Help:Reverting
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To revert is to undo all changes made after a certain time in the past. The result will be that the page becomes identical to how it used to be at some previous time. A partial revert undoes only some of those changes.
To revert a page to an earlier version:
- Go to the page you wish to revert, click on the History tab at the top of the page, then click on the time and date of the earlier version you want to revert to. It will not work if you click on 'cur', 'last', or "Compare selected versions".
- When the page displays, text similar to this: (Revision as of 23:19 Jul 15, 2003), will display. It appears below the page's title, in place of the From {project name}, usually seen.
- Verify that you've selected the correct version, then click a link to edit the page as you would normally.
- You'll get a warning, above the edit box, about editing an out-of-date revision.
- Ignore the warning and save the page. Be sure to add the word "revert" (or "rv") to the edit summary, along with a short explanation if not obvious.
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Reverts and edit conflicts
Reverts never cause an edit conflict - if between you pressing edit, and then pressing post, someone else edits the page, their edits will be silently overwritten (though still in the page history). Beware of reverting high-traffic pages! Conversely, if it looks like someone has deleted your edits, consider if it's more likely that it's one of these unfortunate revision conflicts.
Admin-only "rollback" link
On a user contributions page an admin has additional "rollback" links for contributions marked top (the last edit made by anybody to that article). The diff page showing the difference between an old and the current version of a page also has this link. Clicking on the link reverts to the last edit not made by the user being reverted. The feature is especially useful in the case of a known vandal, whose edits don't need to be checked before being reverted. An automatic edit summary Reverted edits by X to last version by Y is added. This feature cannot be used when the last two edits were by the same user, and one wants to revert to the previous version only.
If between loading the User Contributions page and pressing rollback, someone else has edited or rolled back the page already, the message Rollback failed will display with an explanation of the problem.
If the page has been created by the malicious user and nobody else has edited the page, clicking the rollback link gives the message Cannot revert edit; last contributor is only author of this article. In this case delete the page.
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Wikipedia-specific information
Tips
- Reverting should be used primarily for fighting vandalism.
- The link to "history" is called "Page history" in some skins.
- In the case of vandalism, take the time to make sure that you are reverting to the last version without the vandalism; there may be multiple vandal edits.
- When typing the edit summary, useful information is to Wikilink the contributions of the user you are reverting.
- In the edit summary text - Reverted edits by [[Special:Contributions/00.00.00.00|00.00.00.00]] ([[User_Talk:00.00.00.00|talk]]) to last version by Username
- The results in the history - Reverted edits by 00.00.00.00 (talk) to last version by Username
- In a vandalism case where sections of text were simply deleted and then subsequent edits were made by others, it may be easier for you to cut and paste those missing sections of text back in, than to revert and then re-do the edits.
- Check the contribution history of the user who vandalized the article. (Click on their IP address or username. That will often bring you directly to their User contribution page, if you clicked on their IP address. If you are able to click on their username, that will bring you to their User page. In the lower left-hand corner, there is a toolbox with a "User contributions" link. Click that.) If this user is vandalizing many articles, please report them to Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress.
Rollbacks
Scripts
- Sam Hocevar's godmode-light.js script adds functionality similar to the admin rollback links described below. More info at WP:US.
- The vandalism edit can also be reverted using popups.
Administrator feature
Rollbacks should be used with caution and restraint, in part because they leave no explanation for the revert in the edit summary. Reverting a good-faith edit may send the message that "I think your edit was no better than vandalism and doesn't deserve even the courtesy of an explanatory edit summary." It is a slap in the face to a good-faith editor. If you use the rollback feature for anything other than vandalism or for reverting yourself, be sure to leave an explanation on the article talk page, or on the talk page of the user whose edit(s) you reverted.
A "blind revert" refers to the use of the rollback button without checking the edit. Blind reverts should not be used unless you are sure that the edit is vandalism (a vandalbot attack, for example).
Bot
In cases of flood vandalism, admins may choose to hide vandalism from recent changes. To do this, add &bot=1 to the end of the url used to access a user's contributions. For example, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=SomePersistentVandal&bot=1.
When the rollback links on the contributions list are clicked, the revert and the original edit you are reverting will both be hidden from recent changes unless you click the "bots" link to set hidebots=0. The edits are not hidden from contributions lists, page histories or watchlists. The edits remain in the database and are not removed, but they no longer flood Recentchanges. The aim of this feature is to reduce the annoyance factor of a flood vandal with relatively little effort. This should not be used for reverting a change you just don't like, but is meant only for massive floods of simple vandalism.
Revert wars considered harmful (the three revert rule)
Wikipedia policy states that you may not revert any one article more than three times in the same day. This is a strict limit, not a given right; you should not revert any one article more than three times daily. Exceptions to the 3RR rule are made if you're reverting simple vandalism or the edits of a banned or blocked user. See Wikipedia:Three revert rule for more details.
High-frequency reversion wars make the page history less useful, waste space in the database, make it hard for other people to contribute, and flood recent changes and watchlists. Sock puppets may not be used to violate this rule. Please request protection rather than reverting. Violation of this rule may lead to protection of the page on the version preferred by the non-violating party; blocking; or investigation by the Arbitration Committee.
Explain reverts
Being reverted can feel a bit like a slap in the face — "I worked hard on those edits, and someone just rolled it all back". However, sometimes a revert is the best response to a less-than-great edit, so we can't just stop reverting. What's important is to let people know why you reverted. This helps the reverted person because they can remake their edit, but fixing whatever problem it is that you've identified.
Explaining reverts also helps other people. For example, it lets people know whether they need to even view the reverted version (in the case of e.g. "rv page blanking"). Because of the lack of non-verbal communication online, if you don't explain things clearly people will probably assume all kinds of nasty things, and that's one of the possible causes for edit wars.
If your reasons for reverting are too complex to explain in the edit summary, drop a note on the Talk page. A nice thing to do is to drop the note on the Talk page first, and then revert, rather than the other way round. Sometimes the other person will agree with you and revert for you before you have a chance. Conversely, if someone reverts your change without apparent explanation, you may wish to wait a few minutes to see if they explain their actions on the article's talk page or your user talk page.
Alternative to reverting: move to talk
If a user makes an addition which you consider POV or generally bad, rather than revert them and hope not to be reverted again, a more productive option is to move their content to the article's talk page where it can be discussed. While the content is still removed from the article, it is a less harsh move because the content is still viewable outside of history, and is more easily referenced in discussion.
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This page is a copy of the master help page at Meta (for general help information), with Wikipedia-specific templates inserted. To update the general help, edit the master help page for all projects at m:Help:Reverting. For Wikipedia-specific help, there are two templates - the main template, Template:Ph:Reverting, is the extra text at the bottom of this page, before the links to other help pages. Template:Phh:Reverting appears at the top of this help page and is useful for Wikipedia-specific lead text. You are welcome to copy the exact wikitext from the master page at Meta and paste it into this page at any time.
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