Stephen Gilbert wrote:
I would be happy to draft a general header for the policy pages, and then unprotect those pages. I'll also keep them all on my watch list. Opinions and comments, anyone?
In considering this there could be another class of protected pages: templates.
The purpose here is more to prevent accidental damage than intentional changes. Protected and unprotected templates could live side by side, and we could have [[Tree of life/protected templates]] and [[Tree of life/unprotected templates]]. A technically challenged contributor could use the protected version with some degree of confidence that it will work without causing damage no matter how he treats. The unprotected version could still be used by contributors who aren't worried about such risks, or who simply disagree with a detail on the protected version. An explanation of why this is being done would be required.
There are still many people in the general public who are highly skilled in their own areas, but who are genuinely fearful of doing anything "different" with their computers. They often believe that simply touching a wrong key will hang the whole system, or worse. Instilling the confidence that there is some idiot-proofing in the system could bring us contributions that we might not otherwise receive.
Eclecticology