User talk:Jimbo Wales/poll

Context: Wikipedia:Flagged revisions (general information page), Poll for all articles, Poll for BLPs, Poll for some trial, Wikipedia:Flagged protection and patrolled revisions (implementation accepted for trial - poll, awaiting implementation)

I'd like us to conduct a poll from now until Saturday, regarding whether we should ask the Foundation to simply turn on flagged revs in the form that the Germans use it, until such time as they finish the version we've reached consensus on here, but which is constantly delayed.

Please just leave it here rather than turning it into a formal RfC or request - this is just a poll to gauge how we feel about it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• I'm concerned that we would not be able to keep up with the backlog if we implemented FR on six times the number of articles that we planned to, even temporarily. But this might be a good idea, if only to gauge in advance how many articles we can reasonably have flagged protected at once with the new system. NW (Talk) 11:40, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support, however we lack any policy or guideline for assigning the reviewer status that would suit the unmodifed FR. That would require addressing before it goes live, otherwise we'll be essentially stuck with changes nobody but admins can approve. MLauba (talk) 11:49, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support. I've put links to this poll at a number of high visibility places, to get maximal input. Fram (talk) 12:22, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• It is working on DEWP and ENNEWS. Bring flagged revs here! Surely we can sort out the sighting rights in a timely manner. Perhaps even as simple as making it a part of the rollbackers, autoreviewer, bot, and sysop groups' rights as they would be the ones most likely to have use for sighting. The DEWP reviewer right is a similar concept to the ENWP rollback right. delirious & lost ☯ ^~hugs~ 12:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support Wikipedia is the result of no longer waiting for Nupedia to get its act together. Go for it. Paradoctor (talk) 12:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support, it really is time to take the next step in building our credibility as a resource. Guy (Help!) 12:36, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Way overdue. Support ++Lar: t/c 12:40, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support Definitely yes. Pmlineditor ∞ 12:45, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Would rather Jimbo just ruled by fiat in this situation. Way overdue support GTD 12:45, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support, and a hear hear to Guy. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:48, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• AIUI, this means effectively that all pages will be protected (at somewhere between semi-protection and full protection), and a new gimmicky tool will be introduced for excluded editors so that it still feels as if Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit™, even though it won't be. No particular objections from me to trying it out as an experiment, but I think a change as major as this needs proper considered discussion instead of five days of mindless polling. (And heads should roll at the foundation for their utter failure to get the agreed version running.)--Kotniski (talk) 12:53, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support - waaaay past time. Just enable it already, we'll sort out the details as things go. It's not rocket science - Alison ^❤ 12:54, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support as all those above me have argued. We need it. Ucucha 12:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Please. Hal peridol (talk) 12:58, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Comment. At minimum, failure conditions must be established before-hand: i.e. measurable conditions under which it would be turned off as too problematic - and the situation monitored appropriately. Rd232 ^talk 12:58, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• I don't think this poll matters either way, except to make this already decided decision look like it has consensus, but oppose. It will hurt user retention. I have seen the way it is used on other wikiprojects, and it really ruins the wikipedia experience of instant changes being seen. Based on the way that many veteran editors consistently disregarded our rules, I don't trust the majority of veteran editors one bit to be impartial in which revisions they will choose to accept. Okip
• Comment I'm not sure of the details of the proposal. Can we have a link to a summary of the German form proposed, so that we can understand what we're voting for, please. Colonel Warden (talk) 13:00, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

It means that Wikipedia will be (almost) fully protected - only admins and a certain (as yet uncreated) set of other approved users will be able to edit it.--Kotniski (talk) 13:01, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

That is incorrect. Flagged Revs doesn't restrict editing, it however prevents non-reviewed versions of an article from being displayed to normal users by default. They can still access the non-reviewed version by clicking on an icon however. MLauba (talk) 13:05, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

So effectively, it does restrict editing. (You can edit, but your edit won't show up - so "editing" for excluded users is effectively just the same as making an {{editprotected}} request on a fully protected page.) --Kotniski (talk) 13:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

It means that a select few veteran editors, many editors who consistently and successfully violate policy without sanction, decide what should and should be on Wikipedia. This will cause more frustration, new editor loss, and fierce arguments because these veteran editors will have more control over content than newer editors. Okip 13:10, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I got reviewing rights on the German Wikipedia a long time ago, and I still have only 636 edits there. It's a lot less exclusive than adminship. Hans Adler 14:04, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

You have made 12618 edits to the English Wikipedia. As you are German, please explain this discrepancy. Does the German environment have a discouraging effect upon you? Colonel Warden (talk) 14:21, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

This link seems to be the relevant one: Wikipedia:Flagged revisions/Sighted versions. This describes different national flavours: German, Polish and Russian. There's some confusion about terminology - is flagged exactly the same as sighted? The German version has the latter, if it matters. Anyway, the Polish version sounds the most sensible, if we were to rush this in a half-baked way, as it is implemented gradually rather than with a big bang. A sweeping change for all articles does not seem sensible when the details remain to be thrashed out. Colonel Warden (talk) 14:15, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• I gather that the German Wikipedia uses flagged revisions on all articles, so I am afraid I will need to buck the trend here and oppose that. (I am neutral about using it as an alternative to protection on certain articles.) It puts an enormous strain on the RC patrol to have to approve each and every revision an anonymous user makes, and it is a major turn-off for new contributors if there is a long delay in doing so. The Wikibooks project, where I have made a few edits, have at times taken weeks to get a perfectly non-controversial edit through. Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:02, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • There is no need to approve each and every revision, the only thing needed is to validate the most current revision. With FR, RCP essentially morphs into UAP (Unreviewed Articles Patrol). In fact, on high vandalism pages, it will decrease the workload because you don't have to catch every single vandalism taking place after a revert. They simply won't be displayed. MLauba (talk) 13:10, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oh, and while consensus can change, I think it is worth looking at last year's poll on this. Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:06, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support flagged revisions immediately. The stalling and obfuscation has risen to absurd levels. This poll is unnecessary. Just do it already.Bali ultimate (talk) 13:10, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. Having a long list of supports here from the usual band of vested contributors will frankly mean nothing in terms of what's good for the English Wikipedia. It is not those people who wrote or expanded the majority of articles, or even revert the most vandalism or BLP vios. If you want to turn over the building and maintaining of the pedia to these people, and arguably with the recent endorsement of the BLP vandalism spree you do, ripping up the idea that adminship is no big deal, then FR is the perfect tool to do this and create a three tier pedia. If however, you want Wikipedia's article count to continue to grow (it is not finished by a long shot, and what we do have is mostly shit), and continue to have new editors registering because they want to, not because they have to, then do not implement German FR here. Thats before we even talk about backlogs, or the very real fact that even with FR, Wikinews lets BLP violations through, with their 'sighted status' meaning they remain forever, and ludicrously, cannot even be fixed by non-vested contributors. And as we see, Wikinews is a total failure at recruiting new editors, FR is no doubt a huge part of that. MickMacNee (talk) 13:11, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

  And the idea it would ever get turned off when the trial config is ready, is surely an insult to people's intelligence. The vested contributors are only interested in a wedge strategy here. Short of a total technical disaster, nothing will stop them in future from hijacking this temporary adoption down the line and turning it into a permanent feature. MickMacNee (talk) 13:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support Will improve WP a lot. Wikinews uses drafts (similar to flagged revs), and its successful. ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 13:13, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

  Wikinews is a disaster. Pretty much nobody contributes to it, its level of output is pitifull for a supposed news service. Even with highly experienced reviewers, I have personaly seen BLP violations get 'sighted' and passed as front page news, and I eventualy gave up on that project because it was frankly too onerous to go around begging for your revert of BLP vandalism to get sighted, let alone get anything else reviewed or approved. And that is a project that supposedly runs to deadlines. Wikinews is a perfect example of the unscaleability of FR actually - its technology is seen as 'successful' on a tiny and frankly insignificant scale, yet if Wikinews handled the amount of new news articles that Wikipedia gets, it would fall flat on its face. MickMacNee (talk) 13:23, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support Echoing Bali ultimate's frustrations. Show, meet road. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 13:17, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Can we expect any actual arguments in favour of this proposal, instead of just "isn't this a marvellous idea"? Have the effects of the German experiment been studied?--Kotniski (talk) 13:18, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, full FR prevents new articles with copyvios from being displayed in the first place, and can help with limiting the amount of copyright violations introduced later in an article's history. Which is the aspect that our special requirements don't address, due to the exclusive focus on BLPs. MLauba (talk) 13:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

