Wiki Moderation Without Passwords

Disregarding WikiModerationWithPasswords, here's a (revised) scheme:

To begin, we nominate one another as Official WikiZens (OWZs). Each can nominate as many others as they like, and only one nomination is necessary to become an OWZ.
OWZs would get IPs and/or cookies registered automatically so they'd be recognized without further authentication. The technical details are icky but soluble - look at ssh.
Folk who are not OWZ don't get their edits published immediately. Instead they have to wait for an OWZ to confirm each edit.
OWZs get asked to confirm or deny a non-OWZ edit every time they want to commit an edit themselves. Presuming there are any non-OWZ edits pending of course.
We create a special SandboxWiki for newbies who don't want to see their edits move under this scheme. This wiki has the following special properties:
- All pages that are not present on the SandboxWiki are simple copies of WardsWiki pages.
- Each SandboxWiki page has a lifespan of 24 hours. After that, it is deleted. Our pest could then spend all his time refreshing his SandboxWiki pages, and we'd never see him again.
OWZs are expected to provide a reason for denying an un-OWZ edit. They never have to defend that reason - but newbies who violate a standard should know just what standard they've violated.
3 confirmed edits in a row automatically makes you an OWZ or regains you OWZ status if you've lost it.
If any OWZ complains about any other OWZ on some automated complaint form, Both lose their OWZ status. So both will have to get 3 confirmed edits in a row to regain that status.

I admire the intent and it's an innovative twist on the "trust metric" idea, but I believe that if edits don't appear almost immediately then virtually no one will edit at all. I believe this will result on only the OWZs editing and no one else will bother.

I believe you're right. I'd have liked to make Everyone an OWZ to begin with so everyone could edit immediately. Then only the truly vexatious and/or those folk who fall into a feud would find themselves out of it. But this ignores the problem - the pest will just change IPs or delete cookies. Hence the SandboxWiki notion.

A question about the mechanics - how is the reason for denial transmitted to the denied?

Hmm. When the denied IP # looks at any page there could be a link to "your reviewed edits"?

Perhaps a cookie?

We'd still be making it too tough on the newbies. We want to be welcoming new users, not making 'em feel like it's hard to get in.

How frequently does a regular wikizen need to edit? What if the frequency and/or number of bytes modified were limited? -- you can only modify N bytes per day using 5 edits that day. This would naturally encourage people to post only what is most important to them or the community (depending upon their point of view)

A different twist on the SurgeProtector idea: one politics-oriented site I like (plastic.com) enforces a gap of at least a few minutes between postings from the same source, for any given thread. This is so people don't just fire off stuff from the hip, but are given time to think (not that this always works out, of course). [LetHotPagesCool.]

So how about if no-one could post a modification from the same IP more than once to the same page in a 5 minute period? This could be stepped in a log-like fashion, eg:

only one in 5 minutes
only two in 15 minutes
only three in 30 minutes
only four in 1 hour

This wouldn't stop people doing silly things to multiple pages, but it would stop one person using a disproportionate amount of free time and energy to drive others away.

Wouldn't that prohibit you from backing up after an edit to correct spelling mistakes?

Well, yes, but that's actually part of the point : encourage people to spend time on their contributions. A WikiGnome can always fix spelling, I do it myself regularly.

Wouldn't it discourage incremental refactoring?

OK, that's a good point. However any solution is going to impede people's ability to write in some fashion, so it's just whether this particular tradeoff is better or worse than the others available.

A moderation technique that I've been thinking of would be something like the following:

A list of ip addresses/ranges could be defined somewhere that are considered questionable sources.
If a post is made from somebody on that list, instead of actually going to the page, it goes to a waiting bin.
If there is a pending post for a page, this is indicated by a "pending post" link at the bottom, with the edit page link.
Anybody not on the list can approve a pending post to a page.
If anybody attempts to edit a page with a pending edit, they are first asked to review the pending post and accept/reject/edit it.
If somebody on the list attempts to edit a page with a pending edit, either:
- They may edit the page+pending edit, which goes to pending edits.
- They are blocked an must return after the pending edit has been reviewed.

This system, unless you choose to block multiple edits, would allow fairly safe black-listing of ip addresses. There is no need for a central authority figure to verify each post, and false positives are only inconvenienced, not blocked.

Having said this though, I don't think this wiki is in need of an automated moderation system - the manual system seems to be functional - I just thought I'd raise it in case anybody else wanted to implement the idea in their own wiki.

-- DanielSheppard

I'm not certain I understand the distinction between this scheme and the one proposed at the top of the page. What's the difference?

The main difference is that the power of approval is granted to all wiki members.

That's very desirable. But our pest has demonstrated a willingness to change ISPs just to avoid being recognized.

Also, the solution at the top of the page doesn't seem to take into account the nature of a wiki - it's more relevant to a forum than a wiki - it's based on the posts being additions rather than edits/deletions.

Not certain I understand this point. Can you explain where it makes this assumption?

The obvious HardSecurity solution is to charge an AccessFee. -- SunirShah

I hate to hark back to WikiStoneSociety, but we could charge for annoyance. If someone's edit annoys you, you press a button that charges them 1 dollar. They then owe you a dollar. Of course I'd go broke overnight, but it would solve the problem.

As we've learned recently, an effective scheme must have the ability to exclude certain individuals (or at least make it significantly more inconvenient for them to participate). I don't see how any of the password-free approaches can accomplish this. For example, without passwords, how does the system "charge" anyone anything other than virtual dollars?

Well, there is always Peter's earlier suggestion, BigWikiFireOfDoubleOught that is being considered. -- SunirShah

This is all interesting and stuff, but...come on guys, do we need moderation? Before we know it we have meta-mods, karma and all the slashdot groove!

What do we do if someone mods you down? The edit you just did doesn't get to RecentChanges? or what?. The Wiki spirit is to lower the edit overhead as much as posible. Moderation is just messing up with something that ain't broke. --JuanPabloNunnezRojas

CategoryWikiDisregarding? WikiModerationWithPasswords