--- "P. Birken" pbirken@gmail.com wrote:
No, this is indeed a valid concern. A feature that allows to unflag an article is not included. Unflagging sort of happens by creating a new version and flagging that one instead. So, once an article has been flagged, it is "in the system". However, initially no article is flagged.
Leaving aside the sighted flag for a moment, what about the quality version flag? Suppose it is given erroneously, because someone made a mistake in checking the sources for the article - this can happen easily. In that case there should be a way to unflag the article, no?
Ulrich
Let's assume for a minute that this feature gets deployed on the projects. Large projects get it and small ones don't, for the purposes of this analogy.
Given that vandalism wouldn't appear to the majority of viewers of the site (anons), wouldn't this therefore mean vandalism in and of itself would go down? Vandalism is committed (as far as I know) to get the shock value of having someone read a wrong page. However, on the wikis that do not have this feature, would it make vandalism go up? Given the vandals would find out which have it and which don't (an easily obtainable piece of information), would they potentially take a higher effort on those wikis that don't have it, since they know it is more likely to not get reviewed? That being said, we have very few dedicated vandals. The majority of vandals are drive-bys who (when seeing their vandalism doesn't work on the English Wikipedia) would give up, I think.
-Chad H.
On 9/24/07, ulim ulim@mayring.de wrote:
--- "P. Birken" pbirken@gmail.com wrote:
No, this is indeed a valid concern. A feature that allows to unflag an article is not included. Unflagging sort of happens by creating a new version and flagging that one instead. So, once an article has been flagged, it is "in the system". However, initially no article is flagged.
Leaving aside the sighted flag for a moment, what about the quality version flag? Suppose it is given erroneously, because someone made a mistake in checking the sources for the article - this can happen easily. In that case there should be a way to unflag the article, no?
Ulrich
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I'm less concerned with blatant vandalism than sly, subtle mistakes (think John Seigenthaler), and even good-faith errors. I think we've misidentified the problem- we needn't worry about an short-lived, all-caps declaration that so-and-so is such-and-such. Vandalism is a problem, yes, but it isn't the biggest one. We need a more rigorous review system that will address important factual errors (there are plenty of them) and give Wikipedia more scholarly credibility. The concept of quality flagging is a good start, but are there any concrete plans as to how it will work? The only plans I've heard are just ideas. Will an editor be able to issue a quality flag just by giving it a quick review, or will there be thorough, comprehensive process?
Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote: Let's assume for a minute that this feature gets deployed on the projects. Large projects get it and small ones don't, for the purposes of this analogy.
Given that vandalism wouldn't appear to the majority of viewers of the site (anons), wouldn't this therefore mean vandalism in and of itself would go down? Vandalism is committed (as far as I know) to get the shock value of having someone read a wrong page. However, on the wikis that do not have this feature, would it make vandalism go up? Given the vandals would find out which have it and which don't (an easily obtainable piece of information), would they potentially take a higher effort on those wikis that don't have it, since they know it is more likely to not get reviewed? That being said, we have very few dedicated vandals. The majority of vandals are drive-bys who (when seeing their vandalism doesn't work on the English Wikipedia) would give up, I think.
-Chad H.
On 9/24/07, ulim ulim@mayring.de wrote: --- "P. Birken" pbirken@gmail.com wrote:
No, this is indeed a valid concern. A feature that allows to unflag an article is not included. Unflagging sort of happens by creating a new version and flagging that one instead. So, once an article has been flagged, it is "in the system". However, initially no article is flagged.
Leaving aside the sighted flag for a moment, what about the quality version flag? Suppose it is given erroneously, because someone made a mistake in checking the sources for the article - this can happen easily. In that case there should be a way to unflag the article, no?
Ulrich
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On 9/24/07, Adam Biswanger adambiswanger1@yahoo.com wrote:
I'm less concerned with blatant vandalism than sly, subtle mistakes (think John Seigenthaler), and even good-faith errors. I think we've misidentified
It's a mistake to think that flagging is only expected to help with obvious vandalism. Right now obvious vandalism is the noise that often hides more subtle vandalism.
Here is an example: A somewhat subtle vandalism (changing a date) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pioneer_plaque&diff=prev&o...
was missed because right after it a more obvious vandalism was made which was reverted: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pioneer_plaque&diff=next&o...
