Wikipedia talk:Flagged revisions/Archive 5

* Has an account for 30 days
* Has 150 edits
o 30 edits to article namespace pages
o 10 article namespace pages edited
o 15 days of edits
* Has confirmed an e-mail account

I for one think that spreading it out widely among editors is a good idea. --Falcorian (talk) 17:00, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I think that we should be careful to spread out flag/sight tools, perhaps requiring a few months and several hundred edits. I do not think that it should be restricted only to admins; my point was that I think that all admins should have it. Nyttend (talk) 01:40, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree -- all admins get these tools by default. For everyone else, have requirements similar to what's needed for AWB (maybe 400-500 mainspace edits), including making people apply for access. That way, it would really only be people who want to use the tools that will get access to them. -- Imperator3733 (talk) 04:05, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

The criteria at

PaddyLeahy (talk

) 19:02, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the 150 edits as on the page at the moment seems to be a reasonable balance between having enough people to sight versions and reducing the abuse potential. I do not see the need for the requirement to 'have confirmed an e-mail account'. Having e-mail does not seem related to the ability to flag versions - I can see the case for admins but not for just sighting versions. Davewild (talk) 19:18, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, now that I think about it, something around 150 edits would be best. Would sighting rights be able to be revoked, or would abuse just result in a block? -- Imperator3733 (talk) 23:25, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I seem to remember it being said that it's simply a new class of user, so that would suggest that it would be possible to "demote" people if necessary. --Falcorian ^(talk) 03:49, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'm not sure how this works when rights are given out automatically. Just as interesting fact: When we started sighted versions in German Wikipedia there was a bug and users weren't given the right automatically, but admins have to give it. In two days more than 1.000 users got the sighting right. After that the automatism kicked in (30 days, 30 edit), but the community decided that this requirements are too low. So we disabled it again and till now, the sighting right is given per hand after request. --Avatar (talk) 13:21, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

The right to mark sighted is a user group membership and can be revoked. I hope the implementation wouldn't regrant the membership after the automatic membership criteria (e.g. 150 edits) are remet, but I don't know if it works that way. -R. S. Shaw (talk) 19:46, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I sure hope it can be revoked and stay that way. Once this goes live, I will revoke my own right to sight! I'll do this because I am concerned about limiting my legal liabilities.

GRBerry

00:08, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

"Step out of line, the man come and take you away" -R. S. Shaw (talk) 20:44, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Please note that the German Wikipedia does a test run since May 6th. And they handle the opposite of "Note that all logged-in users, even new users, are shown the most recent version irrespective of what version is tagged." --Subfader (talk) 12:41, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

There may be many differences between the way German Wikipedia uses Flagged Revisions and the way English Wikipedia uses it. For English Wikipedia, the provisional plan at this point is to show all logged-in users the most recent version.--ragesoss (talk) 00:23, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

This is correct. In contrary German Wikipedia shows the latest sighted version. This is a long debate. Most users (of the German Wikipedia) don't see a point in having sighted versions which aren't shown as default. So the question is if the sighting of new edits scales, so no new version is unsighted for more then x minutes/hours/days. If it won't scale, most users will see the stable version approach as failed. But at the moment, we're still optimistic. --Avatar (talk) 13:15, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Note: The following text was moved from

I move that

If you see flagged revisions as a system to solely preserve accuracy and coverage once it is achieved, then yes, flagged revisions should be enabled only on FAs, GAs, and perhaps BLPs. However, if you see flagged revisions as a system to preserve, and create, and facilitate the creation of accuracy and coverage, as I do, then it makes logical sense to enable flagged revisions over all English Wikipedia articles.

Articles which receive reasonably high traffic (numbers of views) should be flagged in order to (a) preserve accuracy and coverage, and to (b) stop blatant vandalism (the "YOU SUCK!" sort) from appearing to readers. Articles which receive low or medium levels of traffic should be flagged to stop discreet vandalism (changes of the number "7" to "8", for example) from slipping out to readers.

In my experience, as traffic levels of articles decrease, the number of inappropriate editors per number of readers increases. Thus, flagged revisions are probably required more on low-traffic articles (in other words, not the majority of GAs and FAs) than on high-traffic articles (which most GAs and FAs are).

The worst that enabling flagged revisions on all articles could do would be to make low-traffic articles update much more slowly, and even this is not much of an issue:

• changes carried out to low-traffic articles (which form a honeypot for vandalism, spam, and misinformation) should be verified before being made default to logged-out readers;
• low-traffic articles need only update in proportion to the number of views they receive, and the number of views is relative to the number of updates (in other words, ${\displaystyle A=B}$ and ${\displaystyle B=A}$ — number of updates is proportional to number of views, and number of views is proportional to number of updates); and
• are readers going to prefer partial or full accuracy, coverage, and stability, fast updating and no stability or slow updating and complete stability?

As a philosophical reason, the first and foremost principle of the English Wikipedia is to provide a reliable encyclopedic informational resource to all people. Reliability, which consists of accuracy, coverage, and stability, is not just an ethical plus: it is a fundamental, essential, necessary moral principle for any resource which calls itself objective, informational, and free, and always has been. If we have a way to improve reliability in any way, and this way does not interfere with the "everyone can edit" and the "information should be free" principles, we should pursue it.

I suggest that we pursue this way of improving the English Wikipedia's reliability through enabling flagged revisions on all articles, since it has major obvious benefits, no major obvious downsides, and does not conflict with the objectivity, informational aspect, or freedom that forms the basis of the English Wikipedia.

Actually, though, the question of how flagged revisions should be enabled isn't really up to the writers of the English Wikipedia. After all, as logged-in account-holding editors we are nearly always going to see the current revision of articles anyway, and we should be designing the English Wikipedia primarily for readers, not writers. I suggest (a) that we set up a temporary voting site on the Wikimedia servers which accepts yes-or-no votes regarding whether or not flagged revisions should be enabled over all or over just some English Wikipedia articles (and asks a voting question such as, "Would you prefer (a) all articles to update more slowly, but be more reliable, or (b) some articles to update more slowly and be more reliable, but the rest to remain as they are?"), (b) that the aforementioned system accept only one vote per IP address, and (c) that a notice should appear at the top of all English Wikipedia articles to all logged-out readers inviting them to vote. This system would permit even writers to vote, but would primarily reach a reader audience.

Best and friendly regards, —

By the way, I support the stable revision of articles being displayed by default to logged-out readers of the English Wikipedia. Imagine educating all Wikipedia readers how to get the stable revision :-/. Reliability should be default. —

Voice your opinion

I absolutely support this. Finally a proposal that is based on the reason for Flagged Revisions - not so we can better deal with controversial articles or use semi-protection less, but so readers can trust the content of all articles. I think if the link is prominent enough we won't necessarily need to display the stable version on all pages. Mr.Z-man 16:13, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

• Strongly support Kevin Baas^talk 18:08, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
• I also support this; it is well thought out. It makes sense that the reader (ie those coming for accurate and stable information) should see the flagged version, and editors (ie logged in) see the standard. If flagging-rights (as it were) were given to a large number of editors, this would run smoothly (ie. most regular, proven editors). WP remains an encyclopedia which "anyone can edit", while becoming more reliable, and less prone to nonsense vandalism or BLP issues. Thanks, Thomas, for putting the thought into this. Gwinva (talk) 03:43, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
• (Above content copied from village pump proposal archive 23. —
  Thomas H. Larsen
  04:36, 19 April 2008 (UTC))
• UberMecatasticaldestructoplazma Support I cant find a single flaw with this proprossel. БοņёŠɓɤĭĠ₳₯є 15:04, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
• Support. Flagged revisions should have been a part of the wiki system from the start. The sooner we can get it implemented, the sooner we move towards having a Wikipedia that is actually reliable. Kaldari (talk) 00:24, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
• Partially Support. I feel that the system of revisions by itself could be a great boon to helping the accuracy of content in Wikipedia. That said, I do agree with some of the points listed under the discussion section, specifically the comments made by Nonplus and Judgesurreal777. If there is going to be a default view, it should be the current page with a easy and prominent system for switching over to the latest stable release. Warhorus (talk) 16:56, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
• Strong support. Finally, an answer to Wikipedia's critics and a solutions to our most vexing problems - vandalism and unverified information. The sooner we get this in place the sooner Wikipedia ceases to be the butt of everyone's jokes (one of which I heard on the radio yesterday). Kaldari (talk) 14:46, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
• Strong Support. There are a large number of articles where the likelihood of a new edit being accurate and helpful are sufficiently low that this should be a net improvement overall. I further support the flagged revisions being the only revisions available to non-logged-in users, to remove any perceived reward for vandalism: if they can't even admire their own handiwork, what possible motivation can they have to vandalize pages? Jclemens (talk18:54, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
• I support flagged revisions on all articles if only to ensure that someone who is enabled to tag an article as flagged has actually read the article. Fixing
  uncategorized pages fulfills a similar function for new pages, but flagged revisions would extend that concept toward ensuring minimal standards for all articles. I would oppose any system where non-logged in users see a different page than logged-in users: I'll have to think about how to work around that issue. But the basic idea deserves my full support. Shalom (Hello • Peace
  ) 06:39, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
• Strong Support I can't wait until this is rolled out. Much needed to increase reliability and stability and to fight vandalism. — Becksguy (talk) 12:50, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
• Support I support flagged versions strongly and will support pretty much any sensible proposal to implement them. I urge people to be willing to compromise and that any proposal to implement flagged versions be written so that it can gain the necessary consensus in order for them to be implemented. Davewild (talk) 16:07, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
• Strong support on all articles; unconvinced about benefit of polling non-editor readers. Wikipedia is very much at a point where a little more content stability and vandalism prevention is more of a Good Thing than seeing the latest version this moment. "Your edit is visible to other editors, it will be shown to the public as soon as it's been checked. See here for more, including being allowed to check edits yourself". Sighting rights will be widely enough given that many edits will be sighted pretty quickly in practice. This is applicable to all articles, although we could trial it on "just some types of articles first". More comment when home. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 21:02, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
• Support. I support implementing flagged revisions: I see no downside to simply implementing it while leaving the current version as the default view. It makes additional information available. All versions are still accessible to all readers. As to whether it's better to have the sighted version as the default view: that's a separate discussion, but any downside to that should not stop us from implementing flagged revisions at all, since we still have the option of displaying the current version as the default. In any case, the other version is also easily accessible at the click of a link. It probably does make sense to have the sighted version as the default view for non-logged-in users, and this should be based on an estimate of what such readers prefer, possibly via poll, as suggested. Coppertwig (talk) 23:22, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• Strong support. I haven't seen any problems at the German WP, and don't expect any here. - Dan
  talk)(mistakes
  ) 02:12, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
• Strong support. Implement ASAP. --Stefan ^talk 04:32, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
• EXTREMELY strong oppose - The proposal is well-designed and intelligent, but I see this as part of an ongoing process where Wikipedia grows ossified and closed to contributions. This is not the first step, and it is far from the last. I suspect that five years from now, all changes will be approved by a six-month process involving three committees in a well-defined hierarchy, and that editing will slow to approximately 20 to 30 edits per year - not per article, but per wiki! Specifically, I think that this step of the "freeze" process will amount to a de facto ban of anonymous editing, and that flagged revisions will be so unmanageable in scope that they will bring nearly zero actual benefit - unless you consider drawing a curtain across the workings of Wikipedia to be a benefit, which I know many do. Further, the flagging system will be highly imperfect when it comes to maintaining accuracy, and Wikipedia will remain the butt of jokes from people who despise open-source thinking and free culture (and who never actually cared about accuracy in the first place - wake up!). The type of clown who cracks wise about Wikipedia's alleged inaccuracy is not going to change his mind because of "flagged revisions"! Further, the inevitable imperfections of the flagging system - which will be massively worse than anyone is predicting - will mean that the reputation of the 'pedia among legitimately open-minded persons will become far worse, because it will now be officially "flagging" (read: declaring) inaccurate content to be accurate and vetted, which is much more embarrassing than any problems we have had before. Accuracy will NOT increase, blatant vandalism WILL decrease or at least be less visible (I admit that much, but I deny that blatant vandalism is a problem worthy of such an anti-Wikipedian countermeasure), the reputation of the encyclopedia WILL suffer, editing rates WILL go down, membership and community WILL eventually decline as the barrier between anons and registered members rises higher, and Wikipedia WILL take another step toward becoming a very, very bland version of Britannica. The amount of groupthink surrounding these new policies, and the near-total defection of Jimmy Wales to the POV of Larry Sanger, is demonstrative of a deepening sickness in the "community", which is becoming more like a scared little village every day. I suspect that anyone replying to this comment will nitpick based on the specifics of the proposal, but this opinion is meant as a blanket condemnation of the entire concept of flagged revisions, and to the idea of starkly dividing the logged-in community from the world of anonymous viewers. Despite all of the above, I have no doubt that the flagged revision system is inevitable, as it is supported most strongly by the sort of people most likely to be aware of, and to participate in, cloistered discussions such as this one. Among these classes of users, opposition is virtually nil, and flagged revisions will be policy before 98% of people who visit the site have ever heard of them. 100% of users will suffer from the results. Mr. IP (talk) 09:46, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
• Weak support. I believe everyone should see the most recent version of articles by default. Among other reasons already mentioned, this avoids confusion on the part of anonymous editors who attempt to edit a page only to find that the article they're editing is substantially different from the one they just read. A prominent "Stable" or "Reviewed" button could
  cookie the viewer such that they will see the flagged revisions of all articles instead. tgies (talk
  ) 10:34, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. While I understand the arguments for this proposal, and I don't necessarily dispute that it will fix some of Wikipedia's major problems, we must ask ourselves: what is the cost? Wikipedia is based on the principle that by gathering this great number of people together to contribute, we can arrive a complete, intelligent discussion of nearly any topic. And I believe it works; we all do, that's why we're here. Critically, though, the system depends on an constant influx of new sets of revising eyes and expert minds. When we don't have those things, we end up with
  talk
  ) 01:35, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

... and, on the stable revision of pages, we could have a message like this:

These messages would be displayed to logged-out readers whenever they read the current or stable revisions, respectively, of an article.

I support the latest stable revision of articles (the "default revision") being displayed by default to logged-out readers, since I think that reliability should be default and that readers shouldn't have to click to receive stable content. On the other hand, either way would probably work fine in the long term, provided the links were prominent.

