Wikipedia talk:Flagged revisions/Sighted versions/Archive 4

message: If I am reading this correctly, if an IP editor sees an edit they what to make they click the edit button and see a totally different version.
If an article has a Quality version does it also have a sighted version?
Zginder 20:22, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The edit tab is removed when viewing the stable version. However, the tag at the top of the page links to the current rev/where to edit that rev and says that it can be modified. More obvious for IPs, perhaps, than just the "edit this page" tab actually. Voice-of-All 20:25, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Removing the edit tab? People won't even realize they can edit. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 01:34, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No. Look at the test wiki. The tag says "the current revision can be modified; X changes await review". It uses a message that admins can even further configure to make editing more apparent. Voice-of-All 22:27, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Editing what is already edited

message: What etymology (derivation) is being used for the proposed term "sighted"? Will people confuse it with "cited"? Was the term "visible" considered and rejected? Ignoring auditory confusion, "sighted" generally means "which has/had been seen" (ignoring also "which is able to see"), but does not refer to the intention to be seen or not seen. Perhaps the usage proposed here corresponds to publishing jargon. If so, IMHO, it is jargon which it would be better not to inflict on the public at large. (I say this all independent of any opinions on whether the proposal should be implemented at all).--SportWagon 20:41, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In English, as I understand it, "sighted" generally means "[which is] able to see". I.e. not blind. To say "[which is] able to be seen", you would generally use "visible". To say "[which is] unable to be seen", you'd use "invisible", or perhaps "unseen". However, it is rare to use "seen" as an adjective; it tends to be the default. I.e. you might say "unseen forces", but, in contrast, you'd usually say just plain "forces", or, more likely than "seen forces", you'd say "visible forces". I don't know why. And "invisible forces" tends to imply something magical somehow.--SportWagon 22:15, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

text: That's not to say "sighted" can't mean "[which is] able to be seen", but it only gets used in special circumstances, of which I don't think this is a case. In war, an enemy might be sighted by your scouts. But the word is then used because the enemy had been explicitly searched for. Even then, referring to the "sighted enemy", using "sighted" as an actual adjective, doesn't seem quite right. When you add the confusion with "cited", especially in literary contexts (such as wikipedia), "sighted" seems to be an adjective to avoid in English, except for the "not blind" meaning.--SportWagon 22:25, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I think in this context, it means "has been looked at". Rather a strange usage, really... How about "vandalism-free"? --Tango 22:34, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In the section I should have put this in (maybe) , a similar proposal was put forth and rejected.--SportWagon 22:40, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I suggest the use of the term inspected rather than sighted. It's clearer. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 01:35, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

text: "sight" is inherently a problematic word. While scouts might sight an enemy, and say the enemy "has been sighted", people would avoid talking abstractly about the "sighted enemy", because that would contrast with the "blind enemy". Further, "sight" appears to be related to "seek", and "sought", but isn't quite. And if we assume articles or revisions start out "unsighted", natural usage, such as it is, would suggest they become "sighted" when an appropriate entity merely sees them, and not subject to any approval process whatsoever. But the proposal instead does say there is a selection processed. (This suggests "selected" as an alternative). While "sighted", like many alternatives, could be said to be concise, these factors stop "sighted" from being appropriately concise.--SportWagon 14:55, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Etymology (Derivation) of sighted?

message: People said Wikipedia would fail to produce anything of quality, and look at it now. We can only tell whether or not this is a good proposal through the wiki way, that is, we try it first, and if it's bad, we'll revert to a no-flagged-revisions state. MessedRocker (talk) 21:25, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Amen. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:28, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This proposal, both halves of it, is fundamentally unwiki. That's what's wrong with it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:40, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Fundamentally unwiki? Not sure, but quality assurance is fundamental to an encyclopedia (and Wikipedia is supposed to be one, I think). --B. Wolterding 14:23, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Agreed. Try, revert, try again. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 21:54, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm pro-bold, but when proposing significant, fundamental changes to something as successful as Wikipedia, the burden of proof that the changes are necessary and practical improvements lies with those proposing it. This proof must be provided before any changes are made; otherwise Wikipedia would be trying out dozens of major changes every month. ~ Danelo 14:36, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree it is unwiki-ish to hide changes made by a sub-class of editors and privledge others. Basically, I wonder if it will drive new users away. I'm also still unclear about who will decide who gets the ability to change sighted versions and make them. Moonbug 07:22, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The Wiki Way

message: As the proposal currently stands, anyone with Surveyor Reviewer [corrected as per below] status would be able to approve of the accuracy of any article. I'm not certain that this is necessarily a good thing - I want mathematicians to check the math articles, biologists to check to the biology articles, etc. While I'm not saying that others are incapable of doing so, I don't think it's ridiculous to say that any true peer review process (which is essentially what this is) is faulty if the reviewers are not peers in the sense of having a deep and fundamental knowledge of the topic. Girolamo Savonarola 22:21, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this is a definite concern at the Quality/Reviewer level, but not necessarily at the Sighted/Surveyor level, where we're just looking for pure vandalism/nonsense. Unless people start putting particularly subtle libel, I think most of that can be caught without expert knowledge. I agree that Reviewing will eventually need to be topically based: there's a discussion about this in /Archive 2 I believe, where I asked if Reviewer tags could be given on a per category basis (and looked at (and largely dismissed) the potential for abuse of adding and removing category tags). However, Voice-of-All said that this would require a major rewrite of the privilege system as a whole beyond what can be done with a this extension. I think it will eventually need to be done though, butt probably not in this proposal. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 23:04, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Emended accordingly. (Got them mixed up.) Girolamo Savonarola 23:13, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

text: But right now, any editor (even those below the level of 'Surveyor') has exactly this power! Anyone can revert a bunch of edits - even if they know nothing about the subject and, indeed, know nothing whatever about Wikipedia. If a vandal reverts a bunch of my edits (they are still in the database - but nobody will see them without looking into the history) - he's doing the same thing as if he'd sighted some older version of the article and thereby hidden subsequent changes. That's more power than the surveyor has! SteveBaker 23:56, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm talking about the fact-checkers - whoever is going to review the article for completeness, accuracy, and proper sourcing. Girolamo Savonarola 00:20, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The 'quality' flag would be set following a review similar (or perhaps identical to) our current 'featured article' process. Active contributors to the page and people who commonly review featured articles would discuss it, identify things needing improvement, make updates, et cetera. When there is consensus that the page is accurate someone with the access would set the 'quality' flag. This gives input to people who are not 'mathematicians' (per your example), but there should be such input... to assure that the writing style reflects Wikipedia standards, that the information is properly referenced, et cetera. As the users working on the page would generally nominate it in the first place, and are notified of the discussion in any case, there usually wouldn't be any lack of people with knowledge of the subject. If you are looking for something like requiring that only those with a PhD in mathematics are involved in the decision, I don't think that's likely or sustainable. --CBD 11:19, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  See also #Quality...is dubious. Sighted is OK. above. NB, ragesoss has now removed reviewer status & quality flags from the proposal altogether. PaddyLeahy 11:35, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Who approves which topics?

message: My biggest concern with this is that account registration will be attacked next. Learn from the email spam war — everything turns into an arms race, a game of cat-and-mouse. If we assign having an account valuable to attackers (vandals, spammers, etc.), we'll get tons of accounts being registered for the purpose. If we add a time delay, we'll get tons of accounts that are idle for the time delay. We should already be looking ahead. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 22:29, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not simple account registration (which is already attacked for article creation privileges) that matters here. It requires 300 edits, and if would-be vandals put in 300 good edits before they start abusing the reviewer privilege, then I think we got the better end of the deal, since they'll be caught before they do too much. Would-be vandals have much easier ways to abuse us than through this.--ragesoss 22:36, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

text: So what's your opinion on this proposal then? --YbborTalk 22:37, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Account registration will be attacked next

message: I think the reason that so many people are in opposition to this is that it is too big of a change all at once. Some people are more resistant to change than others. I'm not saying that that is a bad thing; sometimes it may be best to gradually implement changes. This may be one of those times. My question to those who oppose this is: Would a very gradual implementation be more acceptable than the current version? I'm thinking something like this:
# Initially, we will predominantly use sighted revisions. These will only be used on FAs and possibly GAs (the GA process does not lend itself easily to implementing it like after an FAC). This will help to make articles regarded for quality stay in quality condition and will have very little chance of a major backlog. Surveyor rights will be given automatically with 300 edits or to those who ask an admin on a request page who aren't obvious vandals/trolls/other disruptive editors. Any abuse will be easy to spot because only FA/GAs will be sighted. Abuse may be reported to a new noticeboard or to an existing one such as WP:ANI or obvious abuse to WP:AIV. Reviewer rights will be given only to WP:OFFICE and WP:OTRS people for official work. (estimated time: 2 months)
# If this seems to work, and if the German experiment is a success, we expand it. Sighted may be used in place of semiprotection in some pages to test effectiveness against vandalism. (estimated time: 1 month)
# Begin main implementation. Create a process for assigning "Reviewer" rights so that we have enough reviewers to handle a couple thousand pages (FAs). Requirements should be mainly mainspace experience. This is so that people wwith the right know what to look for in article changes (what is an improvement, what isn't) participation in the FAC/FAR process would also be helpful. If there are no problems, the automatic threshold for granting surveyor rights could also be lowered as we begin to mark other articles as sighted. This should still be used sparingly; stubs should not be marked. Criteria could be created as to what should be marked as sighted. These could be slowly expanded to help with scalability.
Registered users of course would get to choose which version of a tagged article they would like to see. For unregistered users, they should see the sighted/quality version. We do need to remember that this is for readers as much (perhaps more than) as it is for editors and readers will want the accurate version. There will of course be a notice on top of the page and there should be an obvious link to the current version.
Please tell me if this is better/worse, if I'm missing something critical, other suggestions. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 00:07, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see why the reviewers can't be an ad-hoc committee, no special user status, with an admin reviewing their discussions and flagging the version they agree upon.--Father Goose 00:14, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought about that, but was afraid that that may create too many issues. Every article tagged as quality (if it is FAs there are over 1500) would basically be in a constant FAC/FAR(=possible huge backlog). If it is always the same editors commenting on the same article, there are also WP:OWN or cabal-ish issues. What we could have though, is a policy that any possibly controversial (large additions/removals) edits be submitted to an Wikipedia:Edits for review-type page for general discussion, while minor things (grammar/spelling, small additions/removals) could be flagged by anyone with review rights. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 00:22, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Until we have more formal systems of expert review, "Quality" versions are never going to mean anything more than the consensus of such ad hoc committees (as happens for Featured Articles, for example). So I agree with Father Goose that it's too early to talk about expanding the system beyond handling FA's and possibly GA's for Quality status. Other than that, think a phased rollout would be good, though I think doing the Sighted rollout all at once first, followed by the Quality, would be better. Having a period when Surveyors can only sight certain articles, then changing the rules makes it too confusing.--ragesoss 00:24, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: IPs will be able to edit anything (even George W. Bush) and once they start to edit they will choose to look at the current, not flagged, version. The extra click might drive some to register sooner than before. The only problem is that it might also drive vandals to register more often than now. PaddyLeahy 00:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: The third step is a bad idea. We can't claim to be a freely editable encyclopedia and then essentially lock down an article once it reaches a certain level of quality. -Amarkov moo! 00:53, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think an example which demonstrates why even the most solid, high-quality articles don't need to have flagged revisions is the guinea pig article. This has been an FA since May, and it has recieved very little improvements since. One would think it doesn't need much attention, much less from inexperienced users and IPs. But just the other day a new user who's only been around since July 16th uploaded both a useful new image and a good, cited fact that was not previously covered at all. Would they have even attempted to do so if they knew their change would not take effect until it had been vetted through some cabal? VanTucky (talk) 01:58, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: False dilemma. If they've been contributing since July 16th they'd have access and their change would appear in all views immediately. Even if they were a brand new user/IP their change would be immediately displayed to them, appear immediately for all logged in users, and (since it was beneficial) appear in short order for non-logged in users. I'm not seeing any sort of terrible discouragement from editing here. Especially when you consider that they'll be able to edit pages which they previously couldn't due to protection and semi-protection. Flagged revisions will allow all users to edit more freely than they do now. --CBD 11:10, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure that this is a false dilemma. There is no way to be sure that it would appear in short order if they were a brand new or ip user or a user with too few edits to become a surveyor or whatever, especially since once this system is implented there are going to be gobs of articles needing constant vetting. This proposal betrays the spirt of wiki and will be a nightmare to implement. I do prefer gradual implementation if people are dead set on implementing it. I also favour a low bar for automatic surveyor status. As a new user I can testify that wikipedia already has a steep learning curve. Making it steeper WILL drive people away.Moonbug 07:31, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Query to opposers

