On 3/11/06, Delirium <delirium(a)hackish.org> wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
In my opinion, there was no need to *protect* that
particular article in
that particular case. Assume Good Faith as we work out the kinks in the
process. :)
I guess I'm unsure what the process *is*. I've only ever encountered
the process in the form of unilateral decrees: "This article is
protected by order of the Wikimedia Foundation; don't touch!"
If it's supposed to be a softer process, why is it even a "process" at
all? There are numerous ways in which incorrect or biased information
can be brought to the attention of editors to be fixed. The preferred
method is to post a message on the talk page, or just be bold and edit
the article yourself. For people not that adventurous who want to call
up the Foundation and complain by phone instead, whoever answers the
phone can pass along those complaints by posting a message on the talk
page of the article: "Harry Reid's office called us up and has issues
with the following sections/information: [x], [y], [z]; it would be
great if someone could fix this ASAP".
-Mark
In most cases when people mail Wikimedia to complain that's exactly
what happens.
But sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get people to do that (and
it's simply unreasonable to expect Danny or anyone else answering
complaints to do all the cleanup work; the volume of complaints is too
high). And then the good editors, who know how to cite credible
sources, and how to write from an NPOV, have to battle it out with all
the people who want to add the questionable material back in.
Meanwhile, the complaining party is getting more and more upset that
the untrue/unverifiable information remains.
I note that for every WP:OFFICE protection there are loads and loads
of "sorry you're unhappy with this article, can you tell us what's
incorrect to help us fix it?" mails that no one gets much bothered
about. Office actions are for when that won't suffice.
-Kat
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