[Foundation-l] Renaming "Flagged Protections"

Mon May 24 02:56:04 UTC 2010

On 5/23/2010 8:40 PM, William Pietri wrote:
> On 05/23/2010 02:13 PM, David Levy wrote:
>> James Alexander wrote:
>>    
>>> That is basically exactly how I see it, most times you "double check"
>>> something you are only the 2nd person because the first check is done by the
>>> original author. We assume good faith, we assume that they are putting
>>> legitimate and correct information into the article and checked to make sure
>>> it didn't break any policies, it's just that because of problems on that
>>> page we wanted to have someone double check.
>>>      
>> That's a good attitude, but such an interpretation is far from
>> intuitive.  Our goal is to select a name that stands on its own as an
>> unambiguous description, not one that requires background knowledge of
>> our philosophies.
>>
>> I'll also point out that one of the English Wikipedia's most important
>> policies is "ignore all rules," a major component of which is the
>> principle that users needn't familiarize themselves with our policies
>> (let alone "check to make sure" they aren't breaking them) before
>> editing.
>>    
> 
> Allow me to quote the whole policy: "If a rule prevents you from 
> improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." That implies, in my view 
> correctly, that the person editing is presumed to set out with the 
> intention of making the encyclopedia better.
> 
> I think that fits in nicely with James Alexander's view: we can and 
> should assume that most editors have already checked their work. Not 
> against the minutiae of our rules, but against their own intent, and 
> their understanding of what constitutes an improvement to Wikipedia.
> 
> Given that, I think double-check fits in fine, both in a very literal 
> sense and in the colloquial one. I ask people to double-check my work 
> all the time, with the implied first check always being my own.
> 

We can assume most, but we cannot assume all. It is the ones that don't
that we're especially concerned about. So, the revisions that get
"double checked" are mostly the ones that don't actually need it. The
intentionally bad edits are only getting a single check.

And of course, this raises the question, if we're assuming that most
editors are checking their work and are trying to improve the
encyclopedia, why do we need to double check their work? We wouldn't
call the system "Second guess", but that's kind of what this explanation
sounds like.

-- 
Alex (wikipedia:en:User:Mr.Z-man)