Editing Encyclopedia:Historical archive/Policy/Approval mechanism (section)

===Hawstom's proposal===
If we want a mechanism that works ''right now'' to improve our credibility ''a little bit'' without sacrificing the principles we are all comfortable with, it must be simple and open.  I propose that we simply start with the existing technical hierarchy of anon/user/admin/bureaucrat/developer to create a system that can assign a level of confidence to every version of every article, then display by default the most recent version with a disclaimer and links if the confidence level is low.

====Principles====
''An article is only as trustworthy as the last hand that touched it.''
''Wiki works because of immediate gratification.''

====Viewing====
We continue to show to the public the latest version.  If the confidence level for that article version is lower than our established standard, we show a disclaimer along with link to any more trusted article versions available.  We put in user preferences a selection for the level of credibility to show by default(Developer/Bureaucrat/Admin/User/Anonymous), and we enable anon users, via a cookie or session id, to say, "Show only article versions with credibility level 2 or higher."

====Editing====
For users with high permissions, we put a check box or radio button on the editing page so that they may save with artificially low trust interim work with remaining unresolved credibility problems.

====How it's simple====
Nobody has to take the time to review articles.  The approval occurs naturally as a by-product of the way we already work.  

Since ''an article is only as trustworthy as the last hand that touched it'' and ''wiki works because of immediate gratification'', only natural and open methods such as this can work at the Wikipedia.

====How it improves our credibility====
Places editorial responsibility on our trusted users.  While it is true we have expressly disclaimed any editorial authority for our trusted users, the implicit attitude of the community has been to give them that authority.  This proposal simply recognizes the de facto arrangement.  In the future, new levels of editorial authority may be created.