[Foundation-l] Renaming "Flagged Protections"

MZMcBride z at mzmcbride.com
Sat May 22 16:25:31 UTC 2010


David Levy wrote:
> The feature's name is a legitimate concern, and I see no attempt to
> erect any hurdles.  (On the contrary, Rob unambiguously noted that
> time is of the essence.)

No, it really isn't a legitimate concern. It wasn't a legitimate concern
when the "AbuseFilter" was enabled and every user had a public "abuse log".
And with that feature came the ability to tag edits. We now mark edits with
generally inflammatory remarks that are impossible to have removed. Naming
wasn't a concern when file description pages were all prefixed with
"Image:". It wasn't a concern when RevDelete was enabled (first for
oversighters, then for everyone else). RevDelete doesn't apply to just
revisions, and the user rights associated with it could not have been more
confusingly named if someone had tried deliberately.

To hear that feature naming has suddenly become an issue sounds like
bullshit to me. The worst that happens? A few power-users confuse their
terminology. And Jay Walsh gets a headache trying to explain this mess in a
press release. God forbid. If anything, using consistent terminology that
has been used previously in blog posts and press releases would be better
than inventing an entirely new and foreign term.

Please, don't be fooled by the "it'll just be another X days when Y happens
and then we'll be good to go!" Time and again, Wikimedia has used this
tactic with this exact project. If I were a betting man, I'd say the next
"deadline" will be "before Wikimania!" When that passes, everyone can get
distracted spending six months focusing on the annual fundraiser and we'll
see you in 2011. Think I'm wrong? Prove it.

MZMcBride





More information about the foundation-l mailing list