Best and friendly regards, —

Please no further polution of pages with tag templates. From HCI-Usability perspective these tags are making Wikipedia much less user friendly for the novice user. Arnoutf (talk) 16:30, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The German wikipedia has it made it quite discreet. On their front page featured article the flagged version is here and the non flagged version is here. I can't read much German so can't tell what it actually says but the format looks good to me. Davewild (talk) 16:37, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The German WP page looks good. I agree, it's discrete, on the same line as the title, and that would be my vote. — Becksguy (talk) 17:30, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 21:08, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Amendment to proposal

I now support the current version being displayed by default, provided the link between the current and stable versions is prominent enough. —

Discussion

I think some measure of flagging would certainly be beneficial, but I'm not sure about making the last flagged version the default for display to non-logged-in readers. This would radically change WP's status as something "everyone can edit". Edits made by non-flag-empowered users would effecitvely not come on board until reviewed by a flagger - and there's no guarantee that that would happen within any reasonable period.--Kotniski (talk) 15:30, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Would it be possible to have unregistered users see stable versions by default except for articles which they have edited? There's a log of edits made by IP isn't there? That way they could get the satisfaction of seeing their edit instantly. They would be sortof incrementally welcomed into the community of Wikipedians before even creating an account. Nonplus (talk) 17:31, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, perhaps, but then they might feel rather miffed when they next come in under a different IP and see their edit not there after all.

I still think that if flagged revisions are to be implemented, they shouldn't be the default for any class of user. That would give the impression that we don't trust unknown editors, which would be quite a turnaround from the "anyone-can-edit" policy which has made Wikipedia great. --Kotniski (talk) 18:44, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I totally agree. To make flagged versions the default article seen would undermine a core strength of wikipedia, which is the instant correction and expansion of articles. I think there should be a system set up so that the flagged version and the current version are rarely significantly different so we have the best of both worlds though. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 23:28, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I'd prefer the stable revision being displayed by default, but in the long run it could be better to have the current revision displayed — provided the link between the stable and the current was prominent enough to get noticed and discreet enough not to get in the way — better, anyway, than no flagged revisions! Cheers, and thanks for the help. —

Thomas H. Larsen

04:13, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

And there should be quick & easy access to the diff between the stable version and the current version. Kevin Baas^talk 15:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I have some misgivings about a system in which we have a banner displayed at the top of the page providing a link between current and stable. I can't claim to be a usability expert. I can offer my own thoughts, but I don't really have an alternative to suggest, unfortunately. I hesitate to get behind the idea that we should have a banner displayed on every page for every unlogged reader out there. There are so many articles that exist already that have a banner (or seven...) at the top of their page that I'm afraid to say that we should throw yet another one out into the world. I fear we run the risk of pushing a bunch more articles into what I'll call "NASCAR" space, with the top of their pages looking something akin to a bulletin board or the side of a stock car. I don't know, anyone else have any thoughts? Warhorus (talk) 17:04, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, nearly all of the banners at the top of articles are currently along the lines of "X needs fixing". Perhaps these (template) banners could be grouped into a single banner which can be shown or hidden? —

Thomas H. Larsen

04:13, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Now, that's an interesting proposal! I don't know exactly how we could go about applying that idea, but if it could be pulled off I think that would be an incredible change! Would be a great discussion to get started at some point, see what ideas people could throw out about the virtues/practicalities of that proposal.Warhorus (talk) 16:37, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

This is a bad idea; one of wikipedia's greatest strengths is instant fixing and updating, and this would cut that out. There should be a stable version that people can access, and it should be updated and reconciled with the current version often, but the stable version should never be the default. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 02:45, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I strongly support this proposal. Please keep in mind that as Wikipedia matures, the ability for changes to instantly appear becomes a weakness as well as a strength. Policy which was extremely useful when we were a small hobby site may become more of a hindrance as we grow. --Zvika (talk) 06:27, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, with my amendment to the proposal (above), I support the current revision of articles being displayed to all users by default, but I also believe that we strongly need a stable revision that readers can acquire for more reliable, stable, accurate information. —

Thomas H. Larsen

00:53, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Who would be given the power apply to flag? Z gin der 2008-05-06T13:04Z (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure I understand your question; could you clarify it, please? Cheers, —

Thomas H. Larsen

00:52, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it's the same question as I came here to ask. In fact I have two questions, which obviously need to be settled before this can go live. So here they are:

Outstanding issues

1. What class of user will have the power to place flags? (i.e. admins only? autoconfirmed users? rollback users? some other as-yet-undefined class?)
2. What is a flagger expected to check when placing a flag? Just that the page doesn't contain any obvious vandalism or misinformation? Detailed copyediting? Investigation of sources?

As I see it we have to find a combination of answers to those two questions such that:

• (a) the flag-lag between the flagged version and current version does not get too great due to not enough people having the time, power and expertise to perform flagging; and
• (b) flagged versions do actually meet some meaningful standard of reliability.

As I understand it flagging is already live at least on German Wikipedia, so perhaps we could start answering the above questions (and any others people may raise) by drawing on the Germans' experience to date. Later, of course, the policies we adopt can always be modified based on our own experiences.--Kotniski (talk) 09:36, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Flagged revisions/Sighted versions and Wikipedia:Flagged revisions/Quality versions:

• There will be one or two new user rights: Surveyor and Reviewer. Reading the page on Flagged Revisions, and it's two subpages, it appears that that the new rights would be higher than autoconfirmed and much less than sysop (Administrator). The page says: The intention is that any user who is not a vandal should have this right. Possibly granted after a minimum time/edits threshold, or (my preference) maybe much like
  rollbacker
  is now. That is, granted to a trusted established editor. I don't think any editor that has a history of blocks, topic bans, 3RR, or serious contentious editing should be granted this right. Surveyor should be phased in first, and if successful, followed by Reviewer, if needed based on experience.
• The requirements for sighted pages is described here, but basically free of: vandalism, spam, red links, libel, BLP, and cleanup tags. And is cited, spell checked, encyclopedic, and been around for a few days.

This is an edit than can be reverted just like any other edit, and only admins can survey or review fully protected pages. There is also an English WP demo setup to play with here: Welcome to the FlaggedRevs demo installation!. — Becksguy (talk) 12:42, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

• • All right, thanks for the links. So the questions actually appear to have answers ready. In that case, what is actually preventing the feature from being made live? Are we waiting some defined time for the result of the German experiment? Or are there still debated points that need to be agreed on?--Kotniski (talk) 13:03, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe the powers that be are looking for more community consensus, or the completion of the EN demo testbed. I can't wait until this is implemented and I'm glad to see interested editors promoting this. Should this page become a project page so we get more wide ranging community exposure? — Becksguy (talk) 14:41, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Certainly we ought to have one discussion about this going on, instead of the several we have at the moment (this one, and the ones at the talk pages of the links you gave above and their superpage). I guess the most logical place to merge to would be Wikipedia talk:Flagged revisions.--Kotniski (talk) 15:02, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

If no one objects, this page will be moved to Wikipedia talk:Flagged revisions. — Becksguy (talk) 18:52, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

There is also a discussion at

Wikipedia talk:Flagged revisions/Sighted versions. Would someone please decide which one page the discussion should be at, and put a note at the bottom of the other page(s) suggesting that all discussion continue at the one page? (I'm willing to do this if people express agreement that it's a good idea.) Coppertwig (talk

) 23:26, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Also, what about the various Village Pump discussions on this subject? Should they be copied also? Or linked? — Becksguy (talk) 23:59, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Continuation

I oppose a blanket application because I think it will undermine the foundation issue of everyone being allowed to edit. If there was a way to have it in reverse, i.e. unstable on front, stable linked, or a way to apply this to articles where stability is truly deeply needed (FC, GA, BLPs only), I'd support. Sceptre ^(talk) 15:58, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Sceptre, and this is possible, according to the FlaggedRevs demo - admins can adjust the settings per-page as long as the extension is so configured. Nihiltres^{t.l} 23:40, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

End of moved text - 03:09, 22 May 2008

A lot of discussion... I agree with most of it, and I think many of us here would love for this to be implemented ASAP on all articles, except perhaps the hottest current events that are updated and watched heavily. However, there were quite violent opposition a while back. I didn't understand most of the objections, but I do recall that a user called Black Falcon raised some serious issues. If I recall, he argued that sighting is too light a validation process to pretend we have done something.

Assume we start this. Naturally, there will be lots of media coverage as we unroll Wikipedia 2.0 and so on. But then we are bound to be hit with news about some libel having slipped through our sighting mechanisms; not only are we embarrassed, we won't be able to blame some anonymous IP. Someone here will actually have approved of it!!

I fully agree that we should think of our readers primarily; but still, experimenting on a subset of pages to avoid over-promising and under-delivering is wise. That's why I think we should roll this out as a modest beta, so we can really observe how it works here. The dynamics of the English Wikipedia might differ from the German. Otherwise, I'm strongly in support of revision flagging NOW, Merzul (talk) 14:38, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

All press releases need to emphasize that there is still no guarantee of reliability, etc. Coppertwig (talk) 23:23, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

At German Wikipedia:

In the upper right-hand corner they say:

• "Gesichtet" (sighted; example), implying that the most recent version is a sighted version
• "Keine Version gesichtet" (No sighted version; example).

For articles for which there is a sighted version but the most recent version is not sighted (example example_{(12:29, 23 May 2008 (UTC))}, or find examples in their Recent Changes ("Letzte Änderungen")), the first two tabs at the top are "Artikel" and "Entwurf" ("article" and "draft"). If you click on "Artikel", then at the upper right you see:

• "Gesichtet (zur aktuellen Version)" "Gesichtet" is a link to de:Hilfe:Gesichtete und geprüfte Versionen which describes the sighting process and includes a statement that there is no guarantee of the correctness of the article. "zur aktuellen Version" ("to current version") is a link to the most recent version of the article.

If you click on "Entwurf" you see:

• Ungesichtete Version [letzte gesichtete Version] (vergleiche). meaning "unsighted version [last sighted version] (diff)".

When logged in, when going to an article you get to the most recent version by default. When not logged in, you get to the most recent sighted version by default. In the page history ("Versionen/Autoren"), sighted versions have a note at the right in small font between square brackets, "[gesichtet von username]".

Comments: This is great – I look forward to getting it here. One advantage: vandalism will be easier to notice. When editors are browsing around for one reason or another, they might not always bother to look at the page history, but they'll tend to notice if it says in the upper-right corner that the most recent version is not sighted, and they'll check into it, revert any vandalism or sight the most recent version. So in most cases, the most recent version will be a sighted one. Browsing around, I was unable to find any with the most recent version not sighted unless there were no sighted versions of the article; to find such examples I had to look in Recent Changes. In other words, the mark in the upper-right corner alerts editors to when they need to check for vandalism, and provides a convenient link to a diff to make it easy to do so. Bring on Wikipedia 2.0!☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:06, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

If I understood correctly what I read at the German Wikipedia: "gesichtet" means that the article is free of offensive stuff (vandalism), and there's another level, "Geprüft", that an article can be marked (though I didn't see any such articles) that means that there are no false statements (?). ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:25, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

How can we "bring on Wikipedia 2.0" if we don't even have

Wikipedia 1.0? -- Imperator3733 (talk

) 14:22, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

You are right. "Gesichtet" (sighted) is very low level. It only states "there is no vandalism in this article". It does not say that all facts are checked or anything similar. "Geprüft" (quality version) is much more - it states that the article is factual correct and that no important information is missing. There are no "geprüfte" versions yet, because the community hasn't decided yet who should get the possibility to set this flag. The "gesichteten" Versionen disburden the people who check new versions for vandalism because every change only has to be checked once. --Avatar (talk) 16:12, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

By the way, on German Wikipedia, if I understand correctly, it says that anyone can request "Sichter" (sighter) status is automatically given (see below)_{(12:18, 29 May 2008 (UTC))} after 60 days, 500 edits, having a userpage, enabling email and having a clear block log. It also says that pages are automatically sighted when a sighter creates a new page; when a sighter edits a page which had previously been sighted; and when a page is reverted back to a sighted version using Zurücksetzen (undo? rollback?).

You have a good point, Avatar: instead of multiple people checking the same new edits, each edit only has to be checked once, and I think fewer edits will slip through with nobody happening to check them.

As far as I can tell, on Recent Changes and the watchlist there's no information about whether things have been sighted. It would be nice to have sighting status marked with a little symbol, and it would also be nice to be able to choose a setting to list only unsighted edits. I'm guessing maybe those are features that will be added later by the developers. Coppertwig (talk) 17:11, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

On Recent Changes and the watchlist the red ! (maybe known from the patrol-extension) is shown if a version is not sighted yet, so you can easily see if you have to check the diff. The possibility to request the „editor“ (Sichter) rights is given to every user who has his account for at least 2 month and has done 200 or more edits to articles. After "60 days, 500 edits, having a userpage, enabling email and having a clear block log" (as you wrote) the editor right is given automatically to the user. Maybe you are interested in current statistics (a tool by User:aka) --M.L (talk) 11:35, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction, M.L. You're right: now that I re-read it, that's what it says. Sorry I got it wrong.

What editing looks like: When not logged in and when looking at the default (gesischtet) version of a page whose current version is not gesichtet, the edit tab at the top says "Entwurf bearbeiten" (edit draft). When you click it, it shows, above the edit box, a diff of changes between the draft and the gesichtet version. example I think that's a very good way for it to work. (The orange warning is simply warning you that you're editing while not logged in, etc.) ☺

Re the red exclamation mark: Maybe it's not working? Maybe it only works for Sichters? I logged in (I'm not a Sichter) and put an article with "keine version gesichtet" on my watchlist. The article was recently changed and is listed on my watchlist, but I don't see any red exclamation mark. I also have an article showing on my watchlist which has a gesichtet version but the most recent is not gesichtet. Again, no red exclamation mark. But, at the top of the watchlist it explains what the red exclamation mark means. Maybe non-Sichters don't need to see the red exclamation mark, so it's not shown? (but then ideally the red exclamation mark shouldn't be defined at the top for them.) Coppertwig (talk) 22:43, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to clarify on the proposal that I have made for the implementation of flagged revisions.

• Flagged revisions is introduced, and enabled over all articles.
• All readers, logged-in and logged-out, see the current revision of articles by default, not the stable revision. A discreet but prominent (obviously a compromise between the two) link is displayed between the stable and the current revisions.
• Procedures for the rating of revisions and setting stable revisions of articles still need to be developed, although they could be done so during and after the introduction of flagged revisions.

