[WikiEN-l] One-sentence explanation of pending changes

[William Pietri]

Thanks for doing this.

On 06/08/2010 12:19 PM, David Gerard wrote:
> "Some of our pages are locked from*anyone*  editing them. With this,
> we can open those up so people can edit the draft version, which then
> goes live. Should be on the order of minutes, if it's over an hour
> it's too slow. The trial's starting with locked pages about living
> people. We'll see how it goes."
>    

I like this a lot. I'd probably say, "goes live after a quick review" or 
"a quick double-check".

Technically there are no restrictions about what pages it gets used on, 
but the number one concern I've heard mentioned is living people, and 
the biggest concern within that was currently protected pages, so I 
think that's perfectly fair for a soundbite. You could hedge a little if 
you wanted. E.g., "The trial's mainly starting with" or "mainly focused on".

I might also say "so anybody can edit the draft version" just to 
emphasize the shift toward openness.

One thing to note is that we didn't use the word draft in the interface 
on purpose; there's another feature coming along that had use for that 
term. But I think saying draft in dealing with the press is fine. 
Everybody gets drafts and double-checking them.

We have also avoided using the term "publish"; I think "goes live" is a 
good phrase to stick with.


I do have a fear that reporters, who are embedded in institutions with 
complicated review flows, will bring a lot of baggage to interpreting 
this, and so will have notions and potential misunderstandings that are 
different than the ones we've encountered so far. So if you have a 
chance before the big push to run your soundbite through a few friendly 
journalists and see what comes out again, that couldn't hurt.

William