J.F. de Wolff wrote:
Fred is suggesting a para-wiki where arcticles are
fact-checked before
they go live. I would like to propose that as soon as an article
reaches featured article status, it is semi-protected. Only registered
users (or even registered users with a good track record) can edit
those pages. Changes can be proposed on talk by anons and then be
effectuated by registered users. This will put an editing funnel on
our most prized content.
I agree that the most obvious place to start is by in a sense protecting
the articles that are deemed to be pretty good and therefore less in
need of edits---these are the ones where the ratio of destructive to
constructive edits tends to be higher. I would prefer a system that
fell short of *actually* protecting the pages by limiting edits to a
certain group of people, though. If the issue is whether people will
see vandalism before it's reverted, this can be accomplished through the
proposed rating system in a number of ways. For example, articles that
have a version rated above some threshold may be default display that
version to non-logged-in users, rather than more recent versions. If
changes are made that do indeed improve the article, there would be a
lag until the new version is recognized as also high-quality and
displayed; if they were destructive changes, the new version would not
get displayed in the first place.
There are a number of issues for how to work this out, both in terms of
community and logistics, but I do think a way to go is to introduce a
display lag of some sort on articles deemed "already very good", but
*without* actually restricting.edits---instead merely delaying their
general visibility.
-Mark