Wikipedia talk:Flagged revisions/Sighted versions/Archive 1

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Archive 1
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Contents

Aged accounts

What is the best way to determine whether an account is "aged"? CMummert · talk 18:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. You could just click "oldest" on Special:Contributions, I suppose. Sean William @ 18:26, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
I mean, what criteria should we use to determine whether an account is old enough. As in: 100 edits? 1 year? 1000 edits? 1 month? 1 week? Personally, I think that 3 months would be a nice round number, so I'll throw it into the discussion. CMummert · talk 19:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
I think we could make the limit shorter if there was a way to easily remove the priviledge from an account. If there's no way to remove it, all the sleeper accounts people create could make the reviewed revision tag useless. That way we would have the option of not having to block a user for improperly using the reviewed tag. - Taxman Talk 19:17, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Every admin could remove it from editors I have understood from the documentation: "Note: If a user has their Editor rights removed, they will not automatically be re-granted (the editor status log is checked for revokations)." But I propose a double criteria. Like 3 months and 500 edits or something. I'm not 100% sure if it's possible, but it think it is a bit better gauge. Otherwise I do think that we don't need to hand these things out TOO easy. It should be sufficiently hard that people won't start creating accounts and gathering edits for the sole purpose of gaining blessing rights. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:37, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
60 days, 500 edits, emailconfirmed combined are the default criteria. Voice-of-All 11:23, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
That's seems like a very good default. I will put this into the proposal here, "Granting editor" rights shouldn't be about software capabilities, but precisely about how this is set on Wikipedia. I think 60 days, 500 edits, and email-confirmed is sufficiently annoying to deter vandalism. --Merzul 11:50, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
What about users who are disruptive enough to have been blocked recently but not disruptive enough to be banned indefinitely? Users who edit-war frequently, for example, should not be automatically be granted revision-flagging privileges. The 60 days should reset if the person is blocked, and if they are not really so disruptive an admin can grant it manually. —Centrx→talk • 02:49, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree, it should be 60 days and 500 edits since the most recent block expired. 500 edits is not enough to show something is trustworthy, it needs to be 500 good edits, which is best judged by whether they've been blocked for them. --Tango 13:27, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Locking out IPs

The newest reviewed revision is the default one seen to our readers (non-logged in users).

If anons want to edit the article, will they be able to see the latest non-flagged article? Perhaps that should be an option/tab/button. If anons can't see the latest revision, then how can they edit the article efficiently? Sean William @ 18:34, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's a tab, and is mentioned in the tag, along with a link to edit. Actually the tag perhaps makes it more clear that anons can edit than now. Voice-of-All 18:47, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Criteria for use

Why would we need these two:

  • Have been around for a while
  • Have some depth (not a stub)

It doesn't really matter how much content it has if it meets the other criteria. Sometimes a short vandalism free article is all that's needed and is more than a traditional encyclopedia would have anyway. It's valuable to tag good short stubs in my mind. - Taxman Talk 19:17, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the criteria should be as minimal as possible, to minimize the amount of time wasted to bickering over whether to flag a version or not. Just "Stable, no vandalism, meets WP:BLP" is about right. I fear another FA/GA process evolving - look at GA, which once had modest requirements and now is an FA-clone. CMummert · talk 19:40, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
On the one hand, the tag makes it more clear that anons can edit than now, but on the other, I am just being catious not to stablize pages that could use a lot of growth. Buy I'm on the fence on this one I suppose. Voice-of-All 23:27, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

My thoughts - nominations

Good idea. For starters, I think every article would need to be nominated, and the tool limited for admins, for a short trial period. Long-term, I think the editor criteria should be similar to the minimums for access to VandalProof. YechielMan 20:11, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Nominations would hurt scalability, perhaps later, when and if "quality" reviews might be enabled. But this should be as scalable as possible. Voice-of-All 23:28, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Quality reviews?

What about quality reviews, is that not going to be used on the English Wikipedia? I thought that was an excellent idea, so that the standards for stable is basically just "free from vandalism and BLP issues"; but after an article becomes FA that it is given a quality flag, and then some form of monthly or so review cycle could start? --Merzul 21:34, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

If i read the information about the extension, it seems to indicate multiple types of flags can be implemented. So there could be quality flags, "trusted version" flags, "WP:1.0" flags, you name it. But i think the idea is to first start with "trusted version" flags. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:21, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Seems reasonable, letting us getting used to the system... boring, but reasonable. :) --Merzul 22:23, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
You seem to have "editor" and "reviewer" levels. Editor seems to be for the "trusted revisions" plan and rights can be granted automatically. Then you also have Reviewer, and those rights seem to be for quality designations and these rights need to be granted explicit --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:47, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

(←) Yes, it seems so, and the really important effect is that once a "reviewer" flags a revision, then that's the revision shown to anons, even if an "editor" marks a later revision as stable. This means that if we start using "reviewers" we need well-established processes for these over-riding flags. I mean we have here solutions to two separate problems:

  1. Vandalism. The stable flag that can be set by almost any user that we trust with "editor" status. This is not a very big change, and just simplifies fighting blatant vandalism.
  2. Quality assurance. A "reviewer" can set a quality flag for an article that has reached a certain status. This solves many problems in my opinion, and would allow us to edit in a more relaxed way, but it is a rather big change in how some articles would be edited.

Anyway, I believe we should try to use the quality assurance features as soon as possible, it would reduce so much stress. Once an article has reached a certain status, the article is flagged, and people can edit the current version, but updating the flagged version should IMO require triggering some review process, I think this would make editing far more relaxed. This would allow a more peaceful atmosphere on controversial articles like intelligent design and Jerusalem, since we won't need to immediately revert "POV-pushers". --Merzul 23:28, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Good idea

I would suggest this for at least all FAs, possibly GAs too. I think some larger WikiProjects even have their own A-class review system. WP:WPBIO for instance. As far as becoming an "editor" goes, I'm not sure if it should be automatic, is there possibility for abuse/misuse? Also, I cna imagine many users who would be eligible would not even use/want the ability. I would suggest we just have a page where people can just list themselves using a {{userlinks}}-type template and admins can just go through and give permission to those who meet the criteria. Also, the MediaWiki page linked to talks of a "Reviewer" status as well. Is that to be included here? Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 22:31, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Will there be a German Experiment?

Are the plans still that the German Wikipedia will first experiment with system? I'm a bit worried about the current proposal to give editor rights liberally, and not have any process for when revisions are marked as stable. Won't people just edit-war and mark their revision as stable? --Merzul 18:24, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Review wars can be treated just like any other edit war. Perhaps 3RR can be extended to include that. Voice-of-All 20:20, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that's true. Perhaps even a 1FR, so one should at most flag one revision (of the same article) in a 24h period or something. But my concern is not that I fear things will be worse, on the contrary, I'm hoping that this should solve every single problem on Wikipedia. ;) --Merzul 20:32, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
One could classify revert-warring by flagging revisions as "wheel warring", based on the strict definition of the word. A few ArbCom cases would quickly stop any warring between parties, if the wheel war definition is accepted :). Sean William @ 02:42, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
An article undergoing an edit war is by definition not stable, and the previous stable version should be marked. Anyone engaging in this should be liable to have their editor flag removed for a period of time. Warofdreams talk 01:51, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Queue?

I'm a tad confused on how this system would actually be used. Would there be a queue or something similar that would alert "editors" to articles needing reviewed? --- RockMFR 05:45, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

The consensus seems to be for starting with a very simple no-hassle non-bureaucratic implementation. Meaning any editor in good standing can flag revision that satisfy the rather simple criteria outlined on this page. I think this will already solve some important problems with vandalism and so on, but I do hope that at some point we will try to integrate this system with our quality assurance processes. --Merzul 12:16, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

How will editors know which articles need reviewed? --- RockMFR 17:14, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

There is a page to list unreviewed pages. Voice-of-All 17:38, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I would discourage forcing people to list pages for approval - it's tiresome and the list would be too big. Rather, let articles that just need to pass the non 'quality' criteria fall into a category if they have not been checked for too long. Then people can easily find the ones which are most urgent and approve/disapprove the edits. Richard001 07:41, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
If there could be a Special:Unreviewedpages or something, that would really work well. howcheng {chat} 17:01, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that's what I mean, it is automatic, otherwise I wouldn't have said that...heh Voice-of-All 17:26, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Support

I strongly support the implementation of this extension here. We should have a Wikipedia:Requests for editor rights page where any editor in good standing (even if they're relatively new) can request editor status if they don't yet meet the 500 edits, 6 months, confirmed email requirements, and a Wikipedia:Requests for page monitoring page where any editor can request a page that meets the criteria on the policy proposal be included in this flagging system. I think that all high-profile pages should be monitored this way, including featured articles, good articles, articles currently semi- and fully-protected due to vandalism, and articles that are in the Top 500. I say for now, let's not worry about quality versions or anything else, let's just worry about marking revisions as clear of vandalism and other nonsense. I would even avoid not tagging revisions which have POV disputes; just tag anything that's clear of vandalism, nonsense, and cruft. We need to get this implemented quickly, and once we're comfortable with the basic system, then we can add things like quality versions. I don't think we need any extra policies either; if something comes up that we didn't foresee, we'll deal with it as it happens. —METS501 (talk) 02:15, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

After reading over the page, I support the idea, but don't get what the quality revision part means. What does marking it as quality do? --R ParlateContribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 02:33, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Don't worry about that yet, but start with something basic and move up as we go along with it. This is, as users have spoken out here, a great idea that needs to be implemented quickly. (→zelzany - review) 02:34, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
What Vishwin said. Quality revision flagging would allow us to choose quality versions to be the ones to display by default, but let's not worry about that yet. —METS501 (talk)
But wouldn't the marked ones display by default anyway? --R ParlateContribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 02:37, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Not if we enabled quality versions, but that's definitely not happening yet, so let's not discuss it here and get everyone confused and riled up over something that's not going to happen as of now :-) —METS501 (talk) 02:40, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Ditto, give us the flags and we can figure out the details later. -- intgr #%@! 02:41, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Must a page be reviewed before showing up? (If it's the first revision, must that revision be flagged?) --R ParlateContribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 02:44, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
No. We review it afterwards. (→zelzany - review) 02:45, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
No, only high profile pages (as I stated just above) would be monitored by this system. —METS501 (talk) 02:46, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Support. If we don't try out new & innovative approaches constantly, there won't be any of the current Wikipedia left for us to compare with Citizendium. All the problems outlined in the project page are real & significant. I suggest one revision. Let admins manually check users' edit history & then give them some sort of flag right. Also, increase edit # to 1000. 500 is too small (b/c I've seen sock accounts w/ edits close to 500) (Wikimachine 02:52, 3 June 2007 (UTC))
  • Strong support. This is about presenting unvandalised versions of articles as the default. We want schoolteachers and parents to be able to use Wikipedia without seeing obscenities. We must remember that the vast majority of our users, not editors. Walkerma 20:25, 5 June 2007 (UTC) I forgot to mention a major reason for my support - this change will greatly help the WP:1.0 project for producing offline releases of Wikipedia. We hope to bring out a DVD later this year of 30,000 articles, and we need a system for tagging articles as stable for that. Walkerma 20:49, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong support. This will increase the reliability of Wikipedia, without compromising "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit"; currently the relability of Wikipedia is fast becoming a joke. Academics/knowledgeable contributors who wish to contribute to Wikipedia will welcome this (no more "heat = thermal energy" debacles); vandalism will be reduced (no-one will want to vandalise when their changes don't appear). Also, WP1.0 (or any other paper version) *really* needs a system like this. It would also help with FA decay and especially on historical topics, where facts or prose doesn't change often. Don't get me wrong, the 'anyone can edit and now' phase was brilliant for expanding Wikipedia to 1.8 million articles, but it's time to focus on quality and reliability. CloudNine 13:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Support We should try this. It would be a good thing for Wikipedia, to help reduce instant gratification that vandals get from seeing their edits go live immediately. If it's only applied to high-profile/often vandalized articles, along with marking versions of featured articles, then I think the number of articles that have this will be manageable. Though, I'm not sure if it would work or be something applied to pages subject to constant edit warring and controversy such as Armenian genocide. Maybe we could implement this for a small set of pages, as a trial, and see how it goes. --Aude (talk) 21:08, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong support for sighted versions and lukewarm support for quality versions. The sighted versions seems like a win-win situation for the community--even at its weakest level (low qualifications for "editor," low qualifications for "sighted version," and autopromote to sighted for neglected articles) it's still seems like it will cut out most of the incentive for vandalism. My support for Quality versions is pretty weak because I don't think that judging "quality" can be separated from in some way showing that the editor is an expert in the particular field of the article. So I feel that the Quality right should be given only on an article-by-article or category-by-category basis. If there are FAs which no expert can be found to vet, then maybe they shouldn't be Featured. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 19:37, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Oppose

