Wikipedia edit wars and the three-revert rule

What is an edit war on Wikipedia?

An edit war happens when editors who disagree about a page's content repeatedly override each other's contributions. That is the definition in Wikipedia's edit warring policy, and it does not need a formal revert: an editor who rewrites the disputed sentence a slightly different way each time can be edit warring too. The policy says an editor who keeps restoring their preferred version is edit warring regardless of whether those edits are justifiable.

A single revert of a bold change is normal. The policy draws the line at a series of back-and-forth reverts, and says reverting vandalism, removing negative unsourced material about living people and reverting banned or blocked users are not edit warring at all.

What is the three-revert rule?

The three-revert rule, or 3RR, allows each editor at most three reverts of any one page in a rolling 24 hours, and it makes no difference whether each revert touches the same passage or a different one. Crossing it usually leads to a block, often for 24 hours on a first occasion.

• What counts. Any edit that undoes another editor's work in whole or in part, whether by the undo button, the rollback tool or retyping the old text by hand.
• Consecutive edits. A run of edits by one editor with no one else editing in between counts as one revert.
• Every page, per person. The rule covers talk pages as well as articles, and reverts from several accounts operated by one editor are added together.
• The edge of the window. A fourth revert just outside the 24 hours will usually be treated as gaming the system.

Breaches are not detected automatically: an administrator acts only when someone reports it.

Which reverts does the three-revert rule exempt?

The policy lists nine kinds of revert that are exempt from the edit warring policy as a whole:

• reverting your own edit, or edits to your own user space;
• reverting banned users, and sockpuppets or meatpuppets of banned or blocked users;
• reverting obvious vandalism, such as page blanking, profanity or patent nonsense;
• removing clear copyright violations, or content that unquestionably breaches the non-free content policy;
• removing content clearly illegal under US law;
• taking out contentious material on a living person that is libellous, biased, unsourced or badly sourced;
• reverting unambiguous spam that would qualify for speedy deletion under G11 as a page of its own;
• reverting breaches of the extended confirmed restriction where it is in force.

An editor who relies on an exemption has to say so at the time, and the policy's advice for borderline cases is short: when in doubt, do not revert.

The biographies exemption is the one a subject is most likely to reach for, and it is narrower than it looks. The policy notes that what qualifies can be controversial and suggests the biographies noticeboard instead. It does not cover accurate, well-sourced material that the subject finds unflattering. Where that line falls is set out in the guide to taking negative material off Wikipedia.

What are 1RR, 0RR and other revert restrictions?

They are tighter limits placed on particular pages, topics or editors. The one-revert rule (1RR) replaces "more than three reverts" with "more than one revert", sometimes over a week or a month instead of 24 hours, and can require each revert to be discussed on the talk page. The zero-revert rule (0RR) allows none.

These restrictions are imposed by the Arbitration Committee, by administrators under the contentious topics procedure, or by the community through general sanctions. Biographies of living persons are one of the designated contentious topics. Administrators there can also impose "enforced BRD": a reverted change may not be restored until its author has posted on the talk page and waited 24 hours.

Look for an edit notice. A page restriction must be shown in a standard notice when the page is opened for editing, and a breach can lead to a block only if that notice was displayed.

What should you do instead of reverting?

Stop after one revert and move to the talk page, which the edit warring policy says is where a reviewing administrator will look for evidence of an attempt to settle the dispute.

1. Bold, revert, discuss. Often shortened to BRD, this is an optional approach, not a rule: a change is made, someone reverts it, and the two editors discuss it before anyone edits that part again. It is no excuse to revert any change more than once.
2. Tag instead of reverting. A cleanup tag marks the problem, and there is no deadline.
3. Bring in others. A Wikipedia:Third opinion for a two-person dispute, or a Wikipedia:Requests for comment for a wider question.
4. Ask for protection. The policy recommends requesting page protection rather than becoming part of the dispute by reverting. Protection to stop a war does not endorse whichever version is frozen.

Each dispute resolution venue is laid out in the guide for when someone keeps editing your Wikipedia page. If the problem so far is one undone edit, start with why Wikipedia edits get reverted.

What happens when someone is reported for edit warring?

Reports go to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring, and any user may file one, whether or not the three-revert rule has been broken. The form asks for the page, the user, the version being reverted to, a diff for each revert, the warning given and the attempts to discuss on the talk page. The person reported must be notified.

The noticeboard's header warns that your own behaviour will also be scrutinised. Administrators are told to consider all sides, so both parties to a war can end up blocked, or the page can be protected instead.

A block exists to stop the disruption rather than to penalise anyone. Twenty-four hours is common for a first offence, with longer blocks for repeated or aggravated violations. If several days have passed since the last revert, the policy suggests doing nothing may be right. Reports move to the noticeboard's archive after 48 hours, where they remain.

Why is it riskier when the subject joins the edit war?

Because connected people are already told by the conflict of interest guideline to avoid editing the article directly, so every revert by them is judged against two policies at once. What the guideline offers instead is a request on the talk page that an uninvolved editor reviews and acts on.

• Recruiting colleagues to take turns does not help: the sockpuppetry policy prohibits recruiting people to influence a dispute, and says a new user who joins the same behaviour may face the same remedies.
• Since November 2025, edits made without logging in are attributed to temporary accounts rather than displayed IP addresses, and administrators assess behaviour as well as account names.

All of it stays public: every revert in the page history, warnings on the editor's talk page, the noticeboard archive, the block log and the page's protection log. It shapes how the subject's later proposals and edit requests are read.

Reverting obvious vandalism is proper for anyone. For anything contested, stop editing. Our dispute support reads the history and talk page to work out what the disagreement turns on, then prepares a sourced talk page proposal or an approach to the right noticeboard. We never revert on a client's behalf, and no one can guarantee how other editors will respond. A free page health check will show what the article's record already contains.