Mailing List Archive

On Thu, Nov 21, 2002 at 11:52:58AM +0100, Erik Moeller wrote:
>There's a new preference in CVS now to have edits minor by default, as
>per someone's request on wikipedia-l. This may be helpful for
>copyeditors. I haven't added it to the other Language* files (except for
>German) yet.

How many people actually find this distinction between major/minor edits
useful? Most of us leave minor edits enabled anyway, so we can see
potential vandals try to sneak by. Shouldn't that be part of the social
contract? For the benefit you receive from the Wikipedia, you need to
be in a position where you can see the litter if you decide to be an
editor? And if you can see the litter, it's up to you if you want to
leave it, or clean it up... I am in favor of abolishing the distinction
entirely.

Jonathan

--
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On Don, 2002-11-21 at 12:35, Jonathan Walther wrote:
> How many people actually find this distinction between major/minor edits
> useful? Most of us leave minor edits enabled anyway, so we can see
> potential vandals try to sneak by. Shouldn't that be part of the social
> contract? For the benefit you receive from the Wikipedia, you need to
> be in a position where you can see the litter if you decide to be an
> editor? And if you can see the litter, it's up to you if you want to
> leave it, or clean it up... I am in favor of abolishing the distinction
> entirely.

Hi Jon,

I think the distinction does make sense, but it can be abused easily. So
in the long term, we might want to plan giving the "minor edit" option
only to a selection of users (every signed in user || every signed in &
validated user || every trusted user || every user who has made >x
contributions ..). Then it wouldn't be as problematic if some people
chose to filter minor edits.

Regards,

Erik
--
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de

On 11/21/02 5:52 AM, "Erik Moeller" <e.moeller@fokus.gmd.de> wrote:

> There's a new preference in CVS now to have edits minor by default, as
> per someone's request on wikipedia-l. This may be helpful for
> copyeditors. I haven't added it to the other Language* files (except for
> German) yet.
>
Please take that out.

Marking edits minor by default is not the right behavior. We want to see
clueless newbie edits by default, and for those of us who hide minor edits
(the only way minor edits are used right now) that would make that not
possible.

What I've seen work is to make summaries mandatory for non-minor edits.

Otherwise we should not change the default settings.

On Don, 2002-11-21 at 15:49, The Cunctator wrote:

> Marking edits minor by default is not the right behavior. We want to see
> clueless newbie edits by default, and for those of us who hide minor edits
> (the only way minor edits are used right now) that would make that not
> possible.

You don't understand. It's a user pref.

Regards,

Erik
--
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de

On 11/21/02 10:00 AM, "Erik Moeller" <e.moeller@fokus.gmd.de> wrote:

> On Don, 2002-11-21 at 15:49, The Cunctator wrote:
>
>> Marking edits minor by default is not the right behavior. We want to see
>> clueless newbie edits by default, and for those of us who hide minor edits
>> (the only way minor edits are used right now) that would make that not
>> possible.
>
> You don't understand. It's a user pref.
>
Ah, clarity.

Jonathan Walther (Clutch, right?) wrote:

>Erik Moeller wrote:

>>There's a new preference in CVS now to have edits minor by default, as
>>per someone's request on wikipedia-l. This may be helpful for
>>copyeditors. I haven't added it to the other Language* files (except for
>>German) yet.

>How many people actually find this distinction between major/minor edits
>useful?

I do; even though I don't hide minor edits,
I get an idea about what to expect;
if it's from a user whose practices I know,
I may choose to ignore a minor edit.

>Most of us leave minor edits enabled anyway, so we can see
>potential vandals try to sneak by. Shouldn't that be part of the social
>contract? For the benefit you receive from the Wikipedia, you need to
>be in a position where you can see the litter if you decide to be an
>editor?

The litter is visible to every reader, editor or no.
I don't think that anybody should be required to
take steps to expose themselves to the litter,
even to the extent of view a list of minor recent changes.
Editing Wikipedia should be easy and require nothing
besides observance of NPOV, our encyclopædic nature,
and (in edit conflicts) a willingness to work with others.

Which is about what mav proposed we put on a
<terms and conditions of use> page.
What about that idea? I liked it!


-- Toby