2009/9/21 Brian <Brian.Mingus(a)colorado.edu>du>: Flagged Revisions type systems were discussed back in 2002-2003, long before BLPs became a focal point of concerns, as a method of "sifting" articles from Wikipedia into stable versions. The idea that flagging could increase openness for some pages is also not just some recently applied "spin". I wrote an essay three years ago when the discussion about a specific implementation became more serious, detailing my own recommendations for some of the functional requirements of a flagging system: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Eloquence/WikiQA "However, as noted above, a global setting to show sighted revisions in preference to unsighted ones should not be enabled unless and until it is found to scale sufficiently well, and to not have a dramatic negative impact on the user experience. Instead, revision preference should first be enabled on a per-page level, allowing administrators to "quality protect" pages. This would be an alternative to full protection or semi-protection, and allow edits to be made where it is currently impossible. The criteria for quality protecting pages could be expanded over time, allowing for community-directed application of the functionality, rather than an a priori assumption of scalability." The group of users on the German Wikipedia favoring a flagging system preferred a more conservative implementation, which was my primary motivation for writing the essay. As a Board member at the time, I shared my recommendations with Jimmy and others, and we agreed back then that a model that allowed an increase in openness on pages that are currently semi-protected would be preferable for en.wp. This is ultimately also what the en.wp community concluded. It's only fair to acknowledge, of course, that a significantly larger number of pages may end up being "flagged protected" than are currently semi-protected, resulting in an experience of reduced openness/immediacy for the pages not previously included in the set. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 3:44 PM, Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: I'm not sure that your essay discusses openness. It mentions that the new model will help with quality and could reduce participation (which could be viewed as openness). I think many people have a hard time with the logic that Jimmy is asking us to follow, which is essentially, "by becoming more closed, we are becoming more open." When I read his Huffington Post essay it did occur to me that it's not exactly true that high profile articles that are usually locked aren't able to be edited by anonymous users. They can and do edit these articles by arguing for, or suggesting, a valuable edit on the talk page. An admin can then come along and make the edit, or briefly unlock the page, etc.. If we compare this model to the FlaggedRevisions model, the difference is really that these anons can edit locked pages without discussion. However, this only increases the chance of the edit being accepted proportionally to the quality and importance of the edit. The best way to increase the chances of getting an edit to stick in both models is to stop by the talk page and make the case for a change in the content of the article. That aspect will remain unchanged. My view of the current system is that we already have a primitive version of Flagged Revision that emerged out of more primitive wiki technologies. So as Joseph Reagle has said in this thread, and as you mention in your essay, the question is really how much of the encyclopedia will be closed on top of what we've already got closed. From your essay: "For the worse, because they could reduce the level of participation, cause frustration, and lead to a shift towards a much more restricted model of editing and reviewing articles than is currently practiced." I think this thread would benefit from some reasonable estimates of the number of articles that will be locked under the new model, that way we know exactly what we're dealing with when we discuss whether or not the new perspective we are being asked to take of Flagged Revisions making the encyclopedia more open is spin, or not spin.

stevertigo <stvrtg(a)gmail.com> wrote: Previous post correction patch: -and thus the issue +and thus if the issue -Stevertigo

Steve Bennett wrote: It's somewhat oblique, but shrewd enough. Given that WP does operate trade-offs of "openness" versus "editorial control", with scary quotes, it is to some extent negotiable how these are presented in a PR sense. The mainstreamers have spectacularly misinterpreted what is planned (briefly, they might as well have said "kids, in future your edits will all be routed into this big newsroom of disapproving killjoys"). While what is actually going to happen is that the editorial filo pastry will get another layer (which we _hope_ will prove light, tasty and digestible). And some page protection will be removed. Charles

2009/9/24 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro(a)gmail.com>om>: Yep. We'll need all the numbers on this we can. - d.

2009/9/24 Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com>om>: It might be interesting to examine the trend on de.wp - here, the net drop in IP edits seems to have been part of an overall long-term trend. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hut_8.5/German_editing_stats -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk