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Revision as of 22:53, 2 March 2010 editCool Hand Luke (talk | contribs)14,522 edits If someone started sighting articles willy-nilly, I'm confident ArbCom would deal with it.← Previous edit Revision as of 22:53, 2 March 2010 edit undoInkSplotch (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users821 editsNo edit summaryNext edit →
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* Flagged revisions is so obviously the correct decision it's hardly worth discussing. There comes a point in time when the Foundation needs to make a technical or a command decision on something and just implement it and that point in time is 18 months ago. One of the (many) problems with Misplaced Pages is that it works via the ]. In other words, even if there is an obvious conclusion that 90% of informed, unbiased observers would reach, that conclusion is irrelevant and the result is the desire of whoever yells the loudest. Misplaced Pages can and should implement all available technical means at its disposal to stop libel. --] (]) 22:40, 2 March 2010 (UTC) * Flagged revisions is so obviously the correct decision it's hardly worth discussing. There comes a point in time when the Foundation needs to make a technical or a command decision on something and just implement it and that point in time is 18 months ago. One of the (many) problems with Misplaced Pages is that it works via the ]. In other words, even if there is an obvious conclusion that 90% of informed, unbiased observers would reach, that conclusion is irrelevant and the result is the desire of whoever yells the loudest. Misplaced Pages can and should implement all available technical means at its disposal to stop libel. --] (]) 22:40, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' - Misplaced Pages ain't broke, it doesn't need fixing. The quality and prestige of the site has only risen over past years without flagged revisions; the change only stands to damage the project. - ] (]) 22:42, 2 March 2010 (UTC) *'''Oppose''' - Misplaced Pages ain't broke, it doesn't need fixing. The quality and prestige of the site has only risen over past years without flagged revisions; the change only stands to damage the project. - ] (]) 22:42, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
*'''Support''' Much overdue. --] (]) 22:53, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Revision as of 22:53, 2 March 2010

Context: Misplaced Pages:Flagged revisions (general information page), Poll for all articles, Poll for BLPs, Poll for some trial, Misplaced Pages:Flagged protection and patrolled revisions (implementation accepted for trial - poll, awaiting implementation)

I'd like us to conduct a poll from now until Saturday, regarding whether we should ask the Foundation to simply turn on flagged revs in the form that the Germans use it, until such time as they finish the version we've reached consensus on here, but which is constantly delayed.

Please just leave it here rather than turning it into a formal RfC or request — this is just a poll to gauge how we feel about it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

  • I'm concerned that we would not be able to keep up with the backlog if we implemented FR on six times the number of articles that we planned to, even temporarily. But this might be a good idea, if only to gauge in advance how many articles we can reasonably have flagged protected at once with the new system. NW (Talk) 11:40, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
    • You don't seem to understand; Jimbo has not proposed using the German Misplaced Pages's policy (aspiring toward 100% flagging, which we rejected), he has just proposed using their technical settings. Under the German settings, articles are not flagged until they are first sighted. If we don't want to have flagged revisions for all articles on the site (which we don't), we simply do not sight all articles on the site! Instead, we sight the articles, such as BLPS, that may be problematic on an as-needed basis. Please read Z-Man's posts below, which accurately describe the German settings. Zero articles will be flagged when this is turned on—we only make articles flagged when the first flagged revision is sighted. Cool Hand Luke 21:12, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support, however we lack any policy or guideline for assigning the reviewer status that would suit the unmodifed FR. That would require addressing before it goes live, otherwise we'll be essentially stuck with changes nobody but admins can approve. MLauba (talk) 11:49, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support. I've put links to this poll at a number of high visibility places, to get maximal input. Fram (talk) 12:22, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • It is working on DEWP and ENNEWS. Bring flagged revs here! Surely we can sort out the sighting rights in a timely manner. Perhaps even as simple as making it a part of the rollbackers, autoreviewer, bot, and sysop groups' rights as they would be the ones most likely to have use for sighting. The DEWP reviewer right is a similar concept to the ENWP rollback right. delirious & lost ☯ 12:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support Misplaced Pages is the result of no longer waiting for Nupedia to get its act together. Go for it. Paradoctor (talk) 12:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support, it really is time to take the next step in building our credibility as a resource. Guy (Help!) 12:36, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Way overdue. Support ++Lar: t/c 12:40, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support Definitely yes. Pmlineditor ∞ 12:45, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Would rather Jimbo just ruled by fiat in this situation. Way overdue support GTD 12:45, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support, and a hear hear to Guy. :) --Moonriddengirl 12:48, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • AIUI, this means effectively that all pages will be protected (at somewhere between semi-protection and full protection), and a new gimmicky tool will be introduced for excluded editors so that it still feels as if Misplaced Pages is the encyclopedia anyone can edit™, even though it won't be. No particular objections from me to trying it out as an experiment, but I think a change as major as this needs proper considered discussion instead of five days of mindless polling. (And heads should roll at the foundation for their utter failure to get the agreed version running.)