On Wed, Jun 25, 2003 at 08:48:42PM -0700, Jimmy Wales wrote:
Karl Wick wrote:
Would it be possible to have the option to have some books and pages edited only by signed-in users and others open to everyone ? And leave the choice open to the person who starts the book or is the administrator or someone else who would have a reason to decide ? I'd imagine that some people would feel a lot better about contributing if they had more control over it that way, and others wouldnt care. Or maybe, in very special cases, modules on the site which are editable only by the original author ...
I would say 'no' to all of these things. They are very un-wiki, and wiki is a proven successful development model.
Later on, if we find some insurmountable difficulties, then we can consider these kinds of things.
But believe me, what seems to make sense a priori, i.e. rules and controls, doesn't work. The most insane thing possible -- letting everyone edit everything -- is astounding in it's power.
But we don't allow editing of anything ! We allow creating new versions, and newest version is always showed to users. We could just add more structure to version system, like having stable / devel versions, so that quick developement is possible, but some stable version is always available, and "text freezes" from time to time synchronize them.