[Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia-l digest, Vol 1 #1249 - 14 msgs

[sgilbert at nbnet.nb.ca]

Erik Moeller wrote:

> Well, here's the thing. Our Main Page is protected. Our Main Page links to
>  the Brilliant Prose page, which would also be protected. The Brilliant 
> Prose page would only link to verified revisions of articles. A user can 
> choose this path
> 
> Main Page->Brilliant prose->Article
> 
> And they will never see an "unstable" article -- these pages would always 
> be in a reasonable state. It is the same thing as a separate site, but 
> happens entirely within Wikipedia. 

My first reaction is to be against this; I don't like the idea of locking 
down pages in general, and Brilliant Prose is something I think 
everyone should be able to add to. But, I'm reserving judgement 
until there's more discussion.

Three things off the top of my head:

1. Who can add to brilliant prose? Sysops? What makes me (for 
example) more qualified to judge brilliant prose about the spectrum 
of human knowledge?

2. One of the great things about Wikipedia is that readers quickly 
become writers. If we were to use particular versions from article 
histories as stable articles, we'll need some way to allow readers 
to easily move into editing mode, i.e. an "Edit the current version of 
this article" link.

3. The synthesis of the first two concerns: what happens when 
there are errors in the stable version? Mistakes can be corrected in 
the current version, but only sysops will be able to change which 
version is listed on the locked Brilliant Prose page. Thus, it's 
possible that the "stable" version could have more errors than the 
"development" version of a given article.

Stephen G.
-------
Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia
http://www.wikipedia.org