This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:Protection policy. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Latest comment: 14 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
The editing process in Wikipedia is fairly simple and the tutorials are quite good. Unfortunately, I have found that the protection process has added a high level of complexity to the editing process. I have found that many simple topics are now protected. Elsewhere, the merits and demerits of protection are discussed and I am not intending to add to that discussion in this comment. I don't think that the protection aspect of editing is being fully addressed by Wikipedia. I have spent hours trying to understand the different types of protection and the role of administrators as well as WikiProject page management. I wished to post a small change to a page and yet I will still need to spend more time understanding the complex protection process to edit the page. I would like to suggest that the page called, Wikipedia:Tutorial (Editing) be changed to include a tutorial on how to edit a protected article. There is a link there now but it is not sufficient as a tutorial. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Figlinus (talk • contribs) 00:28, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
Latest comment: 14 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Who knows if anyone knows who I am, but I used to be really active with RFPP and stuff. I haven't really been active at all in the past few years, so I have decided to resign my admin tools. I may still lurk on this page a bit though, and I wish the rest of you admins here all the best. It's been fun, but it's time for me to move on. -Royalguard11(T) 21:07, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
Data on contributions from IPs needs to be reassessed since the global shift in emphasis on inline referencing
Latest comment: 14 years ago12 comments6 people in discussion
I am wary of considering data pre 2008 for the reason that there has been a huge increase in importance in inline referencing and sourcing. Has anyone done further work on this? Casliber (talk·contribs) 23:35, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
Since 2008 you mean? Not that I know of, but for unrelated reasons I've gotten interested in redoing Aaron Swartz's 2006 study of IP contributions (there's a little bit of discussion of this at WP:RDH as of a day or two ago). This is now possible because we finally got a full-history enwiki data dump a couple weeks ago, the first new one in a couple of years. If you have some specific questions you want looked into, let me know. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 23:04, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
Yes please - one of the big issues is catching up on several years of information-adding - and now trying to improve the referencing. Hence it would be really good to see what and how people are adding - are IPS adding references in significant numbers? There is discussion about the place about how wikiepdia might be moving from a growth to maintenance phase - so data like this is good to have on how we manage access (which is what things like protection and FR are about) Casliber (talk·contribs) 23:16, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
OK. Looking for IP additions of inline ref tags or citation templates should be fairly easy, but the larger question of distinguishing sourced from unsourced material seems harder, and distinguishing biased (but sourced) from unbiased material is harder still. I think the typical IP editor just doesn't know about these tags and templates. I will see if I can do some manual spot-checking against the database dump, and see what's around in automated analysis tools before I start writing my own. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 23:29, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
Even if new users aren't adding many references, they probably will after they learn the ropes. Besides, I don't think most readers mind unreferenced articles too much as long as they are useful. --Apoc2400 (talk) 09:19, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
Wow, check out Kim Ung-Yong article history, a TON of IP edits (I came across it while surfing elsewhere) and some significant problems. I deleted most of the content and posted to BLP/N about it. I've also been looking at a few random BLP's drawn from the data dump. IP edits actually seem rather rare, and seem to come from a mix of experienced and inexperienced editors. I'll write up some details in the next day or so. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 10:20, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
Just on the basis of my experience, the plurality of "good" IP edits seem to be vandalism reversion. Come to think of it, the bulk of positive registered edits are probably vandalism reversion as well.--Father Goose (talk) 06:20, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
In one way this comes up when musing on the above poll and comments therein, but it is true that we are moving towards a more referenced and reliable 'pedia overall, hence is actually a global issue. Casliber (talk·contribs) 14:04, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
@Father Goose, maybe I don't have quite as many pages on watch as you guys, but only about 5% of my edits are vandalism reversion, its surprisingly low actually. EDIT: And looking at both of your last 100 contributions you seem to have a similar rate to me.-- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:02, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
PS I just noticed your reply to my earlier post Casliber, I think some more data on this would be well worth gathering. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:21, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Help
Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Proposal redux - addition of preemptive protection in BLPs at risk to semiprotection rationale
Latest comment: 14 years ago242 comments79 people in discussion
Extended content
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Okay folks, this was first discussed here now archived. Unfortunately it was not clearly structured and formatted, and I think only a total of about 14 editors commented then, so let's map it out properly and comment below.
Proposal
To replace:
Semi-protection should not be used as a pre-emptive measure against vandalism that has not yet occurred, nor should it be used solely to prevent editing by anonymous and newly registered users.
with:
In most cases, semi-protection should not be used as a pre-emptive measure against vandalism that has not yet occurred, nor should it be used solely to prevent editing by anonymous and newly registered users. However, there are limited instances where semi-protection can be used pre-emptively to protect biographies of living persons at high risk of drawing vandalism. The use of pre-emptive protected must be noted in the protection log, and such protection should be removed immediately upon anyone's request.
The commitment to protect real people from the threat of libel when we know it's definitely going to happen in the near future is more important than silly little Wikipedia process rules. Sceptre(talk)16:55, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Anything with vandalism is already covered by existing policy. This proposal relates to articles which haven't been subject to vandalism. Makes you wonder how high the risk is if there's no vandalism. -- zzuuzz(talk)18:19, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
That's twice you've tried that same logical fallacy on for size. It's not very becoming on you, I'm afraid. ++Lar: t/c19:46, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Support as long as a message is posted on the article's talk page so it can be discussed. To be honest this is just following the status quo and generally most admins use their powers over this very sparingly. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:49, 18 March 2010 (UTC) Retracting support, see the neutral section. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:41, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Support. The sentimental oversensitivity for the poor little IPs lest they should have to register is one of the most annoying features of Wikipedian culture. </rant> Whew, I feel better now! --Tryptofish (talk) 18:16, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Semiprotection sucks but it's the best we've got for now support. Once we have flagged revisions (if ever) then replace the semis then currently active under this policy with flagging ++Lar: t/c18:33, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
As a short-term solution where it can be demonstrated that an article is at a high-risk of vandalism. Resolute18:49, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Support - I've always favoured semi-protection for BLPs in general. I would go even further than this proposal, but certainly I support it as a move in the right direction.--Kotniski (talk) 06:58, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Support. Seems pretty straight forward to me. I see a lot of opposes based on the fact that it compromises Wikipedias basic principles. Like it or not, aggressive protection of BLP subjects is a basic Wikipedia principle now. There's no getting around that. Some people seem think that the time to protect a living persons reputation is after their article has been vandalized, but once an article is hit the damage has been done considering the huge amount of traffic Wikipedia draws these days. The bottom line is that aggressive BLP protection out weighs the ability of new users to edit an extremely tiny subset of Wikipedia articles.
In addition, the inability to predict where vandals will hit BLP's is all the argument you need to increase the scope of protection (instead of playing wack-a-mole with vandals). The same basic principle is in play here, protecting BLP's is more important (and just as supported by policy) than new users' ability to edit articles. RxS (talk) 15:14, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Your rationale is chock full of contradictions. There is an inability to predict where vandals will strike, so let's implement a proposal that requires admins to be able to predict where vandals will strike? The aggresive pre-emptive protection of BLPs is priority number one now (not even half true), so you support a proposal that aggresively protects a 'tiny minorty' of articles, leaving the vast majority still undefended. MickMacNee (talk) 17:33, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
No contradictions at all (or only if you don't think it through). For example, this sprung from a proposal to protect Super Bowl players. There's no way to predict before hand which players will become targets so the idea is to protect them all.
In addition, no one except you said aggressive pre-emptive protection of BLPs is priority number one now. All I said that it was a basic principle, which it undeniably is. See recent Arbcom decisions. Stawmen and mis-characterizations don't help your argument. RxS (talk) 18:08, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
MickMacNee is actually bang on when he says, "you support a proposal that aggresively protects a 'tiny minorty' of articles".
Supporters of this and similar measures talk about pre-emptive semi-protection of "BLP articles", referring to WP:BLP (the original proposal even has a link to it).
If people actually bothered to read at least the first sentence of WP:BLP, they would learn that there is no such thing as a "BLP article", because the policy applies to "any Wikipedia page" (emphasis not mine). This is in my opinion for good reason, and you can't get around it by re-defining "BLP articles" here as "articles that actually are about one living person". If you disagree, you are welcome to find consensus on WP:BLP to change that there.
This implies that, as quite a few already pointed out, seeking to introduce pre-emptive protection for "BLP articles" only, even if ignoring in good faith that it applies to the whole of Wikipedia, will eventually be wiki-lawyered and it will be abused, thus introducing the measure wholesale, by stealth. Thanks, but no thanks.
