[WikiEN-l] Jimmy Wales should reconsider

[Blu Aardvark]

This is somewhat of a contradictory statement. If you are truly doing 
your "best" to protect people from malicious statements, how can one 
possibly do "more"?

Now, I do agree that Wikipedia's policies have improved in regards to 
living persons, but that is insufficient to protect people from 
malicious additions. Any Joe Shmoe can add anything, and although anyone 
can undo it as well, it still leaves the risk that someone would fail to 
undo it. And this has happened in the past on several occasions that 
were quite embarrassing to Wikipedia and the Foundation.

A permanent semi-protection might keep much of the anon vandalism away, 
but all one has to do is create a sockpuppet account or six and 
vandalize it after 4 days have passed. And this offers even greater 
anonymity (and consequently, less accountability) than being an 
"anonymous" user, or IP. True, run-of-the-mill vandals don't plan ahead 
like this, but it's those that *do* that Wikipedia needs to be worried 
about. Your anonymous school user who replaces a page with "PENIS" isn't 
a threat to the project, by and large. Your truly anonymous 
semi-established user who sneaks in defamatory statements and false 
citations, however...

Erik Moeller wrote:
> In fact, we do our best to protect people from
> malicious additions -- more so than any user-generated content website
> I know. Could we do more? Yes, certainly. But not by locking down
> things. I do not agree with a full-prot. of Brandt's or any other
> article. But a permanent semi-protection in this case is certainly
> appropriate, and we should take it from there.
>