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_ MediaWiki Software _ Stable Versions available soon

Posted by: Unrepentant Vandal

From http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-March/040334.html

QUOTE("Erik the spoilsport")

The Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Germany have collaborated, with
financial support from Wikimedia France, to support development of a
new extension to our software
which makes it possible to flag versions of wiki articles as having
reached a certain quality. This new toolset could mark the beginning
of a new era for Wikipedia and its sister projects, giving readers
more transparency than ever about the quality of a given article. A
special note of thanks to Aaron Schulz, who has developed much of the
functionality as a volunteer -- we would not be where we are today
without him. The ongoing support and patience of Philipp Birken from
the German chapter was also critical.

Before this functionality will be enabled on any Wikimedia project, it
needs to be tested thoroughly for usability, bugs, security and
performance. Test wikis have been set up in English and German
(because the German Wikimedia community has been driving the
development of this functionality from the beginning).

http://en.labs.wikimedia.org/

http://de.labs.wikimedia.org/



On the bright side, more complex disruption will probably be made easier...

Posted by: Random832

On a more serious note, this provides a technical means for e.g. BLPs to be locked in such a way as that only a version approved by a trusted user is shown to casual readers or to search engines.

Shouldn't this be in the mediawiki software forum?

Posted by: Kato

<mod note>done

Posted by: cyofee

Get subtle vandalism into stable content.

Readers will buy it far more easily if they see a claim of greater accuracy.

Posted by: Somey

QUOTE(Random832 @ Tue 25th March 2008, 3:18pm) *
On a more serious note, this provides a technical means for e.g. BLPs to be locked in such a way as that only a version approved by a trusted user is shown to casual readers or to search engines.

Well, let's be fair - this actually has little to do with the BLP issue. It will probably mean a general improvement in Wikipedia content overall, just because of the immediate reduction in petty vandalism. I suppose it's possible that some "vandal-fighters" will get bored due to the lack of AnonIP and throwaway-SPA vandals, and possibly become vandals themselves, but that's highly theoretical. Either way, some vandalism will almost certainly continue, it will just become more creative and subtle. (And hopefully funnier, but I'm not going to hold my breath...)

As far as BLP is concerned, edit-approval will almost certainly be used as yet another counter-argument against an opt-out policy, since no established or "trusted" WP user will accept the idea that non-throwaway "trusted" accounts would ever be used for revenge purposes in BLP articles. Personally though, I'd say there are plenty of terrible BLP situations that are caused almost exclusively by established users, including quite a few admins.

If you look further into the future, there could be a fair amount of user attrition resulting from edit approval, simply because vandal-fighting is part of the fun. The attrition would of course be followed by a drive to add technical features to make up for the reduction in head-count. Once added, the new features will allow (if not directly implement) the "lockdown phase," at which point many of us who are currently attacking WP pretty much willy-nilly will simply pack it in for lack of drama. They could delay the lockdown phase for quite some time if they want to, but I'm betting they won't want to.

Posted by: Moulton

QUOTE(Somey @ Tue 25th March 2008, 6:31pm) *
Personally though, I'd say there are plenty of terrible BLP situations that are caused almost exclusively by established users, including quite a few admins.

I can confirm that chagrinworthy observation.

Posted by: The Joy

Ah, the stable versions!

Now, where is Hercules with that shovel!?!

Posted by: Unrepentant Vandal

Amazed there aren't more comments on this really.

Posted by: jorge

Ahh, now they'll have to get experts to make sure everything is correct laugh.gif .

Posted by: Alison

QUOTE(Unrepentant Vandal @ Wed 26th March 2008, 6:35am) *

Amazed there aren't more comments on this really.


Well, if you want to check it out in advance, test.wikipedia is running an alpha-ish revision of it. Take a look at the main page over there and you can see it in action. It's quite subtle;

http://e271.net/~alison/wiki/stablerevisions.png

Edit: Switched this from an inline image to a link, in the interests of safety! Click only if you trust me