Angry Video Game Nerd Wiki:Revert policy

Reverting refers to any action, such as the use of the undo or rollback functions, that reverses the actions of other editors, in whole or in part. maintains a principle of minimizing reversions. Revert vandalism on sight, but revert a good faith edit only after careful consideration. Edit warring is prohibited. Editors should provide an explanation when reverting.

Revert process
When a user encounters a change they do not agree with or simply do not "like", they should follow through the following steps when considering whether to revert.


 * 1) The edit was unambiguously made in bad faith (e.g. vandalism or spam).
 * 2) Verify that the edit was in fact made in bad faith. Vandalism only refers to a deliberate attempt to damage the usefulness of content for other viewers, and spam only refers to linking to or promoting other sites without our permission.
 * 3) Revert, possibly with the standard edit summary "3.1 Reverted vandalism" or with the rollback tool if it is available to the editor.
 * 4) Communicate with the contributor.
 * 5) Leave a polite message on the talk page of the contributor instructing them that their edit was probably not helpful to the wiki.
 * 6) If edits made in bad faith continue, leaving a message with   can be considered. Even after that template message is used, polite messages to desist are still preferred and should continue to be left.
 * 7) For more serious cases – and only serious cases – go straight to leaving a message with .
 * 8) In the event of your attempts to communicate having no effect on editing behavior, continue to revert and leave a report on the administrator noticeboard.
 * 9) In the event of further incidents, continue to revert until a user with administrator rights becomes available to take any further action deemed necessary.
 * 10) Do not attempt any other on-wiki action. Do not leave any other message for the contributor if a template warning has already been given or the incident has otherwise been adequately addressed. Do not talk about the incident elsewhere on the wiki. Vandalism and spam is not "a big deal" and does not deserve widespread attention.
 * 11) The edit has even the slightest possibility of being made in good faith.
 * 12) Attempt to implement alternatives to reversion. Try to improve it – rewording is better than reverting. Try to modify only the part of the edit that is found to be problematic.
 * 13) If a way to improve it cannot be found, if the edit is clearly incorrect or if the edit contradicts previous consensus, undo the edit.
 * 14) An edit summary must be provided. Provide an informative explanation as to the edit should not stand, and link to the relevant decision or policy if one exists. An explanation is important to maintain the confidence to edit further and the calm of the user who is being reverted, and helps to avoid an edit war. Avoid simply using a standard summary or just stating the edit to be "unnecessary" or "incorrect".
 * 15) Do not use the rollback tool. There is no such thing as not having the time to carefully explain reasoning in every reversion of a good-faith edit.
 * 16) Especially if the user being reverted is a newcomer, consider posting a polite further explanation of why you had to revert their edit on their talk page. Try to link them to previous discussions, decisions or relevant policies.
 * 17) The edit was a reversion of my previous change.
 * 18) Check the reason for the reversion of the edit.
 * 19) If you are still not satisfied, and still believe your edit is legitimate or correct, do not simply reinstate your edit, but leave the status quo up. The status quo continues to reign until a consensus is established in favor of changing it.
 * 20) Communicate with the user who reverted your edit, preferably via message wall or on IRC. Attempt to come to an agreement on whether there should be a change.
 * 21) If agreement cannot be reached, propose your reverted change on the relevant article's comments. For more wide-reaching changes, use the Meeting Room.

Edit warring
Edit wars refer to an occurrence where users in disagreement over a single issue repeatedly revert each others' contributions relating to the issue, rather than attempting to come to an agreement on it. They are regarded as harmful to a constructive atmosphere.

Never engage in an edit war. In the event of one, the page(s) will be reverted to what had been the status quo or the version with community consensus, and they will be protected temporarily from further editing at the discretion of an administrator. The party that instigated the edit war may be sanctioned.

In theory, if a user follows the revert process detailed in the previous section, there should be no incidence of edit wars. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.