Wikipedia talk:Protection policy/Archive 5

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Edit dispute on relation of WP protection policy and WP vandalism

The following link and explanation was added to the "See also" section of Wikipedia: Protection policy:

• What we know about wikipedia vandalism so far (rate & sources of WP:VANDALism)

The Edit summary history of that addition and the revert that followed is given below:

17:30, 30 May 2007 Thomasmeeks (→See also -link for rate & sources of WP:VANDALism) (relevant for most common WP Requests for page protection))

22:54, 30 May 2007 Steel359 (→See also - rm unrelated)

The stated reason for removal is that the added link is "unrelated." But the link is related as indicated by for example that Wikipedia:Protection policy has "Wikipedia vandalism" as a category. Why is it a category for that page? Because the most common reason for requesting semi-protection at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection is WP:VANDALism. The removed "See also" link documents the rate & sources of WP:VANDALism. In docuumenting the rate of vandalism, the link provides a benchmark that can be compared with an article in question as to whether vandalism is relatively hight or low there. That benchmark rate can be considered at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. That added link also finds that for the pages studied, 97 percent of WP:VANDALism is by unregistered users. Semiprotect would block such vandalism. Therefore, the reason given above for removing the link is unwarranted. --Thomasmeeks 00:56, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Must you make a big deal out of every single little thing? – Steel 01:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe that your reply is responsive to the request I left on your Talk page for a response (01:03, 31 May 2007, since deleted by you, possibly b/c you believe your response is satisfactory). I believe that your revert & the reason you gave for it are not supportable. --Thomasmeeks 02:30, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Sigh. I really wish you wouldn't try to mind-read me. Anyway, one question: where did you get "deleted" from, exactly? [1] – Steel 10:48, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd have no problen with "removed" instead of "deleted," if that is your point. --Thomasmeeks 11:37, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

"Moved to bottom where new messages go" would be more accurate. – Steel 11:40, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Correction noted. Sorry. --Thomasmeeks 12:45, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion, the link to vandalism studies goes. There's no point in it bring there. To me, this looks more like a case of making a point after telling you time and time again that we don't want ratios and instruction creep stuff. You keep trying and it's not working, so you go and create a dispute with a link. -Royalguard11(Talk·Review Me!) 21:01, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

To clarify my opinion if it wasn't obvious: I think the link is tangentially relevant at best. That said, I'm not going to WP:LAME over it. – Steel 00:08, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any harm at all in linking users to information on what the 'average' level of vandalism is - I think it should be footnoted or something like that. Since we're talking about a relative thing here, having some neutral standard for 'heavy' vandalism is quite helpful. Richard001 10:48, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I think Richard001's compromise works well with the rest of the page. -Royalguard11(Talk·Review Me!) 22:20, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Anon edits despite indef. semi-protection

Patel is continuing to get IP edits despite getting indefinite semi-protection. What gives? --Adamrush 18:28, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

We don't do indef semi protections. Look at the protection log. Ther article was protected for a finite time, which expired yesterday. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 18:31, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Minor change for the pp-templates

Could an administrator add a <br> tag to all the pp-templates between where the bolded words transition into unbolded words. This helps make the main message (article is protected) stand out. Examples:

• Without tag

This high-risk template has been protected from editing to prevent vandalism. (protection log). {{howtoedit}}

• with tag

This high-risk template has been protected from editing to prevent vandalism. (protection log). {{howtoedit}}

---

• without tag

Editing of this page by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled to prevent sock puppets of currently blocked or banned users from editing it. {{howtoeditsemi}}

• with tag

Editing of this page by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled to prevent sock puppets of currently blocked or banned users from editing it. {{howtoeditsemi}}

Thanks -- _Hdt83 ^Chat 06:56, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah. I thought it looked more like a <p> instead of a <br>. As it is now, I support this change. :) WODUP 07:00, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Number of days users have to be registered

