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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."
This is a disaster. No hierarchy is why I like Wikipedia. *sigh* end of an era.
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.
are they forgetting the what made wikipedia successful in the first place?
I like the fact that Britannica is trying to get into the "free dictionary" sphere, wiki may be good, but several independent (free) sources are always better than one!
Absolute power corrupts, absolutely.
Need an automatic screenshot taker? Try here.
Will we see the day when Britannica can be edited almost instantly while editing Wikipedia requires fighting bureaucracy, patience and the right contacts?
Sure, I'd say it's probably inevitable at this point. It is human nature to overcomplicate things to an insane degree, because we have a penchant for fiddling: we just can't leave a good thing alone. It's one of the things we do best. And when that happens to Wikipedia, when it has become too topheavy and hidebound to be useful, someone will start a new project that will attempt to learn from the lessons of the old, and go from there.
Nothing really new to see here, when you get right down to it.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Seems to me that unless there's some sort of "Meta-something" that the 'Sighters' will have unchecked authority.
That's bad.
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
Let me be the first to say, as an infrequent Wikipedia contributor, that a FlaggedRev system would drive me away from the project.
Cheers, Mike
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.
The overwhelmingly majority of edits to the German Wikipedia are flagged within seconds.
However, the single oldest non-reviewed or reverted change will often be a few weeks old. This is usually because someone made a large edit with a mixture of good and terrible changes, so no one wants to either sight it or revert it⦠so the draft hangs around awhile until someone improves it enough to justify publishing it, or until someone finally decides its crap and removes the change.
Under the old system edits like this, ones which were of mixed quality, were quickly undone. The new system is much better at conserving the users work.
Of course, everyone can see the latest draft version: There is a big banner that tells you the the version you are viewing is not the latest.
I think it has been an enormous improvement.
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.
Restricting edits to trusted users is ideologically opposite to the core principles that made Wikipedia great. I think it is a terrible idea.
Instead, I've advocated alternatives in the past: article 'sets' based on quality and notability, and real-time feedback of edits/history and controvercial regions
article sets: instead of an "in or out" policy for articles... let people make any article the want - any person, any thing, but have a graded system for what makes it to full publication. For example: Level 5 articles, "Full Publication" are basically all the things on Wikipedia now. Level 1 are minutia of almost no interest to anyone but a select few, and only accessible to logged-in users. All new articles start at Level 1. Level 0 and -1 are candidates for deletion. Levels in between are various degrees of publication openness; community nominated moderation panels select articles' levels (think: meta-moderation). This would create an even more open ecosystem of creative expression that would lead to higher-quality publication of new articles in Wikipedia.
real-time feedback: The web pages need to include a sidebar or underlines, or some integrated, obvious feedback mechanism to flag recent edits and controversial (high-change-rate) sections of text. This is critical to understanding the longevity, accuracy and community agreement to content in a page. This would eliminate one of the most serious criticisms of Wikipedia, by letting readers know what was recently changed or what has been changed often. One would need to create many complex metrics about article edit rates, user reliability and content filters to make such an integrated flagging/feedback system work well.
These are the areas where the Wikipedia foundation could innovate and create things that are better than we have today - not with closing down edits with approvals.
Deletionists would be working hard to become 'trusted users' themselves, so that once in power, they can stop other people from adding to articles.
Forgetting that it take many, many small rough additions to grow articles to a certain size. Only then will trimming the articles be feasible.
It's like making a movie. Lots and lots of takes, lots of cuts, only the will the movie contain enough material to last 1 hour.
[citation needed]
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
um all the most popular services and apps on the web are part of half assed solutions which crowd the limelight.
Facebook, myspace, ebay, wikipedia, etc.
