[Wikipedia-l] An Approval Process (Proposal)

[Fred Bauder]

on 9/1/03 12:56 AM, David Levinson at dlevinson at mn.rr.com wrote:

> Proposal for a Wikipedia Article "Approval" Process
> 
> Assuming there is support for a stable version of wikipedia, some
> mechanism for stability is required.
> 
> Allow logged in users to approve any version of an article. Logged in
> users could also disapprove any or  every version of an article.
> Articles would be scored based on number of users who approved
> (weighted?) - number of users who disapproved (weighted?).  The article
> with the highest approval rating would be the released (approved)
> article.  This would be displayed somewhere distinct from the working
> wikipedia (e.g. sifter.wikipedia.org, or something similar).
> 
> New users would be presented with Wikipedia Release edition.  They
> could still edit the article, but it would not be released until the
> approvals on the new article exceed the approvals on the previously
> released article. The under-edit version from which users are working
> may differ from the release version if approvals have not yet been
> found. The differences would be highlighted on the edit screen.
> 
> Edits would of course appear in Recent Changes.  In addition, there
> would be Recent Approvals tracking articles which recently were voted
> on for approval.
> 
> An edit would of course count as a vote for approval (if preferences so
> set).
> 
> Under the article (in view mode) (for logged in users) would be  "vote
> to approve" and "vote to disapprove" buttons. A vote to approve would
> transfer a users vote to this version for approval and remove it from
> previous versions. A vote to disapprove would remain even if another
> version was disapproved.
> 
> Possible weight =  1 if under 100 edits, 2 if under 200 edits, 3 if
> under 300 edits, 4 otherwise. Alternative weighting schemes are
> possible as well, including weight=1 for all logged in users.
> 
> Comments?
> 
> -- DavidLevinson

This is a recipe for Pablum. Often the better article is supported by only a
few people, or only one person. But feel free to do something really dumb.
After all, I'm the competition.

Fred Bauder

http://www.internet-encyclopedia.org