On 6/22/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
To me it means "To the maximal extent consistent with keeping vandalism down to a dull roar, we try to let as many people edit as many things as we can with as little barrier as possible. When we are forced to enact some barrier, we try to keep it as narrowly focussed as possible, and as short term as possible."
It does not mean, and has never meant, "Come one, come all, even if you are a jerk or complete idiot there is a home for you here."
Uh...I agree, but that's a separate interpretation all together. Even good authors are prevented from editing semi-protected pages if they don't have an account.
It seems to me, with my fairly imprecise data, that anonymous editors are barred from editing a greater portion of articles than they could a year ago. It's not a significant portion, but it's growing.
I don't want to flog this dead horse too much longer, but that conclusion seems to be fairly much in line with what the NYT was saying.
Steve