--- "Wikipedia Romania (Ronline)" <rowikipedia(a)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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