And I use Wikipedia, not because it is the most accurate but because I don't have to pay for access to it. Britannica charges for access to articles that in general have less knowledge in them than wikipedia. So you pay to get less, but it's all trusted right? With the number of spelling grammar, and just plain wrong facts i found in my parents full set of encyclopedia britannica (purchased 1990) on information from even the 60's I vowed never to pay for an encyclopedia let alone their useless drivel.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Set up a timeout limit, with a fallback to what happens now. In other words, if an edit hasn't been approved or rejected in days/hours (with a default, but customisable per article), the edit is flagged as "approved via timeout".
Ask me about repetitive DNA
this breaks the entire reason that wikipedia worked!!!!
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
I wrote some time ago an article about peer reviewing Wikipedia:
http://cameralovesyou.net/random/wikipedia-digital-signatures.html
I submitted it to Wikipedia Village Pump about six months ago, but at the time it didn't go through to the implementation phase.
The basic idea was that a revision of an article could be peer reviewed, so that it could later be referenced as if approved by the peer reviewers. The idea looks actually quite much like the "flagged" revisions that are now under discussion. :-)
- Ismo
http://michaelsmith.id.au
And a general idea is all you'll ever get on Wikipedia that you can trust. Those warnings seem like some form of propaganda which tries to project an aura of reliability that the Wikipedia does not have.
The way I would do it would be to allow only logged-in edition and institute some form of "karma", where users could label content as "vandalism". Users with a high level of vandalism in their contributions would be banned.
In short, I would make Wikipedia somewhat like Slashdot, only I think the Slashdot criteria for moderation isn't very good, I would let any logged-in user with enough karma to moderate. That would create a herd-mentality, for sure, but I believe it would be in the right direction. People who just wanted to troll would get tired of it pretty soon.
I'm sure there are many people who are willing to work seriously to make Wikipedia work. Just look at what they have created, despite all the bullshit the overlords impose upon us, the humble contributors.
Why bother with SEO? Just get your URL or product on a wikipedia page.
Won't work (rel="nofollow"). Indeed, the reason it doesn't work is a large part of the reason Wikipedia pages are ranked so highly.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
How do they choose these 'trusted' users? On many topics in Wikipedia a gauntlet is formed by a Wikithugs. They decide they own the topic, and sit there and revert every change that comes along for the most trite of reasons. Most of these translate to "I wrote this article and I don't want anyone to change it." You can revert it back yourself of course, but they'll just revert it back. And they have more time that you: they seem to have nothing better to do. Challenge their credentials and you'll be directed to some pretty Wikihomepage declaring all the wonderful Wikicliques they belong to. I've seen wikithugs sitting on insignificant topics, but on larger ones they form a circlejerk and jump to each others defenses. "Oh sure. Don't put down BasementDweller215 - they've been a Wikipedia editor for X years". Since these cliques are self-policing, there's a lot of back scratching and no reason for them to be responsible. Basically it smells of "We were here first - Keep out the Noobs."
It's why I don't waste my time editing Wikipedia any more. Why waste time researching and writing a change when it'll be reverted and re-reverted until you go up? Any system for choosing "trusted editors" from the wikithug crowd is doomed to fail. Hell. It would make the system even worse. Bad idea.
Not all subjects are so controversial/disputed that they need this Edit-Approval system IMHO. Certain subjects could be flagged, like political and religious content, the rest could be "peer-reviewed" as it is today. That might cut the possible backlog a bit.
TFA quotes Jimmy Wales as stating that a poll of members shows 60% are OK with the new system.
That's a poor analysis of what the membership is telling them. They're considering a major change that 40% of their members ARE NOT OK with.
Splitting your membership in half and improving life slightly for those that remain is rarely a good strategy.
Who writes Wikipedia?
That story was on /. about a month ago. My thought is that what TFA refers to as "Wikipedia Insiders" is the same 500 or so nuts detailed my linked article.
It might not be a bad thing but a lot of things I have gone to "the pedia", as I call it, have been items that are changing quite often at the time. The fact the Wikipedia can stay up with recent events and discoveries means I get the best information available. Even if I found some other site with relevant information on any given subject it is very likely the information is stale at best.
