| Revision as of 15:33, 26 November 2006 editJohn Broughton (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, New page reviewers, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers35,689 edits →September 2005 diffs: "I'm not sure "weakness" gets to the need to compare semi-protection versus full-protection (the latter which no one supports).← Previous edit | Latest revision as of 15:14, 4 February 2023 edit undoMalnadachBot (talk | contribs)11,637,095 editsm Fixed Lint errors. (Task 12)Tag: AWB | ||
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| ==Discussion== | |||
| {{archives| | |||
| I wasn't actually suggesting that; I just wasn't paying attention. ] 07:17, 18 September 2005 (UTC) | |||
| # ] | |||
| :Hehehe | |||
| # ] | |||
| :I didn't mean to imply that you asserted we should protect main page featured articles - I was just pointing to this because it is the clearest explanation of why we shouldn't protect them (because I have to answer that damn question so many times) ] 07:21, 18 September 2005 (UTC) | |||
| # ] | |||
| ::Heh, I know you didn't. Don't mind my spammage, just a means for me to divert attention away(?) from my incompetence! :D ] 07:24, 18 September 2005 (UTC) | |||
| # ] | |||
| ::It's not that unusual to not notice an article is a main page FA; I've done it myself (acted on a request on ] without noticing it was on the main page). Some people jump directly into their watchlists or recent changes and do not even look at the main page (if you asked me which is today's FA, I'd have to look before answering). --] 16:06, 20 October 2005 (UTC) | |||
| # ] | |||
| # ] | |||
| }} | |||
| This policy originated from a subpage in ]'s user space. | |||
| == Semi == | |||
| == This guideline is opposed - my rant == | |||
| Any plans to update this to include ]? It doesn't need to be rethought too much, but a mention of the new situation and your thoughts would be helpful. -]]]<sup>(])</sup> 20:40, 25 December 2005 (UTC) | |||
| :Done. ] 20:51, 25 December 2005 (UTC) | |||
| ==Policy== | |||
| === Why not promote this to policy? === | |||
| OK, for about the 8 billionth time, I've decided to read the main article, just, you know, for fun. And, for about the 7 billionth time, it was vandalized, and it looked awful. Good thing I know enough about Misplaced Pages to read the page histories and revert, unlike the several people who decided to vandalize the vandalism in between (one wouldn't necessarily wonder why someone might decide to vandalize an article that had for several minutes claimed that that ). | |||
| Why not promote the contents of this page into a Misplaced Pages policy or guideline? I think perhaps it belongs in the Misplaced Pages namespace instead of a user namespace for both authenticity and visibility reasons. As it is a summary of other established policies anyway it shouldn't be too controversial. -- <font color="#668353">]</font> <font color="#ff4487">]</font> 03:56, 30 January 2006 (UTC) | |||
| :Well, I never envisioned it as a policy; I was just really, really, really tired of typing the same response over and over again :) ] 04:24, 30 January 2006 (UTC) | |||
| My statement, and this is something I've believed since first editing Misplaced Pages in September 2006: this policy does far more disservice to the place than service. Does it show people they can edit and improve an article? Yes. But it also shows about 1/4 of the people who come to a page that Misplaced Pages can be vandalized and isn't necessarily reliable (anyone who maintains that lack of credibility isn't Misplaced Pages's biggest problem apparently hasn't been in any sort of education recently). Of course, Misplaced Pages's loss of credibility due to vandalism on the main page, which is pretty significant, might not even compare to the disservice done to the readers. It is a very ''editor-centric'' premise (of course, developed by editors) that we should encourage editing more than worry about vandalism and Misplaced Pages's credibility. I can nearly guarantee you that people who use this page for research and/or viewing would come to the opposite view. | |||
| === Policy === | |||
| Please, stop this disservice to our viewers. At this point, I can't even tell anyone to look at the main page on Misplaced Pages, because it would embarrass me as an editor, and they don't have the know-how to revert it, let alone look at a clean old version of it. ] (]) 17:36, 7 June 2008 (UTC) | |||
| So, this is a policy? It's being treated like one, and I've been ''told'' it's one. ] 06:36, 10 February 2006 (UTC) | |||
| :Clearly, as no-one has opposed you, we all agree. ] (]) 11:11, 11 June 2008 (UTC) | |||
| :I agree (still) with your stance. ] (]) 17:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC) | |||
| :It seems to be a condensation and restatement of existing policy. So, if it's not technically policy, it agrees with policy in every way. -- <font color="#668353">]</font> <font color="#ff4487">]</font> 03:25, 11 February 2006 (UTC) | |||