This proposal for the implementation of flagged revisions does not conflict with the Wikimedia Foundation issue of "anyone can edit"; it permits everybody to edit, makes their edits available immediately to the public, and gives readers a choice between unstable, current content and stable, possibly-out-of-date content.

Read my proposal above for more details and the reasoning for my position.

If there are no significant objections, perhaps we could begin a final discussion and poll on this at the beginning of, say, June? –

Sounds good to me. If possible, maybe some sort of "stable flag", similar to protection, that could be placed on an article by an admin to make the stable version display by default? Just an idea to throw out there, and one that would only be used occasionally even if implemented. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 00:20, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Good idea, Thomas H. Larsen. Let's do this one step at a time. First step: implementing flagged revisions with the current page always displayed as default, just as it is now. There's no downside to this, so let's do it. After that's decided (or after it's actually implemented, so people get a feel for how it works) then we can discuss whether or not to have the stable version display as default in some circumstances. There are of course reasons not to; but opposition to default-displaying of the stable version should not stand in the way of implementing flagged revisions at all.

I would say that your proposal in a section above ("Flagged revisions implementation proposal") is too complex for a simple poll. I would say something like "proposal to implement flagged revisions, for now with the current page displayed as default". You can expand it a bit, but multiple paragraphs or calls for specific other polls are too complex, in my opinion. You could add something like "(The community could decide later to change the proposed default display, but that's beyond the scope of this poll.)" ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:55, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

This is a big thing, so I suppose maybe the poll should be advertised in a site notice or watchlist notice or something, the way it was done for the WP:Attribution poll. (Although there was also opposition to that at the time.) ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:58, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, with the WP:Attribution poll, we had multiple editors editing the wording of the poll (complete with edit wars and everything). Maybe we should do that for this poll, too? ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:05, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I see the value of a poll to authorize taking the first step on flagged revisions. Perhaps I read too quickly, but I don't see who is authorized to designate the stable versions. If that is going to be decided later, then in what sense is the first step an actual step at all? Will admins be authorized to designate surveyors and reviewers? If they are offered that technical ability, what happens if an admin flips a bit? Is that forbidden until a second poll is taken? EdJohnston (talk) 03:06, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Why do we not vote on sighted versions as editor have been working on that proposal for years and as reached a consensus between the active editor there? Z gin der 2008-05-24T13:47Z (UTC)

I propose that the first poll authorize the implementation of sighted versions without the technical ability to designate individual pages to display the sighted version as default (assuming withholding such technical ability from admins is technically possible). Then later, there can be another poll to decide whether sighted versions can be displayed as default in some circumstances; after which discussion at individual pages and/or some policy would determine what happens at each page. To clarify: having sighted versions means that there is a link at the top of the page "to last sighted version" so that anyone who wants to see a slightly more stable version of the page has the ability to do so. People who are allowed to "sight" pages might be admins; rollbackers; perhaps people with 150 edits or possibly autoconfirmed (4-day-old account) users, or anyone given the right by an admin. That's just my suggestion how to proceed; I'm just one of many with opinions here. There are other ways to do it, such as having a poll with two questions: (1) shall we have sighted versions (assuming the current page continues to be displayed as default if only this one question gets consensus) and (2) shall we sometimes have the last sighted version displayed as the default. As I see it, having sighted versions available is a big advantage, providing additional useful information (dare I say "increased reliability"?) to the reader, but which version is displayed as default is a relatively minor detail since the reader can always get to the other version with a single click, and anyway I expect that the most recent version will almost always be a sighted one (as was my experience browsing around the German Wikipedia, except for pages with no sighted versions at all). I look forward to being able to look at the sighted version when I'm reading Wikipedia to obtain information. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 14:25, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

In answer to Zginder: the reason for doing it that way is that some people have brought up reasons to oppose having the sighted version displayed as default (see above discussion), seeing it as changing the fundamental nature of the wiki. Therefore, in order to get approval for having sighted versions existing at all, I'd like to separate the two decisions. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 15:07, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

That might be a usable compromise. My remaining concern is that, the way the proposal reads now, when flagged revisions are first turned on nobody will see any difference to the encyclopedia at all. I picture that the sighted-version-selector would start to appear on articles that have sighted versions, and that would be the noticeable sign that something has changed. However the proposal makes no provision for sighting any articles. How will people know that anything has changed, and how will they be able to experiment? We shouldn't start up in an initial state where nobody is allowed to do anything with the new tools. EdJohnston (talk) 15:48, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

But sighted versions have decided who gets the right this proposal we are still deciding who gets the flag. Z gin der 2008-05-24T16:27Z (UTC)

If it's like the German Wikipedia, then when it starts up, all articles will have a link in the upper-right corner saying something like "no sighted versions", with a link to a page explaining what sighting is all about. People reading that page can then presumably request being awarded sighting privileges, if it's something being given out rather than just automatically given to rollbackers or whatever. Those with sighting privileges will also see a link at the bottom of unsighted pages, which allows them to sight the page by clicking on it. (Allegedly. I guess I'm not trusted enough on German Wikipedia to be a "Sichter" myself. I can't complain, with only 13 edits, all in Benutzer space ☺) Coppertwig (talk) 17:01, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

As an initial experiment I think we could justify letting rollbackers be sighters. I assume the long-term plan is that there will be an automatic designation of sighters based on time on WP and number of edits. That means that the class of sighters will widen out gradually, so nobody will feel hurt by having sighting taken away. Something I read suggested that 20,000 sighters would be a good number to have. (Per

WP:ROLLBACK, we have only 1,374 rollbackers at present). EdJohnston (talk

) 19:56, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I propose giving it to all admins and rollbackers or automatically based on edits and time at the beginning and have admins start giving it out generously. Z gin der 2008-05-24T21:01Z (UTC)

That sounds good to me. I would suggest that if a user have more than some number of edits (say 200?) and a clean block log, then an admin would have to justify not giving out the privilege, instead of vice versa. This would help dispel the "two classes of users" objection. I hope we can poll and implement this in a timely manner, since as a main-page contributor, specifically for ITN, this could significantly help us out. Random89 22:07, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I see two ways of doing it that each make sense: one is to give sighting privileges to almost everyone (e.g. autoconfirmed users, like page-patrol privileges) and require the sighter to be a different person from the editor; or else to do it the way the German Wikipedia does, where an edit by a sighter (except to pages with no sighted versions at all) is automatically sighted, but in that case it would be meaningless if the sighting privilege is given out to everyone, so it makes more sense to restrict it to more trusted users such as rollbackers or people with 150 (or 500 or whatever) edits and a relatively clean block log. I prefer the former; except that as with newpage patrol, edits by admins would still be automatically sighted. (i.e. the way pages created by admins are automatically patrolled.) I don't like the idea of edits by ordinary sighters being automatically sighted. Well, it depends on what the meaning of sighting is: if it's just to get rid of vandalism, fine, most edits can be automatically sighted. But if it's to check for useful edits which seem to be improvements, then checking by a different person is good. I like the idea of checking by a different person for most edits.☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:21, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I would argue that rollbackers will not vandalize, so I don't see the need to have a second step of checking on any edit made by a rollbacker. Sighting (if it is not done automatically) takes work, so many articles would wind up not having any sighted versions. Has anyone from de.wiki joined this discussion, and can tell us how they arrived at their current plan? (Apologies if this question was raised long ago). I agree with Coppertwig that letting all auto-confirmed users be sighters is not a good idea. EdJohnston (talk) 03:13, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Actually, my preference is to let all autoconfirmed users be sighters, but not have their edits automatically sighted. If the only purpose is to identify vandalism, then rollbackers can be trusted to have their edits automatically sighted. I think I'd probably prefer having a separate person sight edits, however – possibly even for admins – to catch not only vandalism but also some good-faith edits which are mistaken, misspelled, ungrammatical, POV or otherwise unconstructive or imperfect. One good possibility would be to let all autoconfirmed users sight edits, and have the edits of all rollbackers and admins automatically sighted (unless the article has no sighted versions yet); that might be the solution that is most likely to get lots of articles sighted with a minimum of effort. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:34, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Instead of of giving it to autoconfirmed users. Give it out automatically like as follows based off the sighted version proposal:

1. Any trusted editor may be granted rights by an administrator, regardless of their edit count.
2. The right will also be given automatically by the software to editors who meet the following conditions:
   • Has an account for 30 days
   • Has 150 edits
     • 30 edits to article namespace pages
     • 10 article namespace pages edited
     • 15 days of edits
3. Administrators
   can also revoke the flag if needed (much like blocking an account). This can happen if:
   • The user deliberately sights versions containing vandalism
   • The user repeatedly violates
     WP:3RR
     with respect to sighting versions
   • The user engages in other repeated disruption involving reviews
   • The user requests removal of the right because they prefer not to be involved

(Previous unsigned comment was by Zginder (talk) at 12:48, 25 May 2008. _{Coppertwig (talk) 12:53, 25 May 2008 (UTC)}

As noted in the recent poll on raising the autoconfirmed level, this is way beyond the software's capability. Total edit count can be done, as can the age of the account, but it certainly can't do edit count by namespace and probably can't do time since first edit. It ought to be given out by admins through a

WP:RFR-style process (with some agreed guidelines for admins to follow). Hut 8.5

18:07, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

That is incorrect. FlaggedRevs can check those and many other things. Please read the documentation or ask a developer before saying it cannot be done. It's live on .de wp now (a batch updater was used to initialize some of the values).

Aaron Schulz

18:09, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

And getting the "time since first edit", although not part of the software, would be a fast and trivial query.

Aaron Schulz

18:11, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

• Getting Surveyor rights should require admin granting of them, much like Rollbacker rights. No one should get those rights automatically. We need to take reasonable care that only trusted and established editors get this trust level. Especially editors without a history of vandalizing or serious blocks and topic bans. Any vandalizing should disqualify. — Becksguy (talk) 06:01, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Requirements for Sighted pages

Copied from Wikipedia:Flagged revisions/Sighted versions#Requirements for Sighted pages proposal:

For an article to be confirmed initially as sighted, an editor needs to read the complete article and check that the page:

• Is clear of vandalism.
• Contains no spam in the external links.
• Is clear of
  living persons
  .
• Is clear of
  unencyclopaedic
  content.
• Contains some references to reliable sources.
• Has been around for several days.
• Has been spell-checked. (
  Opera
  /toolbars can help with this.)
• Is readable (uncluttered) and is not tagged for cleanup. There should be no links to non-existent images.

Like other Wikipedia edits, the decision to sight a version of an article can be reverted by other editors.

Once a page is sighted, edits to the sighted revision could be automatically reviewed (to the same level) when edited by a Surveyor. Upon editing, Surveyors will be prompted to review with a diff (reference) to the last sighted version to make sure someone else has not inserted vandalism while they were editing the page. A new page created by a Surveyor should be sighted by a different editor, unless others have substantially edited the page or it is subject to repeated vandalism.

End of copied text

I can see a potential problem with the requirement that the article Is clear of unencyclopaedic content. That is a concept that often comes up in AfDs as a rationale for deletion. And this potentially could cause edit wars, as we tend to have very different ideas of what such content is, or should be. I think this is overreaching for what should be a more simple check of the article. — Becksguy (talk) 13:30, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion: "is clear of obviously unencyclopedic content" ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 14:51, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Why can't pages requiring cleanup be sighted? They can still get vandalised, and we'd still rather people saw the unvandalised version rather than the vandalised one, so we still need to sight them... I don't get that requirement at all. Likewise with the "been around for several days" requirement. Both of those should be required for quality versions, not sighted versions - sighted versions is about vandalism, trying to make it about quality too will stop it working. --Tango (talk) 18:03, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

"sighted versions is about vandalism": I don't think that's been decided yet. I think that's one possibility. We could have one level (sighted) about vandalism, and the next level up (whatever it's called) being about some sort of basic quality, and another level above that, etc. Or, we could decide that the bottom level is not just about vandalism. We could have a small number of levels or a large number of levels. The more checking required at a given level, the fewer pages will tend to be marked as being at that level – that's probably inevitable, but I wouldn't call it not working; it's like "

Featured article" status, which is working well IMO even though most articles are not marked as such. It depends on what one wants to accomplish. You have a good point that an advantage of having it only about vandalism would be (if we display the sighted version as default) that people would not see vandalism on articles needing cleanup. Good point. On the other hand, perhaps requiring cleanup before sighting would have the benefit of giving an extra incentive to go ahead and clean up the article, as well as reducing confusion for readers who see a page marked as approved in some way but also marked as not really approved (needing cleanup) at the same time. ☺ Coppertwig (talk

) 20:28, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I would suggest that we should begin the sighted pages process with "sighted against vandalism", as that is a clear definition, and I also believe much of the community would agree to that much easier than more vague concepts such as "unencyclopedic" and "readable". Once that is accepted, we can move on to adopting another level which would include things such as reliable sources and no clean up tags. Mind you, my view on this is probably skewed, since is see flagged revs mainly as a way to open up mainpage templates for more editing. Random89 22:38, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm fine with starting with the most basic: enable sighting, have it just mean no vandalism, and continue to display the most current version as default for all users. I suggest using the same parameters as newpage patrolling: autocnfirmed can sight, and only admin's edits are automatically sighted. (Or admins and rollbackers, if it's really just for vandalism.) Actually, I'm fine with many possible ways of doing it other than not doing it at all. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 22:47, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Sighted versions (Flagged Revisions) is an initiative to improve the quality and reliability of the articles the public reads. Cleaning up vandalism is part of that, but not the whole thing, nor should it be the whole thing. — Becksguy (talk) 05:04, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Note that we can have multiple levels of flagged revisions. A "this contains no crap" level could just be a base level. Mr. Z-man 05:09, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi!

In my opinion, it could be helpful for the english Wikipedia to have a look on the issues mentioned on the german Wikipedia. (At least, you could avoid some of the mistakes we made.) Please note that "flagged revisions" are a highly controversial topic. (e.g. here: [1] and on many many other pages...) The biggest mistake was, that "flagged revisions" were enabled from one day to the other. There was no general "big discussion", where most users could take notice, that there are at least ideas about implementing such things as flagged revisions. So, as the flagged revisions got activated on May 6th, many users were surprised and shocked. As a consequence, many many users are now opposing the new extension.

