Here's a blog post from Simon DeDeo that may be of interest:
http://rhubarbissusan.blogspot.com/2007/08...we-know-it.html

His Imperial Majesty has spoken:

The paranoia is completely groundless. This is definitely a (much belated) step in the right direction.

I experimented with the server they had set up for a while about six months ago. It took me a while to figure out how to use the software, but I think it's a step in the right direction. If Wikipedia can get sensible flaggers to approve revisions, it will eliminate most vandalism.

The social dynamics of Wikipedia being what they are, you can be sure of two things.

• Wikipedia will increasingly replace the Elitism of Scholars with the Elitism of the WikiPolitburo.
• Wikipedia will increasingly replace the Expertise of Scholars with Expertise at being a Suckass.

I dunno, maybe that's really only one thing after all.

At any rate, articles will be "flagged" in forms that maintain the stranglehold of the Cabal over Content.

And if you buy the Doublethink that Jimbo spews out, then your name is FUDD, Elmer.

Jonny

The questions remain: Who are these flaggers and surveyors? Who determines who they are?

I wonder if Community elections like ArbCom will be needed or will it be like Requests for Admin/Bureaucrats? Requests for Surveyors?

Oh, and thanks User:Nick for calling my previous anon edits and countless others "unnecessary." Does he realize that anons and semi-active Wikipedians like me all together are the ones that really maintain and build the site, not just elitist Wikipedians and administrators like him? I'll just leave all the vandalism and bad grammar in its place... just for you, Nick!

I doubt this system will be able to get all 2 million articles up to the highest quality possible. Not everything's up to Featured Article status.

I'll watch and see how this all comes out.

If they could get sensible admins, that would eliminate most of the abuses, but they can't do that, either. All this flagging nonsense does is give some people even more ability to abuse.

Al

I thought everyone would be autoconfirmed as a flagger by default after a certain number of edits. Did they change this?

It currently stands that it's undecided, I think, but there's some recognition that it should be easy to allow you to flag articles (but also allow admins to remove your ability to do so).

Seems sensible. 1200 admins will have an impossibly hard time screening 2 million articles constantly. ~10 000 editors might have an easier time. Really, the main point is to prevent people from seeing the obvious vandalism and to keep the article on the nobody third baseman Jose Clutch from saying "Jose Clutch sucks monkey balls" for six months because nobody other than 216.54.11.177 has taken a look at it.

I agree with those who suggest that the proposed "flagging" policy is a largely sensible reform that is long overdue. I have myself suggested something similar to this as a reform. But keep in mind that just because the proposed reform is reasonable, that is no guarantee it will implemented and enforced in a reasonable way.

I am doubtful that the present bunch in control of WP can be trusted to properly implement this. It seems a case of too little, too late. I could be wrong about this, but I really believe that this proposal will generate more drama than any real reform.

I find myself in full agreement with Johnny Cache. This development means ever more control by the well-connected ignoramuses.

It's also the first sign that Wikipedia is now a big enough beast that it no longer cares about pissing off content creators. The only thing that matters is traffic to Wikia - everything else is subordinate to that one imperative.

This means someone will come on a sock and make bad edits and then another account that got access to flag things will flag all the bad edits as surveyed and well done!

I'm cautiously optimistic about the prospect of version flagging to reduce vandalism. I'll need to see how they implement it before I come to any conclusions. But, initial thoughts:

1. Most articles do not need to be version flagged. Simply put, an extremely small minority(less than 1%) of articles account for most random vandalism. These articles are overwhelmingly connected to sexuality, but there are some others(e.g. George Bush, Jesus) that attract vandalism like flies to shit. A much more liberal semi-protection policy would make most vandalism go away.

2. Go check out a Wikiproject and the number of unrated articles they consider to be in their purview. Imagine that times a thousand because we will never know how many or what articles are unflagged. The Powers That Be will never unleash the ability to 'Find random unflagged article' because that would be functionally the same as 'Find random unwatched articles' - Because the first thing most people will do is flag every article on their watch list.

3. Truly sneaky vandalism like what Lamont proposes is possible, but in my limited experience, that's way more effort than most people are willing to put into vandalizing Wikipedia. They want to write "One well-known homosexual is Jon Awbrey" at the top of homosexuality, give the link to their friends, snicker, and move on with their lives. The goal isn't "No one can vandalize", it's to raise the bar on what you have to do.

Personally, I'd consider letting ANYONE(even anon-ip's) flag a page, but two people must flag it. You'll get some vandal teams, but I've got faith in the Hivemind.