Help:Reverting

Reverting [NEEDS LINK] means to undo the effects of one or more edits, which normally results in the page being restored to a version that existed sometime previously. More broadly, reverting may also refer to any action that in whole or in part reverses the actions of other editors. [1] It is primarily used when dealing with vandalism [NEEDS LINK] but can also be used for large bad edits when necessary (see below). All versions of an article are stored, so it is easy to revert a bad edit and return the article to its previous state. All users have the ability to revert to a previous version of a page.

How to Revert:
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. For small edit revisions you can also use the 'undo' link at the end of the revision listings in the page history. This will quickly revert the changes in that edit -- it's useful for quick, single edit reversions.
 * Screen_shot_2011-06-17_at_1.49.08_PM.png to the page that you would like to revert the edits on, at the top next to the name of the page click on the small arrow next to the word 'edit'.
 * Click on the time and date of the earlier version you want to revert to. Do not click 'cur' or 'prev', it will not work.
 * You will be brought to the page you want to revert, at the top under the title you will see something to this effect: 'Revision as of 20:58, June 17, 201'. Make sure this is the correct version you want to revert.
 * After you have verified that you've selected the correct version click'edit' as you would normally.
 * You'll get this warning, above the edit box: You are editing an old version of this page. If you save it, any changes made since this version will be lost.
 * Once you are sure the revision you are looking at is good, save the page. Be sure to add the word "revert" to the edit summary (often abbreviated as "rv"). On some wikis it is common practice to mention the date/time of the version of the page that you're reverting back to in the description.

Not All Edits Should Be Reverted:
Be very cautious about using the revert process to return to a previous version of the page. While non-vandal edits can be reverted in the same way if you think an older version of a page is better than the current version -- an editor whose work is undone by reverting is likely to take offence to this action and perhaps as an outright accusation of vandalism.

A normal edit, is an edit that includes both the best bits of the previous version and the new version combining them to get the best of both worlds. Often this is preferable to reverting a genuine edit. You should only resort to reverting for cases where vandalism has happened or the newer version can not be improved by editing.

What is Rollback?
Administrators and users with rollback rights have an extra "rollback" link on diff pages and on user contributions lists that lets them revert vandalism faster, without the extra steps of going to the page history and opening an earlier revision. This feature is especially useful in the case of a known vandal, whose edits don't need to be checked before being reverted.

By rolling back the last edit the page is returned to its original format before the user in question edited. An edit summary will be added automatically stating that a reversion was made, and the edit will be marked as minor. Only use this for reverting vandalism. It should not be used to revert an edit that you merely disagree with -- this is because you cannot add an edit summary, and the reversion may be misunderstood and cause offense within the community.

Restrictions on Rollback
If between loading the User Contributions page and pressing rollback, someone else has edited or rolled back the page already, the message Rollback failed will display with an explanation of the problem.

If the page has been created by a malicious user and no one else has edited the page, clicking the rollback link gives the message Cannot revert edit; last contributor is only author of this article. In this case delete the page, or replace the content with something appropriate to the page name if possible.

Flood Vandalism
If flood vandalism occurs, which is when a vandal makes edits (usually filling the page with their own nonsense edits) to many pages very quickly in an attempt to make the recent changes page unusable admins can choose to hide the vandalism from the recent changes page. To do this, add &bot=1 to the end of the url used to access a user's contributions. For example: http://www.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=SomePersistentVandal&bot=1. When the rollback link on the contributions list are clicked, the revert, and the original edit that you are reverting will both be hidden from the default recent changes display.

This means that they will be hidden unless you click the bots link on the recent changes page 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 recent changes. The aim of this feature is to reduce the annoyance factor of a flood vandal with relatively little effort.

Important: This should not be used for reverting a change you just don't like, but is meant only for massive floods of simple vandalism.

What behavior guidelines should I follow when reverting?
You should always explain why you are reverting an article. This helps the reverted person to fix whatever problem it is that you've identified and explains to other people whether they need to even view the reverted version. If your reasons for reverting are too complex to explain in the edit summary, explain it on the talk page, and add "See talk page" in the edit summary.

Revert wars -- where two or more editors revert each other's edits over and over -- are not acceptable. 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. Unless it's simple vandalism, when someone undoes a reversion you've made, you should stop and talk to them using the article talk page or their user talk page before reverting again. Assume good faith, communicate the problem you see in their edit, and you will almost always be able to find a compromise that allows editing on the article to move forward without further disruption.

See the advice on staying cool when the editing gets hot at Wikipedia.