But many other users have issues about this feature too. Some say, it scares new writers, some say, it just creates too much hierarchy, etc. etc. etc... (If there would be a vote today, flagged revisions would be abolished on the german Wikipedia! (see the link above)) The users on the german Wikipedia are seperated into two groups. And both groups blame each other for beeing contraproductive! Just like this:

"You support flagged revisions? I damn you for beeing a wannabe-inspector!" and "What? You dont support flagged revisions and as a protest you mark your edits as unsighted? You are the contraproductive one here!" The discussions on the german Wikipedia just don't end...

It's just horrible! --84.187.167.30 (talk) 15:46, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

This is food for thought. How can we avoid such trouble on the English wikipedia? I wonder if Flagged Revisions could be rolled out here for only a subset of our articles first, and we could treat those articles as a limited experiment. Define the subset of articles in such a way that it would cause the least political trouble. Define the people who could do the sighting according to some category that now exists (e.g. admins + rollbackers) so that we don't introduce any status anxiety. Let the rules be adopted only for this one experiment, which would be limited to some number of months. After the experiment ends, a wide-open discussion would be held, in which complete rejection of flagged revisions would still be one of the options to be considered. EdJohnston (talk) 17:03, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

We could trial it on some semiprotected articles first. Unregistered users and IPs can't edit them at all at present, so introducing it can't really hurt anyone. This would be a very drastic change and we need to go as carefully as possible. Hut 8.5 17:42, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I think you won't be able to avoid this. The flagged revision ("stable versions") are in discussion and development since years. They were discussed inside the Wikipedia, announced several times on almost all community places (mailing list, WP:Kurier [the German signpost], ...) and many, many blog postings and press articles were written about it. So the only possibility to avoid that too many people claim they never heard of this idea will be a prominent placement of a pointer for a longer time on the main page - on the other side there are users who never visit the mainpage... perhaps a MediaWiki:Sitenotice will have more impact. It is true, that there was no "short time" warning that the feature will finally go live. Many people weren't too happy about this. The devs can't give you a concrete prediction when a feature goes live. This is a problem of the technical side caused by WMF structures. --Avatar (talk) 18:08, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem here is that as much as there was a purported consensus, in fact no large discussions took place. I've mentioned this on #wikipedia-de and some people admit this and don't seem to care. I'd strongly suggest some poll be made for this after intensive discussion. The discussion can discover all the pros and cons, which can then be mentioned at the top of the inevitable poll. Then it can be posted to Bugzilla. Russian wikipedia is a good example of this.

Aaron Schulz

17:48, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely. This should not go ahead without a

WP:A-style poll advertised on everyone's watchlist. The last thing we want is a drastic change like this being rolled out without anyone knowing what it is or how it works. Hut 8.5

18:10, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I think you mean

WP:ANN :-) — Becksguy (talk

) 05:28, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

No, I think Hut 8.5 means Wikipedia:Attribution, as the user indicated. There was a huge poll and there was an announcement appearing at the top of peoples' watchlists, to get peoples' attention. (Sorry if I'm missing the meaning of your smiley.) ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:35, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Never mind per Gilda Radner from Saturday Night Live (Three wikilinks for the price of one). Sorry, my bad, WP:A as an example makes sense. Thank you Coppertwig. And yes, I absolutely agree about needing very wide spread and obvious announcing. — Becksguy (talk) 13:56, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't want to be a stuck-in-the-mud reactionary, but I feel that flagged/sighted revisions are such a horrible idea (for reasons I have detailed above) that it will be impossible to introduce them without widespread dissatisfaction. They are the pet project of a small class of users, but it is the most influential class, so we will doubtless see them introduced on a pseudo-trial basis (de facto permanence) with little consensus from the larger editorship of Wikipedia. When the time comes to make flagged revisions permanent, the vote will be taken among this same small class, and so it shall be done. The real threat to Wikipedia has never been a "cabal" - it has been a relatively large class of addicted editors who are involved heavily in hidden discussions (yes, like this one) and are way, way out of touch with the larger community. They have come to believe the canard that almost all productive editing is done by a small number of people, and to discount and disrespect all others. They really aren't interested in those who are not self-identified members of "the community", and largely fail to understand the importance of such persons. Here's a test: if you jumped at my assertion that this is a "hidden discussion", you may be one of them. If you think this is a public discussion, you're really not grasping how large the true Wikipedia community is. If the words "But, but, but...there was a notice on the Community Portal" spring to your lips, you need to take a step back. A change this massive, a change this antithetical to the spirit of Wikipedia, should never be imposed at all. But if it is, there needs to be an unprecedented level of consensus and a historic effort to obtain the opinions of as many as possible. The main page needs to go meta, and it will need to stay meta for months. Nothing less is acceptable. Mr. IP (talk) 10:03, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment, Mr. IP. Having an announcement on the main page for months sounds like a good idea; I'm not sure what you mean by "go meta". Please allow me to nitpick based on the specifics of the proposal. Suppose flagged revisions are implemented but the current page is always displayed as the default. Would any of your objections still apply, and if so, would you please explain how? Actually, I argue that it makes little difference which version is displayed as default since in almost all cases the most recent version will be a sighted version (I predict, based on browsing the German Wikipedia and thinking about those red exclamation marks in Recent Changes etc.); therefore if displaying the sighted version as default for non-logged-in users will cause the sorts of rifts you mention, I suggest we display the current version as default, with various advantages such as an increased chance that new people will start editing because they see errors: in fact, with the convenient diff link between the current and last sighted version, people who have never edited before will easily spot obviously unproductive edits and become Wikipedians. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:15, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for responding, Coppertwig. By "go meta", I meant that the main page itself - not just talk pages, not just process pages, not just project pages, not just meta pages - should advertise the discussion. For a change this serious, we need to reach out to Wikipedians who are unfamiliar with the inner workings of the project and the places where these workings are traditionally discussed. As to the possibility you bring up, that does go a long way toward mollifying my principle fears and objections, which center around a divided experience of the encyclopedia - one Wikipedia experience for the in-crowd, and another Wikipedia experience for the new folks and outsiders, essentially drawing a curtain over something that is best at its most transparent. I have far less objections to an "opt-in" system of sighted revisions wherein the most current version is shown automatically to all users (anons included), and a flagged-for-accuracy version is also available but must be specifically clicked on. My only concerns over that model are these: 1.) The scope of the project may mean that inaccurate information is formally declared accurate through the flagging process, which is actually more embarrassing than simply hosting inaccurate material. 2.) We could still end up, via slippery slope, at the situation I fear most. These concerns, however, are not sufficient for me to oppose a trial period of a system like the one you propose. If we concentrate on an opt-in model, I think that sighted/flagged revisions could possibly become a useful part of the project. 71.172.186.109 (talk) 06:05, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

What is the point of bringing in flagged revisions if they are not made the default view for non-logged in readers (i.e. 99% of users)? As far as I'm concerned, this is a technology to protect readers from the junk that editors (including IP editors) expect and known how to remove/avoid. Disadvantages of not making them the default:

• Readers still get to see vandalised content. A button at the top saying "Click here for a sighted version" is too late, the damage is already done.
• Pages would still have to be semi-protected, whereas they would be editable by IPs if sighted versions were the default view.
• Hence, there would be no disincentive to vandalism
• Recent changes patrollers would still be needed to revert vandalism ASAP.

It needs to be said again and again that RCP and reverting vandalism would just not be necessary if the whole encyclopedia was sighted: good-faith editors would only need to change the text (of the last unvandalised revision) to make actual improvements.

AFAIK, the only people to benefit from non-default flagged revisions would be second parties (e.g. commercial mirror sites) who could extract "checked" versions, thus saving themselves some work. Frankly, this is a constituency I havn't much interest in helping.

PaddyLeahy (talk

) 17:18, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Paddy, my feeling is that the need to "protect" people from blatant vandalism is insufficiently great that we should introduce new barriers and speed bumps to the editing and article-improvement processes, insufficiently great that we should divide the Wikipedia experience so dramatically between anons and registered users, insufficiently great to create massive new levels of bureaucracy, and insufficiently great to draw a curtain over Wikipedia's working. In fact, the best "protection" (who are we protecting? Are all our users scared children whom we must defend and shield at all costs?) from inaccuracy and vandalism is an open and transparent system where the naked workings of the encyclopedia are visible to all. Further, I feel that non-default ("opt-in") revisions could have some usefulness beyond the second parties (a group I have no love for either), in that they could be used by students in some cases. 71.172.186.109 (talk) 06:05, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

(to Mr. IP): As the title of this section reminds you, Flagged revisions have been introduced on a trial basis (i.e. on German Wikipedia), and it won't be long before we can tell whether your predictions about their effect are at all accurate. You are right of course that the majority of Wikipedia users don't bother with pages such as this one, and so tend to be taken by surprise when the software changes. Here's the thing: if, after a couple of months, the German Wikipedian community decides it was a good idea, would you be prepared to support it here? Or is your opposition so ideological that you would be opposed even if it demonstrably helped to build the encyclopedia?

PaddyLeahy (talk

) 17:18, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Opposition to flagged revisions isn't my religion or political creed, so if it works beautifully and without detriment to the project, I'm not going to throw myself into the gears of Wikipedia to stop it. However, you're right that my concerns about this idea extend beyond the pragmatic. I think we should be extremely wary of dividing the Wikipedia experience between anons and registered users, and even more wary of drawing a curtain across the workings of the project. As I said above, I feel that openness is the best protection against inaccuracy, and to have different default versions for different people is an idea which goes against what is best in this project. If the German Wikipedia overwhelmingly supported the changes on the basis that they helped to build the encyclopedia, and if that support went well beyond the classes of user who naturally tend to support such changes, I would not be reluctant to throw my support behind a mild, possibly non-default, version of the flagged-revision system. However, my answer here is hypothetical and my current opinion remains one of extremely strong opposition. I'm not sure that the German community's experience will be as positive as most here are predicting (or already claiming). 71.172.186.109 (talk) 06:05, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

to Mr. IP: I find that it's not very helpful to treat a complicated change as if it were some kind of easy puzzle to settle with clever arguments. We're doing exactly what we're supposed to be doing: the Germans are trying it out, we're watching, we'll probably do it one step at a time and see what works. Wikipedia is an evolutionary pool of words, and evolution needs two things to work: stability and change. Over time, as a species matures, the balance slowly (slowly!) shifts in the direction of stability. You can't fight Mother Nature. - Dan

talk)(mistakes

) 17:51, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Without trying to be obstinate, I must say that I find your contention that this change is inevitable and natural - in fact an unstoppable product of nature, physics, or the laws of the universe - to resemble a "clever argument". You're painting this controversial change in policy almost as if its adoption were a law of history, a viewpoint which doesn't offer much room to those who disagree. If this change is indeed the inexorable will of Mother Nature, why have a discussion at all? If it is demanded by the progress of history, why not discern the next six or seven policy changes which are required by Mother Nature and implement them all ahead of time and without discussion? In short, I disagree with you about the inevitability of this change, and feel that it may rather be another dead end of Wikipedia history, to be looked on 2-3 years from now as a regrettable and misguided period during which many energies were wasted. We've seen that evolution has its dead ends, and I feel that "sighted revisions" may well be one of them. We will watch what goes on at the German 'pedia, but we must pay attention not only to the classes of user who wanted this change, but to those who opposed it and continue to do so. If consensus is not clear and strong, and if results are not inarguably positive, we must not adopt or implement this change based on some notion of the unalterable march of history. The first part of your reply tells me that we must wait and see how it plays out with the Germans, while the second suggests strongly that there can be only one result, meaning that you may have already reached your conclusion. I do not intend to accuse you of bad faith here - I just urge you not to see these changes as part of the natural course of history, but rather as an experiment that could well be a mistake, a mistake to be remembered with regret. 71.172.186.109 (talk) 06:05, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Let me ask you this: what's the point of having yellow highlighting on New Page Patrol, since people can see the unpatrolled pages anyway? Similarly, flagged revisions can help make sure each new edit is checked at least once, as opposed to the current random system where people look at Recent Changes and some changes are checked by five people while a few slip through checked by none.

There are two main advantages, as I see it, to flagged revisions if the current version is displayed as default. One is that readers have the option choosing the sighted version. They might choose to click "sighted version" before having noticed any vandalism; but if they do see vandalism, it's still an advantage if they have the option of clicking "sighted version" and reading an unvandalised version without having to study the page history.

The second advantage is that I believe vandalism would be caught and changed more quickly and effectively, in a similar way that the yellow highlighting on New Page Patrol helps with checking new pages. Editors would quickly notice the presence of unsighted versions: by red exclamation marks on Recent Changes and on watchlists, and by the icon in the upper right corner when they view a page. Less vandalism would slip through.

When I read a Wikipedia article to get information, I would like to have the option of choosing to read a sighted version. Implementing flagged revisions will give me that option, regardless of which version is displayed as default. I'm sure there are many others like me who would also appreciate it. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:53, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

That's a very nice summary, Coppertwig. - Dan

talk)(mistakes

) 01:03, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. This is a clear and helpful summary of the reasoning in support of having the unsighted revision as default, a position I support. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 01:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

The non-default position is something that I could eventually support if it functioned well, if consensus was clear and broad, if benefits were tangible, and if the possibility of a slippery slope toward the other position was somehow ruled out. 71.172.186.109 (talk) 06:05, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Auto-promotion to 'Sichter' is now in effect on the German Wikipedia, according to this page. They used to have a system for handing out Sichter permission (analogous to our system for giving out rollback), and this replaces it. You need to have been editing for 60 days, have 500 edits (starting from now), a user page, an enabled email address and a clean block log. EdJohnston (talk) 13:43, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I believe they have auto-promotion after a set of criteria including 500 edits, and also the option of requesting Sichter status after 2 months and 200 edits. See the message above from M.L at 11:35, 25 May 2008 (UTC).☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:28, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Here's why I think vandalism is poisonous enough to really try to eliminate:

• Vandalism is steadily increasing. A study in 2007 found that 30% of all edits to wikipedia were either vandalism or reverts. Based on my watchlist I'd guess that it's more than 50% now.
• Lots of our readers are children. You can tell by looking at the list of most-read pages.
• I'm sure most kids are pretty unfazed by most vandalism, but their parents and teachers take this sort of thing more seriously. They make a fuss.
• Vandalism is an easy peg for critics of wikipedia and frequently parodied in on and off-line media.
• As a result Wikipedia's reputation is seriously damaged. Wikipedia is as closely associated with vandalised content as Dan Quayle is with "potatoe".
• As a result of that, many people who might have contributed usefully have decided that wikipedia is worthless, and don't. My guess is that more good-faith IP editors are deterred by vandalism than would be by having to work on the "beta" version of the text instead of the "current release".
• The social dynamics of vandalism fighting bother me. We have many editors whose major contribution to the encyclopedia is reverting. They tend to see the project as a war zone, and I think that attitude leaks into excessive deletionism and confrontational interactions with other editors. (Of course some parts of Wikipedia really are proxy war zones, but they affect many fewer editors than vandalism).

