1

Anonymous and vandals edit wikiHow all the time. After and edit, there’s a GUI that says “your edit has been saved.” which seems alright, right?

The problem is that sometimes vandals and just editors in good-faith might think, “Oh, anyone can edit this wiki, and all the edits are saved instantly!” This can lead to people thinking that wikiHow is all that reputable.

I think the message should be changed to “Your edit has been saved and is now being reviewed” or something similar. This will notify anonymous or new editors that there is a quality control, and it might make them think that wikiHow is reliable.

2

Any wiki gets the “oh, it can be edited by anyone, it’s not reputable” treatment. It has nothing to do with whether it gets reviewed or not - it’s really just the “anyone can edit it” factor. I don’t think changing the message would have much of an effect, especially given that it’s on-screen for like… five seconds, give or take. (And I’m not even sure that message is easily editable, because it’s appeared on every MediaWiki and Wikia/FANDOM site I’ve edited on.)

Also, I’d actually be hesitant to tell people we’re reviewing their edits. Aside from it sounding very unfriendly and potentially even scary, unpatrolled edits don’t actually show up to logged-out users. I’d rather let trolls believe that everyone is now seeing vandalism than alert them to the fact that we review this kind of stuff - it could egg them on if they deliberately want to make more work for us.

3

@Galactic-Radiance I mean, if the unpatrolled edits don’t show up to logged out, the page won’t save after they edit, right? I mean, a vandalizer comes by and blanks a page, but the page isn’t blanked? I’m a little confused.:smiley:

4

They’re saved - they just don’t show up if you’re signed out (at least, that was how it was last I checked, but I’d be surprised if that changed). Logged-in users see the changes prior to them being patrolled:slight_smile:

5

@Galactic-Radiance Okay, I see.:slight_smile:

6

Yep, only patrolled edits show up for logged out users - so the casual reader will not see vandalism or other bad edits :) 

I like the current note, as it doesn’t encourage bad-faith editors to return and check!

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7

Yeah, I agree with Alex. “Your edit is being reviewed” (or something to that effect) sounds creepy. The little note pops up only for around three seconds. I don’t think changing it would do all that much.

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Okay, thanks everyone! Maybe we can close this now @JayneG ?:slight_smile: