On Fri, 2003-03-21 at 18:35, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
Should user pages should be protected for that
username only? It would make
sense, because that's who it's intended for. But maybe not because then
someone could post any libelous or offensive content they wanted. Maybe
sysops and the user should be able to edit the users page. What do you
think? Would it destroy the Wiki concept or help free speech and protection
of the page? Is it worth changing or thinking about?
I think this would damage the Wiki ethos. Wiki should have a "small
town" feel: we don't lock our doors, and if someone makes a mess we
pitch in and clean it up. There's not really much of a downside to
having user pages editable -- the rare vandalism still gets cleaned up,
and useful edits can and do occur (fixing formatting errors or broken
links, for example).
Dan, if you haven't already, you might want to take a look around
MeatballWiki, a wiki about online communities. Naturally, there's a lot
of discussion there about what makes wiki so wikilicious! In particular,
see:
http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SoftSecurity
http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?UnlockedDoors
http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?BarnRaising
-- brion vibber (brion @
pobox.com)