Wikipedia:User versions

User versions is a suggestion to deal with edit creep, and to provide a means to improve the authority of the encyclopedia (I won't call this a proposal, as this idea is embryonic at this point, and would require lots of changes to the site software to implement). It is a wide-ranging extension to the "stable versions" proposal; indeed, stable versions could be implemented on top of this.

Essentially, the idea as follows:


 * Any logged-in user (possibly excluding very new ones, to thwart abuse) may mark one version of any article as preferred. Users may change the preferred version of any article at any time, including to an older version of the article if appropriate.
 * Users may also specify an article as no comment; this is the default state. Also, if a preferred version is deleted or oversighted; the article reverts to the no comment state.
 * Finally, users may specify that an article is unacceptable; indicating that they dislike all versions of the article.
 * Edits to articles, creating new versions, initially are not marked preferred by anybody, though the editor can select "mark this version preferred by me" as part of the submission form. (This could probably be set with the preferences; though I think that defaulting to this may be a bad idea).
 * If the administrative rollback tool is used to revert vandalism (or if a newer version of an article is identical to an older version); the newer version inherits the preferred marks of the older version. Not sure how transclusion should be handled.
 * Any editor can select a special screen to display which articles have changes beyond their indicated preferred version, and display the diff between the preferred and current version. Perhaps this can be integrated into the watchlist feature (though it should be possible to watch articles without selecting a preferred version, and vice versa).
 * Editors may choose to publish their list of preferred versions, possibly on an article-by-article version. Or they may keep them private.  Any Wikipedia user can see published preferred version information  sorted either by article or by user (nobody can change another's information, obviously).

Extensions to the basic concept; these may be more difficult.


 * For each article version, the Wikipedia software will have a means of displaying the number of users who have selected that version as preferred. Users, including anonymous users, will have the option to view latest, preferred by a particular user, or most-preferred versions by default.
 * Users may choose to delegate their preference on a particular article to another user, or to a set of users (either the latest recognized by the set, or the one most preferred among the set). Thus, if X is widely recognized as an expert in subject Y, other users may choose to allow X to select their preferred version.  This delegation can be revoked at any time.  Only one level of indirection allowed--if X delegates to Y on some article and then Y delegates to X; the delegation of X is no longer valid.
 * Delegation is on a per-article/per-user basis; user X may delegate article A to user Y; B to Z, and select a preferred version of C himself.
 * Perhaps some way for WikiProjects or other subsets of the community (greater than one user) to communally delegate a preferred version.