[Foundation-l] Renaming "Flagged Protections"

[David Levy]

Michael Snow wrote:

> You edited out the text William was replying to, but in expressing
> his trust that the public relations professionals have the greatest
> expertise as to how the general public will receive the terminology,
> he was responding directly to speculation about how the general
> public would receive it. There's nothing in that comment to suggest
> that the community should not be involved or is wasting its time.

I hope that it's clear that I don't "edit out text" that I perceive as
contextually necessary (and don't intend to distort anyone's words).
In this instance, I don't regard William's response as dependent upon
my preceding comment.

> When dealing with multiple intended audiences (in this case, editors,
> readers, and the media), there is inevitably a balancing act in
> targeting your choice of words. It is unlikely that any name will be
> absolutely perfect for all use cases. Some degree of editorial judgment
> and discretion will have to be applied, and that's exactly the purpose
> of this discussion.

Agreed.


Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> Hm. Accctttuualllllyyyyyy....
>
> Why not something that _must_ be explained?
>
> Call it "Garblesmook", for example.
> (or better, import a word from some obscure semi-dead language... Does
> anyone have a suggestion of an especially fitting word? Perhaps
> something Hawaiian?)
>
> The big danger of using something with an intuitive meaning is that
> you get the intuitive understanding. We _KNOW_ that the intuitive
> understanding of this feature is a misunderstanding.

Our goal, as I understand it, is to select a name that provides as
much information as we can convey without causing substantial,
widespread confusion.  So if it were impossible to convey *any* amount
of information without causing substantial, widespread confusion, the
above approach would be best.

In my assessment (and that of others), the term "Double Check" is
likely to foster misunderstanding and the term "Revision Review" is
not.  This is not to say that it will actively counter
misunderstanding (which will arise no matter what name is used), but
it seems unlikely to introduce new misconceptions or reinforce those
that already exist.

> I think that if were to ask some random person with a basic laymen
> knowledge of what a new feature of Wikipedia called "revision review"
> did and what benefits and problems it would have,  I'd get results
> which were largely unmatched with the reality of it.

We don't expect the general public to possess intimate knowledge and
won't ask random persons to provide such details.

I don't believe that the name "Revision Review" generally would
encourage people lacking sufficient information to jump to conclusions
(unless pressed, as in the hypothetical scenario that you describe).
For those learning about the feature, it would be clear, memorable and
repeatable.

> (Not that I think that any word is good)

Understood.  :)

> We could use a name which expresses _nothing_ about what is going on,
> thus making it clear that you can't figure it out simply from the name.

In this case, perhaps to a greater extent than in any other, we want
to generate beneficial media attention (to address the negative
coverage that Wikipedia has received regarding the problems that this
process is intended to mitigate).  "Revision Review" is a term that
the press can latch onto and run with.  (So is "Double Check," but I
believe that it would cause confusion.)  In this respect, a term with
no discernible meaning simply wouldn't work well.


William Pietri wrote:

> I'm not arguing for any name in particular. I have argued against some
> notions about names that I think are incorrect. Broadly, I think it's
> easy for insiders to incorrectly use themselves as proxies for what
> regular users will think. That's a very common mistake in my field, so I
> spoke up.
>
> But I said before and I say again that am avoiding having an opinion on
> whatever the best name is. It's a lot of work to do it properly,
> especially for me as an insider, and I don't have time for it right now.
> I'm not suggesting that people are wasting their time working on this,
> and in fact think just the opposite. I think it's great, and supported
> bringing this up for community discussion.

Thanks for clarifying.


Nathan wrote:

> Why not involve the community at the beginning? A request for endorsement of your favored options is
> not the same thing, and fails to harness real community enthusiasm.

In fairness, Rob stated that while time is of the essence, the
community is welcome to propose alternatives, and he created a
discussion page section for that purpose.


David Levy