[WikiEN-l] New York Times article

Tue Jun 20 22:44:48 UTC 2006

The Cunctator wrote:
> I hope you'll get Boing Boing to correct their title.

Their title is correct.  The New York Times report was false.
Semi-protection is not an "added" restriction, it is a softening of a
very old restriction.  It is my intention that we work to creatively
soften even more restrictions.

The key to this is to realize that our current control mechanism are
both too broad and too narrow.  Yes, there is no perfect answer, but
yes, there are better answers than what we have now, answers which will
both better control for sheer vandalism while at the same time leaving
articles more open for genuine input.

Semi-protection is a step in the right direction... it is a removal of a
restriction that we used to have.

> Sorry. This is mainly a reference to the whole "Today, as an experiment, we
> will be turning off new pages creation for anonymous users in the English
> Wikipedia." I still think you were being a bit disingenuous (if
> unintentially) about the experimentality of that decision.

No, it was an experiment, and I have been saying lately that I do not
think it was successful.  I expect that we will turn it off soon.

> Perhaps I shouldn't be so harsh -- I think you're essentially the best man
> for the job, and as I admitted elsewhere in the thread, I'm prone to
> hyperbole.

That's ok, so am I. :)

> I'm not sure we have identical definitions of openness. Sometimes not
> letting anyone edit an article is more open than letting particular subsets
> of people edit.

Sometimes.  For example, if the restriction is "you have to be an admin
who has been elected by a group of people of remarkable similar opinions
about the world" then it is less open to let that subset edit than to
let no one edit.  If the restriction is "Well, you have to prove you are
a human by solving a captcha" then it is probably more open to allow
editing than not, to that group.

> I think your motives are exactly right. I think sometimes your methods for
> coming to decisions aren't always the best, and your understanding of the
> nature of Wikipedia is imperfect. That's true of anybody, but you're a
> special case, so you get criticism from the likes of me.
> 
> There's more, but rest assured that I do think about history.

Fair enough. :)

--Jimbo