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More Wiki Than Ever
From the early days of Wikipedia, we were forced to do something that we did not like to do: protect (lock) pages. For a long time, whenever there was a major editing dispute requiring a cool-down time, or a sudden spate of vandalism to an article, the community administrators of Wikipedia were forced to put pages into a state where no one could edit them. (Admins could technically edit them, but by social custom did not, in order to preserve the level playing field between admins and ordinary users.)
Protection was a good way to prevent further vandalism, but it did unfortunately still allow the general public to see the vandalism.
After many years of this, we recognized that protection was too un-wiki for us, and so the community devised a new software feature: semi-protection. An article which is semi-protected is more open than an article which is protected, because it is open for editing for all but anonymous editors and the very newest of accounts. This innovation has been very popular in Wikipedia precisely because it allowed us to be more wiki, more open, than when we were forced to lock articles.
Encouraged by this development, and after carefully watching the use of the feature and finding it to be a net improvement, members of the German community in particular thought creatively about how we might do an even better job of openness and therefore quality. Could we simultaneously open editing still further, while also dealing better than ever with the problem that protection and semi-protection were designed to solve?
After much discussion, a clever and elegant innovation was found. This innovation holds forth the promise of Wikipedia being able to open the front page for editing for the first time in 5 years! And at the same time, it provides a finer tool for preventing much of the vandalism that had unfortunately slipped through to the general public, while eliminating the need for semi-protection!
The new feature will allow the community, using the same sorts of procedures and norms that we have used for years to determine semi-protection and protection status, to flag certain versions of articles as "non-vandalized", and these versions are what will be shown to users who are not logged in. The feature will be tested in the normal manner of all new features at Wikipedia, with a simple quiet introduction and a period of testing and evaluation within the community.
We expect the following benefits from this innovation:
- Wikipedia will be more wiki than ever, in the sense that for the first time in years, we expect that nearly ALL pages will be open to editing by ANYONE, even non-logged-in users. This means the almost complete elimination of the editing restrictions we have been forced to have for years.
- We have good reason to believe that the primary incentive for most vandalism, as the primary incentive for most graffiti in the real world, is that the vandalism can be seen by the general public. Vandals seek to shock people. The new feature will deprive them of that benefit, and we expect to see a corresponding drop in the total amount of vandalism that the community has to deal with. This is an excellent example of our philosophy of trusting the general public to do the right thing when given the right incentives, and an illustration of why openness and transparency is better than control.
- Although not all pages will have the 'non-vandalized versions' feature enabled, we expect that it will be enabled quickly by the community on all the pages that are currently semi-protected due to being popular vandalism targets. Thus, we will achieve our aim of preventing the general public from seeing vandalized versions (as we do now on these articles), but at the same time allowing open editing of these articles.
A quick summary to make this even more clear:
- PROTECTION - NO ONE can edit, NO ONE can affect the public version
- SEMI-PROTECTION - all except new users and anons can edit, all except new users and anons can affect the public versions
- VERSION FLAGGING - ANYONE can edit, all except new users and anons can affect the public versions
As you can see, each step of this chain allows MORE people to do MORE things, rather than less. Each step of this chain is becoming MORE wiki, not LESS wiki.
The news media has an unfortunate temptation to follow a story arc that goes something like this. "Open editing is impossible. It worked for a little while at Wikipedia, but now even Wikipedia is admitting that it does not work, so they are closing off public editing step by step. This proves that our traditional model is best in the end."
The fact that this story arc has no relationship to the reality of changes in Wikipedia has not stopped them. I am hopeful that this post will catch enough attention that journalists will start to grasp the real revolution that is taking place here.
The original BBC article on this has been updated:
There's been quite a lot of discussion about this article over on the Wikipedia mailing lists, and as a result the details of what the German group are proposing to do are a lot clearer.
Rather than hold any pending edits until they are approved, edits will still be allowed to any unlocked page on the site.
Unregistered users will not automatically see these pages when they visit, so that the chances that someone will inadvertently come across a vandalised page should be reduced, but the pages will still be available if someone wants to see them.
There's no decision yet as to who will be able to "approve" a page, and of course the English-language Wikipedia is simply watching what happens in Germany and seeing how it works, so there will be no change for those of us who use the English version.
This clarifies a number of the points I raised in the article. I was wrong to say that "Under the new approach, page edits will no longer be immediately applied to pages", since the changes will be there, and someone who wants to see the latest edits will be able to do so.
However for most users, the page they see will not be the latest edit but the latest approved page, so my wider point that this would mark a significant shift in the "wikiness" of the site if it was universally adopted still holds.
In the end, the success of Wikipedia depends on the willingness of large numbers of us to write, edit, fix and expand articles all over the site.
