Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Wikipedia:Edit war
is mandatory.

The BOLD, revert, discuss cycle (BRD) is one of

alternatives to this approach
. Care and diplomacy should be exercised. Some editors will see any reversion as a challenge, so be considerate and patient.

Bold editing
is a fundamental principle of Wikipedia. All editors are welcome to make positive contributions. It's how new information is added to Wikipedia. When in doubt, edit! Either the edit will get the attention of interested editors, or you will simply improve the page. Either is a good outcome.

refine it. Consider reverting only when necessary. BRD does not encourage reverting, but recognizes that reversions happen. When reverting, be specific about your reasons in the edit summary and use links if needed. Look at the article's history and its talk page to see if a discussion has begun. If not, you may begin one. (See Wikipedia:Wikipedia abbreviations
for a glossary of common abbreviations you might see.)

alternatives, you must not restore your bold edit, make a different edit to this part of the page, engage in back-and-forth reverting, or start any of the larger dispute resolution
processes. Talk to that one person until the two of you have reached an agreement.

Cycle. To avoid

edit warring
.

General overview

It is often hard to find out who to talk with to gain consensus. By making a bold edit you attract the attention of people who are genuinely interested in a page, and have it on their watchlist. You can then discuss your issues with them. Compare Wikipedia:Consensus.
When to use
While editing a particular page that many editors are discussing with little to no progress being made, or when an editor's concerns are not addressed on the talk page after a reasonable amount of effort.
How to proceed
Discover a Very Interested Person (VIP), and reach a compromise or consensus with that person, in one-on-one discussion.
  1. Be bold
    , and make what you currently believe to be the optimal changes based on your best effort. Your change might involve re-writing, rearranging, adding or removing information.
  2. Wait until someone
    reverts
    your edit. You have now discovered your first VIP.
  3. Discuss the changes you would like to make with this VIP, perhaps using other forms of
    Wikipedia dispute resolution
    as needed, and reach an agreement. Apply your agreement. When reverts have stopped, you are done.

Use cases

Consensus is stuck. BRD to the rescue!

BRD is most useful for pages where seeking and achieving consensus in advance of the bold edit could be difficult, perhaps because it is not clear which other editors are watching or sufficiently interested in the page, though there are other suitable methods. BRD helps editors who have a good grasp of a subject to rapidly engage discussion.

Examples cases for use include where:

  • Two factions are engaged in an
    edit war
    and a bold edit is made as a compromise or middle ground.
  • Discussion has died out with no agreement being reached.
  • Active discussion is not producing results.
  • Your view differs significantly from a rough consensus on an emotionally loaded subject.
  • Local consensus
    is currently opposed to making any changes whatsoever (when pages are frozen, "policy", or high-profile)

BRD is best used by experienced Wikipedia editors. It may require more diplomacy and skill to use successfully than other methods, and has more potential for failure. Using BRD in volatile situations is discouraged.

In general, BRD fails if:

  • ...there is consensus in the community against the specific change you'd like to make.
  • ...there is a dispute on the page, by editors with entrenched positions, and you are reigniting a debate that has achieved stalemate without consensus.
  • ...the page is protected. (You may request unprotection.)
  • ...the page is subject to some other access control. (Get the control lifted.)
  • ...you lose tempo.
  • ...a single editor is reverting changes and exhibiting
    other forms of ownership attitudes
    .
  • ...individuals who are disinterested revert bold changes.

BRD is especially successful where:

  • ... people haven't really thought things through yet.
  • ... people are only discussing policy or theory, and are not applying reasoning or trying to negotiate consensus.
  • ... people are talking past each other instead of getting down to brass tacks with concrete proposals.

In short: boldly negotiate where no one has negotiated before.

What BRD is not

  • BRD is not a justification for imposing one's own view or for tendentious editing.
  • BRD is not a valid excuse for reverting good-faith efforts to improve a page simply because you don't like the changes.
  • BRD is never a reason for reverting. Unless the reversion is supported by
    common sense
    , the reversion is not part of BRD cycle.
  • BRD is not an excuse to revert any change more than once. This applies equally to bold editors and to reverters. If your reversion is met with another bold effort, then you should consider not reverting, but discussing. The talk page is open to all editors, not just bold ones. The first person to start a discussion is the person who is best following BRD.
  • BRD is not mandatory. Neither are editors obliged to start it nor are they obliged to stick to it just because you started it. They may try
    one of the alternatives given below
    , or even an alternative not mentioned here.
  • BRD is not a valid course of action when using advanced permissions. Editors with permissions such as administrator or template editor can take actions which few editors are able to revert if they disagree preventing the R step of BRD.

Process

Making bold edits may sometimes draw a response from an interested editor, who may have the article on their watchlist. If no one responds, you have the silent consensus to continue editing. If your edit is reverted, the BRD cycle has been initiated by the reverting editor.

After someone reverts your change, thus taking a stand for the existing version or against the change, you can proceed toward a consensus with the challenging editor through discussion on a talk page. While discussing the disputed content, neither editor should revert or change the content being discussed until a compromise or consensus is reached. Each pass through the cycle may find a new, interested editor to work with, or new issue being disputed. If you follow the process as it is intended each time, you should eventually achieve consensus with all parties. As such, BRD is in general not an end unto itself; it moves the process past a blockage, and helps people get back to cooperative editing.

If the BRD process works ideally (sometimes it does not), people will after a time begin to refrain from outright reversion, and edits will start to flow more naturally.

For each step in the cycle, here are some points to remember.

