Wikipedia talk:Semi-protection policy/Archive 5

How long?

How long are the Bush and Kerry pages going to be semi-protected for? It is fair enough to say that if they are been frequently vandalised, then they can be semi-protected, but I don't think any of us want to see those pages semi-protected indefinitely. Perhaps an absolute maximum of say two weeks needs to be set. Izehar (talk) 14:05, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Right now it's as a test. That's all. It will be unprotected within a day or so. I actually said that up above. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 14:08, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I presume the other four articles now semi-protected will have semi-protection lifted within a day or two as well? I adamently oppose having pages semi-protected for long periods of time or indefinitely, and I thought that was what we had agreed on. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 16:14, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

(There are 5 others.) As you mention elsewhere, this is not intended to prohibit anonymous editing in general. I would hope that people would lift sprotection to see what effect it has had quite regularly. One unususal special case is the Bogdanov Affair which is massively infested with sockpuppets stemming from an Arb case. One sprotect works right, that one article might need special treatment. -Splash^talk 16:19, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I meant four other articles - I didn't include the policy page. True, Bogdanov Affair is an unusual situation that may call for semi-protection, but I'm still concerned about the push for extended or permanent semi-protection on the other articles. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 16:22, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

As for lifting the other articles, semi protection is just like protection. We'll look at it and see if it should be lifted. Or we can lift it as a trial. It's going to be up to those who patrol RfP and PP. We didn't agree to any time limits. We agreed to let admins lift or put semi protection on as they see fit (according to requests mostly) and that other admins can override them...just like full protection. Will semi protection be used indefinitely on articles. Not on my watch. Or any other admin, since we can (and usually do) override each other. So...I know this has been a long answer, but my answer is. I don't know. We'll look at the cases and decide on a case by case basis like we always have. And frankly, the process we use for protection works quite well and I don't see that ending for semi protection. I don't see us needing to semi protect articles permanently, even George W. Bush. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 16:26, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Huh. I don't see the point of semiprotection if it isn't long term. There are articles like George W. Bush and Obesity that have always been and will always be plagued by vandalism. Should they really be semiprotected for three days, unprotected, vandalized several times for one day, semiprotected for three, unprotected, vandalized again, semiprotected again, unprotected again, vandalized again, and so on, for as long as Wikipedia exists? --Angr (t·c) 16:28, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

If this really does eventuate, isn't this an indication we need to consider further about different measures to deal with situations like this???? novacatz 16:58, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Angr on this. I posted this to Village Pump (policy) but will copy here:

Splash and BOGrapes, I would argue that the policy's internal logic is flawed. To wit:

Administrators note that semi-protection should only be considered if it is the only option left available to solve the problem of vandalism of the page. In other words, just like full protection, it is a last resort not a pre-emptive measure.

One, it will never ever be the only option left available; two, if "like full protection" it is a last resort, then why do we have it at all if we have full protection? So there must be a reason it exists short of putting in full protection. As such, I feel it is reasonble to interpret it as - if there is historical evidence that an article is the object of consistent, unrelenting vandalism due to the either short term or long term attractiveness of the article for vandalism, then it should be semi-protected, and it can be semi-protected indefinitely. To wit, George W. Bush and penis come to mind. Take a look at WP:MVP for a good compendium of these type of articles. Not all should be semi-protected. But the existence of that page shows there are pages that are consistently targets and the RC patrollers who use that shared watchlist know well what I'm talking about. Fuzheado | Talk 17:34, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

"Pre-emptive" means, semi-protecting a page *in case* it gets vandalised. No one is suggesting that. But semi-protecting a page indefinitely because it has a long history of getting frequently vandalised seems reasonable to me. But I think I'm in the minority here. Stevage 21:48, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Please don't fork the discussion. Now I have to copy-paste my response, adn that's just pointless.

If that was the intent of the policy, it would say so and people would have been quite clear about that in their comments in the straw poll. It doesn't, adn they weren't. You misunderstand semi-protection's relation to full protection. It can be used instead of full-protection when an article has a hard to stop vandal. At present, we have to lock everyone out because of a bored teenager. Now, we don't have to. That's the point. I'll leave others to thrash out GWB, but there is no reliance in the policy for a permanent protection. It will have to be by consensus and agreement. -Splash^talk 17:54, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Category

I made Category:Semi-protected to complement Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Sprotected. I made it a child of Category:Protected against vandalism just to emphasise the point. -Splash^talk 15:39, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Concern about half-implementation

It seems to me this could be a dangerous feature to deploy for very long if the restriction against brand-new accounts isn't in place. As it is, it's basically an encouragement to create an account to vandalize. It seems like the "no-spanking-new accounts" control was pretty critical to how this thing was going to work. Thoughts? Demi ^T/_C 19:33, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with this. --JiFish(^Talk/_Contrib) 19:40, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I believe the developers are aware of this problem and hope they are working toward full implementation as proposed. Hall Monitor 19:47, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

And it should be fixed now. Try it again. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 01:35, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Difference between semi-protection and protection

Perhaps it hasn't been spelled out. As I understand it:

• Protection is for content disputes: Well-meaning people disagree on what should be on a page, and frequently revert each others' edits, believing them to be incorrect, biased, etc. Can apply to controversial topics like Jihad, Abortion, War in Iraq etc.
• Semi-protection is for vandalism: Vandals repeatedly deface high-visibility pages because they hate the subject, find the subject funny, or have something witty to add. Can apply to George W Bush, Obesity, Penis, Hitler etc.

Different problems, different solutions. In the former case, you prevent *everyone* editing until they sort out their differences. In the latter, you aim to stop vandals editing, while serious editors can get on with the job. Yet the names are confusing: Perhaps they should be "content protection" and "vandal protection" rather than "protection" and "semi-protection". Stevage 21:52, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Not a bad idea, how hard would it be to implement? --kizzle 21:57, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Let's wait until this is totally live before making changes. I kind of wish you guys had said all of this 2-3 weeks ago before it went partially live. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 23:52, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Dude. That's why we have theory and practice. You can't think of everything when it's still theory, but once you see it in practice you can suddenly see "obvious" things. Stevage 07:04, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

it's still too soon. Everyone is jumping to conclusions. I removed 5 from the PP list tonight, so we have 12 and all fit the guidelines. Just be patient. It will work out. I just don't like this making changes when it literally just went fully functional. Give it a few days. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 07:16, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

idea to curb protection creep

What if we incorporate time limits into semi-protection as follows: SP can be applied for up to a week the first time, then if serious vandalism continues once it's lifted, SP can be applied for another 2 weeks, then finally, if serious vandalism continues once it's lifted, it can be applied for another 3 weeks. However, this is the maximum; even pages such as GWB, Kerry, Hitler, etc. must have SP lifted every 3 weeks. I think upon evidence that vandalism has continued repeatedly after semi-protection has been lifted, 3 weeks is a good balance to pages that might experience such waves of vandalism for very long periods of time. It would also satisfy both the clause of semi-protection not remaining for extended amounts of time along with using it as a response rather than for pre-emptive measures. --kizzle 21:56, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Even GWB agrees with us:

Noting that key provisions of the Patriot Act (Semi-protection policy) are set to expire in two weeks, the president said: "The terrorist (vandalism) threat to our country (Wikipedia) will not expire in two weeks. The terrorists vandals want to attack America (Wikipedia) again, and inflict even greater damage than they did on September the 11th (before semi-protection)."

--kizzle 22:14, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Why don't we wait until it's fully live. Didn't we agree to keep this like this is to see how it works out before making changes? You guys are really jumping on this way too fast. Give it some time. I really don't like time limits. We've been through this. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 23:54, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm just trying to address the valid concerns people have over GWB becoming indefinetely protected. --kizzle 01:34, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

What you see at present is the admins, in conjunction with non-admins, thrashing this out: self-policing just exactly as predicted. It's going to take a few days, maybe weeks, until we can establish where the consensus lies on particular example like GWB. Bear in mind that, if a single admin among the 740+ thinks it should be umprotected, it will be. -Splash^talk 02:09, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

question 2

Shouldn't semi-protection be prohibited on talk pages? It would seem that this would unfairly hurt discussions involving anon IPs on certain pages, and these pages wouldn't be viewable to the readers who are simply using Wikipedia as a reference. --kizzle 22:00, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, talk pages just shouldn't be protected in general (although I have occasionally seen that in extreme cases). I don't think that that'll be a problem, as the same rules apply to semi as do to anti-vandal full protection. Blackcap (talk) 22:24, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, unless it is an extreme case. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 22:35, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Ok, because both Talk:Poop and Talk:Bogdanov Affair are semi-protected. --kizzle 22:51, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Bogdanov Affair is a special case - it's been through Arbitration, and the need may be warranted. I'm not sure about Talk:Poop - let me check the log. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:16, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

The Bogdanov Affair pages were protected by Fred Bauder, an arbitrator, so I assume it has something to do with the ArbCom. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 23:18, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

We have an ongoing problem with ips and socks at Bogdanov Affair and its talk page. The folks who are doing this are not Wikipedia editors, they are just here as a part of the Bogdanov Affair. Fred Bauder 23:50, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey Fred! :) Yeah I think Bogdanov will be the exception. Otherwise, what's happening is that we're having to block people constantly from the pages. This would be a great way around that. We've blocked what? 25 people? 30? It's nuts. And it's not really slowing down. One was blocked a couple of days ago. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 23:55, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

The bug is fixed!

