Wikipedia talk:Defense of content

Salute to All - I hope that with a spirited discussion and improvement with your suggestions and ideas, this proposed policy will be adopted and allow Wikipedia to thwart vandalism in a big way! Jai Sri Rama! Rama's Arrow 16:03, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

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Let me think over

I will study the matter in-depth, and shall surely come back with my considered opinion. --Bhadani 16:20, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I am still thinking over the issues. I have also carefully read the comments/ responses, and am still thinking over the matter. --Bhadani 15:10, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Read everthing given here - but still unable to offer my views... still thinking...--Bhadani 16:27, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

My study and contemplation over the matter and issues raised are almost over – I shall present them tomorrow. --Bhadani 16:41, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I am appending my reply in a section named Credibility. My views are not conclusive. The problems raised by Rama’s Arrow are very significant, and right now they defy solution: the community may be fighting vandalism, and removing point of views by inserting a point of view arrived through the mechanism of consensus. After spending about a year here, I still fail to comprehend: are we building an encyclopedia or an encyclopedia based on the consensus? My logic is very simple: I was born on a particular date and no consensus may change that date! A true encyclopedia should reflect this reality and this applies to almost all the dimensions and topics of any encyclopedia. --Bhadani 14:13, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Not a good idea

Sorry, but I really don't think this is a good idea. IP addresses make plenty of valuable contributions. It's not all vandalism. I think we're doing fine on dealing with the vandalism right now.--Alhutch 16:40, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

This does not impede IP contributions - I know they're valuable and I've taken care to note that. But preserving Wikipedia's quality is vital. Please reconsider your view. Rama's Arrow 16:45, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

How's it going to work out technically? Isn't this just going to create just as much work for admins and other users? now instead of fighting vandalism, they're just going to be spending all their time checking someone else's contributions to see if they're alright. I respect the amount of work you guys must have done on this policy, but I have doubts about it.--Alhutch 16:51, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

First, the admins will know they have time before each entry is incorporated. Nothing will change on the Special:Recentchanges or the database or tools admins use to fight vandalism. Nothing changes except a note of the time before the entry takes effect. Add the "delete" tool. Rama's Arrow 16:53, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Only three software modifications will occur if this policy is adopted: (1) Incorporation wait - according to time period agreed, (2) Delete option - akin to revert rights and (3) Time notes - already it is noted when entry is made. Note will be kept of how much time before incorporation. Rama's Arrow 16:55, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Another problem I have with it is that Wikipedia is supposed to be the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. What if someone hears about wikipedia and comes here and tries to make a good edit, but then they have to wait 3 hours to see their edit go through? this might cause them to misunderstand wikipedia. also, you're automatically valuing any account over anyone with an IP address. I must remind you that there are thousands of sock puppet and vandalism only accounts floating around out there. this new system automatically values even the worst account's contributions over the best IP adress's contributions.--Alhutch 17:01, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

(1) Time period is up for debate - it can be 3 mins. Basically I don't know how much time is practical enough to allow admins to improve upon anti-vandalism efforts. (2) Preview and messages are suggested to let the user know how their edits will look in the interval, and what Wikipedia people, policies and articles are about. These suggestions for interaction can be improved, obviously. (3) I'm proposing that we close one avenue of vandalism: anon IPs. Any of these suggestions may be extended to newly-registered users. Plus, if these proposals are enforced, fighting other forms of vandalism will become easier. Rama's Arrow 17:09, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

What you have written is interesting and I am in sympathy with the spirit of what is proposed. I can understand that you have chosen to address the less serious aspect of the problem because it is more likely to be taken seriously. But the real issue of quality maintenance applies equally to the contributions of those who have registered but through a lack of proper understanding or a specific POV agenda, their contributions distort or subvert the content. I see no reason to limit your time buffer system to anon editors. It should be applied to all articles that have reached a certain minimum standard of quality no matter who proposes to edit them. This meets Alhutch's objection because all users may indiscriminately learn their trade on the articles of lower quality and gain immediate gratification by seeing their words on the screen. And now I have just lost my target audience by professing Wiki heresy, I shall depart this place. Good luck with your more modest proposal. David91 17:12, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with a uniform time period of wait for even registered users. I don't have any problem in improving this policy to tackle sockpuppets and vandals with registered IDs. Rama's Arrow 17:14, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

This is not a good idea since this will act as a chilling affect for anon users and "not trusted" users who want to edit and want their good contributions to the project seen instantly" Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 04:02, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

merging

Maybe I missed this in reading, but who actually adds the content once it has survived the waiting period? Is this the "extended use of Bots" that you speak of, and if so, won't some edit conflicts arise during the waiting period that are too difficult for them to resolve? ×Meegs 17:18, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Reply I'm not a computer programmer, but the same mechanism that adds anybody's edits today, will be instructed by a "timer" - it will carry out the same function after the interval has lapsed. In this time, an administrator is given the tool to remove the proposed entry if it is problematic. The entry is logged as all other entries are logged now. Rama's Arrow 17:20, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I've had a few limited experiences with version control systems in the past, and ones that I dealt with sometimes require human intervention for complex conflicts. The problem here is that the anon contributor likely won't still be around to guide the merger after an evaluation period of minutes or hours. I have deeper problems with the proposal, but I'm really curious about this detail. ×Meegs 18:33, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

