On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Daniel Mayer wrote:
Sheldon Rampton wrote:
Personally, I think Wikipedia should try to move away from deterrence strategies like bans, IP blocks and arbitration committees, and toward a reputation-management system like they have at Slashdot or Kuro5hin or eBay.
Oh god no! Slashdot and *especially* Kuro5hin are a haven for trolls, rude behavior, and giving the feeling to newbies that the deck is stacked against them. We don't want to replicate that!
Having been a long-time member of /. (I have a 4-digit ID number, FWIW) I agree. Heck, the feeling I've gotten from /. is that the people running it have lost interest in the project, that it has been coasting along on its reputation for the last 2-3 years, & that there is no way to effect any kind of change in the system.
I hope none of us want Wikipedia to have this feeling.
[snip]
But anons and new users do have a tendency to save without first previewing. I would therefore support the removal of the Save button from the initial edit screens presented to anons. Only after they previewed once would they be presented with the save button.
That is such a simple & brilliant solution that I wonder why no one else has thought of it until now. Such a change would not be a serious barrier to someone who wanted to make the contribution without logging in: the forum on Linux Weekly News requires a preview step for its members to submit input, & I'd say that place has a high signal-to-noise ratio. It would also encourage the creation of more accounts, which would draw more people in.
Geoff