message: For such a major proposal, I am curious as to whether anyone "high up" is taking this seriously? As an opponent of this idea -- which amounts to changing "edit this page" to "suggest an edit to this page" -- I would like to know whether to worry that it might actually come to be. Sdedeo (tips) 00:24, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe, if you read above, this is comming directly from the foundation. They have said (I believe) that they want community input, though it seems that there is some debate as to whether they will listen one way or the other. Adam McCormick 00:30, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: It's been planned and looked forward to for quite a while now. I'm pretty sure everyone "high up" that you could think of expects some sort of implementation of stable versions to happen sooner or later. But that doesn't mean the implementation will necessarily default to showing anonymous readers the flagged version; it's going to be up to each project to decide how to use it. It may offer readers the chance to see the flagged version, rather than showing the flagged and offering the current version (at least at first, if not permanently).--ragesoss 00:34, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Search Archive 2 for comments by User:Eloquence. NB: this was discussed in the candidate Q&A in the board elections, so they have a mandate of sorts. And no, it amounts to editing a "work in progress" page which is not the default view of casual readers, although they can look at it if they want. PaddyLeahy 00:38, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a very complicated way of saying the same thing. To me, this whole idea -- with its bizarre layers and titles and levels of authority -- is pretty much what you'd expect from wiki's swelling bureaucratic class. Sdedeo (tips) 00:43, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Directly from the Foundation? Hmm, that sounds an awful lot the definition of bureaucracy to me. "A system of government in which most of the important decisions are made by state officials." VanTucky (talk) 00:46, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Taking it quite seriously indeed -- a contractor was even hired by the WMF for the development of FlaggedRevs (that has, however, for the most part been taken over by Aaron Schulz). It's pretty certain that such a thing will be implemented -- at least for a trial period -- in some form or another; however, it will likely be up to us as to exactly how it will be used. AmiDaniel (talk) 04:19, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: who is backing this proposal

message: Because of the high level of opposition to particularly aspects of this proposal, and the "Quality" versions in particular, I've removed that from the proposal. We should take this one step at a time, and it is perhaps overwhelming to thing of too much change at once.--ragesoss 00:54, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: IMO almost all of the opposition to this proposal has been based on incorrect assumptions of what it is and how it would work. Changing the proposal to conform to inaccurate ideas seems counter-productive. For instance... if the most recent version (rather than most recently flagged) is displayed to IP users by default, per the change you cite above, we won't be able to remove semi-protection from pages. New users and IPs will still be prevented from editing those pages at all and thus we would be keeping restrictions on their editing privileges rather than removing those restrictions as the flagged revisions are intended to do. Given that the opposition has almost universally voiced disapproval of restrictions on editing it is perverse that the result of their efforts would be something which, in fact, causes greater restrictions. It seems self-evident that IP and new users being able to make edits which are immediately visible to all non-logged in users, and which will be visible to ALL users the next time any regular contributor updates the page and approves them, is far far less restrictive than IP and new users being unable to edit the page at all. The change on fully protected pages is even greater... all users will be able to edit the page rather than just admins. Yes, the contributions of IPs and brand new users won't be displayed to non-logged in users immediately, but 'short delay for SOME users to see the change' has to be better than 'you cannot edit this page at all'. --CBD 13:15, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly. Sighted versions have only ever been intended for anon users (logged in users are assumed to want to edit, that's why they logged in), and anon users don't have preferences, so they can't change away from the default. The default has to be showing the sighted version to anons, or there is no point having the feature at all. We could have a 2 week test before setting that default to make sure we have the procedures for sighting things all sorted out, but more than that defeats the whole point. --Tango 15:21, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I certainly agree, but it might also make sense to begin with having it not default the sighted version, and once editors get used to it and we know how sighting patterns work out (in terms of backlogs, "flag wars", etc.) we can switch to take advantage of the intended purpose. That said, I'd be happy to see it reverted back to sighted-as-default for non-logged-in users (which, now that I check, you've already done).--ragesoss 19:28, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that showing the latest version (not the sighted version) in an early phase would be the wrong rollout strategy. It would not demonstrate how the system works, and probably editors wouldn't be much interested in it. One should in fact start small; but IMO rather with applying sighting only to a selected number of pages first, say semiprotected ones, and gather feedback from that. I'm quite sure that, this way, users will want to adopt the new system for more pages quite fast, say Wikiprojects who want to protect their top-importance articles from vandalism. --B. Wolterding 11:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Quality" aspect removed

message: I've modified the proposal further, to have the current version as the default view, at least initially. I feel strongly that eventually having flagged versions as the default view is the way to go, but the opposition to that aspect of it is stronger than was apparent during the drafting of the proposal.--ragesoss 01:25, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: IMO almost all of the opposition to this proposal has been based on incorrect assumptions of what it is and how it would work. Changing the proposal to conform to inaccurate ideas seems counter-productive. For instance... if the most recent version (rather than most recently flagged) is displayed to IP users by default, per the change you cite above, we won't be able to remove semi-protection from pages. New users and IPs will still be prevented from editing those pages at all and thus we would be keeping restrictions on their editing privileges rather than removing those restrictions as the flagged revisions are intended to do. Given that the opposition has almost universally voiced disapproval of restrictions on editing it is perverse that the result of their efforts would be something which, in fact, causes greater restrictions. It seems self-evident that IP and new users being able to make edits which are immediately visible to all non-logged in users, and which will be visible to ALL users the next time any regular contributor updates the page and approves them, is far far less restrictive than IP and new users being unable to edit the page at all. The change on fully protected pages is even greater... all users will be able to edit the page rather than just admins. Yes, the contributions of IPs and brand new users won't be displayed to non-logged in users immediately, but 'short delay for SOME users to see the change' has to be better than 'you cannot edit this page at all'. --CBD 13:15, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly. Sighted versions have only ever been intended for anon users (logged in users are assumed to want to edit, that's why they logged in), and anon users don't have preferences, so they can't change away from the default. The default has to be showing the sighted version to anons, or there is no point having the feature at all. We could have a 2 week test before setting that default to make sure we have the procedures for sighting things all sorted out, but more than that defeats the whole point. --Tango 15:21, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I certainly agree, but it might also make sense to begin with having it not default the sighted version, and once editors get used to it and we know how sighting patterns work out (in terms of backlogs, "flag wars", etc.) we can switch to take advantage of the intended purpose. That said, I'd be happy to see it reverted back to sighted-as-default for non-logged-in users (which, now that I check, you've already done).--ragesoss 19:28, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that showing the latest version (not the sighted version) in an early phase would be the wrong rollout strategy. It would not demonstrate how the system works, and probably editors wouldn't be much interested in it. One should in fact start small; but IMO rather with applying sighting only to a selected number of pages first, say semiprotected ones, and gather feedback from that. I'm quite sure that, this way, users will want to adopt the new system for more pages quite fast, say Wikiprojects who want to protect their top-importance articles from vandalism. --B. Wolterding 11:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Another step back: Current version as default

message: I don't like it because it's too liable to cause arguments. I also think that it goes against the "anyone can edit" dictum that we pride ourselves on. Vandalism only accounts for 6% of edits, anyway, and given the level of anonymous edits that are actually valid, I think the log would quickly become umanageable - we have a hard time catching up with vandalism as it is. On the subject of sighted newpages, I don't like more, some requirements, such as "unencyclopedic content" are subjective (for example, trivia is, but that didn't stop at least one article from becoming featured (yes, I know it got demoted)), while the spell-checking and stub requirements discriminate against non-specialists and non-native speakers - anyone can edit, not just fluent English speakers, and stubs are vital as they exemplify the "anyone can edit" dictum more than an FA does, as a stub encourages people to edit ("it's okay, we won't bite") while an FA discourages (because it's complete). Will (talk) 01:07, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as being 'backed up', one imagines, I'd hope, that there could be a listing of the pages with the most needed edits for sighting, etc. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 01:33, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Given that the current system works pretty spectacularly already, why change it? This seems like a perfect situation to use the adage 'if it ain't broke don't fix it.' Backlogs and betrayal. That is pretty much the essence of this proposal as far as I can see. I've pretty much said all this already, so I'll shush now. Moonbug 07:39, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: My two cents (what I posted on the poll)