--Kotniski (talk) 12:53, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support - waaaay past time. Just enable it already, we'll sort out the details as things go. It's not rocket science - Alison 12:54, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support as all those above me have argued. We need it. Ucucha 12:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support. Please. Hal peridol (talk) 12:58, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment. At minimum, failure conditions must be established before-hand: i.e. measurable conditions under which it would be turned off as too problematic — and the situation monitored appropriately. Rd232 12:58, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • I don't think this poll matters either way, except to make this already decided decision look like it has consensus, but oppose. It will hurt user retention. I have seen the way it is used on other wikiprojects, and it really ruins the wikipedia experience of instant changes being seen. Based on the way that many veteran editors consistently disregarded our rules, I don't trust the majority of veteran editors one bit to be impartial in which revisions they will choose to accept. Okip
  • Comment I'm not sure of the details of the proposal. Can we have a link to a summary of the German form proposed, so that we can understand what we're voting for, please. Colonel Warden (talk) 13:00, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
It means that Misplaced Pages will be (almost) fully protected — only admins and a certain (as yet uncreated) set of other approved users will be able to edit it.--Kotniski (talk) 13:01, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
That is incorrect. Flagged Revs doesn't restrict editing, it however prevents non-reviewed versions of an article from being displayed to normal users by default. They can still access the non-reviewed version by clicking on an icon however. MLauba (talk) 13:05, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
So effectively, it does restrict editing. (You can edit, but your edit won't show up — so "editing" for excluded users is effectively just the same as making an {{editprotected}} request on a fully protected page.) --Kotniski (talk) 13:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
It means that a select few veteran editors, many editors who consistently and successfully violate policy without sanction, decide what should and should be on Misplaced Pages. This will cause more frustration, new editor loss, and fierce arguments because these veteran editors will have more control over content than newer editors. Okip 13:10, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I got reviewing rights on the German Misplaced Pages a long time ago, and I still have only 636 edits there. It's a lot less exclusive than adminship. Hans Adler 14:04, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
You have made 12618 edits to the English Misplaced Pages. As you are German, please explain this discrepancy. Does the German environment have a discouraging effect upon you? Colonel Warden (talk) 14:21, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
This link seems to be the relevant one: Misplaced Pages:Flagged revisions/Sighted versions. This describes different national flavours: German, Polish and Russian. There's some confusion about terminology — is flagged exactly the same as sighted? The German version has the latter, if it matters. Anyway, the Polish version sounds the most sensible, if we were to rush this in a half-baked way, as it is implemented gradually rather than with a big bang. A sweeping change for all articles does not seem sensible when the details remain to be thrashed out. Colonel Warden (talk) 14:15, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • I gather that the German Misplaced Pages uses flagged revisions on all articles, so I am afraid I will need to buck the trend here and oppose that. (I am neutral about using it as an alternative to protection on certain articles.) It puts an enormous strain on the RC patrol to have to approve each and every revision an anonymous user makes, and it is a major turn-off for new contributors if there is a long delay in doing so. The Wikibooks project, where I have made a few edits, have at times taken weeks to get a perfectly non-controversial edit through. Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:02, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support flagged revisions immediately. The stalling and obfuscation has risen to absurd levels. This poll is unnecessary. Just do it already.Bali ultimate (talk) 13:10, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Having a long list of supports here from the usual band of vested contributors will frankly mean nothing in terms of what's good for the English Misplaced Pages. It is not those people who wrote or expanded the majority of articles, or even revert the most vandalism or BLP vios. If you want to turn over the building and maintaining of the pedia to these people, and arguably with the recent endorsement of the BLP vandalism spree you do, ripping up the idea that adminship is no big deal, then FR is the perfect tool to do this and create a three tier pedia. If however, you want Misplaced Pages's article count to continue to grow (it is not finished by a long shot, and what we do have is mostly shit), and continue to have new editors registering because they want to, not because they have to, then do not implement German FR here. Thats before we even talk about backlogs, or the very real fact that even with FR, Wikinews lets BLP violations through, with their 'sighted status' meaning they remain forever, and ludicrously, cannot even be fixed by non-vested contributors. And as we see, Wikinews is a total failure at recruiting new editors, FR is no doubt a huge part of that. MickMacNee (talk) 13:11, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
    And the idea it would ever get turned off when the trial config is ready, is surely an insult to people's intelligence. The vested contributors are only interested in a wedge strategy here. Short of a total technical disaster, nothing will stop them in future from hijacking this temporary adoption down the line and turning it into a permanent feature. MickMacNee (talk) 13:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support Will improve WP a lot. Wikinews uses drafts (similar to flagged revs), and its successful. ManishEarth 13:13, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
