The proposal Wikipedia:Stable versions now has been rejected, and it is in part thanks to everyone who has signed here. This had raised awareness about the proposal and helped round up opposition of them. Thanks to everyone who has already signed, and I hope we can get even more people to support my stance.

Wikipedia:Stable versions and Wikipedia:Stable versions now are trying to make it so your edit has to be approved on articles that "respected editors" have dubbed stable for the default version. This means that for a lot of articles, you won't see your changes until someone else decides it belongs. This is antiwiki, as it destroys the idea of allowing everyone to edit it. Some editors want this to be compared to Brittanica or World Book, which it isn't. There are several editors, including myself, that joined Wikipedia because when they tried the edit link, it actually worked, and they could see their changes right away. This will take that opportunity away from new editors, and I would like you to sign below if you agree with me.

Signatures:

  1. Wikipedia's False Prophet holla at me
  2. David 22:45, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
  3. --Mr. Lefty Talk to me! 23:11, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
  4. ZsinjTalk 02:08, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
  5. JayW 02:42, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
  6. KojiDude (talk) 17:24, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
  7. Fabio 19:34, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
  8. 3bulletproof16 20:15, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
  9. IrishGuy talk 00:41, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
  10. Sdedeo (tips) 02:18, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
  11. Evan(Salad dressing is the milk of the infidel!) 16:33, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
  12. Onikage725 03:00, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
  13. Michaelas10 (Talk) 20:03, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
  14. XINOPH | TALK 16:21, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  15. -- weirdoactor t|c 22:20, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
  16. HyperSonicBoom 02:31, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

edit

This seems to be a gross misunderstanding of the proposal. The idea was to have two different versions of the article, one which is approved and one which is free for editing. If you're going to hold a petition, could you at least objectively describe the issue at hand instead of using a leading question? Deco 21:10, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I linked to the two pages, and if I am correct, which I believe I am, the idea is to make the stable version the main version. I wrote what I understand the proposal means, and most people check the articles before agreeing to something like this. I will modify the lead to make it more in depth, but I will not change the concept.Wikipedia's False Prophet holla at me petition 03:20, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

When I read it I thought the plan looked like a cheap hack. Would you have a problem with a software solution that would let you choose (à la cookies) which version you want to see? gren グレン 04:25, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Have to agree that any kind of forking to a "stable version" will be a terrible thing. Many editors -- myself included -- invest our energy into the wikipedia project under the assumption that our edits will be sufficiently respected as to be made visible immediately and to all "versions" at once. "Come join wikipedia, we'll approve your edits to the other version if we like them" is not something I like. Sdedeo (tips) 02:20, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

The details of the proposal do not seem to be completely flushed out yet but my impression was that if a user was a good user there edits would show up immediately, with good being some very weak criteria that everyone could easily pass (like a certain number of mainspace edits and being present at least some small number of days). JoshuaZ 04:04, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
I watch about 100 pages. Very often -- especially in scientific articles and more "local" articles -- crucial edits are made by one-time anon IPs. Vandalism is always a problem, of course, but studies have shown it gets reverted blazingly fast (less than minutes for the famous pages, less than hours for low traffic pages). Sdedeo (tips) 04:06, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. It might make sense if this proposal goes through to have a way for the good users to do a null-edit approve all recent edits thing. I think the real concern is not long-standing vandalism but short term vandalism that prevents schools and parents from letting their kids use Wikipedia. JoshuaZ 04:11, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence that short term vandalism has any effect on schools and parents letting their kids use WP? Sdedeo (tips) 05:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't have any off the top of my head, but it has come up on ANI at least twice in the last month, once after the Taxonomy template got penis vandalized(you could presumably look at the Taxo box history to figure out when that happened and then look on the ANI archive for edits at around that time, I'm too busy to do it at the moment) and another time. I also understand that it is an issue that shows up at OTRS occasionally. Also, off-wiki I've talked to elementary school teachers and middle school teachers who have expressed this concern. JoshuaZ 05:08, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Interesting to know! Thanks. Sdedeo (tips) 06:15, 26 September 2006 (UTC)