Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2016

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There is insufficient consensus for this proposal. Under WP:PROPOSAL, Proposals for new guidelines and policies require discussion and a high level of consensus from the entire community for promotion to guideline or policy. That standard has not been met here. A summary of our review of the numbers and issues in this RfC can be seen below.
Numbers
Numbers are easiest to talk about, so numbers first: With 52 supporting and 39 opposing, there is 57% support for the proposal. Although those commenting reflect a broad cross-section of the community, this would not be "high level of consensus from the entire community" in the absence of other factors.
Summary of the discussion
Criteria and usage
The proposal offers two criteria for use:
  1. The criteria for autoconfirmed pending changes protection ("PC1") are met but the latter has proven ineffective, and blocks would be ineffective,
  2. And/or the criteria for extended-confirmed protection are met.
The combined criteria were more persuasive than allowing pages to be protected under one criterion alone. The combined criteria are approximately equivalent to “Articles with a low edit rate where semi-protection has proven to be ineffective against persistent vandalism or violations of copyright or the biographies of living persons policy.”
Supporters listed five examples of articles that would benefit from PC2 under criterion 1: Jimmy Page, Hulk (comics), 2016 United States Presidential Election, Mike Pence and Donald Trump. In each case, opponents convincingly argued that semi protection was more appropriate. In addition, some opposers saw criterion 1 as allowing PC1 to be used “liberally”, which they objected to. One supporter stated that the support would not apply to protecting pages on the basis of criterion 1 alone.
Supporters listed five examples of articles that would benefit from PC2 under criterion 2. In four cases (Ron Borges, Howie Schwab, Eric Nagler, Eric's World, Rihanna), opposers argued that PC2 would be inappropriate, based on the targeting sockmasters: they make edits that need RevDels or they make a large number of edits. Where this is the true, the articles in question would likely end up back on ECP. In two cases (Pooja Gandhi and 2016 in the Philippines) no counter-argument was offered.
Some supporters agreed that the use of this would be rare; some argued that this meant that the proposal was no big deal.
Complexity
Complexity was a big concern for many of the opposers. To many, the proposal brings in extra rules with no significant benefit.
This point relates to the potential use cases. Opposers questioned the wisdom of implementing a more complex system when there are seemingly very few cases where it can be useful.
Backlog and delays
The potential for long waits for changes to be reviewed was a concern for some opposers and one supporter. Other supporters pointed out that:
  • The backlog (due to PC1) is currently at a reasonable level
  • Where articles get a large amount of IP/new-account vandalism, they can still be semi-protected, in addition to the new PC2.
Complexity of review
Some opposers were concerned that if a user is dedicated enough to get an autoconfirmed account then any bad-faith edits may be more subtle than those of a new account or IP. This was combined with an assertion that some reviewers would not be able to spot such edits.
Other
  • MusikAnimal said "I would rather this new version of PC2 wait until all the other stuff - ECP, new page reviewer, deferred changes, etc... prove themselves"
  • Some opposers argued that we need more blocking, not more protection levels.
  • Some opposers like the current way that PC2 works
  • Some opposers are against anything to do with Pending Changes
  • Some opposers see this as unnecessary now we have ECP
  • Some supporters are opposed to ECP and liked this proposal because it can be used to enable editing of EC protected pages.
No consensus
In reviewing the arguments, the closers found that the quality of arguments leaned toward the opposers, but still found no particularly compelling argument that would cause us to find consensus in either direction where the numbers suggest otherwise. Thus, the 57% in favor is insufficient to qualify as a high level of consensus necessary to enact this proposal.
Given that there was still a majority for this proposal, some supporters of this proposal may be considering proposing something similar in future. If so, they should think carefully about how to address some of the concerns raised in this RfC. In particular, we would recommend:
  • Thinking carefully about the criteria. The combined criteria, seem to be more persuasive than allowing a page to be protected if it just meets the one criterion.
  • Try to identify a reasonable number of pages which the proposed protection could be applied to. Think about reasons why it might not work in each case so that you can be confident in arguing that it will work.
  • Wait until deferred changes has been in use for a bit so people have a good idea of how that works in practice.
The RfC initiators, Cenarium and Andy M. Wang, should be applauded for their initiative. To reiterate, however, there is insufficient consensus to adopt the proposal.
Thank you all for your comments here; we will be glad to answer any questions about this close.
Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 20:25, 12 January 2017 (UTC) and Yaris678 (talk) 11:53, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Background

For an overview of current protection and protection uses, including the current PC2, see Template:Protection table.

Pending changes is a tool that admins can use on pages to prevent vandalism from appearing on them while still allowing good-faith users to continue to edit these pages. Application of pending changes puts the page into a review process. Editors who have the "pending changes reviewer" right can accept pending revisions. PC1 has been adopted as policy, and has established criteria. PC2 currently does not, despite a number of RfCs on the subject.

What is PC2? "Pending-changes protection level 2 means edits by unregistered, new contributors, and autoconfirmed contributors are not visible to readers who are not registered, until the edits are approved by a reviewer or administrator." ... "Pending changes level 2, or 'Require review for revisions from everyone except Reviewers', should not be used at this time per WP:PCRFC."

Proposal

This RFC proposes to lower the auto-accept level for PC2 from the pending changes reviewer usergroup to the recently introduced extended-confirmed usergroup, allowing PC2 to be used as a lesser alternative to extended confirmed protection ("ECP"), in the same way than PC1 is used as a lesser alternative to semi-protection. This RfC is also a follow-up to the 2014 RfC that proposed a number of criteria for PC2, many of which garnered consensus, but ended without usage consensus overall. The question here takes the first and second proposals into account.

For a table on the effects of protection and pending changes combinations, including both the current and proposed PC2, see /Protection and pending changes.

Should the PC2 level allow extendedconfirmed editors' edits to be automatically accepted, and should PC2 be used as a softer alternative to ECP, subject to the following criteria?

  1. The criteria for autoconfirmed pending changes protection ("PC1") are met but the latter has proven ineffective, and blocks would be ineffective,
  2. And/or the criteria for extended-confirmed protection are met.

In addition, the administrator's noticeboard will be notified (manually or automatically) of each use (identical to current WP:ECP notification).

--Relisting permitted by Cenarium. George Ho (talk) 09:10, 12 December 2016 (UTC) Cenarium (talk) and Andy W. (talk) 00:53, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Options

  • Yes: A !vote of yes means that you support lowering the threshold of auto-acceptance for PC2, and support implementation and proposed usage.
  • No: A !vote of no means that you oppose changes to PC2 and oppose the proposed usage criteria.
  • Neutral: (self-explanatory)