So OK, non-default sighting would be a neat tool for RCP, but that seems so unambitious when we could more or less make RCP redundant. And as for the reader interaction, having to load two (often long) pages (unsighted then sighted) every time you want to look at something is utterly horrible. I think wikipedia editors need to remember that we are effectively charity workers acting on behalf of the passive readers. It's our job to make this site as useful to them as possible, not to make it as convenient for *us* as possible, at their expense.

The vandalism figures you cite are hugely inflated. The bast study I know of (User:Dragons flight/Log analysis, which looked at over 100,000 articles) found that only 10% of edits to articles were reverted, and this is as recently as October last year. Unscientific guesses about edits to pages on your watchlist aren't going to be accurate - for a start, you should be looking at a list of edits to all articles, rather than the select few you happen to watch. If you go to Special:Recentchanges and click on a few diff links you will find that the vandalism rate is far lower than 50%.

If every article on the project had a sighted version it would indeed eliminate the need for RC patrol, but it would act as a huge barrier for new and unregistered editors. The attraction for new editors is the fact that their changes are visible immediately. Plenty of people already read Wikipedia but don't ever edit it because they find the idea too intimidating - they think the edit button "isn't for people like me". The number of people in this category would increase drastically if the changes had to be approved by some other editor. The last thing we need is a system which gets rid of all vandalism at the expense of crippling the influx of new contributors. Hut 8.5 15:17, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

My informal experience outside Wikipedia supports Paddy's statement that "Wikipedia is as closely associated with vandalised content as Dan Quayle is with 'potatoe'." (Dan Quayle was the first Bush's notoriously undereducated vice president.) This has hurt my ability to recruit academicians as helpful content experts. Hut, same response as above: a simple analysis is not going to solve this very complex problem and save us all from the hard work of comparing the quality of articles before and after flagged revisions. And if we want to know whether new users prefer the new way or the old way, we'll have to ask them, and then pay particular attention to the responses of the new users who wind up generating high-quality content. - Dan

talk)(mistakes

) 15:31, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

To hut 8.5: if in October 2007 10% of edits were reverted, then 20% of edits were either vandalism or reverts. That's a significant fraction of the total and not too different from what I remembered off the top of my head (I'm an astrophysicist: 20 ≈ 30 in my book). And Dragonflight's data (and others) shows that it is steadily getting worse, although I agree my own watchlist is not a fair sample. As for the size of the barrier, experience on DE:WP will show. I notice none of the "antis" have picked up the point about semi-protection made by Jimbo at the top of this very page.

PaddyLeahy (talk

) 20:07, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed the "or reverts" part of your sentence for some reason, but I still don't see any need to include reverts in the calculation - they don't damage articles and we don't need to guard against them. If anything the statistic of 10% may be too high for a figure of vandalism, because reverts can be made for several reasons other than vandalism, say content disputes. I haven't seen any evidence that we are failing to cope with the level of vandalism we have at the moment. I would happily support an implementation of this as a replacement for semi-protection, but the proposals being made by proponents of the tool at the moment are far broader than that. --Hut 8.5 20:22, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I see you are a recent changes patroller. Do you enjoy doing that? Wouldn't you prefer to use that time adding useful content to the the encyclopedia?

PaddyLeahy (talk

) 20:40, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Whilst recent changes patrol doesn't add content to the encyclopedia in itself, the policy of open editing it grows out of does. A substantial fraction of good editors are unregistered or have few edits, and recent changes patrol is the price we pay for having them here. In my opinion it is a price worth paying. Hut 8.5 20:49, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

A little bit offtopic, but nonetheless interesting: I fixed my blocking ratio tool and wrote a mail to wikide-l (german, but data included which can be groked easily). Sighting allows to eliminate almost all semi-protection flags from articles. --Avatar (talk) 22:15, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

The page Avatar is pointing to reads: "Anyone who's been following the mailing list for a little while, or knows me, knows that I'm not a fan of page protection. Don't get me wrong: page protection is sometimes necessary, and the introduction of semi-protection was a Good Thing (TM), since it has helped us avoid full protection. Nevertheless, no protection is doubtless to be preferred to semi-protection (leaving aside the discussion about only allowing logged-in users to edit). In order to get a slightly better overview of the top-10 Wikipedias, I've updated my "protection tool"...the results are..." - Dan

talk)(mistakes

) 00:28, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Got to say it doesn't look good. As of now, despite flagged revs, German wikipedia has (by far) the highest fraction of semi-protected pages in the top ten language versions. Is no-one taking the initiative to sight and unprotect these pages, or is there a good reason not to?

PaddyLeahy (talk

) 14:00, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

No semi-protections were lifted until now since the implementation of sighted versions. Many German admins are fast in semi-protecting pages but are not very fast in unprotecting them. I have criticised this (and the high amount of (semi-)protected articles) several times. What has happend after the implementation of semi-protection: the amount of fully protected pages declined. As soon as I find some time, I'll start unprotecting semi-protected pages. --Avatar (talk) 14:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Ideally, various semi-protections could be lifted. However, someone actually has to propose that idea. There is also the real possibility that the site config may change per consensus, so perhaps the draft may be the default. If that were to happen, then a mass unprotection of semi-protected pages would then have to be rolled back. So it may not yet be a good idea to get unprotected these pages *right* now.

Aaron Schulz

21:11, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Here I attempt to translate de:Wikipedia:Umfragen/Akzeptanz des neuen Verfahrens «Gesichtete und geprüfte Versionen», a poll about acceptance of the new procedure "sighted and proofed versions". I might not have time to translate the whole thing. People are welcome to help translate, or to summarize the discussion. I apologize for any errors in the translation. People are welcome to check and correct my translation (go ahead and edit it). I put three dots in places where I skipped translating some parts. If this is going to take up too much space here, feel free to suggest another place to move this to. (I include some translator's comments in parentheses within the translation.)17:21, 31 May 2008 (UTC)☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:07, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll be happy to help, Coppertwig, but I'd like to see the discussion over on de.WP mature first. They're like us, in that they're on a search for the truth, which I suppose is the same thing as saying that they don't know the truth yet...except that we don't have the context necessary to understand their angst. They will eventually do a good job of summarizing the arguments. - Dan

talk)(mistakes

) 15:41, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Dan. I just saw your message now. I put a message at their poll talk page asking for help, too. Maybe you're right, there's no need to hurry. I may still continue to translate some comments, anyway. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 22:48, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Here, Lienhard Schulz tells me he has written a summary of the German discussion as Contra vote 128 in that discussion. I'll begin translating it here as the "Summary according to Lienhard Schulz" below. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:13, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Pro

1. I find sighted versions sensible for fighting vandalism. We still have to wait to see, whether Sighters can sight articles quickly enough which have been edited by non-vandalising IP's, so that these versions can be promptly displayed. When this can be guaranteed, the Opposers will have less of an argument. ... Leyo
2. Good extension. Waiting for the effect. Drahreg01
3. Brilliant stuff. Improves the outside effect of WP and motivates more people to become more strongly engaged. Nachtagent

   For this motivation I have an example I like. I just have this example, that two users alerted by me by telephone logged in and complained about this action. Jonathan Groß

4. Hopefully effective method to distribute our patrol work, so that 10 people won't sight the same vandal edit while another vandal edit goes unsighted. So, for example, this rubbish stayed undetected and publicly visible for seven weeks (from my userpage) – should it develop, that with many once-sighted articles many following changes stay unsighted a long time, we should think it over, standardmäßig(default?) to always display the current version, otherwise it demotivates occasional and IP users. But it is too early to ascertain this. Dealerofsalvation

(78 comments in favour of flagged revisions, most of which not yet translated)

Contra

1. I find the function overall not good. One essentially writes for the draft, so that a person essentially promoted as "Sighter" approves one of them. This social class system, or rather one-sided watchers-over on a hierarchical basis didn't happen earlier on Wikipedia, and Wikipedia has, in sum, functioned until now! Special experts who perhaps only know a narrow field and have not written a lot overall, as far as I see, have no chance of ever being able to write things directly as a Sighter! To become a Sighter one has to do a certain number of edits or file a job application! Scherbe
2. In order to prevent some vandalism a 2-class society has deliberately been bought. ... Curvededge
3. The time a short while ago when one could, without an announcement or a big Brouhaha, simply contribute one's knowledge and the world could immediate benefit from it, is now over. ... Asthma
4. I second Asthma. Otherwise, I could tell by any discussion, that edit-warriors and such, ... will immediately want the Sighter rights. In this way they can push a lot more through. Endless discussion and strife ... Nutzer 2206

   That must be made clear. I read through the article de:Tony Vaccaro, ... I correct a link, and now the correction is in the draft, and anyone who looks at the article version goes to the wrong link ... Nutzer 2206

5. The fact that, at first, new changes are not visible to all deters new authors. ... Please stop this test! Jonathan Groß
6. Now we have, beyond the distinction "Article worth reading" and "Excellent article", also the distinction "Article that does not contain 'Philip is daft'". Also, with checked versions everything is still open (IMHO they won't come at all). We are provably better than the up-until-now best German encyclopedia publisher Brockhaus. ... our image ... Hans Koberger
7. The fact that anonymous users see not the current, but the last sighted version, makes Sighting almost compulsory. when the particular version should not be put on hold as potential vandalism. It's questionable whether the anonymous standard WP user finds the link to the current version, makes use of the definition of "sighted" or is interested in it anyway. ... Niteshift
8. After initial rather positive views of the sighted (as opposed to(?) proofed) versions I must meanwhile second the previous speaker. Nothing will be won. Obvious vandalism is just that: obvious. The reader recognizes that without further ado and without an elaborate sighting procedure. Further quality-increasing effects are not to be recognized, instead for these an ignorant person will be given an unzutreffende impression of proofed, objective accuracy.
9. Sighted and proofed versions in principle yes, but the newest version should always be shown as the standard view. Sighted or proofed only on request, ... pre-installed setting (Cookie). Otherwise Wikipedia will soon be pretty dead, for why would someone contribute, when the changes are not visible? Or is the goal to measure, whether soon only the self-named wikipedia "elite" will edit articles? Balubaer

   Sorry, but please think over again the meaning of these features. What you said is like saying "please fight vandalism, but please display each immediately nevertheless": then one could just as well leave things as they are. Subfader

   Hello, Subfader. Fighting vandalism is only a small subgoal. For a couple of years, there was an even more fundamental problem than my feelings about vandalism. The main goal is quality assurance and improvement (see the original discussion from 2006) and the development of stable versions. Maybe you and many others should think over the sense and point of the history? Balu, for the moment as IP 217.229.49.62

Translation of summary according to Lienhard Schulz

Because of the discussion up until this point, the process of sighted versions should be stopped, before the power (of effectiveness?) further cements it. (Something about clear majority, votes, weight of arguments, etc.)

1. The central, ultimate, sole argument of the supporter is the damming of vandalism. However overly multiply marked it became, the previously existing tools sufficed to fight vandalism.
   1. Vandalism is one of the smallest of Wikipedia's problems and is in the range of thousandths.
   2. Also, the advantage in time is minimal. For the entry "My teacher is stupid" to no longer be visible, would have taken about an hour with the previously existing vandalism-fighting tools.
   3. For this marginal advantage, we sell reader confusion and and make Wikipedia a bit user-unfriendly. Colleague at office: You're familiar with Wikipedia. It often says "sighted version". What is that? Should I click on it and read it?" ...
      1. (Not finished translating conclusion by Lienhard Schulz.)

(113 comments against flagged revisions, most of which not yet translated)

don't know/can't decide

(2 comments, not translated)

I reject this poll

(21 comments, not translated)

I support this poll

(7 comments, not translated)

I reject discussion of whether this poll makes sense or not

(7 comments, not translated)

I am quite tired right now, so if this makes no sense please ignore me, but does the phrasing of this poll seem a bit python-esque? "I support." "I Oppose." "I oppose this poll." "I support this poll." "Well fine, I oppose the opposing and supporting of this poll!" No wonder the Germans have a mess on their hands. Random89 07:28, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

LOL! But isn't that just normal for polls, on English Wikipedia too? I assume those sections might have been added by the (non-)participants after the poll started (I haven't checked). I don't see those sections at the end as affecting the validity of the poll itself.

I understand how the Germans feel about sighted revisions as implemented there. It makes sense to me: I can try to explain it. I think it's important to implement it differently here, as I've explained already, to avoid those problems.

The thing is, under our current system if you put in an edit and it gets reverted, at least your edit was actually in the article for a short time before being reverted; or you can think of it as having lost a game – everybody can't win all the time, but you can put it in the past and go on to play other games. But with the sighted revisions, if you've made a number of edits and they haven't been sighted yet, first of all in a sense they haven't been in the actual "article" for even a minute yet; secondly, it's like playing a game and not having found out yet whether you won or not: it keeps weighing on your mind. You can't just forget about it. Having made a certain number of edits which might possibly all be rejected before ever appearing in the "article", one might feel that one has invested a certain amount of editing time and that it's now better to wait before doing any more editing, to see what happens to those edits that are already there. Even reverting is paying attention to an edit: leaving it unsighted is totally ignoring it. So one feels ignored. And at the moment when one does the edit, all those feelings are there: one doesn't know that it's going to be sighted in 2 minutes, so one feels the same as if it's going to sit there for months. And if an edit does sit there for a long time unsighted, one feels more and more resentful as time goes on.

In our current system, one can feel proud of fixing a couple of grammatical errors, improving Wikipedia's image. But in the German system, the reader is not going to go to the trouble of clicking "to current version", or of comparing the two versions, just to avoid a few grammatical errors. So one's corrections, relegated to a mere "draft" (a word that sounds like something of lower quality, not the higher-quality thing that one's corrected version actually is) are just wasted while the reader still sees the grammatical errors. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 10:55, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

While the talk-page debates on the German Wikipedia are interesting, we should compare the number commenting on talk pages with the number who are currently establishing a consensus on the ground by taking up "sichter" rights and actually using them, namely 2849 editors as I write (see here for current update). In that sense the pros outnumber the antis by 25:1.

