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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Cenarium (talk | contribs) at 09:16, 6 February 2009 (rmv banned user). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Why I am asking Flagged Revisions to be turned on now

Note: This section was directly linked from BITS, a blog of the New York Times and a high-traffic web site, on January 23, 2009 5:46 pm EST. The BITS article was linked from Techmeme, a high-volume web site. 16:48, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Note 2: This section was directly linked from BBC News, a very high-volume website, at 14:36 GMT, Monday, 26 January 2009. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:35, 26 January 2009 (UTC) [reply]

"Note 3: Direct link here from propc.co.uk 8:52AM, Monday 26th January 2009."

This nonsense would have been 100% prevented by Flagged Revisions. It could also have been prevented by protection or semi-protection, but this is a prime example of why we don't want to protect or semi-protect articles - this was a breaking news story and we want people to be able to participate (so protection is out) and even to participate in good faith for the first time ever (so semi-protection is out).

We have a tool available now that is (a) consistent with higher quality (b) will allow us to allow more people to edit it a wider range of circumstances and (c) will prevent certain kinds of BLP harm.

  • We now have a community poll indicating approximately a 60/40 support for the future. This is a very wide margin, with 20% separation between the pro's and con's.
  • The proposed configuration is significantly conservative as compared to that of the German Wikipedia, which has been successful with all articles flagged. They do, however, have an approval delay of 3 weeks at times, a figure which I regard as unacceptable. Our version should show very minimal delays (less than 1 week, hopefully a lot less) because we will only be using it on a subset of articles, the boundaries of which can be adjusted over time to manage the backlog.
  • The proposal is for a time-limited test.

To the Wikimedia Foundation: per the poll of the English Wikipedia community and upon my personal recommendation, please turn on the flagged revisions feature as approved in the poll.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:00, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Let me be the first to register my opposition to this. DS (talk) 23:03, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
To elaborate: we barely have enough people handling flagged new-articles. The backlog is almost a month long, and it would be longer if it wasn't for me personally working on it, and for me personally nagging people into creating software tools to speed up the task. Flagged revisions will suffocate under its own weight. DS (talk) 23:08, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I should not generalize, but the backlog on patrolling new articles (that's what you mean, right?) is perhaps created because many people, like me, don't see the benefits of it. However, I do see a lot of benefits for flagged revisions, and will contribute to keep the backlog on those as small as possible. Comparing the two is in my opinion not correct. Fram (talk) 07:44, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"I do see a lot of benefits for flagged revisions, and will contribute to keep the backlog on those as small as possible. Comparing the two is in my opinion not correct" I agree 100% with that statement and will also work hard to approve these flags as quick as possible. I also agree with this new policy so long as it only applies to BLP's which get a lot of editor attention, so that the flags will be seen and approved in a day or less. As an aside, I think this will help to turn casual editors into regular contributors if we are nice to them and give them positive feedback and polite constructive criticism on their talk pages when we approve or decline their submissions DegenFarang (talk) 14:47, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A problem with the newpages patrol feature is that not enough users are automatically patrolled, only admins and bots, so it creates backlogs. We could create a usergroup just for that but that would be of too little use compared to the added bureaucracy, while with flaggedrevs on, pages created by reviewers could be automatically patrolled. So this would help to reduce the newpages backlog too. Cenarium (Talk) 11:51, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Jimbo - is there any chance we can wait a little time so we can figure out how we're going to use it? Say 2 weeks? Ryan PostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 23:04, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You and I don't always see eye to eye, and I've had some harsh criticism in the past, but bravo. Cheers for using your power for good here. rootology (C)(T) 23:06, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
60% isn't really consensus. As much as I respect your opinion, I ask that this is postponed, at least until a more clear consensus is developed. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 23:08, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
To hell with "consensus". The majority has spoken, we don't need to wait until Wikipedia donations are drained by some silly lawsuit because we (we, as editors) couldn't see the forest for the trees. JBsupreme (talk) 01:44, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have a feeling that the Washington Post article is going to be blown as big as Virgin Killer by other media using this message as the basis. - Mailer Diablo 23:12, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) No - good idea, Jimbo. That was tasteless, stupid and possibly offensive, not to mention the bad publicity it caused us (an example was linked above). Semi-protection would lock out IPs, and that editor could have just made a couple more edits and done the same again, and full protection certainly wasn't warranted - Flagged Revisions is a happy medium. Dendodge TalkContribs 23:13, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is a line of people, including me, willing and able to volunteer as "trusted users" to ensure that the revision backlog stays short. Fully support the decision to implement this on BLPs. A no-brainer. Cla68 (talk) 23:15, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I see what you're saying jimbo, but I don't believe it would've been 100% prevented. I mean, it got past RC patrol after all. Wizardman 23:17, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not really. It was reverted within five minutes. — Jake Wartenberg 23:22, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Count me in the line of people willing and able to volunteer as "surveyor" to ensure that the initial set of articles is a reasonable set for the test. Fully support the decision to implement this on BLPs. A no-brainer. ++Lar: t/c 12:01, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Provided that this is currently to be considered a test, and provided that there is an explicit time limit -- Jimmy, you don't specify one above... -- which I suggest might be two months, I think this is excellent news. [[Sam Korn]] (smoddy) 23:18, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)x2 I think we should extend it to also cover the recently deceased - we really don't want offensive comments upsetting a person's mourning family, do we? Dendodge TalkContribs 23:20, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Can we please try it for a trial period (echo Sam Korn)? I find myself agreeing with Cla68; I hear a never ending stream of complaints regarding just this type of vandalism on biographies. Bastique demandez 23:23, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"please turn on the flagged revisions feature as approved in the poll"... the proposed configuration is a trial. Happy‑melon 23:27, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just want to note that we would not turn FlaggedRevs on here on enwiki before working out some very specific parameters for the test first. Keeping an eye on workflow and seeing what can be streamlined or taken out would be very much part of our attention. --brion (talk) 23:29, 21 January 2009 (UTC) (CTO, Wikimedia Foundation)[reply]

  • As an admin who is only here for about 4380 of the 8760 hours there are in a year, and whose watchlist consists of mostly WP:BLP articles, I welcome this move with open arms. If I were not reverting, warning and blocking vandals, I could be creating new content, and just occasionaly I am able to do that. This example diff, which covers 96 edits over 10 days, shows what we are up against without this option. It's clear that whereas most of those edits may have been in good faith, few persisted. The Washington Post have, as usual for the media, picked upon an isolated glitch or two, and not, if I read the replies to their article correctly, entirely to their credit; and this is the paper of Woodward & Bernstein! --Rodhullandemu 23:31, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But if you want to keep the Flagged Revisions backlog down, won't you have to patrol for more than 12 hours a day instead of revert for twelve hours a day anyway? NuclearWarfare (Talk) 23:50, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, because that activity would be rolled up into periodic reviews rather than "as occurs", if I understand it correctly. Whereas we may lose some opportunity to warn & block vandals, we would gain by only presenting defensible articles to our readers. Result! Vandals don't care much whether their versions are visible (except in certain circumstances), so if the message is that unproductive edits won't get past a Flagged Revisions approval, I'm all for that. If they're that potentially destructive, they'll fall into the hubris trap sooner or later. Sooner, nothing will happen; later, and their whole edit history is up for grabs, and it's goodbye, Mr. Vandal. --Rodhullandemu 00:01, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