The Super Bowl example showed exactly how little thought ever goes into these 'BLP is everything' proposals. What happened there? Someone listed a bunch of vandalism that had happened to articles under higher interest because of the super bowl. Did he do any actual analysis of the damage? Did he analyse who reverted most vandalism? Did he do any analysis of how many constructive edits or other fixes occured during this period? Did he analyse any of the baseline vandalism of these articles? Did he do any analysis of how the current SP system worked for these articles? Did he follow up on how many of the vandals got banned immediately, or whether they were just left to carry on with pointless uw-v1/2/3/2/1/3/2 series of warnings, as I've seen happen a million times. Did he, at all, investigate how many new editors we gained due to them editting these unprotected articles having been drawn to edit due to the super bowl? That I could see, he did nothing of the sort, because the only thing that he cared about was that, a) BLP vandalism occured, b) there is a way to prevent it easily if you ignore a large chunk of the rest of the issues. He actually said as much - nothing else matters - well, frankly, the only thing he should be suggesting if his concerns were as described, is full user registration. MickMacNee (talk) 18:02, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
This is already happening and is an effective stop-gap measure while we wait for something more permanent to be worked out. Not so sure about it being so easily undone since there are those who will object for process sake rather than interest in the subject not being harmed. We occasionally get credible information at OTRS that indicates a biography will come under scrutiny though usually there are already some indications of a problem on-wiki. This would be especially useful if we see something in the tabloids or news that is likely to cause a problem. Regardless of the actual number of articles this protects, its important that we use any tools at our disposal to protect these articles who are at much great risk of harm than any Wikipedia process here. Shellbabelfish15:07, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Support subject to withdrawal following flagged revs or similar - this seems a reasonably proportionate measure until a better system emerges; I can imagine instances where it would be useful but I find it hard to imagine instances where it would be abused, given the limitations in this wording. TheGrappler (talk) 23:05, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Semi-protection does, in fact, suck; but since it's been several years of broken promises and still no flagged protection, this is all we've got to work with. Lara01:43, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
Per Lara. Although not IPs and new (non-autoconfirmed) users are evil, many are. This would greatly reduce the amount of vandalism and help prevent a lot of the libel, attacks, etc. for the BLPs in question, especially until flagged revision come. —Airplaneman ✈— 22:28, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
In fairness, if when facing a big problem, somebody comes up with a solution that would cut out 20% of the problem, we wouldn't normally say "only". I'd love a 20% cut in crime, a 20% crime in unemployment or a 20% cut in my shopping bills... The question is really whether achieving such a cut would be too costly in other ways. TheGrappler (talk) 00:51, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
While only about 20% of IP edits are vandalism, this makes up 80% of total vandalism. A big chunk of the remaining 20% of vandalism cases will have been by newly registered users not passing autoconfirmation, so in practice semiprotection is going to stop the great majority vandalism (it would be very interesting to see a survey on vandalism to semi-protected articles). Those percentages are outdated (2007 figures) but also generalizations - it's reasonable to suppose that the kind of article that would be eligible for this treatment, would have a non-typical editing pattern. And the binary classification of "constructive/vandal" edit is simplistic. There's also a question of whether some of the prevented IP edits would 1) have happened anyway, because the would-be editor is encouraged to get an account and get past the auto-confirmation requirements by editing elsewhere, 2) not be necessary anyway, because they would have been vandalism-reverts that would no longer be necessary, or 3) been of sufficiently high quality to be appropriate on an unusually sensitive BLP (even the addition of correct information, but without a source, can be unhelpful in these cases, whereas a similar edit might be regarded as very helpful on non-BLP stubs). In principle we ought to rate the cost of any vandalism to BLPs as very high, compared to the cost of a small number of articles not being expanded as much as they might otherwise have done during a finite period. The question is how much higher. TheGrappler (talk) 01:55, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Granted these figures are simplistic, but quoting Jimbo Wales, "there are good reasons to want vandals on ip numbers instead of accounts". Banning IP edits on "BLP articles" means banning them on the whole of Wikipedia according to the first sentence in WP:BLP, so your argument is supportive of the perennial proposal of prohibiting anonymous users from editing at all times, and not particularly supportive of this clueless proposal about pre-emptive semi-protection during wiki-lawyerable perceived (but not demonstrated) high-risk periods. You say, "when facing a big problem", but short of any evidence so far, I remain unconvinced that this is one such problem. 123.225.152.2 (talk) 06:27, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Remember, this is just for high-risk BLPs, so it would not be widely used, as not all articles are BLPs, and most of them won't be high-risk. Airplaneman ✈21:09, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Again, read at least the first sentence in WP:BLP, which is linked in this proposal. The whole of Wikipedia would be affected. See the discussion on the "Perjury" case below, which proves that this argument is not a theoretical what-if. 122.26.12.244 (talk) 21:47, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
Support, except "anyone's request" is too broad. I support semi-protecting all BLPs as a matter of course, but this is a start. Clinchfield (talk) 13:41, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose
Semi-protection sucks. It's inflexible and doesn't allow any changes by new or logged out contributors. This proposal reeks of "we want Flagged protection/Flagged revisions, but we're not getting that anytime soon so let's implement a much worse system as a means of doing something." In this case, the something does more harm than good, in my opinion. --MZMcBride (talk) 15:30, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Anyone can propose changes to semi-protected pages, effectively equivalent (though a little less convenient) to making an invisible edit to a flagged page.--Kotniski (talk) 07:01, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
I'd call it more than a little inconvenient. We have administrators and other users who have been around for years who still don't understand templates. I don't think most potential contributors would be able to figure out how to place {{editsemiprotected}} on the talk page. We have difficulty enough getting people to edit at all (or even realize they can edit), and that's with bold tabs and section edit links throughout the page. Semi-protection would remove all of those links and leave the viewer with a single "view source" tab. --MZMcBride (talk) 07:07, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Yes, there really ought to be a standard automatic message at the top of (semi-)protected pages, telling people what they have to do (click the "discussion" tab) if they want to suggest changes.--Kotniski (talk) 07:15, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
The 'safeguards' included in this proposal do absolutely nothing to address the drawbacks of widespread semi-protection. Even assuming that the "anyone" who may ask for protection to be removed extends to IP users, the problem is not those who are committed enough to ask, or find out that they need to ask, as those users could probably be persuaded to get an account anyway. The problem is the potential editors who are simply turned away. Since the protection log is not searchable or indexable, requiring that pre-emptive protection be marked is utterly useless for review purposes, and also does nothing to resolve any given concern. Second everything MZ says, and this proposal leaves totally unanswered the question of what these "limited circumstances" are, in a very unpalatable way. Happy‑melon15:41, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
If there is vandalism we can semi-protect as appropriate. If there is no vandalism then there is not a high risk of it and people can be allowed to continue improving the articles. -- zzuuzz(talk)16:45, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure I agree with the logic of that. If an anvil is 20 feet over your head, in mid flight and falling fast but hasn't yet hit you, it's true that you haven't been hit with an anvil, but it decidedly **not** true that there's not a high risk you are about to be hit with an anvil. An article at high risk for vandalism is at high risk for vandalism whether or not it's been vandalized in the last 30 minutes. ++Lar: t/c18:38, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
It's often too late by then. Better to prevent the person who wants to drop them getting access to the spot to drop them from in the first place. ++Lar: t/c19:45, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
But in the same kind of metaphor, there's no need to put your umbrella up because the clouds may become a tempest, use your umbrella when it really starts to rain, and that change could encourage the former. High risk is too relative, and the whole amendment can be wiki-lawyered to justify one's actions, even if far away from the written intent; it is best to keep the principle intact, albeit with the understanding it's not unbreakable (so we still can protect people from the exceptional anvils). Cenarium (talk) 16:46, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
I lost crystal ball long ago. So, I (and anybody else) can not really predict what vandals are going to do. This proposal will only lead to unnecessary and useless semi-protection. Ruslik_Zero19:52, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Just like the previous time, this proposal fails to take into account the basic principles of Wikipedia: That editing should not be restricted without reason. Admins are not capable of oracle-like predictions whether vandalism might occur on a page. It bears the risk that admins protect too many articles under this new policy with only their personal predictions as a reason. No one can review a "gut feeling" or "personal prediction", so admin actions might easily seem arbitrary. We have watchlists to keep an eye on articles in risk of vandalism and policy allows us already to protect pages that are indeed attracting vandalism; there is no reason to shift the system from reacting to genuine threats to predicting possible vandalism. Most, if not all, cases where vandalism to BLPs caused harm it was the kind of vandalism that pre-emptive protection would not have prevented anyway. Regards SoWhy20:01, 18 March 2010 (UTC) PS: As I pointed out in the first discussion about this proposal, not even WP:BLP supports this change. See Wikipedia:BLP#Semi-protection and protection which clearly says that protection should happen iff there are indications that WP:BLP is likely to be violated (simply being a high-risk target for vandalism is not an indication, just as for example being a religious fanatic is not an indication that someone will try to blow other people up) and that articles should be kept open for editing as long as possible (which matches founding principle #2). Regards SoWhy08:09, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Except it isn't "without reason", it's based on probability. We could predict in advance that the Superbowl players were going to get more vandalism than normal, no crystal ball was required. Just clue. ++Lar: t/c20:56, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
No, you can't. You can guess that this might happen but without any previous such activity, you cannot predict it. But Wikipedia's spirit is that we should not enforce protection before vandalism has happened since you can always guess wrong. I'd hate to lose potential good edits and new contributors just because some admin thought his gut feeling is enough to justify locking out all anon editors. So far you have not explained why it is not possible to watchlist those pages and then protect when something really happens. I mean, Superbowl players' pages on the day of the Superbowl will be watched by many people anyway, won't they? Regards SoWhy22:12, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
There's already too much protection going on. Honestly, the way that protection is over-zealously applied to articles is what gives me pause in fully supporting any form of flagged revisions here. Any form of protection already is essentially permanent now, for any article that is low profile. And, what MZMcBride said. — V = IR(Talk • Contribs)21:56, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
But which new editor who comes to Wikipedia and finds himself barred from editing by some admin's gut feeling knows about that? Regards SoWhy07:33, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
You've gotta admit, it's awfully "policy wonkish" to need to go through the "request unprotection" rigamarole, especially if you're not aware of how things work. More seriously though, the simple fact that people need to "ask permission" has a decided chilling effect on the behavior of editors. — V = IR(Talk • Contribs)10:00, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
We've no shortage of BLPs with a history of vandalism, lets target semi-protection on them instead. ϢereSpielChequers22:34, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