| ::I have to disagree. I like the fact that we don't protect the main page FA. The openness of Misplaced Pages is a big drawing card for potential new editors (and, admittedly, new vandals). This openness is a big reason why Misplaced Pages is one of the more popular websites on the internets. I think it's important for us to "put our money where our mouth is" by leaving the main page FA unprotected. There are so many eyes on the article while it's on the main page that it's extremely rare for any vandalism there to go undetected for any length of time. If it was accurate before it was on the main page (and presumably it was, or it wouldn't be featured) it will almost always be accurate while it's on the main page. Of course, it can always be semi-protected for short periods of time, if the vandalism is so frequent that a reader's odds of landing on a "clean" version of the article start to become iffy. --] (]) 21:12, 12 June 2008 (UTC) | |||
| :::And that is why, wikipedia will never be considered as a reliable source. Such a waste really. (yes i have an account, just mucho lazy to login) ] (]) 01:04, 16 June 2008 (UTC) | |||
| ::Exactly - it's not policy, as much as it is an amalgamation of policy. ] 03:28, 11 February 2006 (UTC) | |||
| ::*Pretty much. Because some new users didn't seem to understand that, I've moved this page to mainspace and flagged it as such. Comments welcome, and if you can think of a better title please do so. (]) 14:53, 15 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| I see this as a memorialization of long-held practice of the community and with significant community assention to its validity ∴ a policy :) --<font color="#06C">]</font> 20:21, 16 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| :You were aware it was a wiki when you registered, right? ] (]) 23:20, 18 June 2008 (UTC) | |||
| ===Rewording=== | |||
| Now this is in the policy space, I've reworded it a bit to be more policy and less essay-like. I think I've stuck to the contents pretty much, but if anyone disagrees with the rewording I'd be happy to discuss here ;) --] 23:20, 15 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| *Looks reasonable so far. Thanks. (]) 09:40, 16 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| ===Dissent=== | |||
| I think this was promoted to policy without enough input from the community. --] <sup>(])</sup> 19:35, 16 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| :*I agree that there has not been enough input from the community, yet I support the promotion none the less. ]<font color="#6D7B8D ">S</font> | ] 05:23, 17 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| ::It could be argued that the fact that many were treating it as policy means that there was an implicit conesnsus. --] 09:40, 17 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| ::*Indeed. It has been existing practice for years now. I would be interested to see instances where the Main Page FA was protected, and of the likely-ensuing debate. (]) 09:53, 17 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| :::*Well really the only user's who could put this policy (remember it wasn't always policy) into effect were admins. I'm fairly certain that there are more editors without the extra tools than editors with them. Still as stated above, I do support this being promoted to policy. My point is that though it may have been accepted practice for years now, and that it has been treated as policy does not mean that it has implicit consensus, since only admins have been able to enforce this policy. ]<font color="#6D7B8D ">S</font> | ] 00:02, 18 November 2006 (UTC) <small>If this comment is unclear just let me know and I'll try and clear up anything that is confusing about it. :) ]<font color="#6D7B8D ">S</font> | ] 00:02, 18 November 2006 (UTC)</small> | |||
| One only needs to look at the plight of today's featured article, ], to see to folly of this policy. One of the '''many''' times that the page got replaced with a homophobic vulgarity did not get reverted for seven minutes.--] 19:03, 17 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| ::But the policy doesn't state 'never semi-protect'. For example, look at between about 23:07 and 23:37 on 17 November - those levels of repeated vandalism from a number of users can be adequate for semi protection. But the idea, or spirit of this policy, would then encourage such protection to be in place for say, 30 minutes or an hour (as it was that example was the end of the day, but ignore that for now). But over the last few weeks, semi-protection has been left in place for 5 or 6 hours... this is what this policy wants to prevent. --] 00:35, 18 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| :::So one clueless admin unprotects San Francisco and two minutes later the vandalism recommences, with the vulgarities replacing the main page five times in the next six minutes before a separate admin steps in. Another clueless admin unprotects again, only for the vandalism to resume immediately and trash the page 13 times in 11 minutes, leaving it to another administrator to clean up the mess. If an administrator is going to unprotect a page, he or she is OBLIGATED to 1. learn why it was protected in the first place and 2. stay around to ensure that the vandalism does not immediately resume. Otherwise, they are being irresponsible. | |||
