Stirling Newberry wrote:
What about merely having a logged in user force publication? If a login repeatedly forces vandalizations in, then that would be grounds for banning.
If a login even *once* vandalizes or forces a vandalization through, then that's grounds for immediate banning, I would say. In some cases of course good judgment is necessary (was it really vandalism, or just sandboxing by a new user?) but the kinds of cases I'm talking about are just goofy. (Replacing George Bush's photo with Hitler is good for a 3rd grade laugh, but, *ahem*, people are trying to do something useful around here. :-))
In many CMS's there is the concept of a "trusted user", who has privileges to do such things, but is far from being a sysop. It might well be worth looking at a similar idea for wikipedia - which would allow such "judgment calls" to be made by users who have put the time in on wikipedia, but who aren't interested in, and do not need, full sysop privileges.
Agreed. I think this makes perfect sense. It does mean that a vandal can still force through vandalism now and again, but it is more clicks for them to do it, and anyway this option is "softer" and therefore should be tried first. The harder option of restricting 'force publication' to sysops would still be available at a later date.
--Jimbo