With regard to the article about Kennedy, I personally attempted to revert the article and semi-protect it. Unfortunately, at the time, I was at a local store's internet café waiting for my ride home after college. The upload speed at the connection I was using was not high enough to allow me to revert and protect the page using Firefox within a reasonable amount of time. It is possible that I would have been able to to revert using Huggle, since I had been using that tool before hand fighting normal vandalism, but the request Huggle was sending to the API to retrieve the older revisions of the page kept timing out. So I tried using Twinkle, but it hung up as well; either it didn't parse the JavaScript or the server was not receiving the request. So then I tried doing it by hand. I was ultimately partly successful, but my connection was so slow that I edit-conflicted literally 15 times trying to remove the sentence manually. And after all that, I still missed part of the speculation, and it was fixed by someone else.

You cannot protect pages from Huggle, since it is designed for recent changes patrol. At the time, it was the only option I had to interact with Wikipedia's servers in a reasonable amount of time, as I explained above. While I was trying to get Firefox to send the protect form's request to the servers, people kept re-adding the erroneous information again and again, so I ( looking back foolishly) slowed it down by attempting to remove the information from a different tab while I was waiting for the protection request to go through.

I know I am not the only person on RC patrol, and I know that me saying this now will not help with regards to that article about Wikipedia's inaccuracy. I just wanted to say, for the record, that the problem was not that no one on RC patrol saw the issue, I saw it. The problem was I was physically unable to do anything about it fast enough because of my slow connection combined with the large number of edits being made to the page. J.delanoygabsadds 23:57, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(ec)RC Patrol is a good tool, especially for potential WP:BLP violations. But still, as you say, some vandalism creeps through; semi-protection for all BLP articles would significantly reduce unnecessary edits. Although I approve in general terms of the open editing model, I wonder how much longer we can sustain it without stronger defences such as are currently under consideration, and I see these as a maturation process - I say this because there is a particularly insidious type of vandal whose edits are largely undetected, and any of which can leave us open to criticism (pls email me for details). I'd rather we were able to live without that. --Rodhullandemu
I personally had the same experience. I saw it when I looked at the page when television was reporting that Byrd had been taken away for medical reasons (they were wrong, it seems). I knew from television that there was no report of Byrd being dead, so I tried to revert. But the site was super slow at that time, other people beat me it, I got an edit conflict, etc.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:12, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The worst argument in this thread is by DS, who has essentially said it's too much work, so he doesn't want to do it. DS's statement is easy to make for someone who suffers no ill effects from having their Wikipedia BLP vandalized. BLPs are not working well the way they are, and I'm sure Jimmy can attest to the same experience I have every time I meet a notable person: they launch into a list of complaints about their article. It gets tiresome to see the inertia in the community that causes it to ho-hum not care. We like our power, but we want none of the responsibility that goes along with it. That will be the fastest way we will lose the position we have gained on-line. Kudos, Jimmy, for taking a stand. --David Shankbone 00:32, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Worth it to note that he (Dragonfly67) is a fanatic new page patroller, perhaps the most active patroller with the longest tenure. When he describes how much work it is, we can rely on his understanding of the process. Avruch T 00:49, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Avruch: I'm not knocking Dragonfly, just the argument. There are a lot of things that are a lot of work. I remember back when we had zillions of copyvios on here. That took a lot of work. Flagged revs will mitigate the existing BLP problems because it will at least stem the increase. But that it's too much work? I don't buy that a valid argument to oppose. --David Shankbone 01:04, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Flagged Revisions are a good start but what to do with the thousands of BLP's that are completely unreferenced [1] or the thousands that are inadequately referenced [2]. Is it acceptable that these articles are allowed to remain? Is it likely that they will be adequately referenced in a reasonable time frame? Many of these articles remain largely ignored since creation, most of these articles are about people who do not appear in paper encyclopedias. Is it really justified keeping them on Wikipedia? Every single one of them could contain libellous content or could easily be edited to be libellous, who would notice? Even semi-protecting all BLP's would only have limited success, far better to delete all BLP articles that don't have coverage in traditional paper encyclopedias. If the WMF isn't prepared to accept its responsibilities in this regard, then shame on them and shame on you. Remember "Do no harm" whatever happened to that fine ideal? RMHED (talk) 00:38, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Can we keep the thread to its subject? Why do people have to throw in every issue when only one is being discussed? Please stop trying to derail the thread with other issues, some of which will be mitigated by flagged revs. --David Shankbone 00:42, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(ec):::I don't see it as being that off-topic; I see the issue as being closely related to the proposal that BLPs should be permanently semi-protected, although I am in two minds on that at present. I agree with the "mitigation" idea, but couple that with a dedicated BLP task force, which may be initially very busy, but whose functions will eventually subsume into normal processes; and that could be very strong in improving the quality of our project where we are most open to criticism, and therefore should arguably be directing most effort. --Rodhullandemu 00:51, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've spent roughly the last twenty-four months on wikibreak, and that will probably continue indefinitely (much as I would like to come back to the Project - WikiProject:Abortion was good times). However, I pop in from time to time when great things are afoot, and the BBC (falsely) led me to believe that such Things were Afoot today. I have two thoughts, coming from no well-formed opinion on the issue of Flagged Revisions: (1) It strikes me that a timed trial should have a somewhat lower "threshold for consensus" than permanent institution of a new system. Since it isn't a fundamental change to the process, but merely an experiment, there is less cause to insist on a > 70% consensus. (2) It also seems to me that, while the anti-FR folks are the ones mostly being accused of FUD, the pro-FR side is at least as guilty. In several places, editors have argued that we must adopt FR now, because, without it, the project will explode!!! Sure, there's some concern all around here, because this is an important decision - but appeals to fear don't work either way. Shrug. Thoughts from an editor who isn't around here like he used to be (but wants to). There are a lot of good ideas flying around here. I'll stay tuned from the backbench. --BCSWowbagger (talk) 02:21, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good call

The rationale may be a subject of debate, but it is a good call to ask developers to turn on the software that allows us to test whether flagged revisions can make Wikipedia more reliable without compromising the basic principle that anyone can edit it. The discussion has already generated a very promising idea, WP:Flagged protection, which uses the flagged revision software to allow more IP edits by using it instead of semiprotection. I think this is a good way forward. It doesn't compromise our principles as flagged protection is more inclusive than semiprotection. But it also allows us to address the really serious BLP concerns that Jimbo has articulated many times. Geometry guy 00:46, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Strong endorse (with reservations). The "it's too much work" argument is bollocks. We have have no right to hold third parties open to the possibility of damage that we currently do. If we can't reduce the harm drastically, then we basically can't justify keeping 300,000 unmaintainable BLPs. However, flagged is NOT a panacea or a magic bullet. We'll need many reviewers who'll be under pressure to approve as much as possible, as quickly as possible. That will lead to mistakes. It is also unlikely that the reviewers will check assertions sourced to complex (or off line) sources. That means determined libellers and hatchet-jobers will still be able to put credible falsehoods (which are the most damaging) into articles. However, this is worth trying as it should somewhat diminish the problem,--Scott Mac (Doc) 00:51, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just do it. --TS 01:13, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • How exactly do flagged revisions do anything to end the problem of unreferenced or poorly referenced BLP's? Even now these problem BLP's are still being created and as far as I can see fuck all is being done to stop this. If you try to blank these articles you get blocked for disruption, if you list them for deletion you get accused of disruption. According to WP:BLP only poorly/unsourced contentious content should be removed, who determines what is contentious? What might not seem contentious to most readers may well be so to the article's subject. As long as these articles are allowed to continue to exist on wikipedia, then wikipedia has no claim to be a legitimate encyclopedia. RMHED (talk) 01:17, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
For being a leader when we really, truly needed it. Seems we may yet make an encyclopaedia. WilyD 01:19, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes self-interest is a great motivator isn't it. RMHED (talk) 01:28, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • +S It's an encyclopedia. Our "good" is information. We have a prophylactic device to prevent the distribution of "bad goods". Um, label it no-brainer. If it all goes thunk in the beginning, that's OK, we can work it out. SUPPORT. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 01:52, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose - Although I am opposed to the trial run, I would rather it go through a trial run before it is enabled indefiniately.— Dædαlus Contribs 02:11, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • In fact, I would like to hear where exactly there exists this consensus of which you speak. I see a general amount of people in favor of implenentation for trials, but I see nothing for a complete implementation.— Dædαlus Contribs 02:20, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • It would behoove you to read what Jimbo's written before decrying it. It is, in fact, to implement a trial. WilyD 03:13, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Concur - on the Dutch Wikipedia we have a couple of years of experience with the predecessor of FR now, 'patrolled revs'. Patrolled revs work almost like flagged revs except all edits are visible. The Dutch experience is that the lag of unsighted revisions is never longer than a couple of weeks, most of the time it is no longer than one to three days. We have a rather small community compared with the English Wikipedia, so I think the lag will not be a problem here. Besides, Wikipedia is not written in a day or a month. There is no haste. There is no problem with a lag of even three weeks. Woodwalker (talk) 08:33, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Indeed, thank you very much, for stepping up, and asking for this to be installed. Even knowing you would take a lot of flak for it, I appreciate you doing what is clearly in the best interests of the project. SQLQuery me! 04:52, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. What could have been prevented, exactly? (A) A couple of articles' inaccuracy for five minutes. (B) Some bad press. (A) is so trivial I have to assume it's (B). But the genius of Wikipedia is that the principle of "anyone can edit" (and have the satisfaction of seeing their work go out to the world at once) works, even though the media chatterers don't understand or respect it. So kowtowing to bad press seems wrong-headed to me. Our future depends on those ignorant of Wikipedia's potential stumbling on an article, fixing it, and getting hooked. FlaggedRevs throws a wrench into that process, thus doing the naysayers' job for them. In the long run, I see Wikipedia becoming a less reliable and well-edited resource once this cat is out of the bag. (P.S. I am a college professor and would like to reiterate my argument about the naysayers specifically for the academic context: the professors who wring their hands about the unreliability of Wikipedia are those who don't understand it. Those who do understand it & are open to appreciating its value, or at least many of us, know that it works for precisely the reasons (even vulnerabilities) that has the ignoramuses wringing their hands.) Bottom line, why are Jimbo & others thin-skinned about bad press from writers who are rarely qualified to do justice to what Wikipedia is & ought to be in the first place? Wareh (talk) 00:05, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sorry, but I have the feeling you don't understand how FR works. Even when IP-edits become invisible to others (that's just one option), the IP itself will see his edits immediately. Besides, (A) is a misjudgement of the seriousness of vandalism and, more seriously, what I call "bad edits" (sneaky POV, sentences becoming incomprehensive, etc). Whenever I revert vandalism, I check the other contributions of the vandal. Often I find one or two edits that have not been noticed for days, or even weeks. Woodwalker (talk) 15:12, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • His argument is essentially that we'll be discouraging people to make contributions by enacting this change. That is a valid argument against and one that should not be left to hypotheticals as there has already been a trial on the German Wikipedia. So what was the result for .de? Did new users contribute more, less or the same? If it is more or the same then this is an irrelevant point...if it was less, then we should really consider this carefully and the costs it will have on the whole of Wikipedia DegenFarang (talk) 15:13, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Actually, Woodwalker does raise one detail ("the IP itself will see his edits immediately") that had escaped me. That is a thoughtful solution to one of my major objections, and I'm glad to hear it's part of the proposal. I still have concerns about what will represent a pretty fundamental change in the original idea of this encyclopedia, and I utterly reject that I have "misjudged the seriousness of vandalism." In my opinion, Wikipedia works by the principle of "10 steps forward, 1 step backward," and if our intolerance for the backwards steps becomes too absolute, we risk holding back progress together with vandalism, which if it happens even a little will mean a net loss of valuable contributions. Wareh (talk) 22:06, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Well, I already declared Wikipedia dead, so I guess I can't be upset when people start kicking the corpse. But it's a damn crying shame that Jimbo's the one wearing hobnailed boots. --The Cunctator (talk) 01:02, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral As much as I support FR instead of semi-protection, there are gaping holes in what you propose to do, Jimbo, please specify if you would like WP:Flagged protection or something else turned on. I would also like a poll on whatever you are proposing.