Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.