[WikiEN-l] So, what is the deal with flagged revisions?

[Emily Monroe]

> Controversial articles must not be constantly backlogged because  
> reviewers are afraid of getting drawn into an edit war.
I get the impression from this statement that traditional full dispute  
protection will still be needed. Will this still be available?

Emily
On Aug 27, 2009, at 5:58 AM, Apoc 2400 wrote:

>>
>> So apparently all the press reporting is wrong. What's the real  
>> story?
>> For some reason, I've never actually come across these flagged
>> revisions, partly because they always seemed to be happening "in the
>> future some time". What's the policy going to be?
>>
>
> You get different answers depending on who you ask. This is because  
> people
> tend to tell you how they want it to be rather than what the community
> actually approved. Even Jimbo and the foundation staff have been  
> guilty of
> this.
>
> What is being implemented has two parts, flagged protection and  
> patrolled
> revisions. The important part is flagged protection. It is a new  
> kind of
> protection besides full and semi. When an article is flagged-protected
> readers will not see a new version until it has been flagged.
>
> 1) Is this going to apply to every page?
>
> No, only on pages that are flagged-protected individually. I expect  
> there
> will be a push to flagged-protect all BLPs (biographies of living  
> people)
> but nothing is decided yet. I would personally support that if there  
> are
> enough reviewers to keep the backlog short.
>
>
>> 2) Who gets to flag a revision? Can you flag your own reivsions?
>
> This is very much undecided. Some think becoming a reviewer should  
> be like
> autoconfirmation, some think like rollback, while a few think it  
> should be
> harder to get than adminship. Hopefully it will be adjusted  
> depending on how
> many reviewers are needed.
>
>
>> 3) What's the interface like? How many clicks?
>>
> I don't know yet. There is a test implementation at
> http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org
>
>
>> 4) Is there any automatic flagging?
>
> There are actually three levels of flagged protection. In semi flagged
> protection edits by autoconfirmed users are automatically flagged. In
> intermediary flagged protection (probably the most common case) only  
> edits
> by reviewers are automatically flagged. In full flagged protection  
> only
> administrators (not reviewers) can flag.
>
>
>> 5) Are you supposed to "check" an entire article prior to flagging  
>> it?
>> How confident are you meant to be?
>>
> The reviewer is only meant to check the diff from the previous flagged
> version. It should be checked for:
> * conflict with the Biographies of Living People policy
> * vandalism or patent nonsense
> * copyright violations
> * legal threats, personal attacks or libel.
>
> Reviewers are not required to check for neutrality, original research,
> sources, etc. Of course, obvious cases are better reverted right  
> away than
> flagged. I expect there will be some conflict over this. In my  
> opinion it is
> very important that we keep the flow of Bold, Revert, Discuss.  
> Controversial
> articles must not be constantly backlogged because reviewers are  
> afraid of
> getting drawn into an edit war.
>
>
>> 6) What will encourage flaggers to actually bother flagging articles?
>>
> Who knows? We'll see.
>
>
>> 7) What will encourage non-flaggers to actually bother editing
>> articles when they don't have any instant gratification?
>
> Good question. Perhaps that an edit will eventually go live unless  
> it's
> really bad.
>
> 8) Which view will long time editors see by default? Stable (flagged)
>> or non-flagged version?
>
> I think flagged, but you can change it in your preferences.
>
>
>> 9) Can non-logged in editors see non-flagged versions?
>>
> I am quite sure yes.
>
>
>> 10) Will this destroy Wikipedia?
>
> Surely not. The potential problems depend on how quickly edits get  
> flagged
> and how strict reviewers are. If it takes weeks before anyone even  
> looks at
> an edit and reviewers refuse to flag anything they don't actively  
> like, then
> we are no more open than Britannica. After all, I can email a  
> suggested
> change to them and probably get a reply. Our advantages are:
> * You can edit right in the code rather than describe your change in  
> an
> email
> * Edits don't just get lost in someones inbox. Eventually an edit is  
> either
> approved or reverted.
> * Speed, if we manage
> * A more open attitude, I wish
> Remember also that later edits build on the latest draft. There is no
> branching so a new persons edits cannot be left unflagged while the  
> regulars
> keep editing.
>
>
>> 11) Will this improve Wikipedia?
>
> Hopefully. Especially for BLPs I think this has a lot of potential.
> Currently a damaging edit can last way too long in articles about  
> obscure
> but notable people.
>
>
> So far I ignored the second part: patrolled revisions. This is  
> enabled on
> all articles, but readers see the latest version whether flagged or  
> not. It
> is used to know whether an edit has been checked or not, so the time  
> of
> recent changes patrollers can be used more efficiently. Whether it  
> will
> actually be used on all articles is unsure. I expect it will be used  
> mostly
> on BLPs, and on other articles if the reviewers have time.
>
> Finally, this is supposed to be a two month trial. What happens  
> after that
> is very uncertain.
>
> For details, see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Flagged_protection_and_patrolled_revisionsand
> the subpages linked at the top.
>
> /Apoc2400
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