This is somewhat of a contradictory statement. If you are truly doing
your "best" to protect people from malicious statements, how can one
possibly do "more"?
Now, I do agree that Wikipedia's policies have improved in regards to
living persons, but that is insufficient to protect people from
malicious additions. Any Joe Shmoe can add anything, and although anyone
can undo it as well, it still leaves the risk that someone would fail to
undo it. And this has happened in the past on several occasions that
were quite embarrassing to Wikipedia and the Foundation.
A permanent semi-protection might keep much of the anon vandalism away,
but all one has to do is create a sockpuppet account or six and
vandalize it after 4 days have passed. And this offers even greater
anonymity (and consequently, less accountability) than being an
"anonymous" user, or IP. True, run-of-the-mill vandals don't plan ahead
like this, but it's those that *do* that Wikipedia needs to be worried
about. Your anonymous school user who replaces a page with "PENIS" isn't
a threat to the project, by and large. Your truly anonymous
semi-established user who sneaks in defamatory statements and false
citations, however...
Erik Moeller wrote:
In fact, we do our best to protect people from
malicious additions -- more so than any user-generated content website
I know. Could we do more? Yes, certainly. But not by locking down
things. I do not agree with a full-prot. of Brandt's or any other
article. But a permanent semi-protection in this case is certainly
appropriate, and we should take it from there.