Wikipedia talk:List of protected pages/Archive 3

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Expiration time on protection

Has anyone considered allowing an expiration time on protections? Would be handy for temporary protections due to vandalism. - Tεxτurε 17:14, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

That's a great idea! When the vandalbot was in full rampage I protected several pages, didn't bother listing them here (no time, we had a vandalbot on the rampage) with every intention of unprotecting them in a couple of hours. But I forgot of left them protected for a couple of days instead :-( theresa knott 22:20, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)
As long as it didn't take away the indefinite protection option. Some articles just need to be protected until the parties stop fighting. Ambi 00:08, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Protecting archival pages

I've protected several Sollog related archival pages, including the talk archives and Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Sollog. Talk:Sollog has been repeatedly vandalized, and the VfD page has been vandalized several times after the discussion was concluded. Since, unlike the rest of Wikipedia, archival pages are supposed to remain unchanging, I figured that there'd be no problem in premanently protecting these pages: it ensures that they never change (which they shouldn't), and no-one has to clutter up their watchlist with them to make sure that they never, ever change.

So, what's the opinion on this? -- Khym Chanur 04:27, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)

What if someone wants to add a navbox to all the archives of a page that has a dozen archives? What if someone wants to shuffle things around between archives, or move something from an archive to another page? What if someone wants to add a summary to the top of a 150k talk archive? Should they have to bother a sysop for each and every action? And if so, where are they going to do that? (Talk pages don't have talk pages.) By all means protect archives when they're being vandalized, but if you want an uneditable version of a certain page, look no further than the older revisions in the history; nobody can change those without low-level access to the database. —Charles P. (Mirv) 07:31, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Templates

Copied from Wikipedia:Image copyright tags

Twice now, I've tried to fix minor wording errors in copyright tags only to find them protected. Questions on the talk page have not elicited responses. Protected pages include {{CopyrightedFreeUse}}, {{CopyrightedFreeUse-User}} (but not {{CopyrightedFreeUse-Link}}), {{CrownCopyright}}, {{NationalAuditOfficeCopyright}}, {{NHSCopyright}} (but not {{CanadaCopyright}}), {{Cc-by}}, {{Fairuse}}, and so on.

Why were they protected? Wouldn't some discussion, or at least, an explanation have been nice? And can someone unprotect them please so I can fix (for example) the wording of {{CrownCopyright}} to indicate that it's specifically for UK government material? --Andrew 23:49, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)

I'm also hoping to get a change of wording into MediaWiki:Uploadtext. --Andrew 13:13, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

It is standard practice to protect templates that serve as legal statements, so as to prevent confusion and argument. There is not particularly any reason why such templates should be easily changeable. I can't see that unprotecting them would benefit anyone.
James F. (talk) 19:19, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

bug (that maybe you already know about)

If an article is move-protected but not edit-protected, and you want to edit-protect said article, you must first completely remove the move-protection, and THEN add both the move-protection and then edit-protection. That is inefficient and makes the article more vulnerable. Kingturtle 16:04, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Or absence of a feature? Anyways, it would nice as well if the protection log would show if the page was protected from editing or moving. -- User:Docu
An absence of a feature is a bug ;) Kingturtle 06:59, 23 May 2005 (UTC)


Checking the list

Is there an automatically generated list of protected pages?

Is there any way to determine who protected a page which has not been manually listed at Wikipedia:Protected page? -- Uncle Ed (talk) 19:46, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

There's no list of protected pages I'm aware of in mediawiki, but there is the protection log from which you could theoretically derive the list. It also allows you to find out who protected a page. --W(t) 19:50, 2005 Jun 25 (UTC)
It's actually simpler than that. If the page was properly protected with a tag, it'll show up in Category:Protected, which always trumps whatever is listed on this page, and the tag addition will tell you who protected it.
If it's not protected with a tag (various reasons for that, such as being an interface page or a template), then yes, only the protection log can tell you what pages were protected/unprotected. Obviously this log is not suitable for generating a list of currently protected pages. JRM · Talk 22:03, 2005 Jun 25 (UTC)

Policy statement

  1. Do not edit a temporarily protected page except to add a protected page notice.
  2. Do not protect a page on which you are involved in an Wikipedia:edit dispute.

Some of the above does not make sense. Last time I checked, it was permitted for an admin upon request to protect a page to stop an Wikipedia:edit war, and then to post agreed-upon changes emerging from the talk page. When was this changed?

And what if an admin finds an obvious, non-controversial error like a typo?

Or what if people complain that the "wrong version" was protected?

  • Usually I've picked a random number (generated by Excel's RAND function) and gone back several versions. That usually quells the complaints, and no one's ever said I was "abusing admin privileges" to do this.

The policy statement needs clarification. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 19:53, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

When was this changed? After you checked? Seriously, I've never seen this "permission" to post agreed-upon changes from the talk page, unless the page was protected for vandalism, which is not quite the same thing as your random edit war.
If you're going to allow "agreed-upon changes", you might as well unlock the page and warn people to behave when editing. Because if you're actually getting people to agree on changes, there's good reason to assume the edit war is over—or not worth keeping the article protected over, if important information is missing.
And what if an admin finds an obvious, non-controversial error like a typo? Then the admin is just as much out of luck as everyone else who'd like to edit that page. If we're going down this road, we're going to instruction creep the hell out of it. Don't edit protected pages, period. Not to fix a typo, not to touch up some formatting, not anything. If you allow this, administrators cease being janitors and start being super-editors—making all editors equal, but some more equal than others... Leave that can of worms closed. Before I was an administrator I was greatly annoyed at being unable to edit Wikipedia:Recentchanges, having to crawl like some beggar to an administrator for any change I wanted to see. And that is only an interface page—it's much more annoying on actual articles.
The wrong version? You mean this one? I wouldn't worry too much about it... JRM · Talk 21:58, 2005 Jun 25 (UTC)

Consider removing the link to the non-existant Edit Dispute page with a link to Wikimedia's http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Edit_conflict. MrD 29 June 2005 18:07 (UTC)

User pages that must be locked permanently

The GNAA have found a new way of causing disruption in Wikipedia. Any pages that look like this must be editted to remove the HTML that is causing display problems and permanently locked. Please do not forget to add the {{vprotected}} tag to the page, add a note to the talk page and list the page on WP:PROT. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:22, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Where is the policy statement?

Where is the official policy on page protection?

I think that there are a few points that need to be clarified. Maybe they already have been. First, I think we did get a clarification that no one, not even admins, should edit protected pages.

Second, when, if ever, should regular article pages be permanently locked in an approved version to prevent long-term revert wars? I assume that the answer is "Never", but I continue to see requests that pages be cleaned up and then permanently locked. If such requests are improper, maybe there should be a statement to that effect.

Third, some pages are protected due to edit wars and then left protected for long periods of time. This seems to have the effect of making admins into super-editors. I think that there needs to be a limit on how long a page can be protected due to edit wars. I can see the value of a 24-hour or 48-hour cooling-off period, but not of protecting a page for a week or longer. Robert McClenon 11:31, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't see this earlier. The protection policy is here:
--Tony SidawayTalk 20:48, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

User pages protected aginst moves

I can see little harm in this, but there is no statement of policy, and no list (that I can see - perhaps not required?), is tere a tag/cat? Rich Farmbrough 11:19, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

WP:VIP is being repeatedly vandalized, but it appeared to be protected. How was that possible? I'm trying unprotecting and re-protecting it in hopes that that "re-starts" the protection somehow. --Angr/tɔk mi 16:43, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

It was protected from page moves only. See the protection log. —Cryptic (talk) 20:49, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Okay. I'll re-protect it as such then; Phroziac unprotected it 20 minutes after I protected it. --Angr/tɔk mi 21:42, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Can someone look at Wikipedia:Administrators's noticeboard#Digg? Digg is listed here as a {{deletedpage}} protection, but the article exists and I don't see a deletion history in the article's history, even though the article was voted to be deleted. I also can't find a record of an undeletion debate. Is this recreated deleted material? --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 17:21, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

The logs show the whole history. All revisions were undeleted. Someone just forgot to remove it from the list here (quite common). --cesarb 17:27, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Featured article on the Main page

Why is this protected? Is this a new policy or should this be unprotected? Rmhermen 13:21, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Turn into category

Does anyone else find adding a page here after protecting it tedious, especially when there are perfectly good things called Categories that will do the job for us? Enochlau 02:54, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