    Wikinews is a disaster. Pretty much nobody contributes to it, its level of output is pitifull for a supposed news service. Even with highly experienced reviewers, I have personaly seen BLP violations get 'sighted' and passed as front page news, and I eventualy gave up on that project because it was frankly too onerous to go around begging for your revert of BLP vandalism to get sighted, let alone get anything else reviewed or approved. And that is a project that supposedly runs to deadlines. Wikinews is a perfect example of the unscaleability of FR actually — its technology is seen as 'successful' on a tiny and frankly insignificant scale, yet if Wikinews handled the amount of new news articles that Misplaced Pages gets, it would fall flat on its face. MickMacNee (talk) 13:23, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support Echoing Bali ultimate's frustrations. Show, meet road. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 13:17, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Can we expect any actual arguments in favour of this proposal, instead of just "isn't this a marvellous idea"? Have the effects of the German experiment been studied?--Kotniski (talk) 13:18, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Yes, full FR prevents new articles with copyvios from being displayed in the first place, and can help with limiting the amount of copyright violations introduced later in an article's history. Which is the aspect that our special requirements don't address, due to the exclusive focus on BLPs. MLauba (talk) 13:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
How much has the Foundation paid out in the past year on copyright violation suits?--Kotniski (talk) 13:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
How much has it paid on libel suits? Nice strawman. The legal obligations in order to keep the Foundations' safe harbour provision under the DMCA is essentially identical between BLP and copyvio issues. MLauba (talk) 14:12, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
You're not stupid, Kotniski, you know perfectly well that the Foundation has no legal exposure to copyright law just as it has no exposure to libel. Are you saying that the facts that hosting copyright violations is encyclopedically unprofessional and morally wrong should be ignored because you can't put a dollar sign in front of them? Is that really what you're saying? Happy‑melon 14:30, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm not saying anything; I'm trying to learn the facts before making a decision. (But what's the point, since everyone else is just piling on the votes without thinking.) Clearly copyvios (and libels) are a bad thing, but are they that much of a bad thing that we have to tear down our whole editing model because of them?--Kotniski (talk) 14:38, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Some specific notes: (1) Full FlaggedRevs won't prevent the creation of a copyvio article — flagged revs start working only when the article has been flagged for the first time. (2) If an edit introduces a copyvio, it'll stay in the history if not deleted, regardless of flaggedrevs, it just won't be displayed to readers if flaggedrevs is active and not flagged. (3) The scope of the consensual implementation (WP:FPPR) is in no way limited to BLPs. Cenarium (talk) 14:32, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
For Wikimedia's developers, alphabetical order is hard. So basically, yes.--Kotniski (talk) 13:50, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Well I don't see why it would be hard to make the software auto-approve all edits made to articles not in that category. Clunky, perhaps, but surely easy. Rd232 17:39, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
The people voting "support", basically. (Well, admins and people trusted by admins.)--Kotniski (talk) 13:54, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I doubt it. We are working on the 'us' and 'them' model now after the BLP deletion spree. The same chumps that had to source perfectly valid BLPs under threat of unchecked deletion, will be the same chumps who will have to review people's perfeclty valid additions quick enough so that the contributor doesn't turn their back on Misplaced Pages for good. In both cases, less articles and less editors is seen as a good thing by the camp that doesn't want to be bothered with sourcing/reviewing changes they didn't create personaly, as, in the true tradition of the vested contributor, if they didn't do it, it isn't worth shit. MickMacNee (talk) 14:14, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
The guideline -- and practice -- on the German Misplaced Pages is that people qualify as sighters once they have made 200 article edits and have had a registered user account for 60 days. --JN466 19:46, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • I suspect the location of this poll (Jimbo's talk page) was chosen specifically to limit the input of, shall we say, undesired opinions. Reso lute 14:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Let's not get paranoid.--Kotniski (talk) 14:45, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Jimbo's talk page has a certain culture all its own, and hosting this poll here, with no evidence that Jimbo intended to advertise for wider input argues that this poll was intended for that certain sub-culture, and not the Misplaced Pages community as a whole. I tend to agree with Okip that this little dog and pony show exists mainly to give the appearance of seeking consensus before implementing what Jimbo has already chosen to do. Reso lute 14:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment where is there some statistics about activity on the German wikipedia before this and a couple of months after and now? I would like to know exactly what it does to the workload of the anti vandalism patrol and what it did to productive contributions and has anybody done a study of other aspects that would be of interest. How am I supposed to make an informed decision if I'm ignorant and p.s. I think the wisdom of the crowds can be wildly out for decisions like this. Dmcq (talk) 14:39, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
    My thoughts exactly.--Kotniski (talk) 14:45, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support ⇦REDVERS⇨ Say NO to Commons bullying 14:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support but come on, didn't we just do this? The one that gained over 150 supports, remember? Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 15:01, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
