[Wikipedia-l] Stable versions policy

Tue Dec 20 14:29:04 UTC 2005

--- "Wikipedia Romania (Ronline)" <rowikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> 

> I think the proponents of these policies hide behind the fact that they are
> only "minor changes", but I think that all of the new proposals - from
> banning anons from creating articles, to semi-protection to stable versions,
> are all slippery-slope attempts to somehow make Wikipedia more restricted to
> combat vandalism. Combating vandalism is a worthy cause, but freedom comes
> first. We're the free encyclopedia, after all.

Wikipedia is free in the sense that its content can be distributed freely. Being free to edit is a
means to an end to create the encyclopedia. It is not the point of it. That said, this is my
understanding of the two features that will hopefully be implemented in January.

1) Delayed editing: Something that has been talked about and wanted for years. This would give
admins to the ability to soft-protect pages that are frequent targets of vandalism (such as
[[George W. Bush]] on the English Wikipedia). Ideally this feature would automatically delay edits
by anons and new users and post them, again automatically, after an amount of time that was set by
an admin for that page (similar to setting IP/user name block time periods). This would give RC
patrolers time to cancel vandalistic edits before they are posted for all to see. But last I heard
this feature (so far) would require a great deal of manual effort by admins; one would need to set
versions manually and I do not think the feature distinguishes between anons, new users or old
users. I personally think that this feature should not go live until it is fully functional (esp
since it is way too similar, as is, to the below feature). The point of this feature is to help
avoid displaying vandalism.

2) Approved versioning: A new user class would be created that would be charged with approving
certain article versions. Accuracy, bias, completeness and readability would be checked (by reader
article validation and the approving user). If an article version is good enough (sic: does not
need to be feature article quality; just good enough) in those regards, then an approved version
would be set. A prominent link to this version would then automatically be placed on top of the
article. Users would have the choice to set their preferences so they see these approved versions
by default. But, and this is important, the live version would be displayed by default. But all
live versions would be clearly labeled as such (even those w/o approved versions) so readers know
what they are getting. So Wikipedia would not fundamentally change as a result. The point of this
feature is to give readers some assurance, however small, that what they are reading is more
likely true and reasonably good than not. 

-- mav

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 