[WikiEN-l] My rant

Tue Jan 25 11:07:47 UTC 2005

NSK said:
> 6. Every article is developed in a software-like fashion, i.e. there
> are  versions and when the mains (maintainers) approve an article it
> will be  checked by the admins. The admins then publish the article in
> a non-Test page  (i.e. the main namespace) and give to it a unique
> version number such as 1.4.

Wouldn't this put a tremendous strain on administrators?  Every single
article would have to be vetted before publication.  I think it would also
make contributors less likely to produce articles, too.  For instance if
I'm copy editing an article it's not unusual for me to encounter a redlink
and write a brief stub for that link.  This enters my watchlist and,
believe me, people do notice those stubs and add material to make them,
when I go back a few weeks later, often a very good article on the
subject.  An example of this is my very brief stub for "Portolan chart"
which I produced in the course of copy editing an article uploaded by
someone else that was later deleted as a copyright violation.  The second
and third paragraphs were added more recently by someone else.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portolan_chart

This is one thing that works very well in a Wiki.  I don't think I would
have bothered if the production process had been more complex.