User:Random89/Proposal for Clean Pages
After the recent straw poll which showed support for some form of Flagged revision, I decided to adapt and formalize a proposal that I had previously made at the flagged revision talk page.
Introduction
Flagged revision is a valuable tool that can be used, like most tools, for a variety of purposes to improve the project. The largest challenge facing wikipedia today is that inaccurate, malicious, and potentially libelous information is sometimes inserted into articles which can be viewed by all readers - an act that is termed vandalism. This proposal is designed to address that concern by giving editors the ability to fix harmful edits before they are viewed by readers not logged in. The ability to mark a page "clean" will indicate to readers that the article they are reading is free of vandalism, obvious grammatical and spelling errors, and maintenance tags. It should be noted that the marking of a page as "clean" is not an endorsement of the content aside from the issues indicated above.
Why is this needed?
The primary benefits of this proposal are threefold. They include but are not limited to:
- Protect readers - This proposal will improve the reliability and professionalism of wikipedia, allowing readers to better trust information found in the encyclopedia. Readers are less likely to encounter blatantly false and malicious information.
- Protect wikipedia - This proposal would make it less likely for libelous information or copyright violations to be viewed by readers, making the project less susceptible to legal threats and improving the reputation of the encylopedia.
- Empower editors - Many pages on wikipedia (those that are high-visibility or high-risk) are often targets for vandalism and POV edits. Many of these pages are protected from editing. The implementation of this proposal would allow some of these pages, possibly including certain main pagetemplates, to be opened to the wider community of editors.
Who can mark pages clean?
Essentially, anyone who has gained the trust of the community will be able to mark pages as "clean". This proposal is about improving the encyclopedia, not about creating a hierarchy.
Automatic rights
Anybody who is an
Granted rights
Anyone who has:
- Registered an account
- Made 100 constructive edits with that account
- A clean block log
will be granted marker rights by an admin upon request, unless an admin believes there is a reason not to (such as a history of
Revoking rights
In a similar fashion, any admin can revoke the marker rights from any user they feel has abused them. In this instance as well, the user can appeal to the community to overturn the action of a single admin.
What constitutes a clean page?
A clean page shall have:
- No vandalism or libelous content
- No spelling errors (this does not include dealing with US/UK variants)
- No obvious grammar errors (errors that are apparent at first glance and/or impede understanding of the article)
- No maintenance tags at the top of the page (including but not limited to "cleanup needed", "citations needed", and "NPOV concerns")
What page will someone see when they visit wikipedia?
When any reader not logged in visits wikipedia, they will by default see the most recent "clean" version of any page which has been marked as clean. There will be a clickable option (either as a link or a tab) for anybody to view the most recent version of the page, whether it is marked or not. Any user logged in will by default see the most recent version, with an option to see the most recent marked version.