| :::I do not know how many people come to Misplaced Pages, click on the link Today's Featured Article and were instead greeted with a vulgarity. Blind adherence to policy by clueless administrators unconcerned as to the consequences of their actions should be punished.--] 06:43, 18 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Well San Fran had an usually high level of vandalism. But, let's look at what happened, shall we? Knowledge of Self's protection at 08:04 was fully justified - it should have just been lifted more quickly. After I unprotected, there were no vandalising edits for well over half an hour, and only 4 within 2 hours - hardly the picture that you're painting. Vandalism maintained at a steady, but manageable, level till the evening when Glen S quite rightly protected it. After that, the page was twice unprotected and then quickly reprotected when the vandals were still about. | |||
| If users want to access an encyclopedia that can't be vandalized, they can just go over to Britannica. The wiki model is central to how Misplaced Pages works, and new users should be given every opportunity they can to contribute. ] (]) 07:32, 20 June 2008 (UTC) | |||
| :::::All I can say is that the policy was followed perfectly - it's intended to be used like that. Its just unfortunate that by the nature of the topic, San Fran was unusally open to vandalism. ] 11:20, 18 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| :That argument doesn't work for me. You're basically saying you want wikipedia to be unreliable. That turns me off the project completely. We should be striving to make it more reliable not keeping it rubbish. ] (]) 07:42, 20 June 2008 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Pretty low standard for perfectly here. THe admins who unprotected then didn't pay any attention to the page, even though the vandalism recommenced almost immediately, and allowing the vandalism to take over far longer than it would have. They acted irresponsibly. And by the time someone else came in, the damage was done - complaints on the talk page about the vulgarity and who knows how many potential visitors turned off to Misplaced Pages. We should strive to do better.--] 18:02, 18 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| ::Another here who agrees with The Evil Spartan. Sure this is a wiki, but it's not a blog. At the risk of sounding a maverick, falling back on the "anyone can edit" argument doesn't really cut it. Yes, that's the point of WP in principle, but in practice we ''don't'' allow just anyone to edit. We ban certain vandals, sometimes permanently, so already we're qualifying the assertion that anyone can edit, come what may. There's a balance to be struck between reliability and accessability, and for me permitting easy vandalism of the main page tips the scales too far one way. Cheers, ] (]) 10:40, 20 June 2008 (UTC) | |||
| *The same thing happened to ], more than 250 edits in a day, most of them vandalism and reverts.. --] <sup>(])</sup> 16:03, 18 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| I don't like the language forbidding full protection of the FA... it's too binding for Misplaced Pages. It's not too hard to think of ways a premedidated attack could compromise even a semi-protected article, and there certainly could be (and at least once, has been) a situation where even strong adherents to "Don't protect the FA" end up full protecting the FA. The language is too binding and could lead to the only admin around not dealing with a serious attack on the FA correctly, because the page says "under no circumstances"... even though there are at least ''some'' circumstances. --] 21:55, 18 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| *People who object to the wording, or believe they can improve it, are of course free to edit the page. (]) 23:05, 18 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| **You don't say! I just thought I'd discuss it first... --] 23:24, 18 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| ::I agree with The Evil spartan also. I've said this many times: IMHO "anyone can edit" does not equate with "anyone can vanadalize". The disagreement seems to be the spirit of that law vs. the letter of the law. As far at TFA protection, we're talking 24 hours. It remains a no-brainer to me. ] (]) 16:41, 20 June 2008 (UTC) | |||
| == Proposed changes to this policy == | |||
| ::I also agree with The Evil Spartan. Failure to routinely semi-protect showcase articles accomplishes nothing except to make wikipedia look stupid and like nothing more than a pretentious blog. Maybe someone should care about that. ] <sup>'']''</sup> 12:38, 24 June 2008 (UTC) | |||
| A few proposed changes to the policy. Remove emphasis on "NEVER" and include administrators' responsibilities when deciding to protect the featured article or when deciding to remove protection. Removed text is <s>stricken</s>, added text is <u>underlined</u>.--] 20:22, 19 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| :::Also notice the inherent hypocrisy or left-hand-not-knowing-what-the-right-is-doing, in this part of the policy: "These guidelines do not apply to the Main Page itself, which is always protected 'as a result of repeated vandalism of the Main Page and keeps our welcome mat clean.'" So apparently ''some'' things are worth protecting - just not articles. ] <sup>'']''</sup> 12:41, 24 June 2008 (UTC) | |||
| == Main article should be semi protected == | |||
| ===Policy=== | |||
| Misplaced Pages's '''] ]''' is one of the most visible and heavily edited on the site. For this reason, it receives a lot of ] edits from unregistered users visiting Misplaced Pages. | |||
| I firmly believe that the main page article should be semi-protected from the moment it becomes a main page article to the moment is ceases being one. I hope most editors will join me in this opinion. ] (]) 16:13, 24 June 2008 (UTC) | |||
