The process of reverting edits is a fundamental and necessary part of editing Wikipedia. Sometimes, you will have good reason to revert another user's edit. But if you have edited here for any length of time, you very likely have had some of your own edits reverted by someone else.
In the normal process of creating content, these reverts are simply a step in a process of discussing and improving an article. It should not be anything personal or adversarial. It should not make you feel bad. Your first impulse should not be to revert again to restore your edit. You may be able to find alternative solutions to the edit. In particular, you should carefully read the edit summary of the revert, to understand the other editor's concerns. All these things take a bit of time.
The Wikipedia notification system lets you know about various events that may be of interest to you. Some of these things, such as being mentioned or thanked by another editor, can be very pleasant news. However, the system can also alert you that an edit that you made has been reverted. Getting such an alert can make you feel like you are being notified of something urgent, something that requires your attention right away. Because the editor who reverted your edit disagreed with you, this in turn can feel like there is an urgent problem with someone criticizing you. The notification tends to exaggerate the significance of the revert. If you respond quickly at the page where the revert happened, you may feel like there is a bigger problem than there actually is. Feeling that way is counterproductive to editing Wikipedia, because you may not yet have fully considered the ways in which you and the other editor might reach consensus, and you might be tempted to edit war. It can also diminish your enjoyment of editing, by needlessly giving you a false feeling of conflict. In this way, a notification of a revert (unlike a notification of thanks for one of your edits, or of a mention by another editor) may be something that detracts from your editing.
What you can do
Depending on when you began editing Wikipedia, your user preferences may have been set with notifications of reverts enabled by default. However, you can configure your notifications for your own preferences. It can be a good idea to turn off the notifications for reverts, while leaving some other kinds of notifications turned on. You will still be able to find out about reverts when you check your watchlist, so you will not be uninformed. Instead, you simply will not be presented with the reverts as though they were something urgent.
If you click Preferences at the top of the page while you are logged in, you can go to a tab labeled "Notifications". There, you will see a list of events that you are notified about, either while editing ("web") or via email. One of these is called "Edit revert". All you have to do is to un-check the box for web notification for edit revert. You can also change any other notification settings while you are there. Save your changes, and you are done!
This user has opted out of revert notifications. You should, too! |
If you want, you can also add this userbox to your userpage, to tell other editors about it. Just enter {{User RNO}}
on your page.
This user has opted out of revert notifications. Try it! |
There is also this version. Just enter {{User RNO alt}}
on your page.
You may just find that editing feels more peaceful after you do this!
See also
- Edit Reverts Notification System features
- Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in edit wars
- Wikipedia:Enjoy yourself
- Wikipedia:It's not the End of the World
- Wikipedia:Revert only when necessary
- Wikipedia:WikiPeace
- User:Dweller/Old Fashioned Wikipedian Values