User talk:Rick Block/Keeping sewage out of the wine

I think the analogy is very apt, and the proposed solution a good one. I really think that if edits were not automatically displayed, vandalism would lose almost all of its allure, but I doubt anyone would stop making good faith edits. But like WP:STATIC and other ideas with similar intent, we need some kind of impetus for it from Jimmy Wales, or else it is unlikely to happen. I'm concerned that impetus is nowhere to be seen at the moment. Worldtraveller 00:14, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this will basically take an edict from Jimbo to make it happen. Every variant of this I've seen proposed devolves into a squabble about exactly who decides what should be the visible version of an article (so there is no "consensus" about exactly how it should work). The only one who can say "screw consensus, get it done" is Jimbo. I think he truly wants it to get done. I don't understand what the holdup is. In a technical sense, I don't think this should be too difficult. Thanks for the comments. -- Rick Block (talk) 05:23, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I've only skimmed the porposal, but it makes sense to me. Is this what's going on at Citizendium? (You can't get beyond the front page without opening an account, and I haven't bothered yet.) --Mel Etitis (Talk) 13:36, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Not really. Citizendium has many, many more differences from Wikipedia than simply separating the right to edit from the right to approve edits. In particular, the basic philosophy does not assume that most people are well-intentioned. By contrast, this proposal is deliberately a very small delta from the current Wikipedia. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:14, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I see. I think that my position is somewhere between the two. I still think that your suggestion is a good one, though. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 20:29, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

What happens when an approved editor makes an edit when there are unapproved edits pending? This system seems to not take technical considerations into account, namely if you have edits pending, you need to lock the document, or if the document changes any pending edits are lost. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 22:30, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

An "approver" can choose to check the "approve" checkbox (like "this is a minor edit" or "watch this page") or not. Checkng the box means "I've looked at all the edits since the last approved version". Edits don't "pend", but rather there's a version in the history marked as the version currently being displayed. "Approving" means marking a new version as the one being displayed. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:55, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh... I see, interesting idea. Sort of like Taint checking in programming. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 23:58, 24 March 2007 (UTC)