| It has been suggested many times in the past that the featured article should thus be ] or ]. <s>However,</s> ] are advised <s>never</s> <u>to use extreme discretion when deciding whether</u> to protect<u>, semi-protect, or unprotect</u> this page. <s>and to only semi-protect it under certain extreme conditions.</s> | |||
| == Ok, we should seriously change this == | |||
| ===Rationale=== | |||
| There are several reasons for this policy. | |||
| I just had to fully protect the current FA because Grawp got to it, and we all know he likes to use sleepers. Seriously, the FA gets a lot of hits, and is perhaps the easiest article to vandalize on the site. <span style="font-family:comic sans ms;">] <small>]</small></span> 23:09, 11 July 2008 (UTC) | |||
| * Almost without exception, featured articles are improved by their time on the main page (some of them greatly improved). Check out these before-and-after diffs from September, 2005: . Protecting the featured articles means that these pages may not be improved. | |||
| :I agree. The policy should be changed. I just requested semi-protection for the article ], as it was a featured article on Misplaced Pages's main page today (November 12, 2008); however, semi-protection was declined, seemingly for the standard of not semi-protecting featured articles when they're displayed on the main page. As I pointed out in my request, though, there were many vandalized edits that got looked over; thus, they weren't reverted. A lot of backtracking had to be done. The majority of edits on main page featured articles are vandalism. When there are any edits that happen to actually be constructive, they're usually done by established editors. So, factoring all that in, what's the problem with semi-protecting main page featured articles? It seems as if more harm than good comes out of the current policy. -- ] (]) 18:19, 12 November 2008 (UTC) | |||
| * A featured article ] ''"exemplify our very best work, representing Misplaced Pages's unique qualities on the Internet"''. This includes being editable by anyone. Visitors often tend to look at our most visible articles, and having those articles editable helps attract new users to the project. | |||
| * Vandalism (especially to highly visible articles like the main page featured article) is cleaned up very quickly, often in only a matter of seconds, helped by automated bots such as ]. | |||
| * Although the more visible featured article of the day attracts more vandals than other articles, it also attracts more curious and good faith editors. A lot of vandalism on the day's featured article is reverted by other anonymous or recently-registered users (e.g. ), | |||
| * This is codified in the page protection policy: ''When a page is particularly high profile, either because it is linked off the main page, or because it has recently received a prominent link from offsite, it will often become a target for vandalism. It is best not to protect pages in this case. Instead, consider adding them to your watchlist, and reverting vandalism yourself.'' - ] | |||
| *<u>The featured article receives many page views from non-editing readers as well. It is damaging to Misplaced Pages to encourage new readers to visit a page that is under a severe vandalism attack.</u> | |||
| == December 2008 analysis == | |||
| ===Protection=== | |||
| A ] of featured articles on the main page, similar to the ], has been started by ]. Hope you don't mind that I moved it to a subpage, DrKiernan! Great start so far. <small>]</small>] 09:05, 12 December 2008 (UTC) | |||
| Protection prevents anyone without administrative powers from editing an article. This should almost never occur on the day's featured article, and should only be used in rare situations where semi-protection is ineffective. | |||
| :I don't mind at all. ] (]) 09:11, 12 December 2008 (UTC) | |||
| == Reactive Semi-Protecting (my two cents...) and a plea for clarification == | |||
| ===Semi-Protection=== | |||
| ] prevents all unregistered or recently registered users from editing a page. The main page featured article should <s>also almost never</s> be semi-protected <u>in only rare situations</u>. <s>However, it is recognised that there are some extreme circumstances in which semi-protection can be introduced for a limited amount of time.</s> This could occur when, for example, a range of dynamic ]es are being used to vandalise the featured article page in quick succession; where personal information or potentially distressing content is being repeatedly placed onto the article; or where a few minutes of protection are needed to remove harmful vandalism from a page. | |||
| I'm not proposing semi-protecting the Main Page featured article (MPFA) as a matter of course, like BStone is above - and I agree with BongWarrior (also above) that we should 'put our money where our mouth is' and to daily assume that the majority of IP edits will be GF; but when the article ''does'' receive significant IP vandalism I think it is ridiculous that we are more lenient with our use of semi-protection for the MPFA than with other articles. Surely this lenience misrepresents WP just as much as default semi-protection does? | |||
| <u>Semi-protection can be introduced for a limited amount of time;</u> it is preferable to give vandalising users a brief block, rather than semi-protect the day's featured article. | |||
