I havent much read on this thread, but I think I like the idea of being able to shoot simple notes (via email, or various messaging protocols) to articles. I dont know what form that would take but, suffice it to say it shouldnt be appended to the article itself. And probably not the talk page either.
It would be easy to envision it as a kind of ticket system, where in addition to talk pages, articles have an associated list of "tickets" which are like extended comments not attached to a particular edit. By 'simple notes' I mean a quick means to push off that we think about including in a particular article but dont have time to actually dig in and work it in ourselves.
The ticket would show up in a list, and based on the actual content, editors can choose to stick it wherever it is they like to stick such things. Maybe just appending to the bottom of the talk would be a first incarnation, but it might get out of hand, and we want talk comments to be responsive to previous comments.
Accreditation in history would be a problem if the one who submitted the ticket wants credit. Some may not though. I imagine this being clicking on the ticket, and the script opens up the edit window and appends the ticket text to the article. In the edit comment field, the ticket poster's name will show up as the source. In the edit window, its a simple matter of just shoving things around artfully and calling it "good writing." (The onus for accuracy is on the ticket sender ;)
-Svertigo
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