There currently is a straw poll running at Wikipedia talk:Semi-protection policy, dealing with a creation of an intermediate level of protection for pages with extreme levels of vandalism from new users. Right now, the policy has strong support, but additional input is always welcome. Titoxd(?!? - did you read this?) 20:45, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Semi protection is now live

For now, all I did was add a section for semi protection under "real articles". That should suffice for now. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 08:10, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Plural

Before my boldness gets the better of me (and my talk page...) is there any reason why this page isn't at Wikipedia:Protected pages as English grammar demands? -Splashtalk 02:43, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I suppose more properly it'd be Wikipedia:List of protected pages (there's more to it than just being plural). I'm not opposed to any change like this, it's not anything to get worked up over. :-) Dmcdevit·t 03:01, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, that would be an altogether better name, though, as you say it's an issue so minor it's almost...minorer than something very minorly minor. Interesting that both those links are blue. Was it moved away from those titles at some point for a reason we should know about? -Splashtalk 03:25, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

High use templates

Ral315 protected many of these December 18-20 [1] with edit summaries of "High visibility, no need to edit it." I don't really see, say, stub templates getting vandalized, which is the only reason why I would think a high visibility page needs to be protected. I unprotected Template:Opentask because non-editors change it all the time, including a non-admin bot that runs daily on it. And the stub templates certainly do get upgraded from time to time. It would be helpful if non-admin WikiProject Stub Sorting members could change them as needed, too. In short, I would support unprotecting everything else that was protected in this run, but since there were so many, I thought I'd discuss first. -- Beland 22:00, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I did these mainly because they are so visible, and would be possible vandal targets. I understand that it's controversial, and I will personally unprotect most of them if consensus goes against me. However, some of them should stay, particularly those being used in meta-templates, which could cause problems if a bunch were edited at once. (Qif and If, for example). Ral315 (talk) 23:45, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
I would also keep the licensing templates protected. Ral315 (talk) 23:46, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Certainly license template can stay protected - those, you don't want to drift. Random stub and other utility templates, though, just don't seem that important, and they don't seem like that much of a target (compared to say, the Main Page). For easier and more democratic maintenance, I would say let's leave them open unless one of them actually experiences repeated problems. -- Beland 12:45, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

On this list {{Booleq}} uses {{Booleq/eq2}} either both should be protected or neitehr should be. i have recieved by email a request to protect eq2. I am doing so, but if Booleq is unprotected so should this sub-tempalte. DES (talk) 23:34, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Splitting this page

I'd like to suggest that we split this page up, since it's getting long. It makes sense to me that we have a separate page for the permanently protected pages (legal/high-use, etc.) which will need less watching and updating. The more dynamic sections, protections for vandalism and edit warring will stay here as normal. If there are no objections, I'll do this sometime in a few days. Dmcdevit·t 21:44, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Bot maintenance

Dmcdevit asked me to write a bot to delist pages from here if they've been deleted or aren't protected (and also to add protected but unlisted pages, but this is harder and it'll be some time before it's ready). I've run a couple of read-only trials; since {{article}} (or {{non-article}}) isn't used consistently, the biggest problem is figuring out whether a given link is to a supposedly protected page, or if it's there for context or is part of a signature. The most accurate heuristic I've come up with so far is:

  1. Consider the first link/{{article}}/{{non-article}} on each line starting with a single asterisk;
  2. Consider each link/{{article}}/{{non-article}} that immediately follows one considered due to rules 1 or 2, and is separated from it by a comma, the word "and", or both (not just whitespace);
  3. Consider all {{article}}/{{non-article}} templates, no matter where they appear.

While I've tweaked the formatting on several entries today, the only one that truly wouldn't have been identified if I'd left it alone is the one in this diff; in the old revision, not only would the pages not have been recognized because they're on a line starting with two asterisks, but only the first link - to Macedonians (ethnic group), which isn't even one of the protected pages - would have been considered, since it's the first one on the line, and the others aren't properly separated. The "See also" links that I changed were the only false positives. Hopefully the formatting requirement isn't too onerous.

A tradeoff that needs considering is whether unprotected pages should be delisted as soon as they're identified (they'll be checked once a day, somewhere around 15:00 to 16:00 UTC), or only if there's been no activity in their protect log for a certain amount of time (and if so, for how long). If they're delisted immediately, this page could get quite unsynched with reality (e.g., the entry of a page that's been protected a long time but gets unprotected for exactly the wrong five minutes would get removed); if they're not removed unless there's been no activity for a long enough amount of time, pages that get a lot of protects and unprotects like George W. Bush (protect log) might not get updated at all. —Cryptic (talk) 21:56, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Of the two options, I think the former is probably best to start out with, since I think the problem there is probably less likely than the other. And it's easier to check diffs for a mistaken removal than to check every entry for a mistaken keep. But it's not a big deal. Perhaps we should consider refinging the listing instructions on this page to fit the necessary formula. There's also Wikipedia:List of permanently protected pages now too, by the way. Thanks, Cryptic! Dmcdevit·t 06:33, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
I just went through the pain of going through every user page listed here. Yeah. has to be a better way of doing this. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 06:42, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Why does this page exist?

I just sprotected a page. Reading the instructions, I find I need to 1) enter a reason in the log, 2) add a template to the page itself, and 3) add an entry on this page. What's the point of #3 other than busywork? The template adds the page to a category, and the reason is in the log. What's the added value of manually adding an entry here? -- RoySmith (talk) 21:44, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

It allows other administrators to monitor what pages have been protected. Stuff happens -- admins forget they've protected a page and leave it protected too long, take wikibreaks while stuff is protected, etc. It's just an extra check. · Katefan0(scribble)/mrp 21:46, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Plus category listings can't give you the date it was added or the reason. Patrolling this page for pages that need unprotection is a useful chore, which is nearly impossible using categories. Dmcdevit·t 21:56, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
All of the above are good reasons why this page should NOT exist, and why there needs to be an automated process. What if I'm lazy (or forgetful, or intentionally disobedient) and don't mention the protection on this page at all? Sounds like there's now no good way to track protected pages. Manual processes are bad, especially when it's something that could be easily automated. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:20, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
You can see all the protected pages by looking at the category, but you can't see the reasons there, and you can't see the time protected there. This page is a good way of collating all three bits of information. You're right, nobody HAS to list a protected page here. But it's better than nothing, and someone who's concerned about that possibility can always look through the category. · Katefan0(scribble)/mrp 22:44, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
No, it's a terrible way to collect all those three bits of information. It just happens to be the only way we have right now. A better way would be a database query. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:09, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Hey. This works just fine. Is it the best way? No. If you can figure out how to do a database query and do it that way, that would be wonderful. I would suggest posting any suggestions you have to the Village pump. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 08:57, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I also think that page protection should not be applied lightly and that it should take a bit of work to protect a page. — Knowledge Seeker 09:23, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Very good point. That would be one major problem with a database query. We would have no way of saying why a page was protected. WP:RfP has descriptions, but many protections never see RfP, especially user pages. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 09:25, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Subpages?

Is there any objection to making the various categories (full,semi,talk,... ... ) into subpages of this page? The page is pretty hard to navigate since the lists are pretty long. novacatz 04:37, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Objection. :) It's hard to navigate, but, as has been pointed out to me before, there is alot that must be done to protect an article. We have to protect it, put the tag on, leave a message on the talk page and/or the RfP page and then log it here along with sometimes leaving messages on talk pages. And that doesn't even take into account checking the talk page and main page history, dicussion, etc. We already have multiple admins who do not use the PP page at all (Curps being the main one). So dividing it into 3 or 4 would just make that worse. So logically, yes it should be divided, but we'd be complicating an already complicated process. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 06:12, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Redundancy?

Question - how is the part about "protected deleted pages" not redundant with the self-updating Category:Protected deleted pages? Sure, this page allows for explanations, but the explanation is going to be the same for (just about) all those pages, in that they're repeatedly recreated deleted pages. Radiant_>|< 22:45, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

We have our first permanent semi-protection

It's per an Arbcom ruling. I created a special section called "Permanent" under semi protection. If anyone wants to change it, go ahead, but we need to have something that says that this cannot be unsurped without arbcom approval. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 12:27, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