| To put this in context, I was watching today's MPFA ], which was getting vandalised once every five minutes at one point, and yet a semi-protection request was because this wasn't 'extreme'. | |||
| ===<u>Notification</u>=== | |||
| <u>Should an administrator deem that protection or semi-protection of the Main Page featured article is necessary, a notice should be placed at the ] and the page's talk page as to the reason and rationale behind the decision to protect or semi-protect, and whether there are any recommended steps for the unprotection of the page.</u> | |||
| Now...I realise that my above suggestion is unlikely to receive much support and that the guideline is likely to be kept. '''But could I ''please'' ask that the guideline indicates somewhere what ''would'' be considered extreme vandalism.''' This way, people like me won't make pointless requests wasting both their own time and the admin who has to consider the requests. At the moment it says 'when a range of dynamic IP addresses are being used to vandalise the featured article page in quick succession', and to my mind the revision log of Samuel Johnson (see particularly between 11:00 and 13:00) indicated exactly this. | |||
| ===<u>Unprotection</u>=== | |||
| <u>Because protection or semi-protection is not a step that is taken lightly, administrators should use caution when they discover that the day's featured article has been protected or semi-protected. Such an administrator should check the page history, the talk page and the ] before deciding whether to unprotect the page. Should the administrator decide to unprotect the page, she or he <s>must continue to monitor the page for a resumption of vandal attacks for a minimum of 30 minutes following the decision to unprotect the article.</s> is encouraged to continue to monitor the page for an immediate resumption of vandal attacks.</u> | |||
| So if admins with experience on this matter could post below it would be much appreciated. 30 times an hour for two hours? More? (I'll also ask the admin who denied the request directly.) | |||
| ===Move Protection=== | |||
| To qualify for ] status, the day's featured article will be at a stable and agreed-upon title. Therefore, in the event of ], it is acceptable to protect the article from being moved. For housekeeping and process reasons, this protection should be lifted at the end of an article's stay on the front page | |||
| Thank you. ] (]) 19:24, 31 January 2009 (UTC) | |||
| ===Other front page articles=== | |||
| These are covered under the ]. Although they can be semi-protected, admins should generally be more cautious in applying protection to these pages. To qualify for semi-protection, front page linked articles should have a higher frequency of vandalism than other articles need. | |||
| == Pending changes == | |||
| ==Responses to proposed change== | |||
| *Well the clause about having to monitor with it for half an hour is unworkable. Firstly, its unprovable and slightly bizarre - I unprotect the FA, the phone rings and what - I ignore it? I appreciate what it's trying to do, but it could bring up all sorts of accusations. For example, I know that I've tried 'patrolling' the FA after I've unprotected it to avoid such accusations; but I have a slow internet connection and have been 'beaten to it' almost every time. It's ]; perhaps retain the sentence about giving it thought though. | |||
| I added a see also to ], PC1 may be another option to consider. <span class="vcard"><span class="fn">]</span>; ]</span> 13:23, 6 July 2013 (UTC) | |||
| *I like the notification process idea | |||
| --] 21:56, 19 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| ==Deprecation== | |||
| I oppose the proposed changes - we can trust the admins to protect when there is a special situation and do not need to outline it --<font color="#06C">]</font> 22:08, 20 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| This guideline was deprecated in April 2010, the discussion can be found at ] section "RfC: Time to dispense with WP:NOPRO?" All the best: ''] ]'', <small>14:13, 19 May 2014 (UTC).</small><br /> 14:13, 19 May 2014 (UTC) | |||
| :I think the request to drop a line at ANI is a good idea. The other changes are pretty much semantics. --] 23:13, 20 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| :: True, but I think the semantics matters here in at least one case - we want to clearly favor semi-protect, not just carefully choose semi-protect or protect - --<font color="#06C">]</font> 23:20, 20 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| :::Well, the intent was not to equate protection and semi-protection, but to remove emphasis on the word "NEVER", promote greater communication, and to encourage caution for admins who might want to unprotect a protected article. Obviously, I've failed in that regard, and will give it some thought as to how to better do this.--] 00:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| :::: Sounds good thx!!!--<font color="#06C">]</font> 22:52, 21 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| == September 2005 diffs == | |||
| I'm tempted to call "b---s---" on this (which is both the current and proposed policy): ''Check out these before-and-after diffs from September, 2005: ''. <s>Why bs? Because of those three edits, two were done by ''registered'' users. A semi-protect policy would have allowed those two edits to be made. No editor (I think) is arguing that an FA should be ''fully'' protected, so why offer evidence of how great the current policy is by citing two examples that would have happened even with semi-protect automatically in place?</s> | |||
