On 2008.05.08 17:39:53 -0400, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com scribbled 1.5K characters:
All of these proposals that change policies and requirements where the actual effect can't reliably be projected (i.e. what specifically will change with increasing the requirements for autoconfirmed, how many people who vandalize after being autoconfirmed now will simply wait a little longer or do a little more) ought to have a built in expiration clause. Run it for a month, or two months, and if the community doesn't ratify it as being useful then it stops on its own. Otherwise these things can be implemented, run without achieving a tangible benefit, and never be stopped because doing so requires a huge effort.
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Nathan
It's certainly worth noting that there's an even better example than rollback: the banning of anonymous page creation. Done as a PR sop (obvious), with promises to re-evaluate (never carried out), a noticeable consensus to restore the status quo ante bellum (ignored), and no evidence it helped (indeed, between the mire of AFC, and the actual statistics, may've been harmful), it fits all your descriptions to a nicety.
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