--Res2216firestar 21:14, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Concur. I have reverted many vandal edits (most but not all from IPs) that would have been prevented by a flagged revisions process. I think that quality and accuracy of content, particularly on recent news and "important people", is more important than instant dubious edits. Trusted users that meet edit criteria should still be able to make edits without FPs. Peter Campbell 23:02, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: That's a change Wikipedia really needs. But I do believe we also need the many edits of anonymous editors, though it's impossible to check all the edits properly. So what if we start only with the featured articles? That might be a consensus. NCurse work 23:19, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: I would argue that this issue is only significant to individual biographies'. Why should we impose this sort of change to all pages in wikipedia? There should be some additional security features on biographical pages, but not everywhere else. SCmurky (talk) 18:56, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Oppose: This is ridiculous! Incorrect or confusing information is bound to make it into any Wiki sometimes. Learn to live with it and fix the info when it happens. The principle of anonymous editing is far more important than any of the problems it has created so far. Wikipedia is already too much of a gentleman's club where recognised editors rule the roost. A change like this would only make it worse. (deliberately anonymous to avoid cliquey behaviour). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.153.60.15 (talk) 19:13, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Strong oppose: How about "if it ain't broke don't fix it?" Wikipedia has not earned the PR flack we have taken for this small, pedestrian instance of vandalism. Frankly, the washingtonpost never should have published such an idiotic article in the first place. Part of using wikipedia is understanding that articles are dynamic and subject to vandalism. That's why we give everyone access to the revision history. Implementing flagged revs will just slow down the editing process, place an unnecessary burden on a minority of editors, and unmotivate passive users. This is a bad idea and, in my eyes, completely contrary to what wikipedia is. --Shaggorama (talk) 21:34, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose If this ridiculous proposal goes through Wikipedia will have jumped the shark, it is finished, it will have ceased to be. The solution is relatively easy. Prevent ALL edits from accounts without a confirmed "real world" email address (i.e exclude the usual hotmail gmail,yahoo etc junk), then a considerable proportion of your problem is tackled. (not signing in right now but i'm a long term editor on a wikiholiday) 78.105.241.74 (talk) 21:42, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Vehemently Oppose This Orwellian project would deter many new users. Would YOU have come back to Wikipedia the first time you started editing if your edit had to wait 3 weeks to be approved by an overlooker with no face? Think about it... Another long-time editor on a wikiholiday. 82.230.24.185 (talk) 21:56, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose - This would mark the end of Wikipedia as a bottom-up product. The fact that Wales is proposing it using such autocratic language only confirms the trend. It looks to me like the first significant step into turning the encyclopedia into some kind of commercial product, or a spawner of commercial products. jackbrown (talk) 22:27, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bit hard to claim you're not a publisher if you exercise this level of editorial control. Obviously destroys the wiki concept too. Bit of a stretch claiming "Anyone can edit" a page if what you mean is "Anyone can edit the page so long as someone I approve of approves of it". Entrenching page ownership seems an obvious and abhorrent outcome too. Grace Note (talk)
  • Tentative Support, with a sugestion - I would support a limited rollout, on pages that experience the most vandalism. That would be much easier to manage than having to approve all comments. I'd like to see some data - ideally, a frequency plot, graphing frequency of vandalism. I'd imagine it's an inverse relationship, with a few pages experiencing lots of vandalism, and many, many pages experiencing almost no vandalism. Does such data exist? It would make the appropriate action much clearer. Nabarry (talk) 04:03, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Ahh, but the eternal problem of who will decide what constitutes a "problem", "many" and/or good faith, and that based on which conditions, still remains to be solved. Moreover, who will "police the police" - "overlook the overlookers"? Don't worry though, philosophers have been working on it for millenia :) 82.230.24.185 (talk) 04:13, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I'm quite sure I wouldn't have taken any interest in Wikipedia 3 years ago, if that's how it worked. I also agree with Grace Note's point on editorial control and legal thresholds, which is a point I've tried to make before. KWH 07:01, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Vehemently Oppose: I tried out the German version to see what it is like. I simply added a reference book on the topic of one article, it is a technical article, about black holes, how many "trusted editors" are versed in black holes, how much time will it take for the change to take place, it has already been 24h and counting. I also donated money to wikipedia, I am definitely regretting that now, I will certainly not give money anymore. I gave money to keep wikipedia free, but apparently you are locking it down anyways without a valid reason. What? did the lousy criticism of encyclopedia Britannica and co. get to your head or what? 5 min!! It took only 5min to correct the wrong change! Studies have shown that wiki is as accurate on average as other encyclopedias, so what the hell are scared of? --YapaTi (talk) 17:22, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also Oppose. Most people seem to be missing the point. This is a freely edited encyclopedia. It has faults. It should not be taken as accurate all the time. People who are offended by 'misleading information' can damned well be offended, because it's not correct. They can find other information through other sources and make their case if the media kicks up a storm in a teacup, but Wikipedia has no obligation to protect the reputation of other people, and no obligation to be that accurate. Its' nature accepts a few wrongs here and there, and so should others. We are not the Britannica and we should never try to be. We are a free encyclopedia liable to edits by people who haven't even registered, and this has been our calling card since this sites' inception. It is the beauty of this site, the thing that makes it what it is. I want to repeat myself: we shouldn't have to be this accurate, and we shouldn't seek to protect others. Accidents happen - we're Wikipedia, for Gods' sake.
Behind all the reasoned arguments seems to be some undertow of faux-professionalism, some reaching for a higher status or being able to rank amongst the fully funded encyclopedias, and it stinks. You're all harping on about how important internet traffic rankings are, about how much recognition we get in the media - it doesn't matter. You're getting a little big for your boots and boosting this site above its' status, and if you ask me this proposal is a symptom of that. We're simply a freely edited encyclopedia and you're pushing us to be much more than that, and to do it you're killing the basic tenets that this site was founded on. You could call that hyperbole if you'd like but it's true. It doesn't matter in what name you're doing it, you're removing from most users the ability to freely edit articles. At the moment it's only BLPs but I can see this stretching beyond that fairly quickly.
To summarise once again because I've lost myself: Wikipedia is by its' very nature often inaccurate, unsourced and sometimes malicious, but that's all it ever was and should be. It's vulgar. It's unkempt. It's freely edited by the plebs. It's Wikipedia, and it shouldn't be viewed as more than that - by its' users, by the media, by the professionals, by the other encyclopedias. This option is moving into an area that is trying to change that, and to do so, some of the basic freedoms are being curtailed, if you'll forgive the cliche. You can cover that with a cloak of "we're making it more accurate", but people who give editing a try will no longer see their results immediately and may not at all - they'll have to wait for the go ahead from the 'authorities'. It just doesn't work for this site, and I think you're taking this lovely little corner of the net a bit too seriously and slowly killing it because of that.
Also, fluff the people that get harmed by wrongful information on this site. They, the media and everyone who buys into that should be a little more mature than to take a free encyclopedia as so authoritative. We have no obligation at all to protect their reputations.
Uh... sorry for the mess of my argument and the likely gaping holes, I'm not too well at the moment. Seneillion (talk) 12:32, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yank the band aid off quickly