Bold

  • Stay focused: Make only changes you absolutely need to. A bold edit doesn't have to be a huge edit, and keeping your edit focused is more likely to yield results than making an over-reaching change. If a bold edit might be controversial, consider adding "(revert if inappropriate)" or similar to the edit summary to alert others.
  • See what happens next: Stop editing the page long enough to see if anyone objects. Depending on the nature of your change and the traffic on the page, this may take anywhere from mere minutes to more than a week.
  • Expect resistance—even hostility: Be ready to start a discussion as soon as you notice that anyone has objected. If you want, you can even write your response while you are waiting to see what happens.
  • Be respectful: Regardless of what others say, keep your composure.

Revert

Discuss

  • If your bold edit was reverted, then do not re-revert to your version. If your reversion was reverted, then do not re-revert to your version. Instead, take it to the talk page (see below). If you re-revert, then you are no longer following BRD.
  • Adhere to
    civility
    guidelines
    : The easiest way to intensify this cycle and make it unbreakable is to be uncivil. Try to lead by example and keep your partner in the same mindset.
  • Talk with one or at most two partners at once. As long as the discussion is moving forward, do not feel the need to respond to everyone, as this increases the chance of discussion losing focus and going far afield. Stay on point and pick your responses. If discussion dies off, you can always go back and get yourself reverted again to find (or refind) other interested parties.
  • Carefully consider whether "policy", "consensus", or "procedure" are valid reasons for the revert: These sometimes get overused on consensus-based wikis even though
    rehashing
    ). It is OK to disagree with a past consensus, but use reasonable discretion when you want to revisit such issues. If you choose not to back off immediately, it will help if you:
    • Listen very carefully: You are trying to get the full and considered views of those who care enough to disagree with your edit. If you do not listen and do not try to find consensus, you are
      wasting everyone's time
      . You should not accept "It's policy, live with it."
    • Be ready to compromise: If you browbeat someone into accepting your changes, you are not building consensus, you are making enemies. This cycle is designed to highlight strongly opposing positions, so if you want to get changes to stick both sides will have to bend, possibly even bow. You should be clear about when you are compromising and should expect others to compromise in return, but do not expect it to be exactly even.
  • Discuss on a talk page: Don't assume that a re-revert edit summary can constitute "discussion": There is no way for others to respond without risking an edit war. See also
    WP:QUO. You can use the article's talk page (preferred) or the editor's user talk page, or invite the editor to the talk page
    if they insist on using only edit summaries, but one or the other is the proper forum for the discussion component of the BRD cycle.

Bold (again)

  • Let the other editor apply agreed-upon changes. If they don't want to, that's okay, but be sure to offer. The offer alone shows deference and respect. If that editor accepts, (1) the history will show who made the change and the other editor will have control over the precise wording (keeping you from applying a change different from the one agreed upon). And, (2) such a practice prevents you from falling afoul of the
    three-revert rule
    .
  • Assume this revision will not be the final version. You do not have to get it all done in one edit. If you can find consensus on some parts, make those changes, and let them settle. This will give everyone a new point to build from. Having completed one successful cycle, you may also find it easier to get traction for further changes, or you may find you have reached a reasonable compromise and can stop.

Edit warring

Additional considerations

Alternatives

"BOLD, revert, discuss" doesn't work well in all situations. It is ideally suited to disputes that involve only a few people, all of whom are interested in making progress. There are many other options, and some may be more suitable for other situations.

  • Discuss first: Don't be bold with potentially controversial changes; instead, start a discussion on the talk page first. Make no edits to the page until you have agreement.
  • Bold, discuss: You do not need to revert an edit before the discussion can start. If you see (or make) a bold edit and you want to talk about it, then you can click on the talk page and start discussing it. You might discover ways to refine it, or you might discover that you're satisfied with the edit as it is.
  • Bold, discuss, revert: You make a bold edit, then open a discussion. The edit is found to be problematic or lacking, so it is reverted. This sometimes happens when people attempt to make an edit that has severe flaws or problems that cannot be resolved via other methods. If this cycle happens, it might be best for you to step away from the article, and consider the discussion feedback.
  • Bold, discuss, bold: You make a bold edit, then open a discussion. After the discussion, you or others boldly improve the edit based on the discussion suggestions. This cycle is useful if your edit is helpful, but needs to be improved, and if feedback would be valuable to improving the edit.
  • Bold, refine: You edit, they edit, you edit again, with each edit improving the prior edit. This is successful, collaborative editing. Keep at it.
  • Bold, revert, bold again: Don't stop editing, and don't discuss. Make a guess about why the reverter disagreed with you, and try a different edit to see whether that will be accepted. It's often helpful if your next effort is smaller, because that may help you figure out why the other editor objected to your change.
  • Bold, revert, revert: If you genuinely believe the reversion was a mistake you might try speeding things up by reverting the revert, but you should explain why you think the other editor made a mistake in a note or edit summary to reduce the risk of
    edit warring
    .
    • An example of such a mistake is when someone reverts your removal of duplicate material because they didn't realize that the same sentence was on the page twice.
    • Not an example of such a mistake: A revert with a rationale that you disagree with, or that does not make sense to you. Another case where the re-revert may be necessary is when an incumbent editor reverts without justification in the edit summary, which is a form
      WP:QUO
      .
    • Sometimes bold, revert, revert may function as a form of bold, refine (see above), particularly among editors who already have a positive working relationship. Beware, though: To an outside observer, such "friendly reverts" may not be readily distinguishable from edit-warring, and
      the three-revert rule
      still applies.
  • Let it go: Move on to another article. You might be able to improve a hundred articles in the time that it takes you to discuss this one. Why not move on?

Several

dispute resolution
processes may also be useful to break a deadlock.

See also