    • Most of which were for FPPR, if you actually read that petition and its talk page. Not to mention the Jimbo quote at the top referred to FPPR aswell. Until now, full adoption of German FR has had sod all support in any of the venues where FR on en has actually been properly discussed (as opposed to petitioned/polled). Jimbo was told repeatedly at the time it was pointless calling the original poll to 'have a trial, any trial', as a consensus, without specific configs, because that barely 60% 'support' was full of total contradictions and self-evident half assed understanding of both FR and the wikipedia model, but he flat out went and did it anyway, leading to the inevitable result of the lame duck FPPR config, and when that failed to arrive, now bizarely, this total U-Turn into 'temporary' full FR. MickMacNee (talk) 15:20, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose The encyclopedia that anyone can edit???. Mo ainm ~Talk 15:05, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose I'm not opposed to flagged revisions, but I am very, very concerned with the attitude of many supporters of "Implement now and fix later." The question I have, is if we do have consensus for a flavour of FR as Jimbo indicates, why is pressure not being put on the devs to make it happen? Why are we instead looking at "temporarily" (hah!) using the German model? Quite the opposite. Once this fait acompli is past, the pressure on the devs to change the system will simply disappear and a solution against the wider consensus will become permanent. Also, I would very much like to see the supporters address the very real concerns raised about the impact blanket FR would have on the project. I, for one, am not here to serve as a moderator for every edit that is made. I am here to write an encyclopedia. FR as a tactical solution to trouble areas (such as contentious BLPs) is a brilliant idea. FR as a blunt object wielded against a project with 3 million articles without any real understanding of who is going to maintain this system is likely to result in disaster. Be careful what you wish for... Reso lute 15:07, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose there was not consensus to do this, except in a controlled way for BLP--this is not a rational response, just a frustration at the slowness of development. "let's do anything" is not the way to make progress. It corresponds to the proposal to delete all BLPs that happen to be unsourced at the moment--it sounded attractive, and had initial support, but then people started to think, and realized that most of them were articles that could be easily fixed, not deleted. In practice, the great appeal of Misplaced Pages to new contributors is seeing the work immediately visible to themselves and everybody. It may different for other countries, but certainly not at least for the contributors in the US to the enWP. The proof that this is a bad idea, is that people are voting for it without knowing the details. DGG ( talk ) 15:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose - For now. Implementing it now and fixing it later is not a good idea. There are some concerns with flagged revs, mainly going against "The encyclopedia that anyone can edit". Flagged revisions should only be applied to BLPs when needed. I also think that flagged revisions would be an excellent replacement for semi-protection, as it provides means to eliminate vandalism and let legit editors make their edits. That would actually extend editing to more users. However, as I said, "implement now and fix later" is not the best idea. Inferno, Lord of Penguins 15:22, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose This mentallity of "Implement it now, and fix it later" is not the way to go with this. There wasn't really a consensus to do it this way, and this will create a very large backlog that will be only be cleared if everyone diverts their attention from building articles to patrolling these edits, which will obviously be detrimental. The Thing // Talk // Contribs 15:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose - We have consensus for a specific implementation, and we should not deviate from that, no matter how temporarily. While I will assume good faith about the motives of others, I suspect that once full flagged revisions is turned on, it will become very difficult to scale back down to the agreed upon implementation.--Danaman5 (talk) 15:29, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose: First of all, its not clear to me what this proposal will actually do, I had to base it on the back and forth that Colonel Warden had above with others. The parameters of such a big proposal are critical. It sounds like a massive change, and not applying only to the unsourced BLPs which seem to be driving it. And as keeps getting raised by new entrants to the discussion at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people, the unsourced BLP "problem" itself is never proven to exist. BLPs sourced or otherwise are equally subject to vandalism, but 99%+ of BLPs are fine.--Milowent (talk) 15:31, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose A) bad idea that will greatly harm, not help, Misplaced Pages. B) Dislike this process (where the poll is, etc., C) So contrary to the founding idea of Misplaced Pages as to be obviously unacceptable. D) not needed. Hobit (talk) 15:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Strong support. Long overdue; a simple measure that provides a reasonable compromise between open editing and preventing damaging misinformation appearing. Other wikis have implemented it; a lot of people are now familiar with the system, and I see no reason why enwiki should be unable to cope. Sam Blacketer (talk) 15:42, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Per Sjakkalle this seems like a big issue with WP:BITE — if it takes hours or days or weeks for anyone to approve an anonymous revision, how will anons feel like they can actually edit the encyclopedia? And doing this via a poll on some individual user's talk page (no matter who) is just bad process. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:45, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment. This poll was advertised at VP, which one might think was intended to draw it to the attention of as wide an audience as possible. But a quick look at the pages linked t the top doesn't disclose any clear & visibly positioned explanation of what is actually being polled about here. Peter jackson (talk) 15:48, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose. "Flagged revisions the way the German Misplaced Pages does it" includes constant backlogs, and we're three times as large. Such backlogs effectively prevent us from fulfilling "anyone can edit" - granted, as a matter of practicality, we have to fall short of that promise sometimes in any case. The most important point remains, though: flagged revisions — any flagged revision system — would be harmful to our articles, because it wouldn't allow casual, immediate vandalism fixes by our readers, preferring to display the vandalized version even though we have the capacity not to do so. Flagged revisions with a guaranteed backlog means that such vandalism would be far more likely to slip through. Also, any flagged revision system would make it easier to WP:OWN low-traffic articles; on BLPs, agenda-driven article ownership often translates to an insistence that the article must "expose" what a horrible person its subject is. Flagged revisions seem like a magical panacea if you consider only the positive effects — so would anything else — but on balance they would harm the encyclopedia, especially including BLPs. There's a "least bad" proposal at Misplaced Pages:Targeted flagging that would use flagged revisions only for unwatched BLPS; anything bigger would be harmful, and this is a lot bigger. — Gavia immer (talk) 15:56, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose The community approved a trial of something different. If we had wanted a trial of Germany's process we would have gotten it already. Now clearly that is all subject to change, and there is a strong amount of support above for implementing their process now, but it seems weird to approve an indefinite system we don't want when we only actually asked for a limited test of a service we did. I'm slightly less opposed if the idea is "Hey, let's see what happens for 30/60 days" but I simply don't support turning on a service we explicitly turned down for an undetermined amount of time. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 15:56, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose. It's a 4 day poll to reach a conclusion of whether to ask the Foundation to enact a site-global change affecting every page. The fact it was brought up on a user talkpage linked to a subpage under that userspace along with "this is just a poll to gauge how we feel about it", leaves me unimpressed. You make clear this was a deliberate choice over bringing it up on a community discussion page, i.e. the Village Pump. So what "we" refers to, isn't clear. It includes those who happen to watchlist your talkpage. I know I don't. –Whitehorse1 15:57, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose for now, as a premature and too-limited poll, that indeed should have a far wider input. The simple paragraph and question that begin this poll are themselves left far too open to interpretation by the various factions (and yes, they exist within these pages), and can be seen as either encouraging or discouraging growth of an electronic encyclopedia that has the potential for being so much more than its paperbound bretheren. , anyone can edit. As this is not Germany, and en.Misplaced Pages has a few more articles and a few more editors whose contributions would be affected, I'd like to see this discussion perhaps reopened at the Village Pump as an RFC and not an informal poll, so input may be gathered from a wider consensus of editors. It needs be made specifically clear just what will be affected, who will be affected, and just how this is to be interpreted and implemented. Too soon to ask, and wrong page for reaching widest consensus from those to be affected. Schmidt, 16:00, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support - One of the biggest misconceptions here seems to be that this will instantly create a backlog because every edit will need to be reviewed. This is not true. Even under the German system, edits do not have to be reviewed unless they are made to a page which has already been reviewed once. So unless people do something stupid and disruptive like run a bot to review a million pages (which would also be counter-productive, as it would defeat the purpose), it will grow at a controlled rate. As for the system we actually got consensus for about a year ago, it seems the foundation is more interested in hip development systems than actually getting work done, so who knows if we're ever going to get that. Mr. Z-man 16:05, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Mr.Z-man, I don't know what you mean by a "a page which has already been reviewed once." Its clear that I'm not the only one who doesn't understand the exact parameters of the proposal.--Milowent (talk) 16:10, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • What I mean is, even if we "use" it on all pages (i.e. the German system), someone still needs to manually set the current revision of each page as flagged/reviewed before we have to start reviewing new edits to them. Immediately after it is turned on, no pages will have a flagged revision, and there will be no backlog of new edits. We won't need to start reviewing new edits until after we review the current revisions of pages. A page that has no flagged revisions (which will be every page immediately after it is turned on) works essentially the same as pages now, that is that new edits will go live immediately. If there are 100 pages that have a flagged revision, then only the new edits to those 100 pages will need review. You can see the stats for what % of pages are flagged, and what % of the flagged ones have the current version flagged on Special:ValidationStatistics on any wiki that has FR enabled - dewiki, wikinews, mediawiki.org. Mr. Z-man 19:02, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • This is helpful information. If the proposal was that flagged revisions would, by policy, only be implemented on unsourced BLPs or BLPs generally, that is a far different proposal.--Milowent (talk) 21:40, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
He won't without consultation. So, why are you opposing this and encouraging him at the same time?--Scott Mac (Doc) 17:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • comment Stopgap arrangements have a disconcerting way of turning permanent. They are only justified if there is a critical gap to be stopped, and there is no evidence at all that anything critically detrimental is happening,rather than an ongoing process of slow improvement. In fact, the last proposal I saw was to apply it to only the BLP articles that are now semi-protected, to replace semi-protection--that seems a sensible way to start, with articles we know, not guess, to be problems. DGG ( talk ) 17:31, 2 March 2010 (UTC) .