First off, its not a merger. Its just the change, the edit that is delayed from taking effect. And all that the administrator has to evaluate is (1) whether its vandalism and (2) if the input carries any blatant POV. Rama's Arrow 19:32, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Let's say a page has content A B C. The letters can be words, sentences, or whatever. Then an anon tries to change it to A C B, but while that edit is in the review period a registered user changes the page to A B D. Now what happens when the anon's edit passes its review? Is the anon's edit disgarded, does a machine try to guess what the correct merger is (bad idea), or does a human have to intervene? ×Meegs 19:46, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The anon's input is added as it is. It is purely circumstantial that a registered user made his change before/after an anon. And it is also easier for a registered user to revisit the page and make changes again. Rama's Arrow 19:49, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

If it is rejected, the registered user's edit, being the latest, is retained as the final version.Rama's Arrow 19:52, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok, that's a plan, discarding the anon's edit whenever there's a conflict, but it seems to me that it'd be pretty frustrating for the anon to not only have to wait hours for an edit, but to also frequently have those edits thrown-out due to conflicts that arose in the interim. The result, I think, would essentially be that anons are barred from editing the most frequently edited articles (or portions of). ×Meegs 20:19, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

If you want to see what I mean, try this: type-in a change to Dick Cheney, leave your browser open for a few hours, and then click "Save page" and see if it goes through. ×Meegs 20:22, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, Rama's Arrow, I think you've missed this part of the problem. If a registered user changes the page in the meantime, the anon's edit has a good chance of becoming an edit conflict after the requesite waiting period. I don't see a simple way to resolve that because after a half hour, the anon may be gone. - Taxman ^Talk 21:54, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I've changed the hours thing - please note that time is up for determination.

I never said "when in doubt, discard anon's edits." If the anon's edits come after a user's, obviously they're the latest. Thus they will be retained. If a user puts up edit after anon, that was gonna happen anyway.

Endless numbers of anon edits are removed anyway. Removal or retention is open anyday, anytime in this encyclopedia. Anons may be discouraged today to see their edits reverted after 5 minutes. What I'm emphasizing is that while they get a "preview," and interactive messages, administrators are given the time opportunity to forestall vandalism.

This is an ENCYCLOPEDIA. If it carries profanity, propaganda and rubbish in even a few words and small articles, how credible does it remain? Think of the millions who consider Wikipedia just another website, when we all know its not. Rama's Arrow 20:27, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I must also stress how important the point about featured content is. Even if you disagree about other points, protecting FAs is critical. Main page FAs are plundered by anons and irresponsible users. But being main page also means that there are people who actually read the profanity and bullshit that is displayed albeit for 3-5 minutes. And how is it acceptable to carry rubbish even for 1 second? Rama's Arrow 20:29, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

If the above problem can be worked out I'd like to see this. People point out that this type of proposal might disenfranchise anons, who are our potential future superstar editors. We can't forget that, but I think that when it is clear we have a system in place that allows only valuable contributions through, I think we'll see a lot more good contributions. The same people smart enough to make great edits will have those edits approved every time, and be encouraged, not discouraged. However, I think a stable branches are a better long run strategy to protect our good content and take it to the next level. Though this type of system could be combined with a stable branch and still be applied on the wider open Wiki or potentially both. - Taxman ^Talk 21:54, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Taxman, please see this. User:Meegs said that one the time has been slashed down to a reasonable balance between admin needs and anon concerns, the problems will disappear. Rama's Arrow 21:57, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Addressing the above concerns

Let me re-state the steps to make absolutely clear what the proposal should/will do:

1. An anon makes an edit. When he/she presses "Save page," a window with the "Preview"' appears - and with interactive messages (as stated in the proposal). This is so that the anon does not get discouraged, but is encouraged to understand how Wikipedia works. At this point, the page is not like the "preview" registered users get, where it is possible to lose the edit via timeout or edit conflict.
2. As soon as the anon makes the edit, the edit is logged on "Recent changes" database, allowing admins and RC patrollers to check it out for possible violations. But (here's the change): it is not displayed on Wikipedia until the passing of the slated time period. It is logged irrespective of the anon's next activities. It will take effect or be rejected irrespective of whether the anon is still around.
3. The time tool will indicate when time is up - thus allowing the software to implement the changes. If an admin "deletes" the entry, it is deleted from the RC database without affecting the article.
4. If in the time period where the anon's entry is being examined a registered user makes an edit on the same bit of text, the registered user's changes are implemented before the anon, and the anon comes after him. This is not a problem as there is no guarantee in Wikipedia that anyone's edits will not be overwritten. Anons are regularly overwritten, and registered users can always come back, and often have to due to anons, to re-make any edits.

