STOWiki:Policy/Three revert rule

Note that this policy addresses reversions—undoing other people's work—not adding to pages, nor simply rearranging contents inside a page.

The policy
A contributor must not perform more than three reversions, in whole or in part, on a single STOWiki article within a 24 hour period. This does not imply that reverting three times or fewer is acceptable. In excessive cases, people can be blocked for edit warring or disruption even if they do not revert more than three times per day.

For the purposes of counting reverts, these are excluded:
 * reverting your own changes
 * fixing simple vandalism
 * removing posts made by a banned or blocked user

Using multiple accounts to avoid this limit is also a violation of policy. Any reversions beyond this limit should be performed by somebody else, to serve the vital purpose of showing that the community at large is in agreement over which of two (or more) competing versions is correct.

Detail
Reverting in this context, means undoing the actions of another editor, or other editors, in whole or part. It does not necessarily mean taking a previous version from history and editing that. A revert may involve as little as adding or deleting a few words or even one word. Even if you are making other changes at the same time, continually undoing other editors' work counts as reverting.

Use common sense; don't participate in an edit war. Rather than exceeding the three-revert limit, discuss the matter with other editors. If any of them come close to breaching the policy themselves, this may indicate that the page should be protected until disputes are resolved.

The policy is applied independently to each page; reversions are not counted cumulatively across multiple pages. For example, if an editor performs three reversions on each of two articles within 24 hours, that editor's six reversions do not constitute a violation of this policy.

This policy does not apply to self-reverts, correcting simple vandalism, reversions for the purpose of maintenance or the Sandbox, or reverting the edits of a banned or blocked user.

This policy does apply to repeatedly moving, renaming, blanking, or recreating a page. All of these, if done excessively, are forms of edit warring.

Note: There is no requirement for the reverts to be related: any four reverts on the same page count.

Intent of the policy
The three-revert rule is not an entitlement, but an "electric fence"; it is intended to stop edit wars. It does not grant users an inalienable right to three reverts every 24 hours or endorse reverts as an editing technique. Persistent reversion remains strongly discouraged and is unlikely to constitute working properly with others. The fact that users may be blocked for excessive reverting does not imply that they will be blocked. Equally, reverting fewer than four times may result in a block depending on context.

If you find you have reverted a page even once in a day it may be a sign there is a problem and you should try resolving the dispute, starting always with the article's talk page.

It is strongly recommended that you revert any particular change once and only once.

Blocking is always preventative, not punitive. Historical incidents are of no interest - please do not report anything other than current and ongoing problems.

Vandalism
In general, blocking is the preferred solution to repeat vandalism originating from a single user or IP. Where an article is drawing vandalism from multiple sources, making blocking ineffective, page protection should be used unless there is genuine potential that useful editing would be affected.

Therefore, repeated reversion of an article to deal with vandalism is a last resort.

In cases of vandalism that is clearly not a content dispute, the three-revert rule does not apply.

Do-Not-Post material
Removing additions of material banned from posting (a type of vandalism), does not count towards the limit.

User pages
The three-revert-rule is generally not enforced against editors reverting changes to their own user page space (this includes associated talk pages and subpages), on the principle that even though you do not "own" them, your user space is "yours" (for project-related purposes).

It is usually considered bad form to remove comments (other than personal attacks) from your Talk page except to archive them.

Enforcement
This rule is enforced by:
 * Educating users who may not be aware of good wiki practice in the matter.
 * Peer pressure and leadership by example.
 * Where pages are protected due to revert wars, admins may protect pages on the version disliked by those who have engaged in excessive reverts. The admin also has the option to protect the current version, thereby maintaining a sense of neutrality.

Violations of the three-revert policy can be brought to the attention of administrators via their talk pages.

I've broken the rule! What do I do?
If you've broken the three-revert rule by mistake and now realize it, or if another user has left you a talk page note pointing out that you've broken the rule, then you can self-revert your change back to the "other version". In general, this will be enough to prevent you being blocked (though there are no guarantees).