The problem remained for over a year, until I stumbled across it as a casual reader: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pioneer_plaque&diff=71317234&a...
(Incidentally I think this would be a good example for the trust coloring system.. it would be a good argument for it as the date would have been highlighted in the revisions near the change, and an argument against it.. since the date would look trusted later on even though no one ever reviewed the change)
Flagging will give us a 'more trusted' point to diff against, which will reduce problems like this. Some people, like myself, believe that it will also reduce the total amount amount of simple vandalism thus freeing up resources to work on harder cases.
Certainly flagging will not stop malicious parties who are well informed and dedicated to their cause. It is often considered a bad idea to reject partial solution because it does not cure all problems.
You may well be right that correcting subtle vandalism is more important, but that does not preclude improving the situation for more obvious vandalism.
It is often considered a bad idea to reject partial solution because it does not cure all problems.
You may well be right that correcting subtle vandalism is more important, but that does not preclude improving the situation for more obvious vandalism.
I certainly am not objecting to the idea of article flagging, and I certainly haven't rejected the idea because it isn't perfect. I am trying, however, to wander in the direction of article flagging as certification of truth, not certification of good-faith.
Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote: On 9/24/07, Adam Biswanger wrote:
I'm less concerned with blatant vandalism than sly, subtle mistakes (think John Seigenthaler), and even good-faith errors. I think we've misidentified
It's a mistake to think that flagging is only expected to help with obvious vandalism. Right now obvious vandalism is the noise that often hides more subtle vandalism.
Here is an example: A somewhat subtle vandalism (changing a date) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pioneer_plaque&diff=prev&o...
was missed because right after it a more obvious vandalism was made which was reverted: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pioneer_plaque&diff=next&o...
The problem remained for over a year, until I stumbled across it as a casual reader: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pioneer_plaque&diff=71317234&a...
(Incidentally I think this would be a good example for the trust coloring system.. it would be a good argument for it as the date would have been highlighted in the revisions near the change, and an argument against it.. since the date would look trusted later on even though no one ever reviewed the change)
Flagging will give us a 'more trusted' point to diff against, which will reduce problems like this. Some people, like myself, believe that it will also reduce the total amount amount of simple vandalism thus freeing up resources to work on harder cases.
Certainly flagging will not stop malicious parties who are well informed and dedicated to their cause. It is often considered a bad idea to reject partial solution because it does not cure all problems.
You may well be right that correcting subtle vandalism is more important, but that does not preclude improving the situation for more obvious vandalism.
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There are several stumbling effects of flagged revs.
The vandalism will have a larger window where it will be observed before it goes away unnoticed. This is often named probability of detection in military projects. In the present UI in Wp this is a major problem. The window is very short and when the vandalism passes out of this window the chance of detection rapidly drops of to a level given by the reading frequency of the article. The sighting process will (can) lock the vandalism in a indefinitely much larger window. This increases the PoD but will also be the prime reason why people observe that the system doesn't scale well. That is, the users observe the edits that previously went away unnoticed.
An other thing closely related to this is an ability to verify several previous versions in one operation, ie qualifying a new version as sighted without regard to previous history. This makes the whole process much more effective then the present method of patrolling. As a guesstimate this can give a factor of 2-3 times, but limited to how effective the UI is on conveying the information from the previous edits.
Lastly there are a very odd effect that will emerge if the users that do patroling/sighting observe the ''unsighted'' versions in a cumulative way. By marking the versions as sighted they will successive concentrate on those versions that contains vandalism. This increases the effectiveness several times, increases the time one unsighted version is observable and therefore increases PoD.
I believe sighted versions will need fewer patrolers because they will be more effective, and the result will be articles with less vandalism. Unfortunatly the system breaks down ungracefully when the patrolers can't keep up and the vandalism starts to pile up. On the good side the heap of vandalism can be handled later as long as the heap don't consistently builds up over some time.
John E
On 9/25/07, ulim ulim@mayring.de wrote:
Leaving aside the sighted flag for a moment, what about the quality version flag? Suppose it is given erroneously, because someone made a mistake in checking the sources for the article - this can happen easily. In that case there should be a way to unflag the article, no?
Yes, I can see this being a problem. It should at least be possible for a user to change the flags that they themselves have set.
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