Has there ever been much discussion of this? Currently we only have one version of protection. I think 4 days is more than enough to wait, so we hardly need one higher than this - for that something like number of edits and approval from an administrator would be better to separate the helpers from the harmful. But is this level optimum? Would it be any less effective if it was only 3 days, or even 1 day? Could we trial different lengths, gather data on the effects and discuss? Would it be beneficial to have a 'light' version of protection that allows the user to edit within a matter of hours, perhaps even less than an hour? This could be useful for when semi-protection has to be used on FAs - it would give people are chance to edit it if they just waited a while, say in the case the article was protected until the end of the day due to masses of vandals. I doubt most vandals would be bothered waiting around an hour or two just to vandalize and quickly get blocked - it kind of takes the fun out of it. Remember I'm asking two questions here: Is the length of time optimal, and should there be more than one semi-protection level. Thoughts? Richard001 03:06, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

It seems like an awful lot of discussion and hassle for a non-existant problem. – Steel 10:57, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I can't say I'm keen either. More than one level seems overly complex. DrKiernan 11:10, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm with the above two. -Royalguard11(Talk·Review Me!) 22:11, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Semi-semi-protection

(Paste from Wikipedia talk:Main Page featured article protection.)

I wonder if we might have the devs create protection against anon IPs but still allow immediately created accounts to edit. Accounts can be tracked, warned, and blocked much more easily. This would still allow new good-faith users to edit, while reducing vandalism somewhat. Marskell 09:28, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I brought the issue up on Wikipedia talk:Protection policy, but it doesn't seem people are very enthused about complicating the process. Can account blocks still block the IP from which they came as well for a brief period? If not people could just create an account, vandalize, get blocked, create an account, vandalize... I'm not clear on that issue so I'm unsure whether it would, or could work. Richard001 09:38, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

The thirty seconds it takes to create an account will reduce vandalism almost certainly. The most common vandals, hit-and-run friends of gays, are never actually persistent. They'll come, post something twice or thrice, and leave after being reverted. A good faith new editor will be more willing to take the thirty seconds to create an account. Marskell 09:44, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Was that what you suggested Richard? If it was, then I misunderstood and would not have dismissed it. DrKiernan 09:47, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes - the 'soft protection' could apply only to IPs or have a brief waiting period - the one Marskell proposed above is one with waiting time = 0. Even if blocks don't track IPs from which the account came, it might be worth at least trialling - I feel we hardly ever do any experiments around here to gather useful information. But surely it would be possible, perhaps as an option, for admins to add a 'block IP as well' for say a few hours to a day along with the account. It's very easy to create an account, but it would be very interesting to see just how much of an effect it would have - despite only taking a few clicks it is quite a big mental barrier. Richard001 09:58, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

for admins to add a 'block IP as well' for say a few hours to a day along with the account.
This is in fact in place already. – Steel 20:00, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

The whole point would be you wouldn't have to block the IP as well because the IP alone couldn't edit. And yes, it's the mental barrier I'm thinking of. People who show up to replace pages with I HAVE A BIG PENIS have an attention span of about two seconds. A good percentage of them won't even bother if they have to undertake those few clicks. Marskell 11:40, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

This is a double-edged sword. While it would reduce vandalism it would make tracking and blocking any persistent vandalism that does occur more difficult. – Steel 20:00, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Why wouldn't you need to block the IP as well Marskell? Sure, the IP itself wouldn't be able to edit, but if the IP is not blocked along with the account, the account blocked can just create a new one over and over, and if they are determined, which a few vandals are, it only takes them a few seconds to create a new screen name and get back to vandalizing.

Why would tracking and blocking the vandalism be more difficult? You do know what IP the account holder has right? If you have this information I'm not sure why it would be any more difficult. If the IP is blocked, the vandal is gone unless they have a dynamic IP or tools to get around IP blocking. If they do, they're going to be a problem anyway. Richard001 00:45, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

We do not have their IP information, that's the point. Only checkusers can access the IP(s) of accounts. – Steel 11:18, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

• Well, not unless you configure MediaWiki's LocalSettings.php so that all admins have checkuser access (which is possible, I tried it on a test copy of MediaWiki). --SunStar Net ^talk 12:25, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

• Can't work now because (and I quote) As of 11 April 2007, Checkusers must be 18 years of age, of legal age in their place of residence, and willing to provide identification to the Wikimedia Foundation in order to qualify. Not all admins are 18, and it would be a nightmare for the WMF. We've had a rogue admin lately, could you imagine a rogue checkuser? PR nightmare. -Royalguard11(Talk·Review Me!) 03:34, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Improving Semi-Protection policy.