  • Comment – Is there a material reason for these continual delays? It seems like every major software development on Wikimedia is delayed by months, and I can't see why that should be. —Anonymous Dissident 17:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
    • Most delays are due to being short staffed. FR however has several contract developers hired specifically for it. The delays are due to the foundation management's unwillingness to set any deadlines for them. Mr. Z-man 19:02, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support if we can limit this to some subsection of pages: ideally BLP's. -- Bfigura 17:45, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • SPF-5000-strong Oppose. I've thought about it some more and strongly oppose because (a) we went through a lengthy process deciding what the community wanted; doing something substantially more dramatic and dangerous as a stopgap is so ludicrous that it should not be seriously contemplated whilst consuming hot beverages. (b) the risks from German-style FR in terms of bad publicity and losing editors are massive. The risks from a limited scale version are bad enough, but it was decided it was worth it. (c) the delays are basically due to the Foundation not sorting out the necessary software adjustments from the software already available. Either they care enough to sort it out, or they don't. Somebody in charge might like to light a fire somewhere... who would possibly have the clout for that?? In any case, this poll and the idea it's about are way off base; and only the thought that it's a renewed attempt to show we still care and justify spending more money on it contains my disappointment with it. PS I support it for BLPs, but even there a slow rollout starting with semi-protected BLPs makes sense, rather than jumping in with both feet. Rd232 17:48, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Change as massive as this one should be slow and properly evaluated. Not knowing who the reviewers will be (and we would need lots of them) doesn't help either. The “let's try this and fix problems later” approach might be good for small projects, but not for something the size of enwiki. Svick (talk) 18:02, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose though I support this change in principle, at least for BLPs, I oppose doing it this way, especially coming so soon after January's deletionism spree. I would be reassured if there were; Metrics from DE wiki indicating that after the initial difficulties it worked well and didn't lose many editors; A clear consensus to implement this on EN wiki, and a month beforehand to appoint reviewers/extra admins. Otherwise I foresee disruption and possibly a trainwreck, Ϣere SpielChequers 18:03, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Do it - for the love of everything sacred and holy. Anyone who thinks this would be biting newbies has never spent any time in the depths of new page patrol/recent changes patrol. WilyD 18:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose sorry, but matters need to be more fully discussed before we make a change like this, although we may have consensus for a specific version of flagged revs, this new idea (using flagged revs it in the same manner as the German wikipedia) should not be implemented on the result of a poll, just wait until the agreed upon version is completed or start a proper discussion on this new proposal. Spitfire 18:21, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose for now I'm worried it will decrease new editor participation out of proportion with the amount of vandalism fighting it reduces. --Falcorian  18:23, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support Any implementation of Flagged Revs is better than what we have now, which is nothing to prevent blatant BLP violations all over the place. The system on the German Misplaced Pages has been shown to work, and will be an excellent stopgap solution until an en-wiki customized version is rolled out. BLPs are too sensitive to continue to leave wide open like we have been doing, and what many people on en-wiki fail to see is that if this system doesn't work, we can simply turn it back off. Ioeth (talk contribs twinkle friendly) 18:27, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Conditional support I've user FR on en-Wikinews ever since I joined; provided that reviewer rights are given and removed as easily as they are given as say for rollbacker then yes, if it is just for administrators, then no, as they will never cope with the workload. -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 18:54, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose Unless you want the whole thing to be a disaster. Opening up a German Misplaced Pages-like implementation (even for a trial or 'in the mean time') will result in an incommensurable mess and threaten any future implementation. Not only because of backlogs, but because if we want to be sucessful, we need to propose an implementation that will be as consensual as possible, which has never been the case of German Misplaced Pages-like FlaggedRevs, and still not to day. Why is it so important for the implementation to be massively supported, you'll ask ? Because we'll need a huge number of reviewers to review revisions, this is vital to the system, and if users don't like the implementation, they just won't review, or not as much as we need. So a large consensus is needed for any FlaggedRevs implementation to be successful; it's the case for WP:FPPR, but not for a de.wp-like. I'm certainly disappointed by the length of time it takes to implement the implemnetation we requested though (WP:FPPR); on that subject, this foundation-l discussion should probably be mentioned. It'll almost be a year since we've requested implementation (April 2009)... But, you should note that according to William Pietri (responsible of the deployment), the implementation delays are mostly due to user interface/workflow issues specific to implementing here on the English Misplaced Pages. Most of the specificities of the implementation itself which make it different from the German implementation have been coded long ago, for flagged protection in any case — see the test website. So asking developers who are in short supply to enable German-like FlaggedRevs now will most certainly not speed up the FPPR implementation, and there's no guarantee whatsoever it will be any faster to implement a de.wp-like one — because they'd to start the work all over again. We've managed to get a consensual implementation, let's stick to that one, and that the WMF gives higher priority to its implementation. Cenarium (talk) 18:58, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • The Foundation owns this website. The anonymous people like "User:EditorOfWikipedia" does not. If we hemorrhage even 25% of the user base because of this, which is absurdly unlikely, that's fine. More will take their place. The obstructionists and conservatives are a detriment in any event, and their loss will not be felt in 2-3 years. Will we lose a quality worthwhile writer or two. Probably. But who cares? Online communities by their nature are meant to change or die, like real communities. Stagnation is the enemy. Perfect is the enemy of good. Or would you all rather wait until the wrong person is pissed off enough to launch a proper rather than half-assed legal challenge against the Foundation that takes away the site completely?
