Wikipedia talk:Flagged revisions petition/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

userbox

Anyone wanting to further state their support for this measure is welcome to display this cunningly thrown together userbox on their userpage {{subst:User:WereSpielChequers/Flagged Revisions Petition}} ϢereSpielChequers 15:35, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Be it known that [THIS USER] has signed the Flagged Revision Petition

Question

Is this a request for FR on all articles, or only some subset (like BLPs)?--Kotniski (talk) 16:21, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Just to turn on the approved implementation Wikipedia:Flagged protection and patrolled revisions - it's been too long in coming Fritzpoll (talk) 16:32, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

All right, that's what you thought you were asking for - Scott apparently thinks something different (since he reverted that explanation)... I assume this petition is pretty meaningless if people don't even know what they're petitioning for (but that would be fairly normal for WP). --Kotniski (talk) 17:30, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Have you seen updates from the team?

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2009-December/046128.html — Werdna • talk 16:24, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Who is William Pietri? --MZMcBride (talk) 17:38, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi! That's me. With Brion's loss and the ongoing CTO search, WMF was woefully short of project management capacity. So I was recently brought in to help make this project happen. William Pietri (talk) 22:21, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, this is troubling. The holdup is because someone called Aaron who "is finishing exams this week", is working one it. Doesn't exactly inspire me with confidence that this is a resource priority for the WMF, who have been promising this for years now. Rather Pathetic.--Scott Mac (Doc) _{Flagged Now!} 17:42, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, no, it just means we depend on Aaron. Aaron clearly has his priorities in the right order, and while enWiki won't go to to hell any faster in the weeks before 2010, Aaron's future can. I doubt he's being paid enough to make failing his exams worthwhile. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 18:26, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Not blaming Aaron at all. But if the wmf's idea of priorities is to leave it to one guy who is sitting exams then shame on them.--Scott Mac (Doc) _{Flagged Now!} 18:54, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

If we thought adding more developers would help, we'd do it. If we find a way, we still will. However, as Brooks's_law says, adding people to a late project rarely helps. Further, Aaron is the person who wrote the Flagged Revs extension; he's the very best person to work on this. William Pietri (talk) 22:21, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

My hat is off to Aaron, seriously. But are you telling me that this would be just as delayed had it been a top priority for WMF over the last three years?--Scott Mac (Doc) 22:32, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea. I've been involved in this project for maybe 4% of that time, and I've focused entirely on getting this shipped, rather than digging into the history. Perhaps somebody else could say better. But as far as I know, the community only officially requested this on April 1, so I'd personally start the clock there rather than 2006. William Pietri (talk) 22:38, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm fairly ignorant on the technical and recent stuff. And don't blame the current boffins. But I've been working on BLPS for years now (2005/6) and for as long as I can remember people having been telling me "oh, this will be solved when flagged revisions comes". I really not pointing the finger at those doing this, but the WMF has known about the BLP problem, and utterly under-prioritised (and, I suspect) under-resourced any realistic salves. Frankly, J'accuse.--Scott Mac (Doc) 22:45, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Demand?

Why should anyone demand anything? 99.166.95.142 (talk) 16:41, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Exactly, see WP:CONS and WP:DEMOCRACY, thinking about a MfD. But I am signing out for now, will check back in about 3-4 hours if possible. Regards, Spitfire^Tally-ho! 16:44, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

How would you suggest phrasing a petition, then? (NB I'm not signing this one.) ╟─TreasuryTag►Not-content─╢ 16:46, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Because consensus was established for turning the extension on, Jimmy said we should start to raise hell if the devs seemed to drag their feet....so here we are. Merely demanding that the previously established consensus be enacted does not fall foul of WP:CONS or WP:DEMOCRACY - quite the opposite Fritzpoll (talk) 16:48, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

So called previously established "consensus" was established via a poll (I believe? Correct me if I'm wrong), therefore it is not consensus. What you're actually demanding is that the result of a poll be implemented, regards, Spitfire^Tally-ho! 18:43, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

You don't understand what consensus really is then. Yeah sure polls by themselves aren't a great thing to go by when there's a lot of opinions on either side. But when a poll shows that the vast majority of people want something done, that is a consensus, whether we like it or not. RFA, AFD, DRV, and other discussions work in this same light, if nearly everyone wants something done, it is. We don't get to interpret it, or otherwise decide on what the consensus is; the community has already done that. --Coffee // have a cup // flagged revs now! // 11:48, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

So according to you when a poll shows a majority that majority is supported by consensus? A poll cannot show consensus by any means, if 100 people supported a particular course of action but stated no reason why, and 10 people opposed it, presenting good reasons, that ten would have the support of consensus. WP:CONS states: "Discussions should always be attempts to convince others, using reasons. If discussion turns into a polarized shouting match then there is no possibility of consensus", a signature does not count as "reasoning", and a poll is extremely polarized and static. Regards, Spitfire^Tally-ho! 12:57, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

You then don't understand why the person was supporting. In most cases when you have supports or endorses, without a rational, they are supporting the proposer's rational as to why the changes need to be made. If there was a vast consensus like you're speaking of, then yes the 100 supporters, would be the consensus, and the proposal would be accepted, by community decision. --Coffee // have a cup // flagged revs now! // 13:11, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Coffee, your argument basically boils down to; “a poll can determine consensus”, whereas mine is; “a poll cannot be used to determine consensus”.

Your argument therefore is completely ruled out by the fact that Wikipedia is not a democracy and that Polling is not a substitute for discussion, regardless of whether a poll can or cannot establish consensus, policy actually specifically states that we don't make decisions via polls, it doesn't matter if you think that polls are a means of determining consensus, we simply do not use them in that manner.

What a consensus actually is is very far removed from your idea that if enough people support something then that becomes consensus by default. WP:CONS states: “In determining consensus, consider the quality of the arguments, the history of how they came about, the objections of those who disagree, and existing documentation in the project namespace. The quality of an argument is more important than whether it comes from a minority or a majority.”

It does not matter how many people support one argument, because that is not considered in consensus, if I propose an idea, the quality of that idea is not affected by how many people agree with it, and the rationality of my arguments is not changed simply because other people concur.

Consensus is very much a case of quality of argument, not the quantity of support. Therefore in your example where someone proposes something, and others sign it with no comment as an endorsement, this doesn't further consensus, because their endorsement does not marvellously make the argument any better.

Kind regards, Spitfire^Tally-ho! 19:32, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh dear... I know exactly what a consensus is. It's you who does not. I have only one link for you to reply: WP:RFA (take a look at the support section in a usual RFA, it's usually just a bunch of support votes) --Coffee // have a cup // flagged revs now! // 19:42, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Brilliant! I bring up a completely rational argument supported by policy and consensus as to why you are incorrect, to which you reply: "oh look, they do what I support it over here, so I must be right". Coffee, if your strongest reply to my previous comment is “look what they do here” (akin to WP:otherstuffexists (essay)) then frankly its obvious that trying to reason with you is hopeless. Kind regards, and happy Christmas, Spitfire^Tally-ho! 19:51, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry but policies are based on the consensus of what was practiced at the time of it's creation, we don't practice what's on a policy page, just because it's on a policy page, we practice what's accepted by the community now, and what is currently practiced. Therefore me linking to RFA is really one of the most valid arguments between you and I. Throwing around essays/policies/guidelines does nothing to prove your argument, but again shows that you have a deep lack of understanding of what consensus really is. --Coffee // have a cup // flagged revs now! // 01:21, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually Coffee, policy reflects established consensus, if you wish to see that consensus updated, you should start a discussion on the talkpage of the relevant policy or at the village pump to form a new consensus, that is after all how we form consensus, which is then put into policy. Established consensus is not overruled or changed until that is done so via a discussion. Kindest regards, Spitfire^Tally-ho! 21:21, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Considering the number of places that this notice has been posted, and also considering that there is no place to post an opposition to this "petition", this smacks of excessive canvassing, to me. 99.166.95.142 (talk) 17:07, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Try posting at the ars. They're generally known to have no regard at all for the real world consequences of the content here.Bali ultimate (talk) 17:09, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

What is the ars? 99.166.95.142 (talk) 17:10, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron. Ucucha 17:16, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

And jabs at ARS are very much off topic here. --Apoc2400 (talk) 22:13, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Jimbo's quote

When was/is Wikimania? --NE2 18:58, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Ended Aug 28, 2009. [1]. Hipocrite (talk) 19:04, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Timeline of recent events

Perhaps there's more going on behind the scenes, but if there is, its not very transparent. This is a timeline, based on public mailing list archives, of "progress" in the past 6 months (July onward):

• [2] Privatemusings asks for a status update on July 16
• [3] On August 4, Brion promises a test site up before Wikimania
• [4] On August 31, Greg Maxwell notes that the test site is still not finished.
• [5] On September 28, the test site is still not ready.
  • [6] Erik replies, saying that there is no "specific FlaggedRevs deployment deadline" (though Brion said that the test site would be ready before Wikimania, which started August 26) and that a full roll-out would hopefully be done "prior to the end of this year."
  • [7] Also on September 28, Brion announced he would be leaving as CTO, with Erik as the interim tech contact.
  • [8] Aaron (the primary FR developer) notes that no specific UI improvement requests have been made to him.
• [9] Around September 29, the FR test wiki is officially announced.
• [10] Erik announces the hiring of William Pietri and Howie Fung on October 16
• [11] Some time around mid-November, the test site goes down for several days.
• [12] On November 25, Tim Starling indicates that there's been almost no communication between the tech team and William and Howie.
• [13] On December 10, David Gerard asks for a status report
  • [14] The next day, William says he will give a status report soon.
  • [15] One tester complains that comments on the labs site are being ignored
  • [16] Domas says that hardware is not holding up the deployment of FR.

This doesn't include every email on the subject, but I believe it includes at least one from every thread. It seems to be little but delay after vague timeline after delay. This is a community based on transparency, right? If there are improvements to be made that are blocking deployment, why is nobody saying what they are? Mr.Z-man 19:31, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Well personally, the reason I haven't said much is that I haven't known much I could say with confidence until recently. As of late yesterday, I now have in hand a work plan, which today I'm busily trying to turn into a release plan. Once I've run that by people internally, I plan to publish it and keep it publicly updated. I also aim to regularly push new code to the labs site, so that people can see actual progress. The whole team knows that people are more than eager for this, and getting it released is a high priority. William Pietri (talk) 22:33, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that, to date, nobody seems to be acting like it is, at least not in public. If this is what high priority looks like, I shudder to imagine what low priority looks like. Mr.Z-man 23:13, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

That's a very reasonable feeling to have; I agree completely that this has been a big mystery from the community perspective, and I aim to change that going forward. It would be nice to change the past, too, but that's beyond my meager powers. William Pietri (talk) 02:35, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

How can you only just have put together a plan? The WMF has known what's needed to be done for about 8 months and you've been there 2 months. What have you all been doing all that time? Surely the plan is the first thing you do... You may need to refine the plan after assessing the first prototype, but you should have had a plan of some kind since a few days after the project started. We've been being told this is a high priority for months, words aren't going to cut it any more. We need to see action. Prove it's a high priority by getting it done. --Tango (talk) 02:48, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

That's a reasonable question, and one I don't know the answer to. I'm focused on getting it done, rather than investigating the history. As I've mentioned elsewhere, my plan going forward is to release frequently, so that the community can see regular progress. Once people are happy with it on labs, we'll roll it out to the English Wikipedia. Actually, "happy" isn't quite the right word; when the pain of not releasing is higher than the pain of releasing, we'll ship, and then ship further improvements later. But as you can see from the feedback on the labs site, there's still important work to do, an assessment which the usability team and I both agree with. William Pietri (talk) 07:10, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Need more admins?