This would completely undermine and ultimately destroy the principle that protection is not preemptive. The wording is unclear and that amendment could be wiki-lawyered so as not to apply only to blps, but to any article, and the 'limited instances' are unspecified so at anyone's discretion. So admins could decide to semi-protect any article, for pretty much any reason, ranging from an upcoming event to which the subject is connected, that the subject is somehow controversial, that the page is 'insufficiently watched', and so on. I will emphasize that policies are not existing for nothing, they are here to mark recognized and established principles, and 'bright lines', and that change would destroy this. We could add exceptions such as 'in general' or 'in most cases' to most of our policies, but it only gives them much less strength, in this case completely destroys the principle, and that for no tangible benefit, as it is already the case that a policy is "a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow" (emphasis mine), so there's absolutely no need for making an exception. Indeed, in exceptional cases, we already can protect preemptively, on the basis of WP:IAR, though it's not always specified, and I actually have seen a few examples where this has been done and where I agreed, though most of the time I did not agree. I remember not too long ago that it had been proposed that dozens of articles be preemptively semi-protected, because it was certain they 'would be subject to massive amounts of vandalism'; in the end they were not semi-protected, and received lots of good IP/new users edits (as usual with articles related to current events), and very isolated instances of vandalism which were dealt-with normally and efficiently, and there's been only 2-3 of those articles with more vandalism, which got them semi-protected. That is to say, in the aftermath we've seen it didn't happen as predicted, vandalism was weak and properly handled, there were no need for total protection; and as a general matter, we should not reduce open editing without good cause. I'm also quite certain that admins would find ways to avoid having to remove protection upon request, such as by citing other policies or even arbcom rulings. So the principle that protection is not preemptive should definitely remain in force (that change would destroy it), although with the understanding that it's not unbreakable, but we should be conscious when breaking it and being able to justify it. Cenarium (talk) 16:46, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. I don't seen any evidence presented that the current system doesn't work, and new users need to be shut out pre-emptively just for BLPs, in contravention of the five pillars, and at a time when an article will be exposed to the highest number of potential new users, both good and evil. It looks like just the usual scaremongering and handwringing, with the usual lack of all round appreciation of the Wikipedia model, and the lack of real awareness that not enough admins follow the current procedures properly to even be thinking about changing them to compensate. Tbh, if you are smart enough to be able to predict the future, then you are smart enough to be able to ensure enough non-activist admins and RFPP aware users are around to deal with higher levels of attention any article might get due to a predictable event (which, by anyone's logic, will simply increase the numbers of casual reverters present too, as well as the number of evil vandals). MickMacNee (talk) 23:15, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose per Cenarium and per lack of serious discussion of the draft proposal's issues (see my Neutral remarks below). Rd232talk10:51, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose I think we do a pretty good job of knowing when to hand out protection already, and this is pretty toothless. If the protection can be removed at any time at the request of any user, then it isn't actually protection at all against any sort of determined vandal or POV pusher. Seems like a needless layer of process in an area that does not have a serious problem, and an end-run around the stalled out flagged revisions thing. Beeblebrox (talk)
Yes and no, what I was thinking though was that if someone is unprotecting, then there are already some eyes then watching the article in question, so questionable edits will then be monitored. As far as layer of process, it doesn't actually add any new levels, just allows admins to manage BLP risk a bit more. Any IP can request an unprotect of any article as it is, which admins can accede to - and an offer of anonymous article improvement is a hard one to ignore. Casliber (talk·contribs) 00:19, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
The proposal distorts what the real BLP problem is. Immature vandalism on high-profile BLPs that lasts for a few seconds to a couple minutes (which is 99% of what this would cover) is not the main problem. The real problem is libel on poorly watched BLPs that isn't obviously false and slips through recentchanges patrol, which this proposal does virtually nothing to address. Mr.Z-man01:20, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
True. But short of auto-deleting unwatched BLPs, is there anything we can do about that? Are flagged revs reviewers any more likely to catch not-obviously-false libel than RCP? Rd232talk01:47, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Totally agree about the nature of the BLP problem, but disagree that this does nothing to address it. Most of the libel in question, in my experience, is added by non-autoconfirmed users (Seigenthaler being the most prominent example). Presumably, some proportion of the people adding this libel would take the trouble to have an account autoconfirmed in order to bypass the semi-protection, but intuitively I suspect that this proportion would not be large. Your point that this will only work for biographies that somebody is paying some attention to is well-taken, which is why I support automatic permanent semi-protection of all BLPs. But this is something. Steve Smith (talk) 19:00, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
It may be added by non-autoconfirmed users, but 99% of the articles this system will affect are not the articles susceptible to the real issues. Was the Seigenthaler incident part of some large spike in vandalism volume on articles about him? Was it preceded by some event that would have potentially triggered pre-emptive protection under this proposal? If the answer to those questions is "no" (and I suspect it is), then this wouldn't have helped at all. The issue isn't that some people might bypass it, its that it protects the wrong articles. Will this prevent some vandalism? Yes. Does this do anything to help the real BLP problem? Not really. At best, the articles that will be targeted by this are mainly high-level politicians, professional athletes, and celebrities – i.e., the kind of people who have agents, if not entire PR teams, to shield them from things like vandalism on their Wikipedia article and much worse things. At worst, this proposal would be actively damaging by convincing people that immature vandalism on high-profile BLPs is the real BLP problem and/or taking effort away from other areas in order to seek out articles that need to be pre-emptively protected. Mr.Z-man23:01, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Fair points all; to be honest, I'm probably just in favour of anything that results in the semi-protection of more BLPs. Steve Smith (talk) 12:52, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose as written. "Anybody's request" is far too weak. I would support a temporary proposal to allow pre-emptive semiprotection of BLPs upon request, with the proviso that this would expire when (if) flagged revisions finally come online. RayTalk16:52, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Sounds like more agenda-driven BLP policy creep. Since IAR can trump this policy when used with common sense and on rare occasions, I don't feel this is a necessary change. If we have definite knowledge of incoming disruption than we can and should ignore all rules, but we don't need to change them for these exceptional circumstances. ThemFromSpace19:06, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose pretty much a useless change it seems to me, the vandalism this prevent would be minimal. A few seconds of vandalism several times per day maybe? And per Cenarium, it would be a well of drama and wikilawyering. Icewedge (talk) 23:40, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose because if it truly is at risk you can protect it anyway. Codifying it will just invite misuse. And semiprotection is misused enough already. Prodegotalk01:08, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. Saying "there are limited instances" without devoting even a word to what those "limited instances" might be is a recipe for heaping amounts of drama over an issue that's already Wikipedia's biggest drama generator. Determine ahead of time what the community agrees are appropriate instances before adding any such language to the policy.--Father Goose (talk) 04:24, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
It's not just subjective, it's speculative. It's not as can be inferred from other's comments a case of valuing processes and rules out of some idealistic free & easy editing ideology for its own sake. Like others have said, if it actually is removed on anyone's request then it's an easy all too dismissable 'safeguard'. If unregistered and newly registered contributors get commanded instead to register or if newly registered wait a few days and edit several articles that aren't the article they want to edit in order to be able to edit the one that is, then its implementation has the effect of locking out new blood of editors (plus longterm unregistered). I think it's highly likely a lot of new or casual contributors come to edit an article they've just recently seen on the television, in the newspaper, or whatever. It also seems likely this proposal would lead to a lot of *those* articles being semi-prot'd. So unless on finding they can't edit that article (if they knew they could; there'd now be no edit link) they surf off to find another, then they may not ever come to bring their talents to the community. If a group of articles such as superbowl players were semi-prot'd, then many of the wikilinked articles in the one article they're browsing might also be protected, so clicking on links might not lead them to an editable article. Like SoWhy says too, during the superbowl players' pages will be watched by many anyway as well. –Whitehorse115:31, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
I was in favor of this last time around, but I am persuaded by the arguments above. If it was plain that the number of these would be small (say a total of 100 articles semi-protected by this change at any given time) I'd likely support as a reasonable way to help with BLP issues. But this is just too open-ended and I worry that it will get out of hand. Hobit (talk) 02:59, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. First, there is the crystal ball issue mentioned above. Then, the very act of preemptively semi-protecting an article may even give some would-be vandals ideas. ("They semi-protected X's article? Ooh, I'll have to vandalize it when the protection is over!") Worse still, to protect the article, you pretty much have to say why you're protecting it, so you're enshrining the false accusation into the protection log! Anyway, if the vandalism is that severe, I don't see what in the current protection policy prevents swift protection of the article once it is being vandalized. Finally, for a real-world example, I can think of a fair number of US politicians whose articles are likely targets for vandalism due to recent events. If we preemptively protect their articles, have we almost painted a bigger target on them? —C.Fred (talk) 16:00, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose in general mainly because IPs revert vandalism too, and we'd quite possibly be protecting attack pages from being remedied by a passer-by. I do support wide flexibility for admins to make individual calls on semi-protection when there's even a hint of IP-originated attack edits. (Ed: i.e. targeted smear, not just general vandalism) Gigs (talk) 17:23, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose I'm not sure about pre-emptive protection but I don't think a provision which doesn't clearly define when it should be implemented and says it can then be removed by anyone for any reason is a reasonable solution to the "BLP problem" or a good use of protection tools. Some editors see any BLP as a potential vandal target, some editors disapprove of any type of pre-emptive protection, just seems like it could be more trouble than it's worth. Guest9999 (talk) 02:34, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't think that "seems to defeat the point" is logically true, though I agree about IP editors not being inherently evil. Those IP editors who are likely to turn vandal seem unlikely to ask nicely to be allowed to edit first, and by this means some degree of vandalism would be reduced. The question remains whether the other costs of this proposal make it worthwhile, but I don't think it's logically flawed. 01:09, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose The only way to know for sure if an article is "high risk" for vandalism is if it is currently being vandalised, in which case the proposal is entirely redundant to current protection policy. If you do have the magical ability to pre-empt a massive vandal attack, why not just pay attention and alert a couple of others so you can deal with it if and when it happens? Presumably the most common situation would be when someone is in the news, in which case there will also be plenty of IP editors with legitimate desires to edit the article (and potentially become regular contributors), and we shouldn't block them all because of scaremongering. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 23:08, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose per http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia. It makes it pretty clear that most of the text on Wikipedia is added by new users and the established users just tidy things up "But when you count letters, the picture dramatically changes: few of the contributors (2 out of the top 10) are even registered and most (6 out of the top 10) have made less than 25 edits to the entire site. In fact, #9 has made exactly one edit — this one! With the more reasonable metric — indeed, the one Wales himself said he planned to use in the next revision of his study — the result completely reverses.". -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:35, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Big problem with that study is that it is date from early 2006, from a time when inline referencing was scarce. Now it is an integral and necessary feature for further improvement of wikipedia. I'd like to see some study of additions over, say the past nine months, to see if IPs are adding references along with content. This starts to get into bigger-picture views such as are we moving from a growth to a maintenance phase yet.Casliber (talk·contribs) 23:50, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose as unnecessary instruction creep. I am also very skeptical of the inherently subjective judgment required by this proposal. --ElKevbo (talk) 15:59, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
No. Absolutely not. Tired of another round of proposals from a crowd of people who should have had the good sense to stop listening to WR years ago, instead of outing and bothering opponents. Protonk (talk) 01:04, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
I believe that one of the things necessary to bring in new users is that the first time they want to edit, they can; the page they want to edit is likely to be a "high risk" BLP. עוד מישהוOd Mishehu13:46, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose If a page (BLP or otherwise) needs preemptive protection, somebody is sure to take care of it. But I oppose making it into an official guideline, because I feel we have too many protected pages as is. In addition, the proposed change might possibly result in a sprey of unnecessary protections. Debresser (talk) 14:45, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. What does "such protection should be removed immediately upon anyone's request" mean, anyway? "You're not allowed to edit this article unless you ask" - well, in what way is clicking the "edit" button not asking? --GRuban (talk) 21:36, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose, as someone who has support flag revs, I think this is a "worst of both worlds" solution to the failure to achieve progress on that front. Also, it seems that this policy is targeted at BLPs of individuals recently in the news. The thing is, any popular discussion of an individual will likely lead to more editors, not just vandals, viewing the article. This should result in as many constructive edits as non-constructive ones, and furthermore should result in more people watchlisting the article anyways. Random8920:41, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Neutral
On the one hand, implementing this risks leading either to bureaucracy (defining in detail when it can be used) or to enormous admin discretion in applying semi-protection to BLPs (which many think desirable anyway, but it shouldn't be smuggled in by the back door). On the other hand in practice it may be that there will be sufficient feedback on particular use of it such that admins will calibrate their use to community consensus; but in the absence of a clear mechanism for doing so, it's hard to support as proposed. I think this is yet another example of an idea needing more discussion before becoming a !vote. For instance, is it envisaged that this pre-emptive semi-protection needs to be applied very rapidly, such that admins must make the decision alone? Or would there generally be time to discuss it (preferably onwiki, though IRC would be better than nothing if time is pressing), so that there's some agreement that Evidence X justifies the proposed semi-protection in Case Y? How long would such semi-protection be - any guidance or restriction? Will it have a different template? Requirement to show a full semi-pp template, rather than just a top-right icon? Finally, what concrete or hypothetical examples are offered where an admin could reasonably predict the need for semi, but no actual vandalism has yet occured? (I'm not disputing that such examples can be produced, but none have been yet and would help clarify the nature of the problem which the proposal is supposed to solve.) Rd232talk10:36, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Note: the longer these issues go unaddressed, the more I'm inclined to oppose the proposal as half-baked (in which case I would reserve the right to judge a future fully baked proposal on its merits). Rd232talk22:03, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