Do you want your legacy to be the site that flamed out because of lawsuits, the site that petered out, or the site that in 20+ years is still quietly trucking along with flagged revisions? Jim, tell Sue to just pull the plug already and quit dicking about on the opinions of random anonymous people that are endangering the whole website. This isn't a popularity or ego contest. Before anyone gives me any shit over this post, I'd been fighting for and about this longer than some of your sock accounts from BEFORE the ones you're currently posting on were even registered. GoneAwayNowAndRetired 18:47, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, us huns are going to eat you. Paradoctor (talk) 19:27, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support. It works fine on de:WP. I don't see what all the fuss is about. --JN466 19:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose Jimbo, this would have a lot more credibility if it was accompanied by your resignation from the WMF board of trustees. If the team can't execute, then execute the team, don't stick Band-Aids on it. There's too much chance that things will go badly wrong or get hijacked by the policymakers at Misplaced Pages Review. Much as I support the idea of trying FR out in whatever form, it needs to be done carefully, not by "let's do it next Saturday". Lay out an actual plan and let's have a look at it. Franamax (talk) 19:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose- this is supposed to be the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Reyk YO! 19:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose Per Hobit and Certes' reasoning. Would support Sole Soul's idea however. Outback the koala (talk) 19:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose Too much room for abuse. New users should be encouraged to participated, not have a waiting list for every action. Everything would take twice as long to do with every action needing approval. Dream Focus 20:02, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose. I don't feel like redundancy, so I'll give short summaries of some choice issues and point to some previous comments that look at this in more depth. Issues: "anyone can edit" founding principle is harmed, potential for massive backlog (if not managed correctly), doesn't actually make libellous revisions totally invisible, likely massive bad press as the MSM will announce that we're closed to edits, will delay good, planned version, could be used as a "wedge strategy" to promote long-term use of the immediately-used system, involves confusingly changing the system twice, will involve crappy old UI until the new system's UI is implemented, will result in lots of articles already being flagged when the new system is implemented (this is bad because the two systems have different approaches to flagging), involves changing the criteria for being able to flag pages significantly over time (FPPR can afford a higher threshold for flagging because flagging is lower-priority there), and so on and so forth. If you share my views, feel free to append issues to my issue list (this is a wiki!), but please colour your additions green to distinguish them from my originals. Choice comments to read above include MickMacNee, DGG, and Cenarium. FlaggedRevs is a good—and powerful—tool in the long run, but it's dangerous to the dynamic of a healthy wiki if we don't use it appropriately. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits|⚡}} 20:03, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment. This poll has been in existence for less than 10 hours and has already accumulated more the 100 responses. By my rough count and ignoring comments, roughly 20 to 35 percent oppose turning on flagged revs in the German form. This is for your information only. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 20:07, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I am counting more oppose !votes then support !votes at the moment, maybe a 60/40 split.--Milowent (talk) 20:50, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support I had to bring Tom Hanks back from the dead last week. This is needed badly. --Stani Stani  20:14, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment.I am completely baffled by this poll at this stage. Hasn't someone been in touch with whoever is looking into this for the foundation. Jimbo, couldn't you have just picked up the phone and spoken to them and given everyone an update rather than this? Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:16, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
    • I presume this was spurred by the current discussion on foundation-l where the people in charge of FR have basically said that they have no idea when it will be done, and have no intention of setting any deadlines for themselves. Mr. Z-man 20:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I do not fully understand what "German version" is right now (there are many details that are not specified). If there is a (strong) desire to turn something on immediately there is an old proposal that was discussed and sort of approved before. Ruslik_Zero 20:16, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose. We shouldn't rush into this because the devs are too incompetent/lazy/under resourced to implement the proper version of FR that was agreed - Dumelow (talk) 20:20, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support. The delays are inexplicable.-gadfium 20:43, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support. A lot of the opposition does not seem to understand that under the German settings, articles will not be flagged until they are first sighted. Sighting involved carefully reviewing the article to make sure that no defamation or serious errors will be "flagged." Unsighted articles will be entirely unaffected. Therefore, with the German settings we can start by flagging problematic articles such as BLPs on an as-needed basis. According to the earlier polls, it is not our intention to flag 100% of the articles, and we can sanction users who do not properly vet the articles that they sight—sighting is not to be done recklessly. Newly sighted articles will therefore only gradually come into existence as users find problematic pages to sight. Cool Hand Luke 21:06, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Some of the opposition is opposing because the proposal is not explained like that. If the proposal is that flagging will ONLY be used on problematic BLPs, that's a far different proposal.--Milowent (talk) 21:42, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Technically, any page could be flagged, but our policy should only encourage it with problematic articles (such as little-watched BLPs). If someone started sighting articles willy-nilly, I'm confident ArbCom would deal with it. Cool Hand Luke 22:53, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support. Let's just get on and see what it does. Kevin (talk) 21:19, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose a global effort due to the significant backlog it will create. Support if it will be limited to BLPs and other select articles. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 21:21, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