Someone who seeks Sichter rights is not necessarily in favour of a system they may see as removing a freedom, which previously everyone had, from one of two social classes; they may simply prefer that if they are in such a system, then they are not in the lower class. (I think the basic implementation I propose above would not tend to be seen as two social classes or as removing a freedom.) ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 21:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, avoiding the impression of a 2 class system is critical. This, just like other new usergroups we add, need to be seen as a tool, not a reward or a status symbol. Mr. Z-man 22:29, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Paddy, I think this is an extremely misleading metric for the reasons stated above. Are you serious about this contention? Mr. IP (talk) 02:19, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps users sighting new pages as roughly a metric, but not people sighting in general. Maybe they just don't want pages to get outdated?

Aaron Schulz

04:23, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

My point is that the actual behaviour of users carries much more weight in determining consensus than comments on pages like this (and rightly so, given the numbers involved). If German editors are taking up sichter rights despite being opposed to the concept, I guess we'll hear about it soon enough. Moreover, if a supermajority of (experienced) German users is really opposed to sighting, they could easily use sichter rights to remove such flags and restore the status quo. After all, it is much easier than initially sighting a page since you don't have to check the text in any way, in fact you could do it with a script. Spoiler warnings were removed from English Wikipedia very much in this way (ditto "fair use" images etc) so there is a clear precedent for establishing consensus via force majeur. (But maybe "due process" is more important on DE:WP?)

PaddyLeahy (talk

) 19:35, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I would probably support both of these depending on the specifics, but I think that the first proposal would receive consensus much more quickly then the second one would. Looking at the first proposal alone, it seems clear that it would allow more people to edit pages then is currently allowed, and (IMHO) less hierarchy (In current system admin has to make change, but in the new system, almost anyone could make the change provided they were a good editor.) I know it has been mentioned that we could roll it out by starting on semi-protected pages, but this proposal would means only semi-protected pages, period. (Allowing for the possibility of the second proposal still, if it gained consensus.) J kasd 04:52, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Flagged revisions cannot replace full-protection (and so it cannot replace semi-protection either) as edit wars frequently occur between long time users. Ninety Mile Beach (talk) 06:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

There are two types of protection: protection to guard against vandalism and protection to stop edit wars. Flagged revisions could replace the former. --Hut 8.5 09:04, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

In fact flagged revisions could replace full protection if admins felt able to remove "surveyor" permission from editors who engaged in persistent edit wars rather than trying to reach consensus. However if this looked like developing into a big procedural thing like (or at) arbcom, it would probably be better to keep full protection; after all, according to Avatar's neat tool, only a tiny fraction (<0.03%) of pages are fully protected.

PaddyLeahy (talk

) 13:55, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

There are some cases in which articles have been fully protected due to extreme levels of vandalism (Evolution and Atlantic Records are the two which spring to mind) and flagged revisions would be useful in these rare cases. --Hut 8.5 14:37, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, so maybe we could add flagged revisions on a page by page basis: if there was consensus that a page needed flagged revisions, then it would be given flagged revisions. We could still keep semi-protection and full-protection and use them when they are the best solution. J kasd 18:38, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Granting it per page would be a good idea. We could have a

WP:RFPP-like process for enabling it on specific pages (with a policy giving criteria to determine which pages should be sighted). Possibly we could enable it on all articles but have the newest version displayed be default unless an admin has decided otherwise specifically for that page. Hut 8.5

18:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I feel that this is becoming more and more complicated, one reason that many are confused about flagged revisions and their purpose. Keep it simple: flagged revisions on all articles, a stable revision, requirements for rating article revisions, and that's about it. –

Thomas H. Larsen

06:37, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

But not everyone wants it on all pages. I don't think having a request for flagged revisions process for pages that might need it would be overly complicated. J kasd 15:39, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

The process doesn't become overly complicated; getting anything done does. –

Thomas H. Larsen

23:34, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Surveys can be deceptive if they're not large and random. I'm okay with picking three pages for flagged revisions, just to see what happens, because it's not likely that we would wind up enforcing conclusions drawn from so small a sample; it would just be to get our "feet wet". I'd be okay with doing something random-ish, such as adding the feature to every article that shows up at

Hi folks. I'd like to clarify that semi-protection will still be required as a counter-vandalism measure on very frequently vandalised articles until/unless readers end up seeing the stable revision of articles by default. Flagged revisions is a method to achieve higher stability and give readers the option to acquire stable content, but for practical reasons we'll probably still need to semi-protect articles in some cases. –

Thomas H. Larsen

06:35, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure, when semi-protection would be better, we could still use it. J kasd 15:39, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm starting to think that we should never try to put flagged revisions on the whole wikipedia. Just on certain pages with a request for flagged revisions process (WP:RFFR) (along with talk page discussions) to decide. J kasd 15:45, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't have my full proposal with me at the moment, and I will attempt to upload it tomorrow, but here is a basic preview of my vision of flagged revisions:

• Have a user access group, patrollers. Hand it out to all non-vandals who want it. Users in the group can:
  • rate aspects of article revisions up to some basic level, and
  • not downgrade aspects of ratings of article revisions if they are above this level.
• Have a user access group, reviewers. Hand it out to trusted, experienced people who want it. Users in this group can:
  • rate article revisions up to a high level,
  • downgrade ratings of article revisions to any level, and
  • set a revision of an article as a stable revision (readers still see the current revision by default, but they have a box directing them to the stable revision if they want it).
• Administrators can add and remove users from these groups.
• The interface consists of a simple box at the top of the screen, providing links to the stable and current revisions and a page describing the feature, and providing graphical sliders to denote the article revision's accuracy, depth, and readability.
• That's about it (as far as I remember).

Best and friendly regards, –

My full proposal for the implementation of flagged revisions is found at Wikipedia:Flagged revisions/reliable revisions. Note that there is no reason why we have to implement this proposal at the same time as we turn on flagged revisions; we can evolve toward this proposed implementation over a period of time. However, I would, if possible, like to have this implementation at the start, so please read it and provide feedback.

I think that a watchlist notice is the best idea for announcing the impending arrival of flagged revisions. However, one very real concern is ensuring that the discussion here remains comprehensible: the last thing I want is to be answering questions such as "What is flagged revisions?" or risking everybody's voice getting lost in the crowd. If we have too many people commenting on the same thing, their voices will be meaningless and will probably be accidentally ignored.

Thus, I am somewhat reluctant to go posting large "flagged revisions is coming!" notices aimed at a large amount of people who don't recognise or respect their own competence. Doing so is a recipe for ear-deafening noise, not constructive discussion.

These are issues that are important and that we need to address. Perhaps we should divide discussions into many parts where editors can voice their concerns and/or shout their joy about certain aspects of flagged revisions. Again, I do not think that editors who have not participated in discussion and understood the proposal(s) should be permitted to vote on whether or not to introduce the extension.

Here is a proposed timetable for implementing flagged revisions; please provide some comments.

—Preceding

• Thomas, I see that you are calling for us to go boldly forward, but I don't see 80% approval being achieved on the date you want it. The all-or-nothing phrasing of your above plan concerns me. I believe there is a consensus on enwiki for movement on flagged revisions, but I don't see people buying the strongest form of it just yet. I think we will have to mess around with partial versions of it for a while before people understand what it can do, and before they can make up their minds. So we might start with a weak or limited form of flagged revisions, and try to go forward from there.
• As an announcement, why not say 'Thank you for agreeing to an initial trial of flagged revisions!' The lack of objection in the threads thus far can be interpreted that way, I believe. EdJohnston (talk) 04:51, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

As it stands, you guys have already been given the link regarding the poll on this on the German Wikipedia. I'd like to flesh out for you the basic reasonings given against:

• People feel it entirely eliminates the Wiki principle , the most basic interactive grass roots philosophy Jimbo founded Wikipedia on, quote "[Other than Citizendium run by registered experts], we welcome a diversity of efforts."[2] If they are unregistered or have one single time been blocked for a few hours years ago, millions of potential and long-standing registered users are shown the door, getting reduced to supplicants and beggars that are only granted to sent in mere suggestions which hopefully the newly promoted expert committee will at some unknown time condescend to examine. Whatever happened to the old slogan, "This is a free encylopedia" for everyone to join in? Does this "free" only refer to royalty-free if quoted or software parts are copied elsewhere, as the German supporters of their version of flagged revisions are claiming now? That's why some people are beginning to refer to this new feature as a silent coup d'etat behind closed doors and that people never were given a chance to vote or voice their opinions about beforehand. In the particular small circles where these ideas floated around for years prior to the feature's installment, it never got a strong foothold, and nobody put much work into designing it properly which was why even the pro-people admitted that anything at such a primitive, undeveloped stage would need much work first, until it suddenly went live overnight when German publishing house Bertelsmann publically announced that they need flagged revisions on the double for an upcoming print version of the German Wikipedia.
• Even for the people still allowed in, it's an enormous waste of time and energy of epic proportions. The justification given for the sudden, little previously known implementation of flagged revisions is "eliminating vandalism" of the kind where IPs slip in four-letter words here and there. Even though our German community certainly is much smaller than yours, such petty vandalisms hardly last minutes, at most hours usually, even without this new feature of flagged revisions. So what's the use? And apart from what enormous increase of energy will have to be sunk into processing an entire day's or even a week's worth of sent-in suggestions, even the people still allowed in now arduously and cumbersomely have to first send in their own edits in as suggestions just like anybody else, this suggestion will appear in the invisible, invalid "draft" (Entwurf), then they'll have to use their new powers to approve of their own suggestion, and after that they'll still have to do one more step and move their self-approved suggestion to the actual article. This is not only awkward but also incredibly time-consuming.
• Astronomical, disproportionate growth of server, download, and upload capacities. Instead of handling only one single document per article with usually but a two-digit kilobyte per edit, each single suggestion sent in is internally stored as the corresponding entire article with the edit suggestion added in. Ever-changing, ever-growing Wikipedia is intensely memory hungry as is; some people have started joking whether Jimbo intends to rent the entire solar system as server space now that we have flagged revisions.
• Complicating the entire handling by effectively having to work with two parallel versions of each article. So far, people allowed in to flag revisions can chose in their account options whether they want the invisible, internal draft or the actual article displayed by default. So if they always intend to be up to date with what's happening, they'll potentially lose orientation easily on what's actually found its way into the actual article yet. If they intend to only see actual articles instead, vandalism of a far more critical kind than some silly four-letter words is invited: We currently get more and more alerts about "invisible AfDs" spotted literally at the very last second before articles would have gotten deleted.
• "Scaling" as an in fact harmful Pyrrhic victory, Part 1: Prescribing working quotas to meet. The supporters say the flagged revisions feature will have to remain in existence, in its current shape, for at least half a year from now, maybe even one whole year, before anybody will be able to tell and judge how flagged revisions will affect the project and what they are good for. If anybody will still be around interested in examining the issue by then, they say the only thing that'll matter will be "Does it scale?" What does to scale mean, then? Does it mean, "Does Wikipedia benefit from it?", or, "Does it fulfill any useful purpose?", or, "Do the benefits outweigh any obvious and potential, as-of-yet unknown harms at the end of the day?" NO! "Does it scale?", by their definition, simply stands for, "Will we be able to uphold a 'sensible' suggestion/approval ratio, or in other words, will we be able to process all suggestions coming in within a 'reasonable' timeframe?" Some critics therefore fear that the people allowed to flag revisions will put all their energy exclusively in fulfilling their set quota of suggestion approvals and they will less and less care about doing actual edits to the articles by themselves, just to save this one feature they wanna keep at all costs. Their entire work will potentially end up as fulfilling useless working quotas within an absurd planned economy of awkward bureaucracy while neglecting to make their own edits to articles by themselves.
• "Scaling" as an in fact harmful Pyrrhic victory, Part 2: People voting by their feet. The German Wikipedia has lost its entire interactive, easy-to-use appeal for all newcomers (and many oldtimers, but more of that below), a fact mourned by many critics giving figures, statistics, and links to irate boycotting calls. Within days of the implementation of flagged revisions, the inpouring of edits and new articles to the German Wikipedia irreversibly dropped far below that of the French Wikipedia, something that never happened before in the entire history of both language versions. The supporters watch this with delight, as this will make meeting their scaling quota much easier for them. What a great idea: Let's call our test a total success in the end simply because we scale, and totally ignore we lost 95 percent of all efforts, contributions, and contributors that ever kept our free enyclopedia alive in the first place!

Due to all these flaws inherent to the flagged revisions feature that we were force-fed, many active editors that registered years ago say that they are entirely opposed to it, or even openly call for mass boycotts. Twice as many people in the linked poll belong to these critics than there are supporters, and the critics mention and link to statements saying that more than half the people still allowed in as the new omnipotent censorship bureaucracy, simply by automatic inclusion due to meeting certain criteria, are totally up in arms against this total mess that went live overnight. They all add to the many, many IPs and newcomers that already deserted us and for the first time in our history made us succumb to the French language version (that's what adds up to the estimation of 95 percent of editors and contributions we'll lose). Most of us are determined that all this what we are now facing already at the German Wikipedia will inevitably happen in every language version where this version of flagged revisions will be implemented. --87.154.30.81 (talk) 03:06, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

From what I gather a fair number of users are ignoring that poll. I know several supporters that didn't bother voting because of this.

Aaron Schulz

04:16, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh yes, I've noticed those that said, "Hey, why are those sissies complaining yet again whenever we change any minuscule silly bit? I think it's high time we'll take the right to complain from them as well!", as well as those saying, "Hey, I don't see the big deal! It's summer outside you dunces, so just go playing in the beautiful sun for a few weeks and look the other way while we're pre-emptively and collectively taking editing rights from millions of innocent editors, including many, many people still registered since ages ago, just so some people's pets won't poop on the pavement anymore!" --87.154.30.81 (talk) 05:09, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Time for conspiracy theories...