Yes

  1. Yes - per nom. - BilCat (talk) 01:11, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
  2. As co-proposer, per #Q&A. A minor concern with the original PC2 is that bot edits do not meet the auto-accept threshold, and that would not be an issue here. — Andy W. (talk) 01:13, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
    Expanding on thoughts after the fact. There are promising use cases here. Looking at the pages (currently) ECP protected, pages liked Ron Borges, Pooja Gandhi, and Howie Schwab are fairly low-edit volume (qualifies for PC1), and semiprotection along with review for non-extendedconfirmed would be sufficient to deter sockpuppets. A page like Billy Bush (who has recently received much more press coverage (PC1 criteria)), would benefit from the greater openness of semiprotection while enacting PC2 to review occasional edits causing disruption without a backlog to Special:PendingChanges.
    As mentioned before, I believe there are only benefits to changing the threshold, including the fact that bot edits would not need to undergo review. — Andy W. (talk) 07:37, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
  3. Yes as I think that this can be a good alternative to extended-confirmed protection. —MRD2014 (talk • contribs) 02:11, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
  4. Yes - I think this is a happy medium between PC1 and ECP. I concur with requiring notice of PC2 application at AN. — Jkudlick • t • c • s 02:15, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
  5. Yes i think this will be good for the backlogs. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 02:22, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
  6. Yes as co-proposer. This represents a much more inclusive setting than the original PC2, but still it's enough of a deterrence to sockpuppets and other malicious users. The use case is relatively small compared to PC1 but still significant, again as evidenced by several articles using ECP where this could be used instead (not including ArbCom-mandated ones): Rihanna, Eric's World, etc. For non-obvious sockpuppetry cases, it's possible to add a page-specific review notice to make sure reviewers are well aware of the issue. Cenarium (talk) 03:57, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
    Also: Eric Nagler. Cenarium (talk) 15:23, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
    I think Eric Nagler is a poor fit for PC2 for the same reason Eric's World is. At Eric Nagler, there was persistent vandalism from non-autoconfirmed sockpuppets. The article was semi-protected, so the sockmaster created a new sock, waited until became autoconfirmed, and then vandalized the article again. All of this vandalism required revdel. If ECP is removed and PC2 is applied, the sockmaster can vandalize the article, and the vandalism will still require revdel, even if those revisions are never made public. Ozob (talk) 16:19, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
    This assumes the sockmaster to be motivated enough to vandalize the article despite knowing that the edit will not go live. It is difficult to know without first trying, for a given sockmaster. I think many, if not most, of them, would be discouraged. PC1 is already known to deter non-autoconfirmed socks, see e.g. Hey Arnold!: The Movie, Dominican Spanish, so the dissuasive effect is likely to extend to PC2. Sure, we should be especially careful in case the edits are particularly harmful and require revdeletion, so abort if the attempt fails just once, but on articles like Rihanna or 2016 in the Philippines, where the sock edits don't require revdel, PC2 seems worth it for the greater openness it provides, even if socks were to edit occasionally (if they really aren't deterred and edit relentlessly, ECP would be more appropriate, but it would be unlikely in my opinion). Cenarium (talk) 18:45, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
    Perhaps I'm a pessimist. I doubt the mental competency of anyone who devotes years of their life to vandalizing Wikipedia, so I believe that the type of sockmaster affected by ECP will continue to abuse at every opportunity. For some of them, the cat-and-mouse aspect is part of the fun; in particular I think the experience of PC1 is unrepresentative, and the thrill of getting revdel'd will be too tempting. Ozob (talk) 03:46, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
  7. Yes. This just makes sense. We are close to having too many fiddly knobs for protection settings, but we are not there yet, and I can see plausible cases where this is a useful setting. Tazerdadog (talk) 07:34, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
    The knob technically exists in the form already, just that it's been "off-limits" :) — Andy W. (talk) 14:24, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
  8. Yes, makes sense--Ymblanter (talk) 11:25, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
  9. Yes good idea, will be a useful level of protection. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 14:37, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
  10. Yes: The extended comfirmed option makes sense that a user has familiar knowledge of polices. KGirlTrucker81 huh? what I'm been doing 19:47, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
  11. Yes Good idea. Finally will have a use for PC2. Yoshi24517Chat Online 05:21, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
  12. Yes per above. TerraCodes (talk to me) 21:45, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
  13. Yes. I'm a little concerned about creep with respect to levels of protection, and also possible an increase in the backlog: but in general, this makes sense. Vanamonde (talk) 04:46, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
  14. Yes per nom. Also, this can be very useful, for example, to deter the more-clever sockpuppets that manage to get autoconfirmed. — Gestrid (talk) 05:47, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
  15. Yes, this is clearly sensible and much needed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:39, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
  16. Yes agree with nom XyzSpaniel Talk Page 13:46, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
  17. Yes. I've wondered for a while why the community voted down PC2 before – it definitely seems like it could be a useful tool in the toolbox for page protection... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:58, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
    Yes. - ReZawler (talk • contribs) 19:17, 5 November 2016 (UTC) sockpuppet vote struck Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 12:49, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
  18. Yes - that's the only sensible way the EC user permission makes sense. There aren't that many pages protected under ECP and ECP users hardly make edits to such pages. <<< SOME GADGET GEEK >>> (talk) 19:20, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
  19. Yes. I can't think of any hard reason to oppose it. Let's see how it goes. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 20:20, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
  20. Yes This is a beautiful idea to fight such things. Much awaited, as I have been an active participation on such things. This concept is much needed. Light2021 (talk) 20:34, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
  21. Yes. I see no serious drawback to having this, and finer-grained control is always useful. Furthermore, this is a very natural measure given the introduction of the extended-confirmed group. — Gamall Wednesday Ida (t · c) 22:04, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
  22. Yes. Seems a good idea to allow protection of articles that PC1 doesn't help. ‑‑YodinT 22:40, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
  23. Yes PC1 isn't always strong enough to deal with persistent vandalism and/or sockpuppetry, and extended-confirmed protection can make it difficult for much improvement to be made at all because it limits so many potential editors. I think that this proposal well balances both of them. Edit: I, however, would strongly oppose any usage of PC2 without first exhausting less limiting alternatives, either semi-protection or PC1. Gluons12 ☢|☕ 23:26, 5 November 2016 (UTC).
  24. Yes I think that EC users are well used to the rules by now, and don't need auto-edit blockage from articles that they contribute with minor edits.— JJBers|talk 02:00, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
  25. Yes per everyone above. I can't see it doing much harm. — Yellow Dingo (talk) 10:15, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
  26. Yes its a good idea will take a load off pending change reviewers FITINDIA (talk) 13:47, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
  27. Yes—makes sense. I actually wanted to propose this myself but never had the time to do so. —MartinZ02 (talk) 19:20, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
  28. Yes - net benefit. -FASTILY 00:49, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
    Yes if used only as an alternative to ECP as in the "use case" above. If PC2 is to be used for pages which would otherwise be PC1 then it's a strong No from me. Certes (talk) 09:17, 7 November 2016 (UTC) - !vote withdrawn as I'm still unclear about likely usage Certes (talk) 20:39, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
  29. Yes. I've never thought PC2 a good thing; but ECP changes things. By lowering the requirements it could certainly be useful and fair. Eman235/talk 22:11, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
  30. Yes. Previously, I've had many reservations about PC, but I think that the experience so far with ECP has demonstrated that this proposal will fill a need, and provide a net benefit. I'm unconvinced by the arguments about creep. However, I do have concerns about some reviewers having gotten the flag, who might very well not qualify for ECP. I assume that there will continue to be an option of removing the reviewer right at AE or somewhere, so I still come out on the side of seeing this as a net positive. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:51, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
  31. Yes To counteract some of the opposes:
    • Just because you have a tool available doesn't mean its use is mandatory, or even encouraged.
    • Regarding a lack of PC volunteers, I would see that as a reason to use the tool sparingly. I seldom PC1 articles, certainly far less than semi.
    • I think Extended Confirmed Protection is worse than this, and if I had to scrap one or the other, it would be ECP. Bizarrely, this means I agree with Bertdrunk, who is opposing.
    • Pending Changes is not complicated. If you think it is, wait until you see the railway route diagram templates - your brain will explode.
    • We expect admins to be trustworthy in any tool that gets thrown at them. Anyone who's passed RfA will have sufficient clue to tackle this.
    • I don't want to particularly single out Ozob, but vandalism is not the only thing admins do, its just its the easiest thing to do in my view. However, good faith editors get sanctioned all the time at WP:AN3.
    • About backlogs - you either have them, or you do things half-assed; pick one. I could clear CAT:CSD in a few minutes by unilaterally deleting everything, or keep WP:AIV at a permanent minimum by indef blocking everyone, without bothering to look whether the report is correct or not.
    • There is a lot of talk about "increased" protection levels, but the real elephant in the room is the block. Try blocking any established user with a few chums, even when your block is firmly justified, necessary and backed up with policy, and see how much shit you take. I don't have a tool available that does all of the following at once : stop an edit war between autoconfirmed users, allow sensible users to still edit, allow everyone to file a future RfA with a nice clean block log, and not get yelled at for a "piss poor block". Small wonder I convince myself to do nothing a lot of the time. The more versatile options we have, the less we'll have to take the "all or nothing" approach. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:50, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
    Oh, it's fine to single me out. I've been vocally opposed to the different varieties of flagged revisions and pending changes for years, and I'm unafraid to talk at length about why.
    • If there was no intention of using this tool, there would be no point in having this RFC. Clearly some people think there are use cases for PC2. My whole counterargument can be summed up as no, there are no use cases for PC2.
    • The RFC does not say that this tool will be used sparingly. It gives criteria that could be interpreted quite loosely: "[PC1] has proven ineffective, and blocks would be ineffective." What's "ineffective" mean, precisely? In past RFCs, some supporters of PC2 have expressed interest in using it liberally. There is nothing in this proposal to prevent them from doing so.
    • Template:Protection table is proof that page protection is complicated. Yes, railway route diagrams are more complicated, but few people interact with them. I doubt there is anything as complicated as page protection that affects so many people. This complication is a hurdle both for ordinary editors ("What's the polka dot fuchsia lock mean again?") and administrators ("Is the best way to stop this edit war PC1, semi, ECP, full, PC2, or PC2+semi?").
    • You seem be saying that blocking someone is too much hassle. Sure, there are reasons why you (or anyone else) don't want to have to be the one who does it. Most people don't like to hand out discipline because it's a thankless job. But there's no alternative. If a user is misbehaving, if they've really earned a block, then they need a block. — Ozob 03:42, November 11, 2016 (UTC) — continues after insertion below
    Often I feel that simply getting hot-headed on an article or a group of similar articles and going too far over 3RR, but otherwise being okay elsewhere, does not deserve a block, but you have no other option other than to do nothing. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:25, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
    If they don't deserve a block, then a warning might be enough. But when users misbehave, they need to be told that directly. For comparison, suppose little Susie is biting the other children on the playground. Do you think she should be told, "Susie, stop biting!" or do you think the teacher should announce to the class, "There has been too much biting on the playground, so nobody is allowed to play there tomorrow"? Ozob (talk) 04:13, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
    Perhaps this should be continued in the #Discussion section below, which is meant for long discussions like this. — Gestrid (talk) 07:55, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
    • I bring up vandalism a lot because I've never seen anyone suggest PC2 except for vandalism and BLP violations. Let me give you the same challenge I give everyone else: Do you know of any situation where PC2 is appropriate?
    Ozob (talk) 03:41, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
    Besides enhancing the common theme of decisions being made on admin's talk pages, in the great rhetoric way of "Hey brow, would you mind do X and Y? Oh, and pls and block Z too". At least ECP is under scrutiny, which means that when an admin don't want trouble he goes fully-protected. In which category this will fall? Bertdrunk (talk) 11:23, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
    Jimmy Page and Hulk (comics) are two articles I took administrative action in (the former, full protection, the latter blocks) where PC2 could have been an alternative. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:25, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