The concerns voiced by Rd232 and others have merit, but I am inclined to think the community will muddle through eventually and refine the process in a suitable manner, provided this process is kicked off in the first place. If it causes a significant amount of discussion, even drama, that is not necessarily a bad thing, as that is how a culture grows. --JN46611:44, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm very disappointed that as this is the status quo that there haven't been more good arguments in favour. The admins (and others) who follow this status quo (apart from Casliber) aren't justifying their case at all. And again apart from Casliber noone is really discussing the details and the real merits of the proposal. If none of the other supporters can really justify the proposal then I don't really feel I can be in favour of it - especially when the people against the proposal have made a strong and persuasive case. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:42, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
The best argument for the status quo is right at the top of the main page. "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." That's one of our Founding principles, #2, in fact. The proposal here is that as soon as a page becomes popular, it should be semi-protected, so not anyone can edit it. :-P --GRuban (talk) 18:10, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
This is an interesting proposal as it has implications for our attitude toward one of the core founding principles of Wikipedia: immediate editing access - a principle that made Wikipedia desirable for many of us in the first place, and is largely responsible for its success. There are legitimate concerns for the impact on individuals of irresponsible comments made in Wikipedia articles - though these concerns can be over-emphasized, and with such over-emphasis comes an approach in which protection drives our methodology rather than access and knowledge. I took a look at the discussion linked above (User_talk:Casliber#Your_indefinite_semi-protection_of_John_Laws), and then at the article at the heart of that discussion - John Laws. I think that article may have given Casliber the idea for this proposal, so I thought it worth examining closely. The article was created in 2004, and has attracted 276 edits, of which 105 have been by IP or newly created accounts. I examined each of the 105 IP/new account edits and found that 38 were irresponsible, 19 were neutral, and 48 were positive (adding information, references, correcting errors, and - ironically - at least four edits removed irresponsible edits). That is 17% of the positive, helpful and anti-vandal edits made to the article were by IP or new accounts - accounts which can no longer access the article. So IP accounts can add significantly to an article. However, IP/new accounts are also responsible for the bulk of irresponsible edits which are made to articles. Some of the irresponsible stuff added to the John Laws article was silly, some was laughable, some was unpleasant such as "John Laws is a dickhead", much made play of his own stated dislike of gays. The majority of the obvious stuff was soon removed - and the article's history shows that we take a responsible attitude to removing such material. Some of the more subtle vandalism - such as adding a porn link (removed by an IP account [1]), an incorrect quotation (again removed by an IP account [2]), and a dubious opinion (again removed by an IP account ([3]) - hung around a bit longer. I am not an expert on defamation, however I understand that "an insulting statement that does not actually harm someone's reputation is prima facie not libelous" (from our Defamation article). So it would appear that, in good faith, and with the best of intentions, Casliber has indefinitely protected an article to which some IP/new accounts have made significant positive edits, and to which some IP/new accounts have made nuisance edits (which have been successfully removed, sometimes by other IP accounts). The IP accounts have made a net positive contribution to the article. And none of the irresponsible edits appear to have been actionable in a libel court. However, having said all that, and not being so moved to support either the semi-protecting of John Laws nor this proposal, I am not actively moved to formally object either. I am, however, concerned that we are possibly moving in the wrong direction, even if for the right reasons. I agree that we need to show that we are putting steps in place to protect the reputations of the innocent, though we perhaps need a more elegant solution than this. SilkTork *YES!12:36, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
While this is a good idea in principle, there needs to be a requirement that such a drastic measure be justified by coverage in the news. Without such a justification, this falls short of my full support. Blueboy9604:27, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
Discuss
Where the discussion of risk should take place
The idea that 'risk' can be discussed by editors on the talk page. There are some obvious examples that could be used as guides. e.g. speculatory incidents of a LP's drug use/infidelities/arrests etc. Casliber (talk·contribs) 03:16, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Other issues - the speed with which google can pick up wikipedia pages, hence the need to remove the risk of 'bad version' pages if at all possible being picked up and cached. Casliber (talk·contribs) 03:27, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
You keep bringing this up, but you do realise that the speed with which "bad" version are cached is the same speed at which reversions are picked up, do you? It's an irrelevant consideration. 123.225.192.66 (talk) 13:24, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
It doesn't matter if a good version has been picked up though. That is the default and what should happen - it's avoiding the bad ones being picked up which has happened in the past. Casliber (talk·contribs) 00:44, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
You could bring this up for any article, so it's just a general argument against open editing, and doesn't weight particularly in this situation. Cenarium (talk) 16:46, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Comment: it looks to me like google search now indexes wikipedia edits almost instantaneously (within a minute or so). My guess is they have gotten a toolserver-like database feed around the time of their $2 million donation, and are processing it in near-real-time. Maybe someone can experimentally check how long their cache lasts. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 18:33, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
Adding RFC header
I assume this will be done as a proper RFC (as per WP:PROPOSAL) before the policy is changed? Sorry if I seem slightly against it - I do want the proposal to be done properly though. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:12, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
But you can challenge them - there are around 5000 pages that are semi-protected, quite a few of which are on fairly dodgy ground that aren't high-profile BLP's that you can easily succeed in getting removed from the list. This will be made easier if this is changed as then admins won't be able to argue that "everyone bends the rules". -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:47, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Other discussion
Hopefully slowing the rate of vandal reversion to allow recent changes patrollers to catch their collective breath and have some time to collaborate with IPs a bit more. Casliber (talk·contribs) 03:27, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
This seems like a good idea, but if "such protection should be removed immediately upon anyone's request" it may be a bit weak. That said, I suppose it is unlikely that an IP will go througth the trouble of requesting unprotection just to vandalize the article (and at that point, restoring semi-protection won't be preemptive anymore) so it will probably work. Rlendog (talk) 14:24, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
I am open to discussion - if you see some honest and earnest attempts to improve the article after a trial unprotection all the better. If none are forthcoming then one can reprotect and unprotect later. No biggie. Casliber (talk·contribs) 00:52, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
There is a huge amount of abusive vandalism on biographies connected to the Israel-Palestine conflict. This proposal could eliminate much of it. RolandR (talk)15:18, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
That doesn't sound very pre-emptive. Anything with even less than a huge amount of vandalism is already covered by policy. -- zzuuzz(talk)17:37, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Many articles are only protected after (often libellous) abuse, or the protection is lifted after a while, leaving them open to such abuse again. Premptive semi-protection would prevent most of this material from being posted in the first place. RolandR (talk)18:22, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Comment: pre-emptiveness introduces complications I'd rather avoid. In some cases there's a case to be made, so I wouldn't want to ban it, but I wouldn't want to encourage it either. At minimum, if the proposal passes, each pre-emptive protection should be accompanied by a talkpage discussion of the protection; and such pages logged and/or categorised specifically. Rd232talk17:10, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
In general, I'd rather see a proposal which (for BLPs) allows quicker semi-protection responses to actual vandalism, when there is a reasonable expectation that this is a sign of more to come, due to the subject being in the news and due to the news/subject making it likely to attract vandalism. Currently WP:SEMI says "Subject to significant but temporary vandalism". SuchA more "hair-trigger semi-protection" should be short-term. Rd232talk17:10, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Comment pre-emptive BLP semi-protection probably is a case where using the large semi-protect header would actually be appropriate. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:51, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
I am mildly in favour of this until FlaggedRevs come online, but I would categorically oppose having admins liberally apply it without very good reason. "It might get vandalized" is not enough, imo. I think an admin pre-emptively protecting an article would have to show concrete evidence of the need. I would also argue that pre-emptive protection should be a short term option only. One or two weeks max. Indefinite semi-protection should be restricted to articles with a history of vandalism. Resolute18:46, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, only issue is I'd feel uncomfortable being too candid on the talk page sometimes - e.g. "I am semiprotecting article about politician/rock star X because there are rumours flying around he's a pedophile/heroin addict/Republican - as it then documents the headache I am trying to avoid going into the article in the first place - I do get your point though and I think it is a good one. Casliber (talk·contribs) 00:52, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
I probably just shouldn't say this at all, but... either I'll get excoriated, or maybe this can clear the air a little bit. I don't really like this idea, but I don't really oppose it either, on its face. That Lar supports it to the point of challenging everyone else about opposing it, or even questioning it, actually pushes me to actually oppose the proposal. I don't want to make this personal, but there are certain personalities in this whole mess who I honestly believe have become toxic. — V = IR(Talk • Contribs)22:01, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Ohms law: "Everyone" ?? I count 2 people I replied to, that's rather a lot less than "everyone" even if we grant rhetorical hyperbolic license. However, feel free to move all replies from me and others down here though, if you like, I don't mind. But opposing something because of who supports it? Not often a good idea, unless that person is a reliable contrary indicator. ++Lar: t/c18:22, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Well, I'm perfectly willing to admit that there's an emotional component to all of this, so it's hardly surprising that the rationale could be picked apart as illogical. That doesn't address the emotional reaction at all though (and, from an armchair psychologist's perspective, is more likely to aggravate the situation then anything else). Look, the problem here is that this whole issue area has become so polarized and over-politicized by the ongoing campaign that there's just no room for compromise. I used to have nothing but respect for all of the major players in our current little melodrama, but frankly you've all burnt away any capability to respect y'all from me (on both sides, really). I'm at a place now where I'm willing to oppose anything BLP related, simply because it's BLP related. That's the primary reason why I've completely bowed out of the RFC process on it, and my sense is that I'm not alone (add to that the fact that there are several well-spoken individuals on "both sides" of the issue, as well). I'm really uncomfortable calling people out, but you should also realize that you're perceived position of leadership (though the raft of permissions that you've cultivated) opens you up to this sort of criticism, as well as working to ratchet up the perceived importance of the issue to monumental proportions. Like it or not, people don't tend to react well to such leaders running around as ideological partisans, and it's hardly conducive to developing a collegial atmosphere. (ps: I wanted to extend to you a heart felt thank you for your assist on Commons, though. It's not that I'm out to get you or anyone else, I just want us to all be willing to compromise and work towards consensus building better.) — V = IR(Talk • Contribs)05:49, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Question - protection should be removed immediately upon anyone's request. What does this mean exactly? Would anyone (registered or not) be able to go to WP:RUP directly and request, or will they still have to go through the protecting admin first? And will admins at WP:RUP have to automatically oblige all these requests, no questions asked? 118.8.245.244 (talk) 12:45, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
The protecting admin should probably be informed - Are you guys improvising? This proposal doesn't seem to be well thought-through. I'm asking, by whom should they be informed? Whose is the onus? 58.91.89.187 (talk) 21:40, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
so they can watch the page - Please note that any registered user (including admins) can already watch the page, we don't need this proposal for that (and for many other things that I will get to). 58.91.89.187 (talk) 21:40, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Comment given this is the status quo I'm pretty worried that apart from me and Casliber no-one has made any good arguments in favour of this proposal - whereas those against the proposal have made extensive arguments to support their position. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 09:11, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