However many articles are to be protected by flagged revisions, it strikes me that this process is somewhat admin dependent, and therefore will not be helped by the fact that our number of active admins has been declining by 1% a month for the last year or more. There are two things that I think would help address this problem - firstly we need to find more candidates and persuade them to run at RFA. Secondly, have we considered automatically treating all wp:autoreviewer's edits as patrolled, or even defaulting to give them all the new reviewer button? ϢereSpielChequers 23:05, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

This is a good idea, I don't see why an editor simply working a few flagged revisions would need to be an admin, imo, if an editor had the support of the community and a level of trust and wanted to do the work then they could easily be given the status without any extra responsibilities. Off2riorob (talk) 23:31, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

We can't at present appoint reviewers as the button has not yet been implemented. We could decide that all autoreviewers are editors whose content has been deemed not to need patrolling at newpages and therefore to make all the current auto reviewers reviewers when that function is implemented; We could also agree the criteria for the new reviewer status and start compiling a list of users who meet that criteria and can be set as reviewers as soon as the software allows. So appointing more admins is not the only thing we could be doing now to make flagged revisions work more smoothly, but it is I would suggest a logical thing for us to be doing at this juncture. ϢereSpielChequers 01:51, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I was looking at it from a personal point of view and the wider view too , but on a personal point of view, I like to take care of BLPs and would perhaps not have the support for auto review or the desire for admin status (or the support) but I may want to offer my work to help watch flagged revisions, under your comments I would not qualify to help? Off2riorob (talk) 02:14, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Dear Off2riorob, I haven't assessed your contributions so have not yet formed an opinion as to whether I would support you at RFA, or for Autoreviewer, but feel free to measure yourself against the RFA criteria on my userpage and email me if and when you think you meet them. My understanding is that the plan for flagged revisions is to have a new reviewer status - reviewers would not have the power to block users or view deleted pages so the criteria for that status could be much lower than for admins. However we have not yet decided what the criteria would be for reviewer status so we can't yet assess potential applicants - hence my suggestion above. ϢereSpielChequers 15:38, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I see no need to allow anyone other than admins decide on what revs go live. Hell if I have to I'll approve/disapprove every single one while I'm online. --Coffee // have a cup // flagged revs now! // 11:51, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Wow... if I didn't have a reason to oppose FR before, I sure do now!
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 14:24, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that WereSpielCheckers...I support the position that many users are able and could be trusted to do this work. Off2riorob (talk) 19:13, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Avoiding an edit war - but a petition is not a poll

User:Gurch has placed a second "petition" on this page, which is no petition at all since it is not addressed to any party. "We, the undersigned, are concerned that "flagged revisions" will create huge backlogs with no tangible benefit, stifle the encouragement and captivation of new contributors that is vital to the long-term survival of the project, and that the proposal is inappropriate". That doesn't actually petition anyone. It is rather an attempt to start an inhouse debate about the use of the feature, a legitimate debate certainly, but one we have had and will have again in other fora.

I've twice removed this - marking it in summaries as inappropriate. But I've twice been rolled back without explanation.

I'm not going to edit war, but is seems to me designed simply as a spoiler. This petition is not designed to debate or create policy. It is not a poll.--Scott Mac (Doc) 23:19, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the removal. This was also the reason I removed the "Oppose" section header (besides the fact that petitions don't work that way), this shouldn't be hijacked into a referendum on FlaggedRevs. Mr.Z-man 23:23, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I reverted. I want to see Gurch opinion on this, he's close to 3rr anyways. Secret ^account 23:23, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I say again, the purpose of the petition is to ask the WMF to make possible a feature that they've been promising for ages. What policy the community adopt when that feature becomes available is a matter for the community to debate elsewhere - it is not a matter for the WMF.--Scott Mac (Doc) 23:26, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

BLP semi-protection petition

Is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLP_semiprotection_petition

It is related to flagged revisions, but is implementable NOW (and would presumably become obsolete if some versions of flagged revisions are ever implemented on BLP). Since universal BLP sprotection only relates to 14% of Wikipedia, the usual arguments against sprotection do not apply to it. Please go to the page above and consider the arguments. Thanks. SBHarris 03:14, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Work plan

To William Pietri: You obviously cannot be responsible for was and was not done before you were put in charge of this project. However, now that you are in charge and "now have in hand a work plan", please publish it to the Wikipedia community, in its present form, now. We understand that a plan is subject to change and is not a release plan, yet. Nevertheless, this project is of vital importance to the community. We need to know what needs to be done, and when, to have flagged revisions working on Wikipedia. If your work plan includes a critical path analysis or milestones, that would help the community understand the actual status of the project and what remains ahead. Thank you.—Finell 03:26, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! I do indeed want to publish it ASAP. We spent all week locked in a conference room putting together a plan, and I plan to publish it next week, after making another pass to see what else I can push from the "before release" bucket until later. I understand and entirely accept that everybody is very eager; it has been a long time coming. Equally, I'm sure you understand that if I publish a half-finished mess of notes, a lot of people won't take that very well. I'd rather spend a little time making it clear and sane than a lot of time dealing with reactions to something that doesn't look so good. Looking forward, you should also expect UI mockups of the improved interfaces from Howie Fung and the usability folks. But given the upcoming holidays, those will probably be early in the new year. And as I mentioned elsewhere, expect regular release on labs, so that everybody can see the progress for themselves, and give us the vigorous feedback that Wikipedians are known for. William Pietri (talk) 07:25, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

