Wikipedia:Stable version
 | This is an explanatory essay about the Protection policy. This page provides additional information about concepts in the page(s) it supplements. This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Uninvolved administrators are authorized under policy to revert to and protect an older version of an article, as a means of resolving disputes and halting disruption. |
The stable version of an article is the most recent revision that was not affected by an active content dispute or edit war. Restoring an article to the stable version when fully protecting it (in response to a content dispute or edit war that's active or in progress) is a common administrative practice that is authorized by Wikipedia's protection policy. Restoring the article to a stable version is not required, nor is it encouraged by any policy or guideline, and administrators can fully protect articles mid-dispute, even if the protected version contains controversial edits or content. However, doing so may upset editors who did not get their preferred version of the article protected, and they may complain that the administrator has protected "the wrong version".
Reverting an article to the stable version may return it to a pre-dispute state, and thus, in the best-case scenario, it may help de-escalate a situation better than protecting a party's preferred version would. Administrators should consider what the best course of action is on a case-by-case basis, and neither option constitutes an admin's involvement in a dispute or an endorsement of the protected version of an article in any way. If an administrator protects an article without restoring the stable version, editors can still request that a different version be restored by any administrator.
Inappropriate usage
[edit]Edit warring
[edit]It is important to note that outside of the limited administrative context, a "stable version" or "status quo version" is an informal concept that carries no weight whatsoever, and it should never be invoked as an argument in a content dispute. Maintaining a stable version is, by itself, not a valid reason to revert or dispute edits, and should never be used as a justification to engage in edit warring. Stable versions are not superior or preferred to disputed edits in any way; boldly making changes to articles is encouraged as a matter of policy, and obstructing good faith edits for the sake of preserving "stable" content or page revisions is a form of disruptive editing. Editors involved in content disputes or edit wars should focus on resolving the dispute rather than preserving the stable version of a page, and the decision to temporarily preserve the stable version for the purposes of deescalating a dispute may only be made by an uninvolved administrator.
During content disputes, it is unfortunately common for editors to disagree over which page version is "the stable or status quo version". Frequently, editors on different sides of a dispute will claim that the version that supports their point of view is the "stable version".
Editors who persistently attempt to enforce a stable version of a page may be blocked from editing without warning. Edit warring is prohibited, even when the goal of the behavior is to restore the page to the "right version".
BLP violations
[edit]A preference for a "stable version" can never override policy requirements, such as the requirement in the biographies of living persons policy that unsourced and poorly sourced contentious matter about living and recently deceased people be immediately removed from all articles. If there is a genuine dispute about something an article says about a living person, then the existence of the dispute is sufficient evidence that the matter is contentious and must be removed until the dispute is resolved, even if that means the "stable version" can't be used.
Historical usage
[edit]Historically, the phrase "stable version" was used to refer to a wide variety of proposals to implement a formal system to identify and maintain good-quality versions of articles—keeping them "stable" from any potential unwanted changes. Such proposals included Stable versions, Stable versions now, Stabilizing featured articles, Baseline revision, Article validation, Reviewed versions, Community assent, Flagged revisions, and Pending changes. After many years of debate and controversy over "flagged revs", the variation of these proposals known as pending changes protection was permanently implemented in December 2012 and remains in effect to this day. The term "stable version" is no longer used in this context.