User talk:Gabardine

on stable versions in German Wikipedia

Hello Gabardine,

I just saw your comment on Jimbo Wales talk page, ready to show you another point of view ;)

Personally I think "flagged revisions" (or stable versions) are a great chance to fight vandalism. And I do think they are almost mandatory for some BLP's and other high risk places (like the front page, we could then deprotect!).

I'd even promote one more level of protection(!) for the English Wikipedia. For example, take any BLP on a marginal notable porn star that get's diseased by some psycho fan posting a birth name, or unsourced defamatory statements about politicians during campaign season, which might or might not get removed immediately but stay forever in the article's history.

If the subject in question now files an OTRS complaint, the best that happens is usually the removal with a history wipe just to be messed up again three days later by an anonymous editor.

So. Now with the flagged revisions we can finally hive articles on another protection level that does not only alter which version of an article a visitor sees first place, but also keeps the "archived article history" in an untouched state until the changes get reviewed by some experienced user with an x number of edits, who is then responsible by account. This would be the highest level of protection an article could get with the new editing system apart from a FULL protection nobody really wants. As for non risky wiki articles - I wouldn't mind keeping the old system... it hurts no one if Alexander The Great is a donut for a few minutes. ;)

Greetings --3vil-Lyn (talk) 17:52, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi 3vil-Lyn!

I honestly think all these arguments I read so far are way too bureaucratically minded, no offense meant. I can see the point of having better 'protection' for articles. Just I don't want any protection in here. I get the notion some angst is ruling in the Wikipedia. Instead of taking a stand for what the project is, open for everyone anytime to edit anything (exept some small exceptions), it trades its freedom and openness for a new hierarchy of users and a development towards common dictionaries.

This project is so very young, even in terms of the internet. The idea of it has not sunken in with all users on the net yet, and I think Wikipedia should hang in there until people know how it works. Wikipedia shouldn't start to cater to people's wishes, nor should it throw overboard what made it big. In my eyes it should stay as unique as it is now, with all its flaws. If there are just a comparatively small circle of some thousand users which actually edit Wikipedia according to suggestions from new users, where is the difference to common encyclopedias apart from people not getting paid for their work?

Apart from abandoning a once sacred principle (how sacred could it have been, I wonder...), this change will put a lot of stress on established users. In the German Wikipedia there is already talk of banning people for not taking part in the flagging, and reverting every change that hasn't been 'approved of' after two weeks, regardless what it is. With this, we start something that will put pressure on us all the time, because there will always be edits waiting to be confirmed, there will always be a lag to work on. I'd rather have clear vandalism on a page though than miss out on a piece of information no-one has confirmed yet.

If I want a quick overview I go to Wikipedia. If I want stable information I get a book. And I, as about any other conscious reader of Wikipedia I know, am very okay with that. I really don't want to see Wikipedia turn from a project into an enterprise, but I fear I already do.

End of sermon ;) --Gabardine (talk) 00:08, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Hello Gabardine,

You said: "In the German Wikipedia there is already talk of banning people for not taking part in the flagging, and reverting every change that hasn't been 'approved of' after two weeks, regardless what it is." I did not read up on this discussion (yet) but I assume this is no way a majority, am I right? ;)

When Wikipedia was all new, not the big kraken it is today, there was more freedom for an anarchy approach, but the risk of editors doing harm grew with increased media awareness and penetration. With increasing size and Google rankings, many editors on the now world biggest reference database lagged behind developing a sense of social responsibility needed to administrate the platform given to them. You just don't hand the mic in the hourly news of the biggest national cable TV station to an pubescent geek screaming "no censorship!" followed up by some random slander about celebs.

As of today Wikipedia has become the #1 promotional tool for irresponsible editors with an agenda to do harm. I've spent waaaaay too much time fixing BLP's (in various languages) to know that we have a type of vandal who only posts for the articles history. And this needs to stop. Stable versions with different "protection levels" could be the key in my humble opinion.

Whenever some type of negative information without source is added by an anonymous editor to a biography on the lower notability scale, you will run into the same mob of "no censorship" lamers, who give a flying hoot about the subject, article quality or validity and would probably never have made any edit to the article if it wasn't for the inclusion of something that could be harmful to a living person. That said, stable versions over (semi-)protected articles any day!

Your POV might do a 180 once you have an article about yourself on Wikipedia besieged by some obscure anons who want to make sure the world doesn't miss out on a piece of information that just shouldn't be there first place. ;) On a rainy day you might want to read up on these two exemplary discussions to get an idea why I think it is important to make a stand for privacy.

-> about pseudonyms. -> about social rehabilitation.

Some editors really need to wave goodbye the idea of free information for the public where they intrude in other peoples' privacy. As said, I have no problem with the free for all approach on all but the "hot" BLP wikis. You could apply stable versions for everything on the front page, but use a much less restrictive level of protection (if any) on everything else - so for articles unrelated to living persons and not currently featured on the front page nothing would change at all. You could probably make it so that the unregistered editor who made a change as well as all registered users always see the latest version (but can switch to stable versions in the user preferences), however other unregistered visitors see the stable version as default. That way an unregistered editor does not get discouraged, makes sense? ;)

I read up on this "Meinungsbild" just very briefly, but as far as I see no one even thought about different "levels of protection" apart from discussing which version an unregistered visitor sees first place. That's pretty much an all-or-nothing approach, we must not necessarily repeat over here. Uh, I got carried away there... ;) -3vil-Lyn ([[User talk:|talk]]) 01:20, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi 3vil-Lyn,

the German approach is indeed, as you pointed out, an all-or-nothing approach. This is what I see as producing a cleavage between the community, as well as accepting a simple majority in this decision while having 2/3-majorities on decisions concerning the niftiest things about admin-re-elections. And I just don't see that major objections are taken into account. People actually say it's worth the effort, if there is just 1% (!) less vandalism. Which lets me wonder whether they really thought through what they promote.

I guessed it would be possible to restrict stable versions to some selected pages, but I heard zilch about that in the German discussions, and it was not put up as an option. This would be a great compromise. There is just no need to further close the whole project against newcomers and part-time editors, when the threat lies against a small percentage of pages only. Having a better, all-time protection for them while experienced users are still able to edit would be fine with me. I never was set against the feature in general, if it is used with prudence and doesn't dispestablish free editing.

I guess the Germans in favour see stable versions as a pre stage to quality versions, but of course this is not necessarily a linear development. Currently the goal is to have each and every page 'sighted' by yesterday at least, we don't want to lose our reputation for thoroughness, do we?

Where I mostly have been working on, I hardly met any true vandalism at all, just formally incorrect edits, POV, superfluous info, that sort of thing. I'm not where the trouble is. I'd be happy if people see that there are vast areas where the now imminent (German) changes just force editors to work more, let positive changes appear later that before, and bring forth a hierarchy of edits and editors which is just not desirable.

As for your first paragraphs: I think we shouldn't take Wikipedia too serious, however many people read it, and we should not try to get people take it more serious than it is, e.g. by inplementing so-called quality versions. The more you demonstrate your pre-eminence (if there is any), the more people will try to find the fly in the ointment. Having stable versions of some pages to keep the peace and protect some real persons is one thing, trying to be something you deputedly are not and by principle aren't might, put strongly and pessimistically, doom the project. --Gabardine (talk) 12:17, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Hey, I'm glad you liked my take on this though I'm not quite sure everything I said is already "ready for public use" on a pure technical level. However you lost me with your last sentence. How can any single (somehow notable) person "trying to be something they are not" and maybe messing with their own article (if that's what you refer to?), doom the entire project? No one could possibly manage to do that. Besides everyone who really wants to can already pay people to maintain their article, there are services specialized in wiki text juggling. That much for how serious people take Wikipedia today. ;) On a sidenote I personally believe that many many biographies of marginally notable people (that cause a lot of problems btw) do not belong on Wikipedia first place. Like all those adult actors with an industry award nomination, heck even those with some kind of industry promotion award but no impact outside the jizz biz... but we should probably wipe the Pokémon cardsets first ;)

I also strongly disagree with Jimbo Wales statement that "if we could have a good (high quality, respectful of human dignity, neutral, appropriately respectful of privacy) article about everyone, then why not?" but that's a topic for another day ;) As for the future development on the German language Wikipedia: Kopf hoch! Mut hoch! und Humor hoch! ;) --3vil-Lyn (talk) 02:29, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, my last sentence was aimed at the Wikipedia itself, which is becoming pre-eminent in the web _and_ is trying to raise it's credibility, thus changing the very nature of itself and, probably bit by bit, abandoning its principles.

As for the German Wikipedia: I'll step back for some time. At this moment I don't want to be working there any more. Maybe I'll change my mind some time later, we'll see. --Gabardine (talk) 15:52, 3 September 2008 (UTC)