The entire principle is to prevent the insertion and display of questionable data in Wikipedia. Wikipedia readers thus do not have to see profanity, propaganda or any other rubbish. Whatever anons, admins and RC patrollers do, it does not affect the displayed article. Thus only non-POV, non-rubbish will get through to the article from anons.

Now it is real that a lot of vandalism, trolling and sockpuppetry comes from registered users. I have no problem extending the time period of wait to them as well. This is what I want to discuss with y'all. Rama's Arrow 22:09, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

time period

Please feel free to discuss the time periods proposed before contributions take effect. I have no real idea of how much time is adequate or needed for admins to get to every possible questionable edit. Rama's Arrow 16:48, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Too long. 2-5 min's on all articles is usually enough to weed out obvious vandalism. Gerard Foley 23:19, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Some observations

• Not allowing anons to edit has been a perennial proposal. This is an improvement over that proposal but has been explored at some length on the village pump. However, this is comprehensive in its breadth, reach and observation.
• As I argued elsewhere, gaming the system has become very common. An anon hell-bent on vandalism can create several throw-away accounts as well.
• Anons not able to create articles - already in force as an experimental measure for the last 45 days on English Wikipedia - gut feel still suggests that there is not much difference; however, these creations are more vanity, less vandalism.
• "Kyunki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi" A Hindi adage means "Even a mother-in-law was once a daughter-in-law." Typically, anons and new users need to be categorised together for practical purposes, but this could lead to resentment on part of the newbies.
• A major part of the charm of the Wikipedia comes from the ability to make and see changes (which this proposal also touches upon) - if that is lost, valuable edits from anons are lost. One admin commented once that only one out of seven edits by anons are vandalism and I too would think, from my experience on RC patrol that the figure would be around the same region.
• Also, an anon can turn back and say why are you blocking me if the changes I have made are not yet taken effect? Within 3 hours, meanwhile, he can vandalise several articles. Of course, I know that this can be easily addressed.
• Some vandalism can be corrected within seconds, some of it cannot be done so even in years. For example, a vandal was changing the names of kids of Sachin Tendulkar when it was sleeping time in India and hence it could not be corrected till after 8 hours when the Indian patrollers could make out that it was vandalism. Even more problematic are date vandals who'd just change 1995 to 1996. Also, references do not help as some of the websites themselves are riddled with inaccuracies and POV.
• Finally, I feel that the author of the proposal has put in a lot of time and effort and showed genuine concern in formulating this, but lack of familiarity with RC patrol may not have given him a sense of how well people game the systems. --Gurubrahma 17:22, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Reply

1. Wikipedia content is protected: By strengthening this buffer, we can fight many destructive mechanisms before they are incorporated into Wikipedia. Admins and RC patrollers can take comfort in this.
2. Anons and New Users: I don't see a problem in this at all - we can group them together. New users with problematic tendencies may be exposed within 1-2 days of monitoring.
3. Anons Turning Away: as I reiterate, preview and introductory/interactive/encouraging messages will help address the issue. More suggestions will help obviously.

There are many technical points to which admins are better acquainted with. For example, the time period thing is obvious: I just put down a figure. I ask for this discussion process to come up with a reasonable time period. Also remember, an encylcopedia is measured by content: Wikipedia's reputation is endangered, and thus the reputations of all responsible users, when people insert profanity, abusive remarks and baseless materials. Rama's Arrow 17:28, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Its "Defense of Content"

HI - I made a mistake in opening about anti-vandalism, when the prescribed ideas and the debate should be explicitly about "defense of content." It is not the fight against vandalism, but to protect and thus raise the quality of Wikipedia articles. There is no 5%, 20% here - its 100% or nothing. One word of profanity can kill an encyclopedia's reputation. Rama's Arrow 18:28, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Then, by that logic, Wikipedia's reputation has already been dead for years. So, there's no need for your proposal. Case closed. --cesarb 19:59, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

There's been a lot of criticism about Wikipedia. In many circles it does have a "Dead" reputation. And if I ran into profanity in the middle of an article, or a radical opinion, what else would I think? What would you think? But obviously we're here becoz there's something bright about this place. We just need to look at this from POV of people who could come to Wikipedia, not just to contribute but to learn something. Rama's Arrow 20:02, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

My take on it

I'm completely in agreement with the spirit of the proposal. But, I've some apprehensions about the details. A blanket wait period would slow down wiki contributions. And if, when someone has made an edit and the change is yet to be effected, some other editor makes a change on the older version, what will happen to consistency? What about attribution? If two or more people make identical edits, is it not duplication of effort? If duplication becomes common, the tragedy of commons phenomenon might step in more than now and everyone will start thinking that some other person would have already done that.

