This week, the New York Times reported that Wikipedia had become more restrictive by introducing a new kind of entry — a "semi-protected" entry that can't be edited under some circumstances. However, this is entirely incorrect: Wikipedia became more open, introducing "semi-protected" stories as an alternative to the much more restricted category of "protected" posts that were only editable by certain people.
The headline and first paragraph of the story give the impression that today at Wikipedia, articles are protected and semi-protected, whereas in the past "anyone can edit". This completely ignores the facts, which I explained to them in great detail.
The facts are that protection as a policy has existed for years. Semi-protection was devised as a softer, more open approach. Rather than full protection, which means that no one can edit, we now increasingly use semi-protection, which allows people to continue to edit the article.
(Thanks, Jimmy!)