I had sent a bugzilla report in on it. Apparently, our man Brion made a typo in the configuration. :) So that's why it wasn't working. I used a test account I created last night and it is indeed not able to edit GWB. I will change the SP template accordingly. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 01:39, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Do you have the bugzilla bug number? Blackcap (talk) 01:42, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet. --kizzle 01:43, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

No bug, but here's a diff: [1] Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 01:45, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Rock on! Blackcap (talk) 01:49, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

4353 was the bugzilla number. I figured it was something simple like that. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 01:51, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Btw, you really need to see the history on GWB. It's a wonderful sight. :) Like I said, I plan on unprotecting it tomorrow just to see if the vandalism returns. But at least we know that SP does what it says. We have actual WORK on the article happening. That hasn't happened in ages. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 01:54, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

For those of you who haven't seen it, here ya are: GWB history: the magic of semi-protection. Blackcap (talk) 01:59, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Well, it looks like we're set. Fan-tastic. Blackcap (talk) 01:56, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree...it's amazing to see how this took off, and now look at the result! Preliminaries look excellent. --HappyCamper 01:57, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, great signal to noise ratio. Hope we can bring the same to other articles. Fuzheado | Talk 03:05, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Just tested everything, and it's working great! xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 02:00, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Yay! --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 02:06, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I, for one, am amped. I tried it out earlier today, and saw that it was working beautifully, and I like the protection log being on the page, which is a huge help. I don't however, get why there is even another option for pagemoves... My anon/new user accounts were not able to move my userpage when I unprotected it, while my slightly older doppelganger was able to move no protection and semi'd pages. I am so happy this has been implimented, and the edit histories look beautiful, which prove its effectiveness, but I'm not so sure about the pagemove box... Maybe a dev can help me understand? -~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mysekurity (talk • contribs) 04:49, December 23, 2005

Whups! Sorry, and thanks! -Mysekurity^{(have you seen this?)} 17:07, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Japanese media

This is the first proper use of WP:SEMI. The history has exactly the right characteristics, and now the vandal has been knocked on the head (post-bugfix) and everyone else can carry on with their job of editing. -Splash^talk 02:10, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks - indeed, when the article was initially (fully) protected, the vandal was mocking the editors of this article that sooner or later it would have to be unprotected (diff), and that he would return to vandalise it then. Didn't work out too well for him! :-D bd2412 T 02:16, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Good! Glad to see this. Thanks. Antandrus (talk) 02:21, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Does this imply that semi-protection of the George W. Bush article was not properly done? Can't sleep, clown will eat me 02:28, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Simply that this article (Japanese media) exhibits just the kind of features that make short-term sprotection an ideal solution. -Splash^talk 02:35, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes I think it's a great tool against pages where a dynamic IP keeps nailing the page. You can't block the person because their IP keeps changing, but on the other hand, full protection isn't really worthwhile since non vandals should be able to edit the page. I'm going to do it to History of Gibraltar and Disputed status of Gibraltar. We have a blocked user (Gibraltarian) who keeps using dynamic IPs to vandalize the pages. I tried a range block but those are damn useless. :) Again, great case for S-P. It won't be permanent...just until Gibraltarian gives up. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 03:03, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Whoah! I see the words, "I tried a range block, but those are damn useless" and I get distinctly worried. First, don't ever try a rangeblock. If you don't know what you are doing, don't touch it. You will really mess things up. Second, if a rangeblock doesn't appear to have worked, you did something wrong. You should almost never need to use a range block. Jeez... 86.133.53.111 16:49, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Interesting detail

This post says it's probably not restricted to X% as we envisaged, but actually to about 4 days, which is known to be about equivalent to 1%. Just an observation. -Splash^talk 02:58, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

4 days is still on target with what we were shooting for, and this makes a new field availible for future use account creation date in the sql table. I'm sure the old accounts will never be updated, so in 10 years if this displays somewhere they will be Legenday accounts or some other grandfathering term. xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 03:02, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

4 days is fine. Most vandals will just try vandalism right off the bat, see that they can't, and give up (or maybe, if we're lucky, move on to legitimate edits on other articles). Someone willing to wait 4 days isn't going to be stopped by any protection policy. Firebug 04:49, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

checkuser

keep in mind, we're going to find out exactly how effective this is in about 4 days, when all the sleeper accounts created today will become in effect. For you admins, do you have access to do the checkuser or whatever to see what other accounts belong to the IP? Are you going to simply ban one of the user's accounts, who also registered 9 other accounts today, or are you going to try and proactively find the other sleeper accounts registered? --kizzle 03:46, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

• That is, presuming that the typical anon vandal is both patient enough and smart enough to create a faux account and keep it on the shelf for four days. I think there will be few of them, and they will be quickly dispatched. bd2412 T 03:48, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Checkuser is only available to about 5 people on the project. Yep. 5. Fred Bauder, Kelly Martin and a couple of others. And they only do check users if you suspect socks. So. No. We can't be proactive. We just have to see how it goes. I dunno. I don't see a mass amount of people doing that since 90% of vandalism is drive by, i.e. people who do it once and then never again. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 03:50, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

User:Tim Starling, User:David Gerard, User:Fred Bauder, User:Kelly Martin, User:Raul654, User:The Epopt and User:Jayjg have CheckUser access. In addition, stewards have access to grant it to themselves (although not on this project, due to their own policies), and certain developers can access it too. 86.133.53.111 16:46, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Today's Feature Article SEMIed

I'm a bit surprised that today's featured article apparently has been SEMIed. Isn't the case that we have a (unwritten) rule that the FA should not be protected because we get some nice edits from the increased exposure and it is a good way to get new users in the community? I thought that SEMI should be somewhat close to full protection and we don't do that (often) to the daily FA. I know the SEMI is a nice shiny new toy but lets not get carried away here. novacatz 04:31, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

True, but at one point, it got too ugly, so we had to scale back. That said, it should be unprotected now. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 04:33, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Maybe I am reading the history wrong -- there was only 4 RVVs and all up not-a-lot-of-edits on the page at all. Is semi hurting more than it is helping? Incidentally, notice is still on the page? still semied? novacatz 04:42, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Would it help to set a minimum amount of vandalism attempts in a day to curb sp's usage? --kizzle 04:44, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Are we speaking about the same featured article? I spent most of the day reverting crap from Captain Marvel (DC Comics)... Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 04:57, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

"Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Here's today's featured article. You can't edit it."

Is there a worse way to introduce new users to a wiki? This certainly isn't the sort of application that I had in mind when I voted to support the policy. —Lifeisunfair 04:46, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

We need to start addressing protection creep now... we now have 19 pages semi-protected, and from a quick glance, half of them don't deserve to be. --kizzle 04:51, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

No it isn't. Good god people. Can you give it more than a day please? We are going to have articles semi protected that shouldn't be at first because people don't know the parameters. Put your faith in the admins and try to give it more than a day. I haven't even gone through the list of SP pages yet, for crying out loud. Hate to be negative but we have too many alarmists right now. Be patient. It'll work out. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 04:54, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, just looked again, its definetely not half, but look at Chuck Norris, William Luther Pierce, and List of SpongeBob episodes. --kizzle 04:55, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I will. If you think articles should be unprotected, put requests up at requests for protection. Sorry if I sounded harsh, but you just gotta give this more than a day or two. And I'm not singling you out, kizzle. There are a bunch of people being much more alarmist than you are...people that didn't participate in this discussion one bit. I'm more annoyed at them then you. Apologies. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 04:59, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Btw, I added language to the policy about protecting the FA. According to the general protection policy, it shouldn't be full protected and that's ditto for semi protection. I unprotected the FA article today and I left a message on the admin's page who protected it. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 05:01, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I ended up removing from the 4 from the PP list. I will say too that a few of the others are most definitely there for just a few days, especially Kerry, the 2 Gibraltar articles and Jimmy Wales. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 05:15, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Just concurring with what Woohookitty's saying. The kinks'll be worked out. Give it some time. Blackcap (talk) 14:58, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Future direction?

Just a heads up that I'm proposing: Wikipedia:TimedArticleChangeStabilisationMechanism

Basically it's Semi-protection policy, on steroids. Rather than only apply to certain articles, it would apply to all the articles in the wikipedia automatically, and rather than preclude anon/new editors from editing an article the idea is that anyone can change an article, but the change doesn't necessarily go live for a day.

The editors will nearly always catch problems by checking their watchlists, and correct the article as and when required. No admin intervention would normally be necessary (unless a persistent vandal appears, in which case the admins can be petitioned to freeze their account.)

It's more complicated to code and it needs more processing time, but I think it should work plenty fast enough in practice. WolfKeeper 19:01, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Firstly, you might want to read about naming conventions to see why Wikipedia is different from other CamelCase-based Wikis, and how spaces are a good thing. Secondly, I think it is a bit early to be making any descisions of this sort, and it would be helpful to wait just a little so we can see how this works out. Lastly, I disagree with this proposition simply because it creates too much beaurocracy and unneccisary coding changes, plus server stress, which, as you should know by now, is none-too-good. -Mysekurity^{(have you seen this?)} 19:10, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

At this stage it is just a proposal. We need to examine what changes to the server code would be necessary- in principle it shouldn't add any significant load at all; there's already a cache in place that would deal with most of the page loads, without hitting the new code at all. It also definitely wouldn't add any new bureacracy, but there certainly would need to be some code changes. I'm more worried whether the behaviour would be acceptable to the users; but my gut feel is yes it would be ok.WolfKeeper 19:36, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

So far

If you look at the list of semi protected articles, I don't think anyone can complain. A few on there are obviously temporary (i.e. they got hit hard with vandals for a few days) and the ones that are there long term )at least 3-4 days) probably should be. Penis, Nigger, 50 Cent and the others are frequent, long term targets of vandals. Again though. Remember. If anyone objects to anything on that list, put a request up at RfP. It's what it's there for. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 00:23, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Seems like this page is definetely becoming a spill-over target for vandalism from the semi-protected pages, though it's not close to needing SP at this time. --kizzle 03:28, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Also note that some of the Semi-ed articles where just stepped down from full protecton, like Jay Cutler and Ronnie Coleman.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 05:17, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Semi-protection on Digg

It appears that Digg has picked up on the semi-protection story, [2] one week after we were slashdotted. [3] The feedback varied, but overall it looks like people totally digg the idea.  :-) Can't sleep, clown will eat me 09:14, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I spoke too soon, we've been slashdotted again. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 09:55, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Funny thing about that first slashdot story, when I posted it, I also submitted the following line after what's currently there: "Now, if you want to replace Our Glorious Leader's photo with a pierced penis, you'll have to wait an unspecified amount of time before you can Prince Albterize the President." Seems they didn't like that line too much. --kizzle 10:00, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Policy statement is overly broad

The policy statement says that it is "accepted Wikipedia policy". It is at best accepted English language Wikipedia accepted. GerardM 11:31, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Which for our purposes, is Wikipedia policy. Policies vary between different projects and languages, that's nothing new. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 20:04, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

You are exactly right but miss the point. People on other projects think that en.wikipedia is the one defining policies. It is therefore important to state this. GerardM 17:41, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

I do not believe that to be true. For example, from what I have read, the de.wikipedia is much more agressive about enforcing blocks on vandal users and IP addresses than the English Wikipedia is. Unless some sort of a degree is made by Jimbo, policies do vary from language to language and project to project. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 17:48, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

extending semi-protection policies

What if semi-protection levels ( = minimal "xp points" required to edit an article) were generated by an algorithm taking parameters such as "vandalism", "controversial", "on-going" as well as editing frequency?

That would have the two-fold effect of (a) protecting high-profile pages from edit wars and (b) drawing attention to lower-profile pages that sorely need attention, but will be neglected because of new users preferring to make a difference -- even if a grammar correction one -- on a high-profile article than doing the research and extending the information on lower-profile ones.

If this isn't the place to discuss this, please forward or direct me to the proper forum. Dnavarro 17:07, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I would actually put that at Village pump (technical). --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 20:07, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Reduced honeypots for vandalism

I certainly generally agree with this policy addition, but I'm interested in seeing what happens when these vandalism honeypots are (more or less) taken away and where the vandals then go to do their dirty work. Has anyone taken a look at a possible migration of these vandals to other "less attractive" unprotected articles? — Stevie is the man! ^{Talk | Work} 17:49, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

That's impossible to predict. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 20:07, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

They generally go here, which is fine by me. I'm all for keeping this page un-semi-protected no matter what, because this is as good a page to draw vandals to as any, as its pretty low profile and is a policy page rather than a reference article. --kizzle 20:57, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, they go everywhere else, too. I'm not so sure that honeypots are a good thing anyway, as then it's just impossible (by which I mean mildly difficult) to get decent work done on the article which is honeypotted. Spreading it out is O.K.: that's part of why we have watchlists and RC patrol. Blackcap (talk) 21:04, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I was talking with a friend offline (whose name I won't mention) about this, and (s)he said that this will not be nearly as big of a problem. This person is pretty high-up, and has been here much longer than most of us, so I think (s)he knows what (s)he's talking about. The thing about high-profile pages is that vandals become sucked into a life of vandalism because they see they can edit this, and then are shut down over and over again. The casual user will not do this as often, I believe, and will more likely edit a lesser-seen page than a higher-profile one for small capturing issues like spelling, grammar, and punctuation. An experienced vandal, on the other hand, can burn out, and will often leave after getting kicked around or ignored too much, and with this, they won't become hooked on vandalizing in the first place. Again, we havn't really seen what will happen, but that's going to be my prediction. As my this person said, "there's no one perfect solution to this vandalism," we've got a lot of issues that we have to deal with, but they tend to be minor. As long as we can use this to keep a few of them under wraps, we can deal with what we're actually trying to do here: build an encyclopedia. -Mysekurity^{(have you seen this?)} 03:42, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

For those keeping track at home

We currently have 28 semi protected articles. But, at least 7 or 8 are going to be for just 2-3 days. So now a massive flood. I really think it's going to stablize at 40 or less. We've turned down all but 1 request for semi-protection on RfP. And I'm watching WP:PP like a hawk. :) Just making sure that people understand that this is for persistant, frequent vandalism. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 08:12, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Good on ya. Blackcap (talk) 08:30, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

And look at this. I unprotected GWB last night and we've had very little vandalism since. A good sign, I must say. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 20:03, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, comparatively, anyway. But you're right, that is a welcome sign. Blackcap (talk) 20:05, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Inability to edit sections?

Semiprotection makes it so you cannot edit sections of articles, can someone fix this? Thanks. SandBoxer 21:23, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

I see what you mean. It looks like when a page is semi protected, it only allows you to edit the entire article at once, not section by section. I'll put a bugzilla report in. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 22:13, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Bugzilla # is bugzilla:4385. I bet it gets fixed lickety split. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 22:16, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, this is really annoying for really long winded articles (ie. most of the current semi-protected ones) SandBoxer 22:24, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

There's some talk on the mailing list about this, see [WikiEN-l] The George W. Bush article: is this still a wiki? and related thread. Blackcap (talk) 07:18, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

According to Brion, if you clear the cache on your web browser, it should solve the problem. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 12:06, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Featured articles

Splash, could you or one of the other good policy writers rewrite the part of the policy that talks about articles from the main page and featured articles. We just had another featured article semi-protected. That's pre-emptive. We don't do pre-emptive. Thanks. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 22:19, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

One problem with this "policy" is it is two pages in one: first it explains what semi-protection is and how it works, secondly it explains the "policy" surrounding its use: when to use it. These seem to me to be two quite distinct things with two different audiences: Normal users need to know what semi-protection is, but they don't really need to know when to apply it (since all they can do is request it). Admins know what it is, they only need to check the guidelines for use. So perhaps it would be appropriate to break this page up further into either two pages, or at least two big sections on htis page: "For admins" etc. Stevage 11:59, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Is there a reason that you put "policy" in quotes? Makes it sound like you doubt its validity. It doesn't really matter, except that I don't want to be reading distain into something where there isn't any. Blackcap (talk) 17:53, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Revert wars w/ multiple IPs

There are articles where an editor uses many IPs in order to evade the 3RR ban, and in some of those cases the user also has at least one username account. Before the advent of SP there was no tool other than full protection that could stop them. While I see that the original SP proposal included a statement that this tool should not be used for revert wars, SP appears to me to be the ideal tool for such problems. Are we putting "wikipedia" philosophy ahead of the need to create an encyclcopledia without excessive disruption? Would it be appropriate to have a poll addressing this one point? -Willmcw 19:58, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

If revert wars include numerous anon IPs, I would argue that it could be considered as basis for semi-protection. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 20:02, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

In the case you mention, semi-protection would be justified for sockpuppetry (a form of vandalism), not because there is an edit war. Sockpuppetry is a valid reason to apply semi-protection, though its usage for such a reason should be relatively much shorter than for cases of serious traditional vandalism. We cannot say that semi-protection is justifiable due to an edit war alone, but in cases of sockpuppetry, I believe semi-protection is justified. If there was to be a main bullet point to my presentation, it would be that SP is ok for edit wars involving sockpuppets but not edit wars alone. --kizzle 20:21, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Based on these comments, it sounds like the instrucution:

• Is not to be used for edit warring or revert wars.

Should be amended with [except in cases of sock puppetry]. Is that suitable? -Willmcw 20:48, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I have major problems with this. For one thing, we'd need to either start a 2nd template or heavily modify the current one since the current one just says "vandalism". The second thing is that couldn't we just call using sockpuppets to get into edit wars "vandalism"? It is vandalism. I just don't like broadening the definition of what we use this for because it opens up more gray areas and more areas for abuse. And kizzle, I don't understand your support. This would definitely lead to more protections of pages since we might make it say "except for sockpuppets", but you know that people will stretch that definition. I say, include it as vandalism and don't change the policy. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 21:05, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

My point was that his test scenario would warrant semi-protection because of sockpuppetry, which I agree with you that "it is vandalism". However you want to word that is up to you. I wasn't suggesting changing the wording. --kizzle 21:49, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me that calling IP sock puppetry used to avoid the 3RR "vandalism" is a bigger re-definition than expanding the usage of this tool. However, if it is acknowledged that that behavior is an acceptable reason to employ this tool then I don't care what the instructions say. -Willmcw 22:28, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Well clearly the mere existence of sockpuppets alone shouldn't necessitate semi-protection, but if there is a significant amount of sockpuppetry, it probably should be utilized. --kizzle 22:46, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism covers it. Look at Disputed status of Gibraltar and History of Gibraltar. Blocked user User:Gibraltarian is using sockpuppets to try to edit the articles. Well, we SP the article. You could say it was an edit war but it's actually more like vandalism. I mean, sockpuppets are not allowed to be created. So if they are used, that's a violation of policy. I'd call that vandalism. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 22:56, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Exactly. --kizzle 23:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Good. We agree. :) I just don't want to introduce more gray areas into something that some admins already aren't grasping real well. I'm monitoring PP real closely, so any incorrect protections are being undone pretty fast, but some admins are having a hard time grasping "heavy" vandalism. 3-4 edits a day is not heavy. :) I just don't want to make it worse by introducing gray areas into this. And like I said, sockpuppets are against policy. So using them can be called vandalism. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 23:34, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Wow. You guys work this stuff out nicely! Good job! And I've peeked over at PP, and things seem to be pretty much in order, so good job to all. I'm glad this is working out in a generally positive way, and it's great to be able to not worry so much about GWB, ain't it? -Mysekurity^{(have you seen this?)} 00:22, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, Woohookitty, for that logical explication. It makes perfect sense to me now. Thanks also for shepherding this tool and its policy. I think it is very valuable. -Willmcw 00:28, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

OK. Group hug! :-D --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 03:50, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I think you mean group hug :). Ugh...that article could use some cleanup. Editor tools to the rescue! -Mysekurity^{(have you seen this?)} 03:57, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Main page?

Does anyone think that semi-protecting the Main Page would be a good idea? It was originally not protected and was protected only to deal with excessive vandalism. Now we have semi-protection to deal with that problem. Izehar 20:51, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Thats a good thought, and it makes a lot of sense. But the main page being protected works, from what I understand it's protected now to discouarge vandalism from appearing on it, so that new visitors to the site don't get hit with, obscene images, or words right off the bat. In theory Semi-Protection should take care of that problem, but high profile pages like GWB still get hit with vandalism, albeit its a lot less than it has been. KnowledgeOfSelf | talk 20:59, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Never. 4 days and people can put penises on the main page? No way that's going to happen. Ral315 (talk) 21:43, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I support giving it a try. The current system is a fairly big burden on admins, having to protect and unprotect the featured article and selected anniversary templates and pictures, and having to maintain the "in the news" and "did you know" sections. Semi-protection would allow a lot more community involvement in all these areas, and allow admins to work on other things. I say, let's give it a try, and see whether an unnacceptable level of vandalism results. dbenbenn | talk 22:57, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what I think... therefore I think trying semi-protection on the main page might be a good idea. We can see what happens. Deskana (talk page) 00:08, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

If we could semi-protect against longer than 4 days, maybe somewhere around 60 days, I'd be happy, but of course, no one else will go along with that for a multitude of reasons. --kizzle 00:24, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

No. Letting any part of the main page be unprotected is not a good idea; this puts too much risk that the main page will be constantly vandalised. It's not a big trouble to upkeep the main page; there's a suggestion section for "In the News" and "Did you know"; selected anniversaries are already done, and Raul takes care of the featured articles. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:38, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I strongly oppose semi-protecting the Main Page. Only users who have earned the trust of the community should be allowed to edit such a high-profile page. Reducing the protection level of the Main Page would jeopardize the reputation of the whole project. --TantalumTelluride 02:57, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

We discussed this in one of the archives (the first one, I believe), and it was ruled down, as it was deemed that only the selected few should have the ability to change it. It does put a little more pressure on admins, but not too much, as they are mostly just blurbs. If you want to get involved, look a the templates for the near future, and comment on those before they're protected. -Mysekurity^{(have you seen this?)} 04:37, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Template for user talk pages

Template:Sprotected(edit talk links history) won't fit on user talk pages, so I made an other one Template:Sutprotected(edit talk links history) _→AzaToth 21:03, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

No problem with that. We could use it on Bogdanov Affair and possibly on the 2 Gibraltar articles that Gibraltarian keeps nailing as well. And yes, it's definitely a last resort on both of those. For G, I keep trying range blocks but he uses an ISP that uses 9 banks of IPs. Almost impossible. Anyway. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 21:09, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Glad this exists

I did suggest this in the past and it was opposed, I wish it was implemented back then. In any case. Nice to see this :) --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 13:15, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Yep. We kind of got lucky. :) The whole libel thing was hitting around the time this started and I think Jimbo was anxious to give vandal fighters another tool. And. This is it. :) So far it's working out well I think. About 30 SP articles and it's hard to argue with them. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 13:27, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Change protected page template

I notice above there is a discussion above that sprotect is for vandalism while full protection is more useful to prevent a content dispute. However, I notice the current protection template still says it is targeting vandalism. Would it be remiss of me to change the template at this stage? 222.166.160.203 14:25, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, we have 2 full protection templates. {{protected}} is for protection due to edit wars. {{vprotect}} is for protection due to vandalism. They are both used for full protection. {{sprotect}} simply mentions vandalism and it should really just mention vandalism since it hasn't been approved for edit warring. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 14:34, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Rename

I think we should change the name of this to Wikipedia:Semi-protection, any thoughts? It eventually should be merged into the Protection Policy page, but for now...? -Mysekurity^{(have you seen this?)} 23:08, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Erm, Arbitration policy, Banning policy, Blocking policy, Deletion policy, Image use policy, Privacy policy, Protection policy, Undeletion policy... there is some parallelism in there... Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 23:14, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Yep, "X Policy" is the norm. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 01:24, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Good point, and thanks. Any thoughts about merging this into the protection policy? -Mysekurity^{(have you seen this?)} 07:14, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Keeping lists up to date

Hi folks, I was just running through the list of semi pages (I am truly boring!) and I noticed that on some occasions folks will add semi but not add the template to the top of the page and also they might semi the page but not add to the list of protected pages. Is there any way to make these lists and template additions automatic/dynamic so things don't slip through (and also it makes life easier on the admin -- don't have to do three sets of work to sprotect/prot/vprot a page) novacatz 02:39, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

No, unfortunately. The same has been asked about AfDs and such, but the answer is always no, as it puts too much strain on the servers/too much work and etc. It'd be nice, but the thing I can think of most would be to add something to your monobook.js (like I have for AfDs [it's called AutoAfD]), and then make a mod of that. Yes, it is annoying, but it isn't too much to ask, is it? -Mysekurity^{(have you seen this?)} 07:16, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

George W. Bush and Obesity

These pages are not candidates for semi-protection, they should either be fully protected or not protected at all - not halfway as this policy is implying. Nor should the Bogdanov Affair page. Please take this into account. --Whitewalls 22:47, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Why do you contest that GWB is not a candidate for semi-protection? --kizzle 22:49, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

The vandals who attacked GWB and Bogdanov Affair seem to have moved on now, and are attacking aFd's instead. --Whitewalls 22:50, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I supppose there is no harm in trying unprotection - I mean semi-protection was never intended to be imposed indefinitely. Izehar 22:52, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I think {{protected}} and {{vprotected}} should be used instead - far easier to enforce. --Whitewalls 22:54, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Neither semi- nor full-protection require any enforcement. -Splash^talk 22:55, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I still think GWB, Obesity and the Bogdanov Affair should not be semi-protected, only {{protected}} and {{vprotected}} --Whitewalls 22:58, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Um Whitewalls, do you mean that those articles should be fully protected and not semi-protected. Would you mind explaining why? Izehar 22:59, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Vandals have found a way round the semi-protection policy - register an account, and leave it for a few days/weeks then vandalise the protected articles. Similar to the Willy on Wheels sleepers that get registered for page move vandalism. --Whitewalls 23:08, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

So? We don't want to stamp out vandalism completely (we can't, it's not possible) - we want to reduce it. Wikipedia is a wiki: all pages by definition can be edited by anyone; even semi-protection is supposed to be only temporary. Have you read the Wikipedia:Protection policy yet, only in certain circumstances can a page be fully protected permanantly. Izehar 23:15, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Short bursts of vprotect and protected tags seem to have worked - but it wont stop WoW! --Whitewalls 23:27, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Who cares about WoW? He's just another in the long list of petty vandals we've had - the only difference is that his mess is harder to clear up. If he shows his face, he'll be blocked and reverted as per his ban; this is all in his report. Izehar 23:32, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Note this "test version" of Whitewall's user page and the automobile-tire themed name. OK, OK, I'll AGF. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 23:38, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

WoW seems to keep hitting the Obesity and Girls Aloud pages. --Whitewalls 23:36, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes - and he'll be reverted. Look, we're not going to protect the entire encyclopaedia just because WoW might hit it. Izehar 23:40, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

WoW keeps attacking those two particular pages - should they be protected? --Whitewalls 23:43, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

No. Semi-protection is used for persistent vandalism. Izehar 23:45, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Bogdanov Affair is a unique case. Whitewalls said "

The vandals who attacked GWB and Bogdanov Affair seem to have moved on now, and are attacking aFd's instead.". Actually vandals are not the problem at Bogdanov Affair. Please read the Arbcom decision on this. We've had weeks and weeks of various sockpuppets of Ivan Bogdanov and others post to the talk and main pages of the article. We then have to block them. Here is the list of users banned due to that case. It was growing by several a week. SP the page is a way around that. Fred Bauder, one of the arbcom members, semi protected the page himself so that we didn't have to keep banning users forever...and ever. So the quietness you see a mirage. If it's unprotected, we'll go right back to Ivan and the others illegally hitting the page. Honestly, if people want it unprotected, I'd ask Fred. BA is the one article where SP might be permanent by necessity. The controversy that caused this raucus is not over. So this isn't "vandalism". it's more than that. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 12:26, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't see BA as a extremely special case -- it was vandaled a lot and hence was semied. Plain and simple. I think for all semi articles, there should be a lifting every now and then to see if the gits have lost interest. You can always lay down the law again if the vandals return. Note that for extremely persistent vandals - semi won't do anything - they can just create sleeper account and wait the required rest period and get going once it is over. novacatz 12:37, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Well you know what? it's stopped the postings from banned users on P-A. It is a special case. If you think it's just "vandalism", you haven't read the case. This is people named in the article invading it without any desire to become real editors. It's not random drive by stuff. But hey, if you want it unprotected and go against the arbcom's wishes, be my guess. It's a heck of alot more complicated than "vandals". --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 04:06, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Shake-out

So I refactored this some, without changing the actual policy even a little bit. I'm hopeful that having a big heading which appears in the now-forced TOC about when not to use sprotection might help out some. I added some instructions, just in case, and to provide an opportunity for people to be reminded about WP:PP. (I don't expect that particular change to make much difference, though.) Then, I sort of dusted the whole thing down a bit, since policy-plaque was beginning to grow on it. -Splash^talk 03:50, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Looks good. Clarifying is good. Especially since we're still getting admins SP pages which shouldn't be SP. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 04:12, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

It's beautiful

The history on the GWB page that is... it is nice to be able to look back and see all of that nice history not-so-cluttered with vandalisms and reverts. It does really feel good. novacatz 16:55, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 17:14, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Amen. It's great when something works. It seems that people can actually *gasp* re-arrange sections and such, and make it a better article instead of dealing with edit conflicts by vandals. I have not heard a single complaint from users regarding inability to edit the article. I'm sure there are some, but big articles like that should require a little more experience with our editing practices before re-arranging, IMO. -Mysekurity^{(have you seen this?)} 21:52, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

interesting response to usage at Louis Braille

The flood resulting from Google writing their logo in braille and then linking to this article from the search resulting when you clicked on the logo finally forced this page into semiprotection. However, there were a couple responses at Talk:Louis Braille from an anon and a relatively new user commenting that they felt reassured by the template. I often think of protection as, at best, an occasionally necessary evil and had completely missed that it may have positive connotations for readers. I may be way behind the curve on this realization as I don't frequent policy pages much, but I found the comments refreshing. - BanyanTree 22:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I trust protectec articles much more myself.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 03:48, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Apply this to "my watchlist"

Can I request that anonymous edits and users with accounts newer than 4 days show up highlighted in "my watchlist" regardless of which article they have edited? I have a ton of articles watchlisted but it's very difficult to catch all the vandalism because nothing defines them as "more likely to be vandalism". How about making it show up in bold or a different colour? (apologies if this should be posted somewhere else)--Will2k 04:44, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I honestly don't think you'd want that! I spend time using WP:CDVF and in IRC channel where a bot reports possibly dubious edits. There are, usually, several per minute on the bot and several per second overall. You'd never ever be able to patrol it.

However, Special:Recentchanges does show you, via the options at the top, all edits by anons, so that's probably what you're after. -Splash^talk 16:52, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I think Will2k only meant that he wants those items that would already show up in his watchlist to be hilighted under some conditions -- not that every such edit to the wiki should get thrown into his watchlist! —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 22:16, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I've seen a red exclaimation mark next to suspicious edits (by new users, I think) in new/beta versions of MediaWiki. -Mysekurity^{(have you seen this?)} 02:59, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Oooooooooohhhh. -Splash^talk 03:24, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Shiny new toys: can't wait to get my hands on it! :) -Mysekurity^{(have you seen this?)} 03:29, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Nope, folks, that's just the Patrol feature, which was long disabled here. I've played around with it on the test wiki, it is very nice, but it would be a royal pain to have to mark every edit as patrolled... Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 06:53, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I was looking for something similar to the red exclamation mark in my watchlist. That way I can take one quick look at my watchlist and see anonymous edits and brand new (unverified) users with edits. I'm thinking if there is already means for which we can identify anonymous and brand new unverified users (this semi-protection policy), don't just use it for some pages, let's apply it to watchlists/recent changes so we can all see potential abuse very easily. Think of it as a probationary edit: We see you are new, you can make your edit, but the established community will not overlook your edit since it will stand out to them. --Will2k 02:53, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

And the best news about SP so far

kizzle and others had concerns about protection creep with SP. Honestly, I did too. But so far, so good. Only 4 articles have been SP since basically the start of SP and all 4 are special cases. We have GWB, the 2 Gibraltar articles (SP due to blocked user Gibraltarian) and Bogdanov affair, which is a quasi-decision by the arbcom...Fred Bauder in particular. We only have 24 SP pages listed on WP:PP, which is actually down from a few days ago. I think Splash and I deserve applause. lol We've been working hard to unprotect pages that shouldn't have been protected. Anyway. So far, so good. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 11:42, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Applause novacatz 15:55, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

It's a celebration, bitches!! --kizzle 21:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

AfDs

A couple of us were wondering if AfDs could be semi-protected. If an AfD is heavily vandalised, could it be semi-protected? Does it only apply to articles? Thanks. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 20:09, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• My presumption would be that it should be treated like any other page—if there's a substantial need to ward off meatpuppets (e.g. someone links from their blog, "OOOH! Wikip3dia hax0rs want to d31373 my c00l page!!! G0 sh0w 'em @ Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Votes for deletion wh0 w3 ar333!" and you get a sockpuppet fest), it should be {{sprotected}}. However, they shouldn't be semi-protected by default. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 22:24, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

No, I didn't mean be default, but in exactly the situation you described (although perhaps with less mi55p3e11ed w0rd5). :-) --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 22:42, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know - I guess for AfDs to even be considered to be semi-protected, it would have to be extraordinary circumstances (even then, I'm still hesistant). Otherwise, we should try and semi-protect as little as possible, especially on "voting" pages where we usually solicit and encourage opinions and "votes". I guess it would have to be a case-by-case basis. Is there a specific one you were thinking of? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 22:45, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, the issue came up during this, but the general question, which could be applied to future AfDs as well, remains unanswered. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 22:54, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