| And as for ''having those articles editable helps attract new users to the project'', exactly what evidence exists for that? Why not argue the reverse - that permiting anonymous editors to vandalize FAs gives them their first taste of how much "fun" they can have on wikipedia, and encourages them to vandalize other articles? ] | ] 02:11, 20 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| :''Because of those three edits, two were done by registered users. '' - wrong. Look at the timing on the diffs - they cover the entire 24 hours the articles were on the main page. So they encompass all anon and non-anon edits for the day those articles were on the main page. (Side note - perhaps this should be made more clear in the description) | |||
| :Also, notice the dates on those diffs were the 3 days immediately prior to me writing that particular statement. I did this intentionally to avoid accusations I cherry-picked the examples. ] 02:18, 20 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| ::I stand corrected, but remain convinced that these examples are being misused as a "evidence" of anything important. The diffs cover 5+ days, 2+ days, and 9+ days, respectively. What they "prove" is that a mixture of registered and anonymous users, over a two to nine day period, can improve a FA. Who would disagree? (Why not do diffs for just the 24 hours that the articles were on the front page, rather than for multiple days?) | |||
| ::The argument isn't - or shouldn't be - about whether an FA should be FULLY protected or not, it's about whether it should be SEMI-protected. For the purpose of that argument the three examples prove exactly ''nothing''. There could be 100 anonymous vandal edits and no constructive anonymous edits (other than reverts/fixes), for all anyone knows, based on those diffs. What is needed (in my mind) to prove that anything would be lost by blocking anonymous diffs would be examples of specific anony edits that really added value. | |||
| ::So if the policy states "FAs should not be FULLY protected because their their time on the front page can result in them being improved", sure, that's almost certainly true. But who is arguing for full protection? What the policy now says I still think is BS: it says (implicitly) "FAs should be NEITHER fully nor semi-protected because - look - here are three examples". Yet the examples say NOTHING about semi-protection, because they fail to distinguish between contributions from registered users and unregistered ones. ] | ] 22:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| :::Really, what you've brought up is that the 'rationale' section doesn't state anything about semi-protection, which is a weakness. --] 15:15, 26 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| ::::If you're saying that the policy wording predates the implementation of the option of semi-protection, then the wording is quite understandable, and the example would have made sense at the time. But that was then, and this is now, and arguments against "protection" are now being taken - rightly or wrongly - as arguments against BOTH semi- and full protection. The proposed change to the policy (above), in its rationale section, does not separate out arguments for full protection versus arguments for only semi-protection. I think that's a serious flaw, as discussed in the Redux section, below, which might be a good place to continue this discussion (assuming no one wants to dispute my comments on the September 2005 diffs). ] | ] 15:33, 26 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
| ==Semi-Protection Redux== | |||
| Having looked over the edits for today's Featured Article (]) - I have to wonder about the rationale behind '''not''' semi-protecting the daily FA, at least for that day. Looking over the edits so far, rather than encouraging new editors to make constructive changes to the page, all that has happened is a rapid-fire string of vandalism and reversion, the latter sometimes involving the appropriate warnings and sometimes not (I have tried to supplement the nots). I agree with ] above; I feel like the time and effort of the bots and the human editors could be better spent building an encyclopedia rather than protecting a high-profile page from anonymous vandals for just one day, and that new editors would get more out of seeing a featured article in the form that made it an FA rather than getting an introduction to WP editing that shows how easily editors' hard work can be temporarily defaced by vandals. I suppose I have just makred myself as a protectionist...whoah. <font color="blue">]</font><font color="gray">]</font><font color="blue">]</font> 14:14, 26 November 2006 (UTC) | |||
Latest revision as of 15:14, 4 February 2023
| This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Main Page featured article protection page. |
|
 | This page is currently inactive and is retained for historical reference. Either the page is no longer relevant or consensus on its purpose has become unclear. To revive discussion, seek broader input via a forum such as the village pump. |
This policy originated from a subpage in User:Raul654's user space.