As is usual with this sort of thing, there are three distinct groups here. There are those in favor, those who absolutely oppose, and the rest of us. For "the rest of us", I think that Rd232 sums up the issues with this proposal fairly well. I'm not confident that the proposal can ever be made unobjectionable enough to avoid a good contingent of those how absolutely oppose it based on a principle, but I'm at least willing to listen. (Unfortunately, I find myself lacking any creativity in terms of coming up with any suggestions, however.) — V = IR(Talk • Contribs)10:03, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Oh, there actually were some arguments in favour of this proposal? I must have missed them. Anyway, it would be a shame if this RFC were to close so soon, I was only getting started to tear it to bits... 123.225.96.163 (talk) 12:27, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Gajillions of conceivable proposals are supported by core WP principles. Your point does not justify implementing a proposal which can't reasonably be described as even half-baked; I make it about one-eighth-baked. Supporters seem to show no interest in debating the details, in marked contravention of WP:NOTVOTE. Rd232talk17:10, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
My arguments - along with Casliber - are some of the strongest in favour of the proposal that I can see but noone else who supports this is really discussing the details or putting forward a good case. On this basis I'm going neutral. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:35, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Well, if you think out of all those Gajillions of conceivable proposals, there's one that's has a compelling need go ahead and propose it. For the time being, the BLP issue is a compelling one and thus, this proposal. There's never been a need for a proposal to anticapte all the possible outcomes, it's not even possible. This is a Wiki and not bureaucracy (another wiki principle). Proposals can evolve through use. RxS (talk) 18:16, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
What do you think my Alternatives section below is? I also suggested above changing policy to make it more responsive to vandalism that does occur. "The BLP issue" is not an argument to distinguish between this half-baked proposal, a more thought out version of this proposal, my alternatives, or many other ideas. ("Let's ban editing of BLPs by anyone with less than 1000 edits. Won't someone please think of the BLPs!!"). Plus, that's the first time I've seen WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY applied in favour of implementing something; I should remember that spin - demanding that a proposal be properly thought through is "bureaucracy"! In sum, your logic (and that of other supporters) seems to be "something must be done; this is something; therefore we must do it." Rd232talk18:30, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Gee, I wonder if my support comment could be considered to have failed to put forward a good case? Ouch! Fair enough, here is a more detailed comment by me. To begin, I happen to have meticulously steered clear of the BLP discussions. (And I have interacted quite a lot with both Lar and Ohms Law, and I like both of you very much.) Even though I support the proposal, I actually do recognize that quite a few of the opponents, particularly Rd232, have made valid points about ways in which the current wording is insufficiently baked. The wording really does need to be tightened up, to be less ambiguous and to cover more contingencies.
But, that said, I still support the idea of the proposal. In my !vote, I somewhat grumpily, somewhat jokingly, made reference to what is, for me, actually a very serious consideration. Look at it this way. To us (people who edit), "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit" can seem like a core value that should be immutable. But there is a much, much larger population of people out there, the readers of Wikipedia (remember them?), who really do not care about the processes of writing this thing, and care only about making use of it. For them, it is really "the encyclopedia where anyone (with an internet connection) can find the information they want to find", and the editing process is just a means to an end. What matters to them is the accessibility and the quality, the accuracy, of available information. In the case of BLPs, there is the very significant additional issue, now well-recognized by WMF, that there is a responsibility not to post potentially harmful information. So, in the end, what is more important: the ability of IPs to edit without hindrance (and, oh!, the horrible burden of having to register!), or the responsibility of Wikipedia to post a professional-quality encyclopedia that does not harm living persons? It actually does annoy me that many long-time Wikipedians think that holding onto immutable inner workings of the project should be more important than what we provide to society. There's a world out there. And, I do not buy for a minute that administrators cannot predict accurately that certain pages are going to be likely vandal targets. Of course there are cases where it's obvious to anyone who has had a watchlist for any amount of time that such pages will be vandalized. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:03, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
There is a long-established point on this you're missing - making it easy for people to edit (not having to register) is said to increase the tiny proportion of readers who become editors. The argument is made that drawing people into editing is worth not putting barriers in the way of, particularly when those barriers (merely registering, or 10 edits / 4 days) are actually quite low. Apart from the issue of to some extent merely displacing vandalism (from anon to registered), anon vandalism is more often spotted. You may agree or disagree with these reasons or the weight to be placed on them, but merely framing it as making people take 30 seconds to register is missing a bigger picture. Rd232talk19:46, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
To be fair they don't just have to register - they also have to make 10 edits, and when a significant number of popular articles are semi-protected that isn't totally trivially easy.
PS You did make a case before (though in fairness it wasn't particularly fleshed out :p) and I was wrong to miss you out when I re-looked through this discussion, sorry :o. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:12, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
I still think accumulating the 10 edits is not the decisive factor here. And don't worry about not counting me! Even I think my !vote was not explained in much detail! :-) --Tryptofish (talk) 19:19, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
The defamation point is a good one, and one which noone else has bought up before, and it is a concern to me. But also the proposal needs to be fleshed out a bit more, and there has to be some sort of understanding that the consensus won't be totally bent out of shape if this proposal is accepted. I only bought up the "its easy to edit on semi-protected pages as you just need an account And 10 edits/4 days" point as its something I generally disagree with as you need to get fresh blood into the project - though clearly there does have to be a balance between allowing IP edits and preventing defamation/disruption on Wikipedia. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:34, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Question - Would this proposal cover articles like Perjury? In other words, would it allow an admin to pre-emptively semi-protect an article just because in their view it "has high potential for BLP violation with list of famous people-purgery" [sic]? 124.87.96.46 (talk) 23:45, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
I've been having a look at that article this week, and when the indefinite protection on it started there was a lot of unsourced information for both Allegations of perjury and Convicted perjurers (which seems to me to be a bit of a defamation minefield - so under this policy it probably would have been legitimate) - that was mostly cleaned up quickly - I'm just going through it again and most of it is now sourced correctly. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 23:48, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
under this policy it probably would have been legitimate - "Probably", huh? That word again. OK, so let's assume it would have been covered by this proposal. Then:
Question - Why didn't the protecting admin source or simply remove the unsourced BLP information (as per WP:BLP) instead of semi-protecting the article, incidentally preventing millions of unregistered users from sourcing/removing that unsourced information? In other words, how would this proposal help in this situation, since you (Eraserhead1) did not need it in order to do the right thing? 124.87.96.46 (talk) 00:36, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
My reasoning was thus - I looked at how best to continue 'pedia building, and figured this was best done by semiprotection to minimise risk and source, rather than wholesale removal of (unsourced) material. I feel this really needs to be a last resort and is often worst outcome/a real step backwards. Casliber (talk·contribs) 00:02, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
This isn't even starting to make sense.
The rationale of this proposal, along with your semi-protection comment of this article, suggests that pre-emptive semi-protection is good, because you are worried that people (especially those pesky IPs) might in the future add unsourced, libelous material.
Now you tell us that you actually *did* notice that there were some such material (for example, Berlusconi's entry), but preferred to leave it there, without even adding a [citation needed], for the sake of "'pedia building"? It just doesn't add up.
Question - Would this proposal, by extension, allow an admin to semi-protect any article, claiming that it's because it has high potential for BLP violations? Say for example an admin misguidedly "owns" the article Sumo, and their agenda is to ban all those inconvenient IP edits that keep messing up their idea of a perfect article. Would this proposal then allow them to claim that there is a high risk of IPs changing that caption from "Yokozuna Asashōryū waits for his match" to "Yokozuna Asashōryū is a drug addict"? 124.87.96.46 (talk) 00:36, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
As long as semiprotection can be discussed on the talk page, and then lifted by any admin after a good-faith request and follow through to improve the article, I'd think. This nullifies thee risk of ownership. I have repeatedly stated that I will not oppose any admin who unprotects any article I protect. Casliber (talk·contribs) 00:02, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
This not only muddles the waters even further, but it also fails to answer my question. Would this proposal allow an admin to semi-protect any article, claiming that it's because it has high potential for BLP violations? Yes or no. 114.167.133.168 (talk) 08:57, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
This is a major proposed change to a fundamental policy and should have been much more advertized from the beginning. I have added this to WP:CENT and posted at VPR. Cenarium (talk) 19:00, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Comment I note that this follows a now established principle: proposals which restrict our open nature tend to receive more opposition as it is advertized more broadly and run longer. Cenarium (talk) 14:28, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
Alternatives
Some alternatives:
Semi-protect all BLPs
Option: Semi-protect all BLPs and have done with it. Do away with crystal-balling. Faced with semi-protection, especially if properly explained (eg the Edit button shouldn't become View Source, it should stay Edit - with an explanation after clicking that you've got to register and get autoconfirmed status) more people may sign up to edit, and crossing that barrier encourages them to contribute more and become committed Wikipedians. This may offset the loss from people unable to try editing anonymously and never quite get the idea that "anyone can edit". (Some way to measure the two effects would be very helpful.) See also Wikipedia:PEREN#Prohibit_anonymous_users_from_editing - but BLPs are a small proportion of articles, so it may be worth it. Rd232talk08:23, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
This is even a better idea than the pre-emptive idea. I think that pre-emptively protecting BLP's was only brought up in large part because semi-protecting all BLP's would stand even less of a chance of agreement. But this would be my first choice anyway. RxS (talk) 18:29, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
(a) via the many articles that are not BLPs (b) by changing View Source to Edit, perhaps with friendlier explanation and not showing the source - because what use is that really to the person who can't edit? It's just offputting. (c) possibly via sandboxing as suggested below. Also, as noted, getting more people to sign up whilst some are deterred from editing at all may lead to more committed editors and fewer driveby anon edits, which may be a good trade depending on the ratio. Rd232talk21:08, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
I listed this proposal as a conservative one which I figured would have most consensus. Personally, I'd be happy to semi-protect all BLPs but I do concede I have concerns about new editor pickup myself and many arguments along those lines are valid. Truth be told, all roads ahead have pitfalls - I just figured this was the best way forward for now. Casliber (talk·contribs) 00:05, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
If your proposal involved some requirement for pre-protection discussion, and otherwise flagging such protection for review, it would seem more conservative. As it is it's too vague. Rd232talk00:56, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
But RFPP doesn't necessarily involve discussion, and it's not clear to what extent it would aid monitoring of semi-protection based on crystallballing. And there's no requirement for uninvolved admins to use RFPP. Rd232talk01:28, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't understand why there is so much obsession with picking up new editors. If Wikipedia weren't geared to burn out experienced editors so fast, it wouldn't have to pick up as many new ones, so maybe it should think about other sorts of changes instead. As a long-term IP editor I'm still trying to form a view of this proposal to permanently semi-protect 200,000(?) articles, but I'll say that at the current level (5000 articles) I don't run into semi-protection issues that often. I mentioned elsewhere that :This article about "who writes WP" might be of some interest--it says most of the top contributors of actual text (not edit count) to articles in the study (in 2006) were IP addresses rather than named accounts. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 06:22, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Create list of High Risk BLP Articles
Option: Create a list of Permanently High Risk BLP Articles and of Temporarily High Risk BLP Articles, promote widely, and thereby increase watchlisting. This is already done occasionally in an ad hoc way using WP:AN / WP:ANI. Distinguishing between Permanently and Temporarily High Risk is important, because it's the Temporarily High Risk list which will have people who are not very high profile, and may suffer actual damage (whereas Barack Obama's entry is at high risk, but is unlikely to ever affect his reputation). Rd232talk08:23, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Assuming this does not involve any pre-emptive semi-protection, and provided it's made clear that pre-emptive semi-protection would not be allowed as a "temporary" surrogate to better watchlisting, I could support it. We could have an adopt-an-article scheme, as you say, but to reiterate, I really want to be sure that people are not going to be allowed to argue that, "Since this article is on the BLP-high-risk list (because *ahem* I just put it in) and since it's still not well watchlisted, then it's justifiable to pre-emptively semi-protect it, so I'll do just that." No dice.