    Jimmy Page is the locus of a long-standing content dispute, apparently pushed by a single IP hopping user. The IP user stops editing when the article is semi-protected; he or she does not create an account to continue editing the article. Semi-protection is clearly enough; even PC1 might be enough. Since autoconfirmed users are not a problem here, there is no reason to use PC2.
    Hulk (comics) seems to attract edit wars. I have always believed that PC2 offers edit warriors the perfect solution to Wikipedia:The Wrong Version: Simply continue editing the article until The Right Version gets accepted by some hapless reviewer! Sadly for the rest of us, this does not stop the edit war. The only effective solutions require stopping the edit warriors from editing. Sometimes that might be page protection, and sometimes that might be blocking. But it is not PC2. Ozob (talk) 04:13, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
    I don't know that I fully agree with the philosophy statement on edit wars, Ozob, but there's two far simpler reasons why any level of PC can't be applied to Hulk (comics). First, the volume is too high. We don't apply pending changes (currently, anyway) to articles that get 50 edits over a 5 day period, as that article did in late October through early November. It's too much reviewing. Second, the only problematic autoconfirmed account was Zjec, who's been blocked. We don't use protection in response to a single account's disruption. Since that block, no-one's edited through semi. So PC2 isn't warranted, and even if it was, the volume makes it infeasible. ~ Rob13Talk 02:20, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
    I've looked more closely into the article and have changed my opinion a little. There seems to have been one problematic autoconfirmed user and several of his IP sockpuppets; when I looked before, I missed that there was only one truly disruptive user and a variety of other editors trying to stop him (this was in part because one of those other editors engaged in a well-intentioned edit war). Blocking the disruptive user appears to have been the right course of action.
    One can imagine an edit war where there were many participants on each side. I think PC2 would be ineffective, for precisely the reason I gave before. Your reason—the volume being too high—is related but hadn't occurred to me, so thank you. Since we both appear to agree that PC2 would not be a solution in this case, I feel like dissecting its precise mode of failure is a tad academic. Ozob (talk) 04:16, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
  32. Yes. The question of auto-accepted bot edits is adequately solved by this change, and I think that the option of WP:ECP provides breathing room for the hole left in page protection by this change. Icebob99 (talk) 14:29, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
  33. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:11, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
  34. Yes This extra level of protection could help Wikipedia protect itself against vandalism and unconstructive/disruptive editing. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 11:36, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
  35. Yes. Why not. I think the same scrutiny provisions (notice on AN) should apply, but as long as we aren't creating another class of user permissions it doesn't hurt to have a new tool. Deryck C. 15:21, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
  36. Yes: Certain editors have been ignoring WP:IAR (irony!) and claiming that using PC2 is not allowed at all. It's time we formally permitted PC2 to stop this. If the specific criteria turn out to be lacking in either direction (either too strict or not strict enough) they can always be amended later. Mdrnpndr (talk) 17:14, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
    @Mdrnpndr: This RfC isn't about that at all. We aren't determining whether to allow PC2. We're determining whether to create a new protection level, which is currently not present in the software whatsoever. ~ Rob13Talk 17:39, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
    @User:BU Rob13: You should take that up with the RfC proposers, as that is not what the RfC actually states – and I quote: "A !vote of yes means that you support [...] implementation and proposed usage." There is also no mention of a new protection level from a technical perspective. Mdrnpndr (talk) 21:48, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
    @Mdrnpndr: Yes, there most certainly is. "This RFC proposes to lower the auto-accept level for PC2 from the pending changes reviewer usergroup to the recently introduced extended-confirmed usergroup, allowing PC2 to be used as a lesser alternative to extended confirmed protection ("ECP"), in the same way than PC1 is used as a lesser alternative to semi-protection." They're calling it PC2, but they're proposing that the existing protection level of PC2 be removed and a new protection level (with the same name!) be created. It's a bit confusing, certainly, but make no mistake - "PC2" as detailed in this RfC does not currently exist. ~ Rob13Talk 22:04, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
    @User:BU Rob13: Perhaps I should have stated that there is no mention of an additional protection level from a technical perspective. The actual procedure of making the proposed change is rather irrelevant to this RfC – that's for the software developers to decide. Here the question is simply whether to allow PC2 given the proposed applicability criteria. Mdrnpndr (talk) 22:11, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
    Certainly, but your rationale relies on the idea that the community is stonewalling the use of PC2 as defined in this RfC by failing to account for WP:IAR. That is inaccurate. PC2, as defined in this RfC, does not currently exist. Administrators could not ignore all rules to use a non-existent protection level even if they wanted to. If you're in support of creating and allowing this new version of PC2, by all means you're entitled to that opinion, but you'd likely want to support that with a rationale devoid of factual inaccuracies. ~ Rob13Talk 22:20, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
    User:BU Rob13, just to clear up my position: I would support virtually any form of PC2 at this point, implementation differences notwithstanding. Mdrnpndr (talk) 13:10, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
  37. Yes as one of the original vehement opposers of this proposal, I support PC2. MediaKill13 (talk) 20:03, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
  38. Yes, as preferable to ECP. - Nellis 05:19, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
  39. Yes, as it appears that this implementation would significantly cut down on edit request backlog (ERB). A massive amount of ERB could clog the system up and restrict immediate editing to administrators, bureacrats and stewards. This idea of restricting editing abilities essentially destroys the idea of Wikipedia entirely. Another bot/program running the show could seriously help with the project as a whole. UNSC Luke 1021 (talk) 19:33, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
    @UNSC Luke 1021: I'm very confused here. First, we've yet to see a single case of ECP being applied where PC2 would be appropriate, so I'm highly skeptical that this would reduce edit requests. In fact, it will add a backlog of pending changes to be reviewed, if anything. Additionally, bots have nothing to do with this proposal, as far as I can tell. ~ Rob13Talk 21:26, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
    Well, $#!%, I totally misunderstood the purpose of this thing (not a bot). I thought we were implementing a bot that would automatically approve or deny edit requests on 30/500 pages. I won't withdraw my vote, however, because I still like what this thing (not a bot) will do for Wikipedia. UNSC Luke 1021 (talk) 21:31, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
  40. Yes I can see this being useful for pages undergoing dispute resolution. Such pages could be placed under PC2, changes would not immediately go live but would be in the history for discussion on the talk page and/or with mediators. I can also see it being useful for BLPs where the person has done something controversial, and is in the news, with rapidly developing changes. Such articles frequently attract much vandalism, but also constructive and less-than-constructive good faith contributions which it is appropriate to subject to additional scrutiny and discussion. Examples of this latter kind of article would include 2016 United States Presidential Election, Mike Pence, Donald Trump, etc. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 21:23, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
    @ONUnicorn: Keep in mind that we cannot apply pending changes of any type to articles with a high volume of edits due to how quickly the review process becomes impossible to manage (imagine having to review 20 intermediate edits at once and pick out the good ones!). Articles like those mentioned are well above that line. ~ Rob13Talk 21:26, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
    @BU Rob13: I don't have to imagine. I've reviewed pending changes articles with 15-20 intermediate edits, some of which are good and some of which are not. It's quite complicated, but doable. Moreover, while I haven't looked at Trump's article, Pence's isn't (currently) above that line, with 0 edits today, 3 edits yesterday, 4 the day before, and 11 the day before that (currently with semi-protection enabled). This would allow us to enable semi-protection to keep out the blatant vandalism from non-autoconfirmed accounts, in combination with PC2 to monitor other changes. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 21:33, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
    Unless we're substantially changing our protection policy and community norms about when PC is appropriate, 11 edits in a single day is too high of a volume. That would require a broader proposal/discussion. ~ Rob13Talk 21:55, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
    @BU Rob13: The following is just my opinion on what the "high-rate" clause means, but I think the spirit of Pending changes protection should not be used on articles with a very high edit rate is that it attempts to prevent large backlogs of unreviewed edits to low-traffic pages. If the ratio of edits to page views by reviewers (or just editors in general) is within a reasonable threshold (I understand this is subjective... wouldn't know the best way to measure this), PC wouldn't be an unpleasant option. At least that's the concept. I think this is supported by the current phrasing at Wikipedia:Pending changes#Applying pending changes protection: administrators may apply temporary pending changes protection on pages that are subject to significant but temporary vandalism or disruption (for example, due to media attention). — Andy W. (talk) 22:43, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
    I doubt any page, even a high traffic page, is likely to have many more potential reviewers than any other. PC review, like a lot of Wikipedia processes, is not coordinated at the article level; interested reviewers are more likely to look at Special:PendingChanges. A heavy-traffic article may get a little extra help from editors who normally don't do any review at all, but they're more than counterbalanced by the additional edits to review. Ozob (talk) 03:58, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
  41. Yes This proposal will provide a way for more users to provide edits to pages with out denying them access as ECP-level protection currently dose. Extended confirmed users should have the ability to edit without need for review, as is the case under the current PC2. This proposal changes that. The new PC2 will be less restrictive compared to ECP and allow more access when ECP is not necessary. MetaMythica (talk) 15:13, 17 November 2016 (UTC) This user first contributed on 15 November 2016. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 15:17, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
  42. Yes, per nom. TJH2018talk 01:35, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
  43. Yes Extended Confirmed Protection tends to slow down progression of articles a lot, adopting this proposal would allow for users to keep contributing good edits while keeping more persistent malicious users from damaging the articles. -glove- (talk) 07:02, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
  44. Yes agree proposal would allow for users to keep contributing good edits while keeping more persistent malicious users from damaging the articles. - MahajanDeepak (MahajanDeepak|talk) 11:47, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
  45. Yes Support as specialized tool to be used in cases where PC-1 and semi-protection aren't enough to keep out persistent vandals/socks, but where Extended-Confirmed protection would be overkill. Also, I endorse the arguments made by Ritchie333. ~Awilley (talk) 22:06, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
  46. Yes I agree that an alternative to Extended confirmed protection should be implemented. — Music1201 talk 23:53, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
  47. Yes support as an better alternative to WP:ECP. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 18:06, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
  48. Yes I had a recent case where I saw that this might be the best choice. Like all new toys, it will initially be overdeployed, but those are normal growing pains. If PC2 is going to be anything, it should be this - it's a well-written proposal and I'd hate to have to support a less well-prepared one at a future time frame. Samsara 05:30, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
    Can you make public the page you would have liked to use PC2 on? Ozob (talk) 22:59, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
  49. Yes, make it so. An excellent idea to balance openness with the need to control disruption. Guy (Help!) 17:54, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
  50. Sensible move. ϢereSpielChequers 15:33, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
  51. Yes This has the potential to open up editing on articles that currently have extended confirmed protection. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 23:22, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
  52. Yes – I have been thinking about this ever since it was proposed, and I have to land here. The primary point of opposition is a very sensible one: we do have a lot of protection levels to choose from, and introducing more may make things more complicated than they need to be. However, I am ultimately convinced that this specific proposal is acceptable for three main points: 1) it is already available to select as an option in the protection interface, so no confusing new buttons are being added, just the authorization to use said button; 2) the jump between semi protection (4/10) and extended confirmed protection (30/500) is, in my view, too severe for widespread application, and this would serve as an alternative when ECP would be too harsh and semi-protection is ineffective; and 3) this is needed for low-traffic BLPs that face persistent BLP violations, as the content in those articles do have the potential to affect real lives. PC2 would allow editors to continue making good faith contributions, but BLP violations would be held back. The issues of backlog that were previously associated with PC2 are remedied by its limitation in this proposal only to non-extended-confirmed users. Mz7 (talk) 06:23, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