This guideline is opposed - my rant
OK, for about the 8 billionth time, I've decided to read the main article, just, you know, for fun. And, for about the 7 billionth time, it was vandalized, and it looked awful. Good thing I know enough about Misplaced Pages to read the page histories and revert, unlike the several people who decided to vandalize the vandalism in between (one wouldn't necessarily wonder why someone might decide to vandalize an article that had for several minutes claimed that that solar system was 6000 years old because the Bible says so).
My statement, and this is something I've believed since first editing Misplaced Pages in September 2006: this policy does far more disservice to the place than service. Does it show people they can edit and improve an article? Yes. But it also shows about 1/4 of the people who come to a page that Misplaced Pages can be vandalized and isn't necessarily reliable (anyone who maintains that lack of credibility isn't Misplaced Pages's biggest problem apparently hasn't been in any sort of education recently). Of course, Misplaced Pages's loss of credibility due to vandalism on the main page, which is pretty significant, might not even compare to the disservice done to the readers. It is a very editor-centric premise (of course, developed by editors) that we should encourage editing more than worry about vandalism and Misplaced Pages's credibility. I can nearly guarantee you that people who use this page for research and/or viewing would come to the opposite view.
Please, stop this disservice to our viewers. At this point, I can't even tell anyone to look at the main page on Misplaced Pages, because it would embarrass me as an editor, and they don't have the know-how to revert it, let alone look at a clean old version of it. The Evil Spartan (talk) 17:36, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- Clearly, as no-one has opposed you, we all agree. DrKiernan (talk) 11:11, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- I agree (still) with your stance. Kmzundel (talk) 17:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
- I have to disagree. I like the fact that we don't protect the main page FA. The openness of Misplaced Pages is a big drawing card for potential new editors (and, admittedly, new vandals). This openness is a big reason why Misplaced Pages is one of the more popular websites on the internets. I think it's important for us to "put our money where our mouth is" by leaving the main page FA unprotected. There are so many eyes on the article while it's on the main page that it's extremely rare for any vandalism there to go undetected for any length of time. If it was accurate before it was on the main page (and presumably it was, or it wouldn't be featured) it will almost always be accurate while it's on the main page. Of course, it can always be semi-protected for short periods of time, if the vandalism is so frequent that a reader's odds of landing on a "clean" version of the article start to become iffy. --Bongwarrior (talk) 21:12, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
- And that is why, wikipedia will never be considered as a reliable source. Such a waste really. (yes i have an account, just mucho lazy to login) 70.107.80.64 (talk) 01:04, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
- I have to disagree. I like the fact that we don't protect the main page FA. The openness of Misplaced Pages is a big drawing card for potential new editors (and, admittedly, new vandals). This openness is a big reason why Misplaced Pages is one of the more popular websites on the internets. I think it's important for us to "put our money where our mouth is" by leaving the main page FA unprotected. There are so many eyes on the article while it's on the main page that it's extremely rare for any vandalism there to go undetected for any length of time. If it was accurate before it was on the main page (and presumably it was, or it wouldn't be featured) it will almost always be accurate while it's on the main page. Of course, it can always be semi-protected for short periods of time, if the vandalism is so frequent that a reader's odds of landing on a "clean" version of the article start to become iffy. --Bongwarrior (talk) 21:12, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
- You were aware it was a wiki when you registered, right? 86.44.27.243 (talk) 23:20, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
If users want to access an encyclopedia that can't be vandalized, they can just go over to Britannica. The wiki model is central to how Misplaced Pages works, and new users should be given every opportunity they can to contribute. Borisblue (talk) 07:32, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
- That argument doesn't work for me. You're basically saying you want wikipedia to be unreliable. That turns me off the project completely. We should be striving to make it more reliable not keeping it rubbish. DrKiernan (talk) 07:42, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
- Another here who agrees with The Evil Spartan. Sure this is a wiki, but it's not a blog. At the risk of sounding a maverick, falling back on the "anyone can edit" argument doesn't really cut it. Yes, that's the point of WP in principle, but in practice we don't allow just anyone to edit. We ban certain vandals, sometimes permanently, so already we're qualifying the assertion that anyone can edit, come what may. There's a balance to be struck between reliability and accessability, and for me permitting easy vandalism of the main page tips the scales too far one way. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:40, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
