I suppose I should have been clearer in the terms I used as well. When I say "socialism", I'm referring to democratic, non-authoritarian socialism; the way I see it, an actual socialist country would necessarily have a democratic political system. However, state capitalism, fascism, and Stalinism are so often referred to as socialism that it's probably best to specify.

I also see your point that Stalinism or authoritarian attempts at socialism can be quite similar to fascism in practice. That's more of a general trait of authoritarianism, though, and not specific to capitalism or socialism. I think we can agree that a less authoritarian government is a good thing.

It's also true that the countries closest to socialist democracies still maintain significant aspects of capitalism. I think they still have some room to improve by further reducing the capitalist aspects of their economies, but those countries seem to do quite well as long as they have at least partial socialism combined with a socially libertarian government.

Socialism is correctly defined in what you call the strict left wing sense. The Nazis used the word "socialist" as part of their propaganda, but it didn't actually have any of the characteristics of socialism.

Sure, but that's big government or authoritarianism, and not necessarily socialism.

I agree; that's why it's capitalism with aspects of both libertarianism and corporate state capitalism.

Social Security, Medicare, and unions are things that socialists generally support, but they're not really socialist programs. They're more like reforms put in place to moderate capitalism and try to fill in for some of the things that a free market does poorly.

I agree with the first part of what you said. I'm as concerned by these as you are, but considering that the basic democratic institutions of the country are still in place—look at the recent non-violent transfers of power between the two parties, for example—I don't think we've reached the degree of authoritarianism necessary to be considered a fascist state. A corporatist economic system alone isn't sufficient to constitute fascism.

I'd still consider the U.S. a representative democracy, even if it's an often dysfunctional one with some tendencies towards fascism. I'd also attribute some of the problems in the U.S. to the influence of capitalism; for example, the military-industrial complex is a major force behind the aggressive tendencies of the U.S.

This completely mixes up economic and political systems. State capitalism is an economic system; I agree that the U.S. has moved significantly closer to this in recent years. (Both the Bush administration and the Obama administration have moved the country in the direction of state capitalism.) Plutocracy and kleptocracy are both similar in nature to state capitalism.

Fascism, however, is completely different. It's a political system characterized by authoritarianism, a one-party system, and extreme nationalism. State capitalism and/or government-established racism are common components of fascism, but are not strictly necessary. By no means does state capitalism in itself imply fascism, and the United States is definitely not a fascist state. The nationalism, use of torture, and general authoritarianism of the Bush administration had fascistic tendencies, but were not sufficient to reasonably call the country fascist as a whole.

Socialism is a completely different matter. It is both an economic and political system, characterized by distribution of wealth, democratic control of the economy, and worker control of the means of production. Socialism can be either libertarian or authoritarian, and a libertarian socialist government could represent a significant decrease in the size of government from what we have now. "Socialism completely against workers" is a contradiction; by definition, socialism supports workers. If a system does not give workers significant control, it is not socialism. The U.S. is currently nowhere even close to socialism; capitalism is established throughout the political system and the economy. A move towards state capitalism will not turn the country socialist.

Unions are not inherently part of any particular economic or political system. They are socialist in principle (more worker control), but are generally not politically radical enough or strong enough to determine a political system. Most major modern unions are quite politically moderate, so they don't really act to support either socialism or capitalism.

demachina's post seems to equate state capitalism, fascism, socialism, plutocracy, and kleptocracy as one generic political and economic system. This presents a false dichotomy between libertarian capitalism and pretty much everything else. While state capitalism and fascism sometimes align, there are plenty of state capitalists who are strongly opposed to fascism, and socialists are opposed to both state capitalism and fascism. For that matter, opposition to fascism is a major part of socialism, and fascist states are usually anti-socialist as well, so it's ridiculous to equate the two.

Support whichever system you think is best, but please use the correct terminology in talking about it.

Mod parent up. That's the basic idea: GFDL was never really designed for something like Wikipedia, and CC-BY-SA accomplishes the same thing much more elegantly while preserving the intent of the GFDL.

One other issue is ease of compliance. The CC-BY-SA license only requires attribution "reasonable to the medium", including the author(s), title, and URI where applicable. The GFDL has the additional requirement that the entire text of the GFDL be included with every copy of any part of the work. This makes technical compliance much more difficult, and thus conflicts with Wikipedia's goal of widespread distribution in many mediums.

That's been a part of Wikipedia practically since it started. On every page on Wikipedia, you can click on the "History" tab at the top of the page to see every past revision of the page. This includes the contents of the past revision, who made the edit, the time the revision was made, and the difference between any two revisions. It is already there for anyone who wants to use it.

Flagged revisions will not remove access to any revisions; it will just change which revision is displayed by default.

From what I understand of the various proposals being considered, the ability to mark revisions as "sighted" will be given out fairly liberally. It's similar to how Slashdot doesn't give mod points to anonymous users or newly registered users, but it's still not a major barrier to participation.

Actually, the situation is rather similar, since a post that isn't modded up or down is still there, but it won't be read nearly as much. Likewise, an edit on Wikipedia that is neither reverted nor reviewed will just be less visible.

Your suggestion is already a part of flagged revisions. The summary is rather misleading as to the nature of Flagged Revisions, in my opinion. Edits won't simply disappear until they are reviewed; they'll still be visible to anyone who wants to see them.

If you're logged in, there will be a user preference for whether you want to see the approved version or the most recent version by default. Whether you're logged in or not, the most recent version, along with the complete history (including unreviewed edits) will be accessible through a tab at the top or similar interface.

I think that a lot of opposition to Flagged Revisions comes from misunderstandings about what it will actually do, though there are certainly plenty of legitimate concerns about it as well.