No

  1. No. At first knock, this sounds like a Trojan horse to me. It's presented as a "lesser" alternative to extended-confirmed protection, but whenever an IP edits an article, the whole thing gets held up until one of the people with the special magic wand show up to make a judgment on it. So extended-confirmed editors have the assurance that they can edit immediately with EC protection, but not with this new PC2. Since PC2 is - fortunately - not generally accepted now, I am wary to replace it with something that might intrude on editing far more often. Wnt (talk) 00:29, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
    @Wnt: The same argument would apply to PC1 then, unfortunately, if I understand what you're saying. If an IP makes an edit, and an extendedconfirmed editor makes another edit, the page is not live until review. — Andy W. (talk) 01:30, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
    It's true that I have opposed PC1 also, for this very reason. Actually it's not the IP editors but the non extended confirmed editors who differ in this case - but those do increase the number of editors who would leave an article in a stuck condition relative to PC1. Wnt (talk) 01:35, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
  2. No, and I am concerned with all the support rationales above that simply claim PC2 is 'good' without weighing both sides of the coin. With the proliferation of new protection levels, where are we going to draw the line? Should we create a new protection level of 50 edits and two weeks tenure, for the cases where semi-protection is too easy to game but extended-confirmed protection is too harsh? Should there be an edit filter applied to all new pages that prevents non-autoconfirmed accounts from removing CSD tags? Should we create pending changes level 3, requiring administrators to approve edits to PC3 protected pages, and use this as an alternative to full protection and fully-protected edit requests? Enough is enough. ECP was approved just five months ago. There are so many protection levels that we are running out of colors for the lock symbols. As of this comment, only Cenarium has presented empirical evidence of a situation where PC2 would be useful. But I question whether a few isolated cases justifies implementing yet another protection level, adding to the bewildering rules faced by less involved editors, and making Wikipedia even less user friendly.
    I agree with the proposer that lowering the auto-accept threshold for PC2 is preferable to leaving it as it is. But the better choice would be to reject implementing PC2 entirely. Altamel (talk) 05:40, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
    I've expanded on my rationale after the fact. Several things, no add'l lock colors needed; there's already an orange one associated. The config itself has been around, and is already available to sysops in the interface despite no consensus. The suggested new threshold is not arbitrarily defined, but a logical match as PC1 is to semi. Looking at it as review configuration, not a new restriction level in the slightest, I'm personally very willing to trust sysops to make their good judgment and allow this level as a potential option. — Andy W. (talk) 07:37, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
  3. I'm hostile to all forms of flagged revisions no matter how disguised, because we don't have the volunteers to review all these edits before they go live. Look at de.wiki's experience, with the backlog of unreviewed changes growing longer every day and some changes languishing unreviewed for literally years.—S Marshall T/C 18:17, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
    @S Marshall: Actually, as I'm typing this, the Pending Changes Review page is empty, and that's with literally thousands of pages under PC1 protection right now. And with almost 8,000 PC reviewers and administrators, I'm pretty sure we could handle the volume. (Although I will admit that I'm not sure how many edits will hit the PC review log after this other RfC finishes.) — Gestrid (talk) 05:44, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
    Of those 8,000, what proportion have actually reviewed a change in the last year?—S Marshall T/C 11:52, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
    1431 of 7967, or about 18%, if my query is correct, including only manual reviews. As a note though, the usergroup was initially handed out widely specifically in prevision of the original PC2 being used. Cenarium (talk) 12:47, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
    Thank you Cenarium! That's an extremely helpful query that produces a rich data set. I see that we have 1,431 reviewers who have reviewed at least one change, and 398 who have reviewed more than 10 changes. The top 12 performers have reviewed more than 500 each, the top 6 have reviewed more than 1,000 each, and the top two have reviewed about 6,000 changes between them.
    I conclude that despite the large absolute numbers of reviewers, in practice the system depends on a very small number of volunteers. I'm sure they're all completely objective and trustworthy, but just in case there are any future concerns or allegations, it does seems prudent to ask: how can we review the reviews they've made?—S Marshall T/C 14:12, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
    This isn't unusual among Wikipedia processes, most depend on relatively few regulars. It's also the case for new pages patrol, for example. Reviews can be 'reviewed' at Special:Log/review, by selecting 'manual accept' as type of review. Cenarium (talk) 14:31, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
  4. No. The hard problem underlying all anti-vandalism work is people. Vandalism comes from people; vandalism is fought by people. Anti-vandalism tools, from PC1 to FP, are a way for people we trust to interact with people we don't trust. When there is a specific person we don't trust, the answer must be a block. Anything else ignores the fact that vandalism is about people. The only articles that should be placed under any sort of protection are those that are vandalized by a large number of different users, or articles that are vandalized by a single user (or group of users) who outwit our blocks.
    Many supporters of PC2 have, in past discussions, been blind to this fact. When I've asked for examples of articles where PC2 would work, they usually suggest articles that were vandalized by a single user or small number of users. PC2, even PC1, should never be used when a block will solve the problem. Sometimes, someone will suggest that PC2 should be used instead of indefinite semi- or full-protection. PC2 does not solve this problem, either. These articles are protected because they attract too much vandalism for PC1 to work. It should be obvious that they will still attract too much vandalism for PC2 to work. Finally, occasionally someone will suggest PC2 as a preventive measure. I believe this goes against Wikipedia's spirit as "The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit."
    I have the same challenge for PC2 supporters as always: Find me one article where PC2 would be appropriate. Until you do this, I will maintain that there are no use cases for PC2. Ozob (talk) 15:04, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
    Re "It should be obvious that they will still attract too much vandalism for PC2 to work.": not if using the combo semi-protection + PC2, which would be justified and sufficient on articles like Rihanna, currently under extended-confirmed protection. And several other articles currently under ECP could use PC2 alone due to their low editing volume: Eric's World, Ron Borges, Howie Schwab, etc. They were put under ECP precisely because semi-protection or blocks were inefficient, due to sockpuppetry. Cenarium (talk) 15:19, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
    Let's start with Eric's World. The article had a problem with IP vandalism, so it was placed under semi-protection. Four months later, it experienced a single incident of vandalism, and when that vandalism was discovered, the vandalism was revdel'd and the article was placed under ECP. It seems to me that there are two reasonable things that could be done here. One, keep the article under semi-protection, and revdel as necessary. This is only reasonable if revisions requiring revdel are rare. Two, keep the article under ECP. Either way, PC2 is inappropriate, because vandalism appears in the page history even if the edit is rejected. The only solution is to stop such edits from being made in the first place, either by some kind of protection or by blocks.
    Ron Borges, Howie Schwab, and Rihanna are a different situation. Each is the target of long-term abuse. There is a persistent sockmaster, the kind of person who is active for years and has hundreds of accounts; the sockmaster uses a large range of IPs, so there is no possibility of a range block or contacting their service provider; the sockmaster targets a moderate number of articles; and the sockmaster is patient enough to create autoconfirmed accounts. Let's hypothesize that we place these articles under semi-protection plus the proposed revised PC2. The sockmaster is still going to try vandalizing them, of course. Under semi-protection plus revised PC2, they will be able to use their autoconfirmed socks to make edits; these will not be publicly visible, but they'll still be there. Every one of their vandalism edits will need to be reviewed and rejected.
    This is the exact same problem that PC2 has always had. It does not address the underlying problem that there are some people who should not edit Wikipedia at all. It does not provide new ways of stopping banned users. Instead, it creates reviewing work. The proposed revised PC2 distributes this work among a larger number of editors, but the work will still be there. I can't see how that's an improvement. Ozob (talk) 19:52, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
    I personally believe review is enough for the case of Eric's World. The edit went live for over a week, and was undid and revdel'd much later. Given the backlog being almost always less than 20 pages (it's 5 as I write this) the 8000 pc reviewers and admins would have likely to have caught the edit itself sooner at a PC2+semi config. (or with a deferred change via filter, but that's off topic) — Andy W. (talk) 20:22, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
    The only way that PC2 could have caught the vandalism at Eric's World is if PC2 were routinely applied to pages which suffered IP vandalism only. The current proposal would not do this, so PC2 would not have helped. (I agree that deferred changes and a filter might succeed here.) Ozob (talk) 23:53, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
  5. No This scheme seems too complex and, as I understand it, PC2 is not used. I'm not seeing the point in fiddling with a facility which is not used. See also WP:CREEP. Andrew D. (talk) 16:23, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
    @Andrew D.: It's not used because criteria the community agrees on have not been established for its use. This takes care of that. As far as this being too wordy, the RfC basically says: We should have PC2 do the same thing as PC1 (having IP edits subject to review), but also have autoconfirmed edits (up to but not including extended autoconfirmed) subject to review as well. — Gestrid (talk) 17:55, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
    In addition to what I said above, it's also possible to place pages under a semi-protection/PC2 combo, which would only allow edits by autoconfirmed users, and those edits would be subject to review unless the autoconfirmed user was a reviewer, ECP-confirmed, or an admin. — Gestrid (talk) 08:40, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
  6. Oppose, WP:EXTENDEDCONFIRMED editors have 500 edits. While this may seem like a lot. It could be as simple as fixing punctuation 500 times. If an article is in need of protection from editing, but Semi-protection is insufficient a level, then there is a good reason to require those entrusted by the community with the tools to review edits. Either that, or perhaps extended is to lenient in its time and edit number requirements. Moreover, see WP:EC#"Quality, not quantity"; this is a very good essay on why just edit count alone doesn't inform us of the best judgement of the editor.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:18, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
  7. Oppose You can debate the merits of the implementation (or lack there of) during this RFC, but I am serving notice that it is of no concern to me because I will not being making use of PC2. I know its a scary idea, but has anyone actually entertained the idea of overturning the extended protection and the flagged revisions and simply letting people contribute? It is after all supposed to be a free encyclopedia that anyone should be able to edit. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:56, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
  8. Oppose, per S Marshall. I am opposed to any form of flagged revisions, and I oppose all proposals regarding Pending Changes, except for completely scrapping the system of Pending Changes altogether. Nsk92 (talk) 23:46, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
  9. No - This doesn't actually serve a valuable purpose. As I understand it if an IP edits thus causing the edit to be hidden until reviewed, all further edits whether by another IP or an extended confirmed user will also have to wait till the first edit is reviewed. Lowering the threshold may be beneficial, but, using it as a middle ground between PC1 and ECP is a net negative. We want to reduce the number of placements of restrictions, protections, and pending changes on articles, not increase it - which is what this innocent looking thing will do. As described above this is a trojan horse, it looks good, but, really isn't. I think it'll have the opposite effect on backlogs - increasing it rather than reducing it. Mr rnddude (talk) 02:54, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
    @Mr rnddude: But just to clarify, under the existing PC1, suppose a non-(auto)confirmed user makes an edit on a PC1 page. Then the edit requires review. Suppose this goes unreviewed for a while, and now a non-PC reviewer with 200,000 edits and 12 years of service hops along and also makes an edit. This edit requires review by a PC reviewer. This is under the current PC1. — Andy W. (talk) 04:28, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
    Andy M. Wang, yes and I don't like that either. However, PC2 is currently rarely if ever used - I haven't come across it. I prefer for it to stay that way. If PC2 becomes a mid-point between autoconfirmed protect and ECP I expect PC2 will become more common on the encyclopaedia and this will just increase the workload for our editors (reviewers in this case). We're jumping through enough hoops as it is and I don't like adding more hoops whose pros are outweighed by cons. If this RfC was for scrapping PC1 and 2 you'd have my support in a jiffy. Mr rnddude (talk) 10:50, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
  10. This proposal only serves to increase the entropy of our protection system. Esquivalience (talk) 12:14, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
  11. Oppose as a semi-frequent PC reviewer. For the sort of issues often treated with PC1 (petty vandalism, BLP violations, etc.) the standard of review is not particularly high, often they can be reviewed at a glance or a quick check of references. However a common element of all of the past RfCs on PC2 is a consensus that the reviewer right is already too easily granted even considering this low standard (see proposal 15 from 2014). We've always been talking about using PC2 as a tool to prevent much more complicated disruption, such as contentious edits and content disputes among experienced users, which are not obviously vandalism and require more attention than just a neutral review, complicated enough that we normally reserve these discussions for closing by administrators. Allowing any extended-confirmed editor (also a very low bar, much lower than reviewer) to approve or reject these edits with a click is a recipe for disaster. And pending changes in general is simply not an effective tool to deter sockpuppetry. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:00, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
    This wouldn't allow any extended-confirmed editor to review, only extended-confirmed reviewers. As for the reviewer usergroup being too easily granted, this was mostly in anticipation of reviewer-level PC2 being used; if we actually use extended-confirmed-level PC2, then the criteria may be tightened in the future. Cenarium (talk) 14:43, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
    I see that now, thanks for clarifying. However this does not allay my concern about a simplistic review process being applied to complicated editing issues. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 17:26, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
  12. I have opposed, and continue to oppose, all proposals to expand the use of various forms of pending changes. They make an already impenetrably complicated system of permissions even more complicated, and tend to expand the range of pages for which it is no longer true that we are the encyclopedia that anybody can edit. This makes Wikipedia ever less welcoming to new good-faith users. Call me old-fashioned, but for pages with genuine disruption problems the tried-and-true tools of semiprotection and full protection are perfectly sufficient.  Sandstein  17:04, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
