On Fri, 19 Oct 2001, Anatoly Vorobey wrote:
- Make some important pages, like the homepage and large categories,
editable only by users who actually registereted with an email address, and got themselves login and password.
This could be combined with Jimbo's proposal, and it wouldn't be a bad idea in any case.
This already discourages the "casual" vandal, which I think is the majority of vandals. To further discourage a "determined" vandal, try one of the following:
2a) Important pages, when edited, are saved automatically into a different category, say "queue:original-name". Regulars are encouraged to periodically view the queue category changes on a separate page, and to approve of changes using a special link; once a change to an "important" page gets two approvals by other regulars, it goes "live".
I think a moderating system would be very complicated in the end--simplicity, for Wikipedia, is key.
2b) Important pages are only editable by registered users who edited considerable amount of Wikipedia pages during the last month; say, changed more than 200 lines altogether; this would be measured automatically by the program. There're no "karma points", no complex hierarchies, only a group of "privileged" users who are only privileged because they know what they're doing, having edited a fair amount on Wikipedia. The "privileged" status is invisible and isn't shown anywhere, except a non-privileged user doesn't see the edit link on important pages.
I agree! Although I think that once one has achieved oldtimerhood it shouldn't be revokable (except by a sysop).
Larry