[WikiEN-l] Why cutting'n'pasting from Wikipedia is not a good idea

[Skyring]

On 3/16/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> Skyring wrote:
>
> >I'd like to suggest something which I think should work. Whenever an
> >administrator edits an article, that version automatically becomes the
> >"stable" version that an unregistered reader will see. And it won't have
> >"edit" links all over it. Sure, it might have mistakes and it might have
> >POV, but the odds are that if an admin has had even a glance at it, it's
> >probably good.
> >
> I find this attempt to give admins even more power objectionable.  There
> are plenty of us who have been around for a long time without having
> become admins.  Many operate in limited non-controversial areas.  The
> result would be a huge number of articles that will need to be edited by
> admins; these articles previously managed quite well without involvement
> of admins.


Well, I'm not an admin, but what I'm looking for is a simple and reasonably
effective way to say "this article's OK for now" that doesn't tie up a lot
of computer resources or demand ribbons of red tape. The computer could
merely look up the editor's admin flag and set the version's stable flag. No
detailed examination of the article is required - just the need for an admin
to make an edit. Of course you might then set people up for grief if they
don't notice some subtle error buried in a slab of text.

Maybe instead of giving admins alone the power to confer "stableness", there
should be another class of Wikipedian,people who aren't necessarily admins,
but are steady, reasonable sort of folk. We could call them "stablehands".

-- 
Peter in Canberra