[WikiEN-l] Approval marking (was: Why Academics are Useful to Wikipedia)

[Matthew Larsen]

I have to say that the oppertunity to get wikipedia on a CD-Rom is
very tempting! I am a student and to have at hand plently of articles
about Computing, Physics, Music Technology etc will be a great asset!
The internet is too crap to find info now, I think this would appeal
to a lot of people. Make it Open Source too! :-)

I think for the 1% of articles there are regular disputes over, they
should just not be included. If they cant behave then the article wont
get on a CD-Rom. Shame, but a stop has to come somewhere.

If a CD were released, I can see it being taken by libraries and
public institutions - many pay outrageous prices for encycolpedic
CD's, so this would be a great oppertunity (I know my college is
strapped for cash and cant afford to get 1000+ licenses of Encarta
every year)

This has got me all worked up now :-)

Regards,


On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 05:43:35 -0700, Poor, Edmund W
<edmund.w.poor at abc.com> wrote:
> For more than 90% of articles, there have been no reversion wars. The
> latest version is accurate, uncontroversial and fairly well
> spell-checked & copy-edited.
> 
> Of the remaining 10% of articles, there are some subjects which would
> benefit from some sort of approval marking system. Still, I hope for
> these that we will include the 'development version' along with any
> 'approved' versions in Wikipedia 1.0 print or DVD publications.
> 
> For that fraction of 1% which are highly controversial, approval marking
> is not really an issue. No academic or cleric has sufficient authority
> to settle the hottest disputes of our times.
> 
> So let's concentrate on putting into effect a system which will boost
> consumer acceptance of 90% to 99% of our articles. Librarians aren't
> warning students against our global warming or Invasion of Iraq articles
> -- or at least we don't care much if they do. But it would be nice if
> our math and physics articles, as well as our non-controversial history
> and biology articles, could get some respect.
> 
> Ed Poor
> Who has thought about this a lot, while reading Snow, Mayer, et al.
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Michael Snow [mailto:wikipedia at earthlink.net]
> > Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2004 1:29 AM
> > To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Why Academics are Useful to Wikipedia
> >
> >
> > Daniel Mayer wrote:
> >
> > >--- Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >>Last time I ventured my two cents concerning the print
> > Wikipedia, the
> > >>response I got led me to conlcude that there was no support for
> > >>forking Wikipedia even in the slightest to make the content more
> > >>acceptible -- which is what any approval board would end up doing.
> > >>Then the project seemed to go into hibernation. Then it
> > seemed that a
> > >>group was working on it. Now it appears we are back to
> > discussing what
> > >>should be done.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >What? How do you come to that conclusion? There *will* be no fork at
> > >*all* - the only thing that will be done is selecting one
> > version of an
> > >article that is approved in some way. Any future approved
> > version would
> > >be based on the development version (that is, a regular Wikipedia
> > >article which would be in perpetual development), not the
> > last stable
> > >version.
> > >
> > If we adopt a formal approval system, the idea that all
> > future approved
> > versions will be based on development versions, rather than the last
> > approved "stable" version, sounds naively idealistic to me.
> > Even without
> > an approval system, this is already not the case on some of our more
> > contentious articles. When changes are not agreed on quickly,
> > one side
> > or the other, and sometimes both, may adopt the tactic of
> > reverting back
> > to an earlier version of which it "approves". However, since
> > the sides
> > generally do not approve of the same version, the dispute
> > continues and
> > often results in a revert war.
> >
> > Any system that marks a particular revision as "approved" or "stable"
> > will inherently increase the temptation to blindly revert
> > changes back
> > to the "stable" revision, instead of trying to work with
> > those changes
> > and improve the article. This is already a problem in some places and
> > among some editors (no names, this is not an invitation for
> > finger-pointing). If we want to implement a system that lets
> > people flag
> > specific article revisions, let's at least be aware of the possible
> > downsides to this as well.
> >
> > --Michael Snow
> >
> >
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-- 
Matthew Larsen
   > mat.larsen at gmail.com
   > 07739 785 249