My god learn to read... that is NOT ... i repeat NOT what the arbcom ruling says. The arbcom decision says NOTHING... I repeat NOTHING about this being permanent, OR that it cannot be removed. What it does clearly state is "The article may be unprotected (and reprotected) at the discretion of any admin who deems it safe to do so."  ALKIVAR 12:47, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
This remedy is quite experimental. It has been rejected in two other cases where it was proposed. It has been proposed by me when it seemed likely that we faced unending efforts by banned users to edit an article. I see no problem with briefly unprotecting it to check to see if the problem remains active, but simply unprotecting it and expecting others to play whack a mole for years on end is unacceptable. Fred Bauder 12:52, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
The same exact logic you followed here can be applied to George W. Bush and John Kerry but isnt for a very good reason. So I'm going to IAR and add them to permanent as well.  ALKIVAR 12:57, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
One of the most important basic tenets of any wiki, and by extention wikipedia, is that nothing may be absolutely set in stone or permanent, or you'll end up with a lot of pain. So for "permanent semi-protection", here read at most "for one year". That should be sufficient and in practice as good as permanent protection in most cases. (In fact, if you're daring, take a risk, and protect for only 6 monts, or only one quarter (3 months)!). Kim Bruning 13:08, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
Semi-permanent semi-protection somehow sounds semi-redundant, though. :P KillerChihuahua?!? 13:20, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
I removed the "permanent" heading and put the article in it's proper place. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 15:17, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
And btw, John Kerry is not even protected right now. And it's been unprotected much much more than protected in the last 2 months. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 15:26, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Usertalk-sprotect section

Would it not be more useful if instead of the {{article}} tag, the {{vandal}} tag is used? That way, more of the history of the user involved is immediately viewable. If there are no objections, I'm going to (try to find the time to) change them this afternoon and change the instructions as well. --Nlu (talk) 17:39, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Semi list is now way outdated

As of my latest purge of CAT:SEMI, it's population by about 50 articles. I can't be bothered to do the paperwork here to update the list. Can anyone else either a)be bothered or b) think of another solution such as e.g. a blank+copypaste? -Splashtalk 02:58, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I did a blanket update. -Splashtalk 21:08, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
This seems like a good job for a bot somewhere. I don't have the expertise but there might be somewhere to advertise for someone who does. (ESkog)(Talk) 22:21, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
I have JS script that makes protection listing and delisting very quick for the people doing the protection/unprotection. But not a mass clean up bot...hmmm...If I could do an "undefined" check using HREF tag searching (like my masterrollback script) on the cat page (which tends to be far more updated) with JS, and then have it load a modified version of my autopdelist() function (using input instead of URL triggers) on WP:PP if it can't find it....I may be able to sweep up.
Unfortunetely, I have a lot of midterms and what not to study for, so it likely will not happen soon...
Another way is to get more admin's to use the script, so that paperwork of un/protecting a page is done automatically, so things stay up to date on WP:PP.Voice-of-AllT|@|ESP 22:33, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I noticed this page is protected but not listed anywhere..... I'm putting it here because I don't know if it's forever or temporary. Why is it protected and should it be un-protected? and why isn't it listed? Flying Canuck 05:26, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Listing WP:OFFICE protected pages

Since Danny is now listing the WP:OFFICE protected pages on that page, I find it redundant to list them here on WP:PP too. Therefore, I think we should change that section to resemble the "Images protected while on the Main Page" section and just give basic information on the policy. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 05:17, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Just a little advice from a WP:PP vet

I'm not working on this page anymore. but. Just taking a quick look, I see that only about 10 pages are listed as being full protected. No :) The # is NEVER that low. Click on Category:Protected and you will see that many are missing. If the list is to be meaningful, you guys have to keep up on the list. Otherwise, we might as well just not have a list. About half of the fully protected pages are missing. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 07:05, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Since there is a category, what is the point of a badly out of date list? William M. Connolley 09:41, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Because a category doesn't show how long something has been protected, or the reason why it was protected. Having all that information collected in one central place (i.e. here) is useful. · Katefan0(scribble)/poll 15:58, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Page protection

Do we protect the pages of permanently banned users? I saw one being protected today, and that was a first for me to see on Wikipedia. --HappyCamper 14:59, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes. Generally not unless it becomes necessary to stop them from editing. There're a few in the relevant section of this page that are good examples. -Splashtalk 17:22, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Faster protection

Consider adding this script to your monobook if you think that there is to much paperwork for WP:PP.Voice-of-AllT|@|ESP 18:19, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Why this page?

I've no doubt this is a stupid question, but it's just occurred to me to wonder why this page exists. When we tag a page as protected or sprotected, it goes into those categories, so do we need this extra page? It's a bit of a nuisance to have to make the entries when the site is slow. SlimVirgin (talk) 13:39, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see Katefan0 has answered above — because we need to see the reason and the date. I must admit that I'm tempted to stop adding pages I protect because of the nuisance factor. Would it really be damaging not to have this list? SlimVirgin (talk) 13:42, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
I feel it would; I often go through this list to see which semis need to be unprotected because of the time period for which they've been protected. But sometimes, depending on the reasoning given by the original protecting admin, I might choose to leave it whereas others I might choose to lift. I'd rather have it. You should drop Voice of all a line, he has a great monobook tool to automate the process and make it much less of a headache. With one click you can add or remove a tag from an article, perform the actual protect or unprotect and list or delist it here. · Katefan0 (scribble)/poll 13:58, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Well...heh...you still have to confirm the protection level (there are 6 options, and often people leave "move" on, so I didn't automate it) and confirm the javascript by pressing save page. But yeah...a lot less of a nuissance.Voice-of-AllT|@|ESP 07:38, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Okay thanks, Kate. I'll keep doing it. The Voice of all thing would make it a lot easier, so I'll definitely look into it. Thank you! SlimVirgin (talk) 08:27, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately, there is currently no simple way to find all protected pages, until bug:2171 is resolved. However, I still don't think this page is worth the effort. By the time you've protected the page and placed the template, you've already had two chances to explain your decision, so we don't need another one. What we should do is add links to the protection log to protection templates, so that the justification for the protection is readily available. Any further discussion, which seems to be rarely needed, can take place on the article's talk page. Zocky | picture popups 15:16, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Except there is no centralized placed to put up a)dates of protection (which implies duration) and b)reason. I don't know why or how long an article was protected if I don't even know it is protected, or even exists. I often look through this list to find pages that should be unlocked, as this is a wiki. Often people tend to protect and forget, and since only a few others know about the protection, things end up protected for many weeks sometimes.Voice-of-AllT|@|ESP 07:37, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Why2

(copied from WP:AN) Look at this[2]. The two other diffs before show quite a lot as well. PLEASE, admins, list pages you protect. You are welcome to use my monobook javascript for protecting pages (if you run the monobook skin), but please use this list. It has many advantages for Wikipedia and page protection, as it easy easy for all admins to get an overview of what is going on.Voice-of-AllT|@|ESP 07:43, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I've rarely found Wikipedia:List of protected pages useful at all. There are already at least a dozen categories for protected pages, and most editors discuss the protections on the protected page's talk page. When I place page protection, I keep it on my desk until I lift it, use the protections templates, and usually leave a note on it's talk. Is this breaking the policy? Perhaps, but it seems to be working. — xaosflux Talk 14:12, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
All the protections I do are semi-protection of vandals' user talk pages, and I always stick a note at the top of my talk page header to remind me to take it off if/when the block expires. (Not only is it a page I see very often, but if I was run over by a bus, other people can see it.) And more recently I've protected some DYK images, and whoever does the next update always takes care of that. I don't see why any further notice of either type of protection is necessary. --Sam Blanning(talk) 15:10, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Yep, I keep a desk right on my main user page too, with ToDo's and blocks/protections to revist, its very usefull for me. — xaosflux Talk 20:59, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Yeah...I should mention that userpages protections are not really needed at WP:PP. I don't care much for those, but the other ones are important.Voice-of-AllT|@|ESP 17:57, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
I must be missing something then, why is that page so important? — xaosflux Talk 20:59, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
I've just completed and debugged super javascript that looks at the cat pages for semi and full, checks if they are listed and makes a list of the ones that aren't, goes to the log (which limit=5000) checks for the last protection of those items, extracts the summary, user, and date and then goes back to WP:PP and adds it in. Sheesh...debugging that was annoying...Voice-of-AllT|@|ESP 05:24, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Bot script

Can your script pull entries for this page from the protection logs, rather then from the categories, to catch issues where a template wasn't used? — xaosflux Talk 06:25, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

