sgilbert-
1. Who can add to brilliant prose? Sysops? What makes
me (for
example) more qualified to judge brilliant prose about the spectrum
of human knowledge?
Well, right now we are already using a process on En: whereby pages have
to meet with general approval before they are added to the page. See
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Brilliant_prose_candidates
for details.
2. One of the great things about Wikipedia is that
readers quickly
become writers. If we were to use particular versions from article
histories as stable articles, we'll need some way to allow readers
to easily move into editing mode, i.e. an "Edit the current version of
this article" link.
Yup, that's what I was thinking as well. Have a prominent notice on top of
the page:
"You are viewing a stable, certified revision of this article. Errors may
already be fixed in the [[latest unstable version]], which you can
[[edit]] directly."
3. The synthesis of the first two concerns: what
happens when
there are errors in the stable version? Mistakes can be corrected in
the current version, but only sysops will be able to change which
version is listed on the locked Brilliant Prose page.
Sifter would have the exact same problem. IMHO the best solution is to
give sysops some leeway to change the pointer to a new revision in case of
obvious corrections (linkfixes, spelling, uncontroversial factual changes
as per talk etc.), and to otherwise require a re-listing on the candidates
page.
Regards,
Erik