[Wikipedia-l] [Note: Obscene language on Tsunami Article]

Fri Jan 7 16:53:06 UTC 2005

Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales (jwales at wikia.com) [050108 03:29]:
> David Gerard wrote:

> > I would however advise taking *extreme care* to be sure it's actually
> > vandalism - a lot of it will just be sandboxing, i.e. "I can edit this
> > page? Huh? Let's see ... uh. I can. Um, what do I do now?"

> Well said.  Sandboxing is *good*, I mean, *ahem* it would be nice if
> people had a clue to try it somewhere other than a hugely popular
> page, but we can't hardly blame people for it.  I mean, most of them
> probably don't *believe* they can edit the page. 
> Hmm, "edit this page"?  What?  <click> edit box?  That's weird.
> "blah blah blah"
> <click>
> Whoaaaa!
> Wikipedia is insane, so of course people don't believe it.

c.f. Clay Shirky's five stages of Wikipedia grief ;-)

> > I suppose the edit message for anon users should say something like "As an
> > anonymous editor, your edits will take up to 10 minutes to show on the live
> > wiki. If you were just experimenting, click _here_ to revert to the version
> > before your experiment, and try experimenting in the _Sandbox_."

> Excellent suggestion.

I'm not familiar with the code, so I dunno if this is in fact easier - but
if making the 10-minute delay feature seems a bit of a big goal in these
busy and trying times, then perhaps text something like the above "If you
were just experimenting" text - with a self-reversion link - could show up
after an anon edit.

(Of course, this assumes AOL doesn't switch them to a different proxy
between clicks or something ...)

> > The up-to-10-minute delay would I hope not hurt our Wiki nature too much.
> > Is there anyone who disagrees, or has qualms?

> A valid point here is that the 10 minute delay should actually be
> viewed as a step *back* to wiki nature.  Because what we end up doing
> right now is protecting pages.. a very brutal measure if we can think
> of something more creative and open.

With luck we can get rid of protection for mere vandalism.

- d.