The rollback feature allows intentionally unconstructive contributions to be reverted quickly, and more efficiently that with other methods. (User scripts have been written which mimic the functionality of rollback, but they merely hide details from the user, and are much less efficient, both in terms of bandwith and time). Rollback links are displayed on page histories, user contributions pages, and diff pages.

Clicking on the link reverts to the previous edit not authored by the last editor. An automatic edit summary is provided and the edit is marked as minor. (An error message is returned if there is no last editor to revert to).

Rollback is currently only available to administrators. However, many non-administrators now deal with vandalism regularly, but do not have access to this tool – and either do not wish to be administrators or do not meet the expected standards, yet are unquestionably experienced and trustworthy. This proposal would implement a process by which the rollback feature could be granted to, and revoked from, non-administrators.

The point has now come where we have a rough consensus as to what the restrictions should be in place, and the community is now asked to look at forming a consensus as to its implementation. See past discussion at Wikipedia talk:Rollback for non-administrators proposal and Wikipedia:Rollback for non-administrators. Your questions or concerns may already have been considered there.

The way it works

Users may request the rollback button should they suffice in having the minimum requirement as detailed below.

• They should first put a request in at the section below.
• Administrators should check the history of the contributor to see if they can be trusted with the tool.
• If the administrator is satisfied, they can then go to Special:Userrights (see $wgAddGroups and $wgRemoveGroups) and this will add the user into the rollback usergoup, giving them the rollback tool.
• The tool will be the same as the administrator rollback tool, with no limitations.

Requirements for users to have rollback

There are no prerequisites per se for getting the tools, although a user should not have a history of edit warring and should have shown an understanding of the project and a need for the rollback permission (i.e. lots of vandalism reversion). Although it may not be easy to determine this, administrators should evaluate requests for rollback on individual merit and review a user's edit history before granting them the permission.

Usage

This tool is provided to qualified editors for fighting vandalism. Usage is limited to rolling back vandalism and reverting one's own edits. Editors using the rollback tool for other purposes will be subject to having the rollback tool removed.

In the event of abuse, any administrator may remove the tool by going to Special:Userrights. Non-administrators may report abuse to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Administrators should be careful to give such an action the same due care and attention as a block, and the usual expectations with respect to administrative actions apply.

Support

1. Nick (talk) 23:13, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
2. Support - Some excellent vandal-fighters who could use the rollback function very well fail RfAs for non-rollback related reasons (i.e. misjudged CSD tags, etc.). Giving these users rollback will only give Wikipedia a net benefit. Keilana^talk_(recall) 23:15, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
3. Support I want rollback for myself, and I think a system like this would enable me to get it. I think there are a few users who can't practically become administrators, but who should be allowed to use rollback. I think this system will accomplish its purpose. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 23:36, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
4. Support - obviously :-) Ryan Postlethwaite 23:37, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
5. Support, though I think the text in "Removal of the permission" needs some tweaking. Is it really necessary to mention that this too can be wheel warring, I would have thought that obvious? henrik•talk 23:48, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
6. Support I think we can unbold the wheelwar bit... any admin action carries the same sanction when abused. — Edokter • Talk • 00:03, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
7. I think there are better ways to do this, but I don't think that they could gain consensus. Mr.Z-man 00:32, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
8. Support - effectively a regularisation of VandalProof. Some minimum standards for approval would be useful, principally to ease any hurt feelings from enthusiastic new editors with only 50 contributions and a desire to fight vandalism without having read the policies. However I strongly oppose any automatic approval based on edit counts (as proposed in the discussion below). Admin approval is not that big a hurdle. If a committed and reliable editor with thousands of contributions cannot convince any single admin to give them access, there is likely a good reason why not. Euryalus (talk) 00:43, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
9. Support, reasons well stated above. Can easily be revoked if a user causes problems. Guy (Help!) 00:57, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
10. Support. Not a big deal, especially with the alternatives now available. Offers a new means to encourage productive users by giving them a tangible show of trust. Cool Hand Luke 03:29, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
11. Support. However, I think that a more concrete minimum criteria should be set. I also think that requests to remove nonadmin rollback should be in the same page as that to request rollback. bibliomaniac15 03:39, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
12. Per above. And a question: does this come with the markbot permission? MER-C 03:49, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
13. Support. Per common sense. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:25, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
14. Support with concerns. —BoL 04:40, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
15. I see potential uses for it. — Dihydrogen Monoxide 04:58, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
16. Strong Support — This would be a great asset to me, as I make over 1,800 reverts per normal day (it has been sagging during the holidays, but that is irrelevant). My owner has been lobbying for this for quite a while. Thanks. -- ClueBot (talk) 05:05, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
17. Support — Rollback is the best way to prevent something like this. I have seen a few rare cases when tools like Twinkle and Popups don't catch all the vandalism by an editor to a certain page - giving rollback to trusted non-admins reduces the likelyhood of this. Graham87 05:41, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
18. Support but I don't think the added step of an ANI report should be necessary in obvious cases any more than it is for an admin to issue a block. If someone is unquestionably abusing the privilege, you remove it. If the user apologizes and promises not to do it again, you restore the privilege. --B (talk) 05:50, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
19. Support proposal as written. RyanGerbil10(Говорить!) 06:53, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
20. Support Worth a try as written; in theory Wikipedia would never work at all, so the only way to find out if it works is to try it. :) Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 07:55, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
21. Support. Sounds reasonable; the details can be tweaked later. Sandstein (talk) 08:29, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
22. The undo function is abused and some admins misuse rollback, but as you have to specifically ask for this function and as it can be removed easily I think it is worth trialling. violet/riga (t) 10:38, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

