ConRunner:How to revert a page to an earlier version
Wikipedia:Editing FAQ>How to revert a page to an earlier version
You may wish to revert an article to an earlier version, perhaps because it has been the target of vandalism or because material has been added or removed inappropriately.
Contents
Reversion
To revert to an earlier version:
- Go to the page, click on "history" at the top ("Page history" in some skins), and click on the time and date of the earlier version you want to revert to. It will not work if you click on 'cur' or 'last'.
- Then when that page comes up, you'll see something like "(Revision as of 23:19 Aug 15, 2002)" below the title and beneath "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia".
- Verify that you've selected the correct version, and click to edit the page, as you would normally. Important: in the case of vandalism, take the time to make sure that you are reverting to the last version without the vandalism; there may be multiple vandal edits.
- You'll get a warning, above the edit box, about editing an out-of-date revision.
- After heeding the warning, save the page. Be sure to add the word "revert" to the edit summary. Some Wikipedians abbreviate this to "rv". It is common practice to mention the version of the page that you're reverting back to in the description as well.
A revert is the advised action to deal with vandalism. When you think an older version of a page is better than the current version, a revert is sometimes appropriate. Sometimes, though, it is better to write a third version that takes the best bits of the other two, and combines them to get the best of both worlds.
Note that reverts are not appropriate if a newer version is no better than the older version. You should save reverts for cases where the new version is actively worse.
Regardless, we strongly recommend against heated revert wars. Instead, have a look at our advice on staying cool when the editing gets hot.
Reverts and edit conflicts
Reverts never cause an edit conflict – if someone else edits and saves the page between your clicking Edit, and then clicking Save page, the other person's edits will be silently overwritten (though they will still appear in the page history). Beware of reverting high-traffic pages! Conversely, if it looks like someone has deleted your edits, consider if it is more likely that it is one of these unfortunate reversion conflicts.
Database errors
Occasionally, a database error will make a page's history temporarily inaccessible. When a user attempts to view a previous revision, the following error message will display:
- The database did not find the text of a page that it should have found, named "NameOfPage,oldid=number".
- This is usually caused by following an outdated diff or history link to a page that has been deleted.
- If this is not the case, you may have found a bug in the software. Please report this to an administrator, making note of the URL.
The only solution to this problem is to wait several minutes and try again. Alternatively, report the problem at Wikipedia's technical IRC channel, #Mediawiki.
Admin-only "rollback" link
On the User Contributions page a sysop has additional "rollback" links at lines which are also marked "top", i.e. the lines regarding edits of articles which are the last edit made by anybody to that article.
The rollback link is also shown on the Diff page when viewing the difference between the most recent version of a page and the last version by an author other than the one of the most current version.
Clicking on the link reverts to the last edit not authored by the user concerned, with automatic edit summary "Reverted edits by X to last version by Y".
If, between loading the User Contributions page and pressing "rollback", someone else edits or rolls back the page, or if there was no previous editor, you'll get an error message.
The feature is especially useful in the case of a known vandal.
Bot rollback
In cases of flood vandalism, sysops may choose to hide vandalism from recent changes. To do this, add &bot=1 to the end of the url used to access a user's contributions. For example, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=SomePersistentVandal&bot=1.
When the rollback links on the contributions list are clicked, the revert, and the original edit that you are reverting will both be hidden from the default Recentchanges display (by using the marker originally added to keep massive bot edits from flooding recentchanges, hence the "bot"). This means that they will be hidden from recent changes unless you click the "bots" link to set hidebots=0. The edits are not hidden from contributions lists, page histories or watchlists. The edits remain in the database and are not removed, but they no longer flood Recentchanges. The aim of this feature is to reduce the annoyance factor of a flood vandal with relatively little effort. This should not be used for reverting a change you just don't like, but is meant only for massive floods of simple vandalism.
Avoid collateral damage
If one edit that you dislike is made to an article, and multiple edits that you do not dislike, avoid reverting all of the edits in order to revert the one you dislike. Instead, edit the page to fix the problems introduced by the edit that you dislike.
Although more time-consuming, this will result in a better article, and avoids wasting the time of other people, or dragging them into a futile edit war. Irritating other users in this manner is rarely a productive strategy for "winning" a revert war.
Revert wars considered harmful (the three revert rule)
Wikipedia policy states that you may not revert any article more than three times in the same day. See Wikipedia:Three revert rule for details on this.
High-frequency reversion wars make the page history less useful, waste space in the database, make it hard for other people to contribute, and flood recent changes and watchlists. Sock puppets may not be used to violate this rule. Please request protection rather than reverting. Violation of this rule may lead to protection of the page on the version preferred by the non-violating party; blocking; or investigation by the Arbitration Committee.de:Wikipedia:Wiederherstellen ja:Wikipedia:以前の版にページを戻す方法 pl:Wikipedia:Historia strony pt:Wikipedia:Como_reverter_uma_página_para_uma_versão_anterior simple:Wikipedia:revert a page uk:Довідка:Відкат zh:Wikipedia:如何把页面恢复到早期版本
