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Metaweb:To serve and to protect

From the Quicksilver Metaweb.

On the Metaweb, Administrators can protect pages so that regular users cannot edit them. Unlike the Wikipedia, where almost all pages can be edited, the Metaweb contains some authored content, which should only be edited by the authors (or those they give consent to).

The reason to protect authored annotations is to keep people from modifying authored content. There is however a case for leaving as much as possible unprotected:

  • There is presently no way for non-admins to add links to protected pages. The Metaweb is all about linking together concepts and creating new entries. Most of these initial links will be from authored content -- Neal's page annotations. New links will generally be easy to carefully edit since they will be few in number.

  • In the case of metaweb:vandalism, we already can undo any damage to pages. Undo seems sufficient; The Wikipedia has a long list of articles on controversial topics that rarely need protecting. The mediawiki software makes it easier to undo vandalism than to cause it.

(...completing comments adapted into the above)... I would like to err on the side of openness, if only because I think that we will get more out of users building the link structure of the Metaweb than we will have to put in undoing malicious and clueless edits. --Patrick 11:45, 23 Sep 2003 (PDT)

What's really needed is an interface designed around the goals of the site. Right now there's a lot of square-peg-round-hole action. (If I were NS I'd probably use some extended metaphor about how Spandex can be such a good idea for some people and not for others, in lurid detail about adipose tissue ballooning out like frosting being squeezed through a pastry bag, or describe how some engineer-friend once tried to use a screwdriver as a hammer and ended up by a series of absurdities being blown to the roof of his house.) --The Cunctator

If the site is meant to be primarily single-author pages, WikiWiki software in general isn't the best and this implementation in particular has real flaws. The multi-author blog is a better interface metaphor to start with. Or Everything2. --The Cunctator

I can imagine an access control system where authors of pages might grant permission to edit to other users or groups. Right now, MediaWiki has no support for this, but it's a feature the metaweb:developers are thinking about. --Pat 14:50, 14 Oct 2003 (PDT)

Another way to do this is to create pages with a User: account that is shared, that is, a group of people all have the password to it, and don't share it with those they don't want to be able to edit.

Yes, that's a very good method, but even better is a formal 'faction' system that keeps track of such relationships to make them manageable by the system.

  • -- Sorry for my underinformed, undereducated, probably redundant and not very wise opinion, but I have a strong motivation to express it anyway (The name of this page was as you can imagine VERY teasing for our Self). I apologize if it hurts any of your Self.

First, an absolute truth 

  -- [[ BLINK :: the connections ARE much more POWERFULL, 
     considering the possibility | high probability but below the third
     percentile, let's hope | of escalation of conflict FROM WHICH FOLLOWS 
     the need to posess weapons capable of applying more of energy to 
     selected areas of decreased entrophy (per definition of [war](/war)), 
     than particular dataplanes (pages) that are dangling on the points of 
     the connections. :: BLINK ]]. You CAN fight by creating more connections,
     even totally ignoring the opponent maliciously altering the dataplanes,
     EFFECTIVELY winning considering the ENERGY EFFECT OF GROWTH POTENTIAL of
     weaponry (let's be frank - we are at state of war now, doesn't matter how
     much you Self feel it to be "real" or "just fun".

Second, a well known fact, might not be true, but I think it is 

    -- The idea of shared secret possessed by dispersed group of entities of
    unbounded number as an idea for increasing security is ABSURD, well,
    to put in blantly - STUPID, VERY STUPID. If the shared secret is 
    dispersed it ceases to be a secret with probability you can assume 
    equal to one, that is - you can as well not protect the page with the
    secret at all, same effect, less effort.

Third, my Self opinion, open for discussion, but I strongly feel it is rightly 

  -- [[ BLINK :: The hierarchical gateway control system proposed is 
     not a good one considering: the possibility of breaching 
     the continuity of chain of command AND WHAT FOLLOWS 
     total disruption of communication between battle units. 
     An army that has her communication system immobilized by 
     an opponent is DEAD even if its battle units will still life
     for a while :: BLINK ]].



  -- It has an OBVIOUS WEAKNESS BUILT IN, 
  considering the possibility of the opponent
  mapping the structure of key exchange pathways through the army. You can
  devise more or less resilent structures of this type, but the weakness
  remains, it is only a matter of how much we believe the opponent to be
  of certain level of intelligence (core derivative processing power). It 
  is wise to assume that the opponent has similar or even slightly more
  intelligence resources available. Underestimating an opponent lead to
  many losses, as you can see by experiencing the past battles, by the
  power of ana logic. I hope my reasoning is not flawed, if so, point it out.

Last, just a minor comment about nature and purpose 

  The structure and behaviour (object model) of { this } site is obviously
  not single directed, nor forward directed, nor any other binary class
  or phyla wrongness. It is
  # Open, in terms of data  
  # Open, in terms of structure (Links The Are Between)
  # Open, in terms of information (Google in her gentle feminine glory 
    visites it at least 7 times a day, wild guess off course [[ BLINK :: Neal, 
  you son-of-a...this har pun nning mannerism is funny for a WHILE,
  but please release Us from the temptation :: BLINK ]] 
   [yes, this was on purpose](/yes-this-was-on-purpose) 
  as my Self remembers leads eventually to the Absolute Zero solution from the
  definition of war, which is not what any side seeks (some sides might not be
  AWARE of the result, other SHOULD inform them or stop this somehow
  FOR WHAT FOLLOWS is (two protocol levels only, for the sake of brewity) 
  -- EITHER exinction level event (possibly maybe total
  , The Absolute Zero solution in terms of core level symbol') 
  -- OR the white rabbit,
  the white noise, chaos instead of information, pun density extending the
  capability of sides to pun unfolding process FROM WHICH FOLLOWS stopping
  of any possibility of data-exchange. Let's give it a public name 
  George Bush pushing the Big Red Button that Turns Off The Internet 
  per power of ana logic nym' BushMen. 
  # Open, in terms of knowledge. What you know from what you read cannot be
  controlled in the namespace of definition of { this } system. We skip
  the ways of out-of-the-box control methods ON PURPOSE. You probably
  know many of them anyway already. Consider: the series and the tea party.
  # Open, in terms of awareness. What you are aware being rightly xor wrongly,
  sense, antisense, nonsense, while considering the knowledge gained from 
  { this } system is way beyond control, that is, to control it a bit you
  must run twice as fast as you would to just stand still.
  # Open, in terms of memory. I have no precise enough idea-machine ready
  to expand this paragraph, so I will refrain from saying anything more
  of importance about it for now.
  # Cannot evaluate the sentient guardian keeping key pathways functional system
  (which I my Self wildly guesses is of class of the system
  [formal 'faction' system](/http-consumerium-org-wiki-wiki-phtml-title-faction)
  as this link was not followed by Our Self this time frame. We willt to do so,
  though. Expect no mercy.
  -- Yours Truly, --[ALinkA](/user-agquarx)