I've been seeing a problem with "semi-protected" pages especially in relation to the Brock Lesnar page. That page is on an "indefinite full protection" purportedly due to a single vandal making sockpuppet accounts (Though there's no evidence this has occurred in over a month). Supposedly this person makes "sleeper accounts" and waits for a few days to be able to edit semi-protected articles and then vandalizes them. I wanted to know if it would be possible to change the policy to make it so editors can't edit semi-protected pages unless they have both waited 5 days as well as have made at least a dozen good non-vandalism edits. This would erase the possibility of making "sleeper accounts" because most vandals would not go through the trouble of making 12 good edits simply to make one vandalism edit which will instantly get reverted and get them banned as a sockpuppet. I believe this would drastically decrease the amount of vandalism to semi-protected pages on Wikipedia and prevent pages such as Brock Lesnar from being indefinitely protected due to fear of a single vandal. What does everyone else think?Wikidudeman ^(talk) 11:43, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I would support improving semi-protection, because all the vandals listed in long term abuse have severly vandalized one or a group of articles which mostly results in full-protection and asking on a near constant basis to request changes in a full protected article is such a hassle and minor fustration. In theory, this upgrade will drastically reduce sleeper accounts wating to bypass semi-protect.--PrestonH 14:28, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

We're currently being held hostage by vandals with "sleeper" sockpuppets who are able to vandalize pages after waiting the amount of time needed to edit semi-protected pages. We need to make it so in order to edit semi-protected pages you need at least 12 edits and must be a registered user for at least 5 days.Wikidudeman ^(talk) 14:40, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I am far from an expert in this area but I heard a while ago that any 'per number of edits' system of semi-protection would require every editor's edits to be counted on every pageload which would murder the servers. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I'll try and find someone who knows. – Steel 20:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I remember a thread on the mailing list about the devs thinking of adding an edit count to the autoconfirmed status (probably back in Feb). I'll take a look for that. -Royalguard11(Talk·Review Me!) 22:09, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Here's the post to the mailing list from User:Mets501 [2]. I don't think anything did ever come of it though. I'm sure it's implementation would involve filing a bug report (I was in favour back then of User:xaosflux proposal of 4 days/25 edits). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Royalguard11 (talk • contribs) 22:18, 14 June 2007

Ah, ok. Not sure what I was thinking of. 10-25 edits seems reasonable. – Steel 11:15, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we could get some sort of discussion going on adding a 10-20 editcount confirmation(in addition to the week of waiting) before editors can edit semi-protected pages. Maybe some sort of discussion and strawvote to get get this problem remedied.Wikidudeman ^(talk) 01:23, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I left a message for Mets and he said that he doesn't remember anything happening because of the discussion on the mailing list. The best option would be to bring it up on a high traffic page (WP:VPP, WP:AN for starters), maybe creating a proposal page too (Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed Level maybe). I would be all for at least 10 edits before autoconfirmed (that would help so much on Quebec and that idiot vandal too). -Royalguard11(Talk·Review Me!) 05:05, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Sounds interesting - it would at least give us a chance to catch vandals before they hit protected articles. I don't know that any more than 4 days is needed though - if adding edits as well is required 4 days should be more than enough (in fact it might be better to have the criteria '4 days or ~20 edits') Even though some vandals would probably go to the trouble of faking it, I'm sure having to make ten non-vandal edits would infuriate them. They may just make trivial edits though like adding adding a space or line. Still, it would make extra work for them. Richard001 08:18, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

