Proposal for a Wikipedia Article "Approval" Process
Assuming there is support for a stable version of wikipedia, some mechanism for stability is required.
Allow logged in users to approve any version of an article. Logged in users could also disapprove any or every version of an article. Articles would be scored based on number of users who approved (weighted?) - number of users who disapproved (weighted?). The article with the highest approval rating would be the released (approved) article. This would be displayed somewhere distinct from the working wikipedia (e.g. sifter.wikipedia.org, or something similar).
New users would be presented with Wikipedia Release edition. They could still edit the article, but it would not be released until the approvals on the new article exceed the approvals on the previously released article. The under-edit version from which users are working may differ from the release version if approvals have not yet been found. The differences would be highlighted on the edit screen.
Edits would of course appear in Recent Changes. In addition, there would be Recent Approvals tracking articles which recently were voted on for approval.
An edit would of course count as a vote for approval (if preferences so set).
Under the article (in view mode) (for logged in users) would be "vote to approve" and "vote to disapprove" buttons. A vote to approve would transfer a users vote to this version for approval and remove it from previous versions. A vote to disapprove would remain even if another version was disapproved.
Possible weight = 1 if under 100 edits, 2 if under 200 edits, 3 if under 300 edits, 4 otherwise. Alternative weighting schemes are possible as well, including weight=1 for all logged in users.
Comments?
-- DavidLevinson