The existence of sock/meat puppets should not be the determining factor. Instead the deciding factor should be the occurrence of vandalism within the AfD. Thus a flood of of puppets descending on an AfD and adding their comments in an orderly fashion should be allowed to proceed without interference. If some of the people drawn to an AfD start to change or remove existing comments, then we are talking vandalism and semi-protection would seem to be one of the options available. In the cases I have seen where vandalism comes into play, it is usually caused by only one or two individuals making a block of the offending IP a better option. Semi-protection should only come into play when it becomes impractical to block individual offending IPs. --Allen3 ^talk 23:15, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, did you see the amount of IPs and brand new users changing things and adding multiple votes, etc. in the above case? Check the history for the 10th. In a case like this, would SP be a valid option? --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 04:47, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Usually, 50 edits lets you vote on AFD. 150 lets you vote on ArbCom. Semi-protect rarely stops legitimate voters. 16+ edits/day is usually higher than the usual new user. It tends to jump up after they have been around though. Only in cases where sockpuppets can really skrew things up should semi be used. Look at how bad this is. I wish the admin payed closer attention.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 04:53, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Some things annoy me. Like being yelled at twice in 2 days for a vote I closed 5 months ago. Yeesh. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 05:05, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Heh...who is yelling? And who else pointed this out? Anyway, I am just saying that sometimes, sometimes semi is needed for AfD and for admins to be cautions, especially when dealing with cruft/troll magnet articles. You have done plenty of good work here so nobody here is against you. Now please cheer up before I send you hordes of Esperanza spam! :-)Voice of All^T|@|ESP 05:08, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

There is a new AfD on that article and I was cautioned that I wasn't careful enough the first time. Just annoyance. Anyway, yes afd votes are just like any article. Honestly, I never have figured out why anons are allowed to comment on afds anyway since they can't vote on them. Always found that strange. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 06:07, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

The reason I only semi trolled up AFDs or remove only troll votes (uneligable voters can still comment, I don't mind), is that tally=/=consensus. Occasionally, a new anon IP will present a good argument on AfD, it is very rare though, but it happens.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 18:34, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Anonymous users are invited to participate in deletion debates. There is absolutely not an inch of grounds available for summarily telling them to go away. There is no mandate in the proejct page for dealing with anything other than a serious vandalism problem. Meatpuppetry can be dealt with by the closing admin. Voice of All has invented entirely the 50 edits thing. If I'm your closing admin, it's nothing like that. Sometimes, I listen to what a lone, obviously knowledgeable, anon has to say and if they would have prevented from saying it, I'd have a thing or two to say to the admin who thus prevented them. Imo, no, AfDs cannot be semiprotected unless they face serious, current vandalism, which requires vandalistic traits needs reverts, rollbacks, blocks — the usual. Not just because you don't like anons. -Splash^talk 00:31, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

• Um. IIRC their votes are usually not counted unless you are just referring to them joining the discussion itself and not the voting part. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 00:52, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
  • If the outcome would be different between counting 'votes' and reading good-faith, non-agenda-driven comments would be different, then I'd take the outcome from the discussion. That approach easily excludes meatpuppetry, since it clearly has an agenda and is an attempt to stuff the non-existent ballot box. -Splash^talk 00:56, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
• "Voice of All has invented entirely the 50 edits thing". I said that usually 50 means that the users are not socks. Did you ever ready this? Wikipedia:Sock puppetry#When_questions_arise. They can comment, but their votes will likely not count unless there was enough variance. Obviously 45 may be enough, it all depends. I never said it was rigid, nor that IPs or anons never say anything reasonable, in fact I noted the opposite. Please don't use strawmen against me. I am saying that semi-protected AFDs in some cases may be worth it.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 00:59, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Yes, I read that. Certainly, 100 edits would be reasonable demonstration of non-sock-ness, but fewer than that wouldn't (necessarily) be reason to discount them. Also,more than that can still get you discounted (by me) if e.g. it's your first ever Wiki-space edit, and you appear to be on a mission of some kind. -Splash^talk 01:09, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
    • 100+, perhaps, but I get afraid to discount over even 75. Some voters only vote on AfD's (1-5 article edits tops) and literaly have stuff like "STOP THE CENSORSHIP" or "Proud Inclusionist member". I am still afraid to discount stuff like that.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 01:13, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
      • That's for your discretion. Anyway, we're a little off the topic of sprotecting AfDs. To reiterate, I don't think it should be done unless actual vandalism is reigning, rather than ordinary, non-vandalistic, puppetry. -Splash^talk 01:16, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, agree about vandalism. But current severe puppetry or puppetry likely to become severe due to the articles's troll magnet level and sock levels on its past AfD's deserves Semi-Pro, IMO, as it is just not worth all of the miscounting and hassale. We just have to agree to disagree there.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 01:22, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

If Splash hadn't said it, I would have. An anonymous user who presents reasoned opinions based upon our policies and guidelines is not only not excluded from AFD, but is welcome at AFD. Yes, AFD discussions can become messy. But semi-protection is not the answer. Nor is telling anonymous or new users that they "cannot vote" or that discussion should be limited and not be in the "voting area" (sic!). The notices on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The White Rose Society (website) are very poor ones. I recommend notices more along the lines of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Revision3 Studios second nomination, Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Flying Spaghetti Monster, and Template:AfdAnons. Uncle G 01:20, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

• And notice that Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Flying Spaghetti Monster is still a VFD discussion. That's because it is one of the very few VFD discussions that is protected (and thus that Uncle G's 'bot couldn't rename when it moved the mountain). Uncle G 01:25, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Back to point

We're getting a bit off course here. Yes, I think SP can be used for AfD votes IF it's eggregious, but it has to be vandalism. It can't just be anons or wild comments. The White Rose Society one was rejected by me because the requestor was objecting to the types of votes being made and it's like well. No. :) If real vandalism hits an AfD page (and it's happened), then by all means yes. We can SP for a short time just like any article. Not more than a few hours, but yes. But if it's just "well I don't like the votes" or "anons are making the page messy", then I don't think SP should be used. It can't be used for style points. There is nothing wrong with cleaning up AfD pages if they get out of hand. But SP wasn't meant to stop messiness or to stop anons from commenting. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 01:31, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Need some help adding to the policy

We seem to have admins who have decided that "% of good edits" is a reason to SP. We have Age of Enlightenment, which is barely being hit with one-two edits a day (if that) and yet, because "40% of edits are vandalism", it was semi protected. We need to tighten up the policy so admins don't do that. I mean if we allowed that as a reason, we'd have 500 protected pages and that's not an exaggeration. It wasn't meant to stop anon editing, but people are interpreting it that way. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 23:48, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

As I said on WP:RfPP, I agree with you here.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 23:57, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I thought that was already clear in the policy. Semi-protection should only be applied when there is an urgent need to protect the page due to a vandalism attack. It is not designed to restrict anon editing. Feel free to make it clearer, as that was the intent when it was drafted. If someone wants to expand the scope of the policy, they need consensus first. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 23:59, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

This would be clarifying, not expanding. I have a feeling that "restrict anon editing" isn't clear enough. We've had 3 admins use this criteria now so obviously, something isn't clear. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 00:24, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I think by "extension" Titoxd meant that the use of percentages would be such an extension, not that your request would be. -Splash^talk 00:53, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

And thank you for the support, Voice of All. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 00:30, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, the "restricting anons" thing was to stem the (presumed) tide of comments at the time about that, and the fact that it is a m:Foundation issue that anons are good for us. The main reason that the kind of example mentioned above is not within the spirit, nor really the letter, of the policy is that such protection does not deal with a current problem. It deals with a historical one. And that historical problem is, quite specifically, anonymous editing. The solution is chosen as one that will, in future, reduce such editing (as it undeniably will). There is also a subtle distinction between anon editing and vandalism: semi deals with vandalism, which can come from anywhere, and not merely anon editing. Semi has collateral in that sense, and thus should be deployed only if blocks and rollbacks simply can't take it. I will think for a little while on a personal suggestion, but I imagine it will be something along the lines of Titoxd's. -Splash^talk 00:53, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure the restricting anon editing part is what bothers me. What bothers me is that this is supposed to be for HEAVY CURRENT vandalism. An edit a day isn't heavy vandalism. Basing it on history is not current. Honestly, I don't like anon editing. Never have. So what bothers me more is the ignoring the heavy current part. It's not pre-emptive and it's not based on an article's edit history. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 00:57, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes. I'm toying with idea of adding a new section to the page, "Alternatives to protection" (for example). Make it brief and to the point, put it before "How" and include in there an exhortation to make sure the solution chosen is one that actually deals with a current problem and not a historical one. Now I write it like that, perhaps another not line saying "...for dealing with a historical problem — the article should have serious, running vandalism enough to justify restricting access to the article." Or something; that's an off-top-of-head draft. -Splash^talk 01:03, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Another note: whatever is added here will not get read by more than a few. A program of talk-page education will be far the most effective, not to mention most targetted, solution. -Splash^talk 01:04, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

---

2 cents on something somewhat related -- The article Hanging was previously semi-ed because of some anons (from a similar IP range - could be socky) pushing a POV despite consenus otherwise. It was unprotected recently (I know coz I pushed for it) and the anon guy(s) came back spewing the same stuff. It has been semi-ed again. But there was a little controversy about it. The anons hit the page pretty consistently about 3-4 times a day with the same changes. They ignore the talk page requests to discuss. In this case, the rate of vandalism is not very high but there is an underlying 'historical' problem of vandalism (analogous to GWB but obvious not anywhere near so servre). Semi was put in to try to make the anon lose interest. Is semi appropriate in this case? novacatz 04:20, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

It's similar to Japanese media, which was also semied, so it's appropriate. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 04:34, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Subverting community consensus?

There is some discussion about disregarding the SEMI policy for one specific article. See Talk:George W. Bush#Why keep removing the semi-protection?. Just thought I'd let the page where this discussion should probably be taking place know what is going on. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 16:35, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's a matter of subversion, just some concerns (with which I happen to disagree) about the appropriateness of regularly testing the background level of vandalism by lifting protection at least once per week. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:58, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Article Improvement Drive

For those interested in the principle involved here, there is a straw-poll at Wikipedia:Article Improvement Drive regarding whether anons should be allowed to vote there. I'm firmly of the opinion that they should based on the "anyone can edit business" and have been surprised by the resistence. I note it here because it strikes me as a kind of back-door semi-protection. Marskell 10:06, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Tony's tool

While I do appreciate Splash's worry that my vandalism monitoring tool could conceivably be used for nepharious purposes (monitoring the success of a bot-based vandalism campaign, for one), I've restored the link that he removed. We do monitor all IPs using that tool (using the normal web server logs) and the information is available to tools developers and would also be made available to non-developers having checkuser access, so abuses by known vandals could be detected and dealt with.

