Wikipedia To Require Editing Approval 453
The NY Times reports on an epochal move by Wikipedia — within weeks, the formerly freewheeling encyclopedia will begin requiring editor approval for all edits to articles about living people. "The new feature, called 'flagged revisions,' will require that an experienced volunteer editor for Wikipedia sign off on any change made by the public before it can go live. Until the change is approved — or in Wikispeak, flagged — it will sit invisibly on Wikipedia's servers, and visitors will be directed to the earlier version. ... The new editing procedures... have been applied to the entire German-language version of Wikipedia during the last year... Although Wikipedia has prevented anonymous users from creating new articles for several years now, the new flagging system crosses a psychological Rubicon. It will divide Wikipedia's contributors into two classes — experienced, trusted editors, and everyone else — altering Wikipedia's implicit notion that everyone has an equal right to edit entries."
Re:So much for... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed, and in fact, this is a step forward: currently the only method at the moment is to protect articles, locking anonymous and new editors out completely. With this system, they'll now be allowed to edit again.
Re:Put a fork in it... (Score:5, Informative)
I heard that a few years ago, the page for George W Bush was vandalized on average every 30 seconds or so. It's definitely that people have proven themselves unequal when it comes to editing.
(I'm no fan of Bush, that isn't bias)
"Everyone can edit", but "no one can contribute". (Score:3, Informative)
ie. You can't contribute knowledge to the Wikipedia... only regurgitated leavings from other websites. It's just a dreary collection of the web predigested by a wasp hivemind mindset hiding behind the mask of NPOV.
So they have just added another layer to enforce that fundamental limitation further. So what. Try everything2 [everything2.com] instead.
Or just about any place.
I never write anything down anymore... I just lose the paper on my desk anyway. When I find out something I want to remember, I write it on the web somewhere anywhere and let google index it for me.
Note to self: portablexdr is the name of the lgpl xdr library I want to use.
Re:And what's so bad about it? (Score:5, Informative)
For that matter, it can also prevent left-wing nutjobs from removing favorable aspects from the pages of their political opponents. In fact, it will slow down and possibly prevent the vandalism of pages by fruitcakes from all parts of the political spectrum.
There's always been a heirachy. (Score:3, Informative)
"Wikipedia's implicit notion that everyone has an equal right to edit entries."
Due to the presence of "administrators" who can bar non-administrators from editing (i.e. locking an article), that has never been true.
Not that I agree with increased restriction but at least the anons can still submit edits and they'll be evaluated by editors who probably won't have the "what I say goes" attitude of the administrators.
More German than the Germans? (Score:1, Informative)
Either TFA is inaccurate about the new "feature", or it's much more restrictive than what German Wikipedia has been practicing. In German Wikipedia edits by non-members don't
sit invisibly on Wikipedia's servers
until approved, they are visible to everybody in a "Draft" ("Entwurf") tab [wikipedia.org]. Logged-in users are redirected to the latest draft by default, if there is one.
If TFA is right and they're really planning to hide fresh edits entirely from the public, everybody will edit the latest approved version instead of the latest draft. Every draft will be its own branch. It will be real fun merging all those --maybe even conflicting-- edits back to the approved version. My prediction is that editors won't bother merging, and we will see many more instant reverts. I mean, we won't see them. Not even in page history. Oversighted. And they won't be instant reverts, just instant dismissals. One more step to a closed Wikipedia.
Re:"Everyone can edit", but "no one can contribute (Score:3, Informative)
"everyone can edit it... so long as you reference and summarise something somewhere else. "
Yes, that's exactly the policy Wikipedia was founded on. "An encyclopedia not a journal... No original research". So they're still doing that right, then.
Got an actual criticism there?
Is it a conscious commercial strategy? (Score:3, Informative)
This requirement first appeared in politically controversial articles. Then it spread to most articles on serious subjects. Now it's applied even to fancruft. ("What do you mean I can't write about 'Zords in Power Rangers: Jungle Fury' because they weren't mentioned in a Journal of Popular Culture article?") The detailed fancruft is gradually moving to Wikia, which has lower standards.
I believe this is a conscious commercial strategy designed to drive more and more content to Wikia, which is a for-profit company founded by Jimmy Wales--who also happens to be the leader of the "inner circle" at Wikipedia.
I've written about it before [slashdot.org]
Re:"Everyone can edit", but "no one can contribute (Score:2, Informative)
Of course, if you are an American WASP... you can look and look and look at the wikipedia all day and not see the problem with NPOV. :-))
Obviously you've never seen Conservapedia [conservapedia.com]. ;)
Wikipedia has censorship, bigot editors, and child (Score:4, Informative)
I've had wikipedia editors removed my articles using standard wiki excuses for deletion. I decided to see if the editors who deleted the articles where biased, so I checked on their pet articles and backgrounds. These editors would delete, even when I got votes to keep it in I requested to undelete. Anything that confronted their pet projects would be deleted. Also, they are members in clubs that conflict with the articles.