  13. I don't want a vague "we could protect things this way" use case. I want multiple examples of an article which could be protected at the proposed level where the proposed level would be sufficient but lower levels would not. To counter some of the examples above, Eric's World had only one disruptive edit through semi-protection over four months. Semi was obviously sufficient. Eric Nagler had serious enough BLP violations that revision deletion was required, so pending isn't appropriate there either. Rihanna is a maybe, but the vandalism was a bit high-volume there, so I question whether pending would have worked long-term. So I've got one article. Balancing this against the reality that we simply haven't selected reviewers in the past with the intent of allowing them to review these sorts of edits, I don't think this protection level would be a net positive. In order to support this, I'd want to see significantly higher requirements to become a reviewer. As it is, it's basically granted to every good-faith counter-vandalism editor with a couple weeks of experience. That's fine for reviewing PC1 edits, but not PC2. I'm not willing to assume reviewers will gain enough experience with sockpuppetry, how to contact administrators to request revision deletion, etc. by the time they are automatically able to review PC2 edits. ~ Rob13Talk 23:16, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
    I'd like to note I also share two other concerns from others. First, many supporters are looking at PC2 as something to reduce protection overall, but I doubt that will be what happens. I would apply this protection to articles I would not have protected at the ECP level before, and I'm unlikely to reduce any of my previous ECP protections if this were implemented. So I don't think the supporters' goals are going to be reached by implementing this. Second, I worry about the proliferation of protection levels. It makes Wikipedia harder to understand, and that's a major negative unto itself. I'm not as much of a hardline opposer of new protection levels as some others, but I want to see clear use cases and a clear need before complicating our protection policy. ~ Rob13Talk 13:45, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
  14. Oppose We only approved ECP for non-AE use a few months ago. I think it's too soon to add yet another way to protect, and we're getting ahead of ourselves by possibly creating an unnecessary option. I also think, as Rob does, that we're putting the cart before the horse here in that we need to make sure the reviewers know what is expected of them before PC2 gets implemented in any form. I myself have been too liberal in granting the right, because it's currently not much more than any autoconfirmed user already has. Katietalk 04:44, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
  15. Oppose Mostly because of the overproliferation of protection levels. If there is a change I'd support, it would be to replace template protection with an appropriately modified PC2 (that is, no auto-acceptance of edits and only admins and template editors can approve) as it allows some additional possibilities (editing the template/module is free but someone else has to review the edit before it goes live; code review basically) that template protection does not allow. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 07:03, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
    @Jo-Jo Eumerus: I'd mildly support something like this as a possibility for more editors to suggest changes to currently TPROTed pages. 0 auto-acceptance code review might not be possible today, but the closest thing is where auto-accept/review are at TE-level (limits review to TE reviewers (106/145 TEs)). A couple of transclusion/substitution tickets need resolution before unreviewed changes on templates makes sense, and possibly a consideration of whether the act of editing or the act of accepting adds to the job queue. — Andy W. (talk) 15:17, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
    If my understanding of this is correct, FlaggedRevisions allows one to turn auto-acceptance off. Of course, one can still make an edit and then manually accept it with the correct permissions. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:26, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
  16. Oppose - Until amount of protection levels have been exhausted, or until too many rejections for ECP requests occur, I must still oppose the lv2 PC-protection for now. No longer opposing. See my newer comments below ECP is still new to everyone, so let's wait for results. Also, trust on editors would be at stake, especially without any other protection simultaneously enabled, if it is enabled. I don't know how many users lose PC1 rights—inspecting IP edits—but amount of users losing PC2 rights would be tremendous if many potentials would abuse it for means to an end. I am taking a philosophy class and learning about philosophy. Consequentialists would be divided about pros and cons of PC2, especially as alternative to ECP. One would argue that it stabilizes an article, while another would argue that rights of editors would be at risk and that freedoms shall be of concern and that progress would be slower. Did I say it right? --George Ho (talk) 10:04, 9 November 2016 (UTC); edited 23:06, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
    After a very long hard thought, I do truly want PC2 to be useful for templates. However, using PC2 on articles is still too... either bureaucratic or burdensome for the community. There should be some "pending changes"-like protection system that reviews just templates, not pages. Otherwise, maybe not for now. --George Ho (talk) 22:39, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
  17. no Wikipedia is already over protected and leaning more in that direction as time passes. That's a problem and contrary to the ideal of what Wikipedia was to be. I worry that this will lead to an increased use of PC2 (which I've always opposed as contrary to what Wikipedia should be and because I believe it will further shrink our new editor pool). Hobit (talk) 13:38, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
  18. Oppose - What this should do is replace ECP altogether, it's more than enough. In this case it will just overburden and overpower even more the administration to decide what is right and what is wrong. My only doubt is if Wikipedia is becoming more of a Soviet or a Byzantine bureaucracy. Bertdrunk (talk) 07:51, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
    On ru.wiki, encyclopedia edits YOU! Altamel (talk) 00:26, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
  19. No. Even more rules, even more levels of protection, even more work for reviewers and admins. Wikipedia already has loads of procedures to deal with vandals, socks, and IP-hoppers and they are (obviously) not really working. Adding even more procedures isn't the solution. Lack of protection levels isn't the problem, lack of proper user registration is. But as long as 'anyone can edit' is dogma, we can add protection levels until we're blue in the face. It won't make a difference and it isn't addressing the real cause of the problem. Yintan  10:11, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
  20. Oppose - more protection levels won't help. The issue is a disconnect between blocking and the person behind the accounts being blocked. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 20:08, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
  21. No, not now that we have ECP. If there's a complex issue requiring the page to be protected from autoconfirmed editors, these should be directed to the talk page to make their case & have it considered by those with a particular interest in the subject, not generalist PC-reviewers: Noyster (talk), 09:53, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
  22. No PC2 should be more stringent, not less. Chris Troutman (talk) 03:59, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
  23. No I disagree with the fact that we're lowering the bar so that it can used in tandem with ECP. PC2 is there primarily in order to prevent disruptions on pages among editors without the flag. A few of you are saying that it'd reduce backlogs and such, please elaborate. Also, supporting policy changes with rationale such as "won't do harm", "let's see what happens" is absolutely useless. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 13:10, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
  24. No Totally unnecessary. Agree with everyone above regarding the matter with ECP and everything. NikolaiHo☎️ 02:14, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
  25. No (moved from neutral) - Apparently I didn't read this thoroughly enough. I would be in favor of creating a PC level like the one proposed, but I'm against removing the existing PC2 protection. Daß Wölf 02:50, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
    There is no PC2 protection, atm. This project only had consensus for use of PC1. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 03:42, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
    Clarification: There is PC2, there's just no consensus on its parameters. As mentioned above, the knob already exists, but it's off-limits. Currently, it's setup so that no one except Reviewers (which includes Administrators) will be automatically accepted. PC1, on the other hand, auto-accepts autoconfirmed users and above. The proposed PC2 is basically the same thing, except that it's for extended-confirmed users and up. — Gestrid (talk) 05:10, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
    Do you mean ECP, Daß Wölf? George Ho (talk) 05:34, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
    FWIW when I say "PC2", I mean "review revisions from anyone except reviewers", so this proposal would be something like PC1.5. I think while both are good, having PC2 would be more useful than PC1.5. PC2 could be put to use as an alternative to full protection, which puts a stop to almost all constructive editing. PC1.5 as an alternative to ECP would be a smaller benefit since a great many constructive edits are done by EC users. IMHO we should focus on getting PC2 working first before adding PC1.5. Daß Wölf 18:06, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
    As a co-proposer of this RfC, I personally avoided the codenames of "PC1.5" or "PC3". As much as I have thought that the proposed PC2 setting is technically superior per #Q&A and implications for bots, if you believe the current PC2 setting has more potential for concrete usage, that's fine, and if the rest of the discussion lends itself to favor the current, I personally feel we would want to stick with just that — Andy W. (talk) 19:00, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
    There has never been consensus for reviewer-level pending changes protection (old PC2) beyond the trial period, and this is unlikely to change. If this RFC doesn't pass, then the level should be removed altogether. Cenarium (talk) 12:00, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
    Agreed that removal may be best if there's a no consensus call — Andy W. (talk) 22:45, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
  26. Weak No. Now that extended confirmed protection exists, I'm not seeing a "need" to even have this level of protection enacted or even an option. The requirements to use either one would be about the same, and the next escalation up from extended confirmed protection would be temporary full protection. Steel1943 (talk) 16:00, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
  27. No, Down with the Kafkaesque bureaucracy! --Catlemur (talk) 16:02, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
  28. No I don't think that the benefits of this change justify introducing yet another protection level. The original argument for PC2 was that it would allow a mechanism for dealing with cases where semiprotection has failed without resorting to full protection. ECP is now doing exactly that, but with less overhead and a wider possible scope. This proposal would allow PC2 to be used to make articles subject to ECP slightly more open, but there would be a large number of situations in which it wouldn't be helpful:
    • Any disruptive edits which aren't quickly identifiable as such by an uninvolved editor. This includes edit warring, subtle vandalism, sockpuppets which aren't being clearly disruptive, etc. Unless the reviewer takes the time to look through the background to the reason for protection they won't be able to tell that these should be rejected.
    • Articles subjected to high levels of disruption. PC2 would lead to the edit history being clogged up with junk that never went live in the first place.
    • Articles which get serious BLP violations or copyright violations. These will hang around in the history under PC2 unless someone takes the trouble to revdel them.
    So this would apply to a pretty small number of pages and be of fairly small benefit in that case. WP:PP already explains ten different kinds of protection, I don't think we need to add another for this. Hut 8.5 20:29, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
    @Hut 8.5: Just a quick note on current guidelines: PC is not to be used on high traffic pages. I expect this would equally apply to PC2. HTH, Samsara 08:28, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
    Yes, I'm aware of that. My argument is that this would not be useful in very many situations. The fact that pending changes is not used on high traffic pages is one reason why the proposed PC2 wouldn't apply to many cases. Hut 8.5 19:43, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
    I quite agree - it would be deployed extremely rarely and therefore not a big deal, imo. Samsara 11:17, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
  29. No. Oppose. WP:EXTENDEDCONFIRMED only requires editors to have 500 edits — it's too easy to game the system to get that far. I'm also concerned that we could get too close to what's happening at de.wiki, with their long backlog of unreviewed changes. This is already happening at New Page Patrol. - tucoxn\talk 21:40, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
  30. No. Basically because it is too complicated. We have the new ExtendedConfirmed , and we should give it a try. DGG ( talk ) 00:06, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
  31. No per above - Way too complex (for my little brain anyway!), Best to keep everything as it is instead of over complicating everything. –Davey2010Talk 00:34, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
  32. Weak no (why is it yes/no?) – It's a fine idea, but I feel like we're getting ahead of ourselves here. PC1 isn't too popular, and I suspect PC2 would be even less so. All these new user rights, protection levels, etc, are making things overly complicated, but at least (some of) the others fill a void. This one seems more like we're trying to make use of the old rejected PC2, and not necessarily identifying a real need for it. You do realize this is a wiki, where occasional disruption by confirmed users is a normal thing? What happened to recent changes patrolling, or simply watching pages that are subject to this sort of disruption? The main things ECP are used for (sockpuppetry and arbitration enforcement) we'd want to prevent entirely, not defer. I would rather this new version of PC2 wait until all the other stuff - ECP, new page reviewer, deferred changes, etc... prove themselves. The point of such technical implementations is to offer ways to stabilize the wiki, but by introducing so many checkboxes and means of abuse prevention, we are confusing the hell out of both the admins and the users requesting protection and permissions at WP:PERM. Also, albeit unlikely, it would not be unheard of for someone to be a pending changes reviewer but not be extended confirmed. What happens then? We shouldn't intertwine our user groups and protection levels like this. So we might as well make it even more confusing by introducing an "ECP pending changes reviewer" user group, that way the PERM admins will give up entirely, and if we try really hard I bet we can come up with at least two more superfluous user groups and protection levels by the end of the year... — MusikAnimal talk 03:17, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
  33. No more or less per Hut 8.5. BethNaught (talk) 11:30, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
  34. No per DGG and Yintan. I don't think that implementing another new level of protection is a good idea at this time.— Godsy (TALKCONT) 04:02, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
  35. No. Unnecessary and undesirable and...in lieu of tl;dr, just no. RivertorchFIREWATER 05:20, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
  36. No per MusikAnimal. Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 00:31, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
  37. No. Layering new epicycles onto an already dysfunctional orrery is likely to be counterproductive. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by administrators since 2006. (talk) 02:35, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
  38. No Protection is in danger of getting absurdly complicted, and adding yet another level of it is not the answer. PC2 should be cosidered permanantly depracated. We already have semi, full, PC1, move protection, extended confiremd protection (horribly clunky name, by the way) edit fiters, user riights groups, all aimed at the same goal, of providing protection for the encyclopedia while restricting edits from potentially disruptive users. If all that isn't working, we need to refine how it works with the tools we already use., not add yet another layer of protection. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:04, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
  39. No, per MusikAnimal, Beeblebrox, and others. I see the appeal, but I don't imagine the additional complication and feature creep of more protection levels and policy is worth it, especially at this stage when ECP is still somewhat new. Let's try to simplify the current system. — Earwig talk 22:22, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Neutral