You're wrong Jimbo, particularly in your assessment of "consensus," but if you're going to mandate this be done then please do so quickly and firmly so we can move past the (apparently futile) straw poll and get down to work. --ElKevbo (talk) 01:50, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion for Reviewer criteria

No time like the present to start: Wikipedia talk:Requests for permissions#Flagged revision reviewers. rootology (C)(T) 02:04, 22 January 2009 (UTC) ²[reply]

Jimbo didn't read the article

I really like the idea of flagged revisions, and I'm sure that discussion has spread somewhere else. However, I wanted to comment here about Jimbo's original post where he uses the Post's article as an example of something that went wrong: Are you nuts? Jimbo, splash some water in your eyes and read that article again. It took less than five minutes for the vandalism to be removed, and that's damn impressive. Instead of being proud of your users you instead take it as an opportunity to push for flagged revisions. What? -- Ned Scott 04:14, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Time based "flagging"

Here's a proposal which is simpler than manual flagging and could prevent most of the vandalized content from appearing: for frequently vandalized articles set a time based constraint, so that the edit appears publicly, say, only after an hour. This way there is a time window within which vandalism can be reverted and it won't appear publicly. -- anon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.182.19.76 (talk) 06:05, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is a good idea. Manual flagging will be fine for popular articles, but not for those articles which are edited very rarely (which represent the vast majority of Wikipedia's content). Esn (talk) 08:03, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That is idea that also came to my mind. Also, unchecked material could actually appear in page in light gray or something clearly indicating that this information is not yet checked (so people can see what they are doing but it is not seen as "valid" information yet). Edit could be manually checked but it could "autocheck" if given time passes (no one has anything to complain). Skylarque (talk) 10:34, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This solution is a step between the current state of things and manual flagging, so this should be tested first. It may solve most of the problems in practice, so there is no need for manual flagging at all. If we have to choose between an automatic and a manual solution then the automatic one is a better choice, because it will result in a smaller backlog and the result can almost be the same. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.183.147.117 (talk) 06:43, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Premature announcement

While I understand that Wikia's press relation staff encourages you to react to events and make immediate announcements, and that this is the way that politicians work (proposals of news laws after a news item), I think that, again, on this occasion, you should have refrained from making this announcement to the press. The media cannot distinguish between "I'm the boss and this proposal shall be implemented" and "I'll propose this to the community, and they'll decide" (because they are used to governments and corporations operating on hierarchical lines_, and, as a result, the worldwide media has announced that editorial controls would soon be implemented.

Throughout the years, when the media played up incidents, you have announced a variety of new measures, some of which were never implemented. This has been an embarrassment for some of those in contact with the press, who had to explain why we had not delivered something we had announced years earlier.

Another problem is that this reaction blows this editorial incident out of proportion. When you think about it, it is not infrequent that the media announces the death of live individuals or other erroneous issue. In France, the chief of the news reporting in a major radio channel ordered the announcement of the death of some TV personality be broadcast whereas they had not run the necessary checks. Do you think the channel enacted rules imposing "moderators"? No. Do you think this person was sacked? No, he was promoted to a higher management position. A TV anchor erroneously announced the retirement from political life of a major political personality. Was he sacked? No, he was given a slap on the wrist. Did the TV channel enact new rules concerning fact-checking? Of course not.

Some media, or at least some of the journalists involved, have an editorial line of discrediting Wikipedia by playing up incidents at Wikipedia while keeping silent or apologetic about incidents in professional media. You will not change that by enacting new rules in reaction to their claims ­- they'll simply conclude that they were in the right, and they'll do it again. The only way you could get them to stop would be to close public editing altogether, maybe reserving it for academics and journalists. Since that's not going to happen, further attacks will necessarily ensue.

In short, while I personally approve of the "flagged revision" system, I think that announcing their implementation in reaction to what is, in reality, a minor problem, is counterproductive. David.Monniaux (talk) 11:57, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I want to second David.Monniaux's comment; we're already receiving requests from media outlets who are confusing the situation and don't know whether this was an official announcement, or what our plans are. For the press contacts, it makes our job more difficult when these things are not discussed with the Communications Committee beforehand.⇒SWATJester Son of the Defender 16:05, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Add a category of 'validators'

Strongly support

I'm all for "flagged revision". Every day I check a range of articles I care about, mostly to reverse some really childish change from someone who thinks it clever to be destructive. It wastes small amount of time and also irritates me intensely. Especially when they keep making the same changes to the same article.

I also see the advantage in allowing new or unregistered users to contribute, provided it really is a contribution. Mostly it would take 10 seconds to figure out

You could have a new category of validators. People who don't want the committment or controversy of being full editors, but would be willing to passes a change if it serious and not vandalism. Not required to check it is true unless it is clearly a significant matter, like someone dying. Nor judge the style. I'd be willing to do that and I'm sure a lot of others would as well. --GwydionM (talk) 18:53, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why not limit Flagged Revisions to only Biographies of Living Persons?

Object to idea in current form

Why not just have flagging only for Biographies of Living Persons? Clearly not everyone can be trusted to flag an article as such at the time of creation, but if admins can do so at a later date then the problem is solved: we can still carry on with letting anyone edit any article EXCEPT for those about living people. We could, even, have a nomination procedure where editors nominate articles for this protection. Let's not ruin the whole of WP just for the sake of a few articles. Guelphus 18:52, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at Trial 13: Three month trial of all BLPs + flagged protection that I suggested. --Apoc2400 (talk) 19:22, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]


  • Strong Support - Limiting to Biographies of Living Persons is the obvious solution to this issue, if it really is such a serious issue in the first place. It is hard to believe that this isn't the first proposal! jackbrown (talk) 22:30, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - The Washington Post blows something out of proportion, and then we get this equally disproportionate idea from Jimbo. The vandalism was fixed in 5 minutes, so I don't really think it's much of a problem, but if biographies of living persons absolutely must be accurate, then use Flagged Revisions only on that. Anything that doesn't absolutely have to be 100% accurate all the time doesn't need Flagged Revisions.Ziiv (talk) 03:54, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Support - C'mon, this issue doesn't apply to any other aspect of Wikipedia, just biographies. There are sometimes the same issues with political topics, but these are usually erased in the blink of an eye... I mean C'mon... Let people edit, it is too much to restrict to registered members. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bohunk (talk • contribs) 23:35, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Support - I had the same idea; we could also add protected and semi-protected articles, but it still represents a huge quantity of work... I think they should quantify the work that administrating those articles would imply. --Warman06 (talk) 12:28, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Support - My explanation can be found here. Dc76\talk 14:13, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support -Indeed this is why the proposal was initiated in the first place, because of the problems we've had with scandalous editions to people who have been downright offended by wikipedia, especially powerful media figures who then publish that wikipedia should be avoided like the plague. I think that would be a great step to make to have a form of protection of this, but there are of course many many other topics that can the continual abuse wihtout protection. I would suggest a trial period and then draw up an analysis using administrative tools to form a conclusion on its success or failure. Based on evidence of it working or failing I think more people would be in a position to adequately comment on the implemenation of such a scheme. The evidence though given my Dutch wikipedians above suggests to me that the scheme has been a considerable success to date and the workload has not been too much, especially as they are far smaller than us. I say go for it for a trial period! If it works and we dramatically lower our vandalism rate without too much trouble I fully agree with Jimbo that is a major step to a more mature encyclopedia as it evolves. Dr. Blofeld White cat 21:35, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, Support, Support - This is the only option that should be considered... Set up a bot for name recognition and have that bot scan all the new pages of the day. Those pages with names should be limited for edit, by users only, and that limitation should not be removed. If it is discovered that users are vandalizing the page anyways, and this is irrefutable, then the user should be banned. If any user creates an account from that IP again, then another bot should inform the new user that their account is being subjected to increased scrutiny. At this point, all edits that that user makes, should then be reviewed within a short (couple of hours) time frame. SCmurky (talk) 22:53, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Limit flagged revisions to high-profile/important articles