Oppose. This is not Citizendium or whatever it is they're calling the "improved" replacement for Wikipedia. The current system works well and watchful editors catch vandalism when it occurs. There's often room for improvement even in "stable" versions of articles, when knowledgeable editors discover Wikipedia and begin to contribute. Admins cannot be given too much power as we've already seen the abuse of such power across the board. Badagnani 02:35, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

This power wouldn't only be given to admins. And it's easily reversable, apparently. --R ParlateContribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 02:36, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Whatever the case, this proposed change is not necessary nor desirable. Badagnani 02:38, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you are a bit confused as to what this system is. It is not a way to push POV, call versions "better" than others, let admins exercise extra power, let people use their degrees and/or real-life status to win an argument, or anything else. It is simply a system to make sure that vandalized versions are not displayed to the public. —METS501 (talk) 02:40, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
[double edit conflict] Agreed with Mets501. It is necessary to make editing easier for trusted users. As Mets501 said above, we can have a request page similar to RFA and (my idea) have a noticeboard. (→zelzany - review) 02:41, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I sincerely hope this is not going to be a top-down directive like we've seen before, where the owners of Wikipedia state that "this must happen," and, despite consensus or even our guidelines, it happens. Badagnani 02:42, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Oppose. Agree with Bagdagnani. This isn't Citizendium - it's Wikipedia. One of the things that makes Wikipedia so great is that anyone can edit and their changes are available immediately. I don't see this proposal as one that would keep vandalism at bay as much as it would add an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy and inconvenience legitimate users. So let's nix this one. SchuminWeb (Talk) 02:42, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose. We don't need this,w e don't want this, and it's a really bad idea. This is not how the project was set up to work, or needs to work to survive. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:43, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

This is not Citizendium, I am not confused in any way, shape, or form, and this proposed change is neither desirable nor necessary. Badagnani 02:43, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Then according to SchuminWeb's logic, RFA is bureaucratic. (→zelzany - review) 02:44, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
And this isn't a vote. But that's OK, we need to discuss it over before it's implemented. I just think that this is what Wikipedia has been needing for years; something almost identical was discussed at the Wikimedia conference and was deemed necessary by basically all, including Jimbo. —METS501 (talk) 02:44, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Just as I'd guessed--it is a top-down "directive." Why not present it as such, then? Badagnani 02:50, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

About 2 years ago, when I first heard of Wikipedia on NPR, Jimmy Wales or someone was being interviewed and the subject of vandalism came up. He said that a study showed that vandalism is repaired an average of 30 seconds after it occurs. With so many users here now, many with active watchlists of articles that are meaningful to them, and living in nearly all time zones, I believe this is close to reality. So the rapidity of repairing vandalism, if we remain alert, is not a problem. Badagnani 02:48, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

The study where that statistic comes from is from 2003, and it is rather irrelevant when there might be hundreds of people that view an vandalized, or obscenely vandalized, page in the interim. —Centrx→talk • 03:02, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
The IBM study from April 2004 has a median time of 2.8 minutes for mass deletions and 1.7 minutes for obscene mass deletions. —Centrx→talk • 03:13, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I don't necessarily oppose the idea. But, I'm afraid that it will turn into just another layer of complications. If it does go forward, the 6 months / 500 edits / confirmed email requirement should be a hard-and-fast rule instead of allowing early requests for those who have only been here a short time or have too few edits. This will allow them to get a good feel for how it all works before they jump around flagging articles. I'm all for KISS. Actually, requiring registration and confirmation of email for all editors would greatly reduce vandalism and would allow valid editors to contribute more and police and revert less. --Wordbuilder 02:59, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I concur with Wordbuilder. (→zelzany - review) 03:17, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Pretty much my opinion here. It seems like an extra, unnecessary level of complication. Plus, with the sheer number of articles, I have strong doubts about the ability to keep this going for more than a few weeks. So I'll have to oppose too. Crystallina 22:29, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I Oppose as well. Having two versions of the same page? Working to a stable version for 1.8 million articles? Having a 'show only a good version of a page' system will easily deter useful editors because immediate revisions will not be shown. Big reason: most edits are very good and should be shown to the public. Do we want to have a new static edition with every good revision, or every once in a while? Many revisions are important to show to the public immediately, current news, for example. We have thousands of dedicated editors who revert vandalism on sight; I don't find this terribly necessary. Although unlikely, my suggestion in the past was having approved IP edits: An IP must submit an edit to be reviewed before it passes. In a way, I see this as simply fully protecting all articles with this feature, until someone updates the static version. Question: will this only be for the mainspace, or the others as well? This might also be a way to up the revert wars. It seems like too much work to me. Reywas92TalkReview me 02:59, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I too am on the opposing side. I fear that this will process would some day create elitism among users as to which version should be the flagged version, and edit warring will run rampent as users vie for the one that the public first sees. I know at least a good amount of users would be like this, and then there would be the discussion on which version should be flagged. This in turn creates a lot of unneeded discussion.--十八 03:04, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Strong oppose - It's a well intended proposal but has potential to exacerbate edit wars. I can't help but think of m:The Wrong Version.Raymond Arritt 03:07, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Unlike page protection, there would be no reason not to tag a later version of the article as stable when appropriate. It's not a permanent choice. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:49, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Oppose this will cause some serious problems. Most anon users will be deterred by having to go to a different version to edit, and by the fact that their changes will not be visible immediately. The same goes for new users - part of the appeal is to have your work visible instantly, not have to wait around for someone to approve it. Yes, this proposal would cut the number of BLP violations and the amount of vandalism, but we're not overwhelmed by vandalism and there are far less drastic ways to tackle these problems. Hut 8.5 17:45, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

The articles that aren;t overwhelmed by vandalism wouldn't need to have a stable version marked, in which case the latest changes would be visible. At least that's how I understand it. There is no need, or desire to have a stable version for all articles, only for relatively mature ones. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:51, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose This is a well intentioned idea but simply adds another level of red tape to a system that works remarkably well already. The Unique Selling Point of Wikipedia is that it's the encyclopedia anyone can edit, you take a brick out of the bottom of that foundation and its whole rationale collapses. Problem articles under attack now get protected, this is a solution for a problem which doesn't exist. We're constantly told to 'assume good faith', well here's a policy proposal which assumes bad faith about every new editor. It would destroy Wikipedia because no new editor would bother editing something without the kick of seeing their work up there immediately. Here's a radical idea, how about more editors and admins actually writing new articles and improving existing ones, instead of arguing about procedure? If this change is implemented then I'll find something else to do with my time online. Nick mallory 11:04, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
    Actually, as has been mentioned on the talk page, at the FAQ, and the extension page, it doesn't have to override the current version. Additionally, I don't think anyone will leave over this as that is a bit melodramatic. Voice-of-All 12:56, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
    I'd consider it. I do get heated and take breaks from time to time, but there are a number of things that are on a list of "done with this place," and certain versions of "stable articles" are on that list. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:48, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
    This seems to be the most mild form of stable versions available - anyone established can flag articles, with no requirements on the articles except lack of vandalism, etc. What sort of stable versions would you accept? — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:20, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
    One point of stable versions is to reduce the need for protecting pages due to vandalism. With stable versions, anyone can still edit every article. As Mets501 points out below, that seems more friendly to new users than semiprotection. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:20, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
    Shhh, don't add facts. :) People would rather believe the sky is falling and not be willing to take a risk to improve Wikipedia. With that same unwillingness to take risks we wouldn't have Wikipedia at all. - Taxman Talk 14:52, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - A change that strives to more closely emulate the Citizendium--a split-off faction of Wikipedia with an entirely different (read: controlled) outlook on the Wiki concept--does not represent an improvement. Badagnani 14:55, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Reluctant oppose. The process to select Reviewers looks like it could turn into Requests for Adminship. These Reviewers would then be able to select one version of the article for the public to see. This gives a few people a lot of power - something Wikipedia should not do. Cedars 09:22, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose for now, per my comments in the section "Wikipedia is (probably) not a bureaucracy ... yet" and per Nick mallory, who raises a point I had not considered. Why would any anon edit an article if they can't immediately see their change? Not all anons are vandals, yet this proposal essentially treats them as such. We might as well semi-protect all articles ... it serves essentially the same effect (stopping vandalism), but is more effective and less time-consuming. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 20:39, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Additional melodrama

In response to Nick. While it was melodramatic, he is raising a very important point here, something that is fundamental and will be a major reason people might want to oppose this whole idea. I hope Nick will engage in this discussion and further elaborate on why he feels this way. (While article writing is very important, we have already over 1 million articles, perhaps it is now time to start thinking about quality?)

So, about our Unique Selling Point, or rather the Myth that Wikipedia is the Encyclopaedia that Anyone Can Edit. Here's the rub: we constantly reject information, it isn't at all the case that anyone can put any nonsense they want on Wikipedia. So if a new editor, who is yet unfamiliar with our content policies, decides to add their opinion, we reject it and explain why, and this is how we will continue to do it in the future.

Two things about new users, their thrill of editing will not diminish because all Wikipedians will immediately see the current revision, and will be even more thrilled when their edits gets confirmed. Assuming good faith depends on how we treat contributions from new editors, not the mechanism by which it is reviewed. The current solution that works so well is to revert them and accuse them of being sock-puppets (or members of the discovery institute), and what not. ;)

In any case, what I most admire about Wikipedia is the spirit of innovation, and how we spontaneously come up with new ways of doing things to remain competitive. If this proposal is rejected, I will leave Wikipedia... (or not, I can't even take a much needed Wikibreak!). Cheers, Merzul 14:31, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Possible issues

I tentatively support the general idea, but agree that some things have to be carefully watched. Possible problems I see:

  • Confusion about which page is considered the most recent/best etc... (while not flagged, a version post-flag may well be more extensive and better - how do we ensure that editors do not edit from an older version, just because it is flagged?
  • Why call those trusted users editors, that confuses the issue - we are all editors, even anons (I like the automatic process for entry, its going to be an elite group otherwise)?
  • Will there be a minimum size/content limit before an article can be flagged?

MadMaxDog 02:43, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

In addition, I also do worry (as per other users above) that this will be another layer of bureaucracy and would entail more work to be done that detracts from actually working on articles. So it would have to be BOTH heavily automated, and take special care not to discourage newbies! MadMaxDog 02:45, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Remember, only high profile pages (as I stated just above) would be monitored by this system. —METS501 (talk) 02:46, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Principle, yes; practice, maybe not

This idea is good in principle. But in contentious topic areas where WP:AGF has gone out the window (e.g., articles related to global warming, certain international political disputes, or pseudoscience), it could lead to problems. Raymond Arritt 02:46, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with contentious issues or not. It has to do with the fact that pages which were blanked or replaced with a bunch of 4-letter words wouldn't be displayed immediately to the public. —METS501 (talk) 02:47, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
What about editors tagging/untagging versions in attempt to gain advantage? Raymond Arritt 02:51, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Potentially similar restrictions as used with admin tools (i.e. no flagging articles on which you are engaged in a conflict) could be implemented. Christopher Parham (talk) 02:52, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I just watched, with my own eyes several days ago, an admin unblock another admin who had violated 3RR and been blocked for such--within 1 hour. The unblocking admin had also been involved in the same article, in which both had been involved in controversy. A complaint was made yet the conflict of interest was allowed to stand. With such a failure to adhere to our own rules and showing of favoritism amongst one another, admins simply cannot be trusted with this additional responsibility. Badagnani 03:03, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
This is not an admin only benefit. I'm strongly in favour of this, and I'm not an admin. I do feel passionately about Wikipedia though, as I think it is such a wonderful project. I believe we should try to use the best possible tools available to ensure quality. If you have any clear objections about how this system could be abused, we need to discuss them. This is why this talk page is here. --Merzul 09:09, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Not for us to decide

