Submissions/Flagged Revisions vs. Page Protection
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This is a rejected submission for Wikimania 2012. |
- Submission no.
611
- Title of the submission
- Flagged Revisions vs. Page Protection
- Type of submission (workshop, tutorial, panel, presentation)
- workshop
- Author of the submission
- w:en:User:Николай95
- E-mail address
- my.main.reg.box@gmail.com
- Username
- Николай95 (call me Nick95 or rather just Nick)
- Country of origin
- Russia
- Affiliation, if any (organization, company etc.)
- none
- Personal homepage or blog
- none
- Abstract
Intro
Since Wikipedia was founded in 2001, one of its major problems has been the problem of quality.
To be more exact, the problem of minimizing low quality edits.
So far, it has not been solved, but today we already have two software extensions with regulations, which can be of much use to tackle the problem.
First one, the Protection Policy (PP) was introduced in 2004, which allowed sysops to protect susceptible articles from being edited by anonymous contributors, (Semi-Protection)
or, in complex cases, by nobody except sysops themselves (Full Protection).
The second extension, called Flagged Revisions (FR), was made in 2008.
It enables one to flag versions of articles that meet quality standards.
There are two levels of version quality: Sighted Versions and Quality Versions.
A Sighted Version is checked for vandalism by an Editor.
A Synced Article has its last version Sighted.
A Quality Version, is checked for high quality by a Reviewer.
Susceptible articles can be stabilized, i. e. only the last sighted version is shown to the reader, which makes vandalism less attractive.
The $64,000 question is: which is better, more useful and more effective?
Of course, it depends on the situation. Flagged Revisions have been requested by many Wikis, but implemented only on a few of them.
Proof link: Flagged revisions (MetaWiki)
I assume in most Wikipedias the community didn't reach consensus.
I would like this problem to be discussed at Wikimania — perhaps some Wiki-Communities will change their mind.
At the Wikimania 2006 it was announced that the focus be shifted from quantity to quality. Still many Wikipedians prefer quantity.
Of course, big additions like Wiki Loves monuments are good and nice,
but there SHOULD be someone to CONTROL THE QUALITY.
P. S. I'm an editor in Russian Wikipedia.
I'm sorry I'll be unable to attend Wikimania so I'm looking for a host. Николай95 (talk) 12:16, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
Pro-FR reasoning
| Issue | Protection Policy | Flagged Revisions |
|---|---|---|
| Catching Vandals | PP doesn't help catch vandals | Vandals can be warned or reported to sysops |
| Quality Assurance | PP is not a trash remedy | FR assures a basic article quality |
| Raising Quality | PP provides no means of improving the quality | FR can raise the quality to no end |
| Contribution Scale | PP holds back lots of good users | FR sets few limits on anonymous editing |
| Combatting Vandalism on Hot-Topic Articles | Semi-Block only bars anonymous vandals,
and thus doesn't fully prevent vandalism (registered users can also be vandals) |
FR helps catch ALL vandals as every edit is checked;
stabilisation is a good alternative to Semi-Block |
Pro-PP reasoning
| Issue | Flagged Revisions | Protection policy |
|---|---|---|
| The More Language Speakers — The Higher the Risk of Vandalism | FR can do little to stop waves of vandalism | PP is useful in popular-language Wikis, as the risk of vandalism is high there |
| Waves of Vandalism on Hot-Topic articles | PP prevents anonymous vandalismб which has a big share |
Sighted Versions on Russian Wikipedia
Russian Wikipedia introduced Sighted Versions in 2009. As of June 2nd, 2012, of 862,452 articles, 91,16 % were sighted, while 77,86 % were synced.
Source: Special:Validation Statistics
Quality Requirements:
No obvious:
- vandalism
- slander, libel
- copyvio
- spam
- nonsense
- content forking / rq:delete
- outdated info / rq:update
- at least 1 category / rq:topic
- minimal design, free of mass errors
- Track
- Technology and Infrastructure
- Length of presentation/talk
- 1,5 hours — quality is VERY important
- Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?
If I could I would.
Interested attendees
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