On the other hand, we can force "problem users" to discuss their edits in the talk page before making the edit by using this feature similar to how we enforce blocks. This restriction can be used more frequently than blocks. Also, if an user has crossed the 3RR limit, this can be automatically enforced on the user. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 04:20, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree as well. I have started patrolling the recent changes and it seems like there are a ton of people adding nonsense, dictionary entries (sometimes with words that they just made up), advertsing or vanity entries. I don't kow how to deal with this since when I came here it was in good faith and I amde quite a few errors as is understandable. I learned and now know quite a bit more than when I came here. But there are some people who seem to find pleasure in defacing pages, adding POV material or just adding junk. The only solution I can see is to possibly take a more vigorous approach to welcoming new users and trying to force a period of "probation" where they are taught the rules and policies. I don't know how effective this will be against vandals, however since a lot of them are simply not interested in contributing, but in just goofing off. (Arundhati Bakshi (talk • contribs)) 15:38, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Interesting point by Sundar. While imposing it on all the IP editor community may be couterproductive, trying this on IP ranges known to be 'bad' but which can't be blocked for long ( certain schools, certain bunches of AOL IPs etc) would be productive without losing any potentially good edits. Tintin (talk) 17:19, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Agree about the proposal's spirit, but agree w/ Sundar's concerns. Saravask 19:40, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

If new changes are not displayed what version the next person edits?

I see a big technical trouble with delaying of display. Let's say an anonymous user edits an article and corrects some information (and edit is good). Then regular editor comes back and sees that original information is wrong and also tries to fix it. But it is already fixed. Either he will edit older version (before IP edit) or he will edit new version, he did not previously seen. In case he adds the new information to the different section this can lead to duplication.

Anyway if after first IP editor comes another IP editor, will he be actually able to see edits by the first IP editor?

I do not think that it is necessarily a bad idea, but implementation will need much work and much more thinking. --Jan Smolik 16:07, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

This is the biggest confusion on this proposal for me as well. Any ideas? deeptrivia (talk) 04:14, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

No counter-anon measure works

And measure designed solely to counter anonymous vandalism will not be effective, because the same people will simply create accounts in order to vandalise. Some percentage of both good and bad editors would choose not to register, so total vandalism might go down, but so would total good contributions, and the tradeoff is not clear. This has already been aptly demonstrated by the number of speedy-deletable new articles being created by fresh users.

On the other hand, delayed edits applied to all users might be an effective way of preventing vandalism from appearing to readers, provided of course that reverts are not themselves delayed (and that reverts cannot be used as vandalism). Deco 00:11, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

That's a good point too. It's very clear one of the biggest effects of not allowing anons to create/move articles etc is the massive increase in account registration. A huge # of the now nearly 1million registered accounts are from after the changes in what anons can do. I'd be for a waiting period for everyone, but I'm far from convinced that the merging problem is solved. - Taxman ^Talk 23:54, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Who is going to validate the edits while in abeyance?

Not all the administrators are experts in all the subject matter currently covered in articles. Although random vandalism may be obvious to all, many of the edits that I pick up as "wrong" on the pages that I monitor would only appear wrong to fellow experts. I remain "content" with the spirit of this proposal but without the active support of subject experts (whether administrators or not), it will only filter out the mindless defacements and leave the more subtle defacements on public display until the experts come along later. David91 09:32, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

A slightly tangential comment, a new proposal Wikipedia:Guru, looks at identifying subject experts but seems weak in its current state. --Gurubrahma 00:20, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I would assume that most administrators are "gurus" in some area of expertise which is why they became interested in wiki in the first place. But to make this scheme work, you would need a team on gurus on call so that proposed amendments could be passed to them for validation before the proposals "go live" (to have a wide expertise team on full-time patrol of the new abeyance repository would be an inefficient use of resources). David91 02:12, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The anon IP user must receive a message encouraging him or her to always cite references and sources for every contribution.

