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(a)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(a)mayring.de> wrote: --- "P. Birken" <pbirken(a)gmail.com> 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? Ulrich _______________________________________________ Wikiquality-l mailing list Wikiquality-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiquality-l _______________________________________________ Wikiquality-l mailing list Wikiquality-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiquality-l --------------------------------- Don't let your dream ride pass you by. Make it a reality with Yahoo! Autos.

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(a)gmail.com> wrote: On 9/24/07, Adam Biswanger wrote: 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&… 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&… 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&… (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. _______________________________________________ Wikiquality-l mailing list Wikiquality-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiquality-l --------------------------------- Luggage? GPS? Comic books? Check out fitting gifts for grads at Yahoo! Search.