  1. Neutral. I don't support nor oppose. I just think that there are already so many protection levels and expanding it soon after the extended confirmed protection is just too much for me, but I do think it would be useful in the near future. I believe that the most useful way to test this would be to propose the idea, give out the test to a handful of trusted editors with experience and user rights and then make an assessment from there. Callmemirela 🍁 {Talk} ♑ 16:56, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
  2. NeutralI neither support nor oppose. I don't see anything wrong with the over all premise but I do question if we are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Not all IP editors are of issue. If we do this why don't we simply just remove the ability of IP editors to edit altogether? This way there could simply be no issues with IP editors what so ever. At the same time what differs an editor with 500 editors that is registered and one that's not? Perhaps, this proposal with the slight change that could allow IP editors free and clear after a set number of edits. 2000?-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 08:08, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
    Neutral (moved to no --Daß Wölf 02:50, 14 November 2016 (UTC)) - I think this is not a bad idea, as a sort of less intensive alternative to EC and full protection. Few trolls and sockpuppeteers are willing or able to wait a month and make 500 edits on a single account while staying under the radar. However, I think a process to revoke the EC right should still be established, otherwise many disruptive editors will just be grandfathered in. An implicitly granted trust level like EC is a great idea, but there needs to be a way of rescinding that trust if necessary. Daß Wölf 02:19, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
    @Daß Wölf: for example, the EC right is possible to remove. — Andy W. (talk) 18:25, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
    @Andy M. Wang: Yeah, you're right. I've rethought this, a formal process would be probably unnecessary (seeing as it doesn't exist for rollback, for example). I think this would definitely be far less useful without an ability to revoke EC. Daß Wölf 02:50, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
    @Daß Wölf: The ability to remove extendedconfirmed does exist. At least one editor has requested that it be removed, and it was. The only usergroup that cannot be removed is autoconfirmed. — Jkudlick • t • c • s 19:55, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
    @Jkudlick: An abusefilter apparently can — Andy W. (talk) 20:03, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
  3. Neutral. I can see the pros and cons of this going into place, and there are good points from both sides. I think that it makes sense to keep the system as uncomplicated as possible, and I also think that more rights should be given to people who will use them for the good of Wikipedia. So I'm going to wait and see how this plays out. Meretechnicality (talk) 22:25, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
    Neutral - (Switched from "No") After a long thought and experience with templates, somehow maybe PC2 would benefit for mostly templates. However, implementing PC2 on article is very tricky, especially with potential huge backlogs. If PC2 is passed, a separate right for PC2 should be created. Those with PC1 privileges may not know how PC2 works and must be limited. George Ho (talk) 23:10, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
    1. @George Ho: As I believe others have noted elsewhere, editors who are not extended-confirmed and are PC reviewers would be unable to accept PC2-protected edits, so there's no need for another right. — Gestrid (talk) 04:31, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
    Many of us are extended-confirmed, and comfortable editing the sort of page that would attract PC2, but lack the expertise to review all PC2 edits properly. Of course, the simple solution is for me not to attempt such reviews. Certes (talk) 08:39, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
    On second thought, going to re-vote "No". --George Ho (talk) 22:35, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Discussion