William, first of all, thanks for coming here and giving us an update on where things actually stand with flagged revisions on en.WP. This is something that has been promised publicly by Jimbo for literally years as a solution for the oft-noted BLP problems and is already running in some form on other language wikipedias, so I'm sure you understand why some people have gotten impatient. You've only been working on this for two months, and you are here trying to make up for the communications shortcomings of the WMF, so thank you. Having said all that, here's a fairly pointed question which was asked earlier and I think deserves an answer - you and Howie Fung have been working on this for two months and you don't yet have a plan that is in a state to be released to the community - what have you been doing? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:44, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! That's a very reasonable question. As preface, what I said before is that we didn't have a work plan, by which I mean a reasonably complete list of the things we needed to do before rolling out to the English Wikipedia. Also, I'm on this quarter time, so actual working time for me before this week's push is less than 2 weeks of work. Although we're only finishing the detailed work plan now, I have had a rough plan almost from the beginning, which included:

• Read up on the community proposal and substantial related comment,
• Better understand the intended effect and possible risks,
• Learn about the software itself,
• Learn at least a little about the project history,
• Learn the basics about the Wikimedia operations environment and development team,
• Figure out who is needed to make this a success and involve them,
• Put together a list of metrics that would let everybody evaluate the effect of introducing FlaggedRevs on en,
• Make a list of everything that needs doing (the work plan),
• Do at least rough designs of the hard bits, so we have some confidence the plan makes sense,
• Get relative estimates, so we can make reasonable cost-benefit choices,
• Put together a rough release plan,
• Publish the release plan and get feedback,
• Start regular releases to the labs site,
• Make sure there are no big technical risks in releasing to en,
• Keep revising the labs site until there is a consensus that releasing to en will actually make things better,
• Release, and
• Use what we learn from the release to regularly update the tool.

I have some advantage on this in that I've been involved with Wikipedia for a while, but there was still just a lot to learn. Also, FlaggedRevs is surprisingly complicated, and we wanted to be sure we were serving not just the vocal expert community members involved in this discussion, but the much larger community of editors and readers that will be affected by this. As much as I'd like this to come out tomorrow, I'd like even more for this to be widely seen as a step forward.

I hope that makes things clearer. If there are any particular questions people would like to be sure I answer as part of the tech blog post, please mention them on my talk page. Thanks, William Pietri (talk) 23:18, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Statement by William Pietri

Hi! I was recently brought on part time to do the project management for this. I gave a quick update recently on Wikitech-l, and we'll have a tech blog post for you next week. But let me give a quick update now. I can assure you that the foundation staff take this seriously. The developer, Aaron Schulz, has been out in SF all week working with me and Howie Fung of the usability team. We just got out of a meeting with Erik Moeller, whose parting words were the same thing he's said every time we've talked with him: "Let me know if there's anything else I can do." We all want to release this as soon as possible, but as the feedback on the FlaggedRevs labs site shows, there are a number of major usability issues that we need to solve before it gets inflicted on the eight zillion users of English Wikipedia. Keep an eye out for the blog post, which will have more detail. Thanks, William Pietri (talk) 21:40, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

There is a test wiki for Flagged Revisions as it should be implemented on English Wikipedia at flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org. I remember a month ago there were still a lot of problems and bugs. Perhaps it needs more testers. --Apoc2400 (talk) 22:02, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

We have enough feedback on the current version, but as soon as we release a new version, we'd love more help testing. When we're ready, where would people like me to announce that? Thanks, William Pietri (talk) 22:15, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Can your announcements be a little more specific? This is a collaborative project and open source software. Right now the impression I get is either almost no progress has been made since the test site was set up (about a month behind schedule) or a couple people are trying to do all the work themselves behind closed doors. Neither option is especially good. Mr.Z-man 22:21, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I checked out the current version and it seems everything important is working, while some smaller things are left. Is that a correct impression? --Apoc2400 (talk) 23:15, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:FlaggedRevs_issues Josh Parris 23:58, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I think the basic functionality is there, but there's a lot of UI cleanup to do. I'll post the full list next week. As to progress, I understand most of the progress has been under the hood, but there have been some fixes. I hope to push to labs soon and frequently thereafter, so progress is clearer. William Pietri (talk) 02:32, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

William, probably the best place to recruit people for testing would be on WT:BLPN, since many of the folks who desparately want this are watching that noticeboard. Watchlistnotice might be a good idea as well. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 17:08, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

Since this is apparently being worked on by the devs, I presume any further delay is due to the need to get the code right. So better to delay it than to implement something that's going to break.--Kotniski (talk) 17:35, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, the wmf has a dev working on it who's on "exam break" which does not smack of them prioritising it. If they need to put more resources in, this petition should encourage them. I'm happy with an oppose section here - but I can't see why anyone would oppose unless they are asking for continued delays, but ymmv.--Scott Mac (Doc) _{Flagged Now!} 17:39, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I could support it if it were phrased a bit differently (it would also help if you clarified what form of FR you're asking for).--Kotniski (talk) 17:47, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

My impression was to enable it for the two month trial, which seemed to have support. But I could be mistaken. --Bfigura ^(talk) 17:49, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