This is not something that can be implemented by the consensus of English Wikipedia editors; rather, it requires Board or similar-level approval. Discussion by the Board on similar implementations for the whole of Wikimedia has been ongoing for quite some time. Regardless of the outcome of this discussion, it won't be implemented until they reach a decision. Period. Suggest it be marked as historical and we move along. AmiDaniel (talk) 02:48, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. (I fully believe you about the discussion, but) is there there a place where this discussion has been documented? —METS501 (talk) 02:49, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
You might see, for instance, this discussion of the stable versions proposal that has been under development since before Wikimania 2006, including discussion of some experimentation of the concept done on dewiki. AmiDaniel (talk) 02:54, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Where do you get that idea? Do you have any special basis for this comment? As I understand, your comment is incorrect and rather irrelevant. —Centrx→talk • 02:58, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
In other words, there is no reason not to discuss the issue here and there is no reason to think that discussions here will not affect a decision. In addition, even supposing some sequestered discussion and decision that is somehow completely unaffected by discussion on Wikipedia, the discussion here is generally about how to implement it. As I understand it, flagged revisions are going to be implemented and here we are deciding how exactly to do it. —Centrx→talk • 03:06, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I do not agree that we should strive to emulate Citizendium, and reject this proposal completely, for reasons stated above. Badagnani 03:08, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I am not sure who said we should? Voice-of-All 03:40, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I find this curious that they aren't sure about this, where do you get this information from? The foundation has already paid an external contractor to implement this software capability. As Centrx said, this will be part of MediaWiki software as of the official release of version 1.11 or something like that. The question is if we are going to waste the Foundations's effort because we can't reach a consensus on how to use the system. Let's not let them down on this one, let's try to address all concerns. Whatever we do, I don't want another WP:ATT type battle, I hope we can engage in a friendly discussion here, where we listen to each other, and all concerns about the system are addressed. NO PREMATURE VOTING! :) I think this is all very much up to the community to decide! --Merzul 09:24, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Do a test

I think such a radical change to Wikipedia cannot be rolled out all at once. There should be some sort of smaller scale experiment to test the merits of this proposal. Perhaps limit this feature to only a small subset of pages at first and gradually expand the range. This will allow everybody to see how well this works in practice. nadav (talk) 02:50, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps test this on test.wikipedia? (→zelzany - review) 02:51, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
No. Badagnani 02:52, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
You are opposed to even testing it? —Centrx→talk • 03:00, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Your opposition to testing this on a test wiki, Badagnani, I find quite ridiculous. If you are not going to have an open mind about things, why bother discussing them? Richard001 08:01, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
I do have a right to state my view. I believe this unnecessary proposal, which attempts to emulate the working process of a rival but much poorer encyclopedia called Citizendium, is being pushed through the English Wikipedia without the knowledge of the general editorship. I continue to object strongly to the manner in which this discussion is being actively kept off the radar of the general editors (those who provide most of WP's content, as opposed to those who prefer working with the site's code and procedural matters). The editor who removed the notice to the general editorship (within 1 hour) has expressed contempt for those who do not agree with this proposal. If the proposal is a bad one--and it is--I will not fail to voice, and continue to voice, my objection. Badagnani 08:09, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
And I will not continue to find your opposition to it ridiculous - it's a test wiki for goodness sakes - it allows us to see the thing in action so we can make informed decisions. Besides, it's already in place - see above. Richard001 09:04, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Complete articles?

First of all, I am opposed to the idea. I believe that what this means is that certain articles would be reviewed as more or less "complete" and thus no major changes to the article would improve it henceforth, but I believe this is merely a matter of opinion. Shouldn't we be taking the stance that all articles are never complete and there's always going to be something to improve upon? Also, this makes it seem that certain articles with these tags will be deemed "perfect" and any revisions past that point will either be overlooked or just reverted on this basis. This in turn creates a form a elitism as to who's reivision gets to be the flagged version, and I can just see editors vying to be the one with the flagged version; oy. OTL --十八 02:52, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

No, it won't be like that. This is for high-profile pages that have lots of vandalism. (→zelzany - review) 02:53, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, this is not about perfect versions and not allowing changes. Revisions could not be rejected because the article is already featured, or something similar. The only ones which would be rejected would be those that were vandalism. —METS501 (talk) 02:55, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
If the aim is to sell Wikipedia content as a set of CD-ROMs or whatever format is projected, the idea would make sense. I doubt we'd get a straight answer if this were the reason behind this proposal (which seems to have been discussed offline quite a bit by those attempting to steer this proposal, before it was pitched here). Let's have full transparency on this, okay? Not just partial transparency, but full transparency. That includes specifics of the aforementioned previous high-level discussions. Badagnani 02:57, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
And vandalism, as mentioned earlier, is generally fixed in about 30 seconds or less. It's not a problem and the "solution" creates an even bigger problem. Badagnani 02:58, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Note: This is incorrect. The April 2004 IBM study of Wikipedia has a median time of a 2.8 minutes for mass deletions and 1.7 minutes for obscene mass deletions, i.e. a full half of such vandalism goes unreverted for that duration, and that was more than three years ago. —Centrx→talk • 03:15, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
The thing is, Wikipedia content can be redistributed, copied, and sold for any purpose under the terms of the GFDL. So according to your logic, it would make sense. (→zelzany - review) 02:59, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
And the thing about vandalism is that it takes up database space in the edit history. (→zelzany - review) 03:00, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
That argument is largely insignificant, as storage space is not an issue for Wikimedia. —METS501 (talk) 03:02, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Just because that is what is initended does not mean that my theories will not some day become true. The only way to prevent that would be to only allow articles with "lost of vandalism" to be flagged and leave the other articles to the normal way of doing things as we have now.--十八 03:00, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Alternative that might be acceptable to more

How about changing this, and only on high-visibility pages, any logged-in user with 250 edits or more can mark revisions as not blatantly vandalized, or in other words, patrolled. The most recent patrolled version would be displayed to anonymous users, but any logged-in user would see the most recent version. This is a far toned down suggestion, yet still achieves much of the same goal. Is this better? —METS501 (talk) 03:01, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

If this can change most of the opposes' minds, then sure. (→zelzany - review) 03:02, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
No. Badagnani 03:03, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Badagani, I'm going to send you an email in a couple of minutes. —METS501 (talk) 03:05, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
We already patrol through our watchlists. Badagnani 03:05, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
But the problem is that even for that 60 seconds, hundreds, if not thousands of people (on highly-visible pages) have seen that vandalism and don't know how to revert it. Many times I've been researching on Wikipedia and will randomly come across a page which says "BILL iS GaY OMGZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz!!!!!!!!1111!!!!!" —METS501 (talk) 03:13, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
So what? It seems to me that you're more or less proposing that we try to save face by allowing such a system to pass. Wikipedia already has a wonky reputation since anyone can edit it and this is why most people don't accept cites from wiki articles (wiki artciles aren't even allowed to cite other wikis). This won't change the opinion of the readers (the non-editors) who use Wikipedia primarily as an information source. And on high profile articles, the vandalism is reverted so quickly that all a reader would have to do would be to refresh the page once they spot the vandalism, and it will have already been reverted by that time. Sure, this proposal sounds like a nice curtosy to the readers, but I believe it is bad for the editors.--十八 03:20, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, this proposal would change my vote (from oppose to support) on the matter. My only remaining concern would be the usability and looks of the implementation. Cedars 09:09, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Split opinion

Split on this, right now leaning toward oppose. I'll give my pro/cons in the hope of eliciting comments:

Pros

This would instantly eliminate the problem of readers seeing vandalized content.

Cons

Many of the worst editors I've encountered on Wikipedia satisfy all of the Editor criteria outlined here. They don't vandalize, but their contributions are usually low-quality and they get by because they don't fight when their edits are fixed. I despair of these users ever being able to Review properly. Since Editor status is granted automatically, we'll have to whine to admins to get it revoked, leading to RfCs, ANI threads, ArbCom cases, etc.

- Merzbow 03:02, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Then we use something like RFA. (→zelzany - review) 03:03, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
How about my alternative above. Is that more acceptable? —METS501 (talk) 03:04, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I like the idea of restricting the scope of "Review" to be simply a marking of unvandalized versions. If you make an edit, you get another check box that lets you make this the marked version, but you can't change the marked version if you don't edit. This will eliminate "Review" wars. - Merzbow 03:08, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Hmm we'd still need a way to mark the contributions of non-Editors who made a good edit; how about one can only mark the most recent revision as good? - Merzbow 03:10, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest we get away from the RfA comparisons. Many people hate the way RfA is run and it seems too "big" for this type of thing. I would suggest something more like the approval process for AWB or VandalProof. People put their name on a page, an admin comes though, makes sure they meet whatever criteria and aren't likely to abuse the tool, then approves or disapproves. there is generally no discussion except in borderline cases. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 01:24, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

This is a new proposal

We don't need oppose/support sections just yet. Unless you completely disagree with the idea of stable version, I'd suggest proposing changes to the policy instead. Voice-of-All 03:18, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I concur with VOA. (→zelzany - review) 03:20, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
A "stable version" is a good idea for a paper encyclopedia. We are not. Badagnani 03:21, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
That was not relevant. (→zelzany - review) 03:23, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
All right, I'll be more clear: I completely disagree with the idea of a "stable version" (however that is construed). This is in direct relevance to what is written above. Badagnani 03:25, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

New and anonymous editors

This change would assume bad faith of new and anonymous editors and would surely drive away potential contributors. In other words, it would tell new/anonymous users "Yeah, you can edit, but we don't trust that you're edits are going to be any good, so we're not going to actually use them until someone else agrees." It's just not a good idea.

For those who are really concerned about the stability of the article they're using, there's Stablepedia. —Remember the dot (talk) 03:28, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Again, this is only for vandalism. (→zelzany - review) 03:30, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
How will the flagged revisions system differentiate between good edits and vandalism? Wouldn't a human have to do that, and if so, why not just have the human revert the vandalism? —Remember the dot (talk) 03:35, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
This is an excellent point. Badagnani 03:44, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Not it is not, people review revisions as "not vandalized", and they become the default. There is not automatic/heuristic based software system that does it, unlike stablepedia. Voice-of-All 03:50, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
If you're saying that this is something that will be turned on and off for individual pages, similarly to semi-protection, then that would be OK if the community desires to use this new tool. Otherwise, it sounds like a really bad idea. —Remember the dot (talk) 03:47, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it is for individual pages that have high vandalism levels. (→zelzany - review) 03:50, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Hopefully administrators would turn off flagged revisions after a week or so after the vandalism to make sure that anonymous editors are not being continually alienated. —Remember the dot (talk) 04:37, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Removal of notice of this discussion from watchlist page

I see that the notice of this discussion has been removed from the "watchlist" page. That took less than 1 hour. Is there the perception that there have been too many comments already? Badagnani 03:31, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Might wanna go ask the admin who removed it. (→zelzany - review) 03:32, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I believe I already know the answer, after reading your comment. Badagnani 03:44, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, it simply isn't possible from the watchlist page to determine who that admin was. Badagnani 03:47, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Hello.......! Admin who did this, where are you and why are you not explaining yourself here? With such an enormous and sweeping change, we cannot allow this discussion to be sequestered mainly to editors who frequent this page. Badagnani 03:49, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

yes plz

I've been yearning for this for a long time — it would help build our reputation as a stable encyclopedia that can't be easily harmed because of what some idiot does. Furthermore, it helps establish article milestones — and carves them directly in the edit history! Flagged revisions is a spectacular idea. —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 03:37, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I concur with Messedrocker. (→zelzany - review) 03:39, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
And me! This is an important step along the road to becoming a stable, trusted encyclopedia. →Ollie (talk • contribs) 03:57, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Semi-protection

Another thing to think about is the "friendliness" of semi-protection. Which is friendlier, semi-protection, where anons can't edit, or flagged revisions, where anons can edit, but their edits won't appear for about a minute? —METS501 (talk) 03:41, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Let's not make up statistics out of the air - it is a very bad practice. Just as Badagnani has given misleading figures about the speed vandalism is cleaned up, you are here giving very 'pleasing' but entirely arbitrary figures about how long it would take to approve. We could place unapproved articles in a category automatically, but it might still take a long time to get approval - we have no idea at this stage. Even without backlogs it might be a day or more. The goal would be to get as many 'trusted' users as we can, provided they have a clue what they are doing. We could also make it clear which articles were unwatched, since there would be no harm of vandalism anymore, then we could try to get every article watched such that there would be someone ready to approve new edits. Things would have to start off small until we built up a large base of patrollers, we don't want people to have to wait too long to get their edit publicly visible. Richard001 08:21, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Wording

As I understand the page as it currently reads, the word "review" is used in two senses:

  1. Judge the basic quality of (This would let [editors] review page revisions)
  2. Judge the academic quality of (Reviewers can mark pages not only as "stable", but as "quality")

I found this quite confusing when I first read through. Discussion on this page seems to be leaning towards making #1 into a "The last edit(s) were valid improvements" button - this is quite a different concept to #2 and I think the terminology used needs to reflect that. →Ollie (talk • contribs) 04:13, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

