Erik Moeller wrote:
On 5/28/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On the talk page, Jtdirl has quite a good idea - modify semi-protection to be "accounts where first edit was more than four days ago" rather than "accounts where creation was more than four days ago". Less logistics, but certainly a benefit to the sleeper problem.
Unfortunately, that will only lead to bots adding spurious interwiki links, null edits, switching commas, and so on. The vandals we're talking about are highly determined, so they're probably not going to be deterred by algorithmic measures alone.
Having a layer between semi-protection and full protection is likely to lead to a lot of added complexity and does have the "jump through hurdles" problem Anthony described. The "positive" way to implement such systems is through clearly indicated "levels" which users can advance in. Everything2 does that, as do most RPGs.
I don't think we want to go that way. If we create a trust-based model, then I think it should replace the current semi-protection model, rather than being layered above it. The question is, how to best implement it?
I think it could be combined with the culture of welcoming users. A "welcome" tab on the talk page might lead to a new screen, which offers two options:
[x] Trust this user to edit semi-protected pages [x] Send welcome message Hello, Foo, and welcome to Wikipedia!_________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________This wouldn't be too hard to implement. I'm not sure a model where only admins can set the "trust this user" flag would scale, though.
How about the same trust model that Advogato uses?