We are asking for the feature to be developed for the software. How it is to be used or tweaked is another discussion altogether.--Scott Mac (Doc) _{Flagged Now!} 17:54, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Well the feature is developed - I've seen it in action on other sites. But I understand the devs are working on certain tweaks to it that will make it compatible with what was decided here at English WP (as described under the link that you wouldn't let me put in). --Kotniski (talk) 17:57, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the term "rolled out" could be expanded upon (in a footnote or something) to clarify this. Otherwise, it doesn't seem to be entirely clear (at least to those of us less familiar with the ins and outs of mediawiki) what the petition is asking for? --Bfigura ^(talk) 18:02, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, someone please explain. If this is a request for full flagged revisions to be enabled (as the current wording seems to imply), then there needs to be some kind of explanation as to why the community's previous decision to ask for a modified version of the tool is suddenly to be overruled. And it needs to be clear that everyone signing the petition really understands what they're signing.--Kotniski (talk) 20:19, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

FlaggedRevs is just the name of the extension, regardless of what configuration is used. Mr.Z-man 22:18, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

So what configuration are you requesting? The one that exists, or the one that the devs are still working on? (In other words, are you saying "hurry up with what you're doing" or "we're fed up waiting, just give us what you've got"?)--Kotniski (talk) 07:21, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

This petition is not requesting any specific configuration, its asking the foundation to stop delaying. Presumably, that would mean that we're asking for whatever we asked for several months ago (April I think). Mr.Z-man 13:38, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

You'd think so, wouldn't you. But the originator of the petition seems to be of a different opinion (he reverted me when I... OK never mind, I said I was going).--Kotniski (talk) 14:58, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

• Note, this was once an "opposed" section,[17] but now there is only a support petition section.Ikip (talk) 17:40, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

That's what petitions are. They are a list of those who wish to request something. This is not a poll.--Scott Mac (Doc) 22:30, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

This isn't the way to solve the BLP problem. My experience with it as a good-faith IP on de.wiki has been negative and it goes directly against our principles of open editing and the "you can change this page right now" atmosphere. Flagged protection may be ok, flagged revisions are not. Them From Space 18:21, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

How about something to the effect of "Your edit has been flagged for review. [...] If you believe there is text that needs to be removed immediately, contact oversight [link here to a form that sends a link to the edit in the flagged revision queue to the mailing list]."?— Preceding unsigned comment added by NE2 (talk • contribs) ^diff

leaning moral support I have been thinking about this a long time over and over. I echo Themfromspace's concerns above. I have a nagging worry that taking away an aspect of the instant gratification for passersby (and potential new editors/converts) will result in a catastrophic collapse in new user uptake. I do really want to do something, and see semi-protection as the key that allows us to stand by the principles of 'anyone can edit'. I do think the petition is a good idea to get things on the table again and see where we go, as things seem to have gone quiet without much explanation. Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:21, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

• The best is ever the enemy of the good. HERE is something that can be done about a large part of the BLP vandalism problem NOW. If flagged revisions come on-line later, then fine. Meanwhile, consider this modest idea. SBHarris 03:26, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Discussion 2

Note that this was on WP:VPPR, but I've moved it here since a discussion section was already added here.

I'll be courageously honest here: Flagged revisions scare the hell out of me. But then, I don't understand what the major issue is with BLP's that people have been screaming their heads off about for years now. Specific and blatant personal attacks can and should be removed of course (and if there's any good reason for "oversight", that would be it), but there seems to be an obvious desire to impose some level of censorship on Wikipedia from some. I think that's what scares me the most, is that those who strongly advocate for flagged revisions are those who I don't think should be entrusted with the added power it provides. I'm perfectly willing to listen, but most of the advocacy for Flagged Revisions to date seems to be nothing more then hyperbole, so I'm slightly worried about a petition.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 16:43, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

The use of the word "demand" utterly turns me off. 99.166.95.142 (talk) 16:46, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I think flagged revisions puts more power in the hand of anonymous untrusted people. We need to fix vandalism and other BLP issues as they arise, not create more layers of bureaucracy. The beauty and real power of WP is that it is self-policed and self-correcting. Crum375 (talk) 17:03, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

• Everyone other than IPs sees the latest version on an article. IPs see only the latest checked version, unless they click on a link to see the latest unchecked version. What's so scary about this? Josh Parris 23:53, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

  One word: censorship. What you and I see matters about as much as... well, what we say here. What 99.999% of users (IP users) see on a page is about the only thing that really matters around here, and myself having direct control over your contributions, and vice versa, is a bad idea in my view.

  If we were talking about adding some sort of flagged revisions to project pages I really wouldn't be concerned at all (and would probably even support that), but this seems like a dramafest filled Bad Idea™ for implementation in the mainspace.
  — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 00:13, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

  Censorship vs Quality control; two sides of the one coin. I understand your view, and it might be considered the start of a slippery slope. At the same time, my perception is that it isn't censorship as anyone can get to the "uncensored" version of an article, and that the censorship isn't an active process, but one born of inaction. Of course I'm assuming that getting reviewer/checker/patroller status will be simple, easy and undemanding. Josh Parris 00:39, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Even if it's simple, it's gonna be a job where one always has a big target on his back (similar to admins). This is especially due to the fact that the people PR'ing for the Foundation are making such a big deal about it that its efficacy, even on such a limited scope, will be so slim as to be a waste. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Stop... at a WHAMMY!!)} 00:46, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Re Josh Parris: censorship vs quality control might be a useful discussion to have if flagged revisions represented quality control. What it actually means is that, if some casual reader sees libelous BLP vandalism, carefully checks our slogan to see if really says "anyone can edit", and edits out the libelous BLP vandalism, we will insist on continuing to display libels when we could have prevented it. Indeed, we will have actively prevented the removal of libels even while we allow less serious removals on non-BLP subjects. That is not an improvement. — Gavia immer (talk) 01:03, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree. In my experience, many vandal reversions and other corrections and improvements come from casual users or IPs. This will now require more hoops for a correction, making things worse. In my opinion, it will destroy the core principle which made WP a success: that anyone can edit. Crum375 (talk) 01:30, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Except that, with flagged revisions, the libel shouldn't be there in the version the IP would first see in the FIRST place, unless it was flagged as ok. Also, if it were for some reason, the IP would immediately see the new version, only a refresh/reclick/whatever would they see the old one. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 01:25, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

