Erik Moeller wrote:
Jimmy-
In order to make it convenient for people to
follow the kind of
process that you describe, would you advocate some minor software
changes, i.e. a simple button-click for people to nominate things to
the 'candidates' page?
More or less. Whatever software scheme is used should be reasonably
generic to be applicable to similar situations. For example, Votes for
deletion, Votes for undeletion and Requests for adminship are all pages
that work according to the same "express dissent within given timeframe or
[x] happens" model. It would be most useful to have some generic voting
queue module instead of a hack that is adjusted specifically to the
sifting process.
Well, after my voting feature was removed at some point (I think during
the change to Phase III), I am certainly not opposed to reintroducing
it. But, I don't think it will work nicely for a "stable version" (or
"1.0").
The arguments Erik gave for an "in-wikipedia" solution were:
* no separate brand to the Wikipedia brand, no separate community
- I don't see that happening.
* feedback from all Wikipedians, not just those specializing in the
discipline in question -- besides being complete and accurate, articles
also must be reasonably well written and easy to understand
- Changes will still happen on wikipedia. Also, I propose that noone is
restricted to certain topics; anyone can approve any article ;-) as long
as s/he can be trusted to use common sense in what s/he is able to judge
* establishes trust in Wikipedia
- changes still occur in wikipedia, so the content will be the same for
any article at the time of approval. What happens next is up to
wikipedia entirely...
* simple, easy to use and completely open
- same as sifter, except that I would not let anons approve articles...
* requires only one change to the software (permalinks), which is useful
anyway for external authors trying to provide a permanent reference to
the revision of the Wikipedia article they cite
- sifter requires *no* visible change to the wikipedia software. We
*could* add an "approve this article" to be displayed as a user option,
which would then link to the appropriate sifter page
Now to my "pro-sifter" list:
* fully capsuled, like a language wikipedia, with its own images etc.
Avoids problems of an "internal" solution, like:
- Approve some version, which gets moved to "old" eventually
- That "approved" article uses "xyz.jpg"
- Someone replaced "xyz.jpg" with a goatse.cz image
* going to
sifter.wikipedia.org (or whatever) means you're sure to get
only approved stuff, while going to
www.wikipedia.org is for those who
write, and/or need complete and up-to-the-minute coverage
* user access is much easier to manage on a separate project
* sifter Recent Changes shows you only what was imported, while
wikipedia Recent Changes shows you what was written. Imagine the
clutter, otherwise.
* sifter yould reside on another server (we'll have another one soon,
right?), with its own database etc., thus reducing/spreading load on
wikipedia itself
* software is basically written, just needs a few more tweaks
Magnus