This is absolutely how I interpret the situation! There are two issues, but let's start discussing #1. Marking a revision as stable is just a simple tool to guarantee very basic quality, essentially any Wiki "editor" should be able to do this rather casually. I have some questions about whether marking many revisions as stable is contrary to how other people see the use of this feature.
  • Do you see a problem, if for some page almost every other revision is marked as stable?
  • Would it be acceptable, if I make a few edits and then mark my last edition as stable?
That's how simple and casual I would consider the use of #1, the basic stable (non-vandalised) version of the page that should be displayed to anons. What do people think about this? --Merzul 09:42, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that seems OK to me. It just implements a way for "trusted" editors to review edits made by "new" editors. Whilst this might be a little frustrating for good "new" editors, I am sure they will appreciate that it is necessary for quality assurance (which, by the way, becomes completely pointless - no-one will see the "fruits" of the vandals' labours). However, that does make me think that the requirements for editor privelidges should be set fairly low. →Ollie (talk • contribs) 11:24, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but in the large scale of things, 2 months and 500 edits really is a low requirement. We don't require years of commitment or any qualification, and most importantly, their changes will be immediately displayed to them and the rest of the Wikipedia community. All logged-in users are taken to the latest revision by default, so it is far less frustrating than semi-protection for example. --Merzul 12:44, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Some alternatives

I just added the $wgFlaggedRevsOverride option. Setting it to false would mean that instead of the default revision being overridden, there will be a "stable version" tab that will show the latest quality/stable version. Voice-of-All 04:52, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Not interested. The current system works well and we don't need to emulate Citizendium. Badagnani 04:55, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
No one is trying to do that. Voice-of-All 04:57, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Badagnani, can you explain how you think that this is emulating Citizendium? As far as I know, Citizendium has no policy like this that we are proposing. —METS501 (talk) 05:38, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I, on the contrary, think that the $wgFlaggedRevsOverride option is a good idea, and hopefully it will be enabled by default. I am interested. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 01:01, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Automatic aged approval?

I can see the use of something to keep vandalism from being live the instant it occurs. Since most vandalism appears to be from anon IP's something that keeps anon IP edits from being live until reviewed or a period of time has elapsed without a review up or down. Based on the documentation, extension appears to only support only one level at which a revision isn't shown (0 = unapproved), but doing something like I'm suggesting would require having at least two and maybe more levels at which the default served version is not the most recent. Caerwine Caer’s whines 06:18, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

The foundation has already paid an external contractor to implement this software capability

This information from the "Not for us to decide" section above. How interesting, and appropriate! And how typical that nobody thought to mention this kernel of information before now. "We'd still love to hear your input, but it's a done deal, and it WILL go through," eh? I call again for 100% (not 90% or 80%) transparency on this issue. And does the editor who removed the notice of this discussion from the watchlist page within 1 hour of it going up think we've forgotten that s/he has removed it? Let's have a response on that, please. Badagnani 09:39, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

No, everything has been open. How do I know anything about this? I've been on Wikipedia for 4-5 months at most. I'm a freaking newbie, it's just that this is a volunteers project, and they don't have paid personal to inform all of us about what is happening. You need to look at Mediawiki.org, where software development is going on. Why this paranoia here, we are all here trying to build the World's Largest Free Encyclopedia. It is not a done deal, it is still up to us, how we are going to use these features!!! Please engage the discussion, what are your real objections to this??? --Merzul 09:46, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I removed this from Watchdetails because it's not an issue of importance to the whole of Wikipedia, at least at this point. *Nothing* we decide here is going to go through without board approval, and discussion by the board and on Wikipedia regarding the issue has been going on since 2001. Unfortunately, whether you like it or not, stable versions will be implemented on Wikipedia; it's just a matter of when and how. This is one of many proposed approaches to the implementation; all the previous approaches, such as Wikipedia:Stable versions, have failed. I personally find having this discussion here completely pointless, but others seem to disagree, so I suppose it will go on. Frankly, if you take issue with how the board conducts their business, contact the board or find elsewhere to contribute. Ranting here is not going to make any difference. AmiDaniel (talk) 09:56, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Is the Board also going to decree precise specifications on what users will have the power to flag a revision as stable, what criteria should apply for its use, how reverting fits in, etc.? If not, then there is nothing pointless about having discussion here. In addition, you seem to be under the impression that the people ostensibly making this decisions are completely unamenable to reason, i.e. nothing said to them will have any effect on their decision, which is absurd. Either good reasons why flagged revisions would be bad will be exposed here, or they will not be. If they are exposed and they are good, countervailing reasons, then any reasonable person must follow them. If there are no countervailing reasons why this would be a bad idea, then that will be the outcome of the discussion. Discussion here is no more pointless than discussion anywhere on Wikipedia. —Centrx→talk • 04:35, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

So, in plain English, you removed the notice because, as I'd guessed, "it IS going through whether you like it or not!", so it doesn't really matter who knows about it. How is that for contempt for other editors, even long-standing, productive and skilled ones--that you really do want them to have no say on this? And the "if you don't like the way we do things, get lost" is truly insulting, and I would like an apology for that. At least now we're getting a bit of truth; that's refreshing. What is strange is that half the people here are arguing that it is NOT a done deal, then admins such as yourself and insist that it IS a done deal. Which is it? Badagnani 09:59, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Please watch your tone. I'm not saying "if you don't like the way we do things, get lost," I'm saying that neither or nor anyone other than the board has power over how the board conducts their business. If you disagree with what they do, talk to them, not to us. I'm also not a big fan of the "stable versions" concept, feeling it defeats the idea of a wiki; however, this has been discussed ad nauseum, and, ultimately, the Board wants it, so it's going to happen. I don't feel much need to get upset about it. AmiDaniel (talk) 10:07, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I asked for an apology. I am a native English speaker/reader and know what "Frankly, if you take issue with how the board conducts their business, contact the board or find elsewhere to contribute" means when I read it. That was absolutely uncalled for and insulting. Badagnani 10:10, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I apologize that you have misinterpreted my statement -- it was not my intent to offend. I was simply attempting to voice that the board ultimately makes the decisions here; in cases where Wikipedians have been unable to come to agreement with the board, the typical result is that they leave. It's unfortunate, but it happens. AmiDaniel (talk) 10:23, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Also, please point discussion about watchdetails to MediaWiki talk:Watchdetails, not here. Please also read the discussion and hundreds of complaints about obnoxious notices in the watchdetails before making a contrary complaint of your own. AmiDaniel (talk) 10:08, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

The way I see it, the foundation has decided to implement these software capabilities, and this will be used on the English Wikipedia. However, the local implementation of the system, and processes associated with it, are very much open for the community to decide on. In the end, the Foundation has to deal with the social, legal, and PR consequences of vandalism, inaccuracy, and libel, so what tools they need for quality assurance is really their decision, but that doesn't mean this proposal about associated processes is a waste of time. --Merzul 10:32, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

The external contractor is Joerg Baach, he started the initial crude script, which I mainly finished. The only reason I did the vast majority of the coding is because I am more familiar with software and being an editor. Much input was and is still being taken by agents of the German Wikipedia via the mailing list, who were the ones who requested this feature. There are a number of configurable variables, enough to make software issues more of policy issues. Any request can be listed here. But please be sure read the software page before making requests. Voice-of-All 16:39, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think the programming job you have done in this is excellent. I was quite sceptical before I installed the extension and tried it. I think the solution you guys have come up with is excellent and I feel a bit sad that many people are quite hastily "opposing" without actually seeing it in action. For example, once an anon edits, he immediately sees that the edit has been received and that it is awaiting review. In fact, this adds a lot to our credibility, as now we are constantly reviewing stuff, but with this system people will actually notice that we verify information. In short, excellent programming, thank you for doing this, Merzul 18:05, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I concur with Merzul. (→zelzany - review) 18:34, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Comparisons to Citizendium

Citizendium uses something called stable version, but that's where the comparison ends. The fundamental and crucial different is that the review process on Citizendium is driven by Experts, whereas the implementation on Wikipedia will always remain democratic and egalitarian. There are many issues with this proposal that we need to discuss, but I hope we can keep Citizendium out of this discussion and focus on what we want for Wikipedia. --Merzul 10:05, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Removal of notice about this discussion

This edit is truly shocking. The broad community of editors deserve to know about this enormous potential change to our community and encyclopedia. Badagnani 10:06, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

This discussion has already been mentioned at WP:VPP, so it's hardly being kept hush-hush. The watch list notice was simply not appropriate at this stage. Perhaps this page could also be added to WP:CENT? →Ollie (talk • contribs) 11:16, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Y Done nadav (talk) 15:57, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Disagree in the most vehement terms. This is a HUGE change that is centered at the very heart of Wikipedia. As a mere editor, I often feel that changes like this are a "done deal" before they're presented to the community at large. Please reinstitute the notice as soon as possible. Raymond Arritt 15:48, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I concur with everyone here Raymond arritt and Badagnani. (→zelzany - review) 15:56, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Concur as well. Let's not allow this to slip in through the back door. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:03, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Back door? It is all over the place, this discussion is not a vote anyways, but to determine how to implement it. Sticking it on everyones watchlist is overkill. (H) 17:05, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Not really. Heck, I got here by looking at my watchlist! (→zelzany - review) 17:18, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I found it from my watchlist also. --R ParlateContribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 17:22, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with H, displaying on all watchlists is overkill, I saw this from WP:VPR GDonato (talk)
I only found it from the watchlist posts. I wouldn't know about it even now if it wasn't for that watchlist notice. Some of us are mostly interested in editing articles, and don't religiously follow all the policy pages, VP, etc. Raymond Arritt 03:42, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

This is a complicated issue, but in general I think this should be advertised more widely, and perhaps even with a message in MediaWiki:Watchdetails. This isn't exactly policy, but will change how things work. Two things need to be done before people are alerted about this.

  1. The rationale for this should be summarized succinctly on the proposal page.
  2. It must be made clear if the Foundation has any view on this issue. You need to make clear what is seen as a necessity, and specify what is open for discussion.

What I don't like about MediaWiki:Watchdetails is that people will immediately want to vote, but this is an early draft. On the other hand, if you don't alert people very soon, I'm sure there will be serious complaints about not having been informed about this "revolutionary" change. --Merzul 19:05, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the notices on watchlists go to waste - most of them are trivial things at the 'board' level that don't affect the average user at all. All important current discussions should be included, not just the 'Wikimania' stuff, which applies to almost nobody. A lot of editors don't visit the pages this sort of thing is listed on, so unless they stumble upon it by chance they are likely to never hear of it. Richard001 08:31, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Better Idea

How about having a "flag" at the right corner of each articles as a link to the "stable version"? And what I mean by "stable version" is one where several admins & users w/ edits higher than 1000 check all the facts through other sources and then confirm that the article is completely accurate. People will still be able to see the current version, but if they doubt about something, they can go to the flagged version as well. The difference between FA & flag would be that FA is superb in every way, but flag just indicates that all the facts are correct. This will allow us to compete with Citizendium & at the same time maintain Wikipedia principles. (Wikimachine 16:01, 3 June 2007 (UTC))

We could actually have WikiProject Flag Article Versions in which admins & users w/ edits higher than 1000 sign up & get assigned to a workgroup of about 5 users. And they get assigned or assign themselves an article to work on every week. (Wikimachine 16:03, 3 June 2007 (UTC))
Uhh, no. Please don't mention Citizendium. As Mets501 and I've said a bunch of times before, it's only for vandalism. (→zelzany - review) 16:04, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
My idea covers for vandalism too but it doesn't go through all that dispute about which is the stable version and mediation cases etc. This is a good idea, don't kill it. Hey, why not kill two birds with one stone? (Wikimachine 16:08, 3 June 2007 (UTC))
If I understand the concept of the extension correctly, a special tag can be done for this, in addition to other tags being proposed. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff)

How is the reviewer class supposed to work?

