Fastfission wrote:
The sifter seems like an attempt to put on a veneer of authority -- to say, "this has been checked, it is more accurate or reliable than the dynamic version." I think this is misleading and dangerous.
Personally, all I really want out of a sifter-type process is "this has been checked and is not blatantly vandalized or currently an active battleground, and the spelling looks okay to me." IMO a sifter like this would take a lot of stress off of editors who, rightly or wrongly, feel the need to keep a constant watch over articles and "fix" them instantly when problems crop up. It would also allow us to feel comfortable stamping ten thousand CDs without the fear that the database dump was taken at the exact moment a vandal stuck in something dreadful that is now immortalized in dimpled aluminium. All the standard Wikipedia disclaimers should still apply.
Once we have that, then maybe we can start looking at ways to produce an even more rigorously proofed versions that includes fact checking. I'm not in a hurry. :)