[Foundation-l] breaking English Wikipedia apart

[Ray Saintonge]

On 03/15/11 5:41 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
> --- On Tue, 15/3/11, Ray Saintonge<saintonge at telus.net>  wrote:
>> From: Ray Saintonge<saintonge at telus.net>
>> On 03/14/11 5:41 AM, Andreas Kolbe
>> wrote:
>>> So that would mean exporting all BLPs to a completely
>> separate project, like
>>> Commons, which hosts and edits these BLPs, which are
>> then available as read-
>>> only pages in Wikipedia. The existing BLPs in
>> Wikipedia would be deleted,
>>> and any BLPs created in Wikipedia would be instantly
>> deleted, or moved to
>>> the other project if they show promise.
>> Taking that one step further, when the subject of one of
>> these
>> biographies dies the article would need to move back; the
>> proper article
>> history would also need to move.  Moves would also
>> involve making sure
>> that a lot of links are repaired.
>
> That sounds complicated. A user right for BLP editing in Wikipedia would
> not have these drawbacks. As long as an article is in the living persons
> category, editors would need the BLP user right to edit it; once the article
> is no longer in the category, it would become open to any and all editors
> again.
>
> Incidentally, having the BLP user right would also be a reflection on the
> editor's work, and a content-based "badge" to strive for that is separate
> from adminship. And something that editors would be loath to lose.
>
> It is not a perfect solution because, as others have pointed out, BLP-
> sensitive material is not just contained in BLPs. However, the majority of
> BLP problems that subjects are justifiably aggrieved about do occur in
> their actual biographies.
>
> The fact that we cannot implement a perfect solution does not mean we should
> not implement a solution that would help address a majority of the problems
> and would help foster a culture of responsibility.

These special rights for some class of editors is only one more example 
of the control freaks wanting to limit the participation of others.  
These "badges" just add one more level of bureaucracy. I'm involved 
because I generally want want more and better information available to 
the public, not to play games striving for status as you are proposing, 
nor in the egotistical exercises of bringing an article to feature 
status. BLP rules are already a too-rigid set of artificial structures 
that are a poor substitute for good judgement.

Ec