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An ex of mine edited a wiki article and added false information to it. I think that sort of thing is very harmful, so I removed it. A day later the edit was rev
by muaddirac 13y ago
An ex of mine edited a wiki article and added false information to it. I think that sort of thing is very harmful, so I removed it. A day later the edit was reverted. I tried a few months later. It, too, was reverted.
I had someone else try. It was reverted. I tried once more, probably two years later (after the "fact" had time to propagate throughout the internet), and it too was reverted.
The reason it was reverted every time? Apparently I didn't sufficiently explain the edit. It didn't require explanation: it was an uncited, demonstrably false fact. It asserted the existence and publication of a book (in recent history) that was never published. It is impossible to find a copy of it. It does not exist. I didn't know how to explain it any better than that.
A few months ago, I saw that someone finally noticed it was fake and removed it for good.
- r00fus 13y ago> Apparently I didn't sufficiently explain the edit. It didn't require explanation: it was an uncited, demonstrably false fact. So did you provide the explanation? Was the expectation of an explanation sufficiently made obvious? So given the reversion wars (mostly on politically sensitive topics and companies that want to whitewash their images), I can understand the reversion of the removal.
- fluxon 13y agoThank you for the effort. Good edit summaries are really helpful to other editors - that fact is not well explained as you're trying to save an edit. It's a frequently thankless job. Now (thanks to concerted effort by the Wikilove project) thanking an editor for a specific edit is now easy and tidy with a single click of "thank" in the edit history. They're notified by an upcount in their red notification box - no messy Talk page spam. My point is that little things are gradually improving. Most people needing live help editing Wikipedia can access IRC easily using this freenode webchat link: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=wikipedia-en-help http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=wikipedia-en-help . You really don't have to wonder about why edits are reverted - you can ask in real time. This help channel is intended for new editors, but edit warring is certainly a topic well asked about.
- gscott 13y agoI edited a Wikipedia page yesterday, gave a very strong reason in the edit comment. 20 hours later my edit is still there... The system isn't totally broken just many people watching the new edits for spam and other things and they might get a bit overzealous sometimes.
- Nursie 13y agoLOL. A friend of mine is a (multiply) published author b7t trying to get anything about his real, actual books on there is almost impossible!