In any case all the information is public and if the information were really that useful for dark purposes the vandals could obtain it by writing a simple screen-scraper for article histories. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:10, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, actually your mind works in darker ways than mine...my reason was obvious at the time: it was because there was a spate of admins protecting articles based on their vandalism history rather than any particular vandalism problem at the time of protection. People were saying "protecting because of 40% vandal rate", but not observing that, actaully, the article got edited once or twice every few days or/and the single irritant at the time was, or could have been, blocked without requiring protection. (Seems to be an "ooh, new anti-vandal option, must use always" effect on some admins, even now.) That's not the fault of your tool of course, which is a rather neat piece of work, but that was the reason I took the link out — to take away the suggestion that % vandalism over some arbitrary period was good grounds for semiprotection. I've no problem with it remaining, however. -Splash^talk 01:32, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Good thinking. I added a caveat. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 07:59, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Coolies! Yeah it's a problem we're running into on RfP with even some admins. We've had several "almost all anon edits have been vandalism" reasons for protection. It's a neat tool though. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 08:02, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Message is wrong?

global warming is sp; when I edit it it tells me WARNING: This page has been locked so that only administrators can edit it. Be sure you are following the protected page guidelines. this is confusing! William M. Connolley 11:39, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Complaints about that on WP:AN today. Not sure what's up. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 11:57, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Looks like the devs decided to reuse MediaWiki:Protectedpagewarning for the semi-protection warning as well. I think it'd be better if there were a seperate warning message (at MediaWiki:Semiprotectedpagewarning perhaps). I've placed a similar comment, as well as a suggestion for improving the messages, at MediaWiki talk:Protectedpagewarning. —Locke Cole • t • c 01:13, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Merge tag

Radiant just added a merge tag to this page. The link is to discuss it at Wikipedia talk:Protection policy. Do so. :) I think it should remain 2 pages. SP and FP are very different. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 13:37, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Link updated to talk page xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 14:43, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I think merging is a bad idea at present. THere's enough unique material here to justify a seperate page, and it is used in a sufficiently different way. I'm going to remove the tag soon, I think. -Splash^talk 16:15, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

• Okay, but can we at least discuss this for a day or two, as opposed to an hour or two? :) I think the concepts are very related (and they use the same button, and the same process). It's a matter of scale (of e.g. the vandalism involved) to decide if a page should be protted or semiprotted. Radiant_>|< 17:11, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I'd prefer to keep separate pages. You are incorrect in saying that the difference is in scale of vandalism; with semi-protection now available, highly vandalized pages should almost never require full protection. Instead, full protection should be used for controlling page disputes and edit wars. These two usages IMHO warrant separate pages. --kizzle 21:07, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
  • As Kizzle says, it's not really the same thing at all. Full protection should now only need to be used for edit war situations (with the exception of sleepers, of course) and such protection comes with the ful baggage that admins shouldn't edit it. Semi, well, it can deal with almost all simple vandalism, people are encouraged to edit through it, and it is explciitly not to be used in an editorial dispute. I don't think the fact that it has the same button warrants a merge! There are practise, philosophy and policy differences between the two, and it useful to be able to refer to them seperately as a result. I don't think that a great deal will be achieved with a merge. (I also don't think that the situation qualifies for a 'disputed' tag just because one editor fancies it.) -Splash^talk 00:53, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree. Protection and semi-protection are not the same thing. The protection policy is not the same thing as the semi-protection policy. I think merging would simply cause confusion for people unfamiliar with the policy.

Semi-protection as an arbitration remedy

I have proposed permanent semi-protection in several cases where edit warring by anons is a possibility after bans of disruptive users, see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Neuro-linguistic_programming/Proposed_decision#Semi-protection Fred Bauder 15:00, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

First cut impression - proposed remedy sounds a bit self-contradictory. It begins with NLP is to be semi-ed permanently and then the very next sentence is 'admins may vary the level of protection as needed' - does that mean it can be unsemied or not? IT is not very clear as worded what is the intent. Perhaps clarify first? novacatz 15:07, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Novacatz that the wording is a little rough. I would propose changing the second sentence to: Any administrator may vary the level of protection as needed, but should not lower protection to a more permissive level of protection than semi-protection. This should allow full protection on an as needed basis but would discourage an administrator from removing all protection on the article. --Allen3 ^talk 16:56, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be good if the WP:SEMI policy page reflects these experimental uses of protection. Currently the policy page explicitly states that semi is not to be used as a remedy for edit wars at all. Peace. Metta Bubble 01:44, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

One of the things contemplated is briefly lifting protection to test the water. Fred Bauder 02:06, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I imagine I'd be fine with almost any use an arb comes up with. Is there an reason why the policy page can't say something along the lines of, "this remedy is new and it's still being experimented with"? Peace. Metta Bubble 06:45, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why we need to modify the semi-protection page at all for such usage. First, semi-protection based upon the "possibility" of edit wars by anon is always wrong, as that violates the reactionary principle behind semi-protection. Second, if these edits are not construed as vandalism, full protection should be used rather than semi-protection as according to the proper usage for protection as opposed to semi-protection. Third, semi-protection should never be permanent. --kizzle 01:58, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

If I may summarise to make it a little clearer. It's quite possible I'm missing something. As far as I can tell we've moved a bit beyond principles and the letter of the law and we're now into finding creative ways to solve realistic problems. Fred's suggesting that the wiki protection options aren't versatile enough so he's testing out things beyond the scope of the semi policy (see above). It seems likely he understands how his proposal measures up against the current wording and principles behind the semi policy. So that leaves the question of whether we update the semi policy to reflect this new use of semi-protection, or enforce the current semi policy and disallow these creative uses. Or just chill out and see what happens.

As I'm really too new here to contribute an opinion, I'll be interested to see how this discussion unfolds. Peace. Metta Bubble 14:37, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

The use of WP:SEMI by ArbCom is not surprising, but the Committee usually gives out pretty specific remedies (deliberately, to limit their effects to only those being troublesome). These remedies tend to be designed with particular purposes in mind and are not, generally, to be adopted as a shiny new policy or practise by admins at large. Which is to say that such a use of WP:SEMI is ok if mandated by ArbCom, but only if and only when and only where it is so mandated. -Splash^talk 14:42, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Keep in mind that it can only be used if a substantial number of arbitrators accept the idea as appropriate. I feel free to make innovative proposals because they must be ratified by a group of trusted Wikipedians selected by the community. Most new ideas are bad, either in theory or application. You can call that Bauder's Law. Fred Bauder 17:40, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you all for taking the time out to, basically, educate me on this. Peace. Metta Bubble 01:09, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

How to make semi-protection in other language WP

I'm an admin of Thai Wikipedia. I could not find how to do the semi-protect there, does it exist overthere? --manop 21:55, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

It has to be turned on in the site preferences for each wiki. It most likely has not been turned on, but that can be fixed by a developer. However, be sure to discuss it in your project first before requesting it. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 22:03, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, thanks a bunch. --manop 23:15, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

IIRC only the English and Spanish encyclopedias have it. The Spanish one can be called the "Gibraltarian rule". lol Ecemahl requested it because just like on the English Wikipedia, User:Gibraltarian was heavily vandalizing certain articles. So it was implemented. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 16:36, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

The list of interwikis on the project page gives a more complete list. -Splash^talk 17:03, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Established accounts: Precentage (%) old accounts

According to Splash, the implementation of semi-protection is quite specific, meaning that any account over 4 days old will be able to edit. I was under the impression that is not strictly true. I quote: "Semi protection is supposed to stop people with accounts newer than 1% of the accounts on the site from posting."[4] I thought there was some techical problem with counting the four days, and I thought the system currently looked at contributions rather than account creation. If I'm right, the intro should be clarified. -- Ec5618 14:25, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

It seems I was right. According to Wikipedia talk:Semi-protection policy/Archive3#Semi-protection proposal v.02:

"Semi-protection of a page prevents the newest X% of registered users and all unregistered users from editing that page." -- Ec5618 14:58, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

No, Brion Vibber's original email is more authoritative than the draft of the policy: [5]. -Splash^talk 16:16, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

It appears you're right. I'll paste part of that email here, for future reference:

There's now a timestamp field on the user table for the registration date, which is used to calculate the age (this'll be included on newly registered accounts but is NULL on older ones).

The age setting replaces the percentage formerly used for the sitewide move limitations.

-- brion vibber

-- Ec5618 16:26, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Fighting "sleeper accounts" - an idea

In order to fight against "sleeper accounts", I have an idea: Modify the SP policy to include accounts fewer than X edits (like the page-move policy), so that these "sleeper accounts" can be detected earlier and exposed longer. --TML1988 14:40, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

There is no edit-count restriction on page moves. Both semi-protection and move capability have the same restriction: 4 days, according to the email link I just posted above. My approximate understanding is that, previously, the "autoconfirmed" status of an account was that it not be in the newest 1% of users, hence the original form of this policy. However, it appears from Brion Vibber's original email that this was changed to a simple 4 days, which was about the 1% level at the time. -Splash^talk 16:18, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

And actually, when we first started this discussion, we were going to restrict it based on edits. However, it would've taken some major software modifications as opposed to the "newness of accounts" restriction, which was already in place for page moves. I don't know. Splash and I do alot of page protection stuff and we haven't really run into that many "sleeper accounts". it's been pretty sparadic. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 16:26, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Good grief, do you know how paranoid this is? Sleeper accounts ? So somebody is going to create 2**64 accounts and just let them quietly age until they need to troll some aggressive administrator? Uhhhh! Come on, people. This is anti wiki. ... aa:talk 18:20, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Calm down. It actually does happen, and is a known vandal tactic -- Willy on Wheels has been doing it for a long time (not to foil sprotect, but to foil the restriction on page moves). If you need more proof, here's an edit just from today (edit summary). People can and do make sleeper accounts to get around aging requirements. · Katefan0^(scribble)/poll 18:26, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Its not paranoia when someone is actually out to get you.... see User:DickyRobert indef blocked for legal threats, trolling, harassment, etc... regularly creates sleeper sockpuppets with which to vandalize. He's done it at least 50-60 times that I can think of. User:CapnCrack was doing the same thing on Oklahoma Christian University so that we had to change Semi into Full protection just to stop his socks from vandalizing.  ALKIVAR™ 20:53, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Here's a radical proposal for the sleeper situation: automatically eliminate all accounts from which no edits have been made within, say 6 weeks of the creation of the account. That will also clean out lots of accounts that are probably ancient and forgotten (like User:41b5g42yb5g1nv398y39k-5c4t45, User:8moonbeam8, User:A V R L NARAYANA RAO, User:A-Ming, User:ABE2887) and reduce inflation in the counting of participants. bd2412 T 00:52, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

It's not radical, it's been proposed before. All somebody would have to do is to make a single punctuation correction somewhere or change something between British english and American english or something and the account would be forever. Besides, some people make accounts to record their user settings and don't edit the wikipedia and we probably don't want to forbid that.WolfKeeper 16:25, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure it's possible to use cookies to save user settings instead of having to register an account. Although I still think it should be a requirement to have an account before editing, it would eliminate probably 99% of the vandalism. Ryan Salisbury 21:51, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

You would probably get a reduction in vandalism, but I don't think that a 99% reduction is credible. And the worst vandals would just create throwaway accounts.WolfKeeper 16:26, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I still say there needs to be another database of edit counts that indexes into the existing user database. It doesn't even have to be 100% exact, if we started it next month say, anyone with more than 30 or 50 edits or something in 3 months time, would get extra priviledges. We could grandfather in older accounts as well irrespective of edits (anyone with an account up to now, gets the priviledges).WolfKeeper 06:39, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Any ideas?