How much has the Foundation paid out in the past year on copyright violation suits?--Kotniski (talk) 13:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

How much has it paid on libel suits? Nice strawman. The legal obligations in order to keep the Foundations' safe harbour provision under the DMCA is essentially identical between BLP and copyvio issues. MLauba (talk) 14:12, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

You're not stupid, Kotniski, you know perfectly well that the Foundation has no legal exposure to copyright law just as it has no exposure to libel. Are you saying that the facts that hosting copyright violations is encyclopedically unprofessional and morally wrong should be ignored because you can't put a dollar sign in front of them? Is that really what you're saying? Happy‑melon 14:30, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not saying anything; I'm trying to learn the facts before making a decision. (But what's the point, since everyone else is just piling on the votes without thinking.) Clearly copyvios (and libels) are a bad thing, but are they that much of a bad thing that we have to tear down our whole editing model because of them?--Kotniski (talk) 14:38, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Some specific notes: (1) Full FlaggedRevs won't prevent the creation of a copyvio article - flagged revs start working only when the article has been flagged for the first time. (2) If an edit introduces a copyvio, it'll stay in the history if not deleted, regardless of flaggedrevs, it just won't be displayed to readers if flaggedrevs is active and not flagged. (3) The scope of the consensual implementation (WP:FPPR) is in no way limited to BLPs. Cenarium (talk) 14:32, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose if it is to be applied to all articles, would support if applied only to select articles including all BLPs. J04n(talk page) 13:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support Obviously I think this is a good thing to do. We agreed on implementing a test run of FRs, but for technical reasons have been unable to. Since its a test and we have the German version, we can use that in the interim. MBisanz ^talk 13:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support - make it so.--Scott Mac (Doc) 13:31, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support - This needs to happen. I think this will make things much easier when we get our own version - Call it a trial run. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 13:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • If it's to be a trial run, the parameters of the trial need to be defined. Rd232 ^talk 13:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Question - is it really so hard to apply FR only to members of Category:Living people? Rd232 ^talk 13:43, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

For Wikimedia's developers, alphabetical order is hard. So basically, yes.--Kotniski (talk) 13:50, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Well I don't see why it would be hard to make the software auto-approve all edits made to articles not in that category. Clunky, perhaps, but surely easy. Rd232 ^talk 17:39, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose as it would be impractical to review the large number of edits, and an excessive solution to a limited problem. A consensus to abandon our position as the encyclopedia anyone can edit requires wider and longer debate. Certes (talk) 13:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Question: who exactly would review the edits?  Dr. Loosmark  13:45, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

The people voting "support", basically. (Well, admins and people trusted by admins.)--Kotniski (talk) 13:54, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I doubt it. We are working on the 'us' and 'them' model now after the BLP deletion spree. The same chumps that had to source perfectly valid BLPs under threat of unchecked deletion, will be the same chumps who will have to review people's perfeclty valid additions quick enough so that the contributor doesn't turn their back on Wikipedia for good. In both cases, less articles and less editors is seen as a good thing by the camp that doesn't want to be bothered with sourcing/reviewing changes they didn't create personaly, as, in the true tradition of the vested contributor, if they didn't do it, it isn't worth shit. MickMacNee (talk) 14:14, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose, I've always been a supporter of flagged protection used liberally where needed - but I really dislike the German blanket flagged revisions system, and I would prefer to continue as we are until the agreed-upon version is available. Particularly given the lack of current consensus on how we assign the reviewer right, this is an epic backlog waiting to happen. ~ mazca ^talk 13:48, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support - Anything to try to salvage enwiki. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 13:49, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support for a test period. Oppose blanket "It's turned on with German settings till the English version is ready", after all we have no idea if we can cope with the backlog the German version will create currently. We should give it a good testing, then regroup to discuss whether to stick with it, or to wait/change some settings before moving on. --Taelus (talk) 13:50, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose due to Sjakkalle's objections after having tried it out. I'm all for enabling it for BLPs. --GRuban (talk) 13:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support I'm fine with using this as either version and since this one is available then we can use it for now. FloNight♥♥♥♥ 13:58, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support if I get reviewer rights. Oppose if I don't. The Hero of This Nation (talk) 14:01, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

  The only rational implementation of this would require us to give reviewer rights to all admins and rollbackers, probably as part of the existing permissions bundles, so yes, you would have these permissions. If that doesn't occur, I'll give you the rights myself; I can't see any reason for you not to have them. Happy‑melon 14:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support - Seems to work OK on de.Wiki. My edits there get flagged, someone reviews them and they get accepted (but then I'm not a vandal). Mjroots (talk) 14:04, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose as a global measure but Support for BLPs -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 14:04, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support Do the bold thing and enable it, then fix any issues later. I'm sure there will be some but there's only one way to find them.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 14:07, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Hans Adler 14:10, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support LessHeard vanU (talk) 14:11, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose as a global measure, Support for BLPs and in specific cases. --Cyclopia^talk 14:13, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Question: Is there a specific aspect of Wikipedia:Flagged protection and patrolled revisions that is causing delays? If, for example, flagged protection is ready to go but patrolled revisions is proving difficult to code then perhaps the best bet is to just roll out one of the two features. Yaris678 (talk) 14:15, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose Oooh, this is not going to be a biased poll at all, is it? If this passes, who is going to save WP from those self-obsessed, POV, power-drunk admins? 122.26.96.185 (talk) 14:18, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose as it is not in the spirit of founding principle n°2.--M4gnum0n (talk) 14:30, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• and Comment - Surely this poll has not the power to overturn previous consensus (only 38% support)! ...? --M4gnum0n (talk) 14:30, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• I suspect the location of this poll (Jimbo's talk page) was chosen specifically to limit the input of, shall we say, undesired opinions. Resolute 14:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Let's not get paranoid.--Kotniski (talk) 14:45, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Jimbo's talk page has a certain culture all its own, and hosting this poll here, with no evidence that Jimbo intended to advertise for wider input argues that this poll was intended for that certain sub-culture, and not the Wikipedia community as a whole. I tend to agree with Okip that this little dog and pony show exists mainly to give the appearance of seeking consensus before implementing what Jimbo has already chosen to do. Resolute 14:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Comment where is there some statistics about activity on the German wikipedia before this and a couple of months after and now? I would like to know exactly what it does to the workload of the anti vandalism patrol and what it did to productive contributions and has anybody done a study of other aspects that would be of interest. How am I supposed to make an informed decision if I'm ignorant and p.s. I think the wisdom of the crowds can be wildly out for decisions like this. Dmcq (talk) 14:39, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

My thoughts exactly.--Kotniski (talk) 14:45, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support ⇦REDVERS⇨ Say NO to Commons bullying 14:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support but come on, didn't we just do this? The one that gained over 150 supports, remember? Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 15:01, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Most of which were for FPPR, if you actually read that petition and its talk page. Not to mention the Jimbo quote at the top referred to FPPR aswell. Until now, full adoption of German FR has had sod all support in any of the venues where FR on en has actually been properly discussed (as opposed to petitioned/polled). Jimbo was told repeatedly at the time it was pointless calling the original poll to 'have a trial, any trial', as a consensus, without specific configs, because that barely 60% 'support' was full of total contradictions and self-evident half assed understanding of both FR and the wikipedia model, but he flat out went and did it anyway, leading to the inevitable result of the lame duck FPPR config, and when that failed to arrive, now bizarely, this total U-Turn into 'temporary' full FR. MickMacNee (talk) 15:20, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose The encyclopedia that anyone can edit???. Mo ainm~Talk 15:05, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose I'm not opposed to flagged revisions, but I am very, very concerned with the attitude of many supporters of "Implement now and fix later." The question I have, is if we do have consensus for a flavour of FR as Jimbo indicates, why is pressure not being put on the devs to make it happen? Why are we instead looking at "temporarily" (hah!) using the German model? Quite the opposite. Once this fait acompli is past, the pressure on the devs to change the system will simply disappear and a solution against the wider consensus will become permanent. Also, I would very much like to see the supporters address the very real concerns raised about the impact blanket FR would have on the project. I, for one, am not here to serve as a moderator for every edit that is made. I am here to write an encyclopedia. FR as a tactical solution to trouble areas (such as contentious BLPs) is a brilliant idea. FR as a blunt object wielded against a project with 3 million articles without any real understanding of who is going to maintain this system is likely to result in disaster. Be careful what you wish for... Resolute 15:07, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Strong oppose there was not consensus to do this, except in a controlled way for BLP--this is not a rational response, just a frustration at the slowness of development. "let's do anything" is not the way to make progress. It corresponds to the proposal to delete all BLPs that happen to be unsourced at the moment--it sounded attractive, and had initial support, but then people started to think, and realized that most of them were articles that could be easily fixed, not deleted. In practice, the great appeal of Wikipedia to new contributors is seeing the work immediately visible to themselves and everybody. It may different for other countries, but certainly not at least for the contributors in the US to the enWP. The proof that this is a bad idea, is that people are voting for it without knowing the details. DGG ( talk ) 15:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose - For now. Implementing it now and fixing it later is not a good idea. There are some concerns with flagged revs, mainly going against "The encyclopedia that anyone can edit". Flagged revisions should only be applied to BLPs when needed. I also think that flagged revisions would be an excellent replacement for semi-protection, as it provides means to eliminate vandalism and let legit editors make their edits. That would actually extend editing to more users. However, as I said, "implement now and fix later" is not the best idea. Inferno, Lord of Penguins 15:22, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Strong oppose This mentallity of "Implement it now, and fix it later" is not the way to go with this. There wasn't really a consensus to do it this way, and this will create a very large backlog that will be only be cleared if everyone diverts their attention from building articles to patrolling these edits, which will obviously be detrimental. The Thing // Talk // Contribs 15:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose - We have consensus for a specific implementation, and we should not deviate from that, no matter how temporarily. While I will assume good faith about the motives of others, I suspect that once full flagged revisions is turned on, it will become very difficult to scale back down to the agreed upon implementation.--Danaman5 (talk) 15:29, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Strong oppose: First of all, its not clear to me what this proposal will actually do, I had to base it on the back and forth that Colonel Warden had above with others. The parameters of such a big proposal are critical. It sounds like a massive change, and not applying only to the unsourced BLPs which seem to be driving it. And as keeps getting raised by new entrants to the discussion at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people, the unsourced BLP "problem" itself is never proven to exist. BLPs sourced or otherwise are equally subject to vandalism, but 99%+ of BLPs are fine.--Milowent (talk) 15:31, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose A) bad idea that will greatly harm, not help, Wikipedia. B) Dislike this process (where the poll is, etc., C) So contrary to the founding idea of Wikipedia as to be obviously unacceptable. D) not needed. Hobit (talk) 15:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Strong support. Long overdue; a simple measure that provides a reasonable compromise between open editing and preventing damaging misinformation appearing. Other wikis have implemented it; a lot of people are now familiar with the system, and I see no reason why enwiki should be unable to cope. Sam Blacketer (talk) 15:42, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. Per Sjakkalle this seems like a big issue with WP:BITE — if it takes hours or days or weeks for anyone to approve an anonymous revision, how will anons feel like they can actually edit the encyclopedia? And doing this via a poll on some individual user's talk page (no matter who) is just bad process. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:45, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Comment. This poll was advertised at VP, which one might think was intended to draw it to the attention of as wide an audience as possible. But a quick look at the pages linked t the top doesn't disclose any clear & visibly positioned explanation of what is actually being polled about here. Peter jackson (talk) 15:48, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. "Flagged revisions the way the German Wikipedia does it" includes constant backlogs, and we're three times as large. Such backlogs effectively prevent us from fulfilling "anyone can edit" - granted, as a matter of practicality, we have to fall short of that promise sometimes in any case. The most important point remains, though: flagged revisions - any flagged revision system - would be harmful to our articles, because it wouldn't allow casual, immediate vandalism fixes by our readers, preferring to display the vandalized version even though we have the capacity not to do so. Flagged revisions with a guaranteed backlog means that such vandalism would be far more likely to slip through. Also, any flagged revision system would make it easier to WP:OWN low-traffic articles; on BLPs, agenda-driven article ownership often translates to an insistence that the article must "expose" what a horrible person its subject is. Flagged revisions seem like a magical panacea if you consider only the positive effects - so would anything else - but on balance they would harm the encyclopedia, especially including BLPs. There's a "least bad" proposal at Wikipedia:Targeted flagging that would use flagged revisions only for unwatched BLPS; anything bigger would be harmful, and this is a lot bigger. — Gavia immer (talk) 15:56, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose The community approved a trial of something different. If we had wanted a trial of Germany's process we would have gotten it already. Now clearly that is all subject to change, and there is a strong amount of support above for implementing their process now, but it seems weird to approve an indefinite system we don't want when we only actually asked for a limited test of a service we did. I'm slightly less opposed if the idea is "Hey, let's see what happens for 30/60 days" but I simply don't support turning on a service we explicitly turned down for an undetermined amount of time. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 15:56, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. It's a 4 day poll to reach a conclusion of whether to ask the Foundation to enact a site-global change affecting every page. The fact it was brought up on a user talkpage linked to a subpage under that userspace along with "this is just a poll to gauge how we feel about it", leaves me unimpressed. You make clear this was a deliberate choice over bringing it up on a community discussion page, i.e. the Village Pump. So what "we" refers to, isn't clear. It includes those who happen to watchlist your talkpage. I know I don't. –Whitehorse1 15:57, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose for now, as a premature and too-limited poll, that indeed should have a far wider input. The simple paragraph and question that begin this poll are themselves left far too open to interpretation by the various factions (and yes, they exist within these pages), and can be seen as either encouraging or discouraging growth of an electronic encyclopedia that has the potential for being so much more than its paperbound bretheren. , anyone can edit. As this is not Germany, and en.Wikipedia has a few more articles and a few more editors whose contributions would be affected, I'd like to see this discussion perhaps reopened at the Village Pump as an RFC and not an informal poll, so input may be gathered from a wider consensus of editors. It needs be made specifically clear just what will be affected, who will be affected, and just how this is to be interpreted and implemented. Too soon to ask, and wrong page for reaching widest consensus from those to be affected. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 16:00, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support - One of the biggest misconceptions here seems to be that this will instantly create a backlog because every edit will need to be reviewed. This is not true. Even under the German system, edits do not have to be reviewed unless they are made to a page which has already been reviewed once. So unless people do something stupid and disruptive like run a bot to review a million pages (which would also be counter-productive, as it would defeat the purpose), it will grow at a controlled rate. As for the system we actually got consensus for about a year ago, it seems the foundation is more interested in hip development systems than actually getting work done, so who knows if we're ever going to get that. Mr.Z-man 16:05, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Mr.Z-man, I don't know what you mean by a "a page which has already been reviewed once." Its clear that I'm not the only one who doesn't understand the exact parameters of the proposal.--Milowent (talk) 16:10, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• This is taking far longer than is reasonable. Just make an executive decision and do it. Tasty monster (TS on one of those new fangled telephone thingies) 16:17, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose until I know precisely what it is that is being decided (it's disappointing that Jimmy is being so blase about the details). This is no way to make important decisions. Is the idea to implement Wikipedia:Flagged revisions/Sighted versions? What are the pros and cons of this arrangement? If you want community agreement, do it properly. If you want to make a fiat decision, just do it instead of hiding behind a pretence of getting community approval. Fences&Windows 16:21, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose - You said it yourself, Jimbo: the version of FR this poll is asking about does not have consensus here. So you're asking if we should just pretend it does. No! Keep Wikipedia an open wiki. Ntsimp (talk) 16:26, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support. A most sound proposal by Jimbo Wales (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 16:35, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose - I'm fine with semi-protecting all BLPs instead. Sole Soul (talk) 16:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Conditional support as a stopgap arrangement, and only once we have got the reviewer ranks expanded significantly beyond the admin corp (rollbackers ?). Besides the obvious downside of flagging all wikipedia articles, I am also concerned that the adoption will reduce the impetus to get FR implemented anytime soon. Abecedare (talk) 16:51, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose for the reasons succinctly stated by Sjakkalle. Arxiloxos (talk) 17:05, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Should be fine. Might even make Wikipedia a more serious project. Pcap ping 17:08, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Oppose turning on a system that isn't what we want. Would support asking the foundation to increase the priority on development of the system that did meet our request.--Cube lurker (talk) 17:16, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. I agree with the principal but really, do you expect anything to be sorted by this sort of poll? If you think it should be done, show some leadership and just do it. Quantpole (talk) 17:18, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