message: From MediaWiki: Article validation allows for Editor and Reviewer classes of users...[emphasis added] Since the use of flagged revisions by definition requires the creation of a new class of user with special privileges, and in recognition of the idea that "Wikipedia's success to date is entirely a function of our open community" (from Jimbo) and that we are strongly admonished that "there must be no cabal, there must be no elites, there must be no hierarchy or structure which gets in the way of this openness to newcomers." I believe this proposal should be soundly rejected as a contradiction of the spirit of transparency and welcome that Wikipedia represents. To quote the man once more, "'You can edit this page right now' is a core guiding check on everything that we do. We must respect this principle as sacred." By taking away the "right now" factor of this concept, we discourage, and may effectively destroy, this guiding principle of openness and ease of editing (for everyone) that a wiki encyclopedia embodies. VanTucky (talk) 02:14, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you hit the nail on the head. .V. [Talk|Email] 02:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't think that this additional feature is directly in conflict with your statement, many of the extra comments made by editors above do and it could be implemented badly, but the tool itself is no more abhorant to openness that any of the already present levels of "Adminship" etc... Adam McCormick 03:19, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Adminship is not a requirement for making direct, immediate edits to articles. It is a system of mediating the factors surrounding editing, and does not automatically and permanently preclude the ability of anyone to make substantive changes to an article. No other factor of the current Wikipedia bureaucracy permanently negates the ability of all to edit articles in real time. Actions such as banning individual users and making temporary protections all pass the test of strict scrutiny; meaning that measures instituted for security address a compelling community interest, and are narrowly tailored to achieve that objective and no other. The current proposal does not. VanTucky (talk) 03:31, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds like someone's channelling Alexander Hamilton :-). Remind us which clause of the Constitution enshrines the right to direct, immediate edits to all Wikipedia articles in real time? Also, an exhaustive list of all categories of "compelling community interest" will help too, please have that ready asap. I'm betting the list includes "verifiability", "reliability" and "freedom from vandalism". dr.ef.tymac 03:57, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: And immediate appearance of all edits by everyone is not a requirement for the open community and open editing of Wikipedia. Edits are still recorded, and anyone who wants to see them can. In fact, the 'unsighted edits don't show for everyone' version of this proposal (which is not a necessary part of the implementation) will allow increased open editing on semi-protected pages, which currently can't be edited at all by anons and new users. This would allow us to do away with semi-protection (and with the later addition of other flags, we could even open up the Main Page for editing by everyone).--ragesoss 03:59, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for mocking my sincerity dr. I guess if the basic structure of what a wiki system stands for, and the opinions of Wikipedia's founder, mean nothing to you then there's no convincing you. If you think that the quest for absolute accuracy supersedes the direct, open editing of content, then I personally think Britannica and Citizendium would be a perfect fit for you. The problem is, is not that edits must be enacted immediately, but that a special class of users must vet the edits in order for them to take effect. If it was just a small waiting period (which, btw, doesn't seem to be necessary or make much sense, wiki means quick after all) then there would be no serious problem. But creating two classes of editors, those who must have their edits have a waiting period and those who are "trusted" not to, violates the equality of all content contributors that Wikipedia is meant to have. Another problem is the decision about which articles qualify for the flagging; is it just pages that were often semi-protected, FA's, GAs? It's completely subjective. VanTucky (talk) 04:11, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They've already let slip that it's only FAs at first, and if it "works well," they will eventually apply it to all articles. The stated plans have continually changed, since the beginning of this discussion (read it straight from the top, and you'll see what I mean). Badagnani 04:14, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I still think that, while they sound nice, the current requirements for sighted pages are extraordinarily too broad and unspecific to be practical and fair in application. And it seems like a disgustingly small number of the hundreds of thousands of contributors to this wiki are shaping this proposal, which would so fundamentally change how the project works. VanTucky (talk) 04:17, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Apologies, VanTucky, no offense was intended in my reflections on your earlier statement. You do make legitimate points. (although I respectfully suggest reasonable people might disagree on the seriousness and extent of the changes necessary to make a proposal like this workable) ... my only humble request would be for people to reserve any dire pronouncements of gross inequality and Citizendium-doomsaying until more people have had a chance to weigh in. dr.ef.tymac 04:53, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a completely reasonable request, but I don't think (from some of the comments made here) that it matters whether 1 or 1,000 users weigh in on this. Several people have made it clear that this was decided by the Foundation and those who got to contribute at Wikimania, and that despite any vocal opposition it will be enacted in some fashion. VanTucky (talk) 06:02, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: "...this has been discussed ad nauseum, and, ultimately, the Board wants it, so it's going to happen. I don't feel much need to get upset about it. AmiDaniel (talk) 10:07, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Well, I think the last notion is a bit early Rage, considering a patently wide selection of Wikipedia users have not had their opinions solicited. And in terms of whether this has been decided on already, some have asserted otherwise as above (not that the opinion of one or two is fact, but the Foundation hiring someone to oversee the technical side is pretty convincing). VanTucky (talk) 06:19, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: * (edit conflicted) It is going to happen. But it will happen because (in those ad nauseum discussion for it) the arguments for doing it greatly outweigh the arguments against, and sooner or later we'll hammer out a solid consensus proposal on how to implement it. It won't happen against the collective will of Wikipedia, but with it. AmiDaniel has been around long enough to know a discussion that's on the wrong track when he sees one, and he's confident (as am I) the things will get back on track once we start talking about how this can best be used to make Wikipedia better and stop arguing past each other with artificial support/oppose comments. VanTucky, we're still in the "develop the proposal phase", not yet to "solicit everyone's opinion for a yes/no vote" phase. The Foundation hired someone because (this discussion notwithstanding) that's what English Wikipedia and other projects asked for.--ragesoss 06:27, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: **Please strike this comment. If anything could move me to permanent and unconditional opposition, it is this sort of declaration of a "wave of the future". Where did English Wikipedia ask for this, anyway? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:00, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Putting it mildly, your idea that the arguments for doing it "greatly outweigh" the arguments against, is not exactly sterling in character. This constant hammering of "we're still in development, stop making comments in opposition" needs to cease. It is not your job to tell others when they should or should not make comments pertaining to the subject at hand, and how they should make them. I don't think a discussion about how "this can best be used to make Wikipedia better" is in order, considering it is my opinion that this cannot, in any fashion of implementation, do so. VanTucky (talk) 06:38, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Even with the current version displaying as the default (as the proposal currently reads), you think it worthless?--ragesoss 06:53, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: VanTucky, if nearly all active participants are in the 'class of users' then it can't, logically, be called an 'elite'. The idea behind 'sighted' is that everyone who positively contributes to the project will get it in short order. Only people who have no provable record of positive contributions (or a proven record of negative contributions) would be 'excluded'. Basically, that means dynamic IP addresses, new user IDs, vandals, and the like. In that sense it is no different than the current restrictions on semi-protected pages, article creation, or page moves. We already have this 'other' class of users, and we have had it to varying extents since Wikipedia was created. The 'quality' setting will be held by a smaller group of users, but its purpose is to identify versions of pages which community consensus holds to be of high quality... the access is restricted to prevent just anyone from being able to falsely say a particular page has been approved by the community. Thus, the people who have it don't receive any 'special privilege' in debates - they're just agents acting on behalf of community decisions. Finally, nobody loses the ability to 'edit the page right now'... indeed, users who currently don't have that will be GAINING it. Right now an IP/new user can't edit a semi-protected page at all. After this is implemented they will be able to do so immediately. Yes, there will be a delay before that edit is incorporated into one view of the article (it will be immediately visible on the current view), but if it is a good edit it WILL be... and that's obviously an INCREASE in their editing abilities. Ditto fully protected pages. When this change is rolled out there will be far less need to protect pages against vandalism... meaning that all users will be able to edit these pages that they are currently blocked from contributing to. In short, I don't think 'the negatives are outweighed by the positives' so much as I don't agree that the negatives are even accurate. This feature will increase the ability of all helpful users to edit Wikipedia by replacing our current protections that hit everyone with delays that hit only those we don't know mean well. --CBD 10:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I wanted to be quiet here, but I can't stand the way that some people assume to talk for 'the community'. The problem with special class users is that they don't implement the will of the community, they arbitrate and decide the will of the community. Just like this discussion is assumed to have a foregone conclusion. I just heard about these proposed changes, and I assume I will be lumped into the category of those who " vocally oppose anything" because I oppose this, even though that is not the case. I understand that since I'm a newer user my opinion won't be valued as much, but I never understood just how stratified wikipedia was until now. It really destroys lots of the magic for me. I think there should be a requirement for a certain number of users to vote on a proposal like this, and a greater than 60% rate of acceptance. Of course, as everyone has already pointed out that this whole thing is a foregone conclusion I don't even know why I am bothering to say anything at all. I just don't get the bollucks argument that this will increase access, since changes won't be made visible until they are vetted! I find this argument to be very misleading. Increased access doesn't mean having to wait for weeks to see your change included in the public version. At least semi-protected versions only apply to a few articles. Moonbug 07:52, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: the definition of...

message: Not being a one-line stub is listed as a requirement for being flagged. Later, we're told that "[n]ew pages created by Surveyors can be auto-sighted as well." So let's say an administrator decides I'm suitable to be a surveyor, and the next day I create a one line stub. Would it be dereliction of my duty to not remember to go desight the page which has been automatically flagged? It may seem trivial, but it will come up eventually. Picaroon (t) 04:25, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Since the idea that stubs fail the requirements makes good sense to me, I think it is a better idea to scratch the automatic sighting of articles created by surveyors. as a side note: what's with the arbitrary caps on the term surveyor? That doesn't exactly passify the concerns of those accusing the proposal of creating more hierarchy and excess bureaucracy. VanTucky (talk) 04:35, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: All stubs fail the requirements? What about longish ones, like Idris Legbo Kutigi? Or do you just mean the one-liners? Picaroon (t) 04:54, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry for the generality, I just meant one-line dicdef-type ones. VanTucky (talk) 05:00, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Good point, I've separate autoreviewing on updates and on create in the software. Voice-of-All 09:40, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Personally I think that we should allow one line stubs to be sighted and, like any other edit, do so by default if the user creating it has the privilege. The idea is to identify pages as 'believed to not contain bad information'. Short stubs contain limited information... but still information about the subject. It is better to give a user a page saying, 'Teletubbies is the title of a children's television show and a descriptive name for the characters on it' and hope they expand it than to show them nothing at all. The one line stub tells them what the thing is. That's inherently better than telling them nothing. --CBD 11:00, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree, stubs and oneliners should be allowed to be sighted. As one of the editors in the WT:WPSPAM and WP:COIN projects, it would be great to just stub down non-neutral articles (those that are notable, but advertising or non-neutral), and then sight that stub. The non-neutral editors can then do what they want, there is a neutral stub that is sighted and which is seen first, and only when another reviewer sights a newer (neutral) version, the stub will stay. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:39, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I also think sighting stubs should be allowed. This will allow us to put wiki's best foot forward, even for the smallest articles. --Falcorian (talk) 17:35, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Has some depth (not a one-line stub)."

message: I heard about these changes from Jimbo Wales several months ago. I'm excited that they are possibly soon going into effect. It's an interesting development, and the Quality versions' flag could be very useful if there was a caption to go with it. You could note that this Quality version was referenced by such & such publications. I'd definitely participate in checking off sighted versions for the articles on my watchlist. Roll-out to English Wikipedia ASAP, please.-BillDeanCarter 09:20, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There should be benefits for both readers and editors. Wikipedia's readers outnumber its editors by far. If more readers are attracted to Wikipedia, and that happens every day, then more of them will eventually become editors, even if at first they dont edit, or even realize for a while that they can do so, by clicking on whichever button, when they first stumble upon it. More readers, more editors, better project. Newbyguesses - Talk 00:23, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Exciting stuff

message: Think of how a group of researchers collaborate to publish their results. Or, better, how a large group of developers write software. You create a first version, make it available. Then continue to improve it till a further releasable version is reached. Then make it public. Then continue the process. --Knverma 09:47, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Analogy with software development

message: I'd be much happier about this if there was clear communication about this from the developers to the community, and from the Board to the community. Sometimes, shall we say, the communication levels go up and down. As the proposed implementation gets closer, I would like frequent, regular and reliable updates, even if it to say "no more news yet", along with a clear timeline that stays accurate and is updated. Also, I think there should be advance planning for contingency plans - what the plans are if things go wrong, if there is an uproar in the community, and how easy it is to reverse some of these changes. If things do go even slightly wrong, people will be more easily reassured if they can see evidence of clear planning and well-written, clear explanations, plus links to discussions. So, who are the people that will be doing this? Carcharoth 11:47, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Communication and contingency plans

message: I see I'm not the only one to reach this proposal and not understand it. Perhaps the Proposal could be reworked by those who do understand it, so that people don't need to come here to ask what it means. --Dweller 13:08, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, the proposal is incomprehensible at present. To the extent I comprehend it, I think it will be a net negative for the project. GRBerry 15:12, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think the only way to really understand this would be to play around on the test wiki. A more full scale public test which will be made available before any decisions are made on this. Even so, I think the only way to really understand the net effect would be to experiment on the semi-protected pages. There is so much speculation about whether people will be discouraged or not, but the only real way to find out is to try this out and read what they write in the slashdot comments. --Merzul 17:31, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Eh?