Here is a page that dmcdevit found that lists all SP pages. Great. But. Going through the list, we literally have 10+ pages that were protected but didn't have a tag on it. One for 15 days. One for 18 days. Jesus. Any ideas on how to stop this? I thought I'd ask you guys since......you guys rule. :-D Bad enough that admins aren't adding them to WP:PP. Now we have them not even adding the tag. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 05:11, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Just unprotected 28 articles. None of them had tags. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 05:37, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Pauley Perrette and Jimbo's semi-protection

Please see Talk:Pauley Perrette; Jimbo wants to leave it permantantly semi-protected and is wondering about the tag on the article. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 18:59, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

If Jimbo wants to make an exception, he can, although there's not a great deal of evidence (in the gap between protections) that it's actually needed. If we stop using the tag on all semi'd articles, the help desk will just get a pile of "but why can't I...?" questions. -Splash^talk 23:40, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Surely the "why can't I..." issue can be addressed by a message appearing to those trying to edit the page who can't, after they click "edit". This would require a software change I think, so that "edit this page" appears to non-loggedin users on semi-protected pages (instead of "view source"), but the function provides "view source" plus an explanatory message why they can't edit. Rd232 ^talk 12:28, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Clarifying about long-term random vandalism

I just want to clarify (esp. after reading comments in #Tony's tool above) and "When not to use" on the project page, that it's not OK to use this even for pages listed on Wikipedia:Most_vandalized_pages simply because they're vandalized constantly, day after day, year after year, by random vandals-- example, the Dog article (history), in which the last 100 edits over the last 5 days consist of:

• 51 edits by 35 anon users:
  • 41 vandalism
  • 4 to revert vandalism (usually not completely or correctly done)
  • 2 test/revert himself
  • 4 legit (one word, one link, one sentence, one sentence)
• 49 edits by named users:
  • 2 vandalism (same new user)
  • 34 to revert vandalism

This is very typical always on this article. It's my understanding that we just don't protect pages for this sort of thing; this would be classified as "preemptive" prevention of probable vandalism, which is explicitly prohibited. Right? Elf | Talk 02:17, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Think that's bad, see how they are trying to circumvent policy at George W. Bush. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 23:19, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

If one of those articles should come under a particular attack then it could be protected. Otherwise, I don't really see the need, and 10 vandal edits per day isn't so much. That is adisappointing level of actual editing, though; but perhaps there's not a great deal to be done on the article. -Splash^talk 23:40, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

It *did* make an attempt at featured articleship once, and has gotten a lot of attention from a lot of people over time. So it's not in terrible shape & it has a lot of info in it. :-) Elf | Talk 04:07, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I came here looking for precedent to justify semi-protecting Virtual Magic Kingdom, which is also subject to the same sort of constant random vandalism, but from what you say it looks like it's not warranted to set up permanent semi-protection in response to this sort of thing. It still bothers me that it happens, though - would some sort of disclaimer at the top of the page be appropriate, saying something like "don't bother vandalizing this page because it'll be quickly reverted"? Or, that would just attract more vandalism, wouldn't it? - Brian Kendig 14:19, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Here ya go. Add <nowiki><!-- Note to editors: This article is a target of frequent vandalism. If you intend to add significant information to this article, please be prepared to CITE A SOURCE (for example, an interview or magazine article) so that other editors can verify your contribution. See for more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CITE --></nowiki> Without the nowiki tag of course :) It comments it out so it's not visible unless you go to edit the page. It's something that I wish more would use actually. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 14:25, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

How would that help? That merely encourages competent editors to cite a source; I don't see how it discourages vandals. - Brian Kendig 14:41, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

OK. This is from the 50 Cent article:

<nowiki><!-- NOTE TO EDITORS: Please note that vandalism of this page will not be tolerated. Vandalism will be taken as including adding of your own views, adding rhetoric, deleting large sections of text, and inserting manifestly false information. This includes: copyright violations, open opinion, and malicious vandalisms. Any opinions on 50 Cent should be directed to talk page. If you choose to continue to vandalize this page you could be blocked from using Wikipedia. --></nowiki>

That would work as well. You can alter it if you'd like. it's not a template. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 15:09, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, hang on a moment here. Why isn't semi-protection a good solution for long-term random vandalism? As long as a page is high-profile enough that it's being vandalized on a regular basis by a wide range of newbies, why not make it semi-protected and leave it that way? If a page "comes under a particular attack" then it's targeted vandalism which can be dealt with specifically; semi-protection would not apply. I don't see anything in Wikipedia:Semi-protection policy which specifically discourages long-term semi-protection. In particular, my desire to use it on Virtual Magic Kingdom doesn't violate the "when not to use" rules: I'm not using it to dispel edit/revert wars, I'm not using it just because the article might get vandalized, and I'm not trying to prohibit anonymous editing in general. I think the larger question is: is semi-protection only to be used when random vandalism seems to occur because of a specific focus on an article (like, being mentioned on Slashdot) which is expected to eventually trail off? - Brian Kendig 00:01, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Personally I'd have no problem semi-permanently semi-protecting many or even all of Wikipedia:Most vandalized pages. Where IP vandalism/reversion thereof is consistently (a) high in quantity and (b) high in proportion (of total edits), (c) affecting a fairly well-developed and stable article, we have to ask for whose benefit exactly we're not applying SP. This is especially true of articles on living people, where vandalism may be hurtful or potentially libellous. Rd232 ^talk 00:28, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

It is not true to say that the semi-protection would not be to reduce anon editing, since that is precisely what it does. It is a non-negotiable m:Foundation issue that anons can and will continue to edit. In answer to Brian's question, yes. If the vandalism can't be dealt with by the usual combination of rollbacks and blocks, then semi it. Otherwise, just carry on: it's only vandalism, and we can handle that without having to lock down the Wiki. For people's concerns with the kind of use proposed above, see the numerous comments at Wikipedia talk:Semi-protection policy/Archive 3#Semi-protection proposal v.02 straw poll and elsewhere on that page. -Splash^talk 00:45, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Just a clarification. You say "It is not true to say that the semi-protection would not be to reduce anon editing, since that is precisely what it does." That's a side-effect, not a primary goal. If I said "I want to semi-protect this article because I don't feel that anons should be able to edit it," that would be an inappropriate justification for semi-protecting. By the way, I notice you undid my semi-protection on Virtual Magic Kingdom with the edit summary "no particular problem at the time of protection and gets very minimal amount of editing anyway". Are you asserting that semiprotection should only happen if there is a "particular problem" being caused by vandalism (and if so, what is a "particular problem"?), and even then only if the page has more than a certain amount of editing done on it? - Brian Kendig 04:10, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

On your first point: yes, but the reason it affects that class of user is that that is the class from which most of the otherwise-unsolvable problems come from. A dynamic vandal IP, a name-registration bot etc. Anything else, and semi won't do the job and we have to fall back on full-protection anyway. To semi-protect is to say "the problem is anons/new users, not everyone else". By "no particular problem...minmial amount of editing", I mean that, in effect, the protection was pre-emptive. If it's not getting edited much, then there can't be a serious vandalism problem (which is called for in the opening sentences of the policy) and thus protecting it before such a problem arises (the "particular problem") is pre-emptive. So yes, I guess I am asserting that there should be a particular problem that would be addressed particularly by semiprotection. (I've said so in other places, too, I'm not picking on you.) m:Protected pages considered harmful, remember, and if a page is hardly getting edited, protecting it can only slow the wiki process down. If it has more than a certain amount of editing? No, I would have no 'certain level' — if VandalX decided to lay into the article right now with a bunch of new user names, I'd be right behind the semiprotection, despite the low 'background' edit-rate. But if an article receives little editing, it must also be receiving little vandalism and that, to my mind, doesn't warrant protection. -Splash^talk 16:47, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I've been gone for a while, but reading this conversation, I take issue with Voldemart's view that somehow policy is being "circumvented" at GWB. If I'm not mistaken, semi-protection should still have been regularly taken off to ensure that there still persists a serious problem of vandalism. Multiple occurances of semi-protection, each of which justified by a heavy amount of vandalism and/or sockpuppetry, is way different from slapping on semi-protection to a page and just leaving it for years without knowing whether there still exists a serious problem of vandalism that warrants such a measure. The latter is what we're protecting against, and I can't see how the former is wrong in any sense of the word. --kizzle 02:30, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Just a thought

What if we automatically semi-protected redirect pages? Vandals often create pages over them to circumvent the requirement that users create an account to start new pages. Redirects are rarely on users's watch lists so the vandalism only gets reverted if someone catches it on the RC patrol. I've caught a few of these but it seems like we could solve this problem much easier. There wouldn't be much "collateral damage" because rarely do new or anonymous users have a legitimate need to edit redirect pages which have already been created. Savidan 08:18, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

SP and libel

If libellous claims are being made about someone, is that a possible reason for semi-protection? Andjam 02:38, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Adding possibly libellous claims is most certainly vandalism, so yes, that would be a reason for temporary semi-protection. Just post a note to WP:RfP, or the article's talk page if you know an admin is watching that. -Splash^talk 12:14, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for creation discussion looking for additional input

I'm writing here to draw some additional attention and input to a semi-protection proposal that has been made on WP:AFC. Specifically, a few new users have been adding their article requests on the project page (often by blanking the existing page). We are all quite positive that these are NOT intentional acts of vandalism, but rather new users who are unfamiliar with the system making honest mistakes. The problem is that the errors are often not fixed in a timely manner. Recently, a page blanking there wasn't fixed for over 4 hours -- and it's not the first time that has happened. This reflects poorly on Wikipedia and could leave a bad first impression on the new users that Wikipedia is directing toward WP:APC. Given all this, it has been proposed that semi-protection be leveraged to help direct new, anon users to the addcomment link rather than erroneously editting the project page.

It is very important to note that the intention of semi-protecting AFC is not to prevent anonymous users from participating, but to ensure that all anonymous users can participate through WP:AFC. It is my opinion that this is a perfect example of Wikipedia:Interpret all rules in that while the rules might not allow for this particular application, this action is perfectly inline with the spirit and goals of them.