1. Oppose, would encourage stalking and other abuses. Editors already have access to the rollback function in the article history, this is sufficient. Martintg (talk) 23:25, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
   • Encourage stalking? May I ask how? If there's misuse it can be removed straight away anyway. Users have no access to rollback currently as it's faster than any other tool. Ryan Postlethwaite 23:27, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
   • Hi there, I don't think you need to worry about the tool being used to stalk users, firstly, the user needs to have their contributions checked by an administrator before they are given the tool, and if there was allegations of stalking, we would be able to remove the tool and take any further additional action against the user that may be necessary. We feel this proposal strikes the very best balance available of helping those who maintain Wikipedia whilst preventing those who seek to damage the project from accessing such tools. Nick (talk) 23:34, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
   • Stalking? That's a new one. "Stalking", or at least the weird definition of it that you've linked to, involves editing the same articles as another user to annoy them... how on earth does the ability to revert vandalism more quickly have anything to do with that? – Gurch 23:39, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
     • And following people around reverting their work wouldn't constitute stalking? Martintg (talk) 04:49, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
       • It most certainly would; but reversion will always be possible. This proposal is about a specific way to revert; I have no idea how that has any relation to stalking, wiki or otherwise. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:53, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
2. I completely fail to understand why this "rollback for non-admins" proposal must return every so often. Don't we already have this Twinkle thing that basically does the same thing? Yeah, maybe slower, but on broadband you can barely see a difference. Oh, admins can give and take it? Cool, so I can see three issues here: 1) creating another "caste" of users (oh, but we love the healthy atmosphere this creates, so who cares?), 2) opens field for wheel warring (you admit that yourself, but we're used to that, so who cares?), 3) extra bureaucracy (but we love that, so who cares?). Overall, this gives very little added value (slightly faster revert) with a slightly stricter mechanism of granting it (you can't just add it to your monobook, yet a user can be de-rollbacked just as easily as de-twinkled) and possible field for abuse and inter-admin vitriol alike. No, thanks. Миша13 23:45, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

   Twinkle is slower and rollback is a specific built in function. I fail to see how it would introduce wheel wars? If Twinkle is so similar, why do we allow that? Majorly (talk) 01:09, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

   You can count on your fingers the number of users who are actually going to get this feature, given the community's paranoia and love of ever-increasing standards. Apart from this group being too small to create another "caste", all of them will be experienced RC patrollers who already have enough "status" that it won't make any difference.

