On 3/11/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
In my opinion, there was no need to *protect* that particular article in that particular case. Assume Good Faith as we work out the kinks in the process. :)
I guess I'm unsure what the process *is*. I've only ever encountered the process in the form of unilateral decrees: "This article is protected by order of the Wikimedia Foundation; don't touch!"
If it's supposed to be a softer process, why is it even a "process" at all? There are numerous ways in which incorrect or biased information can be brought to the attention of editors to be fixed. The preferred method is to post a message on the talk page, or just be bold and edit the article yourself. For people not that adventurous who want to call up the Foundation and complain by phone instead, whoever answers the phone can pass along those complaints by posting a message on the talk page of the article: "Harry Reid's office called us up and has issues with the following sections/information: [x], [y], [z]; it would be great if someone could fix this ASAP".
-Mark
In most cases when people mail Wikimedia to complain that's exactly what happens.
But sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get people to do that (and it's simply unreasonable to expect Danny or anyone else answering complaints to do all the cleanup work; the volume of complaints is too high). And then the good editors, who know how to cite credible sources, and how to write from an NPOV, have to battle it out with all the people who want to add the questionable material back in. Meanwhile, the complaining party is getting more and more upset that the untrue/unverifiable information remains.
I note that for every WP:OFFICE protection there are loads and loads of "sorry you're unhappy with this article, can you tell us what's incorrect to help us fix it?" mails that no one gets much bothered about. Office actions are for when that won't suffice.
-Kat
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