message: I am not the only one to think "sighted" sounds just plain odd. Here are alternatives I thought of, largely during my waking hours this morning. (In no particular order, some of which I think aren't much better than "sighted/unsighted").
* vetted/unvetted
* externalized/unexternalized
* inspected/uninspected
* approved/unapproved
* authorized/unauthorized
* published/unpublished
* propagated/unpropagated
To clearly convey the idea of "observed by authority", perhaps...
* observed/unobserved
* discovered/undiscovered
* uncovered/covered
* seen/unseen
* spotted/unspotted
* revealed/unrevealed (unhidden/hidden)
* unconcealed/concealed
* publicated/unpublicated
(The last one satisfies the suggestion that the word be deliberately contrived and unfamiliar).
"Sighted" is largely bad because of possible confusion with "cited" (not to mention "sited"). However, it's also bad because its use as a stand-alone adjective tends to be avoided because it might be understood as "not blind". Note that "spotted" is similarly bad because it can mean "possessing physical spots" (e.g. a leopard).
It is probably best to use a base word, with an "un-" negation. (But using a "non-un" word from each column could be considered; that's what I meant to indicate with the suggestion of "hidden"). It's probably also best to use a base word with a natural verb (and probably a word which is actually a verb itself). There must be lots of other possibilities which I haven't listed.
--SportWagon 14:07, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If the suggestion is that "the word be deliberately contrived and unfamiliar", then surely the way of choosing a pair of terms that try to minimize any pre-existing associations with existing English words is to aim to use a deliberately made-up word, and so consult a friendly Experimental Psychologist/Cognitive Psycholoist who knows various bits of research that might inform such a choice? I am no longer active in those areas myself, but I was for o0ver 25 years, and I do still know enough to realise that if one really wants to eliminate unwanted pre-existing associations, then this might well be a good way forward to consider. (I did think using a word made p from an acronym of "obba" and "unobba", derived from "Observed By Authority", but this seems to me to suggest "observed" a bit too much.)  DDStretch  (talk) 14:30, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I think that published/unpublished is the strongest analog to what is actually being done. I think this may be premature though, we need substantive policy before we start quibbling over terminology. Adam McCormick 16:33, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was and am not suggesting that "the word be deliberately contrived and unfamiliar", but someone else seemed to do so.   Therefore I tried to coin such a possibly suitable word. I, personally, would be inclined to go with a "natural" (therefore "familiar"?) choice.--SportWagon 17:37, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: What about "proofed" or "proofread"? As I understand the proposal, it's basically equivalent to what a printer or typesetter would do when looking over a proof copy of a printed work -- checking for obvious errors and misprints, without necessarily doing the more thorough investigation that would be expected of an editor or fact-checker. --benadhem 02:07, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think "inspected" is a good choice. It conveys both the idea that it's been looked over to some degree and the idea that it may not be perfect and that there may be mistakes. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 15:21, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have an issue with "inspected"- to me it implies, those who have been appointed (usually available because they cannot actual succeed in doing the job) criticising those who actually can. Those who blythely destroy all that is good because it fails one artificial tick box.Ofsted. It may be a good choice of word- but if it, then the change is not benign and Wikipedia should avoid this system with a bargepole. ClemRutter 21:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Suggested words to replace "sighted/unsighted"

message: On AmiDaniel's test wiki there are drop down boxes for Accuracy, Depth and Readability. Will Wikipedia have a similar system, or will it just be a yes/no on whether or not it's been sighted? I hope the latter, a more complicated system is unnecessarily confusing. --Tango 17:47, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe it will likely be the latter, though it's not really certain at this point. I'll try later on to make the specific configuration on the testwiki reflect the desires of the proposal so we can see better what we're dealing with. The extension is, however, highly configurable -- even in its currently immature state -- so just about anything we want we can have. Don't be misconstrued into thinking that the way it is on my testwiki is the way that it absolutely has to be. AmiDaniel (talk) 18:52, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Accuracy/Depth/Readability

message: One option would be to have the editable version be the default one viewed, with a moderately-visible banner at the top offering the reader to view the most recent "sighted" version, accompanied by a check box ("Always view sighted version").--Father Goose 20:37, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Now that I've cooled down from yesterday...I thought of another possible compromise: more domain names. Just as there exists simple.wikipedia.org, if sighted versions are the default, we could have "current.wikipedia.org". Conversely, if the current version is the default, we could have "sighted.wikipedia.org", or "verified.wikipedia.org", or something. This seems like it might be a better option to me, so that those who want to avoid seeing vandalism could use that URL; but that's the wrong debate for this section. -- Ken g6 21:28, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Possible compromise between sighted vs. "live"

message: If it was implemented, It would mean the complete redo of all systems, and creating a backlog so high that manually fighting vandalism would take less time. This would also mean that : 10000 hours of work goes into waste. And that before we get used to the new system, that would leave us virtually defenseless for a matter of months. Imagine wikipedia without IRC, without Martinbot or RC Patrollers. It would be a big mess and wikipedia would fail within a year. All experienced editors would have to start learning the program again. Flagged revisions is giving Wikipedia to the vandals and throwing it into Bronze age again, creating what would make newspapers laugh at us. An unterminable backlog of over edits would be created and getting bigger every minute. -FlubecaTalk 21:35, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Huh? I don't follow. Reading through articles for readability and obvious errors isn't a waste of time, it's something that very much needs to be done. And the "backlog" articles that have not been flagged won't be an increased liability; they'll behave just as they do now.--ragesoss 21:41, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But we can do that already, and also Wikifying is not a waste of time, there is still a huge backlog of it. It's not what we think is good, it's just what we can do, in a period of time. "If it ain't broken, don't fix it.-FlubecaTalk 21:45, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm not sure what you mean, Flubeca. Why would we be left without IRC, Martinbot, RC Patrol, etc? Why would we be defenseless, and how would this be throwing WP back to the Bronze Age? Jpers36 22:40, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm confused. If we take all the folks who do RC patroling now, and instead they are looking at the sighting of articles it will actually increase the amount of people reading and fixing articles. Right now a fair bit of RC stuff is just look at the diff, revert. in the new system it would be look at the 5 diffs, revert the vandalism, check that the others are good, sight to anon view. How would that go back in time? --Rocksanddirt 22:57, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have know idea. Not to mention that the incentive to vandalize will increasingly evaporate. Voice-of-All 00:12, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And this will not be automatically applied to every page. It has to be manually applied, page by page. We won't automatically start with 1.9 million articles. Since this won't apply to many (including most stubs), I would estimate the eventual number (after a few months or years of surveying) would be far less than 1 million articles depending on how much we decide to use this. And we would not have to "start learning the program again." editors do not have to flag revisions and even for those that do, it is learning a new tool not a radical software change. editing pages will still be the same, there may just be an extra step for sighted articles. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 01:19, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think as long as scripts are developed for fast "sighting" (or "inspecting," which I think is a better term) of articles, similar to the current scripts for fast reverting, tagging, warning, etc., it won't cause any more work for us than RC patrol is now. Of course, it'll take some time for script developers to implement this stuff, but in the end it might be worth it. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 15:30, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Rethinking the System

message: I'm sorry, I'm not able to follow the discussion at the rapid rate at which it is happening right now. I've already commented a bit on the deployment strategy here. We've discussed this further now on the Foundation-level and have an agreement that the sequence will be as follows:
# security review of the extension
# beta test on a dummy site, with a few different configurations to play with
# approval from WMF for production use (probably around mid-October)
# interested wikis can request the extension to be activated through BugZilla with a specified configuration (they will have to point to a consensus or vote that approves the decision, details to be determined).
To understand a bit more where I'm coming from in all this, please read m:User:Eloquence/WikiQA, which I wrote almost a year ago in response to the original German proposal. So let's be very clear: I think there are many extremely valid concerns on this page. Nothing will be imposed on the English Wikipedia community (or any other) by the Foundation Board of Trustees!
The main thing I advocated throughout the development process is that the feature must be highly flexible so wiki communities will have a lot of freedom in how to configure it. This, for the most part, is the case for the current extension. So please let's not jump to conclusions about what will happen based on this wiki page, it's a specific proposal for the adoption of FlaggedRevs that does not reflect our current internal strategy for making this feature available to interested communities. Indeed, even the levels that we set and their meanings can be freely configured by any wiki community.
I encourage those interested in this feature to already work on separate propositions for how it should be deployed. To see what configuration options there are, take a look at this file, specifically, all the variables beginning with $wg. It's source code but it should be fairly readable with comments explaining what everything means.--Eloquence * 23:58, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: this might be easier to read :) Voice-of-All 00:07, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Some more notes from the Foundation

message: How will this one work with an important article that is contentious. I have been working on an article that has been tagged for clean up since December 2006- and cleanup is the least of the editors worries. I could sight it clean of obvious vandalism and libel but it carries a cleanup tag (and several others) which may have been placed there as an act of mischief. When I consider it accurate and free of POVs and otherwise clean I will ask a third party to judge. If articles such as this are ommitted then Wiki is going to be accused of censorship. Would changing the wording to not recently tagged for cleanup. help? ClemRutter 19:10, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If an article is contentious and clean-up is a relative minor issue compared to others, then it probably should not be sighted. However, this will just mean that the current version always shows; such unsighted articles will behave just as they do now, without FlaggedRevs.--ragesoss 19:18, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Is readable (uncluttered) and is not tagged for cleanup."

message: Currently the proposal says:
:Reviewing pages requires the surveyor right. This right will be given liberally. Any trusted editor may be granted rights by an administrator, regardless of their edit count.
Would this form an "elite"? Some numbers on "classes of users" may help. On the English Wikipedia we have
* About 40 million visitors every day. Lest it be forgot, wikipedia's primary purpose is to provide useful content for these people. For us, the "wiki way" should be a means to this end, not an end in itself. The main aim of this proposal is to improve wikipedia for such casual readers.
* 5 million user accounts, mostly inactive.
* About 18,300 editors qualifed to vote in the last Board elections, i.e. registered 3 months and with more than 400 edits (in any namespace).. Also, a list was accidentally constructed based on a minimum of 201 edits, which had 50% more voters. 
* IP users who choose to edit seem to be outnumbered by registered users: The recent changes log shows that 10-20% of non-minor, non-bot edits are from anon IPs.
* 1308 admins, 24 bureaucrats, 15 arbcom members and 7 Board members. Plus a few ex-arbcom members, foundation employees, and developers with privileges like oversight and checkuser. Currently these are our "elite", if that is an appropriate term.
At one point this proposal said that surveyor rights would be granted automatically to users with 2 months activity and 300 main space edits, which is a comparable barrier to the board election hurdle. This would give about 20 times as many surveyors as admins. At the same time, there are many more users who have been registered for a long time but rarely edit. Such people can always ask an admin, who are instructed to give out rights liberally as above, but the act of asking is quite a barrier in itself. If a lot of them asked, and admins checked their contributions before agreeing, there would be a significant backlog. An alternative proposal made on this page was "30 days on which main-space edits were made", which would be much lower barrier...perhaps 100,000 editors would qualify, and yet this would be harder for would-be vandals to clock up deliberately.
The proposal now omits statements about automatic granting of surveyor rights. I think this is a big mistake as the numbers above imply that it would be a very large job to personally grant rights to anything like as many people. PaddyLeahy 13:01, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Update Since this post has been cited as showing that surveyors would indeed be an "elite", I'd like to emphasise that the vast majority of our 5 M users are inactive. Wikicharts listed 158,000 wikipedians with more than 10 edits in October 2006 (the latest update for en:wiki). I don't know how many of the 5 M accounts have been registered since then, but surely a minority. October 2006 was about the point when en:wiki changed from exponential growth with a doubling time of about a year, to linear growth. This very likely reflects the rate of recruitment of new editors. Hence I would guess 3 or 4 M users in October 2006, most of whom were registered for at least a year. The fact that only 5% of them had managed even 10 edits shows that almost all registered accounts are used only very briefly. Therefore, 20-30,000 surveyors would be 15-20% of users with any significant contribution, and if we could get the number to 100,000 it would be a majority. PaddyLeahy 10:53, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: See also Brianna Laugher's slides from her wikimania talk suggesting why so few new users contribute. PaddyLeahy 11:33, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: How many surveyors?