I've experienced the bigots on there, and if an editor has a vendetta, smaller articles will be deleted. The use this to promote their own views. Its not open when editors can use the rules to fight off any thing that conflicts with their personal beliefs.
Sucks, because articles can have pros/cons on subjects, but seems only new subjects can be added. You try to add a person who had their 15 minutes of fame from the 70's, and most editors where not even born yet. So of course its not a valid article, articles about south park are..
Wikipedia has censorship, bigot editors, and children running it. Its a sad state of affairs over there. But yet I keep trying to use it, even after dealing with these people.
I find if anything other than fact based articles are ok, if they concern people, ideas, or beliefs, its too liberal to be fair, and too feminist to be accurate.
Not saying I'm against that, but there are counter thoughts to modern feminism, and other issues. But only the popular view will be published on Wikipedia with these editors.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative)
What is the qualification process for earning "trust"?
Oh, that's easy. I know, I give away trade secrets here, but hey, you don't know what's my handle on Wikipedia, so I can enjoy the anonymity of the internet on this one.
1) Edit. Edit, edit, edit, edit. It's not what you edit, it's how often you do it. Being anal retentive and insistant in British spelling (or American, if it's spelled in BE) helps a lot here. Start with the pages of actors, you'll get heaps of "theater/theatre" edits for cheap.
2) Learn who is important and who is not. Having a good memory for names helps, but so does a good list. Do not skip this step, it can be devastating later when you...
3) Undo edits from nobodies. No matter if they were contributing or vandalizing, what matters is that your edit-counter moves up. Make certain, though, that you don't do it to anyone who might be important enough to stink up a storm. People don't like being reverted, well, that's no problem if they don't count, but reverting a change from someone you're trying to suck up to is kinda a career killer.
4) Suck up to someone important. The discussion pages are for that. Join every topic that could be remotely controversal and butt in. You learned in Step 2 who is important and who isn't. Use it.
Ok, cynicism aside. But it seems that a lot of people do just that. They see Wikipedia as some sort of game they want to "win". There are of course a few (often rather "old") contributors that earned their status with important, insightful and accurate information, but more and more people climb that "ladder" only by gaming the system. That these people then will have the power to dictate what becomes canon and what doesn't is a bit of a chill up my spine.
Re:How about patently false entries? (Score:3, Informative)
Then you get into a reversion battle. Then BOTH you and the "volunteer" will be temporarily-banned, and I suspect said volunteer will be outed as a government employee and banned forever, whereas you'll be allowed back on.
Another tactic is to simply tag everything "Citation needed" to see if they can come-up with sources to validate their incorrect history. Give them a month, and if they can't, then erase the info as "uncited material removed". They might try to revert but you can remove it again with the same reason given - "Material without citation is invalid for wikipedia. Uncited sentences removed"
and Keith Henson (Score:0, Informative)
And how about Keith Henson [wikipedia.org]. His article makes him look like a total hero, but...
Two of his daughters publicly claim they were raped by Mr. Henson. One of them changed her name from Henson to Aurora. (Remember her? Valerie Aurora [slashdot.org], the Linux file system developer and ex-ZFS designer.) In December 2007, the child molesting accusations were published on-line by her in a quite extensive article [valerieaurora.org] that includes links to other (reliable) sources. Guess why his wife Carolyn Meinel left him...
Is all this even mentioned briefly on his page, under a "Controversies" heading? No.
Even the discussion page is locked!
Re:Unapproved view (Score:3, Informative)
BBC confirms any non-new editor can give approval (Score:2, Informative)
No need to worry - it'll be anyone who's simply had an account for a certain amount of time.
TFA doesn't mention this, but I found a better source at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8220220.stm [bbc.co.uk] , which says:
This would mean any changes made by a new or unknown user would have to be approved by one of the site's editors before the changes were published.
That's all. And "editor", in Wikipedia speak, is "anyone who edits". It's not an admin, not some second class of "trusted editors". All it filters out is those who haven't signed up for an account, and people who only recently did so.
Re:How about patently false entries? (Score:3, Informative)
Indeed. If those things don't work, people can:
* Raise the issue on the talk page to see if other editors are watching.
* Raise the issue on related talk pages, or a related WikiProject page.
* Raise the issue on general pages specifically for this issue - e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Third_opinion [wikipedia.org] , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_commen [wikipedia.org]
You forgot a few steps:
* get accused falsely of being a "sockpuppet" or "meatpuppet" by the entrenched clique.
* get written up on the various administrators' cesspool boards (WP:ANI for instance) and attacked there.
* get blocked/unblocked/blocked/unblocked in rapid succession by the entrenched clique's stooge-admins so that they can tar you, Scarlet Letter-style, and say you've been "blocked X times."
* get trolled repeatedly by admin-protected "enforcers" for the clique, trying to provoke you into something that can be more justification for blocks/bans