Wikipedia:Protecting BLP articles feeler survey/Implement Flagged Revisions for all BLPs

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Implement Flagged Revisions for all BLPs

Support (FL)

Supports (FL) 1–100

~~#Support per Pascale Tesson. ErikTheBikeMan (talk) 15:30, 26 December 2008 (UTC)~~[reply]

Ja, this will work. ► RATEL ◄ 00:18, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My choice. rootology (C)(T) 19:21, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Choice. But, of course, there are a number of highly divergent ways that flagged revisions could be implemented. CIreland (talk) 19:37, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have a dream that one day Wikipedia will be a respectable source of quality information, and not the punchline of hack comedians. Wily D 19:40, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Makes sense. Durova^Charge! 19:41, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
First choice. Flagged revisions make semiprotection largely unnecessary. Eventually I'd like to see everything in article space using flagged revisions but this is good for now. Also has the advantage that IPs can actually make substantial edits and changes to BLPs they just need to get approved. Also removes the issue of someone starting an article that they can then not edit which occurs if we semiprotect. JoshuaZ (talk) 19:43, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Most anonymous edits to BLPs are good and we don't want to lose those. Flagged revisions is a reasonable way to protect biographies from the bad anonymous edits. -- Ed (Edgar181) 20:02, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We should really be pushing towards this for all articles, actually. The question is whether it will scale to the size of enWP, or even just enWP's biographies, but the deWP experience seems to indicate that it should. Guy (Help!) 20:03, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, yes, yes. If it can be activated on articles selectively, I would personally spread it to all the BLPs I could, and I'm certain that others would help pitch in. Cool Hand Luke 20:31, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely. Vastly preferable to semiprotection - David Gerard (talk) 20:45, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely, I have long supported this, far better than semi protection (which I would strongly oppose) for the strong reason that it preserves the ability of anybody to edit, while preventing the casual reader from seeing vandalism/libel. Semi protection would either lead to BLPs being hopelessly out of date, a impossible surge in requests for edits and the moving of vandalism to talk pages and other articles. Flagged revisions enables the reader to update/make corrections as necessary which is the great strength of wikipedia and I am confident (and would help ensure) we could keep BLPs flagged quickly. Davewild (talk) 20:49, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Flagged Revisions would be a big step forward. Semi-protecting a substantial portion of our articles is just too antithetical to Wikipedia. --Alecmconroy (talk) 20:50, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Second choice. Much preferred to protection. NonvocalScream (talk) 21:16, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Second choice. shoy (reactions) 21:21, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Second choice, or step on the way to where we need to get. ++Lar: t/c 21:37, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Prepared to endorse this. Reasonable balance between dealing with BLPs in a responsible way and encouraging free anonymous participation. Would prefer some selectivity in which BLPs are flagged, but not a deal breaker. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 21:46, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is just to gauge general feelings, the nitty-gritty details could include partial or selective activation of flagged revs on BLPs. (If this isn't yet technically possible, we could buy Brion something nice for Christmas). Wily D 21:53, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK, but the section header said "implement on ALL BLPs" ... Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 22:20, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Basically, we needed to finally have THIS discussion, rather than pointless little "What if this? What if that?" chats under FLAGGED and the protection policy and 100 other places, to see who actually supports what in general--is all-semi-BLP a good/dumb idea? Is all-flagged-BLP a good dumb/idea? And based on this, the appropriate next steps can then be looked at, and shaped up. The specifics--"Protect all via a transclusion of a widget under the positron matrix"; "Flag rev all via the MacGuffin's inverse matrix", and so on, can be hashed out later and doesn't require 1,000 people to say Yay! or Nay! This is just to see if the ideas even have legs. rootology (C)(T) 22:34, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how this is technically possible without some sort of BLP namespace, but, yes, do it. John Reaves 21:51, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Probably the best bet. We need to do something about the fact that BLPs of relatively obscure people (which in many cases will be their first Google hit) can be targeted with vandalism that stays for long periods of time. The Siegenthaler incident is probably the most notorious case, but such incidents can and will happen again if nothing is done. At the same time, cutting off all anonymous BLP edits seems to go too far. *** Crotalus *** 21:54, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I was leaning towards semiprotection as the best approach, but Crotalus' response made me think it over a bit. Our biggest problem for BLPs is when a little-watched article is dinged, often by someone with a grudge against said person; these are the ones that come back to bite us in the collective ass most often. Flagged revisions would provide a level of oversight to the process, and ensure that we don't have an issue where the first anyone here hears about a problem is when it's being frothed about in the media. Tony Fox (arf!) 21:59, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I sort of started an initiative to watch unwatched pages from Special:Unwatchedpages (pretty much dead now due to technical problems with the page), if we could do that on a more massive or potentially semi-automated scale, that would help a lot. John Reaves 10:36, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support -- actually I would like it stricter than the current German implementation. Currently "affiliated editors" seem to stake out notable BLPs or groups thereof, and we would need to make sure that the person accepting the flagged revisions was aware of this. Collect (talk) 22:06, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Even short term vandalism or poorly sourced edits can be harmful. We can do better and should. FloNight ♥♥♥ 22:12, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I like this option too. — Realist² 23:01, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support, first choice. We try it first on BLP's, then if it helps stabilize content and reduce the amber waves of crap that some of our high-profile BLP articles are hit with throughout their time of notoriety, we expand the flagging to ALL articles.GJC 23:10, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Semiprotecting them all is a bit extreme, but this seems an ideal compromise. IPs aren't stopped from editing, their edits just have to be processed by, say, a rollbacker. I presume we can tweak the settings on a per article basis so it applies to, say, all non-admins for some articles, or so only admins can 'sight' the revisions or something? Dendodge Talk^Contribs 23:24, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's worth a try. This may be better than semi-protection because of the essential problem with banning editing by IPs: barriers to editing tends to favor editors with stronger POVs. Flagged revisions could change the POV balance less than semi-protection while still reducing vandalism. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:29, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support I am concerned this will be unwieldy in terms of time used up implementing it, but certainly more owrthwhile trialling with BLPs than with FAs or GAs. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:46, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Second choice, prefer flaggedrevs on all pages. Mr.Z-man 00:17, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support evolutionary step as a reliable encyclopedia. Docku: What up? 00:30, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support in the alternative; I don't think singling out BLP is that useful, but if we have a choice between flagged revisions on all pages and only on BLPs then I'd rather have at least the BLPs protected. — Coren ^(talk) 00:31, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Coren above. I'd prefer indefinite semiprotection of BLPs and flagged revisions of all articles, but better this than nothing. – iridescent 00:40, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This seems ideal to me, if technically feasible. Deli nk (talk) 03:07, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I could support some 3-month or 6-month trial of this to see what happens. I would prefer this to semi-protection for all BLPs. As of right now, Category:Living people has 324,956 articles in it. About 1 in 8 articles on the English Wikipedia is a BLP. Looking at the recent changes to BLPs, it looks like a BLP is edited about 12 times per minute, or once every 5 seconds. I would prefer we try out FlaggedRevs on BLPs first, before we even think of enabling it on all articles — to see how out of date the 'sighted' BLPs get and what kind of backlog results. But I think there needs to be a clear plan in place (how someone gets/loses 'reviewer' status, how many 'reviewers', when and when not to 'sight'/'unsight' a page) before it goes into effect. Vandals could still game the system, but I guess if you make it a real chore for them you could dissuade most of them. But once FlaggedRevs is enabled on all BLPs, will all BLPs be 'sighted' as is, or will 'reviewers' have to review them all one by one? If they need to first be reviewed one by one (which I think is the case), how long will it take to do the first sweep ('sight' some revision of all 324,956 BLPs), and who's going to do it? --Pixelface (talk) 03:43, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Second choice, some improvement, but a little clunky. MBisanz ^talk 03:49, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My first choice. As mentioned above, semi-protection may inadvertently encourage editors with a stronger POV (i.e.: the barrier to edit is higher); and affect the neutrality of our articles. I hope that we move to try this solution before semi-protection. Lazulilasher (talk) 04:17, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Seems to be the best course of action, keeping the "anybody can edit!" philosophy intact, while also affording more protection to the subjects of BLP articles. Definitely worth a trial, if nothing else. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 05:00, 20 December 2008 (UTC).[reply]
This is the best alternative over two extremely unsatisfactory situations: semi-protection on all blps that would be an extraordinary break in our open-editing wiki spirit, and a situation where blps are largely unmonitored and prone to vandalism and wp:blp violations. I think it's manageable, but we'll still probably face huge backlogs. Cenarium (Talk) 14:12, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Removing support: Passive flags could allow to monitor blps while keeping editing open in this area. Making a flag active is a form of protection and should be a per-article decision. Cenarium (talk) 18:12, 28 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support. This is the perfect middle ground. It allows editing, but at the same time builds in a safeguard against vandalism. The only possible problem is scaling, but we can't dismiss it before a trial has been done. - Mgm|^(talk) 14:26, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support There is a lot to discuss regarding the details, but some form of FR for BLPs seems like the best option to me. --Tango (talk) 14:30, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Second choice.Peacock (talk) 15:22, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Flagged revisions are very promising, but it is a big change so we need to go slowly and carefully. There are real concerns about backlogs which need to be addressed and trials are probably the only way to find out. And of course there are many details to be filled in. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 16:16, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's known that the details need to be filled in. What we want to find out is whether it's worth trying to fill in those details, by seeing how people feel about flagged revisions, whether it's likely the community will give a mandate to implement them once the details are worked out. Wily D 16:41, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Conditional Support -- I think flagged revisions are a wonderful idea, but should be strictly kept to featured articles (helps us look good) and biographies of living people (legal reasons). I am strongly opposed to them going farther than that, I think it would break the spirit of wikipedia and turn it into a cool kids club of people who can commit revisions. --ScWizard (talk) 08:10, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support I completely agree with ScWizard above. -- lucasbfr ^talk 17:19, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support; appears to be an excellent idea, and if it turns out to be unworkable we can turn it off. It's worth a try. I also think we should only try one thing at a time: this would be a good preliminary test for flagged revisions in general on en:. Antandrus (talk) 17:25, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak and qualified support—while on the one hand I strongly support the general use of FlaggedRevs, it is my impression that its use here implies a sighted-revisions-visible-by-default implementation of FlaggedRevs, which I strongly oppose. FlaggedRevs would be helpful in combatting vandalism, but I can't shake the feeling that a sighted-revisions-visible-by-default implementation constitutes effectively denying editing to those not allowed to sight edits (in other words, most people). I'd accept sighted-by-default FlaggedRevs to any more extreme protecting-BLPs proposal, however, as it's got many advantages over other schemes. I must note that BLPs are one of the few areas where sighted-by-default FlaggedRevs would be acceptable to me: I don't want any implementation on BLPs to be used as an excuse to enable sighted-by-default FlaggedRevs elsewhere. My preferred implementation of FlaggedRevs would make the "sighted" or "unsighted" status visible as a means to aid more basic BLP-monitoring efforts. Sighted-by-default FlaggedRevs would be preferable to semi-protection, in any event. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 18:10, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support I generally support, but I think it may be impractical to implement FR over all BLP articles at the first stage. It is better to select several thousands most vandalized BLP articles and enable FR over them. Ruslik (talk) 19:56, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
support - I like this as a test certainly, one that we will find reduces both the blp-vandalism, and complaints about it from blp subjects. Not sure about full article implementation of it though. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 20:20, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Do this, do it now - we have other things we need to work on.--Tznkai (talk) 21:11, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support It's well past time to at least try this idea. Gnome de plume (talk) 21:30, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support without question, per my previous comment above. We must do what we can to protect BLP subjects from harm - particularly those that are lower profile - and this seems to be a very good way of doing this. So a few anons and newer users have to click another link to see their changes (until they are sighted) - that seems a small price to pay given the potential for harm to BLP subjects. Pfainuk talk 00:57, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do it - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 01:34, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support TimBuck2 (talk) 02:36, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Second choice per my concerns about how much time this will consume. EconomicsGuy (talk) 09:36, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Distant second choice. If we must let IPs edit BLPs, at least have the revisions be flagged. SDJ 15:24, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, so long as we take things slowly and organize the resources needed to make FlaggedRevs work. My first choice: seems to be the best option. AGK 16:11, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Very weak support - I think this would be a good way to see how flagged revisions work, but I am concerned that it would disenfranchise any editor without reviewing rights. 18:52, 21 December 2008 (UTC) [That was User:J.delanoy - Dank55]
Support - this is a good idea, certainly worth trying. --Aude (talk) 20:57, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
By all means. — Dan | talk 21:57, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have no objection to them wholesale either, but BLP's provide a useful test to discover any major issues. Eluchil404 (talk) 08:26, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea, the only question is how. Foxy Loxy ^Pounce! 13:02, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If there is a widespread feeling that this is a good idea in general, "How?" is the next question to ask. But "Is this worth pursuing?" is the logical place to start. Wily D 15:02, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly, though I'd rather create a class of "BLP editors" who have to openly declare their identities and be of an age to be legally accountable in a court of law GTD 21:59, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. And add sprotection also to reduce antivandal-load (as noted above). If we lack manpower for promotion, then that's a sign our notability criteria are too low and we have too many BLPs. Finally, although it's true IPs add a significant fraction of good content, nobody knows the answer to what would happen if they were forced to register. You can guess that they will; you can guess they won't. The truth is: nobody knows. So try the experiment. S B H arris 00:26, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Everyking (talk) 05:49, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
–Moondyne 10:43, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - This will limit the damage caused by BLP violations (including by users who register, wait 4 days and make 10 edits first), while allowing the BLPs to remove false information as needed. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:13, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support, the least damaging option. --Aqwis (talk – contributions) 20:49, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
2nd choice for me. I am dubious about how to make this work. There are a LOT of BLP articles. I also fear it would expose Wikipedia to greater liability. Or that it might even expose ME to liability, if I did something that made an article version flagged "good"... and I had missed something that someone found unacceptable. sinneed (talk) 21:15, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support, this is my preferred option. Allowing everybody to edit, but removing the risk of people being harmed by vandalism. A balance of our rights and responsibilities. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:58, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support I like this option. It provides a nice effective degree of oversight on the public face of the encylopedia without preventing continued editing. Mfield (talk) 22:09, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support once enough experience with flagged revisions is gained. --Alvestrand (talk) 22:12, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support This would be my first choice (and would render semi-protection somewhat moot). As with others, I'd like to see this for all of article space, but that's a matter for later debate - BLP seems the obvious place to start if we must do it piecemeal.Anaxial (talk) 22:44, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support. This would help implement some control without turning away potentially useful contributions. – Joe Nu tter 22:45, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support It will provide more control over the articles while still allowing anyone to edit. And it will provide a good (large) test case for Flagged Revisions. --Falcorian ^(talk) 23:21, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm happy with this. Majorly ^talk 23:21, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Another excellent and pragmatic solution. Jclemens (talk) 23:37, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support. A step in the right direction for persons whose real lives may be (and have been) harmed by biographies that anyone can edit. Firsfron of Ronchester 00:10, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Reluctant Support I think that flagged revisions is going against what Wikipedia stands for, but it seems to be necessary. Captain panda 00:36, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely. jj137 (talk) 00:41, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - seems a decent way of telling everyone which versions they can fully trust without assuming everyone is going to vandalise the pages. Colds7ream (talk) 01:05, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support. I see this as much more effective than semi-protection. I also see it as a way to allow people to begin trusting information on Wikipedia more. I can see no arguments against this option which even come close to outweighing the good. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 03:19, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - at least to try out. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 03:59, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support on a trial basis. I am concerned about how flagged revisions impacts the spirit of Wikipedia as well but vandalising BLPs is a real problem worth trying a solution like this. DoubleBlue (talk) 05:38, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Full Support of this option. -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 06:44, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support. With some caution. Aaron Schulz 08:24, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I like the idea of turning it on for BLPs, seeing how it goes. With flagged revisions, "anyone can contribute" remains true. I would be in favour of flagged revisions for other articles (FAs for instance) if it worked for BLPs. My only qualm is that it will be impossible to measure how many well-meaning anons we will lose as long-term contributors, when they submit a test edit only to find they apparently can't edit: to guard against this with flagged revisions, the immediate feedback will have to be loud and clear that their edit worked but hasn't been published yet. Wikipedia is effectively a publisher: I doubt that the community would write "we will immediately publish anything and everything submitted to Wikipedia for any purpose by anybody" into policy, but it is the current reality. For this reason, I have sometimes thought the emphasis on "editing" of the maxim "anyone can edit" out of kilter with Wikipedia's purpose: there's more to contributing than "editing", and as stated the tag line encourages purposeless edits as well as constructive edits. Don't get me wrong, I am strongly in favour of allowing anyone to edit. --RobertG ♬ talk 10:04, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed! BillMasen (talk) 13:52, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Sounds like the best choice. Skinny87 (talk) 14:28, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - hell YES! Xenus (talk) 14:53, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support as test Pragmatically, we're at greater risk of law suits in this area than anywhere else. It's sensible therefore to exert better control over such articles. --Joopercoopers (talk) 16:18, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support seems like a great idea. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 17:29, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support flagged revisions in some form for all articles, therefore obviously for BLPs. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 19:48, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support for all BLPs, with the possibility of requesting flagged revisions for other articles if necessary. ~~ [ジャム]^[t - c] 20:37, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support with many reservations Ultimately, I think flagged revisions will be a plus for Wikipedia and they seem like a particularly reasonable option for BLPs. But I don't think that flagged-revs should be used only on BLPs, nor do I see any reason to use them on all BLPs. In particular I think it's idiotic to use BLPs as a test case for flagged revs. For one thing, BLPs represent something like 10% of the wiki and most are low-traffic, low-activity articles for which the cost/benefit ratio of flagged revs is atrocious. Ideally, the solution should be selective implementation of flagged revs on individual articles and by "selective" I mean "selected by individual editors who think that a given article could benefit from flagged-revs". This would avoid unnecessary backlogs. Pascal.Tesson (talk) 23:08, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support BLPs would be the logical place to start an experiment with sitewide Flagged Revisions. Priyanath ^talk 23:31, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Support per Jimbo's plan to test it for a few months and re-examine it's effectiveness. I can live with that, provided we have real research on our side to help determine what affect it has had when the trial period is up. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:09, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Second choice - better than nothing but IMHO not really far enough. At least flagged revisions are a step in the right direction - hopefully the test will prove me wrong and this measure will be enough to effectively eliminate vandalism on BLPs--Cailil ^talk 12:24, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not so keen on flagged revs everywhere, not even for FAs, but for BLPs yes. A good test case. Angus McLellan (Talk) 14:50, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Flagged revisions are working very nicely on dewiki (despite a small number of vocal naysayers) and where introduced there with strong consensus after extended testing. They might work just as well on all of enwiki, but even only for BLPs they are definitively a good idea. They offer the same benefits as semi-protection, but without any of its disadvantages. --Latebird (talk) 16:10, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - if the revision is flagged, it will give another user a change to look at the revision and see if it something as simple as a minor edit or something more complex as new information on the person that no one was aware. It can also allow to revert any vandalism if needed. Chris (talk) 01:43, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support This proposal might be a good way to improve article quality. Seems reasonable to test it on this subset of articles. GrouchyDan (talk) 02:49, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support selective implementation, not just on the highly visible articles, as problems are more likely to occur on articles not watched or edited by many users. It should be used on BLPs and other articles protected due to WP:BLP violations and vandalism (including the five articles currently with full protection from vandalism with no WP:BLP issues). I would also prefer flagged revisions as an alternative to semi-protection, as it still allows anyone to edit - it is easier than the {{editprotected}} and {{editsemiprotected}} templates, which many people will only use for specific corrections and updates, and provides a more useful revision history than use of a separate draft article such as Talk:Evolution/draft article. Full protection would still occasionally be needed, but only for problems such as oversight issues, legal issues (e.g. Office actions) and content disputes. —Snigbrook 13:50, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Supports (FL) 101–200

Support. It is quite apparent that BLP articles can, in some cases, cause harm to the subject. So why can we allow them on Wiki at all? Oh yes, that was because Wiki articles are always cross-read by other editors, and these will revert any libelous statements etc. per WP:BLP. But does that actually work in practice? I think that the answer at this point, with 300.000+ BLPs and no further means of control, must be: no one can tell. This proposal will allow us at least to ensure that at least one other editor has reviewed the article, and found it OK. That's clearly an improvement over the status quo. Even in case that we won't be able to review all changes in a timely fashion, it will at least allow us to find BLPs which lack attention.
Support. What harm could it possibly do?Jonathan321 (talk) 17:38, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I support such a proposal for controversial WP:BLPs. Doing this for all WP:BLPs would be ridiculous and would kill the wiki. Jonathan321 (talk) 04:39, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support, the flagged reision should be shown to the public to default, it protects the dignity of the subject described in BLP.
Support. We obviously need to change something about BLP articles (see also). Automatic semi-protection is a terrible idea; we're "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". Articles that need to be protected will be protected by consensus. As of now, flagged revs is the least worst solution. I think people are forgetting that this would simply institute a trial run of flagged revs. If the backlog is huge (which I expect it will be), and it' that big of a problem - we'll vote on getting rid of it. What's the loss of a trial run? Bsimmons666 (talk) ^Friend? 23:02, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support for frequently vandalized pages. Doing it across the board will frustrate and discourage anonymous editors. --Jackieboy87 (talk · contribs) 01:59, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Not all anonymous IPs are vandals. If it doesn't work out then semi-protecting all BLPs is the next best thing.Wapondaponda (talk) 02:04, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Semi-protecting would be more functional in practice, but since this has the more support, let's give it a go. Rebecca (talk) 02:31, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support a trial for a few months. I think for BLPs we are justified in valuing reliability before spontaneity but I'd oppose flagged revs for all other articles. In cases of sensitive non-BLP articles (e.g. about religion) I hope they are protected by a large number of watching users. eug (talk) 10:04, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Flagged revisions are certainly worth trying. (The German wikipedia's experience is very encouraging.) However, working out how to best use them (eg., sighted vs QA process vs ...) will not be easy or quick. The BLP articles are a very good test case for this experiment. CWC 14:29, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - yup - Alison ^❤ 14:44, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Aye, Woody (talk) 15:00, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - a good start. If we have a group of very little things like this, we might be able to tackle most of the issues without having to worry about damaging the encyclopedia as a major protective measure might do. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:55, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Our best option. Ice Cold Beer (talk) 22:22, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support - I think this option is the best; it is important to have some controls, particularly over libelous content. NoVomit (talk) 03:16, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support - I like the idea more than semi-protection, actually, but support either. لenna vecia 03:40, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support: We need to make a change to better be able to deal with POV pushers, vandals and trolls operating from IP accounts. Flagged revisions for BLPs would be a good first step. Implement for a set time period, evaluate, reconsider our options. Sunray (talk) 07:40, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support This would be my second choice, after semi-protection. Enigma ^message 16:51, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support I'd like to see flagged revisions for all pages, but this option appears to me more palatable to the editing community.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 19:37, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support I would like to flaged revisions for BLP.One of the main reasons is libelous content. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 21:28, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support. This would prevent libelous content from being visible to the public, without preventing anonymous users from adding good content. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 22:54, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support per Army1987 above. Semiprotection has its place, but it's pretty blunt, blocking good-faith anons while only doing so much against savvy long-term problem editors. J. Spencer (talk) 03:10, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support I would prefer semi-protection, or the combination of both, but this would allow anons and new accounts to contribute. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:54, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support as a three-month test with a community conversation during the final month to see whether the community wants to continue, modify, expand, contract or abandon this approach. David in DC (talk) 15:29, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support this is why the capability exists in the first place, we should use it. Timmccloud (talk) 17:14, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Much better than semi-protection, this still allows anyone to edit, it will just keep the damaging edits from being damaging. When you look at the data that has been collected, that is simply too many damaged revisions that are being shown to the public. It's unacceptable when we have a workable alternative. - Taxman ^Talk 14:12, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support should have been done ages ago. Misarxist 15:58, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support, albeit weakly. There are some flaws in this, but it seems to be mostly good as far as sufficient protection goes. —Mizu onna sango15^Hello! 19:17, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I generally think it is a worthwhile idea; although think this so-called "poll", which asks every editor for an opinion without actually informing people only serves to polarize people's opinion and makes it very hard to reach a rational solution. See #Actual experience with flagged revisions for what I have in mind. — Sebastian 03:17, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Cla68 (talk) 03:57, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support, en route to all articles. I agree with Gmaxwell in the next section that in terms of actual harm reduction, excessive focus on BLPs can obscure the fact that non-biographies can be just as harmful when incorrect, misleading, or unbalanced negative personal information is present. But it seems prudent to do a partial implementation of FlaggedRevs before going whole hog, and BLPs are a fine subset of articles to start with. As Sebastion points out above, and observations from other projects corroborate, FlaggedRevs seems to work pretty well in practice and most of the direst predictions about it are not borne out.--ragesoss (talk) 02:35, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I support the principle, but oppose doing this by half-measures. Eclecticology (talk) 03:54, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support (Almost) all the advantages of semi-protection but still allows the anons to contribute, GDonato (talk) 13:26, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support. Wikinews and Wikibooks have flagged revisions, but I have the feeling it might get a little messy and hinder breaking updates. Who will be granted flagging rights? Either way, it's definitely a lot better then semi-protection for all BLPs. ~A H 1^(TCU) 17:30, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support. This too may cause more problems than it helps. Seems to be another layer of red tape. -- Banjeboi 01:48, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
support. I'd like to see flagging go on to other articles, too. --moof (talk) 07:43, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
support in theory. I'm stuck on the fact that someone has to go around and tag the damned 'last best version': who will be the final arbiter and what in the event of disagreement? how will articles' tagging be kept up to date? - many articles are hopelessly out of date as it stands. What about the frustration of registered editors who click on the edit button to find the actual version to work on bears little resemblance to the one xhe saw? Ohconfucius (talk) 08:32, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The German implementation seems to work around those problems. Nicolas1981 (talk) 12:00, 3 January 2009 (UTC)][reply]
The German implementation takes three weeks or longer to sight articles. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:39, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Probably because the German implementation uses flagged revisions for everything, not just BLPs. There are 331.OOO BLPs here[1], whereas the German wikipedia has 845.000 articles[2] and less contributors. We could also try with a subset of BLPs, for instance the 10.000 most viewed[3] in December 2008. Nicolas1981 (talk) 03:33, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support; if it is implemented correctly; Considering the volume of articles on Wikipedia, this will be hard to implement, and like the previous member said; who will be the final arbiter? --Deenoe 00:29, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 02:34, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support if flagging is not a hassle. The German implementation seems good. Nicolas1981 (talk) 11:59, 3 January 2009 (UTC) I changed my mind and now think that flagged revisions should only be used as a replacement for semi-protection. (much like Jonathan321 above) Nicolas1981 (talk) 11:26, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support - as someone who has spent time fighting vandalism, I believe that the current situation is untenable, and this solution may turn out to be a good option. --HighKing (talk) 17:43, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support pending some actual tests of flagged revisions to make sure they work. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:40, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support. Again, see the article David Ferguson (impresario) where it is critical to know who posted what as several editors have a marked WP:COI. Switchintoglide (talk) 18:19, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support. This allows IP users to edit the articles, so is much preferable to semi-protection.-gadfium 19:01, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Mild Support - but ONLY if Flagged Revisions is made significantly more intuitive to use (the labs system is truly awful at the moment, so I am currently opposing it's live implementation). Stephenb (Talk) 14:24, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support. bibliomaniac 1 5 21:23, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support per some arguments above familytree101 (talk) 00:35, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support, good test case. -- Avenue (talk) 07:01, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Medium Support At minimum, BLPs should employ Flagged revisions but really, I prefer it for all articles that currently require protection. Grika Ⓣ 15:37, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support, yes pleaseeeeeeeee.--Yamanbaiia^{(free hugs!)} 18:15, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support Allow IPs to edit, but must create an account to flag. Can established editors get an auto-auto-flag? (to automatically self-flag) KevinCuddeback (talk) 21:33, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support This option just makes sense. We shouldn't make it as easy as we do for trolls to mess with people through WP. Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 23:33, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I like this idea too. Kaldari (talk) 00:42, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support I've wondered why this wasn't the case for years. Changes to potenially libelous articles quite simply need to be approved by a "reliable" editor. Semi-protection stops a little, but not too much (see the GWB wars) -- KelleyCook (talk) 22:05, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support, although I worry that small articles will be left out or left old cojoco (talk) 05:35, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support - First choice, way overdue on WP, highly support. --Backin72 (n.b.) 05:47, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Week Support I don't think American libel laws should be used to justify this. Implementing flagging on ALL BLP's would likely do more harm then good. Conditional flagging for more popular articles/people and ones who's had issues with libel before. Do NOT think this would work for ALL BLP's. Raeky (talk) 20:21, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support - this would probably be my first choice here. Terraxos (talk) 21:44, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I would definitely choose this over semi-protecting all BLPs. I say that the most notable ones should be semi-protected, but protecting all of the articles would restrict good-faith edits, which there are much more of than vandalism.--Interchange88 13:11, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support - For all articles would be better, but this is still vastly preferable to semi-protection, as Gerard says. -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. (talk) 15:50, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I support flagged revisions but for BLPs only. I think it's a great idea compared to semiprotection, because semiprotection blocks good IP editors while still allowing registered accounts that vandalize and/or have an agenda. Flagged revisions allow for greater control over BLP content from registered and anonymous alike, which is what we really want. I don't like the idea of every article having it (seems like it would be unnecessary busywork to oversee every single edit) but with the sensitivity of BLPs and the potential damage to both Wikipedia and article subjects it is a welcome change. -- Atama ^chat 00:51, 16 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support - absolutely essential. Sometimes you need to evolve and not refuse a much needed feature just because it isn't the way we have done things in the past. --B (talk) 05:59, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support I opposed flagged revisions Wikipedia-wide, if only because such a drastic change needs to be tested on a smaller group of articles. BLPs are the best way to test them, and I'm leaning towards supporting them for BLPs only. Blueboy 96 20:24, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, Blueboy, you opposed enabling flaggedRevs for any purpose whatsoever, including for any trials such as BLP-only. If that was not your intention, please change your vote on the FlaggedRevs page. PaddyLeahy (talk) 03:09, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support. PaddyLeahy (talk) 03:09, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support: Will not stop everything, but is a positive step. x42bn6 Talk Mess 12:38, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For all the prior dealings with BLP, it's a must. Secret ^account 13:47, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support It's at least worth a try. You can't argue against something if you've never tried it. Hazelorb (talk) 21:15, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support as experiment There is a big split on en over flagged revisions. Implementing the concept for BLPs seems like a good way to try them out. I'd like to seem some metrics set up first and a time period after which we reevaluate. Another option would be to try the concept on, say, half the BLPs, chosen randomly. --agr (talk) 02:29, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I am fine with either this or semi-protection. Flagging may well be the better option. Rlendog (talk) 18:52, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
VERY Weak support, and I will rush down to the OPPOSE column at the slightest hint of expanding FlaggedRevisions beyond BLPs. IMO this is a great alternative to the long stretches of semi-protection that a lot of BLPs (George W. Bush being the obvious example) go through, but THAT IS IT. Anything further, and it begins to degrade the very principles upon which this encyclopedia was (is being) built.-Running On Brains 08:53, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support - an even better approach than semi-protection. R. S. Shaw (talk) 00:53, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support MikeHobday (talk) 09:35, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Better than semi-protection, better than leaving biographies as vulnerable as they are today. With flagged revisions, anyone can still edit an article - but their changes won't necessarily be visible until the edit has been reviewed by (presumably) one of thousands of editors who has review power. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:24, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support I used to be quite an active patroller, and I think I know how much flagged revisions would be helpful to those currently invested with the task. Emc2 (talk) 16:28, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support: Much better than idea than semi-protection. Our principle is open editing; it should be obvious by now that editing is more than "type text and it shows up on a page." Collaborative verification is also needed, and anything that supports a collaborative verification process should be tried. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 20:05, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I voted 'oppose' against semi-protecting BLPs which would bring the responsibility of counter vandalism all that much more critical to ensuring the integrity of Wikipedia. Mkdw ^talk 20:30, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Keeps with the spirit of "Anyone can edit" (unlike semi-protection) and should do the job of preventing falsehoods and libel. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 16:49, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support best compromise between the options Cool110110 (talk) 18:20, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support As long as it is just a trial version I will support it.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 19:22, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support - let's give it a go. It might work; if it is clunky, we can look at ways to alter the process, or even remove it. Warofdreams talk 00:43, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support - depending on sighting proposals - if given too widely would not change the present system much as after 10 edits we would be back to square one, if given to harshly would be detrimental as IMO too many edits would back up --Chaosdruid (talk) 02:06, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support To prevent short period vandalism,, we have to always flag the best version from time to time,, but maybe give a notice that this isn't the most recent version Koraiem (talk) 08:55, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Very conditional support Only if it proves workable in trials. If this leads to months-long backlogs, it's not worth it--we don't need to destroy wikipedia in order to save it. Wkdewey (talk) 03:21, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support - This is the perfect place to trial Flagged Revisions and in my opinion BLP's require special protection and should be treated differently that all other articles. --Captain-tucker (talk) 14:56, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support 1st choice. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 21:15, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Mild support. I'd prefer a smaller trial first, but I think this would be worth trying if we decide against a smaller preliminary test. -- Avenue (talk) 00:54, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support – This would keep vandalism from showing up on BLPs while still allowing anyone to edit them. This solution looks like a win-win. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 18:21, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Mild support, seems a kind of the golden mean. Only the articles prone to persistent disruptive editing or vandalism should be semi-protected in my opinion. Brand спойт 21:51, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support, step in the right direction. --Brownsteve (talk) 05:09, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Mild support. I can see where the idea's coming from, but it's not without its problems. Greggers ^{(t • c)} 10:17, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support, simply because it's better than encouraging vandals to make a million usernames. The Jade Knight (talk) 10:40, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support, and more strongly than semi-protection; but support is conditioned on this policy only extending to BLPs and perhaps extraordinarily controversial topics with a track record of regular abusive editing.Katana0182 (talk) 20:40, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support, it would give editors a chance to debate changes and put more effort into supplying sources before changes go live.—Ashleyvh (talk) 00:36, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support, I think this would be more effort than semi-protection, for much the same results, but if that doesn't pass (as it looks it won't), this is the next best option. Anaxial (talk) 11:21, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support - did flagged revisions break the ethics behind the German Wikipedia? No. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 11:53, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Could we have a system whereby pages that get vandelised are added to a lsit of flagged revisions? That way pages that are regularly vandalised could be protected without closing wikipedia or creating a massive backlog of approvals. Noosentaal^(talk) 13:26, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Would still allow for editing by all users while at the same time keeping most of the vandalism out of the default public view. Dbiel ^(Talk) 22:04, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support - worth trialling as others have said. Donama (talk) 07:16, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Could potentionally fix many of the problems that currently exist. -LK (talk) 08:29, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support BUT flagging should be trialled on a handful of high-profile pages first, just to ensure we have the templates etc we need, and later extended until it covers all BLPs. ciphergoth (talk) 08:36, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support. -- Vision Thing -- 18:04, 3 February 2009 (UTC)p[reply]

