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
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