It should be both a waiting period of a few days as well as an edit minimum prior to being able to edit semi-protected pages. If they had a choice they would choose to build sleeper sock puppets, making several at a time just to wait out the time period and then vandalize pages. There needs to be both a waiting period as well as an edit minimum prior to being able to edit semi-protected pages.Wikidudeman ^(talk) 11:08, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we could also create a window for people who do want to edit immediately - something that would take enough time that a vandal wouldn't both with, but allow good faith new editors the chance to skip the waiting period. For example asking they make ten good edits to articles and getting an admin to check, or taking a quick test to see they understand the basic policies like NPOV, Citing sources etc. Richard001 11:30, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't believe that's necessary. Such a thing would take too much time away from administrators and would be too complex to enact. I don't see any reason why new editors need to edit semi-protected articles in the first place and if they do, they should wait the amount of time needed and get the minimum amount of edits needed.Wikidudeman ^(talk) 11:40, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I also believe that isn't necessary. If they are really serious about editing a certain article then they will know it will be there in 4 days. The 4 days and at least 10 edits is necessary because that will eliminate more casual vandals (replace the page with words, removing things ect) quicker. It also gets rid of our long term vandals. This could also have an effect on policy (semiprotection against banned user preferable). I think both is the best way to protect Wikipedia from vandals across the spectrum (besides, wouldn't you be a little suspicious if a new user signs up to check spelling or deal with whitespace? Most newbies want to write vs do maintenance). -Royalguard11(Talk·Review Me!) 19:20, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

GO to WP:VPP and voice your support for it. Just search for my name and you'll see the area I posted it.Wikidudeman ^(talk) 20:33, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I've created Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed Proposal as a draft proposal for this new level. I'm just going to double check with User:Simetrical to make sure that this is possible (he was the source of the information) before I post to AN about this (it's the highest traffic board on wiki). -Royalguard11(Talk·Review Me!) 03:53, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I've gotten confirmation from User:Voice of All that this is possible, so now we just need everyone to approve it, and have the devs implement it. I'll cross post the page to VPP (under the section) and a new post at WP:AN so that we can get this implemented soon.

Disruption and vandalism

I recently requested semi protection for List of characters in Ed, Edd n Eddy, which was denied on the grounds that the annon edits were in the vast majority in good faith. That is indeed the case, yet the pages edits are almost solely made up of

1. Edits by annons who add material that may well be considered fancruft, and other users cleaning it up
2. something that is starting to look like edit warring over the <!-- hidden tags--> that try to keep users from adding too much fluff.

After rereading the guidelines for page protection, I came to the conclusion that this is indeed according to policy. However, semi-protecting this page would fix both problems mentioned. What is the rationale not to protect pages when good faith edits are disrupting a page? Martijn Hoekstra 10:41, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

• The problem is that it's a wide gray area. As long as it's well-meaning enthousiasm, keeping the page "unlocked" may well attract new editors to Wikipedia. If it can be dealth with by a few editors keeping an eye on the page, it's usually the "Wiki Way" not to (semi-)protect things. Open editing is what made us big. >Radiant< 16:11, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Did open editing make Wiki big? Initially that's certainly possible, like lots of computer or car manufacturers making those industries bigger. But when lower-cost producers drove others out, those industries doubtless expanded faster than they would have otherwise by keeping the cost of the product down. There's a parallel. Article improvement might comarable to keeping costs down. Wiki has matured. If unregistered users are responsible for say 97% of vandalism of a given article (in line with Wikipedia:WikiProject Vandalism studies/Study1#Conclusions) & it is subject to frequent enough vandalism, it is arguable that such disruption would slow improvement on a given article (particularly if most of the non-reverted Edits are by registered users). Such slowing would arguably slow increased use of Wiki. That's an argument for semi-protect, not against it -- not a universal argument but as circumstances indicate. As for a few editors protecting the page to keep it open, there is the possibility that they have better things to do or that their time could be better spent by improving an article. So, that's argument on the other side. --Thomasmeeks 20:06, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I do see the point of both sides: if you can't edit it, wikipedia is not the enceclopedia that anyone can edit. That still stands even if the overall quality of articles would improve if Wikipedia made it harder for annons to edit. This seems to be already starting to become a bit of an issue, and I think it will probably be a very large debate soon. Thanks for clearing it up a bit though. Martijn Hoekstra 20:32, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

The above remark certainly applies most to articles that have full protection (admin Edits only). But there is of course a sense that semi-protect still means that almost anyone can edit. Nothing (except a Wiki ban) prevents any unregistered user from registering & editing (after the waiting period).