Supports (FL) 201–

Support I think this should be given a trial, maybe for a few months.Ordinary Person (talk) 19:11, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support But Semi-Prot is my first choice. --JaGa^talk 05:39, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support It works in the German Wikipedia, why not here on the controverse topics? A problem might be to explain users when Protection, Semiprotection and FR are used. --hroest 13:22, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I think this will probably be even more useful on lower-profile pages. Vandalism of high-profile pages is usually fixed immediately because there are many knowledgeable watchers. Vandalism of low-profile pages tends to stick around for much longer since the small number of editors familiar enough with the topic to notice are not necessarily online. Rvcx (talk) 15:00, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support following appropriate trials. This is by far the best way of handling BLP vandalism, but we need to be sure it will actually work before we implement it fully. --Tango (talk) 15:00, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support. Count this as support if trials show results. Count this as oppose if trials show "little effect" or "unmanageable". Basically, my problem is we don't have evidence upon which we can make an educated judgement. In theory it sounds all right, but then even communism sounds right in theory. Not convinced by German WP, would like to see it on the English one first. Dc76\^talk 17:47, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Tentatively support as per User:Dc76, and User:Tango, although I haven't seen the German Wikipedia. — Rickyrab | Talk 18:23, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On the other hand, support for a handful of controversial articles or for featured articles. If there are too many articles to work with in FR, than maybe Wikipedia would be better off without it, because the work load might be about as bad as, or even worse than, simply swatting vandalism when it erupts. — Rickyrab | Talk 18:26, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support per Rickyrab. Wikipedia has gone through far too much bad publicity over BLP violations starting from the Siegenthaler incident and then with the articles about Ted Kennedy, Bruce Springsteen, and Robert Byrd. It's about time we did something about it.--Andrewlp1991 (talk) 21:25, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Seddσn ^talk 21:31, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose (FL)