    (edit conflict) With reflection to Cool Hand's comments, I note that I fully understand this, but this will not prevent a backlog from appearing, potentially quickly. If a feature is able to be used, it is also able to be abused. We see this all the time in the software engineering world, and is one of the reasons C++ has such a bad rap for such a great language. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 21:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
    Another thing people don't seem to understand is that being a "sighter" is nothing special. Under the existing system, anyone who has had a user account for two months and has made a couple of hundred bona fide contributions gets sighting rights. Thereafter, any edits they make are automatically marked "sighted", and don't need sighting by anyone else. The great majority of WP edits is made by established editors. "Sighting" applies mainly to IP edits, which are under scrutiny already. --JN466 21:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
    Unfortunately this is also a double-edged sword. Because being a sighter is nothing special, that doesn't prevent misuse of the tool. Granted, the same occurs with rollbacker rights and the right is removed on occasion, but fact of the matter is that sighting will not be perfect. I reference the WP:NPP backlog in that we already have the "autoreviewer" right. This backlog was cleared out primarily by User:Ironholds in December (with the assistance of a few others that regularly monitor NPP, including myself). Today it's back where it was before then – a major backlog with more work needed than labor is available. In the same regard, we have the autoreviewer right to help reduce this backlog, but it still remains unmanaged. I would not be surprised if the same thing happens to flagged pages if left unchecked. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 22:13, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
    It should also be obvious that socking is much less of a problem with flagged revisions. It takes 2 months and 200 good-faith contributions before an editor becomes a sighter, i.e. before their edits show up immediately in the article version that the public sees. --JN466 21:48, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support. I wouldn't have been in favour of the Flagged protection and patrolled revisions proposal if the required timescale had been known. William Avery (talk) 21:22, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support. Just for clarity, this is my understanding of what I'm supporting: FR would be turned on w/ the de.wp settings 2. Reviewer right or admin bit needed to sight article 3. Only BLPs would be sighted - I understand there would be no software prohibition from doing so, but given that you have to be a trusted use to get the reveiwer right, it seems that we can AGF here 4. When (if) the version of FR designed for en.wp is ready, we switch to that. Unless the devs throw up a red flag, support. Xymmax So let it be done 21:42, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment: it seems that the proposal was insufficiently clear, and people are increasingly trying to redefine it. This poll is getting increasingly confused, and might be better terminated in favour of a discussion of what's feasible and desirable using dewp technology right now. Work out a clearly specified proposal (tech+policy) and then poll on that. Rd232 22:05, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose It'll all end in tears, I know it. The Wordsmith 22:07, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Ich don't zhink so. I consider the German approach to be too restrictive, and there is no consensus for it on this Misplaced Pages.  Sandstein  22:14, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes, please. Years overdue. Jack Merridew 22:16, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose Goes against the consensus of the poll. As others have said, I doubt such activation would remain "temporary". --Cybercobra (talk) 22:22, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support - We really should have this for BLPs and it has been a long wait. -- Atama頭 22:23, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Way overdue. SupportMurfleMan (talk) 22:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Strong Support Very overdue. Thank you to Jimbo for setting up the poll. 140.247.141.199 (talk) 22:35, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose As a new editor, I would say that one of the scariest things about contributing to Misplaced Pages was altering articles. Anything that discourages contribution upsets the balance that keeps Wiki working effectively. It moves the bias towards established editors, which while not a bad thing in itself, would be detrimental to specialised articles which have casual contributors.ManicSpider (talk) 22:38, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Flagged revisions is so obviously the correct decision it's hardly worth discussing. There comes a point in time when the Foundation needs to make a technical or a command decision on something and just implement it and that point in time is 18 months ago. One of the (many) problems with Misplaced Pages is that it works via the tyranny of the heckler. In other words, even if there is an obvious conclusion that 90% of informed, unbiased observers would reach, that conclusion is irrelevant and the result is the desire of whoever yells the loudest. Misplaced Pages can and should implement all available technical means at its disposal to stop libel. --B (talk) 22:40, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Misplaced Pages ain't broke, it doesn't need fixing. The quality and prestige of the site has only risen over past years without flagged revisions; the change only stands to damage the project. - DustFormsWords (talk) 22:42, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Support Much overdue. --InkSplotch (talk) 22:53, 2 March 2010 (UTC)