The point is that if there were a more subtle mistake in a BLP, which a reviewer missed, a bona fide casual editor, or an IP, won't be able to fix in the "approved" version without jumping through extra hoops. Crum375 (talk) 01:35, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. I'm confident Flagged Revisions will prevent some vandalism. I am worried about what a smart vandal can do with it. Without invoking nasal beans, I know that I could push vandalism onto an article that's being heavily watched, and I know that I've seen vandals who understand what I do about how to accomplish it - so my concern is for what Flagged Revisions imply when the situation has already gone completely pear-shaped without any regular editor noticing it. — Gavia immer (talk) 01:55, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

What hoops? They edit the article just as it is now. The only difference is someone else has to approve it for IPs to see the change -- but ANYONE can still see the changed version with one extra click (there's a note that it's not the most recent version, etc). Mainly, it's the difference between turning back an edit after it's 'live' and not letting it go 'live' in the first place, but in both cases the edit is there, in the history, viewable by anyone. I don't quite get why the whole concept is so difficult for people to understand. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 03:10, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

What's not to understand? If the default version a casual reader sees has a subtle (but vicious) BLP error which reviewers missed, and a Good Samaritan IP comes along and tries to fix it, the fix will not go into the default version. Extra hoops will be needed for that important fix to become default, whereas today the fix is instantaneous. Improvement? Crum375 (talk) 03:30, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

From my experience, the number of IPs and new users adding BLP problems is much greater than the number fixing them. Mr.Z-man 03:35, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I think we tend to notice the blatant vandals more, and I agree that many of them are either red-linked names or IPs, but if you look carefully, you'll see that a lot of vandal reversions and other corrections are carried out silently by IPs. I read a recent study somewhere which claimed much of WP's "real" content is created by IPs. Crum375 (talk) 03:52, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

And on the flip side, there will be ten other libacious edits that will never go into the default version in the first place (since we're using mock examples here). So yes, that seems to me to be an improvement. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 05:12, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, let's assume for a moment that all of the BLP hyperbole is 100% accurate. Everyone always brings up "real world consequences", so... where are they? I've seen editorials where people complain about the Wikipedia article covering themselves or people they know, but I've never seen anyone actually damaged because some kid put the word "POOP" into their Wikipedia bio. Besides, I don't understand the desire to complain rather then fixing the problem! People sometimes do bad things in life, including on the 'net. Just today there was a story about a legal battle brewing in Italy involving YouTube. We can't prevent all bad behavior, and history shows that the harder institutions try to prevent bad behavior, the worse it becomes. I'm not against the BLP policy itself, but changing a cornerstone of how (the English) Wikipedia works to accommodate it seems to be going overboard.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 05:35, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

OTRS gets emails every day from people complaining about inaccuracies and potentially libelous statements in articles about them. Many are minor issues, but others are more serious. The problem is not people putting "Poop" in articles, its people putting untrue statements into articles, putting unnecessary personal information in articles, and making articles overly negative. YouTube is owned by Google, they can afford to set aside millions of dollars for legal issues, Wikimedia can't, so we take more proactive approaches. The real world consequences are pretty much beyond doubt here. Mr.Z-man 13:59, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Except, you just said that the problems are already being taken care of. What do we need Flagged Revisions for, exactly? Aside from that, I'd rather we leave the legal issues to the Foundation.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 14:58, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Well for starters, one might consider it better to not have those problems in the first place. Would you rather prevent a flat tire or wait until you get one to fix it? Sure, fixing it may not be so bad, but every now and then you get stuck in the middle of nowhere out of cellphone range in the rain. That's not a good place to be, legally, as a non-profit. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 15:46, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

If the flat-proof tire causes the car to use 10x as much gas, it's probably worth it to stick with regular tires and a spare "doughnut" in the trunk. The analogy is kind of rough, but it's still usable... the point being, I don't understand how the (probable) cost of Flagged Revisions is worth it. All of the easy media attention given to any Office comment about Flagged Revisions makes me even more suspicious, since newspapers hardly have our best interests in mind.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 15:54, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Its not worth it if you get a blowout on the highway and drive into a wall at 70 mph because you cheaped out on tires. By the time someone complains to OTRS, its often too late, damage to the person has already been done, we're just trying to prevent it from getting worse at that point. We should try to do better. Mr.Z-man 16:52, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

← humm... correct me if I'm wrong, but legally I don't think we need to prevent damaging statements from being made. Wikipedia should benefit from safe harbor protections, if nothing else. Even newspapers, with complete editorial control, are less worried about these issues then we seem to be (or, some of us want us to be). I'm perfectly willing to support something that makes things easier and whatnot, but all of this strikes me as a solution to solve a red herring of a problem. Had Mike said we need Flagged Revisions, or anything like that?
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 17:12, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

We should do it out of human decency, not just because libel could potentially result in legal issues. The foundation might be exempt from lawsuits under section 230 immunity, but there could still legal costs to fight it, and I don't know how well tested that law is. Not to mention the bad PR. The real problem, going even farther than BLP, is that Wikipedia is too unreliable. While this isn't verification by experts, having people see revisions flagged as stable or reviewed is still a whole lot better than the crap shoot it is now. Mr.Z-man 18:08, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

