Wikipedia:WikiProject Flagged Revisions

Welcome to WikiProject Flagged Revisions. Several Wikipedians have formed this collaboration resource and group dedicated to facilitating the implementation of Flagged Revisions and the organization of information and articles on this topic. This page and its subpages contain their suggestions and various resources; it is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of other Wikipedians interested in the topic. If you would like to help, please join the project, inquire on the talk page and see the to-do list below.



Goals
The goal of this WikiProject is to coordinate all aspects of implementing some form of Flagged Revisions on the English Wikipedia. It is envisaged that once there is community consensus on Flagged Revisions that this project will become dormant.

Scope
The scope of the WikiProject is all aspects of any proposals, trials, metrics, and implementation of Flagged Revisions. Technical aspects of the MediaWiki software are not part of this WikiProject and are handled elsewhere

Advantages and disadvantages of flagged revisions
NOTE: This section may contain opinion and unverifiable claims

Flagged Protection and Patrolled Revisions

 * Advantages
 * If flagged protections is implemented on all articles about living people, it would significantly reduce vandalism and defamation, thus addressing the issue of libel.
 * Would reduce copyright violations, vandalism, legal threats, personal attacks, and unintentional inaccuracies by using passive patrolled revisions.
 * Would improve the accuracy of articles and thus improve the reliability of Wikipedia.
 * Would allow all editors to edit all pages. Although flag-protected pages will require approval by a reviewer before being displayed to non-registered users.


 * Disadvantages
 * Would discourage new and anonymous editors from participating, as their edits on flag-protected pages would not be immediately viewable by non-registered users.
 * May be seen as censorship as reviewers choose what edits are valid and confirm what edits are seen by default on flag-protected articles.
 * Would further the belief that Wikipedia editors are not equal by creating a select group of reviewers (see no vested contributors).
 * Would create more work for a small group to handle, adding to the already-existing backlogs.

Software development
The software extension was largely driven by German-speaking developers. As the developers only wanted to try the extension in one Wiki, the Wikimedia Foundation board decided that the German language Wikipedia would be the most appropriate choice.

Naming
The term Flagged revision isn't used on the German Wikipedia pages that deal with the use of this extension.

The term used is Gesichtete und geprüfte Versionen. The literal translation of this is sighted and certified versions.

Implementation
The German language Wikipedia has implemented sighting, as of May 6th 2008.

Sighted versions
The goal of sighting is to reduce vandalism.

To be a "sighter" one has to request the privilege and be eligible to vote (Stimmberechtigt). The guideline for Stimmberechtigt is someone that fulfills all of the following:
 * Registered account
 * Two-hundred article edits
 * Two months of editing

Anonymous users see the latest sighted version by default.

Certified versions
There is some discussion about certified versions, though this is not implemented currently. Certified versions are versions that are deemed to be accurate and complete. Who can certify articles is not yet determined.

Impact
As the German language Wikipedia has implemented the extension for some time, it is possible examine its effect.

Detailed statistics are here: http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/Sitemap.htm

The data is mixed, if one compares one year pre- and one year post-implementation. The analysis is non-trivial, as some of the changes could be explained by a general decrease in the growth rate also seen in the English language Wikipedia in the same time frame.

It is interesting to note the following:
 * There are more German language Wikipedians per speaker (37 Editors (5+) per million speakers) than English language Wikipedians per native speaker (27 Editors (5+) per million speakers).

Implementation in the Russian Wikipedia
Russian patrolling policy

Participants
Please feel free to add yourself here, and to indicate any areas of particular interest.

Adding in your user namespace produces:


 * 1)  - I have instigated this project to coordinate some form of Flagged Revisions on the English Wikipedia
 * 2)  - Categories and Templates; maybe statistical analysis also. 22:48, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * 3)  - Great Idea.  I will be glad to help wherever my knowledge and skills allow. 17:54, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * 4)  - I would love to help wherever I can. Awesome idea!  Gl ac ier  Wo lf   02:25, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
 * 5) AndrewRT(Talk)
 * 6) Otto (talk) 10:21, 1 September 2009 (UTC) I support the introduction of flagged revisions at the English wikipedia. I am a "Sichter" at the German wikipedia.
 * 7)  - I have for years been devoted to the "quality over quantity" philosophy, and I completely support FR. 08:27, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * 8)  - This looks like a great idea, I would love to participate. 01:36, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
 * 9)  - I would love to help. This update will help to improve the credibility of WP. 07:27, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
 * 10)  - I think this would lead to a dramatic improvement in quality.  I have some German language knowledge and will work on translating some of the many pages on the German language Wikipedia related to this topic. 04:25, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * 11)  - The same as . 16:09, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * 12)  - Great idea! I'll try to promote this project to others who might be of more assistance than I am.
 * 13)  — I'm a reviewer in Russian Wikipedia. I support implementing Flagged Revisions on all enwiki's encyclopedic content (articles, files, templates, categories and portals. --Николай95 (talk) 08:14, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * 1)  — I'm a reviewer in Russian Wikipedia. I support implementing Flagged Revisions on all enwiki's encyclopedic content (articles, files, templates, categories and portals. --Николай95 (talk) 08:14, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Categories

 * Category:WikiProject Flagged Revisions

Templates

 * WikiProject Flagged Revisions - to be added to all talk pages of articles relating to this WikiProject

Links
Links
 * Flagged revisions
 * Flagged revisions/fact sheet
 * Flagged revisions/Trial
 * Flagged revisions/Trial/Proposed trials
 * Wikipedia talk:Flagged revisions/Trial/Votes


 * Patrolled revisions - working draft
 * Flagged protection - working draft
 * Flagged protection and patrolled revisions - approved for a trial
 * Flagged protection and patrolled revisions/Implementation
 * Flagged protection and patrolled revisions/Trial
 * Wikipedia talk:Flagged protection and patrolled revisions/Poll - now closed


 * Reviewing guideline - working draft
 * Reviewers - proposal


 * Flagged revisions/Sighted versions - proposal
 * Flagged revisions/Quality versions - proposal


 * Static version - inactive and retained for historical reasons
 * Stable versions - inactive and retained for historical reasons


 * Pushing to validation, the consensus position reached in formal and informal discussions at Wikimania 2006
 * User access levels


 * Live demonstration on en.labs.wikimedia.org.
 * FlaggedRevisions extention at MediaWiki
 * FlaggedRevs Report December 2008

Related WikiProjects

 * See also: Wikipedia maintenance WikiProjects directory

Rationale
The open editing model used on wikis such as Wikipedia is open to vandalism, bias (systemic and intentional) and to poor quality editing by inexperienced editors. Wikipedia has become incredibly complex in terms of structure and bureaucracy compared to how it was in the early years. This is necessary for building the project but it means the less experienced editors can hinder progress. Various methods have been developed to reduce the negative impact of these edits. Some of these methods include page protection, tags placed on articles pointing out shortcomings, watchlists used to check article edits, and new pages are patrolled. These are a few of the methods that are used to retain article quality.

Flagged revisions serves strictly to enhance the ability of non-registered and new users to edit, by allowing them to edit protected pages, something which was not previously allowed. In addition, it may address the liability of Wikipedia regarding libel, by flag-protecting articles about living people, thus requiring reviewers to approve edits to those articles. Finally, it altogether improves the reliability of Wikipedia by implementing a passive, organized method for reviewers to patrol edits to all articles.


 * Some facts and figures
 * Vandalism makes up about 6% of the edits on Wikipedia
 * Some pages receive high levels of vandalism
 * Articles linked from the Main Page are prone to being attacked
 * Administrator intervention against vandalism is the most frequently edited page
 * Out of 720 editors 59.6% gave support for a trial
 * In an analysis of six years of data it was found that ten percent of edits were reverted (based on a 118,000 article sample)

Implementation
Patrolled revisions uses a passive flag that reviewers can use to mark a revision as patrolled, for monitoring purposes, but that has no effect on the version viewed by readers. This will allow reviewers to patrol new edits to the encyclopedia in an organized manner, ideally ensuring that all edits are valid and conform to Wikipedia policy.

Flagged protection allows administrators to enable an active flag on a given article, 'flag protecting' it. Reviewers can confirm revisions, and the version viewed by readers by default on these pages will be latest confirmed revision. This will allow new and unregistered users to edit protected pages constructively, although there will be a delay while their edits are approved.

Timeline

 * May 2008 - trialled on the German Wikipedia for testing purposes
 * June 4, 2008- FlaggedRevision extension enabled on MediaWiki
 * August 2008 - straw poll conducted on the German Wikipedia resulting in its implementation
 * January 2009 - consensus gained for Flagged protection trial on English Wikipedia
 * March 2009 - a trial for Flagged protection and patrolled revisions gained consensus for English Wikipedia
 * FlaggedRevs has been implemented on 23 projects
 * September 2009 - despite consensus for a trial run, no trial implementation has taken place

For implementation on the use FlaggedRevs on other Wikipedias and Wikimedia projects, see FlaggedRevs

Glossary

 * Flagged revisions - A feature on Wikipedia which allows experienced users to monitor edits to an article by 'flagging' them as vandalism, or vandalism-free. It can be used for passive article monitoring, quality assessment, or as a way to present to readers only verified versions.  The feature will be implemented, with some limitations, in a two-month trial on the English Wikipedia.
 * Page protection - An ability given to Administrators which allows them to protect pages from being edited, created or moved. It is only be used in certain situations. With the possible implementation of flagged revisions, flagged protection could also be used as a means to protect a page.
 * Flagged protection - An alternative to page protection which, in place of disallowing edits from certain users, allows all edits but requires that edits on that page be approved ('flagged') before being displayed to non-registered readers.
 * Patrolled revision - A version of an article which has been flagged by a reviewer as free from vandalism. It does not affect which revision is seen by readers, and serves only as a system to monitor changes to articles.
 * Reviewer - A user group which can flag a revision of an article as patrolled or sighted. The process for choosing reviewers is currently under discussion at WP:Reviewers.
 * Sighted version - A version of an article which has been flagged by a reviewer as free from vandalism. If implemented, anonymous users would see the latest sighted version by default.  This feature is not included in the planned trial on the English Wikipedia.
 * Quality version - A version of an article which has been flagged by a reviewer as conforming to the standards of accuracy, neutrality, completeness, and style required by our quality assurance processes. It does not affect which revision is seen by readers, and serves only as a system to monitor the quality articles.  This feature is not included in the planned trial on the English Wikipedia.

News
Flagged Revisions has been mentioned in the news media: will expand later
 * This article is about Flagged protection.
 * Article in TIME magazine about BLP problems in which the Foundation supposedly indicated that: Under the new policy, anonymous Web editors would still be allowed to freely change biographical Wikipedia entries — but their changes would be made visible to readers only after an experienced Wikipedia volunteer had approved them. However, in the article Jimbo refutes that understanding: There's only one problem with the new policy: "It's just completely wrong," says Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's co-founder.  Wikipedia's ruling body of volunteers never decided to impose restrictions on all articles about living people. Instead, the site will adopt "flagged protection" — the new method for requiring editorial approval before changes to Wikipedia go up — for a small number of articles, most likely on a case-by-case basis.