Wikipedia:WikiProject Flagged Revisions

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Notices: Status: Currently the Flagged protection and patrolled revisions has been approved for a trial and is awaiting MediaWiki software changes to be carried out. Discussion and poll to decide the criteria that will be used for promoting users to the reviewer group is open at Wikipedia talk:Reviewers#New discussion and poll: reviewer criteria .

Welcome to WikiProject Flagged Revisions. Several Wikipedians have formed this collaboration resource and group dedicated to facilitating the implementation of

The goal of this WikiProject is to coordinate all aspects of implementing some form of Flagged Revisions on the English Wikipedia. It is envisaged that once there is community consensus on Flagged Revisions that this project will become dormant.

The scope of the WikiProject is all aspects of any proposals, trials, metrics, and implementation of Flagged Revisions. Technical aspects of the MediaWiki software are not part of this WikiProject and are handled elsewhere

NOTE: This section may contain opinion and unverifiable claims

Flagged Protection and Patrolled Revisions

Advantages

• If flagged protections is implemented on all
  articles about living people, it would significantly reduce vandalism and defamation, thus addressing the issue of libel
  .
• Would reduce copyright violations, vandalism, legal threats, personal attacks, and unintentional inaccuracies by using passive patrolled revisions.
• Would improve the accuracy of articles and thus improve the reliability of Wikipedia.
• Would allow all editors to edit all pages. Although flag-protected pages will require approval by a reviewer before being displayed to non-registered users.

The term Flagged revision isn't used on the German Wikipedia pages that deal with the use of this extension.

The term used is Gesichtete und geprüfte Versionen. The literal translation of this is sighted and certified versions.

Implementation

The German language Wikipedia has implemented sighting, as of May 6th 2008.[1]

Sighted versions

The goal of sighting is to reduce vandalism.

To be a "sighter" one has to request the privilege and be eligible to vote (Stimmberechtigt). The guideline for Stimmberechtigt is someone that fulfills all of the following:

• Registered account
• Two-hundred article edits
• Two months of editing

Anonymous users see the latest sighted version by default.

Certified versions

There is some discussion about certified versions, though this is not implemented currently. Certified versions are versions that are deemed to be accurate and complete. Who can certify articles is not yet determined.

Impact

As the German language Wikipedia has implemented the extension for some time, it is possible examine its effect.

Detailed statistics are here: http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/Sitemap.htm

The data is mixed, if one compares one year pre- and one year post-implementation. The analysis is non-trivial, as some of the changes could be explained by a general decrease in the growth rate also seen in the English language Wikipedia in the same time frame.

It is interesting to note the following:

• There are more German language Wikipedians per speaker (37 Editors (5+) per million speakers) than English language Wikipedians per native speaker (27 Editors (5+) per million speakers).[2]

Russian patrolling policy

Please feel free to add yourself here, and to indicate any areas of particular interest.

Adding {{User WikiProject Flagged Revisions}} in your user namespace produces:

This user is a participant in WikiProject Flagged Revisions.

1. Alan Liefting (talk · contribs) - I have instigated this project to coordinate some form of Flagged Revisions on the English Wikipedia
2. talk · contribs) - Categories and Templates; maybe statistical analysis also. 22:48, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply
   ]
3. 2help (talk · contribs) - Great Idea. I will be glad to help wherever my knowledge and skills allow. 17:54, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
4. Glacier Wolf (talk · contribs) - I would love to help wherever I can. Awesome idea! Glacier Wolf 02:25, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
5. AndrewRT(Talk)
6. Otto (talk) 10:21, 1 September 2009 (UTC) I support the introduction of flagged revisions at the English wikipedia. I am a "Sichter" at the German wikipedia.[reply]
7. Manning Bartlett (talk · contribs) - I have for years been devoted to the "quality over quantity" philosophy, and I completely support FR. 08:27, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
8. J04n (talk · contribs) - This looks like a great idea, I would love to participate. 01:36, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
9. Pyfan (talk · contribs) - I would love to help. This update will help to improve the credibility of WP. 07:27, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
10. Nephron (talk · contribs) - I think this would lead to a dramatic improvement in quality. I have some German language knowledge and will work on translating some of the many pages on the German language Wikipedia related to this topic. 04:25, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
11. MisterWiki (talk · contribs) - The same as Nephron (talk · contribs). 16:09, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
12. JBsupreme (talk · contribs)
13. Wekn reven i susej eht (talk · contribs) - Great idea! I'll try to promote this project to others who might be of more assistance than I am.
14. Николай95 (talk · contribs) — I'm a reviewer in Russian Wikipedia. I support implementing Flagged Revisions on all enwiki's encyclopedic content (articles, files, templates, categories and portals. --Николай95 (talk) 08:14, 14 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Category:WikiProject Flagged Revisions