No...not yet. Perhaps people could just list those. Also, it only is progammed to work for articles, not userpages or other. Though I will program in userpages soon. As for finding articles without tags, that is difficult...hmmm...but not impossible. I could tag search the log for [edit=autoconfirmed and and [edit=sysop and then get tagname('a')[0].innerHTML for the given "li" in the for loop, which gives the name...yeah I could program it. Patience though....:) Once I get all this to work and make sure there are no bugs, I may create a user account called VoABot with the script and time it....we will see.Voice-of-AllT|@|ESP 07:01, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Hehe...I'm halfway done with this new function already.Voice-of-AllT|@|ESP 09:03, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Sounds great! I've come around on the usefullnes of this page, and would support a bot request for it hands-down. There have got to be protections where the sysop doesn't put the template or manually insert the category on the page happening all the time (while AGF its a manual process so it will have errors) and with the number of admins approaching 1000 it could get out of control! As the number of articles increases we may need to split the sections on this page to subpages for easier use too. — xaosflux Talk 13:51, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
If you noticed, I have been delisting using JS. This a new JS, using only the log to check the top protection activity of each page...it is now up. I've never done bot requests before, so maybe I'll wait untill someone else can request it with me as support. BTW, only 200 admins really do that much tops.Voice-of-AllT|@|ESP 18:26, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Ok see Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Protected_Articles_List_Bot. To go about this, reply to that saying that you will work on it. Then register another account to be the bot (e.g. ProtListBot, VOABot, etc), and list it at Bots/Requests for approvals. — xaosflux Talk 18:54, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Why3

ok, since when do we have this page and what is its purpose? Why not just keep track of protected pages via categories? I don't mind the dozens of auxiliary WP: pages I consider redundant, but now I have bots scolding me on my talkpage that I should comply and list stuff here. Why make life difficult? Protection usually lasts just for a day or two, and this page only creates a burden on admins' time. Again, I don't mind you having this page, but I would rather not have bots come complaining to me if I'm not aware of every, to put it bluntly, administrative fad. dab () 16:14, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Aside from user pages, whenever an admin actually uses a summary, the bot will list it here automatically, with the date, user, and summary. It tries to filter out deleted pages (and does a good job) and part of that requires not listing pages protected with no sumamry. I am the only one who gets stuck unprotecting the 100+ overprotected articles (protecred for more than "a day or two", more like 14-30 days) that people forgot about, and I use this list and some javascript and it still takes a good deal of time; without this list it would take even longer, ask Spash.Voice-of-All 21:34, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Disambig notice for WP:PP

Hello. I would like to add the following to the top of this page, but I saw the warning about possibly breaking scripts. Could someone either add in the appropriate location, or instruct me on how to do so?

  • {{Redirect|WP:PP|information about proposed deletion patrolling|[[Wikipedia:WikiProject Proposed Deletion Patrolling]]}}

Thanks, Lbbzman 17:53, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Added.Voice-of-All 18:29, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, VoA! Lbbzman 18:39, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Under "User pages" someone forgot the "User:" prefix to Myrtone. 68.39.174.238 00:43, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. Kotepho 01:43, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Protect my userpage

Recently, my userpage has been a target of vandalism by multiple users. I want to request to have my userpage either fully or semi protected and I was wondering how I do that. Do I just add my name to the list or do I have to request it (if I have to request it, where do I do that)? Thanks! Tuspm Talk|Contribs |E-Mail Me 01:58, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I've temporarily sprotected your user page. Protection of user pages is generally not needed unless there is a large ammoutn of vandalism in progress, and other measures (e.g. blocks) are not effective. — xaosflux Talk 03:02, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Spitlist

This list is getting quite long. I suggest that this list, which contains many sections, be slit into seperate lists, eg, one for sprotected articles, one for fully protected articles, one for protected userpages, one for protected talkpages, etc. What do you think? Myrtone

Category

This page was inadvertently added onto [[Category:Suspected sockpuppets of Loserdick]] as a side affect of the protection of the Category page. I don't quite know how to undo this. --woggly 07:35, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Protection policy

Is the link to the protection policy missing on this page or is it just placed so that it seems to be missing? --Eleassar my talk 12:55, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Advocate making Template:{{Protectbecause}} part of the system (Xpost)

re: Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2006_August_29#.5B.5BTemplate:Protectbecause.5D.5D

This is a link to a proposal that this template be kept and revised per it's talk page Proposed revised template link, as a useful back channel link to finding the proper pages, especially Wikipedia Talk:Requests for page protection.

