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Can't patrol stupid and blatant incorrect edits

This has been happening quite frequently recently.

My regular iFixit account now has over 1000 reputation, which is not a massive amount, but enough to start making a difference in the community, yet there are guides that I am unable to patrol. Now this shouldn’t be a problem. If a guide has a reputation limit, that should mean people with a low reputation can’t mess around with it, right? Except it’s the opposite. Any account with any reputation can make an edit and change something on any wiki/page/teardown. There is a banner that is displayed notifying the user that the page has been updated recently, and almost prompts you to switch to the unverified version by clicking on it. I find this very troublesome as some of these edits are just stupid and make no sense, such as changing the name of a device from an Apple device to a Samsung, but there is certainly potential for some maliciousness here. What if someone changed the order of instructions on a iMac repair, and simply because a technician was following instructions, they’ve now shorted a live power supply. This may seem extreme but is definitely possible, and in my opinion a problem that can be easily fixed. Almost all of the accounts making these stupid edits have 1 reputation as they’re likely newly made accounts, and anyone with a solid amount of reputation has earned it by not being an idiot.

I think the obvious and easiest solution to this problem is to use the reputation limit on the edits themselves, so new accounts with 1 reputation can’t make the dumb changes to a page, and only accounts that meet the minimum rep limit set by the page creator/owner can make edits and get the edits approved. A brand new account shouldn’t really be making major edits that can become publicly available if they aren’t “reputable” enough to patrol edits.

Let me know if I’m missing something obvious here or what, but it is becoming increasingly frustrating seeing these blatant dumb changes being made to a page, and not being able to do anything about it.

Here’s some images of an example from today:

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(Account with 1 reputation changed the title of the iPhone X page to SAMSUNG S8. No clue why or what they gained from it but cool. In patrol tab, I don’t have enough reputation to deny their edit, despite having literally 1000x more reputation than them!)

Answered! View the answer I have this problem too

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Hi @smashedliam,

First off, thank you for helping us to patrol user edits! It really makes a difference when we have others helping to evaluate the suggestions we get. I think can help with this question.

The reputation limit for that particular device page is set to it’s upper limit–meaning, to actually change anything you have to be an admin (employee of iFixit) or a moderator (like @jayeff). Some device pages are set to a lower amount, often 500. The reputation limit is a measure to make an actual change rather than a suggestion. So if there was a limit of 1,000 reputation on *Random Device Repair Page* you, logged into your account, would be able to make the changes you see fit whereas someone with 800 reputation can suggest a change to be reviewed later (which will be either approved or denied).

We get a lot of different types of edits. They will fall into the following categories:

  • Genuine improvements from knowledgable people
  • Educated guesses that can be correct or incorrect
  • Confused people looking for something else (in this example, maybe the person was trying to see the device page for the Samsung S8 Plus)
  • Spammers

As Apple device pages are used extremely frequently, we’ve found it useful to only allow for admin and identified moderators to approve suggested changes to thwart spammers and incorrect information. The banner letting you know that you’re looking at an unverified version is the buffer to let users know that something has been changed and a trusted resource (mods/admin) has not had a chance to review it just yet. Between all of us moderating, things are typically handled relatively quickly.

I think I hit all of the questions with this. If I miss anything or if you have any more questions, let me know!

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@amber - Yep! You covered it all.

@smashedliam - Keep in mind changed pages need to get a review before published. Changed pages are held as a copy. You'll note a grey bar at the top of an updated not verified version. The active page shouldn't have any bonehead alterations.

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Hi @smashedliam ,

I denied the edit to the example you posted and had no problem but then again I’m a moderator and may have different privilege rights

I don't know why they were allowed to edit it but it may be that the edit permissions value (reputation points) set by the author of the guide may have been set higher than what you currently have.

Still doesn't explain why they were allowed to edit though unless perhaps editing is different to approving or denying edits made by others.

When you are denied maybe check the permissions value first.

Click on the title of an edit you wish to deny and when the guide opens click on Edit to view the permissions value (right side of page).

Perhaps @jarstelfox could enlighten us both

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Liam will be eternally grateful.