• {{WikiProject Flagged Revisions}} - to be added to all talk pages of articles relating to this WikiProject

Links

Related WikiProjects

See also: Wikipedia maintenance WikiProjects directory

Rationale

The open editing model used on wikis such as Wikipedia is open to vandalism, bias (systemic and intentional) and to poor quality editing by inexperienced editors. Wikipedia has become incredibly complex in terms of structure and bureaucracy compared to how it was in the early years. This is necessary for building the project but it means the less experienced editors can hinder progress. Various methods have been developed to reduce the negative impact of these edits. Some of these methods include page protection, tags placed on articles pointing out shortcomings, watchlists used to check article edits, and new pages are patrolled. These are a few of the methods that are used to retain article quality.

Flagged revisions serves strictly to enhance the ability of non-registered and new users to edit, by allowing them to edit protected pages, something which was not previously allowed. In addition, it may address the liability of Wikipedia regarding

Some facts and figures

• Vandalism makes up about 6% of the edits on Wikipedia
• Some pages receive high levels of vandalism
• Articles linked from the Main Page are prone to being attacked
• Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism is the most frequently edited page
• Out of 720 editors 59.6% gave support for a trial
• In an analysis of six years of data it was found that ten percent of edits were reverted (based on a 118,000 article sample)

Implementation

Patrolled revisions uses a passive flag that reviewers can use to mark a revision as patrolled, for monitoring purposes, but that has no effect on the version viewed by readers. This will allow reviewers to patrol new edits to the encyclopedia in an organized manner, ideally ensuring that all edits are valid and conform to Wikipedia policy.

Flagged protection allows administrators to enable an active flag on a given article, 'flag protecting' it. Reviewers can confirm revisions, and the version viewed by readers by default on these pages will be latest confirmed revision. This will allow new and unregistered users to edit protected pages constructively, although there will be a delay while their edits are approved.

Timeline

• May 2008 - trialled on the German Wikipedia for testing purposes
• June 4, 2008- FlaggedRevision extension enabled on MediaWiki
• August 2008 - straw poll conducted on the German Wikipedia resulting in its implementation
• January 2009 - consensus gained for
  Wikipedia:Flagged protection
  trial on English Wikipedia
• March 2009 - a trial for Flagged protection and patrolled revisions gained consensus for English Wikipedia
• As of August 2009^[update] FlaggedRevs has been implemented on 23 projects
• September 2009 - despite consensus for a trial run, no trial implementation has taken place

For implementation on the use FlaggedRevs on other Wikipedias and Wikimedia projects, see meta:FlaggedRevs

Glossary

• experienced users to monitor edits to an article by 'flagging' them as vandalism, or vandalism-free. It can be used for passive article monitoring, quality assessment, or as a way to present to readers only verified versions. The feature will be implemented, with some limitations, in a two-month trial
  on the English Wikipedia.
• Page protection - An ability given to Administrators which allows them to protect pages from being edited, created or moved. It is only be used in certain situations. With the possible implementation of flagged revisions, flagged protection could also be used as a means to protect a page.
• Flagged protection - An alternative to page protection which, in place of disallowing edits from certain users, allows all edits but requires that edits on that page be approved ('flagged') before being displayed to non-registered
  readers.
• Patrolled revision - A version of an article which has been flagged by a reviewer as free from vandalism. It does not affect which revision is seen by readers, and serves only as a system to monitor changes to articles.
• WP:Reviewers
  .
• Sighted version - A version of an article which has been flagged by a reviewer as free from vandalism. If implemented, anonymous users would see the latest sighted version by default. This feature is not included in the planned trial on the English Wikipedia.
• Quality version - A version of an article which has been flagged by a reviewer as conforming to the standards of accuracy, neutrality, completeness, and style required by our quality assurance processes. It does not affect which revision is seen by readers, and serves only as a system to monitor the quality articles. This feature is not included in the planned trial on the English Wikipedia.