I think making the number of watchers appear more prominently, e.g. in the article page somewhere, and for all users, could help.
I like this idea too, though I think displaying the number of watchers would be a mistake, vandals might use the information to vandalise pages that aren't well watched. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 10:00, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, sorry, I meant all logged users, or all auto-confirmed users, or something. But yeah maybe it doesn't really help at all, I don't know. Just an idea. 124.87.96.46 (talk) 10:57, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
I can hardly wait for all the needless argument this would cause about whether a particular article should be listed, and which list it should be on. Our goal should be to make WP less complicated and easier to understand for newcomers, this would have the opposite effect. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:44, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Is that more or less argument than the crystallballing involved in the pre-emptive semi-protection proposal? Also I fail to see how this affects newbies - only established users are going to know about the lists; it's their attention which needs to be drawn to vulnerable articles. Rd232talk23:15, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
As we all know, Wikipedians will argue about anything, and this seems like a perfect way to encourage more drama rather than discouraging it. And it's quite simple to imagine a scenario where a newbie would stumble into this, all that would have to happen would be for them to wish to edit an article that is on one of these lists. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:30, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Are you misunderstanding this? These lists would not be used to make any decisions (like for pre-emptive protection) - just to get more eyes on vulnerable articles. I fail to see how that involves much risk of drama - certainly how it could create more drama than the pre-emptive protection proposal. And if it creates needless drama, it'll either be harmlessly ignored or die - unlike the pre-emptive proposal which could actually cause some harm. A bigger objection that occurs to me is the need to prune the Temporary list based on expired needs - but if it becomes too much of a burden to do manually, a bot can do it (if listing is for a standard or case-by-case specified period). PS I still do not get the newbie concern. The lists are of vulnerable articles, not of protected ones. You could argue WP:BEANS, but I don't think it fits with vandals' motivation, and by definition these pages will be well watched. Rd232talk00:50, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I am not worried about drama, just rising numbers of lists to watc hand pages to visit. However, some common watchlist or patrolled revision that is easy to use might be good. Casliber (talk·contribs) 01:15, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
True. But for now Related Changes on a list (which people can also watchlist pages from) is better than nothing. Rd232talk01:23, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
What would be wrong with just getting admins to list the pre-emptive cases on WP:RFPP? They usually seem to make good decisions and that would mean you'd be less likely to protect a page you shouldn't (which leads to lots of time consuming talk page discussions and possibly good editors leaving the project if they think the decisions are unfair) or missing pages that should actually be protected. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:32, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
These lists have nothing to do with protecting articles. Admins don't need to list pages at RFPP unless they're WP:INVOLVED. And RFPP isn't really a forum for discussion. Rd232talk09:01, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Option: provide every semi-protected article with an unprotected sandbox based initially on the version of the page at protection. Create a Flagged Revisions Lite Done Manually, where edits to the sandbox can be reviewed by established editors and undone if unproductive, or copied into the article if an improvement. Keeping the article and sandbox appropriately in sync would be a slight hassle, but a bot could help, throwing away unreviewed sandbox edits, but creating a log of diffs. Or limit it to high-profile articles where it's more important to give readers a sense of what's possible. Rd232talk08:23, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
And you honestly believe that we have enough admins who would actually want to patrol this monstrous list and individually evaluate every edit? An interesting idea, but too complicated and bulky to be practical. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:40, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Er, we're talking about semiprotected. Thus any autoconfirmed user could do the reviewing. We already have {{editsemiprotected}}; this is making it easier to get IPs editing when their article of interest is semid. Rd232talk23:15, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Because enabling potential new editors to actually edit, even in a sandbox, is a plus. It may not be a plus worth the costs, but there it is. The costs are easier to see, but they may be reducible or acceptable. PS Wikipedians often seem to employ the opposite of the basic brainstorming rule ("there is no such thing as a bad idea"): there is no such thing as a good idea! This approach is extremely bad for creativity; talking about ideas not likely to be implemented can lead to all sorts of ideas which might be. Rd232talk01:07, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
True, on a personal level I am happy to do so. I guess I am just thinking of streamlining as many processes as possible in the bigger scheme of things. Casliber (talk·contribs) 01:09, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Need for better monitoring tools
Watchlists and recent changes have become quasi-useless for sitewide monitoring of articles with the high volume of editing, and don't allow for any kind of coordination. Various technical and development requests have been made to improve our ability to cope with the number of articles and volume of editing, but little has come, for example not much has been done on common watchlists or wp:patrolled revisions. Thus we're left with the daunting choice of protecting more or not being able to properly monitor our vast number of articles, although some individual initiatives have been of great help for the latter. The Wikimedia foundation should invest more in technical development with views on improving the situation for our BLPs. Cenarium (talk) 00:57, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
There's wisdom in this. How technically difficult would this be to implement? Is it just a lack of resources, or are we asking for the impossible? TheGrappler (talk) 12:20, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
As a programmer but not a mediawiki developer (I've perused the mw code a bit) I think it is doable and there has been some developer interest in it in the past. It's mostly a matter of priorities. There are a fair number of open bugzilla items related to patrolled revisions [4] and it also seems to me that the workflow could be handled by a toolserver application, without having to mess with mediawiki internals. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 06:31, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Tools such as Huggle already exist, and they can be used to patrol BLP pages without a problem at all. The main issue here is available manpower, not tool efficiency. A couple of editors is sufficient to check the 12.000 or so edits we receive every hour, but since we are all volunteers vandalism patrol isn't fully manned most of the time. The only real improvement i can think of (Tools based that is), is dividing the workload more efficiently between editors. If we have 100 edits with 10 being vandalism, each patrol will check at LEAST 90 edits (Only vandalism edits are not double checked). I presume that such workload diversification (With some redundancy to prevent vandalism falling trough the first check) is sufficient to keep up with the current workload and number of patrols. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)16:20, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
What I mean by a toolserver app for handling workflow, is a centralized program that monitors all edits as they come in, queues them up, and parcels them out to reviewers (two reviews for each edit sounds fine). When reviewing isn't keeping up with editing, the program could triage the edits, prioritizing controversial BLP's, backing off to 1 review per edit for some kinds of articles, and advising reviewers which articles are getting frequently vandal-reverted, so the reviewers can consider protecting the articles if they're not keeping up. I guess it would do sort of the same things that call center software does, with edits and reviewers instead of phone calls and answerers. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 02:54, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Semi-protection based on a number
Can we collectively agree on a number of times IP vandalism must occur before semi-protection is warranted? There's been a lot of recent IP activity by what appears to be a fake IP user claiming semi-protection has been overused on articles such as Beryllium. Since Beryllium has been unprotected, the article has been vandalized by IPs 14 times; multiply that by the number of elements on users' watchlists, and users watching element articles are having to revert IP junk multiple times every day. A fixed number ("this number of IP vandalism is acceptable; this number is not") or a proportion ("90% of IP edits to this article are total junk; let's semi-protect for a while") would be helpful. Firsfron of Ronchester01:34, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure that's possible. Articles of interest to schools are going to get vandalised more; this is accepted to some extent as part of the price of learning; hopefully eventually a few of these guys go on to be Wikipedians. What would be helpful is being able to strip vandalism and its reversion from history lists and watchlists. I'm not quite sure immediately how that could work (maybe rollback/Twinkle use applies a new RVV flag, which history/watchlists can be set to ignore along with the reverted edit?) but something could be done along those lines. Rd232talk01:42, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
The problem with that is that then it would be completely impossible to audit whether a protection was sensible to apply or not, and that would be bad for challengers and the admins as they would have deleted the evidence they need to back up their decision. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:32, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I wasn't talking about protection, and though I used the word "strip", the rest of what I set indicates I was talking about allowing editors to choose to hide things. Rd232talk10:50, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
That depends on the type of articles, the severity of vandalism and such. And I'm sure the number would vary greatly between editors, with no hope of consensus, anyway it would be considered WP:CREEP. Cenarium (talk) 01:59, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
You want numbers? Why don't you go to WP:RFP and ask someone to indefinitely semi-protect that article because there have been (gasp!) 14 disruptive edits in the last 3 months. Let us know how many *days* it gets semi-protected for. My bet is zero. 114.167.133.168 (talk) 09:15, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm uncomfortable doing this on number as I think sneakiness, risk of harm, level of watching and ratio of good to bad IP edits should all be taken into account. A heavily watched highprofile page with 14 quickly reverted IP vandalisms and a much larger number of good IP edits in the same time is less needing of semi protection than a BLP or other high risk page where a half a dozen sneaky IP vandalisms are almost the only edits in a year. ϢereSpielChequers09:25, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I agree that all four items you've listed above should probably be taken into account; of course 'level of watching' isn't something an IP editor can monitor, resulting in the same disputes I'd like to avoid by having a firm number in place. As long as there isn't a firm number in the policy, any nutty user can log out, pretend to be an IP interested in editing an article, claim admin abuse, and demand unprotection of an article he has no interest in editing anyway. Firsfron of Ronchester10:37, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm inclined to assume that for many pages one can work out the level of watching, all you have to do is assume that vandalism that gets reverted in a few minutes was picked up by newpage patrollers, vandalism reverted by IP editors is probably because someone read it and vandalism that sits for hours or more before reversion by a logged in editor is probably picked up by watchlisting. For example there is one particular vandal target where I and an editor in Japan revert most of the vandalism that gets past the hugglers, and vandalism rarely lasts 24 hours. Beaver by contrast is clearly on lots of people's watchlists, as vandalism rarely lasts an hour with lots of different editors reverting it. I've semiprotected a number of BLPs where I've found and reverted old IP vandalism that had sat unreverted for weeks if not months, I tend to assume such pages are not watchlisted by any active editors. ϢereSpielChequers11:38, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