Use this section to discuss the options provided and to follow-up in-depth on comments.
  • One potential disadvantage is that we cannot revoke extended-autoconfirm if granted automatically, as we can reviewer. Though maybe that isn't a concern... Monty845 03:38, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
    • Technically it can be removed (the software checks former groups to avoid restoring it), though we don't have a policy on such removal, except that it shouldn't be removed as AE. Cenarium (talk) 03:54, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
    • Yeah, looks possible to remove. — Andy W. (talk) 04:37, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
  • So, in this proposal, reviewers would still be required in the case that a non-EC user edits, then an EC user edits, similar to the present case of PC1 and AC? ⁓ Hello71 13:09, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
    Yes, just like in PC1, edits following unreviewed edits are all subject to review. A non-EC user edits, making an unreviewed edit. An non-reviewer EC user edits, but the edit remains unreviewed, because there exists >0 pending changes. — Andy W. (talk) 13:53, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Separately, I have a mini-proposal: call this PC1.5, or rename the present PC2 to PC3, on the basis that in case anybody would want to vote no here on the grounds that it is insufficiently stringent, we could add yet another PC level if consensus exists. (although I'm starting to wonder if these are too many options for sysops...) ⁓ Hello71 13:09, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
    I'm inclined to make the case that a reviewer-level PC makes far less sense. The group is trusted the bit for review and approval of edits coming in based on content policies, not for being a special admin-assigned group that can make edits with privileges other users don't have. Lowering the threshold to an auto-granted group here better assumes good faith for editors, imo. — Andy W. (talk) 13:53, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
    Right, I agree, but I'm just wondering if we should call it something other than "PC2" to avoid confusion. ⁓ Hello71 15:49, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
  • The close of the 2014 RfC also found a consensus for the proposal "The use of PC2 for longer than 1 year on any page must be reviewed by an administrator and/or by a community discussion at least once a year, excluding protection set under the authority of the Arbitration Committee or a higher authority." Should this be added to the criteria for this year's RfC? Altamel (talk) 05:58, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
    @Altamel: About proposal 7, there's technically no consensus for indefinite length WP:ECP for non-Arbcom uses already. If consensus emerges here in the discussion, then sure... but I believe the proposed bot notification via transclusion (like the more stringent ECP) should be enough. — Andy W. (talk) 07:42, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
  • I've notified WT:TWINKLE to keep an eye on this RfC, as the outcome of this may affect Twinkle in ways similar to how changes to ECP affected it. — Gestrid (talk) 05:56, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Another RfC is taking place regarding sending deferred changes to PC reviewers, and it appears that at least 2/3 of the proposal (edit filter and bots) will pass unopposed. How much do you think the outcome of that RfC plus the outcome of this one (assuming the outcome is "yes") will, if at all, backlog Special:PendingChanges? — Gestrid (talk) 06:44, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
    PC2 won't add many pages, a dozen, maybe a couple dozens, so it shouldn't affect the backlog significantly. For deferred changes, it's just a matter of keeping the criteria for deferring reasonable, starting slow, checking if there's a backlog, expanding the criteria incrementally, checking if there's a backlog, and so on. Cenarium (talk) 14:44, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
    Okay, thank you for the clarification. I'm just not wanting this to become flooded the way WP:NPR has. — Gestrid (talk) 19:35, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
  • I'd want to see the criteria for applying this form of protection before !voting, but this proposal would raise the number of types of protection to five and, oh help us, now two types of protection can be applied to the same page at the same time! It does appear from the debate so far that even experienced editors are having a little trouble getting their heads round which user right or combination of user rights would allow editors, for pages under each protection regime:
    (a) to edit the page at all
    (b) to edit the page without the edit going into a pending queue
    (c) to bypass an existing queue of edits to the page
    (d) to accept or reject edits in the queue.
    The additional complication introduced would in itself be a drawback I think: Noyster (talk), 21:18, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
    @Noyster: The proposed criteria for usage is at the RfC statement under #Proposal. The protection levels can be combined with pending changes settings (as they are independent systems). The #Q&A describes PC1, PC2, and the proposed PC2. The effect of combos are described under #pccombos, and the subpage has more details. Hope this helps — Andy W. (talk) 23:54, 7 November 2016 (UTC) 00:03, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Note that the following does not change this RfC, nor should answers to my question reflect community consensus. Would people be open to creating a new PC level for this instead of changing the way PC2 currently works? In other words, would people be open to renaming PC2 to PC3 and creating a new PC2 with the parameters described in this RfC? — Gestrid (talk) 04:46, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
    @Gestrid: At this point, I'd very much want to shut that idea down... as a proposer of this RfC, let's not get ahead of ourselves. If one of these gets implemented, I also can't imagine the criteria for each of these would be distinct enough. — Andy W. (talk) 04:57, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
    While I wouldn't object to renaming per se, I would still object to the use of such a PC level. Ozob (talk) 13:47, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
  • I have a question - an extremely facetious question, perhaps, but a question nonetheless. Will the supporters using "why not?" as a rationale for supporting this protection level also support extended-extended-confirmed protection, a hypothetical protection level that restricts access to those with 1,000 edits and 90 days on the project? If your answer is yes, then fair enough, although I obviously disagree. If the answer is no, please ask yourself what the difference is. The answer, I'm guessing, is going to boil down to the idea that such a protection level would serve little to no purpose. I'm sure I could find a use case where it's hypothetically useful, but those would be few, far between, and they'd probably take quite a bit of squinting and hand-waving to justify. The (in my opinion, unanswered) argument of most opposing editors is that this proposed PC2 similarly serves little purpose. I've still yet to see more than one use case where this would have been helpful so far, and even that one use case doesn't seem feasible in the long-run to me (volume was a bit high).
I've been discouraged to find that few editors are offering up further potential use cases. I'm a huge fan of "net positive" arguments, but if you're going to take the "why not?"/net positive stance, please contribute to the discussion by finding some specific use cases on the "positive" side of the net. That's incredibly important for demonstrating a consensus. And hey, I could still be convinced! My opposition is vacuous in nature. When supporting editors can demonstrate a solid need for this new protection level, I'll be all for it. ~ Rob13Talk 22:10, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
No-one interested in providing a few pages that we could even apply this protection level to? ~ Rob13Talk 03:52, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
"Extended-extended-confirmed protection" would be an entirely new level, while this PC2 would be the pending changes equivalent of ECP. So all non-AE use cases of ECP are actually use cases of PC2 alone, or semi+PC2 if the editing volume is too high (I would doubt the existence of any semi'd page where the editing volume by non-extended confirmed users would be too high in the long run for PC2), except for content disputes. If then, for some reason, PC2 is not working to prevent the disruption, then we can increase to ECP. So Rihanna, 2016 in the Philippines, Bhanupriya, Nargis Fakhri, Hank Goldberg, Woody Paige, Peter Nguyen Van Hung, The Who discography, Tommy (album), Who's Next, Eric Nagler, Eric's World, and others cite above, are use cases. Whether this will work to stop the disruption in practice is debatable, but can't be really known without first trying. As I've said above, for moderately damaging disruption as on all but the last two examples even if it doesn't immediately stop the disruption (and there are good changes it does), this handles it, and the disruptive users are likely to move on after some time (if they persist relentlessly, we should increase to ECP but it seems unlikely). For really damaging disruption as on the last two examples, which requires revision deletion, it may immediately stop the disruption, or it may not, if it doesn't we should increase to ECP. Cenarium (talk) 11:34, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
We've addressed multiple of these already above, Cenarium, such as Rihanna (which is a definite maybe - the volume of sleeper edits was high), Eric Nagler (all edits had to be revision deleted, so PC2 wouldn't work. Reviewers can't revision delete, and we've never selected them to ensure they know how to even report that type of thing properly), and Eric's World (one edit in four months does not justify ECP). The "The Who" related pages are right out, as that vandalism is of the sneaky variety, which isn't picked up by reviewers unfamiliar with the SPI. I'll have to check the others later, as I'm heading out. I want to be very clear that this RfC is not about replacing ECP in all non-AE cases with PC2, though. I consider it substantially more likely that it will expand the total pages protected, if anything. And I'm not even too sure it would do that. ~ Rob13Talk 12:23, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
@BU Rob13: For non-obvious cases, it is possible to make a "review notice", displayed when reviewing the page. It can be made prominent, with links to relevant SPI cases and diffs of the kind of edits to watch for. When rev deletion had to be used, we can add a note about that in the review notice, ask to report if needed. When the vandalism is sneaky, which reviewers should also watch for according to the reviewing guideline, then we can warn about it in the review notice. It won't be able to replace all non-AE ECP use cases, as I mentioned, but it can replace many of them. Admins may apply this level more liberally than ECP, as far as admin discretion allows, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. If we have backlog issues, it's always possible to increase to ECP some of them. Cenarium (talk) 20:31, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
Possibly, but I think that's a big stretch. Allowing revision-delete-eligible edits when they're occurring in large volume and can be stopped via an available tool is poor practice – real people are harmed by libelous edits appearing in the article history, and we simply must do all we can to prevent and mitigate that serious harm. As for the sneaky stuff, the particular sockmaster on that The Who article has multiple different ways he targets articles, and I'd need to write a small novel to explain all of them. He also tends to "evolve" fairly rapidly, so I'd be going back every time he popped up and editing all these notices, not to mention that I don't necessarily trust reviewers to suss out the new MOs as they pop up. Keep in mind that we've always selected reviewers by basically handing the right out like candy because that's what the documentation told us to do. Not all of our reviewers necessarily even know what sockpuppetry is. It's a right that's historically gone to anyone with a few weeks of counter-vandalism experience and good-faith editing. Sure, we could hypothetically purge all reviewers and then re-grant according to stricter criteria (in fact, I'd immediately move to support in that scenario, because a few of your use cases were a bit convincing - thanks for those!), but that's not being discussed here. I'm worried that PC2 will be applied in a manner that allows damage to persist because we don't really have quality control on reviewers to ensure they're up to snuff when it comes to the type of "advanced" vandalism/sockpuppetry/etc that is occurring when someone is editing through semi-protection. ~ Rob13Talk 01:31, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
I think it might be worse than that. Under the proposal, extended confirmed users would be reviewers, so the necessary level of experience will be even lower. Someone content-focused could become extended confirmed and hardly even know what vandalism is, let alone the lengths that some vandals go to. Even the best review notice is no help to a user who does not understand what reviewing is supposed to accomplish. The only situations such users can be expected to handle appropriately are blatant vandalism, things like obscenities and "asdfasdf". And we already have ClueBot.
In comparison, {{edit protected}} is much more trustworthy. Admins are expected to understand Wikipedia policies and processes; to consult talk pages, article histories, and other editors when relevant; and to have good judgment. They are far less likely to make a mistake than an extended confirmed user or even a reviewer. I would be much more comfortable with a PC level where only admins were permitted to accept changes; it would be a streamlined version of {{edit protected}}. I can imagine that this would be useful, whereas I haven't been convinced by any of the examples for which PC2 has been suggested (though I haven't yet looked at the articles that were just mentioned above). Ozob (talk) 02:50, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
@Ozob: Where do you see extended confirmed users becoming reviewers? I don't see that anywhere in the proposal, just a note that extended confirmed is required to review edits on PC2 pages (in addition to reviewer). And before we add another administrative backlog, please do find me a good 100 additional active administrators to help clear the ones we already have! ~ Rob13Talk 02:52, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
Hmm, apparently I've gotten mixed up. Allow me to withdraw that paragraph. I stand by the other one, though. Ozob (talk) 02:55, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
Let me also add that I intend only to lessen backlogs, not add to them. One would use PC in place of full protection only to lessen the overhead involved in an {{edit protected}} request. I am not persuaded that there are many situations where this would be useful. The article would have to receive a large number of acceptable {{edit protected}} requests; these requests would not have to require extensive discussion, since that can't be done in edit summaries; and the vandals would have to be dissuaded by the presence of PC. This confluence of conditions seems possible to me; but maybe it's too rare to worry about. Ozob (talk) 03:34, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
@BU Rob13: Sure we shouldn't allow rev-deletable edits in large volume, when they appear repeatedly on pages under PC1 it's usual practice to up to semi-protection, it would likewise be usual practice to up to ECP on pages under PC2. As for reviewers not having been selected for PC2, I agree it's a concern, but it can be mitigated by:
  1. review notices, which would warn about PC2 and the situation at hand, and normally reviewers should know that "when in doubt, let another reviewer handle it"
  2. sockpuppetry and sneaky vandalism isn't exclusive to PC2 and reviewers should always be aware of that, though I agree the issue is magnified in PC2, hence #1
  3. inactive reviewers should be removed, to make sure they are aware of current policy - this should be proposed in a new RFC regardless of outcome.
@Ozob: This would be useful for templates, in fact I intend to propose a template editor-level pending changes protection in the future. (No sysop-level however, as the use case would IMO be too small.) Cenarium (talk) 14:20, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
I would support template PC, so long as template protection doesn't go away. Ozob (talk) 14:45, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
For the record, I've suggested to replace template protection with a template PC, as it gives template editors some additional options that regular template protection doesn't. Is that the same thing? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 14:49, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
I can easily imagine a template being targeted for abuse. Template protection may be appropriate in such circumstances. Ozob (talk) 15:08, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
Not sure what that has to do with pending changes vs. template protection. The important bit is whether the abuse passes on on the live template. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:13, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
Not if phab:T61102 is resolved, but there are still performance issues to consider. An edit on a very highly transcluded template would still trigger a WP:JOBQUEUE run. So on templates very heavily used that don't need to be often edited, where talk page requests are enough, using template protection is more appropriate than PC3. Most edits on those templates should also be discussed beforehand, so requiring a talk page thread isn't overkill. But for many templates deemed high risk yet not very heavily transcluded, PC3 would be the best choice. Cenarium (talk) 19:48, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
Is it important for performance whether the highly used template is edited (-->template protection) or has a new version approved (-->pending changes protection)? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:58, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
Any edit triggers a job queue run, even if not approved. Cenarium (talk) 23:18, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
Who would you propose review template PC? Template editors? We're already spread incredibly thin. Keep in mind that we 100% don't want edits being made to template protected templates before they've been tried in a sandbox and demonstrated in test cases, so what's the functional difference between template PC with template editors reviewing them and having editors file edit requests after demonstrating their changes in a sandbox and with testcases? The template editor just has to merge the code from the sandbox afterward. I don't see any meaningful difference here. ~ Rob13Talk 20:24, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
Yes, a template editor currently review template edit requests after all. And it isn't true that all edits pass through a testcase vetting before being made or approved, as far as I know. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:35, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
It's not true all the time, but most of the time it happens (or should happen). At least for anything major. I can tell you that if I was reviewing template edit PC, 90% of the time, I'd be reverting and telling the editor to show me testcases. At that point, we might as well have an edit request, because a discussion will be needed. ~ Rob13Talk 20:40, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
This is the case for heavily transcluded complex templates or modules, but not for templates like Template:United States Secretaries of State, part of a lock down of templates transcluded on template vandalism targets. PC3 can be used more broadly than TEP, such as to counter this kind of template vandalism LTA. See User:Cenarium/Template PC RFC for a more thorough rationale. Template editors are not spread thin, Category:Wikipedia template-protected edit requests is almost never backlogged, with no more than a couple of edits at any given time. Cenarium (talk) 23:18, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
This is off topic for the present page, but: I'm a little uncomfortable with one aspect of the Template PC RFC. For both PC1 and PC3, under "none of the following is satisfied", there is no mention of the use of protection in case of vandalism, an edit war, or some other dispute. A template that is not high risk and not complex might still attract trouble; while I doubt that anyone sensible would interpret the proposal to forbid the use of protection in such situations, I think it would be better to be explicit. Ozob (talk) 01:52, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
  • I believe that this arbcom case has already assumed that this exists as consistent with the proposal. I quote: accounts with fewer than 500 edits, and accounts with less than 30 days tenure are prohibited from editing any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This prohibition may be enforced by reverts, page protections, blocks, the use of pending changes, and appropriate edit filters. (emphasis mine) Pinging drafters @Guerillero: @Seraphimblade: @Doug Weller: Can you clarify whether ArbCom needs this to exist? Samsara 06:23, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
    • @Samsara: Note that ECP didn't exist when this remedy was passed, which is why they allowed various options as appropriate. Arbitrators have consistently stated the ban is not optional; IP editors may not edit within this topic area at all. This makes ECP the only suitable protection level for this sort of thing, now that it exists. ~ Rob13Talk 07:46, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

