On 19/04/06, Ben Lowe <ben.lowe(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Is this really a surprise? I remember always hearing
the best way to make a
book popular is to get it banned; why should this be any different on
Wikipedia? For people looking for controversy and scandal on the
encyclopedia that anyone can edit, the two or three articles that *no one --
NO ONE -- can edit for fear of eternal exile *are way more interesting than
the more-than-a-million other articles. I suspect more Wikipedians (and
slashdotters) know about [[Brian Peppers]] than [[Jordanhill railway
station]]. Is OFFICE necessary? Sure, probably. Wikipedia definitely
needs to be responsible, both in terms of its own liability. But if Danny
wants to use WP:OFFICE without controversy, he needs it to be normalized,
not hidden. People need to simply get used to it. The only way that
WP:OFFICE is going to become non-controversial is if it's openly used.
Here's another solution. Make it possible for Danny to silently
protect a page without it being unprotectable. Communicate a policy to
all admins that if an admin discovers that a page has been protected
in such a way, that he should keep it to himself, or risk desysopping.
The ordinary user will simply see a protected page. Admins, unless
they actually try and unprotect it, will be none the wiser. And if
they do try, perhaps a message should alert them to keep it
confidential.
But that's just breeding conspiracy theories, I know.
Steve