Help:Rollback

Rollback is a MediaWiki extension that is a useful tool for when fighting vandalism or removing incorrect information. Administrators are automatically granted access to "Rollback" under their permissions, but certain other users may be granted Rollback permissions as well. In addition, any user who has more than 1,000 total Edits may request rollback rights here.

This tool appears when looking at the "differences" between edits. It allows a user to revert a vandal edit just by clicking the [rollback] button. The "rollback rights" will automatically revert all edits made by that user and revert the page to the state it was in before that user edited it.

How it works
The Rollback feature is used almost exclusively within the history page of an article. When an admin sees an unworthy change to an article (usually vandalism), he will go to the history page and has the option of clicking a link beside every edit of the article in which the article will restore itself to that version. The following Edit summary is automatically inserted as follows:


 * m ''Reverted edits by User A (talk) to last version by User B

Where User A depicts the editor whose changes are being reverted, while User B signals the editor of the version the Administrator reverted User A's changes to. Because the feature is used mostly to revert vandalism, a link to User A's talk page is also included as an easy way to issue warnings to that user. At one time there was a link beside it to block that user, although it has since been removed.

In all cases the Rollback signals itself as a "minor edit", hence the bold "m" at the beginning.