message: Is it possible to have all edits to sighted pages that are not reviewed in a certain amount of time to be auto-sighted, as this would avoid long backlogs, we could say all edits will be reviewed or visible within _____. Alternatively, these pages could be auto unsighted. Zginder 20:37, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As per my post above, we can set a timeout after which sightings will expire, thus making it so that all revisions X-days after a sight will just be visible. I didn't see anything about making edits become sighted after a specific period though. Adam McCormick 21:49, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be better, since it avoids possibly vandalised revisions getting automatically marked as vandalism. However, if the privilege is given out freely enough, there shouldn't be a long backlog. A special page listing pages that have at least one sighted revision, and a more recent unsighted revision that's been around for more than a week (or whatever) would be good, though (assuming such a thing doesn't already exist). --Tango 22:37, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A week is way to long. A day at the most. Zginder 23:04, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are a lot of specialized articles, for which there are only a couple of Wikipedians able to determine whether an edit is vandalism or not. For instance, this edit is nonsense, but not that easy to spot. For such articles, a day would be too short in my opinion. But the idea that pages with pending edits become automatically unsighted after some time is interesting. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 02:19, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There enough time in one day for one of those knowledgeable Wikipedians to log on and check one's watchlist Zginder 12:26, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nope. There are lots of pages that are on nobody's watchlist. Special:Unwatchedpages (admin access only) currently lists 1000 pages with names beginning with a punctuation character or two character combinations from "11" to "19" - and then doesn't list the remainder of the unwatched page list. It is not a safe assumption that any particular page is on any Wikipedian's watchlist, much less on the watchlist of an active Wikipedian. GRBerry 14:40, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Auto-sighting

message: In an attempt to focus discussion (and facilitate another archiving of this talk page), I'm going to try to lay out the main points of contention regarding the proposal. Please add significant threads that I missed, and correct my summaries if they give specific arguments short shrift.--ragesoss 02:59, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, IMO, automatic granting is a must. I sure don't want to waste my time looking through the contribs of 100s or 1000s of users to make sure they aren't a vandal, troll, or other disruption (because that's pretty much what the criteria boil down to). I think 150-300 edits (less than 150 and they may not know enough of the rules, more than 300 would take too long to get for many users) and 10-30 days (again, less than 10 days is not enough to learn enough rules and more than 30 is too long) should be enough of a requirement. If people don't meet the criteria but they think they should get the rights, then they can apply to a page for manual right-granting that should not backlog. Mr.Z-man 13:47, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd prefer starting off with a relatively high threshold (e.g. 1 month, 300 edits) on the initial implementation. After the system has been in place for at least a month, it would be possible to make an informed decision on whether the standard needs to be relaxed. Chaz Beckett 16:11, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd go the other way... start off with a low thresh-hold and then raise it if the amount of vandalism getting through is still too high. I think that even a minimal '5 day' requirement, equivalent in terms of vandalism control to semi-protecting every article (though allowing continued editing), would result in a massive and immediate decrease in the amount of vandalism we display to unlogged readers. Most vandalism comes from unlogged IPs and newly created accounts doing something on the spur of the moment. That simple '5 day' requirement would be enough to stop all of those problems... just as semi-protection (which uses the same '5 day' standard) does currently for individual pages. Only the 'dedicated vandals' who create multiple 'sleeper accounts' to vandalize from would still get through. I'd like to see standards which would make things difficult for them too (e.g. 'article edits on 30 different days' or '30 article edits at least 5 days old') without significantly restricting access for new contributors. If a vandal wants to make 30 edits which, when reviewed, will be approved as valid then I think that's a net gain for the project... the effort in reverting their later vandalism and blocking them shouldn't be more than the benefits of those 30 positive edits. If the 30 edits aren't positive then they get some sort of block or delay in gaining the access. --CBD 16:41, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm going to re-add the autoconfirmation to the proposal (1 month, 150 edits), and leave a message inviting Moreschi (who removed it) to elaborate on the downside of autoconfirmation. I would set the bar a little higher (2 months, 300 edits, as before), but 1 month and 150 edits seems reasonable to me.--ragesoss 22:20, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I also dislike the user/usertalk page requirement. By the time a user reaches 150 edits/30 days, I would hope that some other user has tried to communicate with them. As far as a userpage goes, many people think they are unnecessary and don't want them. Especially as WP:USERPAGE is only a guideline, it seems weird to quasi-require users to have userpages. (sorry if that last bit sounds odd, it made sense as I typed it) Mr.Z-man 18:23, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A redirect counts as having a page. Voice-of-All 01:51, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nevertheless, it does seem a strange requirement and I don't see a reason for it. Why did you add this requirement to the code, and why is there no configuration variable covering it? -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 05:50, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, each one of these requirements seems like a technical answer to a social question: whom do we trust? Having a user page is commendable, but where this proposal is concerned, it looks like nothing more than a hoop to jump through. These weird requirements are not going to hold up to community-wide scrutiny.--Father Goose 06:47, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been bold and removed the user page requirement, cannot see any arguments for why it should be required and cannot see why a user such as User:FrozenPurpleCube should be prevented from having this right for not having a user page. Davewild 07:59, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

text: The name for people that can edit semi-protect pages is "autoconfirmed". A name is required on a technical level (for the permission, and the user group of people with that permission). Whether we use that name, another name or no name at all in non-technical stuff is up to us, and in my opinion, there is no need to use any name. My suggestion for articles that have been flagged is "clean". --Tango 17:02, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I originally like the surveyor term, but I like the idea of downplaying any terminology for the user class. I also like "clean", which conveys the main issue that we want to get across with the first implementation of flagged revisions.--ragesoss 17:09, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I like the term "inspected" rather than "sighted," but I think the "surveyor" term is fine. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 01:30, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree. I think our test case should be if a person who averages only a few edits per day (such as myself) would gain the reviewer status within a month or two. I've already seen some cases of elitism on Wikipedia, but I think that the baseline for this is currently set so low it can do little to contribute to the problem. I am mildly concerned that the bar might creep higher and higher with time (much the way RfAs have) but I don't believe in opposing based on what might happen. Sxeptomaniac 21:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * I agree, first the vast majority of existing articles should be sighted, before requiring sighting for new pages. --B. Wolterding 16:45, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I think sighting should be allowed even for stubs (except possibly one-sentence stubs, as an incentive to either expand it or merge or remove it, since nothing should be a perpetually one-sentence stub). Depending on how successful Wikipedia as managing backlogs, at some point we would hopefully have everything except very new articles sighted. At that point, we could have some sort of default warning template for non-sighted (new) articles, and we could turn anonymous article creation back on. (Of course, that isn't strictly necessary; we could turn anon page creation on anyway. But that's a whole different proposal).--ragesoss 17:19, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a good point, however it's a completely different point to what we're discussing here. It's just a matter of deciding what the requirements should be for sighting, it's not a matter of technically turning it on or off for particular pages. --Tango 17:24, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If every editor who, has an account for more than 30 days, has more than 150 edits, has confirmed an e-mail account, has a user and user talk page gets the surveyor right then we can not try to roll it out slowly. Zginder 12:22, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I would prefer that new special pages similar to 'recent changes' be implemented. It should (IMO must) be possible to list all pages with unflagged revisions subsequent to flagged revisions... that is, all pages where users have made contributions that are not yet being displayed to all readers. If volunteers go through those with the same alacrity that they do recent changes patrol today then these new updates should usually be reviewed and approved or reverted in a matter of minutes. If there is a list and it is kept up then no change will ever languish 'overlooked' for long. Automatic changing of the flagged status invalidates the goal... we want to keep changes from relatively unknown users out of the public eye until there has been time for someone to look at them and see that they aren't vandalism. If the status changes automatically then the vandalism gets out before anyone has seen it and we haven't achieved what the system was meant to do. --CBD 12:07, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would prefer that flags expire (if that's possible with the extension) after unreviewed edits sit for a certain amount of time. Some have suggested a day - that is fine for many articles that have many people watching them; but other articles, especially those in more specialized subjects, may only have one or two people watching them and they might not edit every day. Auto-sighting would be bad, that would defeat the purpose. Mr.Z-man 13:57, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Or zero people watching them. There are thousands of unwatched pages. In fact, there are more than a thousand unwatched pages whose first character in the title is a punctuation character or the digit "1". Yes, sighting should expire if unsighted edits have sat for a sufficient period of time, but 1 day is far too fast. Perhaps if the most recent change is unsighted and more than 30 days old then it should be shown. GRBerry 15:04, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree that it would not be desirable to have expiring sighted version. I also agree with CBD's suggestion of a special page that lists all pages with unflagged revisions subsequent to flagged revisions. It would be very useful to be able to sort such a page by the # of unflagged revisions and/or the amount of time since these revisions were made. Finally, being able to track various metrics on the flagged revision system would be essential to ensuring it benefits the encyclopedia. Chaz Beckett 16:05, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I think putting the metrics and support pages in place from the start will be an important part of assuring success. For instance, instead of flagging 'automatically expiring' would it be worthwhile to set in advance a 'criterion for success' of something like, 'the average time for unflagged edits to flagged pages to be reviewed and approved or reverted must be less than an hour'? It addresses the same concern (valuable edits 'getting lost' and not included in the displayed version) by treating it as an indication that the new process is failing and needs to be adjusted (or removed if unfixable) rather than as a built in software adjustment which could let vandalism slip past. Similar things I might suggest would be; 'the number of protected and semi-protected articles should decrease by at least 50%' and 'the number of daily vandalism complaints received by OTRS should decrease by at least 50%'. If those three things could be accomplished then I'd call flagged revisions wildly successful. I suspect it will do considerably better than those metrics, but changes of even those magnitudes would make it very much worthwhile. --CBD 16:16, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I'll agree that without success metrics determined before the experiment, we'll never know if the experiment worked. We already know that the system will have costs on existing editors, require additional processes, additional database and edit load, et cetera. During the experiment phase, we are likely to be only testing pages that are already well watched and contentious. So the standard we test in the experiment phase should be significantly more stringent than the standard we want to live with once all pages are being affected. I think a 30 day standard is about right for once all pages are affected, and I think that a 24 hour standard would be the equivalent for semi-protected pages. (I don't think 1 hour is feasible except for a minor subset of pages where the benefit of this system will be negligible anyway.) GRBerry 15:04, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Agreed. Hopefully that is the last time someone will mention that ;) Voice-of-All 20:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Outstanding issues

message: Earlier version of the proposal included the provision that surveyor rights would be granted automatically after a certain edit threshold (e.g., 300) and time threshold (e.g., 2 months), along with a confirmed email address. An alternative or supplemental way of populating the surveyor pool is to give every surveyor the ability to grant the right (as opposed to just admins and/or autoconfirmation). However, manually granting surveyor rights increases the amount of social contact that happens between editors (which is often regretfully rare with new editors) and reduces the threat of "sleeper" accounts. Many discussants have liked the idea of autoconfirmation of accounts with at least 1 edit on each of 30 different days, but the software does not currently permit such criteria.
====Discussion====
Again, I do not think that either admins handing out access to those who request it or users with the rights being able to give them to others is at all viable. The first leaves out users who do not request the access and will almost certainly generate an enormous backlog of requests... discouraging users from contributing. The second would eliminate the backlogs, but allow vandals to 'play nice' with one account to gain the ability to 'approve' an unlimited number of other accounts to use for vandalism... invalidating the whole purpose of flagged revisions. Automatic granting of the rights is the best course IMO. Consider; semi-protection has proven successful in reducing vandalism. That system requires only that the user account be at least 5 days old... yet it has proven effective in decreasing 'drive by' vandalism. Applying the same '5 day' criteria to flagged revisions would be exactly as effective at reducing vandalism seen by the general reading public (on ALL pages) while allowing all users to continue editing all pages - just with a brief delay before edits from very new accounts are seen by some users. I'd actually prefer somewhat stricter controls to weed out some of the vandalism which now gets past semi-protection, and some people have advocated MUCH stricter controls (e.g. 300 edits and/or 2 months), but I think almost everyone agrees that in order to work, flagged revisions have to be available to nearly all active contributors to the encyclopedia. --CBD 11:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, IMO, automatic granting is a must. I sure don't want to waste my time looking through the contribs of 100s or 1000s of users to make sure they aren't a vandal, troll, or other disruption (because that's pretty much what the criteria boil down to). I think 150-300 edits (less than 150 and they may not know enough of the rules, more than 300 would take too long to get for many users) and 10-30 days (again, less than 10 days is not enough to learn enough rules and more than 30 is too long) should be enough of a requirement. If people don't meet the criteria but they think they should get the rights, then they can apply to a page for manual right-granting that should not backlog. Mr.Z-man 13:47, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd prefer starting off with a relatively high threshold (e.g. 1 month, 300 edits) on the initial implementation. After the system has been in place for at least a month, it would be possible to make an informed decision on whether the standard needs to be relaxed. Chaz Beckett 16:11, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd go the other way... start off with a low thresh-hold and then raise it if the amount of vandalism getting through is still too high. I think that even a minimal '5 day' requirement, equivalent in terms of vandalism control to semi-protecting every article (though allowing continued editing), would result in a massive and immediate decrease in the amount of vandalism we display to unlogged readers. Most vandalism comes from unlogged IPs and newly created accounts doing something on the spur of the moment. That simple '5 day' requirement would be enough to stop all of those problems... just as semi-protection (which uses the same '5 day' standard) does currently for individual pages. Only the 'dedicated vandals' who create multiple 'sleeper accounts' to vandalize from would still get through. I'd like to see standards which would make things difficult for them too (e.g. 'article edits on 30 different days' or '30 article edits at least 5 days old') without significantly restricting access for new contributors. If a vandal wants to make 30 edits which, when reviewed, will be approved as valid then I think that's a net gain for the project... the effort in reverting their later vandalism and blocking them shouldn't be more than the benefits of those 30 positive edits. If the 30 edits aren't positive then they get some sort of block or delay in gaining the access. --CBD 16:41, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm going to re-add the autoconfirmation to the proposal (1 month, 150 edits), and leave a message inviting Moreschi (who removed it) to elaborate on the downside of autoconfirmation. I would set the bar a little higher (2 months, 300 edits, as before), but 1 month and 150 edits seems reasonable to me.--ragesoss 22:20, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I also dislike the user/usertalk page requirement. By the time a user reaches 150 edits/30 days, I would hope that some other user has tried to communicate with them. As far as a userpage goes, many people think they are unnecessary and don't want them. Especially as WP:USERPAGE is only a guideline, it seems weird to quasi-require users to have userpages. (sorry if that last bit sounds odd, it made sense as I typed it) Mr.Z-man 18:23, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A redirect counts as having a page. Voice-of-All 01:51, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nevertheless, it does seem a strange requirement and I don't see a reason for it. Why did you add this requirement to the code, and why is there no configuration variable covering it? -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 05:50, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, each one of these requirements seems like a technical answer to a social question: whom do we trust? Having a user page is commendable, but where this proposal is concerned, it looks like nothing more than a hoop to jump through. These weird requirements are not going to hold up to community-wide scrutiny.--Father Goose 06:47, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been bold and removed the user page requirement, cannot see any arguments for why it should be required and cannot see why a user such as User:FrozenPurpleCube should be prevented from having this right for not having a user page. Davewild 07:59, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Autoconfirm surveyor rights?

