FAMEPedia:Rollback



The Rollback user right provides users with a button that will revert, with a single click, the last edit to a given page, along with any consecutive previous edits made by the same editor to that page. It is used to undo problematic edits such as vandalism.

An editor with rollback user rights will see a button rollback n edits next to relevant revisions on pages such as their watchlist, on user contributions pages (including their own), and on the edit history of pages.

Rollback is enabled and available to all administrators automatically and can be given to other users upon request, subject to the approval of an administrator. A user who has been assigned this right explicitly is called a rollbacker. There are currently Special:ListUsers/sysop administrators and Special:ListUsers/rollbacker rollbackers (0 total), not including global rollbackers and stewards who have been assigned the right across all Miraheze projects.

Standard rollback may only be used in certain situations – editors who misuse standard rollback (for example, by using it to reverse good-faith edits in situations where an explanatory edit summary would normally be expected) may have their rollback rights removed. Since rollback is part of the core administrator tools, an admin could be stripped of their administrative privileges entirely to remove those tools.

How it works
Users with rollback permission have extra "rollback" links next to revisions on the recent changes page, page histories, diffs, user contribution pages, and their watchlist:


 * 21:49, 2 September 2010 (diff | hist) Foobar (talk | contribs) .. ( bytes) (+1) .. FAMEPedia:Rollback (this is an example) (current) (undo | thank) [­rollback: 1 edit­]

Clicking one of these links restores the page to the most recent revision that is not made by the revision's author. This appears in the page history with a generic summary that looks like this:


 *  

A link to the reverted user's contribution history is provided, so that it may be easily checked for further problematic edits. It does not appear if you are reverting contributions done by a user whose username has been removed or suppressed, the result being:


 *  

Rules and limitations:


 * The rollback button only appears next to the most recent revision of a page.
 * If the page is edited again before you click the rollback link, you will get an error message instead.
 * You cannot choose which revision will be restored. It is always the last revision not made by the author of the most recent revision. This revision may be problematic too, so be careful.
 * If there are multiple consecutive edits to the page by the same author, they will all be reverted. To remove only some of them, you must revert the changes manually.
 * You cannot use rollback on a page which has only been edited by one person, as there would be nothing to revert to.
 * You cannot use rollback to restore a revision that has been deleted or suppressed. Attempting to do so will display an error message.
 * Rollback happens immediately; there is no confirmation or preview (although a page is displayed allowing you to see the changes you have made).
 * Rollbacks are automatically marked as a "minor edit".

Note that methods exist for performing rollback with non-generic edit summaries – see the Additional tools section below.

When to use rollback
Standard rollback is a fast way of undoing problematic edits, but it has the disadvantage that only a generic edit summary is generated, with no explanation of the reason for the change. For this reason, it is considered inappropriate to use it in situations where an explanatory edit summary would normally be expected. Rollback may be used:
 * 1) To revert obvious vandalism and other edits where the reason for reverting is absolutely clear
 * 2) To revert edits in your own userspace
 * 3) To revert edits that you have made (for example, edits that you accidentally made)
 * 4) To revert edits by banned or blocked users in defiance of their block or ban (but be prepared to explain this use of rollback when asked to)
 * 5) To revert widespread edits (by a misguided editor or malfunctioning bot) unhelpful to the encyclopedia, provided that you supply an explanation in an appropriate location, such as at the relevant talk page

Use of standard rollback for any other purposes – such as reverting good-faith changes which you happen to disagree with –  is likely to be considered misuse of the tool. When in doubt, use another method of reversion and supply an edit summary to explain your reasoning.

The above restrictions apply to standard rollback, using the generic edit summary. If a tool or manual method is used to add an appropriate explanatory edit summary (as described in the Additional tools section below), then rollback may be freely used as with any other method of reverting.

As with other methods of reverting, when using rollback to restore text to a page, ensure that the text restored does not violate FAMEPedia policies.

Administrators may revoke the rollback privilege or issue a block in response to a persistent failure to explain reverts, regardless of the means used. However, they should allow the editor an opportunity to explain their use of rollback before taking any action – there may be justification of which the administrator is not aware (such as reversion of a banned user). Similarly, editors who edit war may lose the privilege regardless of the means used to edit war. Administrators who persistently misuse rollback may have their administrator access revoked, although in practice such cases would require the intervention of the Arbitration Committee.

Requesting rollback rights
To request rollback rights, ask at FAMEPedia:Requests for permissions/Rollback or ask one of the administrators listed here. Any administrator may grant or revoke rollback rights, using the user rights page.

While there is no fixed requirement, a request is unlikely to be successful without a contribution history that demonstrates an ability to distinguish well-intentioned edits with minor issues from unconstructive vandalism. Rollback is not for very new users: it is unlikely that editors with under mainspace edits will have their request granted. In addition, editors with a recent history of edit warring will often not be granted rollback given concerns of abuse.

If you have been granted rollback rights, you may wish to test it out here.

Accidental use of rollback
Because rollback only takes a single click, without asking for confirmation, even experienced users may sometimes accidentally click rollback when attempting to click somewhere else. If this occurs, simply revert your edit manually, with an edit summary like "Self-revert accidental use of rollback". You could even rollback the rollback, but this can cause confusion for others who look at the page history.

If rollback is used accidentally instead of undo to revert a good faith edit, you could take a quick look to see if there is anything in the article you could improve (like a typo) and while making that edit also add the reason for reversion. You could also explain the reason for reversion on the talk page of the user who made the edit or the article talk page if appropriate. Alternatively you can follow the rollback with a dummy edit, with an edit summary like "Accidental use of rollback – reason for reversion". This doesn't work with null edits and won't change the edit summary for the rollback edit.

Editors have the option of installing any of the multiple user scripts that enable mandatory confirmation from the user before rolling back an edit. This is enabled by default on mobile devices via the "Require confirmation before performing rollback on mobile devices" gadget.

It is possible to hide the  links at Special:Watchlist, where most accidental clicks happen, while leaving   links available in other locations (e.g., diffs). See FP:Customizing watchlists for instructions.

Additional tools
It is also possible to use rollback with an explanatory edit summary (instead of the default or standard generic edit summary). Various editing tools let you do this; for example, see this list of tools. To do it manually, copy the URL of the rollback link, paste it into your browser's address bar, and append  followed by your desired summary to the end of the URL.



The patrolling tool Twinkle adds links in similar places to the "rollback" links, and also calls them "rollback". Unlike rollback, Twinkle may be used by any autoconfirmed user. Other than this, the links are functionally the same, but differ in their choice of edit summaries. Twinkle also offers additional options. (Anyone using both tools will see two "rollback" links, which can be confusing; see the picture.) This can be disabled by unticking every box in the option  at |Twinkle preferences.