[Wikipedia-l] beta/stable ideas

[Kurt Jansson]

Hi Chuck!

> > There are at least two big questions about how this
> > ought to work:
> >
> > 1) How do we get new folks to dive in and
> > contribute? Having your
> > improvements show up *immediately* is a big draw to
> > the wikipedia
> > experience.
>
> Well, we could call it beta and stable if we wanted to
> and people could know that the beta version was more
> up-to-date than the stable version.  A lot of people
> at Wikipedia are here just to read and they can keep
> doing that and others are here to write and I suggest
> we have a link on the bottom of each stable article
> that says, "Edit this article in Beta".

I really like the idea. The argument most people come up with in a
discussion about WP (after the ones we all know ...) is, that they can't
rely on the information they find, because too few people might have
proofread it or someone might have changed the text 5 seconds before the
accessed the page.

How about a debian-like scheme (as I understand it):

* unstable/sid (still in development) = beta = what we have now
* testing = proofread by enough wikipedians in a process like the one
Chuck suggested
* stable = Nupedia (in a few years or so ;-)

I'm a bit sceptic about Nupedia and the authority idea behind it (but I
admit that I don't know much about it), but I'm sure that it will
attract many scholars.

How do we take articles out of testing or stable if a proven mistake is
found? By voting in a short time period (3 days)? Or do we need elected
maintainers?

And we will need to vote in every change that is made in the rules of
the process. It'll get much (!) more complicated that WP, but the idea
is very attracting!

> I imagine all of us would still just watch the beta anyway.  :)

Of course! :-)

Bye,
Kurt

P.S.: A last association:
* unstable/sid (still in development) = anarchy
* testing = democracy
* stable = meritocracy?