On Nov 4, 2008, at 3:12 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
It's completely valid: I expect that if we roll
out flagging as a
replacement for protection, then we'll discover that it isn't evil,
that it doesn't stop contributions, that it doesn't make Wikipedia
stale, and that it improves quality, thus smashing the empty but
compelling arguments being made against it. Or we won't but we'll
come up with something even better to try, sparking a chain of
iterative improvement.
In any case, after rolling it out we will have knowledge, experience,
and measurements which we simply do not today. Those factors will
drive our decisions rather than the fear, speculation, uninformed
laziness, and resistance to change which dominate the discussions
today.
Which gets to one of the root problems on En these days - it is
impossible to get a global consensus for anything because of the wide
prevalence of views that are either very, very poorly worked out or
are substantially at odds with fundamental Wikipedia policies. Which
is turning policy formation into an adversarial process, and making
large decisions get made through intrigue and maneuvering rather than
any sort of rational process.
I can't wait to see the CC-BY-SA argument on en.
-Phil