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=== Surveyor rights === |
=== Surveyor rights === |
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Reviewing pages requires the '''surveyor''' right. This right will be given |
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. |
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# Has an account for more than 60 days; |
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# Has more than 300 edits; |
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# Has confirmed an e-mail account; |
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[[WP:ADMIN|Administrator]]s can also revoke the flag if needed (much like blocking an account). This can happen if: |
[[WP:ADMIN|Administrator]]s can also revoke the flag if needed (much like blocking an account). This can happen if: |
Revision as of 20:38, 23 August 2007
This policy proposal concerns the use on the English Wikipedia of the revision tagging capabilities of the FlaggedRevs extension to the MediaWiki software, expected to be available in a few months. Proposed are two levels of validation:
- Sighted versions. Revisions of articles that are free from vandalism and are at least presentable.
- Quality versions. Revisions of articles that have been assessed through Featured Article process, or have undergone rigorous fact checking, perhaps by our WikiProjects.
The two proposals use the same extension to MediaWiki software but represent quite separate changes to how Wikipedia operates, and are thus discussed separately. The first stage of the rollout on English Wikipedia will be the Sighted versions with Quality coming later (if at all). For both validation levels, all logged-in users will continue to see and edit the most recent version of a page. Users who are not logged in may not see the most recent version of a page by default, but will always edit the most recent version.
Discussions about validation has been going on for some time.[1] The document Wikipedia:Pushing to validation summarizes the discussion at Wikimania 2006 about the need to validate articles. The vision is ambitious: to make Wikipedia a reliable source, and requires that we shift our focus from quantity to quality.[2] These proposals are modest beginnings towards that goal.
Sighted versions
Sighted revisions mark at least a light indication of quality (or at least freedom from vandalism), meaning at least one trusted editor (Surveyor) has confirmed that the article is presentable to the wider public. This proposal puts a positive spin on the accepting and reverting of changes than what we are already doing.[3] This change will make the wider public aware of how much effort we put into quality assurance. There are benefits beyond improving our public image, most importantly:
- semi-protection could be used less often allowing for more users to edit those pages. This is significant improvement because some of our articles are constantly semi-protected.[4]
- Much of the incentive to vandalize is removed by not immediately showing vandalism. The number of vandalism reverts has steadily increased since 2001, and constituted in early 2006 about 6% of our edits.[5] Currently, on less-watched pages vandalism and harmful comments can remain for a long time. The average time for reverting mass deletion vandalism was, according to an IBM study in 2004, slightly over one week.[6]
- When a regular editor edits a page (or page section) immediately after someone inserts subtle vandalism (into another section). The edit history can look rather innocent, and to be safe one has to either check every diff or compare with a previous version that one trusts. With sighted revision there is a simple "one-click" method of viewing all changes since the last trusted version. This is assuming we do not auto-sight surveyor edits.
Visitors to Wikipedia who are not logged in—including search engines—will see the sighted version of pages by default. The current version of the page, if different, will be available for viewing and editing on a tab at the top of the page. Logged in users will by default see the most recent version of the page. However, the option to view sighted versions by default will be available under the preferences.
Requirements for Sighted pages
In order to be confirmed as sighted, an editor needs to check that the page:
- Is clear of vandalism.
- Is clear of libel and unsourced statements about living persons.
- Is clear of unencyclopaedic content.
- Has been around for several days.
- Has some depth (not a one line stub).
- Has been checked for basic accuracy.
- Has been spell checked.
- Is readable (not cluttered-up pages with no wikilinks) and not tagged for cleanup.
Like other Wikipedia edits, the decision to sight a version of an article can be reverted by other editors.
Once a page is sighted, edits to the sighted revision could be automatically reviewed (to the same level) when edited by a Surveyor. New pages created by Surveyors can be auto-sighted as well. Otherwise, upon editing, Surveyors will be prompted to review with a diff to the stable version to make sure someone else has not inserted vandalism while she was editing the page.
Surveyor rights
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.
Administrators can also revoke the flag if needed (much like blocking an account). This can happen if:
- The user repeatedly violates WP:3RR (especially with respect to sighting versions)
- The user deliberately sights versions containing vandalism
- The user engages in other repeated disruption involving reviews
The software can support letting surveyors grant those rights to other new users.
Sighted versions on German Wikipedia
See de:Wikipedia:Gesichtete Versionen
The German Wikipedia is to be used as the testing ground for this feature, and lessons learnt there can be considered when the feature is close to implementation on the English Wikipedia. The main points of the German system are:
"Each user, who has had an account on Wikipedia for a certain time and made a certain number of edits in the article namespace, receives automatically the right to mark article versions as "sighted". This barrier will initially be set to 30 days and 30 edits.