I won't answer this in deep, but to reply to the biggest reproaches:

• There is no connection between stable versions and Bertelsman publishing a one book encyclopedia. It wouldn't make sense - sighted versions are against blatant vandalism, but the text in the encyclopedia will be edited by a group of experienced encyclopedic editors. By the way - do you really think they start to put together the content of the book now? Printed books needs 'a little bit' forerun.
• It seems you don't know much about the currently used data structure. Every edit (even if you only add or remove one char) is saved as whole article regardless if the stable version extension is running or not.
• Please publish/link data where your assertions can be verified.
• Answering in this style to the simple fact that a fair number of users is ignoring that poll (which can be checked easily) you're discrediting yourself. --Avatar (talk) 12:04, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

As for "conspiracy theories", how would you call it if your parliament would decide that 95 percent of people are deprived of their former right, or (if you prefer to call editing not a right but a "privilege") ability to vote, just "to make elections more efficient", and the official reason given as, "so people's pets won't poop on the carpet anymore"? Instead of the primarily universal ability to edit, we now have 95 percent of former editors reduced to humble supplicants that can send in their suggestions and petitions to be hopefully considered by the parliament at some other time. I registered years ago to the German Wikipedia and still am, and yet I'm denied the ability to edit articles any longer now because of this feature. And even the few people still allowed in now have to go through a long-winded and awkward mass of useless and absurd bureucratic red tape just to add their own edits to articles.

From what I gather here, the German admins didn't implement what you guys here are actually developing as flagged revisions as being a mere new template while everybody retains their right/ability to edit, in fact the German admins implemented exactly what appeared in many incompetent press articles and what Jimbo above warns people from as being FUD. They obviously didn't even read to bother what you guys are developing here, they just took editing rights from millions of innocent, often long-standing registered users. That's not some wild conjecture, it's a simple fact, and I'm one of the registered users that is not allowed to edit anymore. That's exactly the misunderstanding Jimbo warns about in that box above, and they implemented the misunderstanding instead of what you guys here are working on.

• The feature was implemented overnight without a single warning just days within Bertelsmann ordering flagged revisions for their print version. The connection between both events, especially because of the equal terminology, has been drawn a number of times by now, we also get people saying, "I refuse to effectively work only for Bertelsmann, so I'm hereby leaving Wikipedia for good", and all supporters adamantly refuse to reply to these accusations of Wikipedia buying out to a commercial company until now. If it would really be as silly as you claim, you should at least get a few denials within a month, right?

• I don't know much about Wikipedia's data structure? Then why is it that the server space issue arising due to this feature is the only problem acknowledged even by most supporters?

• The suggestion that people should rather leave Wikipedia for a few weeks to "take their stupidity elsewhere and play outside because it's summer now" was literally taken from users like Mbimmler or Raymond, and they're not the only ones suggesting that everybody complaining about this feature now should be leaving Wikipedia for some time. Without even commenting on any of the critics's many arguments, the number of supporters collectively calling all critics of this feature "regularly" incompetently and irresponsibly abusing their right to complain is too copius to list here, and they say this "negative attitude towards any change at all" has to end one way or another. Coupled with the fact that they are in favor of taking the ability to edit from millions of users collectively and pre-emptively, it's especially nasty they also think that everybody complaining should be deprived of that right as well.

• What exactly would you like to have links for? This is a bit odd though, as all the data is in German, and if you do speak German, you should be able to gather the informations from the poll itself. I'll be using the poll to suggest people to pile up documenting data from now on regarding all the things I quoted from the poll. It'll be a good idea to battle this irrelevant "scaling" brainchild with all this data in case we won't be bringing this mess down within a few days.

• I'm discrediting myself by quoting the common tenets of the poll? Come again? Furthermore, most people that got their ability to edit taken away from them overnight, be they IPs or registered users, don't even know that there's a poll going on. Just like the application form to be given back one's rights, it's hidden deep within the system. And being someone registered but having been blocked one single time years ago, I'm directly forwarded to the internal drafts (which are invisible if you're not registered, and even if you're registered, you'll have to manually click the tab to see it) when attempting to make an edit so it took me some time until I even realized that I'm not editing actual articles anymore. --87.154.30.81 (talk) 14:59, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Your allegations (and comparisons) are ridiculous, you're lying which is simple to prove (talk to Brion about details and schedule of implementation - or is he part of the Bertelsman conspiracy too?), Bertelsman hadn't asked for stable versions, the devs/tech guys (talk to them) don't see a problem with server space issues, you're misquoting and you didn't give a valid and/or reliable source for your claim that ip edits dropped because of enabling sighted versions. I'm hoping you're not talking about this statistic. All in all, I can't see that this "discussion" will be worthy either your time or mine. From my side EOD. --Avatar (talk) 15:30, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

How lovely. What next? Are you gonna deny the simple fact there's a poll going on and call me a liar for saying so? All I do is quoting what many people are saying, but you even deny the fact that people are saying it, just to divert from the fact you have no answers to the overwhelming protest. Are we living in the same reality at all? The Bertelsmann issue people are voicing their concern over (Kölsche Pitter for example says it's useless to fight this feature as the only reason German Wikipedia implemented it is because Bertelsmann and SPIEGEL Wissen are paying the Foundation for this as they intend to make money from the content Wikipedia has generated over the years), as serious as it would be if proving true, is just a neglectable side issue, but you blow it all out of proportion and claim that would be the only problem in order to divert from the fact it's just a side issue. --87.154.30.81 (talk) 16:33, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

My 2c:

• working through Special:OldReviewedPages is much more relaxed than checking Special:RecentChanges. The latter is practically impossible.
• The backlog of OldUnreviewedPages is quite constant (between 500-1000) even though the number of reviewed paged is constantly growing. That means that the process is scaling very well and it also means that we probably have already covered the most interesting articles where people tend to edit a lot.
• Whenever I work a bit on OldUnreviewdPages I find things that have been misses on Special:Recentchanges. So to me this proves that flagged revisions is the only way to completely cover the changes made by anonymous users.
• to most IPs this process is no real problem. Most anonymous changes get checked quickly. Those that lead the backlog are usually strange edits where so far no one gave their support and when checking these in detail, a huge percentage of them needs rollback. At the moment the average waiting time in the backlog (those long-termers included and all those excluded that have already been checked) is three hours, so that is nothing to complain about. That time could even be less, if there were not some long-term Wikipedians who boycott the new system, refuse review permissions and happily produce backlog. Ninety Mile Beach (talk) 20:45, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I haven't followed the most recent developments; but I noticed the above timeline to announce this tomorrow on the main page. In order to avoid the German counter-reaction, we need to make sure this is presented properly. I don't think we are prepared for a wider discussion yet.

I see two ways of proceeding right now:

1. We streamline what is presented here into a single readable page that is very concrete, so people know exactly what they are in for right now. The current proposals are very open-ended, and speak of suggested "roll-out" strategies, this could cause panic. ;)
2. We present a number of different proposals about how people suggest to use flagging, so that people can choose between various ideas, and see that there are many choices.

The second option would lead to better solutions coming up, but it will also generate much confusion. If we go for a single proposal, then I like the idea of having a request for sighting process. I like the idea of presenting flagging as a tool to assist Wikipedians, not as something to be imposed on them.

Should we maybe streamline the many proposals into a single concrete proposal that most people on en.wiki would be comfortable with? Since we have started this discussion early, we know many opposing views, and we should take into account the German reaction as well. What are the opinions? Merzul (talk) 11:08, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Surely the thing to do now is precisely nothing until the situation on the German Wikipedia sorts itself out, and we can get an agreed report from them. Before we work seriously to introduce "quality" or "reliable" versions we better see whether the minimal sighted versions approach even works. A while ago I posted a request on the Signpost Tipline for updates on this, but it was deleted by

Ting Chen

makes the good point that the "German experiment" lacks a clear set of goals and success criteria. For the record, the report I would like to see would say:

• What has been the reception, among: general editors; recent changes patrollers; admins? Also, since the German chapter is one of our most organised, perhaps they could commission some proper opinion polling about this amongst non-editing readers, since the whole thing is done mainly for their benefit.
• How is the debate evolving about who should get "sichter" rights? (Apparently settled now, but I didn't see the jump in the number of "sichters" I would have expected if automatic accreditation has gone into effect.)
• Have sighted revisions let to many pages being unprotected, as advertised by proponents? If so, has this been beneficial or otherwise to those articles? (Apparently not, yet.)
• What about the effect on pages that were never protected? Has it slowed down drive-by copy editing, as some fear? 87.154.30.81 alleges above that there has been a dramatic drop in edits, but Avatar seems to question this; unfortunately I can't translate the link he gave. Note that if flagged revs worked "perfectly", it would eliminate all vandalism and therefore all reverts of same, hence reducing the edit count by some 20%. So we need a bit more work than just looking at raw edit rate.

PaddyLeahy (talk

) 19:20, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

"Surely the thing to do now is precisely nothing until the situation on the German Wikipedia sorts itself out, and we can get an agreed report from them" – oh, dear. Here we go again. The German implementation is different from the one being suggested by the supermajority on the English Wikipedia, and therefore any report from the German Wikipedia will not be entirely relevant. –

Thomas H. Larsen

01:35, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

But still relevant in various aspects (response, scalibility, problems). Waiting a bit while discussing this won't hurt.

Aaron Schulz

03:49, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Erik Moeller says:

As of today, the "FlaggedRevs" extension is available to any wiki community that wishes to use it. FlaggedRevs is a tool for patrolling changes, identifying high quality article versions, and changing the default version shown to unregistered users. It's highly configurable. As such, we're making it available in two configurations:

1) A minimally intrusive "patrolling" configuration; 2) Custom configurations per your request.

Who needs this feature and where can I see it?

Larger wiki communities will probably benefit more from the use of this feature than smaller ones. If you have problems keeping vandalism in check, and/or want to experiment with new ways to identify high quality content, you should look into this functionality.

You can see an English language demo installation of the feature at: http://en.labs.wikimedia.org/

The feature is in production use on the German Wikipedia: http://de.wikipedia.org/

The German Wikipedia uses a custom configuration where the most recent vandalism-patrolled version, if any, is shown to unregistered users. You can track the progress of their use of the patrolling feature here:

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~aka/cgi-bin/reviewcnt.cgi?lang=english

Patrolling Configuration

In the Patrolling Configuration, any user who has been registered for more than 21 days and has made at least 150 edits will be automatically given the permission to patrol changes for vandalism. Only changes made by users who are not permitted to patrol changes need to be patrolled.

In addition, sysops will be given the permission to flag versions of "featured articles" in accordance with existing nomination processes. (In other words, this gives you the ability to identify specific _versions_ of an article as "featured", rather than the article as a whole.) Finally, sysops will be permitted to define on a per-page basis that changes need to be patrolled before being visible to unregistered readers. This is an alternative to semi-protection; it doesn't make sense to use both on a given page.

The use of these features is subject to policies that your wiki community will need to develop. They should be used carefully until such a policy is in place.

To activate the patrolling configuration,

1) File a request on http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ of type "enhancement", component "site request". You may need to create a BugZilla account to do this.

2) Title your request "Enable FlaggedRevs Patrolling Configuration on (my project name)".

3) Post a link to your BugZilla request to your project's "Village pump" and mailing list, if available.

If there are no objections on the BugZilla page, the request will be considered valid after 7 days. (It may still take a while longer to process it.)

Custom Configurations

The FlaggedRevs extension is highly flexible in its configuration. We are willing to accommodate custom requests. Since some configurations of FlaggedRevs could be considered highly disruptive, the requirements are somewhat higher.

1) Read about the configuration options at: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FlaggedRevs and experiment with the live demo at: http://en.labs.wikimedia.org/

2) Create a page in the "Project:" namespace (e.g. "Wikipedia:", "Wikibooks:") of your wiki community describing the configuration you want to use.

3) Create a BugZilla request as above, titled "Enable FlaggedRevs custom configuration on (my project name)" pointing to the proposal page you have created. Provide an English translation of all relevant information if possible - or we may not be able to help you.

4) Post a link to your proposal and to the BugZilla request to the various relevant channels of your wiki community, e.g. "village pump", mailing list.

If there are no objections within 14 days, your request will be considered valid. If there are objections, please try building consensus. If necessary, you can also resort to a poll (a very large majority, at least two thirds, is generally necessary).

Note that custom configurations will take longer to process, and might sit in the technical support queue for several weeks.

Our developers will _only_ look at the information attached to the BugZilla request, so please make sure that everything relevant is at least linked from there.

Translators needed

The user interface of the FlaggedRevs extension needs to be translated into as many languages as possible. The extension can be localized using http://translatewiki.net/ - please follow the instructions there to become a translator.

User interface developers needed

If you are a PHP developer with JavaScript/CSS experience, your help in improving the user interface experience (by improving the CSS or adding AJAX features) would be appreciated. Just check out a fresh copy of the MediaWiki code and the FlaggedRevs code and get started:

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Subversion http://mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FlaggedRevs

If you need committer access to our version control system, please e-mail <commitaccess at wikimedia dot org>, attaching your SSH key and desired username as per the above link.

-- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

(copied here by WAS 4.250 (talk) 23:00, 5 June 2008 (UTC))

My first edit to Wikipedia was as an unregistered user to a fairly well established article (I can't remember which article it was so I can't check whether it was a

Please read the proposals made above, then comment again. Your comment indicates a lack of understanding, specifically that the two proposals in consideration at this time both have the current revision of articles displayed by default to everybody, so changes do become available immediately. –

Thomas H. Larsen

00:10, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I fully admit that I do not fully understand all the details of the system at this time but I was aware that the proposals above. However currently they are just that - proposals; over the coming weeks there are likely to be more proposals some of which may well be to "hide" changes from unregistered editors. I did not state that I am not in favour of the system; whilst I have my doubts I am still learning about it. The above comment was just to represent my first thoughts on what I see as a negative aspect of one potential way in which the system could be implemented. Guest9999 (talk) 01:20, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

People have already proposed above hiding the most recent version from unregistered users, and that is how it has been implemented on the German Wikipedia. Concerns like these should be considered and addressed. Hut 8.5 08:20, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the overwhelming majority of users agree that having flagged versions appear by default would scare away too many new users. The only time we need that feature is for articles that would be fully protected anyway, so that new users can at least make some changes to them. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 23:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

On the contrary, the "Sighted Versions" proposal is the closest we currently have to a consensus proposal, and involves showing the flagged version, not the current draft, to not-logged-in users. (Mr Larsen's proposal has attracted much less support than "Sighted versions" did at the time it was thrashed out last September.) Clearly, much the most common objection to sighted versions is the fear that it would "scare away new users", but these objections don't come from an "overwhelming majority" of editors, even of editors who comment here (see archives of

PaddyLeahy (talk

) 19:07, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

"How many established editors would not have continued past that point if they had not seen how their action had changed and improved the encyclopaedia?" ... After making an edit the user is directed to the most current version of the page (the one including their changes). We could go further and give the user a cookie which would cause them to always see the most current version of that page (or even all pages). There is no particular reason for the user to have any particular knowledge of that fact that their change is not yet being displayed to the general public. Already many users edits are reverted so quickly that by the time they next reload the page they are gone,... I'd expect a well functioning version flagging system to greatly reduce hasty reversions and as a result be strictly superior from the perspective of users seeing their contributions take effect. --Gmaxwell (talk) 19:21, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking mainly of:

1. The Main Page
2. High risk templates (e.g. Template:Unreferenced)

There is no realistic chance of these pages being unprotected or even semi-protected in the foreseeable future and I could definately see the advantage of these pages working on a flagged revisions basis assuming that all users at least have the option to only see the flagged version. Guest9999 (talk) 20:26, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I think that the ultimate victory for wiki principles will be when http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_page&action=edit is a valid link for everyone. I honestly can't see FlaggedRevisions as a reason to unprotect high-risk templates, legal pages, abused talk pages or most of the other 'administrative' indef protections; but having something better to do with Evolution than have admins 'courier' edits from a sandbox can't possibly be a step in the wrong direction. Happy‑melon 21:21, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Unprotecting the main page wouldn't be a great benefit. All the content there is transcluded from other templates, so there is virtually no reason to edit the page directly, and it often goes unedited for weeks on end. If the implementation of flagged revisions displayed the newest version by default, then the page would become a massive target for vandals even if viewers did have the option of seeing a sighted version. Hut 8.5 21:29, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

The above scheme by Guest9999 makes no sense unless the default for non-logged-in readers is to see the flagged revision, not the latest version. Guest is minimizing the pain of that new default (I assume) by limiting the use of flagged revisions only to a small set of pages that can't be left open anyway. I know that this scheme would have value for Evolution, even if the main page is not a good example. EdJohnston (talk) 22:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I was under the impression that "what logged-out user sees" is variable by page: there is a global default (currently 'sighted' for de.wiki; consensus seems to be drifting towards 'current' for any implementation here), but there is also a permission granting the ability to override that setting on a per-page basis (the assumption seems to be that that would be a 'sysop' permission). So even if the default is to display the current version, we can still use FlaggedRevs more restrictively on certain pages (like Evolution). If that's not the case, then it's a feature that definitely needs to be added. Vis unprotecting the main page, I agree that it's not particularly useful. However, it is undoubtedly an enormous psychological step, because we've spent the past five years making the main page almost impossible to unprotect. Allowing everyone to edit the main page will require whoever does it (and it really ought to be Jimbo :D) to edit or change eleven separate pages: I've seen the mainpage protection system compared to the interlock on a nuclear missile; we were that scared that it might be opened up to edits. What a change of direction to be allowing anyone to edit it. Happy‑melon 12:06, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

WP:RFA one of the reasons for needing the admin-tools that is given is the ability to see edit high risk templates, allowing such templates to be edited would allow them to undergo the same continuous revision/ improvement as other pages. I agree such a system would only work if all users saw the flagged versions of such pages but at least on a technical level I doubt having that option set on a perpage basis would be a problem. Guest9999 (talk

) 12:21, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism is not the only reason why we indef-protect templates: see Template talk:Db-meta#reword for a perfect example of full protection stopping a good faith, catastrophically damaging edit from going through long enough for its proponent to see the light. FR is only an alternative to indef protection as long as we set $wgUseStableTemplates=True, which means that the stable revision of templates is used in parsing other pages. Since that can't be overridden on a per-page basis AFAIK (that is, we can't have sandbox pages displaying using the latest version of a template and yet have other transclusions using the stable version), using sandboxes will still be necessary; indeed vital. There's actually no way that I can see for FR to be an alternative to indef protection for high-risk templates. For pages like Evolution, Today's Featured Article or even most policy pages, however, FR is an absolute godsend. Happy‑melon 12:32, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I concur with this view. ╟─TreasuryTag (talk ╬ contribs)─╢ 13:06, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay you know a lot more about templates and their use than I do and if you say it's not a practical or workable system then I have no reason to doubt you and withdraw my suggestion. Didn't mean to cause a fuss, just trying to put ideas out there. Guest9999 (talk) 15:33, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) My main bias in supporting flagged revisions is in fact being able to "open up" the main page. On pages that are currently unprotected, i see no need (or consensus) to enable the "sighted version" as default on the majority of pages. However, for readers not logged in, there is in my mind a clear value to displaying the "flagged version" of pages that would otherwise be protected. This would enable first-timers to improve the article, while still hiding the worst of the free-to-edit concept from passive readers. In particular this would be great on transcluded mainpage templates such as ITN, or as happy melon said, TFA. Random89 07:03, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Judging by the German experience and what seems to be the general ideas held here, and pursuant to my comments above, I have another suggestion for how to implement flagged revs. This can be seen as a basic first step, a way to demonstrate the usefulness of this tool and not scare the wider community. I do not view this as the end of the process, simply a step down the road.

• All users in good standing (clear block log and 100+ edits) have the right to receive the ability to mark a page as "clean".
• Any admin can give or revoke this privilege (like rollback), subject to community approval (WP:AN) in case of disputes.
• A clean page is to be free of vandalism, spelling and grammar errors, or any maintenance tags at the top.
• On most pages, the default displayed version is the most recent, all users have the option of clicking a prominent link at the top to view the most recent "clean" version.
• Highly visible templates and pages that are currently indef full- or semi-protect can be decided, by discussion, to display by default the most recent "clean" version to allow them to be opened for editing.

Ideally, I see this being discussed, voted on, and put to a 3-month (or so) trial. It could then be voted on again before being either adopted or abolished. In the former case, we can then begin to discuss the next level (as has been proposed in other forms above). In the latter case, we end up here again looking for another form of implementation, or simply hiding in a corner from bitter users (cough german wiki cough). Random89 07:21, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Lets ask ourselves "Why would we want 'clean pages' to exist?"

I think some reasonable answers might be:

• Vandals (generally) couldn't get their vandalism onto them. Thus discouraging vandalism and decreasing the workload of Wikipedians.
• The public will be spared offensive or blatantly inaccurate materials which hurt our reputation and discourage the public from using Wikipedia.
• The public will be somewhat protected from misleading information which might cause them harm, like "Ionizing radiation is good for you"
• The subjects of our articles will enjoy increased protection against libelous or otherwise inaccurate statements in articles about themselves, their projects, or products.

There are other advantages, but I think these are the most important. What I think is significant about this exercise is that these advantages are phenomenally reduced or eliminated completely if the 'clean' version isn't what is shown by default to the average reader. If an article's problems are subtle, the reader will almost never click the clean link... If the problems are gross we'll still lose face even if the clean link is good, in fact we may even look more foolish: "Why doesn't Wikipedia show me the version without animated penises by default?!?!" "I don't care that there was good version buried under a links! The Wikipedia article on me said I screw goats!". ... Having a non-default clean link is arguably little better than inviting users to browse the history for a good version: If a user is willing to wade to crap to find quality they don't really need our help in locating the level of quality your clean proposal would provide.

Perhaps even more important: Keeping the clean versions up to date will take significant man power. If the clean version is the default we could expect that much of the effort currently going to fighting vandalism can be redirected to keeping clean versions upto date and updating the clean page will feel like an important task because it influences what the typical reader sees. Will people really care about updating a clean page that almost no one views when there is still lots of vandalism that needs fighting? I suspect not.

Because of this I can't support a proposal that doesn't make the clean page the default page for at least anons.--Gmaxwell (talk) 19:06, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

The problem as I see it with the clean-as-default idea a twofold. First of all, we have seen the reaction from german wiki with regards to what can happen if we start hiding, by default, the most recent version of a page from our readers. Also, we risk losing new contributors in this way, since, as Guest9999 said above, a small update by an anon would not be immediately visible, perhaps decreasing the likelyhood of them editing again.

In response to the criticism of manpower use, I don't see this being a drain on resources. The number of users who are allowed to set pages as clean would ideally be quite large. In this way, any page that they edit, whether or not they do so in the sole pursuit of vandal fighting, would be marked as the most recent clean version. Please remember that this would ideally be a first step proposal, and I do see a future where we can either display as default the "clean" versions, or have another level for sighted "quality" pages. Random89 19:21, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

See my comments about about anons in the prior section. Considering that we won't even let anons create new pages, I wonder why they are being cited as an important factor here. It shouldn't be too hard to measure the differential rate of anon-stickyness for German in any case, just measure the rate of account creation.

Speaking of German WP, they seem to be doing rather well. I'm not sure of what you're talking about with respect to "what can happen".

Why would I ever bother updating a clean page if it has virtually no effect? I can't see there being a second step if this is the first step: If the clean page isn't the default updating it will be a nearly valueless task and people won't do it. If the clean versions are frequently stale then no one will consent to making them the default. Catch 22. --Gmaxwell (talk) 19:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

As others have noted, it's the minority of disgruntled users on German Wikipedia who seem to be complaining, while many, many times that number are simply proceeding with the actual use of flagged revs. It's also pretty remarkable that the proportion of previously flagged articles that are not flagged in their latest version is very small. This suggests that it will be feasible to keep on top of new edits very quickly, especially once all the articles have been flagged once.--ragesoss (talk) 19:29, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I think a fair amount of the minority complaints on German could be addressed by granting 'Surveyor' more liberally. Another point I didn't raise before: Without default-display flagged versions look a lot like the old revision patrolling feature which was a complete failure on English WP because very few users bothered to hit the patrol button presumably because it had no real effect. You can see the same pattern in effect today at Special:Newpages: a lot of pages never get patrolled. --Gmaxwell (talk) 19:38, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree, the ability to declare a page "clean" should indeed be granted to almost all who wish for it. I wish I hadn't brought up the german example, because in the same way it has caused drama there, referencing it may simply cause confusion here, since most of us are not fluent in german (including me). I am not outright opposed to displaying the "clean" version by default, but I believe that most of the community sees this as step against our "anyone can edit" policy. That is why this proposal seems so mild, it is a first step towards a larger system of sighted and flagged pages, which would be too much to introduce all at once. Random89 22:08, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

The way I see it, if we give the rights to mark revisions as "clean" to almost every editor whose been here for a while, then there should be no issue with displaying the last clean revision by default, as in most cases, that will be the most recent revision. While ideally every reader is also an editor, in reality that isn't true. We have a lot more readers than editors. Remember flagged revisions is not for the benefit of editors, its for the readers. Mr. Z-man 23:37, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think many Wikipedian's really appreciate how enormous the ratio of readers to even occasional editors is. --Gmaxwell (talk) 02:23, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

One way of thinking of it is that we've always had flagged revisions with the flagged revision displayed by default, it's just that every revision by every user named, anon, new, and old was automatically flagged. Along that line of thinking it makes sense to change the behavior in small steps, perhaps limiting flagging to something like autoconfirmed and perhaps later restricting it further if value is seen. (Though that wouldn't allow us to unprotect the main page :) ).

Arguments I've seen against showing the flagged revision by default seem to fall into these broad categories:

1. Showing the public something other than the most recent raw version is unwiki
2. New users will be scared away by not seeing their changes go in
3. The flagged version will be too stale to tolerate as a default

For (1), I don't think that word means what the people using it here think it means. I was using Wiki before Wikipedia, and if you want to talk unwiki you don't need to go much further than Wikipedia: History? Images? (It's not called *Media*Wiki for nothing!) Named accounts? Non-

Of course, many of the people using the word 'unwiki' are really trying to say not that it's unwiki but rather that it violates their internal vision for Wikipedia, but unless they speak more specifically we can't really have a discussion over those points. Some seem to be equating 'unwiki' to not-pro-anarchy, but the notion of Wikipedia as an anarchy as been firmly rejected many times over the history of the project.

For (2), there is no reason for the newbie to know his change hasn't gone live to the general public: It has gone live for him. It might not last, but the same is true of all edits today.

For (3), German WP is doing a pretty good job demonstrating this to be an unlikely problem. ... But if we could confine the concerns to this one point I think a number of reasonable compromises are possible: For example, articles with pending drafts could have their flagging dropped automatically if there is no update within some safety timespan. One thing I'm fairly sure of is that making the flagging less important will not help it be used more throughly.

Cheers. --Gmaxwell (talk) 02:23, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I fully agree with you for number three. For the most part, I agree with 2 as well, we have no real reason to believe that people need to see there change right away, and the lost number of "hooked" first time anons may well be negligible. It is number 1 with which I take concern, not because I believe that showing an old version is "unwiki", at least as long as the newest version can be found, but because I think some users may have it in theirs minds that it is somehow "unwiki". It matters not whether it is or isn't, but how people perceive it. Thats why I suggest we take baby steps. Random89 07:02, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I have a different issue with flagging defaults. I don't want any of my edits to be flagged by default (I'm an admin). Just because I've made 1 improvement to an article doesn't mean there aren't 99 more problems that I missed... I only want my edits to be flagged if I explicitly choose to flag them or if somebody else choosed to flag them. So long as that is true, in the end I really don't care too much; I'll be able to live with not using the system at all and I'll be able to live with using it extensively.

GRBerry

01:22, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

The normal behavior is that if the article is already flagged and someone who could have flagged it makes an edit, the new revision keeps the flag. The assumption being that users with the ability to set a 'not-vandalized flag' won't be adding vandalism but they might miss some which was already there. If an article was not already flagged it will not gain a flag by you without an explicit action to do so even if you edit it. Does that satisfy your desire? Could just use a user-preference to suppress even that much but would you really desire a behavior which would create a lot of low-value busywork for people trying to keep the flags current? --Gmaxwell (talk) 04:10, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

If that is clearly documented somewhere, it will satisfy my concern, which is ultimately about defending myself from stupid claims a lawyer might make about liability for content.

GRBerry

04:15, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

On German Wikipedia, I've noticed that bots have this behavior: they update the flag on articles they edit that are already flagged, but don't add new flags.--ragesoss (talk) 05:09, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

We should just need to make it clear that you wouldn't have been expected to even read the page. Doesn't sound like a problem. --Gmaxwell (talk) 16:24, 14 June 2008 (UTC)