Revert policy

## American Born Chinese Wiki Policies

**Reverting** refers to any action, such as the use of the undo or rollback functions, that reverses the actions of other editors. American Born Chinese Wiki maintains a principle of **minimizing reversions, rewording is better than reverting**. Revert vandalism on sight but 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.

* **The edit was unambiguously made in bad faith (e.g. vandalism or spam).**
	1. Revert (possibly with the standard edit summary "*Reverted vandalism*") or with the rollback tool if available.
	2. Communicate with the contributor, *politely* instructing them that their edit was not helpful to the wiki.
	3. In the event your communication efforts prove futile, **stay calm, continue to revert, and report to an administrator**.
		1. Do not let yourself be antagonized. Do not talk about the incident elsewhere on the wiki. Vandalism and spam are not "a big deal" and do not deserve widespread attention.
		2. In the event that no administrator is online, report to SOAP.

* **The edit has even the slightest possibility of being made in good faith.**
	1. Try to improve it—rewording is better than reverting.
	2. If the edit is clearly incorrect or contradicts previous consensus, undo it, but:
		1. **Always leave an edit summary.** This provides context and helps to avoid an edit war. Consider dropping the user a polite further explanation on their message wall to explain and prevent them from being disheartened. Offer to help.
		2. 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.

* **The edit was a reversion of my previous change.**
	1. Check the reason for the reversion of the edit, **do not start an edit war**.
	2. **Communicate**, preferably via message wall or on Discord. Attempt to come to an agreement.
		1. If agreement cannot be reached, the status quo is upheld, but you can propose your reverted change on the relevant article's talk page for larger community input. Make sure you're basing your argument on verifiable facts. When discussing a personal preference, the majority rules.

## Edit warring

**Edit war** refers 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 (i.e. the version with community consensus, the state of the page *before* the contested edit was made) while the involved parties communicate with each other to come to a consensus. If the edit war continues, the page will be protected temporarily from further editing at the discretion of an administrator. The party that instigated the edit war may be sanctioned or even temporarily blocked. **Communication** is key, and do not forget that we are all editors who simply want the best for this community.