This made me smile. I have not seen many articles that are properly sourced. Actualy most editors (even regular ones) add information without citing their source. So why being angry against anonymous user when we are not able to keep this rule ourselves. Actually I think that every user should receive receive a message encouraging them to always cite references and sources for every contribution. --Jan Smolik 15:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

It's not always easy. For instance, on Brazilian telephone numbering plan, I added the fact that numbers starting with 7 are mobile phone numbers; however, I know that because every number starting with 7 I've seen is a Nextel phone (and the first digit is always tied to whether it's mobile or fixed), but I could not find the official source. It's more useful for me to leave the unsourced but correct fact there, than to simply omit it. --cesarb 16:06, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Actualy there is policy (WP:Verifiability) that requires you citing reputable source. But most editors ignore it. If I changed the article so that it would be saying that "numbers starting with 6 and 7 are mobile phone numbers", how would you recognize whether it is simple vandalism or a fact I found out? Even you do not have official information and if you do not know about somebody who has number starting with 6 and it is not cell phone number, you are not able to decide. However this is not important. My point is that this proposal critisizes anonymous users for doing something majority of Wikipedians do. --Jan Smolik 16:19, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Two cheers

This is a well thought out proposal. Most of the flaws have been listed above, or in the original proposal. I think as we move to 1.0 we will need something like this, probably a "stable" version of a page and a "Work in progress" version. But I also think this may be something that is phased, so that some articles on some projects will reach "stable" state before others. And we will need to make sure people have access to both versions, and build up some information on editors specialisms to act as approvers, I think it's still some way off. Rich Farmbrough 23:21 27 February 2006 (UTC).

New proposals to address the concerns

Hi - after studying your concerns, I've come up with the following ideas to fix the problems:

1. Registered users: the provisions concerning anons should be expanded for registered users with contributions fewer than 100 edits.
2. Change Record and Display: let me take you through this step-by-step:

(a) An anon/new user makes an edit. (b) the edit is registered with Wikipedia, and displayed "as done" to the anon/new user viewing Wikipedia. This step is do-able, owing to Wikipedia's present ability to block specific users already. (c) On all other, worldwide Wikipedia display, the edit will be added after 5 minutes have elapsed. This precaution will allow administrators to clean out problems and prevent run-time errors.

1. The time tool will indicate when time is up - thus allowing the software to implement the changes. If an admin "deletes" the entry, it is deleted from the RC database without affecting the article.
2. If in the time period where the anon's entry is being examined a registered user makes an edit on the same bit of text, the registered user's changes are implemented before the anon, and the anon comes after him. This is not a problem as there is no guarantee in Wikipedia that anyone's edits will not be overwritten. Anons are regularly overwritten, and registered users can always come back, and often have to due to anons, to re-make any edits.

The entire principle is to prevent the insertion and display of questionable data in Wikipedia. Wikipedia readers thus do not have to see profanity, propaganda or any other rubbish. Whatever anons, admins and RC patrollers do, it does not affect the displayed article. Thus only non-POV, non-rubbish will get through to the article from anons. Rama's Arrow 16:26, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

This time-delay system is not unlike the "live" TV coverage which has a one or two minute delay loop to edit out profanity or anything else that might be distressing to a mass audience. Although this works well with a single data stream and an expert team working for a limited period of time, I am not sure that a five minute delay is adequate to cope with anything other than blatant defacement. If there are a number of posts close together that should be read for sense, five minutes is inadequate. This proposal is a trade-off between technical capacity to delay merger, and a qualitative screening that includes the opportunity for expert evaluation when necessary. Perhaps a compromise would be a flagging system. If there is a non-obvious but suspicious entry, the admin could allow the post to go public but flag it to an expert for evaluation as and when time is available. Thus, something not immediately offensive might appear in public and be confirmed as correct, or removed as soon as an expert can be consulted. This removes the random chance factor of an expert stumbling across the post at some indeterminate time in the future. David91 17:07, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

No this kind of delay is not a good idea. First it would be difficult to implement (where will the text go if the article is changed? to the same line? to which sentence if they are reordered in between?). Second, it thinks that admins will personally aprove every bit written by newcomers. You will run out of admins soon.

The workable system would be somethink like:

1. Anon edits the article, their edit is delayed.
2. If somebody comes to the page older version will apear (as if you click to old version in history) and link will apear on top: "The page has delayed edits". So you would be able to go to the new version and edit it. If you clicked Edit on the public version "You would get normal notice that you are editing historical version".
3. If regular user with over 100 (or 1000 it does not matter for now) edits the article it is displayed immediately.

It is the same what we have now, only "public version" (the first displayed after the search) would not necessarily have to be tha last. --Jan Smolik 18:01, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

A system like Jan's overcomes the problem of merging that we discussed so much above, and is quite an improvement, but also introduces a new bit of awkwardness in that the page someone sees before and after they click the edit button could potentially be quite different. ×Meegs 16:52, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually it does not. I saw this as a big problem and avoided it. If you want to edit last version of the article you have to use link on the top of the published page leading to the most current version. But I feel this system can be very confusing especialy for new users. --Jan Smolik 22:20, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Pending other input, I will incorporate Jan's suggestions into the policy proposal to make this work. Rama's Arrow 16:57, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Creditability

Greetings to all. I may be slightly or massively away from the points under discussion - please forgive me for my free flows. We perhaps put a high premium on consensus vis-à-vis the reality. We spend hours, days and weeks building consensus over very trivial issues, and after several years we may not have arrived at any consensus on a number of issues. We sometimes behave in a style and fashion that we are not writing an encyclopedia, but spending time on creating pages with a neutral point of view and ultimately a page emerges which represents not the neutral point of view, but the crystallized point of view as accepted by most of the users, and that point of view may be patently removed from the reality and the facts.

