looks like this is about to go live;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pending_changes


limited to 2,000 pages at first;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pending_changes/Queue

And people are already squawking about it.

This is amusing. Yes, you twats, YOU are responsible for anything posted, and the WMF will NOT indemnify you. What a shock.

Have you seen the rapidly expanding list of reviewers? There are some rum ones in there! Practising socks and assorted arseholes all over the place. I think I might apply (as a sock not an arsehole).

maybe i should apply, as both

It's also amusing watching Giano trying not to accept it, as Coren chases him around his talkpage. You'd think it was poison, the way they're behaving.

In a way, maybe it is, I think G's right to run. I expect someone's going to try and force him to swallow it, sooner or later.

What I'm finding extraordinary about this whole debacle is that so many seem to think that they're being trusted with a new right, whereas the truth is that they're grudgingly being allowed to keep a right that they already had until yesterday.

Would somebody like to clue me on what these people do? If it involves reviewing IP-edits in some queue for articles that are sprotected, I'm certainly not playing. Personally, they can stay there in limbo forever, as far as I'm concerned.

Does this in any way affect my ability to edit as a nameuser?

Yes, it does. In a nutshell, if you don't have this new "right", then any edits you make may need to be approved by one of these "trusted" new reviewers before they're visible to the great unwashed.

Well, the page (link at the head of this thread) claims:

Edits by autoconfirmed users (registered for four days, with ten edits) are automatically approved except in some rare cases.

Well, what are these "rare cases"??

The more interesting thing is that with "Pending Changes", the reviewer will be legally liable for any defamatory content s/he approves, in addition to whoever made the edit adding the defamation originally.

yes, it seems so (I assume "Autoconfirmed" = nameuser):


I loved this explanation:


...given that, as of now, Jimbo's userpage still defiantly proclaims:

so, meh.

Care to take a stab at guessing which ones are ripe socks?
That oughta lead to some lulz.

Depends on who edited the article before you did, and on the level of this new protection that's been applied. There's a table WP:Flagged protection and patrolled revisions here that attempts to make it all a bit clearer.

Cripes. Can't they just grandfather in people who've been editors for more than 2 years and have 10,000 edits or something?

*%$#

That wouldn't be fit for purpose, because then you'd have no reason to be beholden to the administrators for allowing you to continue doing what you've been doing for years.

As expected, the bullshit is just getting cranked up.

For example, the sweet and sexy Jeske Couriano demands that he be blocked, as a "protest".


No shit, smartboy. I can hear the syrupy violins already.

I was rather bothered by Karanacs gracing Nancy Heise with the feature. The only reason why Karanacs would do that is to unsettle Nancy in a very stalkerish manner. Many other admin who have abused non-admin have done the same thing.

I have to side with Malleus on this. Seeing crap like the above makes this just a means to harass and intimidate others. The only way to solve the BLP problem is to not have BLPs.

Karanacs has played with a very straight bat throughout this debacle. (Which is a good thing, for those unfamiliar with cricket.)

I do agree though that the BLP problem is easily solved, but just deleting them all.

Yes. Plus, why do anything by automation that your lackies can do in manual mode? It's like Chinese build-your-dam-with-shovels routine. Emperor Jimbo and his Coolies.

The irony. This policy change is happening on a website where they refused to sprotect most articles, on grounds that they can't, since if IPs couldn't get instant gratification, they'd be so offended as not to edit rather than register (which takes very minimal effort).

But now, they're planning to treat their senior editors that way!

And WHY are they doing this? Well, so that IP-anon users can still edit most articles and continue to get immediate gratification.

I'm beginning to feel a sort of middle-class squeeze. Perhaps I need to resgister to be a reviewer, and then not review.

The shear stupidity of the management of Wikipedia continues to boggle the mind.

It's ironic that the management of a project that has the sum of all human knowledge at its fingertips has to learn all the well-known lessons of history afresh, the hard way.

You'd think that some of that knowledge would soak in, if only by osmosis, but then — they probably wear gloves.

Jon

And here is Jimbo Wales, asking for the Reviewer status that ALREADY COMES BAKED INTO his Admin status. What a clod.

What makes you think the average policy-prick actually reads much of the encyclopedia? Let alone any real political history?

The new "improved" WP "skin" still takes forever to load. I doubt they even beta-tested it. They just imposed it. As with all the other major policies on this site which is supposedly run by the editors. Okay, that's a second "mad belief" that juicers are expected to hold. I should probably start a list of these.

