David Gerard wrote:
Well, the stable version feature is going into MediaWiki (the Foundation is even paying for its development) and it's going to be trialled on de:wp. It's a software feature - if the current ideas on how to use it aren't getting popularity, others will. But something like it is unavoidable if we're actually writing an encyclopedia intended to be a usable product rather than *just* the continuous live working draft.
I won't comment on the financial aspect of this, but I don't know if there will be some sort of "stability" feature that will gain popularity - many feel it's "unwiki" and goes against our principles. I just think it's a poor idea in general.
I don't think it's unavoidable, either. Part of the draw of Wikipedia is that it's nearly always a live draft, and "stability" will only hurt that portion of it.
-Jeff