[Wikipedia-l] road to stability, formatted. last kick-off posting.

Tue Dec 6 21:53:21 UTC 2005

Brion Vibber wrote:

>IMHO the opposite needs to be true; reviewed, stable versions need to be right
>on top, as what the public sees by default.
>
>Sure, there'll be a big fat message showing that 78573 more edits have been made
>to [[George W. Bush]] since this reviewed version, with a handy link to go right
>to it and see the changes, but they're gonna see the stable copy first.
>
>We've spent so much time hyping Wikipedia that it's become quite popular at its
>present location; a separate or hidden click-through stable set will basically
>never be seen and can't reasonably answer the (totally valid) criticisms that a
>reference site needs to be a little bit conservative on its public face.
>  
>
That sounds about right to me.  Software developers of course have 
already arrived at that solution---grab the old, stable, conservative 
version if you're going to be whiny; if you use the CVS version, don't 
blame us if it's not done, because it's not supposed to be. =]

(Although those of us who are eventualists haven't been "hyping 
Wikipedia" in the first place.  Perhaps those who have been hyping it 
before it's ready shouldn't have been.)

-Mark