Wikinews:Flagged revisions
Wikinews is currently running MediaWiki with the flagged revisions extension. Article validation allows for reviewers to approve articles and set those revisions as the default revision to show upon normal page view. Readers can also give feedback. These revisions will remain the same even if included templates are changed or images are overwritten. The text with expanded transclusions is stored in the database. This allows for MediaWiki to act more as a Content Management System (CMS).
Flagged revisions is used for quality control at Wikinews. In order for an article to be published, a reviewer must approve of the article (commonly referred to as sighting the article). See template:peer reviewed for more information on the publishing process. After an article is published, any subsequent change must also be approved by a reviewer. Articles waiting for review are listed at CAT:REV.
While flagged revisions (or 'FlaggedRevs') adds a new tab and info box to pages, the wiki does not work any differently for logged-in users. Users who are logged in will continue to see the most recent version of the page (Referred to as a "Draft"). Users can opt to view the stable versions by default instead ("My Preferences" > "Stability" Tab > Check "Always show the stable version..." > Save). The major change of flagged revisions is what Anonymous users (those who are not logged in) see by default. They will see the most recent Stable version (The revision that has been marked as "Sighted"). If there have been additional changes to the page since the last "Sighting", there will be a small infobox informing them of a new draft of the page, and if they edit the page they will be presented with the latest draft.
The process of sighting a revision by an editor should follow, or be accompanied by, completion of the template {{peer review}} on the article's associated talk page, preferably using the easy peer review gadget. Sighting of edits following a peer review should generally require less stringent checking, however changes such as from "x dead" to "y dead" may require a complete review of listed or newly added sources to verify the change. Similar restrictions apply for new details that are added.
In addition to the above rights, "Reviewer" status also comes packaged with rollback, a tool that allows an editor to revert the last edits to a page in a single click, without even having to check the diff first. This is primarily meant to deal with blatant vandalism.
For more information about how this feature is used on Wikinews, see Wikinews:Reviewing articles.
Reviewer access requests: