Flagged Revisions, also known as FlaggedRevs, is a

software extension In computing, a plug-in (or plugin, add-in, addin, add-on, or addon) is a software component that adds a specific feature to an existing computer program. When a program supports plug-ins, it enables customization. A theme or skin is a preset ...

to the

MediaWiki MediaWiki is a free and open-source wiki software. It is used on Wikipedia and almost all other Wikimedia websites, including Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata; these sites define a large part of the requirement set for MediaWi ...

software that allows

moderation Moderation is the process of eliminating or lessening extremes. It is used to ensure normality throughout the medium on which it is being conducted. Common uses of moderation include: *Ensuring consistency and accuracy in the marking of stud ...

of edits to Wiki pages. It was developed by the

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best know ...

for use on

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

and similar wikis hosted on its servers. The term is also sometimes used for the editorial policies related to operation of that extension when active.

Detail

Flagged revisions was a planned editorial policy of

English Wikipedia The English Wikipedia is, along with the Simple English Wikipedia, one of two English-language editions of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. It was founded on January 15, 2001, as Wikipedia's first edition, and, as of , has the most arti ...

aimed at "imposing a layer of editorial review on articles about living people". Wikipedia's co-founder, Jimmy Wales, originally urged Wikipedia to adopt the policy in January 2009 after the Wikipedia pages of

Robert Byrd Robert Carlyle Byrd (born Cornelius Calvin Sale Jr.; November 20, 1917 – June 28, 2010) was an American politician and musician who served as a United States senator from West Virginia for over 51 years, from 1959 until his death in 2010. A ...

and

Edward Kennedy Edward Moore Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Massachusetts for almost 47 years, from 1962 until his death in 2009. A member of the Democratic ...

were both vandalized to state, incorrectly, that they were dead. It was announced in August 2009, after a poll found that 80% of the users were in favor of it. It provides for "experienced volunteer editors" to approve changes to some articles. It is already in use in the German Wikipedia, where all articles are subject to this policy. In the English Wikipedia, a two-months initial trial took place in 2010. It was considered a possibility that all articles would be covered by this feature in the future, just like in the German Wikipedia.

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

remarked that the new policy divides Wikipedia users in two classes: "experienced, trusted editors, and everyone else—altering Wikipedia's implicit notion that everyone has an equal right to edit entries". Brennon Slattery of PCWorld reported that "some bloggers" received the announced changes as a "failure" of the philosophy behind Wikipedia. According to the chairman of the Wikimedia Foundation board at the time, with this policy there is less tolerance for "inaccurate or fudged" articles. The feature is based on a plug-in for the

software that prevents recent changes to

wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pub ...

articles from being displayed to all readers until they have been ratified by editors with special permissions. On June 14, 2010, English Wikipedia began a 2-month trial of a similar feature known as pending changes. After a discussion among English Wikipedia editors in May 2011, this feature was initially removed from all articles, but consensus in a 2012 discussion decided that the feature would be implemented.

References

External links

* Extension:FlaggedRevs on MediaWiki.org {{DEFAULTSORT:Flagged Revisions MediaWiki extensions