[Wikipedia-l] Stable versions policy

Wed Dec 21 13:07:41 UTC 2005

Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) wrote:

>>There is something that you don't seem to understand. By making the stable
>>version default to the majority of readers, then Wikipedia's instant
>>editability becomes compromised. I'll give you an example - say a stable
>>version has been created for an article about the Romanian economy. Monthly,
>>stats change, and I'd also like update some prose about the role of ICT in
>>the Romanian economy. So, as an editor, I go to the editable version and
>>change it, and - bang - as you said, it's instantly there.
>>
>>BUT, and this is the big but, my edits would not be instantly displayed on
>>the default version. People coming into the Romanian economy article would
>>see the old stable version, and only *if* they choose to see the updated
>>version, which people won't do for lack of verifiability, would they see the
>>new data. Now, you're going to say to me - aah, but the stable version can
>>always be updated. Yes, I concede that, but the proposal states that for a
>>stable version to be approved, it must go through a lot of consensus
>>(otherwise, what's the point?).
>>    
>>
Well, if there's a page that is updated regularly, and you want people
to always see the latest, probably vandalized, version, then *don't set
any version of it as stable*!
Or, you could ask someone who has "the power" to check your latest
version for becoming stable. This could be easily done though my Tasks
feature :-)
Finally, on the stable version, /there's a text with link at the very
top of it/, pointing you to the current, latest version.

The difference between the current state of wikipedia and wikipedia with
stable versions is this: With the former, readers get a wiki to see;
with the latter, they get an encyclopedia.

>
>
>What perpetually protected pages? 
>
Picking one example, I think [[en:Geroge W. Bush]] has been protected
since before the last election, which was a year ago. This is due to
repeated vandalism. There are several more, though. This could be fixed
through stable versions.

Magnus