[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia, the encylopedia that anyone can't edit

[Sage Ross]

On 3/27/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> I would tend to agree.  The "stable versions" feature should make a lot
> of this unnecessary.  But now that we have the ability to make
> semi-protection time limited, this should likely be the default attempt.
>
> bobolozo wrote:
> > We now have about 1500 articles in
> > Category:Semi-protected, which new editors and IP
> > addresses can't edit.  I picked a few at random, and
> > most I checked were entirely uncontroversial articles
> > which had briefly had some trouble from an IP address,
> > which was over months ago and there was no reason to
> > believe it would ever occur again.
> >
> > This is in violation of one of our basic principles.
> >
> > Would it not make more sense for admins to be expected
> > to automatically make this sort of semi-protection
> > have a time limit, assuming there was no reason to
> > believe the article was a permanent vandal magnet?
> >
> > An ever growing list of permanently semi-protected
> > articles is not what we want, especially given that
> > it's happening out of sheer laziness.
> >

On a related note, I think it would be a good idea to semi-protect all
portals.  There's no good reason for new editors to be changing
portals, which are all code and no content.  All the content they
might want to edit is in the subpages, and I have never seen a
constructive portal edit by an IP.  (I'm sure there are some, but they
are probably all by Wikipedians who weren't signed in.)  Portals get
blanked regularly, and often remain that way for significant periods
of time.

-Sage