[edit-- started in another thread]

Oh, it's abundantly obvious they don't consult the lessons of history sprinkled throughout the article space. That's why it's so ironic.

Really quite profound. The participants of this "encyclopedic" project are in fact hostile to the central purpose of any learning project. Those hundreds of thousands of articles are not there for use or application. They are not about learning at all, only narcissistic self expression.

See also

• Vector

Jon

I imagine that he was taking the piss. If not, then God help him.

Yes. It's inevitable that, like everything else, they will weaponize the bit in some way.

It is indeed pretty fucked up that members in good standing should have to grovel for this, especially when they will be bestowed by some typical asswipe admin. Almost as importantly, removal of the bit should be at least at the discretion of the user. There should be no need to fill in some form, bow three times towards San Francisco and them present your posterior to the nearest fruitcake admin for permission to be relieved of duty.

A tick box on some user config page and that's that. This should be true of all bits of course, not just this reviewer bit.

good point

There was some discussion about this here a while back.

I imagine that someone will just script-add these editors to the usergroup eventually.

Bull shit.

Her actions are 100% what would have been done if John were to give you the flag. It is an outrageous abuse of admin powers to harass. People who have a long, negative, and combative history should have -no- use of the ops to give or remove privileges in any capacity. It is an intimidation action and is shameful.

Thus speaks Ottava, overlord of Wikiversity ;-).

Just six months ago, everyone was dying for flaggedrevs to be turned on, in the interest of protecting our precious BLPs. Now that we have it, it would appear to be a case of buyer's remorse.

Another interesting thing: If for example you have a series of ten edits waiting to be approved on an article, and one is vandalism, there is no way to simply approve all edits except that one. You have to approve all or nothing, and approving all would allow some clever vandal to revert his vandalism back in and have it automagically approved. There should be a simple list of edits with a checkbox next to them, so that a reviewer can selectively approve revisions, but there isn't.

Before you pat yourself too hard on the back, Nihiltres/Gerard/Poet/whoeveryouare, I distinctly recall that there were a few among us here who predicted that even if/when flagged revisions got implemented, the WMF would find a way to botch the execution, such that it would continue the reputation of fail.

Oddly enough, no bookie in the world would give us any against.

I Know, I Tried (IKIT) …

Jon

The deeper critique says that any reform carried out by "the community," not just FR, will fail. It is even predictable that assholes like you will make pronouncement like the one above. Measures to protect the interests of BLP or any stakeholders outside the community need to be imposed on a board level. Otherwise they will be ignored by the insular and ignorant community. The only buyers remorse needed is that of the wider society who have been sold a bill goods by Wikipedia.

It's my view that no administrators should be handing out or taking away this new "right", in case you hadn't noticed. It should have been given automatically to every editor who meets some minimum criteria and not taken away by one individual having a bad hair day. Given that it was rolled in such a half-assed way though, Karanacs did the only thing possible. Apart from ignoring it of course, which is what I'm doing.

Well I won't be accepting it for a very good reason. One is not allowed to make legal threats on Wikipedia, to such an extent is that paranoia that the other day someone was stupidly blocked for even using the adjective "libel." Oddly, the project fails to realise that rule does not work in reverse - anyone libelled by Wikipedia may sue - the uploader of the slanderous information and the owners for publishing it - I have no idea what famous people do in their private lives, but how easy it would be to let a slander slip through one's fingers. To even mention this risk on Wikipedia would probably get me blocked for mentioning the "legal" word.

Anyhow, that is just one aspect, albeit the most serious, I have no wish to sanction the edits of others or spend endless hours verifying them, to save the project subsequent legal fees. I also believe, the powers that be will extend this "protection" across into FAs and GAs and any half decent page, the intimations are there already - while that may (and I'm not sure it will) make Wikipedia more credible and reliable in the eyes of the world's press, it will simultaneously create "the encyclopedia not everyone can edit." While that "not everyone" may once have just meant some of the folks here, it now means an awful lot of drive-by people with interesting information to add - and that is against the ethos of the project which I have supported through thick and thin. Finally, I think it will lead to censorship and ultimately an official Wikipedia office stance on many matters - the global aspect and view will be lost. So for those reasons I am having nothing to do with it.

Giacomo

Sorry, but that is a crap response.

That is like saying "There are bad pages that should be deleted, so Karanacs started deleting them and only happened to focus on one person who she had a previously very bad relationship with and abused ops with before."

Giving a noble claim as an excuse for ignoble actions is never acceptable and is instead very disgraceful.

She had no right involving herself in any way like that. It is pure harassment.

