[Foundation-l] Renaming "Flagged Protections"

Mon May 24 15:31:13 UTC 2010

On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 10:34 AM, David Levy <lifeisunfair at gmail.com> wrote:
>> So I think it's fine if the name has a positive connotation.
>
> And that connotation should be "we're countering inappropriate edits,"
> not "we assume that everything's okay, but we'll humor the concerns."
>
> Of course, I'm not proposing that we use a term like "Vandal Buster."
> I'm saying that the name itself should imply nothing about the edits'
> quality.

Hm. Accctttuualllllyyyyyy....

Why not something that _must_ be explained?

Call it "Garblesmook", for example.
(or better, import a word from some obscure semi-dead language... Does
anyone have a suggestion of an especially fitting word? Perhaps
something Hawaiian?)

The big danger of using something with an intuitive meaning is that
you get the intuitive understanding. We _KNOW_ that the intuitive
understanding of this feature is a misunderstanding.

> "Revision Review" is perfectly neutral (and much clearer than "Double
> Check," which has inapplicable connotations and doesn't even specify
> what's being "checked") and thus far has generated more support than
> anything else has.

I think that if were to ask some random person with a basic laymen
knowledge of what a new feature of Wikipedia called "revision review"
did and what benefits and problems it would have,  I'd get results
which were largely unmatched with the reality of it.

(Not that I think that any word is good)

[responding to the inner message]
>> I think that any name we choose is going to leave a lot of people
>> confused about what's going on, especially if they sit their and
>> ruminate on it. The most we can ask of a name is that it gives them a
>> vague sense of what's going on, and doesn't cause too much confusion as
>> they read further.

Thats a false choice. We could use a name which expresses _nothing_
about what is going on, thus making it clear that you can't figure it
out simply from the name.

Just a thought.