On 10/31/02 1:10 PM, "mattheww+wikipedia@chiark.greenend.org.uk" mattheww+wikipedia@chiark.greenend.org.uk wrote:
On Thu, Oct 31, 2002 at 09:34:01AM -0500, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
What I want, when I request an article to be transmitted from the PediaWiki database to my computer screen, is an article created, last-edited, or certified by my choice of:
- a user with sysop or above authority (41 sysops, 3 developers, 1 owner = 45
people, i.e., the "cabal")
- a signed-in user who is on my "trusted" list
[...]
- show a flag (possibly optional) indicating the existence of a later,
"uncertified" change
- set the default for editing to "edit the latest version"
- provide an option to "edit the version currently displayed"
If you allow significant changes to be hidden from you, you will have to get used to pages changing wildly when you press the 'edit the latest version' button -- often so wildly that the change you intended to make no longer makes sense. Or if you use the 'edit the version currently displayed' button, other people will have to get used to their changes being randomly reverted without explanation.
I think this adds up to a fundamentally way of creating an encyclopedia. If you want to try it, I think it would be more polite to set up your own server and make a proper fork.
I don't think the rest of us should have to cope with the damage that this would cause.
These were my sentiments. I'd be interested in seeing variants of Wikipedia such as this, but they should be independent projects.