"Working out" the number of users watching a particular page can be done to some extent, but it will not prevent nutty editors from logging out, pretending to be an IP editor interested in editing an article, claiming admin abuse, and demanding unprotection of an article they have no interest in editing anyway. That's why I'd prefer having a set number in the policy. Firsfron of Ronchester12:54, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Page protection is very much done on a case-by-case basis with no set bright line criteria. That is very much as it should be. I strongly oppose codifying the protection policy n this manner. If you don't have the judgement needed to evaluate requests on an individual basis, then don't deal with page protection. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:40, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
As I said earlier what about requiring a certain number of protections before indefinite protection is required? That would solve a lot of the problems bought up with the current protection process. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:44, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I think this is a better solution than "well, it's all done on a case-by-case basis"-type policy. That sort of policy only leads to "this is excessive"/"no it's not"-type arguments. Firsfron of Ronchester19:36, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Normally an article wouldn't be indef protected unless a previous series of protections had failed to correct the problem, but there are occasional exceptions. That is why we have admins in the first place, to make such decisions. Our hands shouldn't be tied by some rigid one-size-fits-all policy. What if we did that with user blocks? Let's say the third time you get blocked you get indefinitely hardblocked with no talk page access. While this would certainly reduce the level of blocking related drama, it would hardly be fair or sensible. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:31, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I wasn't thinking of a totally hard-and-fast rule, just a minimum number of temporary protection attempts before indefinite semi-protection should be applied. Something along the lines of "pages must have had temporary protection applied at least 4-5 times over at least 6 months before indefinite protection is applied." I'm only suggesting it as some admins go for indefinite semi-protection on the first attempt, and if vandalism has been significant that time its virtually impossible to challenge it. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:36, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I fail to see how that is not a hard and fast rule. It's also not needed as in the vast majority of cases articles are protected for months or even a year, and only if that fails to stop the vandalism is indef protection used. If you have a problem with the way a particular admin is interpreting the policy, I suggest you take it up with them instead of trying to change the rules to stop them. Just FYI, here is the policy as currently worded:
Administrators may apply indefinite semi-protection to pages which are subject to heavy and persistent vandalism or violations of content policy (such as biographies of living persons, neutral point of view). Semi-protection should not be used as a pre-emptive measure against vandalism that has not yet occurred, nor should it be used solely to prevent editing by anonymous and newly registered users.
It isn't a totally hard and fast rule as you can apply 10 temporary semi-protections before going indefinite if you wish - it just protects against people jumping straight on it. After counting every 500 articles in the protection log of the approximately 6000 articles in the main namespace currently protected approximately 4500 (or 75% of them) are indefinitely protected. Given only a tiny percentage of pages in the main namespace bought up on WP:RFPP are indefinitely protected (even including time I'm sure its significantly less than 75%) there clearly is an issue with admins being over-zealous with their indefinite protections. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:09, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
However, I agree with Beeblebrox. Throwing an indicative number/range in the guidelines would lead to people rigging the system by serially applying (inappropriate) termed protections, just so that they can finally apply an (also inappropriate) indefinite protection, leaving them with a much stronger case when challenged.
Also, as discussed, protection decisions cannot be taken on the basis of only one element, but they must take into account several dimensions. In short, we need to exercise common sense.
The current policy and guidelines are enough to have most outrageous cases of inappropriate protection reviewed by peers and ultimately reverted. 114.148.238.95 (talk) 21:52, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Beeblebrox, it is the "heavy and persistent vandalism" portion of the policy which should be adjusted to a measurable amount. As long as the policy is vague, it will lead to (and has led to) the arguments that are popping up here. Firsfron of Ronchester04:34, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Beeblebrox, Cenarium and ϢereSpielChequers that we should not quantify a policy which is designed to be descriptive, not prescriptive. I think we've pretty much run out of ways of saying this.
One way of preventing individual admins (or admin cartels) from developing their own distorted measure for what is "heavy and persistent vandalism" is to stop unilateral protections, especially when admins are involved, and especially if they are involved in what is actually closer to content dispute than vandalism. In other words, I think we should force a collegial decision/peer review for protections with long expiries - and most definitely for all indefinite semi-protections.
The alternative is the current situation, whereby as we can see, admins who have been protecting inappropriately for some time find it hard to come to terms with the fact that they erred, and instead of questioning their past conduct they try to change the current policy to retrospectively justify it. 205.228.108.57 (talk) 06:10, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Again, if you have a problem with a specific admin, which you clearly do, take it up with them or go to WP:ANI or seek some other form of dispute resolution. Changing the policy to stop one person from doing something would be a rather large overreaction. Beeblebrox (talk) 06:52, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
I think this rather applies to Firsfron's and Casliber's recent attempts of changing the policy, but you are entitled to your opinion.
The big difference in my proposal is that I have presented hard evidence, involving definitely more than just one admin, where the current process could be improved. Until then, as you say, we will just keep challenging these people through the regular User talk -> WP:RFP -> WP:ANI red tape.
Apply {{NOINDEX}} to all BLP's, to get them out of search engines. The server software (last time I checked) doesn't allow using that template in article space, so that restriction would have to be lifted, or some other implementation offered that created similar functionality, but that's fairly minor.
This would decrease the exposure of BLP articles and hopefully cut down on drama (ZOMG, we're the top g00gle hit for everybody!!) and also demotivate a lot of COI editing, battleground editing, and self-promotion. I think this could take off some of the pressure leading people to call for semi-protection of everything.
The obvious objections are so unconvincing to me that I can't even manage to put them into words. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not an SEO platform. Being a search magnet is doing us more harm than good.
At minimum, all currently unsourced BLP's (a topic of further drama elsewhere) should be noindexed immediately, while they are awaiting sourcing or deletion. That should be a reasonable compromise between the "hawks" and the retentionists.
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
RfC: Change in the protection policy for schools
Latest comment: 14 years ago39 comments19 people in discussion
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
It has been suggested on the administrators noticeboard (the archived discussion in question) that the protection policy should be changed to allow additional protection to articles on schools, therefore from that I propose that the following wording should be added to the protection policy:
Proposal A
Schools without several notable alumni should be given long term or indefinite protection if they suffer from enough vandalism to generally justify some protection on WP:RFPP.
Proposal B
As this is a bold change to the policy I'm also suggesting the following slightly weaker proposal:
Schools without several notable alumni should be given long term or indefinite protection if they suffer from enough vandalism to generally justify some protection on WP:RFPP for a second time within a reasonable time period of the first protection.
Reasoning for the proposal
The basic reasoning for the proposal is that schools articles are likely to be vandalised by the students attending them and also attending neighbouring schools. However in contrast most schools that don't have several notable alumni aren't particularly interesting so the vandalism isn't likely to be removed in good time.
How the current policy fails, including examples
[placeholder]
Supporting statements
Please make it clear whether you support both of the both proposals or only one.
The current policy covers, as it should, any articles subject to vandalism. The number of notable alumni has nothing to do with it. -- zzuuzz(talk)13:37, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
It is my experience at AIV that most blatant school article vandalism is caught, and that persistent vandalism from a school ip is quickly translated into year long blocks (which deprecates the vandalism to competitor school articles also). My view is that subtle vandalism is often missed, since there are few editors who are familiar enough with the subject to perceive it, and the likely only potential for correction comes from the ip editors from the school. The proposed policy of protecting the subject article from ip editors may thus have the opposite effect, or at least not improve the existing problem. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:56, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
I find myself in total agreement with both of the preceding statements, we don't need topic-specific protection policies outside of generally being more cautious with BLP articles. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:06, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't see sufficient justification to have a separate protection policy for schools. We unfortunately seem to have a separate notability "policy" for schools but that's a different gripe of mine. --Mkativerata (talk) 21:08, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Good to see that some admins will support any policy change that will increment the number of semi-protections. What next, semi-protect all articles with a word count divisible by 11? 123.225.162.156 (talk) 21:48, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Agree with all above. The schools do get subtle unchecked vandalism, but I don't think this is the best way to fix that. –xenotalk00:28, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
Fix the broken de-facto notability guidelines for schools where all of them are "inherently notable", and this is less of a problem. Gigs (talk) 14:12, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't think this is necessary. Also, while vandalism from schools is doubtless an issue, schools are also an entry point for new editors to wikipedia and the cost associated with losing even a few possibly productive editors outweighs the nebulous benefits of semiprotection. --RegentsPark (talk) 14:59, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose general lockdown proposals. Not needed. Besides, it is not clear whether the proposal refers to semi- or full protection. --Apoc2400 (talk) 09:17, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose for now, looks like a WP:CREEP. I am less opposed to B, but I would rather see school articles at WP:RFPP. Protection should be primarily against vandalism, and not abitrary. Many school articles without many notable alumni are often stubs anyways.
