[Wikipedia-l] Protected pages

Mon Sep 9 18:09:53 UTC 2002

Stephen Gilbert wrote:

>I would be happy to draft a general header for the
>policy pages, and then unprotect those pages. I'll
>also keep them all on my watch list. Opinions and
>comments, anyone?
>
In considering this there could be another class of protected pages: 
 templates.

The purpose here is more to prevent accidental damage than intentional 
changes.  Protected and unprotected templates could live side by side, 
and we could have [[Tree of life/protected templates]] and [[Tree of 
life/unprotected templates]].  A technically challenged contributor 
could use the protected version with some degree of confidence that it 
will work without causing damage no matter how he treats.  The 
unprotected version could still be used by contributors who aren't 
worried about such risks, or who simply disagree with a detail on the 
protected version.  An explanation of why this is being done would be 
required.

There are still many people in the general public who are highly skilled 
in their own areas, but who are genuinely fearful of doing anything 
"different" with their computers.  They often believe that simply 
touching a wrong key will hang the whole system, or worse.   Instilling 
the confidence that there is some idiot-proofing in the system could 
bring us contributions that we might not otherwise receive.

Eclecticology