On 09/05/2014 01:49 PM, Benoît Evellin wrote:

Hi

I have some questions, related to this discussion.

Why do you think it is it relevant to hide a topic, just in case of spam?

It's not just for topics, but also for posts.

Another common reason (maybe even more common than spam) would be personal attacks.  Although the policy is gray at least on English Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks#Removal_of_personal_attacks), personal attacks are sometimes removed without deleting them from history (essentially, the hide action).

Anyone can censor a topic, which is not really very friendly and
cooperative. On the current talk system, when a subject is problematic,
we suppress it.

The equivalent to hide also exists in wikitext:

1. Click edit
2. Remove the post in the edit box
3. Click save

Of course, this removal action is logged in both cases (wikitext and Flow), so any abuses are clearly visible.

Do you think Flow will provide a way to post for spam robots?

Yes, but the same tools to stop them are available, such as AbuseFilter.  It will not be a worse problem.

Do you imagine edit wars on hiding/unhiding topics? I do :-) Is there a
feature to avoid/protect that?

3 Revert Rule (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Edit_warring#The_three-revert_rule)?

(This is a rule on English Wikipedia that more than 3 reverts per 24 hours is grounds for blocking, in addition to the general rule against edit warring)

I agree with S that not every social issue needs a software solution.

Matt Flaschen

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