Currently, WP:AFC does not get enough experienced user traffic nor administrative attention to get much input on this proposal. However, it is a page that is somewhat high profile to the public. Therefore, Meegs and I are looking for additional feedback on this proposal before we take it over to Wikipedia:Requests for protection. Again, the core discussion can be found on Wikipedia_talk:Articles for creation. Thanks. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 06:13, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Based on the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation I have semiprotected Wikipedia:Articles for creation. This should not cause a problem because new requests should be submitted via a link provided on the project page instead of through one of the edit tabs (the link provides a template and places the edit on a subpage). If this action should cause any colateral damage, please feel free to reverse the protection. --Allen3 ^talk 14:54, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Pre-emptive

The page said sprotection should never be used pre-emptively, which sounded odd, because all counter-vandalism action is pre-emptive in the sense that it's always anticipating the future. I therefore changed this to "purely pre-emptive", for example in the sentence: "Semi-protection should not be used as a purely pre-emptive measure against the threat or probability of vandalism before any such vandalism occurs, such as when certain pages suddenly become high profile ...", which makes it clear that there must be a vandalism problem on the page before sprotection is appropriate. I also deleted some repetition. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:54, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

It's not pre-emptive because the vandalism is occuring at the time of protection. It's a very serious stretch to suggest otherwise! -Splash^talk 21:24, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I've put back in the note to admins. The content of that note is so often repeated that it's useful to have it there for the occasions that people actaully take the time to read the policy before using (rare, admittedly, but still). I also replaced the words "editorial dispute" since not all such disputes are necessarily content-related; sometimes it's as trivial as the formatting, but that still doesn't warrant semiprotection. -Splash^talk 21:28, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

A dispute about format is still a content dispute. You seem to have ruled so much out with your edits that it's not clear what circumstances sprotection could ever be used in, and I don't understand your point about "pre-emptive." To say it should never be used pre-emptively is wrong. All page protection is (obviously) pre-emptive. What you mean is that it should never be used purely pre-emptively i.e. when there has been no vandalism, so I've restored that. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:20, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism happens at a high rate to an article. It is semiprotected. That is not pre-emptive. -Splash^talk 00:27, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Request for Protection

Since the George Washington page have been vandalized almost every day is it possible to lock the page from IP editing for a couple of dyas? (Steve 01:29, 14 March 2006 (UTC))

I agree (see the history list: the last 100 edits were vandalism since less than 3 days! imagine the overhead in WP's database ! and the fact that with 50% probability, a random visitor will find nonsense on the page !) — MFH:Talk 17:59, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

You can request futher protections at WP:RfPP if you need to request protection again, or unprotection. --Darth Revert ^{(AKA Deskana)} (talk) 19:49, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

less offending display of the protection status

I think the warning about semi-protection could be displayed in a more discrete way - it takes up almost half a screen, and makes the protected pages quite unattractive. And it is not so much of relevance to the readers, but only to those who consider editing the page. I think this status should be notified by a much smaller "boiler plate", maybe close to or directly on the "edit" button. — MFH:Talk 17:58, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Half a screen?! It takes two lines! The proposal is an interesting one but not currently technically posssible. The best we have is templates. -Splash^talk 20:05, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok, maybe a bit less than half a screen, but more than 2 lines (at least 3 lines in LARGE font plus spacing plus border plus spacing around the box) -- the article's text starts way after one third of the height of my browsers window. But let's be serious:

• It IS unattractive - articles like George Washington or Jew do not look like part of an encyclopedia!
• Templates are enough to do all you want, more than needed in any case. Even without using absolute positioning...— MFH:Talk 22:55, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

• I honest think you must have odd browser settings or something. I use really very standard settings, and the template just doesn't appear as hideous as you describe it (and it definitely isn't in a large font: I think it use 8pt or something.) -Splash^talk 23:38, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Here's a thought - put a tiny notice at the top saying "Semi-protected - see talk page for details", with a corresponding talk page template that gives the full speil (or "Semi-protected, click for details" linked to a footnote at the bottom of the article). bd2412 T 23:14, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I actually do genuinely object to trying to hide away the fact that an article is semi-protected in a tiny message somewhere. New anon editors shouldn't have to hunt around visually trying to work out why they can't "edit this page". It shouldn't be staying protected for long and the tag being on it serves as an encouragement to take it off. -Splash^talk 23:38, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

How about this:

Due to vandalism, editing of this page is temporarily restricted to established users. You may propose changes or request unprotection.

Well, I don't much care what it says as long it's accurate. But the objection is to the use of a template at all, I think, since it apparently fills up a third of the screen (?!) I believe the suggested version is very similar indeed to an earlier version of the template. -Splash^talk 00:28, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Putting the current template here for ease of discussion:

As a result of recent vandalism, editing of this page by new or unregistered users is temporarily disabled. Changes can be discussed on the talk page, or you can request unprotection.

What I was getting at before would be something like:

Due to vandalism, this page is semi-protected. (Details).

... where clicking on "details" would take the user to a broader explanation and a link to request for unprotection, etc. bd2412 T 00:37, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Avoiding the use of jargon would be better. -Splash^talk 00:41, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

True. bd2412 T 00:48, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm all for changing the wording to something else that is still accurate, but not gettting rid of a template all togehter. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:51, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for accepting my idea. Finally I like your 1st one. (In view of the image, a second line of text makes the box not much higher (in my browser). Maybe one could even add "on the talk page":

Due to vandalism, editing of this page is temporarily restricted to established users. You may suggest changes on the talk page or request unprotection.

PS: I see that the font is supposed to be 9pt(?), but looks much bigger in my browser... — MFH:Talk 02:53, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Question

How do you request the banning of an IP vandal? --Yodamace1 19:15, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Removal of semiprotection

An issue has arisen around removal of semiprotection, and I'm posting this to seek views on how it should be addressed. For the majority of articles, semiprotection requests are made in order to deal with a short-term vandalism problem. Once granted, and the vandalism dies down, it is usually safe to remove the semiprotection. There are some (high-profile) articles which are certain to be vandalised again as soon as the semiprotection is lifted however, the classic example being George W. Bush — and these articles thus stay in a more or less permanent semiprotected state. The issue is around how we recognise these articles and ensure they stay semiprotected if necessary.

The specific article which has caused a problem is Tony Blair. This was semiprotected about a month ago due to heavy anon vandalism. Semiprotection worked - it gave editors the chance to focus on content instead of reverting vandalism. However, it was then unprotected without a discussion, and the vandalism started again almost immediately. It has subsequently been reprotected, unprotected, vandalised again, reprotected, and today unprotected again; it will no doubt be heavily vandalised again soon if it hasn't already, at which point I'll be listed it for semiprotection again ... and so on. Each unprotection has been carried out unilaterally without discussion.

I believe we need to find a way to avoid cycles like the one I describe above. The root of the problem is that some admins believe, rightly or wrongly, that the policy around unprotection decisions is that they are entirely at an admin's discretion. If this is the case, I'd suggest this is an oversight in the policy, rather than a deliberate intention.

It has been pointed out to me that any solution to this problem needs to avoid being overly bureaucratic - uncontroversial un-semiprotections should be able to be made easily and I agree with that.

Thoughts?

SP-KP 23:35, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Unprotects are a common sense thing. See an article that can be unprotected? Unprotect it. Don't need to go filling in forms on WP:RFPP for the obvious and then have two admins involved rather than one. Just takes up twice the time for no improvement in outcome. It's not an oversight in policy, since we don't actually have much, if any, policy surrounding unprotection. This is because the current practise is the correct one and there is no need for us to document every click of the mouse. m:Instruction creep rarely achieves much. -Splash^talk 23:41, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the problem we have is that some admins are making unprotection decisions in respect of articles that pretty clearly shouldn't be unprotected (if one accepts the premise that semiprotection is the best way to deal with heavy vandalism). What we need is a light-touch mechanism to reduce the incidence of inappropriate decisions, without impacting on admins' day to day work. SP-KP 00:10, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

That's rather disingenuous of you. What you mean is that you don't like my decision to unprotect Tony Blair and think it an inappropriate decision to return a wiki article to free editing. There is no article, imo, that should not be regularly unprotected and so I do not accept the basis of what you say "the problem" is. On the contrary, lengthy protections without any indication that an article might be unprotected ever are inappropriate, not to mention anti-social, anti-wiki, and unnecessary. -Splash^talk 04:12, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I think its rather disingenuous of you to suggest SP-KP is being disingenuous. Yes he doesn't agree with your action, but that is allowed. Frelke 06:31, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

As to widely-vandalized articles, I think we should write them on paper. Or, agree that this is a wiki and editing it is what people do. It's how it comes to exist. -Splash^talk 23:41, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Can someone define disingenuous for me? Is this a good example? Frelke 06:34, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. If we can see areas where an improvement to our processes could result in a better encyclopaedia, we should at least explore them. Lots of policies and processes on Wikipedia have developed over time; I see no reason why this should be different. SP-KP 00:10, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

The thing you propose to "develop over time" here is a reduction in the editability of the encyclopedia. You might want to try a different ship. Wiki is not paper. Wiki is editable. It is a m:Foundation issue that anyone can edit our articles. You're on the wrong ship if you want a policy to say that freely editable articles are bad. -Splash^talk 04:12, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Now, I'm not going round in circles with you on this anymore. People can edit articles here, they always have done and always will be able to do so. If you want articles that aren't editable, fork Wikipedia and turn of the relevant variable in the PHP code. -Splash^talk 04:12, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Honestly Splash, I think you are overreacting a bit. SP-KP's point is a valid one. I mean. George W. Bush is sometimes unprotected but honestly, it's usually symbolic as I don't see us completely unprotecting it until he leaves office. I think that his core point is valid. We should have some special template or something to show that an article is more or less permanently semi-protected. Otherwise, the template that is generally used on GWB and also Jew is inaccurate. It basically says that once the vandalism dies down, the page will be unprotected. Well that's simply not true on those 2 articles. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 04:40, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

It's just that the editors (few of them, actually) of GWB have some WP:OWNership difficulties. I have never understood why a single editor insists on re-protecting Jew, but it's hardly reasonable to rely on Cecropia's opinion on that article to determine policy. TfD has repeatedly deleted templates of the kind you describe, which goes some significant way to showing that people outside the talk-pages of a couple of articles don't want such a template. I actually do think that those who proceed as if they sky will fall if we allow free editing of articles are the ones overreacting. I mean, Tony Blair has been unprotected for hours now, and the wiki has withstood and will withstand. -Splash^talk 07:49, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Splash, the deletion of those templates could be because people aren't happy with them as a solution, not that they don't think there is a problem. No-one is arguing for ongoing creeping reduction in Wikipedia's editability, or that we should abandon foundation issues. All this discussion is about is a proposal that we find a way of encouraging admins making unprotection decisions to do so with an appropriate degree of consideration as to the consequences. There are lots of ways in which we could do that. I've freely admitted above that your decision to unprotect Tony Blair was the thing that prompted me to raise this issue; but please accept in WP:AGF that there is nothing personal here, and that my motivation in raising this is to help us produce a better encyclopaedia. SP-KP 09:50, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Potential improvement

Here is the only reasonable improvement I can think of at the moment: Make semi-protecting a page similar to a user block, in the sense that the page is given a set number of days to be sprotected, as decided at the discretion of the admin who's protecting it (based on the rate and severity