How handing out a new "right" in an attempt to minimise its negative impact can be be regarded as "harassment" will have to remain a mystery to me

False modesty is an ugly vice.


Well observed. While I myself don't subscribe to the "ethos of the project", I also don't see this making anything better on balance.

Well, aside from the many new opportunities for "drama".

Life. It's just not big enough.

Malleus, you made it clear that you didn't want something that was given and taken away by administrator whim. Those permissions are how administrators show that they are more powerful than others. Those tools always will be. By adding or removing such things to people who you fight with, it is you rubbing your administrator powers in another person's face. When you deal with someone you've had a long term dispute with, you are no longer an "administrator". You have no right to use your ops regarding them even if they are uncontroversial. There are over a 1000 admin, and thinking -you- have to do something is just an excuse for you to bully and intimidate. What she did is no different from this, an action done without my consent nor what I would deem appropriate or acceptable, by someone merely wanting to show that they could.

It is taunting of the first degree, and those like Karanacs should have been blocked long ago for such actions. She has abused her ops regarding Nancy and others in a disgusting way and it is disturbing that she would harass Nancy like that.

It's perfectly true that I've refused all the admin-bestowed baubles, for the reason you say, but I'm in a very small minority; almost everyone else seems to have been quite flattered that they were given a new permission to do exactly what they'd always been able to do. I've got no reason to believe that Nancy felt any any differently, nor that she considered it to be harassment, and I don't see that it makes the slightest difference who does the handing out.

Yes, you are in a small minority that has the ability to voice their concerns about admin abuse without fear of too much ramification. Nancy is not. Karanacs has done far worse to her than John ever did to you, and she has no recourse nor a voice of protest. This current bullying is absolutely shameful, and if you cared about anything ethical regarding the matter, you would have Karanacs distance herself as far as possible from Nancy and not even look at her page.

The admin abuse is ridiculous and absolutely inappropriate.

And Malleus, if you think being given a "bauble" by someone who has inflicted a lot of harm on you for many months is some how "flattering", then you don't understand how victims of harassment feel even when their harassers/stalkers give them "gifts". The "gifts" are especially damaging, and the harassers know it.

I'm beyond caring about what one Wikipedian does to another Wikipedian. Still, that strikes me as insightful.

It strikes me as fucking delusional, but I think we've established already that we don't see the difference between apples and oranges in the same way.

I reckon there are a lot of misconceptions about the subtleties of the relationships between protagonist and antagonist in an arbitrary generic drama.

Protagonist and antagonist are like 'lovers' ... the Wiki is a tangoed surrogate for sex which is why so much of it is on it. I mean, how far from 'ban' is 'bang' in their minds? (Sex is for those who like doing it, pornography for those who like watching it, and the Wikipedia for those who are fixated on ordering and categorizing it).

I always try and remember that when I have young admins like NuclearWarfare or TFOWR on top of me ... banging away with their ban hammers ... I just try to lie back, relax a little, enjoy it as much as I can.

With the older men like Rodhullandemu or Rlevse ... slipping their way to impotency or having reached it ... sometimes it is a little harsher. Like they are working out their frustrations and resentments on you ... the loss of youth, all those younger guys around, keener, with more stamina. It cant be easy in them ... they are not easy on me.

Others ... you know, guys 'in the middle' like Future Perfect at Sunrise or Maunus, sometime I wonder if they are struggling with their sexuality a bit ... its about trying to prove their manliness. I have had them all. They keep coming back to do me again and again and again. I think of them all as my Johns.

Now you probably think I am nothing but a whore for allowing them to use me in this way ... but I see it as a public service. I know that as long as they are working it all out on me ... then at least their families, wives and girlfriends aren't getting it. And don't ask about the cultists who are publicly celibate but instead spend their whole time jacking off on their Wikipedia topics. Of course, what we found out about them is that they are not all celibate at all.

All men are the same in my opinion ... they need de-sysop-ed regularly.

Cue '80s flashback, 'Frankie goes to Hollyweird Wikiweird' ...

I haven't been keeping up with the whole flagged revisions thing but in theory, I think pending changes is a good alternative to semi-protection (and protection). IP editors and new accounts can make changes to semi-protected articles "in context" instead of proposing edits on the talk page and the talk pages of protected articles aren't littered with "editprotected" requests.

However, I would have been happier if the right to review was automatic for any autoconfirmed account instead of an "easy come easy go" user right. If somebody reviews and accepts a "vandalism" or "BLP violation" edit then treat them as if they made the edit themselves.