[WikiEN-l] So what does Flagged Revs feel like?

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 2:48 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
<cimonavaro at gmail.com> wrote:
> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>> UI fail.
>>
>> There is no reason for you to know or care that your edit isn't being
>> displayed to the general public.  It's being displayed to you, it's
>> being displayed to all the other editors, it's being displayed to
>> anons who click a link to see the latest.
>>
> I hope you won't feel bad about me saying that I most
> deeply and soundly disagree with the above view.
>
> The thing that -- at the very least used to -- attracts newbies
> to wikipedia is the "positive astonishment" factor: 'What, I
> just edited this web-page, and everybody all over the world
> saw the result immediately! That can't be right, there has to
> be a catch somewhere! Wow, there isn't! That is what *really*
> happens! Awesome!'
>
> For this reason, I won't ever agree that being visible for
> in house 'editors' or casual folks sophisticated enough to check
> and see if there are new non-approved edits, as a
> default, is good universally, rather than as a last resort.

Cimon! Tisk tisk. Try to argue with the position I express, not just
one you speculate I might also hold. :)

Who here said anything about "good universally" vs "a last resort"?

My position is that if an edit is only going to be instantly displayed
by default to tens of thousands of people rather than hundreds of
millions, we shouldn't make the editor feel like he is lesser for it
or give them the impression that its now stuck waiting for some
intensive review (especially since thats now how we intend to make it
work).

The deferral of an edit doesn't make a lick of practical difference in
how someone interacts with the site. I agree that it can make a
psychological difference— and that is why we should avoid rubbing the
contributors face in it.

We don't have a big notice at the top of the edit screen for new users
that says "Notice: Based on editing statistics there is a 25% chance
that your non-vandalism edit will be reverted[Chi2009]". Care to
speculate on what kind of impact that would have on participation?

So my position here isn't a position about how often flagging should
be applied; it's a position about mitigating the harm caused by
flagging.  Mitigating the harm is worthwhile even when flagging is
used as a "last resort" or used more liberally.

Hopefully you aren't of the school of thought that says that we should
make sure that flagging maximally harms participation in order ensure
its failure. :)

(Though I do have a position: — Last resort? It shouldn't be a last
resort. The last resort should be page protection. Hopefully you agree
that deferring display to the portion of our readers least able to
cope with bad edits is less harmful than completely inhibiting
editing!)