This undermines the creditability of the Project and it may have already done sufficient damage to the creditability of Wikipedia. Although, I do not agree completely with the modus operandi as suggested by Rama’s Arrow, I am of the firm belief that unless something is done fast to defend the contents which reflect the reality instead of the general consensus of the users, the Project shall never become an ultimate source to which the world would come to seek information and gather knowledge. I love that anonymous users also contribute massively here and only few (which also include some registered users) defile the contents – but I fail to understand what precludes a serious and true contributor to register with any xyz user name. Most of our most trusted editors and administrators are there whose real identities have remained unfathomable and who are using various user names of their choice. As such, any serious user is expected to at least register and this is most unlikely to reveal their identity. I may add that my opinion may be flawed and may require further fine tuning. I fully agree with the spirit of Rama’s Arrow’s suggestions: once a page attains the status of being truly encyclopedic, there should be a mechanism in place to ensure that only values get added to that page, and its devaluation and defilement in any form should be checked. A solution to this should be found, and the solution is really difficult given the free environment in which we work, and which must never be undermined – as this environment is the biggest selling point of the Project wikipedia, and this brought all of us here to make the most vibrant digital community of our time. --Bhadani 14:33, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi to all - I know that this proposal will change some key processes on Wikipedia in a major way, but I feel that the cause, as identified by Bhadani above, is worth it. I don't think we should wait till a climactic time to adopt creative solutions. I know that my proposals have technical problems, and its entirely open to all ideas and suggestions to improve its effectivity and reduce the probability of errors. I request creative support and criticism from all Wikipedians. Rama's Arrow 14:42, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, sure. --Bhadani 15:16, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I would also like to draw the kind attention to a section of the following link: Sabotage of Wikipedia. Yes, we should not do anything to "bite the newbies", if they are really newbies! --Bhadani 14:54, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Aggressive tone

I'm afraid I really don't like the tone of this guideline. The substance is interesting, but it reads like "guess what i heard? anyone can edit Wikipedia! we've got to stop this!" It runs completely contrary to the maxim of "don't bite the newbies", and the constant references to "protecting" work and the "hours of hard work" being jeopardised are not in the wiki spirit.

I would also suggest replacing "administrators and responsible editors" with "established editors". Wikipedia was built by allowing everyone to police new edits. Suddenly restricting that to a small group would be, well, bad.

Lastly, we should not encourage people to revert POV edits. POV additions are a normal part of article building. Extreme cases of trying to make a whole article POV are one thing, but individual edits should be left. Stevage 04:13, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Age must be catching up with me because I cannot quite understand why this scheme bites the newbies. We all want a continuous infusion of new blood. This does no more than confirm each newbie as responsible enough to be allowed unsupervised editing rights. All the newbies we want to encourage will be encouraged. If they make mistakes, we can help and guide them so that they adopt best practice from the outset. All those who only want to engage in vandalism will, for whatever period we stipulate, have to appear to act responsibly (which, ironically, is what we want). Anyone who gets through one hundred substantive and approved edits (or whatever number is finally selected), will be a valuable member of the team or so dedicated to deception that nothing will deter them anyway. And not to remove POV material when we find it?

I just don't like the idea of setting up a "trial" for newbies. None of us went through such a trial. If someone had told me I would be on probation for 100 edits (to use your figure), I don't know if i would have bothered. I like the idea that an editor can be useful and valued from edit numero uno.

That is another stange idea. If a clearly POV edit is made, it defaces an otherwise NPOV article. If not removed, it should be rewritten to conform to Wiki guidelines (or am I missing something really obvious here?). David91 11:07, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it should be rewritten, tweaked, reworded, improved, etc etc. Not reverted. Overall, this proposal is very heavy handed, and very legalistic - lots of new rules that no one is likely to follow. Confronted with a problem like vandalism, we should make the smallest necessary change necessary to reduce it. A five minute delay sounds reasonable. But there is no need for creating new classes of "admins and responsible users", telling newbies who try to create new articles to read the manual of style, insisting that they cite sources for every edit (this is covered elsewhere anyway), etc. Keep it simple. Stevage 12:00, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, you could not have illustrated the difference between us more starkly. I would have been reassured if I had had someone looking over my shoulder when I started. I would have appreciated a mentor. The number of hours I wasted trying to reinvent the wheel when all I needed was someone to advise me. It is the most inefficient system imaginable and, when the newbie is not responsible, it is the way most certain to end in the degredation of the content. David91 16:05, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