Opposes (FL) 1–100

Strong Oppose to category specific flagged revs and oppose flagged revs in general. ErikTheBikeMan (talk) 19:10, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is no way for the use of stable/flagged/cabal-approved revisions to be limited to one category, and it wouldn't make any sense to do so as anyone can add or remove a category. This would be a social restriction rather than a technical one, and I see no reason to honor it really. What purpose would be served by writing a policy that says "this feature should only be used for living people, other articles are unworthy"? Oppose in favor of explicitly allowing edit-flagging on any and all content pages. — CharlotteWebb 23:03, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do we know for a fact this technical limitation can't be changed? rootology (C)(T) 23:07, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I just found out we can indeed do this from a technical standpoint. People can certainly remove a BLP category, but thats sort of a red-flag action in and of itself that would also be limited by the flagging process. rootology (C)(T) 23:10, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It would be a technical restriction if the 'surveyors' agreed to only enable FlaggedRevs on articles in Category:Living people, or if you had a bot with 'surveyor' status do it. --Pixelface (talk) 03:48, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I must have confused the hell out of somebody. Let me make this clear. I will support this only if there are no technical or social restrictions against using flaggedrevs for other pages (some of which will need it more badly than the average BLP). — CharlotteWebb 15:52, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose as someone who is continuously vigilant of a conservative reading of our blp policy, as both going against our "anyone can edit policy" and making it harder to actually deal with random blp vios. I often spot blp vios reading an article on somebody I have just read about elsewhere and the idea that I and others could not do this kind of blp removal IMMEDIATELY just seems completely counter-productive. Plus its a huge time waster. Thanks, SqueakBox 23:24, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
comment I doubt any version of flagged revisions would prevent you from flagging. JoshuaZ (talk) 15:22, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

comment In the German implementation of flagged revisions, registered users see the last version, not the flagged version. Nicolas1981 (talk) 12:03, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose, ~~but I will not be opposed to an X month trial so we can see how bad backlogs really get~~. I suspect this will go the same way as the New Page Patrolling backlog (ie, dies). - NuclearWarfare ^{contact me}_{My work} 01:21, 20 December 2008 (UTC) [reply]
Followup: After thinking about this more, I feel that I would not even support a multimonth trial, not for a group as large as BLPs. There 327k articles in the Living People's category. That's far too high of a number to start a trial at; I'd prefer it if say, currently featured or semi-protected articles were trialed (both have 2-3k articles). Even something with 100k articles would be more preferable as a trial. - NuclearWarfare ^{contact me}_{My work} 16:57, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - unless an exception was granted for high-edit and/or articles tagged with a "recent event/death/whatever" tag. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 01:46, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose; I do not see what flagging revisions will do except for irritate vandals and provoke them to become more egregious in their vandalism. This is especially of concern with BLPs, and flagged revisions more like than not will not affect vandal pagemoves (a common JA/G tactic). We need to be able to see and remove vandalism on sight, registered account or otherwise, and this would firmly plant anons in a second-class citizen situation. Flagged revisions at present are too double-edged - good anons cannot reverse the actions of their crueler counterparts unless they access and read the history (which a lot of anons likely do not know how to do), and good anons updating an article will constantly repeat their edit or become a vandal when they find that the good edit they've just made doesn't show up, even after server-side delay is factored in. -Jéské Couriano ^{(v^_^v)} 03:42, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I'm irritated by the invocation of the Wales at the top of this page, but that isn't the reason. Flagged revisions, when they come to wikipedia, should be trialed in a much smaller and more controlled area than BLPs. Further, if we don't have the willingness or editor resources to revert vandalism to these articles (ostensibly the reason we are pursuing this), how the hell are we going to flag all of these revisions as sighted? I'm not going to. If I see an article edit on the RC feed I won't give it a second thought unless it is obviously vandalism, then I will revert it. That's basically how Huggle stops most vandalism and it does so very quickly. The stuff that doesn't get caught is plausible info that upon deeper reflection, is vandalism. No technical process will make those edits more scrutable. What we will find ourselves with will be hundreds to thousands of articles with revisions in the sighting queue and no motivation to review them. Those edits will never make it into mainspace without being sighted so the motivation to pay some cursory look at them for the sake of keeping obvious vandalism out is gone as well. Aside from the effectiveness issue, I still don't understand how this notion of sighted revisions helps us gain new adherents or live up to our guiding principles. We can bullshit ourselves into thinking "sighted revisions means we can unprotect George W. Bush", but the same number of anonymous edits to that page will stick with protection as without. And in return we will have blocked off anonymous access to every MLB, NFL and NHL player page (or, placed that access behind the gatekeeper of a revision sighter). Great. Protonk (talk) 05:30, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose again this is overkill. We are the encyclopedia anyone can edit. Hut 8.5 10:18, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Not yet. We should try semi-protection first. And then perhaps we wil still thik we need ths--and if we do, it should first be implemented on a vulnerable subset so we can see how practical it is.DGG (talk) 18:49, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Too much management needed. Stifle (talk) 10:55, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Flagged revisions are a stupid idea, it creates a false sense of security and much work. Determined vandals proved time and time again that they are willing to create masses of socks to circumvent such measures. Think of it, they just need to manage to mark a bunch of BLPs as flagged with vandalism and most people will ignore checking the page because of the "flagged"-state. Regards So Why 21:30, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So we should avoid a solution that would only fix the vast majority of the problem because some problems would remain uncorrected? Wily D 22:20, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose As I said above wiki is the encyclopedia anyone can edit. BigDunc^Talk 22:17, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. First it is a tremendous overkill and an overreaction. The great majority of BLPs are quiet, noncontroversial articles where nothing much ever happens and in the few cases where there genuine BLP issues, there is usually enough attention to fix them. Second, the flagged system is inconsistent with the basic philosphy and the basic model of how Wikipedia operates and would certainly interfere with the normal editing process that involves incremental changes by multiple editors. Untangling "good" edits from "bad" ones would become a real mess. All sorts of new types of edit wars could ensue. Who will have the right to flag what and when? Are we about to introduce a new stratification of "trusted" users, something intermediate between an admin and the average Joe Shmoe? If yes, the very nature of how content discussions and disputes are handled will change dramatically, with users being divided into several classes of citizenship. It will be very easy to abuse and misuse the system by pursuing editorial agendas that have nothing to do with BLP. Imagine, for example, the effect of flagging on AfD discussions. It will be rather easy to prevent improvements to an article listed for deletion being made by refusing to flag them or by simply not getting around to flagging them. Also, presumably, a brand new kind of content dispute will arise, regarding whether or not a particular version deserves to be flagged. We have enough disputes and acrimony already. No thanks. Nsk92 (talk) 22:54, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Per my above reasoning against semi-protection. Anyone should be able to edit this encyclopaedia. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 22:59, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose flagged revisions in general. Other projects like Veropedia are better suited for deciding which versions are "good". Wikipedia is and should always be the live, you-can-edit-this-page-AND-see-it-right-now project. --Explodicle (T/C) 23:02, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose flagging revisions. I don't think people understand how big Wikipedia is. This would create an enormous backlog and waste the time of Wikipedia's active users. Shii (tock) 23:29, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose flagged revisions. Not worth the effort. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 23:36, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Flagged revisions is a flawed technical addition that would increase bureaucracy and hierarchy, inhibit contributions from new people interested in joining the community, and create a false sense of security. Steven Walling (talk) 00:18, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Its just not worth it. I also agree with Steven Walling's comments above. JS (chat) 00:25, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose though it seems futile. This will just decrease the quality of the project, moves away from the purpose of a Wiki, create a bunch of new work, and increase accusations of WP:CABALism. Oren0 (talk) 00:41, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Steven Walling (above) puts it best for me. I hate to place a "per x" comment, but my thoughts are echoed exactly by Steven Walling's. Malinaccier (talk) 01:34, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Too much extra work required. Epbr123 (talk) 01:43, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Very strong oppose. I don't want to see flagged revisions because half the fun of Wikipedia is seeing your edits pop in right away and watching an article take shape before your very eyes. SchuminWeb (Talk) 04:53, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose. This would require much more effort and would discourage editor's from contributing and would turn Wikipedia into something similar to Encyclopedia Britannica. -- RandorXeus. Remember to Be Bold! 05:19, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as way too drastic. Semi-protection is much milder and more reasonable. --Cybercobra (talk) 06:09, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not yet Suggest flagged revisions be implemented on Featured Articles first, as a control group. In the alternative, pick the 100 most heavily edited BLPs to use as the control.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 07:27, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose , its against the Wikipedia philosophy, and whats worse, the two referenced articles on which this discussion is based are outdated, the first[4] is from 2004 - 2006, the second from dec 2007[5], not taking into account the improvements on the vandal fighter tools and bots like cluebot in 2008. Mion (talk) 07:28, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - SqueakBox said much of what I wanted, but in addition to that, I'm afraid the backlog for flagging revision might become too long and this is counter-productive and against the open nature of Wikipedia. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 14:00, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Even FA isn't much guarantee of article quality. Why would FR be any better? And who is going make the approvals? Wikipedia:Flagged_revisions indicates several options. None seem much better than FA. Xasodfuih (talk) 16:02, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I support testing the flagged revisions feature with a small subset of articles, but I think BLP is not the right subset because 1) it is too large; 2) it would add to the hoopla about BLP with which I don't agree. --Itub (talk) 16:21, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose as it turns "anyone can edit" into "anyone can edit but you'll have to wait a few days for a select cabal to approve your edit before anybody can see it" plus the immense diversion of energy from actually improving the encyclopedia to dealing with a backlog that will grow every five seconds 24/7/365. - Dravecky (talk) 22:00, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. CharlotteWebb and Steven Walling sum it up quite nicely. DiverseMentality 23:02, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overwhelmingly strong oppose. Per CharlotteWebb, Protonk, NSK92, and Dravecky, all of whom said everything I could have said. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 06:35, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, simply because the idea of flagged revisions is (in the end) impractical, as explained by several editors above. -- Iterator12n ^Talk 21:19, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, adding flagged revisions adds this process of editorial review which limited and slowed the editing process. -- クラウド６６８ 09:36, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose on the grounds of imprcatibility as noted above.Jezhotwells (talk) 17:36, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - I'm not convinced that the benefits of flagged revisions outweigh the costs, of which there are many: 1. our better editors would feel obligated to put aside article improvement in favor of reducing the flagged revision backlog, 2. it would make Wikipedia less interesting to new editors (and established editors), and 3. reducing Wikipedia's reputation for openness, in addition to the reasons given by others above. Not to mention that, due to abuse in the flagged revision reviewing process, we'd have to restrict who would be able to review edits, and for the restriction to be actually effective in weeding out the untrusted editors, I doubt there would be enough qualified reviewers to handle the load. Flagged revisions may be a good idea to test out on a smaller scale, but BLP is about a tenth of all Wikipedia articles. It's too many for us to handle, and people will notice, complain about the "censorship", and Wikipedia's reputation for openness will be further reduced. -kotra (talk) 22:28, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose A good idea in practice but unworkable - who would flag the revisions? I don't mean just a trust issue (i.e. we need to have trusted users doing it) but a time issue - we have limited volunteer capacity here and we have enough trouble even just reverting vandalism in time without adding duties to volunteers. Would this create any problems down the track if we've flagged revisions which contain libel? In some sections I edit, which contain many BLPs, I'm doubtful that *anyone* would ever see any edits, and they're so obscure that any edits are likely to be useful ones. Orderinchaos 22:47, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Relatively strong oppose - I can see why this would work, but I've seen something simmilar to it before - at Veropedia. I feel like this is a little bit of a slippery slope, and my instinctive resistance to change (lol) is telling me that this is a bad idea. I don't really see any difference between this option and the one above. With the one above, we would create a sort of sandbox for the protected BLPs (the sandbox would be a copy of the article, which users could freely edit) - and every so often an admin would transfer the edits that are in the sandbox, so I don't really see why there are so many more supports on this option than that one.--daniel folsom 16:34, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This solution might work where the subject of the pages is static, but people do change and the information about them does need to be changed frequently and regularly. To use this process there would need to be too many rules to make it work effectively. It might be too hard to get approval to change a page and this would discourage valid changes from being made, resulting in the flagged version being displayed only because it is approved and not because it is correct. This could increase inconsistencies in Wikipedia - where the individual's page is not updated, but changes are made in linked pages. Stellar (talk) 01:09, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Steve Walling said it better than I could. No need to fix something that isn't really broken. –Juliancolton ^Tropical ^Cyclone 03:59, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose Overkill in most situations. Too much time would need to spend by the most important content expanders to approve revisions. We already have major time shortage, why increase the load on people already too overworked. Royal broil 05:00, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This is the basic idea of Veropedia and Nupedia with Wikipedia, and it ruins the idea that Wikipedia is a wiki. It is sad how corrosive BLP paranoia is. Tim Q. Wells (talk) 10:01, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose: Overkill, not needed, discourages the free flow of information. CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:11, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - There is a lot of vandalism of BLP, some of which goes unnoticed for a long time. I have seen vandalism reverted to an already vandalised page on several occasions. To flag a Good version, someone who is knowledgeable about the subject would have to thoroughly inspect the article to make sure it is correct, before flagging as the good version. Also wikipedia would in effect be endorsing a version that may be the wrong version. Martin451 (talk) 22:40, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose This option goes strongly against "be bold" and actively discourages people from editing articles. And it's the thin end of the wedge, from this we'll be doing FR on all articles. Robots can and do fix most vandalism, lets not waste people's time with a scheme that requires continuous monitoring and selecting of the official version of something - very big brother. Drpixie (talk) 22:57, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose flags for just BLPs. If flagged revisions are something that will effectively fight vandalism, they should be used for the entire site, because vandalism is a problem for the entire site. If they work, let's use them! If they don't work, they won't help BLP pages in particular, either. (Note that I'm arguing all-or-nothing in the long term; it might make sense to do a rollout in stages, but that's a manpower/load/management thing, not a BLP/content thing.) —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 01:20, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose. This is a tool that I can see easily being abused. "Good" is a POV, and while we as Wikipedia editors do not (or aren't supposed to) make biased edits, we are inherently biased, so policies/tools shouldn't be created that encourage editors to exercised biased judgment. --Amwestover (talk|contrib) 16:17, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I've been thinking a bit about this one (though I opposed blanket flagged revisions for all articles, I realize that there may be times where this can be useful), but after reading some of the discussions below regarding who takes responsibility for an edit under a flagged revision scheme, I must oppose this. An unscrupulous vandal can easily add libelous text to a BLP, while wrapping in several sentences of good text, and this disguise can easily fool a good faith "flagger". Although you could make a case that a flagger ought to be more careful, the workload they need to cope with will be large, and we cannot reasonably expect them to research every nook and cranny of every BLP edit. I cringe at the prospect of a flagger being held responsible for libellous edits because of a mistaken flag. Unequivocally, 100% of that responsibility is on the person who actively added the libel, and we should not implement any policy which shifts that burden over to a volunteer "flagger". For high-profile BLPs subject to large amounts of vandalism, flagged revisions may well be part of the solution, since the consequence of a mistaken flag here is usually nothing more than some embarrassment, but on BLPs I don't think this is a good idea, despite its obvious attractions. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:00, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. See my rationale at my next vote, oppose to all flagged revisions.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 12:45, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
~~Oppose~~. This is not specific: which type of flagging? All types of flagging have problems, differing from type to type, and whether any of them is an improvement on the present situation is an open question, different for each type. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:35, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Answered in this edit, to the effect that FR is only intended to catch obvious vandalism and copyvio. No case has been made that BLPs are particularly subject to such things, and this will therefore do nothing to protect BLPs against unsourced and tendentious, but non-obvious, edits, which is what WP:BLP protects against. Strongly oppose as useless bureaucracy. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:32, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- In addition, the German implementation has, with considerable effort, kept the median time between sightings at ~~three~~ one week . This is unacceptable; are claims this is working being made in good faith? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:43, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Never. This cannot work for most BLP problems, because they will not be obvious to a reviewer; the proponents of FR admit this, below. In practice, reviewers will miss a lot of problems, because they won't be seeing what our readers see. Fixes by non-reviewers will be lost. Worse than semiprotection of them all; the only acceptable use of FR is as a form of protection, under the existing limits. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:58, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. It's less objectionable than semi-protection, but I don't like the idea of trying to define the class properly. What about a recently-deceased person, where the obituary might be difficult to track down?--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:55, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose the system all together. See my comments below.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 22:33, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Implementation will be a nightmare, and what are you going to tell the anon editors when their edits don't appear on BLP pages immediately? It's still giving BLP pages an unusual special status and still making anons jump through a hoop (wait time) to have their edits become visible. It's bascially the same issues either way. In this case, the simpler solution should be implemented. The idealists should stop making editing WP more complicated than it needs to be; internet users know how to register for an account at a site, fewer will understand why their edits appear immediately on some pages while not on others. That alone will turn away more anons from editing and in the end, and everyone calling for this complex solution of flagged revisions will have shot themselves in the foot. GreyWyvern (talk) 17:08, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
'Oppose since anyone can edit. This would severely discourage editting the articles in question. Plus require a huge amount of time to ID and approve flags and edits. Babakathy (talk) 18:53, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly Oppose, as it just seems rather
undemocratic

