--- Brion Vibber <brion(a)pobox.com> wrote:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> People would need to log in and change their
> preferences to see stable versions by default (the other way around would hide
vandalism in
> the development version; besides, the most recent/up-to-date version should be on
top anyway).
IMHO the opposite needs to be true; reviewed, stable versions need to be right
on top, as what the public sees by default.
And when they read something that needs to be fixed or added, they will be reading an
older
version. Clicking 'edit' at that point would produce a confusing result; an
article that would
likely have the fix or fact they wanted to added. Principle of least astonishment should
rule
here. Also, the most up to date version should be, well, on top. Everything else is part
of the
revision history. That just makes more intuitive sense to me.
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.
That would only *start* to make sense when more than a small fraction of articles are part
of the
stable version. Otherwise there would be a confusing mix of stable and development
versions
displayed to readers depending on if the article has a stable version or not.
We also still want to encourage further growth and improvement of articles that have
stable
versions, no? Hiding the most recent version takes away the immediacy and instant self
gratification one gets when editing. It is a major hook to attract new editors (and until
we get
our high turnover rate in check, we need to still encourage lots of new users to join).
This would also harm an area we are pretty good at: updating articles whose subject is in
the
news. If stable versions were displayed by default, then any updates that reflect current
events
would not be displayed until a new stable version is selected. That would either mean that
we
would need to have very low standards on the selection of stable versions in order to keep
up with
updates, or it would kill much of the motivation to update those articles in the first
place (a
more rigorous selection process - which is what we want, right? - would be too slow to
keep up).
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.
The public face of Wikipedia has always been a work in progress. True, right now I think
the
pendulum is too far to the openness and development side. But presenting stable versions
by
default would fundamentally change the whole character of the project and swing the
pendulum too
far in the other direction, IMO. At the very least we should start this the way I have set
out:
Prominent links to the stable versions when they exist. We could also put under
construction: you
can help! icons on all the development versions.
In short: We should make it more obvious that development versions are just that *and* we
should
give people the option to use stable versions (even the option to see those by default
where they
exist or even to *only* see those versions). Adding to what we do now is what we need.
Making
fundamental changes to what we now have, which has been rather successful, would, IMO, be
a
mistake.
The goose that laid the golden egg does not need a sex change operation; she just needs a
new set
of clothes and some additional tools to help in egg care.
Most of those visitors *aren't* participating
editors, and on a relatively
mature site like en.wikipedia we need to recognize this and act accordingly to
meet their requirements as well as those of visitors who start participating.
A fraction of readers stream-in as editors. But offering them a static website by default
will
severely restrict that stream.
-- mav
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