[Wikipedia-l] A proposal for the new software

[Magnus Manske]

As the (main) author of the new software, I'd like to contribute some things
to this debate:

- Watching the actions of a signed-up user will be very simple, even if
he/she logs in from different machines.
- Counting edits/new articles will be as simple.
- After each "karma point" addition, the status could be checked and basic
rights could be given.
- All pages can be locked to give write access only to people with the
necessary user rights.

So, no technical problem with that. But, think about what I originally had
in mind (I mentioned that somewhere already) :

- Have about a dozen "sysops"/administrators. Larry, Jimbo, a few others
(and currently myself, for maintnance;)
- Sysops can do everything: edit other user's rights, delete pages (and I
mean delete, not just remove the contents), mess directly with the database
etc.
- Sysops can create "editors", which have less rights, but of whom there are
many.
- *Everybody* can edit pages in the normal wikipedia namespace
- Good articles can be advanced into an "approved" namespace (by everybody,
or by a special "reviewer" class)
- Editors can advance articles from the "approved" namespace to the "stable"
namespace, or remove it from "approved"
- The "stable" namespace can only be edited by sysops

"Reviewers" and maybe "editors" could also be generated by karma points, or
by LSD ;)

Additionally, central pages could still be protected, and my new variables
will change the date and the number of articles on the HomePage
automatically.

A word to "blocked IPs": Almost everyone who goes online via an ISP gets a
random IP from the ISP every time he/she dials in. Blocking such an IP would
not stop trolls, but it would stop other harmless people who come in through
the same ISP at a later time. We don't want "wikipedia colateral damage",
now do we?

Magnus