Daniel Mayer wrote:
--- 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;
If you were to dive into the editing world, you'd first be taken to the current
development version. Principal of least astonishment, after all!
That would only *start* to make sense when more than a
small fraction of articles are part of the
stable version.
It starts to make sense *the second* we're seen as serving the general public.
That time is already past; the foundation and many volunteers have favored
publicity and we're very much in the public eye as a resource, not so much as an
in-progress effort. We've not stepped up to our responsibilities to be clear
about what we are and what we provide; either we need to put a big "Bug off!"
on
every page and tell everyone to go away while we play around for another five
years, or we need to get serious about being a public resource.
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).
The time is past that we can pretend we're just a few geeks editing for fun. To
serve the public -- and that *is* the point of an encyclopedia -- we need
public-facing pages that have been reviewed.
This would also harm an area we are pretty good at:
updating articles whose subject is in the
news.
Those same articles will be very actively worked on by reviewers, I have no
doubt. If they are in fact slower to update, THEN GOOD! We *need* to be slower
to update.
We *need* to be more careful and deliberate.
We *need* to be more selective.
We *need* to be less of a crap conduit.
Explosive growth is *not* our primary concern today. We already have way too
many articles; we need to concentrate on quality. Concentrating on "growth"
will
just keep us in the death spiral we're in now.
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
Something which is necessary!
and swing the pendulum too
far in the other direction, IMO.
I disagree.
A fraction of readers stream-in as editors. But
offering them a static website by default will
severely restrict that stream.
That'll be a good thing.
-- brion vibber (brion @
pobox.com)