[Wikipedia-l] Stable versions policy

Wed Dec 21 18:32:46 UTC 2005

Magnus Manske wrote:

>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*!
>  
>
Doesn't this defeat one of the main purposes of stable versions, marking 
a version of frequently-vandalized articles so that our readers and 
mirrors can have some reassurance that what they're looking at isn't a 
pack of blatant lies?

I love the idea of stable versions and such, but I really don't think 
it's a good idea to have these new features change the default behavior 
of Wikipedia significantly. Maybe later after we get some solid data and 
experience with how stable versions are turning out we could consider 
making them the default view, but for now I think it should be just an 
option that can be ignored by those who don't want to deal with it.

>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.
>  
>
But our goal isn't to _show_ an encyclopedia to people, it's to get 
people to help us _write_ one. Let Answers.com worry about showing our 
material to people.