Bharatpedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle

This page is an essay.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Bharatpedia editors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Bharatpedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

Shortcuts: BP:BRD · BP:BOLDREVERTDISCUSS

This is an explanatory essay about the Bharatpedia:Consensus and Bharatpedia:Be bold pages. It provides additional information about concepts in the pages it supplements. This page is not one of Bharatpedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community.

The BOLD, revert, discuss cycle (BRD) is one of many optional strategies that editors may use to seek consensus. This process is not mandated by Bharatpedia policy, but it can be useful for identifying objections, keeping discussion moving forward, and helping to break deadlocks.

The four steps are:

1. Bold editing is a fundamental principle of Bharatpedia. All editors are welcome to make positive contributions. It is how new information is added. 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.
2. Your edit might be reverted. The editor reverting you should be specific about their reasons in the edit summary or on the talk page. BRD does not encourage reverting, but recognizes that reversions happen. Try to revert only when necessary.
3. Discuss your bold edit with the person who reverted it. To follow BRD specifically, instead of one of the many alternatives, do not restore your bold edit, do not make a different edit to this part of the page, do not engage in back-and-forth reverting, and do not start any of the larger dispute resolution processes. Talk to that one person until the two of you have reached an agreement.
4. Cycle. To avoid bogging down in discussion, when you have a better understanding of the reverter's concerns, you may attempt a new edit that reasonably addresses some aspect of those concerns. You can try this even if the discussion has not reached an explicit conclusion, but be sure to avoid engaging in any kind of edit warring.

Care and diplomacy should be exercised. Some editors will see any reversion as a challenge, so be considerate and patient. In other situations, you may have better success with alternatives to this approach.

General overview

• 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 – Find an interested person and reach a compromise or consensus with that person in a one-on-one discussion.
• Be bold, and make what you currently believe to be the optimal changes based on your best effort. Your change might involve rewriting, rearranging, adding or removing information.
• Wait until someone reverts your edit. You have now discovered your first interested person.
• Discuss the changes you would like to make with this person, perhaps using other forms of dispute resolution as needed, and reach an agreement. Apply your agreement. When reverts have stopped, you are done.

Use cases

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 in discussion. Examples of use cases include:

• 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 Bharatpedia 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 would 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.)
• The discussion goes on too long or reaches another stalemate.
• A single editor is reverting changes and exhibiting other forms of ownership attitudes.
• Individuals revert bold changes but are not willing to discuss improvements to the page.
• The individual who reverts the bold change actually supports it, but is reverting as a proxy for some other, unidentified person.

BRD is especially successful where:

• People have not 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 an optional process for experienced editors. BRD only works when both bold and reverting editors follow the process.

• BRD is not a get-out-of-discussion-free card for the reverter. If you tell someone to follow BRD when you revert their edits, then you need to follow BRD yourself, which means joining the discussion and explaining your substantive reasons for rejecting their edits. If you do not want to talk about it, then do not tell other editors to follow BRD.
• 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 do not like the changes.
• BRD is never a reason for reverting. Unless the reversion is supported by policies, guidelines, or common sense, the reversion is not part of the 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 discussing instead of reverting. 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 at following the 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 that 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 a 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 start to discuss their concerns first.

Discuss

• Discuss on a talk page: Do not assume that a re-revert edit summary can constitute "discussion": There is no way for others to respond without risking an edit war. 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.
• Keep the discussion readable: Do not refactor or interleave other editors' comments; reply beneath the comment you are responding to, using appropriate indentation.
• Stay on point: If multiple editors join the discussion, you do not feel the need to respond to everyone, as this increases the chance of the discussion losing focus and going far afield. Stay on point and pick your responses. If the discussion dies off, you can always go back and get yourself reverted again to find (or refind) other interested parties.
• 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. 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.

Bold (again)

• Let the other editor apply agreed-upon changes. If they do not want to, that is 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

• Do not edit war. Once discussion has begun, restoring one's original edit without taking other users' concerns into account may be seen as disruptive. These so-called "reverts" may be treated as edit warring, and may lead to blocks.
• Do not game the system. Making a bold edit, getting reverted, then immediately making the same edit with different wording, is not following BRD. It is edit warring with extra steps.
• Seek outside input if the discussion stalls. Requests for comment, third opinion, and noticeboards are all available.

Alternatives

BRD is not the only way to resolve disputes, and it is not always the best. Alternatives include:

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 are 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. 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

Do not stop editing, and do not discuss. Guess why the reverter disagreed with you, and try a different edit to see whether that will be accepted. It is often helpful if your next effort is smaller, because that may help you figure out why the other editor objected to your change. This is risky as it may be interpreted as edit warring, especially if you make multiple re-attempts on the same day.

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. Do not do this to restore contentious edits, as it is likely to be seen as edit warring.

An example of such a mistake is when someone reverts your removal of duplicate material because they did not realize that the same sentence was on the page twice.

Sometimes bold, revert, revert may function as a form of bold, refine, 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.

Enforced BRD for contentious topics

The Arbitration Committee may, in its discretion, impose an enforced BRD on a topic area where edit warring has been persistent. Under enforced BRD, an editor who makes a bold edit and is reverted must discuss the matter on the talk page before making any further edit to the disputed content. Breaching enforced BRD may result in editing restrictions or blocks. Enforced BRD is also sometimes applied by community consensus to individual articles or topic areas through the general sanctions procedure.

See also

• Bharatpedia:Be bold
• Bharatpedia:Consensus
• Bharatpedia:Reverting
• Bharatpedia:Edit warring
• Bharatpedia:Three-revert rule
• Bharatpedia:Dispute resolution
• Bharatpedia:Ownership of content
• Bharatpedia:Disruptive editing
• Bharatpedia:Silence and consensus
• Bharatpedia:Editing policy
• Bharatpedia:Tendentious editing
• Bharatpedia:General sanctions