Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-08-31/Flagged protection and patrolled revisions

I don't follow mailing lists, so assistance on those and other semi-internal discussion, as well as notes from people at Wikimania, would be appreciated. Note that the New York Times and BBC seem pretty unequivocal that the Foundation is intending to implement something different from what was approved in April, which makes me unhappy, so I would also appreciate a close reading by other editors for biased writing. We should also notify editors who are mentioned prominently before the article goes live. Thanks, BanyanTree 01:13, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
 * FYI, I've emailed the NY Times writer asking if he remembers where he got his "flagged revisions for all BLPs" storyline. - BanyanTree 01:57, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure it came from a misreading of Brion's post on the tech blog about configuring the test wiki, combined with a lot of earlier chatter (from Jimbo as well as the intial Flagged Revisions proposal, pre-compromise) about BLPs being the focus. I gather from IRC chat that the Foundation directed the developers to work out any bugs for deploying flagged revisions for all BLPs in anticipation/hope that the community would go in that direction after the initial trial.  Then no one else who ran with the story did any actual research themselves, they just re-wrote the NYT piece.  Your piece looks impressive so far; my only suggestion is that it starts dispelling the misinterpretations right from the introduction and maybe briefly recount the on-wiki evolution culminating in the 80% support for the compromise proposal.  (I can add that stuff you don't get to it.)--ragesoss (talk) 02:11, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, I'll work on it over the weekend, though of course anyone is free to beat me to the work. ;) Also, I went through and added every relevant Signpost article to Wikipedia Signpost/Series/Flagged Revisions and, as a result,it is now over the max number of entries for the template, not even counting the one in progress.  Would you prefer to increase the max entries on the template or remove the more brief/less relevant entries? Thanks, BanyanTree 08:40, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I extended the template, just because there's no reason not to, but your idea of removing the minor entries is still worth considering. I personally like the complete version, but I could see how some might find it overwhelming.--ragesoss (talk) 12:50, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I decided to follow your suggestion to offer some context, and you can see the monstrosity that has resulted. If I never look through the Signpost archive again, I'll be a happy editor.  That's a long long page. Do you want to create two articles: "history of flagged protection" and "current kerfuffle"?
 * Note that I linked to every single article in the template, and identified a lot more relevant ones, so I think I will try to be a bit more discerning, though there's no guarantee the total number of items will decline. - BanyanTree 13:43, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow! I was thinking more like a paragraph of background, but this is actually really useful. I do think it makes sense to split it into two articles.--ragesoss (talk) 13:50, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I think I'm pretty much done, though I'll likely come back and try a copyedit of both Wikipedia Signpost/2009-08-31/Flagged protection and patrolled revisions and Wikipedia Signpost/2009-08-31/Flagged protection background before it goes live. It still turned out a bit lengthy, but I'll leave it up to you to trim off the fat. I think I'm all Signposted out, so please look for someone else to fill in In the news this week. - BanyanTree 06:38, 29 August 2009 (UTC)