Does it mean that once a version is marked as "quality", no updates will be shown until someone comes by and marks it as "quality" again? Because that is a stupid, stupid, idea, if my understanding is right. -Amarkov moo! 16:13, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

No. Updates will show. But readers always have the option to check the flagged version. (Wikimachine 16:15, 3 June 2007 (UTC))
I think that's how it will work, but from what I've read, it will only be for things like legal problems and featured articles (so that they will still show as featured quality, even if newer versions aren't of featured status). I guess it may help with office protections. --R ParlateContribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 16:17, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Ooh, missed that part. I was thinking it meant that "very trusted" editors would be able to do a kinda super stable-flag. If it's only meant to be used due to problems like that, then I don't have an objection (although I don't think it would actually be useful in those cases). -Amarkov moo! 16:20, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
And it's only for high-profile pages that have high levels of vandalism. (→zelzany - review) 16:21, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
No, I don't think this is for high-profile pages. Editor is. Reviewer is not. Reviewer if for what I said above. Read the last question on the FAQ at the top. --R ParlateContribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 16:24, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
No. I was talking about the "better idea" right above. You guys are messing up my plan! (Wikimachine 16:37, 3 June 2007 (UTC))
Well, your "better idea" is essentially the option A) below. --Merzul 16:39, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Naysensually, the "better idea" gives guarantee that all the facts are correct. Option A is really marking the "stable version" of the article - which doesn't guarantee much. Plus people can make better judgments as a group than as individuals. Another thing is that there is no "class" distinction in the "better idea". The admins in each group can simply flag the article. (Wikimachine 16:46, 3 June 2007 (UTC))
That's true, but what I meant was that the software could easily support your idea, you just need to convince us that this "better idea" is indeed a better idea ;) --Merzul 16:51, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
It is. It avoids all the cons for the current flagged revision proposal. It also has some added pros. (Wikimachine 17:02, 3 June 2007 (UTC))

Major choice

I need to make this option clear. There is a variable that sets this to work either as follows:

  • A) The current revision is still the default but there is a "stable version" tab.
  • B) The stable version is the default version but there is a "current revision" tab.

Either way, logged-in users see the current version as the default, since they are more likely to know how things work around here, patrol changes, and take pages with a grain of salt (A lot viewers don't even know that things are not reviewed or anyone can edit, and may use it for some academic paper, only to find themselves in trouble). Logged-in users do not see "current" or "stable" tabs, only the tag to the latest reviewed version. Though, again, this settings itself is configurable.

I'd personally like B the best, and thats what .de Wikipedia wants, but maybe we may want to do it the other way. It would certainly satisfy a lot of the common objections to stable versions. Voice-of-All 16:33, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I like B also. --R ParlateContribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 16:34, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
No. I like A (the "better idea") better simply b/c it's a better idea. An incentive for editing for many people is the fact that they can see the changes immediately. Plus, I'd get confused & wouldn't be able to spot vandalism while patrolling articles as efficiently (or even while reading for no reason). (Wikimachine 16:40, 3 June 2007 (UTC))
YOU would not be confused! YOU would still see the latest revision! Only anons, see the stable, you are not an anon, you are Wikimachine :), so you will see the latest fresh vandalized version even if Jimbo himself has marked something as "super-quality". --Merzul 16:43, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, that still kills one bird, not two like mine. What is I'm not logged on? You've seen heavy opposition against elitism aspect of the current flagged revision plan. You'll never get that passed. So why not make a compromise to the "better idea"? (Wikimachine 16:49, 3 June 2007 (UTC))
Which version is crawled by a search indexer? And does this answer change or stay the same no matter if we go with A or B? --R ParlateContribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 16:59, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, for choice A, the indexer will probably pick up vandalism, like George Washington did for a long time. Voice-of-All 17:02, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Couldn't this be something people could choose on their own? This could certainly be part of the preferences settings. We're only talking about default settings here. Mangojuicetalk 19:44, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
No, because it only applies to IP's, who don't have preferences. Regular users will see the most current version. --R ParlateContribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 20:15, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
They can have preferences if they make an account. *shrugs* If they want the option, it's available. Mangojuicetalk 18:23, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
There is some work involved in flagging the revisions; probably just pushing one button but it's still some work (by the way, I think that a more detailed explanation of what the software patch does would be helpful). Option A will only benefit users which make a conscious decision to view the flagged revision. That is so little effect that I'm not so sure it's worth the effort. So, for me, the choice is between option B or not at all.
We're talking about well-developed articles here. Most edits to well-developed articles do not improve the article. This proposal will keep those edits out of the view of the general public. That is an advantage. A disadvantage is of course that good edits will also be hidden, until they're flagged. However, a well-developed article has more bad than good edits, so the disadvantage is of lesser importance.
There are some more advantages and disadvantages. Disadvantages are the work involved in flagging revisions, the possibility to lose potential contributors because their work is not displayed immediately, and the possibility of flagging wars (which seems far smaller to me than the possibility of edit wars because of the stigma attached to it). An advantage is that cleaning up vandalism becomes less urgent so editors need not spend so much time on it. To see what the overall balance of advantages and disadvantages is, let's go back to the basics. Our goal is to write and present a free encyclopaedia. We want this encyclopaedia to be as good as possible. Therefore, the argument in the previous paragraph is the most important. This convinces me that we should accept the basic idea of showing the flagged revision by default. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 20:37, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

We should go with A, for at least the time being. Even if we end up with B, starting with A will greatly help in the transitioning period and help get people used to the new system. -- Ned Scott 23:58, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I say A for 5 days or so, which would get everyone used to flagging revisions, and then switch permanently to B. —METS501 (talk) 03:04, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Much longer than 5 days, we're talking about a major change. I'm thinking at least a month, and then we can start looking into going to option B, using our time with A for feedback. -- Ned Scott 03:36, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
A thought.. would it be possible to set A or B on an individual article? -- Ned Scott 03:48, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I think B is vastly preferable, and I don't really foresee a major need for adjustment -- after all, this won't actually start working until people start using it anyway, it's not like someone's going to come and flag a million revisions overnight. However, as long as there is a clear timeline for the shift from A to B, I have no real objections to a transitional period. -- Visviva 04:05, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with Visviva on all accounts. Option A is better than nothing, because it still conveys the idea that Wikipedia has some form of QA process to the outside world. My father has a Ph.D. in a technical area, but he still doesn't get it... He thinks anyone can put any nonsense on Wikipedia, and he doesn't see that we actually review this stuff. However, the major drawback with option A is that it will make vandalism immediately visible, so it defeats many (but not all) of the benefits I see in this. --Merzul 09:05, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
  • A is a better option in the sense that if you really want to make sure you're reading something "vetted" (whatever definition of that we may use", it is always just one click away. It also makes the stable revision more citable. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 01:06, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Option B is absolutely critical to eliminating the incentive to vandalize and in projecting a more polished image (and reality) to the public. A is better than nothing, but doesn't offer as many advantages as most people will miss the stable tab among the 25 or so other tabs and links in the standard interface. But then again, we're not going to solve this here. - Taxman Talk 14:36, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I much prefer Option B, because nearly of our users simply want to read an unvandalised article. Option B is also far preferable to schoolteachers and parents who have legitimate concerns about their kids browsing Wikipedia - remember that teachers can get fired over this kind of mistake. Walkerma 20:37, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
  • B, for anonymous editors. This is the entire point of the Flagged Revisions-system; presenting ourselves to the public as reliable. Make the button for the "current version" prominent, though. SalaSkan 17:16, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
  • You could make the 'stable' tab as prominent as you liked and most readers will still miss it. In the long run, it has to be B or nothing. We could go with A for a while, but I think it would be better to introduce it to only some articles (preferably featured articles first, then working our way down as far as we want to go). Richard001 07:18, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
  • B all the way to Kalamazoo. The entire point of this extension is, as pointed out above enumerable times, is to make Wikipedia more reputable and safe. If A were to be the set option, who knows who will – in the vast majority of Wikipedia's readers – notice the "stable revision" tab, not to mention what kind of factual errors may be surfaced to the eyes of a person researching. > Animum < 23:41, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
  • B (or non logged in) or nothing -- otherwise it's extra work on editor's part for no gain in preventing the growth of vandalism, BLP problems, and other errors. Though I wouldn't object to a short (< 1 month) transition period where (A) is used. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 02:43, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
  • B. Wikipedia will be more reliable as a result, while still allowing anyone to edit articles. Ned Scott's reasoning is appealing. CloudNine 19:41, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
    Confusion: Ned Scott prefers minimal speed of change so prefers A initially and then consideration of B. (SEWilco 17:11, 24 June 2007 (UTC))
    Indeed. I meant mets501's reasoning. (the initial reply to Ned Scott) CloudNine 19:53, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
  • B. Present higher quality articles to search engines and anonymous users. Everyone can still edit and because they'll edit the current revision they will see if their change has already been done (just as now happens due to people editing while you're reading). Vandals won't be immediately rewarded. We are not in a hurry to present a final product so we do not need to hurry to show the latest revision. (SEWilco 17:11, 24 June 2007 (UTC))

With 13 voices in favor of B, 2 or 3 in favor of A (depending on if we want to count Ned Scott's as a definite pro-A or somewhat neutral), I am going to add to the main page that the consensus is for B. I like the discussion here, and the Pro-A camps have made good points, but I think that if the talk page is ever going to result in any changes to the front page, this discussion needs to go there. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 19:44, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Go for it; consensus definitely points towards B. CloudNine 19:53, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Whole point of this

So basically, the entire point of this is so that on high-traffic articles, when vandalized, the vandalism doesn't show up up to non-logged in users? Seems like too big of a hassle to me. The more important articles are much more likely to to be reverted by a watcher, bot, or visiting user, anyway, and at that, extremely quickly. What may be a bigger problem is less-seen articles, without lots of watchers; this won't be (as quickly) implemented on those articles. Reywas92TalkReview me 16:50, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

This isn't for low traffic articles. --R ParlateContribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 16:52, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

That's what I'm saying. Low-traffic articles get vandalism too. On high-traffic articles, vandalism is reverted quickly anyway and this isn't really needed. Reywas92TalkReview me 16:54, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

This seems fine to use on low-traffic articles, I just don't want it used on wildly underdeveloped articles. Voice-of-All 16:56, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
No. Have it on all articles. Determining which is busy and which is not will be too hard. (Wikimachine 16:58, 3 June 2007 (UTC))
I said don't use it on very underdeveloped pages, that's not the same as low-traffic/profile pages. As I said above, I'm OK with reviewing low-key pages. Voice-of-All 17:01, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I've been reading this entire page and waiting for someone to make this point. It's been said repeatedly that this is only for high-profile pages that have high levels of vandalism, but that won't prevent anyone who qualifies as editor from flagging a revision on a low traffic article. And maybe that editor conscientiously watchs that article and updates the flagged version when an anon makes a good edit, but then they leave the project for one reason or another. Who's going to be keeping an eye on Endothelial dysfunction or whatever and updating the flagged revision when some anon expands the article?
Personally, I like this whole flagged revisions idea. I would love to flag something like flatworm, which only gets vandalised once or twice daily, but sometimes takes four or five hours to get fixed. But I see the above situation as a potential problem. --Joelmills 20:43, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
It does not say the low-traffic pages cannot be reviewed. Voice-of-All 20:47, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I understand that, but how do we know someone is watching a low-traffic article with a flagged revision in order to update the stable version when an anon improves it? --Joelmills 21:04, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, this a good point. A list of articles sorted after the oldest unreviewed edit would be helpful. On the other hand, note that there are also great dangers when little watched articles are edited by anons, such as this. --Merzul 21:41, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I mentioned this above, but just in case anyone missed, we can easily categorize articles needing approval and make watchlists more open (for those willing to make them visible) so that we can find 'orphaned' articles and get them watched. Richard001 08:48, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

One important point of this: Haste

I will try to explain what I see as one important point. For me it's a bit deeper than just vandalism and even quality assurance, and has to do with alleviating the need to be so hasty, and hence make the life for us Wikipedians a lot more peaceful. There was recently a case when two Jesus related articles were heavily changed and this upset so many people whereas with stable versions such big changes can be made, discussed, and evaluated without the haste to quickly revert it. I recall scattering a "criticism of" section, and this big change requires some work and help from other editors. In this case, the discussion was very civil and productive, and stable versions would allow us to work on such matters without having to create sub-pages that only few people edit, but still the outside world don't have to see these inferior versions until it is done. I'm not convinced that these benefits should be abandoned because POV-pushers can abuse this to engage in revision-wars. --Merzul 17:19, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Well then they won't get this tool to play around with. (→zelzany - review) 21:05, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Admin to start flagging?

