[WikiEN-l] Some Restrictions May Apply

Tue Jun 29 23:26:06 UTC 2004

I do not want anyone to be denied the opportunity to participate in
Wikipedia to its fullest extent, except for three groups of people: the
presently banned, anons, and newbies (he said, seeing keyboards around
the planet ignite spontaneously).

I have no great sympathy for most of those banned; while mistakes
happen, MNH and friends are "away" for good reason. However, anons and
newbies have, as a group, no less ability to create havoc.

I come at this as remembering my own first days here - trying to find my
way around, trying to navigate what appeared to be darkness, editing a
bit here and a bit there until I had the nerve to do my own userpage or
submit a small article (can't remember which came first). Yes, I screwed
up, not through bad intent, but through ignorance, and posted a couple
of articles that got me leapt upon by irate sysops. There are also those
"anons" who are only anonymous to us. They know who they're dealing
with, and sock puppetry is the least of their bad manners sometimes.

I put forward as a suggestion that newbie and anon postings be screened,
similarly to VfDs, for the first few weeks or first few dozens worth of
posts. The software is in place to track x number of posts and shunt
those not meeting certain criteria through to a fastedit page; while
newbies/anons can edit in what seems to be a transparent manner to them,
Wikipedia can also monitor for malicious edits, edits made out of
ignorance (an article submitted intended as a userpage, for instance,
that ends up in article namespace), or edits made similarly (as was my
error - editing the article instead of its related talk page). The
process is, of course, a tad more complicated than this - there need to
be, for instance, some fundamental criteria for holding a page back;
unlike VfD, these pages need to proceed to (mostly) articlespace without
hindrance. While this does not negate Wikipedia's promise of being able
to "edit this page right now", it does add the caveat that the edit may
not be immediately visible.

VfD has a big group of vigilant eyes, myself among them. But if I could
be of help in screening anon vandals, and helping newbies find the right
way, I'd sure rather spend my time on such a page. I propose this to the
powers that be for consideration.

Denni

--
• "Computers are stupid They only know the answers." -- Pablo Picasso
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