[Foundation-l] Important new edit patrolling features available

[Erik Moeller]

As of today, the "FlaggedRevs" extension is available to any wiki
community that wishes to use it. FlaggedRevs is a tool for patrolling
changes, identifying high quality article versions, and changing the
default version shown to unregistered users. It's highly configurable.
As such, we're making it available in two configurations:

1) A minimally intrusive "patrolling" configuration;
2) Custom configurations per your request.

== Who needs this feature and where can I see it? ==

Larger wiki communities will probably benefit more from the use of
this feature than smaller ones. If you have problems keeping vandalism
in check, and/or want to experiment with new ways to identify high
quality content, you should look into this functionality.

You can see an English language demo installation of the feature at:
http://en.labs.wikimedia.org/

The feature is in production use on the German Wikipedia:
http://de.wikipedia.org/

The German Wikipedia uses a custom configuration where the most recent
vandalism-patrolled version, if any, is shown to unregistered users.
You can track the progress of their use of the patrolling feature
here:

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~aka/cgi-bin/reviewcnt.cgi?lang=english

== Patrolling Configuration ==

In the Patrolling Configuration, any user who has been registered for
more than 21 days and has made at least 150 edits will be
automatically given the permission to patrol changes for vandalism.
Only changes made by users who are not permitted to patrol changes
need to be patrolled.

In addition, sysops will be given the permission to flag versions of
"featured articles" in accordance with existing nomination processes.
(In other words, this gives you the ability to identify specific
_versions_ of an article as "featured", rather than the article as a
whole.) Finally, sysops will be permitted to define on a per-page
basis that changes need to be patrolled before being visible to
unregistered readers. This is an alternative to semi-protection; it
doesn't make sense to use both on a given page.

The use of these features is subject to policies that your wiki
community will need to develop. They should be used carefully until
such a policy is in place.

To activate the patrolling configuration,

1) File a request on http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ of type
"enhancement", component "site request". You may need to create a
BugZilla account to do this.

2) Title your request "Enable FlaggedRevs Patrolling Configuration on
(my project name)".

3) Post a link to your BugZilla request to your project's "Village
pump" and mailing list, if available.

If there are no objections on the BugZilla page, the request will be
considered valid after 7 days. (It may still take a while longer to
process it.)

== Custom Configurations ==

The FlaggedRevs extension is highly flexible in its configuration. We
are willing to accommodate custom requests. Since some configurations
of FlaggedRevs could be considered highly disruptive, the requirements
are somewhat higher.

1) Read about the configuration options at:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FlaggedRevs
and experiment with the live demo at:
http://en.labs.wikimedia.org/

2) Create a page in the "Project:" namespace (e.g. "Wikipedia:",
"Wikibooks:") of your wiki community describing the configuration you
want to use.

3) Create a BugZilla request as above, titled "Enable FlaggedRevs
custom configuration on (my project name)" pointing to the proposal
page you have created. Provide an English translation of all relevant
information if possible - or we may not be able to help you.

4) Post a link to your proposal and to the BugZilla request to the
various relevant channels of your wiki community, e.g. "village pump",
mailing list.

If there are no objections within 14 days, your request will be
considered valid. If there are objections, please try building
consensus. If necessary, you can also resort to a poll (a very large
majority, at least two thirds, is generally necessary).

Note that custom configurations will take longer to process, and might
sit in the technical support queue for several weeks.

Our developers will _only_ look at the information attached to the
BugZilla request, so please make sure that everything relevant is at
least linked from there.

== Translators needed ==

The user interface of the FlaggedRevs extension needs to be translated
into as many languages as possible. The extension can be localized
using http://translatewiki.net/ - please follow the instructions there
to become a translator.

== User interface developers needed ==

If you are a PHP developer with JavaScript/CSS experience, your help
in improving the user interface experience (by improving the CSS or
adding AJAX features) would be appreciated. Just check out a fresh
copy of the MediaWiki code and the FlaggedRevs code and get started:

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Subversion
http://mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FlaggedRevs

If you need committer access to our version control system, please
e-mail <commitaccess at wikimedia dot org>, attaching your SSH key and
desired username as per the above link.

-- 
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate