Wikipedia talk:Flagged revisions/Trial/Archive 4

No Consensus

The voting shows that 58% have supported the proposal.

As this is effectively equivalent to a 'constitutional' change, going as it does to the heart of what the wiki is all about, one would expect a minimum of 66.6% or even 75% (in the case of certain nations) before it could be made.

Reading the supports and opposes, it is also clear that support is often grudging and weak, while opposition is usually vehement and angry.

Pushing these changes through in the face of this large and passionate minority would have catastrophic effects on the morale of the wp-community - it could even open up 'civil war' between an anti-censorship group, and a pro-control and bureaucracy group.

Why take such a damaging step for so little real gain?

Riversider2008 (talk) 15:21, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

As further evidence of lack of consensus, may I point out that only 53% of non-admins supported it, users with 100-1000 edits opposed it by a 20 point margin, and the majority of people who voted (58%) are "very experienced" editors (>5000 edits), a small group of wikipedians. Diderot's dreams (talk) 20:34, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Why is turning on a piece of software that won't be used until after another straw poll equivalent to a "constitutional change"? Fritzpoll (talk) 15:32, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

if you can't see how, you've missed something fundamental about the WP. Tell me exactly how can this be turned off once it has started? A huge backlog (91% of articles in Germany) with unsighted edits that would suddenly be unleashed on the community. Once this is in, there's no going back. Riversider2008 (talk) 15:36, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Because if this proposal passes, no pages would be flagged? If no trials were approved by a further consensus, the software would be there, but never used? That no more than a handful of people are suggesting implementing it across all articles like the Germans did? So tell me, how is installing a dormant piece of software a constitutional change? Fritzpoll (talk) 15:39, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

You're going to a tremendous amount of effort to implement something that you now say won't actually do anything. Sorry, this makes me more suspicious than ever. You mention 'further consensus' - there is no consensus on this by any definition of the word.Riversider2008 (talk) 15:42, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not, personally, and I think the implication of conspiracy is silly. The developers need a straw poll on turning the software on - this is that poll. The proposed trial configurations are variously listed at WP:FLR/P - read the proposal yu're voting on would be my suggestion - it has always been this limited a proposal. The "further consensus" was assuming consensus was achieved on this poll - if there is no consensus, we will not be able to trial things like replacing semi-protection and full protection with flagged revisions (see the trials page) which would expand the ability of people to edit, rather than limit it Fritzpoll (talk) 15:51, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

There is no implication of a conspiracy, just that the language you have used is imprecise. Clearly the intention of the trial is to justify further use of FR, and the belief is that it will somehow deter vandalism. The metrics being used do not really measure success - they will not measure the number of potential new editors deterred by this departure from the key assumption that all editors have equal rights to edit, and equal accountability for what they do.Riversider2008 (talk) 16:00, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, that's how your comment that was I was saying made you "suspicious" sounded and I apologise for my misunderstanding. The intention of the proposal being voted on here is to turn the software on in the hope that further trials can be run to assess whether, as you claim, the perceived benefits are as good as claimed. Personally, I would like to try WP:Flagged Protection out for a couple of months to see if we could let anonymous editors and newly registered editors contribute to articles - to my mind that is more synonymous with our "constitutional" philosophy that "anyone can edit" than our current situation.

As to metrics, they can only be based on specific trials, not on this software configuration - so it makes sense that these aren;t in this proposal Fritzpoll (talk) 16:06, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I accept your apology, and would like to apologise in turn, if I implied any sense of 'conspiracy'. I hope that those who make the final decision will respect the deeply felt objections of the 'FR-skeptics'/'WP-Purists'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Riversider2008 (talk • contribs) 16:13, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad we were able to have this exchange in a relatively cordial manner, and I acknowledge your concerns. For my part, I have no idea if it will work or not - I'm just willing to try it to give people a chance to edit who wouldn't otherwise be able to. Best wishes, and good luck to whoever makes the call. Fritzpoll (talk) 16:16, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Just my own two cents. If we do a limited trial and find out we can't maintain the content (edits are waiting weeks to be cited and edit rates are declining), we can shut off the system and just set all edits live, as they are now. So the idea of resistance to turning off the system because it will foist edits on us is a bit misleading, since it would just reset us to the prior status quo. MBisanz ^talk 17:35, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

The people that left the project won't come back, the damage is done, so yes on a tech (dev) level you can reset to the prior status quo, but you can't restore the social damage, as the people left, there is no tool to communicate with them. Mion (talk) 07:52, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Outdent - I am going to post a part from a message left by a user, User:X-Weinzar from the German Wikipedia, and a member also here. In his words: "I just read your statements at Jimbo's talk page. Here's one thing I can assure you from my experience at DE-WP: Flagged revs have no influence on vandalism at all, vandalism hasn't declined.". So Flagged Revs have done nothing to stem vandalism on Wikipedia, where it's been used already, and DE-WP have got it switched on right across the board. So what is the point of implementing it here, other than causing more red tape for us to go through? Thor Malmjursson (talk) 17:43, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Depends how you're intending to use it - if in a limited way like WP:Flagged Protection rather than the full implementation the Germans did it might work: we won't know unless we try. Comparisons to the German experience on both sides of this debate are meaningless - that's why we need to perform limited trials Fritzpoll (talk) 17:50, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

The question that those making the decision must now ponder, is not "Are FRs a good idea?" or even "which side won the vote?", it is "is the community able to come to a consensus about this?" all the evidence from the comments left by people voting is that there is NO CONSENSUS ACHIEVABLE and that progressing down this path will be the start of deep and potentially irreperable ruptures among the editorial community. Riversider2008 (talk) 20:52, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Don't be so sure that unclear consensus will prevent FLR. Look at WP:N. Now, speaking as a filthy inclusionist, if we were to hold an advertised straw poll about the overall state of notability, I would guess more than 50% of votes would favor major revisions, and if advertised to anonymous voters over 66%. Nevertheless, the policy stands ironclad today. Why is this? Because the most important editors repeatedly decided in its favor. Call it the death of Wikipedia or its maturation, but the cabal is real. And it seems they will decide for FLR (I am not saying this is good). Estemi (talk) 21:29, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

@Riversider2008: Consensus does not trump doing the right thing, doing no harm, doing what is moral, doing what may be legally required. You say doing the right thing in this case may well cause deep ruptures? I say the project may well be better off without editors so wedded to consensus they are unwilling to fix the BLP problem. Just get on with it. ++Lar: t/c 15:27, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Fair point Lar. Perhaps I was being overly pessimistic when I said 'NO CONSENSUS ACHIEVABLE', if both sides are prepared to think and work hard then some real consensus might still be possible. See my most recent comments lower down: 'Alternative Proposals' Riversider2008 (talk) 23:17, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Propose to close the poll on Friday

In light of the new directions that this process is taking (vide section above and User talk:Jimbo Wales) that put this poll increasingly 'in the past', but recognising that there is no overwhelming requirement for haste, I propose that this poll is formally 'closed' at ~17:40 on Friday, three weeks after it was opened. I believe that the situation is passing the point where an extra X contributions to the poll are likely to have a significant impact on how we proceed hereafter. Are there any objections? Happy‑melon 23:35, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I second closing this on Friday, we need to get this testing to give the community in general a better feeling of what this is about. -Marcusmax(speak) 01:34, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Close it now. If Jimbo is going to pull rank and impose this on us then let's stop wasting time here and move on. --ElKevbo (talk) 01:45, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, it was entirely pointless to even read all the arguements above. Leaving this open to trick other editors into wasting their time would serve what purpose?Yobmod (talk) 08:42, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

There's no point in keeping it open, it was essentially "closed" when Jimbo interpreted its results as a consensus for turning on flagged revs. Actually it probably really should be closed asap so we end with the rough numbers Jimbo was looking at when he made his decision.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 09:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Close it now. Not because "Jimbo is going to pull rank and impose this on us" but because the outcome is clear. The margin is not changing significantly, so keeping it open does not gain anything. Get on with the implementation. Disclaimer: I would be here arguing for implementation of this regardless of the poll results. Wikipedia is not a democracy. As MW technology changes and advances, some things just need to be adopted for the good of the project, regardless of popular opinion. ++Lar: t/c 12:05, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Not a democracy, no, but precisely what is and is not "for the good of the project" is often very much subject to debate, as is the case with flagged revs. There are a lot of opinions on this issue (some don't even want to try it, some think we should implement all over asap, others are agnostic until we run some limited trials, some are okay with it for BLP's but not much beyond that, etc.) and we still need to hash this all out at some length in my view. I must say I'm not a huge fan of the "this is the right thing to do, period" argument (nor its inverse argument on the other side) being thrown around here so cavalierly, particularly since we have not even tested it yet and have no idea how well it will work, to what extent it will be practical or scalable, etc. There are a lot of uncertainties and it would be good if everyone, whether they like the idea of flagged revs or not, could admit that. Both sides of this debate have made very legitimate points and as we discuss this further and gather data from testing opinions might well change. Everyone should be open to the possibility that flagged revs will be a huge or minor success, or a huge or minor failure, or something in between. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 12:39, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, if it fails, the next step is to get rid of all BLPs, I guess. Those saying "this won't work" or "this will be too much work to do" need to get out of the way of those prepared to do something to solve the BLP problem, which may well be the biggest problem facing this project, bar none. Again, this technology was lacking when WP was first created but if it had been available, it should have been used from the get go. ++Lar: t/c 15:24, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Just to be quite clear, I am very concerned with the BLP problem and am very much prepared to do something about it, as I'm guessing are many who are wary of flagged revs. I'm not at all convinced that flagged revs will solve or even do all that much to mitigate the BLP problem, nor that it will not create other significant problems as well. But now that it's been decided to have a trial (which I opposed solely because I did not necessarily believe that it was "just a trial," which still concerns me), I'm quite open to learning more about the extent to which flagged revs improve our BLPs and to the possibility that it will be a success. I'm also open to the possibility that there are other, better solutions beyond deleting BLPs (and would add that, since there are tons of BLP issues on non-bio articles, if we at some point decided to get rid of BLPs in reality I think we'd basically have to shut down the entire project). I'm basically asking those in favor to be open to the possibility that it will not work all that well, and that there may be other things we can do with respect to BLPs in combination with or instead of flagged revs.

I have a lot of respect for your opinions in general Lar, but your previous comment only reinforces the concerns in my comment before that. Editors who take some degree of issue with flagged revs are not exclusively an uncaring bunch with no concern for BLP who simply need to "get out of the way" as you put it. Concerns that flagged revs might move the project away from allowing anyone to edit are not illegitimate, and I don't think it's at all helpful to tar editors who have those concerns with the "you don't get BLP" brush. I get a much stronger "the other side is crazy" view from supporters of flagged revs that from its detractors and I just don't think that's constructive. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 19:30, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

We wouldn't have to shut down the entire project. We could still write about Pokemon.  :-) Ozob (talk) 20:45, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Concur with Bigtimepeace, there are a multitude of extensions available (Liquidthreads, Babel, etc), the community decides what it wants and how it wants it (with the last word given to the WMF, but it rarely happens), so whether it's good for the project is the predominant question and the answer is not always obvious. It's not like enhancements of existing software. There are cases like revision deletion or selective blocking were support is quasi-universal, but it's not always the case. Now the level of community consensus needed is all the debate, but this being only a limited trial, it should be enough for the devs, with the request of Jimbo. Cenarium (Talk) 14:59, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I also agree with Happy-Melon's suggestion above to close the poll. Ozob (talk) 20:45, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I'd suggest you come up with a consensus about the duration of a poll before it starts next time ;-) I'll add a note to the poll that it's going to end friday at 24:00 UTC. --PaterMcFly (talk) 22:05, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't see the poll fluctuating much, the sooner the better at this point. §hep • ^Talk 22:30, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia's greatest obstacle

The underlying assumption of flagged revisions is that we are frustrated in achieving the goals we have set for our encyclopedia primarily by editors who make contributions "the rest of us" think are unhelpful (see e.g. {{uw-test1}}). With flagged revisions, we could prevent those contributions from becoming immediately visible, and it is asserted this will improved the "appearance" of our encyclopedia.

The flaw in this thinking is that having an encyclopedia that sometimes includes "test" edits or vandalism isn't our greatest obstacle. Our goal is nothing less than to build a completely comprehensive encyclopedia of all human knowledge. Our greatest obstacle is that we don't have enough contributors to do that. Anything that discourages new editors will make it more difficult for us to achieve our goal.

Flagged revisions would discourage new editors; flagged revisions would make our greatest obstacle even more difficult to overcome. (sdsds - talk) 08:10, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Research has shown that anon editors are primarily experts in their fields doing drive-by edits whereas named editors are experts in Wikipedia itself. My experience is that there is a deep and longstanding bias against anon editors. Also, it is very common for popular belief on a subject to be at odds with what is known by experts. Given all of that, it is trivially easy to see that this proposal is a mistake. It biases Wikipedia towards popular rather than expert content.-65.189.247.6 (talk) 02:40, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I can agree with the spirit of this post. The problem I have with 'flagged revisions' is the implied snobbery of some editors thinking it is acceptable for them to grant others the right to edit an article. But in my years here, I have found the existing fight against vandalism or dodgy edits to be good enough (just), a situation which I cannot see improving if there is a backlog of revisions in the inbox of a select bunch of "respected" editors.

I must also wonder if, by accepting this proposal, we are not putting a fireblanket over the ability of editors to create such articles as the 2008 Mumbai attacks, or current Gaza/Israel conflict article. How could we ensure that an editors own POV leanings don't come into the choosing which version of an article to allow? doktorb _words^deeds 08:47, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

This (section, not fr's) is one of the more interesting posts in the last several years. Where is the page that discusses Wikipedia goals, shows metrics, with todo lists? I see truly interesting pages deleted for lack of notability. This does not seem to be striving for complete information. I personally have had page creations marked for deleted within seconds (even before I could get to the talk page to add project banners...) By the same token, I do believe that vandalism and inaccurate articles are the bane of our existence. Something HAS to be done about those issues. ANY motion in that direction, I see as a good thing. But I wish the "goals" page existed. -- Mjquin_id (talk) 01:56, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to shut this poll NOW.

Just shut the blinking thing. Get it over with. 59% has never been enough to do shit here, but I have a feeling that if this mularkey with Ted Kennedy hadn't blown up, Jimbo would not have jumped this so fast. Maybe the margin isn't gonna change, so what. The Godking has spoken! Let his words be committed forth. What an utter waste of freaking time this whole poll has been. We vote, we decide, and its deemed "Foggy and Unclear." - Unclear my ass. Thor Malmjursson (talk) 02:40, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

While I cannot endorse your entire comment nor the wording it's enclosed in, I do agree with you that this poll has been a huge waste of time which could have been better spent! I'd add that it's been far more divisive than it would have been, had it been better and more consistently presented.

I'm concerned that the follow-up may be just as bad. There's at least one page of proposed trials plus a page on 'flagged protection' which pretends to be something else, but isn't. All aspects of these (how many?) trials have to be defined, including how to evaluate them. All sides will now enter into those (endless?) discussions with (mis)conceptions about their "opponents'" intentions. Anyone wanting to follow those discussions, will hardly have time left over to write the encyclopedia. - Hordaland (talk) 16:32, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Discussing specifics

(cross posted to Jimbo's talk page) We're going to have a trial run of flagged revisions, that's basically been established and there's little sense in arguing it further. The question is how are we going to go about testing this feature, and there's a lot to talk about there. I think we should be doing that at a different page however.

Wikipedia:Flagged revisions/Trial/Proposed trials has a series of proposed possible trials and of course also a talk page. I tried to get the ball rolling over there with a specific proposal for a couple of trials we could start with that would deal with flagged protection and BLPs. That page seemed like the best place to start a discussion but if we end up on some other centralized page so be it. Regardless at this point though I hope other editors can move on from the discussion here and that we can come to some consensus about how we are going to test flagged revs. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 12:56, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

"...and there's little sense in arguing it further." And apparently there never was. We were asked to !vote on a matter already decided. The whole process feels dirty. Waste of time and huge waste of trust. - Hordaland (talk) 15:10, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

A trial doesn't hurt anyone, it shouldn't have needed a vote in the first place. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 19:59, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

You obviously haven't read the arguments against turning on this capability. - Hordaland (talk) 21:03, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I read a bunch of people complaining that this will let fewer people edit. Because flagged revs will, conversely, allow more people to edit since we won't need protected pages anymore, I ignored those votes. Votes based on blatantly incorrect information don't count. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 17:36, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

The poll showed no consensus to conduct the trial. Bigtimepeace, could you please explain why are you going over our heads and proceeding with it anyway? And Arctic Gnome, who are you to decide what is "blatantly incorrect"? Okay more people will be able to edit protected pages, but what about pages that were not protected? All votes should be counted regardless of the supposed "accuracy" of associated comments. I'm sick of the way that the supporters of this policy seem to be trying to make a consensus appear where there isn't one, so they can get their policy forced upon the rest of us. --GW… 22:09, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Take a step back, reread that comment, and try and see how it would come across to a strong supporter of the proposal. If you are "sick" of such supporters making absolute statements that consensus exists (when you believe it does not), how do you think they are likely to feel about people such as yourself making identical absolute statements that it doesn't exist (when they believe it does)?? The lesson, of course, is that it is fundamentally unconstructive to argue irrationally and rhetorically over the issue without any intention of being open to persuasion or, more importantly, compromise. Happy‑melon 22:22, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

GW_Simulations, votes based on inaccurate information have never counted. If I go to RFA and vote "oppose, he's a troll" against a good user, my vote doesn't count. If I go to FAC and say "opposed, no images" for an article that has plenty of them, my vote doesn't count. Since this proposal would allow more people to edit, the claim that it is restricting editing is inaccurate, bringing the validity of those votes into question. As for your concern about pages that were not protected, I can't think of any pages that would warrant flagged revs but would not warrant semi-protection, the number of flagged pages should be about the same as the number of formally protected pages. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 00:04, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

• • 1) The comparison of FR to semi-protection is a straw man, 2) if the result of the proposal is to implement this across the whole of Wikipedia, then there are plenty of pages that editing would be restricted on. That may be a pro-flagged protection argument, but here it applies to the whole FR proposal. --GW… 00:29, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
• Allow me to rephrase it, then. There was not a consensus per the previously established definition of "consensus". I am open to compromise, but I don't think that any of the currently proposed compromises are viable alternatives (with the possible exception of flagged protection, which I will reserve judgement on for now)--GW… 22:46, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

GW, the suggestion that we would ever want to extend flagged revs to the entire project is also a straw man argument. Of course that would be a bad idea, and very, very few supporters of flagged revs would want to extend it that far. The debate is about whether we want to implement them on articles that would otherwise be protected. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 19:16, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Announcement by Jimbo Wales

See [1]. DuncanHill (talk) 23:08, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

""You can edit this page right now" is a core guiding check on everything that we do. We must respect this principle as sacred". Riversider2008 (talk) 13:45, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank goodness we now have a software feature that brings us closer to that ideal. Today, we are falling short, in that we have to semi-protect or protect pages that we will now be able to allow people to edit. We will be able to unprotect even the front page of English Wikipedia for the first time in years.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 05:27, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Um. No we won't. -- Gurch (talk) 15:57, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

We're not going to enable it massively on all articles like on de. There are various proposals. I think the best option is to use it as an alternative to semi-protection, with lower requirements than the semi-protection policy when it comes to blps. And the first step is to implement a trial, limited in time and size. Cenarium (Talk) 14:45, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

So it's OK to break your 'sacred principles' as long as it is only in a "trial, limited in time and size"? Would this stand up as a defence? "Darling my affair with the au pair was only a trial, limited in time and size"... Riversider2008 (talk) 15:12, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

lol.. It wouldn't. But we already break our sacred principles when protecting pages, when we have some benefit in doing so. So we should do the same with flaggedrevs, only use it when it's fully justified and outweighs the negatives. And a page with flaggedrevs is better than a semi-protected one, no ? Cenarium (Talk) 15:31, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, "You can edit this page right now" is very important. Flagged Revisions in no way harms that ideal. Anonymous users will be able to edit pages that have the "Flagged Revisions" behaviour turned on. And their edits will be visible to anybody else immediately. What changes is that other readers will have to click an extra button to view recent unapproved changes, but that doesn't mean that the unapproved changes are not visible, or that it was impossible for the unapproved changes to have been made at all. Implying or stating that Flagged Revisions will remove the ability for anybody to edit is unreasonable, and appears to illustrates either a lack of understanding of the proposal, or a deliberate attempt to distort the proposal. If you want to argue against Flagged Revisions, there are plenty of honest arguments, such as "clicking an extra button is too much work for readers", or "readers won't notice the extra button", or "patrolling edits to flag them is too much work for trusted users", or "there might not be enough trusted users to do all the extra work", or "the user interface is too difficult to understand", or "the interface will scare people", or "the delay before edits are approved will discourage people from editing" or "I don't think it will reduce vandalism", or some others that I can't think of right now; please don't use dishonest arguments like "people will not be able to edit this page right now" or "unapproved edits will not be visible to anonymous users". —AlanBarrett (talk) 16:04, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

The rhetoric is merely being oversimplified. Anyone who understands the method by which FlaggedRevs works (which is a reasonable assumption of readers of this page) should understand that anyone can still edit—when people argue that FlaggedRevs* (*with flagged-revisions-visible-by-default enabled) denies editing rights to some, they are obviously not arguing that "people cannot edit", they are arguing that "people effectively cannot edit". Effective editing is something very important: many people opposed to FlaggedRevs in the proposed form understand that few passive users (as opposed to active editors) will follow a link marked "see most recent revision" when they already have a Wikipedia article in front of them. Please, in future rebuttals, consider what people mean as well as what they say—your accusation of "dishonest argument[ation]" is galling. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 16:20, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Alan I think your comments would be better suited on my user page. I have not been dishonest. If I have misunderstood the proposal as meaning that anonymous users will not be able to see the edits, that misunderstanding is also shared by some advocates of FR: see[2] where it is stated that only users with "higher rights" will be able to see edits. The strongest argument for FR is not to 'wreak havoc' on the lives Living Persons. If there are genuinely no other methods that Biographies of Living Persons can be protected FR might well be justified, but only then and only for that purpose, and then only with Cenarium's honesty (displayed above) that this does possibly contradict some of WP's 'Sacred Principles'. Riversider2008 (talk) 16:19, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to pick on you; I meant to make a general comment about a type of argument that I have seen over and over in this poll. Maybe I should have started a new section. —AlanBarrett (talk) 18:35, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't get this, Jimbo comments and everyone makes gets into a fuss as though the rest of their opinions no longer mean anything. He posted after the poll closed, but if we're generous and give him his vote that makes 430 in support to 281 against rather than 429 in support to 281 against, a trivial difference -- Gurch (talk) 08:59, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Alternative Proposals

On his talkpage JimboWales says this:

"Those who are in the minority who are opposed to this are invited to make an alternative proposal within the next 7 days, to be voted upon for the next 14 days after that, a proposal which is clearly aware that you are in the minority and that does not attempt to simply re-hold the same vote. I ask you to seek some detailed policy around the use of the feature that you think both you and the supporters can agree upon. Simply engaging in FUD and screaming is not going to be helpful, but I trust that outside of a few, most of the people opposed can actually work cogently with others to find a reasonable and responsible compromise position.

One possibility, and I ask you to simply consider this, although I do not support it. Suppose the plan were to simply replace the current semi-protection feature with the flagged-revisions feature? So that everything would be as it is today, with the added simple benefit that anonymous ips and new users would be able to edit things that today they are not able to edit?

Suppose further that, because the feature is softer, it could be used in a slightly broader set of cases. What set of cases should those be?" (my emphasis RS)

Those of us who have been vociferous in opposing the trials therefore now need to meet this challenge by thinking clearly about a compromise that would work for both sides - I think this is the real definition of reaching a 'consensus', in a way which cannot be achieved merely by holding a poll. I suspect there is room for a consensus around such a compromise, possibly on the lines Jimbo has sketched out.

If it could be achieved, what would be the bare bones of such a consensual proposal? (Since the strongest argument for FRs is to prevent Living Persons having havoc wreaked on their lives, perhaps a strong limitation of the use of FRs to BLPs and other places that are currently protected and semi-protected would be my initial feeling. I cannot see any case for further extending their use to topics that do not currently have some kind of protection inflicted on them). Riversider2008 (talk) 22:39, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

See WP:Flagged protection. Geometry guy 22:52, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm opposed to Jimbo's declaration that some sort of flagged revisions system would have to be implemented, seeing as the consensus is sketchy if not non-existent. If I had to choose a type of FR, I'd go for flagged protection. That, I feel, is the only possible method proposed that has a chance of making Wikipedia more editable. Sceptre ^(talk) 23:01, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

And you will be able to choose after a trial. For flagged protection, or for nothing. That is the meaning of the term "trial". Geometry guy 23:23, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, like restricting article creation from anons was a "trial". This has the potential of going the same way. Sceptre ^(talk) 23:30, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Okey. Compromise. The closest we have at the moment to flagged revisions in terms of seeing if we can keep up is the patrolled function for new pages. Now we can hope more people would step up to the plate to flag stuff but we have no real evidence they will. To this end I propose we allow anon article creation for a period of 2 weeks with the challenge to see if we can keep up with keeping them patrolled (challange advertised by whatever method people can agree on). This has the added benefit of seeing if it produces any useful content and if it reverses the apparent downwards trend in the article creation rate. It also provides an opportunity to settle some unwished business from the last experiment (turning anon page creation off was meant to be an experiment only). There are however risks that we may be overwhelmed so suggest we have a few people who have the authority to request the devs shut the experiment down if it appears to them to be causing significant problems.Geni 02:54, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

• Why should anyone consider something that the decision-maker does not support? Waste of time; decision is made and wrapped into disinformation (able to edit things that today they are not able to edit). NVO (talk) 03:36, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I strongly support implementing a trial of flagged protection instead of flagged revisions. Steven Walling (talk) 06:39, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Please explain how "flagged protection" is not a subcategory of "flagged revisions". In other words, opening for the former also opens for other trials, doesn't it? - Hordaland (talk) 18:44, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

How about providing a way to apply Flagged Revisions to specific pages by means of a bot, and since the articles about living persons are the articles getting the headlines and potentially causing real damage to a few living persons' reputations, have a bot apply this tool to that set of articles, and leave all the other articles alone. I agree with many who say that applying FR to all articles would be an administrative nightmare, but if we keep it to this very sensitive subset, that would seem a fair compromise. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 15:56, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I hadn't read far enough ahead to realize this is already being proposed. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 17:40, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

another alternative proprosal

One is warning templates on every article. Another proposal is that a panel of expert editors be appointed. We might need 3,000 people on the panel. All people on the panel would have to prove that they are an expert. All edits must be approved by them. Very bureaucratic but it may result in better edits. Discuss. At this point, I do not oppose or support this suggestion. Chergles (talk) 23:30, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

How can I vote

out of place new unsigned edit moved from the top of the page to here

How do you vote in this poll? Is there a button somewhere? Touch-screen?

Anyway, I am opposed to general editing restrictions in principle. Individuals that have a record of vandalism should be excluded from future edits (I assume this can be accomplished based on their IP#). High profile people are, by definition, of interest to public discourse. They will certainly have their supporters and detractors and it will be up to these people to shape articles by the "Wikipedian" process.~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnfravolda (talk • contribs) 21:24, January 23, 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately the poll was closed prior to your post here and your post was moved to the bottom of the page per standard talk page policy Dbiel ^(Talk) 01:55, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

"FlaggedRevisions means that when edits are made to certain articles, those edits are not immediately visible to readers, until they have been "sighted" by someone trustworthy to ensure they do not contain obvious vandalism"

What about the thousands of wikipedians who never knew about this draconian proposal? When will they have a say? This proposal will speed up what Articles for Deletion is already slowly doing: greatly curtail new user input and contributions. Although it is probably not the intention of the creator, this proposal is simply solidifying the power that abusive "elite" editors already use indiscriminately against other editors. Because the definition of "vandalism" is open to interpretation. When a word is open to interpretation, it is open to abuse.

Administrators with certain POVs will make sure that certain viewpoints will never see the light of day. For example, many "elite" editors feel like adding 9/11 conspiracy theories to wikipedia is "vandalism", and they have already effectively crushed that voice on wikipedia. Now they have yet another tool at their disposal: FlaggedRevisions.

I am sure that if a simple study of those who support this measure were tallied, we would find that the overwhelming majority of those who support this measure are established, "elite" editors, with more admins supporting the measure than rejecting it. Whereas the "reject" crowd would be less admins, with less edits. Ikip (talk) 12:25, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

This poll is not actually changing anything, except installing the software for trials, so fear not - you've missed nothing of substance! The trials themselves require separate polling and are at WP:FLR/P - the use of FlaggedRevs that you may be interested in is WP:Flagged Protection, which would allow us to lift semi-protection of certain articles and let anons and new editors contribute to those pages again. Some proposals are more draconian than others, but there is by no means one single way of using FlaggedRevs. Hopefully this allays your fears. Fritzpoll (talk) 15:08, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Your last conjecture is correct and has been verified through an actual study (see Study results and Independent results). Except for the "overwhelming" part; about 36% of the users who voted support do not belong to any user group. Melissa 4.0 (talk) 15:19, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but almost exactly half of those belonging to no group voted support. The statistic quoted is meaningless unless weighted according to participation. Fritzpoll (talk) 15:34, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

You have a point. The rest of the statistics (including participation) are available as linked above. Melissa 4.0 (talk) 10:42, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I want to vote

I didn't hear of this until just now. I have been editing for 2 years. How can I vote? Chergles (talk) 23:11, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Positive & Negative Approach

I apologize I'm so late joining this process. I only recently noticed the alerts about it. I'm sorry if what I'm proposing is redundant. There's so much material here that I have only read a small portion of it. I hope that my suggestions will be of use. As a teacher, I would suggest that we use a multi-prong "the Carrot And the Stick" approach to dealing with vandalism.

---

THE STICK

I. The use of Semi-Protection and/or Flagged Revision

I strongly support both. They are not going to solve all of the problems, but they will help with "drive-by" vandals.

• Equality I believe that protection of any sort should not be extended to only one type of page, but to all types because, regardless of the importance of the article, someone will vandalize it.
• Integrity In addition, I believe blanket protection of some type is essential to maintain the integrity of all of the pedia, as well as to reduce the overall load of work on those maintaining articles.
• Trust Protection forces everyone to have an account, which improves the trustworthiness of the articles, authors and the pedia as a whole in the eyes of those who use the pedia as a resource.
• Control If everyone has an article, then it is easier to exert control over the wrong-doers. Perhaps they just don't understand the processes, they are not good communicators, or there is something else affecting them - but they are not vandals. They can be guided. The vandals can be watched over.

Of course, this doesn't mean that the vandals won't change their names/accounts, or have multiple accounts with fake information. No measure is foolproof.

• Commitment Accounts can improve the reliability of contributors and encourage those who become members to act less like this is a chat room and more like a commitment, hobby or even a job.
• Quality commitment to the public FR helps to ensure that users have access to the last, best edition of any article, so they can be fairly sure that what they're looking at isn't the work of a thug, and can be trusted.
• Finally, while I understand that some people are very busy, I don't believe that is enough justification for them not making an account. It's not like it takes a lot of time to make an account or log in. There are undoubtedly other reasons to support semi-protection/FR.

Here are some possible vandal archetypes:

1. Vandals who do it on a "drive-by" or "one-time" basis, with no intent of routinely ravaging the pedia will randomly target articles of any type.
2. Vandals who do so for the sake of anarchism will target any article, although they may tend to target some articles/types more than others.
3. Vandals who do so for the purpose of slander/libel will target specific articles of any type.
4. Vandals who do so because they disagree with the stated information and possibly cannot achieve consensus with the other users will target specific articles of any type.
5. Vandals who are bored will target any type of article for the sake of amusement or "to stir up the hornet's nest" of users who maintain it. This is the extreme end of flaming, trolling and other types of instigation.
6. Vandals motivated by politics, money, business or other specific, market-driven forces, will target only specific articles of any type
7. Vandals of the previous type doing so covertly (espionage) will attack other articles/types in an attempt to appear random (so as to avoid suspicion of industrial espionage).

II. The use of IP-tracking and targeting

The tracking and targeting of IPs has been around for years and, IP-cloaking technology notwithstanding, can be employed to deal with static IPs, IP ranges, and areas where attacks often originate from. This can be done for all users so that better control (and easier reverts) can be had over those who frequently cause trouble. IPs/ranges/areas/countries can be blocked from edit access for a period of time, although the larger the area that is covered, the more affected innocents there are likely to be.

Of course, this could be implemented at a number of levels, including without any announcement.

III. Account Restrictions For recalcitrant users who cannot be reformed or guided, their account can be restricted. Here are some possible restriction types:

1. Read-only access (same as a non-member) - the user can read to his/her heart's content, but s/he can't do anything else (except on his/her own user/talk pages).

   In other words, a block.

2. Editor-approval - the user can contribute, such as via the user page or sandbox, but anything created must be approved by an editor, and then the editor will add it to the page - not the user.

   Nobody would bother editing like that.

3. Auto-Rollback - the user can do whatever s/he likes, but the system will automatically roll it back within X time.

   That would be dumb.

4. Suspended - the user's account will be suspended for X time, and the user will receive a warning in email. They can still read.

   In other words, a block.

5. Locked - the user's account will be locked (disabled)- long-term or indefinitely, a warning email will be sent, with a contract of compliance signed before the lock will be removed, with only read access.

   In other words, a block.

6. Disabled - the same as Locked, but the user will not have the ability to use Wiki at all.

   No. Read access is never blocked, and never will be.

7. Terminated - the user's account will be removed completely, a ban placed on the static IP (if there is one), and further attempts at membership will be rejected.

   Not technically possible.

Of course, only the honest ones will be affected, as the true criminals will just move to another account/IP.

---

AND

I. Verification Some sort of user information verification system might be created to reduce the number of fake accounts. How such a system might work, the logistics and stuff, are unimaginable for me. Maybe they'll have to submit saliva or other DNA samples (joke).

II. Consensus The requirement of announcing a change and waiting for consensus might be helpful, so that anything that is an unannounced change could be readily identified and rolled back. A surveying and voting system could be used to reach consensus, if needed, so the website would know announced from unannounced changes.

III. Trials & Analysis Testing of these things would need to be done, and all data on present and previous tests/trials would have to be collated and analyzed to assist in assessing the best course of action.

---

THE CARROT

I. As others have suggested, and is done, awards can be given to diligent members. A scoring system might also be implemented to help the selection process. Some possible rewards include:

1. Trophies that are put on a public list and on the user's page
2. A public list showing all trophy winners, with photo (with the user's consent) and brief bio
3. A temporary "highlighted user" article on the main page
4. A certificate or other reward that is sent to the user
5. Inclusion of a BLP for "highly decorated" users
6. Increased privileges/rank
7. Employment possibilities

Tendered for consideration only in the hopes of being helpful. ReveurGAM (talk) 07:51, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Interesting that your 'stick' is about 6 times longer, and much better thought out than your 'carrot' - perhaps if we could reverse this, rather than relying on technical software sticking plasters, many of todays problems would almost solve themselves. Riversider2008 (talk) 10:41, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I was running out of time so I couldn't flesh out the different suggestions in the "carrot" section. Besides, some of these things are already in play, so what was the point in providing details? They're pretty self-explanatory, don't you think?

The problem is not what we rely on to deal with the problems - it is the people, the cultures, the religions, the societies, etc. that make everyone so crazy that people feel a need to vandalize.

On a side note...The lack of civility I've witnessed on Wikipedia is far more than I expected, and I've only really been active for a couple of months. A comment like yours goes a lot farther when a simple "thanks for taking the time" is included.ReveurGAM (talk) 07:12, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

A compromise between flagging all new entries and having no system for verification

What is special about Wikipedia. People can see their contributions as soon as they have finished editing. I believe it is imperative that new entries are immediately displayed but there must be some kind of clear indication that they have not been fully approved. This could take the form of color-coding on the actual article page. With this system all new entries would appear red for example, distinguishing them from the standard text. In other words the actual article will look a bit more like the current 'edit' page. Readers therefore know very clearly which parts of the article they can trust and which they should be a bit more cautious about.

Problem solved without any radical and constraining use of flagging.

The current draconian measures which are planned to be implemented in the near future seem to be reminiscent of the Patriot act. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Omarcoaa (talk • contribs) 02:23, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Draconian measures like WP:Flagged Protection, which uses the FlaggedRevs system to allow wider participation by anonymous editors? Don't read the media hype - this was never going to be turned on for all articles Fritzpoll (talk) 11:22, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

FlaggedRevisions

Personally, as a Wikipedia editor, I see the potential for this on BLP articles and possibly as a type of protection between semi- and full (maybe for some semiprotected articles that could use it). But this will slow us down with current events, etc. Raymie Humbert (local radar | current conditions) 14:07, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Then you may be interesting in trial 13 and one of the others to do with flagging BLPs at this page Fritzpoll (talk) 14:19, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

One week is a barbarically long time for Wikipedia

Wiki means quick, and Wikipedia has always prided itself on doing things in real time. Now that flagged revisions is out (something I was looking forward to) Jimmy Wales wants to gives use a week to press a button saying an edit is not vandalism (sight an edit). How can this take a week? It the edit needs to be examined for that long the edit is legit; if that time is needed because the page is one 0~5 watchlists and no one cares about the article one week is not enough. Edits should not generally be sighted by patrols, but by the article's main editors, who know something about the subject, so pages with, so few people watching them that vandalism can survive after a day the article should not be sighted to begin with. I proposed a time limit of 24 hours on unsighted, unreverted edits, before they go live months ago. The proposal was shot down as not needed as there wound be no backlog, I was assured. After the Germain debacle and backlogs of a fortnight, Jimbo proposed a week, probably because he things it is possible on Germain and English, not because he thinks edits should take a week to go live. Why has no one questioned Jimmy on the week! A week on the wiki is like a year in real live. Any article that can be protected from vandals will be checked everyday and 24 hours is all that is needed. Zginder 2009-01-27T20:05Z (UTC)

Woah woah woah, who's to say that anyone watching an article "knows something about the subject"? That whole attitude smack of WP:OWN far more than "another class of users" does. The main point of sighting is to reduce vandalism, and (here's what people seem to be not understanding) even if it's sighted there's nothing stopping an edit from being reverted in the normal manner. So long as there's a "recent unsighted edits" (or whatever...perhaps better would be "oldest unsighted edits) page, in almost all cases it won't take long at all. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 20:27, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you of not discussing the issue at hand. I am not saying that only watchers should sight. Rather I am saying that only a small percentage of sighting should be done by patrolers of some kind. A sighter should be able to understand what he is sighting, some vandalism edits are minor and hard for for the random Wikipedian to spot. Zginder 2009-01-27T20:35Z (UTC)

What about people NOW who patrol recent edits? Do you think they know all topics well enough to decide if something is vandalism? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 22:04, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I think they can include an edit as vandalism, but can not exclude one, which is what sighting means. Zginder 2009-01-27T22:17Z (UTC)

Right now on the German wikipedia it takes a few hours on average, but there is a tail of hard or overlooked cases which does go out to 18 days...not good. Partly it comes down to having clear criteria about whether to flag or revert; the danger is to allow an "in-between" case which leaves edits in limbo, especially if there is no volunteer task force dedicated to sorting such cases out. Also, the Germans have nearly 150 flag-enabled pages for each "sighter" and we should be aiming for a ratio ten or more times smaller. So a 24-hr upper limit ought to be workable. PaddyLeahy (talk) 20:47, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

bureaucracy

Why the massive bureaucracy of a special reviewer flag? You'll never keep up with the traffic. I've a much cleaner plan :

1. registered users automatically gain an `established' flag after some minimal time & edit quota, possibly lightly longer if they originate from blocked IP ranges.
2. registered users automatically receive a `conflict prone' flag for various infractions, which then also expires automatically.
3. any `established' but not 'conflict prone' user may `review' changes.

I'm not sure how the `conflict prone' flag should be awarded but I'd suggest recently reverted edits and being blocked. You might also let any user may declare themselves and another user both `conflict prone' together and/or let admins manipulate the `conflict prone' flag via the blocking interface.

You'd also never subject all pages to flagged revisions, just give admins `flagged revisions` as an extra page locking option. You'd have some WP:RfFR page where people can ask that pages be locked or unlocked.

But yeah the current flagged revisions idea seems pretty worthless. 130.88.16.240 (talk) 21:27, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Have you got an alarm in your house

if so, what does it do?

I like to turn my house alarm on, I know people have keys to my home, but if I'm not there, the right people know the alarm code and the wrong ones don't. In effect FR is the alarm

Non registered users can only go in the garden and then to look in the window, that makes the light come on and the dog starts to watch them. If they climb into the yard and start trying to steal my lawnmower, well then the dog will make sure they get out.

Once we're registered, we get a key to the yard and the dog lets us go in and knock on the door and then leave if no-one answers

After the dog has got to know us for 10 visits, he gets a key to the house as well, the rest of the family let him into the house, and he's more than welcome to sit there with the family, as long as he behaves - if he doesn't then the family will set the dog on him and he goes back to the garden again until he behaves.

Thing is, what if the family isn't there ?? Now hes been around for some time the dog isn't really bothered by him, it's watching the other 10 new ppl. in the yard and out the window. He lets himself in to mooch around the house, he thinks hes ok, hes looking at my cd's and changing the chairs around, and even making himself a sandwich. He takes a bath and dries himself and after going upstairs and trying to get in my safe - he takes $20 and he leaves.

Now at this point, I don't have FR, I only have the safe and the buried treasure in the yard, I don't even know he's been until I get back, two days later and find my chair in the kitchen and the fridge door open - and someone didn't clean out the bath !

So now what do I do ? I get an alarm system, next time he comes in when we're not there he thinks he's ok, the chairs are moved, he starts to make a sandwich but when he tries to go upstairs through the new door - I just get a call on my cell, telling me that someone is in my house messing where they shouldn't be. I'm on my way back, and instead of two days its 5 mins, if I didn't have the alarm, I wouldn't know he's trying to steal my dog, the car and the jewels.

We could do this as a proportional rep A= all BLP, AB=all Bio, ABC=all bio plus important pages (such as USA, England, any article that receives daily vandalism) ABCD= includes vandalised every 3 or less days etc. If you look at the protected article study, it sort of shows:-

A	2:1	for	FR on BLP, Expiry on rest	66%	consenssus
B	2:1	against	FR all articles	66%	consensus
C	2:1	against	FR and SP on BLP	66%	consensus
D	1.7:1	for	FR all BLP	63%	consensus
E	1:1	deadlock	SP all BLP	50%
FvG	2:1	Leave	V do something	66%	consensus

I don't really understand how there are 548 unique - I make the tots Jan10=823 Jan17=923 = 1746 Gtot

If I add up all the votes:-
A+C+F+G = 169 out of 1746 = 12% (ignore)
B+D+E = 1577 out of tot = 88%

That means 88% of the people voted 88% consensus to protect the pages with either SP or FR with 3 ways of doing it.

And looks like
B+D (FR all+ Fr BLP) = 47% of tot vote
D+E (SP/FR all BLP) = 69% of tot vote

So, we have a consensus that we will either SP/FR all BLP from this voting table
So, what the hell are we arguing about ?? there we have a 69% consensus to protect all BLP, and all we have to do is decide which way

1 SP means users cannot edit - it will put people off and is against the spirit and aims of WIki
2 FR means people can edit, but it won't be final till approved

I vote for FR on all BLP

It's time to accept that we all have to get along and make this what it should be - a debate for betterment of WikiWorld.
Chaosdruid (talk) 05:06, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

548 unique users on 17 jan casted a vote, 1 user can cast a vote in different sections, all users are only counted once, participation count for the whole page, and you can't add up all the votes. Mion (talk) 11:14, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure we can count options A and C; that's 28 people, which is way below what is needed for such a change. Sceptre ^(talk) 16:29, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Too low participation for those too. I think it's high time to close this survey, it doesn't provide useful feedback any more. We should refocus on how to implement Flaggedrevs: flagged protection and other proposals. Cenarium (Talk) 16:52, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Was using this as a sort of proportional representation --Chaosdruid (talk) 02:02, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I make the tots Jan10=823 Jan17=923 = 1746 Gtot , wrong: the counted people on jan 10 are included in jan 17, Mion (talk) 10:26, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Examples of what an IP user would see

Actually this is something that should have been done a long time ago and would have avoid a lot of confusion. Note the examples are not perfect as it uses the standard default settings. But it does give some idea what the difference is

• Approved example
• Sighted example

Please do not edit the two linked pages. but feel free to edit any other page. Thank you Dbiel ^(Talk) 05:45, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

It should be noted that the current default view at http://en.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/ is for IP users to see the draft version. The Two links posted above added the stable parameter to the link. It is no wonder that there is so much confusion as to what will be seen and the experience that IP users will have. Dbiel ^(Talk) 16:00, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

FlaggedRevs documentation

We now have a number of parallel discussions now ongoing that consider possible implementations of the FlaggedRevs functionality, covering a huge range of configuration options; however, they all have a number of things in common, and I think that these areas should be the focus of our attention. Foremost, every proposal must either include an explanation of, or make an assumption that readers are familiar with, the FlaggedRevs user interface and how the flagging process works.

It is my belief that an important step forward for FlaggedRevs on en.wiki is to create a full but accessible documentation for the aspects of FlaggedRevs that are invariant across all the proposals: how pages are reviewed, how flagging is encouraged, how the workflow of the wiki is affected. An easily-accessible explanation of what the extension will entail and what features it will provide will, I think, go a long way towards resolving some of the innumerable 'trivial' concerns with the entire principle, and leave us free to focus on the important and legitimate issues.

This documentation needs to be independent of any particular configuration of FlaggedRevs, and focus only on the aspects that apply to all users on all wikis. It needs, in effect, to be "site neutral". Partly for this reason, I propose that we write this documentation on http://www.mediawiki.org, in its public-domain Help: namespace. This way, our work will be accessible to any other wiki that wishes to consider FlaggedRevs, and we can ensure a fair and neutral representation of the system. mediawiki.org is a website run by the Wikimedia Foundation, and is part of its SUL network: if you have a global account, you already have a login there - you should be logged in automatically. It runs MediaWiki just like en.wiki, and all the same features are available; it has most of the same community standards as en.wiki although its focus is on the documentation of the MediaWiki software. And it's where all our help content is running away to anyway :D. Since it will be a public-domain resource, once written it can be copied or moved in its entirety without any of the licensing issues that bug us constantly on normal wikis, so we can get it back here without any trouble at all, while moving it from here would be much more difficult.

I have begun work on a framework for the documentation on the appropriate page at mediawiki.org. I have added a few notes on the talk page for those who haven't been to mediawiki.org before. If anyone is interested in helping with this little project, your assistance would be very much appreciated. Happy‑melon 20:29, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

How can it be site neutral when we are talking about customizing the interface to work differently the the default interface? Dbiel ^(Talk) 21:22, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I read your post wrong. The copy being worked on in Mediawiki does need to be site neutral, we then then to expand on it here to cover the customization. Dbiel ^(Talk) 21:29, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's it exactly. We can take content from mediawiki.org and do whatever the hell we like with it here, but we can't work in the other direction without a whole load of hassle. Happy‑melon 22:22, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I am beginning to think that your logic is backwards. I think that it will be easier to try to build an en.wikipedia version first and then cut it back to be non-site specific. Actually writing both at the same time is probably best, but keeping the en.Wikipedia version very general to start with. The non-site specific version needs to be written for admins to help them write the site specific versions meant for users. The fact that nearly everything is customizable and changable including the terms used, it is very difficult to write without being somewhat site specific. Dbiel ^(Talk) 03:32, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

One possible breakdown of oppose vote

I have been through the oppose vote attempting to obtain an approximate breakdown, in order to inform attempts to obtain a greater consensus, the kinds of trials that we need, and what we should do next.

Viewpoint	!vote	Percentage of oppose	Percentage overall
1. In principle/"anyone can edit"	100	35	14
2. Impractical/backlogs	59	21	8
3. Particular implementation	42	15	6
4. Unsatisfactory test	18	6	2
5. Other	64	23	9

Of course many editors expressed multiple objections. I tried to identify the prime objection, but in cases where this was not possible, I recorded the !vote under "other". I would characterize the other four headings as follows:

1. Contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia, the encyclopedia anyone can edit; this will generally discourage IP contributions to the encyclopedia.
2. A bureaucratic nightmare: too complicated, impractical, will generate backlogs; this isn't needed and isn't worth the trouble.
3. Object to a a particular implementation: the German model, FR is turned on for every article, edits are "sighted" by an elite, FR is used not just for BLPs.
4. Proposed test is unsatisfactory, the trials are not precise enough or don't address the real issue.

Under "Other", as well as multiple objections, were opposes with no comment, opposes suggesting alternative remedies such as mandatory account registration, opposes suspicious that "trials" would be misrepresented and/or lead automatically to implementation, "not yet" opposes, and opposes centered on the idea that FR will create an aristocracy, kill the principle of good faith and cause ownership issues.

The breakdown is rough-and-ready, and the methodology is not scientific, but I hope the above information is useful. I had some personal responses to reading through the oppose votes, but I will add them in a separate thread. Geometry guy 21:00, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Have they tried the demo version on Wiki labs - [3] - the bar at the bottom is what we would use, click whichever option and give reason. Fairly simple and not too time wasting.--Chaosdruid (talk) 21:14, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

To do once, no, not too time-wasting. To do 200 times a minute, every minute of every day? Very time-wasting indeed -- Gurch (talk) 21:21, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Responses

It has been alleged that this poll shows that the community has rejected flagged revisions. However, adding together the fundamental objections in 1, 2 and 5 yields only 33% 31%. And that includes some "other" votes which are not fundamentally opposed to the principle.

Many of the opposes can be addressed by the implementation of FR. One proposed implementation, that arose during the poll is "flagged protection". In this model there would be no elite of "sighters" (any autoconfirmed editor could do it), and only a small number of editors who could switch on (and off) flagged revisions for a small number of articles. This may be contrary to positions 1, 2 and 5, however, it probably isn't contrary to position 1, since it actually makes the encyclopedia more open to IP edits, and even the objection from position 2 is weak, since the additional bureaucracy applies to a relatively small number of articles (the same order of magnitude as those which are semiprotected right now). If we (arbitrarily) halve the vote in 1 and 2, the oppose is 20%.

I would suggest that to obtain maximum consensus, any version of flagged revisions needs the following features:

• It would not apply to every article. Instead a small number of trusted editors would determine for which articles the feature was "switched on". The scope would be small: the articles currently covered by semi-protection, and not much more, but certainly some more BLPs.
• On those relatively few articles with flagged revisions enabled, many editors could "sight" revisions (e.g. all autoconfirmed editors).
• There is as little as possible additional bureaucracy involved.

Geometry guy 21:24, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

That still involves creating yet another arbitrary "small group of trusted editors", one of my main objections -- Gurch (talk) 21:31, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Then we could make it a large group of trusted editors. Like all admins; we trust them to protect articles and turn on blocks, so we would of course trust them with this.

GG's analysis is very interesting! I wonder what we would get if we broke down the support votes? E.g., into "unequivocally support a German-style system", "unequivocally support a WP:FLP-style system", "support a limited test of a German-style system", etc. My impression is that a lot of voters suffered from WP:TLDR, and quite a few voters on both sides seem to misunderstand the precise proposal. (There was also an insightful remark by someone about how little use the test server's implementation has gotten.) I'd look at it myself but I don't have time these days. Ozob (talk) 22:02, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I would be in favour of the "small group" being all admins, since this is the group that controls semiprotection, which is the nearest analogue. I tried to minimize a prejudice towards a preferred possible outcome in my analysis of the data. Concerning support votes, I would also be curious to know whether some supporters might oppose an implementation because it was too soft. However, I don't have a strong enough urge to investigate this right now! :-) Geometry guy 22:09, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

From the 33% "fundamental objections" I would also take out the votes concerned about losing our "anyone can edit" philosophy since the proposal would, in fact, allow more people to edit than it does now. That leaves 19% opposed for a legitimate reason. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 16:50, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

• As I stated previously, comparison to semi-protection is a straw man. It only applies to Flagged Protection, and if the proposal is to implement FR across the whole of Wikipedia, then those votes would have, as you deem it, a "legitimate reason". --GW… 17:11, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

GW, the proposal was to turn on a test configuration that could be used to flexibly implement a series of time-limited tests, details to be thrashed out on WP:Flagged revisions/Trial/Proposed trials, ultimately under the control of the bureaucrats (since they hand out the permission to enable flagging). Actually, I'm a bit cross that Brion Vibber has essentially refused to do this (despite Jimbo's request), until "some very specific parameters for the test" have been worked out—it might have saved a lot of shouting if he had made that clear before we had a 3-week straw poll. PaddyLeahy (talk) 18:17, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I think the setup of the straw poll created the problem, and during the straw poll the proposed trials changed, so how can you poll on something that is changing as we speak ? , It would have been more logical to enable the extension with the trial and disable it when it ends (including the user rights), at this moment the extension has no use without a trial set so lets focus on that for the moment. Mion (talk) 18:43, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

GW, it isn't at all a straw man. Currently anons can't edit any protected pages, and this proposal will allow them to edit any page. This is freeing up the encyclopedia. You are making a straw man argument by sugesting that flagged revs will be expanded beyond protected pages and sensitive BLPs. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 19:04, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

If we look at the current proposed trials, only trials 2 and 10 would "free up" the encyclopaedia. All others are expansion beyond BLPs. How would proposal #8 "free up" the wiki? --GW… 20:34, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I think the number of editors who support something like number 8 is minuscule, it's a non-starter. The only versions that even could get consensus are ones like 2 and 10, so those are the ones that we should be discussing. Worrying about flagged revs because you don't want the entire encyclopedia being under them is like worrying about the government charging you tax because you are worried that they might raise the tax rate to 100%. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 21:14, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

The purpose here is not to declare some opposes as illegitimate, or to construct a straw man, but to try to figure out what is being objected to, so that compromise can be found. I think it would be hard to find consensus for switching on FR on all articles, but there may well be consensus for an article-by-article approach. Geometry guy 18:54, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm horrified that anyone could suggest discounting the votes of those who voted against FR Trials on principle, fearing that FR could damage the 'anyone can edit' philosophy, This is not a 'blatant falsehood' at all. FR is a tool, and like all tools, its consequences will depend on how it is used and who uses it. If it is used in a draconian and clumsy way, and without clearly defined limits (on the lines of Flagged Protection) its consequences will mean that WP becomes more difficult to edit, and that it inevitably 'creeps' across more and more previously unrestricted articles, it will also certainly mean that legitimate edits take much longer to reach the front viewable page.

Those who feel that this minute analysis of opposed votes is a way of dodging the fact that there is currently no consensus are justified. Of course the 'Support' votes are equally, if not more vulnerable to such analysis, with much of the support being very grudging, and many voters being in favour of a trial, though opposed to implementation (I can't understand the logic of that particular position, but this is not a reason to discount it).Riversider2008 (talk) 09:40, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

How about an analysis of support votes as well? It would be interesting to know how many support for BLP reasons versus other reasons. Some people support a trial because they hope it will kill FR. --Apoc2400 (talk) 14:39, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Brainstorming

What is brainstorming? Brainstorming is when you discuss ideas without being afraid of suggesting something. If you are afraid, you may not even consider a possible solution.

The following is a brainstorming suggestion. There is a chance it is not a good idea. The brainstorming idea is to have another wiki, not quite Simple English Wikipedia, but maybe Beginner's Wikipedia. New editors edit there. Only when they demonstrate their ability are they able to edit in English Wikipedia. Up for discussion is how long a period should that be. One year is too long. One hour is too short. Chergles (talk) 17:18, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

This is the internet. Nobody will bother to do that. This is the whole problem with 'flagged revisions' in fact. Wikipedia has been built by hordes of random people doing small amounts of work for free for the satisfaction of seeing their work up on Wikipedia immediately. The small percentage of vandalism or inaccurate information posted is the price paid for the vast majority of good work undertaken. Flagged revisions, whose scope will only spread through the encyclopedia, will drive away this huge casual content oriented workforce leaving only the hard core process obsessed regulars behind to tend a pristine corpse. A wait of even a day or an hour or ten minutes is going to stop most anonymous people contributing. You're completely forgetting the massive difference in something costing a penny and being free online.

This proposal is supposed to solve Wikipedia's main weakness, but it's actually going to destroy its main strength - because they're the same thing. All this discussion about the particular administrative arrangements for instituting a trial is irrelevant, it's like debating what size and colour of cup you're going to pour the hemlock into. If you only want to have registered members contributing, and banning anonymous contributions, then do that. That makes more sense than this flagged revision thing which drives away casual users while bogging regulars down with a huge amount of pointless new busy work. The next time Sachin Tendulkar scores a test hundred, and fifty people try to add that to his biography, you're going to have fifty similar but slightly different edits waiting for approval. Who's going to sort that out? If all this happens it's not going to be me. Nick mallory (talk) 04:27, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Yet ANOTHER person who seems to spout off incorrect info. No, it won't be "fifty edits to sort out". At worst, a few IPs might waste a few seconds trying to input something that's already there -- when someone edits an unflagged page, they still edit the the latest version, so there's no conflicts; in addition, when they save the page they are taken to the new draft page, so they DO see it immediately. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 04:46, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I think you are missing the real point and goal of the extension. See Wikipedia:Protection policy Currently we block all IP users and newly registered users from editing a few thousand pages (Semi-protection) We also block all users except admins for editing a smaller group of pages (Full-protection). Flagged revisions will allow us to greatly reduce the use of current protection method and allow the editing of more pages by all users. Yes there has been discussion to expand its use beyond that, which need a whole lot more discussion before that would ever be implemented. But even more importantly, it would give all users the easy option to view a "stable" version of the article rather than sorting through the page history to try to determine which is really the last stable version, which most new users would have no idea how to do. Dbiel ^(Talk) 05:09, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Why was this poll closed?

I think it should be reopened. I didn't even become aware of this poll until the ArbCom case, and I imagine many others did not get the chance to participate. I also notice that since January 22, 32 users supported this proposal, while 6 opposed. I think this is the community's choice, and that we should solicit more feedback. Cool Hand Luke 22:21, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

It ran for three weeks! It appeared on watchlists! The closure was largely precipitated by Jimbo's comments which prompted the ArbCom case. Wake up! There are so many better alternatives to move on than reopening this. Geometry guy 22:54, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

So were at least three other polls. I voted in two of them, thinking they were this one. Orderinchaos 04:24, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

(ec) The poll was open for three weeks and was advertised on the watchlist, {{cent}}, AN, BN, VPR, VPT, and a host of other places. It's probably the most widely-publicised and widely-participated discussion in our history. I think at this point we need to move forwards in whatever direction, not backwards; while I agree with you that the community's involvement is far from over, I think the best discussions are now ongoing at Wikipedia:Flagged revisions/Trial/Proposed trials and Wikipedia talk:Flagged protection; reopening this poll would probably be counterproductive to those constructive discussions. Happy‑melon 22:59, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

You'll notice by the names that came in just under the wire that many people were unaware of this poll. It was far from the best-publicized in our history, Happy-Melon, but thanks for your opinion. Cool Hand Luke 23:09, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. I think we can say affirmatively that it was our best-attended; I forgot to mention that it also appeared in the Signpost. While I agree that not everyone who could possibly have wanted to participate did do, I'm not really sure how else it could have been neutrally advertised bar putting a message in the sitenotice, which AFAIK we have never done for an internal discussion. Happy‑melon 00:17, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Not the bested attended either, but well-attended. I guess I just dislike that this is being called a rejection of the idea; many of the opposition just didn't want to vote on an undetailed proposal. Sorry. Cool Hand Luke 01:34, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I stand corrected, I thought the rollback poll was the previous record. What happened after that poll? I see that WP:ATT is an essay, so did we judge it at "no consensus"? The %support was 48% so it's not entirely comparable, but it would be interesting to have a case-study to compare this poll against. Happy‑melon 15:46, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Polling ought to be reopened. I am a very regular reader and editor (something like 500 edits) and I didn't hear about the poll until today. I am completely opposed. If flagged revisions is implemented, it's the end of Wikipedia.jackbrown (talk) 17:48, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

What the hell is a watchlist, {{cent}}, AN, BN, VPR, or VPT? I have over 5,000 edits but I am generally unaware of what goes on behind the scenes on WP. Do you expect editors like me or those with less edits, particularly the anons who are so fundamentally important to WP, to find this page on their own? A radical, Nazi-like proposal which effects every Wikipedian should be advertised on the top of every article like how the fundraisers are. Thankfully the media have gotten on this case so I found out what was going on. Rehold the vote, make it a more inclusive process and I guarentee you will get a different result. --Tocino 19:03, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your point that the process is involving people who are familiar with certain aspects of Wikipedia administration -- I also first heard about this through the media. Some informed editors have discussed here the considerable statistical difficulties. The point was made that the percent in favor wasn't changing much, therefore further votes weren't going to change the outcome. But as someone who's been on anti-vandalism patrol for the last few months, with 1,000s of edits, it's peculiar no one asked my opinion, specifically. I'm one of the people who's actually had the burden for making the anonymous IP reviews. I also know many of the other editors who are doing similar anti-vandalism, and that I noticed, not a single one of them has commented on this.

I have very definite ideas on how to reduce my workload. They do not seem to be addressed by the options in the poll. I.e., neither a pro nor a con resolution would be my choice. If it's just for the purposes of reducing my workload, quite a few of the various alternative restrictions that have been suggested on anonymous edits over time would help. But then there's the question: How much is my time worth? If a dozen anti-vandalism editors can handle much of the anonymous IP vandalism, why change Wikipedia? But at any rate, if there are changes to make anti-vandalism more effective, then consult the anti-vandalism editors. Piano non troppo (talk) 19:56, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

"What the hell is a watchlist" see Special:Watchlist there is a link to it at the top of every page

User name - My talk - My preferences - My watchlist - My contributions - log out (note: bolding added)

I personally find it hard to understand how any serious (login) Wikipedia editor would be unware of the My watchlist link. Dbiel ^(Talk) 22:52, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

It should be noted that a related survey is still open at Wikipedia:Protecting BLP articles feeler survey It is also being advertised on the Watchlist Dbiel ^(Talk) 23:02, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't use the watchlist feature. I've probably only clicked on that once or twice in my three years of editing WP. I bet there are others like me out there. Also the anons don't even have the watchlist feature. I honestly still have no idea what {{cent}}, AN, BN, VPR, or VPT mean. Like I said earlier this vote should've been advertised on every article like fundraisers are. --Tocino 01:30, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I find it amazing that you can function here without using your watchlist, because it is your personal list, unlike any other list. When you make an edit, do you ever click the "watch" tag at the top of the article? If you do, that article will be added to your watchlist, and you can keep track of what happens to it. You can also go to your "preferences" at the top of your page when you are signed in and set it to automatically add every article you have edited to your watchlist. You can also add articles to your watchlist which you have not edited. Just click that "watch" tab. Start using your watchlist and you'll begin to discover much of what editing here is about. It's one of the important things that separates you from unregistered users. Of course there might be some totally different way of editing which you use. -- Fyslee (talk) 06:50, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I have been using the contributions feature as a substitute for the watchlist, because I use the contributions list to help me keep track of what I have been editing in the past. But then again I don't use the favorites tab on IE either. I enjoy typing in the articles or the urls I guess. I also always type in an edit description instead of using the minor edit feature. Also I always type in manually (instead of using these ~~ thingys) my username and the current date and time on talkpages such as this (I like to figure out in my head what the time is in London... they are usually 6 hours ahead of me). Maybe I am just weird but my point about this vote not being advertised enough still stands. --Tocino 18:54, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree that this poll was not very well advertised. Of course, it was mentioned in places, but for the vast majority of editors, it went unnoticed. I only found out about it because of a BBC News article on the issue. And even then, I had to go through the 'Wikipedia in the news' article to even find the discussion, let alone the poll. I'd imagine many moderate-to-regular editors did not know this poll even existed. Most still don't know. Something as important as this should have been put on the main page somewhere. The discussion is not even listed on Wikipedia: Community Portal. For an issue as major as this, the number of participants frankly isn't enough. The poll should be reopened, and be advertised much more prominently. This needs widespread discussion, because it will affect everyone. - • The Giant Puffin • 10:56, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Unlike what the mainstream press are erroneously reporting, the recently closed poll was to install a software extension that allows trials to be run. We are now looking at what, if any, trials of the software will be run. There is no plausible suggesting of turning FlaggedRevs on for all articles - Jimmy is talking about its use on BLPs and others are talking about using it in other, limited ways. for the trial proposals, which need a separate consensus, please see here Fritzpoll (talk) 11:18, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Uh, the poll was advertised at WP:Community Portal the whole 3 weeks it was running. PaddyLeahy (talk) 20:15, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

There are many different ways of being a wikipedia editor. Many such editors don't go to the community portal or use {{cent}}, AN, BN, VPR, or VPT. I would go further and say that most editors either just edit those things they happen to come accross when they are reading wikipedia, or perhaps look at a particular project page. Most, I contend rarely look at policy pages. Flagged revisions is, however, not a minor adjustment to policy but a significant change in the philosophy of wikipedia - to trust some users more than others on content. I think most users would have an opinion on that and therefore only 700 people being involved with the straw poll shows that it was not widely known. There is another issue here as well: I think those editors who did know about the vote are more likely to

1. be more interested and possibly more in favour of flagged revisions.

2. be more likely to fulfill what ever the criterion for "sighter" is going to be. Not too many IPs voted in the poll, for example.

Thus the straw poll may well not reflect the actual opinion of the ordinary wikipedia user. Thehalfone (talk) 10:19, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Thehalfone. I've been editing since 2002, and most of the time I'm more interested in, well, editing content than editing the rules and guidelines of the Wikipedia. Like Thehalfone says, there are lots of ways to be an editor.

But my interest in policy becomes extremely strong when I see a single change that I feel fundamentally alters the experience of the Wikipedia, and removes a path to participation that many of us have followed in becoming active editors. I started as an anon-IP editor, testing the waters, editing topics that I had solid knowledge on. Only after a month or two did I feel that it was actually worthwhile to create an account.

Had I instead had the experience proposed in this scheme -- that my edits are treated as untrusted, and that someone else has to come along and verify them -- much of the joy and magic of that first introduction to the site would be gone, and I most likely would not have become a regular contributor.

In this policy discussion, I am concerned that perhaps what has happened is that a self-selecting group of people who are really interested in policy is being taken as representative of the community. I think that with an issue like the one proposed, it is vital to: a) get consensus, and b) get awareness so that typical editors participate.

This issue is, IMO, just too big to be rushed. On controversial topics and big decisions, consensus can be difficult. It can take time. But this hard work and time leads to community involvement, and a stronger Wikipedia.

The Ted Kennedy edits cited in the discussion were not the end of the Wikipedia, the Wikipedia has survived much worse. We should make decisions deliberately, and with broad support. Not 60/40, with two sides unreconciled, not hurried, and not by fiat. --Zippy (talk) 06:29, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

If "re-opening the poll" is to be considered, it mustn't be just re-opened as it was. The subject of the poll was very poorly described and, in many cases, poorly understood. I'd be in favor of re-doing the poll, only if all the many misconceptions first were answered in a FAQ-type presentation. Some people assumed FR would be used only on BLP, others made other assumptions. A new and better proposal must include the various conditions iterated by the developers. It must include all the answers/explanations which came along the way, which the early voters hadn't seen. A very well-prepared new poll might mend the divisions in the community. IMO the proposal should at the start include some limitations on how trials may be done and evaluated, for example: just one at a time, no more than two a year, how to define consensus for a trial etc. etc. - Hordaland (talk) 10:40, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

A re-doing is probably the best idea. Either way, this issue needs to be better advertised. As has been already mentioned, most editors do just that - they edit. They don't spend a lot of time, if any, on policy pages. And its those editors that are missing out on this, and missed out on the poll. - • The Giant Puffin • 12:26, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I also feel that the poll closed too soon. It seems from comments above that those of us who just missed the poll are generally opposed to FR. Although this is not a vote, our opinions could have materially affected the close result. There is still time to contribute to Wikipedia:Protecting BLP articles feeler survey. Certes (talk) 23:41, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Community outreach is always important! Good intentions can result in mistrust if moved on too soon. I knew something big was going down earlier this week, but just now decided to have a looksee since this obviously has the potential to fundamentally change Wiki. My own thought is that non-registered experts and other people who only want to toss in one good suggestion on a whim - who don't have time for the hoops of Wiki - are being lumped in with WikiVandals, not out of some evil plot on the part of parliamentarians and bureaucrats, but because there really isn't any obvious way to sort one from the other. Clearly FRs are much better than protected pages, since at least the content gets into the system. It'd be nice to not have to have this, since it seems like a flesh brand on unregistered users, but it's probably better than the in-place alternative. Definitely would be good to have the discussion carried out much longer, though; this is one of those times when I would respectfully accuse Wikiholics of jumping the gun out of impatience, even though I consider the reasoning behind moving on pretty solid. Bring more people on-board. --Edwin Herdman (talk) 03:05, 31 January 2009 (UTC)