Oppose in current form Why not select key articles - those with high numbers of edits/hits per day; on imporant current events and on higher profile such as Gordon Brown/Obama etc - as opposed to verifying every edit which will lead to a huge back log. With hundreds of edits every minute and the number of editors far outstripping those who are trusted to verify such edits the task will be highly labour intensive. With flagged-revisions for a few, key articles the integrity of Wikipedia can be maintained and the original idea that anyone can edit be largely maintained. 82.40.22.182 (talk) 23:05, 26 January 2009 (UTC) v[reply]

But what's it for?

This may sound like a stupid question but after trying to follow the discussion I get the impression that different supporters of Flagged Revisions support it for different reasons. Are we implementing Flagged Revisions to:

1. To stop vandalism appearing to the internet, or
2. To improve the accuracy and writing in Wikipedia by allowing talkpage discussions before draft versions of article are published and before publiched versions of articles are updated? — Blue-Haired Lawyer 16:16, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think either of these are valid reasons to implement FR. Even with the trials, there will be no evidence that FR will achieve either of these things. The only convincing argument I have heard in favour of Flagged Revisions is that they could prevent some harm being caused to living persons by the WP, and that this 'trumps' any of the foundation principles about rights to edit. Trouble is, people who advocate FRs use this argument, then go on to advocate its use on articles that are not BLPs. I have yet to see any article that is not a BLP that could cause more harm without FRs than it would with them. Until advocates of FRs agree that they should be limited purely to BLPs, we have every right to be concerned about FR 'Creep' across the whole of Wikipedia, as there is otherwise no clear limit on their use. Riversider (talk) 17:23, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just make it so...

Jimbo, time to just get 'er done - WP:CONEXCEPT. (archiving comment. Fram (talk) 20:55, 3 February 2009 (UTC))[reply]

Maybe a solution

Well I maybe have a solution but it's somehow heavy at the beginning. Each article needs to be confirmed by the moderators when they have time. Wiki can put a warning message in the article that have been changed recently and not confirmed yet by a moderator.

If the articles have been confirmed and the information they have is true, then wiki put a message (in a green background) saying that this article have been confirmed and its content is correct.

The other articles that have been modified have a warning (in an orange background) saying that the content of this article have been modified and have not been confirmed yet so maybe the information here isn't 100% correct. The articles will have this warning until it's been confirmed by a moderator.

In the case the moderator read an altered article and this new version presents wrong content, he will refuse it and the old version of the article will be restored.

This solution is not very hard to implement (in programming terms) but it will be hard at the beginning because the admins will have to confirmed every articles. So for resuming to help the programmers (if this is accepted) (I'm a programmer and webmaster so...)


Every articles can be created, altered without waiting for the confirmation.

Every articles that have been altered or created will have a warning until it's been confirmed.

Every confirmed articles will have a note saying the content is true and have been checked.

Every articles will have a backup in the case the content changed and the moderators refuse the new content.


This solution mean the requirement for two databases (one for the actual content and anther for the backups).

EDIT: one more thing to help the moderator. If anyone suspects wrong content in an article, checked or not, there will be a link for them to warn the moderators. They can enter a short message saying what's wrong.

PS: Sorry for errors but I'm french —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aerodark (talk • contribs) 17:45, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I hope this will help. :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aerodark (talk • contribs) 17:44, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Little revision : It'll be better if, when an article has been changed and not confirmed by a moderator, there is a link to the unmodified one (an older version, but more realistic). (I also apologise for my english) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.201.12.223 (talk) 09:35, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One of the points to this was to stop the "edited but not accepted" version from public view until it has been "accepted". It is no use if the page says "this may not be approved yet" and instead of the article the page says "shit cock mofo" --Chaosdruid (talk) 19:05, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Libraries" and Larry

In the "WEBISODE" video found here, with about 54 seconds remaining in the video, you say, "...and publish them and put them in libraries..." It sounds like you pronounce the word as "lie-berries". Am I mishearing your speech pattern, or is that typically how you pronounce the word "libraries"?

Also, at the beginning of the video, there is a text overlay and your voice describing you as "Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia". The Wikipedia article about Wikipedia indicates that "Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales are the founders of Wikipedia." Would you object or have a problem if there were a video presented on a prominent website (such as USAnetwork.com) featuring Larry Sanger, describing him as "Larry Sanger, founder of Wikipedia"? -- 3 Good 1 Comment (talk) 15:51, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I believe you are mishearing, yes. I never say "liberries". Of course, I might also have messed up a word at some point, too. My views on the founder thing are well known, so I'll decline to answer your second question.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:13, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, I pronounce the word "ly-burries" and was totally unaware of this until it was called to my attention when I was a lad of ~20. WilyD 19:48, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I used to think I pronounced it ly-berry, but then my wife pointed out that I (and a lot of my fellow Pennsylvanians) actually pronounce it "Ly-bree". Huh. --SB_Johnny | talk 19:56, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

German archives

These images donated from the German Archives really are amazing. We have some fantastic historical images of places and people not just from Germany but from early German expeditions to Tibet etc and the German arrival in west africa etc. Amazing. I wonder whether anybody would consider contacting national archives from any other country and informing them about wiki's goals and aspirations. It might be a good idea to do so if it meant we could drastically improve our image resources in this way. It is something anybody has ever considered or was did they donate on their own accord without any request? Dr. Blofeld White cat 17:07, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think The Christian Science Monitor might be open to donating historical images of the United States. 122.107.135.153 (talk) 19:01, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FlaggedRevs and WikiLove

I was hoping we might be able to have a nice cup of tea and a (rather large) sit down ("we" being everyone relating to FlaggedReves (supporters, opponents, etc.)). --Thinboy00 @082, i.e. 00:58, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I will be catching up later this week, and this weekend reviewing as much of the discussion as I can, in order to set out a proposal that will get a very very high degree of support. I am quite sure there is a strong middle ground, based on many of the comments of both supporters and opponents. It has been very sad and disappointing to me that the media has misrepresented us all so badly. There is an easy but false idea that the opponents of this are in favor of some kind of radical free speech that doesn't tolerate any limits on publication in wikipedia at all. And an easy but false idea that the supporters of this are in favor of closing down open editing. The truth is, of course, significantly more complex, and significantly more interesting.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:18, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Alternative technological solution - Historic Views

Change Wikipedia so the default view is what the page looked like an hour ago. Vandals would lose most of the incentive and almost all of their audience. Editors would have time to correct vandalism.