The metric of Wiki success also matters. Here are 2:

(1) the volume of WP edits

(2) the volume of WP visits

One may guess that prudent semi-protect favors (2) more than (1), while absence of semi-protect favors (1) more than (2). --Thomasmeeks 21:30, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Having to create an account wouldn't automatically mean 'anyone can edit' no longer applies. As long as everyone can create an account, everyone can still edit. If there is a waiting period of 4 days, it doesn't really apply so much anymore, at least not without stretching things a bit, though requiring registration wouldn't necessarily require a waiting period. Richard001 00:33, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

The sole reason for having people make accounts, is to make it les easy to quickly edit something. If it didn't accomplish that, then it wouldn't reduce vandalism either, so yes, registration will make it less of an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It's a bit of a tightrope, but I'm sure that we as a community will be able to come to a reasonable compromise between on the one side being the best encyclopedia we can be, and on the other keeping up the essence of being a wiki. Martijn Hoekstra 11:45, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

My Essay

Hi. I just wrote an essay on Page Protection. Another User suggested I put it here. I have read most of the above comments about this topic, and just wanted to throw my essay out there for people to think about:

At the time this essay was written, there were 991 semi-protected articles, and 29 fully protected articles. That is almost 1000 protected articles. In our haste to fight vandalism, we protect articles left and right. How do we know that their isn't some ip user that doesn't have a positive contribution? How can we claim to be a wiki if we block so many pages?

How can we truly call ourselves a Wiki, or "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" if we block pages so quickly? We justify ourselves by saying that "anyone can make an account", but that isn't fair. They would have to wait 4 days before they could edit semi-protected pages. You have to be fairly determined to wait that long to fix something. People should be able to go to a Wiki and edit something without having to become a Wikimaniac.

Now, your probably going, "but Wikipedia has almost 2 million articles!" and you would be right. But it isn't articles like Liverpool, New York that are getting protected. It's articles about notable things like Wii, Baseball, Chocolate, High School Musical, and Cheese that are being protected. These are the things people would want to edit, so in essance, we say "you can't edit about anything notable, but you can edit Liverpool, New York." Great. . .

We semi-protect so much that we need a small template so that we don't have to use that big ugly tag. We shouldn't have to even think about having a small tag. It is silliness that we semi-protect everything people care about and call ourselves "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit."

The link to the essay is in my signature, which so far contains only what is written above. --Trumpetband ^{What is happening to Wikipedia?} 23:55, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

And others would argue that vandalism is one of the main problems with Wikipedia. I think it's ridiculous to unprotect heavily vandalized articles for ideological reasons - the good editors will get sick of reverting and leave the project, and the readers will see vandal sewerage half the time instead of the actual article. I certainly would not bother working on an article if I had to spend the majority of the time reverting vandalism, and I certainly wouldn't appreciate having readers seeing a blank page instead of my hard work. I think practical solutions are far better than ideological ones, and stopping about 95% of the vandalism is a very practical one. Richard001 00:27, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, if it comes to that, we might as well not allow ip users to edit, and stop calling ourselves the "encyclopedia that everyone can edit" (unless we wanted to add an "after waiting 4 days" note to that - don't mean to be aggressive, just a thought. --Trumpetband ^{What is happening to Wikipedia?} 01:03, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Some would say we should, some would say we shouldn't. It's not like this is a binary issue where people either say 'Only registered users can edit' or 'We should never protect articles' though. Everyone has their own opinion along a continuous scale, and there are valid reasons for all perspectives. Richard001 22:50, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Why are you whining here? If you think Wii, Baseball, Chocolate, High School Musical or Cheese should be unprotected, then request unprotection. If anyone's foolish enough to actually unprotect it, you'll soon see why semi-protection is necessary – Gurch 22:07, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Should this user talk be protected?

