Jimmy Wales wrote:
Matt Brown wrote:
My belief is that in general we should not remove
things from page
history so easily.
My belief is that in general we should be aggressive about removing
vandalism from the page history. If there was an automated way to go
through on a regular basis and remove reverted versions from the
history, I would strongly support that we do so.
The only sensible counter-argument I know of in this area is a concern
for future historians or contemporary researchers who would like to
study the phenomenon of vandalism. For this, it seems more than enough
to make such revisions available in some limited-access way. There's
just no reason to keep this junk cluttering up the publicly-viewable
article history.
My concern about these deletions is somewhat different. It is about
being seen as selective about our history. Idiots say idiotic things,
after which remains the fact that they said them. Being willing to
delete the record when the complainer is sufficiently notable gives the
wrong impression that we are willing to do their bidding. I wouldn't be
surprised if we already had libelous material on less notable
individuals; the target just doesn't know about it. If he did he might
still not be in a position to act on it.
I do agree, however, that limited access is acceptable, and that in
ordinary circumstances this material is of no value to the general public.
Ec