I'm not sure if I've read right, but I remember seeing on this page that an admin must set a page to use flagged revisions (i.e. flagged revisions can only be done on a page an admin has set to flagged revisions on). --R ParlateContribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 20:59, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

No, no admins are needed to review pages (or have them override). Voice-of-All 21:33, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I think he's asking how you mark a page that needs to be monitored by this system. Can only admins do that? —METS501 (talk) 01:24, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
You don't flag pages as "suspicious", "needing review" or anything (though that is bug 1189). Voice-of-All 03:50, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

My thoughts

I like this, and look forward to it. A couple of suggestions:

  1. Criterion #2- 500 edits. I would prefer this to be x mainspace edits since this only concerns article writing.
  2. Reviewer rights could be given to users who currently determine FAs and "quality" could be granted to FAs at the time of promotion with "stable" being able to allow further article development. GDonato (talk) 21:50, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
    Mainspace edits would be better, but that is not efficient to check. Voice-of-All 23:26, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
    Sure it is! There's an option in the contributions page. See [1] for instance. Mangojuicetalk 18:25, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
    He means to check automatically in the software. —Centrx→talk • 17:16, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't like the Reviewer "class" or "rights" idea. Just too many people with too many different ways of reviewing will cause too much confusion. If you were to create some sort of WikiProject or FA-like process where group of people review an article & then put a flag on the article that links the readers to the "reviewed" version, then (see "Better idea" above):
  1. Gets rid of discrimination & elitism against anon users & also new users--> doesn't violate WP good faith.
  2. Gets rid of the need for mediation Rfc etc on which is the stable version. Yes, the same could apply in the status quo. However, in naming disputes etc. (i.e. Dokdo) the participants might try to use the flagged revision as a final step to override consensus, etc.
  3. Allows WP articles that are in good shape to offer readers cover for degradation/vandalism/etc & actually some form of reliability (since editors confirm that all facts are accurate). This will help Wikipedia's reputation & ruin Citizendium's plan to overtake Wikipedia. (Wikimachine 02:50, 4 June 2007 (UTC))
Citizendium will never "overtake" Wikipedia, and this proposal is unnecessary. Striving to emulate Citizendium is not a good idea. Badagnani 18:28, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
This idea has existed long before Citizendium. -- Ned Scott 18:48, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
I want to apologize to Badagnani that some of my replies above are perhaps a bit dismissive of his concerns. In the end, I am actually interest in understanding why people object to this idea. I would prefer leaving Citizendium aside, I'm not a fan of Citizendium, and I don't know much about their Approved Versions, so if we ignore that this resembles their system, why is this idea contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia? I honestly don't understand many of the objections, and I really would like to understand them. Many apologies if I'm a bit thick, I will try to listen, so could you elaborate on your reasons for objecting to this idea? Sincerely, Merzul 19:49, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, so much better now. I don't think that Citizendium existed long before this policy was proposed and that you don't want to emulate Citizendium, etc. matter here. Just hit two birds with one stone - one of the birds being an if-scenario. (Wikimachine 20:22, 4 June 2007 (UTC))
Wikimachine, note that "reviewer" right doesn't necessarily mean this person is given free and ultimate authority to review as he pleases. We could make policy that reviewers have the same role that bureaucrats have in a RfAs, or the closing admin in a AfD, namely they will have to interpret consensus in some review process and then mark a revision as quality based on their interpretation of consensus. I think this is basically what you want, isn't it? --Merzul 20:34, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Since none of you were willing to go to bat against the admin who removed notice of this extremely important discussion from the watchlist within one hour of its posting (ensuring that the general population of editors will have no idea that this is coming), I'm not certain any of you trying to push this terrible proposal through are truly interested in meaningful dialogue here. The entire proposal (and all variations thereof) is indicative of the same cliquish mentality and trend toward concentration of power and control (which will inevitably be abused, as we see almost daily by admins) that are typical of Citizendium, but antithetical to our goals and mission. I've already stated clearly that vandalism is not a problem, as editors like me revert it instantly (and recommend blocks for repeat offenders). Badagnani 16:57, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Dear Badagnani, if I'm reluctant to get involved in admin disputes, it doesn't necessarily mean that I support it. If I'm not rebelling against them, it doesn't mean I'm part of them. I've been on Wikipedia for some time now to know that there are some groups of admins that let's say are good friends, but no single group is the one cabal that rules them all! Also, there are many different kinds of admins, and some are very humble and polite. Voice of All has constantly proposed new variations and options for us to decide on. You know it might be the case that I just happen to genuinely like this idea, and so I really would want to know why you don't like it. --Merzul 17:24, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your commentary, but asking me to restate my position again? How many times can I rephrase the fact that we simply are not in need (to put it mildly) of concentration of power and control of content any more than we already have. It's an added level of bureaucracy that is unnecessary at best, and can and will be abused at worst. It is not egalitarian and editors who refuse to participate in this new system will be effectively shut out. We don't need this and I object strenuously for these reasons. Badagnani 17:30, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for summarizing your position. It seems our different assessment begins from how well we consider the current system is working, and also my attitude that just because something works, it doesn't mean it couldn't be any better. Personally, I think even one minute of vandalism is a problem, let alone something like a week of undetected copyright violation. In any case, your opposition clearly shows that this proposal requires a much better "rationale" section explaining why this is not just an added layer of bureaucracy. --Merzul 17:49, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
It isn't heartening that you selected only one of my objections for further study, when the others are of equal, if not greater concern. Badagnani 17:57, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, I think that's where our disagreement begins, and whether this is an "added layer of bureaucracy" depends on whether this is solving a problem or not. Now, about concentration of power and content control, how is this different from our current rejecting of nonsense added to pages by various anons and new contributors who don't know our content policies yet? These rights will be given liberally to anyone trusted not to be a blatant vandal, what part of the process do you find non-egalitarian? --Merzul 18:19, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Templates and images

One drawback of the system is that templates and images will not automatically update in the reviewed versions of articles in which they are (trans/in)cluded. Aaron notes that this could perhaps be addressed with an automatic updating feature. See mw:Extension_talk:FlaggedRevs#Templates_and_images. Λυδαcιτγ 03:30, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

It would require an INDEX addition to two of the tables, which can be a pain to do retroactively, so we may want to think about whether we want to do this now. I may add the INDEX just in case, but probably not, as that may generate useless overhead if not used. The idea would be that you review a template in a way that update all reviewed revisions using it.Voice-of-All 03:41, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Could you explain a little more how that works? What if the template is deleted - will it still appear? That would make it much harder to do CfD, for example, if the category is populated by a template. Unless the flagged version doesn't count for populating categories. Anyway, is there documentation anywhere, or code released? — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:09, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for my confusion this morning. The code in FlaggedRevsPage.body.php is mostly self-explanatory. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:12, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is (probably) not a bureaucracy ... yet

My honest (i.e., lacking a thick coat of sugar) evaluation of this proposal is that it amounts to little more than featuritis that creates a massive extra layer of bureaucracy, the benefits of which will be insignificant in comparison with its costs (in terms of time and instruction creep). However, as its adoption seems to be a foregone conclusion, I'll address more practical points which may yield a more positive cost-benefit ratio:

Wikipedia currently has over 1.8 million articles ... is it really the goal of this proposal to flag every single page and to do so dozens of times a day for high-traffic articles? To me, that seems like ... a suboptimal use of available resources, shall we say, especially if people review and flag pages on subjects that they know little about or review/flag pages without checking every single statement against every single reference. Doing the former in the absence of the latter seems pointless as an article that is free of obvious vandalism may still be non-neutral and original research. One of the comments above mentioned that this idea is not intended for low-traffic pages ... so, could we please restrict its application only to FAs (and maybe GAs)?

Also, what would people think about restricting "editor rights" – a misleading term since anyone has the right to edit Wikipedia – to people who have received some affirmation that the community trusts them: i.e., administrators and bureaucrats. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 19:27, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I.e.: emulating Citizendium. Badagnani 19:28, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
As I told you above, this idea has existed long before Citizendium. -- Ned Scott 19:32, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't think he is actually reading the proposal, looked into the background of it, or even read Citizendium's policy. Voice-of-All 19:33, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Restricting rights would probably be a bit more bureaucratic though. Voice-of-All 19:29, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
In principle, maybe. In practice, probably not. In practice, not restricting rights would require monitoring editors flagging behaviour in order to take away the rights from users that flag as "stable" inappropriate revisions (either deliberately or due to carelessness). We would have to do that in addition to current vandalism patrols. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 19:35, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
The autopromote requirements seem fine. Voice-of-All 19:42, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Would you mind briefly stating why you disagree that the autopromote requirements would create additional work? Thanks, Black Falcon (Talk) 19:46, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
500 edits, 60 days, emailconfirmed or such will filter out any vandals, with the exception of the few really, really, really determined ones. Then again, vandals that determined would just sock and then request Editor status anyway (and probably get it) if we had to manually grant it to users always. I'd treat bad Editors just like any editor that has been here for a good while; you assume good faith, and if something bad happens you deal with it. I just can't image a real problem with Editors slipping through the cracks, not much more so than users or admins that have gone rouge before (Karmafist, FSP, and such). Voice-of-All 19:51, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, my concern is not so much blatant vandals, who are usually blocked within the span of having made 5-10 edits, but rather POV pushers and the like. As for the issue of whether Editors are more likely to slip through the cracks than admins ... giving some admin status involves significantly more scrutiny than (as I understand it) giving them Editor status. It's also a matter of scale ... we have about 1250 admins, but a significantly higher number of regular users. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 20:51, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
We have lots of options for this, and I would not object to just starting out with only GAs and FAs. There are a lot of different ways that we can use this tool. -- Ned Scott 19:39, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

But the basic idea is that we don't want bureaucratic overhead! The aim is for a rather no-hassle quick way to flag revisions that aren't vandalized. I mean who said we have to review all articles, in fact VoA is strictly discouraging its use on underdeveloped pages. It should probably only be used if there is consensus on the talk page of an article that people want to flag stable versions. In the case of high traffic articles, yes, every other edit might be flagged as stable, but what is the problem with that? I mean what is the difference between checking an edit and reverting it, or checking an edit an confirming it? How is this more work than we currently do? --Merzul 19:37, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Agree. The well developed high-traffic articles would probably only need to be tagged occasionally, since they are very stable. Articles that are under heavy development wouldn't need to be tagged at all. I don't beleive the proposal is to have every article tagged - only as desired. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:38, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. Because so much can be flagged so quickly, this would likely be one of those self-correcting things that happen with Wikipedia anyways, due to how many people edit. -- Ned Scott 19:39, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Also, the more high profile, the more people that are around to review it. Voice-of-All 19:43, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Merzul (and also Ned Scott), that's one of the very things that bothers me ... there is no quick no-hassle way to make sure that an article isn't vandalised or inappropriate as not all vandalism consists of ";das8d7ra8e744p8^)#&BS". We shouldn't present our articles as "stable" or as having some sort of "stamp of approval" unless it has actually gone through a rigorous process of fact-checking and validation for conformance with all relevant policies. As for high-traffic articles, I don't think a person should flag a revision as "stable" unless they've checked the entirety of the text and not merely any changes since the last review, which may or may not be accurate. That, you must admit, is a lot more work. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 19:44, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, this is very interesting. I see the "stable" versions as very light-weight kind of fact-checking, and "quality" revisions would be the proper thing. So in the future, an article can be marked as "quality" after it makes FA status, and when improvements are made and people think it has been improved, larger community feedback is sought in a FA review or something. This would mean a lot of work, but I think this kind of reviewing and an increased focus on fact-checking is not a Bad Thing. Now, the problem with this no-hassle approach to "stable" versions, that is, to flag an article when it contains no obvious vandalism. You raise a very valid point, I can see the danger in that. If we start touting that we now have "stable" versions, and people find faults in them, we won't exactly gain much credibility... This is indeed something we need to think about. --Merzul 20:21, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
I think you've hit the nail on the head. It's not that I don't like the idea of validating articles (i.e., marking them as "quality"), but rather that I don't see a point to any half-measures. Either we should strive for full validation (i.e., checking the accuracy and neutrality of each statement in an article) or we should save our time and continue as we are. If it is the former, I'd definitely prefer to restrict "validator rights" to a group smaller than all editors with 60 days and 500 edits. My concern is that the "light-weight" checking involved with tagging articles as "stable" could be detrimental (in terms of time consumed and by being misleading). When we edit articles, we essentially endorse the changes we make, but we do not endorse the entire text of the article (unless the entire text was written by us). To tag an article as "stable" constitutes an endorsement of the text in entirety. I think that is a responsibility not to be taken lightly. We could, of course, add disclaimers about the different levels of endorsement--stable, quality, and so on--but I doubt that would help our reputation. Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 21:10, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
This essentially already occurs when WikiProjects tag articles for quality on the assessment scale. This change only adds software features that are already emulated by abusing MediaWiki's category system, so there's not much change, actually. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 00:53, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I think there is a difference. WikiProject assessments are for the benefit of editors only; this proposal seems to involve presenting supposedly approved or reviewed versions to readers. Also, a WikiProject assessment can be done in a matter of seconds – it is an approximate evaluation of the overall state of an article. This proposal seems to require making claims that the content of a given version of an article is accurate (and supposedly also neutral). -- Black Falcon (Talk) 04:56, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
As far as I heard, the extension has a capability beyond just stable revisions, which allows it to store different kinds of metadata. The devs of the extension can confirm or clarify that. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 05:06, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but this proposal isn't about the Extension, which should be discussed on MediaWiki.org, or on some issue tracker. This proposal is about one simple use of that extension to counter vandalism and perhaps have some light-weight quality checking. --Merzul 19:12, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Huh? The extension can be used to add things, and this proposal can be amended, so I'm afraid I don't really follow you there. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 20:02, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Ok, that's true, but we have simultaneously people essentially voting support/oppose up there, and they are doing so based on the specific of this particular proposal, except of course if someone is opposed to any form of revision flagging. --Merzul 21:21, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Why email confirmed?

I don't see the reason for restricting this to users with a confirmed email. What's the rationale? --- RockMFR 00:44, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I assume the idea with confirmed e-mail would be to add some extra amount of trouble for people who create many "vandal" accounts. However, if the requirements are at 500 edits and 2 months, isn't this confirmed e-mail a bit redundant? --Merzul 01:01, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't think it would be that hard to create a bot that does 500 low-key edits, i.e. a vandal, and I do not see the downside of the confirmed e-mail. —Centrx→talk • 04:40, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Confirming an email takes hardly any work at all, whether done by a human or a bot. It's a silly requirement that is not related to editing. --- RockMFR 06:20, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
If they were required to be unique e-mail addresses, then it would require non-trivial work. What disadvantage is there in requiring confirmed e-mail anyway? —Centrx→talk • 16:43, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Oh no, don't start with that kind of logic :) It doesn't matter what disadvantages there are, if any. What advantages are there? --- RockMFR 19:24, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
It makes it harder to make automated spell checker accounts, though I doubt many vandals would try that...but still. Voice-of-All 19:28, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
The logic is: It does make it harder, and there are no disadvantages. —Centrx→talk • 19:45, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. I dislike the e-mail requirement as well. Couldn't we substitute another requirement? Cedars 08:41, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Here's a rather radical idea, let's drop this auto-promotion completely. I assume that most people find at least one admin that they like within 2 months. The admins here are sufficiently diverse that even people who are in serious dispute with some admins still typically find some admins that they get along with. Hence, it shouldn't be too difficult to get these rights. And if a user can't find a single admin willing to grant them, then I doubt that person is ready for this responsibility. --Merzul 09:56, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
You're assuming that editors know about admins and go to the trouble of wading through fellow editor's User pages to find where they mention they are admins. Edits by admins are the same as those of other editors, unless they somehow indicate an action is being done under the authority of the King. (SEWilco 16:36, 25 June 2007 (UTC))
What's the ratio of Users to Admins, and thus the average number of users which each admin is to have in their flock? (SEWilco 16:36, 25 June 2007 (UTC))

Who does it?

So, who grants the privileges? Has an interface for that been written? Or will we somehow have to hack into Special:Userrights to be able to set the bits? Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 01:09, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

"Editor" rights can be granted by sysops, "Reviewer" rights can be granted by bureaucrats. This is done though the Special:Makevalidate interface. Editor rights are also set up to be granted automatically to users, but the specific details of this for the enwiki implementation have not been worked out. AmiDaniel (talk) 01:18, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
So, both sysops and bureaucrats would access the Special:Makevalidate page? As for the automatic editor rights, how about creating a new permission, and have it be processed similar to autoconfirmed, just with a different variable ($wgEditorAge instead of $wgAutoconfirmAge, or something like that)? Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 01:21, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I think you are referring to $wgFlaggedRevsAutopromote (check the extension page on Mediawiki for all the variables), which can be based on days, edits, and confirmed email. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 02:04, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
You can ask amidaniel to make you a sysop on his testwiki (link at the top of the page), which has the extension installed. Then you can try it out yourself. Prodego talk 03:37, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I have the extension installed on my own test wiki (and I already sent a patch to VoiceOfAll), so that's not really the problem. I'm asking more about the things that will have to be added to the site configuration, as well as how things like the "featured" sub-tag can be modified or added. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 20:01, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I suppose the question then becomes whether we should be adding a new user level for every extension that requires a certain number of edits, or has some other requirement. What will this be, super-auto-confirmed? And what if another extension needs something close, but not exactly the smae? Obviously we should try to keep these extensions as self contained as possible, so I doubt we need to add another automatic level. Prodego talk 01:57, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Patrolled

It appears the extension also has an option to tag revisions as simply "patrolled", meaning they aren't vandalised, although may still be unstable. Why isn't this included in the proposed policy? It seems to be the most useful feature. People are talking about this policy being all about vandalism, but the "stable" tag isn't designed to mark un-vandalised revisions, it's designed for actually stable revisions. There is a big difference between an un-vandalised page and a stable page. --Tango 14:00, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's an old feature of MediaWiki that's disabled here for whatever reason. -Amarkov moo! 14:06, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
In that case, we should discuss turning that feature back on before worrying about adding new features. It seems people are wanted to use stable versions to do the job of patrolled revisions, which seems pointless when we have patrolled revisions available to do exactly that job. --Tango 14:09, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Patrolled edits flag recent changes, so RC patrollers know what to check. Once the edit is old enough (out of RC), the flag falls of the RC entry. It is strictly to aid for RC patrol, not to flag pages in any way. It was disabled because only sysops could mark things as patrol, so RC was flooded with unpatrolled edits with ! marks at Special:Recentchanges, making it useless. The extension just gives Editors patrol rights if rcpatrol is enabled. With Editors being a much larger user base, perhaps it may become feasible again. Voice-of-All 14:29, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
It would appear that using patrolled status to determine what revision to show automatically with a link to the stable version would be the best option. Many people have pointed out that there are far too many articles for us to go through a mark stable versions of all of them, however with patrolled edits it would be quite easy to ensure that a recent non-vandalism edit of almost every article is marked (since any edit by an editor would be automatically marked as patrolled, it would require very little actual work) and thus we can avoid showing vandalism to the public, which is the apparent aim. Only showing stable versions to the public is an unachievable goal at this point, so let's set our targets a little lower. --Tango 14:45, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't know what you mean by "using patrolled status to determine what revision to show". Patrolled edits do not work in a way that would allow for that. The software doesn't really work that way at all. Voice-of-All 15:27, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
What about simply using a more modest name instead of "stable". I've been thinking in terms of "sighted", "patrolled", and sorry for being a geek but perhaps "beta", so that we under-promise and over-deliver, and people don't think that by stable we actually mean it is actually going to be stable in any way ;) --Merzul 15:52, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
MediaWiki: messages can just be customized. Voice-of-All 16:38, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Frankly, and I do not mean to be rude, the devotion of any time to a debate about such trivial semantics is a complete and utter waste. "Stable" is a term that's been used for quite some time in reference to this, and while it may not perfect, people know what is meant. "Patrolled" is ambiguous due to the MediaWiki patrolled edits feature, and "sighted" is ambiguous as it is also a quality-rating in the FlaggedRevs extension. I don't see any reason to even discuss changing it at this point, but if it's to change, let's save it for a day when we have free time to spare. AmiDaniel (talk) 18:17, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
The thing is, people aren't talking about using this for marking stable version, they are talking about using it for marking unvandalised versions - there is a big difference between the two. "Stable" should be used to describe stable version - that is, version which are not disputed and are not undergoing major changes. We need another word to describe edits which have been checked for vandalism - "patrolled" seems best to me. If the patrolled edits code that exists doesn't do what we want, it can always be changed, or replaced. How about simply adding a "patrolled" tag to this extension, in addition to the "stable" and "quality" tags? Make it so all edits by "editors" are automatically tagged as patrolled, give edits that haven't been tagged as patrolled the red exclamation mark in RC (and turn off the existing patrolled edits code), and only show patrolled edits to anon users. We can then take our time with determining stable articles. --Tango 18:28, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Daniel, a word can paint a thousand pictures. If someone tags an article as "stable", and this happened to contain a serious BLP violation, then people will accuse us of having supported the libel. What we call "quality" is better described as "stable", and what we call "stable" is more like just "vandalism free". It is important for the public perception that people don't get the wrong impression I think... --Merzul 18:36, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, again, these messages can be changed on the Wiki interface, via the MediaWiki namespace. E.g., you can change "quality" for "assessment", and "stable" for "unvandalized" or anything else without any problems. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 19:58, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Notice

Do we have to have pages that haven't been reviewed, displaying [2] that they haven't been reviewed? --R ParlateContribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 20:31, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

When I tried to click on the link provided, a window popped up prompting me to enter a username and password, though I've never created one at the German wikimedia site so I don't see how I'm supposed to see it...--十八 22:17, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I've restored the old link to AmiDaniel's site. Voice-of-All 22:28, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I've changed the link to show what I meant. --R ParlateContribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 22:51, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

The word 'stable'

This is the wrong picture.
This is the wrong picture.

The reason I dislike the word "stable versions" is because I think it might be painting the wrong picture in people's minds. I think the Citizendium comparisons are entirely due to this misconception. With a stable version, you branch off from the trunk, and keep a separate stable release tree.

Some of the linked essays, e.g. Wikipedia:Static version, is about such a model, but Flagged Revisions seems to maintains a completely linear non-forking model. I think this is much better, and I would maybe even oppose the idea as described in that essay, especially the statement "The stable version could be maintained by a selected subset of Wikipedia editors". It sounds like Badagnani's worst nightmare.

For many people this proposal might be their first introduction to this Flagged Revision idea, or perhaps re-introduction since they opposed WP:STABLE, and first impressions are important. The system could later use the terms "stable" and "quality" but for this proposal now, I will remove any reference to the word stable. --Merzul 03:14, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm...well the UI still uses 'stable', but it can all just be overridden with MediaWiki: messages, so I guess that's not a problem. Voice-of-All 04:02, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
It would be good to note that we have the option of what to call this flag. I can see how calling it "stable" can give the wrong / undesired image. -- Ned Scott 05:18, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
How about just calling it a "vandalism-free" version? That doesn't really paint any picture that it's factually accurate, neutral, etc., just that it hasn't been replaced with a full-screen picture of a penis or "jon was here lololol". No rigorous review is necessary to say that a given edit wasn't blatant vandalism, RC patrol does that all day long and generally in seconds. We can then save the more rigorous review for the revisions marked as "stable" or "quality". (I wouldn't be opposed to using both of those categories in addition. "Vandalism-free" just means the version hasn't been vandalized, "stable" means that it's had its facts checked against references, has references cited for all major facts, and is relatively NPOV, and "quality" would be the version of an article which has been passed by the full, rigorous FA process.) However, just the two classifications ("vandalism-free" and "quality") would work too, but it might be nice to have some type of intermediate. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:25, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

So the word stable is more disliked than I thought (would have been nice if some concern about the use of the word could have been brought up some time since 2001, when the word "stable" was first used to describe this feature); however, I am not a fan of limiting terminology such as "vandalism-free," especially since the FlaggedRevs' intended usage is not really vandalism, but rather ensuring stability and factual accuracy of articles. Why not simply call them "reviewed by an experienced editor" or "reviewed" versions. The extension already supports the addition of more detailed quality information such as vandalism-free, as well as indicators of readability and accuracy. As such, the word "reviewed" leaves it broad enough to avoid contradiction. In any case, I truly don't think that anyone is going to give a damn what it's called, and if the only incentive for calling it something other than "stable" is to avoid looking like Wikipedia:Stable versions, then that's just silly. In any case, stable versions is what this proposed functionality has been referred to as for 6 years now, and if we go before the Board with our Purple Hippo Version proposal, no one's going to know what we're talking about. I would favor the clarity of the term "Stable," established through its consistent usage for quite some time, over any other such semantic changes at this point. AmiDaniel (talk) 18:01, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Comment - Why does everyone give a different story? You say this proposed feature is not intended to fight vandalism but instead to provide "factual accuracy of articles," but that is not how it has been presented from the very start of this discussion. It was presented as a way to not allow vandalism to appear to the public. This constant change of the stated rationale is disturbing. Badagnani 18:07, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
    Or... this constant change of rationale is indicative of the different opinions of the people who are discussing this. I support a two-level approach, and well I've been overly bold and so currently the proposal reflects what I think, that is, one very light-weight layer that is essentially about vandalism and BLP concerns, and one "quality" level, where a real review process is involved. --Merzul 18:19, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - No sale. We already have the latter through the FA, GA, and WikiProject processes, among others. No need to shut any editors out from the outset, as the implementation of this proposed feature will do. Does this have anything to do with turning WP into a fixed "end product" that can be sold? It certainly sounds that way. If not, our current system works quite well. Badagnani 18:26, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
    • The WikiProject processes would benefit greatly from this. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 18:38, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
    • The current system does not work well. From an editor's viewpoint, perhaps, but most usage of WP is by readers, mostly readers unfamiliar with much about WP and disinclined to spend time learning about WP rather the subject of immediate interest. For the readers, WP not infrequently presents vandalized articles under the current system. Something like flagged revisions is badly needed. -R. S. Shaw 19:05, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

