[WikiEN-l] Libeling NFL players; or, our abject failure to protect living people

[Erik Moeller]

> I believe that we should immediately make all articles about living people
> into ³stable versions,² editable only by administrators based on talk page
> consensus, so that we have at least some degree of control over what we say
> about people. We are doing way, way too much damage, and it has to stop, and
> stop now, before we really cause permanent harm to someone.

Are there less radical solutions that we have not tried out yet?
Remember, we have MediaWiki:Sitenotice at our disposal to focus the
attention of all registered users. We could have a global call to sign
up for BLP patrol on
Special:Recentchangeslinked/Category:Living_people -- make sure that
hundreds of people look at the logs at least once per day.

I would not rule out more rigid application of semi-protection until
we have revision tagging, but it seems like a poorly scalable
solution. The problem certainly extends beyond BLPs to articles about
high schools and universities, where teachers and professors are often
targeted by drive-by idiots.
-- 
Peace & Love,
Erik

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