User:Awilley/Consensus Required vs Enforced BRD

This page in a nutshell: This page explains the difference between the "Enforced BRD" and the "Consensus Required" rule, arguing that the BRD rule has fewer negative side-effects than Consensus Required. "Enforced BRD" is meant to enable the building of compromise and consensus through a combination of editing and discussion, while "Consensus Required" locks down editing in a way that rewards talkpage stonewalling. "Consensus Required" is a stricter rule than "Enforced BRD", and while it prevents some additional bad behaviors it also blocks normal dispute resolution techniques that are common elsewhere on the project.

Wording of Rules

A common scenario

• Editor A makes a Bold edit

• Editor B reverts the edit, using their 1RR

Under vanilla 1RR...

• Editor A reverts the revert, using their 1RR

The article is left in a non-consensus state, and a third editor is required to restore the status quo.

Under 1RR plus Consensus Required...

• Status quo is retained, but Editor B can stonewall on the talk page, preventing anything similar to the Bold edit ever being put into the article unless multiple other editors are called in for a discussion/vote.

The middle ground of Enforced BRD...

• Status quo is retained, and Editor A is required to discuss the edit on the talk page, and wait 24 hours before reinstating the edit, or (preferably) something similar to the edit that takes into account the concerns of Editor B.

Advantages of Enforced BRD over Consensus Required

1. Status quo: In contentious scenarios involving 2 editors:
   • Regular 1RR destabilizes the status quo (see above)
   • Consensus Required makes it very difficult to change the status quo
   • BRD favors the status quo while providing incentives for both editors to compromise.
2. Reaching compromise: It is easier to reach a consensus/compromise through a combination of direct editing and discussion, versus discussion only, where threaded discussion gets bogged down with proposals, votes, and counter-proposals.
3. Multiple iterations: In contentious scenarios involving multiple editors: BRD allows the contested material to go through iterations of the BRD Cycle while the content is being discussed. When the final talkpage consensus is reached the article is more likely to reflect a compromise between the two sides. With Consensus Required, the final reinstatement is usually much closer to the original Bold edit
4. Responsible for own actions With Consensus Required an editor can unknowingly violate the sanction based on things that other editors have done in the past. (Example: Editor C makes a Bold edit that they didn't know was similar to the one that Editor B reverted three days ago.) Enforced BRD removes the extra "mental load" of tracking everybody else's reverts, and just requires editors to keep track of their own reverts.
5. Stonewalling Consensus Required rewards talkpage stonewalling. Enforced BRD does not.
6. Wikipedia norms Enforced BRD is easier for editors unfamiliar to the topic area to understand, because it is similar to normal dispute resolution methods in less-contentious topic areas. Consensus Required is off-putting by contrast.
7. Grey areas Consensus Required has confusing grey areas that can be interpreted differently by different admins. For example:
   • An editor removes a sentence that was added to the article 2 weeks ago. Is that a Bold edit (that can be reverted) or a Revert (that requires a clear consensus to re-add the sentence)? How long must an edit remain unchallenged to become the status quo?
   • An editor adds a sentence that had been added to the article 4 weeks ago, was reverted, and was not added again until now. Is that a Bold edit or a violation of Consensus Required?

Enforced BRD doesn't have these problems. It doesn't matter whether your edit is a Bold edit or a Revert, you still have to wait 24 hours and discuss before reinstating it.

The drawbacks

1. Tag-team edit wars The main advantage Consensus Required has over the Enforced BRD is that it mostly prevents "tag-team" edit wars where many editors take turns using their 1RR to revert something in and out of the article. Enforced BRD technically allows this behavior, although based on my own observations it happens infrequently and generally after a few reverts people settle into talkpage discussion, asking each other not to revert further until a consensus is reached.
2. Gaming 1RR Technically Enforced BRD is able to be "gamed", allowing a user revert every 24 hours with a cursory note on the talk page. Consensus required prevents this type of gaming. That said, 1RR gaming is incredibly easy for administrators to identify and sanction, whereas "talkpage stonewalling" (enabled by Consensus Required) is nearly impossible to sanction.

Table

Here's another way of thinking about 1RR vs. Enforced BRD vs. Consensus Required, in terms of how they prevent bad behavior and allow good behavior. In the table below you can see that the rules that restrict the most bad behaviors also restrict the most good behaviors (the normal dispute resolution that we see elsewhere on the encyclopedia).

	Vanilla 1RR	Enforced BRD	Consensus required
Prevents Bad Behavior	1 of 7	4 of 7	6 of 7
1RR exploit: Original editor immediately reverts a Bold change back into the article	N	Y	Y
Gaming 1RR: Wait a day, then revert.	N	Y	Y
Gaming Enforced BRD: Original editor leaves a cursory note on the talk page, waits 24 hrs, then reverts a Bold change back into the article against objections on the talk page	N	N	Y
Gaming consensus-required: Reverting editor slows down normal article development by "challenging" bold edits and stonewalling on talk page to force extended discussions	Y	Y	N
Slow edit war (no discussion): Editors revert a recent change in and out of the article every 24 hours without discussion on talk	N	Y	Y
Slow edit war (with discussion): Editors revert a recent change in and out of the article every 24 hours with discussion on talk	N	N	Y
Tag-team edit war (many editors): Different editors repeatedly revert a recent change in and out of the article	N	N	Y
Allows Good Behavior (normal dispute resolution)	2 of 2	1 of 2	0 of 2
Resolution by edit summary: Original editor reinstates an edit taking into account the objections of the reverting editor	Y	N	N
Normal BRD: Original editor discusses a reverted change on talk page, then partially reinstates the edit taking into account the objections of the reverting editor	Y	Y (must wait 24 hrs before reinstatement)	N

This chart raises the question of whether it is more important for page-level restrictions to prevent bad behavior or allow good behavior. My view is that editor-level sanctions should be our primary tool against bad behavior and page-wide restrictions should strike a balance between preventing bad behavior and allowing good behavior. Also note that the bad behaviors prevented only by Consensus Required (slow edit wars with superficial discussion and tag-team edit wars) are easy for admins to identify and deal with at the editor-level.