This is what I don't understand though. We already mark and patrol BLP articles. We have a clear policy (BLP is likely the clearest policy on en.wikipedia!), and there is obvious community interest in policing and enforcing BLP policy. So, what's the problem that Flagged Revisions is solving exactly? It does nothing to prevent harmful content from being added, or in assisting verifiable content in general is available, as far as I can tell. There doesn't even seem to be agreement on how the tool would be used (and it sounds like you're advocating it's use on all articles, in the reply above).
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 20:05, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Most BLPs are not being patrolled on a regular basis. Vandalism can last days, weeks... This unsourced comment about someone's son stayed up for over a month. Zagalejo^^^ 21:26, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

"If a tree falls in the woods, does anyone hear it?" The point being, if no one noticed for "months", how large of an issue is there, really? No one is saying such materiel should be in biographical articles {if their unsourced), after all.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 21:38, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, some people probably did notice the statement, but either didn't know how to fix it, or assumed it to be true. (There were at least 123 page views in August 2009.) When vandalism lasts for months, it can also end up in mirror sites or quoted in blogs, message boards, etc (though that doesn't appear to be a major problem with this particular edit.) Zagalejo^^^ 23:14, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

You're right in a way, but I don't see how significant vandalism can survive for months, and I don't see how (relatively) insignificant vandalism such as the above is... well, relevant. If it is fixed when it is noticed, even if an OTRS or some other complaint is required first, then what's the real problem? Probably more importantly, how is Flagged Protection or a naked Flagged Revisions system supposed to help, exactly? That particular edit was from an IP, but I've seen plenty of similar edits from registered users.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 23:24, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

"even if an OTRS or some other complaint is required first" - I answered that already. By the time someone complains to OTRS, the damage is often already done. FlaggedRevs helps because it can prevent such statements from being shown to the public or appearing in Google results. Mr.Z-man 00:10, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I did ask earlier what the exact damage is. Assuming that "damage" here is simply the fact that something negative that is unsourced was posted in someone's bio article (which I think is a disputable definition of damage, but I'm perfectly willing to play devil's advocate here), I don't see how Flagged Revisions and/or Flagged Protection could prevent many (if not the vast majority, after implementation) such edits. Call it cynicism if you'd like, but I think that Protonk's criticisms are well heeded, and that the vandals will easily adjust to the small change in the landscape.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 00:44, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

The damage varies depending on the case. Most are simply emotional damage caused by people (including friends and family) seeing untrue statements about the person plastered all over the internet. In other cases the damage is more tangible. A potential employer does a Google search on someone and finds a bunch of hits saying they a candidate was fired from their last job for incompetence, but they're all mirrors of some malicious changes made to Wikipedia. (Articles about schools are some of the worst when it comes to things like that, the teachers targeted aren't even notable individuals.) Or vice versa, a disgruntled former employee writes lies about the company and current employees. I've heard of one case where someone ended up on a terrorist watchlist due to vandalism on Wikipedia in an article about them. In some cases, real-life stalkers expand their behavior into editing their victim's Wikipedia article. Or someone might put in information regarding an ongoing legal case, sometimes its some random person who's just oblivious to the possible consequences, sometimes its someone deliberately trying to affect the outcome. And no, these are not hypothetical situations, they're all things I've either seen personally through OTRS, or seen others working with through OTRS or other methods. FlaggedRevs doesn't prevent the problematic content from being added to articles, but it does prevent it from being seen by the general public and search engine spiders, which is what matters. Dedicated vandals will find ways around it, like they did for semiprotection and the AbuseFilter, but I certainly wouldn't call those features a failure or useless just because they aren't 100% effective. Mr.Z-man 17:30, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

The issue of damage aside, EF is a telling example. The EF is certainly not a failure even though it doesn't stop all vandalism. But the EF has positive and negative effects. I would hope that we undertake some comparison of the collateral damage (in terms of server load and false positives) prior to enabling a filter. But placing a class of articles under flagged revisions assumes some cost/benefit comparison has been made for that entire class, when I don't think it has. Again, I look back at the delete unreferenced BLP proposal (only the most recent one, in my understanding). No attempt was made to determine how many articles were affected or how bad the vandalism/defamation would be on those articles. It was simply asserted that problems existed, one problem was one too many and that we needed radical action because conventional action appeared not to be working. I'm not saying the proposals are identical, but you have to make a better case before making a change to an entire class of articles, especially one that introduces a brand new barrier to entry. Protonk (talk) 20:04, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't buy the "barrier to entry" argument at all. It doesn't prevent people from editing, where is the barrier? Even once its installed, FR still has to be manually set up for each article; someone has to choose the revision to flag. Its hugely different from the deletion proposal, its hardly comparable. Mr.Z-man 16:52, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Thing is, if you introduce FR, you're using a slash and burn method, which may get rid of BLP issues, but it'll lose all the constructive edits to, as well as corrupting the very principle upon which wikipedia was built (i.e. User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles statement 3) Spitfire^Tally-ho! 21:44, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how. FlaggedRevs, even in its most restrictive configurations, still allows anyone to edit. The only thing that changes is what revision is shown to the public by default. Its less restrictive than normal page protection. Mr.Z-man 23:51, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

