[Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Feature Proposal: Certification

[The Cunctator]

On 10/31/02 1:10 PM, "mattheww+wikipedia at chiark.greenend.org.uk"
<mattheww+wikipedia at chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 31, 2002 at 09:34:01AM -0500, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>> What I want, when I request an article to be transmitted from the PediaWiki
>> database to my computer screen, is an article created, last-edited, or
>> certified by my choice of:
>> * a user with sysop or above authority (41 sysops, 3 developers, 1 owner = 45
>> people, i.e., the "cabal")
>> * a signed-in user who is on my "trusted" list
> [...] 
> 
>> * show a flag (possibly optional) indicating the existence of a later,
>> "uncertified" change
>> * set the default for editing to "edit the latest version"
>> * provide an option to "edit the version currently displayed"
> 
> If you allow significant changes to be hidden from you, you will have
> to get used to pages changing wildly when you press the 'edit the
> latest version' button -- often so wildly that the change you intended
> to make no longer makes sense. Or if you use the 'edit the version
> currently displayed' button, other people will have to get used to
> their changes being randomly reverted without explanation.
> 
> I think this adds up to a fundamentally way of creating an
> encyclopedia. If you want to try it, I think it would be more polite to
> set up your own server and make a proper fork.
> 
> I don't think the rest of us should have to cope with the damage that
> this would cause.

These were my sentiments. I'd be interested in seeing variants of Wikipedia
such as this, but they should be independent projects.