Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012/Discussion: Difference between revisions
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:I would argue the bulk of that issue rests with the "my way or the highway" mentality of most of the editors here. It's not an issue of sourcing; it's an issue of psychology and public perception, and always has been. Pending Changes would only exacerbate these issues by making the perceived elitism more prevalent. —<font color="228B22">[[User:Jéské Couriano|''Jeremy'']] [[User talk:Jéské Couriano|v^_^v]]</font> <sup><small>[[Special:Contributions/Jéské Couriano|Bori!]]</small></sup> 20:28, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
::Youreallycan, I agree with you that [[WP:NPOV]] and [[WP:V]] have to be strengthened, but [[WP:PC|pending changes]] won't really help. I expect that if PC is implemented, it will reduce the amount of [[WP:VAN|vandalism]], but will substantially increase what I call "article capture." Article capture is when one or more editors takes control of an article, and prevents any changes to it -- see [[WP:TAGTEAM]]. Usually, article capture occurs on low-traffic [[WP:BLP|BLP]] or [[WP:controversy|controversy]] articles where the main editors undue changes that they dislike so that the article retains a certain [[WP:POV|point of view]]. Rather than eliminate [[WP:BIAS|biased content]], PC, particularly PC2, will make it much harder to get rid of it. Currently, any editor can remove [[WP:CRAP|crap]], whereas with PC, I see articles being locked up so that only reviewers and admins can fix them. [[User:NJ Wine|NJ Wine]] ([[User talk:NJ Wine|talk]]) 21:04, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
:(ec)The goal of Wikipedia isn't to be "trusted." It never has been. When people come to Wikipedia, only those who are delusional and disconnected from reality expect it to be vandalism-free, completely unbiased, and ultimately trustworthy at face value. This is why we have {{tlx|cn}}, {{tlx|reflist}}, the myriad of template messages, page histories in the open, and discussion pages. This is because the tradeoff of letting everyone edit means that inherently things will be imperfect—and we've always been happy with that compromise. It's the reason why editors like me started contributing in the first place: we found something we thought was inaccurate (or vandalized) and we got addicted to helping to make things better. It's been what's caused this thing to explode with popularity and content to the point that millions(!) of articles exist. Cynics will say "oh, but lots of them are crap, and shutting it up and keeping people from creating crap will protect us from the crap!"
:Let me emphasize this: Wikipedia will ''never'' be perfect without becoming something other than Wikipedia, and we must not get caught in a delusion that we ever will be "perfect" in any conventional sense. Most importantly, we should avoid allowing people who think they can truly make it perfect with panaceas to run things.
:"Perfection" was the expectation of traditional final-print encyclopedias, and they've been summarily rejected by the populace at large. They want ''us.'' They ''want'' the imperfection. Personally, I think it's largely because we have this brilliant thing called a page history. It reveals all of the bias, all of the vandalism, all of the crazies, and all of the sanes that go into making an article—something few other truly competing encyclopedias—and no print one—has had up until Wikipedia. It's between that and our citations where we earn our true trust in editorial process. It's in that where all of our cards are laid out on the table for everyone to see what ''really'' goes on behind the scenes; what ''really'' is up-for-debate; what ''really'' is the "truth" and what's the Truth™ that people are pushing. Most importantly, it's in that where we're finally teaching the population, as a whole, to not simply trust what you read—[[WP:V|verify it]] too.
:To expect biographies to be libel-free; to expect histories to be bias-free; to expect polarizing issues to be opinion-free—these are all fairy tales that we and countless writers and academics throughout history have told ourselves. Reality inevitably intervenes; people disrupt; people sneak their way into power; people try to shut out and unduely censor differing opinions to make ''their'' reality the one-and-only Truth™ that everyone sees. We nonetheless try to prevent that from happening, but we must avoid compromising the very value that helps us offset it: ostensibly, a free and open editing environment.
:Any form of page protection reduces how much of the page history—and thus how much of the overall "truth" in our editorial process—is revealed. We use current forms of protection for practical reasons, from vandalism to edit warring and sockpuppetry. It forces people to discuss a change and figure something out, and it helps curb as much disruption as we can without compromising our free and open editing environment.
:The tradeoff has always been that on pages where we fully or semi-protect things, things change more slowly, less ''appears'' to be "wrong," and everything seems to be tranquil. This isn't necessarily the case: we've simply reduced further the number of people able to contribute to the page, and we've made it more difficult to see what's really going on behind the scenes. To those looking for perfection, many see a small number of people being able to edit as a good thing. To those looking to preserve and expand what we are, in all of our glorious imperfection, many see it as a bad thing.
:We therefore have to carefully weigh what's essential due to its practicality (i.e., current, conventional protection to offset a disrupted editing environment) with alternatives in which the ends justify the means (i.e., pending changes to reduce the number of people able to edit pages even further in order to trend toward realistically-unattainable, fundamentally suicidal "perfection").
:Admittedly TLDR-worthy, but I felt that I needed to express this.
:--[[User:Slakr|<span style="color:teal;font-weight:bold;">slakr</span>]]<small><sup>\ [[User talk:Slakr|talk]] /</sup></small> 21:09, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
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