On 10/20/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 10/20/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
To attempt to end a many-year-old edit war, I have indefinitely full-protected the article [[Views of Lyndon LaRouche]].
It seems to be an extreme case that indeed that calls for some unusual measures. How about appointing or electing an NPOV editing group for this article who have authority to revert/block as needed? Then the article itself could remain open or semi-protected.
This particular scenario, i.e. an article whose future updates must be pre-approved by admins, is extreme, but it is also in the same vane as sighted versions (Wikipedia:Flagged revisions/Sighted versions) and other proposals that will have the effect of exerting greater control on the content submission process. For sighted versions, editting continues as is, but the version made visible to not-logged-in visitors is controlled by "Surveyors" who approve specific editions.
Personally, I feel that as individual articles mature, imposing greater control over the content development process is a natural and in many cases neccesary part of Wikipedia's evolution as we move towards greater quality. There are many high profile, well-developed articles where well over 50% of the recent edits are consumed by vandalism and combatting vandalism, and that is a wasteful use of people's time and resources.
So I for one welcome the move to stop wasting time on unproductive disputes and consider the use of extended protection.
Ultimately though I think Wikipedia will need to develop a better toolkit for dealing with our mature content areas where large portions of the traffic is deleterious rather than productive.
-Robert Rohde