I'm just wondering if 69.120.111.23 deserves a full protect yet? It was locked from Wknight94, because "prevent 69.120.111.23 (talk • contribs • block logauto) from using it to make disruptive edits or continuing to abuse the {{unblock}} template.". However that doesn't make sense. The IP hasn't edited a page since June 25th, nor has been very active at all in the last 2 months. The anonymous user does have two vandalize warnings, but neither are final.

I think the page was protected to prevent other editors from using the talk. This anonymous user is on Wikinews currently, and maybe Wknight94 felt it needed some pre-emptive action. Altough I believe that isn't a valid reason to protect a page? Sofar, the page has had one anonymous user place a spam link on it 3 times, but other than that it has had little disruption. All in all, this page may need protection (with it being in mainstream news), but has it reached this step yet? Also, Wknight94 removed all talk, outside the warnings. Should the page be reverted?

I'm not here to request a unprotect, just advise. I will follow whatever advice is given, as i'm unsure on how this policy fully works. Thank you Rawboard 04:13, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

It appears that User:69.120.111.23 was linked from Digg (as the tag on the user talk page says) and people were turning up to have a good chitchat about the recent events, and the page protected to stop that [3]. Judging by the protection summary ("move along people"), I imagine the talk page was protected for the same reason. We needn't worry about pre-emptive concerns because (a) this is a special case, and (b) stuff had already happened on the user page [4]. – Steel 13:31, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, thank you. I won't contest the page's standing Rawboard 15:20, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Why do some semi-protected pages not have a visible template, icon or category?

You only find out about the semi-protection from the note on such pages when clicking 'edit'. Surely it would be better to use a small icon and group these pages into a category? Why is this done? It means that the category of semi-protected pages is actually incomplete at any given time...--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 11:51, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

We do have templates that add icons and categorise pages. {{pp-semi-protected}} for example adds the page to Category:Semi-protected. Regardless, categorisation is less important now that Special:Protectedpages exists. – Steel 15:46, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to S-P Every Day

See here for discussion (FYI, I'm just cross-posting so people know about it since this is the page for protection policy). -Royalguard11(T·R!) 23:32, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

simpson source 15 the times magazine article by nick griffith

it says the simpsons generated $2 billion dollars in its first 14 months as a 1/2 hour long program. This figure seems high or out of context. 207.47.55.120 10:10, 17 July 2007 (UTC)Alex Todorovic

• Please take your complaint either to Talk:The Simpsons or to Requests for edits to a protected page. DrKiernan 10:20, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Latest changers

Regarding the addition by SallyForth123 (talk · contribs), is this kind of analysis really necessary in the policy? I personally don't think so, and I am removing it. -- ReyBrujo 03:38, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

No, it's not necessary, especially the second edit. It's just someone trying to make a point that there are a lot of protected articles, which I believe is a lot better than a thousand vandalized articles. I could similarly add less than 0.1% of all articles are protected, and imply that that was a bad thing. I would hope that such an edit would be promptly reverted. Richard001 04:19, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

• I don't know who wrote the part about the fight at the 2007 MTV VMA's, but they got the entire incident totally wrong. Tommy Lee did not take Kid Rock's seat and he did not start the fight. Kid Rock came by and tapped him on the shoulder when Tommy stood up to exchange pleasantries Kid Rock slapped him like the total trailer trash he is, then as Tommy was sure to hand him his A$$ he was the one grabbed and escorted away. Whoever is able to edit this page needs to research and get the facts correct before they put down what they think is right or before they put in their biased opinions.