He won't without consultation. So, why are you opposing this and encouraging him at the same time?--Scott Mac (Doc) 17:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• comment Stopgap arrangements have a disconcerting way of turning permanent. They are only justified if there is a critical gap to be stopped, and there is no evidence at all that anything critically detrimental is happening,rather than an ongoing process of slow improvement. In fact, the last proposal I saw was to apply it to only the BLP articles that are now semi-protected, to replace semi-protection--that seems a sensible way to start, with articles we know, not guess, to be problems. DGG ( talk ) 17:31, 2 March 2010 (UTC) .
• Comment – Is there a material reason for these continual delays? It seems like every major software development on Wikimedia is delayed by months, and I can't see why that should be. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 17:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support if we can limit this to some subsection of pages: ideally BLP's. -- Bfigura ^(talk) 17:45, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• SPF-5000-strong Oppose. I've thought about it some more and strongly oppose because (a) we went through a lengthy process deciding what the community wanted; doing something substantially more dramatic and dangerous as a stopgap is so ludicrous that it should not be seriously contemplated whilst consuming hot beverages. (b) the risks from German-style FR in terms of bad publicity and losing editors are massive. The risks from a limited scale version are bad enough, but it was decided it was worth it. (c) the delays are basically due to the Foundation not sorting out the necessary software adjustments from the software already available. Either they care enough to sort it out, or they don't. Somebody in charge might like to light a fire somewhere... who would possibly have the clout for that?? In any case, this poll and the idea it's about are way off base; and only the thought that it's a renewed attempt to show we still care and justify spending more money on it contains my disappointment with it. PS I support it for BLPs, but even there a slow rollout starting with semi-protected BLPs makes sense, rather than jumping in with both feet. Rd232 ^talk 17:48, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. Change as massive as this one should be slow and properly evaluated. Not knowing who the reviewers will be (and we would need lots of them) doesn't help either. The “let's try this and fix problems later” approach might be good for small projects, but not for something the size of enwiki. Svick (talk) 18:02, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose though I support this change in principle, at least for BLPs, I oppose doing it this way, especially coming so soon after January's deletionism spree. I would be reassured if there were; Metrics from DE wiki indicating that after the initial difficulties it worked well and didn't lose many editors; A clear consensus to implement this on EN wiki, and a month beforehand to appoint reviewers/extra admins. Otherwise I foresee disruption and possibly a trainwreck, ϢereSpielChequers 18:03, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Do it - for the love of everything sacred and holy. Anyone who thinks this would be biting newbies has never spent any time in the depths of new page patrol/recent changes patrol. WilyD 18:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose sorry, but matters need to be more fully discussed before we make a change like this, although we may have consensus for a specific version of flagged revs, this new idea (using flagged revs it in the same manner as the German wikipedia) should not be implemented on the result of a poll, just wait until the agreed upon version is completed or start a proper discussion on this new proposal. Spitfire^Tally-ho! 18:21, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose for now I'm worried it will decrease new editor participation out of proportion with the amount of vandalism fighting it reduces. --Falcorian ^(talk) 18:23, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
• Support Any implementation of Flagged Revs is better than what we have now, which is nothing to prevent blatant BLP violations all over the place. The system on the German Wikipedia has been shown to work, and will be an excellent stopgap solution until an en-wiki customized version is rolled out. BLPs are too sensitive to continue to leave wide open like we have been doing, and what many people on en-wiki fail to see is that if this system doesn't work, we can simply turn it back off. Ioeth (talk contribs twinkle friendly) 18:27, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Jim, the Foundation does not need a random person's permission to do this.

The Foundation owns this website. The anonymous people like "User:EditorOfWikipedia" does not. If we hemorrhage even 25% of the user base because of this, which is absurdly unlikely, that's fine. More will take their place. The obstructionists and conservatives are a detriment in any event, and their loss will not be felt in 2-3 years. Will we lose a quality worthwhile writer or two. Probably. But who cares? Online communities by their nature are meant to change or die, like real communities. Stagnation is the enemy. Perfect is the enemy of good. Or would you all rather wait until the wrong person is pissed off enough to launch a proper rather than half-assed legal challenge against the Foundation that takes away the site completely?

Do you want your legacy to be the site that flamed out because of lawsuits, the site that petered out, or the site that in 20+ years is still quietly trucking along with flagged revisions? Jim, tell Sue to just pull the plug already and quit dicking about on the opinions of random anonymous people that are endangering the whole website. This isn't a popularity or ego contest.

Before anyone gives me any shit over this post, I'd been fighting for and about this longer than some of your sock accounts from BEFORE the ones you're currently posting on were even registered. GoneAwayNowAndRetired 18:47, 2 March 2010 (UTC)