The solution to that would be a mentorship arrangement, not a restriction on editing. We already have some attempts at that (Wikipedia:Welcoming committee, Wikipedia:Clueless newbies, and others), they would just need some expansion. --cesarb 20:32, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Risking getting off point, my experience has taught me that mentoring without monitoring all the mentorees is a waste of time because, otherwise, the mentor has no idea whether active support is required. A nonjudgmental blanket filtering of every edit by all newbies is far less emotionally damaging than a system that responds to a particular newbie in a way that person may perceive to be "stalking" through his or her contributions. David91 03:03, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

New version

HI All - Please check out the new version of the draft proposal. I've removed many rules to simplify the debate and curb a tendency to regulate or restrict anon activity beyond necessity. The debate hopefully will be more focused on the workability on the time-delay strategy. May I remind everyone that this is not a debate on vandalism, but defense of content. Rama's Arrow 05:50, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Gren's thoughts

Firstly, I want to say that it's good that people are thinking about and discussing this issue. Today after seeing this edit changing a perfectly good birthdate (I checked IMDB and didn't find other contradictory sources) I decided to waste a whole Chinese history class thinking about how to protect from damage. When this kind of thing can happen to George W. Bush it will be reverted within minutse. However, if it happened to Lex Mahumet pseudoprophete who would notice if I was gone? I created the page so I have it watch listed... but who else does? There are many pages of that nature where a simple date change won't be noticed. I will discuss your plans and then the thoughts I had.

My two biggest problems with your plan is that it seems to me it would confuse good faith anonymous editors and not save users any time. Anonymous editors who want to vandalize (which are many) will often look at the system and try to circumvent it. It may stop a few high school kids who won't waste their time but not serious vandals who create usernames and incubate them and use bos, etc. Secondly, in the end it works like a normal edit. On obscure articles it will be added after time so the vandalism will still remain and no one will notice. On major articles someone still has to make sure it's an okay edit or stop it from happening—both of those take time. I am not sure whose edits take precedence but I think it will either confuse the anon or annoy the regular user. If a user edits 3 minutes after the anon and his edit is put in after 7 minutes then something goes wrong. If the anon's edits don't go throught he becomes perplexed. If they user's edits are overwritten then he has to waste even more time. If there is a symbiotic merge... well, I have no idea how that would work. All of this also increases server tasks by a lot. I am not sure how this system would work. It's also too hard to do that kind of system to save good grammar and all. Maybe the not editing featured content would work... I'd be willing to see a test run to see how it works out. I also think your messages for the users about rules is good and would go as far as saying that anonymous users should have a simplified banner of rules over any page they try to edit in a bright red color so as to make the rules known at each edit. Also have those banners encourage creating an account.

Here is what I was thinking today. Wikisource is interseting. Their stated goal is very "unwiki" in many ways... they want to wiki record the source text but then lock the articles when it's done. Shakespeare isn't going to change his words in the near future so it's a finished work and should be stopped at that once the formatting is all proper (if you template-ify the style elements then it will change dynamically with the times and if you need an edit privileged users can be messaged). Another old idea of mine was Wikistats. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia but the random figures thrown about are very interseting but it's not too encyclopedic to just throw around census and population data for every year. So, why not have a state place to record some figures. A half thought up musing—nothing more. So, when I was thinking today those things and that edit I reverted earlier came to mind. My thought was that in some form or another we could have a Wikistat either in Wikipedia for our own usage or external that would contain things like birthdates for people and could be pulled up as an easy reference for Wikipedia users to verify that no simple dates had been changed. This could take place in a number of ways. You have a standard form. Inputs into a data table for birth, death, etc and you give a source... the best one you can find. An admin looks at the entry and if it's correct locks that table value. Ali Farka Touré is immortalized as having died in 1939 and if someone edits his page and changes it the stats will be readily available all in one place to revert. (More complex systems of actually protecting the data on the page could be implemented such as categories for birth and death could be taken from Wikistats automatically and if they contradict with the intro text then fix the intro, etc.) Well, those were my underdeveloped thoughts... keep the data on this stuff in good shape and it will make it easier to fix wrong material. Obviously this isn't as comprehensive in vandalism fighting but it's more straightforward. In the end I don't like Rama's proposal because I think it would be trumped by the talk I've heard about (for over year) a review system that would place reviewd articles into a more "stable" form and leave live articles be. Will such a system come to fruition? I don't know... but, we shall see. gren グレン 07:49, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Reply

Hi - I'd like to address the 2 big problems you identify:

1. No Confusion - Any anon IP or young user will see his or her edit as fait accompli, done. I'm hoping that this setup of individual display (while the world waits...) will help eliminate the problem of discouragement. Meanwhile, the system clock will take care of incorporating the edit unless an admin strikes it out.
2. Precedence - the proposal explains, that if an "experienced user" makes an edit while the anon's edit is in waiting, it will go in before the anon, and the anon's edit will be added when approved. Since superseding edits keep happening to all, where is the frustration?