Plus if I am not sure how current info is the pedia gives me a way to check exactly when it was added, who added it, and mostly cites credible static pages or articles.
Why go from that level of usefulness to a (possible) 20+ day delay governed by a group that (presumably) is not the best or most knowledgeable on the subject matter?
I strongly disagree. On many search terms, I hit the Wikipedia result first, and use the rank button to push it higher, because Wikipedia provides pretty accurate information in a presentation form that I am used to.
Try the search term "Flipflop" (the ones used in electronics). Ignoring the shoes for now, you will find some university sites with crazy color schemes, about some specific flip flops, many hobbyist sites and other crap. "Ajax" brings up tutorials, frameworks, but nothing that tells you what Ajax is. Worse even for search terms like "Homeopathy", where all kinds of crap pops up.
When people bitch about Wikipedia, they always forget that the rest of the Internet is even worse.
Allegations of "leftist bias" are almost always specious. An inclusive worldview and a fact-based decision-making methodology are embedded in the foundation of progressivism. On the other hand, modern conservative politics are almost entirely built on deceiving a large ignorant group to vote against its economic interests. Conservative bias has been far more common during the last 30 years than anything else. In short, "reality has a well-known liberal bias". Stop whining.
Why else do you think so many conservative pundits and politicians like to bash "elite west coast liberals", "ivory tower eggheads", "liberal scientists", etc? One should question a political ideology lead by people who dismiss those with education.
Reality, indeed, has a well-known liberal bias.
we need a more distributed model like git or something
it is possible to fork wikipedia but it would not be easy, especially with the way google works. And it probably wouldnt produce anything useful
What you describe, the failure of your search terms to find what you are looking for, simply proves that Search does not work as well as it should. It doesn't, in any way, validate Wikipedia. It merely shows the limitations of Google, being why Google needs competition.
The whole idea of Wikipedia is its 'crowdsource' nature. It shouldn't be 'perma-locked' this way.
What would be nicer to me is a 'subset' of Wikipedia that was exactly what is suggested here. Something that, among other things, would be 'safe' for use at elementary and middle schools.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Sounds like Encyclopedia Dramatica is just the place that you're looking for!
Which is that, especially on certain controversial topics, your reversions would themselves be immediately reverted... not so much in cases of vandalism, but in the case of articles that have certain "high-level posters", or even just campers, watching over their content, who want to enforce their version of that content.
In fact, it has been the development of moderators and administrators that has been the largest part of the problem. When anyone could edit with the same authority, the problems did not arise.
comics aren't good enough for Wikipedia
Today I was reading an article on Wikipedia about DC Comics' Final Crisis series. Which deleted articles about comics that have been the subject of non-trivial coverage in multiple "third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" are you complaining about?
nothing on the internet counts as a reputable source
What do you mean? Please name a specific third-party source or type of source that Wikipedia has rejected, and show us that it has "a reputation for fact-checking".
In case this goes through, the easiest way to filter Wikipedia pages from your Google results is to add this to your query string:
-site:wikipedia.org
What a sad end it would be for such a beautiful idea. Let's hope it never happens.
Google seems to do all right for me:
Flipflop
AJAX
Maybe you just need to learn how to use it correctly.
Its something that can't be solved. Its hard to tell the difference between a crank and an expert. Well its not, but its hard to create a rule that does.
Plus I frankly I don't see how an expert wouldn't be able to find citations.
I was involved with Wiktionary for a bit. Back there was a bit of the insane running the asylum regarding some policy decisions. But from just causal browsing now, Wiktionary has gotten much better since then.
"Leftist" is a relative term. What is seen as neutral by an average American, appears as rigthwing propaganda to many Europeans, and vice versa. It depends a lot on where your "centre" is, and I don't think there's an objectively "correct" answer to that.
