from writing whatever scripts they want, but I agree that having a script like this makes the userright less pointful. A spot check of the list of people with the rollback user right suggests that something on the order of a thousand currently active non-admins have this userright (most accounts with the userright are inactive). We get about 9,000 extended-confirmed editors making an edit in a given month, so that's suggests that about 90% of experienced editors don't find it worth requesting.

Note that the proposal from @Largoplazo isn't to remove Twinkle's rollback feature; it's to re-label it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:21, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I got a little off topic. I would have neutral opinions on whether to relabel it or not. Myrealnamm (💬talk · ✏️contribs) at 20:23, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

I have copy-edited the page to differentiate between "MediaWiki rollback" and "rollback-like edits". I think some re-arranging might still be useful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:58, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

I disagree with that change. MediaWiki rollback can be used with an explanatory edit summary, just not using the default interface. For example User:Nageh/rollbackSum, and User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/massRollback both allow this, as do (I think) some of the "heavyweight" tools like Huggle. The consensus has been that using those tools while providing an explanatory summary, is not a misuse of rollback (why should it be?), even though the underlying mechanism is "MediaWiki rollback".

Now, I'll agree that the term "standard rollback" is really clunky, so maybe we need a better one. But this shouldn't be it, or it will create the sort of confusion that led to Wikipedia:Administrative action review/Archive 1 § Review removal of rollback on User:Robvanvee Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 00:41, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Are we agreed that there exist:

• a feature in MediaWiki that is called "rollback" and requires a particular user right, and
• some scripts, such as Twinkle, that have features that do not use MediaWiki's rollback, do not require that same user right, and which have also been called "rollback"?

I'm trying to draw a distinction between "thing that comes with MediaWiki by default" and "script that uses the same name for something that is not part of MediaWiki".

The tool-agnostic part about using edit summaries when they are required still needs to be done. So far, all I've tried to achieve is a less-clunky way of saying that there's more than one thing going by this name. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:18, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

First, I should have read the diff more carefully; the page does acknowledge some of those points, under "Additional Tools". But the page still sort of contradicts itself, first saying that MediaWiki rollback does not include the option to provide a custom edit summary, then later explaining how to do just that.

I guess the problem is that, in addition to clicking the "[rollback]" button built into the interface, clicking the "[rollback]" button with Twinkle, there's a third way: Use one of the aforementioned scripts to make an API request to the "rollback" module. If you do that, your edit is still tagged "rollback" (not "undo"). An over-eager admin might say "well, they're using MediaWiki rollback for good faith edits, and that's against the rules".

So what's a concise way to say "MediaWiki rollback used without an edit summary"? "Default-interface rollback"? "Default-summary rollback"? "The one in brackets that isn't Twinkle"? Ugh. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 01:29, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

We might be better off saying "MediaWiki rollback used without an edit summary". Shorter versions might be more prone to misinterpretation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:00, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

See my latest changes. Best I could come up with is adding new WP:ROLLBACK#RB6 covering the use of rollback with a summary. I dithered over including something like 'edit summaries such as "rv", "last good version", and "not an improvement" are not sufficient, unless one of the other reasons also applies'; does that feel too WP:CREEPy? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:17, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Specifying adequate edit summaries probably is out of scope for this page.

All of your changes look okay to me.

Today I am wondering whether "custom edit summary" will be misunderstood as "unique". In practice, most edit summaries are or could be semi-automated (e.g., "rv WP:BLP", "copyvio", ). Perhaps "non-default edit summary"? Even "adequately explained" could be problematic, because some wikilawyer will eventually claim that they didn't understand the edit summary, and therefore it wasn't adequately explained. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:58, 18 April 2024 (UTC)