But we don't protect all blps and Its more than likely that a huge backlist will form, and therefore the edits will not actually show, if its in its most restrictive form that is. Kind regards, Spitfire^Tally-ho! 18:02, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) But it's the same old song. This discussion just devolves until we reach the conclusion that wikipedia can't and shouldn't host biographies, ever. It's not a straw man nor a slippery slope, it's the logical conclusion of the argument that correction of errors is insufficient for "dignity" of subjects. and it isn't a shocking conclusion. When the main exponents are folks who are convinced wikipedia can't do anything right, it isn't a stretch to see that we determine the wiki model is ok for Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm, War of Jenkins' Ear and Lightsaber, but not anything that matters. Why is it wrong to argue that new media represents new challenges? Why is it wrong to suggest that WP won't get things right on the first try or the second? Why is Taner Akçam's experience a lesson which tells us to abandon our model and not a lesson for border guards on cultural literacy? And why aren't we looking at the obvious and serious problem of claimed and perceived legitimacy? Right no no one vouches for our articles, even those which have undergone some peer review. No one says "everything in here is acceptable". We have careened into a scenario where some veneer of legitimacy will be slapped on biographies by pseudonymous editors without imagining the consequences. When Seigenthaler faced the vandalism in his biography, he mistakenly assumed that it represented the collective will of wikipedia, rather than a stupid hoax from an anonymous editor. What happens when someone's biography contains a similar error but has been checked by the vaunted FR system (Don't bother telling me it won't happen)? We've gone from being able to say caveat lector to admitting that we checked the article and things got through anyway. What an improvement. Protonk (talk) 21:28, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, there's a good argument for NOT hosting BLPs at all. That gives WP forever the moral high ground and would make all other sites that attempt BLP, look like tabloids. Since the job of vetting BLPs is difficult, you're stuck with either hosting only a small number of them for the hugely famous (the same number was would be hosted by the print Britannica, i.e. the "dead tree standard"), or else giving up entirely on vetting them (one reason against even attempting to vet 300,000 of them, even by flagging, as you point out). One useful way to "give up" is simply semi-protect them all, as I've suggested as an option. That doesn't put WP's stamp of approval on them-- all it does is claim that all the writing has been done by people with paid-email accounts, who can presumably be tracked down and held liable, if necessary. Most paid email accounts demand credit card payment, you know-- and that includes needing the security code on the back of the card, with an encypted link. It's possible to game this system, but not easy. If it were easy, the whole online buyers system would collapse due to online credit card fraud. SBHarris 22:13, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Now that's just silly, crazy talk. Gmail, Yahoo! mail, etc... certainly don't require payment of any kind. Advocating for the removal of Barack Obama, Tony Blair, Martin Brodeur, etc... is just crazy.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 22:39, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that you could register as a nameuser with a yahoo or gmail account. What do YOU use? Obama and Blair would be in a paper Britannica. Martin who? SBHarris 22:41, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

well, you can. None of your business. WP:NOTPAPER, and click the link!
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 23:07, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm amazed, since a major argument against sprotecting nearly everything on WP (leaving only harmless sandbox-y articles for people to play with, to get autoconfirmed), was that we had to leave a lot of IP-edit access, because the poor kid in Africa couldn't pay for an email account. Okay, so the poor kid has free access to Gmail and Yahoo. From what internet backbone? You need an e-mailbox to get a Gmail and Yahoo account/address in the first place. You lose this argument either way, because either you've found a way to edit WP as a nameuser without ever giving a credit card number to anybody anywhere (in which case we can dispense with IP-editing, which no has no rationale at all), or else you did use your credit card somewhere in the chain to autoconfirm, and sprotection of BLPs therefore makes you more accountable, on that basis. Which is it?

As for your point about NOTPAPER and sports figures, I can only object that WP there shares in a social contract which stinks. There really should not be some implied idea that because you can hit a golfball (or puck) better than most, that you agree thereby that it's okay for society to examine photographs of your mistresses and cluck over reports of your marital cheating. Society has indeed come to this conclusion, but I think it's immoral, and I think it's immoral for Wikipedia to help in the endevour. SBHarris 01:37, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I can fairly confidently state that your apparent position represents a fringe viewpoint, especially around here. I happen to think Wikipedia is better for that, but I'm not particularly motivated to debate the issue (especially considering that there's a snowballs chance that things will change to satisfy your stated position). Incidentally, you don't actually need to provide an email at all to register here.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 01:48, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there is an argument to be made that we shouldn't host BLPs at all, but the foundations for that argument are rejections of the notion that an online, unmediated collaborative resource can't be used for anything of consequence. And in my opinion you are welcome to that position, but it isn't once which holds up to any empirical scrutiny and it isn't one that accords with the basic philosophy of this site. My point isn't that the job is difficult, so give up. My point is that the job is difficult, ongoing and will never be complete, so accept that as a reality of new media. If we pretend that WP is like a newspaper, with centralized editorial control, fact checking and named authors, we will come to the conclusion that we are failing badly. If we understand that not everything on WP is to be trusted, that sourcing and correcting are important, and that there is no central "hive mind" (Outside of certain critics' imaginations), then things begin to be understood. And frankly, we don't have enough information to declare this to be a problem so bad that we have to abandon the main source for our growth and flexibility, low barriers to entry. Its very similar to the recent "delete all unreferenced BLPs", the proponents have no idea what percentage of articles are flawed (and escape to the scoundrel's refuge of absolutism when questioned on this point: one article gone wrong is too many in their eyes), no idea of what negative consequences will occur (and due to the absolutism, no real care), and no willingness to compromise (I also will not that they don't have a good understanding of how FR helps the current stock of alleged problems, let alone how it will effectively staunch the flow). Yet we rush in. Protonk (talk) 23:19, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Yea, this echos my own feelings almost perfectly. Well said. I also wonder how much anything new is needed now, vs. the need for something several years ago. Both Wikiepdia itself, and seemingly (at least some) public perceptions of the site, have matured since Flagged Revisions/Flagged Protection were first proposed for use here. It's entirely possible, if even probable, that a different solution would be more effective at this point.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 23:53, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Flagged Protection was proposed less than a year ago. I certainly haven't seen any evidence of major changes. Its always possible that a different solution will be better. But if we only accepted perfection, we'd never make any progress at all, especially when there's a distinct lack of new, alternate ideas to consider. Mr.Z-man 04:49, 19 December 2009 (UTC)