message: Again, I do not think that either admins handing out access to those who request it or users with the rights being able to give them to others is at all viable. The first leaves out users who do not request the access and will almost certainly generate an enormous backlog of requests... discouraging users from contributing. The second would eliminate the backlogs, but allow vandals to 'play nice' with one account to gain the ability to 'approve' an unlimited number of other accounts to use for vandalism... invalidating the whole purpose of flagged revisions. Automatic granting of the rights is the best course IMO. Consider; semi-protection has proven successful in reducing vandalism. That system requires only that the user account be at least 5 days old... yet it has proven effective in decreasing 'drive by' vandalism. Applying the same '5 day' criteria to flagged revisions would be exactly as effective at reducing vandalism seen by the general reading public (on ALL pages) while allowing all users to continue editing all pages - just with a brief delay before edits from very new accounts are seen by some users. I'd actually prefer somewhat stricter controls to weed out some of the vandalism which now gets past semi-protection, and some people have advocated MUCH stricter controls (e.g. 300 edits and/or 2 months), but I think almost everyone agrees that in order to work, flagged revisions have to be available to nearly all active contributors to the encyclopedia. --CBD 11:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, IMO, automatic granting is a must. I sure don't want to waste my time looking through the contribs of 100s or 1000s of users to make sure they aren't a vandal, troll, or other disruption (because that's pretty much what the criteria boil down to). I think 150-300 edits (less than 150 and they may not know enough of the rules, more than 300 would take too long to get for many users) and 10-30 days (again, less than 10 days is not enough to learn enough rules and more than 30 is too long) should be enough of a requirement. If people don't meet the criteria but they think they should get the rights, then they can apply to a page for manual right-granting that should not backlog. Mr.Z-man 13:47, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd prefer starting off with a relatively high threshold (e.g. 1 month, 300 edits) on the initial implementation. After the system has been in place for at least a month, it would be possible to make an informed decision on whether the standard needs to be relaxed. Chaz Beckett 16:11, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd go the other way... start off with a low thresh-hold and then raise it if the amount of vandalism getting through is still too high. I think that even a minimal '5 day' requirement, equivalent in terms of vandalism control to semi-protecting every article (though allowing continued editing), would result in a massive and immediate decrease in the amount of vandalism we display to unlogged readers. Most vandalism comes from unlogged IPs and newly created accounts doing something on the spur of the moment. That simple '5 day' requirement would be enough to stop all of those problems... just as semi-protection (which uses the same '5 day' standard) does currently for individual pages. Only the 'dedicated vandals' who create multiple 'sleeper accounts' to vandalize from would still get through. I'd like to see standards which would make things difficult for them too (e.g. 'article edits on 30 different days' or '30 article edits at least 5 days old') without significantly restricting access for new contributors. If a vandal wants to make 30 edits which, when reviewed, will be approved as valid then I think that's a net gain for the project... the effort in reverting their later vandalism and blocking them shouldn't be more than the benefits of those 30 positive edits. If the 30 edits aren't positive then they get some sort of block or delay in gaining the access. --CBD 16:41, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm going to re-add the autoconfirmation to the proposal (1 month, 150 edits), and leave a message inviting Moreschi (who removed it) to elaborate on the downside of autoconfirmation. I would set the bar a little higher (2 months, 300 edits, as before), but 1 month and 150 edits seems reasonable to me.--ragesoss 22:20, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I also dislike the user/usertalk page requirement. By the time a user reaches 150 edits/30 days, I would hope that some other user has tried to communicate with them. As far as a userpage goes, many people think they are unnecessary and don't want them. Especially as WP:USERPAGE is only a guideline, it seems weird to quasi-require users to have userpages. (sorry if that last bit sounds odd, it made sense as I typed it) Mr.Z-man 18:23, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A redirect counts as having a page. Voice-of-All 01:51, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nevertheless, it does seem a strange requirement and I don't see a reason for it. Why did you add this requirement to the code, and why is there no configuration variable covering it? -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 05:50, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, each one of these requirements seems like a technical answer to a social question: whom do we trust? Having a user page is commendable, but where this proposal is concerned, it looks like nothing more than a hoop to jump through. These weird requirements are not going to hold up to community-wide scrutiny.--Father Goose 06:47, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been bold and removed the user page requirement, cannot see any arguments for why it should be required and cannot see why a user such as User:FrozenPurpleCube should be prevented from having this right for not having a user page. Davewild 07:59, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: Some discussants suggest that we keep the current versions of articles as the default view for readers, and offer flagged versions rather than simply foist them upon the unsuspecting readers. However, this largely defeats the purpose of the proposal; it would not allow un-protection of semi-protected articles and offers no benefit to most readers (whose common concern is that they don't know who "used the facilities" last).
====Discussion====
There are two different 'goals' which people want to get out of flagged revisions. The first is to remove obvious vandalism and disruption from public view in the brief time before it is cleaned up (allowing removal of protection/semi-protection as a 'side benefit'). The second is to be able to identify pages which have been thoroughly reviewed and found to be of the absolute highest quality. The first can only happen if unlogged readers, who are responsible for the vast majority of page views on any given day, see the flagged version by default. The second goal can be met either way... though since it requires extensive review such flags might be updated infrequently and thus argue for display of a more recent version. To me the best approach would be to show the most recently flagged (either 'sighted' or 'quality') version to unlogged users by default or the most recent version if there are no flagged copies of the page. Logged in users of course always see the most recent version. --CBD 11:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Should flagged versions be the default reader view?

message: There are two different 'goals' which people want to get out of flagged revisions. The first is to remove obvious vandalism and disruption from public view in the brief time before it is cleaned up (allowing removal of protection/semi-protection as a 'side benefit'). The second is to be able to identify pages which have been thoroughly reviewed and found to be of the absolute highest quality. The first can only happen if unlogged readers, who are responsible for the vast majority of page views on any given day, see the flagged version by default. The second goal can be met either way... though since it requires extensive review such flags might be updated infrequently and thus argue for display of a more recent version. To me the best approach would be to show the most recently flagged (either 'sighted' or 'quality') version to unlogged users by default or the most recent version if there are no flagged copies of the page. Logged in users of course always see the most recent version. --CBD 11:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: The term "sighted" is ambiguous (since it can refer to the opposite of blind) also might get mixed up (especially in non-textual off-wiki situations) with "cited". Instead of surveyors and sighted versions we could have surveyor/surveyed, or inspector/inspected, or proofer/proofer, or something else.
====Discussion====
We should remove the names for the users who have this access entirely. Just have terms for describing the access... consider that for semi-protection we don't have even that. There is no 'specific term' for the users 'who can edit semi-protected pages'. There isn't even a special term for the access which allows that. Accounts which have existed for 5 days can do it. With flagged revisions there needs to be some term to identify whether a particular edit is 'flagged' or not... I'd actually suggest 'flagged' except that in most conceptions there are two different levels that we should differentiate between. In which case 'flagged' or 'reviewed' for the first level and 'approved' or 'featured' for the second sound better to me than 'sighted' and 'quality'. --CBD 11:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The name for people that can edit semi-protect pages is "autoconfirmed". A name is required on a technical level (for the permission, and the user group of people with that permission). Whether we use that name, another name or no name at all in non-technical stuff is up to us, and in my opinion, there is no need to use any name. My suggestion for articles that have been flagged is "clean". --Tango 17:02, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I originally like the surveyor term, but I like the idea of downplaying any terminology for the user class. I also like "clean", which conveys the main issue that we want to get across with the first implementation of flagged revisions.--ragesoss 17:09, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I like the term "inspected" rather than "sighted," but I think the "surveyor" term is fine. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 01:30, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Is "Sighted" the best term?

message: We should remove the names for the users who have this access entirely. Just have terms for describing the access... consider that for semi-protection we don't have even that. There is no 'specific term' for the users 'who can edit semi-protected pages'. There isn't even a special term for the access which allows that. Accounts which have existed for 5 days can do it. With flagged revisions there needs to be some term to identify whether a particular edit is 'flagged' or not... I'd actually suggest 'flagged' except that in most conceptions there are two different levels that we should differentiate between. In which case 'flagged' or 'reviewed' for the first level and 'approved' or 'featured' for the second sound better to me than 'sighted' and 'quality'. --CBD 11:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The name for people that can edit semi-protect pages is "autoconfirmed". A name is required on a technical level (for the permission, and the user group of people with that permission). Whether we use that name, another name or no name at all in non-technical stuff is up to us, and in my opinion, there is no need to use any name. My suggestion for articles that have been flagged is "clean". --Tango 17:02, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I originally like the surveyor term, but I like the idea of downplaying any terminology for the user class. I also like "clean", which conveys the main issue that we want to get across with the first implementation of flagged revisions.--ragesoss 17:09, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I like the term "inspected" rather than "sighted," but I think the "surveyor" term is fine. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 01:30, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: This proposal will create another "class" of users, between (autoconfirmed) non-admin editors and admin editors. In principle, this has the potential to exacerbate problems of elitism and cliquishness among editors. It also might make new users feel less welcome, since their edits no longer instantly become incorporated into the default version of an article; new editors without the surveyor right may feel like second-class editors (and may not want to/know how to request surveyor rights). On the other hand, it might make users more involved from the outset, since they will have a sense of validation if another editor sights their work. They will also have an extra reason to return to Wikipedia (to check on the validation status of their edits).
====Discussion====
Again I refer to semi-protection... it also 'created another class of users', those who have accounts less than 5 days old. The world did not end. So long as most active contributors receive the access in short order there will be nothing to express 'elitism' over. Most of the people you are talking to on talk pages will have exactly the same ability. The higher the bar to getting the access the more valid these concerns become - and thus why I think most people are opposed to any sort of bar which most new users wouldn't pass over before even realizing it existed. --CBD 12:07, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. I think our test case should be if a person who averages only a few edits per day (such as myself) would gain the reviewer status within a month or two. I've already seen some cases of elitism on Wikipedia, but I think that the baseline for this is currently set so low it can do little to contribute to the problem. I am mildly concerned that the bar might creep higher and higher with time (much the way RfAs have) but I don't believe in opposing based on what might happen. Sxeptomaniac 21:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Is the proposal fundamentally un-wiki?