Neutral statements
I'm going to stay neutral on this for now, I'm interested to see how the discussion progresses and what arguments are made that are persuasive to me. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 13:34, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Replies to Zzuuzz's comments in opposing statements
The point is that the current policy requires "heavy and persistent vandalism or violations of content policy" for indefinite protection to be applied - both of these proposals require less vandalism than that. The reason for requiring several notable alumni is because that means the article is more likely to be better known and so more likely to be edited by a wider body of users. For example Eton College is more likely to have good content contributed by users and is less likely to have vandalism staying for a long time than Bethany College (Sydney) - which has recently had vandalism staying for several days (though as it only happened once it probably doesn't justify indefinite protection under this proposal). -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 13:53, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
The semi protection policy for a long time used to include a phrase like "articles which aren't widely watchlisted", applied especially to BLPs. I don't remember when it was removed, but I do know admins take it into account, under current policy, when assessing an article for protection. Admins are much more likely to know this just by looking at the history than by applying a rule derived from the count of notable alumni. This is pure instruction creep where no failing in the current policy has been demonstrated. -- zzuuzz(talk)14:09, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
The wording "articles which aren't widely watchlisted" only used to apply to BLP's (source) and the last mention of it was removed in January 2008 (source), it cannot reasonably be expected to still apply as its been gone from the policy for a number of years. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 14:38, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
There's a whole range of unwritten criteria used by admins when assessing a protection. It includes the nature, persistence, longevity, and risks of further malicious edits. Admins used their judgment to determine the risks instead of following a series of rules we couldn't possibly list in this policy. -- zzuuzz(talk)14:55, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
The problem is is that if that is done too much then you get abuses of the protection system :(, which is one of the reasons I've bought this up rather than just letting it unofficially become "policy" after a discussion on WP:AN and some non-RFC comments made by me on this page. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 15:09, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
This proposal would not prevent any abuses either in the thread you mention or elsewhere, nor is it made clear how the current policy has failed. That's what makes this proposal instruction creep. -- zzuuzz(talk)15:58, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
I simply don't understand these persistent attempts to codify or modify the protection policy in increasingly obscure ways. We're all still waiting for some clear, specific evidence that there is even a problem. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:10, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Without creating a stricter rules structure how can anyone possibly stop admins from abusing the current policy with dodgy protections (such as the 9 on WP:AN for YellowMonkey )?
The current process for challenging semi-protections is only realistically attemptable by users who really know the site well - and they aren't affected by it. And there only the most outrageous abuses succeed in being successfully challenged - and the reason for that is because an admin has to disagree publicly with another admin. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:34, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
So, as I've been saying all along, your problem is with YellowMonkey, not really with protection policy as a whole. I don't know where the myth comes from that admins won't disagree with one another, it happens all the time at ANI and elsewhere, including right here in this very conversation. Demonstrate that there is a widespread problem and we'll discuss a solution. Anything short of that does not merit changing the policy. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:42, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
There is an actual issue with the policy, which is that unprotection is too confrontational - as it involves directly confronting senior users which makes it difficult for people to challenge. Maybe there is a better solution to that than having a clearer set of criteria to judge pages on, but I personally can't think of one :o. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 23:20, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Last time you were talking to me actually. Anyway, I would argue that with one active indefinite semi-protection out of 8 attributable to YellowMonkey (and counting) this is already widespread enough and has to stop.
And why the hell not, you've got basically zero chance of any serious consequence or even unprotections so admins may as well indefinitely semi-protect pages as they like if it makes their life easier. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:55, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
If you are saying that there is no accountability for admins that use their protecting/blocking rights too liberally (i.e. abuse them) then I definitely agree. That's why I think we should stop unilateral long-term semi-protections.
More generally, I think there is a disproportionate imbalance between the ease with witch admins can protect inappropriately (i.e. click) and the red tape and hostility one faces when asking to unprotect an article. (And the real test is to do it as an IP.) 122.26.12.244 (talk) 21:56, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
Hang on, let's just think about this for a moment - can we please attribute Yellowmonkey with a modicum of clue? Realistically, who is likely to have a better familiarity with article erosion etc. Her statement above concerning schools and subcontinent pages shows a high degree of cluefulness, and on the basis of a passing IP we are supposed to toss all that out? Ultimately the aim is to create and preserve an encyclopedia, and article erosion is a problem which requires a degree of maintenance, the level of which I wonder how long it is possible to sustain. I have tried to be receptive to unprotecting articles and have seen others do so as well. So can we please stop with the indignance? cheers, Casliber (talk·contribs) 23:32, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
If YM is so clued up about how to apply semi-protections in the best interests of Wikipedia, then our protection policy must be very inadequate, because he seems to be routinely overruling it.
I think your talk page is a good measure of how successful your attempts at being receptive have been recently, and the very post I'm replying to speaks for itself about your prejudice against unregistered editors, so I shall comment no further. 114.167.134.94 (talk) 13:28, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
Casliber, apologies for the slow reply - I needed to take a step back on this one - but lets be fair, YellowMonkey hasn't just bent the rules a little here. All of the protections of his I bought up really had very little vandalism on them before, and unlike say your protection of Biological Warfare (which before I sourced it probably could have been described as a "strongly bending the rules case" as there is at least a significant risk of libel there) there isn't really much grey in those protections. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:58, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
To an extent, but with Biological Weapons to avoid protection you'd have had to remove the whole section on people involved from the article and stick it on the talk page instead, which also isn't ideal. The only other option was to source all the points, which wasn't too bad as it turned out, but it could easily have been far trickier and taken quite a bit of time.
Personally in that case I would have removed content from the article and stuck it on the talk page instead but that isn't a perfect solution either.
Additionally it is quite a serious allegation to accuse someone of making Biological weapons if it isn't true so there aren't many other articles in a similar category for which a slippery slope applies. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 12:09, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
We agree that WP:BLP says unequivocally that any libellous unsourced claim in any page should be removed. As you suggest, instead of losing the unsourced material one could move it in talk space and issue an ultimatum to source it or lose it (although the policy encourages discussing off-wiki instead).
However, you say "to avoid protection". Where did you get this from Eraserhead1, from Casliber maybe? You should know by now that he doesn't have a clue about policy and he is unwilling to admit or learn from his mistakes. If there are unsourced claims about living people in an article, please explain what good it does to protect it (indefinitely) without removing the material.
Speaking of slippery slopes, this is precisely what happened to Perjury, of which Casliber finally graciously conceded unprotection with his usual condescending and clueless comments. No thanks to you, Casliber. Unsurprisingly, your protection was not justified in the first place by either WP:BLP or by WP:PP, because if anything, it was counter-productive: far fewer editors were able to source or remove the libellous material - which you did not do. If you had an ounce of humility and self-respect you would unprotect all other articles (I have one in mind in particular) that were unjustifiably (indefinitely) protected against policy and against your spectacularly backfiring RFC above. Now, that's something that would "stop the indignation"; you have to respect the community if you want to win some respect back. 118.7.202.167 (talk) 00:36, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Talk: Muhammad
Latest comment: 14 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion
I am a Muslim. And I really look forward to remove all the pictures of Prophet Muhammad in this site, especially those with negative images of him. For your information, we are very sensitive on our religious issues, and as we all know, Islam had been misunderstood and discriminated in every way possible recently. Therefore, I am asking politely that the pictures can be removed as soon as possible.85.143.2.100 (talk) 14:52, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
You misrepresent the issue. Not all Muslims agree on this, and in fact many, if not most, of these images were created by devout Muslims who simply disagree with the Sunni about this issue. In any event, Eraserhead is quite right that Wikipedia is not censored, and this is not actually related to page protection anyway, so it does not really belong on this page at all. I would warn you that simply removing the images yourself is only going to cause you problems, and probably get you blocked. You are welcome to pursue normal channels of dispute resolution, but I'm fairly certain that's been done before and ended in a decision to keep the images. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:47, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
FWIW I've added a hatnote to the main Muhammad article linking to that FAQ entry directly as it looks to be a bit tricky to find. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:51, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Latest comment: 14 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I'd like to praise the judgement of the admins who semi-protected Everybody Draw Mohammed Day only for two weeks + (currently) 1 week. I am of the opinion that indefinite semi-protections are hardly ever necessary, and so I applaud them for not falling into that trap, despite the subject matter being very controversial and in the spotlight of the media. 114.149.16.11 (talk) 09:12, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
why full protecting the delete page
Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hi, I am wondering who can answer this question for me. I have checked the list of full protection articles and found some of them are delete pages. May I ask why Wikipedia full protecting some delete page. For instance, [[5]]. Thanks.
In some cases, editors have repeatedly recreated an article that was deleted for various reasons to the point of disrupting the project. In those cases, we can protect a deleted or non-existent page title. This process is commonly referred to internally as salting. Resolute18:23, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Creation discouragement for non-autoconfirmed in new version of WP
Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hi there, I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask about this, please suggest any alternative fora.
I noticed that with the new front-end, if one is not signed in, the search results no longer offer to create the article. I think this is very discouraging and even confusing. I believe that it's long been policy that unregistered users cannot create new articles. I am not disputing that, but if that is the case, I think we should make it clear to the searching user that they can create the article if they register an account (after they become confirmed perhaps? I forget). It could even be a recruitment ground, if you hold a "recruitionist" view. What do you think? 123.222.215.125 (talk) 01:19, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
In light of rollout of the changes tool in 3 days now (June 14), I'm updating WP:RFPP and WP:PP to note some basics that will be needed by then. Otherwise it'll probably be a horrible mess of chaos on the day.
Usage and requests have no good (non-BURO) reason to be in a different place from semi-protection. The reviewing aspect is different but the scope, usage and requests (ie WP:RFPP aspects) are likely to be nearly identical to semi-protection and can usefully go on the same page. Keeps it simple to have all forms of page protection and their requests in one place, and describe it as "pending changes protection" (which is intuitive and fits existing wordings), even if they are in fact 2 tools.
Header edits to date for PP:[6]. This adds mention of "pending changes protection" to page protection policy, which is a natural place to include it from a policy/usage viewpoint (see above). The edit adds a nutshell on the trial, a mention in the list of protection types, and a section giving core details of a sensible sort of initial policy given its target use.
Treating it as "another form of protection" means we don't need to copypaste 2/3 of all PP and RFPP pages, guides and processes, we can just update those pages to include mention and coverage of this new method, and it's a lot less change and disruption, and much more likely to fit into "what people already know". FT2(Talk | email)13:06, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
The grand lines of the policy as approved in the proposal is that usage of PCP level 1 is subject to the same policy as the usage of semi-protection, and usage of PCP level 2 is subject to the same policy as full-protection. I think that it would not be beneficial to use PCP on articles subject to high levels of vandalism like Barack Obama, it would add loads of vandalism edits, so we should keep using semi-protection on those. I'm also not sure that this could work well on heavily edited articles, because the review process may be too slow to review edits, although we can try. Cenarium (talk) 19:26, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
I said this on AN, and I have added some text to the policy that I think is extremely important. We need to make very clear that using this feature to enforce a POV or enforce a content decision is considered a serious breach of the administrative privileges and will not be tolerated. This point cannot be overemphasized. --B (talk) 02:47, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
In principle, I like that, but there is a vocal group of Wikipedians who don't like pending changes at all and who would be able to simply prevent it from ever being used. --B (talk) 12:35, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
I started a discussion to reconsider using level 2 protection here. I've asked RobLa and it wouldn't delay the implementation, but we don't have much time before the trial begins, so a consensus would need to form quickly. Cenarium (talk) 16:57, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