I thought about switching my vote, but I've not done so yet. Can PC2 extend to templates? George Ho (talk) 23:00, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

  • Is this RfC still open? Will some uninvolved editor (It doesn't have to be an admin, per WP:RFCEND.) please go ahead and close it? The bot's already removed the template days ago. — Gestrid (talk) 05:15, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
I relisted the discussion, Gestrid. George Ho (talk) 13:20, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
It doesn't have to be an administrator, but it probably should be in this case. At the very least, a closer must be very familiar with WP:PROPOSAL. The threshold for passing a major change to the protection policy is "broad community support", which is rather different than the usual assessment of consensus. ~ Rob13Talk 05:38, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
  • I'd like to make a point from the reviewer side of this change. For reviewers, it is often incredibly unclear why a page was protected and what the problem we're supposed to be preventing is, especially with sockpuppetry. Often the log entry is just "persistent sock puppetry" which really gives me nothing to go on. If I see what looks like a productive change, I can accept (in which case a sock I didn't realize might need to be reverted) or I've got to spend a few minutes going through the page history to do a sock puppet investigation. Neither is a particularly good scenario, especially since PC1 is preferred for articles where new editors and IPs are active, so I see a lot of helpful edits from IPs and new users and it can be hard to tell the difference between a good faith editors and socks. Adding EC to this won't make that better, if anything it will make it worse because the default is to accept when nothing problematic is obvious. Since reviewers are often looking at articles well outside their expertise (dammit Jimbo, I'm a linguist not a football uniform specialist), things that might be obvious sock puppetry or vandalism to local editors may seem benign to reviewers. My biggest concern with this proposal is that it doesn't realize PC1 isn't always as effective as it seems in some of these borderline cases especially for sock puppets. It's great for vandalism, but if an edit looks good (like a sock with hundreds of edits probably would make an edit), I accept and people would have to revert anyway. I think a better solution is to lower the bar for becoming a reviewer, or encouraging an editor local to the page to become a reviewer to reduce turnaround time and keep expert eyes on the accepting and reversion of issues. Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 00:50, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
  • One of the things that becomes clear with PC1 and independent reviewers is that a huge chunk of the edits previously attributed to "abusive socking" are actually good edits that meet WP standards. I can recall one situation where any IP or new user that edited in a very narrow topic area was immediately being blocked as a sock by a certain administrator. (The admin was entirely wrong, incidentally.) About 85% of the edits being reverted and resulting in account/IP/IP range blocks were perfectly valid edits, although of course some required references. So...my opinion is don't worry too much about socking when you're reviewing edits. The quality of the information takes precedence in almost all cases. Risker (talk) 01:02, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.