message: Again I refer to semi-protection... it also 'created another class of users', those who have accounts less than 5 days old. The world did not end. So long as most active contributors receive the access in short order there will be nothing to express 'elitism' over. Most of the people you are talking to on talk pages will have exactly the same ability. The higher the bar to getting the access the more valid these concerns become - and thus why I think most people are opposed to any sort of bar which most new users wouldn't pass over before even realizing it existed. --CBD 12:07, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. I think our test case should be if a person who averages only a few edits per day (such as myself) would gain the reviewer status within a month or two. I've already seen some cases of elitism on Wikipedia, but I think that the baseline for this is currently set so low it can do little to contribute to the problem. I am mildly concerned that the bar might creep higher and higher with time (much the way RfAs have) but I don't believe in opposing based on what might happen. Sxeptomaniac 21:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: Should sighting eventually apply (1) just to pages currently semi-protected or protected (2) some other small subsets as well (e.g. where we now have a "work in progress" subpage for a major re-design) (3) All articles which are not one-sentence stubs and very new articles.
====Discussion====
(4) To every page in the article namespace. (5) To every page in most or all namespaces.
I don't see any reason to exclude new articles or stubs from the flagged revisions system. If stubs were excluded then a vandal could always get nonsense widely displayed by changing a popular article into a stub. If new articles aren't included then whenever the 'new' period has expired someone will have to go through and review the entire thing to create the first flagged copy... not a big deal for most articles, but when there are major events in the news we often have articles go from non-existant to a page long and dozens of footnotes in the course of a day. Also, there are tremendous benefits to this beyond the article space... policies and guidelines in the Wikipedia namespace could be flagged at the 'quality' level such that people could make changes and revisions just as freely as they do now, but they wouldn't be re-flagged as actually part of the policy unless approved by consensus. User pages frequently hit by vandalism could be warded against that without preventing valid updates. Ditto talk pages in all namespaces. Et cetera. --CBD 12:07, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * I agree, first the vast majority of existing articles should be sighted, before requiring sighting for new pages. --B. Wolterding 16:45, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I think sighting should be allowed even for stubs (except possibly one-sentence stubs, as an incentive to either expand it or merge or remove it, since nothing should be a perpetually one-sentence stub). Depending on how successful Wikipedia as managing backlogs, at some point we would hopefully have everything except very new articles sighted. At that point, we could have some sort of default warning template for non-sighted (new) articles, and we could turn anonymous article creation back on. (Of course, that isn't strictly necessary; we could turn anon page creation on anyway. But that's a whole different proposal).--ragesoss 17:19, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a good point, however it's a completely different point to what we're discussing here. It's just a matter of deciding what the requirements should be for sighting, it's not a matter of technically turning it on or off for particular pages. --Tango 17:24, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If every editor who, has an account for more than 30 days, has more than 150 edits, has confirmed an e-mail account, has a user and user talk page gets the surveyor right then we can not try to roll it out slowly. Zginder 12:22, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Extent of sighting

message: (4) To every page in the article namespace. (5) To every page in most or all namespaces.
I don't see any reason to exclude new articles or stubs from the flagged revisions system. If stubs were excluded then a vandal could always get nonsense widely displayed by changing a popular article into a stub. If new articles aren't included then whenever the 'new' period has expired someone will have to go through and review the entire thing to create the first flagged copy... not a big deal for most articles, but when there are major events in the news we often have articles go from non-existant to a page long and dozens of footnotes in the course of a day. Also, there are tremendous benefits to this beyond the article space... policies and guidelines in the Wikipedia namespace could be flagged at the 'quality' level such that people could make changes and revisions just as freely as they do now, but they wouldn't be re-flagged as actually part of the policy unless approved by consensus. User pages frequently hit by vandalism could be warded against that without preventing valid updates. Ditto talk pages in all namespaces. Et cetera. --CBD 12:07, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * I agree, first the vast majority of existing articles should be sighted, before requiring sighting for new pages. --B. Wolterding 16:45, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I think sighting should be allowed even for stubs (except possibly one-sentence stubs, as an incentive to either expand it or merge or remove it, since nothing should be a perpetually one-sentence stub). Depending on how successful Wikipedia as managing backlogs, at some point we would hopefully have everything except very new articles sighted. At that point, we could have some sort of default warning template for non-sighted (new) articles, and we could turn anonymous article creation back on. (Of course, that isn't strictly necessary; we could turn anon page creation on anyway. But that's a whole different proposal).--ragesoss 17:19, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a good point, however it's a completely different point to what we're discussing here. It's just a matter of deciding what the requirements should be for sighting, it's not a matter of technically turning it on or off for particular pages. --Tango 17:24, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If every editor who, has an account for more than 30 days, has more than 150 edits, has confirmed an e-mail account, has a user and user talk page gets the surveyor right then we can not try to roll it out slowly. Zginder 12:22, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: To prevent pages getting overlooked, it has been suggested that after some period (days or weeks have been mentioned) either the latest version should be automatically sighted, or the the sighting should "expire". Both of these would have the effect that the latest version of the page would become visible to casual readers. Contrary to some rumors, the software does not currently allow this, partly for technical reasons and partly because the developers feel it would be confusing to users.
====Discussion====
The standard argument against this is the Seigenthaler incident. A difference between the two approaches mentioned is that currently there would be numerous sighted version in the history, allowing reverts to a previous sighted version if a problem is found in the current one that cannot be quickly fixed. If sighting expires, there will be no previous sighted versions. PaddyLeahy 10:19, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would prefer that new special pages similar to 'recent changes' be implemented. It should (IMO must) be possible to list all pages with unflagged revisions subsequent to flagged revisions... that is, all pages where users have made contributions that are not yet being displayed to all readers. If volunteers go through those with the same alacrity that they do recent changes patrol today then these new updates should usually be reviewed and approved or reverted in a matter of minutes. If there is a list and it is kept up then no change will ever languish 'overlooked' for long. Automatic changing of the flagged status invalidates the goal... we want to keep changes from relatively unknown users out of the public eye until there has been time for someone to look at them and see that they aren't vandalism. If the status changes automatically then the vandalism gets out before anyone has seen it and we haven't achieved what the system was meant to do. --CBD 12:07, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would prefer that flags expire (if that's possible with the extension) after unreviewed edits sit for a certain amount of time. Some have suggested a day - that is fine for many articles that have many people watching them; but other articles, especially those in more specialized subjects, may only have one or two people watching them and they might not edit every day. Auto-sighting would be bad, that would defeat the purpose. Mr.Z-man 13:57, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Or zero people watching them. There are thousands of unwatched pages. In fact, there are more than a thousand unwatched pages whose first character in the title is a punctuation character or the digit "1". Yes, sighting should expire if unsighted edits have sat for a sufficient period of time, but 1 day is far too fast. Perhaps if the most recent change is unsighted and more than 30 days old then it should be shown. GRBerry 15:04, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree that it would not be desirable to have expiring sighted version. I also agree with CBD's suggestion of a special page that lists all pages with unflagged revisions subsequent to flagged revisions. It would be very useful to be able to sort such a page by the # of unflagged revisions and/or the amount of time since these revisions were made. Finally, being able to track various metrics on the flagged revision system would be essential to ensuring it benefits the encyclopedia. Chaz Beckett 16:05, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I think putting the metrics and support pages in place from the start will be an important part of assuring success. For instance, instead of flagging 'automatically expiring' would it be worthwhile to set in advance a 'criterion for success' of something like, 'the average time for unflagged edits to flagged pages to be reviewed and approved or reverted must be less than an hour'? It addresses the same concern (valuable edits 'getting lost' and not included in the displayed version) by treating it as an indication that the new process is failing and needs to be adjusted (or removed if unfixable) rather than as a built in software adjustment which could let vandalism slip past. Similar things I might suggest would be; 'the number of protected and semi-protected articles should decrease by at least 50%' and 'the number of daily vandalism complaints received by OTRS should decrease by at least 50%'. If those three things could be accomplished then I'd call flagged revisions wildly successful. I suspect it will do considerably better than those metrics, but changes of even those magnitudes would make it very much worthwhile. --CBD 16:16, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I'll agree that without success metrics determined before the experiment, we'll never know if the experiment worked. We already know that the system will have costs on existing editors, require additional processes, additional database and edit load, et cetera. During the experiment phase, we are likely to be only testing pages that are already well watched and contentious. So the standard we test in the experiment phase should be significantly more stringent than the standard we want to live with once all pages are being affected. I think a 30 day standard is about right for once all pages are affected, and I think that a 24 hour standard would be the equivalent for semi-protected pages. (I don't think 1 hour is feasible except for a minor subset of pages where the benefit of this system will be negligible anyway.) GRBerry 15:04, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Agreed. Hopefully that is the last time someone will mention that ;) Voice-of-All 20:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Automatic sighting or unsighting