The marking can take place in the following ways:
- A new article created by a user with the surveyor right will automatically be marked as "sighted".
- If a user with the surveyor right edits an article, then the new version will be marked as "sighted" if
- either the previous version was marked as "sighted"
- or the user marks his edit as "sighted", similarly as now edits can be marked as "minor".
- The current version of an article can be marked as "sighted", without producing a new article version. This will be noted in Special:Log."
Suggested roll-out strategy on the English Wikipedia
It is very likely that the Foundation will set up a public test-wiki to allow people to get a feeling for the software. Each Wiki community can decide, whether they wish to deploy this feature, and in that case, how to use it.
For the English Wikipedia, it seems reasonable to experiment the use of this feature on pages that are permanently semi-protected, such as God and George W. Bush. As semi-protected pages can't be edited by users without an account, it is hard to see how this could harm anybody.
Quality versions
Quality versions are a second proposal which will be used on the most developed or most visited Wikipedia pages. The quality tag indicates that as the result of our quality assurance processes, the current version of the article has undergone rigorous fact checking and conforms to all our content policies.
Experience has shown that in well-developed articles edits are mainly small modifications of the current content. When as a result of focused community effort a page is pushed to Featured Article quality, it is unclear whether most subsequent edits actually improve the article.
Thus, when an article conforms to a certain standard it would be flagged as "quality", and article development can then continue without having to constantly defend the article from POV-pushing. Instead, we can evaluate by some review process (such as Featured Article Comparison), whether after a month or so of editing, the featured article has actually improved or deteriorated.[7] If the new edits have improved the article, then the current version would be promoted to "quality".
Only articles which have reached a sufficiently developed stage would have a quality version. For articles which have quality versions, the quality version would be displayed by default for non-logged in visitors. For logged-in users the option to display the current (default) or quality version of the article would be a user preference.
Reviewer rights
Reviewers are surveyors who can mark pages as "quality" in addition to "sighted". Such revisions will take precedence over normal "sighted" version as far as what revision the software selects as the default. Bureaucrats can grant or remove Reviewer status from users. In the future this flag may be given to trusted users in our quality assurance processes and will be assigned the responsibility to interpret the consensus of for example WP:FAC and flag the appropriate revision.
However, given the issue of scalability, the tag will initially only be used by members of WP:OTRS, who may use it to deal with serious complaints if they don't feel page protection is desirable.
"Examined versions" on German Wikipedia
See de:Wikipedia:Geprüfte Versionen
The German Wikipedia is to be used as the testing ground for this feature, and lessons learnt there can then be applied on the English Wikipedia. An "Examined Version" is defined on the German wiki as "a particular version of an article marked to indicate that it does not contain wrong statements or substantial gaps according to the reviewer." Some other key details of the German implementation:
- "The marking also includes a comment field. The right to mark articles as "examined" is assigned by a Bureaucrat. Examinations are stored in Special:Log and are observable in the article history."
- "The "examined" mark should state: All facts represented in this version were checked against the secondary literature. No falsifying omissions could be determined."
How flagged revisions work
Users who have been around for some time can be granted (possibly automatically) rights that would let them review page revisions.[8] When a revision is reviewed it is tagged in the edit history, and article development can proceed with the most recent revision. If changes to the page seem constructive, any editor can tag the new version.
All registered users, even new users, are shown the most recent version irrespective of what version is tagged. For the outside world the newest reviewed revision is the default one seen by our readers (non-logged in users) unless there are none. There will be a "current revision" tab. When an article revision is flagged, the current revision of each template, transcluded page, and image in the article is noted. These revisions are used when displaying the flagged version of the article, so that the version displayed matches the version that was reviewed.
Notes and references
- ^ See Wikipedia:Why stable versions, Wikipedia:Stable versions, and Wikipedia:Static version.
- ^ Bergstein, Brian. "Wikipedia Founder Seeks More Quality". FoxNews.com. Retrieved 2007-06-06.
- ^ This is much to the chagrin of the user, who upon returning the next day finds that her brave contribution is lost.
- ^ See here for all currently protected pages.
- ^ "Temporal Analysis of the Wikigraph" (PDF). Retrieved 2007-06-06.
- ^ "Studying Cooperation and Conflict between Authors with history flow Visualizations" (PDF). Retrieved 2007-06-06. The average is skewed by a few outliers on lesser watched pages. The median time was 2.8 minutes.
- ^ This will naturally increase review processes on Wikipedia, but our goal isn't to edit just for the sake of editing, our goal is to improve quality, and how else can we ensure the quality of a Featured Article if we don't review and compare?
- ^ Note that users cannot review pages that they cannot edit (such as if it was protected or they were blocked).