[WikiEN-l] WTF Have I Missed?

[Kirill Lokshin]

On 8/28/06, Gordon Joly <gordon.joly at pobox.com> wrote:
> I have another reason to speak against this. As an editor, I
> sometimes create an article that is very small, a few words. At the
> point, I discover a few pages that link to this article and so I know
> that article has some importance.
>
> Also, stubs are great for attracting attention(!). Sometimes, stubs
> attract a request for deletion, but in fact the article will grow a
> reasonable state (see reference below). If deleted, nobody will see
> it. If hidden from general view, then it will only be seen by the
> upper class of editors, who may not be aware of the (potential)
> significance of the article.

This seems to be entirely a question of implementation.  Consider, for
example, this approach:

When a non-logged-in reader requests a page:

A. If a revision in the article's history has a "not-vandalism" flag
set, show that revision as the default (with an option to see the
current revision)

B. Otherwise, show the current revision.

In this variation, stubs/new articles/obscure articles that a few
people read each year all get shown at the latest version, because
nobody will have bothered to mark a particular revision with the flag;
it's only on higher-traffic pages -- which, for the most part, would
be the ones where vandalism is more prevalent -- that the use of the
flag would come into play.

(This quite aside from the fact that de: hasn't yet decided how the
ability to set this flag would be assigned; but one of the options
Kurt mentioned at Wikimania would be something like the current
semi-protection limit on the account's age.  The vast majority of
active contributors would, in such a scenario, be able to simply set
the flag -- perhaps automatically -- on any article they work on.)

-- 
Kirill Lokshin