   If administrators wheel war over granting/revoking of rollback, then they're idiots, frankly, and probably shouldn't be administrators in the first place. They're supposed to be trusted individuals; every policy we have works on the principle that they're trusted individuals, and if they aren't then that's an issue outside the scope of this policy. Rejecting proposals for new administrator actions purely on the grounds that they "might be used for wheel warring" is stupid; how exactly would the project have ever been set up if everyone thought like that?

   I agree that it is hard work to sit here and rip out bureaucracy every time it gets inserted into the proposal. But there really isn't any more bureaucracy here than, say, AutoWikiBrowser approval, which can also be granted/revoked by any administrator, works in pretty much the same way and so far has worked without any problems as far as I am aware.

   Internet connection speed makes little difference; it's the latency at Wikimedia's end that slows things down; rollback avoids that, while at the same time cutting bandwidth requirements by 95%. This proposal is as much to help Wikimedia as it is to help editors; reversions account for 5% of all edits and while edits pale into insignificance compared to page views, most page views are served from cache, whereas all edits require (comparatively very slow) PHP scripts and DB writes to be done. There is little added value for you, certainly, because you are an administrator. Those who feel there is "little added value" won't ask for it; those who know that there is will. As for "inter-admin vitriol", well, again, that's an issue that's outside the scope of this proposal. If you want to deal with that, attack it head-on rather than blocking any admin-related proposal you come across – Gurch 10:28, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

3. Oppose. If you do this you might as well give it to everyone. Who possibly has time to notice or monitor abuse of the tools? The good vandal fighters need to become admins anyone to block effectively and it will not improve things. --BozMo talk 23:46, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

   Then stop turning down RC patrollers at RfA because they don't have enough article writing experience – Gurch 10:02, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

4. Oppose: I fail to see a logical reason for this and it just seems inappropriate. - Rjd0060 (talk) 03:02, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

   How does giving some users who could do with a better tool, the said better tool cause bureaucracy?! Ryan Postlethwaite 03:08, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

   I may be a bit confused with this....Would this eliminate the useability of say the Twinkle rollback script...or a "homemade" rollback script? You're saying it would give some people the ability to use, but unless I have the wrong idea here, it would also take it away from people too. - Rjd0060 (talk) 04:26, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

   I don't think so, I think this would be an additional option for editors. RxS (talk) 04:31, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

5. Oppose the implementation as the construction of an arbitrary bureaucracy. It is not fair to apply a passing admin's personal preferences to the granting of editorial capabilities. It is unnecessary to insist upon a meaninglessly-nebulous "understanding of the project" to allow someone to revert simple vandalism - particularly since "understanding the project" is not a constant meaning for all editors and admins. It is naive to suppose that some bolded words will magically prevent wheel warring over this. It is foolhardy to imagine that this will not lead to angry users denied the tool on an administrative whim, angry users surrounding an opponent granted it on a whim and angry editors that the admin failed to correctly "evaluate [the] request". Revocation of the tool by "consensus" on AN(I) will be about as consistent and useful as a pair of knickers on a kipper. This proposal is a straight-line route to increased drama, increased power-wielding by admins, more arbcom cases and greater upset. It should be rejected until people come up with a simpler and more effective process by far. Splash - tk 06:56, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

   "Passing admins' personal preferences" are applied every day to blocks, deletions, page protections, edits to protected pages... in short, to every administrative action we have. Granting/revoking of the ability to edit is far more significant than granting/revoking of the ability to revert things more efficiently, so why is that OK but not this? There's a simple solution to the problem of more ArbCom cases, which is to stop pretending that it's a good idea to let a committee of oddballs appointed to three-year terms deal with anything, and do things by consensus instead, so if ArbCom cases bother you, why not propose that instead of trying to block this? As for the other stuff, as I've mentioned above, all of our policies work on the assumption that administrators are trusted individuals; if they aren't, then all our policies are flawed; that's a separate issue that needs to be addressed separately, not by blocking every proposal that involves administrators because of paranoia – Gurch 10:37, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

6. Oppose Seems redundant with scripts like Twinkle. If a bot, such as ClueBot, really needs this function it should just be given admin status. Why even have admins if us regular editors start getting admin tools.. today it's "rollback", tomorrow it's "ban but subject to overturn by an admin". If an editor wants and needs the tools, he or she should go through RfA. -- ALLSTARecho 08:37, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

   Then stop turning down RC patrollers at RfA because they don't have enough article writing experience – Gurch 10:00, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Voting is evil

1. Oh BTW, what's all this "support" and "oppose" about anyway? While it's convenient to put one's comments in one section or the other to easily mark one's stance on this, I hope nobody comes up with a brilliant idea of actually making the results of this poll binding. Or did we start to enact policies by voting and I missed that? Миша13 09:49, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

just some random thoughts, But I agree that admins should have the ability to grant/remove the rollback, But let me toss in another wrinkle that might make things easier, users who have more than 10,000 edits and have been with the project for over 6 months automatically get granted rollback, (by a software config, that already exists) but admins can still remove the auto given right. β^_command 23:15, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, not sure about this, we have a lot of people with over 10,000 edits that really couldn't be trusted with it and would use it soley for edit warring. Ryan Postlethwaite 23:17, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Then it can be removed from them. Majorly (talk) 23:22, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You could pass an RfA with those fixed requirements up there, making this whole thing pointless. Do away with them and let administrators exercise their judgement; they're supposed to be trusted members of the community, not dumb automatons that get spoonfed instructions with no room for discretion – Gurch 23:22, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure if someone could pass a RFA, but another month and he could for sure. My fear is that we will be seeing people using the rollback feature without taking the time to warn the user in their page (since rollback should only be used when dealing with vandalism). Who would be assigning the rights? Administrators? I would prefer having bureaucrats do it, as to give them some more work, especially if they will have to review the users' last hundreds of edits. However, I am not against the idea of non-admins using the feature. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 23:36, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with the bureaucrats granting is that they simply haven't the man time to do this - it would be too much to handle for such a limited resource. We already have plenty of scripts available that allow the use of admin rollback and follow with a warning, so there wouldn't be a great change in that respect. Ryan Postlethwaite 23:40, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to be worried about people dealing with vandalism incorrectly. That is really neither here nor there. A large proportion of vandalism is already dealt with by non-administrators. This would change only the method by which they do it. If people warn users now, I can't see why they would suddenly stop if they were able to use rollback. If they don't, I can't see any reason why they would suddenly start if they were able to use rollback. So the situation would be no different to how it currently is – Gurch 23:43, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Automatic tools right now allow to revert and warn at the same time. I am worried that these people would either not use the rollback feature at all (since the scripting solution gives them more than a simple rollback) or migrate to the new system and stop warning users (just like some admins rollback without warning, or users in general undo others without explaining why or leaving a note in the other's talk page). -- ReyBrujo (talk) 23:56, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are tools available to do this both for the admin-revert and non-admin-reverts. And it's no problem e. g. to include the admin-revert in Twinkle. --Oxymoron⁸³ 00:38, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Rey, warning is not essential. It's preferable, but not required. It's better the vandalism is removed faster more efficiently. Majorly (talk) 04:31, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have my doubts about me being able to pass an RfA. -- ClueBot (talk) 05:05, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Somewhat related but in an almost opposite tone is Wikipedia:Limit the undo function, a proposal I haven't really organised properly yet. I have concerns about the use of the undo function, but mostly about its use by IPs. violet/riga (t) 23:44, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if it would be better to require 2-3 admins to approve granting, rather than one. Ditto on the removal. I would also like to see that if someone has rollback removed for cause, it can not be granted again for some period of time (2-3 months)? Thatcher 06:25, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unnecessary bureaucracy. – Gurch 10:06, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On the contrary, I think that admins should be allowed to remove the permission without prior WP:ANI discussion. After all, admins can already block without discussion, which is a much sharper sanction. Unnecessary bureaucracy in the implementation of this feature should be avoided. Sandstein (talk) 08:33, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Said unnecessary bureaucracy has been removed. – Gurch 10:06, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]