On the naming, I also think 'stable versions' is not the term to use. Flagged revisions is supporting two goals, so the split characterization is best. For the anti-vandal functions I sort of like 'skimmed versions', but 'sighted versions' is OK, perhaps especially because it is a novel usage and so doesn't carry baggage like 'stable' does. For the version with higher quality review, I prefer 'reviewed version' rather than 'quality versions', as the latter seems to imply too much about process and reliability. -R. S. Shaw 19:05, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Nice photo! :) So this is now being presented as a kind of "WikiProject Wikipedia" (i.e. a WikiProject for monitoring the entirety of Wikipedia, in an exclusive/exclusionist manner)? I do find the comments above to be quite unfriendly toward Wikipedia users whom the editors find to somehow ignorant of the "true" goals and meaning of WP. That's a dangerous POV, because it also allows the exclusion of long-time editors who may believe differently. Badagnani 20:38, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I believe the Windows people have a concept of a "last known good" startup configuration. Later configuration setups are not necessarily bad, but this is the last one known not to have a problem (in theory, anyway, since this is Windows). This seems to be the concept that "stable" represents in this sort of setup. I agree that "stable" may have a slightly over-strong connotation to endusers, but it should be possible to come up with a short yet accurate term that works. - David Oberst 22:29, 6 June 2007 (UTC)


I haven't read all of the messages above, but one caught my eye.. "Reviewed version". I think that's our winner. -- Ned Scott 22:39, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Uh, it gives a connotation that it has been peer reviewed. I'd still like "assessed" more, because it doesn't indicate anything but that someone looked at it and said "it looks ok". Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 22:41, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Really? It sounded rather ominous to me. -- Ned Scott 23:03, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Wait, not ominous.. what's the word I'm looking for.. -- Ned Scott 23:05, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, yes, I didn't think of peer reviews--I still don't think the term would be particularly ambiguous, but I could see how this may cause some confusion. "Assessed" works by me--let me go grab a thesaurus ... :D. AmiDaniel (talk) 02:28, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the "terra firma" version, with later revisions in the "here be dragons" area? I have a wonderful mental image of a Dr. Seuss cartoon running "Quick, Jimbo, the Flit", so perhaps we could come up with some sort of pesticide-based terminology? In actual fact, I suspect AmiDaniel is correct above, and if "stable" is used the general public will have no serious problem with Wikipedia's usage (as opposed to those existing editors who seem to hate the concept, no matter what the name).

As an serious suggestion, how about the "presentation" version. It reflects the actual function (it is the version presented to the public), and makes no implications of stability, approval, etc. - David Oberst 23:09, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I like that one. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 04:21, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I like it too. It seems a bit wordy, though. How about the display version? -- Avenue 10:13, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

A few other options

Alright, I went and grabbed a thesaurus. Let's try some of these on for size:

  • Evaluated version
  • Established version
  • Inspected version
  • Reliable version
  • Trustworthy version
  • Approved version
  • Acceptable version
  • Ample version
  • Satisfactory version
  • Continent version
  • Selected version

Anyone like any of those? AmiDaniel (talk) 02:38, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

"Constable-approved version" might work too. Badagnani 02:39, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I see that the editor who just blanked my comment is the very same admin that removed notice of this very discussion from the "WatchDetails" page (users' watchlists). I won't blank your comments, so please do not blank mine. I still request that you restore notice of this discussion to "WatchDetails" (although I also see that, above, you opine that this discussion itself is entirely moot). I obviously don't agree with that either. Badagnani 02:59, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) AmiDaniel, If the plan is still to do fleeting checks for blatant vandalism, then all of those are problematic (at least in my view). They all imply some kind of accuracy or some kind of formal, reliable review process that simply does not exist. Thus, they are all misleading to a certain extent. We should not apply such confidence-inspiring words to versions which have seen at most five minutes of attention from one editor. Seraphimblade's suggestion of "vandalism free" appeals to me, but we need to keep in mind that not all vandalism takes the form of "##@$WIKIPEDA SUKZ!! LOLZ#*U#" A lot of vandalism is much more subtle (e.g., changing a single number of adding/removing one word to change the entire meaning of a sentence). -- Black Falcon (Talk) 03:02, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

This is particularly the case with articles that are controversial between ethnic groups, such as regarding Armenian-Turkish relations or the Sino-Vietnamese War. The blatantly POV-motivated edits we sometimes see are most likely not viewed by the editors as vandalism, but as a "correction" or presenting of the "true facts" as the editor believes s/he knows them. In the case of Sino-Vietnamese War, we've had the situation where figures regarding casualties, etc. were altered daily, with no real way to check, because both the Vietnamese and PRC governments both have their own (wildly different) official stories. So whoever flags must first help moderate and create a mediated version that acknowledges the controversy between the two "official stories." This would probably take expertise, or at least some serious, lengthy effort on the part of a moderator who takes the time to learn about the subject along the way. That's usually what the WikiProjects are good for. Badagnani 03:07, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I absolutely agree with this. I would oppose the idea that some clueless member of some WikiProject Wikipedia would just flag revision without consulting the regular contributors. This is why I would like to see this integrated with our FA process, and in cases where there are active subject-specific WikiProjects with well-established A-class reviews. The role of an editorial team would be to facilitate the process, not have the right to arbitrarily pick a revision based on their own POV. The point is that when going through a FAC, the article has received approval from both sides of a conflict as well as outside commentators, fact-checking and copy-editing people, surely a great achievement. We should re-consider how articles develop from there. As far as I understand, Black Falcon support this idea, but doesn't like using this system for light-weight reviews, or what we have called "vandalism and BLP concerns". --Merzul 11:45, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Generally, I think this Flagged Revisions idea is a good one. One major problem we have is that once an article (particularly a popular or controversial one) attains a certain level - GA or FA - and is no longer being actively worked on by clueful people, the article tends to degenerate very quickly into outright crapness through the additions of the clueless. Additionally, this should help avoid some of the flak we periodically cop over vandalized BLPs.

My one qualm, which I removed and no one reverted, is this autoconfirm process. Human judgment is needed here. Some people who meet the standard suggested are clueful, and others are not. Admin judgment is needed. Moreschi Talk 13:33, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Using WikiProjects to flag article versions

I've always been a great fan of the WikiProjects - I think often these provide a small community of subject-experts who know one another as well as the articles in their field. People in a project know the trusted editors in their area. Also, someone from the Zoroastrianism project will care a lot more about an article like Ahura Mazda than most of us, and that person could more easily distinguish a mickey-take from a constructive edit. These project members are the people who are currently patrolling the articles, assessing them for quality and fixing them up for GA or FA. For projects that have an assessment task force, this new task would be a natural part of their work. I therefore propose that the flagging system be set up to work through the WikiProjects. NB: I'm not saying that people from outside a project would be unable to flag an article - merely that we should set up a system for flagging articles within the WikiProjects themselves. Walkerma 03:13, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm confused as to what you're proposing. Established editors can flag stable versions anyway, and no change to the coding is necessary to allow discussion on whether a particular version should be flagged or not. -Amarkov moo! 03:15, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm saying that we should not have a disorganised system, where any old editor is asked to flag any old article when they can get around to it. Instead we have a system where people with an interest in flagging certain articles are encouraged to do so. I'm not talking about software, more about how the community will run it. I think the SSBA assessment scheme has only reached 650,000 articles because it is done through the projects. This flagging scheme needs to be done in a similar way, IMHO. Walkerma 03:25, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I was under the impression that this would be used to help prevent vandalism and edit wars from making the article unstable. You seem to be thinking that it will mark versions which meet some quality standard, which I'm not sure I like. -Amarkov moo! 03:41, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
It is essentially what the Version 1.0 Editorial Team has been doing for more than a year now with the assessment tables, only that doing it through a special page would allow queries to the database through MediaWiki, which would make the tables more dynamic, and mitigate some of the scale problems the current system has. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 04:02, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
It is? I think I'm not understanding what everyone else is saying, or something. Because stable versions isn't really anything like assessing articles, intrinsically. -Amarkov moo! 04:07, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
So the reason for this proposal is to assist with the creation of the for-profit CD-ROM version of Wikipedia (ensuring that the articles included therein are "good enough"? I asked if that were the case earlier in this discussion but got no response. Badagnani 04:09, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't believe so. The point is to discourage vandalism. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:18, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
But at the same time, the technical tools being given can be used to assist WikiProjects in a task that is both widespread and active. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 04:20, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I would support some other coding into the software of assesment scale. That's perfectly reasonable. But stable versions is not the way to do that. -Amarkov moo! 04:21, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
We keep going back and forth (like the blind men and the elephant!). If I'm not mistaken, the post just above about "Version 1.0" is referring to the CD-ROM/print edition of Wikipedia, and the editor states that they have already been flagging and that this proposal, if implemented, will provide great assistance to this proposal. So it does seem that I was correct in my assessment of the motivations behind this proposal. Badagnani 04:26, 8 June 2007 (UTC):
Many wikiprojects use the assessment system, independent of Wikipedia 1.0. But the principal initial use of flagged versions is for vandalism fighting. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:33, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
It will discourage vandalism, encourage more stable pages, especially useful to keep versions that are consensus built from being made crappy and POV ridden by some drive-by account/IP (and maybe not reverted for days if a t all). Additionally, it would help wikiprojects of subject experts keep and eye on articles to maintain accuracy/quality. Lastly, WP 1.0 would certainly benefit from have a "stale" version to scrap from. I say that the first two reasons are the "main" ones, if any are, but there are indeed several different reasons for this. Voice-of-All 04:34, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
WP:1.0 doesn't have anything to do with the proposal. We were not involved when it was coded, but we believe that with minor modifications, the database functionalities of this extension are extremely useful for our project. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 04:35, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm, certainly WikiProjects could help, but I don't want more red-tape where "you have to get the project's approval". The strength of projects now is that you have several subject experts watching pages together; the same could translate for reviewing pages. I don't see a need to give special power to wikiprojects. Voice-of-All 04:34, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
But if I understand it correctly, the extension gives the ability to have an unlimited number of different flags. Flags can be defined, independently of stability/visibility tags, that could supercede WP:1.0/I, right? Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 04:37, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
The flags could not be used as you may suggest. Currently the number of levels of flags is the same for all flags (4 by default), so you could not have "WP 1.0" yes/no flags. Also, ALL flags must be set at at least level 1 to approve a revision, which would be a mess, since a "WP bio" would be on all pages (you can't have certain flags for certain pages), and would have to be at level 1. I suppose some moderate software changes could allow for it, but a good template on the page or talk page for those seems to work fine. I don't want to add complexity to the software. Current Wikiproject tagging seems OK. Voice-of-All 04:45, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Even if WP:1.0 disappeared tomorrow, I would still be advocating the use of WikiProjects for the reasons outlined above. When I said "that person could more easily distinguish a mickey-take from a constructive edit" I meant that a WikiProject member is much more able to distinguish sneaky vandalism within their subject area than is a random person. These people are already reviewing articles. While they are tagging an article as B-Class or whatever, they could check for vandalism and flag it as vandalism free. It doesn't need to be any more complicated than that! Walkerma 05:05, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
A reasonable respect for long-standing, trustworthy projects would be in order, informally, yes. But I would oppose any bureaucratic red tape that requires their approval. The Wiki idea is that any editor can edit, the same with people who are trusted enough to review. Certainly, projects themselves could have their own review criteria.Voice-of-All 12:37, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that's what I am proposing. Walkerma 12:57, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I can accept that WikiProject Mathematics could use their A-class review to mark some revision as "quality", but just the fact that I'm a member of WikiProject Atheism shouldn't give me any privilege in picking which revision of atheism is more accurate. In order to not discriminate between which WikiProjects is more "respected", one could say that they must use an open review process for picking "quality" revisions.
By the way, atheism is on our main page today. All anons are welcome to "view source"... --Merzul 14:06, 8 June 2007 (UTC)