Such a navigation by an 'editor in need' may (likey! It did me <g>) take place via for example

A) A desire to protect (or edit or by seeing) an already protected page, giving a' place to start' for the current need of the moment.
B) and so she 'Navigates to' said protected page known to the user because of (A).
C) and so, 'Finds the Category:Protected' because of such status tagging on B's page.
D) allowing him to now 'Find the template {{Protectbecause}}, and assume because of it's 'suggestive user friendly name' that it was indeed a lead to finding the proper procedure and policy for such protection.
E) and so follow'... the link to the template and thence to 'this main page' for which this is the talk.
F) generating feelings of satisfaction and success vice frustration and emitted swear words whilst facing the damnable task of figuring out how to find the information sought... listed here!
Excerpts from the above WP:Tfd link
Template:Protectbecause (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Some user's way of asking for page protection without visiting WP:RFPP and without specifying a reason for the request. Awyong Jeffrey Mordecai Salleh 10:57, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

SNIP, SNIP. Xpost my recommendation per above reasoning.
  • Keep and Modify per proposed modification at Template Talk:Protectbecause, which lists the process for all and sundry as a reference. Such can easily be included into process.
As proposed it looks like this (subst'd)
User:Fabartus believes this page has to be protected because This article is repeatedly being vandalised by IP 123.456.789.012.
  1. An lengthier rationale has been (or is about to be) added to the talk page Wikipedia talk:List of protected pages/Archive 3 under the section Wikipedia talk:List of protected pages/Archive 3#Requesting_Page_Protection.
  2. The same or similar rationale is (or is about to be) added to Wikipedia:Requests_for_page_protection.
  3. All requests have been duly signed by me with my signature: FrankB 23:10, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

{{{category|[[Category:Wikipedia protected edit requests|{{PAGENAME}}]]}}}

Boy! I do hope that's not a good IP! <g>

Note the auto-category Category:Wikipedia protected edit requests I nowiki blocked around before substing. I presume that's a patroled cat, and if this pops up it may alert someone that work is pending.

The noninclude parts of the proposed template page have some additional usage annotations helpful to the newer users, and who have stumbled onto this template via a category search or whatnot. As such it helps disseminate the 'proper procedures and places to go'.

Oh! The reason I think this should be kept is it's a good reference to how the process works and serves as a notice to others that the protection request is outstanding. Someone else may well stumble on the Category:Protection templates, as I did, or via a protected page (as I did) or remember seeing it's cat since it has a nice simple easy to remember name. It's name as template is useful to provide a editor friendly starting point however they find the thing.

IMHO, Such back door links to find what one is looking for should not only be held opened, but made sure of for the benefit of the poor sod volunteering precious discretionary time to any wikipedia.
  • If this Keep with modification counter proposal is adopted, I opine also, that the template ought to be listed on Wikipedia:List of protected pages as the third listed by {{Tl}} in the Protection templates row (i.e In the Wikitable boxed at top center), and certainly on Wikipedia:Requests for page protection.
    I believe there are a few others that also should be cross-listed on those two pages there, for the same reason—as leads for and to the newbies, the occasional editor, or even for the benefit of experience old hands—all with little protecting process experience heretofore. However they might find it, we ought to make it visible, if not enshrined in the process itself. I'm going to cross post to the Wikipedia Talk:Requests for page protection and Wikipedia talk:List of protected pages // FrankB 23:10, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

total No of Protected pages

Is there a statistic of the total number of protected pages and total number of permanantly protected pages as a ratio of the total number of pages. Also is it possible to determine the ratio of traffic to protected pages to the traffic to unprotected pages.

If you were to get yourself a full database dump then I guess the information would be in there. (Guessing though: perhaps that kind of meta-data isn't dumped.) You'd then just have to know how to write the SQL queries. However, in on-Wiki terms, the answer to each of your questions is "unfortunately no(t)". -Splash - tk 22:15, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Will replacing the * with # bullets break the scripts? A more accurate number could be found by adding all the category and subcategory totals. -- Jeandré, 2006-09-06t16:15z
Yes, that would break it.Voice-of-All 21:57, 10 September 2006 (UTC)