wikipedia, how does it work? what if 100 people edit an article, how does it choose what to show??

Question

wikipedia, how does it work? what if 100 people edit an article, how does it choose what to show??

Answer 1

Been there - done that!!



Have edited an article only to have the edit overwritten within seconds of my saving it.



The program shows the last version saved. It makes absolutely no judgement on the content or quality of the editing. Whoever saves it last is the winner.



However, you can go in and see what the previous version was, what all has been changed, and who did it. If you want to undo that last save (some or all of it) you can. You are then the last save and the "winner".



To date, I have not ended up in a conflict with anyone over it. It has always been that I was editing paragraph 3 of the article, and they were editing paragraph 8. But they opened their version of the article before I saved mine. So when they saved their version (with the new paragraph 8) it still have the old paragraph 3 and accidently overwrote mine. So I just had to reopen the article (with their new "8"), re-edit my "3" (copy and paste is a wonderful thing) --- and resave so that both edits are there. Again, the last one to save is the winner.

Answer 2

You will always see the current version that's immediately visible after saving your edit. If 100 people edit an article at the same time, only the first edit will be saved, the 99 other editors get an edit conflict with the information that there is a newer version of the article.



Let me add some words to bambamitsdead's comment above: Every user - admin or not - can see previous versions of an article and restore them. Only versions that were explicitly deleted by another administrator are visible for administrators only.

Answer 3

See Link

Answer 4

All the wiki systems I've used *just* show the last edited version by default. If you've got the right access you can go and look at previous versions and revert to them.



Wikipedia is managed... so if you modify an article to reduce it's value (like fill it with spam for instance) the moderators are likely to put the original back.

Answer 5

what happens it basically includes everything. When you edit you can cut out and put in bits to the article when you are done it then sends your article to the server and then sends it to anybody who visits that article. There are alsi mods who will look through articles and take out the stuff that is wrong to make sure that you get the right info.

Answer 6

how can 100 ppl edit an article at the same time????

they may chose the first one.

but i guess if its appropriate then it is shown.

but wikipedia doesnt really monitor wat info is displayed so i guess it is first come first served....

and it will keep changing 100 times lol.

Answer 7

Maybe it picks the best one or there is somone heads it to edit the overall input