[Wikipedia-l] A proposal for the new software

[Ato]

I think Anatoly and Larry are on to something here, but let me rephrase 
and add some of my opinions:

* A feature that lists "recent changes by user/IP" would speed up damage 
recovery immensly. Especially combined with:

* A feature with one button on each page displayed to an "old hand" that 
says "Revert to previous version". When pushed, it will do just that.

* No karmapoints should be implemented. This invariably leads to 
pointless "who has the longest" comparisons, and will attract people 
interested in such competitions.

My suggestion is instead: There should be exactly three discreete states 
for a user to be in: "Casual", "Old hand" and "Admin". No difference 
should be visible within theese categories, for the above reason.
-"Casual" is simply anyone not in the other categories. "Old hand" is a 
tried and tested user who logged on of course.
-"Old hand" status could be given when someone has commited pages for 
30% of the days a given 30 day period, thus proving to be a bit more 
persistent than casual in editing. The ONE thing an "Old hand" can do 
that a "casual" cannot is edit the restricted pages (in essance the home 
page).
-"Admin" status is reserved for the people owning the actual hardware 
the wiki is on. Nost people can accept that they have _da_powa_, and as 
long as they cannot hand it out willy nilly (thus creating an elite) it 
should be safe. There are TWO things that an "admin" can do: 1) demote 
an "Old hand" to "Casual". 2) Temporarily block an IP.

* No "hide from beginner" tendencies please. That is slightly offensive 
to those who actually read up on how to behave on the wiki before 
starting. Besides, security by obscurity is bad no matter how one looks 
at it :-)

If we proceed in this way (or something like it) we should have easy 
recovery of pages that has been vandalized, and also a mechanism of 
protecting our home page from defacing. This should empower honest users 
and make serious damage very hard to do unless one is prepared to put in 
serious work first.

Just my thoughts :-)

/Anders Törlind