Users could have a preference that set whether they wanted to see the page as it was most recently edited, an hour ago, yesterday, last week, last year. Bear1952 (talk) 02:35, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This wouldn't work to solve what is perceived as the problem though. Plenty of even well-patrolled pages do not have vandalism reverted within an hour. That's been my experience. And less popular pages can have days before anyone notices. --C S (talk) 04:15, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Furthermore, instead of seeing vandalism immediately before it is reverted two minutes later, it would become visible one hour later (for two minutes). This does not solve anything. Fram (talk) 08:05, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Heh, good point! I didn't think it through :-) --C S (talk) 08:39, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It would definitely be a good step to solve the problem for high traffic pages which are the main targets of vandalism and which are monitored by lots of people. True it wouldn't catch all rogue modifications, but it would prevent a lot of them. If we talk about a trial period then this intermediary solution is a much better candidate for a trial than manual flagging (less rigid, semi-automated). Let's implement and activate this first for a month and see what happens. We can always go back to more aggressive solutions like manual flagging if it doesn't prove effective enough. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.182.18.136 (talk) 08:09, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
See Fram's point right above though. Delaying the vandalism by one hour would do nothing! It just time shifts everything by one hour. Bear1952's solution, as far as I can tell, is based entirely on the premise that vandals seek only immediate gratification. The loophole is that I'm sure many of the more persistent vandals would be perfectly fine with their vandalism showing up one hour later instead. --C S (talk) 08:38, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously, there should be special revert action the result of which would appear immediately, effectively cancelling out the vandalism. And there should be a rule that if the last action was a special revert then it cannot be reverted by another special revert, but the page can be edited of course. Revert should be distinguished from a normal edit anyway. If we want improvement then the edit process must be improved too. You cannot build a solid building on loose soil. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.182.18.136 (talk) 10:33, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I suspected you would respond like that. What you are in effect describing is a flagged revision where instead of approving changes, you would have time to disapprove them. The advantage of an approval system versus diaspproval system, is that if nobody approves the changes, then it doesn't show up. In your disapproval system, if nobody disapproves them in one hour, then the vandalism will show up. In the situations I imagine you are envisioning, there would be plenty of eyes to watch and disapprove of obvious vandalism. In those situations, however, there would also be plenty of eyes to watch and approve of non-vandalism edits. So I see only disadvantages, not advantages, with a disapproval system as you describe. --C S (talk) 11:35, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Are most of the edits vandalism? The answer is no. Vandalism is only a small percentage of all edits. Consequently, a system which delays showing the results of an edit and displays it if noone disapproves it will allow through mostly valid modifications. On the other hand a system which relies on manual approval will accumulate a pending backlog of unapproved edits which will very likely will grow with time, since all edits must be approved. A system as large as Wikipedia shouldn't rely exclusively on manual filtering, because it will surely be a bottleneck sooner or later. That's why the semi-automated, delayed approach is better. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.182.18.136 (talk) 12:48, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, logged-in users could see the current revision of a page. Jchthys (talk) 16:58, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

hi

hi jim :)

-- Zachera (talk) 03:43, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Assign me some homework

Please leave a list of links here for me regarding Flagged Revisions - be liberal - what should I be reading? I plan to spend a major amount of time this weekend (including Friday) looking at everything and trying to come up with a proposal that will be met with near-universal acclaim. Well, that's my dream but of course with a large community and a lot of opinions, that's going to be difficult of course.

Then we'll vote again and see where we stand.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:00, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have fun! --MZMcBride (talk) 14:17, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have a delightful pre-course research paper on Dow Jones v Gutnick, should you have some spare time for more homework once this is done :) Daniel (talk) 14:18, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(EC) I guess you should read through the straw poll completely. It has quite a large amount of discussion for a straw poll and I doubt you read those 360kB+ of text already ;-) SoWhy 14:19, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You may also add Wikipedia:Deferred revisions to your list. Cenarium (Talk) 17:54, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The following is not trolling. I think you should read this thread on Wikipedia Review (feel free to do so via a proxy). I think the comments of Doc Glasgow, Kato, and One (who's User:Cool Hand Luke here, if you weren't aware) are especially perceptive. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 18:25, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You could usefully gather and clearly broadcast (e.g. via an official FR FAQ) some reliable information: partly, facts about the impact of FR at the German Wikipedia, and partly, ground rules for the future implementation at en:wp (discussion now is bogged down due to a list of not-very-well defined "trials" with little clarity on what rolled-out configuration the trials are intended to prototype).
  • Would FR create an unmanagable backlog? The statistics for de:wp are widely misunderstood, e.g. claims that it typically takes a week or longer to flag an edit (wrong). Discussed at WT:FLR#21 days?, with links to useful graphics on the German situation kept by de:Benutzer:ParaDox.
  • There was a debate on this page about whether there was a decline in new users at de:wp coincident with starting FR. The most easily accessible statistics (Eric Zachte's) suggest this, but IIRC this is an artefact and really there is no decline. This should not be buried in your talk archives.
  • Somewhere in the talk linked above is the claim that the Recent Changes Patrollers at de:wp have refused to cooperate with FR. If true this is a minor organizational disaster, as ideally FR should work seamlessly with RCP. So find out what happened and why. (RCP people are not notably supportive at en:wp, either).
  • The recent reader's survey included questions about FR. Why not announce the results?
  • If FR is to be used to protect BLPs, answer the many queries about whether editors will incur any liability if they inadvertently "validate" libel.
  • Lack of clarity on who would be eligible to flag is causing opposes claiming this would be a small elite. You could at least say that on "roll-out" the qualifications will be "no harder to get than XXX", with a plausible estimate for the (minimum) number of users who would qualify. PaddyLeahy (talk) 21:13, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  1. The unanswered FR posts on your talk page and its recent archives.
  2. This section of Wikipedia talk:Flagged revisions about Ted Kennedy
MickMacNee (talk) 22:19, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A suggestion for spending your money

