SV is right that the current policy on page protection isn't great. Pages are often protected for a long time without any progress on the actual conflict. For example [[anti-American sentiment]] has been protected for nearly two weeks without VV and GBWR making the slightest effort to resolve their dispute, despite me trying to help. It's very frustrating for everybody else. The current policy just isn't conducive to conlict resolution.
SV's proposal is interesting but I think there are drawbacks: quite substantial changes are required, admins workload will go up ; there is no justification for the assumption that admins can deal with edit conflicts better than common Wikipedians
I'd like to make an alternative proposal for dealing with page protection:
1) in case of an edit war the page in question is protected as before. Then the following steps are taken: 2) the admin who protected the page makes a list (on the talk page) of the editors involved in the edit conflict ; 3) the named editors each outline their view of the disagreement (talk page) ; 4) the named editors (with the help of fellow Wikipedians if this is helpful) try to hammer out a compromise ; 5) if no compromise can be found within a week, this is taken as proof that they are unable to resolve their conflict. Therefore the page is unprotected but the listed editors are banned from editing the article in question for a period of, say, a month. Editors that were not involved in the edit conflict can edit the article and get a chance to deal with the controversial points ; 6) Since this system could be abused by people who raise spurious conflicts just to get other editors banned from an article, there is need for a further step: if one of the editors feels their opponent is acting in bad faith, they can ask for a vote on this, and if there is a consensus (say 3/4) then their ban is lifted.
pros: ===== 1) nobody wants to get banned from an article they are interested in, therefore Wikipedians will try to avoid edit wars ; willingness to compromise and to be civil will increase ; 2) a more formal way of dealing with edit conflicts ; 3) no big changes required (software, new sysop roles etc.) ; 4) Wikipedians who avoid edit wars don't get shut out of protected articles for long periods ; 5) the workload of admins stays the same
cons: ===== 1) protection policy change 2) ??
I'll copy this to the PPP draft page.
pir
On Friday 23 July 2004 12:04, wikien-l-request@Wikipedia.org wrote:
Message: 6 Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 22:14:11 -0700 (PDT) From: "S. Vertigo" sewev@yahoo.com Subject: [WikiEN-l] Protected page policy rethuk To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Message-ID:
20040723051411.84168.qmail@web90005.mail.scd.yahoo.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
...Wikipedia RC seems to be zipping by quite fast lately. (Its already impossible to just scan RC as a way to catch up; Im actually using my watchlist for the first time...) But it seems that with the controversial set, its time for a rethinking of the protected page policy, and Ive written some basic stuff here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Protected_page/Draft]]
Basically, my idea calls for sort of dance steps to how to deal with contested articles. Essentially, allowing certain sysops to act according to formal roles with respect to each contested article, and to have those articles be protected in degrees, based on what the situation calls for. Protection is degree-less, but sysops can and should act responsibly to continue developing articles in accordance with the concerns of the partisans. Because any disputes about who can act in each role are an abstract issue from the article, they can be dealt with judiciously as a separate dispute by moderates not interested in getting mud thrown at them. With templates and categories, this can be more quickly done.
Of course, this would mean that sysopdom does have some responsibility and privelige for which they would be more accountable, but this is weighed against the need to have controversial articles not be such black holes on Wikipedia.