message: The standard argument against this is the Seigenthaler incident. A difference between the two approaches mentioned is that currently there would be numerous sighted version in the history, allowing reverts to a previous sighted version if a problem is found in the current one that cannot be quickly fixed. If sighting expires, there will be no previous sighted versions. PaddyLeahy 10:19, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would prefer that new special pages similar to 'recent changes' be implemented. It should (IMO must) be possible to list all pages with unflagged revisions subsequent to flagged revisions... that is, all pages where users have made contributions that are not yet being displayed to all readers. If volunteers go through those with the same alacrity that they do recent changes patrol today then these new updates should usually be reviewed and approved or reverted in a matter of minutes. If there is a list and it is kept up then no change will ever languish 'overlooked' for long. Automatic changing of the flagged status invalidates the goal... we want to keep changes from relatively unknown users out of the public eye until there has been time for someone to look at them and see that they aren't vandalism. If the status changes automatically then the vandalism gets out before anyone has seen it and we haven't achieved what the system was meant to do. --CBD 12:07, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would prefer that flags expire (if that's possible with the extension) after unreviewed edits sit for a certain amount of time. Some have suggested a day - that is fine for many articles that have many people watching them; but other articles, especially those in more specialized subjects, may only have one or two people watching them and they might not edit every day. Auto-sighting would be bad, that would defeat the purpose. Mr.Z-man 13:57, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Or zero people watching them. There are thousands of unwatched pages. In fact, there are more than a thousand unwatched pages whose first character in the title is a punctuation character or the digit "1". Yes, sighting should expire if unsighted edits have sat for a sufficient period of time, but 1 day is far too fast. Perhaps if the most recent change is unsighted and more than 30 days old then it should be shown. GRBerry 15:04, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree that it would not be desirable to have expiring sighted version. I also agree with CBD's suggestion of a special page that lists all pages with unflagged revisions subsequent to flagged revisions. It would be very useful to be able to sort such a page by the # of unflagged revisions and/or the amount of time since these revisions were made. Finally, being able to track various metrics on the flagged revision system would be essential to ensuring it benefits the encyclopedia. Chaz Beckett 16:05, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I think putting the metrics and support pages in place from the start will be an important part of assuring success. For instance, instead of flagging 'automatically expiring' would it be worthwhile to set in advance a 'criterion for success' of something like, 'the average time for unflagged edits to flagged pages to be reviewed and approved or reverted must be less than an hour'? It addresses the same concern (valuable edits 'getting lost' and not included in the displayed version) by treating it as an indication that the new process is failing and needs to be adjusted (or removed if unfixable) rather than as a built in software adjustment which could let vandalism slip past. Similar things I might suggest would be; 'the number of protected and semi-protected articles should decrease by at least 50%' and 'the number of daily vandalism complaints received by OTRS should decrease by at least 50%'. If those three things could be accomplished then I'd call flagged revisions wildly successful. I suspect it will do considerably better than those metrics, but changes of even those magnitudes would make it very much worthwhile. --CBD 16:16, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I'll agree that without success metrics determined before the experiment, we'll never know if the experiment worked. We already know that the system will have costs on existing editors, require additional processes, additional database and edit load, et cetera. During the experiment phase, we are likely to be only testing pages that are already well watched and contentious. So the standard we test in the experiment phase should be significantly more stringent than the standard we want to live with once all pages are being affected. I think a 30 day standard is about right for once all pages are affected, and I think that a 24 hour standard would be the equivalent for semi-protected pages. (I don't think 1 hour is feasible except for a minor subset of pages where the benefit of this system will be negligible anyway.) GRBerry 15:04, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Agreed. Hopefully that is the last time someone will mention that ;) Voice-of-All 20:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: After a while, we will have a set of sighted articles, but if we browse those, we will be blue-linked to many articles which may not have a sighted version. Would it be possible to have an option 'sighted only browsing of the wiki', which results in that (registered) editors only see sighted versions at that moment, and that pages that do not have a sighted version turn into redlinks. After all, only the sighted versions are (supposed to be) good. On the articles one could then easily go through the 'redlinks' and see whether the article does exist but does not have a sighted version (and then try to find/create a sightable revision of those 'redlinked' pages). In that way not only pages are turned into good, reliable pages, but complete subjects are becoming that way. The reliability of a page is dependent on the links that are there ..
What about considering that users who are not logged in only see sighted versions, and pages which do not have a sighted version (yet) are not shown (but can be shown via a tab, or when editing that page). I know that that depends on how many reviewers we have, and this should certainly not be enabled in the beginning.
Such a feature would also allow to only see the part of wikipedia which is deemed OK ... as in, we see a reliable encyclopedia. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:51, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The first part of the idea makes some sense and is very interesting as a conscious option (if it could be implemented is another story), but I don't think the idea that it could be applied to non-logged in users should EVER be considered, unless somehow 1.8 million of our 2 million articles actually eventually get sighted... ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 11:41, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We should have almost all our articles with at least one recent sighted version. That's the point of having almost everyone able to sight. --Tango 12:05, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't believe that it is going to be such a big deal. There are about 1500 administrators, if they all would give the sight rights to 5 users (on avarage) you have almost 10,000 users that can sight .. which would take about half a year if they would sight only 1 page a day. But I expect these 10,000 users to be more active in sighting (as they are probably quite dedicated users already).. So even if the threshold is 'all administrators and all registered editors with more than 1000 edits' we get a substantial group that is capable of sighting, and yes, it might be that we are quite busy with that for some time, but I expect that it can be done in a couple of months (most of the pages that don't get sighted in that time, are not seen by many people anyway, and people can always put up a request). After that you can put the system up of 'seeing a sighted wikipedia'. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:49, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Do it quick. I will participate.-BillDeanCarter 12:59, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: 'Sighted Wikipedia'

message: The main page is extremely off-putting for a new visitor. It opens with a message from Jimbo going into the detail of something that's not yet been explained. Then, we have a techy section about something that's not yet been explained. Finally, after the ToC, you finally hit some explanation (phew!) but are immediately hit by a header that refers to "Sighted versions" and opening words that refer to "Sighted revisions" (or is it the other way round? Not important - it's off-putting) Frankly, anyone who persists to actually working out what this important proposal is about deserves a medal. This is Wikipedia, where we love to "edit mercilessly" to improve articles - so why's this proposal such an exception. Simple suggestion: create a lead section that follows the principles of WP:LEAD and all will be well. --Dweller 18:17, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I did the second best thing, although that's not very conventional, but I put an infobox saying other people should be bold in editing :) About the signed comment, uhm normally one would remove it as totally inappropriate, perhaps paste a warning on the User's talk page. :) In this case, perhaps it should be moved to the top of this talk page? --Merzul 19:12, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that Jimbo's comment should be moved to the top of the talk page, above the TOC. Its immediate purpose has been served, and blog link traffic typically falls off quickly.--ragesoss 19:16, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Not "user friendly" policy

message: One of the advantages of "sighting" is that it reduces the incentive to vandalise, since vandalism will not show up immediately. But, isn't the opposite true as well? Doesn't it also reduce the incentive to make positive contributions because they too will not show up immediately? In this world of ever-faster Internet connection speeds, no one is going to tolerate even a 5-minute delay for their change to appear. I hadn't thought of it before, but this essentially shuts out all anonymous users. They can technically still edit, but there is absolutely no incentive for them to do so. — Black Falcon (Talk) 18:22, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It gives incentive to sign up, and I also think one shouldn't underestimate the psychological situation this creates. New anonymous editors, especially the most promising ones who might become regular contributors, will be eager to see if their edits get approved. They'll check back obsessively, and in the meantime they'll find other things to edit. I remember when I first made major edits, I kept checking back to see if anyone changed it or commented, and I think a lot of new editors do the same. Additionally, for some people who never edited because they saw no attempt at quality control, they'll be more willing edit. Although some will no doubt respond as you suggest, I think overall it's more likely to increase the level of contributions than decrease it.--ragesoss 18:40, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You checked back obsessively because your edits appeared. I don't think most new users will immediately grasp the notion of 'sighting' and understand why their edits didn't show up. Also, "sighting" is not really "quality control" unless it involves a significant investment of time and effort (which various comments on this talk page suggest is not the intent of the proposal, despite the text of the "Requirements of Sighted versions" section). — Black Falcon (Talk) 19:43, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: After the initial (first-time) sighting is done, are we really talking about that significant of an effort to flag revisions? Unless I'm misuderstanding something, we'd only need to look at the changed text, not the entire article. If an article is 30K and only two lines are changed, the reviewer only has to examine those two lines. Chaz Beckett 19:53, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but someone has to make that initial, detailed, GA-review type evaluation in order for subsequent sightings to be valid. Otherwise we'll just be burying original research, non-obvious vandalism, false information, and other problems behind dozens of layers of sightings. Here we must rely on the meticulousness of surveyors. If we limit surveyor rights to a small group (i.e. admins), we'll have a hard time sighting 1.9+ million articles (and growing). If we make everyone with an account (30 days, 150+ mainspace edits) a surveyor, the reliability of the average sighting goes down since (1) people will cut corners and (2) plenty of POV-pushers and the like meet those criteria. See also my comments in the section #Abandon sighted versions. — Black Falcon (Talk) 20:06, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I'd like to see us having a big push on getting anon editors to register when they edit, explaining the future benefits, why it'll be good and so on. It might also be time to have a purge on accounts that have never edited and don't have an e-mail address registered. It's possible lots of users are being put off from registering because they can't remember their username or can't find a short, easy to remember username. Nick 18:48, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A proposal to purge accounts was suggested about 2 years ago. It seemed to have gained consensus, but it was denied by the developers. My personal preference is not to force the issue of registration: if someone doesn't want to register, that's fine. Gentle nudging is appropriate, but delaying the appearance of edits has nothing 'gentle' about it. — Black Falcon (Talk) 19:40, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There's a belief in about half the camp here that people create accounts so they can customize the appearance of Wikipedia which is one reason the devs aren't keen to have a purge. It's possible we'll see a fairly substantial upsurge in the number of accounts being used to actively edit if that's the case. I'd still like to see a message that goes with the anon notice about not being logged in that gently nudges the user to create an account. Nick 01:01, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't really agree that no one will tolerate even a 5 minute delay, but there's always the options to create an account. It's really not that hard to create one and actually provides more privacy than editing anonymously. Chaz Beckett 18:54, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I think a lot of new users don't really believe that their changes will appear instantly until they try anyway (judging by the number of test edits we end up reverting), so what different does it make? --Tango 19:26, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point. New users may not even have the expectation that their edits will immediately be visible to the world. If/when flagged revisions go live, anons should probably be notified on the edit screen that their contributions will be reviewed before becoming visible. Chaz Beckett 19:31, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that they "don't really believe that their changes will appear instantly", but rather that they just want to see what happens. That is, they want to effect a change. — Black Falcon (Talk) 19:40, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps we should change the text at MediaWiki:Userlogin (the text displayed to non-logged in users in the top right corner) to "Sign in / Create username" instead of "Sign in / Create account"(the current version). Account sounds a lot more formal (like a bank account) when creating a username here is a really easy process (way easier than most other sites) and all you are need to enter in the form is a captcha word, a username, and a password; even an email is optional. It would not be a huge difference, but it could help stress the easiness and simplicity of creating an account. Another small, but noticeable, thing to encourage anons to create an account could be adding a link to Wikipedia:Why create an account? on MediaWiki:Anonnotice. Mr.Z-man 20:48, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Two-thirds of registered usernames are never used to edit. Seems plausible that there are more unused usernames than anonymous IP editors, so perhaps getting people to register is not the main problem... PaddyLeahy 22:19, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

text: There's a ways round this problem, I believe. Those users without surveyor permission would always see the page as they last edited it, but with a small disclaimer that says the page may not appear this way to other visitors. Nick 00:19, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

text: I highly doubt it will be 30 days. On more technical articles it may take a few days for someone with enough technical knowledge to come around to it but for most articles they should have new edits sighted or revrted within 48 hours (ideally within a couple hours). Mr.Z-man 22:11, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good edits should be sighted at the same speed as vandalism is reverted now, which is generally within an hour or two. Recent changes patrollers already look at pretty much every edit, now they'll just have to click "sight" instead of just ignoring good ones. --Tango 12:59, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is all this "should be" stuff, but no promises. If I were an anonymous editor and it said "Your edit will be review" I would think that some big company with ten editors were going to get around to it sometime, maybe never. Zginder 13:02, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The message should dispel that notion by its phrasing, along the lines of "When another editor agrees the change is an improvement, it will be made visible". -R. S. Shaw 20:19, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: (e/c reply to Zginder) Wikipedia is all volunteer, we can't require people to do things in a certain timeframe (or even require them to do anything at all) and this software has never been used on a large wiki before so there is no real way of knowing precisely how it will work here. It will probably be used on the German Wikipedia first, but their implementation may be quite different from ours, so our results may differ. We can make estimations based on similar processes (which is what we've been doing), but even those are not precise. This is not an automatic system here. This is thousands of people at individual computers around the world, each editing at different times, different articles, and different tasks. Everyone does whatever they want to do, whenever they want to do it; its near impossible to predict. Hypothetically you could survey every user who would be eligible for this (the number would be in the thousands) as to whether they would use the system and how much they would use it. Combine that data with the number of articles this could be used on (possibly all) and the number of edits per day (or hour for a better estimate) on those articles by users who are and are not eligible to "sight" articles. Even then, whatever statistics you may gather, it is still only an approximation and relies on individual responses. Of course you could save time by only using a percentage of users and articles but as your percentage gets smaller, so does your accuracy. Or, instead of wasting hundreds of hours collecting and processing data to get an estimate, we could hope this works as well as current processes. If it does, great, if it doesn't, we tinker with the policy and if its a horrible failure we deactivate/uninstall the extension. Mr.Z-man 20:31, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Anonymous editing

message: I changed my opinion on this. The page is very convincing. I hope this gets accepted. -FlubecaTalk 23:58, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I also have slowly been drawn to support this. We definitely need some form of quality control system. Most people think "people can put whatever they want on Wikipedia" and therefore, they really don't trust it. The proposal has flaws in it, but I'm too ambivalent in my position to seriously input on anything. What I will say is auto-sighting should not be done. Wikipedia as a whole cannot endorse any article automatically. Also, the "surveyor" requirements are too strict. Two weeks and ten edits would be plenty. Most vandals (in my experience) are the hit and run type. The others we will just have to deal with. It's better to have to stop a few more vandals that alienate a lot of constructive contributors. I know we all want to stop vandals, but we cannot close our doors. Our goals should be to improve our reliability, reduce vandalism, and do this without anyone needing to yell "the citizendium is near". Psych less 23:18, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: New opinion