Author: MusikAnimal
Description:
Hello, I'd like to propose that a tag be added to edits with "canned edit summaries". The problem is some new users are using "Fixed typo" as their edit summary when it is far from a minor edit such as that. Good-faith examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Westlife&diff=prev&oldid=623760732
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Drake&diff=prev&oldid=623875114
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mohammad_Azharuddin&diff=prev&oldid=623983292
Many patrollers misconstrue these edits as being bad-faith, as they think the user is trying to cover up their vandalism with an innocent edit summary. In reality, I think the user is just lazy and picking any of the pre-supplied edit summaries. So in the end, we have new users being treated as vandals, which is not good... This is why you see the "possible vandalism" tag on the aforementioned edits, as a result of en:Special:AbuseFilter/633, which was created out of concern of patrollers believing the usage of the "fixed typo" edit summary as being intentionally misleading. I think the patrollers don't realize they are "canned". I often see patrollers citing the misuse of the "Fixed typo" edit summary at en:WP:AIV.
I think the concept of canned edit summaries is good, but we should tag them as such so patrollers don't misinterpret them, and the tag should probably link to a MediaWiki doc explaining what canned edit summaries are. Furthermore, if there's anything we could do to lessen the misuse of "Fixed typo" edit summary, in particular, that would be a large improvement. Perhaps "Fixed typo" should not be one of the top choices, just further down the list. If the user is going to just pick whatever one they see, I think "Added content" would be better than "Fixed typo".
We could create our own (and probably very fragile) edit filter at en-wiki to add a tag to edits with canned edit summaries, but I thought if there were a way to automate this through the mobile site itself, then we might as well do that.
Hopefully I've done a fair job at explaining the issue... let me know if you need more examples or further clarification.
Thanks!
Version: Stable
Severity: normal