Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Sat, 11 Mar 2006 16:25:23 +0000, you wrote:
blanking or deleting the article= writeing off the work. Not a nice way to treat the previous writers. Telling them what is wrong might work better.
I think you've rather missed the point. An office action is a quick and temporary fix for an immediate problem: there is a clear implication that the problem will be solved by the community in the usual way we solve problems of accuracy and balance. After the pressing problem has been fixed.
Jimbo wrote at 8:58 AM:
Rather, we should respond quickly and politely to their concerns, including in most cases, *blanking or deleting the article* and *starting over*, being *extremely* careful as a community to get all the facts right, to strike a fair and neutral tone, and to cite sources even more extensively than normal.
Deleting and starting over implies writing off the previous work. In fact, the it'd be really complicated to do otherwise since the GFDL requires attribution and in the case of deletion the edit history for the previous version is gone.
He also wrote at 9:04 AM:
I would say that in most cases, WP:OFFICE need not result in protection (semi-protection is more likely), and when there is protection it should normally not be for more than a couple of days.
There seem to be some mixed messages coming from him on this subject since this seems to suggest that most OFFICE actions would be nowhere near that drastic. Unless he means that the article would be deleted permanently (to "start over") but not protected in a deleted state for long?