The problem is that a whole lot of people with no fucking lives have decided to make policing Wikipedia their life's devotion. To say it's biased is an understatement, but Encyclopedia Dramatica's "bureaucratic fuck" article makes some points. The rules work until you get Rules Nazis. Then you end up in a neverending arms race to define exactly what the Rules Nazis can and cannot do while they tirelessly work to be bureaucratic fucks, which destroys the entire spirit of what was supposed to be going on.
Wikipedia was an interesting experiment. With the stress on experiment. It taught us the Do's and Dont's of a massive collaboration effort.
However, as with all experiments, lots of things turned out to be different than we thought, or more difficult. Wikipedia suffers badly from the grey areas around its core idea. Deletionism is the most famous one - the fact alone that even after years of discussion there is no consensus should serve to illustrate that there's still something to be done here. Edit Wars are another topic of that kind. There's obviously a problem here, and no one has found a solution so far.
What has been done for the past two years or so is patchwork. It reminds me of DOS/Windos. You've got something that through luck and being there at the right time exploded into this huge, dominant system, and now you're stuck with all the legacy crap.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
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?
Wow, talk about putting a spin on the story! The sky is falling and stuff!
The wait times of several weeks don't sound realistic to me for most articles, because heavily edited articles are also heavily watched and scrutinised - I can't imagine there being much bigger delays on getting up-to-date information on current events than there is now.
Also, I don't believe anyone really wants more bureaucracy than there already is. In my personal opinion, article sighting powers should be handed out like autoconfirmation is handed out today: Automatically after a set period of time after article creation.
But let's talk about history.
Last time when we did a major move to "limit the editing", we introduced semi-protection. A lot of people felt limiting newly registered users from editing article was a blow against the principle of open editing. But also, these people didn't stop to consider what the alternative to the semi-protection was.
The alternative to semi-protection was full protection. Either everyone is allowed to edit, or no one is. Which one do you prefer: Wait a few days to get yourself a confirmation to edit all semi-protected articles ever, or always bother the much-hated administrative nazi bastards and hope they add the precious bit of information to the protected article? I'm pretty sure most people feel the former is more within the spirit of open editing.
Flagged revisions aren't taking away open editing either. Instead, they are a tool to let people scrutinise the new additions better. No one's taking away the ability to view the bleeding-edge versions, if you want them. The idea is just to make sure that someone has at least checked the recent edits.
So what's the alternative horror scenario?
The alternative horror scenario is that no one looks through the stuff. Semi-protection is entirely mechanical in nature: we can't technically define a "suspected vandal" as "unregistered or a recently registered account", vandalism is a social issue, and social issues are solved by social interaction, not by computers. The only way to introduce social problem-solving is to let people vet the edits. That's how real editing process works in real life.
That's because the Sighted Versions system in the German Wikipedia is only used to verify that edits don't include obvious vandalism ("Bob's mohter is gay!!eleven"). You don't need any expertise to identify such obvious vandalism. Checking the accuarcy of those the newly added facts is done the same way it was done before this system was implemented (watchlists, wikiprojects, casual readers/editors, etc..)
And many edits by anonymous users are just corrections of typos, linkfixes, layout changes, etc.. those can be checked in a glance and flagged as "sighted". And edits by users with the sighter status (older than 60 days, more than 300 edits, clean block log) are flagged as "sighted" automatically. At the moment, there are about 5800 users with this status.
The Angels have the Phone Box
We don't like locking articles, but we can do it already. Flagged Revisions is just another form of locking, and it's unfortunate, but there are assholes who have nothing better to do than sit around and wait for their favorite article to get unlocked so they can start vandalizing it again (like this guy). Whenever we try to unlock the article again (because, astonishingly, Wikipedia editors - and, contrary to what you might think, Wikipedia is very much run by its editors, it's far too vast to be effectively policed by any cabal) the vandalism starts again. We want to be able to deal with it in a way that's simple and fair to other editors. Flagged Revisions seems the best compromise, and it's hardly more Orwellian than locking the article to admin-only edits. Can you suggest a better solution to our problem?