Whether the technology which makes this possible is a wiki or a more conventional editorial process is less important than the project itself, which has provided millions of people with a (mostly reliable) source of information that can transform their lives - or just help with their school projects.
Wales didn't "set the record straight".
If anything this is not becoming more "open" or "wiki" than ever before. It is, however slightly, less wiki than it was. Now, make no mistake, this plan may ultimately be a very good thing, but to say that restricting and approving edits, and having the default page visible to normal people browsing only be the latest "approved" page, is becoming "more of a wiki" is a little bit disingenuous. It would be more accurate to say that it might be a better model, and we're exploring it.
The most open state for a wiki, fundamentally, is to allow, and immediately publish, all edits. If Wikipedia is backing away from that, that's not becoming "more of a wiki".
The most useful state for a wiki like Wikipedia, however, may be some reasonable ratcheting back that makes it the most accurate, functional, and stable source of information for all users.
It seems like they're stuck unnecessarily on trying to defend this decision, when some type of balance like this may ultimately be the best.
Even if it makes it "less of a wiki".
I should also note that I understand the argument that the new move is "more open", and thus "more wiki", than protection and semi-protection.
That's debatable.
Protection and semi-protection only applied to a very small proportion of pages. This new mechanism of "approving" the page that is default-visible will now likely be applied to many more pages than protection or semi-protection ever did, precisely because it's so tempting to use. Yes, I realize that there are ways to see the most recent edits. That's irrelevant to most people. They'll be seeing the latest "approved" page, and that's it.
Now, I still say that this may be a good thing.
But it's at most misleading, and at least subjective, to say this makes it "more wiki".
What is it that makes people always want to jump to conclusions about Wikipedia? A site that has the noblest goals at heart, seems to always have a torch bearing mob knocking on its door.
I always thought it would be a great idea if some group (a major university, perhaps) were to fork Wikipedia and make "confirmed correct" pages that could then be used for real research. This is an interesting spin on that: not "confirmed correct" but at least "not patently wrong", and it (may) approach this goal without needing to fork. Good luck guys.
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Donations by governments have been rejected as a risk to its impartiality, or perceived impartiality, at least.
I go to Wikipedia to look things up. Usually, I'll click through to a few related links. If I happen to see that something is vandalised or blatantly wrong, I will log in and either fix it or stick one of the dispute bugs on the page and open a talk issue about it.
The important thing here is that I am NORMALLY not logged in. If the most-vandalised pages are version flagged, I will never see the vandalism, and thus I will never fix it.
I don't know how many people browse this way, but if there are enough of them, it will have an impact on how the whole wiki concept works.
Microsoft cheerleader, blue flag waving, you got a problem with that?
This is a security model inversion which is better suited to Wikis than traditional security, and it's Good.
Traditional security (i.e. non-communal) says "only privileged users can make changes", and "the more privileged you are, the more you can change".
This security inverts that concept and focuses not on who can change what, but rather on how pervasive their changes are once they have made them. If the old model is a Privilege-Heirarchy model, then this is a Popularity-Broadcasting model. It says "anyone can change anything", and "only if you matter will your changes be seen by anyone else who matters".
It removes the temptation to vandalize anonymously, because anonymous folks have no rep and therefore no power. It idealizes having a good reputation, because therein lies the path to the biggest podium.
I don't see how this breaks it at all. All it requires is one change on your part: stay logged into Wikipedia. Now, I don't know how hard or feasible this is to you, but it seems to make sense for me.
... or should now. Otherwise, you're right ... it'd be a pain in the butt for helpers to have to log in every time they visit the site.
I, as well as most other folks, just use Wikipedia as "read-only", to look things up. I don't really envision myself being the helpful type, as you are. So there's really no reason for us to be logged in.
But for those like you who want to help Wikipedia, just stay logged in! I don't know if they have a "keep me logged in" feature, but I imagine they do
-- jchenx
A person would think twice about changing something when the record would show that he thereby made it inferior.
If that was the case, that would be rather unfortunate. Just because Penrose has verified that a certain page is accurate as best as he knows, doesn't mean that it doesn't have room for improvement. Especially in a field such as Cosmology where changes are so frequent and substantial. It would not be good for any sort of marking that would hinder future development of the page.
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Something like this is in fact part of the proposal currently under discussion: a seconds flag ("validated" or something) in addition to "not vandalized". The ability to set this flag would be reserved to a special group of experts. For core articles about science, etc, I think this can work. I'm not sure though how much of Wikipedia can be covered this way.
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this 120 chars is too small to contain.
Programmers have been using this method for years. It's called Beta testing.
A page gets edited, new page is tagged 'beta', registered users check the page to make sure its clean and tag it 'stable' where it is then released to the rest of the world.
The fact that anyone can become a registered user makes this open-source, so the slashdot community should be behind it 100%!!