I agree that I am not knowledgable of computer systems, if there is a software complication or server problem, this scheme will not work. I also agree that "Featured content" should be monitored even if the wider "time delay" proposal is found not good enough. But as of right now, I'm trying to make this as simple a run-time process as possible. Rama's Arrow 14:04, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

No.

Many Wikipedia users who have spent precious hours meticulously including edit summaries, checking for spelling, style and format errors and incorporating valuable content to Wikipedia's articles are often discouraged and disillusioned when a problematic anon IP user or new user is able to eliminate or change their work within minutes.

I would think this is directly contradicted by, "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it." Sorry, this proposal is not a good idea, and runs contrary to the spirit of the project. —BorgHunter ^ubx (talk) 16:22, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

In a way you are right. However, in my opinion, the real spirit as well as the objective of the project is to create the sum total of human knowledge, and not to derive fun in editing in a way detrimental to the creation of the sum total of human knowledge. Implicit in the statement ("If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it.") is the good faith, which enjoins on the editor – anonymous or the registered – to ensure a level of integrity and honesty to edit in a way which add to the sum total of human knowledge, instead to devalue the same. Editing mercilessely do not mean to edit in this style: for example, that George Washington was not born in the USA but in India, and he was the king of Bhutan. --Bhadani 16:38, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm talking about vandals, people who disrespect and generally don't care about Wikipedia. If you're building an encyclopedia, you need to add information of quality - this is not a "society" that needs to tolerate freedoms and rights unlimitedly. At the end of the day, one wants Wikipedia to be a quality encyclopedia, that all information be reliable and properly written. Besides, there are many safeguards to protect the freedom of anon IPs and look after registered users. Rama's Arrow 16:26, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I know there is a problem with anons constantly adding stuff to articles and featured articles. However some anons do make really good edits and that should not be curtailed. Reviewing the edits would be time consuming and dubious edits may anyways sneak through. eg. What if an anon changes the statistics in an infobox of the state of Maharashtra in India. Will those on review spend time and check if the information is authentic? It will be a huge drain on resources. RC Patrol works fine IMHO. Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:13, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

IMHO, your opinion is a well considered opinion and in the spirit of wikipedia. --Bhadani 13:28, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

It won't be a drain on resources. The question of checking infoboxes will be as difficult as when you're trying to do the same right now. Only thing is, admin and RC patrollers have 5-7 minutes to do it before it actually takes effect. Rama's Arrow 17:36, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Of course some vandalism will seep through. I never claimed this was a fool-proof solution. And even when RC patrol and CVU are working well, if you can improve the situation by creating a safety net, what's wrong with that? If most vandalism is reverted in 5 mins, obviously giving 5-7 mins before it takes effect will help improve Wikipedia's quality and reputation. Rama's Arrow 17:38, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Credibility

We wikipedians should also talk about the issues on the above page. The issues raised here are pertinent for the long term credibility of wikipedia. --Bhadani 17:04, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Better than the Best

Working on Wikipedia - Better than the Best. Suggestions and comments are most welcome. --Bhadani 16:11, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Good Idea, But...

Although this idea is good, I am not sure how well it will work. My main concern is that it will not solve the problem. First, whether it is called "defense of content", that inevitably includes vandalism, etc. All other forms of content changes might be open for debate, but agreed vandalism will not be. Wikipedia could do things to defend content. Whatever is being defended against, what is more important to me is that when someone comes here, they find the information they need and not find profanity, fake book titles, sarcasm, etc. inserted into an article. This is especially true for the articles that are more timely than others. Anthing to defend Wikipedia's incresingly important role in research would be welcomed, even if it disappoints a few. All we have now to defend content are us, it it gets tiring after a while.

Rule bloat

This page is way, way too overreaching. There's a decent idea of allowing a buffer period for RC patrollers to catch bad edits, but it is buried under mountains of rules and restrictions and verbiage. There isn't even decent dicsussion of ways buffering could be improved; simply buffering all anonymous IP edits is not the only way to go, nor is it the best way. Offhand I can think of several ways that it could be done better: it could be page-based, like semi-protection is; it could be regexp-based on either content or edit summary (or both); it could be based on filtering through the database of one of the vandal-checking bots like TawkerBot (that is, if TawkerBot or whatever would flag a particular edit as vandalism, then that edit is buffered for a little bit); or... You get the idea. --maru (talk) contribs 05:22, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Perhpas

Perhpas steps have been initiated to protect our credibility:

• Yes quality
• Quality to count
• Wikipedia strives to improve credibility

Yes all these shall happen if we have to emerge as the Best. At the same time the spirit of wiki shall also continue. --Bhadani 15:27, 25 August 2006 (UTC)