Hi,

Just defended my dissertation; I'll be losing access to my university library's databases in a few months. I suggest that Wikipedia get the same access to various databases (JSTOR, AcademicSearchPremier, etc) that your local university has, and choose a team of volunteer researchers to utilize that access. Of course I volunteer to be one of them. ;-) Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 11:21, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Count me in too!:) prashanthns (talk) 11:58, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What companies own the databases we'd like some access to?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:33, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure there are tons of them. Some well-known ones for starters:
Are those all independent companies, or are they owned by major publishers?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:41, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If this could be pulled off somehow, and reasonably on price, it would be made of awesome. rootology (C)(T) 14:45, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am not in academia and JSTOR would be so useful for Wikipedia. I have thought the same. I suggest Wikipedia invest in this and newspaper archives. I don't know how it could be co-ordinated, though. Computerjoe's talk 15:13, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Many universities offer borrowing privileges for people who donate $US250 (or other amount) to their library. I'm not sure if off-campus access to databases is included. That probably depends on the university, and if it is included, it may be more restricted. That's another option to look into, and the borrowing privileges would certainly be helpful too. --Aude (talk) 15:22, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This has been suggested several times before in various forums. The main issue is that no company wants to give away their resources to everyone capable of registering a Wikipedia account. You've go to be able to set some sort of threshold for who gets access. Or, alternately, I suppose the Foundation could buy licenses similar to those that universities buy, but the cost would likely be very prohibitive. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:30, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Nonetheless worth talking JSTOR atleast. It would go a long way in improving several important categories of articles...also, JSTOR is non-profit. Worthwhile for the fondation to buy access and have a Wikiproject with access to it. prashanthns (talk) 18:31, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm asking for selfish reasons, but what would that kind of individual access cost per year/month? — Ched (talk) 17:29, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Most of them don't offer individual subscriptions (including JSTOR). This was indeed discussed at length and in detail on the mailing lists recently. Might be useful for participants in this discussion to look that up and see what useful information has already been dug up. Avruch T 18:56, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
@Ling.Nut. My public library, one of the best in the nation, offers a limited selection of such databases to any cardholder. These databases are remotely accessible via a proxy. The only authentication is that you have to enter your library card number. [3]. A godsend for those without access to a large university's subscription. I suggest that the public library (online and off-line) is a valuable alternative to subscribing to private databases. -Truckbest23098 (talk) 18:41, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not always an option. I live in a small borough. Our libraries don't have access. Computerjoe's talk 19:20, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Don't be so sure. Do some research. There are many free resources available. Many universities allow local residents to enter their library for free and use their collections online and off-line. The resource I cited is available to anyone who lives in Massachusetts. Residents of many small towns in the western part of the state like North Adams and such have access to the BPL's entire circulation network. What is the general area of your residence? I bet I could find something.--Truckbest23098 (talk) 19:31, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I do have a university nearby but I don't fancy trekking there and back. It would be good if Wikipedia could get editors access (perhaps editors could apply to view specific articles to ensure it's not just used by the general public) in the right of Wikipedia. I don't see how/why they'd object. Computerjoe's talk 22:09, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My point, of course, is that Wikipedia is a non-profit organization that was most recently having trouble raising money and considering ad placement. As such, the organization is not in a position to spend money unwisely. High quality database subscriptions are expensive, reaching into the five figures for institutional access. As you yourself demonstrate, a free alternative is easily available. Moreover, the distributed nature of Wikipedia ensures that someone somewhere will likely have access to a particular requested article. In other words, the plan of giving a limited subset of Wikipedians access to these databases is already in place. There is already a large number of people on Wikipedia who have access to these databases. Perhaps those with access can flag themselves so people in need can contact them and they can pass a copy of the article along. Now, if you're talking about paying for every Wikipedian to access these databases, I'm listening. --Truckbest23098 (talk) 00:01, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
saying "The plan is already in place" is true in theory but more or less false in practice. There is (or there used to be; deletionists probably got it) a userbox for folks with JSTOR access who are willing to share. But a clearinghouse of requests is lacking. And my original idea still stands as a superior alternative. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 01:43, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I should say that the plan is in the process of being carried out. The hard part, access, is already solved for a subset of Wikipedians. I'm not sure your original idea is superior. Firstly it will cost extra money: around four figures per database to allow several thousand people to access it, for a total in the mid-five figures -- per year. Secondly, you will have a whole series of issues regarding who gets access and who does not. Thirdly, it will take time and administrators to negotiate the deals with each subscription. If a significant subset of Wikipedians already have access to these databases, it would seem not only more economical, but more expedient to simply set up a request clearinghouse much like the Admin notice board or Req for deletion board (Legal issues aside). -Truckbest23098 (talk) 02:27, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Getting official access is far and away superior because of the last three words of your post: "Legal issues aside."
  • "Time to negotiate deals"? That sounds a lot like someone's official, paid job.
  • "Who gets access and who does not" is a trivial question. Two options:
  1. Depending on how many seats (or whatever they are termed) are acquired, select a number of folks (raul, Sandy, G-guy, TimVvickers, various WikiProjects such as MILHIST and BIO, etc.) to invite a set number of other folks to have access. My First choice, since you start with trusted individuals. Also you can deliberately spread topic coverage, so folks in the Video games WikiProject don't get every single access seat (or whatever it's called).
  2. Let the community decide. My second choice.
Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 02:53, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Choice of access is not trivial. That was a long explaination you had to give. Imagine the fight over who gets access and who does not. If implemented, it would be a vaulable commodity, and I assure you tempers will flare / accusations of unfairness etc. I for one do not condone futher stratifications of Wikipedia users as it is a major turn off for me. Legal issues, I conceed. A _formalized_ system of article exchange will likely violate T&C. But, it would be very hard for database providers to enforce or stop such an exchange system. It does go against the spirit of such things and takes advantage of the database providers. -Truckbest23098 (talk) 03:14, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) I'm a veteran arguer, and I don't think there will be arguments. There's no power whatsoever involved, and only a truly modest amount of prestige. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 03:19, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, from personal experience, I can assure you that access to JStor sadly confers neither prestige nor power. That's not the point: I object to providing the real economic value that access to Jstor confers. Quick research also shows that T&C may not be as big of a problem as I thought: Jstor for example allows for "ad hoc" distribution of articles. -Truckbest23098 (talk) 03:24, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What a wonderful idea! When I was an undergrad at Columbia we had access to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) database. That was incredibly useful for more than just definitions and can definitely be useful for building articles. Valley2city‽ 03:28, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I started the thread, and added a suggestion about how to allocate seats/choose volunteers. I think I've added all the value I can add to this thread. Unwatching– Good Luck & ping me if anything ever happens. Later! Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 04:33, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Britannica uses Commons images

Jimbo, I just read your interview in Deutsche Welle with Michael Knigge, where you suggest that traditional encyclopedia's might look to our images to cut costs. Britannica has actually already been doing this for some time. See, for example, the lead images in "soundboard" and "Edward O. Wilson". Although they don't explicitly credit Wikipedia or Commons as the source, they are using both under the GFDL and as far as I know our projects are the only place they would have found them under that license. I've found a few other of my own images on Britannica as well. I'm not sure what the scale of free image use is overall, but I think most of the new images they are adding these days are free, with many coming from us. I first noticed my images being used in September 2008, and more have popped up since then.

Nice interview, by the way.--ragesoss (talk) 20:21, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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