Straw Poll Started

Just so everyone in the protection area knows, a straw poll has been started for Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed Proposal at Wikipedia talk:Autoconfirmed Proposal/Straw Poll. Please come and voice you opinion. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 20:42, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

• There's no need for that. First, policy/guidelines are not created by voting on them, and second, this isn't even a policy proposal. It is a feature request, so simply talking to the Developers should resolve the issue. The devs are not particularly swayed by popularity votes, only by actual arguments. >Radiant< 10:59, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

A suggestion for all semi-protected pages

I notice that some semi-protected pages have the big banner saying "editing of this article by new/unregistered users is currently disabled" and that other semi-protected pages have not even an icon in the top right corner, but most have the small icon in the top right-hand corner. What I propose is that all semi-protected pages be added to the Semi-protected category (or a specific sub-category like "semi-protected against vandalism") with the small icon in the top right visible. I suggest that the original "big banner" sprotect template be deleted and that we remove the mechanism for pages to be sprotected without the icon and category. What do you all think? This seems the most logical thing to me.--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 11:40, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Emo as my semi-protected subject

So, I was thinking of adding a subject for the Emo(slang) page, but I'm kinda scared, and hope not to offend or confuse anyone by doing this. I was thinking of adding a topic about the Emo ppl give and the Emo ppl should know about. The article dedicated to emo centralizes too much on how ordinary ppl see and criticize Emo ppl, when the author of the article forgot about adding something about the true emo, the one real emo ppl experience. Just to let you ppl know, at first I was dissapointed to what ppl told me about it, but as I was giving a better view to this subculture, I saw a way different life rather than the one the 'haters' or 'fakers' say. Plz don't try to be a smartypants and steal this, I'll be more glad to recieve colaboration from other ppl who know about this better than the usual 'lable-this' ppl. Any feedback would be deeply appreciated. I don't hate emo ppl, I don't like them either, I just feel it's necessary to give a bit more attention to this article.XNelsxdeadx 01:52, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Duration of semi-protection on U.S. presidential candidate articles

For articles containing biographies of leading U.S. presidential candidates, can we build consensus that semi-protection expirations counted in days are preferable to those counted in weeks or months?

Unfortunately, due to the high visibility of these articles, the choice is between faster expirations or de facto near-indefinite semi-protection. The good news is that these articles are so closely watched that unhelpful edits are reverted quite quickly. Can we agree to introduce sprot only after first remedy user warning/blocking solutions are are unable to keep up, and then only briefly?

In a sense, these articles with high readership are "on the front page" every day; greater good justifications for keeping them open are arguably similar to those for newly featured articles appearing on the main page.

To narrow the points in search of consensus, here's two questions offered here for discussion:

1. What is a reasonable duration before expiration of semi-protection on these articles to ensure that "anyone can edit" gets an even chance?
2. What levels of vandal editing, when it occurs, may be worth tolerating on closely watched articles belonging to leading candidates for the sake of preserving Wikipedia's editorial openness and unique role in this media saturated topic area?

Thanks for reading (and editing). --HailFire 08:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

• I think you're trying to codify things too much. While yes, reverting is generally preferable to semi-protection, adding a rule that "people must be warned first" doesn't really help. >Radiant< 10:45, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I can see that. Too much codification is definitely not a healthy thing here. While I would like to see more evidence that less intrusive methods are tried before pulling the sprot trigger, it is the duration to be set for sprot expirations on these articles that I'm more concerned about. Right now it looks like there is a community of editors and Admins who think these articles should be semi-protected as much as possible, and are quite willing to set expirations of one month or longer that result in de facto preemptive sprot. I am just trying to bring the debate more into the open so all views can be heard and to discourage these different views from being addressed through wheel warring. If this is not the right forum to seek consensus on this kind of thing, please point me someplace else where Admin views can be solicited. --HailFire 11:48, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd say the problem isn't nearly as bad as you suppose, based on the low amount of pages that are presently semi-protected. This page is not really a good spot to bring it up because it has relatively low traffic and visibility. I would suggest the admin noticeboard for more discussion. >Radiant< 13:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

• Semiprotection complements user warnings and blocks, but solves a different problem. Semiprotection is for when there are numerous IPs that each vandalize the article only once or twice, and thus don't get blocked. If the vandalizing IPs were getting blocked, we wouldn't use semiprotection. The duration of semiprotection has to be determined on a case by case basis depending on how long the vandalism has been ongoing, the protection history of the page, the nature of the vandalism, etc. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:09, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Discussion copied to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard. --HailFire 02:37, 31 August 2007 (UTC)