ungainly

unnecessary

to me, anyways. Ngorongoro (talk) 19:23, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Protonk, Nsk92, and Sjakkalle. The issues Nsk92 and Sjakkalle brought up should be addressed first if the flagged revisions are to be considered. —Mirlen^Talk 21:52, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Flagged revision seems to be a pretty fundamental change to the way WP does things. Introducing such a significant change to how WP works to any class or articles should only be done with significant community demand for the feature, or with a demonstration that anything less disruptive is unworkable in either an encyclopedic (BLP articles aren't improving because of too much vandalism) or legal (WP is being exposed to libel liability because of vandalism) sense. --Clay Collier (talk) 04:34, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose. Flagged Revision is the worst change that Wikipedia could make, on BLP or otherwise. Just because someone is an administrator or a rollbacker doesn't mean that that someone should get the special privilege of reviewing other editors' work in this manner. It goes against the fundamental Wikipedia principle of "anyone can edit" and it discourages productive, constructive editing by established users without rollback privileges or admin status, not to mention constructive editing by IP users. We do not want to move Wikipedia in this direction, BLP articles or otherwise. The best solution to dealing with vandalism on all articles is to vigorously patrol for vandalism and to semi-protect articles when need is demonstrated. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 16:34, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly OpposeMike92591 (talk) 18:56, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Flagged revisions for all BLPs appears to be gaining support. However, on reading comments in detail, this support is illusory. Many supporters are half-hearted in their support, or qualify it heavily. Should flagged revisions apply to all BLPs or just some of them? Should it be applied only to BLPs or to other articles? What form of flagged revisions should be applied? The whole issue of flagged revisions is controversial. Testing it out on one of the most controversial class of articles is nuts. Might flagged revisions one day be a helpful tool in dealing with the BLP issue? Perhaps. Should we therefore be supporting it now? No, that is nothing short of madness. Geometry guy 21:24, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Protonk, Nsk82, and Sjakkalle, with particular emphasis on the backlog that will be created. Unsighted edits will stack up and create more of problem for flagged reviewers. Most users can be trusted to revert bad edits - restricting this privilege to select volunteer flaggers prevents good faith users from helping to fight vandals and overloads flaggers. Corvus coronoides _talk 21:39, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose. And I say this as a Living Person with a Biography that has been vandalized by IPs. -- Evertype·✆ 10:27, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. English wikipedia is already overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands of subpar articles, and "protecting" this mess diverts resources from improving. There's only a limited pool of resources to do all the jobs. Another administrative burden (of unknown, but non-zero weight) will hardly relieve vandalism - Mr. Hagger has no problems registering dozens of new user accounts every week - but will simply take time. NVO (talk) 16:07, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - introducing a system like this would create an unpleasant hierarchy where regular editors are trusted more than others. Wikipedia should remain as open as possible, and as others have already stated, this is just overkill. –neurovelho 22:24, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - cumbersome, lasks finesse and requires additional diversion of resuorces. --Bejnar (talk) 03:11, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
oppose, this is a bad idea. Anyone can already link to their preferred version of an article by means of a permanent link. Recommending an article version over another is a matter of personal opinion, the live version is a matter of consensus. This is all we need. --dab (𒁳) 11:08, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose to this, as flagged revisions cause a large new span of problems. Also, it's really obnoxious to have a POV pusher with 200 edits control an article where a newbie tries to add some valid information. Admiral Norton ^(talk) 14:26, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I do advocate the flagged revision process, but not for this purpose. I am not a lawyer, but I would not be certain that a court would distinguish between the official, readable article, and the in-progress, editable one in terms of a defamation suit. The next question is of implementation: seeing as giving all users flagging rights would rather defeat the purpose, this would lead to another class of users - or very busy admins. I think Wikipedia should be striving towards publishable quality articles - free of errors and fully verified - and that these should be flagged and periodiacally reviewed as such, but that this system should not be used as a tool to avoid lawsuits. Rje (talk) 19:06, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Steven Walling took the words out of my mouth. I want less hierarchy and less bureaucracy, and I want ease of use for newcomers. I also say huzzah to Oren0 and RandorXeus. Stay true to "anyone can edit" and stay away from Cabals and from becoming WikiBritannica. Kingturtle (talk) 20:53, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose as above. Ed Wood's Wig (talk) 01:00, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Flagging will only hinder editing of all kinds. Semi protection should be good enough. Yaki-gaijin (talk) 01:05, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Flagged revs should be all or nothing. We don't only care about BLPs, we care about every article. Prodego ^talk 03:01, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose I am against flagging on any articles. It requires too much administration and time to be practical, and it encourages a change in community editing structure that in my view compromises wikipedia's philosophy of all editors are equal. This step is bad for the community and overkill for a problem that could be better solved by semi-protection.Nrswanson (talk) 06:14, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Flagged revisions are not the answer--especially not as a blanket policy either on a subsection of articles or all articles. Only maybe (and stress the maybe) as a temporary measure that would be an alternative level of protection. xschm (talk) 20:54, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This strikes me as a more extreme solution than semi-protect, which should be tried first. I'm with Rje. There are certainly advantages to flagging, but addressing the BLP/liability issue isn't one of them. This vote is pre-mature. The idea needs to be implemented experimentally on a small group of articles before editors can acquire an informed opinion. Kauffner (talk) 13:08, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose No «l| Ψrometheăn ™|l» (talk) 18:52, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose due to opposition to flagged edits, and because it discriminates against a category in which there is much good content that does not need the protection. Alohasoy (talk) 21:02, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Given that the first of the studies cited at the start of the article indicates that almost all vandalism is anonymously done (and rapidly corrected), flagging will hinder editing without commensurate benefit. I'm with Kauffner and others: at most, look at semi-protection as a possibility, if there is enough support. Much as i find vandalism irritating, I would find any increased restrictions on WP (even those that don't affect me as a registered editor) to be more irritating. I think Protonk's comments at 7 above are also particularly astute. Also, WPs accessibility to people wanting to immediately see the results of their labours is one of its attractions - one of the ways it ensures such a vast pool of contributors. Finally, at least some of today's vandals - the ones who add text like "cooool" or "waz waz here" - are probably young people who are for the first time seeing what can be done with WP and the Internet. Let them have their moment of fun: they may grow up to be tomorrow's editors! In the meantime, vigilant editors and Huggle et al will keep their material under control OK. hamiltonstone (talk) 23:57, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually it's more likely that people that are seeking to see vandalism on Wikipedia are more motivated by seeing it immediately displayed and it is more likely that people that want to improve the project are more willing to wait a bit to have their improvement be seen. Improving the project is a mature action, vandalism is an immature one. Delayed gratification is one of the cornerstones of maturity. Also vandalism isn't actually fixed fast enough. A significant portion page views are actually damaged views, even with the best that vandalism reversion can do. For obvious vandalism flagged revisions can perfectly solve the problem, for sneaky vandalism it won't do any worse than the current situation. - Taxman ^Talk 19:27, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, this implementation of FR does give vandals the pleasure of seeing their work immediately. They won't see it the next time they call up the page, but it's not clear that that will matter. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:04, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, that's exactly the rub, it won't make it to the real page, so no one really sees it. That's all that really matters anyway, and if the vandal figures that out great they probably won't bother again. If they don't figure it out, at least it didn't make it to the live page. - Taxman ^Talk 05:04, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Re Taxman's comment - I think I didn't express myself clearly. I agree on the motivation of many (younger) vandals . I'm just not that worried about it - I'm optimistic that they'll discover this immature pleasure now, but it may be a route to more mature ones later on. I hope. Re the stats on damaged views - yeah, but the <5% of viewers who see a vandalised entry will almost recognise it for what it is. Still, I acknowledge this is a weakness in my position. Cheers hamiltonstone (talk) 23:41, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That may indeed lead to more mature editing in the future. I think people have specifically claimed as much. But I doubt the same person would be any less motivated to make better edits in the future if they're first vandalism edits didn't make it to the live page. - Taxman ^Talk 05:04, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose ^ross ^nixon 01:21, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose Debresser (talk) 23:42, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I oppose this because biographies of living people are not special. Why should an author be worthy of protection, yet the masterpiece he put his heart and soul into not? Chris Croy (talk) 06:16, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - cannot support the principal of flagged revisions in any way. - fchd (talk) 10:43, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Now that I've figured out what they are, here are same comments I left re: a a trial: 1) This is punishing everyone for the crimes of anon IPS and fools, the latter of which I've seen relatively few. Better to just have a combination of limited "free" anonymous edits followed by registration of users and sanctioning of those who misbehave. 2) This will create cliques that go around approving each other's (often crappy) edits while doing what they can to stifle other better material, especially on controversial topics. It already happens to a certain extent with tag teaming, canvassing, secret emails etc. on the Israel-Palestine issue, necessitating a whole Arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles in early 2008. Don't let the apparatchiks totally take over. 3) And then there's the backlog issue. Who are you paying to do all that work?? Look at all the crap that persists for years in current articles!! Better to pay people to help people learn to edit better and sanction those who don't. CarolMooreDC (talk) 15:29, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly oppose. Very bad idea. Implementing this would be the beginning of the end of a freely edited encyclopaedia for registered editors. -- Necrothesp (talk) 19:24, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly oppose, because that slows down the development process. On browsing facts, the flagged revision is automatically seen, a later development version will be seen only if one wish to edit/maintain, and the contrast when switching from revision to revision will confuse the editor, making him/her abstain from the mental complexity and possible confusion. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 12:49, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - I am opposed to flagged revisions in general. This seems to be the extreme case of diminishing returns in deflecting vandalism. I disagree with the implementation of WP:FLR as it will create huge backlogs that can further harm the project. In the security field, it is well known that any resource used with the intention to stop an opponent can, ultimately, be utilized by that same opponent to further her agenda. With this in mind, I don't think FLRs weigh favorably in a cost/benefit ratio. There is much discussion of WP:FLR at Wikipedia talk:Flagged revisions and Wikipedia talk:Flagged revisions/Trial. Pay particular to the comments from our German users as FLRs are implemented on de.wiki. That's just my 2KB. —Archon Magnus^{(Talk | Home)} 16:07, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Would create too much busywork. -- TinaSparkle (talk) 08:19, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose - flagged revisions are antithetical to our project, and more appropriate to a project such as Citizendium. We don't need "constables" approving edits here, nor users having to apply for special privileges. Badagnani (talk) 18:28, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose for now. There's a chance it could work but we haven't even started the trial of flagged revisions at all so we don't know how it will function. Even if it does work well as a tool, I am dubious that it's a good idea to use it as a matter of course for a massive number of articles - it would be a huge work load that would not directly improve the encyclopedia. Most BLP articles are just fine, and most are stubs that do not get a lot of attention. I don't think we have the interest and time to patrol them all. But like I said, let's see how the trial goes and keep an open mind. Wikidemon (talk) 00:36, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Whilst I can see that the principal is fairly sound, all i can also see are arguments over who is or isn't a trusted user, what is or isn't a 'good' version, and another tool for the more savvy user to push their POV over a more inexperienced or new editor whose ideas might actually be better. --Ged UK (talk) 08:10, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
STRONG OPPOSE Agree with User:ErikTheBikeMan, no flagging of any articles. As well-intentioned as this may be, it is a form of censorship that must be managed by some human or committee. The strength of Wikipedia involves open collaborative ideas, and any flagging impinges on that. Regular patrols by our diligent patrollers and Wikignomes find and correct most errors of note ... there is no need for anything else. Truthanado (talk) 01:20, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose This is anti-Wiki - people are much more likely to make (positive) edits to articles if they can see their work on the page right away rather than having to wait indefinitely for some revision police to check it. Such a system is likely to give too much power over article content to too few people, something that many already see as an issue with Wikipedia. ShardPhoenix (talk) 13:58, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose like a gangsta Flagged revisions in any form is the Worst Idea Ever wrought upon Wikipedia. There is no compelling reason for it even in limited capacity. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 02:49, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly Oppose a good version would be subjective and if there were vandalism or incorrect information in what is shown as the last good version it would be shown until someone approves the correction and most likely the designated approver(s) would not be familiar with the person while that may make the editor biased it does mean they would be more knowledgeable about the subject(person) they would have possibly read and watched a large amount of interviews and articles and know what is untrue about that person and what is don't get me wrong I am not saying that I'd agree if if people who know the subject were approving I think semi-protection is a much better plan. Musicobsessed6 (talk) 22:41, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - a lot has been said about flagged revisions, and it seems like a much less practical step in this case than semi-protection. Besides, it's too early to suggest such a change when flagged revisions have not been properly tested for their merits on enwiki. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 22:34, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose flagged revs in general, Flagged revs would kill the very spirit of Wikipedia. Manxruler (talk) 02:29, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose - I've a basic disagreement with the concept of Flagges Revisions - they go explicitly against the "Anyone can edit" nature of Wikipedia. All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 07:31, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." Paul Beardsell (talk) 10:42, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I think Flagged Revisions should be used as a replacement for semi-protection, and only for this. Not for all BLPs, but only for the controversial ones. Nicolas1981 (talk) 11:31, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Opposes (FL) 101–

Oppose. I think such a rule would put a lot of people off editing Wikipedia - I might not have joined myself had this been the rule on BLPs. For extreme cases with constant vandalism, we can use semi-protection (indeed we already do this). --Buyoof (talk) 11:46, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Wikinews has something like this, that's completely put me off from editing there, just leads to WP:OWNership of articles. -- Kendrick7^talk 11:56, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely a Strong Oppose to flagged revisions for this. I don't think they are necessary, practical, or helpful. BecauseWhy? (talk) 03:20, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as anything other than a temporary measure for dispute resolution purposes, to replace or supplement full (not semi-) protection. Control freaks have many avenues to exercise their particular mania; Wikipedia should not be added to the list. — Hiddekel (talk) 16:04, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly Oppose (Saraths (talk))
Oppose Either anyone can edit, or the select can edit, no pretenses. Trachys (talk) 18:26, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose Wikipedia would destroy a valuable source of potential editors who might not be inspired by the "Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that anyone inside can edit - if you ain't in, go do something else until you have been approved by an overlooker" model. 82.230.24.185 (talk) 21:35, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose for usability reasons. Unless things have changed recently, Flagged Revisions is incredibly difficult to use and unless simplified could potentially confuse new users. I wonder if those supporting have actually tried using it, its implementation is frankly horrible. -Halo (talk) 23:29, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as flagged revisions will further concentrate power within Wikipedia and make POV pushing and abuse of that power more likely than the status quo, per the discussion here. A trial of flagged revisions is very unlikely to catch any such abuse, as the POV-pushing reviewers will likely wait until flagged revisions are made a permanent policy to start abusing their power. -- noosph e re 00:47, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - given that the survey shows that 97% of all vandalism is done by non-registered editor, let us at least begin by trying the much less restrictive measure of semi-protection first. -Sensemaker
Strong oppose. This undermines the entire purpose of a wiki. --IdiotSavant (talk) 01:25, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Since we're voting with modifiers, I give this Level Nine Lesbian Penguin Lust Oppose. All BLPs is a massive truckload of articles, way too much too soon with not nearly enough testing. - brenneman 06:26, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - even sighted oppose. Making annons into second class citizens would be the end of Wikipedia as we know it. Thehalfone (talk) 09:17, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Who chooses the 'good' revision? Too much opportunity for error. --haydn_likes_carpet (talk) 04:38, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per numerous serious issues with flagged revisions. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 07:04, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Dy yol (talk) 08:38, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose - This flies in the face of the concept of Wikipedia being an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Flagged revisions are an abomination that are contrary to the founding principles of Wikipedia. Nutiketaiel (talk) 18:40, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Sensemaker at #110JQ (talk) 04:27, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose - We've created an amazing encyclopedia without the need for any special BLP treatment. I don't think a new BLP flagged revision system solves any alleged legal problems that flagging is intended to prevent and implicitly accepts the notion that there is a legal problem, which then unduly puts legal burden on the green flaggers. I see Wikipedia vandalism as no different than normal graffiti. Is a building owner responsible for the words that some punk kids spray paints on his house? They shouldn't be. And I think the law will eventually have to recognize that this applies to wikis. If libel cases are brought against Wikipedia in the US, appeal those suckers as far as you can and to the Supreme Court if need be. Any sane law would only but the legal burden on the vandal, not victim (that is, the Wikipedia Foundation via the Wikipedia itself). Jason Quinn (talk) 15:55, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Oppose This is a BAD idea, wikipedia will stop working if we start doing things like this RP459 (talk) 18:02, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose - We have enough edit conflicts without imposing a time delay on recent edits. This proposal is unworkable as a practical matter. Mervyn Emrys (talk) 18:27, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - No no no no a million times NO! This solution is worse than the malady. Think the admin backlog is bad now? If there's a need to do something, then semi-protect BLPs. --Protocop (talk) 22:57, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose WP is the encyclopedia anyone can edit, and that means instant results. We can handle petty vandalism just fine. Crum375 (talk) 23:35, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose more selective testing is needed for this proposed feature. I'm skeptical it will work as well as some think. Fletcher (talk) 15:20, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose - As of now, Wikipedia runs on the principle that new content remains in an article until it is challenged and removed, analogous in a way to the oft-quoted "innocent until proven guilty" principle. With flagged revisions, all new content is presumed guilty until innocent, not displayed until it is 'approved'. This concerns me a great deal because I believe not only does it go completely against the underlying principles of Wikipedia, but it opens up an entirely new means of introducing bias into an article by precluding content. WP:CENSOR: Wikipedia is not censored...anyone can edit an article, and changes made are displayed immediately. Just like the first amendment in the US Constitution, this principle comes with both the good and the bad, yet we must not let the bad blind us to its importance. I spend most of my time on Wikipedia as a Recent Changes patroller, and I believe strongly in the system as it is. As I mentioned in my semi-protected poll comment, what the Washington Post didn't mention is that the Kennedy article was corrected in less than 5 minutes, which I believe to be a testament to the Wikipedia model as it is today. --Aka042 (talk) 13:06, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest oppose. FR would kill WP. Considering all aspects of WP, vandalism is a very minor nuissance. -- Iterator12n ^Talk 03:21, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose not above and beyond other articles. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 04:41, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Let's first try semiprotection. Some time later we should have a look whether that helped. Debresser (talk) 13:25, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I regularly create and contribute articles on relatively non-prominent living people - e.g. second level Iraqi politicians and such like - many of which aren't even tagged as LP. Any actions that make these contributions more difficult for established and trusted users like myself would not be welcome. Semi-protection is something I could live with or flagged revisions as long as it was fairly easy to get flagging status. Blanket flagging should not be done until the process for flag rights is established AndrewRT(Talk) 00:51, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose because its too open to abuse/misunderstanding. JonStrines (talk) 15:49, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Semi-protection would be a much better way to deal with this problem. I think that the ability of wikipedia to keep up to date with things as they happen would be compromised.Jenafalt (talk) 14:01, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Actually Semi-protection will be more stringent than FR. With FR, IPs can still contribute but someone has to approve of their edits while with SP there will be no more IP edits. --hroest 14:50, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment2 I don't understand why people here claim that it will kill WP or not work at all. It works in the German Wikipedia since over half a year and there ALL articles are subject to FR, not just the BLP like proposed here. --hroest 14:53, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose Using a hammer to crack a nut. I agree with AndrewRT a few above me, being in a similar position with Western Australian historical politicians, many of whom happen to still be alive, very very few of whom are controversial. Orderinchaos 00:44, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This is against the very spirit of Wikipedia. Should only be considered as a last resort; for example, if WP's very future is threatened by lawsuits as a result of vandalism to BLPs.
Strong oppose That would make only a select few can edit. It's against everything that is Wikipedia. --Popiloll (talk) 10:26, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Opposed, but I'm just opposed to flagged revisions in general. -Royalguard11(T) 02:03, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose We already have a BLP board, special BLP rules, special recent changes, and some editors ignoring WP Bold-Revert-Discuss in many instances using WP:BLP as a guise for censorship (personal experience)...why the need for special treatment of a category class of articles? ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 06:08, 18 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose the unnecessary rule-creep.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 23:54, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not yet (FL)

Not yet (FL) 1–100

Not yet. We need small scale trials of flagged revisions before using them on such a large scale. —AlanBarrett (talk) 15:05, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not yet. I'd like to see it in action first on a subset of BLPs. One more thing: I'm skeptical because IP users are interested in biographies and semi-protection would turn them away from contributing (not necessarily from reading). Anything that slows down the influx of new editors is very dangerous for Wikipedia in the long run GregorB (talk) 14:23, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.