Should the "Requests for Confirmed permission" exist in Wikipedia?
Here's the disclaimer: I was an active editor of Wikipedia some months ago. It has a vast community of users - vandals, newbies, trolls, admins, and good editors wanting to make Wikipedia the greatest online encyclopedia. Often newbies find the articles which they want to edit are protected with either a semi-protection. Clicking on instructions templates, they are driven off to a page called "Requests for Confirmed Permission". They apply there and hope their request gets accepted.
However, if you're an active Wikipedia user you are sure to notice something if you lazily hover over to RFP/C's page: Most requests are unattended, or they are not granted permission; or some administrator asks them some question which does not get answered. It gets messy at times because of no archiving by the bots- and I mean, it gets real messy. That is not what I want to say, so read on.
In most cases, permission is not granted, right? So why do we keep the page? Okay, there may be just one supporting reason: That legitimate alternate accounts of users need to get approved quick. But applying in RFP/C page takes more time for the request to get approved than if someone personally contacts an administrator. We all have noticed this. It seems very few admins patrol the RFP/C page regularly.
A new user with good intentions to improve the encyclopedia comes; finds the articles which he likes protected, asks for the permission, and it is straightaway denied, with a template message stating "We appreciate your interest to dive right in. Currently 95% articles are not protected, so have fun editing them!". This not only diverts the topic, but also demotivates the editor.
Users are complaining that they are losing good editors from the community over the years. Some say that we should welcome newbies with more politeness, not by "Speedy deletion" templates, and so on. If people want to retain users, users should not be demotivated.
Here's the final conclusion: Close Requests for Permission/Confirmed and instead put something like "Contact any administrator from the list of administrators".
However, if you're an active Wikipedia user you are sure to notice something if you lazily hover over to RFP/C's page: Most requests are unattended, or they are not granted permission; or some administrator asks them some question which does not get answered. It gets messy at times because of no archiving by the bots- and I mean, it gets real messy. That is not what I want to say, so read on.
In most cases, permission is not granted, right? So why do we keep the page? Okay, there may be just one supporting reason: That legitimate alternate accounts of users need to get approved quick. But applying in RFP/C page takes more time for the request to get approved than if someone personally contacts an administrator. We all have noticed this. It seems very few admins patrol the RFP/C page regularly.
A new user with good intentions to improve the encyclopedia comes; finds the articles which he likes protected, asks for the permission, and it is straightaway denied, with a template message stating "We appreciate your interest to dive right in. Currently 95% articles are not protected, so have fun editing them!". This not only diverts the topic, but also demotivates the editor.
Users are complaining that they are losing good editors from the community over the years. Some say that we should welcome newbies with more politeness, not by "Speedy deletion" templates, and so on. If people want to retain users, users should not be demotivated.
Here's the final conclusion: Close Requests for Permission/Confirmed and instead put something like "Contact any administrator from the list of administrators".
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