- I agree with The Evil spartan also. I've said this many times: IMHO "anyone can edit" does not equate with "anyone can vanadalize". The disagreement seems to be the spirit of that law vs. the letter of the law. As far at TFA protection, we're talking 24 hours. It remains a no-brainer to me. Kmzundel (talk) 16:41, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
- I also agree with The Evil Spartan. Failure to routinely semi-protect showcase articles accomplishes nothing except to make wikipedia look stupid and like nothing more than a pretentious blog. Maybe someone should care about that. Baseball Bugs 12:38, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
- Also notice the inherent hypocrisy or left-hand-not-knowing-what-the-right-is-doing, in this part of the policy: "These guidelines do not apply to the Main Page itself, which is always protected 'as a result of repeated vandalism of the Main Page and keeps our welcome mat clean.'" So apparently some things are worth protecting - just not articles. Baseball Bugs 12:41, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
- I also agree with The Evil Spartan. Failure to routinely semi-protect showcase articles accomplishes nothing except to make wikipedia look stupid and like nothing more than a pretentious blog. Maybe someone should care about that. Baseball Bugs 12:38, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Main article should be semi protected
I firmly believe that the main page article should be semi-protected from the moment it becomes a main page article to the moment is ceases being one. I hope most editors will join me in this opinion. Bstone (talk) 16:13, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Ok, we should seriously change this
I just had to fully protect the current FA because Grawp got to it, and we all know he likes to use sleepers. Seriously, the FA gets a lot of hits, and is perhaps the easiest article to vandalize on the site. Kwsn (Ni!) 23:09, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
- I agree. The policy should be changed. I just requested semi-protection for the article Joe Sakic, as it was a featured article on Misplaced Pages's main page today (November 12, 2008); however, semi-protection was declined, seemingly for the standard of not semi-protecting featured articles when they're displayed on the main page. As I pointed out in my request, though, there were many vandalized edits that got looked over; thus, they weren't reverted. A lot of backtracking had to be done. The majority of edits on main page featured articles are vandalism. When there are any edits that happen to actually be constructive, they're usually done by established editors. So, factoring all that in, what's the problem with semi-protecting main page featured articles? It seems as if more harm than good comes out of the current policy. -- Luke4545 (talk) 18:19, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
December 2008 analysis
A new analysis of featured articles on the main page, similar to the one conducted two years ago, has been started by User:DrKiernan. Hope you don't mind that I moved it to a subpage, DrKiernan! Great start so far. BuddingJournalist 09:05, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- I don't mind at all. DrKiernan (talk) 09:11, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
Reactive Semi-Protecting (my two cents...) and a plea for clarification
I'm not proposing semi-protecting the Main Page featured article (MPFA) as a matter of course, like BStone is above - and I agree with BongWarrior (also above) that we should 'put our money where our mouth is' and to daily assume that the majority of IP edits will be GF; but when the article does receive significant IP vandalism I think it is ridiculous that we are more lenient with our use of semi-protection for the MPFA than with other articles. Surely this lenience misrepresents WP just as much as default semi-protection does?
To put this in context, I was watching today's MPFA Samuel Johnson, which was getting vandalised once every five minutes at one point, and yet a semi-protection request was denied because this wasn't 'extreme'.
Now...I realise that my above suggestion is unlikely to receive much support and that the guideline is likely to be kept. But could I please ask that the guideline indicates somewhere what would be considered extreme vandalism. This way, people like me won't make pointless requests wasting both their own time and the admin who has to consider the requests. At the moment it says 'when a range of dynamic IP addresses are being used to vandalise the featured article page in quick succession', and to my mind the revision log of Samuel Johnson (see particularly between 11:00 and 13:00) indicated exactly this.
So if admins with experience on this matter could post below it would be much appreciated. 30 times an hour for two hours? More? (I'll also ask the admin who denied the request directly.)
Thank you. Hadrian89 (talk) 19:24, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Pending changes
I added a see also to WP:PC, PC1 may be another option to consider. Widefox; talk 13:23, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
Deprecation
This guideline was deprecated in April 2010, the discussion can be found at Wikipedia_talk:Today's_featured_article/Archive_5 section "RfC: Time to dispense with WP:NOPRO?" All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 14:13, 19 May 2014 (UTC).
14:13, 19 May 2014 (UTC)