Stoat

Mr Connolley, I read that the Germans (whoever they might be) were wanting to publish a book, I guess drawing the line on a particular stage of wikipedia. When I read this I thought that it was a good idea and I still do. One can always refer afterwards.

Drawing the line and reckoning are quite useful activities, and particularly so with wiki.

I read the links you posted but I didnt have time to explore all : in any event I dont intend to, what I read was bad enough.

I was surprised to see you quoting Hobbes.

[Why? Is Hobbes bad, or are you surprised I've read him? -W]

Posted by: Eachran | August 15, 2008 12:28 PM

No, Hobbes isnt bad. If Mr Bush and Mr Blair had read and understood him they wouldnt have invaded Iraq.

Mrs T (I hope this doesnt offend your posting policy) was a Hobbes fan.

[Nope, thats definitely OK in terms of the policy. I can see how she would like Hobbes - his world is nice and definite -W]

My point was rather the wiki one. I am a user and you are a contributor and a user, but also a gatekeeper.

There is clearly a problem with fruitcakes who decide to post that the sun orbits the earth (in the extreme) : so how to fix it.

I think that fixing wiki at rest dates, maybe every two years, is the right way to go. Drawing lines and reckoning and then moving on.

Suppose for example, that you are no more and not gatekeeping then what?

I, for one, would like to know the cut-off date so that I would know that Mr Connolley is no longer a gatekeeper.

[A compliment, I think, but actually not really true any more (even in the limited sense). There are now quite a lot of sane knowledgeable people who watch the wiki climate pages; there is no reliance on any one person -W]

You could do this by fixing entries at a certain date and then allowing the gatekeepers to verify their entries over a two week period and then fix that particular wiki - wiki 2008.

People can then say : wiki 2008 was not a bad year.

Future wikis can then be compared with a rest date, in this case 2008. It is not difficult to do. It is a bit like drawing up annual accounts.

[Yes, there have been various proposals along these lines. If all you want is to clone wiki at certain cut-off dates then this is trivial; no-one has, so I think its also not useful. Schemes to have articles in "trusted" states, or to have them in different states when viewed by anon IPs or logged in users, and so on, come and go but don't ever seem to have been implemented. I lost interest in the discussions... partly just lack of time, partly because they didn't seem to be progressing -W]

Posted by: Eachran | August 17, 2008 1:10 PM