I believe that the underlying facts about the Wikipedia phenomenon
— that the general public is actually intelligent, interested in
sharing knowledge, interested in getting the facts straight — are so
shocking to most old media people that it is literally impossible for
them to report on Wikipedia without following a storyline that goes
something like this: “Yeah, this was a crazy thing that worked for
awhile, but eventually they will see the light and realize that
top-down control is the only thing that works.”

Will the new, more gentle tool, be more widely used than protection
was? I certainly hope so. We are always looking for ways to help
responsible people join the Wikipedia movement and contribute
constructively, while gently asking those who want to cause trouble to
please go somewhere else.

Faced with the choice of preventing you from editing at all, versus
allowing you to edit even though you might have bad intentions, we have
erred consistently for the latter — openness. The new tool, by making
it a lot easier to keep bad stuff from appearing to the general public,
is going to allow for a much more responsible Wikipedia that is, at the
same time, a much more open Wikipedia. —Jimmy Wales, Huffington Post