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Edit-Approval System Proposed For English-Language Wikipedia
An anonymous reader writes "A group of powerful Wikipedia insiders are pushing for FlaggedRevisions which will require a 'trusted user' to approve of edits before they go live on the online encyclopedia. There is also opposition but with support of founder Jimbo Wales it is likely to go through. The German version has tried the system, leading to three-week delays between edit and publication. The English wiki with its higher number of anonymous editors per trusted user is expected to suffer longer queues if FlaggedRevisions is implemented on all articles. This comes just a few days after Britannica announced that readers will be allowed to suggest edits and have them reviewed within 20 minutes. Will we see the day when Britannica can be edited almost instantly while editing Wikipedia requires fighting bureaucracy, patience and the right contacts?" Note that, according to the quote from Jimmy Wales in the linked article, this system would only be used "on a subset of articles, the boundaries of which can be adjusted over time to manage the backlog."
Seems they could have the best of both worlds; if they gave users the option to see either
1) the most recently edited version, or
2) the most recently approved version.
It's decent now, so even if it was frozen as is it would still be a valuable resource. And edit approval won't freeze it, it can still grow just more slowly.
Besides, there's enough dissatisfaction already with Wikipedia's policies to warrant a fork. This will just increase the likelihood of someone forking off a better wikipedia, a wikipedia for the masses with no notability bullshit, fewer rampaging herds of deletionists, and commitment to the original idea of an online encyclopedia which everyone can contribute to and edit.
Loose lips lose spit.
Yes. But it isn't surprising. Remember that Wales never wanted wikipedia- his original idea was for a free encyclopedia written by experts. That was taking way to long, so he did wikipedia as a way to create articles which could be edited and brought into the "real" encyclopedia. He's always hated that the bastard child took off, and always wanted to move back to his original idea. If he could kill the idea of a user edited encyclopedia, he would. He's *just* practical enough to know he can't, but it will get progressively less open as he closes it as much as he can.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Is what is needed. Look, most people understand that they need to take anything they read on wikipedia with a grain of salt; a website that anybody can edit has to be. But see, wikipedia seems to project the aura that it doesn't think it's shit stinks. As a result, you get crap like the warnings for this. Look, who cares if that article isn't well referenced or cited. I was just looking for a general idea of why the Chinnese consider "May you live in interesting times" a curse. We dont need the damn disclaimer, it makes the place feel like it is full of anal retentive blow-hards on power trips. And the best part is, the article I linked to seems to have had at least one of those warning boxes since Sept. 2007! Nobody cares!
I used to remove every one of those stupid warnings when I'd hit an article via google just for spite. Now I stopped caring. When I see one, I just back out and go somewhere else. I certainly wouldn't take the time to do whatever the silly warning box wanted. Obviously I'm not alone or those boxes wouldn't have been around for more than a year.
My ideal wikipedia would not have any of that "citation needed" or "needs more references" bullshit. Just leave the damn thing alone. We all know the thing is never going to be a bastion of truthliness. We all use it for trivia and cases were we really dont care how accurate the information we get is. And if we spot bias, we just might edit it out. Isn't that the point?
Bottom line is wikipedia would be better served by removing every single one of those annoying warning boxes. Every one. They serve no purpose other then to project the aura of pretenciousness.
Amazing how some internet "services" become popular (ebay, youtube, etc) and then get progressively destroyed by the ones that own them and how they destroy what made them once great. Let's hope it doesn't happen to gmail and google.
Although the architecture of internet itself sought to decentralize delivery, it's funny that humans always gravitate toward provided services that are so centralized. I wish there was a way to provide these services in a more decentralized fashion while not being completely chaotic, but that likely won't happen.
So, you say? "People will find and edit, no problem! That's why we have vandalism patrol, RC patrol etc! The system works!" - does it? No, it don't. Apparently, Ms Tavares "preferred color of vibrator" sat, untouched, through such measures, and according to statistics, had over 1,000 visitors. The vandalism was only reverted after being pointed out in Wikipedia Review, a site that goes to great lengths to expose a lot of the more nefarious back-room manoeuvrings that plague "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit" (and thus has garnered such a great deal of spite from certain factions at Wikipedia (uncoincidentally, many of whom are exposed for their part in said manoeuvrings), that there have been times when WR was added to spam blacklists to prevent linking to it from WP, and proposals, one called "BADSITES"(!) were raised to curtail any mention of sites which said negative things of WP (and yet, here people are screaming "NO CENSORSHIP! Except for the things WE don't like!"). Even now, if you find yourself caught up in the WP TLA bureacracy, (RFC, RFArb, MED, AN, ANI, etc, etc, et al, et al), or trying to gain, say, Administrator status, it's a nice way to poison the well by having someone point out that "Gasp. Such-and-such is a KNOWN WR CONTRIBUTOR!".
Flagged revisions do no more, and no less, than allow people to tag revisions which have been reviewed to be vandalism-free. They don't prevent anyone editing. They don't censor information.
I find it highly telling that the "anonymous reader" trying to rouse support for the "end of Wikipedia as we know it" has not the courage of their convictions to name themselves.
Gee, considering the amount of babysitting some of those articles get one would think this sort of system wouldn't be needed.
I have nothing compelling to say
Please mod OP up.
This is a keen insight that needs more attention. He forgot to mention Yahoo. A lot of internet projects started out great and then died when the copyright czars or PHBs mucked with them too much. And a lot of this has to do with fear of lawsuits and legislation.
Americans should be concerned. If we keep letting incumbents (I'm looking at you Disney) fuck up the new media market it will eventually be taken over by someone else. Think I'm kidding? When Google implodes I guarantee you it's replacement will be Chinese.
The decentralized systems you talk about DO exist and they ARE widely used. It's called P2P, in particular bittorrent. It's just that it's very difficult for the copyright czars and decency police to control such systems so they fight to shut them down. This is the essence of the new media conflict.