--- "Wikipedia Romania (Ronline)" rowikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
I think the proponents of these policies hide behind the fact that they are only "minor changes", but I think that all of the new proposals - from banning anons from creating articles, to semi-protection to stable versions, are all slippery-slope attempts to somehow make Wikipedia more restricted to combat vandalism. Combating vandalism is a worthy cause, but freedom comes first. We're the free encyclopedia, after all.
Wikipedia is free in the sense that its content can be distributed freely. Being free to edit is a means to an end to create the encyclopedia. It is not the point of it. That said, this is my understanding of the two features that will hopefully be implemented in January.
1) Delayed editing: Something that has been talked about and wanted for years. This would give admins to the ability to soft-protect pages that are frequent targets of vandalism (such as [[George W. Bush]] on the English Wikipedia). Ideally this feature would automatically delay edits by anons and new users and post them, again automatically, after an amount of time that was set by an admin for that page (similar to setting IP/user name block time periods). This would give RC patrolers time to cancel vandalistic edits before they are posted for all to see. But last I heard this feature (so far) would require a great deal of manual effort by admins; one would need to set versions manually and I do not think the feature distinguishes between anons, new users or old users. I personally think that this feature should not go live until it is fully functional (esp since it is way too similar, as is, to the below feature). The point of this feature is to help avoid displaying vandalism.
2) Approved versioning: A new user class would be created that would be charged with approving certain article versions. Accuracy, bias, completeness and readability would be checked (by reader article validation and the approving user). If an article version is good enough (sic: does not need to be feature article quality; just good enough) in those regards, then an approved version would be set. A prominent link to this version would then automatically be placed on top of the article. Users would have the choice to set their preferences so they see these approved versions by default. But, and this is important, the live version would be displayed by default. But all live versions would be clearly labeled as such (even those w/o approved versions) so readers know what they are getting. So Wikipedia would not fundamentally change as a result. The point of this feature is to give readers some assurance, however small, that what they are reading is more likely true and reasonably good than not.
-- mav
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