On Fri, 19 Oct 2001, Anatoly Vorobey wrote:
1) 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